KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

Since my current work contract got extended to the end of this year, I've been on a bit of a spending spree to celebrate continued income and consumerism. To be fair, I ordered the new 15" Macbook Pro with Retina Display when I thought I was going to join the unemployment line with all the other Queensland Government temp staff who lost their jobs on June 29th and wanted to spend 1 hour a day looking for work and the other 17 waking hours playing Diablo III.

Let's see... in the space of two weeks after learning the good news, I bought a compact treadmill, Karen Walker sunglasses, serviced Luigi, got me some new dresses, tops, shoes. Oh, and hundreds of dollars worth of baby things for Baby Pham to be. Most of those purchases are common (read: you won't care) but I did find something awesome that I have to share with you: the Columbia River Knife & Tool iNoxcase for iPhone 4/s.
Industrial designer Ryan Glasgow develops movable, modular houses and prosthetic hands in his spare time so I'm glad he thinks awesome iPhone and iPad cases are also ways to improve the quality of (my) life. While I really wanted the iNoxcase 360, which is much more self-photo friendly, I couldn't sacrifice the rainbow stainless steel finish that only comes in the 180. Who wants to see my face when they can look at the rainbow case anyway! Now that my phone is heavily protected from world, I need to figure out how I'm going to protect everything in my bag from my phone. My best idea so far is bubble wrap... I need more ideas.

I gotta keep this short and sweet for two reasons. Diablo III is downloading in the background and as soon as it's installed I will disappear into a gaming vortex and will emerge several weeks later looking like a disheveled vampire (picture yourself after 28 hour flight/travel then times that by four). Also, I have to try and pre-write as many blog posts as I can so Keep It In The Phamly doesn't fall victim to the Hell overlord.

The story of how I got the name jadestopthat is short and sweet. Well, it's not very sweet but it is short.

I went on tour with a band years ago to make a documentary (and website) to ace a university project. One of the guys got very sick of me pointing the camera in his face and he regularly told me so. From hours of footage I cut together a sequence where he says, "Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Stop it. Stop that. Jade, come on, stop that. Stop that! That's it, Jade, get out." It actually went on for a lot longer than that but I promised this story was short so I've edited it for your reading pleasure.

And that's all I have to say about @jadestopthat.

Once there was a very dark (wardrobe) time in my life when I favoured black clothing, black hair, black underwear, black bras, black nail varnish and black socks. No, I was not emo nor Goth nor punk. I had just moved out of home and didn't know how to get food stains out of my washing, which sucked for two reasons - I love food, what a waste to have it on my clothes instead of in my gut; I love bright colour, what a shame food stained clothes aren't fashionable. So I never wore white and if I wore colours, they were dark and camouflaged specks of spaghetti sauce, curry or lipstick smears.

Life was like that for the first six months of independent life. Then I moved into a warehouse with 9 other boys and soon enough all my black socks migrated into the boys' wardrobes. And I guess this is where my adventures with coloured apparel, laundry techniques and increased food to mouth ratios began.

At first buying bright patterned socks that no one in their right mind would wear (pop colour wasn't fashionable five years ago, you know) was a way to keep my socks separate. Then as time went on and I moved into other sharehouses with a third of that population I kept up the colourful socks. My current set of ankle socks (don't like the shin-high socks, over my phase of knee socks) is the fluoro solid colours and white with fluoro stripes from Big W.

I love it when I make a wish and some one (usually a nerd) grants it. Vodafone's mobile network experience helped me master the art of frowning during its 2010 vodafail year. Resetting a phone every hour to receive texts (usually about calling people back because their call wouldn't connect) helped me to overcome my pro-tightass ways and switch over to Telstra's mobile phone network.

Telstra is a dream. I pay $20-40 more a month for similar caps to Optus, Virgin and Vodafone but I consider it an investment in preventing stress and acne breakouts.  I haven't had any connection issues whatsover in the 13 months I've been with Telstra. The only minor downside is I have to pay for international texts. That is why I love WhatsApp so much.

WhatsApp is an alternative for SMS that uses internet to send messages (text, pics and videos). It costs $0.99 (the cost of two international texts on my phone contract) in Australia and now I get to stay in touch with traveling friends who also have the app on their smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows - this app doesn't discriminate) .

Who wouldn't want to receive a video of my cat while they're overseas? Probably everyone so just humour me and watch Tigger Pham loving life.