Hectic week: Work and Sony Reader

Here’s a free word of advice: Be careful what you wonder about coz the opposite might just happen to you!!!

So a couple of posts back I wondered if it is normal to sleep 16 hours and still feel sleepy afterwards…well guess forces of nature thought it would be fun for me to discover what it would be like to sleep only 2.5 hours a night for 3 nights and NOT feel sleepy afterwards!!!

Yep, last week was kinda hectic, here are the highlights:

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Work-Related

Had 2 project proposals to write and prepare a sales presentation for a major deal

TIP: If you looking for good animated smartart templates and designs for a powerpoint presentation, check out microsoft’s own site. You can download them by going to the “New” option in powerpoint-scroll down to the presentation templates—choose “Example Slide Effects with Instructions”

What pissed me off: So my Windows-Vista decided to update itself and download a patch that keeps warning me that my office applications aren’t genuine…get off my back Vista—I Just paid KD 18 online for a genuine copy of Kaspersky and then realized I could have gotten it for : Kd 8 at the Infoconnect exhibition here in Kuwait…my days of paying for genuine softwares are over

My baby arrived

My Sony Reader 700 arrived 🙂 🙂 … my poor baby was held at customs for more than 2 weeks and I had to pay around KD 25 to clear it…but who cares it’s here, it’s here

What pissed me off: Those people at customs had opened it so I wasn’t the first person it saw when it was taken out of the box…I hope it didn’t mistake that custom dude for its papa 😦 😦

TIP: If you are thinking of getting a reader but are stuck between a kindle and a Sony Reader; here’s the main difference between them:

Kindle wins coz–the glare on the sony is a LOT; the kindle’s display looks just like a paper page, hardly any reflection or glare

The Sony wins coz—you can view any pdf format and word documents. On the kindle you would have to convert the pdf and word files before transferring them which for me is quite a hassle.

TIP 2: So my mom also wants her own Sony Reader to read Persian books. There are absolutely no Iranian stores here in Kuwait that sells Persian books…so here’s a site that has a rich collection of Persian ebooks: http://www.parstech.org

Glare of Sony Reader 700

There are other minor differences between the Kindle 2 and Sony Reader 700:

1. Sony Reader is touch screen (imp for me)

2. Kindle 2 is a LOT slimmer and lighter than the Sony Reader 700 (but for me I like the weight of the Reader; makes it feel more like a book)

3. Kindle 2 has a 3G wireless feature (but it doesn’t work in Kuwait)

4. Kindle 2 has a built-in dictionary (wished Sony had this feature)

5. Kindle 2 has a Text-to-Speech feature; you can get the device to read any material to you (it’s not a human voice, don’t know about you but I am not too much into a robot reading me a bedtime story ;p)

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A snapshot of my diary

10:00 am: ran into an old friend

10:01 am: exchanged some friendly exchanges

10:20 am: friend still hadn’t ran out of imbecilic topics

10:30 am: kept looking at my watch to signal to friend to end the torture

10:50 am: friend was too daft to pick up my body language

11:30 am: felt a headache coming on coz of the boring conversation

12: 10 pm: friend got a phone call

12: 10:10 sec pm: I stole the chance and said good bye while he was on the phone

2:00 pm: came home; had a HUGE headache

2:01 pm: wondered why I always get a headache whenever I have a boring conversation

2:02 pm: watched a bit of CNN to see if the bailout would go through

2:03 pm: chuckled at the way McCain walks

2:20 pm: headache was getting slightly better

2:21 pm: thought of getting the patent of a novel way of getting rid of headaches: Watch McCain

2:30 pm: took a short nap

5:00 am: got up

5: 01 am: wonders why the house was so quiet

5:02 am: looked at the time

5:02 am: looked at the date

5:02 am: rubbed eyes to make sure I saw the date properly

5:02 am: realized I slept for about 15 hours

5:02 am: tried to remember if I have actually broken any sort of record for longest sleep

5:10 am: turned CNN on

5:15 am: nope no deal yet on bailout

5:16 am: looked out the window

5:30 am: left the house to go for a walk

5:31 am: a light sweet breeze greeted me as I left the elevator

5:31 am: all smiles

5:35 am: got to the beach; loved the weather, the smell, the sound of the waves

6:50 am: got home

7:15 am: checked email and watched abc news…love multi tasking

7:30 am: read an email from a friend congratulating me on becoming a mother

7:32: am: pondered WTH gave her the idea that I am the mother of a five year old now

7:35 am: realized she must have thought an email I forwarded on ‘70 reasons why I love being a mom’ was written by me

7:36 am: rolled my eyes. Thought: We correspond at least twice a month, if I had become a mom I think I would have somehow remembered to tell her in one of my emails

7:37 am: Thought: I should really try to find more intelligent friends

7:38 am: decided today I would just linger around and have loads of Me Time

7:39 am: Went surfing (the net kind not the wave)

8:00 am: Read this article: 12 Weirdest Things Ever Insured

8:01 am: Dropped jaw after reading this: 67 year old singer, Tom Jones, has reportedly insured his own chest hair for something in the region of $7 million.

chest hair worth $7 million

8:01 am: Thought maybe I should look into insuring my brain drying out as a result of taking to idiots

9:10 am: Read this article: Eye-Fi Gives any Camera Wi-Fi and Geo-Location!

9:11 am: Thought, oh, oh, I really gotta get one of these

10:19 am: Thought there are loads of weird sites like this one: HARD TO SAY. Why would anyone want to send an anonymous note to someone?!!!

10:25 am: Thought of at least 15 different anonymous notes I would like to send people

12:01 pm: Checked Iman Maleki’s gallery to see if new paintings have been added. Yes, and I LOVE this one:

Iman Maleki's Old Album

4:00 pm: Stumbled on a great site for booking flights: Boarding Pass

4:15 pm: Added a great game to play on Facebook: Guess the Sketch

6:00 pm: Sent this article to all those kill joys who tell me to stop living on chocolate: 6.7 grams of dark chocolate cut heart risk

7:00 pm: smiled at this cool optical illusion: Fairy and Leprechaun

9:00 pm: decided to go shopping for some vertical stripped dresses after reading: Scientist explodes myth about Big Bum Theory and the wrong type of stripes

notta optical illusion

9:10 pm: Played some point-and-click games. http://www.pointnclickgames.com/

10:00 pm: Cheated Read the walk through for a couple of the games

5:30 am: Finished watching till chapter 5 of A New Earth webcast – OprahEckhart.com on YOU TUBE

5:31 am: went for another morning walk.

5:40 am: Added ‘early morning smell’ to my list of favorite smells

6:50 am: went to bed

10:15 am: wrote this schedule

11: 35 am: published this post

12:00 pm: will go blog hoping

Day in Review

Already accomplished:

Case 1: Finally called friends and let them know I’m back in Kuwait.

Case 2: Finally started yoga…OUCH my back!!!

Case 3: Finally mom had her talk with me on WHEN THE HELL I plan to go back to work.

Case 4: Finally fixed my yahoo messenger

Case 5: Finally changed my template…again

Case 7: Booked 2 tickets for the new KLT show: www.theklt.com

Case 8: Read a great translation of Googoosh’s song: Mordab HERE on Abadany dar Holland’s Blog

Still need to do

Case: 1: Install that “Intro to Guitar” CD; and that “Guide to Persian Literature” CD

Case 2: Check out all those bookmarked sites that were blocked in Iran

Case 3: Finish reading “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”

Case 4: Reply to 2 personal emails

Review of 21 films

Bootlegged films are VERY cheap in Iran—about 300 fils—so I brought smuggled in about 70 to Kuwait, hehehehehehehe….Here’s a one line review of 21 films

Non-English Films

Hindi:

1. Jodha Akbar: Recommended by Amu. Great cinematography. Loved the sword fighing scene between Ash and Hrithik 😀 The film got me to google Akbar the Great. Found out there were some historical inaccuracies but not enought to distort the truth too much. BTW, did you know that Akbar was the grandfather of Shah Jahan of Taj Mahal?

French:

1. Persepolis: This film could be a page out the book of ANY Iranian who lived in Iran during the 80s and early 90s

Iranian Films

1. Ali Santuri (English title: The Musician): Only reason I watched it is coz it’s banned in Iran. If you wanna put yourself through more than an hour of torture then watch this film.
2. Nesf Maleh Maan, Nesf Maleh Tow (English title: Half mine, Half yours): A fun family film.

Half English/Half Farsi film

1. The Kite Runner: The book was MUCH more poignant.

English Films

1. Rendition: Thought pace was too slow but liked the way the two timelines interlocked. Reese Witherspoon’s role was way too trivial.
2. A Might Heart: Pace too slow, film a bit weak, could have focused more on the emotional side of it; liked Jolie’s new hairdo though.
3. The Night Listener: not a lot of suspense for a suspenseful film
4. The Kingdom: Got to see it again to comment
5. The Bourne Ultimatum: Matt Damon was HOT 😛
6. National Treasure 2: Liked part 1 much better; learned some interesting tidbits, like there are two Eiffel Towers 😀
7. No Country for Old Man: I am now convinced that members of the Oscars academy are officially blind, deaf and with no sense of artistic taste!!
8. Lions for Lambs: A loooooooooong lecture. You might as well just watch a political debate on CNN. Tom Cruise was his annoying self.
9. Jesse James: Was never a fan of Brad Pitt; this film proved why.
10. I am Legend: Will Smith is HOT!!
11. The Golden Compass: Nicole Kidman is forcing me to cross her off my list of fav actresses
12. Atonement: The only reason I watched it till the end was coz I was too lazy to reach for the remote to switch off the TV.
13. Juno: Loved her character, especially her wit. Screenplay was excellent. Though I did think they toned down the trials of teenage pregnancy.
14. Meet the Spartans: LOL..much more realistic than 300
15. Elizabeth: Made me google it; the film has some historical inaccuracies. Thought the real Queen Elizabeth would have been much more interesting than the one depicted in this film.

Week in review and the week ahead

Week in review

1. Sis b-day and a free yoga video

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday. She’s the kind that makes a list. One of the items on her list was a yoga DVD, so I gave her this link: http://yoga.org.nz/yoga_vidoes_download1.htm

Happy birthday sis 😀

PS. Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes she did make me get off my ass and go out and buy her and actual gift. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could just give people links as gifts 😀

2. Getting signs to start taking pix again

I believe that one has to either do something with a passion or not do it all. So that’s why I haven’t picked up my camera in such along time. So when I got an email from some dude who is writing a book and wanted to use one of my pix; I’m like…hey maybe I could establish a relationship with that little thingy again. But this DSLR thing is too complicated so I went shopping for a good point-and-shoot camera. So far found nothing I like. Waiting for exhibition on feb 4^th to buy a camera and a laptop. Oh and thanks hamid for that email a couple of weeks ago also pushing me to start picking up that camy.

3. Thought of trying to develop a passion for cooking

Since a lot of people I meet these days seem to love cooking—even guys—I thought maybe I need to see if I can find the joy of slaving over a hot stove as well. So I thought of checking out you tube videos. Love this one 😀

Week ahead

1. Gonna see my niece

My bro who (I don’t like using whom) I haven’t seen in over 15 years is coming this Tuesday 😀 😀 :D…with his wife aaaaaannnnnddddddddd my niece 😀 😀 😀 This little angel has her own website!!! Damn times have changed, when I was born all I got was a bunch of pictures taken with a regular camera 😦

PS.

FREE DVDS Yoga Online

Visit the Yoga.org.nz Online yoga website
heaps of cool yoga stuff including a free downloadable Videos and DVDs.