Spring cleaning

I talk about getting my own place all the time nowadays but honestly I have no idea if I already know how to actually own my own place. Owning is a given if you've paid for it of course, but by "owning" I mean the upkeep and maintenance of a house.

If I'm ever going to start somewhere, I should start with what I already have: my room.

The perennial problem with me and my room is dust. My sinuses easily get sore from the feces of dust mites, and there's just too darn much of the stuff. It doesn't help that dust mites and I share one thing in common: a liking for paper. I'm a bit of a pack rat when it comes to old magazines, especially - I cannot let go of them immediately.

So December 30 saw me spending most of the day in my room, conducting my own version of spring cleaning. Out with the dusty magazines and sinusitis-inducing dust, and in with a clean room. I was suprised how much stuff I had removed and how heavy all those old issues of Autocar ASEAN and Top Gear weighed. Even with a dust mask on, however, by the time I was almost finished my sinuses eventually gave in and released a torrent of mucus and a storm of sneezes.

My room is clean again...for now. Maybe it's also good for me to clean out all those remnants of my past, and perhaps move on to newer and better things to learn from.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Cleanup for the new year

Cleanup for the new year

For once I've started to subscribe to the custom of doing some house cleaning to welcome the new year with. Only that it wasn't technically my house that I cleaned. Most obvious to you readers would be the slightly revamped layout of this blog, because I just got bored of the old one (and I hope you like it). I had the pleasant surprise of fiddling with Blogger's new layout tools and they're not half bad!

Pending cleanup is my gut. No, literally. I've put on a couple of pounds over the holidays due to having nothing else in the fridge/on the table but a combination of chocolate cakes, Krispy Kreme doughnuts (too damn sweet), booze and other stuff full of saturated fat...and not exercising enough due to post-flu weakness. Two pounds is a tame gain, I guess.

Next up was my car. Honestly it was asking for an interior cleanup session for months and I never got around to it until a few days ago. I also treated it to an overdue fresh oil change and new spark plugs (which were actually redundant as they still had 20,000 km to go). I did some minor cleanup in my terminally dusty and messy room, too, though not enough to make an obvious difference.

Apparently other people were thinking the same thing. Kitkat-chan had a fresh blog revamp, and Shiro launched a new blog altogether, consolidating his old one and injecting a hefty dose of French. Even my favorite car magazine, Autocar UK, ditched its old layout for a newer and more dynamic one.

Since the new year might lead to new things, here's a short list of stuff I'm looking forward to getting for myself. They don't have to arrive all at the same time, mind you.

• A Nokia 5300 phone. People who know me well know I'm not much of a phone person, but this one is an exception. Cheap, simple and plays music on the go---what's not to like? (I can forego the reportedly "lousy" 1.3-megapixel camera; go buy a proper digicam if imaging is important to you, stupid nitpickers.)
  
  
• A large-capacity Micro SD card to boost the 5300's memory.
• A decent new DVD player; our existing one refuses to play anything. I've been taking a good look at Philips' DVP5965K and the prices have been coming down lately. Philips claim to be the "king of playability"...hmmm. Let's put that claim to the test shall we?
  
• Maybe another pair of leather shoes. I got myself a dark brown pair of Rusty Lopez loafers recently and they're nice, but I think I'll need another pair in blue for variety.
• A decent speaker system for my computer. Now that it has a smashing 19" LCD monitor, the speakers have to get upgraded as well, and they're actually overdue for one as they're malfunctioning. A set of the cheaper Creative or Altec Lansing units won't hurt.
  
• An FD1 Honda Civic 1.8S with manual transmission. In red, please. Or a GD3 Honda Jazz 1.5V in gold, with a custom "hyaku" (100) decal on the C-pillar. Sadly I'll have to wait a lot longer than 2007 for this one. Aheheheh.

Ah yes, the classic conundrum of too many desires and not enough money.