silver lining

My heart broke...

Moments after being upside-down watching in slow motion my phone dropping 130ft onto earth, and then hearing the phone smacked onto the ground.

I can only be thankful that it didn't hit anyone. Very thankful. So very thankful… and don't want to imagine what it could've been.

It was an interesting mind-over-matter situation how one can sober up in a blink of an eye mid-5G experience.

It was our last day in Copenhagen. It was a trip to celebrate our sixth year anniversary together. We were at Tivoli. We were on our second ride at the amusement park, the Vertigo to be exact.

Various thoughts went through my mind. When the ride ended and the attended handed me my phone, my heart numbed.

Oh my phone.

Thereafter days of roller coaster emotions, I consoled myself that I was on mobile phone-sabbatical.

That itself was an interesting experience which I will share in another post.

The high after that was knowing that my desktop recognised my iPhone.

The low immediately after that was that I had to unlock my phone, which I couldn't with the shattered screen.

I had hope.

What followed the next two days was my alarm going off in the morning and I couldn't switch it off.

But I still have hope to retrieve my data.

New phone searching started a few days before I plugged-in my phone to the desktop. Man, it is expensive to replace a phone that I didn't have insurance for.

But I couldn't think of going for anything else other than an iPhone 5. I was smitten. I've fallen in love. What I didn't realise, I was dependent.

A conversation with a friend asked me to try the Apple shop, and I managed an appointment with them over the weekend.

Almost a week into my mobile phone-sabbatical.

I was told by Apple Tech Support that I can get my screen replaced for a fee. I was over the moon to know that.

Just before I went to the store over the weekend I realise that whilst I knew that the screen was beyond repair, I thought the phone did well to survive the fall without a scratch; but little did I realise was that there is a slight dent in the back. Ouch, poor phone.

I must say, the acrylic glass case I had must've taken most of the impact, unfortunately I've not seen what it looked like after impact.

During my 15 mins wait, I observed a high number of phones (various iPhone generations) replaced at the Apple store. I later found out what high mark-up we pay when we get a new phone. I also thought to myself that there is a possibility that I will be getting a new phone.

It later transpired that for a small fee, rather than getting my screen replaced, I received a new replacement phone, easily half the price of a new iPhone.

Then, my heart broke, again.

Why you say? I'm getting a new phone (albeit with a small fee), what else could I ask for more? It wasn't the small fee that my heart broke; I accepted that I need to spend that money for what I wanted.

Unfortunately Apple store can’t back-up the information I had on my phone. That is what the iCloud is for. I guess you can imagine they have so many customers to attend to and to carry out back-up for every customer it is going to take forever. And there is also the possibility of data protection? I don’t know...

Of course I was thankful that I can get a new phone. What I didn't expect is that I was quite upset (internally) that I lost four months’ worth of data, photos, notes, and memories.

Arrgh...

Four months.

Four months, because it came up that the phone will restore from May 7th.

Anyways, four months...

...All because I didn't know how to use iCloud well enough.

...Because I didn't get my desktop sorted to do a backup. (The computer fan needed some attention, and it is now fixed).

Four months.

Made me realised how dependent we are on our technology.

I lost some notes I made recently on Notes.

***Update from where I stop drafting:

I was going to go on a spill on the story of my life, about the various thoughts I had that I needed to jot down. I was upset as you can imagine.

So what I didn't tell was I went to the Apple store on Saturday. After I left the store (with my new phone), the phone required Wi-Fi to restore but I couldn't use Wi-Fi as I was out and about. It was after when we finally got home at night that I noticed the phone hang asking if I wanted to restore with Wi-Fi or later. I couldn't do anything with the phone.

I could hardly sleep on Saturday night.

Upset that I was going to lose four months of stuff.

We went back to the Apple store on Sunday and all it required was a soft restart.

I started my draft of this post on Sunday morning before the visit to the Apple store.

After the soft restart and later when we have Wi-Fi to restore, I am thankful for iCloud. What I didn't realise was quite a number of things have been backed up onto iCloud.

The wonderful people at Apple, oh, so clever.

I still lost some information and memories. But it wasn't as bad.

I lost all my Notes.

Yes, I may not have all my 2,000+ photos; at least I have most of our expensive Copenhagen weekend photos (now made even more expensive with the phone replacement). I lost all our Copenhagen photos on the last day.

I still don't know how much was backed up onto iCloud as the phone is still being restored.

Lessons learnt, of course.

And I am in awe of the Cloud, or in this case iCloud.

***Update: I must give credit to TheOtherHalf for putting up with me for the past week, non-stop on everything about the phone.

it's gone to pot

I'm a naturally curious person.

So when Pot Noodle flashed their new Piri-Piri Chicken flavour noodles ad over the telly for the past few weeks I wondered what it would taste like?

Now, truth be told I've actually never eaten a Pot Noodle even after living in this country for a combination of almost ten years now.

I've tried once or twice Bachelors Super Noodles and coming from an Asian background I think the Far East does much better (instant) noodles then the West. Sorry, but then again I'm bias because they are the types I'm used to.

Anyways curiosity got the better of me, so I bought one over the weekend to try. I've been lazy the past week and didn't prepare any lunch so I took this into work today.

Now I've eaten a few instant noodles in a cup variety, granted not very often. So I read up the instructions on this Pot Noodle *geek!* and then cautiously filled up the water to the level required.

Oh yes, before that I opened the foil and there was a pack of lime juice. However, very strange thing the top of the noodles were covered in flavouring powder, like loads of it.

So I followed the instructions, filled water to desired level. Waited two minutes, add lime juice sachet, stirred evenly before trying the said noodles.

I was hesitant at first as in the past the instant noodles I consumed, whether instant noodles in a cup or even the one I cooked over the hob with "soup" it was soupy. This Piri-Piri Chicken Pot Noodle was thick and gooey. Such a weird "consistency" so to say.

The flavour was spicy with a real kick, I give you that. But the consistency was just, weird.

Now that I've tried this would I give it a go again?

To be fair it wasn't too bad. But when there are better instant noodles and even the noodles in the cup variety out there, I would not understand why I would give Pot Noodle a try again.

It is just me. As they say on man's meat is another man's poison. I'll give it a skip next time, thankyouverymuch.

Might work for others but it's just not for me.

making small spaces a vast paradise

The world's Life Improvement Store, IKEA launched a new ad on One Room Paradise.

Catchy tune and great ideas. I would love a projector if I have a garden so that I can have movie nights in the garden. And if and when we have children, we can have children's party or sleepover with movie under the stars. :D Randomness.

let's fly away on the train

Such a cute and lovely ad from Virgin Trains. Tried to share this when I first saw it on the telly but it wasn't on the WWW. I guess I must have just missed it.

I think the ad is also paired perfectly with the song "Volare" - fly in Italian.

I've taken Virgin trains in the past from Glasgow to London and think it was a really great journey - easy, quick, relaxing and lovely West Coast views. I've not tried the train journey from Edinburgh to London, perhaps the last one was about ten years ago, one of these days maybe.

cesar love them back(TM) campaign

Cesar UK should feel really proud of their new ad. I know I am.

It's such a simple and lovely ad.

Won't be surprise if the ownership of Westies (West Highland Terriers) increases after this ad.

human beings funny creatures

You know the age old saying. How true it is.

Due to volume of work, workload pressures, and more recently changes to circumstances, I've been clocking in long hours. 

Today I had a chance to finish work earlier, well, on time actually and I did nothing much all evening.

Finally got to the IKEA Sale tonight - disappointed, because the things I wanted to buy are not on sale. However, all is not a loss as managed to make some decisions on my furniture to be purchased. Hopefully will put in my order, get them picked for me and delivered.

Case in point on my indecisiveness. Oh decisions decisions.

Wednesday for me is a rubbish night for telly. It's one of those nights that there is hardly anything that strike my fancy. I could've carry out quite a few chores but I didn't. I was just lazy and tired.

In the end I watched a Singaporean DVD I bought during my trip back to Malaysia earlier in the year - Ah Boys to Men.

Personally, I thought my youngest sister must've been joking when she recommended that I watch this movie. I wasn't particularly impressed with the first 10 mins. I'm glad I persisted. In the end I'm now trying to find a way to watch the second part.

So how does the title relates to my rants so far?

Well, true to form at some point tonight  the following crossed my mind, "if only I was working" and "Wednesday is definitely a good night to be working late".

*smacks head*

I'm definitely a workaholic glutton for punishment and hard to satisfy.

Better go to bed as the battle continues tomorrow.

gardening 2013 - wild flowers

It's not a new thing for me but thought I start journaling this hobby of mine.

This year I thought I give it another go on planting the wild flower patch. Last year we cleared an area at the bottom of the garden (not our garden because we both live in flats) where a holly bush once resided. Assuming that the wild flowers would grow magically we didn't put much effort into it, the next thing we know the area was covered in weeds!

Ok, truth be told we couldn't differentiate between seedlings and weeds. Unfortunately all weeds and seedlings were turned over.

Thus two weekends ago an area of that patch was marked and new seeds were sowed. 

Imagine my disappointment last week when nothing grew (!), and I'm suppose to be one of the more patient people around.

Thankfully today, two weeks later, with some much awaited slightly warmer temperature, some tiny shoots sprouted in the wild flower patch - exciting~ 

There were also some wee shoots out of the marked area just around an old tree stump - could've been from last year's seeds.

Hopefully there will be some success on this area. Separately I've sow some seeds in my flat to be planted out in the same area - will share about that in future posts.

Lastly, just wanted to share that I wasn't impressed that the local kitty pooped in my wild flower patch. Think I was a bit loud exclaiming my findings earlier when I was weeding the area and very close to accidentally touching it. Close call indeed.

Bad kitty.