On UNIQLO
Known for long that UNIQLO opens on Sept. 19 in Tianjin but I was busy on that day and had thought people might flood in so I stepped in today instead.
Generally the stuff there is not expensive. Part of the clothes are on sale and worth buying. The store is the first in Tianjin and thus can be regarded as the premium store. It’s large with three sections: MEN, WOMEN and KIDS. After shopping for an hour I found colors swimming around me (maybe because I didn’t take in anything). Yes, I said colors. Never ever had I felt bright colors so delicious.
Anyways, I decide to be a regular in UNIQLO.
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“Wardrobe Parade (Radio Version)” – Yuki Hsu
AKG K311
I’ve taken AKG K311, plum colored. It was stupid of me to believe it was a good looking product judging by the pictures on the net. When cracking the package I found myself nicked. The earbuds look like a plastic toy, or rather, anything but real earbuds.
K311 doesn’t look good, but this is not the direst fact. The sound is not pleasant in addition. I don’t know why AKG let out such a failure.
I picked up a song from my iPod and K311′s performance was really miserable. However, I don’t think it might sound significantly after a warm-up.
The song I’m on these days:
“Time Stops” – Vicki Zhao
Flowing Time
Time flows as does water. I don’t even know the first who visualized time so successfully. There are many ways to feel time passing by, like counting your age, listing old friends you’ve known for years, flipping old books you bought and signed decades ago, and, browsing pictures over a time span of 20 years. But when you do nothing, can you still find time is going away?
“Time Goes Away” – Rosie Thomas
I got a 15-year friend, and a 12-year one, too. The oldest book at hand dates back to 1998 or so. The earliest picture I can find was taken when I was 100-day old.
However, we’ve grown. Nobody or nothing stays that way.
I love photography in that a camera is able to freeze spots of time. Later on you check your works, and you can do nothing but sigh.
Time is ticking on. The only horrible thing is that you can’t stop it, even when you breathe your last breath.
A History of My Cell Phones
A post on Douban.com reminded me of the few cell phones I have used and abandoned during the past years. The pictures below are not original because some of the cell phones are no longer at hand.
“Cell Phone (feat. Andrea Simmons)” – George Benson
1. Siemens S4 (June – July, 2004)
Actually I didn’t know its model number till I Googled it. All I could remember was the Siemens logo, the heaviness and the enormous build.
I got this phone when I knew I could enter college but didn’t know if a cell phone was necessary or not. Then my uncle gave this Siemens S4 to me, which he had abandoned years before. There was no complaint about how come he gave an old and half dead cell phone but not a new one. I really treasured it for it was the first mobile phone in my life. I could talk freely and pay the bill for myself, being kinda independent on family landline so I was ridiculously proud of that for a couple of weeks!
Because it was a 1997 model, there were few refill batteries available on the market. Plus the original battery was almost dead. And such a monster phone might be teased when small and chic models came into vogue.
Vanity worked.
2. NOKIA 2300 (July – September, 2004)
Window shopping at 3C stores was on my to-do list on the thought of buying a new cell phone. Then I happened to see NOKIA 2300, a new model in 2004. Days later, Mom, Dad and I went to NOKIA store and bought it for 950 RMB.
The butterfly-shaped keypad told the manufacturer’s creativity. Really luv this part! The ringtones sounded quite excellent (thought it didn’t support mp3 format).
Then my mother intended to buy a phone, too. I gave this to her fifty days after we bought it because vanity worked again —- my friends were using color display mobiles.
3. NOKIA 3100 (September, 2004 – October, 2006)
I did have a color display mobile! Yep, that was NOKIA 3100. I went on with NOKIA simply because of its reliability, I mean, signal quality, product quality and the company’s remarkable service. 3100 was a 2003 model but the price was still rather high in 2004, at 1,200 RMB or so. Then Mom and Dad agreed to buy me this one.
I still remember the days when Internet was not available in our freshman dormitory. At night I hid inside my quilt, turned on NOKIA 3100 and surfed the net via GPRS. It was slow but charged a lot at that time. I really enjoyed it anyways.
This cell phone was in use for more than 2 years, the longest one ever.
4. MOTO V3i (October – October, 2006)
I must confess I was a freak when I abandoned NOKIA 3100 (not really abandoned but gave it away to my uncle) and decided on MOTO V3i. CMCC created a promotion saying users signed a contract and would get a V3i. I signed because the plan was acceptable, 70 RMB per month.
But troubles came when I started to use it. I found it was not a smartphone and not fun. And it was the only clamshell phone I have ever used. It was not convenient at all. Despite all these, the system had many bugs and one of them would cause the dead whitescreen and unexpected shutdown problems. After two weeks I got it, I sold it to someone on campus.
5. NOKIA N70 (October, 2006 – August, 2008)
Then I turned to bar phones again. With the help of friends, I met a reputable vendor who was selling smuggled mobile phones. I didn’t know much of the grey 3C market and he told me N70 was the king of bar smartphones at that time, with a price of 2,500 RMB. I sold V3i and got 1,500 and had to kick in another 1,000 to get this N70. After thinking twice I did. I must say N70 was a really good choice for me. I kept it for less than 2 years, till it didn’t work properly at times.
6. BlackBerry 8700 (August, 2008 – September, 2009)
Vanity worked over and over again. I became interested in BlackBerry series. But in China only smuggled BlackBerries were available.
Advertisement told me BlackBerry 8700 appeared in Prison Break, in ZHANG Ziyi’s bag, and in some other celebrities’ hands. That’s why I fixed my eyes on it. Actually there were several models better than 8700 but the prizes were raised too much due to a restriction on transportation over Beijing Olympics.
A year later, the handheld began to behave like mad. It really pissed me off and on a sunny afternoon I was so determined to replace it as to buy a NOKIA E63 in Gome. It was an impromptu decision.
7. NOKIA E63 (September, 2009 – )
Hello, NOKIA! I’m back.
This is what I’m using and today is its fourth day with me.
BlackBerry told me one thing: QWERTY keypad rocks!
That’s why I chose E63.
Heartfelt Sympathy for Myself
Today I was scolded by my supervisor over the phone. His point, if it could be summarized, might be that I was a flippant. I should have devoted my all to research and the final paper but I’m making money by teaching instead. Yet I didn’t detail the reasons for “not being concentrating” because I always know what I’m doing.
Life’s never been easy since the day I knew it all. Paradoxes and dilemmas are so omnipresent as to make us suffer on the horns of a dilemma at times.
It’s true I need to feed a family. It’s true I need to get a Master’s degree. It’s true I have to do all I can to concentrate on the study. But it’s also true I have to face my life, the messy life with few sparkles.
I am not complaining. I am just confused.
Slouching on the road and thinking of dropping him a line, I laughed at myself for being this naive and stupid. My life doesn’t need explaining for those who want to know must know and those who don’t will never know.
He wouldn’t “promise anything”, as he promised, if I focused too much on making money. I laughed again. Nobody ever has been asked to promise anything to me. Even most of the time I hate (people who try) to get benefits through the back door, as much as I hate any cabal. He didn’t know me in this sense, but I’m sure he must have seen many damn cases before.
I’m sorry but I can’t satisfy everyone in my life.
“10 Years Later” – Fiona Sit feat. Edmond Tong