An Assortment.
First, as sort of an addendum to yesterday's post about Moleskines and other writing materials, here is a picture.
In the back, on the left is the silk-covered one I bought in Beijing for 220RMB (that's about $30US/CAD, ￥3400). Yes, it's upside-down, because that's the only way I could make it stand up.
In the centre is the pocket-sized book I bought today at Village Vanguard that I'm gonna use to just write things down during the day as I think of them, so I can maybe stop having, "Damn, what was that great idea I had earlier today that I didn't write down...? FUCK," moments. It'll take a little while to get used to doing it, but if I make a point of using it, it will become second nature pretty quickly, I hope. It has two bands, one of which I'm using as a bookmark (which I guess is its intended purpose?) but one of them is off because, BAM, that's the only way I could make it stand up.
On the right is the hand-made paper book I purchased in Hanoi. The little storefront I bought it from also had uhhh bamboo bookmarks that were handpainted in a sort of style that evokes a feeling of French Indochina and elegant coffee houses of that era. This book cost me about 1000 Vietnamese Dong. That's about 6 cents, or ￥7. I think it was worth it. The woman also had a giant portrait of Ho Chi Minh on the wall in the back that was for sale, and she tried to talk me into buying it, but uhhh noooo, there's no way I'd have ever gotten it home.
Amazon has Moleskine dealios, so I'm gonna buy a large ruled one to add to the queue of books to use (yes, I know I should just wait until I get to where I need one, but pfft), and a pocket-sized info book. It may not be of particular use to me, but I figure I'll fill it out with useful info about this place, and then I can give it to the person who comes after me in this job, and maybe their life will be a little easier. Might as well put my stupendously long experience to good use.
On the way back, I stopped at Joshin and bought AppleCare for my iPod, since the one year warranty will be up soon. Since I bought AppleCare separately, I have to register it with my hardware on the Apple website. Unfortunately, the server that the AppleCare registration is on times out all the fucking time. Like, I click the link, I log-in, it tries to forward me to the page I need, and then it just sits there forever before timing out. On the rare occasion it doesn't time out, I get Apache 404s (aka, no one's bothered to set anything up beyond default on the box). Way to have your shit all broken and not working Apple. I suppose I should have expected this, though.
Now, as a parting note, let me leave you with this, which I stumbled across in Village Vanguard today.
