From the category archives:

inspired inventions

moleskine pocket plain “le petit prince”

by JennyO on January 27, 2012

My first Moleskine notebook, a pocket ruled, took me three years to fill up. It had been with me on all my travels, was the repository of my secrets and shopping lists, and over the years got so battered and beat-up that I had to mend the cracked spine with pink duct tape from Bleubug.

With the new year and its potential for new beginnings and moving on, I decided to break open a fresh notebook.

It’s still a Moleskine pocket – it’s my favorite format. This one is a limited-edition “Le Petit Prince” design, shown here with a vintage 1930s Waterman Lady Patricia “Persian” lever-fill fountain pen.

The inside front cover is adorned with illustrations from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Each Moleskine notebook comes with a multi-language insert that is a masterpiece of branding. Moleskine positions itself as a purveyor of fine quality notebooks and planners, keyed to the words “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity”, which conjure up a wealth of potentials and possibilities for the user’s positioning and reinvention of self. 

The Le Petit Prince edition has a mobile of the title character on the back cover, with instructions for assembly.

A closer look at the mobile insert.

The mobile, fully assembled. I attached a length of gold thread and hung it from the whiteboard at my office.

I have other kinds of Moleskine notebooks, plain and with different artwork, but I chose this particular one to remind me that “what is essential is invisible to the eyes.”

And that which is truly essential cannot be written down in any notebook, but only on the heart.

All photos taken with an iPhone 4S.

taste more:

{ 0 comments }

the starbucks planner 2012

by JennyO on December 7, 2011

The Starbucks planner for 2012 is a 180-degree turn from last year’s elegant design that came in red velvet and metallic finishes. This time around, it’s all about trees, evoked with natural materials – wood and coarse-weave fabric. It’s acquired through the usual means of stickers for each drink purchased during the designated holiday period (November to January).

There are five iterations shading from light to dark, each named after a tree. This one’s Cherry, the middle shade (#3).

What’s more, the design took more than a few cues from the Moleskine notebook.

This unboxing happened at Starbucks Harbour Square at the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex.

“Let’s give big hugs – and little gifts of hope.” Actually, I’m fine with the big hugs. Really.

The coarse-weave pouch is an innovation – it’s the first time it’s been done by Starbucks Philippines. The pouch keeps the planner clean, and is also handy for receipts, a pen, and other little items.

No worries that the planner inside will be damaged by things you might keep in the pouch – the covers are made of thin pieces of wood, with the siren design and edge text in bas-relief.

There’s a Moleskine-style elastic on the back. As always, the planner comes with coupons – nine, this time around, less than there used to be, at one per month, but then it takes less drinks to get the planner this season.

Instead of a Moleskine-type ribbon marker, a kraft-cardboard bookmark is provided. I love the horizontal layout. 

Now we come to the best thing about this planner – the paper. It is smooth, creamy, and fountain-pen friendly. The stiff nib of my daily-warrior Parker Jotter simply glides across the paper, as if it were glass. Or ice.

Another good thing for FP  users – there’s minimal show-through! 

As with every Starbucks planner, this one has magnificent photography.

A pocket attached to the inside back cover holds the coupons and bookmark. Again, just like the Moleskine. It’s handy-dandy for keeping more stray bits of paper and other ephemera. 

The size is smaller too, compared to previous editions. It’s about the size of a Kindle and fits neatly in my handbag, where I hope it gets along with all the pink things in there.

Photos taken with a 2MP Nokia C3.

taste more:

{ 1 comment }

shoe up! by nielette’s doll shoes

by JennyO on October 24, 2011

Trying out the new trends in shoes is a simple way to get a fashion fix. There are trends I like, there are those I love (platform sandals, wedges, bakya). There are those that leave me cold – gladiator sandals? Blecch. Stilettos? Foot and calf pain, owww.

This particular design and brand, I love.

These “doll shoes” from Shoe Up! by Nielette, a proudly Filipino brand, are so comfortable and affordable that I own three pairs, in all the colors available at present – black, bronze, and gray. (I’m hoping they’ll come out in red.)

I’ve always had respect for the experience of air travel so I never wear flip-flops on my trips. On my most recent trip abroad (last month), I wore the gray pair; I looked neat and put-together. I managed to walk through the MNL, SFO, and LAX airports searching for my boarding gates and hauling my luggage without experiencing a single moment of foot strain nor pain, while still being able to easily slip in and out of the shoes during the security searches, being on my way in seconds while others were still fumbling with laces and straps.

I used to wear high heels all the time but with age advancing and work getting more hectic, I need comfort more than style. Shoe Up! doll shoes give me both. I wear these shoes exclusively to work now, and can face whatever the day might bring – a meeting at a fancy hotel? an inspection of office branches? Whether walking on plush carpet or crunchy gravel, these are the shoes that get me through.

Shoe Up! by Nielette reflects the personality of its owner/designer – fun, fearless, funky Nielette Tupas (daughter of former governor Niel Tupas of Ilo-ilo City). She is extroverted, outgoing, and interested in fashion to the extent of translating her ideas into reality through the shoes and dresses she designs and sells at her shops.

Shoe Up! shoes and handbags and Dress Up! fashions are available online and at her stores. (In Manila, at Glorietta beside the Landmark entrance and at Megamall; there are also stores in Ilo-Ilo City and in other locations in the Visayas and Mindanao.)

taste more:

{ 0 comments }

nakaya piccolo kuro-tamenuri

by JennyO on September 19, 2011

A Nakaya fountain pen, no matter the price, comes beautifully packaged in a simple pauwlonia wood box with a pen wrap. It’s just one more instance of the company’s attention to detail, their commitment to giving their customers not only quality products but also a satisfying experience.

Every Nakaya fountain pen comes with a pen wrap like this one – its own kimono, if you will.

I prefer my Nakayas without clips. They have a tendency to roll on flat surfaces, but I find the sleek uninterrupted line true to the aesthetic, the finish gleaming unbroken along its length. 

The kuro-tamenuri finish is black lacquer upon red. In time, the lacquer will become more translucent, and more of the red underneath will start to show through. This pen is about four years old; its color was darker when I acquired it over two, maybe three, years ago from Leigh. 

The parts of a Piccolo: cap, barrel, nib and feed, and converter, filled with ink. See the ink bubble inside.

Writing sample with the stock flexible fine nib. There is good line variation, and I’d probably get more if I were better at calligraphy. As it is, it’s a modern nib that flexes much like vintage ones.

“Love is a Memory” is the title of an essay simmering on the stove (it’s what I had workshopped at this year’s University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop last April). Excerpts from the essay are here, here, and here.

taste more:

{ 0 comments }

pop goes the world: namaste, a place of wonder

by JennyO on August 13, 2011

POP GOES THE WORLD By Jenny Ortuoste for Manila Standard-Today, published on 13 August 2011, Saturday

This article has already appeared on this blog in a somewhat different form here.

Namaste, A Place of Wonder

Namaste Art and Objects in Baguio City  is said to be the only shop in the Philippines that sells Nepali and Tibetan fine goods and art; they also carry  crystals and semi-precious stone beads to be made into custom jewelry.

Located at the ground floor of Porto Vaga Building along Session Road, the shop is small, yet filled with wonderful things. Everywhere is the gleam of brass or perhaps gold leaf, the shimmer of fine pashmina wool, and the sheen of beads displayed on countless racks.

Palanca Award-winning writer German Gervacio in front of Namaste. (April 2011)

I visited the shop last April. Its windows are crammed with an overload of interesting objects. Since they are informed by Buddhist Tibetan and Nepali culture, the meaning behind much of the things escapes the usual visitors.

In the center of the window was an intricate brass figure, winged and haloed, perhaps an avalokiteshvara (bodhisattva of compassion). Yet another gleaming Buddha sits serenely in the window, behind a quartz geode and metal elephant. Elephants (gaja in Sanskrit) symbolize fertility, abundance, richness, boldness and strength, wisdom and royalty. In Buddhism, the “Precious Elephant” means strength of mind, a “symbol of the calm majesty possessed by one who is on the Path.”

There is no wasted space in the shop; every available inch holds something. The walls of Namaste are adorned with paintings, carvings, masks, and a stringed musical instrument, while from the ceiling dangle bells, wind chimes, patchwork fabric hangings, and more.

Buddha figures in all shapes, sizes, and forms abound. One of my favorite tableaus on a high shelf featured a Buddha in the center, flanked by a warrior and a horse. In Chinese mythology, horses stand for virtue and power. From obvious associations, it also connotes speed, intelligence, and natural forces like the wind and waves. In Buddhism, the “Precious Horse” is one of the “Seven Jewels of Royal Power”, said to “travel among the clouds and mirror the Buddha’s abandonment of or “rising above” the cares of worldly existence.

Placed on eye-level on another shelf was a triptych, maybe eight inches high, carved from wood and painted in turquoise, pink, and gold. On the center of the left-hand panel is the Sanskrit symbol for OM, the “eternal syllable”. Buddha sits upon a lotus, and one is carved on either side of him. In Buddhism, the lotus refers to the “complete purification of body, speech, and mind.”

More brass Buddhas sit atop a pile of silk and wool fabric – shawls and what-not. From the ceiling in front of them is suspended a wooden charm carved and painted with the Chinese symbol for good luck.

The shop has many displays of bracelets and necklaces made from crystals and stones.I asked Namaste store attendant Meg Reyes to make me a bracelet. She asked me, “Ano’ng kailangan mo?” I asked her, “Ano ang tingin mong kailangan ko?” She looked into my eyes, while her own narrowed. Then she said, slowly, “Maraming naiinggit sa iyo.”

I was taken aback by that; it was unexpected. But then I recalled two Enochian card readings I was given last year, in November and December; the reader, Malou Mallari, told me both times to be wary of workplace envy. For the same issue to crop up again was an uncanny coincidence; I decided to take heed, and let Meg guide me in the choice of stones for my bracelet.

She put in a mix of power (creativity, health, success, etc.) and protection (anti-negativity, anti-envy, returning back ill-wishing) stones. Because the power stones cost more, I got only one of each, while the rest of the length of the bracelet was made up of the less expensive jet black “anti-negative” stones.

Meg chose various colors of tourmaline; clear, rose, and cherry quartz; and amethyst, jet, lapis lazuli, and angelite to make my bracelet. She placed my chosen beads on a makeshift cardboard stand, like a Scrabble tile holder, and strung them on several strands of elastic thread, then knotted the ends tightly and fused them in a candle flame.

I was also drawn to a tiny brass Buddha statue less than an inch and a half high. (I carry it with me every day in a pouch in my bag, putting it in front of my computer monitor when I get to work in the mornings.)

Before handing me my items, Meg “blessed” both the bracelet and the mini-Buddha in a Tibetan metal “healing bowl”, running a wooden implement around the rim to create a ringing, echoing sound, while telling me to think of good things. As I drew the bracelet on my wrist, Meg advised me to wear the power stones close to the pulse.

Prayer wheel and blessing/healing bowl.

Fast-forward to late May. Now one of the protection stones on my bracelet has cracked in half, and half of the bead beside it has changed color, from black to a murky gray. I was puzzled – I don’t slam my hand around, while the color change is frankly inexplicable.

Then the other day at work I learned that several people whom I thought were friends are backbiting me about my position, though  they admit that I have never done anything against them either professionally or personally.

When the green monster rears its ugly head, it spells the end of friendships. Or not, because now I realize these people were never my true friends, and I’m glad I found that out early on.

I can’t help thinking now that my bracelet took the hit of all that negative energy. A coincidence? It’s still uncanny. Three friends (a writer, a lawyer, and an editor) to whom I showed the damaged bracelet pushed it away and averted their eyes“Nakakakilabot,” they said.

I plan to go up to Baguio on the next long weekend and visit Namaste again, this time to ask Meg for a bracelet made entirely of the “anti-negative” stones as a pangontra. Though I believe luck is what we make it, some coincidences are just too strange and cannot be ignored.

It will also be a treat to immerse myself once more in a world of wondrous things replete with symbolism, a trove of exotic treasures from a different place, a haven for unraveling stress and instilling a sense of deep peace. ***

taste more:

{ 0 comments }

asquith & somerset massage bar

by JennyO on August 6, 2011

I’m fascinated by soap and candles – how they’re made, the shape and scent of them. I also love tins, because so much packaging nowadays is plastic.

So when I came across this massive bar of soap packaged in a tin, and in my favorite color, I had to have it.

An English brand little known in the Philippines, Somerset is a manufacturer and distributor of toiletries mostly made in  the UK and Portugal.

This is the Asquith & Somerset massage bar in Cherry Blossom. It smells divine.

As a “massage bar”, it has bumps all over one surface. In the shower, it feels fine going over my shoulders. But because it’s immense and heavy, once I have that bar behind my neck, gravity takes over and the soap slips out of my grasp. Every. Single. Time.

It’s a great product. It’s triple-milled, smoother and “soapier” than the average kind – with just a few strokes, you can work up a rich lather. As for its touted exfoliating action, I didn’t notice any, but that didn’t matter, as its creaminess is a treat.

I expect this gigantic bar will last me a couple of months or more, even bathing twice a day.

It’s available at Beauty Bar at Powerplant Mall, Makati. They also have the Olive, Lemon, and Mandarin which all smell fabulous. Perhaps those’ll grace my bathroom one of these days.

The full line of Asquith & Somerset massage bars. Image here.

taste more:

{ 4 comments }

laptops i have known

by JennyO on May 15, 2011

The other night I was going through my blog stats and found these search terms: “jennyo laptop” and “jenny ortuoste netbook”. Or something like that. Point is, someone seems to be curious about what laptop I am using, if any.

Since I am all about ibigay ang hilig (give what’s wanted), then here’s a rundown of the portable computers in my life.

STOP!!!

WARNING: This post contains many photos of laptop porn that will be of interest only to gadget geeks.

PROCEED ONLY if truly interested in hardware.

I got my first laptop in 2005 – this Stormtrooper white Ebox made in China. At the time it was quite expensive. It served me well for a couple of years and I was happy with it. It had a PENTIUM M processor! Centrino technology! It even had a – gasp! – DISKETTE drive!

(For young people, old people, and people who have been living under a rock since 1985 who do not know what a “diskette” is, click here.)

Even back then, laptops already had a track pad and two buttons that were the equivalent of the right-click and left-click buttons on a mouse.

But this Ebox is heavy and I used it as my work computer, keeping it on my desk at the office. In time, models with bigger and badder specs emerged, and this guy was relegated to the kitchen, for my helper’s use. (Facebook, mostly.) It still works, and she says it’s a whiz at picking up wifi signals. (Yay, Intel!)

Then in 2006 my sister gave me this powerful Acer Travelmate 6292 installed with Windows Vista and that same bad-ass Centrino tech, but “Duo” this time, and with a Core 2 Duo processor. It has a fierce number of ports – USB, Firewire, you name it, it’s got it.

It also has a DVD writer and a built-in card reader, very handy for uploading photos and files from different storage media. It can be connected to a projector for presentations, and to video cameras for editing. One of my video editor friends told me, “This rocks, it’s got everything we need for video and photos. Don’t give it to your kids!”    

Since I prefer having other people do video editing for me than doing it myself (mainly because I can’t video-edit), I ended up giving this Acer to my kids. My eldest still uses it, not only for video editing but for a whole lot more besides, like downloading Korean pop music videos and other important stuff. This is one good puppy of a lappy. However, it now runs Windows 7, because as the whole world and his aged grandmother know, Windows Vista is one of the crappiest OS’s ever to come out of Microsoft.

I realized I didn’t need a monster lappy powerful enough to run black-ops by itself. In the dark. Without backup. What I really needed was something simple – the electronic equivalent of paper and pen – in short, a gadget running just Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and an Internet browser would be enough.

Then netbooks were invented. (Insert “Hallelujah Chorus” sung by divine celestial beings here.) Around 2008 I got this wee cute little pink Acer Aspire One. What sold me on it was the fact that it was pink.

Being a netbook, it is smaller and lighter than regular laptops. Compare it with the Acer Travelmate, which my daughter has covered with Tokio Hotel and Puffy Ami Yumi stickers. Big diff, right?

The bad thing, the EVIL thing, about the Acer Aspire One models, was their batteries. My sister also has one in black – she bought hers in Dubai – and both our batteries gave out after only a year or so of use. Of careful use. I had to ask a friend in the US get me a new one, and he did in grand style, getting me the largest he could find on eBay. It is so big, it functions as a stand. It also lasts for nine hours of regular netsurfing and Word use.

Being so tiny, the Acer did have one disadvantage for me – the keys were all cramped on the keyboard, and it was difficult to type. I ended up not being comfortable using it to write, a defeat of purpose because that was the reason I got it. I did like the design of the trackpad, with the right- and left-click keys placed on either side of it, instead of below.

The Acer Aspire One runs Atom and was designed for Windows XP, but being the contrarian that I am, I had Windows Vista installed in it. This was before I learned Vista is crap, okay?

This pretty baby has no DVD drive, but it has several USB ports, a card reader, the usual jacks for mic and headphones, and a port for projectors and LAN connections. I’ve used it successfully for Skype/Yahoo! Messenger and projector presentations. Like the Acer Travelmate, it has a built-in webcam at the top of the screen, now a standard feature for these gadgets. It’s still heavy, though. Especially with that gargantuan battery.

So I was happy when the office issued me this delightfully slim and elegant Sony Vaio.

It’s still not as light, as, say, an Apple iPad 2, but then those thingies are tablets, which are a whole different animal altogether. The Vaio possesses decent specs, and runs like a charm. It’s got Windows 7, one of the least crappy OS’s Microsoft has come up with (showing that some people do learn their lessons, although for some it takes a while), and an Intel Core i3 processor that is frakkishly fast.

I like the Vaio’s chiclet keyboard. In overall size the Vaio is larger than the Acer Aspire One, but as a person gets older (I’m not speaking from personal experience, I can just imagine), it’s more comfortable to work with a decent-sized screen and keyboard. Squinting is so not cool.

The Vaio’s trackpad is sensitive enough, made of plastic with the click-keys below it. It’s fairly responsive, and I hope it’s not that way just because it’s new. I’ve already used it for a Powerpoint presentation, hooking it up to a projector with no problem at all.

The gold standard in laptops for creatives is still Apple. I want one, but I can’t decide yet between a Macbook Pro or a Macbook Air. In any case, it might be cheaper to buy abroad than in Manila.

I’ve become increasingly dependent lately on my Samsung Galaxy Tab for media consumption – surfing the Net, using Facebook and Twitter, reading ebooks – that I can’t leave home without it. Still, it is difficult to create content upon it – the touchscreen sucks for typing. Tablets are not the gadget of choice for writers. Laptops and netbooks are.

The babies I’ve featured here are good and reliable workhorses; in terms of function and utility, they get the job done with a minimum of fuss.

taste more:

{ 3 comments }

samsung galaxy tab

by JennyO on March 18, 2011

The 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 runs Android 2.2 Froyo, supports Flash 10.1, and with the right apps, can read Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files as well as e-books and pdf, play music, browse the Net, and check your email. Oh, and it’s a phone, too. About the only thing it can’t do, is your laundry.

I had hesitated between an Apple iPad and something Android, leaning more towards the latter, when the question was decided for me by a friend who gifted me this G-Tab last Valentine’s Day (thank you!). My friend, a gadget freak, has one too, and was very pleased with how  it’s an all-in-one compact tablet.

This one’s a 16GB, but storage can be upgraded with a micro-SD card.

As a phone it’s unwieldy; use it as one only if you don’t mind putting a thing big as a pocketbook to your ear, and if you spend a lot of time in one place. My friend uses it as a phone, with a Bluetooth headset, but I’m too used to shoving a candybar phone like my Nokia C3 in a pocket or my bra strap so the G-Tab is out for that purpose. The G-Tab can also hold music files, but again, I prefer a separate device for that – a Creative Zen player.

There’s also a front-facing camera and one at the back. It’s hard to take photos using the 3.2 MP back cam – you have to hold up the device, and it’s kind of awkward – but the 1.3 MP front cam is great for self-portraits and video chats.

The apps screen. The screen is LCD touch.

However, the G-Tab is great for everything else you’d use a tablet for. I love how it can read Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents with ThinkFree Office. I downloaded into it all my classmates’ drafts for our creative writing class and was glad not to have to print out a couple hundred pages and carry them around. I read .azw and .mobi e-books using the Amazon Kindle app, .pdf school and research materials with the Adobe Reader app. Resource conservation + convenience = what’s not to like, right?

The Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress apps are also useful for updating social media accounts and blogs, but I still prefer the functionality of a PC keyboard, though the pop-up virtual keyboard works well enough. For games, the mindless joy of catapulting Angry Birds at evil pigs is priceless.

All the apps I’ve mentioned are for free download at the Android Market.

The home screen of the Kindle app, syncing. It takes quite a while for the app to boot up especially if you’re like me and have nearly two thousand e-book files in there.

The G-Tab ties up with Google to give you easy access to G-mail, though I can also check my other email clients (like Yahoo!) that I’ve registered to the device.

The coolest thing about the G-Tab is its GPS system. It’s linked to Google Maps and shows you as a blue dot on a Google Map that you can zoom into at the street level. Fantastic. You will always know wherever you are, even if you are lost. There’s also Google SkyMap, which adjusts to how you hold the device, tilting the display dizzyingly, and shows you the constellations in the sky at the moment, assuming you could see the stars through haze, city light, and air pollution. But it’s nice to know they’re there.

The Kindle app screen looks great on the Tab. The display can be customized three ways – black text on white background, white on black, and brown on sepia. Brightness can be adjusted with a sliding bar, and font size can be tweaked. Because it’s backlit, it’s great for reading in low- or no-light conditions, but I find it tiring on my eyes after an hour or so. It’s great for use at night, though, and I love the easy page-turn on its touch screen.

Book featured: GJ Meyer’s “The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty” (2010)

Battery life? A full charge lasts me about a day’s normal use – reading e-books for about three hours and some email checking and casual Websurfing using Wifi for a couple of hours. You can save energy by switching off Wifi and Bluetooth when not in use and putting settings on silent.

The 7″ size – a wee bit larger than the 6″ Kindle 3 – and rectangular shape work for me too. I can hold it in one hand for reading, unlike the iPad, whose configuration is best suited for media consumption like Websurfing or watching videos, rather than reading. A couple of things Samsung can fix in the next Tab iteration are the weight and thickness – it’s too fat and heavy, and this is where iPad has them beat, especially now with their release of the lighter and thinner iPad 2.

Samsung will launch its 8.9″ Tab on March 22, and soon, a 10.1″ version, a counterpart of the iPad in shape.

Overall, I’m happy with the Galaxy Tab, and I look forward to the next-gen edition.

Photos taken with a Nokia C3.

 

taste more:

{ 3 comments }

fantastamatic

by JennyO on March 11, 2011

A lamp shines through the leaves of a tree along Buendia Avenue, Makati City. Taken 6 March 2011.

Looks like one of those hipstamatic prints, no? It was taken with a Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 with whatever setting was default out-of-the-box.

Photography has come a long way since I was a teenager toting a Kodak or Minolta instamatic camera loaded with Kodak or Fuji color film. (When I was in college, it was cheap black-and-white “reload” film for journalism classes.) There wasn’t such a thing as instant gratification when it came to photography. You just kept clicking the shutter, hoping that at least one out of the 36 shots in the roll wouldn’t suck so badly. Then you took the roll of film to a photo shop where developing could take as fast as an hour or as long as a week or two, depending what year it was and what kind of shop you visited.

It was exciting to take the rectangular packet filled with prints, open it, and survey the images you took. First thing I’d do after opening the packet was inhale to get that special “new photo” scent of developer chemicals. Prints could be done in matte or glossy; another term used was “silk”. Glossy was nice and shiny but prone to fingerprints; you didn’t get that problem with silk but then the image wasn’t as spectacularly vibrant.

Usually the shop would screen your roll and not print the bad shots; you’d be charged only for the good shots.

The quality of the images varied. I only had point-and-shoots and had no idea about settings, so I always hoped for the best. Sometimes they’d come out grainy, or there’d be ghost images or effects, or the colors would be washed out, or the image would be off-center, or half the photo would be fine and the other half golden or greenish. It was like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates.

I didn’t get much of an allowance during my student days so film and developing cost quite a lot for me; the upshot was that I couldn’t indulge my interest in photography as much as I wanted. I greeted the digital age with much rejoicing and fanfare.

The digital format is less expensive and gives you instant happy because you can look at your images while still in the camera. There’s hardly any lag time for “developing”, because you can upload the photos from your camera into your laptop anywhere you are, and do cropping, tweaking, and all sorts of image manipulation that would not have been possible during the film days without your own darkroom and lots of knowledge and skill.

Today portable gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops, and tablet computers have built-in cameras! What convenience – there’s no need to bring a separate camera if all you need is a simple image.

But what I notice with phone and tablet images is that even if you can see on your gadget what you just shot, it’s a different thing once you upload to your computer. The images can be grainy, distorted, discolored, and whatnot – harking back to the days of film photography when you never knew what you were going to get.

Now we get to have both worlds. What exciting times we live in.

taste more:

{ 0 comments }

the tory burch phenomenon

by JennyO on March 1, 2011

American designer Tory Burch burst upon the fashion scene in February 2004 and has been a success ever since. In the Philippines, her Reva ballet flat with the “T” logo medallion is a status symbol, worn by the moneyed and the stylish – sometimes to work, often on casual weekends at the mall.

Tory Burch can be said to have revived the popularity of the ballet flat and her simple yet elegant designs have contributed much to this resurgence.

Her Reva flats sell in Manila for around P12,000. They can be had for half the price in the US. Check out her website for items on sale.

As an impecunious writer, I rely on my California-based cousin Ivy Ortuoste for bargains such as those below, which she’ll be bringing to me in June:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reva in gray flannel is a refreshing alternative to the usual leather one sees everywhere in Manila, while the Anne Marie ballet flat in bronze, sans the large TB medallion, is simple and low-key – for me the essential components of style (as opposed to fashion, which is trendy and not always tasteful).

They both look very comfortable. I’m counting down the days till June.

Update, after an hour of posting the above:

Because it can be had for less in the US, I have succumbed to succulent temptation and asked Ivy to get me the TB Nylon Ella Tote in Butterfly Pink. As Ik commented, “Mama, it fufills your criteria for the perfect bag – it’s large and roomy, sturdy, and pink!” The nylon material reminds me of the Longchamp Le Pliage that I already have, and looks like it can take any rough-and-tumble times it’ll go through with me. The leather trim provides the perfect touch, the 7″ handles mean the bag can still be slung over a shoulder, and it’s PINK. Perfect perfect perfect.

June is still three entire months away! “Waiting is such sweet sorrow.”

Gray Flannel Reva Ballet Flat here, Anne Marie Ballet Flat in Bronze here, both on sale now. Nylon Ella Tote here.

taste more:

{ 3 comments }