Saturday, March 15, 2008

Evolution of T-shirt design

I like to people watch when I'm out of the house. Sometimes it can be fun reading what is printed on their T-shirts.

I started noticing T-shirts with the message "Explain to me again why I need a boyfriend" a few months back and was thinking that this must be a girl who couldn't get a boyfriend, or who has "alternatives" and didn't need a boyfriend for whatever purpose a boyfriend was supposed to provide for. I will not speculate on those alternatives here...

Then there are T-shirts with the message "I <3>copycat viral T-shirt designs.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Huat Ah!

This is probably the first time that I had won something useful in a lucky draw.

I signed up for a 24 month broadband contract with Starhub at the IT Show 2008 (ended on 9 Mar 08) and was entitled to a lucky dip. I was commenting to Sunshine just minutes before that we will probably win some crap that has no value, such as the fridge magnet or lanyard, those that did not even have their value printed in yellow and bold fonts on the promotional brochure. Imagine my surprise when I opened the folded piece of paper and saw "HP" and "printer" staring back at me!

I had to record down my initials on a sheet of paper (with less than 20 names on it) and one of the starhub guys was supposed to give us an instant photo of us holding up the prize and smiling. But he could not get the instant camera to work. So I told him to forget it and just let us go back since we had queued for over an hour to sign up, collect my modem and do my lucky dip. And I'm expecting a long queue at the taxi stand since the walk to either the bus stop or MRT station will be very very long with this heavy box to lug along.

The prize was a HP C5180 Photosmart printer with scan and print capabilities. And I suppose it can print photos nicely on 4R paper. The brochure says that it is worth $476. I had never been so happy paying for a taxi ride home, even with the $3 surcharge for boarding the cab in the city area.

I had never been a gambler and never been lucky in lucky draws either. The only time I ever bought Toto, I donated the money to Singapore Pools and hope the money made its way to paying for the staff at Singapore Community Chest. To win something at the IT Show when the lucky draw is not even the thing that draws me, is totally unexpected. Not that I'm complaining.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Upgrading my portable storage

Was at the IT Show 2008 at Suntec City. 8GB thumbdrive from SanDisk Cruzer cost $55 from 1 stall. A 160GB portable harddisk (2.5" from Western Digital) cost $109.99. Which should I get?

I already have a 4GB thumbdrive, I can pay $55 to double it.
I already have a 40GB harddisk, I can pay $110 to quadruple it.

The Cruzer comes with U3, which I will probably format away since I don't like the extra drive it emulates and I don't need its pre-installed programs. After all, portable apps is free...

Decisions, decisions... Cheap storage is a good problem. :-)