iSkin and iPhones :/ - an open letter to Steve Jobs

My life is a haze (slippery slope?) of vaseline and dead skin. That's the reality of it. Icky to the non acquainted/OCD type. But that's my life.

My life is also jam packed with Apple products. Ok maybe not jam packed, but most of my technology needs are satisfied by Steve Jobs. I have an iPhone, iPod Touch and MacBook Pro. I am madly in love with the latter two. They are beautiful. And functional. More so beautiful. Actually my T key is a little sticky on my MacBook Pro, and I am unable to do eTax on it, so a little irritation has crept into my love.

My iPod Touch is the most wonderful music player I have ever had. I dreamed of playing four hours of Savage Garden when I was 15, and now I can do this. Last year I had an operation, and during the pre-op check up, I needed to give a wee sample. Who knew the iPhone Touch could assist me with this?! I downloaded the Shy Bladder app a few months earlier, in jest really. I thought it would be as much use as the cigarette lighter flame app I downloaded (zero use). When my wee didn't flow naturally, I returned to my doctor's room, grabbed my iPod and headphones and took them back to the toilet, assuring the doctor I'd explain when I returned. After a bit of waterfall sound effects through my Sennheisers (and pleased that I wasn't wasting water when our dams were at their lowest), my wee flowed. And when I returned to the doctor's room, I explained the need for my iPod in the toilet and he laughed and laughed. Ingenious.

But the iPhone is not the best thing to come into my life like others believe theirs to be.

I vowed not to be one of those who succumbed to an iPhone. I really only need a phone to make calls and take the occasional (crummy) photo. But last September, about a year ago actually, I lost my phone (a basic Nokia) in a taxi on the way to ChIPS camp. Optus had previously stuffed up my account whereby they didn't sign me up to the plan I believed I was on, and so I was credited about $700, so when it came to replacing my phone, I thought, what the hell, I'll get an iPhone because I won't have to pay a bill for a while. And I didn't - it's only been since about June this year that I have started paying my mobile bills again. When I bought it, it was pretty good - like no other phone I had. I didn't have my MacBook Pro then, so it was a handy portable device. But then things went awry.

I have had three iPhones in a year. Soon to be four.

My skin and vaseline don't mix with the iPhone. The first iPhone was replaced because the microphone failed. No one could hear me on the phone. I could hear them though. The speaker component also suffers - my ring tone and alarm are bearly audible.

I believe it is due to skin and vaseline blocking the microphone/speaker, despite my vigilant cleaning with a dry toothbrush (sometimes I do this while waiting at the train station and people freak out - RELAX - the toothbrush has NEVER been wet or in my mouth!).

The second iPhone smashed when it was dropped. I waited six weeks to get a replacement through home and contents insurance. My beautiful looking iPhone became like this ugly witchy Barbie doll I once got as a part of a Snow White and Wicked Stepmother set, aged four. I couldn't bear to look at the smashed screen, it reminded me of this Barbie doll. And black glass bits kept of flaking off, leaving a sticky residue. It was usable - I could make calls, check emails and Facebook, but there was also the problem of the microphone and my skin.

This current iPhone has lasted since May. People have complained they cannot hear me when I call them. So on Wednesday it is back to the Apple store where I hope to get another replacement.

Despite using a cover and little plugs in the power bit, my iPhone is not ichthyosis friendly.

Steve Jobs - you have enough money and compassion to design one where the microphone is protected from my skin and vaseline. If you are reading this and got all the way through it, I thank you, and hope you will understand the skin and vaseline issue is not due to me kinkily using my iPhone.

Steve Jobs, I challenge you to consider redesigning the iPhone to make it more accessible for me. I don't want to have to be constantly replacing my phone.

Thank you.

On the path to dreams

You may recall a few days ago I wrote this here:

'...it is my dream for a reputable media or communications company to contact me through this blog and ask me to write for them on a regular, paid basis, a bit like Carrie Bradshaw, in the inner suburbs of the city but without the men or the Manalos (Hello - is anyone out there??!!)'.

I imagine myself looking exactly like this, complete with the expression of enlightenment, but my MacBook is more modern:


Well...

I submitted a few of my blog entries to a very reputable organisation, and I was contacted today by a staff member within.

He read my submissions and also this blog, and has chosen an article that he thinks is suitable to be edited slightly and published on the organisation's website! It will be me telling my own story.

PUBLISHED!

MY OWN STORY!

WOW!

I am very excited as it's one step closer to my dream!

I'm not going to preempt anything by writing much more about this exciting opportunity, but I'll keep you updated as things progress.

This blog is making things happen!

The weekend just gone/still going

I'm loving this loooooooong weekend business.

My weekend started last Tuesday at 5:00 pm when I went to eat burgers, drink beer/vodka lime and soda, see Bran Nue Dae at the cinema with two friends. The movie was bizarre. Filled with messages (sometimes stereotyped) about Aboriginal and white Australian culture, and sexual innuendo at the same time. In parts I sensed bitterness. There was a great cast - Jessica Mauboy looked stunning, and Deborah Mailman played a great drunken harlet, and Missy Higgins was really ocker. I don't know though, I didn't feel immersed in the movie.

Wednesday - Friday was camp, and I'll dedicate a separate blog post to that.
I love this restaurant - it's got modern Asian food.

Friday night I had dinner at Tom Phat in Brunswick. I love this restaurant - it serves modern Asian food at a great price. I ordered the twice cooked duck in plum sauce with Asian greens, and for dessert I had coconut icecream with mango and banana crumble - yum! My Mum was down with two of our friends, and we laughed and laughed, so much so Mum was crying! It was a lot of fun - I love spending time with Mum, she is one of my best friends. And our other two friends are a scream - I enjoy being able to discuss anything with them, and there never feels like there is a generation gap between us.

Saturday, the four of us shopped til we dropped. I almost did drop after being so tired from three days at camp. But like all good shoppers, I have stamina, and managed to walk the entire giant shopping mall and then some. I love shopping. I particularly love finding bargains.

I was very happy with my purchases, especially the MacBook Pro which I've been eying for ages. And now I have it, it's as wonderful as I imagined it would be. Of course, I probably didn't need to buy a MacBook Pro, per se, I could have make done with a middle level PC. But since I bought my iPod Touch and iPHone, I've fallen in love with the asthetics of Apple's products. Using it makes me feel like Carrie Bradshaw.

Like this.




Writing this blog on my MacBook, sitting on my bed, makes me feel like I'm writing a proper newspaper column, just like Carrie did. Except I abhor her collection of beige bras. For someone so fashionable she wore the yuckiest bras most of the time, and exposed them underneath her fabulous fashions. I recall she sometimes even wore the bras as a standalone piece, AS OUTERWEAR. Gosh.

An example.



I would NEVER do this. I may expose a pretty pink bra strap under a dress, but not the WHOLE GODDAMN BRA!

Anyhow, I digress.

This is my MacBook, it features the draft of this very blog post. And so a new love affair begins.



I purchased a Catherine Manuell Design laptop case so my MacBook's home is as beautiful as it is. I love Catherine Manuell's luggage collections.

I had to google the instruction for taking a screen shot. My case is the black and white one with the flap, sort of in the middle of the page.



And I also have a collection of brushes and wipes in a little beauty case so I can wipe my vaseline from the MacBook and brush dust (ie, dead skin) away. It's quite a hassle being me, but more so interesting!

So as I mentioned before, I went to my friend Alana hen's night on Saturday. Alana and I met when I started at the department store back in 1999 - she was the first person I met on my first day (aside from my manager). She showed me the ropes. Her sister also worked there. We became friends, and we both moved away from the country, and it's only in recent months that we've met in person again.

I went to the hen's night only knowing four people, but departed having made some new friends, which is really nice. Everyone there made me feel very welcome.

It was a 1920s flapper theme, and everyone dressed up! I love it when everyone follows the theme.

There were a few games - popping balloons with body parts, a quiz about the hen from her partner's perspective, and lots of great food made by her family and those slushie machines filled with daquiris.

At 11:30 pm, the stripper arrived. I'd never seen a stripper in real life before. It was a little awkward, I found, and I sensed Alana and some other girls felt his closeness awkward, too. It was a lot of fun, and I did have a big giggle when he came to me and asked me to rub his bum, but I declined oiling him up with baby oil.

Most of the girls at the hen's night headed into the city to a nightclub after the stripper festivities. I haven't been to a nightclub since the last hen's night I went to in 2006. Wow, things have changed. Girls wear NOTHING now, it seems. I enjoyed myself there more than I anticipated, probably because I was with a great group of people and I got in amongst it on the dancefloor, dancing to some songs I actually knew.

I had a thoroughly good time, but didn't get home til 3:00 am and though I only had half a daquiri and the rest soft drink, I felt pretty ordinary yesterday.

Here are some pictures from Alana's hen's night. We all looked stunning!







Today I've been pottering around my suburb doing groceries, buying supplies for my computer and reading magazines. Tonight I will cook, for the first time in eight days - how I miss cooking! And tomorrow I aim to 'shop my closet' - as in clean it out and find some gems I'd forgotten about and pack the stuff I don't wear off to St Vinnies. The Big Day Out is happening - though I'm not going I will hear it from my place, well it will be a mix of that and the Hottest 100, for which the number one sing has already been leaked. I am liking this 'me time' too.

This is the life - long weekends should happen every month!

MacBook Pro!

This is my first blog post from my new computer!

I bit the bullet and held my breath and bought a MacBook Pro yesterday.

Yay! I've wanted one for a long time.

It's very beautiful. So sleek and stunning. Deep down I know I only bought it because of its asthetics.

I've not done anything on it yet apart from use the internet to upload some photos to Facebook. I am keen to explore and welcome any tips or tricks as I am a first time MacBook user (other than using iMacs at uni).

The past five days have been great, but oh so tiring, and right now I'm pretty shattered, so I will report on camp and my fantastic weekend tomorrow or Tuesday (days off work = me time!).

But for now I will embed this You Tube footage of Darren Hayes performing The Lover After Me at his New Years Eve concert. My friend was there - she danced with Darren! (I wasn't able to watch much You Tube on my old computer because it was Just. So . Slow. But now, You Tube ahoy!



Bye for now :)