Here’s a snap of the ’state of the collection’ as of today…

Apologies for the poor lighting of this shot; sadly it is rather overcast today.

Left to right: Cap of my Dad’s 149 from 1978 to early 80’s, Cap of the UNICEF Helmut Jahn 149 LE, 149 with OBB nib, newst 149 with B nib and engraving on clip (will post better photos once the weather improves), George Bernard Shaw LE, my new F. Scott Fitzgerald LE with BB nib, Boheme Marron in B nib, Solitaire LeGrand in B nib, Montegrappa Extra 1930 Turtle Brown in M nib, Waterman Edson in M nib.

In Singapore I also bought a second 149 pen stand to compliment the one I have and the matching inkwell,

In the background is a barrage of my favourite Montblanc inks. Left to Right: Black, Bordeaux, Violet and Racing Green. I spent some more time arranging my workspace to my liking. Decide to bring out the ‘gang’ from the display cabinet,

Notice Ryu from the Limited Edition XBox 360 pack perched top right with Crimson Viper attacking. Ryu is in the pose for his Metsu Hadōken which is always fun to pull off…

The last day was rather hectic, with much last minute tasks needing addressing. One of them was a visit to The Rolex Centre, located at Tong Building (302 Orchard Road), right opposite Ngee Ann City, between Lucky Plaza and Paragon.

They gave my DateJust a perfect bill of health, after making some minor adjustment to its microstella screws. This service centre was extremely beautiful on the inside, with a superb line-up of all the Rolexes on display to make the time pass by. You are more or less in a cage; looking into another room where all the technicians are working on the watches ~ I could just about see everything that was being done to my DateJust.

It seems that someone there took the liberty of polishing mine a bit, and did an incredible job in less than 5-10 mins. Rest of the day was not as eventful, with the usual pains of having to fly. The queue’s at the GST refund counter were looong, and our gate (D49) was a bit of a walk a way as well.

The flight to Colombo was rather comfortable, although I was a bit more restless than usual. Copious amount of Champagne did not seem to help much, with regards to getting any sleep.

Here’s a snap of my “Guardian Angels” watching over my data. The two drives on the left are the new My Book Studio II 2TB units, each configured as RAID1 to give 1TB of accessible space. They are too be electrically isolated for the running hardware on a weekly basis, and only be synced up once a week.

Late in the afternoon, we made it across to the Rolex Centre located in the Tong Building, between Lucky Plaza and Paragon which is right opposite Ngee Ann City and Takashimaya. I had one of the Rolex tech’s take a look at my Everose DateJust and they gave it a good bill of health, and sent us on our way

Next stop was the Montblanc Boutique inside Ngee Ann City, where my new B nibbed 149 was waiting for me, after having the nib engraved with my initials,

It was getting late and our tummies started to rumble; we decided to head back to Lei Garden in Chijmes,

We ordered the same dish of 800 grammes Australian Lobster cooked the same style in garlic, but this time it was accompanied by 500 grammes of fried spotted Garoupa. Now its time to retire for the night…

When I was at the Montblanc Boutique I was asked to write something with regards to literacy and the efforts of Montblanc & UNICEF. For some reason though, I felt it would not be right if I did not mention something about Maxwell’s monumental achievement, especially with regards to his correction of Ampere’s law to account for a varying electric field (E) being able to induce a magnetic field (B), well apart from the flow of a current.

However, this alone isn’t as phenomenal until one considers Faraday’s law as well, in terms of space where no charges are present, and as such where no current flows. This gives rise to the determination for the speed at which electromagnetic radiation travels through space, and this is essentially a determination of the speed of light when comparing the curl of Maxwell’s two equations with the classical wave equation.

Further study into the subject of magnetostatics and electrostatics goes onto prove the geometry of electromagnetic radiation, how the magnetic flux density (B) travels as a transverse wave in the same direction as the electric field (E), which is 90 degrees perpendicular to the B-wave, but they are both perfectly in phase!

If it wasn’t for Maxwell’s genius, we would not be where we are today. Radio communication at its very basis is a result of this understanding and is the cornerstone of 20th and 21st century communications having lead to wonders such as Space travel, GPS, GSM and the list continues to go on…

I am completely in awe of his genius and plan to spend some more time delving deeper into the subject, well past the introductory electromagnetism module I studied at University. The wonderful resource I am following at home is a book by David J. Griffith’s Introduction to Electrodynamics 3rd. edition.

This morning we headed over to Suntec City Mall’s Carrefour Tower 4 as my favourite hobby shop is located on the 3rd floor there - Hobby Point. Picked up my order of Gundam, and a dozen spray cans and other supplies…

Some detail on what’s inside the special ‘extras’,

We then went back to Ngee Ann City for a light supper and to visit the Montblanc Boutique, again :p When we returned to our hotel room I saw this view from the window and could not resist!

I bought a second 149 pen stand for my desk and a fourth 149 for my collection, with a B nib. I will only be collecting the 149 tomorrow as they will be engraving my initials in the morning on the clip.

Rather than going out to dinner tonight, we are taking it easy and ordering in for the night. More fun planned for tomorrow!

My ‘other’ laptop is a 15″ MacBook Pro from Dec 2006. Whilst on vacation in Singapore this week, I decided to purchase the 13.3″ MBP with the 2-year ACPP upgrade (as the store was offering a 20% discount on it).

In the past I have bought, sold & replaced: 1x 15″ Ti PB G4, 2x 15″ Alu PB G4, 2x 12″ PB G4 and 1x 17″ PB G4 ~ I only have the 17″ PB G4 from this lot. Simply put, I can relate to the changes in the Apple line of laptops and this has to be by far one of the sweetest upgrades I have made.

The big changes compared to the more recent units that I really like, only after about two days use: the glass track pad with all the gestures is a great improvement. I also just bought a LUMIX LX3, upgrading from a two-year old Sony CyberShot; as such I am really liking the SD slot in the side as this means I do not have to mess about with the USB cord when moving photos across. I give this 5-stars!

Many will hear people talk about the Unibody enclosure, and having much knowledge in CNC and CADCAM (I’m an Electronic and Mechatronic Engineer myself) the benefits of this are quite clear - not only from a functionality perspective but also in terms of cutting costs and easing the process of manufacturing by Apple.

The new battery tech. was definitely a deciding factor as well. It is rather amusing to note that Apple once touted the MacBook Air’s battery performance. Right now, one can consider it to be a MacBook-lite, especially since it is also missing a Superdrive, and the only thing going for it is that it is about 700 grammes lighter than the 13.3″ MBP. Since the sealed battery is on the inside, the battery indicator on the side has been executed beautifully in true Apple style and is great. Gone are the days of flipping the unit over to take a look…

Following from its enclosure, I really love how the lid snaps close with no magnetic-clips, and as a result they have done away with the button altogether. And the best surprise I received when reading this review was that the display is no longer LCD based. Having one of the recent iMacs myself, I am no stranger to the ‘glossy’ screens and am comfortable with the change.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with this upgrade.

This was personally a ‘best’ for me as it really did test my patience. I officially purchased this sometime mid-May, with all thanks to Amy’s assistance. I met Amy during my trip to London in April at the Montblanc boutique at Harrods and she has been instrumental since!

First, it was sent to Hamburg for the nib to be changed to a BB (double-broad) nib ~ the round trip was about 3-weeks. It took about further week to get in touch with Montblanc Singapore and have Amy work with Harrod’s logistics department. Finally, they were able to ship the pen for my collection in Singapore ^^

I can see Amy remembered that I liked for only one side of the seals to be broken open. Thankfully, the Singapore Customs agreed

The Fitzgerald, in all its beauty…

Close up of the engraving…

Looking at the beautiful BB nib. Notice the ‘art-décor’ engraving; a tribute to the Great Gatsby…

I think this would be a great time to address the question, “Why the Fitzgerald?” Well for starters, it was one of the few Montblanc WE pens to literally jump off the page whenever I browse through my copy of their ‘Collectibles’ catalogue. The Sterling-silver rings contrast stunningly against the black resin and the white ‘MOP’ resin barrel is quite possibly very unique to this pen in the entire Montblanc collection ~ as white as the Montblanc star!

The pen is definitely ’small’ in proportions compared to rest of the WE collection, and even the POAs; however, I have always had a penchant for anything tiny - anything in small proportions tend to naturally be cute, and a good example of this is the Amadeus FP range by Montblanc.

Of course, the most important aspect of any fountain pen for me personally is the nib. Whatever the price, craftsmanship or design - a fountain pen is only as great as its nib. I am truly lucky as the person who ground this nib, as ground it as a very VERY stubbish BB nib and this means that I get to enjoy a lot of line variance - something I utterly love. I will update this thread later on next week with some examples.

This is a Limited Edition of 18,500 fountain pens, produced in 2002 and I am completely thrilled to have this in my humble fountain pen collection.

This morning in Singapore was a particularly gloomy one, with some light rain. We were able to make it back to Funan for a light brunch, whilst I went back to Challenger to pick up a second My Book Studio II (2TB) unit and for some browsing inside the Times bookshop.

The next destination was the Crumpler store @ Wheelock Place; I needed a pouch to accommodate my LUMIX LX3 and the ‘Bundle (S)’ worked perfectly at a mere S$ 33.-,

It was time for dinner; so I decided to make a booking at Chijmes.

The iA mode on the LUMIX LX3 liked to abuse the ISO settings; this was taken on Aperture priority although I could not get it down to f/2.0 …I need to read the manual!

What can I say; I love Peking Duck ~ it’s one of my favourite dishes since I was very young, so we had a full duck to start with. Due to a confusion with the order we actually got two portions of half-ducks, 10 pcs per half duck..

This was followed by 800 grammes of Australian Lobster, cooked ‘Originale’ with garlic. The sauce was simply to die for and very VERY well with a simple dish of egg fried rice.

Interesting décor…

On to the most important part of any meal, the dessert! Yes, more Durian pudding. This time, it was of a very different consistency…just perfect! You can see some actual Durian bits in the second photo.

Here are some of the tanks in which they keep their ’specials’…

This was an interesting snap through the tree tops…

On the way out…

And home sweet home…

Tomorrow I am off to collect all my Gundam bits; be sure to see an update right here

Only 15 days since Apple announced their new line-up of MacBook Pro units featuring 7-hrs run time and quite a few enhancements. Here is a snap of my efforts today in Singapore, taken with my new Panasonic LUMIX LX3,

Here’s the unboxing of my 13.3″ MacBook Pro featuring the new Unibody Al design, SD card slot, FW800, SuperDrive and 1000 cycles rechargeable 7-hour internal battery,

The Apple Airport Extreme basestation was unboxed to test it, and for the moment provide a personal wifi network inside the hotel room. This allows my Mom to use the net via my older MacBook Pro from across the room as well ^^

All the above bits were purchased at Funan, Singapore’s premier IT mall. I plan to return to Challenger to pick up a second WD My Book Studio II 2TB unit for my data hoarding needs.

After a rest back in the hotel, we proceeded to Raffle City Arcade where I had the chance to try on a Rose Gold 36 mm Rolex Day-Date President ~ oh boy oh boy, was it stunning! It had the jubilee-diamond dial, and fluted bezel. The Day-Date II was far too obnoxious on my wrist. At S$ 40k, it is a purchase planned during a future vacation here.

We proceeded to meet with my personal tailor in Raffles City Arcade, where I had a couple more short-sleeve shirts tailored and a lovely long-sleeve shirt tailored in 100% Swiss Cotten; will get to collect them on Friday.

Our destination from this point was Ngee Ann City for my meeting with the Montblanc Boutique Manageress regarding my Limited Writer’s Edition: the F. Scott Fitzgerald that was shipped by Harrods to Singapore for my personal collection. The BB nib is quite stunning, and I do love the proportions of this FP, not to mention the detail of its sterling-silver hardware. I will be shooting the Fitzgerald in better light in the morning; expect photos of it tomorrow.

It was nearing 6pm and we felt rather peckish ~ one call to Lei Garden and we had a reservation. I reserved one whole Peking Duck, BBQ Pork Belly which is served as an appetizer of 9-cubes where it has a lovely crispy top and is accompanied by a mustard sauce, and two portions of Durian pudding!

The duck was of course carved by our table, with such finesse and skill that I had trouble taking the following photos with my older Sony CyberShot (the LX3’s battery was charging in the hotel room).

Here’s the sauce to go with the Peking Duck; the magic is all in the crispy carved skin, the sauce and very very fine crepes that need to be just perfect…

The Pork Belly, or what was left of it…

This is the last photograph I took of this prawn dish. It tasted very thai in the sense it was cooked in a creamy coconut sauce. It went with a portion of crispy Singapore Fried Noodles, also served with prawns and sea-food.

The meal concluded with portions of Durian pudding, where the recipe has now been changed as it is completely in the form of a purée, missing the chunks of Durian as they used to serve it before.

Tomorrow I will be shooting with the LX3 and hope to return to Lei Garden again during the course of our stay and will remember to take a few more snaps

I just got off the phone with my favourite hobby shop and reserved this PG Astray Red Frame for collection later on in the week. It is the special kit as well, originally designed for ‘pre-orders’ back in March 2009. Rather surprising they still have it in stock, and several kits at that.

Over the years, I have found myself obsessing with Samurai’s and anything Samurai and Katana related. I even bought my own Paul Chen Shinto Katana many years back in England and a nice stand for it as well. Samurai Deeper Kyo and the likes of Rurouni Kenshin, Peacemaker Kurogane, BLEACH, Samurai Champloo and Kill Bill are some I have really enjoyed in this regard.

Here are some launch photos by Bandai showcasing the highlights of this model:

Notice the clear detailing of the ‘mune’ on the blade…stunning!

Katana detail:

The special PG Astray kit is unique as a second katana is supplied, along with a katana stand (for both), second shield, second rifle and a full duplicate set of translucent armour to showcase the inner ‘Red Frame’ of the Gundam.

The attention to detail on the gold highlights of the swords are stunning as well.

It is a shame the second sword was not a wakizashi, worn together with the katana as a daishō. The wakizashi made for an extremely effective close-combat weapon, as per Miyamoto Musashi’s Niten-ryū, or “Two Heavens School”. Coming into fashion during the Muromachi period, the daishō were limited exclusively to the samurai class and were a symbol of their rank. While seemingly highly effective, the use of only one hand on each blade reduces speed, and forces the swordsman to compensate through technique and strength training.

This is still by far the coolest fusion I have seen of man-machine and bushido.

Stay tuned for more Gunpla updates on this Astray as well as many supplies I have reserved as well.