Valen’s Vanity Square

I love all sorts of cool and fashionable gadgets. But ‘love’ is one thing, whether I can afford to own is another matter altogether.

Oh well, at least I own the basic gadgets – a laptop, mobile phone and an MP3 player. While I am very happy with my 3-year old COMPAQ laptop and 2-month old SE mobile phone, I don’t like my 1-year old SONY MP3 recorder-player, which is bulky and not cool at all.

Its design is a loser (that’s why I’m not showing a photo of my MP3 player here) when compared with these sleek MP3 players (or even MP4!):

(Left) Mach Speed 1GB Onyx MP4 with recorder; (Right) Microsoft Zune 4GB

(Left) Sandisk Sansa Fuse MP3 4GB; (Right) Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB

I really like the pink Microsoft Zune model, but its price scares me away – USD129.99! *Sigh* When it comes to reality check, vanity always has to give in…

I’m on my way to addiction.

Not drug addiction, of course! I’m getting increasingly hooked to PC games; that’s what I’m trying to say.

Didn’t realize playing PC games can be so fun, challenging, mind boggling, as well as time consuming! I know this ‘discovery’ came about rather late (considering my age, :P), but late better than never, right?

I understand what’s hot nowadays is actually playstation 3, but I’m not that ‘advanced’ a player yet (too old, may be?), so will just stick to PC games for the time being.

While there are some super duper cool games that I’ve played before, naturally there are some super boring ones – too straight forward a story plot, nothing else to do but to look for hidden objects. Not sure if I should mention the name of the game here…

Currently I’m playing The Mystery of the Crystal Portal, a cool one!

Nicole Rankwist and her archaeologist father were very close so when he went missing, Nicole knew she had to find him. What she couldn’t know was that the search would take her all around the world and reveal a secret so huge that it threatened the very course of human history.

Join Nicole as she explores the world, and solves puzzles from ancient Guatemalan ruins to quaint Swiss villages and back to her home in New York all in search of her missing father…

May be I will tell more about it once I finished the game. Do you play PC games?

Think computer games are meant for guys only? I bet you will change your mind once you started playing one or two. I myself have been addicted to PC games recently, I tell you, hehe.

I’m not referring to those war games or terrorist games that involve lots of shooting and killing (urrgh!). There are games meant for good, pretty and, perhaps, adventurous ladies like us.

If you like girly games with cute animated characters, then you should try time-management games like Posh Boutique and Sally’s Spa. These will give you a taste of running your own fashion or spa empires, haha!

For those who are detective-minded (like me, ahem) and prefer to squeeze a cup or two of brain juice, I strongly recommend hidden object games Women’s Murder Club – Death in Scarlet and Hidden Secrets – The Nightmare. Their plots and mini games are not as direct and simple as others that I have tried (such as the Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes). In fact, some of them are very challenging until I got stuck and had to seek help from online game guide.

You can try look up for these games on Yahoo! games section. There are free trial versions that you can download onto your computer, but you only have 1 hour of playtime. If you like the games, then you probably can consider purchasing those games, either online or from any of the computer games store. But make sure your computer has all the compatible specs and sufficient disk space and ram to run the games.

I currently have three (or four?) games stored in my laptop. I hope it is still capable of taking in two or three games before I figure out how to backup those game files for future replay.

Last month I wrote that I would like my next mobile phone to be a sweet pink one.

I did some research, browsing mobile phones and price tags at different vendors. Saw some of the pink-colored models I had in mind initially, but figured that either they don’t really look nice or are simply ‘too pink’ for me, hehe.

Okay, the simple truth is: I’m so over the age to hold a pink-colored mobile phone…. (This truth was revealed to me by my dear husband. Hmmph!)

Okay, no pink mobile phone for me. Fine. I’ll get other colors then. Perhaps purple, may be brown, or… how about green?

So, again, I went visiting vendors, collecting product leaflets and reading up mobile phone reviews. You see, buying a mobile phone or even computer is not as simple as buying usb flash drives. One needs to do a lot of research to make sure the money is well invested. Right?

So, now I have shorted-listed several potential ones from Sony Ericsson.

K850i
Released last December, this mobile phone comes with a 5-Megapixel camera! That’s as good as a digital camera. Imagine, I no longer need to carry my digital camera everywhere I go just in case I need to take a couple of photos over dinner. And I can instantly post the photos onto my blog even. The price, however, is out of my initial budget - RM1,499. And the design is, hmm, quite boxy. Well, we shall see, we shall see.

K770i
Released a month before K850i, this one comes only with a 3-Megapixel camera. It definitely can’t compete against K850i in terms of photo quality, but overall it received a good review, and it looks so much gorgeous too, isn’t it? There are three colors to choose from - brown, purple and beige. If I remember correctly, it is slimmer than K850i, nice to hold and suitable for ladies. The price quoted to me was RM999, still slightly higher than my original budget of RM700. Not sure if the price would drop further in 2 months’ time.

T650i
This one looks really cool, huh? 3-Megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, plus all the basic functions, including 3G capabilities. Its price should be around RM1,000-1,100.

I also have other options that are well below RM1,000, but they come with only 2-Megapixel camera and may not offer good photo-taking capabilities.

K610i
Not too old a model, released last September. The price should be around RM700-800.

K550i
A 1-year old model, looks nice, no 3G functions though. Priced at RM699 (or lower) - this fits very well into my budget, but usability wise, not so impressive.

Tough choice to make, yeah? Oh well, I still have time to contemplate over the choices available, since I’m still waiting for my pay checks.

‘Bumped’ into this photo on the internet yesterday… pink mobile phones by Nokia!

You would probably guess what followed after that. Yeah, the photo ignited my pink desire, making me searching high and low on the web for my dream pink mobile phone, hehe. I actually don’t make many phone calls, and hardly chat on the phone. But I definitely want to look good when I do, haha! Hey, you can’t deny that mobile phones are also one of the fashionable items today, can you?

So, after browsing through the web, I’ve shortlisted four here. They all carry different specs in terms of dimension, weight, memory space, ring tones, camera pixel, etc. I don’t really know what differences they will make. To me, as long as the phone functions like a phone, is able to access the internet, take simple shots, play MP3 files, AND look good, that will be fine by me. Haha!

Sony Ericsson Z610i
I like its smooth, glassy, mirrored front. Comes with a 2-megapixel camera and support for 3G.

Sony Ericsson W580i
More of a walkman than a phone, actually. Still, it’s cool. Comes with Walkman 2.0 music player, 2-megapixel camera and Bluetooth.

Nokia 7373
One of Nokia’s L’Amour Collection. Totally love its artful exterior! Offers a 2-megapixel camera, an integrated MP3 player, Bluetooth, and a built-in Sudoku game (my favorite game!).

Nokia 6120
I think this is quite a powerful one. Besides offering music player, 2-megapixel camera and MP3 ring tones, it is also packed with Office software.

The next thing I’m gonna do, is to check out reviews of these phones as well as the price. Hopefully at least ONE of them is below RM1,000, preferably between RM500-RM700 (is that possible?). After that, hehe, I need to think of how to get rid of my current PDA phone….

While I like myself to look good with glowing skin, and my new house to look good with tasteful interior design and decors, I also want my laptop screen to look cool with a nice wallpaper.

My sister pointed me to a website that offers some really cool and chic free wallpapers - JinjerUp.

It’s a website authored by a designer who designs prints and patterns and all stuffs artistic. Most of her work is for sale, but there are also some freebies to give out to those who love her work.

I myself is now using this as the wallpaper for my laptop. Cute, isn’t it?

Other cute wallpapers include:

So check out the website, get rid of your current dull wallpaper, and give your laptop or PC a fresh new look with wallpapers from JinjerUp!