Itching for a new phone

I'm not much of a cell phone buff, but while I was trying to shop for a cover or protector for my Nokia phone, I found that these days all the accessories on sale are for Blackberrys and iPhones. Hardly anything is sold for the usual cell phones already!

That made me thing if I'm really out and obsolete holding on to a mobile phone that's not one of those "in" thing. Now that iPhone 4 is out, I got a feeling the previous versions could be a tad bit cheaper,right? Hmm...hand it getting itchy...wondering if I should trade in my current so-called smart cell phone for one of the iPhone.

What do you think? I'm not really willing to pay that much for a brand new cell phone, so I gotta find a good price for a trade-in first. But not even sure if the value of my phone today is going to be much of a help at all as things like this get obsolete so quickly.

Still thinking, thinking, thinking...I'm still tied down to my 24-month cell phone plan, so can't really get to change the plan for one of those free phone promotions.

One man's meat is another man's poison

It's so true that what we often find not our cup of tea is really what is truly sought after by someone else. Over the weekend I made friends with a lady who's a foreigner living in the country. She's got fair skin and for some strange reason she hates that. She's always wanted skin colour like us Asians, tan and all.

She was saying that she used to go to far extends to get her skin colour looking like ours. She would buy tanning bed lotions and sometimes get spray-ons too. Of course it doesn't last for long and she has to go back over and over to get it done consistently.

Since living her, she was hoping that the sun can help her get tanned more naturally but it hasn't been working that way.

For us we just want to more fairer than what we are. How ironic huh? I wonder if we were in each other's shoes, would we still want what we don't have?

Lucrative industry

Being in the beauty industry is such a lucrative business. These days people are willing to pay huge money to look and feel good. Not only are beauty treatments expensive, even lifestyle things like spas can cost way too much.

Earlier a friend was telling me that she knows this tai-tai who owns a spa and the kind of services offered there are so incredibly high end that even when she was offered a trial for half the price, she found it still too expensive to try out. What more to pay full price for it.

Apparently at the spa, they also do skin problem treatments and the most costly treatment in this area is the body acne treatment program. Apparently a lot of people suffer from it and it's not easy to get rid of it once and for all.

If you are thinking of going into business, you can always consider this industry. It really has become a big thing in the last century and I believe it will only grow as people go more and more for looks and lifestyle these days.

Rainy Friday

Had a really good week...woke up this morning to such a rainy day but it feels good. Cooling morning to start the day, so the rain doesn't disturb me at all, enjoying the breeze of it :)

On the contrary, got an email from a friend talking about something called Black Friday. I'm not familiar with what it is, but I believe it's some sort of a festive thing where she lives but the name itself doesn't sound very friendly, huh?

Never mind friendly or not, I'm enjoying my Friday. Some work to get done today but nothing that's too tedious :)

Looking forward to the weekend and another great week ahead.

Strange riddle

A friend thought it was going to be a clever riddle when she gave me this to guess what is stands for: 7-dfbx. I told her it sounds alien and it's probably something to do about the html coding or something.

She laughed and said it actually stands for 7-day fat burner extreme. Hmm...I wonder why she thought I'd guess something like that. Not funny at all. Don't try such silly jokes on your friends. Unless they are people who are keen to lose some weight ;)

Cheap printing, anyone?

Recently I've been toying with the idea of getting some reusable bags and printing them as giveaways. But I don't know where to find the cheapest printer nor the supplier of such bags. There was this particular printer that we used to do poster printing that charged us at very reasonable rates, but not sure if the rates would stay the same some 4 years down the road now.

Maybe I should just give a call and find out. If I do get cheap rates, I'm just afraid I might still be indecisive on whether I should spend that kind of money.

Fickle, fickle, fickle me!

So annoyed

Last night I came about someone's business site by word of mouth. She happens to be a friend of a friend's whom I've spoken briefly with once some time back. She not only ventured into the same business I'm in, she actually did up her site exactly the way mine was done.

Ok, no big deal, you say, almost all sites are set up quite similarly. But what ticked me off most was that she copied the content WORD FOR WORD into her site! So everything looks just like mine except for colour difference and of course some of the products varied.

Can you imagine that? She thought I didn't know so I sent her an email to tell her off. She came back with an apologetic reply saying she was busy and didn't have enough time to think of what to write. Lame excuse.

While I worked day and night on my old faithful Acer Aspire notebook, she happily and easily swiped everything. Sigh...some people are just plainly lacking of imagination and only want the easy way out.

Good thing I've gone one step ahead and changed the way things are now with the business. But I won't be surprised that she'll catch up and do just the same.

Guess this is something out of my control. Just wanted to let off some steam here. I'll forget about this and move on anyway.

So many insurance agents knocking on our doors

Well not really knocking on doors, more like ringing us up anytime of the day they wish! Have you received such insurance marketing calls? I've been getting so many lately that I've begin to wonder if a lot more people are now joining the insurance business or it just so happened that my name is turning up on a lot of databases because it's that phase of life where people usually top up on their policies?

Investing in diamonds?

Some months back I kept seeing advertisements in the newspapers about how diamonds are good investments. I was thinking gold was what people went for when the share market was irrational, but diamonds?! I couldn't imagine that they will be good investments. Hmm...maybe I should take out those loose diamonds that I don't wear anymore from jewelries and have them evaluated to see how much they cost! Hehe...never know I can actually get some money out of them since I'm no longer wearing them as blings!

Not for me

I've never taken any products for slimming down. Well ok in the first place it's not as if I need it. So I don't quite get it when promoters keep pushing flyers to me about their weight loss programs or products. Do they really think I should be keen? Hmm...

I won't blame those spam mails with all sorts of marketing gimmicks and even specific lipozene reviews and testimonials simply because they just never know who they are spamming, but being face to face and seeing the person in front of you, I think one can make better judgement whether or not to hand over a flyer, you reckon?

Privilege for the disabled

I just learned that in some countries disabled people's welfare are quite well looked after compared to what we have in ours. I think it's thoughtful and good that special people like these are helped along the way.

I guess it does make sense for special people to want to migrate to those countries where there is disability appeal for them. But I wonder if such applications are easily acceptable?

I know nothing in this area. Don't mind my midnight rambles.

Do you really absorb ads?

I'm just wondering if our brains get immuned to ads that we frequently see in the newspapers and even on TV or billboards. If you flip through the newspapers, you'll notice lots of ads from banks as well as for weight loss products. If you noticed them, chances are we probably we absorb to some extent, otherwise we won't even know they exist.

I sometimes get so sick of all the ads that I prefer to just skim through the papers and totally not glance over any ads at all to save my time.

To this end, I do think reading the papers online will save me not only money to buy them but also time. I just scroll through the headlines and read what I want without having to flip the pages and get distracted by all those ads to buy almost everything under the sun.

Sometimes familiarity doesn't work

I recently bought a new laptop from someone who's known to us. I've always thought that it's best to be recommended a shop or person to buy something from, but as it turns out, I think I disagree now. It's hard when things aren't turning out the way you expect and then it gets kinda difficult to have the situation corrected because it's a friend of someone who sold you something you're not satisfied with. Hard to handle huh?

I think the next time I'm looking for laptop computers, I'll do it on my own and just go to the shops, find the best deals, and make sure I truly get what I want.

Really, familiarity sometimes does not work well at all!

All sorts of donation drives out there

The other day I was in a coffee shop with a friend when I overheard some guy going around asking for donations for the building of a drug rehab. Honestly, I am quite skeptical of people who go around collecting donations for any kind of purposes because there are so many scams around.

I thought it was a new one to have a donation drive for drug rehabilitation. If I were to donate to such a cause, I would prefer to do it through some proper drug rehabilitation association instead.

I guess there are all kinds of donation drives these days for anything you can think of. Unfortunately, it makes it even more dubious for me!

Losing weight

I've been pigging out quite a bit, snacking every now and then and not really caring that I might put on some love handles. I thought I would surely put on a little even if not a lot, at the rate I've been snacking and sometimes even having late and heavy dinners. But funnily enough, I find that I'm actually losing weight!

Some of my clothes are feeling a little loose on me and I even need a belt for several of my belts! I suppose lots of mothers would like to be losing weight naturally like this while keeping up with all those meals and snacks. So I should be counting my blessings, huh? At least I don't need to spend on buying some best diet pills in an attempt to love the post pregnancy weight :)

Less places to shop at

The economy has gotten so bad that many retailers have closed their doors. The first of them were Woolworth in England followed by many others afterwards. Some who are still in business have also downsized and cut back on the many outlets they have everywhere.

Recently I heard another unfortunate retailer to join the bandwagon in closing shop is Circuit City. I wonder who's going to be next...

Would insurance get any cheaper alongside other things?

In times like these, where banks are lowering interest rates and many FMCG companies have lowered some of prices of their products to help people save more, I was wondering if the insurance premiums would be relooked at.

In bad times, all the more people need protection. And insurance policies don't come cheap for medical, life, travel and even car insurance. I would think that it would benefit everything if insurance premiums could be lowered and everyone can afford some form of protection against any untoward incidences.

I would also like to see the price of useful things like books to lower than what they are now. But of course that's a long shot because they are heavily dependent on the prices of books being imported from the western world as well as the foreign exchange rate.

What else do you think could be cheaper for the benefit of everyone?

Me day

Today is a total me day. It's a day off from work and I'm not even taking care of the little boy myself. Just having time being on my own, doing whatever I need or not doing anything, for that matter. It feels good to have a full day of having no plans, doing whatever comes to the mind and heart.

Today I am another year wiser. And I'm feeling good...it's been a long while since I've felt so carefree. Even if it's just for a day, I guess it's enough for me to feel rejuvenated.

Getting fed up with all the technicalities

In the last 2 months, I'm terribly demotivated at work. I get like this every once in a while. Whenever it happens, I know it's just a cycle and I'll eventually get out of it. But somehow, this time, I feel that it won't be as easy to slip out of it and get back to the time when I loved going to work. I think it's also very much due to the fact that I have a little boy whom I would love to spend more time with.

Anyway, things aren't made any easier when I have to deal with a bunch of people I don't usually deal with, and they are bombarding me left, right and center with all kinds of requests! And these requests, whilst some are simple but just tedious stuff, others are really technical and I seriously have no idea where to start. I hate all that technical jargons involved in the long emails that I receive everyday, and I sometimes wish I were just having a bad dream and that I would wake up to reality where work means taking care of my toddler!

But no, I need to face up to reality and move along with time in a linear motion as I can't escape from all these boring and tedious tasks at hand. I can't wait to get them off my hands but I know they will continue to come at me possibly for the entire year. Oh how I dread going to work! :(

A paranoid mother

As my little boy grows up and has quicken his steps from just walking to running, I have more to worry about. When he starts to seriously climb the stairs and furniture, I can't imagine how high my worry level will shoot up to! Is there a maximum limit of worry or is it infinite? It's torturing to always worry about the boy hurting himself.

We've tried as much as possible to baby-proof the home. We installed those soft rubber corners on tables and the tv stand, put away breakables and make sure he can't reach any sort of chemicals we store around the home.

We can only try to be as careful as possible. When he's at the babysitter's I also worry about how he may bang into sharp corners or fall off a step or falling as he runs. It's endless and I know it's crazy to be such a paranoid mother. I just can't help it! Maybe over time I will get used to it and be more relaxed. Do you think it's true? Can a mother ever stop worrying? I doubt it...