Thursday, October 11, 2007

To Infinity and Beyond?

I was on the way to work earlier this evening and I saw a huge rainbow while I was driving through the toll plaza near Bintawa. It was like a multicolored column of light hanging in the sky.

It was nice.

Well, this month's crazed overtime schedule has started in earnest. I hope it will be over quick so I can devote more time to more important things. Like Gran Turismo 4. It's freaking brilliant. Words fail to describe how brilliant it is.

I'm apparently 17% into the game. I've gotten all the racing licences. I've gotten the hang of tuning and am actually taking the time to use the test tracks to tweak performance.

The game is bloody awesome I tell you. So yeah, my PS2 is very well used at the moment.

Anyway...

Our man in space is now in.... well, space. Obviously it's a huge deal for us Malaysians to have a qualified cosmonaut on duty at the International Space Station.

Lots of people think it's a waste of money. Lots of people think that the angkasawan is just a "tourist".

Well I guess it's not a surprise some people in this country have this kind of opinion. It's part of our very own cultural cringe. Still, people are entitled to their own opinion no?

My opinion? I think it's great that we have someone up there. It's always a dream for all of mankind to go forth and explore the reaches of space. It's great to finally participate in that dream. I think it'll be good for us as a nation and good for science too.

No, I don't think the good angkasawan is mere space tourist. He is a fully trained cosmonaut and he will be doing some tests while he is at the ISS.

He may not be a long term crew of the ISS but he's not just there for the ride either. Hopefully his experiments will be helpful to those UKM boffins who thought them up.

The other guy will be staying on in Russia and might go up next year or the year after that. It'll be good if he were to be accepted to become part of the ISS crew.

All in all, a good achievement we can all be proud of. My only concern is that this angkasawan programme will become a political toy during elections...

And that is what I think.

Yesterday evening, I went along with some friends to check out this handphone shop here in Tabuan Laru. Apparently they have a nice selection of refurbished phones. I thought "refurbished" meant "ancient" and "obsolete".

Ok, some of the phones on offer were in fact obsolete. At least they were cheap, something like 50 - 80 bucks a piece.

The think that caught my attention was the whole bunch of current phones available including Nokia N series and new model Sony Ericsons. Mostly going for 30% to 60% off their brand new price.

My friend picked up a nice Nokia 7390 for a mere RM810. Including 1Gb memory card. Now that's a good deal.

I'm actually thinking about changing phones now. I'm having doubts about the iPhone now. The cost is a bit prohibitive and I probably won't be using all its features so it might actually be a waste of money.

So now I'm looking for something a little simpler (and a LOT cheaper). I don't mind if it's used. A good camera would be nice. 2 mpx would be ok but more is always better. I also need something that can support at least 1Gb of external memory. Preferred form factor is candybar though I won't mind a clamshell phone if the price/features ratio is right. And of course, it must have all the basic phone and clock/calendar functions since I don't wear a watch anymore.

I don't need all the fancy stuff like PDA functions, apps, 3G stuff etc.

I think a phone like that should be easy to find these days for a fair price right?

Well, time to go and make a phone budget...

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