I’m typing this at Starrbucks KLIA (the one after the immigration) and the next time I update this blog will be from my hotel room in Japan, using their super freakishly fast internet connection. Well, that’s what I hear lah, I don’t really know how fast is it.

Anyway, last week was pretty hectic. In fact, the whole of February was hectic. The Chinese New Year holiday didn’t help with the magazine’s dateline at all.

We went back to work on the fifth day of CNY but no one else was working. Products were not coming in, advertisements were delayed because of CNY. The short February month made it worse.

I managed to finish the magazine just before the trip, i.e. 3 hours before I had to leave to the airport. Let’s hope everything is smooth sail after this.

I’ll try to update everyday whilst in Japan, if I get an internet connection. Until then, happy Chap Goh Meh!!!

I am super busy with work right now so I took some time off to write here.

My writer Jee Yee took a week off last week and went to Bali. In his absence, we got three invites. Overseas invite. Maybe he needs to go off more often so we get more invites.

The first one is an invite to Showcase Nokia in Bangkok on the 22-23 February. I’ll be sending Jee Yee there so that he can experience a true media junket! Nokia has great media junket, as seen from my recent Germany trip.

A few days later, I got an email from Epson wanting to send us to Japan for their 3LCD technology’s 20th anniversary. I didn’t think twice and replied the mail the minute I got it! I’ve never been to Japan and this will be my first time. (See below)

After that invite, Lola asked me if we’re interested to go to Singapore for a Dell event, sort of like a follow up to CES earlier this month, where they will be showcasing a few of the products that they unveiled in CES. The trip is scheduled on 1st February.

I still don’t know if I should send Jee Yee or to go there myself. He is very interested at the Alienware M11X and they will be showing it there in this event. However, he just came back from a day trip in Singapore with Google and it’s been some time since I met up with Wei Yih. We’ll decide later lah.

Now for the Japan trip! The trip is 5 days, from 1st to 5th March but from what I gathered, I’ll be spending a lot of time travelling within Japan itself. I don’t have the itinerary with me but they sent me a brief skeleton of it:

1 March – Matsumoto Castle visit, welcome dinner

This means I’ll most probably be arriving in the afternoon. Matsumoto Castle is this really nice castle in Nagano. I’ve only seen these type of castles in comics!

Picture from Wikipedia used under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.

2 March – Shimauchi plant tour, journey to Tokyo, free and easy in Tokyo

Based on my “plant tour experiences”, the plant tour will take about 3 hours. I don’t know how are we going to Tokyo, maybe by train, maybe by bus, but I guess I’ll be reaching Tokyo in the afternoon. Apparently, Tokyo is huge because when I tell people I’m going to Tokyo, they asked me which part. I don’t know lah…hehe..

3 March – Flight to Chitose, Chitose plant tour

Based on the map, I think the flight will take about an hour and the plant tour will take about 3 hours. This day is most probably spent working the whole day.

4 March – Free & easy in Sapporo

Finally, a free and easy day. I don’t know what is in Sapporo but from what I gathered on the internet, Sapporo has about 103cm of snow in March and it’s snows 23 days the whole month. It’s been a long time since I played with snow. I’m looking forward to this.

5 March – Flight back to Tokyo and return

This whole day will most probably be a travelling day.

So there you go. My little update. I’ll update when I finish this month’s issue.

I’m savouring the moment of having a little time in my hands to blog.

I’m savouring the moment of having all three generations of iPhones with me.

Front
(L-R) iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

Back (8GB, 16GB, 32GB)
I’m savouring the moment of having four iPhones on my table.

(L-R) iPhone, iPhone 3G, brother’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS

I’m savouring the moment of having five touch screen Apple devices with me.

(L-R) iPhone, iPhone 3G, brother’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, First Generation iPod Touch

I’m savouring the moment of having so many Apple stuff on my table.

iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, brother’s iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS on the keyboard of my MacBook 2.0GHz Core Duo, the iPod Touch First Generation on the trackpad, the iPod nano third generation sandwiched in between a Black and Lime Green iPod shuffle third generation (both 2GB and all three unopened), iPod shuffle second generation (1GB) on the iPod nano, and the discontinued Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse.

All are mine besides both iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS. An iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS are loaned units from Apple Malaysia while the other iPhone 3G is my brother’s.

I like this moment. Good night.

I recently blogged that my netbook is very slow and it might need a reformat to clean everything up and start brand new. I did something better.

I had an influx of SSD drives for review recently.

Picture proof.

So I’ve decided to install one of it into the netbook. The Kingston drive is a review unit but it’s also the highest end and most expensive one. I will have to give it back eventually.

The Intel SSD (X25-M) has the highest capacity (160GB) and it’s currently in my netbook. They’ll take it back but I hope not so soon.

ADATA sent me their SSD from Taiwan for a review. Review done. Don’t think they’ll take it back. Will most probably be using this in the office.

I’ve installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my netbook as well. It boots up in about 25 seconds and everything is so snappy!

Yeah, this is a filler post.

Last week I blogged about participating in a treasure hunt, saying that me, Ken and Huei will win because we’re the “dream team”. We did win! I’ll let the pictures do the talking and I’ll explain it in the captions.

My team mates, Ken and Huei. This was before the hunt. They were reading the guide to solve the clues.

My car. We had Acer and Microsoft Windows 7 pasted all over the car. We brought our own stickers as well. I had two CHIP stickers printed and stuck them on the windscreen. Huei brought a whole bunch of Lowyat.net stickers and we pasted it everywhere. Ken brought a single STUFF sticker so to make it symmetrical, we pasted it right in the middle of the windscreen.

Closer look at our stickers.

“Slim & Sleek On Board”. Huei is slim and sleek. Not me and Ken.

The back of the car.

Huei and Ken still reading the guide to solving the clues.

The agenda. 6 hours to Port Dickson!

Our room at the Thistle Hotel, Port Dickson.

The toilet of our room.

The side sofa thingy. THere is a word for it but I can’t remember what it’s called.

The view of our room.

Well, we won second prize with 72 points. The first prize winner, Kevin, Kuan Lim and Nick from HWM, pipped us by one point! Alas, they were the better team.

The prizes were an Acer Revo, a 23 inch Acer monitor. Each of us also got RM150 Jaya Jusco vouchers and a night stay at the Thistle Resort in Port Dickson. We’re planning to sell the Revo and the monitor to split the money. So if any of you guys want a HTPC, let me know.

That’s about it. I’ll be busy until the end of the month so it’ll be a little quiet here. Not that it’s not quiet enough already.