Bohemia Bunny

The Funnerology Principle

Monthly Archives: November 2009

New music app – MeeMix

I used to listen to Pandora, the online music recommendation website, back when I was in uni. That service recommended Joshua Payne to me, and I ended up buying his CD, so Pandora really worked for me. But then they ran into licensing issues and became unavailable to non-US users. I was sad.

I spend much of my time at work now and my days are pretty much music-free except for the commute to and from work. And now that I have the new Muse album, I want to listen to it all the time. But I also don’t want to rip the CD to my computer, it’s a waste of precious megabytes! Plus, to avoid musical stagnation, I should explore artistes apart from my usual staples. That’s why I need something like Pandora.

Step in MeeMix, which I discovered today when I Googled “muse internet radio”. It works pretty much like Pandora, and while it’s not as smooth as that pioneering original, it gets the job done. Doesn’t seem to be terribly popular yet, so usernames should be easily available. It played Muse’s “I Belong To You” and followed it up with Depeche Mode and Oasis’s “Little by Little”. It played me a couple of unfamiliar artistes as well, which I skipped. I’m not THAT musically adventurous. You can also set “Pulse” and “Atmosphere” for upbeat or slow songs, and probably tonality – the parameters for “Atmosphere” go from dark to cheerful. You can also set how much you want to be “surprized” by the music choice.

As is becoming standard nowadays, you can also share a song you like via Facebook or Twitter. I was signed in to FB when I clicked the share button, it immediately opened a window to post the song and album art on my FB profile. Pretty seamless.

Right now, the system has learned from my super-like of Depeche Mode’s “John the Revelator” and is now playing me “Precious”. So the rating system works good too, as if you expected any less of it. So far, pretty good experience – I suppose it’ll get more varied as I rate more songs.

RIP Zero

Zero’s been sick for a while, it became very obvious that she lost a lot of weight. In an attempt to fatten her up, I saved some meat scraps from my lunch and fed it to her. She seemed to recover, back to her active self. Last night when I checked on them, she was in her paper towel nest with One.

On Saturday morning I found her curled up in the junction between the OVO and the ladder up to the UFO. Her eyes were still open. I hope she didn’t suffer. She’s in a better place now.

In Loving Memory

Zero

Jan 2009 – 14th November 2009

New baby Vaio

Vaios are overrunning the office. We must resist the efforts of the Macbook clan to overtake us! I have fortified the ranks with my Vaio Z.

Anyway pictures of my birthday presents!

Crumpler bag from colleagues, Perlini necklace from boss and wife (I think – she only wrote “from all of us” on the card), wine from Mei Ling and Eva, and Sham, Munchkin from the boyfriend, Munchkin Cthulhu from Eric and Gabriel, and Sony Vaio from my bank account. The day after this was taken, another colleague gifted me a top from Esprit.

New baby with its friends the Chirpee laptop sleeve and my Razer ProClick 1.6 mouse. *looks at mouse* Hmm, to Mamba or not to Mamba? Or better yet, a mouse that tracks on glass? Ah, that will be on next year’s wishlist, I have spent too much already.

“I’m so pretty, can you see the sparkles on my carbon fibre lid?” Sparkly for extra strength, just like a certain vampire…

“And my brushed aluminium layer!” New answer for Chemistry O Level question: Name a use for aluminium – to make expensive laptops.

My pet betta fish. It requires zero maintenance. Not standard with the retail Windows 7, I got it off the Internet as it only shipped with the Beta version. They ought to have made it standard, it’s so pretty. A moment of computer Zen.

It’s not called a Macbook keyboard if other computers have it too. I call it chiclet, some people call it isolated, some people call it “oooh!”

The requisite full-body shot.

And finally:

Yay!

Birthday shopping 2009

It’s turning into a habit, a yearly splurge as my birthday approaches. No la, it’s cos Windows 7 came out in time for my birthday! And also because I exercised my birthday girl privileges and dragged the boyfriend shopping with me. In conjunction with my awesome birthday, I had a very spendy shopping session.

The day before my birthday, we went to Ngee Ann City because I wanted a specific Majolica Majorca mascara from the Watsons there. I bought it on the sales assistant’s recommendation, only to go home and find out that it was the wrong variant. I eventually returned it and got my money back, and bought the correct type off eBay. It’s not sold in Singapore. Sigh.

We hit up HMV to buy my Muse album The Resistance, and picked up 4 books for $40. He got the Motorcycle Diaries trilogy by Che Guevara (yes the dude on the shirts) and I got Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I haven’t even opened the plastic wrapper of the book yet, but I’ve had a listen through the entire Muse album and it’s great. See the power of branding – I bought the album without so much as testing it, knowing that Muse CDs are always worth the price. All killer no filler, although some songs are less stellar than others, but still better than some stuff on the radio. *snob*

Then of course I bought my Vaio Z, which necessitated some accessories for it. I’m not insane enough to buy an entire “wardrobe” of accessories just because I have a new laptop. It’s just that my Zeroshock laptop sleeve can’t fit in my bag, and I don’t want my Vaio to go “naked”. If the sleeve fit inside, I’d have continued using it, never mind that it’s big enough for a 15-inch machine and my Vaio is only 13 inches. I actually went to Spotlight, thinking that I could buy some nice fabric and make my own laptop case and phone pouch. In the end I left Spotlight with a piece of felt and a spool of metallic thread. I’m still going to make my phone pouch by hand, but a laptop sleeve is a large order for my limited skills. I bought a cute brown sleeve from Ripples in the basement of Plaza Singapura instead for $23.90. It’s cushiony and made of cuddly canvas with twitter-like birds embroidered on it. Next time I’ll go back and buy the matching flip-flops.

To protect the game cards in the Munchkin decks I got for my birthday, I bought some exorbitantly expensive card protectors from my regular comics shop. They were sold out of the clear ones which are 4 dollars per hundred, so I got blue and silver-backed ones for 8 dollars per hundred instead. Meh. In order to get maximum return from my ill-advised investment, I am considering having a Monthly Munchkin Meeting to play the game. I also printed out the game guides freely available from the game’s website, and put them in clear PVC folders. Much cheaper than laminating, plus I can reuse for other games!

Finally, I bought “Plants vs Zombies” from Big Fish Games to play on my nice new PC. Hee. I have so many nice things!