tin_the_fatty weblog

Courtesy of DBS and my old man (who received two), we got a vouncher for high tea for two at Cova. It was expiring at the end of March, so we went to the one at PP yesterday.
It was crowded and noisy. We couldn’t help overhearing the aunties at the next table talking about their [...]

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I visited a couple of stationery shops in Central on Wednesday.
What took the manufacturers so long? Staedtler now has a whole bunch of triangular writing instructments.
This pencil is selling for HK$1,200, and a cheaper version going for HK$230 for the three pencils gift set.

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The Lady told me this story last night.
Her Headmistress (who’s a nun) had a meeting w/ all the single teachers. She told everyone that she would no longer tolerate sex before marriage, and if she finds out about it, the teacher involved will be asked to resign, and if she refuses, the school will not [...]

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and specifically in the case of New Ferry.
People don’t like computerized telephone hotlines. The first thing they try to do when they come across one is to find the option to speak to a human being. (This must be true: observe how a lot of the operators have now hidden the option to reach a [...]

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I checked out a shop at Admiralty and a few shops at Windsor House Saturday afternoon.
I didn’t look at the Fujitsu P5020. The Lady is happy w/ her desktop, and see no need to spend a large sum to get a premium laptop.
The form factor of the iBook 12” (800MHz) is very useable. Response [...]

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After church yesterday, we took a ferry from Tuen Mun Pier to Tai O and spent the afternoon there.
Fine weather. Quite a few people, but it was not packed like Lau Fau San, which is nice.
New Ferry runs their 150-passenger ferry right into Tai O, and we got off the pier into the middle of [...]

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The harddisk in the laptop is dying, giving out that click of death noise. The case is cracked. The batteries are dead. The right button on the touchpad is mushy. I absolutely hate this computer.
My PII desktop workstation is now w/o a display. I have installed Debian Sarge on it, which is nice. Test bed [...]

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but I am so cheap that at home I am using:-

a cheap made in China DVD player
a pair of 10 years old cheap JBLs

an obsolete (decent at its time!) Denon receiver/amplifier I got cheap from Peter Luk who used to sell expensive HiFi stuff
My nice Sony earplugs is about the only bit of audio gear [...]

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In last night’s program we had Li Or, the top radio presenter. He used to voice-act 8 characters all by himself, and was earning >HK$10K/month back in the 60s.
His stories about how he shot two Japanese soldiers during WWII and his adventure in GuangXi were excellent. He’ll be back tonite. Highly recommended.

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My friend Isy is a cat lover. She’s the servant of the two masters in her household.
The problem is that, one of her masters is reluctant to retract his claws, so Isy keeps getting scratched badly. Nasty.
I have been told that a good way to send an message of one’s unhappiness to a cat is [...]

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The Lady’s old laptop started making this noise denoting death of its HD. The Lady had enough w/ this POS anyway, but she decided against getting that nice Fujitsu, so I gave her my surplus Dell PIII/800 (which I had FreeBSD 5.2 installed for test) and my Topcon 17” LCD panel. Installing WinXP Pro, Office [...]

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I found this in a local comic book. No affiliation.

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I have gotten hold of a pamphlet for “Vfone”, a video phoning device being sold by Hutchison for HK$1,388 (previously HK$2,880 and then HK$2,380). Like most telecom services from Hutchison, there is a lengthy contract of 15 months.
What is remarkable about the service is that, it is actually a VoIP solution not unlike those from [...]

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I played w/ a colleague’s 3G phone yesterday. Steve and his SO got a pair of the cheap NECs. Hutchison is really trying to push 3G, and they are having some reasonable deals. Sign up for 18 months’ contract, pay HK$238, and walk off with a free NEC handset. Or buy the more expensive NEC [...]

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My friend Sylvian and his younger brother Man are about the same age as me. They went to Japan to see David Bowie live last week, and only got back yesterday. They also have the tickets to see Bowie live this Sunday.
I got a phone call from them this afternoon. Man asked me whether I [...]

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Great product!
Or is it?

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Weird camera.
This might be the perfect DC for street photography, in style. I wonder what the film winder is for.

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Translating Passion Into Profits
The article talks about TiVo. There are computers and TV tuner cards and software that pretend to do something similar, but none as user-friendly and convenient.
Last night I wanted to listen to the radio, the Lady wanted to watch the daily comedy on Jade and there is this programme about Leonardo Da [...]

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I have always wondered what the fuss is Mountain Dew about. Okay it’s a drink of high caffeine content, but what does it taste like? Found a whole stack of them (first time!) in my local Welcomes today, so I bought one for the small price of HK$3.5. I didn’t notice at the time, but [...]

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Our diving instructor Marcus registered a half-decent domain that has a reference to wildlife a couple of years ago. He wants to use this domain for a website to promote wildlife-related activities and his own diving courses. WordPress seems to be very capable and suits him. The problem is that, decent and unique contents [...]

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