Stella’s belated birthday present

With the announcement of the new range of iPod Nanos, I decided to do what I always planned to do – get Stella an iPod of her own. For some time she has been using her old Creative ones and it’s showing signs of old age. This was the perfect opportunity to get one for her.

After eagerly waiting for a couple of days, it finally arrived.I got her the red one as it was limited to the Applestore.com, and I think it looked gorgeous on her.

Really pretty:
And finally, the engraving that I’ve always wanted to put on the iPod:Happy Belated Birthday dear =)

Shinjuku Izakaya

Damn, this has got to be one of the best meals we’ve had in a while. While looking out for some place to have some sake after a little ‘dinner’ of blood cockles and lala, we chanced upon this little hole in the wall place in Cuppage that Stella claims resembles the authentic izakayas that she had a chance to visit in Hawaii. The mood was complete by the fact that we were greeted with a very polite “konbanwa” by the lady boss the minute we entered, and the fact that we were the only Singaporeans when we were seated.

We ordered a couple of side dishes, and washed it down with hot sake.

Edamame:

Rows of various kinds of sake/ japanese alcohol:

Deep fried shrimps. Lightly salted and crispy. Fantastic with beer I’m sure.

Our sake. They utilized this simple but effective system of keeping the sake nice and warm. Basically a metal flask is placed inside a concrete/stone container which is in turn inside a wooden container, preventing the heat from escaping.

A very happy girlfriend =)

Ika sashimi, with real grated wasabi.

Shishamo

Finally, we were still itching for some food, so we ordered a mini ramen. Turned out to be fantastic stuff, for just 6 dollars. The soup was nicely salted, and the flavours from the meat and bamboo shoots were so nicely integrated into the whole dish. Really good. I might have one of that myself if I weren’t too full by the time.

After dinner, we headed to the Apple store to get Snow Leopard, but stocks hadn’t arrived at that time yet so we just headed home. What a nice way to end the uber long week that we both had. Although the bill was above the average amount that we were used to paying, there’s some added joy gained from paying for something good once in a while, and this was definitely one of those instances. We’re definitely coming back.

Yeah, I saw that comin’

Was telling Stella that the ‘Buy a mac and get an ipod Touch’ thing was what I feared when I purchased my Macbook a couple of months back. And she told me that we saw that coming. So yeah, we saw that comin’.

In other news, Snow Leopard sounds like a wonderful upgrade to the current Leopard OSX. For just 50 bucks, that’s really a steal. Install it and save 6gb? that’s something I’ve never heard about before.

Macbook is here

My new macbook arrived this afternoon. Looks like I will be using this a lot more from now on, and the PC will be used mostly for watching shows and listening to stuff. Am glad that Stella and I both have Macs now, and we’ll be able to have fun on the platform.

On a lighter note, I had a great pasta lunch and we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A pretty interesting show I must say.

an apple a day keeps the windows at bay (or is it dock?)

After much debating and discussion with Stella, I put down 2k for a new macbook tonight. My 4 year old iBook G4 is starting to show its age, partly due to the fact that I gave the osx drive a very small partition, and the space is running out fast. Heck, even my mom actually commented that my mac lags while she was working on her work related stuff and told me about it. Ever since I purchased the iBook, I’ve been half hearted about using Windows based computers for the reason that they can get a little too complicated for their own good at times. I still keep an intel PC to play games and to act as my main media centre. I’m not a Mac zealot, but I approach this from an end user point of view, and I have no complaints about the mac so far. The keyboard feels good for typing hours at a go, the interface simple and intuitive, and I don’t have to worry about viruses on the most part (frankly the day someone manages to write a virus for mac, we’re all dead).

So here it is, a brand new macbook for me. My brain (and wallet) hasn’t yet registered the shock of 2k being removed from it but I know I will be using it for a long time to come.

new stuff for the gf

Bought a phone for Stella as her’s was on the verge of dying on her every few minutes. Am glad that she likes it. Was actually contemplating an ipod nano but I figured that it would be better to buy something that was more pressing rather than something that you can always get later on. Seeing her so happy from receiving my gift was a priceless feeling.

Merry Xmas one and all

As Stella recovers from her runny nose and flu, I seem to have caught something instead. Feeling slightly numbed and a little feverish right now. And to think that I was just joking with her that the best way to lose weight is probably to follow Cheryl’s tactic of sleeping for 12 hours straight and skipping lunch altogether. Be careful what you wish for on Christmas, I say.

This Christmas has been quite different. Firstly, there’s none of the family gathering/bbq that I have every year. Most of it was spent watching dramas with my mom, which is something that I rarely do, and I appreciate the chance. Stella’s iMac came up with a hardware problem couple of days back, and today we brought the poor thing to Funan for repairs (seriously, Apple should have some home collection system. I wouldn’t mind paying a bit for the convenience) after lunch. Tomorrow’s a gaming session, so something fun for Stella and I to round off the week. Come next Friday, and I will be on a plane to HK.

So all that said and done, it’s been a not very usual but good Christmas period this year. Wishing a very Merry Christmas to all out there reading this, and may you have a wonderful year ahead.

Recieved a 10 dollar PI voucher in the mail. Maybe I’ll pick up a boardgame or something soon. Trying to save my money for HK.

new iPod

I finally caved in and bought one of those 120gb iPod Classics to replace the mini which was having problems getting itself charged. Originally, the plan was to get the iPod Touch, but when Stella and I considered that I could pay almost 100 bucks less for something that had almost 10 times the amount of space, I changed my decision to getting the Classic instead. I’ll lose out on the games and watching movies on a larger portable screen, but that’s what I bought my PSP for anyway, and at least all my music will be in one place finally. Something like a backup. Right now I’ve almost 30gb of songs. Surprisingly, quite a good number of them are asian songs (Chinese, Japanese), stuff I never remembered I had. I guess its the same as having all your belongings around the house placed into a single place and realising just how much shit you actually own.

On technological innovation

I don’t know how Apple does it, but their stuff seems to just get better and simplier all the time, and they pretty much nailed it with the new macbooks announced early this morning. Perhaps it’s my confirmation bias that only allows me to see and hear the good stuff but fuck, that is PRETTY. And I’ve always wanted a metal Macbook, despite what Jer says about the Wifi receptivity being lower than the plastic one. Not too happy with the old macbook keyboard though. At least it looks more uniform with the rest of the Apple brand, and a lot lighter also. I have the ibook, and that’s truly what I would call the iBreak(mybackcarryingit). Perhaps I may actually consider getting myself one when I drop by in HK. 2.5k sgd…hmm.

Cracked me up

Iphone 3G coming to Walmart