It’s been slightly more than a month since I’ve got my HTC Incredible S and I’m still happy with the decision. Coming from the iPhone 3G, the bigger screen with colours that are more vibrant is an awesome change. And I like the slimmer feel of the HTC even though it’s about the same thickness at the back of the phone due to the bulge of the battery.

Even though it’s not fair to compare the nearly 4-year old iPhone 3G to the Incredible S – it should really be compared against the iPhone 4, I’m quite happy to have a phone that feels snappy again. The web browser which loads the text first and images after makes web pages pop onto screen; the caching also makes going back and forth between pages a very pleasant experience. The Safari browser on the iPhone (any of them) should be more like the one on Android.

Transferring songs onto the phone is one step easier than the iPhone and choosing any song on the phone as a ringtone is also simple – the Incredible S even has a tool to crop the songs into any length that you want. I miss the playlist management via iTunes but I don’t miss anything else about it. And the virtual sound enhancement makes my earphones sounds more expensive than it is.

One difficult thing that I had on the first day was transferring my contacts from the iPhone to the Incredible S but that was more the fault of the iPhone. It took a few attempts for the iPhone to recognise the bluetooth signal from the Incredible S even though the HTC could see the iPhone just fine.

And finally, being able to back up my contacts onto the removable SD card is brilliant.

Mom bites into a piece of mandarin and squealed. She takes the rest of the mandarin and gives it to me.

Mom: Here, have the rest of it.
Me: What makes you think I’d want it after seeing you spit it out?
Mom: Because you like being sour.

Oh snap.

It is always fascinating and interesting listening to my mom tell the stories of her love life. And whenever she gives me her thoughts about relationships, I realise that there isn’t much difference between our generations when it comes to affairs of the heart. Even though things happen quicker now and people are more impatient with their relationships, it’s still the same shit just with newer technology. Heh.

I once mentioned briefly about one of her more dramatic stories. She had broken up with her boyfriend of three years due to the persistent presence of his ex-girlfriend in their lives. Upon the persuasion of his mother and sister, and his written marriage proposal to her though (he was in Sydney and my mom was back in Penang), my mom decided to get back together with him.

However, his ex-girlfriend found out and wrote my mom a long letter. In it, she used the words “prepare for him to have a mistress” because she will never give him up. She also threatened to kill herself if she can’t have him. Long story short, my mom broke up with him again and he would eventually marry his ex-girlfriend.

It was all very melodramatic but this story showed how pragmatic my mom was. By breaking up with the guy, she took the painful decision away from him and it made for a quicker resolution. Whether or not the other girl deserves the guy is another story. My mom didn’t see the point of dragging out the fight with an irrational person. It may seemed like she lost but I think she was the winner.

She thinks with her head and not her heart and I feel that I share her logical approach to these things. For that I’m thankful.

Mom and grandpa, 1969

Mom’s 6-foot tall ex wearing a jumper that she knitted for him, 1970. If she had married this guy, I would have been taller and looked like Andy Lau.

The Hamster Factor @ flickr

I am in no hurry.
Fast or slow,
As long as I’m with you,
It’s all good.

On the weekend, I was talking to a very attractive girl, a girl that I thought was more attractive than her boyfriend. My reactions were incredulity, curiousity, and envy. In that order. As I talked to her more, I discovered that she is the epitome of every nerdy geek’s dream girl. She reads manga, watches anime and is a hardcore World of Warcraft player. All the while looking like honey-coated candy cotton fluff. She’s delicious is what I’m saying, in case it wasn’t obvious enough. Heheh.

She told me they had met at the supermarket that they were working in at the time. He was persistent. She thought that he was creepy. But eventually, he won her over and they got together anyway. Can the story get any more rom-com or what?!

After hearing her side of the story, I thought I should now talk to the guy and learn his magic tricks. And there were none. There were no tricks. He was just being himself, being sincere with her. The fact that he liked the same things that she did was a big factor of course. But there’s always this hesitation to find out more about a person whom one doesn’t find physically attractive at first, isn’t there? Plus he had a big barrier to cross because she had already thought that he was creepy. So I can imagine the day that they started talking about their interests and it hits them that they really have a lot in common.

Like I said, it’s such a rom-com.

I has always had the belief that there must be at least a slight level of mutual physical attraction to hold a relationship together. But, personality counts for more in the long run. And it is also the thing that can compensate for that initial lack of physical attraction. Love happens, one way or another.

“Pretty is as pretty does”. Proverb to mean: It is more important to treat people well than to be good-looking; just because you are good-looking does not mean you are a good person. (Said only of girls and women.)

source

And sometimes you just have to take that plunge and talk to her
(xkcd.com)

Last night I went to the Challenge Stadium to catch HK pop/movie star Eason Chan in concert, along with Stephanie, her uncle and Lily. Eason was very entertaining and I especially loved his jokes and banter with the crowd. Never laughed this hard at a music concert ever.

I also got to try out the camera on the HTC Incredible S. Zooming and focusing don’t work so well in the dark, but other than that, the photos have very little noise which was quite impressive.

Overall, it was an awesome night. I had joked to Steph that half the Chinese population must have been there, and the other half was at the casino. Heh. Thanks for the ticket again Steph!

I love my KFC. I get mildly euphoric from eating it. So when I first read about this being available in America, my first thought was, “WTF, that’s insane” and my second thought was “When are they gonna do it here too?” Heh.

For those of you who don’t know of it, it’s a double-deck burger without the buns – two pieces of whole chicken breast meat would be the buns. And in between are two slices of cheese and bacon. If you order the original recipe chicken, you get BBQ sauce slathered on the cheese and bacon. And if you order the hot and spicy chicken (the Zinger version) you get hot sauce instead.

So how was it? It’s exactly what you’d expect if you bite through two pieces of KFC chicken. The first bite was like a party in my mouth but subsequent bites became a little too much to handle. If this was a normal burger, the sweetened buns would have balanced out well against the saltiness. The bacon and cheese did not add to the flavour at all because the combined taste of the two pieces of KFC chicken was overpowering. The hot sauce did provide an extra kick to it though.

The price was $7.95 for the Double by itself, or $9.95 in a combo with regular fries and drink. I had the combo and I was stuffed after. I think the whole thing sat in my stomach for at least the next 2 hours. I don’t think I will have it again. I had thought that I would like it more than I did, but I’d much prefer having two pieces of chicken meat on the bone, one piece at a time. If I’m gonna have a massive intake of fat, salt and calories, I might as well enjoy it right? Hahah!

p.s. I could have sworn that the girl at the counter smirked when I told her my order. Her expression was like, orly?