Just completed watching 3 dvd over the weekend… one actually strike a cord in my heart. Title’s “HITCH” starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes.

Life is not about how much $ you make, how successful your career is and a whole lot of other crap…. it’s about who you are and how you make it worth your while. (more…)

Azumanga Daioh! [preview]
This is one FUNNY series. Centers around the lives of a groups of teenage girls, school and their teachers. There’s a very unique characteristics of Jap anime humour,… see to understand, I shall not waste my time trying to describe it with my limited vocab. (more…)

Yep one of those days where I reinstall everything… typical of a XP system… tried to restore from the online image as of Dec 2004 - but seems like it got corrupted. Didn’t realised that I’ve been rather slacking in performing regular image backup.

The file corruption is getting to be a worry as I suspect this is due to the problematic boot-up failures. The constant hard resetting of the sys is the likely culprit.

Anyway, the boot-up success rate is much much better now,…

Finally some service. BenQ came down to replace the PE7700 projector with 2 dead pix.
It great to know there are still some manufacturer that honors their warranty commitment.

Though I got crap from the agent that I bought the unit from. I hope BenQ takes these errant dealers off the market or correct the poor service for the benefit of other consumers. It is true that we tag our experience with one product of a brand to our expected experience of other products of the same brand. With the plesant experience I had with the support for the PE7700, I am having a better perception of BenQ’s other product quality.

It’s a mental game in branding and marketing.

At last the highly acredited Mogami cables are ready for collection. I hope no last minute cancellation like the last appointment.. to think that I purposely took 1/2 day leave to collect it!!

What’s left now is getting the Neutrik profis connector for the termination… costly sia…. S$50 per pair. With 5m of 2803 and 9m of 2497…. I’m looking at $25 x 14 if I were to terminate all with the Neutriks. Damn!! :`( this hobby is a real $$ drainer.

Think I’ll be postponing this for 2 months pending $$ accumulation.

What TF!

Noticed 2 dead pixel on the proj last night.
Damn sianzzz sia. (more…)

At loooong last it arrived. Was supposed to be delivered on Fri 7th July but the fella cocked-up. I purposely rushed back and delay my dinner but the @#$% did not turn up. 1.5 hrs after the agreed time I got a bloody sms with some crap excuse… whatever. The state of customer service in Sg is deplorable - even when you’re paying this obscene amount.

Anyway, the del boy was late again…. supposedly 2pm appointment turns out to be more like 2:45pm.

Did a quick check to ensure it is a brand new unit, connect via component cab and power up. Everything looks fine… check for partlist and physical defects. Everything seems in good order - wrote the check and signed the DO.

The unit is a real beauty - pop in some of my fav disc and had a great time playing with the new toy.
Check out the pics from the gallery.

Current viewing:
Naruto - 1 eps weekly
Basilisk - 1 eps weekly
Samurai Champloo

Downloaded but pending viewing;
Ghost In The Shell - Standalone complex
Furi Kuri (FLCL)
Beyond the clouds
Tokyo Godfathers
Azumanga Daioh

Recently Completed Viewing:
InuYasha - up to latest eps 167.
Ninja Scroll (Movie)
AppleSeed (Movie)

Finally, after more than half a year I finally put the finishing touches to my 1st DIY speaker effort. It actually turns out much better than I had anticipated (sound wise). There are many things that went right -

The modeling software by the FRD consortium is the biggest help. Without it this project would have been impossible. I believe the seamless integration between the tweeter and mid-bass is testament of this. I would never be able to design the xover and probably would have made a BIG mistake by just plucking in theorectical values rather than have a Frequency Response modeling.

I got HUGH BASS with the pure 2-way design. I intended for an initial 2.5way but did not want to curtail/attentuate the tweeter - thus the both active mid-bass to achive the same dB level.

My assumption of a 3dB loss on the baffle diffraction rather than a full 6dB. By designing based on that assumption, I avoided over-compensating the lower register.

The finish color is a very attractive red-wood.

However, it is not ALL good news. There were some painful lessons and broken dreams. 1st on the list is probably the finish. I had hoped for a really fantastic piano-gloss with the wood grain showing through… though the current finish is glossy enough, it’s not smooth to the touch - from an angle you can see the paint brush stroke mark. Staining was a nightmare to say the least. It just blotches and 2 redos… Still I could not get the very nice maple wood grain to show.

Veneering is tough - almost made a major mistake when it slipped from my fingers just as I was aligning it. I had to forcefully pry it off the MDF!! Thank goodness it did not ripped.

The worse is probably tuning the bass with the right amount and orientation of damping material. I ended up using bits and pieces from the many trial and errrors.

The most heart wrenching is when one of the enclosure FELL and hit the wall. Due to its weight, a deep dent all the way to the base paint was craved on the wall. It was worse on the enclosure. The nicely finished veneer was totally wrinkled at the point of impact. Worse still is that it is on the TOP plate for the world to see… I took me 2 days in recovery work!!!

But looking back - it was a great effort and I am glad I jump on the boat.