There is a rather discordant [read: f**king NOISY!!!] symphony being played in my house at the moment that is drowning out anything else played in the house.

This symphony is played by the HDB Construction Unsymphonic Orchestra, and the programme is as follows:

Opus of the Thumping Hammers
Clattering Planks
Symphony of the Drills

The performance is for the benefit of Replacement Metal Roofworks and is performed free of charge for my block every afternoon. Because it is held on the roof, I have Category 1 seats to this engaging performance.

Here is my resounding response to their performances:

Done by one Seb Lester on Flickr.

This is a post about Kuroi, who has so completely integrated himself into my life in a way that Shiroi [the iPod classic] did not.

Yes, a month or so with Kuroi, the iPod touch, and I'm in danger of selling my soul forever to Steve Jobs. How do I feel about Kuroi? Well, after using him a while, my predominant thought is:

Why didn't anyone THINK of this before? It's GENIUS!!! *end fangirl drool*

Through sheer ingenuity and possibly the backing of the devil, Apple has managed to come up with something that is not quite an iPod, but more of a mobile entertainment device. Other than the usual storage of music, videos and photos, [was it that long ago that MP3 players could only hold music?] Kuroi also holds contacts, notes, a calendar. It also holds the one killer app that killed me, namely, a wireless adapter .

Paired with the Safari browser, this made the iPod into a mini PDA, but the one that really killed me down was the App store. Connect to this baby, and you get games, utilities, games, note-taking tools, games, photo apps, and did I mention the games?

And half of them are free!!!!! The other half you pay for, but some are as cheap as 99cents. Argh!

Ok, if I sound bad, it's because I know I really got it bad. I started out with a few games in it, and I used it to read blogs and mail on the go, but last night I opened the App store and that's when it all tumbled down for me.

In went drawing software, note-taking software, an app for a fashion website, and a Japanese dictionary -_-!!! And in the space of a few minutes of each other........

But on a more sober note, I can't help but think that this is what mobile computing should be all about. Here I have a device that fits into my pocket, that can surf the Internet on wireless, and that can download straightaway and painlessly, numerous other applications that would make it stronger. The reason why I was so hooked on the App store was that it was so darn easy to download them. A matter of clicking on a button, waiting a few minutes and then the app was downloaded. No opening of new and unnecessary windows, no having to choose a file to download it in, since it went straight to desktop and all free.

I have run into some problems with it, of course. A lack of office tools makes it unsuitable for office drones who need their Microsoft packages, and also means that I am not able to do work on the go with this, unlike my previous PDA, Suss. [Although with something this sleek, you won't want to do work on it anyway. :p] Typing is a chore without a stylus. And don't talk about connectivity to other devices. No infrared and no Bluetooth, so everything I keep in there is stuck in there, unfortunately.

But other than that, the touchscreen, the Apps, the games are addictive enough for a leisure user to keep in her pocket. The OS is simple enough to quickly understand and get used to. If only I could hook this baby onto mobile broadband, it would be perfect... which makes its big brother, the iPhone look more and more tempting.............

*end hungry fangirl drool

It's getting more and more addictive to play with Kuroi on a wireless
connection... Makes those mobile broadband plans more tempting anyway,
if not for the threat of me becoming a permanent resident of the
Internet... Sigh...

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

Bossa Nova

No, this is not a post about beach jazz, this is really the 2 kittens suddenly adopted by Quet.

Quet's friend had found the above Nova and his black sibling Bossa near the Esplanade, and if she and her colleagues had not rescued the kits, they could have been culled by the authorities.

Nova was placid enough to let us take her out of the box and walk around the seat. Bossa, being the more psycho one, tried a few times to scratch the hand that tried to take it out, so we gave up after a while. Later on, when it probably got a bit lonely, we took it out, whereupon it tried to make a break for freedom, ran into Yenn's vest and encouraging its obedient sibling to do the same thing. [Yenn had the scars to show for it]

They are cute, though. Here's Nova: [check out the ears]



We called them Bossa Nova because of the jazz that was playing at the open stage. Indeed, while Quet was driving them home, they mewed the loudest when her Dark Knight soundtrack was playing, but kept quiet when she switched to 92.4 These are some cultured kitties!

Quet and her friend were supposed to split the kits between themselves, but later the kits were found to be too young and too fond of each other to split, so both cats ended up in her house!

Last I heard, they were rapidly running amok all over her house, playing with the gleeful abandon that all children have and causing no end of anxiety to their new owner. In the two days that they had been in her house, they had ran amok, making her have to chase them down, bankrupted her with their vet checkup, caused her to sprain an ankle, and got themselves stuck in her massage chair while they were running from her.

After I bemusedly heard all this from her on Monday night, I can only conclude, that these kits are not destined to be this for her: