As I was going to be stuck in a jam yesterday, I loaded up some entertainment on my Diamond so I could watch it while waiting for the jam to move along. But then the horrifying effects of putting the tinting on my Diamond showed up. The glare of the sun made + the one way glass tinting pretty much made the display totally illegible under direct sunlight. Then I realized something, it all has to do with where I put my phone. This is where I put my phone usually.

It's a standard position for a phone holder, right in the lower corner of the windscreen so it doesn't block the drivers view. BUT... the sun shines directly on it, so not only does it receive the glare of the sun, it also receives the HEAT of the sun. I never thought too much about it (heck ALL my holders had been in this position since the first time I used one!) until putting the tinting on my phone made me realize I should put it in another location, away from the sun. Like...

On the TOP of the windscreen! I would have NEVER EVEN CONSIDERED this location with the old PDAir holder cause the suction cup just felt flimsy. But with this new CRYSTAL EDITION holder the sucker just sucks so hard I feel like I can break the windscreen if I just yanked on it hard enough.

Some of you might be asking wouldn't the thing be blocking my view in that position? No actually because it's out of my field of view.

The advantages of this position is that the phone is actually IN the car and outside of direct sunlight, and added plus is that because I brought the phone up closer to my face. I can actually use the speaker phone properly now (The diamond's external speaker isn't particularly loud) which is nice since my bluetooth headset was borrowed by my wife after she destroyed hers a few months ago. So I can hear what the other side is saying properly.

The only other disadvantage is that I need to get a longer car charger cable to provide power to the phone by snaking it up the windscreen so it doesn't get in my way when I'm driving. So I told myself what a great position to put the car holder in.... until I smashed my head into it when I leaned forward to see something!

So quick adjustment left me with.

The upper right corner of the windscreen! All the advantages of the previous position minus the possibility of me headbutting it. Also if it falls for any reason it *should* land on my seat. :P

So mommy decided to try out some Korean BBQ. The restaurant she choose to go to was occupying 2 shop slots on the 2nd floor. When we got into the shop red flags starting going off in my head cause it was dinner time and the shop was completely empty and the air conditioning was off. Shops only turn air cond off when they know they don't have customers to deal with.

Then they lead us to the other part of the shop, which had people and air conditioning, but... there was one caveat. The area was one of those that didn't have any chairs, just cushions where you sat on the floor. The first thing that came across my mind was "how the heck are we supposed to secure WZ?" and we couldn't! the moment WZ figured out the plank raised floor made an interesting noise when he stepped on it he just started running all over the place.

And one of the customers started giving him the evil eye, and had the what the fark are the parents doing about this naugthy kid look. Mommy saw that and told me to restrain WZ. As I grabbed WZ and forced him onto a cushion, WZ did what all 2 years old would do when captured, he starting to shriek.

I let go of WZ when I noticed he was priming his shriek, then I asked mommy would you rather he run around and annoy people with the pitter patter of his feet, or would you rather he annoy people by screaming his lungs out? Mommy expectedly choose the feet option and I let WZ run off again.

Then I saw the other danger, the shop doesn't use gas stoves for the in table BBQ plate, they use COAL. So every now and then they'd bring over a bucket containing burning coal and load up a plate. I grabbed WZ and try to get him to stay calm before he burns himself.

For the remainder of the meal, it was a battle between trying to eat, and trying to keep WZ from running around. And I can't even remember what I ate!

No more eating where there aren't any baby chairs when WZ is around!

Every child has the thought running through their heads sometime.

What is it like outside the gates? I want to touch that tree, I want to walk across the street.

And then one day they walk up to those that care for them the most.

I'm sorry but... I must RUN!

And this is when all that you thought him allows him to make a quick escape as he effortlessly slides open the latch!

And out he goes, into the great unknown!

And no matter how much you cry, they still leave.

They might feel some parting pains but it all fades as the next question comes up in their head.

So where do I want to go today?

I need to find a new in car holder for my Diamond, cause like I mentioned when I first got my current holder about 2 years ago. The holder only attaches to the case via friction, and thus after countless repetitions of inserting and removing, it can't hold the device properly anymore. So I found this in an Ace Hardware store.

It's pretty much what you'd call a standard in car holder, spring loaded clamps that hold on to the device by using some sponges, a FIXED arm that looks like a 5, and a suction cup to stick onto your car wind shield. It can do one nifty trick though.

The holder itself can be rotated at the neck, so if for some reason you wanted to view your device in landscape orientation, you can do so. Also the suction cup on this thing is STRONG, I am not worried that it will fall off my windscreen. But then again I haven't droved under the sun for an extended period with this so we'll see.

What's this thing called?

It's the Car Universal Holder, CRYSTAL EDITION! You know it's the crystal edition because... see those 3 dots on the clamps? Yup.. .diamonds.. or rather a piece of plastic that was meant to look like a diamond, or maybe they wanted a crystal look instead? The holder can also be attached to an air cond vent holder but that doesn't didn't work out too well for me.

How much for this little thing? RM15.... I still remember how much car holders used to cost when not every phone had build in GPS, almost 10 times this price. How times have changed.

Another interesting thing I found while I was shifting through the errr... flea market section was this.

It's a one piece USB A to Mini-B connector, I immediately picked up 2 of these from the pile they had for RM3 each. I always wanted to get one of these over at Brando's but I'm glad I found them locally and cheaper too. It is immediately apparent to some people that because the thing is fixed you'd have some funny orientation problems. For example, here's what it looks like when I connect my Touch Diamond using the connector.

So my wife asked me why the heck did I buy another thing to add to my already fat keychain, when a cable works much better. I threw out the standard, this is a last resort emergency situation gear excuse. It's for those times when you need to plug something into USB and there's nary a cable in sight.

I don't think she bought the excuse.

So, about 11AM this morning I got to the AliCafe near my office.

It's not a place I normally go to, don't particularly like the food there. But there was something special happening today. Seems like someone famous was going to be here.

It was Raymond Lam, popular TVB actor. Normally I wouldn't care about this but seeing that his was coming some place convenient for me I decided to tag along with Kevin who told me about the event. To do a trial run of sort to see how to handle the situation if it was someone I actually cared about.

1st thing we were reminded after standing around for 5 mins was that, just because we were carrying SLRs, people automatically thought we were with the press. And one of these days I'm going to be prepared to answer YES so that I'm given a better shooting spot.

Speaking of shooting spots I took note that there wasn't any place to hide a famous actor in the shop, so I asked Kevin to look for a back entrance which is likely where the guy was going to come in from. Once Kevin confirmed that there was indeed a back entrance, I told him to stay put inside the shop while I went to check out the back.

At which point I noticed a parked car with a lot of people hustling around it.

I confirmed that this was indeed the ops center when a lady approached me and told me to go wait inside the shop to take photos. I acknowledged her but reminded her that this was a public street and she can't just shoo me away, but I told her I wouldn't play paparazzi and start taking shots through the window... besides I didn't have a circular polarizer which meant I couldn't shoot through glass anyway.

It was then I realized that the driver took up position beside me after having a chat with the lady, I put a car between him and myself. I wonder if he realized that I was taking video with my Creative Vado and decided against anything or maybe he just wanted to step into the shade (then again... he was in an air conditioned car)

Then 2 fans who also figured out that Raymond would come from the back door asked me "Where is he?" "Where must he walk from?" I helpfully pointed them to the car.

As expected they were stopped by the crew but it gave them something else to worry about than me. A few minutes later Raymond rushed the stairs and hurried down the corridor.

Darn he dipped his head just as I was taking the shot! As the handler behind walked past me and girl in pink's camera she showed her hand trying to block our cameras. As cool as I fell that I was actually shown the hand for taking pictures, I question her logic since she was walking BEHIND the guy she's attempting to shield from the lens so what good is she doing? Other than giving me something to blog about? :D

I stepped back into the shop to see out stretched arms taking shots.

The lone SLR you see in the shot above is Kevin, who had parked himself close to the tip of the crowd and armed with a tiltable LCD screen of his A300 he could take much better shots of the situation than me at the back. A mirror lining the wall of the shop shows how the crowd looks like with their cameras from one angle.

Armed with my 18250 and the ability to frame shots via the LCD viewfinder it was much easier for him to take closeups like this.

And this.

And this... damn this is turning out to be like some fan blog.

From my position the best I could do was take pictures of people taking pictures.

It's interesting to note that the crowd that gathered to get Raymond's autograph

Took up a whole lot of space in the shop, as well as blocked the main access for food to come out from the kitchen. I wonder if their business actually increased or decreased this morning due to the event?

My main aim of keeping myself at the end of the line was because that's the only exit point to return back to the car, so once Raymond finishes and he rushes off I can just snap pictures when he's heading towards me. At least that was my intention, but then after the autograph session was done he sat down to have some food. At which point we just left since we already got what we came for.

Not to mention learnt a valuable lesson that even now, people still assume that having an SLR means you are with the press.