Well in the end it did not materialise, because apparently she found another house somewhere and she kept the furniture, therefore beside buying a new altar and a small cabinet nothing else was new.
The new altar. The wood is solid.
Fast forward to end of last year.
The TV cabinet in the living room was showing its age, so my mother decided to change a new one. After shopping around Ikea and having decided on one, we realised that the new TV cabinet is designed for flat-screen TVs, not suitable for the 29-inch CRT we have been using over the years.
Solution? Get a new flat screen TV. :D
Choosing a flat screen TV was not easy. With so many technologies packed into them there was a need to read up on Full HD, HD ready, 1080p, LCD, plasma, blah blah etc.
One of the first things I did: test the HDMI with my laptop! And no, that wasn't the TV cabinet; the cabinet came later.
One thing that struck me: Why does the bottom consists of two planks of wood instead of one big plank of wood which would have provided better support? Hmm.
It was fun assembling it! Except for a few screws that required quite abit of strength, the overall assembly was easy and straightforward.
Can you guess what we were going to do?
Now everyone see why I say the cabinet is designed for flat screen TVs?
I find that I can hardly differentiate between 4:3 content stretched to 16:9 resolutions, and native 16:9 content.
Seems like nothing's wrong hor? I didn't see any problems with it initially as well, until I wondered why the HD indicator light on the MIO TV box was not on despite me using a HDTV.
Turns out there are some rather hidden settings to change.
Now things really look correct!
I read up pretty interesting information on Mediacorp's HD5 channel as well, like the fact that one cannot receive HD5 through Starhub's TV points or the antennas at the top of HDB flats, because they are only receiving Standard Definition broadcasts. The only ways to receive HD5 is through Starhub's cable or Singtel's IPTV services, or by purchasing antennas capable of receiving High Definition broadcasts. Decoders are also needed to decode the HD signals, unless one is using high-end televisions that have built in decoders.
On the other hand, with HD5's transmitting station at Bukit Batok, the chance of receiving HD5 signals through the air for residents living in the east are not very high apparently.
Besides the television and the cabinet, a [what do I call it? Cabinet? Trolley?] was also bought for storage purposes in the kitchen. Previously we were using bookshelves [Yes, bookshelves in the kitchen.] which were rather unstable.
A cheap second TV cabinet for the now fifth television. Its very sad to see that four people in a house needs five televisions. People will laugh thinking its a big funny joke.
Last but not least, two mushroom chairs!
This is a DECT phone, which was a free gift when we subscribed to broadband back then. Basically they are just digital wireless phones that operate at certain frequencies, with the ability to have multiple handsets to one base station with one phone line socket, much like wireless LAN for phones. Mine came with two handsets, for example. It replaced the old phone which was giving off static noises on its own that scared the hell out of my mother and me, because in the dead of the night the static sounded like a man grumbling away.
Together with these new stuff we threw out old stuff and shifted furniture around the house to make it more spacious [as can see, we deliberately chose small furniture]. Currently the only things left to settle are a really old refrigerator which will be thrown, and the ugliest object in the house: my desktop computer. I can't decide between hiding it in the bedroom or leaving it in the living room.
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When a group of people comes together for an activity, do the participants thank the organisers for organising the activity, or do the organisers thank the participants for participating in the activity?
