Oct
16
Tuesday, 16th October 2007. At 12:30pm (Perth – Western Australia Time) I became Uncle Saj to my feather weight 6lb 1oz little niece. Her name is Ella Parish and my sister has asked my dad to come up with a Sri Lankan middle name for her. The way they work it out is using the time, date, month and year and the astrologer works out a list of names. This method has been used in Sri Lanka for thousands of years and I don’t know exactly how it works… but all I really care is whether the name sounds good! 
My sister has recovered fine, and as you can tell from the pictures she doesn’t even look like she just went through labor! I was so excited to hear the news and I told her that she better have a girl… Dad was so adamant that it was going to be a boy. I told him if it is… to swap it for another baby in the ward. His first words to me when he gave me the news were, “It’s a girl… so I don’t have to swap the baby… oh and Ben Cousins got arrested again with drugs in his possession…” Good to see that dad has his priorities right!
Anyway, I’m over the moon now that I’m finally an Uncle… and now Tash can stop playing dress up with Candy and Jasmin and can use Ella instead!
To my little niece… I can’t wait to see you and I’m going to spoil you rotten… oh and no boyfriends until you’re 30!
Oct
10
Being the gadget tech freak that I am, you all may know that when it comes to electronics I’m always looking for the latest and greatest. In my home entertainment centre I have a 46″ Samsung HD LCD TV, Motorola High Definition set top box for cable, Pioneer mini surround sound system, DVD player, CD player, Home Theatre PC and an Xbox 360. All well and good… but unfortunately, having all these things leads to one MAJOR problem and leads to one all too common question that is asked in our household… “Have you seen where the remote is?”
For each of these devices we have a remote and it has gotten to a stage where when you want to watch TV you have to hold at least 3 remotes to control the power, sound and to change channels! More often than not when you get nice and comfortable to watch a movie, but you realize the volume is too low and you have to get up and find the right remote to change it… On top of that there are so many different settings for each device it gets confusing which audio input channel you need and which TV channel needs to be set… It frustrated Tash alot!
Enter the Harmony 1000… This is universal remote that was designed by Logitech and has a 3.5″ colour LCD touch screen and is able to simplify your home entertainment setup so that you don’t need to have all those remotes lying around. ONE REMOTE TO CONTROL THEM ALL! (hehe pardon the Lord of the Rings reference…)
The Harmony 1000 is very easy to setup via a web wizard software. Without getting into the technical details, all you need to do is specify the model numbers of all your devices like TV, VCR, DVD player etc and then follow the steps for customized activities. Once its all setup (took me about 30 minutes) it’s a breeze to operate. When you click on the “Watch a DVD” or “Play Xbox 360” touch screen buttons, the remote will turn on the required devices like the Xbox, TV and sound system and it will set them to the correct input channels which you define in the initial setup. It can even dim the lights for you if your home is setup on an automated system! When you’re all done, just hit the power button, the Harmony 1000 will turn off all of your devices.
The best thing about it is that you have the basic functionality with all the main features of your remotes, but u can customize it to any level you want with macros if you want to get advanced controls like adding favourite channels etc.
Since I have all the different activity scenarios setup in the remote all I have to do is kick back and press one button and the Harmony 1000 works its wizardry magic. Since the introduction of the Harmony 1000 into our home, we can throw all the other remotes into storage or the TRASH…! All I have to worry about now is losing this remote…
“Ummmm…. Has anyone seen where the remote is…?”
Oct
02
The company that I work for has been having this traditional “Corporate Retreat” for their staff annually. Every year around September, being the largest Cruising company in North America, we all get to go and experience a different ship. This year we are going on the Holland America Cruiseline for 3 nights – the ship will start and finish in Vancouver, which comes in handy for me (last year it finished in Seattle). I wasn’t really all that excited about it because ultimately, I’ll be forced to work during the weekend (with all the meetings and everything else that comes with it). But I just found out that my stateroom had been upgraded to a deluxe with verandah
Can’t complaint about that… Too bad that spouses aren’t allowed to come. It’d be a romantic getaway if my hubby could tag along with me. Nevertheless, it’d be interesting to hang out with everyone outside of the work environment. The thing is, Holland America is pretty much invested with golden age group. So I don’t think they’d appreciate the noise while we’re around, especially when there’s lots of booze involved…!
Bon Voyage…