We watched this movie the other day at my sister’s place. I watched it once already but it was still nice to watch it again. I believe that my sister and Mee thought the same too because they both watched it from start to finish. In that movie, there were a lot of lab furnaces in the lab where the lead actor was working with the chimpanzee. I didn’t think lab furnaces were relevant in that movie especially the type of medicine, which was used to test on the chimpanzees, was for treating Alzheimer. Maybe it is beyond my knowledge but it’s just a movie and maybe I shouldn’t treat it that seriously.

I have to say, I watched a few older versions of planet of the apes but they always start with apes dominating the world and human beings as slaves. They never sort of explaining the beginning of the apes and I believe that is why I am attracted to this movie. I do hope that there will be more sequels of this movie since it’s one of my favourite movies this year.

On another note, it’s the last day of the year 2011, Happy New Year!

A few months later, I will have my car checked and MOT-ed. I am quite nervous when it comes to having my car checked because I had my car’s catalytic converter changed twice in two years. I asked the mechanic if there were other problems in the car that’s causing the catalytic converter to fail but he couldn’t seem to give me any satisfactory answer. Hence, I made use of the free exhaust check and had my car’s catalytic converter checked twice this year. Hopefully, it will be problem free this year though I am sensing the I might need to change some of the thrust bearings. The gear changes doesn’t seem to be smooth nowadays.

I recently joined an online survey company. Honestly, there are so many online survey companies out there and some of them are a bit of a waste of time; long survey with little or no rewards. Some just make you take a survey every day just to enter their prize draw. Hence, this one better be good. The first survey that I received was about Delafield Corporation rubber hose.

The company is actually based in the US and it sells all kind of industrial rubber hose and relevant equipment. As with all surveys, it asked about whether or not I know about the type of rubber hoses which I obviously don’t know much. About five minutes into the survey, I was told that I am not qualified and there would be no reward. On the other hand, I dont’t even know what I would be rewarded if I completed the survey.

Anyway, the qualified and not qualified situation is quite common and I have been with one survey company that 80% of its surveys will tell me that I am not qualified. As I have taken some monetary values from that survey company, I just continued doing any surveys that I was given knowing that there will be one qualified survey sometime later.

As for this new survey company, only time will tell whether or not it is worth continuing.

Just yesterday, my sister, Mee and I went to PC World to buy TomTom XL IQ Routes Edition 2 for £99.99. I thought long and hard before deciding to purchase the TomTom which is exactly the same model as the refurbished one that I bought from TomTom website previously. Mee saw another TomTom on sale at Argos earlier which cost less but it was quite an old model. Other TomTom models are significantly more expensive and I am not really interested in other brands of satellite navigators.

My sister was very kind to pay the TomTom as our this year’s Christmas present.

Originally, we had planned to eat dinner at Cosmo, a buffet restaurant which serves mostly South East Asian cuisine, after PC World. However, there were a long queue. Hence, we decided to come back another day but with reservation. Our dinner was at McDonald in the end.

I kind of having a sudden thought about living in the US. I watched a lot of movies and it seems like most of their houses are huge. As well as huge houses, the front and back yard are spacious too. One of the problems, although that might not be a real problem would be the public transportation. Unless you live in the city, you need a car to get around.

Another thing would be their technology. They already have 4G for years and many developed countries are still trialling. Most gadgets are introduced first in the US and then only to the world. Most gadgets are available in the US but not in other countries, even UK. I saw some water pumps at WeGotPumps.com and that’s something we can’t easily find in the UK. In US, there’s a popular electronic store named RadioShack which is similar to Maplin in UK but not quite. It sells a whole range of items which I can only dream of getting here in the UK. Well, it’s not extremely hard to get it here, it’s just the price would be a lot higher.

Anyway, it sounds nearly impossible to migrate to US now since I am quite settled in the UK. On the other hand, it all depends on my work permit and then I can say whether or not I am settled in the UK.

Each year, the sales pattern changes. Even though the economy is reported to be not very good, I don’t really notice the difference in people’s spending power. The sales actually didn’t stop even on Christmas day. Online stores are opened 24 hours a day throughout the whole year. As with all the advertisement said, the sales start 25th December 2011.

I remember that Mee and I went to an outlet shopping place in Oxford last year and there were people queuing outside almost each of the stores, even outside a cigar gift store. On another note, it was snowing and freezing. I bet it was very different the same day this year. As the weather was a lot better, there might be a lot more people. I wonder if there will still be sales when we return from my sister’s place.