My New Phone

On a whim, I have decided to get an upgrade for my phone. I was tired of my old Samsung, with a very crummy user interface and awful ringtones - and limited capabilities.

Went back to Sony-Ericsson and managed to get a W580i in Pink!

And it's a walkman too, which is more than welcome for me. I use it a lot in the gym, since I hate the songs they play there anyway. Mark even got a 8GB memory stick in Oslo for me, which makes it even better.

What I love about it is how easy it is to send and receive emails. The sound is also very, very good. I even downloaded the "One Missed Call" ringtone (Japanese version of course), and have Ai Enma (Jigoku Shoujo) waking me up every morning!

It's got some cool light effects too, as you can see on the pictures below. If the screensaver is purple, so will be the lights on the side and so on... VERY pretty!

And my current strap/netsuke is that super-kawaii Robot Kitty. Mark thinks it's a bit creepy though...

I'm back!

After a very, very long break from blogs and Internet in general, I am back! Happy New Year for everybody! I'm sure 2007 will be a great one!

What was I up to these days? Hhhhmmm... Let's see... Some highlights of the past few weeks...

Christmas - we spent some days with Mark's family in Ballina and it was nice. We've been there for Christmas and St. Stephen's Day too. I got lovely Christmas presents, including lots of Hello Kitty things, the DVD collection "Himalaya" (BBC/Michael Palin), a cool handbag, chocolates, and the new Sony MP3 player NW-S705F (see details below!).

New Year - we finally met my friend Monica, her boyfriend and fantastic son! We've been to La Strada for dinner and it was, as ever, gorgeous.

Gym - yes! Still going! Increasing the weights and so on. I just love it. Actually, I hate the cardio workout and LOVE the weights and stretches. I found out that my left leg is much weaker than the right one, but who cares... Anyway, it's very, very good!

Health - seems to be OK, better perhaps due to the gym, but I've been having lots of headaches, especially on the left side of my head, including teeth sensitivitya and ear ache. But I seriously suspect it's got to do with my sinuses, since I am always very blocked when I wake up! D'oh...

The Perfume - I restarted reading "The Perfume" by Patrick Susskind and, yesterday, we went to the IMC to watch it. It is a great film, very faithful to the book, especially when depicting the odours and landscapes. Dustin Hoffmann is brilliant as Maitre Baldini, and the guy who plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is an amazingly talented young actor. I would not be surprised if he got an indication for the Oscar as best actor (and Hoffmann as best supporting actor). There is also a Le Parfum coffret of scents that has been launched by Thierry Mugler, to coincide with the film release. I am very curious about it and think the idea is fantastic, although a bit too "conceptual" perhaps. For example: what can we expect from a scent called "Human Existence" ? If you read the book, you will know what I mean... Anyway, the descriptions of the scents are on the website, in case you are interested. However, the collection is a bit too dear, I'm afraid.

My MP3 Player - it's the cutest thing ever! When I opened it I said to Mark: "But it looks like a cigarette lightener..." and, I must admit, was a bit disappointed. However, it turns out to be the best thing ever! Especially when I go to the gym! Here it is...

Pink, slim and pretty!

Well, these are the news for today. I will be back soon, hopefully, if I'm not too lazy, that is!

Wish List!!!

Mark just found out that a new Hello Kitty mobile phone is being released this month: it is the BenQ Siemens AL26 Hello Kitty. Pink, cute and slim. It is a sliding phone too, which is what I want for me next! Need to have it! I don't know if it will be available here in Ireland. If not, I can always get it on EBay, because Mark checked it would work here with no problem, no matter where we buy it!

I knew the OKWAP Kitty one, made in Korea, which is cute and comes with lots of extras (straps, purse etc). However the design of the BenQ looks prettier and less bulky. The OKWAP is quite expensive on EBay, even after more than one year of its release. It must be a good phone, but I will wait to see where I can get the BenQ. As for the extras, I have more than enough straps and cute purses to use with, so I would not really need it.

Shiseido Forever...

We are just back from our Christmas holidays in Ballina. Actually, we came back on Tuesday the 27th. Unfortunately, I got (another) cold there and was quite bad since then. I did not come to the office this week, i.e., from Wednesday until today and stayed in bed most of this time. I have been having lots of colds lately, and this time it was quite bad. The worse for me is the cough. Besides that I managed to burn my tummy once again while preparing for the injections! It looks horrible and I need to change the dressing every so often. It doesn't seem to be healing very well this time and, if it's still bad next week, I will probably need to go to Dr. Kavanagh again.

Christmas, apart from the cold, was fine, and relaxing. I had the chance of starting my new Murakami book, "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" and, once again, it's a book that I cannot put down. What I love about him (Murakami and, of course, his translator) is the way he describes things so well. You can easily picture locations, characters, smells, everything. Sometimes when you are reading other books it is not so easy, but with his work it just flows and everything is pictured so vividly and perfectly. He doesn't cease to amaze me in this regard. I love this book now because it is funny, poetic and very surreal.

Mark gave me some wonderful gifts, as always. He is just great to get the right things for me! I got a fantastic Canon scanner that virtually does everything: scans negatives, can be used as a copier, is super-fast and comes with a great little software package. The model, in case you are interested is CanoScan Lide 500F. Perfect! I don't know how I survived for all these without a scanner, really...

And he also gave me the new Shiseido perfume, available in Japan only. Rose Rouge. It is pure parfum and comes in a very exquisite box and a lovely iridescent red bottle (32ml to be precise). Mark also got from the sales person a beautiful enameled purse atomiser, black metal with tiny roses, same design as the box. It came with a pipette to make decanting easier. The bottle as you may have guessed is not a spray one - which I prefer when it comes to pure parfum anyway.

The perfume itself is a joy: it's got great staying power and the main note (or should I say "theme") is the red Bulgarian rose. It is sparkly and comfortable, starting up with that lovely rose note and some other fruity accords, like blackberries and raspberries as far as I can tell. Then it settles into a subtly powdery heart of Moroccan rose, heliotropin and irises. In the end, I am left with the evanescent, faint aroma of a million roses, laying on a persistent base of velvety musk and sandalwood. It reminds me of the delectable Bulgarian rose jams, that I used to buy in Rio some years ago (and cannot find anymore). It had a lovely, very deep rose colour and you could see the transparent tiny petals of delicate roses floating on it. The Fauchon jam is quite good, but doesn't compare to that Bulgarian delicacy! Pity I cannot remember the brand now. Here is a picture of my Rose Rouge:

A New TV

This Bank Holoday weekend we have decided to treat us to a new TV. I became a bit jealous of that SONY Trinitron my Mum has got for our house in Rio. You know: great looks, perfect image, cool size (32 inches - that's good enough, right?). It is not a flat screen, LCD, but it is one of those new Trinitrons anyway. And it's great. I was wanting something like that for us here, we had an old Philips and the image was not as high-res and with all the cool DVD's we have been colectiong, well...

OK, to shorten it a bit, we went to Harvey Norman's and, in the end, Mark fell in love with a Sharp AQUOS 32 inches. Beautiful indeed. We were not quite planning on buying an LCD right now, but we would have a very good discount on that, then, why not? Thinking about it, if we didn't, we would have missed a great opportunity.

Here is some pictures we took of it:



And here's another one, this time with a scene from Love Hina Again!



Well, after that I decided to go digital too! I called NTL and they promptly came here on Tuesday, brought the box and plugged everything. This has improved the reception even more. Not to mention that now we do have Cartoon Network, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon and several other channels - instead of the shabby 16 channels we had with the standard cable plan.