Untimely Endings

Over the holidays, two important electronic devices in my life met with an untimely end. Right before Christmas, our camera effectively stopped working. Since I take photos on a daily basis, as a hobby but also for this blog, I found it extremely annoying and inconvenient. We resorted to taking photos with our cell phones which was a shame since I would have liked to get good pictures of Christmas, New Year's, and Dustin and Theo's birthday. Dustin and I had been planning on getting a new camera in the spring, but the sudden malfunction of our old camera made us reconsider our timing. After sifting through our options and doing a bit of research, we finally settled on a camera that suits our needs. It arrived last week and I am extremely pleased with the shots it takes. Now the only excuse for crappy pictures on the blog is my own picture taking ability! Here are a couple of pictures we took from a bike ride on Monday:

View from Tomonoura harbour

Daffodils in January!?

Reporting for duty!

At a riverside park

Tomonoura

The other device that came to a sudden demise was my Kindle. I was reading a book and was obviously pretty engrossed in it when Theo lunged at me, landing with both of his knees on the screen. I heard a loud snap like a twig breaking and about 3 seconds later, the screen looked like this: 

At that moment, I actually found myself stating something my mother said many times during my childhood: "I can't have nice things". Theo was really remorseful and quite empathetic because he offered to take me to a playground and buy me ice cream to make me feel better. I almost took him up on the offer. Fortunately, only the screen is broken, not all of the other electronic bits, and Dustin, being the capable person that he is, ordered a used screen and claims that he can make it as good as new. Meanwhile, after wingeing for a few days about having to stop reading my book at a really gripping part, we decided to get a second Kindle. We had been intending on getting one for Dustin at some point, but since mine is out of commission for the time being, it seemed like the right time. We got a different (cheaper) model than the last one and it is pretty nice. I was able to finally finish my book and have been fueling my daily need for reading ever since. Hopefully we won't have any more mishaps in the next few months. Replacing two electronic devices in a few weeks is about as much as we can handle!

Our two e-book readers side by side

Sparkle Phone

Kawaii

Yesterday evening I finally got a cell phone. I have had one off and on in the past few years but I found that I never used the cell phone when I had it, and I didn't really like people being able to reach me at all times. I much preferred people calling my home phone, leaving a message, and leaving it up to me when, or if, I would call them back.

My loathing of cell phones increased when I worked for a year as an apartment manager and had to have a work cell on me at all times. The phone was constantly ringing day and night and when my stint there was finally over,  I felt absolutely freed to not have a cell phone any longer

I really haven't noticed or cared that I have had no way of getting a hold of people in the two weeks I have been here, but since we don't plan on getting a landline, and the cell phone plans are freakishly cheap compared with Canada, I decided to go ahead and get one. The one I picked is ridiculously cute, as most things in Japan are, but at least has a user's manual in English.

Theo seems to really like it and calls it my "sparkle phone". He has spent most of the morning pretending to order us pizza with a variety of bizarre toppings like strawberries and squid.