Of Happiness and Valiums

Finding a decent picture of him is like figuring out rocket science.

You know, as shocking as Jacko’s death might be, there’s another thing that impacted a stronger “What The Fux0rz” reaction;

The aftermath.

Right now, headlines of him getting a Muslim burial, claims of his alleged child molestation being fictitious (they claimed the child confessed to lying as per his parent’s request), his death bearing a suspicious cause, and more of his conversion to Islam tales are mushrooming. So now, I’m fasting from any world-related news for a few days. Then I can be like those boarding school kids who can elaborate on the atom’s structure word-by-textbook word but still go “Obama? Is that like, a new breed of llamas?“

Not that they can speak decent English though. It would probably sound something like this; “Obama? Is that likes.. new breeding of the animal that looking like llama?”

Assuming they know what a llama is. (If you’re wondering why the sudden animosity towards boarding school kids… let’s just say there’s one particular person who’s grating my nerves. If she’s not careful, I am so featuring her on this space).

I’ll miss the guy though, even though I don’t exactly live next door to him and have evening tea and scones together or anything.

As a kid, I remember watching his music videos together with my little sister on laser disc all the time. We’d skip ‘Thriller‘ because the music video would scare the crap out of us…

Okay, maybe just me.

I honestly still can’t watch that music video until now and it’s the only Jacko song I haven’t heard ’till the end. ‘Remember The Time‘ and ‘Rock With You‘ will always be an all-time favourite though.

By the way, you might hate me for this but I’m one of those who believe that his previous child molestation case was fabricated. Not blown out of proportions but completely fabricated. Media hype. Greedy, manipulative parents. Puppeteered, innocent kids. I’m ready to be humiliated and proven wrong however, and I think Kak Wani’s the only one who can do that.

A last note from me;

SO true.

Just this morning I was rudely awakened by this annoying thing called sunlight (Curse you sunlight!) at 10am and sensing an urgent need to relieve myself, I hobbled in a half-stupor towards the lavatory. Just 5 steps away from the bathroom door, my other housemate beckoned in a frenzied manner towards her room. She was forcing me to get in, and I felt a slight pang of annoyance intermingled with a slight desire to pee on her. I dragged my footsteps towards her room, my mind still muddled by the remnants of sleep as I bumped into the cupboard that’s in the middle of the second floor hallway (do not ask).

She had a huge grin plastered on that Pee-On-Me! face and I was about to bark at her when she started pointing excitedly at a black box. I didn’t have my glasses on then, so I squinted long and hard, my mind still registering the shock of being shown a black box. (Oh wow… a black box… Shocking, thrilling, exciting, etc etc…). Just then, her boyfriend/scandal waved something white in front of me. It fitted snugly in his hands, and its opaque whiteness drew me in.

And then it clicked.

There in his hands, was the resplendent, opal white N97 and it ired me that he waved it in a nonchalant manner instead of putting it on a pedestal and kneeling before it. I was about to ask the exact price he paid for it, when my friend interrupted eagerly;

“It’s my birthday present!”

Then and there, my jaw dropped to the floor. Internally, I was cursing at the two, muttering to myself “Stupid spoiled rich brats. I hate all of you rich brats.”, before they made another announcement;

“We’re giving you my old phone!”

AWESOME SPOILED RICH BRATS. I LOVE ALL OF YOU RICH BRATS.

What she was more excited about was not the phone itself, and as show-off-syndrome has it, this attracted her even more.

Not sure if the number denotes the serial release, but if she says it does... then it does.

The fact that it was the first N97 phone to be released in London. As proof, they also showed the letter from Nokia that refers to him as the first customer for the N97.

I resisted the urge to persuade her to sell it on eBay as a first edition and snatched the phone from his insolent hands screw them both asked politely to toy with it, and they nicely agreed. I half-expected to be disappointed but I was monumentally disappointed by the fact that I wasn’t disappointed. I was a prospective disappointment that turned out to be not disappointing to my disappointment.

Pros:

Response time was minimal, if non-existent. Physical keypad usage was a breeze (major upgrade) and touch-screen sensitivity was significantly better than the previous N-series. The placement of side buttons (Both physical and touch) was creative and strangely gave me a sense of novelty. Even the stylus design had me blubbering nonsensically. They all originally thought it was a small pendrive added as a free gift. The earphone looks and feels expensive, and I’m loving the wire enclosure and its fibre optics-inspired design (supported by the phone’s 3.5mm audio output jack. Win win win. It’s a bit to the lighter side though).

It boasts a 32GB internal memory, with a memory card extension of up to 16GB and that’s another win-win for me. If it promises extended battery life (yet to be ascertained), then I might have strike the 3rd gen Zune player from my wishlist and go for this phone myself.

Cons:

It opens up to a full-sized QWERTY, except for the usual displacement of the space bar button that’s minimised and placed to the lower right. It takes only half a second to get used to, unless you have three broken fingers in which I broke out of pure jealousy from seeing that you own this phone. This is not one of the cons, but the fact that it opens and closes rather awkwardly (and loudly to boot) turns me off. It reminded me of how flip and slide phones gets easily damaged because of the lack of smooth open/close movement. The fluidity leaves much to be desired. The green and red LED-lights you see on the right side of the phone (refer to above picture) strongly contrasted the rich feel of the porcelain whiteness with its plastic, toy-like feel.

The phone is bulkier than the Nokia 5800 but that obvious statement is to be expected. It might turn a lot of owners from donning skinny jeans (a blessing in disguise) so I’m expecting this one to be a hit-or-miss for phone lovers. The phone also uses a different charger jack which comes with an adaptor for the old one, and I’m wondering if Nokia’s gonna standardise this HTC-like charging outlet.

The camera’s decent enough; boasting a 5-mp resolution, and I’m not too sure if I’m asking for too much but Nokia still pales in comparison with the other phone brands in the market in the camera phone sector, namely LG and Sony.

Lastly, I was disappointed by the lack of better functions. You would expect a phone that generated so much hype would cover a lot more new and mind-blowing functions, but it turned out to be pretty standard. The advertisement that showcased Myspace, Friendster and Facebook, sans Twitter might attract a lot of people, but it seems like a cheap trick to me. Nokia uses Symbian OS and I am of the opinion that although sufficiently satisfactory, it still needs to go through a major overhaul. In this technologically-relevant world, we get bored easily and the entertainers need to step up their game, not pander just to social networking website whores.

One final hat-trick from me. Now the friends I have here are spoiled, check; rich, check; brats… well maybe one or two, which means that they have a lot of goodies for me to play with. So far, I’ve had my fair share of playtime with these phones;

The Nokia E63

The Blackberry “Javelin” 8900

Last and I swear, god-friggin’ least, the iPhone 3G

And my final decision?

If you want to get a phone that annoys you the most, get the iPhone.

If you want a standard phone for standard usage and a standard price, get the E63 or its more expensive kin, the E71.

If you want an eye-candy phone with satisfactory functions and best value for money, get the Blackberry Curve.

If you want to die of starvation;

Get the Nokia N97.