I haven’t posted a music video on this blog until now. Hoppípolla, which means “jumping into puddles” in Icelandic, is a superb song by Sigur Rós.
Amazingly enough, the music video is just as great. You can find the lyrics to the song on this website. Enjoy!
lunato and I decided to trade-in our SONY DSC-P73 for a SHARP Korean-English-Chinese dictionary. We bought the camera on August 16th, 2004 and while it is a great camera, whenever we would ask someone other than ourselves to take pictures from it, the pictures would almost always be blurry. The lens is far too sensitive and any minuscule movement while taking a picture would produce a blurry image. The camera is actually wonderful when outside under bright light but if you’re indoors and there isn’t enough light, well.. that’s asking too much from it.
lunato’s friend, choi (pronounced chaay) was going back to Korea in mid-January and he wanted to purchase a digital camera before he left. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to do an exchange of goods. We took his Korean-English dictionary and he took our SONY DSC-P73. We told him about the blurriness factor and that you have to be perfectly still when taking a picture; a skill that takes quite a while to develop. However, he assured us that he would be taking pictures via his tripod most of the time and he really likes the extensive functionality of the DSC-P73. Perfect! Besides, the dictionary is far cheaper than the camera!!
So, after doing a lot of research, we decided to get a CANON SD700 IS. DPreview has a lengthy review for this camera and currently it is rated #13 amongst all the cameras that they have reviewed. I was debating between the 710 and the 700, but after holding both the 700 and 710 in our hands, lunato convinced me to go with the 700. It just looks so much better. Besides, this camera will last us another 2-3 years and I don’t want to carry the bulky 710 with me whenever we go on vacation. The 700 can easily slide in my pocket. Even though it was released before the 710, it looks like a much newer model than the 700. Hey, it might not have every single function and might not allow as many settings as the 710, but it is perfect for amateur point-and-shoot photographers. Professionals, who spend thousands on photography equipment, would probably choose the 710 over the 700. By the way, the IS stands for Image Stabilization, something that we greatly desired after deleting hundreds of pictures over the past few years because of their blurriness. Also, Flickr has an impressive collection of photographs taken from the SD700 IS.
The Panasonic Lumix is another camera that we considered, but most of the reviews complained about the camera being pretty weak under low-light conditions and apparently it creates a lot of watercolor noise; Image #4. It has image stabilization though and the ad campaign that Panasonic is running on TV these days make it look like the best camera ever! Dodob is taking pretty nice pictures with it so I guess its not a bad camera at all… if you know what you’re doing. Personally, I have no idea about ISOs, histograms, white balance, blah blah blah.. i just point-and-shoot :D
So, choi came over on the 2nd and took our SONY camera. He left behind his dictionary which is something lunato needed since she’s been reading a lot of novels these days. We researched cameras for more than a week and finally bought the Canon on the 12th.
In korea, birthdays, especially kids’ birthday, don’t matter so much. Nowadays it’s really different though, but as far as until my generation, it didn’t matter.. ahem ahem, sounds like I am pretty old, doesn’t it? lies! But here in Canada, birthdays are really a big deal and I am so used to it by now :D
So my twenty first birthday again!.. thank you, thank you!
A day before, friday, sikander came to downtown to pick me up. He dragged me to the corner of the street and opened a car door in front of me just like 3 years ago.. hahaha very surprised and at the same time funny that it was same surprise and I still didn’t have any idea until he opened the rental car door. (yeah yeah we are still a subway couple).
We went to Bestbuy in downtown to get our new digital camera and we found the one we wanted to get. While we were hesitating because there weren’t any new unopened box ones and only opened-and-returned ones were available, a black-and-white couple walked over to us and told us that Futureshop is way cheaper than here for the same camera. See, multi-colour couples are smart and kind :D
So we got a brand new digital camera from Futureshop instead of Bestbuy. By the way, I wonder what others’ opinions are about warranties. For me, I really feel I am being ripped off when I pay for extended warranty. So I kept sending sikander the signal not to buy the warranty but he paid more than $100 for warranty saying “what if”. “but again, what if it goes to total waste?.” “then that’s even better.. nothing wrong with the camera” well.. warranty mystery will be solved in 3 years time.
My birthday was on Saturday and usually I sleep until I can’t sleep on Saturdays. I had hardly opened my eyes when sikander woke me up for breakfast. Gotta wake up to have breakfast with you? Oh well.. compromise.. marriage is all about compromising, isn’t it?
I went to living room and I saw the dining table. OMG… who did this? There was seaweed soup, sweet noodle, and sweet rice cakes, which are very traditional Korean birthday food , placed nicely on the dining table. I sat at the table and saw the seaweed soup up close. WTH, fish cake in the seaweed soup? After I took one sip of the soup – I know I should say “sikander it is the most delicious seaweed soup I have ever had.” I said “sikander it is the weirdest taste seaweed soup I have ever had”
We went to downtown Toronto, driving along Yonge street instead of taking the subway. Yonge street is the longest street in Toronto? Ontario? Canada? In the world? Anyhow, whenever the subway went above ground along Yonge street, I wanted to walk or drive on that part of Yonge street and finally today I did. It was pretty nice with many small, unique shops, restaurant, and cafes, and the atmosphere was pretty active and energetic. Instead of highway all the time, it’s pretty enjoyable.
We were on our way to the CN tower (currently the tallest free-standing structure in the world). Hurry hurry!! The sun was setting and we wanted to see morning Toronto. There was a long line and it took so long time to get to the ticket booth. But still outside was bright enough. We got to the observatory room and could see the whole city of Toronto. Beautiful.
From our apartment we can see CN tower but from CN tower we couldn’t recognize which building was our apartment building. Somewhere over there I guess.
Soon the sun set and I could see night sight as well. Definitely, I love night sight more than the morning. At night everything is enchanted and looks fascinating. Hehe, I am night person without doubt. Maybe it’s because I came to this world late at night. Oh, here is a video of the view you see when taking the elevator back to the ground. Nice, isn’t it ?
Phewh, pretty busy day. Thank you so much sikander, for making my birthday something memorable always and waking up so early to prepare all the food. Thank you to all my friends and family… and I appreciate my mom who gave me birth and raised me with love and sacrifices.