On my wishlist: a few CDs

First, Amy Studt's new album "My paper made men" was just released yesterday.

She released an album called "False Smiles" a few years ago that had great teenage lyrics (and great music as well - Amy's parents are both musicians and she can play 3 instruments: the guitar, the piano, and something else I don't remember). Now I have grown out of teen stuff, but so has she. The LA Times said to "ignore any dim memories of her midteens pop phase a while ago", so the albums seems great (as you can tell from the singles).

Now I just have to get this album somehow. So far, it's only been released on UK iTunes, let's see if it lets me download it and if I can play the files on my Nokia 770, which is clearly not an iPod. Until now the only mp3 I have bought over the internet were Paramore's albums from the Fueled by Ramen store, which was a very positive experience: no one care which country I was from, as long as I could pay by PayPal, my technical issues were fixed within hours, and I got plain and simple mp3 files, which is exactly what I wanted.

Another important position on my wishlist, Primsleur's Arabic course:

I found it through this Metafilter thread, and the reviews are very enthousiastic (more on Primsleur's approach here). According to their site, it's what spies use to survive and cope overseas, and the courses are now used by the FBI, CIA, and business professionals everywhere. Plus, the approach is scientific, which is illustrated by this picture:

Geeks love scientific stuff and know nothing more convincing than the picture of a man dressed in white looking though a microscope to find a scientific way of teaching languages. I'm buying it.

They offer two versions: Eastern and Egyptian Arabic. So far, I've been learning Modern Standard Arabic, but here, I'd choose Egyptian. Another Metafilter thread clarifies this issue.

[Pictures source, source.]