RimBlock

Ahh, the comment Mae took from Ely was not role specific 1. csingeu 2. and wife 3. The mystery Gentleman. 4. Mae 5. pixie Marshy 6. May Dream 7. friends78 8. Ugenes wife 9. Ugene 10. Sleek Seems al the people listed in Elys quote are accounted for apart from the ones I know aren't there and the other person Mae has discounted and Knownothing who was in another picture on his phone so I think I can rule him out. RB

Ok so via a process of elimination and I apologise unreservedly if I get this completely wrong 1. csingeu 2. and wife 3. friends78 partner 4. Mae 5. friends78 6. May Dream 7. pixie Marshy 8. Ugene 9. and husband 10. Sleek I am not sure I like this game anymore . RB

Ely and HB is not in the pic, neither is Blunder Boy or myself. Ok so I know who was not there. I recognise CS and his lovely wife. The others I have not met so I am waiting for others to spill the beans . I suspect if I was there I would be hiding the Eiffel Tower..... I tend to feel a bit like Mount Fuji in the family photos we do every year . RB

You snooze you loose . I missed the gatherings as well but met for drinks after. Think everyone is looking forward to seeing Elys stuff bought from ebay and the like. Ely, I think you will have to label everything with a ticket stating where you bought it and for how much to save you having to repeat yourself over and over again. RB

Ha-ha, you are either old like me or into recycling RB

I can guess One second.... King of H,U,G,E,T,I, ok I can see where this is going...... . I am more of a face, bum and legs guy myself in reality though although a nice set of funbags should never go to waste . RB

Yep, the carpentry on the staircase is very poor. The points would be more or less invisible. I will take a couple of pictures of mine which I hate but at least the joints are done well I see you have the same feature times as ours . They should be pretty easy to maintain. If they are only in the shower then a quick spray once a week will probably do. Getting the plaster etc off after the reno is complete is another matter . RB

Ok so you are not quite the same age as my wife but fairly close. I will not say which way the difference is for fear of retribution . I do agree with your view on marriage and working together but, in my opinion, a more realistic view would be 'finding someone whos irritating habits you are willing to spend the rest of your life ignoring for love of being with them' (/sounds of putting some boots on) The problem, I find, with a person who is clearly very attractive always claiming they are not is that it can get irritating for those who are not so blessed. Having gone out with a few girls who were very insecure about their looks, it is the failure to accept the truth of how people see them that has caused relationship problems in the past. I have found acceptance with a 'Thank you for your kind words' is a much better policy than denial. I know it is hard to get yourself in to that mindset but it is usually worth the effort. I must admit, on the rare occasions I have been complemented, I used to automatically do the same as you. Now I just think a 'Thank you' and then moving on to something else is more classy. Think to yourself, what would Mae do . To give a personal example on a slightly different trait, in school I was very quiet. At sometime during my working life I decided to stop doing that and realised that others opinions really do not matter as much as I thought they did. I decided to live for myself rather than living to give the image I wanted others to have of me. I now happily give training to 20-30 strangers, tend to be the person who volunteers to do presentations to the group when on training courses and arrange training to groups around the world within the organisation I work for. I sometimes have to restrain myself or I would be jumping up and answering questions a group has asked the trainer and take over the training session. Admittedly, teaching is a second love. (/sounds of some boots coming off) . Oh and I think the glow you have now gets you more attention from men that your hubby maybe would like without you needing to add more . RB

TVs are not really my thing as I find they are all very close to each other. Go for the features you want, check on-line for any known reported problems with that particular model / series. LCDs are generally ok, Plasmas are usually better with contrast and a natural looking picture but use more power and run hotter. LED LCDs Are close to Plasmas for contrast but can look a bit unreal with the pictures especially with the 100+hz where the extra frames are digitally created to bridge the gap between two frames that are transmitted from the source. To my mind, Plasmas are still a very viable alternative to LED LCD displays if you are not insistent on a very thin TV and are usually a lot cheaper as they are not the 'in' thing. It is also worth noting that TVs require calibration if you want it to look like the film maker intended. People tend to like over bright heavily saturated vivid colours. TV manufacturers therefore setup their TVs this way. A number of BluRays have the THX calibration program in their setup menu which will help you get the right basic levels set. I think 'UP' has it along with a number of other cartoons and quite possibly the Starwars films. It will take time for you to get used to the correctly calibrated picture but then the hobbits in Lord of the Rings will look like they are wearing dark muddy green jerkins rather than a bright pea green jacket. RB

I would suggest that anywhere you are likely to be doing any reading whether it is a book, ingredients of a food packet or the latest bill to arrive, it would be better to use natural light. We use warm in the bedrooms, warm in the living room down lights but natural in the ceiling fan which gets used 90% of the time. Now if you want to be really funky, get dome bright white lights and fit a clear plastic cover over them and then tint the cover with different colour plastic films to give any colour you want, when you want it. Natural and warm for the living room seems like a decent compromise. Natural for the dining area as if you want it more romantic you can just bring out the candles. Bedroom should be warm... either that or disco lights . Rb

Glad to help. RB

I think 'better' would be a more appropriate term . A man trying to understand women is just a Sisyphean task. For those not versed in Greek mythology and specifically about the tale of Sisyphus ... I am not sure I am ready for it to be publicly revealed where my ends meet . RB

Haha, it was not meant specifically just for you that reply..... Although you are now saying you are not an animal but anywhere, anyplace, anytime..... . RB

And I thought I was the last of a breed . RB

The amp needs to have preouts for each channel you want to attach to another amp. As most AVRs will be able to do 5.1 minimum, they will have a subwoofer preout. If you wish to use a poer amp for the other channels then the AVR must have preouts specifically for the other channels. so 3. would be the marked as subwoofer on the AVR and the left and right preouts would be marked specifically as left and right preouts. Most lower end amps have the subwoofer out but not preouts for any of the other channels and the AVR that replaces my 667 has also had them removed. RB

Kobelala, I am sure you will be happy to know your name came up a few times in the weekend meetups. Unfortunately it seems it was usually linked with toilets . I fear your reputation is made RB

Mae you are the revered (or more likely feared when it comes to workmen) aunty . Wise through experience. Knowledgeable through your successes in the face of adversity. I would use venerable but lots of people have the impression it just means old which it doesn't. Ely is just a younger sister to us older ones. Funnily enough her husband and me are the same age and Ely is the same age as my wife (I think, you don't like to ask a lady these types of things). I will not comment on Elys looks apart from saying that I believe Ely would feel more comfortable if people concentrated on the person she is rather than the outer appearance which is as good as the inner glow she radiates. Ely and her husband make a very nice well matched couple together. I wish them every success together. Ok, enough back patting for now . RB

Give a call to a few shops in The Adelphi and they may be able to beat it. I got my Yamaha 667 from Courts and could have saved quite a bit if I had bought it from Adelphi instead. RB

Just as a note. WhatHiFi is seen as being not the most accurate reviewers. They are known to circum to market forces when doing reviews (i.e. products have been given more favorable reviews due to the manufacturers advertising budgets or threats to withdraw all advertising). Now this does not mean their reviews are worthless as there are many other examples of the same products getting good reviews elsewhere. The technical knowledge of the reviewers is also more than a bit suspect with reviewers claiming that a certain HDMI cable adding more vibrancy and detail to a picture which, if you know anything about how information is transferred over an HDMI connection, you would know is complete rubbish. Use WhatHiFi as a guide of items to demo and then make your own mind but don't us it to choose a product for you without giving that product a good listen. RB

Haha, I am surprised you don't just go over and collect them personally . Maybe we should put our orders in with you . Great meeting you yesterday night and such a coincidence you moving in so close. Ok, a few comments on your stuff so far. The oven will take a lot of cupboard space. Don't rely on the 3ds for number and size of cupboards as they are commonly out of scale. Take a look at my kitchen photos and gauge from there. I made the mistake of assuming the 3Ds were showing the exact amount of units and sizes when they were just an estimate showing off the finishes. The oven does look great though. Have seen them in Courts as well I think. The bathroom 3Ds are very nice but again are out of perspective. The space will be a lot smaller, especially as they do not show the piping. Again, we discovered this afterwards. There are a few suggestions in the home cinema thread for 2k systems if you want to take a look. The Mission speakers should be ok but there are probably better out there for the price. What were you thinking of driving them with ?. I see there is a Onkyo 508 on XP going for around S$500 now. For Potatoes, We have no regrets at putting up the glass wall. We did it as it was cheaper than building a normal wall (the previous owner had hacked the original wall away) and because a room requires ventilation (HDB building regs) which would mean a window like the original that used to go on to the original recess area. This looks pretty ugly especially when there is no recess area anymore. Still a good choice for us but we will look to putting a wooden architrave (frame) around it to hide the mechanism. Good luck with the reno BB. Let me know when you are around and we an get a coffee or you can always pop over for a look around here. RB

Haha, huge huh. Better get back down to the gym ASAP then . Great to finally put a face to the name with you and ED. Great finding out that BoyBlunder is moving very close to me as well so another person to meet up for a coffee or something stronger. It was great to see we were all fighting to talk most the time which is a great sign of people being very comfortable together and having a great time. So much a great time in fact that I was quite surprised when I saw the time on getting home. Wow, time really does fly when having fun. With us all living pretty close, it would be great to make a regular thing of it. I think you would get on fantastically with my wife too. She used to love clubbing too but has now hit that Aunty line too . Same May was not able to join us. Hope you are feeling better now May. We have a few things to get out of the way first but then we will have everyone over and also see if we can organise regular movie nights. Great people, great night. Thanks for the heads up. Now just have to get the hang of Whatsapp which I have finally got installed . RB

Then you women should stop asking 'Do you prefer her or me." when in the middle of a fight . For that second, that moment in the fight, you will probably not be top of the list. RB

There are a series of excellent books by Allan and Barbra Pease. My two favorites are "Why me lie and why women cry" and "Why men don't listen and why women can't read maps". They are observations on human behavior from a evolutionary point of view and give insights in to the other sex and why the do what they do and what they really want that they may not be telling you. The books are similar to 'Men are for Mars and women are from Venus" but I found them to be a lot more light hearted, a fun read and very informative. I personally believe that they were on the school syllabus there would be a lot less heartache in the world. If people have not read them then please give them a go. If you have then get your partner to have a read too. One part that has stayed with me for a number of years is this.... After reading this so many things made sense and I made a conscious effort to stop giving solutions unless they were asked for and it was really hard to start with but in doing so it has improved the relationship by showing I have confidence in my wife that she can handle her own life but that she has my support if she ever requires it. RB

Don't worry, I would never like to spoil your innocence. That is what those courses on intimacy at ROM are for . RB

Thanks Ely. All very informative and helpful. RB