My Siemens

Back when there was still a telecoms company called Piltel, I acquired my first mobile phone. I think it was the kind that was not able to send text messages yet. People had pagers, paging companies, and the booming (and soon to bust) page-operators industry for that. That first mobile phone of mine was so big that it filled a pant pocket and could probably kill a small animal if you hit the latter on the head hard enough with the former. I held out as long as I could and didn't buy a new mobile phone even as texting put the Philippines on the world map as the text-capital of the world and the two largest mobile phone companies here are hitting their 7-million subscribers mark. When I finally succumbed, I went out to shop for a novice's model.
After a while, I gave my dad that phone and bought my first Siemens model. I was hooked. To me it was pretty and pretty durable and had the features I wanted on a phone.
Then came the SL45 that played mp3's stored in a multimedia card. I passed my older phone to my mom and was very happy with my new phone.

2001-2005

Alas, Siemens phones may be durable but not theft-proof. My mom lost the older phone model so when she travelled to the US, I had her buy another Siemens phone there. I used it here for a month (to test) then gave it to her as a present.

2003-present

Then, as soon as it hit Manila in January of 2004, I purchased the latest and, note the keypad arrangement, freakiest Siemens mobile phone anyone has ever seen up to that point. It still is a great phone, but since last year, it has died on me several times already. Miraculously, it would get revived again (with all the messages and contacts and settings erased) but after three years, it's served its time. I'm not going to bury it just yet and even if I buy a new phone, I'm still going to use my SX1 until it no longer works.

2004 - present

Shopping for a new phone is tougher now, especially since I don't think I'll be purchasing a Siemens model anymore because the Siemens mobile unit was bought by Taiwan-based Benq late 2005 and although the new SL91 model looks exciting enough, the other mobile phone companies are churning out better and better models. Benq-Siemens is falling way behind now with little hope of recovery.

The SL91 - will it come out at all?

Happy Valentine's!

Ok, so how I read it- it's "Googe." Google usually changes its search page graphic to match the occasion; and since today is Valentine's, they had some chocolate and a cherry (?) and a heart shape in there. But is the cherry stem supposed to be part of the "L" in Google? What do you think? Happy V-day to everyone- with a partner or without.

Til Death Do Us Part

A pair of human skeletons lie in an eternal embrace at an Neolithic archaeological dig site near Mantova, Italy, in this photo released February 6, 2007. Archaeologists in northern Italy believe the couple was buried 5,000-6,000 years ago, their arms still wrapped around each other in a hug that has lasted millennia. REUTERS/Enrico Pajello/Handout (ITALY).

Aw. I wonder what they died from. And if anyone nowadays would even consider dying alongside their beloved just so they could prove how much they loved each other. Theirs would certainly be a very interesting story. Reminds me of the broadway musical AIDA. It'll be Valentine's Day again very soon...

Full Moon

I don't hear dogs howling. No ghosts or ghouls about. The sky is clear. The stars are visible. So is a very big moon. Luna. It's just the one moon Earth has. And things could have been different if we had more.

Daniel Radcliff on Equus

The above pictures are promotional pictures taken by Uli Weber for the upcoming London staging of the Tony-award-winning play, Equus, by Peter Shaffer. Harry Potter film series star Daniel Radcliffe will play Alan Strang, a stable boy who is interviewed by a psychiatrist after he blinds six horses with a metal spike. The role requires Harry- I mean Daniel- to ride naked on his horse. I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan so I don't get how all this naked-ness will sit with HP fans. But it will certainly give another dimension to the bespectacled magic student; we might even get a glimpse of his wand. (Naughty-naughty!) Of course, that applies to those actually going to see the play in London.