So I succumbed to the allure of normality

03 Jan 2007

That is, an interesting way of saying “I have a new phone that doesn’t require a concerted weights training regime for several months before you can begin carrying it around with you”.

Sony Ericsson V630i next to an iPaq

Nothing amazing, it’s a fairly average looking Sony Ericsson V630i. My rationale in buying it was that it’s not as though it’s part of the same business units as the DRM morons, anyway, and actively subverts their cause by offering MP3 & WMA support, instead of retarded ATRAC specialness. It does use an M2 card instead of microSD, though, which is a bit of a shame.

Sony Ericsson V630i

Its PC Syncing is adequate, though obviously not up to the Windows Mobile perfection to which I am accustomed :P

Mostly I just wanted PC syncing to make contact transfer painless. The “PDA” functionality (if one even dare call it that) is very much a secondary thing: I’m vaguely considering buying a Palm, but not until I’ve got my head around this completely. It’s rather on the usable side, but the interface is obviously more limited than a touch screen would ever be.

Sony Ericsson V630i

It cost me… nothing, on a Vodafone contract. I didn’t mind that because I’m not locked into the handset for the contract length — I can unlock it from the Vodafone network today if I want, without any charge, and stick my (3G, but, alas, I’ve only got partial 3G coverage at my house — with both 3 and Vodafone/Optus, haven’t tested Telstra — so there’s not a great deal of UTMS going down here at the minute — regular triband GSM wins out) SIM into any other phone.

Yes, that’s right, petty 3 users. I can change phones without having to go grovelling to my network provider. Howdyalikethathuh? *gloats* :)

Anyway. It’s still good fun. It also has an MP3 player, but the probably-prohibitive cost of M2 media for this thing, combined with the supremely uncomfortable bundled headphones (they’re designed for like, elephants or something) and lack of regular 3.5mm jack (*tear*) mean it’s not likely to get used much. ‘cept to say it supports WMA & MP3 ringtones, which is about as much fun as I had with the iPaq, only Windows Media Player actually supports this as a media device.

Yes, friends, that too is irony.

Sydney NYE fireworks

02 Jan 2007

Taken from Ellen‘s house (thanks Ellen :D) Just for kicks, see if you can compare the first shot in this post (5 minutes before any fireworks) to a similarly composed photo later on, paying special attention to the amount of clouds visible. Somehow I don’t reckon they’re buying carbon credits for this $AU4M detonation.

The fireworks themselves were crap… we were all left wondering if something else was going to happen (that being the symbolism of the question mark?) … but then perhaps the question mark was meant to be something else. I was waiting for it to flash up the letters “LOLHAX” in succession. That would have made me giggle so much I would have fallen off the pier, but not before snapping plenty of photos of it ;-)

So, who’s up for bridge-hacking/culture-jamming to an audience of a quarter of Sydney’s population next year?