Sue Stonebender’s Neighborhood

Blaring American "consumery" Christmas music coming from outside of my hotel room window in Rome is really distracting

Landed FCO - Rome

Phone bill for board call was more expensive than hotel room. VoIP banning FAIL #flist

Found Macbook's at DXB duty free but not separate power units. FAIL #flist

Forgot my Macbook Pro power supply in Dubai. looks like necktie not only thing I need to buy in Rome. FAIL #flist

In car OMW to DXB. Only 6 more flights this year if everything works properly.

Starting to remember where I am when I wake up by the smell of the hotel room I'm in

I think I'm supposed to wear a necktie but I lost it along my trip somewhere

Time to pack to head off to Italy for a few days. I think I'm speaking at the Parliament... http://capitaledigitale.webcasting.it/

You know I have a thing about retro so naturally in city'super/LOG-ON's Stationery department you will see some antique replicas.  Here's a shot of one of our show cases with a Lars Magnus Ericsson 1892 "The Skeleton Type" or "Eiffel Tower" phone replica (I put a few other Eiffel Tower stuffs around it like a bookend, a card stand, a diary, a pack of Paris map magnets and a metal die cast desk deco.  In case you wonder, the wine stopper and the little gold bar are USB memories).

Eiffel Tower Antique Phone replica

Today we received a series of brand new German phone replicas we ordered but weren't sure if they could arrive before Xmas, what a surprise they did!  The finishing looks far better than the prototype I saw before, it features a touch dial with a center redial button, exceptionally smart looking as a modernized phone.  It is sold at HK$299.  I had to literally beg the manufacturer to do business with me like 2 years ago, its worth everything and I'm so happy they are now in our stores, I hope our customers like them too.

German phone replica modernized with touch dial

To learn more about antique phones:

• Lars Magnus Ericsson the Swedish inventor
• The Skeleton Type (Dachshund)1892, L.M. Ericsson's very own design, from ericcsonhistory.com
• Ericsson AC100 Series "Skeletal" Desk Phone, collector Bob Estreich's detail account of history and various models.  Interestingly according to Bob, both "Skeletal" and "Eiffel Tower" were names applied by collectors but not the real product names.  The "Eiffel Tower" name was actually referring to another phone but got mixed up with the Ericsson one somewhere in time.