OMG!! A New Phone!!1!111!

Yesterday I surrendered my 5-year-old phone and loaded the SIM card into a fairly modern phone. It's a Nokia 5300. It has a huge colour screen. It can play music and video files. It can take pictures. It made me seem like a big hypocrite.

Obviously I will not be writing this post if I don't already have an explanation. So here we go...

First of all I didn't buy this phone off the shelf. My sister's phone contract had ended meaning she could sign a new one and in the process earn a free phone (i.e., cost of phone is included in the plan). Normally she would dump her old phone and use this new one, but she already purchased a new one in HK. Thus the logical thing to do is to give me the new phone.

Now of course I can refuse to use the new phone. I almost did, had the phone not support Chinese. Alternatively I could pick a phone that doesn't have all these features. That was undoable for a number of reasons. After Chinese support, I looked for the form factor, or it's "pocketability". Some of my jeans pockets are pretty tight so thinness and small size is much sought after. Turns out all the Nokia phones that came for free were either too long or too thick. There were no winner in the "pocket test". Thus I fell back to features and the choice was obvious.

I believe I have not explain why I did not refuse using a new phone. All my previous posts must have impressed on my readers that I am an anti-technology person. This is simply not the case. I merely dislike embracing new technology for the sake of technology. If I can't do more of the things I want to do then the upgrade is worth next to nothing to me. However if the upgrade comes for free, then the benefit of upgrading (next to nothing) outweighs the cost (nothing). In laymans' term, it's just a case of me being a tight-ass at spending money. ;-)

For me, the major benefit of the new phone is the ability to manage my phonebook on a computer. Previously half the numbers were stored in the phone and half in the SIM card. Moving to a new phone meant losing half the numbers (I refused to manually add them back). Now everything is neatly stored on the phone...it's okay to call me a neat freak. On the other hand, I vow never to use a sliding phone in my life. It's too prone to accidental opening, especially when slipping it into my tight jeans pockets.

Hopefully, with the built-in camera I will take more photos and post them here. I already had a few ideas floating in my mind.

Border Security

After 31st March, travellers flying in and out of Australia can only carry limited amount of liquid/aerosol products onboard their flight. I had to research these regulations because mum will be leaving after March and she wonders about bringing alcohol back to HK, which tends to come in bottles of 750ml. According to the website, you can bring several containers of liquid, each not exceeding 100ml, and all must fit in a one litre transparent plastic bag. This is supposed to limit the amount of liquid one can bring onboard to about 500ml, which is not enough to make a bomb. The website claims current technology cannot efficiently distinguish liquids from one another, hence the restriction on the amount. OK, so how much liquid is needed to make explosive? 10 litre? So put 20 terrorists into the same plane. 20 x 500ml = 10L. Simple. Practically anything one can bring onto a plane can potentially become part of a bomb. The only way to prevent this is to knock every passenger out before they board, then wake them up after landing. I reckon is will be the way of the future. Airlines will save massive amounts of money because they don't need to provide meals or any cabin equipment, while passengers will no longer suffer from cramped space, crying babies or that annoying kid kicking the seat from behind. It's clearly a win-win situation.

During my research, I also found that the "national counter terrorism threat alert" for Australia is currently set to MEDIUM. What?! Who's threatening us? The only justification for this threat level is because our (adjectives withheld. Use your imagination...) Prime Minister sent troops to Iraq, thus there must be some risk of facing retaliation. It almost feels like the government is deliberately creating threats out of nothing so they can flex their military muscle, which is probably as big as those on my skinny arms. Speaking of the military, I always read in the news our country is buying fighter jets (like F-16s) from the US, but never heard of them being used. Seriously, does Australia even need them? We have the coast guards to interdict seabound illegal immigrants, and...that's about it. If some nation invades Australia (China? Indonesia?), can our air force, with our old F-16s and F-111s, stop them? I don't really know the answer because I don't know the size and capability of the RAAF; I'm merely ranting.

Give Me My Credit!

While on the subject of TV, I cannot object more to the way TV stations deface the credit screen. Usually it is done by squashing the original picture to free up half the screen to show previews for upcoming programmes. This makes it impossible to read any of the credit text, and the voice over covers up the ending music. While viewers usually don't bother reading the credit roll, it is sometimes a good source of information, such as finding out the actor for a particular character and the year it was produced. Occasionally, the credit roll is creatively transformed into an entertaining segment. For example, in one episode of The Simpsons, Homer "fired" every name that appeared on the credit. In the cinema version of Toy Story II, pretended bloopers were shown alongside the credit. One might argue that distorting the credit roll audibly or visually lowers the value of the show to viewers.

Just because the credit screen is not part of the story and is generally boring does not mean it can be mutilated to make way for promotion. In their pursuit of maximizing advertisement air time, TV stations will soon find themselves stepping over the line. When entertainment value for TV shows is all but eroded, the audience will surely turn to the Internet and DVDs for their viewing needs, legal or otherwise.

24

Frankly the story behind the new 24 is pretty weak. If I really want to (I don't, but I can't resist it), I can probably find at least one flaw every 3 minutes. But the biggest problem lies in its depiction of the main characters, namely the good guys are all unbelievably stupid while the baddies are incredibly smart. For example, the president in the story makes George W. Bush look like Einstein. Maybe this is the only way to keep the villains from getting caught before the 24 hour is up. One can be sure that the same terrorists in the real world will not last even an hour.

By now, readers should be curious as to why I would want to watch such an unrealistic show. There isn't a very logical reason, but I keep telling myself I am only here to see Jack Bauer do his job and is willing to ignore all the far-fetch and impossible situations waiting for Jack to resolve. Who knows, maybe I am intrigued by what Jack does best: torturing a suspect for information.