Shopping again

Finally got a new frying pan, a 26-cm Tefal Privilege. So far so good. They are pretty cheap in Stockmann this month if you have the card. They also carry Tefal Equinoxe, which differs from Privilege only cosmetically (or so the salespeople say) but costs a lot more.

Akateeminen has a big book sale. Dear Lord, deliver us from evil... Managed not to buy anything yesterday but am unlikely to continue this way. Suomalainen kirjakauppa has a big book sale too.

Ordered a special edition of Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love". Why do I keep buying his movies? I don't even usually understand what he has to say and have a feeling that most of it goes over my head. Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who stars in most of Wong's important movies, is an excellent actor and a beautiful man and in himself a good reason enough, but you can see him in a lot of other directors' movies, and sometimes with less clothes on, too, so why do I bother? And why do I find Wong's movies interesting to look at, for all their incomprehensibility? Or do I buy Wong's movies precisely because I don't understand them? Weird... In any case, this particular DVD has a soundtrack with the director's comments, so there is some hope that the man himself will explain what he wanted to say.

Gonna order the special edition of Battle Royale, too, after the next payday.

Bought and tried a permanent hair color for the first time. Eek! I knew in principle that they smell bad, but this unbelievable stench would have been enough to kill a herd of goats at 100 meters. How can people stand it? I don't think I'll be doing that again. And for all my efforts I got little red highlights which none of you would ever notice, except that now that you've read this you'll notice them just to be polite.

My CD drive ate a CD and didn't give it back until I stuck a pin into it. Even now it does not want to open without a pin, and for some reason my screen lock stopped working in connection with it. The problem would be probably corrected by booting, but is this my computer's way to tell me it wants a new CD drive? Maybe a writable DVD drive? Which ones would be good? Do they all work with Linux? How do I get them to show all regions?