On my wish list: a ready-to-use, convertible house

I'm fascinated by little convertible houses, where all space and furniture is designed to be multi-functional. I'd love to live in one.

Why don't I? Well, as with everything in life, there's some trade-offs. Not only that sort of home needs a lot of time to be designed, you also have to build most of the furniture yourself, as the commercial options are limited. (I think that my most functional piece of furniture is my sofa, that doubles as a guest bed and has storage underneath.) And let's face it, you need quite a bit of resources to make your own furniture, starting with lots of space (at least temporarily).

Well, as it turns out, there is another option: Graham Hill recently designed such an apartment for sale.

 The sofa hides a Murphy bed:

The kitchen counter expands to a table where you can sit up to 12 people! (Stackable chairs are stored behind one of the walls.) This is what amazes me the most. One of the biggest trade-offs of minimalism is the one of hospitality. Many people would feel offended if they were invited to stay in uncomfortable conditions.

Even the tableware was carefully chosen to be multi-functional!

For now, there is just one apartment of the kind, but with the rising popularity of minimalism, there will hopefully be more and more options widely available. Hopefully my next house will have lots of well-designed, multi-purpose convertible space for kids, guests, hobbies, everything.

[Picture credit]

On my wishlist: the Tetris dress

I want that dress. Period.



Or that fabric.



Then I'd make a jumper out of it and I'd wear it over my loads of brightly-colored T-shirts.

I guess this is the part where I should come up with some eloquent words of praise for both the design of the fabric and the realisation of the dress, but you must forgive me, for I have partied until 3 a.m. last night. (See pics on Facebook.) I just love them.

On my wishlist: *that*

That is definitely on my wishlist:


Can you guess what it is? The answer (and picture credit) is here.

On my wishlist: "Fashion Geek" by Diana Eng

Diana Eng was a Project Runway contestant (that's means she's a fashion designer) famous (and adored by me) for involving geek/tech/etc. stuff in her creations. She won top honors at Yahoo! Hack day for a thingy that takes pictures as you walk and blogs them, and now she wrote a book with DIY projects! (More info here.)

I just *have* to have it.

On my wishlist: the Sims 3!!!

The Sims 3 is (are???) coming!


That game is definitely on my wishlist!

And so is a new graphic card. My Radeon Xpress 200M doesn't seem to be on the list. And so is a new computer, as I only have two laptops (well, only,... ) and you can't add a graphic card to a laptop (can you?). And so is a new desk for that computer, with a flowery desktop like this one:


(But definitely with different legs.) And so is... nah, I'd better stop now.

Off my wishlist: Amy Studt's "My Paper Made Men"

I finally managed to get Amy Studt's new album "My Paper Made Men" I mentionned a few days ago. Man, was that a journey!

iTunes didn't let me buy because I'm from Poland. HMV (link works in IE only, sorry) didn't validate my card. No Polish mp3 store had the album, as it has only been released in the UK. 7digital was tricky because the album didn't appear on Amy's page, so I went there quite a few times, throught it wasn't avaliable and closed the page before finding it. But I finally did, paid with PayPal, and got wma files. While I was there, I also downloaded four b-sides.

The wma files turned out to be DRM-protected and Winamp wouldn't let me validate them. Windows Media Player did, but didn't let me burn a CD. Well, as it turns out, DRM removal is way easier than coping with DRM. That's the type of security I adore - the one that causes more problems to honest paying users than to pirates. But, there's no point in ranting, the point is that I got the album legally, contributed to its charts positions and most of all, that the music is simply delightful.

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.]

On my wishlist: Nokia Morph

I try to stay away from all the gadget mania. I hate marketing and I'm the last person to buy that new extra hot and fashionable cell phone just because everyone does so and some people in marketing tell us to do so. But marketing is another topic.

Today, a gadget that I have to have: the Nokia Morph.
It's so geek, so cute, so shiny, so cool and everything. They don't even have something that cool on Star Trek!

It's not only cool, but also very practical, especially for a woman. Being a woman, even a geek one, you always need to carry a purse because you always [may] need the following:

1. money
2. season tickets
3. cell phone
4. make-up

But, how often do I go out and wish I didn't have to watch my bag? And when I go out, I often wear a dress, so no pockets available. However, with this gadget, great times are coming, as you can wear it as a bracelet:
So, what does a girl still have to carry? Money - let's count on the boyfriend for this one. Season tickets - right now they can be registered in a card, so why not in a cell phone (or card I'd put in the phone)? Cell phone - let it be a bracelet! So it's just the make-up. How about a make-up palette in a box made with the same technology (so as a bracelet for the other hand)?

Oh yeah, great times are coming. As soon as this beautiful baby comes out and I can afford it.

[Source, pictures credit, more pictures]

On my wishlist: a chocolate keyboard

Yummy!

Okay, there is no reason to wish for a chocolate keyboard but one: it's geek. Besides that, I prefer normal chocolate, cause it tastes the same and is cheaper. And it does exist. (Existance is a really important quality of chocolate.)
Still, I love it, it's so geek!

[Update]
Not as cool, but also interesting: the Chocolate Scrabble.

This one does exist!
[Source, source]

On my wishlist: a ball pit

I'm not easily influenced by ads. I'm also not the kind of person who wants something because everyone around has it. However, when geeks around have it and document it with pictures like these: ...I want it!
The Last.fm geeks have it. The xkcd geeks have it (that's their picture). I have to have it!
I've only been in a small one as a kid and it was already too small for me. Time to get [into] a big real one!

On my wishlist: " Ballet Conditioning by Element" DVD

I just saw this today on fitsugar and instatly started wishing for it. The reviews on Amazon are extremely encouraging. Besides, I've always loved ballet but never had the chance to practice it (expect learning some stuff from a book as a kid, but how much dancing can you learn from a book?). And man, 9$, that's so affordable (well, not for me at the moment, my budget really says "student budget" right now). I think that would be a wonderful change from yoga in spring or summer.