Thought the image above does show a very funny side of things especially when it relates to the Apple Store employees. This is actually referring to the context of this piece by the NY Times in regards to how Apple employees at their stores are faring against their peer groups in other retailers. I do encourage you all to read that piece as it was very well written and investigated and does bring an interesting insight to the life of an Apple employee who works at the retail stores.

 

Just last week I decided to catch a movie downstairs at my place. It has always been ultra convenient having GSC cinemas located below where I live and I really do will miss that convenience the moment I move away.

Anyhow, I was stuck at work and busy working so when I made the decision to get tickets via my iPhone GSC app, I chose Prometheus.

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

After reading a summary of the movie as shown above, I thought it couldn't have been such a bad show since it was directed by Ridley Scott, the same guy who directed Gladiator and Alien.

The story starts at the point where humans have already gotten used to space travel and now they are travelling far into space. But just think Star Trek with Jean Luc Picard exploring the universe but without warp speed. So yeah, they travel extremely slowly and with the usual "logic", we have to put humans into a stasis sleep in order for them to survive the ultra long journey.



Why are humans travelling into space this time around? Apparently to find out the true origins of humanity. Well apparently we were created by Gods hence through some historical find, we were created by aliens. Hence the whole super ultra long space travel to the distant stars to find our creators.



The movie was indeed action packed and the details and the graphics of the show was top-notch. Definitely an interesting storyline, of course there are certain weird questions that arises as the story progresses. Believe you me, you might end up having more questions after the movie.

At the end of the day, it wasn't too scary of a movie especially since somehow somewhere I saw the tag "horror" on the show hence my initial guess. But aside from the dark view of things, it ain't too scary and it does entertain you. Well, it did for me.

Also, I loved the ending! Made some sense to me.

Overall, I give this show a good 8/10 rating!

 

It's funny that I wrote this post title since April the 8th and yet here it is still in my draft inbox of my blog. Anyhow, this is going to be a short and simple review of the E90 320d. The version I drove is the M-Sport kit with the full i-Drive system which is all in all a very good package. Especially now that the F30 has just been launched, you still might be able to get good bargains and fantastic discounts.

Coming from a guy who has driven a front wheel drive car all his life (well I had experience with a 4WD car when I was driving my Perodua Kembara previously), moving over to a rear wheel drive car was a new beginning for me. Personally, I can't really tell much of a difference, I did bring my car up Genting for a couple of runs but the main difference I can feel immediately was the steering. I tend to oversteer now a lot more compared to my Golf previously which tend to understeer at corners.

Handling wise I haven't had the chance to fully utilize BMW's so called perfect balance of a 50:50 weight distribution but being a fat 100kg guy, I think I totally screwed that up the moment I sat in the car. Right now the car is completely stock and even with the M-sport suspension, the car is comfortable indeed. That is mostly also due to the 17" rims it comes with and with rims that size, the tyres are on the tad comfortable side of things.

Now before anyone asks, for the 320d, the d stands for Diesel and yes, the diesel engine does make a bit of a noise hence I call the car a lorry or a taxi at times (well the older taxies which ran on diesel now that all the newer ones run on natural gas). But the moment you step inside the car and close the door, you can barely hear anything. Ride comfort is good and you just have to get used to the engine noise when you accelerate. Its not the usual engine sound you hear but rather, the sound of a diesel powerplant pushing you all the way

I used the term pushing is because this damn car gives you 380Nm of torque on paper. I brought it over to Sunway to have it dyno tested and the results was rather surprising! It resulted in 171whp and 370Nm of torque. All of that on the wheel! I definitely would encourage those of you who have the 320d to get the powerkit which then pushes the car to over 200hp and 420Nm of mouth watering torque. But thats just me, a performance junkie, well in some way. I just love the thrill of the acceleration but I usually chicken out at high speeds.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="616"] Source: PaulTan.org[/caption]

Interior wise everything is as standard as what BMW can give you, comfortable leather seats, electric seats, a nice M-sport steering wrapped in leather, i-Drive with Navigation and DVD playback. All in all a good package. I really did like the bluetooth integration with my phone as well as the DVD player made me go out to buy a bunch of DVD-R to burn some TV series and Top Gear on them.

In terms of running or servicing costs, because BMW's come with their BS+RI (BMW Service + Repair Inclusive)  which basically means that your service is free for the first 3 years or 100,000km, that means you don't have to pay for anything when you bring your car in for service. And I mean everything including engine oil, brake pads, etc.



Compared to the F30, it uses the same exact engine but the F30 has a new gearbox. The downside is that at this point in time the F30 320d has quite bad specs, no navigation and the screen is only 6.5". The F30 is indeed a little roomier especially for the rear passengers but for the front seats, the seats are not the sportier type and its aimed more towards comfort hence the feel of a larger cabin space.

In conclusion, the car is indeed crazy, crazy that you have so much torque and crazy that at a full tank of diesel (RM1.80 versus RM1.90 for Ron95 petrol), I can travel more than 700km. Heck, at a full 100% city driving, I manage to achieve 700km even through the notorious KLCC traffic jams on Tun Razak. So if you are keen on getting a BMW on the cheap, head over to your nearest dealer to find out some of the fantastic deals they have.

Real-time Fuel Stats

You can check out the current fuel consumption of the 320d in the link below.


 

In 2008, I purchased a MacBook Pro laptop to help me with my photography editing to replace to old PC which I had since I was in university which was dated back to 2004. The Macbook Pro has served me well and it still does till today. So well that I am writing this blog post using this Mac.

Why am I writing this on my Mac when I have a nice spanking PC that I bought last year to replace my old one to play games such as Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 but up until 2 hours ago, it just died on me. It refuses to start up and boot up so I am really hoping that the hard disk is ok. Its so frustrating dealing with PC's, constantly have to figure out whats wrong with it, frequently crashes (mind you I am running on Windows 7 and I don't overclock the PC at all).

Anyhow I am just venting my frustrations online now because I can't play my usual dosage of Starcraft 2 and perhaps put in a couple of Warden/Butcher runs in Diablo 3 (I kinda suck at Diablo 3 and I am now stuck in Act 1 in Inferno). Hopefully when I bring my PC into C-Zone tomorrow at Digital Mall, I should be able to get it fixed fast enough so I can also head over to Sunway for a talk by ATP Motorsports.

While I am here sitting at home being frustrated, I just wonder, since the games I play are also available on the Mac, it would have been the wiser choice to just use a fully Mac environment at home. Host my Plex server on a Mac (which is a lot more stable than my PC) and combine all my gaming and photo editing on a single platform. I was thinking an iMac but personally, I feel that the iMac can't deliver the power I might want especially on a  nice and large 27" sized monitor. But hey, an iMac is pretty pricey and since I just bought my PC not too long ago, so I will have to make do with what I have left.

Ah, it reminds me of the days when I was overclocking my PC and letting the cool 5 degrees celcius air of Sheffield cool my PC down. Now it is just a real bother to take my PC out and try to figure out and trouble shoot the errors.

Maybe I am just getting too old for this shit and all I want is convenience.