I knew that he was in town for concerts on Friday and Saturday evening, because a colleague asked if I want a ticket a week before (I said no, because I don't particularly like Bruce Springsteen and I don't wanna go to my first concert on my own!).

On Friday, when me and Kit were wondering around the city, looking for places to have our after work dinner and drink, we happened to pass by the hotel that he stayed in. There were quite alot of people standing outside the hotel with camera on hands, guards around, and a few cars with opened doors were waiting in front of the hotel, we supposed that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were about to come out and go to the concert stadium!

So, we decided to stand there with the crowds and wait a little, see if we got luck to see the real Springsteen! After a little of waiting, people started to come out, to be honest, I don't regconise any of the band people or Bruce Sprinsteen himself! Well, needless to worry because people will scream or cheer when I know it's time to have my camera ready :D (Oh yes, forgot to say that I happen to have my camera with me that day, haha!)

I just took pictures of the band the best I can without knowing who they are, and now I got back home and did some search, they are Clarence Clemons (who play Saxophone), Nils Lofgren (guitarist) etc.

Then we waited for a little more, and lot more people gathered there. Finally, Springsteen came out! It was nice of him that he didn't jumped onto the car straight away, but stopped a couple of times for us to take photos of him. It was also funny that he got a camera with him too and he took some pictures of us! When he went into the car, we turned and about to leave, but then realised that his car was actually going towards us and Springsteen was sitting on the side that will go past directly in front of us!! So, we waited and took some pictures through the car window, haha...

This was the first time I ever took pictures of stars and waited for stars.... haha!

The Firefox download that I mentioned a few weeks before has officially became a new Guinness world record, for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period. There were 8,002,530 downloads on the day, and I was one of them, see the certificate below, yeh~~ my first time to contribute to a world record breaking event, haha!!

"Credit crunch", do you know what it means? Well, now you can look it up in the dictionary!! The latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary added a definition of crunch as "a severe shortage of money or credit".

Another interesting news was that for a single person to live in the UK, u need to have 13,400 for a minimum standard of living. Here are some figures:

Family type	Weekly budget
Single working age	157.84
Couple working age	240.61
Couple, one child	286.45
Couple, two children	370.05
Couple, three children	465.71

These figures does not include housing or childcare costs!!!! I don't know, this figure is not true for me, it looks scary! You can read more on the BBC website.

This is a torture for me, over the past few nights, I couldn't sleep well, when I go to sleep, my head was full of different models of laptops, keep thinking about the pros and cons unintentionally. Eventually I went asleep, then woke up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning, and my head starts again... laptops, laptops and more laptops.......

Then finally, I made my decision, it was a surprise really because I have never thought about getting it... an Apple MacBook!!!!!!! Wohoo~~

Well, before I got to that choice, I have analysed the pros and cons of the other models as below:

1. ASUS W7SG - it's a very powerful notebook, with C2D 2.4Gb, 3Gb ram, nVidia Geforce 256Mb graphics card, 250Gb HD, 13.1" monitor, 1.9kg weight and white in colour. However, many reviews told me that ASUS notebook tends to produce alot of heat, the aftersales customer service is really bad and it's quite expensive, slightly more than HK$10,000.

2. DELL XPS M1330 - this one looks good, slim design, have a powerful spec, customer service is good, reviews are good as well, but it's expensive, more expensive than the ASUS above, plus the fact that it takes 1-2 weeks to get it made and delivered, and there is a risk that it will be delayed.

3. HP DV27xx and 28xx series - well, I saw them in UK and Sweden that they look very good and trendy and the specs are powerful as well, but it's a shame that they don't have those models in HK, so it's a no no.

4. TOSHIBA U400 10H - didn't really look into this model actually, haha.

5. Lenovo 3000 Y310a - Law told me about this one, some sales shown him this when he went to look around in computer shops. When I first heard of it, I think can give it a go, although it has a lower spec, and it's heavier, but Lenovo made me think of IBM, which means very reliable and good lifetime. However, after some searching on the internet and found that Lenovo = IBM in their ThinkPad series, but not this 3000 series which is owned by Lenovo itself, so it might not be as good as what I expected, and the laptop looks too original, haha.

So, all was no good... and finally I came round and realised that nowadays the MacBook are actually powerful, it met all my requirements (well, with 2Gb ram and no good graphics card, but it's ok :D) and with the student offer I could get it for less than HK$10,000 plus a free iTouch or iPod!!!!! I mean, how good is this?! I wonder why I missed out this brilliant choice before...

Now I'm excited, as I have never used Mac OS before, there are alot for me to learn!!! It's cool, finally I'm gonna own a Mac, it seems like a big step for me in this technology world.... can't wait!!!! :D

It was such a satisfied result!

Congrads to Spain for their winning after 44 years! I didn't know that it was that long ago that they won something big, really happy for them, because they really deserved the win!

Now, back to normal life without football.... what am I gonna do on evenings then?! So empty all of a sudden..... >_<

A week ago I had this brilliant idea about giving Law my fine desktop to replace his not working one and asked him to get a laptop for me in HK. The idea has been approved and now is the question of which laptop I want.

Been looking around for a few days, went to some shops to look at the real thing and also serached on the internet about the prices and reviews. Here are my requirements:

- Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5750 2.0Gb (upwards, most preferably T8300 2.4Gb)
- 3Gb RAM
- separate graphics card (nvidia geforce etc.)
- any size hard drives with 7200 RPM
- DVD writer
- 13" or 14" LED monitor (NOT the glossy old-fashioned one)
- light weight most preferably less than 2kg, but can survive with 2.5kg

I have to admit that my requirements are high because I'm going to use it as a desktop replacement, the monitor size is small because I'll be using my own LCD monitor. Due to this reason, the cost of the laptop that can fulfil the requirements is really high, around HK$10,000!!! I really don't get used to spending that much money on a computer, since the one that I built about a year ago only costed me less than £300.... >_<

Anyhow... I have a few models in mind after looking around for abit:
1. DELL XPS M1330 (see pic, it's red!)
2. HP Pavilion DV2815TX or DV3103TX
3. ASUS W7SG
4. TOSHIBA Satellite U400-10H

Let me spent another few days to digest all the informations and decide. AR~~~~~~~~

Right, time to update a little.

My predictions after the first round of Group stage, look how many I got wrong:

Quater-finals:
Portugal vs Croatia Germany
Germany Croatia vs Czech Republic Turkey
Holland vs Sweden Russia
Spain vs Italy

Semi-finals:
Portugal Germany vs Germany Turkey
Holland Russia vs Spain

Many matches had turned out to be very unexpected, may be that's what makes football so fun to watch! Only three matches left, let's enjoy it while we can. This is my prediction of the final:

Final: Germany vs Spain

He is quite cute!

Suddenly realised that I'm an adult!!

Been reading a lot of magazines recently: Newsweek, Focus, Nature, New Scientists etc., they are all about the things that are happening to us around the world, unsurprisingly, all negative.

The credit crunch, increase in fuel costs (which is still increasing and double of the price is expected in 2018), mystery disease in bees (which reduced the number of bees by 30% each year --> decrease in pollination --> less plants and fruits --> less food for animals --> less food for humans!), war is continuing in Middle East, inflation, unemployment, etc etc.

May be my state of mind is not good at the moment, which makes me difficult to take these in. I know all these are happening, but after reading them in details, I'm very worry about the future, of myself and everyone on Earth.

I suppose this is what an adulthood is, worrying about this and that all the time... So depressing........!!

The new Firefox 3 is avaliable for download today, 17 June at 1800 BST. They are attempting to set a World Record for the most downloads over 24 hours. This is cool, I never participated in any World Record, so it will be fun if they managed!!

So, click through the banner below to participate by downloading this great browser!!

The new album from the amazing band - Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - was released on 12 June. Until Sunday 15 June, it sold 302,000 copies, outselling the top five biggest selling albums of the week, combined!!!

"The figures make Viva La Vida Coldplay's fastest-selling album to date." - BBC

I managed to listen to the last hour of the gig on radio last night, it was brilliant!!! It would be fun to be there, I now couldn't wait until December :D

A question keep popping up into my mind these days, it's a serious question and there are only two... or possible three answers to it. They are all positive, but differ alot that will affect the rest of my career life.

Seriously, I don't think there is any right or wrong, but it's such a difficult decision that I cannot make by myself, or... couldn't dare to make it. May be it's because the decision will cause some discussions or opinions from people around, and I know there will be more negative than positive feedbacks due to various reasons.

Although I myself favour the 2nd answer much more, which is the one that most people will disagree or have opinions on, but at the moment, I think I'll be a little cheeky and go for the third answer/approach, which is a combination of the 1st and 2nd answer...

I don't know, I wish things are clearer than that...... but will keep thinking and praying about it...

P.U.S.H.

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