Nifty Gifts

Santa answered my high-tech wish for the new Apple mouse and fancy kitchen tools this year. And yes, the mouse is quite magic (as they call it). To scroll up&down, left&right all you need is to caress it. The surface is so sensitive to touch, though, that my middle finger  is now up in the air, for fear of wreaking havoc on what I’m doing. The other design feature that will take some getting used to is its low profile, with no support for your palm.

But it’s pretty darn cool! Thank you, Santa Steve

Careful What You Wish for

Remember how I was crying out for help because The New Yorker was taking my life over and how, if my friends loved me, they SHOULD NOT (repeat: should not) give me a gift subscription to The Economist, too? I thought I was being funny, especially since the latter is quite expensive, so I didn’t give it much thought after that.

Well, a friend gave me a gift subscription to The Economist that he didn’t even have to pay for! (or so he says)

Dude, from now on I’ll have to 1. schedule every waking minute of my life and 2. be careful what I even don’t wish for

To the friend who gave me the subscription, though, I want him to know that I am indeed very grateful. He’s helped me with lots of important things and I can only wish I can return the favor someday. I just thought this was too hilarious not to share.

So I think I’ve progressed from “ask and thou shalt receive” to “think and thou shalt receive.”

New Yorker Overload

Help! The New Yorker is taking over my life! I can now see that the gift subscription I got from Alt.L and Ctrl.Alt.L was a plot to get control over my time, mind, and soul. To the rest of my friends, if you guys love me, please DO NOT give me a gift subscription to The Economist, too. All I need to stop going to work are two heady weeklies. Thank God Time has a more manageable size, but I’ve been neglecting it lately. As for poor Fast Company and Wired, I’m two or three months behind on each… My apartment’s floor is littered with magazines, books are waiting patiently in ever-growing piles, and I only have two or three weeks left until I can no longer count on my bus commute for reading time. Because, in case I haven’t told you a thousand times yet, I’ll be biking to work. Yaay for cardio, sigh for my brain.

May I ask, again, why the day is not 36-hour long? I could easily continue to read, work, do stuff for 4-6 hours after I come home, but then I’d also like to sleep for 8. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that I’d go to sleep at 1 or 2 am, which means I’d be in the office at noon. Well, that wouldn’t work for me. I’d like it to be dawn when I get to work, so that I can enjoy that one extra hour of peace and organize my day with a freshly rested brain. I’m a morning person but once in a while I’d like to be a night owl. Why, oh, why can’t I have the cake and eat it, too?

My Preciosssss

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!!

A very happy end to this weird day . I think I’ll go get a bottle of wine since the battery is still charging, so I can’t take any pics yet . For those of you late in the conversation, My Precious is a Canon XSi I’ve been long dreaming for and I finally allowed myself to buy. The equally good news is that I’m not going to have a much-dreaded expense at the end of the year, which would have made a big dent in my savings, so I can truly relish my camera free of any possible guilt. I found out about that this Monday, so this was a really neat week.

I wish you guys the same

Later edit: I just realized that I got it the day when the 2008 Olympic Games started. I hope it’s as lucky as the Chinese say number 8 is. I should start learning Mandarin Chinese before it’s too late .

Amaryllis Update

Almost ready to greet the world.

My Blooming Cactus

I told you this was a carnival. Now you have the proof . The amaryllis is next, in a week or so.

Flower Carnival

Like never before, all my flowers are blooming at the same time. Not only that, but my Christmas cactus is actually now blooming for the THIRD time this winter. It was in bloom for the second time when I was getting ready to go on vacation and I was just thinking that I wasn’t going to see that beauty again until 10 months later. Well, two weeks after my return I saw ten buds, four of which are in pairs. Last year it bloomed for the first time in four years after I got it, and now I think it wants to become an Easter cactus .

Then, the big bushy plant whose name I don’t know is probably happy with its big pot, where I transferred her about half a year ago. It had been crammed in a small pot and had been clearly suffering. I didn’t expect it to come back but it now has four flowers, which, again, has never happened.

Last but not least, the amaryllis, which has gorgeous, orange lily-like flowers. One was sprouting new leaves but the other one sort of stayed in hibernation, as it were, with just two leaves; it hadn’t bloomed in three years. Again, just as I was thinking that it wasn’t doing too well, I saw a flower bud.

I don’t know what’s going on but I wish this were a sign of the good times to come for me, too. Preferably this year.