My New Note!

 

Thanks to dearest hubby for getting the new Note 4 for his wife when it's first launched yesterday at MBS! :D  The purchase was a very pleasant experience which took a total of only 40 minutes and we had fun the rest of the afternoon.  Indeed a very fruitful Friday afternoon.

Love the camera..... and still exploring my new toy :)

My DSLM

A new camera for my birthday from dearest hubby.. just in time for our family trip :)

Due to my back problem, DSLR has never been an option.  So, thanks to the invention of SLM!

A good deal we got - came with a normal 18-55mm lens, a 50-200mm lens & all relevant accessories.

 

Christmas Wish Comes True :)

The item in my wish list - Samsung Galaxy camera, has really become my Christmas present this year! :D

We first chanced upon it while browsing at Challenger on a Sunday morning in end Nov & I thought it's so cool... Android camera..  Can edit/share/email/save instantly...

Told hubby I knew what I wanted for Christmas hehe.

But the stock had not arrived yet (Samsung just brought in display sets).  We're told stock would be here in a week or 2.  Then 4 days later, on Thurs, hubby gave me a pleasant surprise!  When we returned home after work, he placed the box (with camera) on our bed.  I saw that there's a box there but I thought it's the car camera box which we got a few days ago.  Don't ask me why as both were of totally different sizes & also, there's no reason why hubby would place the car cam box there.  But I didn't take a good look of it.. didn't cross my mind at all to check it out.  I was just blurrr... or maybe, I least expected to really get it & so soon!

I think hubby was disappointed that such an obvious act was not being noticed at all.  He told me he expected screams of excitement any time from the moment he secretly placed it there.  But nope.. he heard nothing when I came out of our walk-in (to the bedroom).. nothing again from the bedroom to the bathroom walking past our bed........... still nothing when I was back to the bedroom after shower.  And I was even lying on the bed!!!  I can't believe I was so blind!  Haha.

When hubby came out of the bathroom, he couldn't take it anymore & asked me to take our lappy (that's placed on the bed, next to the box).  From the weird expression on his face, I sensed something & immediately related to the box on the bed & Galaxy camera then came to my mind (how retarded I was!!!).  Of course, I was overjoyed!

Apparently, hubby went to all the possible vendors at Vivo in search of the Camera but was told it's sold out.  And he finally got it at the last place which he least expected it - Starhub.  Hubby grabbed 1 of the remaining 3 units.

Can't wait to unwrap my present on Christmas Day!

Hope I can take some nice shots with my new toy :P

By the way, if you're wondering... SLR has never been a consideration because of the weight & bulkiness.  We still value comfort over awesome pictures taken by one... especially taking into consideration the condition of my back & hubby's elbows.

Jelly Bean !

Updated our phones to Android 4.1.1.
Superb performance on our quad-core mobiles!

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My Christmas Wish List (Item no. 1)

A cool thing we just saw at Challenger..

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I-craze

My dear honey got his iPhone 5 in exactly half an hour - from queuing, buying to paying because hubby enjoys the priority queue privilege :)

We're shopping at Ngee Ann City & saw that the Q was not too long when we walked past Singtel shop.  Was told the normal waiting time was 2 hours but were glad we got it in 30 mins.

The Big 'T'

Early this year, hubby bought me an iPad 2.  But I wasn't impressed with its performance (by now I'm quite convinced that it's me though I don't know why).. pretty often Facebook couldn't be updated.. likewise for emails.. then the occasional sluggish web browsers....
So when we got a Sony Tablet S (WiFi only) as a free gift from the purchase of a Sony TV, it only made sense to let my iPad go since (1) the resale value of a pre-owned iPad is even higher than a brand new Tablet S & (2) I wasn't fully happy with my iPad so didn't mind trying out another tablet.

We redeemed our Tablet S a week ago & it's not easy finding it a case.  In the end we'd to get the original one @ $90 (!!), without any choice of color & design.  The price definitely didn't match the case design... as we'd to use a few double-sided tapes & velcro to secure the tablet to the case & it's bulky.  But at last we got it all settled (though the initial experience was already pretty unpleasant).  On the same day, we sold our iPad 2 for $400.

Only a week with Tablet S, I got the following problems - couldn't edit photos, couldn't upload photos on blogger & it's quite a hassle to be connected to WiFi only though I could still use my mobile as hotspot.

Then on Sun, my dearest hubby, knowing his wifey was unhappy with Tablet S, decided to bring her to shop for another tablet & eventually got a Samsung Tab 2 10.1 on the same day & traded in Tablet S for $180.  Love ya, honey! :*

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1

So far so good.... like it slim & sleek & the colours are fresh (but not over glaring).

Hopefully this will perform well :)

My GSS Weekend

Since the start of GSS, I only began my shopping last weekend apart from the lanyard I bought last week.  It's totally unintentional.  After our dental appointment at Central on Sat morning, the "70% discount" was too appealing to ignore when we walked past a boutique.  We went in & the very much surpressed shopaholic in me broke loose ..... :P

After an economical hi-tea at Grand Mercure Roxy, we (no, I) continued shopping at Parkway Parade ...

Sunday morning, after drinks at Dempsey & brunch at Novena's Lao Beijing (yes! my fav Peking Duck again :D), we continued our shopping.  This time round, for our home.  We bought a TV for our living room, a long awaited purchase as our current one started to give problem since last year.  We thought it's a good time now as Courts is having GSS sale.  We also bought a smaller one to replace mum's... & it's an upgrade for her :)

Just a weekend but lots of money spent.

An Unplanned Monday

On Monday, I cleared my last day annual leave for this FY.  We woke up pretty late.. @ 10, without any plans for the day ... 

As hubby loves pizza, we'd decided to have it at Spizza, @ Jalan Kayu :)

A good deal!

A 12" pizza + 4 crispy wings + 2 drinks only cost $23 after a 50%.  And the dessert & tea after lunch were only less than $7! 

But no nice restaurant ambiance there ;) 

At lunch, we made a decision and after lunch, we went to trade in hubby's phone for a new HTC One X!  This phone is so good that we want hubby to have it too :)

Then, next stop was Ion.  Suddenly I wanted to find a nice lanyard for myself after thinking for a long time.  After almost 2 hours of shopping, I finally bought it.

Agnès B lanyard

It's very nice to pass a Monday this way :)

Surprise On A Wednesday Evening

One X from hubby dearest! :D

Whatsapp Rocks

Hubby & I were the first 2 in the group to use WhatsApp 2 years ago. Slowly, the rest joined & the lastest was June, end of last year.

Hubby & I first created a family chat group for CNY & now the title is changing according to the different occasions :) We've all the siblings in there, except Ben.
Ben, if you're reading this... We're still waiting for you! Hehe.

The Mobile Phone Saga

It first started 3 Sundays ago. I'd been wanting to switch to corporate plan but gotta wait till it's up for recontracting and also required to purchase a new phone.

So finally we're eligible to recontract - I converted to corporate plan and hubby, to bundle plan which enables him to enjoy a 30% discount on his current plan. As for the new phones, hubby had been eyeing on Samsung Galaxy S2 and since we still wanted to own the same phone, I decided to get S2 as well though I'd not forgotten how badly the first generation of Galaxy S performed.

As we sold our Incredible S at a very good price and hubby's $300 top-up was waived, we got to keep a couple of hundreds even after getting our new phones.

That night, I was so frustrated just trying to configure the phone to my preference. And I got paranoid over every lil hiccup/slowness I experienced with the phone (I was still not over with the bad experiences with Galaxy S). My mood was so affected that hubby made the decision of getting me another phone. The next day, we got rid of an S2 and, & without any idea of what phone to get, I chose a HTC Evo 3D. It's real bulky but I thought it should be good.

Besides very unique 3D effect on the pictures (the objects taken looked soooo real!), there's seriously nothing else to shout about. What's worse, I couldn't receive emails & even Whatsapp wasn't working! Tried living with it for a week & I gave up! Last Tue, hubby & I went back to the vendor & sold him the phone... it's so nice of him to take it back at a very high price (as high as a new set buy-back). After a day's consideration, I decided to get a relatively older phone - Sony Ericsson Xperia arc. But finally, I'm a happy girl. It's so slim & light & the camera is good! ;)

I'm fussy about phone - good camera, sound messaging/emails response & prompt internet connection. Whereas hubby's is simple - messaging apps & emails must work well. We liked Incredible S but it lost out on the camera & dropped calls pretty frequently.

Few days ago, we sold & bought again. This time round was hubby's who also gave up on his S2 as he, too, was unable to receive emails. Everyone's been raving about S2... so think we're the only 2 who think otherwise. So hubby joined me to be an arc user and got another round of "profit" as the selling price of S2 was higher than the buying of arc:)

HTC

3 weeks ago I gave up on my Samsung Galaxy S & switched to HTC. My Galaxy initially was great but didn't serve like a smartphone - sometimes it notified me of incoming emails but most of the time not.. & it took forever to get into FB. So we sold my Galaxy & bought Incredible S (I'm just not into iPhone). We're deciding between Desire HD and Incredible S & finally chose the latter due to the short battery life of HD.

It's so so much a breeze using HTC. Emails arrive promptly & pix on FB appear swiftly.. A big Plus - a double-LED flash for the 8MP phone cam.. Yay!

1 week after I bought my HTC, hubby dearest converted to a HTC user too.. Hee! He sold his iPhone 4 for $650 & topped up only $10 to get a new Incredible S.

So far we're still having fun with our phones :)

Gadgety Weekend

Hubby had a super long weekend during the Hari Raya holiday as he took leave on Thurs & Sat. But I had a super super long weekend as my leave started a day earlier, on Wed. It's a last minute decision as my back problem had a relapse & got worse espeially when seated. It's so sweet of hubby to immediately apply leave to spend time with me :)

Had a really relaxing Wed, with TV & laptop (strangely only my recliner could ease me of the back problem... thank God we bought the right stuff). My breakfast & lunch were all taken care of as we stocked up the previous night.

On Thursday, we went to AMK Hub as hubby got $0 iPhone 4. But it didn't come easy as we waited a total of 6hours!! The 1st 1.5 hour was spent in the queue (it's really unbelievable how huge a crowd that the phone with a lil Apple could command) & then walking around for the next 4.5 hours to wait for our turn. It's quite an impromptu decision, just a few days before, so no order was placed & that meant much longer wait.

During those hours, we also took the train to J8 for a walk since we've explored almost every corner in AMK Hub. Thought would only be browsing around but we brought back with us a Canon Ixus 130. Best Denki was having clearance sale & we're happy to see that the camera we'd been eyeing on was $40 cheaper than the market price.
I've been wishing to get a Canon camera since more than a year ago, after seeing how nice the pictures taken despite my friend's shaky hands, when our Panasonic camera of 2.5 years started to produce bad pictures. We guessed that it's due to the sub-zero weather in Korea and later had our suspicion confirmed. Just glad that we got a cheaper camera then.

Our Canon camera

After returning to AMK Hub, we waited for another half hour. The wait was REALLY overwhelming...

All this while I disliked touch screen phones ever since the bad experience with Sony Ericsson P800 many years ago. But after playing with hubby's for a couple of hours that evening, I contemplated getting 1 too. Anyway, like the ah beng (who sells numerous mobile phones but, like me, dislikes & refuses to use a touch screen phone) whom we went to for hubby's screen protector said, technology advances in such a pace that soon most phones will be touch screen, like it or not.

We regretted not adding mine on when we queued that morning. Hubby felt bad so he, who usually enjoys lots of sleep on a no-work day (it's public holiday!), got up early the next morning to get ready to join the queue again. But there's no Q.... as no iPhone for sale on the 2nd day (when Singtel staff said on the previous day that there would be continuous supply...). But I didn't feel too disappointed.. maybe because I was still not very into iPhone. Hubby was more bothered than me.. hehe.

Without very strong intention to get an iPhone, we went to Causeway Point's Singtel shop in the evening to do some 'window shopping'. We had plans to upgrade my plan to a data plan but I was fickle about getting an iPhone.. especially when we'd have to go a great extent for an item I didn't fully desire. When the staff introduced Samsung Galaxy S, I fell in love with it almost immediately.. It's lighter than hubby's but a lil bigger so as to give a big screen, the biggest so far. And the colors are impressive on a Super AMOLED display panel:)

Hubby got his iPhone 4 & I, my Galaxy S ;D

So that weekend, we're both busy exploring our new gadgets. Hee.

Weekend before my Birthday

I wanted no celebration this year. Wasn't in a mood to do so mainly because of my career issue... & since it fell on a MONDAY......

Sun night went to Ivan's new house for an unofficial housewarming. Finally got to visit his place after talking about it for months:)

Ivan's 2-bedroom, partial seaview, apartment at The Bayshore

After dinner, we played Monopoly Deal till it's time to go home. Just before we're preparing to leave, I had a very pleasant surprise when Con 'presented' a cake to me. I was touched:) We joked that she's trying to compensate the boo boo she made for hubby's birthday, haha. But I know she & the rest were sincere in wanting to celebrate my birthday with me.

My first birthday celebration with hubby's family

I wanted no present too but hubby insisted, so ......

My stylish Sony Ericsson W995!
Now I can take more beautiful pix with my 8.1 megapixel phone cam!:D

Short-lived

I was out of touch for nearly 2 weeks. Firstly, due to the moving... then I was busy running errands relating to the house & also some that're not. Just when I was ready to get back on the net, my HP Mini died an unknown death! Unbelievable... it's only 1 year old! That's the problem of buying a newly launched product which belonged to 1 of the earliest batches.

As I desperately needed a laptop & my HP gotta be hospitalised for around 2 weeks, hubby bought me another 1, the cheapest we could find yet decent enough. I chose a pretty Pinky... the first pink thing I own for the last... 20 years?? :)

LG E310 @ S$899

Ring ring ....

Hubby badly needed to change his cell phone, so last Sat he upgraded his plan. As usual my beloved, who always wants me to have whatever best things that he could afford, gave me the new phone & took over mine. Right from the beginning of our relationship, he's set this practice... except once or twice when we both got new phones at the same time. He's really spoilt me in his own ways!

So now, I got a new phone!:D And hubby's using the SE T700 which I've previously taken well care of. :)

My Nokia red-steel E71 in white pouch

3 blissful years & many more ahead ...

Yesterday's our 3rd wedding anniversary. Due to current economic situation, we cut the amount spent on celebration. No hotel stay this year:( And we've also agreed that from now on for wedding anniversary, we'll get a present together... most likely will be something for our home. Feel it's kinda meaningful that while we celebrate our years together, we get something that's in our wish list to build our sweet home.

This year, we got ourselves a digital photo frame. Been wanting to have one to display our pix when we realise that we've too many beautiful pix together but only limited ones can be shown. We start small... a 7-inch for our console.

Last Sat, we'd buffet lunch at Shangri-La's The Line. Good food, great ambience... enjoyed so much that we didn't realised our lunch lasted a good 2.5hour.

We worked yesterday as I didn't want to take leave during my first month of work. Hubby gave me a surprise by having a bouquet delivered to my office in late afternoon (actually I kind of anticipated flowers but when nothing showed up for the whole day, I thought I'd guessed wrongly.. hee) as he knew I'd a meeting in the morning so he requested 2-5pm delivery. And the bouquet was literally delivered at 4.30pm & I got it at 5pm.

Had simple Japanese food as dinner at The Cathay's Nihon Mura. Interesting concept and the quality of food is pretty good. By the way, sushi's @ $0.99/plate.

Had a great buffet lunch

My beautiful bouquet in black & burgundy. It's such a coincidence that I changed our blog colour to the exact combi last weekend. Another evidence that we do think alike very often ;)



Our 7-inch digital photo frame

B&O ICEpower

A lil pleasant surprise when we got the Samsung SGH-F400................

Bang & Olufsen amplifier. Cool!

Frankly besides this, there's nothing to shout about for the rest of the functions. But hey, we didn't need to pay a cent for this phone... still gained about $7 after trading in hubby's SE K770i ;) His phone started to reboot by itself now & then... the final one was when the player was still blasting song but the screen completely blanked out... couldn't even switch it off! Probably due to the several falls it previously had including one on the escalator... hmmm...

This phone's actually hubby's but as usual... he pampers me with the new phone while he takes over mine.

Purchases

Of the bigger items.

This 3-seater sofa with 2 recliner - a great replacement of our L-shape sofa as of end June.
We've waited more than 2 months & this wasn't the set we initially chose. Only after a month that they told us the first model we ordered was out of stock due to some parts (the recliner) & that's only when we called them to enquire about delivery date. At first we're really unhappy with their service but managed to leave the place with a smile as we got a better deal. This set costs $200 more than the original one but they absorbed the difference as a compensation. They weren't supposed to carry this model as manufacturer sells exclusively at their own showroom at Kaki Bukit. But we went & eventually chose this; the boss had to negotiate with his manufacturer to make an exemption) I would say it's a blessing in disguise as we prefer this

This is the best thing we could have for our weekend DVD session. And it really helps my problematic back a lot.

New dining benches as well.

We like the new look with our white furniture

Finally bought a pot of monstera deliciosa... only less than a hundred as it's a much smaller version. But I'm happy enough.

My Sony Ericsson C902 that hubby bought for me on the first Sat of July, when his contract was up for 21-month upgrade;)