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OK, so I went to NUS to meet with my FB Assignment group and parking my car outside COM1 costs me a whopping $6! This is serious daylight robbery. So where should I park? I’m not exactly familiar with NUS and am probably more suaku than the year 1s.

I think my team has a good mix. We have a business guy, an electrical engineer, two partially geeky students (I didn’t make this up – they told me) and one kaypoh (busybody – that’s me). So “good” a mix maybe I’m getting a bit stressed out that we might be technically lacking. But don’t worry. I have faith in you guys.

As a consolation, let me say something. Ugly (probably) sells. Yes, the crappiest, ugliest of all things usually sells well. Don’t ask me why. Here’s my observations.

• Google is ugly, but we use it over Yahoo or Bing.
• Gmail is ugly as hell, but we rather use it over Hotmail. (Sidenote: I’ll give some credit to Yahoo mail here.)
• Ebay ain’t the prettiest of all sites around, but heck it sells like mad.
• Facebook is kinda ugly and doesn’t allow me to customize a hideous pink background like Friendster, but it is the most hit site on the Internet today (don’t ask me why I know, I’m not supposed to tell, but I am certain of this fact).
• Most blogshops are ugly as hell. If you think they look nice, you need to see doctor. But the funny part? They sell too!

So here’s my takeaway point. Ugly (probably) sells.

Believe it or not, we spent $1,090.55 at Ikea last Saturday. This is our second trip to Ikea, so it’s almost $2,000 worth of Ikea stuff if we added up the first trip!

I’ve decided to bring my Olympus DSLR along, so enjoy the photos that follow.

Every Ikea trip starts with food…

Meatball Spaghetti

That’s Yanpo’s dish.

Stuffed Salmon

Dear’s dish.

Swedish Meatballs

I’m having the most popular dish at Ikea.

Herring Plate

Fish, to share. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who likes it.

Fried Chicken Wings

Who can resist these crispy, oily, golden brown wings.

Feasting in Ikea

Look at these guys. They’re certainly enjoying the good food.

Last Three Balls

The last of the balls before Yanpo had them all.

HZ after a satisfying meal

Dear's new hair!

Yes! Dear got a new haircut on Friday. Looks so cute!

After a very satisfying meal, we went on to shop till we almost dropped. Here’s what we got this round…

• Another small table as an extension to the current one for the study room.
• Another table lamp to go with the new table above.
• A 1 x 4 book shelve to go into the window recess in the study room.
• Another 4 x 4 book shelve for the study room.
• A floor protector for the study room. Expensive but hopefully useful.
• A wine rack! YES! More reasons to stockpile Shiraz at home.
• An armchair. It should stay in the master bedroom for now.
• A small TV console for the master bedroom.
• A sturdy step-stool to reach higher places. This is VERY useful for $29.
• A mirror for the common bathroom. Expensive.
• A water jug for cold water.
• A temporary coffee table, which will become my tool table next time. Pretty cool table for $17.
• Dustbins for the rooms, kitchen and toilets.
• Some toilet accessories.

Three Trolleys of Goodies

That’s a lot of stuff! The shelves and armchair are the most expensive stuff of them all. The others are less than $50 items.

Finally, I’m getting a Wii to keep us entertained on weekends!

I decided to take the Opteka 500mm mirror lens along with me today and took some shots. Note all the photos have been digitally enhanced, cropped and resized for web viewing.

As suggested in my previous post, this lens works best when taken with high shutter speeds. Try not to get +0.0 exposure on your camera or you’ll get overexposed photos. The photos will look pale, but some post-processing with Photoshop should fix them.

Verdict? The Opteka 500mm mirror lens is a good toy for some fun. The photos are decent enough for some web photos, but one should not consider it for professional use.

Enjoy the pics! Photos taken with an Olympus E-420 and Opteka 500mm mirror @ f/8.0. No tripods used.

I bought a cheap Opteka 500mm mirror lens off eBay and the UPS package finally arrived on Wednesday after two days of failed delivery attempts. Hooray!

500mm in a box.

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