Month: May 2006

Well, no. I’m not regretting it.

True Swing Golf for the Nintendo DS looks like a great way to spend a few relaxing minutes each day. I’m not a big golf game fan, although I did spend a lot of time with Mario Golf (GBA) a couple of years back and back-pedalled on buying Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 (DS) off eBay after reading negative reviews. I thought I would be okay without a golf game for my DS, but True Swing Golf has weakened my resolve with 3 points:

1) Proper touch-screen control. You move the club with the stylus and that’s it. No weird “draw a perfect U-shape” mechanism here.
2) FIFTEEN courses! I’m usually happy with five.
3) The price is right. I mean, really right!

USD$19.90/SGD$31.65, brand new, including delivery.
From Play-Asia.com

I have a new Mecca to someday visit, the 24hr Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York. Check out the time-lapse movie of its opening, as thousands of people wait to walk through its glass cube entrance. It’s the most audacious storefront I have ever seen, and certainly the most beautiful.

I’m conducting an informal survey today, asking women to pick 1 out of the 3 supposedly attractive Japanese men above. I fully expected one to be the clear winner, but it’s an even race at the moment. I think it could form the basis of a new personality test, as they are all quite distinct, and probably reflect latent desires in the people who choose them.

The source article can be found here. I’ll put results up later, but you may post your choice in the meantime.

Current results: 3 – 7 – 7

I bought these Sennheiser CX300 earphones about 3 weeks back and they are, like, totally awesome. Amazon.com won’t deliver Consumer Electronics to Singapore, so you’ll have to pay about SGD$130 at Apple stores, or maybe about SGD$110 at Sim Lim Square. It would seem to not matter though, as consumer reviews consistently rate them better than Shure’s e2c earphones (and as good as the e3cs) which cost about SGD$200 here.

US-based readers should definitely look into getting a pair at the above price, if I could have, I would have bought two. They outperform the common Sony in-ear headphones that most people buy to replace their iPod buds (they definitely outperform those), with bass that isn’t muffled or too strong, great sound isolation, and a good strong cord (Sony ones have been known to biodegrade after contact with sweat). If you love your music, you owe it to yourself to ditch bundled earphones.

Incidentally, after I got these, my iPod ones broke open, and they are quite cheap and shitty inside with a little diaphragm made out of cellophane. I should have taken pictures.

Creative Technology Takes on Apple (BusinessWeek)
Singapore’s Creative Technology gains after suing Apple (MediaCorp Singapore’s ChannelNewsAsia)

Recent developments have left me temporarily unable to comment directly on this matter, but you can draw your own conclusions here (edit: from the full articles, not the headlines, mind.)

As may be apparent, I’ve retooled the blog template a little. Search is working again, the right-side panel is neater and shorter, and Google ads have been replaced by referral/affiliate links to Play-Asia.com and Amazon.com. At least I know there are things there that visitors like you might actually want to buy. It also gives me a chance to recommend things that excite me, instead of some nonsensical ads for paid blogging services and programs to download a billion movies legally (right).

Match Point is a damned good film. That’s all. Buy it!

I’ve also added a link to my public Google Notebook, although I’m not sure what to do with it yet. The service went into live beta today, so if you have a Google account/Gmail, you can try it out in Firefox 1.5 or IE whatever version is out now. It’s a bit of a misnomer, really. Yes you can take notes with it, but it’s more of a scrapbook for things you find on the internet.

The front page has been in danger of resembling a gaming blog these past few weeks, but now I’d like to say goodbye to Stanley Kunitz who has passed away at the age of 100, nearly 101.

Here’s the full text of the poem that was excerpted in the NY Times article.

The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn’t matter
which way was home;
as if he didn’t know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

Play-Asia.com is in the habit of holding a weekly sale on one item. This week, it’s Viewtiful Joe for the Nintendo Gamecube.

SGD$20.52 with delivery!
If I had a Gamecube, I would take advantage of it, but oh well. I get referral points if you buy from the above link, just so you know. I’ve also never played Viewtiful Joe, and I make no claims of greatness on its behalf. I’m honest like that.