Mona's Miscellany of Items!

LOL what a very razz post title...let's just say I didn't know what to call this post, it's a mixture of What's Ons and Check Outs. In no particular order I bring you:


(I) London Premier of The Widow

Premiers of this Kingsley Ogoro Nollywood blockbuster have been held in Lagos, Maryland and Abuja. Now, they are bringing it to The Broadway Theatre in Catford, London this Saturday - 4th November from 4pm. It also consists of a concert starring Styl-Plus, Sunny Nneji, Segun Arinze and Angelica (My Naija Guy - see Bella's post). I believe it is worth attending. Check out the theatre details for more info.

(II) Check out Laspapi's blog for details of Molara Wood's Writers' Best Books of 2006 (deadline - Friday, 3rd Nov)

(III) The Last King of Scotland....................In 1979, Idi Amin was responsible for the murders of 300,000 of his Ugandan country men.

This Blockbuster Movie about Idi Amin is coming to our cinemas soon and looks like it's going to be a hit. Watch the preview here

IV) PROUDLY NIGERIAN

First we had:

• Hollywood and Nigeria brought us Nollywood! Then we had -
• Hi5 and Nigerians brought us Naija5! Then we had -
• Ebay and Nigerians brought us NigBay!

LOL check out the websites, we have no shame oh! (proudly nigerian). Anyways most Nigerian websites are now carrying the "Proudly Nigerian" symbol and I will be putting up a post on it soon xxx

She's Baaaack!

Halo everyone! I just got back from a nice long holiday. I know I have been MIA and I meant to blog while I was away but I didn't get enough time to research and put posts up. Since I have been AWOL for quite a while, I intend to blog every other day for the next two weeks. Yay!

First off, R.I.P to all those who lost their lives in the ADC plane crash - it's very sad and may the Lord comfort their families and those bereaved. It's so sad that over the past year we have had a number of such cases:

Bellview Airlines Flight 210 (October 22nd, 2005)

Sosoliso Flight 1145 (December 10, 2005)

Nigerian air force Dornier 228 aircraft (September 17, 2006)

ADC Flight 53 (October 29, 2006)

May we continue to pray for our country and rebuke further accidents such as these or any other kind.

Meanwhile, for the Mona Fan Club, I'm sure you're glad to know I'm alive and kicking and thanks to Don Chichi, this is just to let you know that MONA.BLOGSPOT.COM is not me, lol my friends say I'm crazy but I don't think my craise has reached that yet. Check out the page for a giggle and enjoy the rest of your day xxx

P.S. I thought I had put this up but for the poets and those who love writing, please check out http://www.afrizonemag.com/flyer.html before Tuesday, October 31st and sorry for the short notice. There is a link on the flyer for you to enter or contact Adaora Lilani Mbelu-- Economics Dept, College of Business Northern Kentucky University at slobbyranger@yahoo.com xx

Bee Sings!!!

Hope you all had a good weekend?? Anyways she is far from my favourite artist and I would have died before I blogged about her lol (what's the beef, I dunno myself) no she's gorgeous but she does my head in at times....but yea I found on youtube, a vid of her singing our National Anthem at the ThisDay Music Festival, which you have heard so much about from Don Chichi, Bella Naija and Taurean Minx, and me adding jara, need I say more? Find a combination of all their blogs at the NigerianVillage Square here.

Here are three videos of her in Nigeria performing the Nigerian National Anthem and the second video is of her singing my favourite song on her new album B'day - "Irreplaceable" which will soon be available for download here but for now listen to it at SoundPedia (it's track 9).

1) Anthem

2) Nice Song

3) Dejavu

iFrustration (2): Podcasts and The Apple Store

....Back to my iPod gist, I decided to go to the Apple Store to find out if I could fix the battery of my iPod...the store on Regent Street (London), it has this whole retro feel with someone giving a presentation/demo in the corner probably on some new technology or its functionality and a lot of staff (mostly weird looking, or with dread locks or those who looked like they hadn't showered in days, or the skate-board type ones, in fact they all fit the bill) in T-Shirts with random slogans, hopping and skipping all over the place (not exactly attending to customers).

There were also a lot of people there, some browsing the products, some surfing the net, some there to listen to music, some there to just feel all MAC-y, some queuing to probably buy or fix their items I just don't know. I was tempted to just walk out, there was also a lot of construction noise coming from upstairs (I thought hmm that must be where the technicians are, breaking PC's open and fixing).

Anyways after about 12 minutes of just staring and no one came up to assist me (talk about Customer service), I went and sought one of these Apple guys just for him to give me a business card with the apple web address and told me to go home and book an appointment that they were fully booked --"Just type in concierge in the search bar when you go to apple.com/uk" and book an appointment - GEE THANKS!

So I went online, but hey I had to wait till that particular day to book an appointment i.e. tomorrow - HELPFUL? NOT! I booked an appointment the next morning and went back there, went upstairs to the Genius Bar (I realised the noise was from construction/renovation) and there were loads of people with MACs, iPods, iMacs, iSights, all waiting to be served, so I joined them and sat down.

Ashe after 30 minutes some lady told me to sign in, do they not have any idea that signs in the store are very helpful? What is the point of being all retro and different but not having the major things to help you in a shop. Silly. In the end, the silly girl who attended to me asked me to pay £49 for a new battery but I would lose the engraving on the back and all my songs I was sad for a minute but hmmm okay (my engraving is just my name and not like it was from a loved one, plus I have my songs at home) see me thinking they would take it back and do all the stuff and I would have to come back, she just brought out a brand new Second Generation one (i.e. old-school) for me to take home, I was like what happens to mine then? She's like, it goes back to Apple ----B$tch! So now I have a new mePod!

Anywhoo, now about Podcasts, Oi! Yes, you there, how can you own an ipod and not know about its features? Yes stop denying you! You wondered what podcasts were the other day when you opened your iTunes but you couldn't be bothered to find out since it did not affect your music listening. Little did you know it was the bomb, let alone the new ish! Yeah what are podcasts?

Podcasts are simply pre-recorded broadcasts. So, as opposed to the radio where you can miss out on stuff if you're not tuned in, these are saved and you can just download them. There are millions of podcasts, from "what happened in which episode of the OC" to "self help" to "Naija music" to "Company newsletters" to "comedies" to "learning Spanish" to "Christian Scriptures", etc. and you can further download them on to your iPod, to listen whenever, wherever, cool huh?

My favourite podcast is the Neo Soul Cafe (video and audio). You can download or watch the video podcast here.

Speaking of soul music, check out Aderemi's post and listen to some classics online.

Yes oh, I may be Naija to the Core but I don't mess with my soul music, anyways what does everyone think about podcasts and do you have any interesting ones?

Good Weekend Updated!

...........Yep it's Monday Morning. Hope everyone had a good weekend? I know it was excellent for some, the likes of TaureanMinx and DonChiChi and everyone else who attended the ThisDay Music Festival.

ThisDay online has some news on the concert here and don't forget to watch out for ChiChi's experience at the concert on his Entertainment Briefly blog and I'm sure Bella will have something up about it soon.

As for me, my weekend was fun fun, I partied woohoo!

Have a nice week and I will be back here with my iPod, Podcasts and Apple Store post soon (I'm still frustrated about that o, I have not forgotten lol)

Update Oh: Let's just say I really didn't think the ThisDay Music Festival would be "ALL THAT" but apparently it was!! As inn I am deeply and truly pained, I really honestly want to cry that I didn't go but I am happy for Nigeria that it went well. I will advise you to See Bella Naija's blog for pics but read Don Chi's E Brief! for a full account, while I have the Amebo/Gist that they didn't seem to add on to theirs (wink wink) see below:

• Where should I even start? The performance was too mad i.e. Jay-Z's that a street has been named after him in Kwara state - Shawn "jay z " Carter Street near the University.
• Busta Rhymes apparently yapped George Bush and Tony Blair saying they were told Africans were suffering but he sees us enjoying. And why not? Apparently people pulled up in Rolls', Phantoms, Ranges, Bentleys, S 500's and everything, the people that came with Jigga were so tripped!
• Jay-Z was meant to perform for 30 minutes but he stayed for 2 hours! They had to tell him to stop and he was so fascinated the crowd knew all the lyrics to his songs that he was just throwing everything at them!
• Snoop was high on not just the crowd alone - Go Figure!
• Missy refused to perform on stage and that she entered the crowd.
• Bank MDs and big boys in Gidi, senators and governors were just dancing like mad.
• And finally, Beyonce's version of our National Anthem was off the hook! Can't wait to hear it (sniff!)
• Pics from Jay and B's UN Africa Tour here

Beyonce and Jay Z pic courtesy of beyonceworld.net via Dammie

iFrustration

For those who thought I was long gone, you must be having a right laugh, I decided to take a week-long public holiday as per Independence now. You know me, Lady of Leisure hehe. Anyways I'm back and I'm frustrated.

My post today is on The iPod - that sleek, wonderful (to some), innovative piece of technology that almost everybody owns today. Yes, the bloody iPod. Never again will I buy a piece of technology when it has just been released and pay ten times the price. I have learnt my lesson. I bought a 20GB iPod in 2003 for the full price (don't ask). It was fun to use then - all new and retro and perhaps there weren't that many of us on the tube with white earphones so I could feel cool but in saying that, you had to be careful when you wore the white earphones because you'd probably be a target for robbery. Now, I'm sure the thieves can't even be arsed to rob people off iPods. They are so played out. Apple have bought the entire world, releasing an iPod or a variation/upgarade every other week. Like for instance now, I heard some gist about the new one soon to be relased, see these pictures and also check out this link. I haven't verified that gist yet though but if it's true, new iPods will be touch screen - see the one below.

Anyways, now I don't even bother listening to it on the tube (or anywhere in fact), there is nothing cool about it lol plus it doesn't bloody work! Yes, that brings me to my point here, these iPods ehn, first of all, it's like the cost of making the earphones is like 1 or 2pence (a copper) hence the reason for them always packing up in the first few months. I'm sure I ordered about 3 during the tenure of mine. Anywhoo so mine stopped working oh, not really.... but the battery started acting up, going off randomly when I played it, so I chucked it in the corner and didn't bother with it for the whole of this year (2006). And even then, I went and got the Apple iPod Hi-Fi which I have never used. This my Oju Kokoro_vocab sef!

Anyways back to the iPod I decided hmmm, there must be some iPod trade-in or exchange scheme so I googled it. Unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to buy mine in the states, and here in the UK, (where a $300 iPod is £300) they didn't have a trade-in program - thieves. I sha looked at the following website, and guess what? I could actually trade in my broken 1938 iPod and guess how much I would get back? $57! This is about £30, also a tenth of what I paid for it.

Helllllll NO, I don't care whether I have Ijebu_vocab blood or not, I'd rather keep the damn thing spoilt than get $57 (not even £57) for mine.

So an iPod trade-in was out of the question, p.s. my reason for wanting to trade it in was because it is a very old version and does not have as much compatibility with PCs or MACs as the new ones, I have to charge it with an adaptor as it does not charge directly on my computer etc. etc. Anyway I decided to go into the Apple Store.......I will continue this gist next week, needless to say I was amazed, all the DEMO_vocab for nothing. Anyways I'll be back (watch out for the Apple Store and Podcasts in my part 2)

Speaking of iPods=Music, Bella has some nice downloads and videos to grab, so check out her post. If you ain't heard the song Coupe Decale or seen the video then you ain't heard nothing - BELIEVE.

Have a good weekend xxx