Author Archives: Barneys Girl

The Thing About Touchscreens

21 Sunday Feb 2010

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When I first got the Diamond in June 2008, it was the top of it’s line, the latest touch screen model, and I thought it was pretty cool. The design was sleek and pretty, and the interface was quite cute. Obviously very soon its newness wore off and I started to realize how painfully slow it was (especially compared to the iphone- and I’m talking about the first gen one too!) and how most of the “cool” functions don’t even work that well. Occasionally it turns itself off, this random connection screen pops up every 5 minutes for no reason and the clock doesn’t work (it lags no matter how many times you reset it). Oh and the quality of the voice conversations was also awful. I’ve been told that I sound robotic. Regardless, I convinced myself that it’s not too bad and I worked with it, determined to hold out until the next iPhone comes out this year (fingers crossed!).

Unfortunately, unlike my trusty old Nokia cell, which held out for months after the battery expanded and I couldn’t close the back, when a touchscreen starts to die, it dies a swift death. My touchscreen stopped working and there isn’t much I can “work with” after that. The worst thing was, I called customer service and found out that I can’t even recover my contact list! I was under the impression that smartphones are mini computers, and figured that if hardrives can be recovered when a pc dies, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to recover my contacts. But no, apparently they reset your phone when they examine it and there isn’t some magic the technicians can do to recover it. I am so mad at them and at myself for not backing up my phone (the backup program is not userfriendly). I just spent the whole evening painstakingly going through my contact list manually and typing it into my google contacts (luckily I figured out how to use the few keys on my phone to get me the relevant page). I figured that I can transfer them over when I get my new iPhone (when it comes out). I’m placing my bet on the advance of technology in the last two years and the superiority of Apple over HTC, that this won’t happen again. I’m absolutely never buying another phone from HTC again (don’t know what made me do it in the first place- must’ve been the pretty glass case!). I’m back to my old Nokia in the meantime. Apple better come out with a new iphone soon……..

Image Source: HTC

Happy Chinese New Year

17 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Hong Kong, Random Musings

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The last few days have been incredibly busy celebrating Chinese New Year. Visiting people and collecting red packet is hard work! After collecting red packets, the second thing I enjoyed most were ironically the flowers, which I never paid much attention to before.

Every year in Hong Kong, impromptu flower markets pop up to sell flowers and random specialty items, very much like how in the States you have random Christmas themed farmer markets. They open around the week before CNY and end on CNY. Most people go in the last few nights when it opens really late (like past midnight late- us HKers are a nocturnal bunch), when it’s absolutely packed. They say that just walking around the market will bring you good luck in the new year. So I must be VERY lucky this year, since I went to the flower market TWICE (it’s a loooong story). But anyways, this is where the flowers generally come from, though you can find them in flower shops too.

It doesn’t look too exciting when you’re at the flower market because  there are so many of them they all start looking the same. But once it get’s home, aren’t they so very very pretty? Each flower represents some kind of good luck, though I’m not sure of the details on that front. The names going clockwise from the top left to the best of my knowledge: a) Japanese orchids (they’re a new breed this year and I LOVE how it looks) b) some sort of red sword orchids? c) bells, because they dangle downwards and looks like a bell d) cherry blossoms, which is suppose to bring love. I think these might actually be better than a Christmas tree because of their many variety and vibrant colors!

In the spirit of the lunar year, many places made special Tiger items to commemorate the year. I paid special attention this year, since the Tiger is my favourite. Prada came out with a Tiger collection that frankly does not look very cute or pretty. But I do think that this Tiger from Swarovski is pretty awesome. Maybe even better than the Dragon one they had back in 2000 to celebrate the millennium.

Happy Year of the Tiger everyone!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

14 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by in Blogging, Random Musings, Relationships

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I went Artjamming recently, which is a 2 hour session where they provide you with all the tools you need with music jamming in the background, and this is what I ended up with:

Given my limited artistic capabilities and unimaginative nature, I decided to go with a simple shape and work on the color and texture. As simple as it looks, I’ll have you know that I probably spent a little over a hour working on the texture of the heart to get it to look like this. It turns out that texturizing is much harder than it looks and if you are not careful, you will over work it….

….and it’ll end up looking like this, which is neither here nor there. It looked much better in my imagination. It’s a good thing I took a picture of it before I decided to be done with it!

But yes, Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my readers for sticking around in the last year. It’s officially been 1 year and 14 days since I started to blog alone. I was so busy cramming for an exam on Feb 1st that I completely forgot until now. I know there’s been ups and downs, and quite some bit of inconsistency, but I appreciate your patience and I’ll try to do better this year. There’s been quite a lot of changes lately i.e. I finally got tired of Chicago and moved back to Hong Kong, but hopefully it is all for the better. I love you all!

Things you don’t want your BF to know

12 Friday Feb 2010

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Usually around this time every year, I’ll post a few Valentine’s gift ideas for lost souls wandering around the grounds of Henri Bendels. But I’ve already made one suggestion and I’m sure that the internet is already chock full of such ideas anyway. So I’m going to take a different approach this year and give my thoughts on certain subjects instead.

  1. Chocolate Making: When we say we “made” you chocolate, it actually means we melted chocolate, reshaped it for you using a mold and then refrigerated it. We didn’t actually make anything. It’s almost like playing with play-doh except we did it with food. To top it off, genius stores like Muji also provides us with easy ready-made kits, which includes all the tools/ingredients we need with step-by-step instructions (and even an online tutorial). In all the standardization, there is even room for “creativity” with decorating. Minimal effort with full marks for DIY effort, what more can a girl ask for? Thank you Muji!
  2. “Personalized” Items : Whoever invented sticking one’s picture onto any surface possible was a genius. Who doesn’t like constantly looking at themselves and their loved ones? Plus it allows the giver to appear thoughtful in their gift-giving even though it really just took them a few minutes to upload the pictures from the comforts of their home onto Shutterfly, fill in the form, click submit and have it delivered. Not that I’m begrudging all photo gifts, but I like to think of them as aids for expressions instead of an easy way out. A whole bunch of personalized photo gifts wouldn’t exactly match the decor of my apartment if you know what I mean. On the other hand, my friend got a personalized puzzle for her special someone this year and had it completed and framed as a present. The framed picture is probably nothing new, but the time spent putting it together and all is very sweet (Psst! I hear that in some places they put the pieces together for you).

Running out of ideas?

11 Thursday Feb 2010

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It occurs to me that the great god’s of technology these days are running out of ideas. Namely Apple and Google.

Apple came out with an iPad that is an iTouch except bigger. Admittedly they have a few more tricks, like the book reader program. But then I can read ebooks on my laptop. Indeed, there are applications to read ebooks on the iPhone as well. The point of an e-reader would be that it looks like a book, so that it’s not as damaging to your eyes, and can store many of it. I had high hopes for Apple to come up with a good one, but I guess I’ll just wait for the Kindle to come up with a version that has a colored touch screen and a backlight for when it’s dark. It is an interesting evolution of human behavior. Now that I’ve gotten on board with the touch screen thing, it seems intuitive that I should be able to flick a epage over.

Late last year, Google came out with Google Wave and everyone was anxious to be “invited” to try it. As an email, I prefer to see my communications come in order and not all over the place. I do not have the patience to see it replay itself, as cool as the function sounded. As a chat box, it was slow and confusing. Am I suppose to start a new thread for everything sentence I want to say, or reply to a thread? While the auto mapping and the photo sending function was cool (that is if the photo sending worked. The photos I tried to send back in October is still currently loading), the Wave just didn’t catch on with anyone I know and we all quickly gave up. I still have 23 invites. Maybe if they tried to integrate these little functions onto my Gmail.

Speaking of Gmail, I logged on this morning and noticed Google Buzz added to my sidebar. From what I can tell, it is a Google version of Twitter, except worse. It publicizes your contact list and it sends you spam everytime someone updates a Buzz. Molly Wood hits the spot on this one. I’ve already turned mine off. The link to do so is at the very bottom of your Gmail screen, where the small prints and Google View option is. Maybe the folks at Google have been couped up in Google town for too long………

Miu Miu Mesh Flats

08 Monday Feb 2010

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Every since the caged flats made their come out on the YSL runway, I’ve had half an eye out for it. But somehow the whole cage thing just didn’t look right.

Not even when Miu Miu came out with these gladiator cut out flats, that looked like the gladiators above (left) but with the pattern on the right. Miu Miu usually does a good translation of trends, and even my mom was all for them, but I couldn’t bring myself over to them. It is just… not really flattering on the feet.

But then I found this pair of Miu Miu suede mesh ballerina flats, and thought, maybe it’s not so bad after all! The slim and elegant ballerina shape with the bow, gives the mesh a feminine touch, toning down the severity of the mesh. And even though the metalltic pointy part is slightly odd, I am loving it. It makes me think that at least this pair won’t get snuffed from my way of walking (nearly all my pointy shoes are destroyed this way, even my round toed ones actually!). The metallic also adds back the “edgy” feel that mesh is supposed to have. The only downside is that this is made of suede. So not exactly spring/summer friendly.

Image Source: Net A Porter

Too Much TV?

05 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Books, Lifestyle, Random Musings

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Apparently mom was right, there is such a thing as too much TV. According to this research by the University of Maryland, “unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as ‘very happy’ spend more time reading and socializing.” Indeed, I recently read a book called, Happy for No Reason, where watching too much TV was one of the habits of being happy for a bad reason, because it only provided you with a temporary high.

I must admit, I’m definitely guilty of too much TV. It was one of the few things I looked forward to when I came home after work. At some points I’d watch a whole TV series within a few days! It’s really hard to stop at just one episode once you get started. When an episode ends, the inevitable feeling of emptiness creeps up, and all you want to do is start another episode! That was my ultimate guilty pleasure, and I indulged myself a lot.

Recently though, I’ve cut back on my TV watching. Instead, I’ve been devoting my time to socializing, reading and studying. I must say, keeping busy constructively really does make a remarkable difference on one’s mood. My dad claims that it’s because it keeps me from thinking too much. But maybe it’s because of my reduced TV consumption!

By no means, don’t cut your cable yet just to be “happier”. But maybe this weekend, try reducing your TV consumption and see how you feel. Do report back!

Vuitton Vernis

03 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Fashion

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The love for Vuitton has ran in my family for decades now. Consequently, I inherited quite a few of them. One of my favourites back in high school was this Lexington in a lovely sky blue vernis color. The design was simple, the color was young and vibrant and it’s made of this shiny water proof looking material that made me think that I wouldn’t have to worry about scratching/spilling on it too much.

Recently while taking stock of my collection, I rediscovered it. I was disappointed to find that the lovely sky blue color had discolored into patches of an unpleasant greenish yellow shade. You’d think that a Vuitton bag will keep a bit longer.

Indeed, this phenomena is not limited to bags. My mom went through our shoe collection last night and dug up a few pairs of Vuitton vernis pumps from way back then. This gorgeous pair of silver pumps had turn a silvery aqua color. The discoloration was so bad that we had to throw most of them away. The ones above are the only ones remaining that we deemed was still (kind of) wearable. Note the deep yellow shade at the back of the heels- it is not the lighting!

I asssure you that we’ve been taking good care of these items. They’ve been living in their original dust bags since they arrived. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the humidity of Hong Kong, but alas, there is not much I can do to change the air. I guess the vernis is not so wear-proof after all. I don’t think I’ll be investing in this material any time soon.

Ps. I really have no idea why there are purple borders around my images. Anyone else have this problem?

Diamonds 101

28 Thursday Jan 2010

Posted by in Fashion, Hong Kong

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Continuing from Pearl 101, we move onto a girl’s best friend. Who can resist these shiny shiny things? Here’s the low down:

  • It’s all about the 4Cs: Cut, Color, Clarity and Carat Weight
  • Cut: Not matter how big a diamond is, if it isn’t cut properly, it won’t be able allowed to shine to it’s potential. The perfect cut to let it shine, is the “ideal” cut, which is all about proportions. If the diameter is 100%, then the ideal cut would have the table around 55%, the crown height at around 15% and the pavilion depth around 43%. This cut allows light to be reflected back through the top of the stone making it shinier. Otherwise, light will be reflected sideways if it’s too deep or go right through if it’s too shallow, making the diamond look dark inside

 

  • Generally the best cutters are from Belgium, Russia and Holland
  • Our instructor, Alex, claims that the best cut is the round cut, cause then there are more facets of the for light to reflect from. The princess cut on the other hand (the one I’ve always secretly want just because of the name), is not that great cause it’s just a square. Plus, it’s harder as a craftsman to securely put a ring clasp on it
  • Color: For colorless diamonds, obviously the clearer the color the better. Colors are graded alphabetically, with D as the best (just remember, D for diamonds!). E and F are still quite clear and it gets progressively yellower.
  • A common trick by jewelers is to put diamonds with lower grades on gold bands, to hide the yellow color. If you put that diamond on a silver/platinum brand, it will be too obviously yellow. So it’s always safer to go for the silver/platinum bands!
  • According to Alex, the difference between crystals and diamonds is that crystals reflect more rainbow prism colors than diamonds, which are whiter. Though I just read somewhere else that diamonds reflect rainbow colors too…… so I’m not sure how valid this is
  • Clarity: Inherent “inclusions” of a diamond, such as scratches and black dots, mars a diamond and interferes with light reflection and consequently the brilliance of it. So the clearer the diamond, the rarer it is. To be honest though, he showed us a few examples under the magnifying glass and pointed out the blemishes and I simply did NOT see any blemishes/dots, even though I pretended to so as not to look like an idiot
  • Clarity is graded by the following system: F1 (flawless), IF (internally flawless- minor surface blemishes), VVS1-VVS2 (very, very small inclusions), VS1-VS2 (very small inclusions), SI1-SI2 (small inclusions) and I1-I2-I3 (imperfect- eye-visible inclusions)
  • Carat-Weight: This is very self explanatory, this is the unit to measure gemstones/diamonds by. The key point is to note that bigger is not always better. You have to take into consideration the other three C’s. But basically, it all seems to come down to the factors that makes a diamond shiny
  • Man-made diamonds are made of mammal ashes. After finding that out, I hypothesized that I can technically convert myself into a diamond upon my death and give it to my children as a memorabilia. Better to become a diamond than a pile of ash or rot in the ground, right? Indeed, having googled this idea, they apparently already offer this service at LifeGem. I almost feels cheated of my brilliant idea, if not for the fact that they have been around for a much longer time than my idea. But definitely food for thought. Would you want to be converted and live forever as a diamond?