Round 22: New running accessories on a rather special Sunday

So, for some reason, the shopping bug has clamped its jaws on me. Since 2 weeks ago, starting with the purchase of my air ticket to Japan for Christmas till last weekend, I think I MAY be starting to have some idea, the kind of kick women get when they enter shoe shops or fashion boutiques.

Ok fine, so maybe the air ticket doesn't really count. But honestly, since then, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for good deals in shopping ads and newsletters, somehow seemingly looking for some reason to spend money. Heh.

Well, like everyone else I guess, I, too do have a wish-list. Topping the list is a new laptop.The prime days of my 4-year old Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 are certainly over. From those days of playing Gunbound on the NUS campus to the hard disk getting infected with 5 viruses from the same network, the damage does not look nice: a broken cooler fan, un-original hard disk drive(that runs painfully slow, but still runs nevertheless), un-original XP OS...

Ah well, enough of the wishing thinking. Now where was I again?

Ok anyway, my MP3 player is my iPaq, which is a Pocket PC. It's second-hand from my uncle when I first came to Germany. I get my usual dosage of my music and podcasts on the go from a 2GB Traveller SD card . But I've encountered some problems recently. Whether it's the old headphones with its slightly bent jack, or the iPaq showing signs of old age, I wasn't too sure what to diagnose. But it was definitely a good excuse to do a spot of shopping - new earphones and a new MP3 Player.*grins*

Now, as some of you might know, shops in Europe are not opened on Sundays. It's not exception here in Mannheim either. But last Sunday was an exception. Mannheim celebrated her selling/market rights for the 394th year after they were granted by Count Palatine Johann II von Zweibrucken. And it was only on this Sunday, between 1300 to 1800 hours, were the shops opened. There was even a Cuban jazz concert in town. The Sunday atmosphere was livelier like never before.



I made my way to Saturn, one of the major centres for PCs and gadgets(think Sim Lim Square, plus washing machines and plasma TV sets). They were having sales on this particular Sunday. I had been eyeing the Sennheiser Sport Series earphones, the PMX 70 for a while now. Unsure of the prices, I decided to make my mind up when I was there.




The PMX 70 goes for 44,95€ (USD64/SG93/RM215) which was a weee bit over my budget. I was thinking along the lines of 20€-35€. So I checked out the others on display. The previous day, I was chatting with Alvin and sharing the models with him at Kenny Sia's chat box. He had taken a fancy to the OMX 70 Model, which came with ear hooks. I looked at the OMX70 : 39,95€ (USD57/SG83/RM190) Hmm...

Sorry Alvin =P



The OMX 70 was the more decent-looking amid the other Sennheiser models there. Although it's a tad expensive, I swore that it would be my last earphones that I would buy.

I continued with my search for an MP3 Player. I wanted to have one with an FM tuner, so that I could just enjoy the usual crap DJs joke around in the early mornings or on the way home from work.

There were quite a few players on offer , the cheapest being a 1GB Time Model going at 20€(USD28/SG41.50/RM95.60), to some models from Philips, Sony and Samsung, of which I took at swift glance at their prices and ignored them immediately - all were costing 40€ and above. Cannot cannot...

Tja, with a constrained budget, I decided to pick the cheapest on sale.



For 1GB with no FM Tuner at such a price here, it looked pretty sleek and alright. The lightness of the player did somewhat unnerve me, having been accustomed to the bulkiness of the iPaq for so long.

The final item on my list for that day was a MP3 Player-Holder when I jog. Now at prices below 10€, that wasn't too difficult to choose.



Done with shopping, I hastened to the cashier, half-afraid of spending more should I stay longer, half-intimidated by long waiting queues.




It was certainly refreshing to see Mannheim so bustling on a Sunday. On the way home, I walked past this mini-attraction and stopped to take a look. And of course some photos too=)




Not too sure what this is called, but basically you sit inside and get turned and spun around left and right for a minute or so. Reminds me of those hydraulic pistons car tuners install in the suspension to make the cars bounce and "jump", like in Xzibit's music videos.




Back home, I dismantled my new goodies. Haha, pretty much like a boy with his new toys..

The two different rim covers for the OMX70

Sennheiser OMX70 Case with magnetic Self-sealing

It took a while of fiddling and adjusting with the earphones before they fitted nicely. I plugged them into the the player to test the sound. With the neodymium magnets, I was expecting nothing but the best.



I played a list of tracks, which I know had different tone highlights - Delerium featuring Sarah Mclachlan, Reason for Breathing from Babyface, a couple of tracks from Vivaldi, Christina Aguilera and random rock selections.

And I must admit, I was not disappointed. The clarity of the various instruments was not lost in the background of the singers. Every acoustic detail could be heard and enjoyed - very distinctly.

My only complaint about the earphones is, they loosen from their position outside the external auditory canal of the ear- now promise not to laugh, ok? - when I grin really widely.

Hey, don't laugh liao leh! XD

Whenever I grin, my facial muscles transmit the movement to my ears - and nudge the earphones loose! Now if that's not irritating in the sense that there's hardly anything one can do to change or rectify it, I don't know what is.

But anyway, all in all, I still feel I got pretty good bang for my Euros. Crystal-clear sound quality and a new MP3 Player - definitely a great way to enjoy the rest of the week!