k r i s a n d r o

A colleague of KuKuNehNeh (KKNN) forwarded her an email with the image above informing her of Rasa Sentosa Resort’s half price promotion and she immediately pounced on the offer and asked me to do the necessary bookings. Few women can resist things sold at half price. Not that I am complaining as she offered to pay for the stay.

It’s my 1st time staying at Rasa Sentosa Resort and KKNN’s 2nd and we chose the Panoramic Room which was priced at $227.50 after 50% discount.

The view is quite lovely from the balcony I must say and the window that opens to the tub is quite cool but that is probably just a couple of the good things I have to say about Rasa Sentosa Resort.

I entered the room and just did a rough inspection just to make sure that everything is in order and part of that routine is to check under the bed for dead bodies. And though I didn’t find any, there was an empty bottle of the hotel’s complimentary water bottle left under the bed.

Not like the water bottle is chucked deep under the bed but it was near the edge and the attendant who cleaned the room prior to our check-in completely missed it.

And then a question comes up. Which 4-5 star hotel doesn’t have LCD TVs these days? I brought my HP Mini laptop along hoping to plug it in to an LCD TV to spend some of our time watching movies but I end up facing a stone age CRT TV with the wrong connectivity cables.

Hoping to better our stay at Rasa Sentosa Resort, we checked out the highest rated restaurant amongst the 2 that were listed down for the 50% promotion which was Barnacles Restaurant for dinner. We ended up heading for the other restaurant (which was almost fully booked by the way) because it was fully booked till 9.30pm. Rasa Sentosa Resort should have informed us of the popularity of the restaurants so that we could have made plans. It wouldn’t hurt to tell me during my telephone booking or included as a few lines of text in the email confirmation.

Dinner was settled at Silver Shell Cafe with a seafood buffet.

Nothing tasted awful but in fact, nothing tasted good as well. It’s one of those meals that you won’t remember eating after a few days.

And the worse thing about the whole stay? I was almost overcharged by at least $70 by Rasa Sentosa Resort. The bill looked suspiciously high even after a 50% discount for both the room and the buffet dinner and after checking it further, I realized that Silver Shell Cafe overcharged me by twice the amount I was supposed to pay. It was lucky that I kept the receipt from Silver Shell and checked the final bill before I left the resort.

The stay at Sentosa Resort and Spa was SO MUCH better. Weird thing is that KKNN and I still enjoyed our stay very much despite all the screw ups. Having each other is all that matters.

On that note, I’ll convince her that I’ll pay for the next weekend escapade at a cheap hotel. WAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

The face we are gonna make after she hears about the next escapade

On behalf of Hasbro Singapore, a PR consultant contacted me and offered to send 2 of their newly launched games from Parker Brothers (a subsidiary of Hasbro) to me so that I may share the joy with you guys. One of these games that I got from the mail man was called the Monopoly Deal Card Game.

Monopoly Deal Card Game!

Monopoly, being the most commercially successful board game in the world has little effect on KuKuNehNeh. Thinking about it, she is probably the only person that I know who hates playing Monopoly. So it took a miracle for her to sit down and play a few games with me and it probably helped that Monopoly Deal is actually card game instead of a board game.

Cards that can turn the game around!

The game is played by drawing and trading cards till a player manages to collect 3 full sets of property cards. As simple as it sounds, I actually realized that Monopoly Deal requires less of luck and more of strategy when compared to the board game. With 2 players in my case, the games are short, which lasted around 15 to 20 mins per game and are pretty fast paced. All players get to stay in the game until a winner emerges and players who are seem to be on the verge of losing can actually turn around the situation with a little luck and some strategy. If not for the fact that we had to turn in earlier for the night, we would have carried on playing past the 4th game that we had.

The only cons that I see is that the ‘Shuffle Shaker’ that the game provided seemed to be more gimmicky than functional.

Just say No to the Shuffle Shaker

It was super noisy when I tried shuffling the cards with it and the cards are much better shuffled if I do it manually.

The above doesn’t take anything away from the fact that Monopoly Deal is a compact card game that you can easily carry around to provide a fun and fast paced game for 2 – 5 players. KuKuNehNeh thoroughly enjoyed the game although it may also be attributed to the fact that I lost 3 games to her out of the 4 that we played that night.

Monopoly Deal Card Game (with Shuffle Shaker) is sold at Toys “R” Us and major departmental stores in Singapore at S$21.90. For ages 8 and up!

Watch out for the next game that I will be reviewing from Hasbro!

I have always been skeptical of locally produced shows. The predictability of the script, the cheesy visuals, horrendous camera skills, half-baked acting & amateurish sound effects, just to name a few. And in some cases, especially in TV serials, I see ALL the bad elements I mentioned come together. It’s no surprise that I have not been watching any local TV show consistently and I seldom ‘risk’ buying tickets to a local show in the cinemas.

All thanks to molemole for telling me that Sheylara was giving out free tickets on behalf of Blog Aloud, I quickly emailed her and msn-ed her almost concurrently to enquire on the availability of two shows, ‘Money No Enough 2′ and ’12 Lotus’.

Luckily, there are still tickets available for ‘Money No Enough 2′ and I asked for a pair for the show at Vivocity on the 7th Aug. FREE tickets! Although I am skeptical of local productions, the lure of a free movie, the good impression of the first installment of ‘Money No Enough’ and Jack Neo were good enough reasons for me to go for it.

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I brought KuKuNehNeh (KKNN) along for the movie and boy, did we enjoy it! I wont reveal the story here as I HATE people who review movies and reveal the plots which totally spoils the movie experience. The script was predictable, the CG was cheesy although commendable for a local production and the advertising was too blatant for my liking. But Jack Neo did magic with the way he told the story. The issues he showcased were close to the Singaporean heart and channeled through incredible acting by the cast, especially through the malaysian actress, Lai Ming, who played the role of a mother in the movie. She was funny, she was believable, she made me tear. Credits to Mark Lee as well for he was the best performing local lad in the movie for me.

Jack Neo

Mark Lee

Lai Ming

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Jack Neo appeared in the theater after the credits rolled and his presence made the event even more worthwhile. He answered questions to the best of his ability and tried as much as he could to answer them in English. Molemole helped me and KKNN take a picture with him together at the end of the show.

I Had a Hand On Jack Neo And He Had His On My GF

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I know that the critics have been harsh on the movie but I think it is definitely worth the money for a movie that will tug at your heartstrings. Thanks again to Sheylara and Blog Aloud for the tickets.

This is a proper review of the HP 2133 Mini-Note (HP Mini) and not like the last rubbish review I did. And this is definitely a review based on my true opinions of the product, even though I did win it from the Ping Awards II. Be warned though! I am only a half-past six geek and I am better at talking about himbotic stuffs like how many idiots there are in the MRT every morning. So please bear with me if this review is not up to your expectations.

I managed to squeeze some time out of my schedule to collect the HP Mini last thursday and if not for the crowded bus ride, I would have whipped it out in excitement to play with it. It was only till I reached the office when both my colleagues, Claudia and Andy unboxed the HP Mini for me and they would have been mistaken to be having orgasms from all the “OOoooooooo(s)” and the “Ahhhhhhhhhhh(s)” when they saw it. Both of them own laptops and their immediate reactions was coming from the fact that it is so small!

HP Mini VS My Hand

I know it is a bad way to compare the size of the HP Mini to something since my hand is rather large. But I just want to remind you people on what they say about guys with large hands…

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!

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And you know what? The people at HP gave me the top of the line model from the HP Mini series!

1.6G Processor!!! 2G of Ram!!!!

But…….

Windows Vista Business?

The bane of all new PCs and laptops – the Windows Vista. It is akin to buying a brand new Lamborghini and fitting it with one tonne of parts. Chio (Beautiful) but useless as it is S.L.O.W. Not to mention that it is buggy. 7 Days with it and it crashed 5 times so far. If only it came with WIndows XP pre-installed!

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The other thing that one will notice immediately apart from its size is the built!

Great finish

Upon looking at it closely and handling it, I found it to be very sturdy and a little heavy for it’s size. I am not one who can determine what material a product is made of with a knock or a bite and so a quick google search reveals that the HP Mini is made of aluminum all round and the internal structure is protected by a magnesium alloy. The surface of the LCD is also made scratch resistant which means that if my girl decides to damage the HP Mini because I spend too much time on it, the HP Mini should be relatively safe.

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The HP Mini looks moderately pleasing from the outside but I think the finish on the inside makes it one of the most aesthetically pleasing UMPC I’ve seen. I did say ‘one of’ right? The Mac fanbois look to be ready to slit my throats with their Macbook Air.

Gorgeous ain’t she?

The cool power button

People are quite used to seeing people whip out notebooks in public places but not this one. The size and the built turns heads whenever I take the HP Mini out. OKAY FINE! It could have been due to the kaypoh (nosy) nature of Singaporeans but… but it really turns more heads than usual!

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Nicely sized for laptops

Extends all the way to the edges for easy cleaning

The keyboard is 92% full sized and it is comfortable enough to type on for long durations without feeling the need to strangle someone to loosen the stiff muscles.

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Speakers on the LCD face

Most laptops I have seen have their speakers on the face of the keyboard or around the sides of the base. The HP Mini has the speakers right where the sound should emit from. The front! I think this works well especially to the audiophiles as it makes more sense to have the sound propagating from where you are seeing the image from. The power of the speakers is also good. I haven’t had the chance to increase the volume beyond half of what the HP Mini can offer.

One problem which might be only particular to my unit is that the covers of the speaker (the one that my finger is pointing at on the pic above) keeps popping out by a couple of millimeters. It could be an issue of bad assembly but I am not sure. Not a big problem, but I keep pushing it in so that it can stay flushed with my screen. I don’t have OCD. Really.

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One of my last gripes of the HP Mini is of the touchpad.

HP Mini’s Touchpad

The left and right click buttons are unconventionally located on the sides of the touchpad instead of the bottom and it takes some getting used to. My lack of experience with a laptop might prove to be a bonus in this as I should be able to be accustomed to this faster than people who are so used to the conventional placements. The touchpad seems to be over sensitive at times and undersized while the “I-don’t-know-what-is-the-proper-name” scroll thingy that you see on the right side is super laggy. And when it does detect that I am trying to scroll, it becomes overly responsive as well.

Special Button

I took sometime to figure out what that button is. Once activated, it actually disables the touchpad and the purpose of it is to actually prevent users from accidentally activating the touchpad when you are typing for long hours. Not a problem for me so far as my hands don’t seem to have the problem of touching the touchpad when typing.

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One final and biggest problem I have with the HP Mini is that the batteries don’t last very long. I use the HP Mini a lot on the go or when I am in my room and even when I am doing my ‘business’ (Ewwwwww! I know!). And I use it mainly for surfing which means the wifi is constantly on. Such usage brings the life of the Mini to about 1 hr 20 mins to 1 hr 30 mins or even lesser sometimes. I wished HP had provided me with the 6-cell battery instead which can theoretically bring the battery life to twice the amount which makes it in the acceptable range for a mobile computer.

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In summary, apart from the big problem of the short battery life (*cough* 6-Cell Battery HP? *cough cough*) and the other small nuances, I love the HP Mini to death. It’s small and light for me to bring it almost anywhere (toilet not forbidding)! It’s not much of a workhorse because of it’s small screen and slow OS & processor but it definitely meets the need for blogging and surfing on the go (and while doing ‘business’).

Once again, a big thank you to Ping.sg for bringing in the sponsors, Waggener Edstrom and HP for the prize, and to the people who voted for me!

Before I end this, I shall leave you guys with my favourite website.

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WAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!