This week is Lavender Week, which is run by the Lavender Trust at Breast Cancer Care. The idea of the Trust is to raise awareness in young people of Breast Cancer, and to provide help and support young women with Breast Cancer.
Now if any of you know me, you will know i'm a complete mobile freak, in fact i'm a bit of a general gadget freak, but for some reason i suffer from phone boredom more than with any other type of gadget. Perhaps because I have to use my mobile alot more than anything else I own, or perhaps i'm just very shallow and don't want to be carrying a mobile i'm embarrassed of, whatever the reason i'm afraid i have the itch again... my samsung e900 is boring me slightly. It has done very well for itself, making me loyal to it for about a year (for me a real feat), but i feel it may be time to move on.
I don't have a Wii, and although my housemate does I have been so busy I haven't had an opportunity to play on it. Which is sad because it does look rather fun. However if I did own a Wii, rather than a slimline ps2 which i only really use to play dvds once in a blue moon, I would want one of these personalised covers. Just because they are cool, and remind me of the designer sky+ boxes that I also want one of. Thinking about it there would potentially be alot of clashing in terms of patterns, perhaps they should bring out similar designs for both so you could coordinate your living room, perhaps even wallpaper (wow I can see it now). Anyway although I might be getting a little carried away the Wii covers are cool, lets hope that they don't peel easily with long use heat.
I have just started a new blog at vox.com in an attempt to find something prettier than blogger which I can use, and I have to say vox wins hands down in the easy prettiness stakes. If I had any vague understanding of html i'm sure that blogger would be the better option, but sadly at 21 i seem to be losing my brain agility for understanding new computer based things.
On November 12th (yes I know bear with me I haven't been blogging, i think i might start referring to it as a my 'sabbatical') I attended Discover Dogs at Earls Court in London, because, yes, big surprise, i want a dog :). This event allows normal, dog loving people to meet and greet up to 209 breeds of all dog types (hound, working, terrier, gundog, pastoral, utility, and toy), learn more about breeds they haven't heard of, or are interested in, and potentially make links with breeders. As well as a stand for each breed, they have various stands for doggy organisations, charities such as Dogs Trust, stands where you can buy doggy items, and show rings with things going on from agility and flyball to showing. My personal favourite was the Golden Retriever display team shown in the photo. It is a real introduction into the world of dogs and is a must for anyone thinking about taking on a dog. The breeders and handlers at the show are all very helpful and friendly, which leads to you learning more about the breed and if it is for you, and also gives you hands on experience with the breeds of your choice.
Now I have to be honest, I have never been keen on Leopard print (although I love real leopards, particularly snow leopards) but knowing that it is currently the 'in thing' I have been happy to let it go. By 'let it go' I mean I have managed to hold back from screaming in horror when seeing people wearing it, including Camilla Parker-Bowles wearing it as a fetching hat.
I thought I should perhaps tell you a little something about Twitter because until very recently I had never heard of it. Apparently taking America by storm, this site allows you to make short updates (text length minus your 13 character user name) by accessing the site, GoogleChat or text messages, all to answer the key question 'What are you doing?'. You can opt to only allow your friends see your updates, and if you don't choose this option then anyone can opt to 'follow' you, which essentially means they can choose to be instant messaged or texted your updates. Now in my opinion the texting thing is slightly scary and stalker-like, as if you are publicly updating then some random in Brazil could be being texted the fact that you are 'just leaving the house' BUT then again like many of these networking sites you can only be stalked by how much information you give. It would be sensible for example to not be updating with 'in house all on my own, forgot to lock the doors, have lots of expensive electrical equipment'.
According to this article on the Now Magazine Toronto website and the experts consulted, particularly persuading for me was Adam K Anderson, Canada Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, U of T, our brain reacts to cute images we see, something to do with positive association and reward processing!
Now i have to be honest, what attracts me to this bath is simply the fact that it looks cool because i'm not convinced that constantly changing colours would do anything but give me a headache. It is meant to be relaxing utilising Chromatheraphy [definition of Chromatheraphy, yes i had to look it up], can someone try it please and let me know if it works? Then i'll consider whether perhaps in the future it would be useful to buy one. Maybe i'm just attracted to it because my uni house only has a shower... well i guess we'll never know.
I was pleased when I saw a title involving food allergies on those clips you can get across the top of gmail. But then I opened the link and was shocked to find the title 'Food can affect your health'. That to me is obvious and everyone should already know that. It is so important, it can lead to life and death situations. You could argue that it is good that awareness is being raised, and I agree, but i'm shocked at how little some people know about these allergies.
I feel a bit more grown up using my Radley purse that I got a couple of weeks ago as a Christmas present (my mum bought it for me, we'd agreed we'd wait until I found a purse I liked) after using my Animal purse which I couldn't shut (too many cards and photographs). [From blog browsing Radley seems to have been a popular xmas present.] And after turning 20 I find myself slowly moving towards grown-up stuff, like proper handbags... what is with that??? I think i'm getting old [by the way loving the cute black radley bags with splash of colour dangles].
'A closed mind is like a closed parachute, it will always let you down.' - Monty Roberts (variation of the common quote)
Have you ever been listening to iTunes and sat there clicking through all your songs feeling bored and fed up that you can't get instant music that you haven't heard before and old favourites that you don't have in your music library? Have you ever wanted to listen to a song that you don't have without downloading? If you have check out Pandora.com.
I attended a Youth Speak yesterday that my brother was taking part in, both my old school (my brother's team) and my old college were represented there. What was interesting is that Rotary who are an international network of service volunteers, sponsor this event, and also several others which include Young Poet, Young Chef and Young Musician. I know that I was completely unaware of their involvement and think that it is important to recognise the good that they are doing in promoting youth talent!
My mother has bought me a Furby and it is very cute. They are much more interactive than I expected and the voice recognition is quite impressive considering they had to make it so it would recognise the all changes in voices according to country and region. My sister particularly likes the jokes. I wanted to upload the video of her talking to it but I don't know how to... so here is a picture of her talking to her furby.
The idea behind this 'Sfera' alarm clock i found on the popgadget: personal tech for women site is you have no choice but to get up. Each time you hit the snooze button it moves further away from you and towards the ceiling (yes it does look like there are strings involved), so eventually you have to stand up to switch it off. I think they have to win the prize for creativity, and yes I still think it possibly would work, although potentially like most alarm clocks you'd get used to it, perfecting the art jumping up, switching it off and then going straight back to sleep. Even if it is mean it would probably work better than my travel clock phone alarm combination i've got going on at the moment. Also since it hangs above your head it probably has some kind of concussion/strangling warning on it... or it should have.
I'm not sure what I make of this podcast craze. I think I can sum it up best by saying that I quite like the idea of talking rubbish into a microphone and then posting it online for people to enjoy listening to, BUT thats just the problem noone would actually enjoy listening to it because they don't know me and i'd be talking rubbish. However people don't seem to think about this before creating them.
An update on my post here regarding the new style, looks like a gremlin, Furby. My sister has a new one, and although not as cute as the original it is cuter in real life than it appears in pictures... AND its more fun to play with and doesn't talk so much rubbish on its own. It will sing you a song, or tell you a story, or tell you a joke when you ask it to. My conclusion, the new furby isn't all that bad, and yes I still want one...
Ok i've been given an interview by Richards Butler and I really didn't see that coming, and its scary, especially because I really like their firm. Time to brush up on my law and firm knowledge... AHH! Luckily the firm website has a firm news section so that shouldn't be too hard (it will be the understanding the jargon that will be difficult). And the interview is on Valentines day, what a good job i'm single otherwise I'd have to make a very early career vs. relationship decision... I have a 30 minute verbal reasoning exercise (i did a tester one and didn't do very well, not helping my nerves), and a 30-40 minute interview.
I posted a while ago about 'of the day' sites and mentioned The Daily Puppy. Now I have found the The Daily Kitten site and so feel like it would be discriminatory not to mention it (you should hear the drama in our house about whether dogs or cats are better, personally I like both, but I want a dog...). From what I've seen of the Daily Kitten site so far it's nowhere near as cute as the puppy site but maybe it's just been a slow week for them...
Sony have announced that they are shutting down the department that created the Aibo, the cute electronic dog that was freaky because it was a robot but still cute! I'm a bit upset actually because I wanted one just for the hell of it... I find it hard to believe that Sony will never make robots ever again, although the article claims that the entire robotics department will be shut down, maybe the next thing will be a secretly created iRobot styly house robot. Here is the article where I found out about my loss. The good news for those who already own one is that the after sales care will continue for 'a while longer', whatever that means. And they will still be selling the pet for a few more months, including the new brown model that they are advertising on the website, for all of you who wanted one and have a lot of spare money lying around to spend on a robotic dog. A news article about the death of the Aibo can be found here.
Or at least it seems that way but actually it's only been a few days...
I have found this new website for those of you buy too many books and/or who read too much... i would if i had the time (chosen my firms to apply for vacation schemes law people will be pleased [or horrified] to know, will most likely be doing that all/ starting the painful process tomorrow, except when i have my arabic listening exam)!
Basically the title says it all, the Southampton Uni A-Team won the A-Team competition on Weds at Pinkmead. It was their home comp, and so thats kind of expected. The team came first overall against Surrey, Portsmouth and Brighton Unis, and the four Southampton riders, Lizzie, Tom, Phil and Jenny, all recieved the top four individual scores as well.
I really think Ella, our University Riding Events coordinator is trying to bankrupt me! Jumping Clinics, Driving Intros, Beach Ride, Monty Roberts Demo, all on top of my normal lessons each week, and thats just the things i've agreed to do! Don't forget the fact that every week i could also, if i choose to, take part in Polo lessons, Hacking, and if i'd have had the time and gone to the trials, and had alot of luck (lol ALOT), been doing team training once a week as well! i could almost forget that i'm meant to be doing a degree, oh yeah and need money to eat!
(the real life horse whisperer for those who do not know)! This is his website, and the question section was actually quite interesting... but then again i might just be avoiding writing my Property II essay... no i don't think thats what it is!
spent with my horse the better i got until finally i wasn't reacting to him at all! Same for my best friends cats!
e of being able to have a doodle this iDog that i saw when i browsing Shiny Shiny would perhaps be an amusing temporary distraction. Cool speaker item that doesn't only play your songs but apparently can store them... and dance... and just look incrediably cute! Look now i'm talking myself into it... and only 30 pounds, ok maybe only isn't the right word to use there but it's still cool.
