Joining Goodreads.com

After checking the website for many times, I finally succumbed to join GoodReads website.

I guess it appeal to my collecting sense as I added the novels I have read to my read shelf. I will add the widget soon to show what I have read. As I mention I earlier posts. I feels kinda shameful that 95% of the shelf are Romance novels... Especially the Gay Romance novels.

I got about 110s books so far and will slowly increasing as more books that I wants to read get release. Can't hardly wait for mid October when the book I really really wants to read got release.

Cutting Cable

My TV time have been eaten up to almost non-existing after I have got my Kindle. So after wasted my money on the cable TV fee for two months I finally cancel the subscription.

It wasn't too much of a hardship since I still seems to be in the honeymoon period with Kindle which kinda surprises me a bit. Besides I was getting tired of getting screwed by the company for not given me any sort of incentive or promotion. Eventhough we have been their customer right from the beginning. And they only start making concessions, some lame ones at that too, after I call to say I am canceling.

So now I save a fair amount of money from canceling the cable. I download shows I wants to watch from internet now anyway. Eventhough Kindle still take away the time I need to watch those shows. I have a sizable backlogs of shows I still wants to go throughs.

Entering the age of 2TB

The time had finally arrived, my collective harddisks space is getting full almost to the brim. So it is time to break open my wallet and buy another harddisk.

I have been eyeing the 2 Terabyte HDD for quite a while now. And finally bought one today. Since my weekend start tomorrow, I can spend tonight moving files (almost 750GB worth of... stuffs... notti stuffs mostly and TV series). Windows 7 would made moving files a lot smoother than XP. The actual physical change of harddisk is not my favorite thing to do but it needs to be done...

Hopefully things will goes smoothly without a hitch.

New Curtains and Reading Lamp

Last week the photo-developing shop next door left their spotlights on all day and night, all weeks... Unfortunately my room is right next to it and my room got lit more than that I would like when I was trying to sleep. After I went to the shop to complain and got wrods that they were fixing the electrical panel and no one dare to mess with it.

I called my mom and asking for advice, while fantasizing how I would shoot the damn lights if I own a gun. She recommend a more peaceful solution, a new thick curtain to block out the light. As it happens I planned to visit HomePro to look for reading lamp. So that when I read in bed and ready to sleep, I could just switch the lights off without getting out of bed.

When I finally have a break on Monday we meet up at HomePro. The results? New deep red/brown velvelty texture set of curtains that completely block out the light. It claim to also block out heat too. Although when I first hung them up, I felt that the ventilation seems to cut down a bit. But the curtains still blown when heavy wind blew in. So far I am quite happy with the curtain, it really block out most of the light and make the room nice and dark.

Initially I thought about getting a desk lamp to put on the bed. With the idea that I don't have to get up to turn off the light. My mom veto that idea with the reasoning that it could be fire hazard. There was only one model of adjustible floor reading lamp. It looks quite alright, all chrome finish modern looks with dark bulb cover with reflector to reflect down all the lights. I choose the warm tea colour bulb instead of the harsh white. I placed it just behind my bed on the floor.

Overall I love the new setup. Now I could read, or maybe even play a bit of DS game in bed with the reading lamp on and then just turn off everything without getting out of bed :)

Novels Tally and Kindle Battery Impressions

This is the fourth Kindle post in a roll... I guess this is the reflection of how Kindle still eat up my time of late.

After I have got my Kindle I start reading, almost obsessively, until now. I think I can start ween off it a little bit as other activities still waiting for my attentions. So far I have finished 'Demonica' series (5 books), 'The Hollows' series (9 books), 'Cut & Run' series (3 books so far and I am really looking forward to the new one later in the year). I highly recommended the 'Cut & Run' series for those who likes gay romance novel). I also like 'Zero at the Bone', another gay romance novel about FBI witness on a run with a hitman who did not wants to kill a decent man. Another gay romance, 'Warrior's Cross', is also quite nice. It didn't have much actions, both in and out of bed, but I find the story seems to keep simmering and goes to boil from time to time. I guess this one speaks to me since I can identify with the main charater is a loner who lead a quiet life.

After I got Kindle for about 3 weeks, I started to notice that the battery seems to went down to half, 4 days after fully charged. I was mildly alarmed at first, thinking I might got a lemon second handed one. Then I stumble upon a recent article on blogkindle.com that compare Kindle battery life and Nook's. Turns out that when Amazon tout 1 month battery life on Kindle, it means an average of 1 hour of reading per day. Also, they mention a battery test that with one page turn per one minutes, Kindle will last for 56 hours. In my case, I probably read about 6 hours a day or more. I read on my ride to and from work and in my bedroom until about midnight or later. Not to mention how I sometimes sneak some reading time at works :p

With all the clarification and calculation, it's no wonder why my Kindle battery reduced to half in less than a week. I guess I will just have to charge it more often that I intitally thought.

Kindle is Slowly Killing Me

No Jokes, Kindle has been eating away my nap time during transits as well as taking an hour or so from my night time sleep.

It also pulled me away from most of the TV shows that I watch regularly. Now I have several Tonight's Show With Jay Leno, Chelsea Lately, and a few other TV shows waiting in line for me to watch. Luckily it is slightly slow seasons for TV shows, at least for me. I am down to just one TV series, United States of Tara, that will have season finale next week. Leverage and The Closer will start in a few weeks.

By then, I should have consume all the high priorities books in my Kindle. Hopefully...

Kindle Bounded

Kindle seems to occupied my time considerably for the moment... I supposed mostly because I started on a new book series. It turns out that my reading habit seems to be more... powerful than my gaming habit. Perhaps because I have read that Fable III needs other players to unlock some good weapon...

In retrospect, it's not surprising that reading would came up on top. It as my first addiction after all. And Kindle make it a lot easier, since I can now read from my bed and not restricted to read on my computer. I slept way to late this passing weekend. I even taken a day off to recuperate but all that got swallowd by my reading... The hot weather didn't help either. I thin kI nonly slept baout 4-5 hours last night before coming to work this morning...

I will have try to steer myself to sleep at normal hours tonight at least... Otherwise I would be feeling like I should take another day off...

The New Member in My Electronic Devices Family

After much considerations and wantings, I finally succumb and bought a Kindle, a 3G one no less.
The reason is that I like to read. I began to read more novels than before and reading
it on my computer is less than comfortable. I did considered buying the tablet but since I planned to buy new phone anyway, I figured that I could do the things I might use the tablet for, such as web surfing, IMs, music player, and video player, on the new phone. I better get a dedicated e-reader with long lasting battery and not draining the device with reading while traveling. My Nokia 5800 was almost completely drained when I read PDF on it for about 2 hours...

Also the 3G on Kindle is free and internationally connected. Therefore I will be able to get on Google Map with Kindle regardless of the Wifi availability. Which happens while I was in New Orleans.

I loaded up many books from my collections onto my Kindle and even purchase the Arabian Nights one from Amazon store because it was well organized version of the ebook. I also apply the screensaver hack so I can use my own pictures as screensavers. The screen quality is really good at displaying all the different shades of gray from the colour pictures I added. I will be reading a lot for a while, until the release of new interesting DS games :P

Catching Up on The Old Classic

After seeing 'Secrets of The Arabian Nights' shows up on my regular TV show listing, I am curious to watch it. Turns out it was BBC4 production so I know it should be good.

It was quite good. It shows the history of the 1,001 Arabian Nights, how it came to be popular in the West despite being only orally told in the Middle East, how it coloured the perception of the West toward Middle East, how the story is still considered scandalous in the Middle East.

After years of reading and watching the more popular pieces of the story and realizing a few years back that the most popular one 'Aladdin' and 'Sinbad' were the works of the first guy who collected and translated the story into French. Now I am starting to reading it. I choose the seemingly oldest translated version by Sir Richard Burton. I wants to read the most complete version of this since in the show it mention that Lanes version got edited to remove all the sex and drinking out to turn it into children books for the Victorian era.

So far it been very interesting read. Just like the TV show said, the magic in the stories were very different from what I read in the Western novels and maybe Japanese mangas.

But I must say I like it so far. It is very interesting, especially the 'The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad' one ;)

Another cold day in Bangkok, Oh and I saw Sucker Punch

Just as I bought a new 18" fan, the weather taking a tumble back to low 20C again.

As I am typing this, I am wearing my new jacket in my office. I kinda like this weather but as usual it was a pain to shower. The wind make it a small torture to stay off the shower stream to pick up the shower gel bottle, etc. The weather forecast on my phone shows that it will warmed up by Friday. So tonight I will probably wear my full t-shirt to bed again...

I went to see Sucker Punch on Saturday. I was kinda prepared to see how bad it was from a few article about how the critics panned this movie. But I was not prepapred for what the movie was. The beginning looks promising but it went elsewhere, literally, soon after. The main protagonist, Baby Doll, soon went inside her head to cope with the situations and never came back out. The action sequences looks great, although the slow motions started to get tedious after the 10th times it was used. I left the theater with rather perplex feelings like I cannot wrapped my head around the movie quite right. I think that the problem was in the script and the decision to make it double layered fantasy without going back to reality until the end. In retrospect, I think it was kinda like modern day 'Alice in Wonderland'.

For me, the movie failed to draw me in more than the visual level. The story was somewhat disappointed since we do not see how things went in reality. And like many comments that I glanced through on some website, the movie was just visual feats with not much substances. I was glad I didn't spend more to see it in IMAX.

Cold and Hot

It has been a strange few days from about Wednesday to Saturday in that it gets really really cold in Bangkok.

How cold it was? It was 18C. I check the thermometer in my bedroom and it was 18C, in the middle of March. It is supposed to be Summer here and yet somehow we got the chills coming down from China. I even have to wear pants and turtle neck long sleeves t-shirt to bed. It was raining a bit as well.

Again, I was torn between the happiness of confortable sleep under my blanket and the torment of taking a shower in the morning to get to work.

It was getting warmer all day Saturday. I went from shivering under the shower in the morning to taking the shower joyously by the time I got home from work. It is not back to the usual blazing Bangkok Summer heat yet. And according to the weather forecast on my mobile phone, it will stay that way for a while. I must admit that I like the in between temperature. The cool at night so I can sleep comfortably and the not too cold so the warm shower machine heat the water enough for me to shower comfortably.

A New Start on My Blog

I am still have not finish the traveling posts. And I have been increasingly less motivated to do so... I guess I am more occupied with more constant personal gratification activities such as TV, mangas and games.

So I will try to finsih the traveling posts later and perhaps put it up intermittenly. Otherwise, I will be more likely to just abandon this blog altogether and I do not want to do that.

Right now I am highly enjoying the new DS game 'Radiant Historia' It has rich story involving nations at wars, political maneuverings, betrayals, mysteries. and gradual continent disasters. Overall I find the story is much more intriguing than Dragon Quest VI.