Partybots transform!

Wow, what a weekend! One kids birthday party, and a mission to find a new television.

First, the birthday party. I spent Friday night baking and cooking and icing a cake. I made an Iggle Piggle cake. Yes, laugh all you want, but everyone was very impressed with my icing skills. I normally struggle to just put chocolate icing on a cake. So I was quite proud to use one of those icing thingies and squeeze out little star shapes to make a picture.

I thought he turned out rather well :p I was going to use his real blanket on top of the cake, but I made way too much red icing…

Charlotte got spoiled rotten as usual. Lots of people turned up and bought lots of presents, and she got tons of attention. That’s generally the case Geez, wish I was turning two again!

Here’s the crew having lunch before the party, and Dave’s balloon art:

I would say the highlight of the day was provided by Abbey and Carol. Every couple of weeks Charlotte goes pony riding on this tiny little pony that is about waist high. He’s such a sweetie. We’re the same age! His name is Hamish and he’s Charlotte’s infatuation – we have photos printed out of him on her walls. She rants and rants about him. At night when she’s awake or at nap time you can hear her talking, and she’s telling her dolls about Hamish. Everyone has heard of Hamish. And Abbey and Carol brought Hamish to her birthday party for a visit. I’ve known Charlotte her whole life, and I have never seen her with such a big smile on her face. I totally wasn’t expecting to have a little pony in my yard either o_O In the suburbs! But he wasn’t that big and he was fine trotting around the place with this little girl on him. I honestly still can’t get over it. It’s not often that my sister comes through, but her and Carol really put the cherry on top that day. Charlotte was over the moon to see Hamish. She just grabbed his rope and stomped up the driveway dragging him along yelling out “ME RIDE HAMISH”, and then introducing him to everyone. It was a very interesting time…

Right, so not all the photos have uploaded yet. I saw my laptop this morning saying it had a Picasa connection error (read: too much torrenting, not enough bandwidth, I’m going to time-out now). But the album does have some, and it will have some more soon. So go and see Charlottes 2nd birthday album.

Second, we had to buy a new TV. The old one kinda gave up the ghost. Well, that’s not entirely true, it was working fine, and we could watch sky, but we couldn’t watch anything else because the other AV input and s-video input stopped working But we did heaps of research and we mapped out our minimum specs for either an LCD or a Plasma tv. We already have a nice LCD flatscreen in the bedroom and it works great. So we toddled off down the shops with our budget and had a look around. Yes, we wanted 1080p full def, but nooo, I guess we still don’t have prices in NZ comparative to the outside world. I don’t want to spend $5,000 – $70,000 on a television o_O So we hunted and hunted and hunted and heard various opinions. And it came down to this: we wanted either a Samsung or a Sharp or a Sony… We didn’t want a Toshiba or a Panasonic. We couldn’t afford 1080p. We wanted to get Hi-Def then, and we thought “Well, if we’re not going to go the whole hog then let’s at least get value for money on a second-best option”. So we went for Plasma, because contrast is more important than pixels. And we didn’t want a huge TV because our lounge is only so big. So we have more criteria now, 42” would be ideal size for where we want to put it in our lounge, plasma or LCD well … either a very high quality Plasma or a really good LCD. Would you believe there were not any LCD tv’s which were 42” and had all the connectors in the back we need o_O And they were all Philips or Toshiba So we got the 42” top of the line Plasma, but not 1080p top of the line. And at a really good price which means we can replace it in a few years. So now we have an LCD AND a Plasma at home. And I’ll be honest with you – the picture quality is really good. I find that the contrast is so much better on a Plasma TV, even though I’m from the “LCD IS BETTA” camp. So I ran home and watched Transformers, and it was awesomeness. I’m very happy and it didn’t even cost very much, only a few hundred more than my LCD cost! o_O

If you’re gonna comment that Plasma sucks then 1) fuck off, and 2) come over and watch some Transformers at my house and then tell me it sucks, and then fuck off.

Righty. So that’s my weekend in a nutshell. I got no study done, partied hard, shopped hard and then watched Transformers!