Saturday, January 13, 2007

small things that make me comfortable

here's a list of some of the small things i keep at home that make my life easier to handle:

1. My Ugly Mat

its colours are hideous i know, but man its comfortable!! its made of this spongy material that is soooo soft...sometimes in the summer i prefer sleeping on it instead of my bed. also the blue praying mat is the one i prefer praying on ever since i bought it last ramadan from Mecca...its the small kind, made for children, but what the hell...whatever keeps me comfortable.


2. The Slippers

everyone's got slippers i know...but i just wanted to say that whoever made these black egyptian Onda slippers is a genius...not only are they made in egypt, but also they are as comfortable as any slippers can get...without any "fazlaka"..

and the brown ones on the left are the ones i bought from El Madina el Monawara last ramadan...also very comfortable but i prefer the black Onda slippers when i'm at home.



2. Transparencies & Red Coal Pencil

nothing is more irritating than having a nice idea for a building and forgetting it later on because you forgot to draw it when you had the chance... these transparencies have made life much easier for architects because they enable you to improve your work without completely re-doing the drawing, you just add another layer of transparencies and fix the previous errors...

and the red pencil just runs on the transparencies like no other pencil can...it pulls ideas out of your head by being so smooth on the paper (because it's made of coal ofcourse, not because its red :p)



3. My Chess Bag

consists of the following (clockwise starting with the black bag):

black bag - carries the rest of the stuff obviously

scoresheets - when playing official games you have to write down the moves in these scoresheets, i keep them for the record and they're helpful when trying to learn from my mistakes

clipboard & pen - useful when analyzing games with a friend or solving chess puzzles

photocopy of a chess puzzles book - useful when practicing for a tournament

digital chess clock - i have two chess clocks..my other analog one is broken and i can't find anyone that fixes chess clocks in cairo. chess clocks are used to time games so that players don't use too much time when it's their turn to move...it's basically used in official tournaments only

large portable paper board - good because it's portable and big, bad because it's paper and doesn't live that long...there are other leather ones but i'm waiting till this one's done before i buy another one

old brown leather bag - perfect size to fit all the chess pieces in.


4. The Little Red Cup

costs only 1 LE...and can carry the exact amount of water that i need to drink any given time...i hate it when the glass is too big, plus i love the color.
also water coolers are much more comfortable than normal bottles...we stopped using the normal tap water after the janitor (in our old home in maadi) found a dead cat in the water reservoir of the building...that incident had a bad psychological effect on us and we started using bottled water until we got this cooler.




5. Heat Insulated Cup

i bought this cup 2 years ago when "On the Run" had this offer that i could save 20% off the hot drinks from there as long as i buy this cup from them and use it...and since i stop by that shop every time i go to college to drink the morning nescafe, i thought of it as a good deal....i think i'm the only person still showing up there asking for a discount with the refill.


6. Cappuccino Maker

this gadget is a work of art! i got it as a gift a couple of days ago and i've been hooked ever since...it makes the nescafe all foamy like cappuccinos...what's the difference between nescafe with alot of foam and cappuccino by the way?? anyone know?