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I’m a bookaholic. I love to read, but on the flip side, I can go months without reading. I can’t narrow it down to one favourite book. I have favourite authors. Lots of them. And I read a range of books, from Marian Keyes to Patricia Cornwell, Philippa Gregory, Alice Sebold, Charlaine Harris and others. Lately I have to add that to my favourite authors is Stieg Larsson.

It took me all of one week to read his entire Millennium Trilogy from start to finish. And while so much as been written about these books, I do have to say, that I couldn’t put the books down from the get go. It has been so long since I read a book that I could not put down.

But the one book I keep coming back to and have read about 5 times over, would have to be Memiors of a Geisha. I love books that are set in a time, place. Which could explain my fascination of Philippa Gregory novels and that lead me to become a huge fan of the TV series The Tudors.

I often pick up this book from its home on my bookcase and I will pick a page at random and start reading again. The movie did it no justice, but added to the visual feast in my head of Japan during WWII. Of course, I also have a fascination with WWII, which is a topic for another day.

The book plays to my favourite theme in life of the transformation from unfortunate female main character and her transition to strong woman. And like every good story, there are obstacles, assholes, danger and sex.

Just writing this post has made me want to pick up this book again and start reading it at random…

I don’t believe in new years resolutions. I believe in making small, achievable goals, thereby lessening the chances of failure and self-inflicted disappointment.

Humans by nature are very lazy and driven by repeat behavior. I’ve never forgotten the old piano teacher I had, with her black cats and one leg 5 inches longer than the other, telling me that if you learn a song perfectly on the piano, eventually you’d get a muscle memory and that makes it easier for one to play music from memory because your fingers remember which keys go next. To this day, I can remember a few songs, but I am sadly out of practice, mostly from renting/owning homes that have no room for the piano. Read more »

On Wednesday night, I attended the Vodafone Get Smart event at their HQ in Auckland. Traffic was a nightmare, but I got there on time. I have a thing about being late. I commence anxiety attacks if running just slightly late. I was offered a free car park by Hamish Sansom via Twitter. According to his twitter profile he’s the head honcho for mobile data at Vodafone. Nice. I found my way through the carpark, to the elevator and then to reception. They had name tags, but I didn’t. But of note, they had a name tag there for someone who I knew was attending the event in Christchurch. I could have stolen it and pretended to be Andy Ghozali for the evening. But I’m the wrong gender for that. Never to mind. They made me a label. Read more »

I make no secret of the fact that I am an iPhone fan. The hubby frequently calls it my boyfriend. But today it was the most valuable tool in my arsenal (with the exception of the plastic).

My day started innocently enough. I went and had my monthly facial at Beauty on the Hills in Drury. It was bliss. After this, getting on the motorway, I realised time wasn’t on my side. I had to get over to Constellation Drive to collect my new computer monitor, but needed to stop at an ASB branch to withdraw $100 towards the cost of it. My original plan was to go to Botany Town Centre first and get the money there. But with time ticking, Sylvia Park seemed awesome. I got to the counter at the ASB and they told me that I can’t physically withdraw money from my Accelerator savings account, after some begging, they agreed to put my empty cheque account into OD to let me get the money, on the pro-visor that I transferred the money electronically from my savings account to the cheque account before leaving the store. Yay for iPhone’s Safari browser and boo for the Vodafone 3G reception inside Sylvia Park. But by the time I got back to my car, I had made the transfer required to keep my bank happy for another day. Read more »