Please Let Me Win!!

WOW! I am starting to think that God finally remember me and start smiling at me, showering me with good fortune and luck! Not only have I managed to find the sofa set that I want at really reasonable price, the location is just 5 minutes walk away from my apartment. On top of that, I also found someone that would like to give up their dog for adoption. The dog is one of those easy to take care, short hair and friendly little thing! Just right for us and the apartment. Now, all I need to do is convince my babe the same thing too! LOL~

Anyway, today, while I was checking my blog, the advertlets banner on my blog caught my attention. You see, I am on the quest to loose as much weight as possible in the next four month! And it so happen that my colleagues and I were discussing that the Celebrity Fitness Center that the mall near our office is open really early in the morning. In fact, some of our female colleagues did go there previously for morning exercise, shower and then come to work. A few of guys here will also usually go after work. I am actually super new to gym and abit reluctant to part with my money for a whole year membership because I know myself very well. I might just decided to quit halfway thru.

I did hear from my colleague that going to the gym can be addictive. Once you get started, it would be rather hard not to go for a long period of time because your body will be craving for exercise. I know that is true for yoga. I can’t hardly believe how much I sweat when I go for yoga. I always thought that it is a gentle stretching exercise! I guess that is what you call HOT yoga? So, gym! Lots of my friends tell me tonnes of benefits they get from going to gym. Not only does it helps to build and tone the muscle, also at the same time, can help to increase your metabolic rate. So, whatever food taken will burn away before it can turn into fat.

Having said that, I know it would not be easy in the beginning, most likely will get bodyache and so on, but my quest to achieve substantial weight lost before my wedding day motivates me to try it out. So, the opportunity that the contest to win gym membership is hard to let up. Usually, I will not participate in such contest. Too lazy to write about things that I am not passionate about no matter how attractive the price were.

But for this Celebrity Fitness contest, perfect timing! The grand prize being one voucher for six month free membership and three months for runner up. I can already imagine myself going there every morning before going to work. After all, since I carpool with babe to work daily and actually reached the office before 7.30am eventhough my actual work hour starts at 9am, might as well make good use of the one half hour right?

So, why do I deserve to win? I guess it will be the push that I need to get started and to try out new things. I desperately need to push and motivate myself to get started on my health regime. Even a three months membership will be better than nothing. Not only to lost weight in time to look good for my church and dinner reception on 29 Dec but also for health reason. I know, I know, people will say fat people can be fit and healthy too. In fact, sometimes overweight people have better fitness level compared to those skinny ones. But I can wish to be healthy AND SLIM at the same time right?

Actually, I can already imagine myself going there every morning, i.e. in my exercise clothes and a knapsack filled with my office wear, towel and shampoo/soap, ask babe to drop me off at the entrance to the mall instead of to the office building. Walk to the Celebrity Fitness Center and do some threadmill and weight lifting. They even have yoga from 7-8am and 8-9am! So, maybe go for the Yoga on Wednesday and Power Yoga on Friday in the morning, belly dancing 6-7pm on Tuesdays and Energy Aerobic on Thursdays 6-7pm. So, four times a week alternate between mornings and evenings.

WOW! I can’t wait to get started. So, I really really hope that I will win!

Spark Your Life (and Blog) with SocialSpark

I have finally found it! Finally a place that allows me to do the things that I love and make some mullah without having to worry about the page ranking. I don't know about most of you but no matter how hard I try to browse the internet and try to understand the definition of page ranking or how it is calculated, I will always end up with more questions than I begin with. Of course, sometimes along the way, I got sidetrack and start to look at other more interesting.

SocialSpark cannot be bothered with such nonsense. Instead, they have created their own ranking which makes it more reliable in a way . Trust me, this people is here to stay and I can foresee that it will be here to stay for a long time. I for one is definitely in need of a place that allows me to do what I do and at the same time make my little place here into a money machine and more blogger friends while increasing the traffic to the blog.

Of course another great feature of socialspark that will help me with this is that is actually allows you to socialise with other socialspark's members. This is rather smart if you ask me because not only the socialsparkers communicate with each other to make friends but also it can be a community that helps each other as we all have one thing in common, we are all bloggers!

SocialSpark code of ethics includes:
-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

So, when you have registered yourself at SocialSpark, do remember to add me to your list of friends!

My Car Is Spending More Money than ME!

So having shipped my car to KL, the next thing to think about is how to renew my car insurance. I guess it will not as easy and convenient as in Kuching where everything is near compared to KL. The first thing that I will need to do is to find a reputable car insurance provider to give me some auto insurance quotes. After that, will also need to check the service charge that this provider gives. I actually asked the RHB Delta Finance in Kuching before I came here on how I can renew my insurance and road tax if I continue to use them as my auto insurer. I was rather surprised how convenient and cheap it can be.

All I have to do is, bring my original green card and go to the RHB Business Center, make payment for both the insurance and roadtax. They will only charge RM10 for service charge and courier. The roadtax can be collected the very next day. There is only one problem though, the business center is located in the heart of KL, ie. near the Bukit Bintang area! And I definitely do not want to even imagine going there just to pay for my insurance and roadtax, what more to say about actually going there!

So, guess I will just start to shop around for a new auto insurance and change again. After all, the NCP points can be transferred from one insurer to another without much problem. Hopefully, this people do not see me as the country pumpkin and try to charge me crazy crazy high price. All I know is my car is definitely costing me more than I am costing me. Babe and I am already planning to send the car for its normal check up and servicing since the mileage is way pass it time. Furthermore, the car seems to be sulking because the pick-up is not as good as it used to be. Sigh! I only hope that God gave me enough patience to handle babe's friend's wife that we are staying with now. (But then that is a different story for another day!)

Dreaming On A Saturday Night

I can now understand and appreciate the joke about being gloomy and having Monday blues and being the perky cheerful person once Thurs and Friday approach because that is exactly how I feel yesterday on the way back from work. I was so happy that it is finally going to Saturday tomorrow. Because this would mean that I can sleep as late as I want at night without having to worry not able to wake up the next morning to go to work. It would also mean that in the event that I do really sleep late and woke up early due to the blasted body biological clock that acts as the alarm to wake up at the god damn wee hour in the morning, I can relax and not drive anywhere if I dont want to! hehehe...

In fact, babe and I actually went out, just the two of us, to have our supper around 11.30pm last night. Went to this mamak shop that is famous for its tandoori chicken and roti naan. After rushing around for a week, learning the route, calming my nerves, fighting the traffic jam and trying to proof to my boss that I am capable without being a show-off, I finally am able to relax and chit chat with babe. One of the things that I truly miss was the us-time that seems to have been pushed aside in the hectic life. Somehow things like doing the laundry, ironing and rushing seems to be our main focus during the week. So, was really glad to catch up with babe.

And of course, while chatting and discussing our future plan, the talks will turn to our hope of moving out from his friend's house into our own. As I mentioned previously, it is not that we dont appreciate the kindness of his friend to put up with us and let us rent a room in his house for a while. But rather, babe and I like our privacy too much and hence, we respect the need of privacy for others too. So, with the mortgages that I currently have for the house that my bro and I bought for my parents in Kuching, guess the only alternative for us would be to rent a place.

Although sometimes I feel that it is better to just buy a place and pay the mortgages every month. If you think of it, you will realised what an irony it is. After all, the renters are the one that is giving money to the house owner to pay for the house that he or she will own in the end. Of course, if the renter the problem with having enough money for down payment is one of the biggest roadblock for those that wish to own a house. Oh well, I can dream can't I.

Travelling at Warp 9 and Above

It is 11.32pm and I am at home in my bedroom blogging on a Saturday evening. I guess it might have sounded pathetic but I am seriously happy to be home actually. It has been a very tiring few days. And I thought holidays is for resting and napping! It all started since Wednesday night when we had our department dinner at The Junk. That is of course when I started my crazy ride on the super duper warp 9 Enterprise spaceship. Yap, it does certainly feel like I am running and rushing since that day. Actually, thinking back, 10 years ago, I would have no problem going out every night and coming back at wee hour in the morning. And then still have the energy and concentration to attend classes. After that, go back home to go chatting on IRC. I wonder if this is a sign that I am getting old and just time to settle down? hehehe (babe, are you panicking?)

Anyway, Thursday night was the night that we went to Sidewalk. That is also the night that the toilet at my house got blocked! I am telling you now, the next time you have a blockage in the toilet, be smart and call the plumber immediately as soon as it is polite to do so. I wish I was that smart. Instead, I let my mom talked me into letting her unclog the toilet. And guess what happened? I think I rather not describe too much but suffice to say that my bathroom and kitchen was not a pretty sight! You see, the toilet tricked us on Thursday night into thinking that it has cleared itself. In actual fact, it is silently plotting to get back at us at the next opportunity that it got, which happens to be Friday, 21 Mar 2008~

What is the significance of the date? Not much other than about 31 years ago on that day at 11am, my mom gave birth to me at the Sibu General Hospital. So, that day, 31 years later, my mom & I had to clean up the horrible.....ok..going to stop here. I promised I will not describe it. I will only say that I am so desperately in need to get away that I actually went online hotel reservation! Yup, that was how desperate I was. It was a good thing I did too because I might not have found this amazing sites that offers fantastic deals not only for resorts, motels and hotels but also car rentals services and so forth.


I was chatting with Rebeena the other day about her trip to Thailand and it really sounds very tempting to me. I mean, I felt like immediately going on line and book the next flight there. Of course, with the relocation to KL, getting married, etc, it might not be anytime soon. But then, there is no harm browsing around and searching for good deals. What I like about the website is that it is pretty user friendly and give me the flexibility to mix and match between the different activities and hotels/motels based on my budget. Not only that, I can actually compare the different hotels that the website have to choose the one that I feel is the most suited to my needs. Maybe I can persuade babe to go on a honeymoon there? Not to Phuket for romantic beaches silly, can do that anytime. I want to go somewhere I can shop till I drop...haha

Anyway, let me get back to the topic again. So, on Friday, got up at 7.30am expecting a call from babe soon. After all, although it is public holiday in Sarawak and I could have sleep in, not everyday is my birthday and it will be the first birthday I will be celebrating without my babe near me. So, I definitely expect him to be the first one to call and wish me happy birthday. But you know what? Not only did he only call me at 6 something in the EVENING, he had the gall to laugh when he found out that I am angry. How can I not be angry when his excuse for not calling me was because he was busy at work and he didn't call me early in the morning because he didn't think I will answer the call. GGRR! He can be such a jerk sometimes but what to do, who ask me to sayang him so much. Sigh~

So, Friday was almost ruined had my family did not decide to have a bbq that night. So, off we go for brunch at Ipoh Town Coffee at Boulevard. I been there once before for the nasi lemak and ice blended white coffee. Personally, I didn't think it is worth it but since dad want to try, off we go then. Dad had loh mee, mango juice and kopi O. Mom had nasi lemak special and iced white coffee, sis had chicken kueh teow and coke. Bro ate soft boiled eggs with garlic toast and hot kopi o. I ate curry mee and iced white coffee. The 2nd time there to affirmed what I said about the food there not so great but the portion for loh mee and curry mee are really huge! Total damage was less than RM50. So, price wise, not too bad considering that it is a franchise.

Saturday, today, marked the 20 years anniversary since my grandpa pass away. So, my aunts, uncle and cousins came from all over to visit grandpa graveyard. As usual, I didn't go. Only my dad and bro went at around 7.30am. I went out with mom to buy the stuff I needed for tonight potluck. Then mom got a call from dad saying that we are all invited to my uncle's shop at Padungan for dinner tonight at 6.30pm. Aiyeh! Double book liaw! Potluck with the gang is at 7.30pm. So how? Like any good daughter (Ahem!), I went with my family for dinner first and then arrive late at the potluck.

Better late than never right? The gang has of course eaten their dinner by the time I arrive around 8.45pm. Could have been earlier have I not went to the wrong house. I actually stepped into the house and open the front door already. Yap, the door was unlock and there was no noise at all from inside the house. And no, I did not step in because when I open the door a crack, I can see a altar and I immediately close the door back up and got out of there because I can sense that something is amiss. Turn out, Alan's place was a few house down. I can only thank god that no one was there and I was not stupid enough to just walk in despite the altar. Can you imagine how embarrassing it can be? My ears burning even as I typing this and imagining it!

Ok, enough for now. I think I have mumble more than my share tonight. That is what happened after not blogging for a day! I will upload some pic from the dinner at Phaw-Phaw, Padungan where authentic Philippines food are serves. And also some pic from the potluck! But that will have to wait for tomorrow. Good night people! JenJen signing off at 12.22am!

Connecting With Food

Chinese New Year seems like ages ago although in truth, it was less than a month ago. There are still some goodies left over though. As usual, those homemade pineapple tarts, cheese cookies and melting moments are the first to be devoured. Mostly, left untouched are those preserved fruits that was only purchased just becacuse it is the unspoken rule of the celebration, that is to symbolise the sweetness for the new year. And as usual, every year I will be looking all over the place for my recipe collection. I have this folder that keep all my recipe collection with handwritten notes from me whenever I made any changes or new experiment.

And of course, every year, one or two weeks before Chinese New Year, I will be getting phone calls from my friends asking for recipe especially the cheesecake and melting moment cookie recipe. Others would call to ask if I think it would be a good idea to experiment and add other ingredient into the cheesecake. Apparently, I have become a cheesecake expert. Not sure how this happened. Sometimes, I would be so busy with last minute prepacration that I missed some of the calls. Rather embarrassing since the friends will definitely mention it when I go visiting!

So, it is really cool when I found this website that is like a facebook for foodies! It has so many fantastic feature that I don't even know where to begin. For those that is health conscious or check on all nutritional values of everything they consume, then it is definitely worth signing up with them. I mean, they can actually do a nutritional analysis. All you have to do is sign up and submit them. Best of all, it is FREE! Yup, absolutely no charge at all. Didi, I think we should start doing that especially for that melting moments cookie (momo) that we love so much!

And look at what I found when I search "Cheesecake" in the website! Coconut-mango Cheesecake, Bailey Cheesecake, Ginger Honey Cheesecake and the list goes on and ever growing!
If you look at the left corner of the screen capture below, you will realised that this place actually allow you to share your recipe online so that your friends can just login and retrieve the recipe that they need. How amazing is that??
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And if you do not have enough time to do your shopping list, all you have to do is follow the simple instruction on the webpage, "To add recipes to your shopping list, click the "Add to shopping list" button on any recipe or menu page." There is simply too many amazing features on this website. Best of all, it is all for free! I am very excited about this. I am going to start upload as many recipes as I can to Food Connect so that I do not have to bring all those heavy folders when I go to KL in three weeks time!

Snapbomb

I am feeling so full. We ate tomato fish soup with dry tang hoon at Top Ten which is located at Jalan Song. The soup is sourish with tomato bits in them. Also there are assorted types of fish cakes. They have tang hoon, bee hoon or noodles to go with this. Can request to either to have them in the soup or a small separate bowl. The price, RM5.50. It used to be RM5 but I guess with the increase in price for everything, they had to increase as well. But today's soup was slightly different because there is an extra ingredient in it, i.e. a dumpling stuffed with fish cake and bits of centurion egg. I think that is rather unique and not to mention the exotic and yummy taste *drool again!* So full now but a colleague of mine just message me to tell me that she is eating her pau now! GASP! So keng (incredible)~!

Feeling so full and lazy to do much now. Still need to prepare a report for customer before our conference call tomorrow morning. Oh well, guess I will do that later once I have finish blog hopping and check out what other bloggers are saying on their blogs today. Good thing I did too because I stumbled on a posting on something that I am really fond of, i.e. blog marketing. Ever since I discovered the buzz word, I cannot stop myself to look for more opportunities to blog for money.

Of course, with hip and jazzy name such as snapbomb, it is rather hard to miss. This is where the advertiser and bloggers mutually benefits and create a win-win relationship. Advertisers benefited when they sponsored a targeted campaign that will help them to inform the world about product releases, press coverage, events and basically everything under the sun. Advertisers will definitely benefit from this if the aim is to bring their message across as internet becomes more and more accessible to everyone. For bloggers, well, bloggers get to choose what they want to talk about and being paid for it. For someone like me that simply love blogging and in need of some extra side income, this is really ideal for me.

Did I mentioned that I am addicted to blogging? Oh, I did? Ok, just thought that I want to remind you all again, I simply can't stop myself from blogging! This is absolutely addictive! For those of you that is planning to start your own blog, don't say I didn't warn you.

Sexy Eyes

For those that has been regulars here will have noticed that my blogging time for the past few days has lessen considerably. In fact, for today, if it were not because of waiting for babe to call me back, I might just have that one posting. No, I have not done something wrong again that caused me to rethink and amend my ways. Although I still do think that I need to lessen my blogdiction back to a more normal proportion once again. After all, it is definitely not healthy to leave my blog open on the mozilla firefox just in case I feel like refreshing the page to see if anyone left any comments. (Or just to see the counter jump and increase more than I expected on a daily basis). Oh my god, do I have a serious case of addiction here.

Anyway, back to the point, addiction aside, I have been posting considerably less in the past few days. Even if I did, I believe some might say that I am just breezing through most of them. Well, I admit that I have been very distracted since Monday as I wait for my boss to come back from his leave yesterday for me to give him my letter. Of course, today was even worse as I was actually comtemplating deleting and 'killing' this blog of mine. EGAD! Yes, you read correctly and won't be needing help from Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses that offers simply unbelievable low prices. In fact I would think that it is a Great Discovery: Zenni Optical $8 Glasses, because on top of being cheap, some of the glasses sold was actually comparable and stylist in todays eyewear industry. They also have a huge selection of frames with single vision lens, sun-sensor lens, tinted sunglasses lens, bifocal lens and progressive lens. With this wide selection, I would say the award for Best Thing found: Zenni Optical $8 Glasses definitely belongs to them.

Anyway, back to what I was saying (as you can see, I am very easily distracted recently too), the reason that I want to stop blogging on this is blog is because somehow my boss got wind of the fact that I have a blog. Of course, under normal circumstances, this would have been perfectly alright. After all, I am not defaming anyone by mentioning their names directly on the web for all to see. I have not destroyed anyone's reputation by putting their actual name here. I also did not breach the NDA that I was 'asked' to sign when I joined the company. All that I did was blog and tell the world my feelings, thoughts and release my tension here. So, why would I be concern that my boss knows that I have a blog right?

To tell you the truth, I am not very sure myself.I am just feel uncomfortable knowing that my boss is able to read about thoughts that I posted while I was trying to release my stress or penned up anger on my blog. It makes me think twice or triple times since then when I wanted to post something to my blog. Furthermore, with the shock that I just gave him when I tendered my resignation yesterday, I would think that this is not normal circumstances now.

So, I am in a dilemma yet again. To leave this blog and start another one that is totally anonymous or just continue with this one....

Catching the Runaway Nose

I am feeling so sleepy today. Despite the fact that I have drank 1 cup of Cafe 21 and 1 cup of ginseng drink, I am still feeling sleepy and drowsy. It is even worse now after having a rather heavy lunch of lau su fen plus wantan (small pieces of rice noodles with chinese dumplings). Furthermore, was not feeling so well this morning. Sneezing non-stop and running nose. Decided to take clarinets which stop the nose from running away and not suppose to cause drowsiness. But I am finding it hard to concentrate much now. Can't even contemplate the idea of preparing a report that customer been asking since yesterday. All the numbers and checking needed makes me feel like telling the doctor to give me sick leave for today...sigh... I think I can feel a fever coming up.

Must be all the junk food and carbonated drinks I been taking in the last few days during Chinese New Year. On top of that, been sleeping really late and waking up early almost daily. Of course, as mentioned in my previous posting, have not been sleeping well too. I can still my body all hyped up and desperately need to discharge the excess charges but unsure how to do this. Nothing seems to work, even sleeping as early as 9pm the other night didn't helped much. I wonder if all this contribute to the feeling of wanting to get sick. Or maybe it was my brother's virus passing on to me.

Thank god nothing much happened this morning at work. Customers were asking easy to handle questions via emails instead of calling me to follow up. If not, I am not sure I can give them coherent answers. To top the cake off, I actually need to give my Speech number 7 for the Toastmaster Competent Communicator manual. Alamak! I have not even look at the notes. Not sure if I can do this with much dignity and correctly. I might end up repeating the project again because didn't fulfill the objectives. I don't feel like backing up now though because not so nice right to do that last minute. After all, no one like someone that can't keep their promise. I especially dislike people that promised to do something but end up breaking them.

Babe asked me something that got me stunted the other day. He asked me if I think after the relocation to KL and start work there, if there is any possibility of us relocate back to Kuching in maybe 10 years time. Only then I realised how homesick he must be. But frankly speaking, I think it will be very hard to relocate from a Metropolitan city back to a smaller city. For one thing, there will not be as many opportunities and the offer most likely wont be as competitive.

Having said that, of course, the future is hard to determine. We can always consider to start up a business and if we do not have enough savings by then, there are alot of Small Business Loans available to consider as an option to source for starting capital. There are really alot of loans options out there. For example, AFSLoans (Accommodative Financial Loans). Unlike some competitors, AFSLoans has no application fee, no hidden charges and boast to have one of the lowest interest rates for unsecure loans. Not only that, with 30 second pre-application at no cost and no obligation and approval window of 24-48 hours for loan valued between $10K - 150K, making it a temptation that is rather hard to resist.

Might even be a good option to take out unsecure loan for that special vacation, wedding plan or renovation that been thinking alot about. Oh boy, I thought I am sick. How come I can still daydream so well! Guess the synapses in my brain just can't resist the temptation to blog and talk non-stop. Thank god that blogging is in written form and not spoken. Or else I think I might lost my voice after just 2 months.

CNY, Gathering, Flood and Gambling

Today is the 8th day of the new Lunar Year and we are half way through the Chinese New Year celebration. Traditionally, the first 15 days of the lunar year is reserved as auspicious time of the year and is to be celebrated throughout the 15 days.. Nowadays, except for the first few days, I think most of us will be too embarrassed even to visit friends or invite anyone over as most of the goodies are gone.

I missed the good old days when we were all still studying in College. That was the time when we are not too old to be burdened with worries of the world but not too young to enjoy it. I still remember a Chinese New Year gathering that we had once upon a time (Can't even remember how long ago that was). We had all gathered at one of the friends house and the plan was to visit each other and will end at my house for dinner and gambling (Not something to be missed during CNY okie!).

By the time the troop reach my place, I think the sky has start to darken considerably although it was still pretty early in the evening. On top of that, it has been raining on and off throughout the day too. We are hearing news that some low land are starting to have floods. We were not worried since my house then was located in a place that has never suffer from any floods throughout the ten years that I have stayed there. But little did we know, by the time the friends were ready to leave, the flood was actually starting outside my house. Good thing it was not too bad, only a few inches but the road leading out from the estate was very bad.

The gang ended up leaving my house around 3 in the morning. And my brother was stranded at his friends house until the next day. It was definitely an experience that was hard to forget. I think that must have been almost ten years ago but it is still fresh in my mind when my friends are frantically trying to call their family and reassure them that they are alright but stranded at my house. Thinking back, what if we had gone home earlier and gamble on the online casino instead. But I guess back then, when internet was not so popular among Malaysian yet, the idea of gambling online was rather scary. If there were websites that does online casino review to help filter through the online casinos and help the players to have a more memorable, hassle free and safe environment, most definitely we will have more confident to log on and start having fun.

Oh well, I guess that is something to be considered next year during the Chinese New Year. This year, sufficient to say that other than the first two days, I became the Queen of Hibernation and stayed glued to the tv, bed, laptop and food.

Shopping Online for CNY

This is a season to be jolly, fa-lalala-lala. OOPS! Wrong season! Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni! Phew, I guess I am still in Christmas mood although Chinese New Year is actually the day after tomorrow. And tomorrow night we will be having our reunion dinner. This year, the dinner will be slightly different for my family. Usually, we will just have the dinner on the eve of the CNY just among the few of us in the family, dad & mom, sis, bro and myself. For the pass few years, I will be the one organising the whole thing from deciding what to cook, when to go marketing and what to buy.

But this year, early last week, dad suddenly told us that our auntie (dad's youngest sister) invited the whole family to have the reunion dinner at her house. We will pick grandma from the nursing home and have a nice family dinner together. And mom & dad actually done most of the marketing since the weekend since I am not taking much time off. As usual, dad & mom bought too much of everything. Imagine buying over RM150 worth of poultry and RM200 worth of roasted chicken, duck, braised pork, etc. I want to faint when I hear about it from my brother. Dad's excuse was so that we have food on the first few days of CNY.

Oh well, at least we can freeze the stuff and keep for a few month? Mom was nagging about going to town to buy a drink serving tray last night but in the end she agreed not to when we all basically refuse to drive to town and be stuck in jam for many hours. Today, it is worse. I believe most people have started taking their leave yesterday and is flooding the supermarkets and shopping malls to do last minute shopping. Even during lunch just now, we met a mini jam outside BDC Everise! I imagine it will be worse tonight!

All this makes me seriously think about online shopping but I other than purchasing AirAsia ticket online, I have never trusted online shopping. Suffice to say that all the horror stories of being cheated is enough to put me off. But I 'stumbled' (ok, so I was blog hopping. bluek!) on the website on Ashop Commerce which is one of the US based provider that host the shopping cart software. Ashop even boasted the ability to provide the highest ranking on most search engines through their easy to use ecommerce software. By providing 100% optimised shopping cart, merchants and consumers can both rest assured that the best and most secured online shopping experience is available.

Perhaps next year I can consider starting up my own business selling cookies, cakes and homemade dried pork as side income during festive season? Or rekindle my dream to start up my own business but instead of opening a real store, to open on on the web. Will someone kick me so that I will make that first big leap?

Finally Approved

Money will always be a concern for most of us I guess. I mean, of course money is not everything but without money in this modern world, it will be extremely hard to survive. Even with the income that one earn from work is sometimes not enough especially the current price raise in almost everything. To make matter worse, the traders and business people try to take advantage and use the price hike in commodity such as flour to further increase the price of goods without much sense to consumer like me.

I guess that is why I was so worried about the move to KL. With the rumors that there will be a big possibility of petrol price hike this year, everyone have some kind of speculation as to how much it will increase. Some say as much as 30cents per litre. That means approximately 15% increase. Imagine if the weekly petrol consumption on average now is RM50, if the price of petrol really does go up as much as 15%, it would mean additional RM7.5 per week. It might not seem like much but from the trend, when petrol increase, the inflation flood gate will open wide and chain reaction will happen. Does that mean I will be paying RM2 per can of Cola at the coffeeshop?

When I started blogging, I actually was thinking of using this as a way to make more friends from all the place and ultimately build network. To be, blogging is where I can express my feelings in words and share with others how I feel, especially all the frustration. Yes, also a place to release my stress and complain all I want about those that makes me really mad. But that is another topic (or few topics on its on for next time!)

Anyway, I was really excited about the prospect of blogging and get paid for blogging. This is totally new to me. All this while, I always assume that those that go online to blog is simply to fill up their time and have nothing better to do. Never in my wildness imagination would I think of blogging as a source of side income. I mean, I know about all the MLM and Network Marketing which is a nice way to call direct marketing such as Amway. But blogging and get paid to blog? Is that even possible?

But after checking out Smorty, I am basically hooked! Basically it connects the advertisers with the bloggers to advertise on blogs to have more wide coverage. After all, the only place that is really borderless is in the cyberworld. Blog advertising is actually a really smart way to go. Not only it is more cost effective but more efficient in term of coverage as well. The bloggers with say 20 unique viewer per day will mean the potential for advertiser to let 20 different people from all over the world know about their products or services.

Anyway, What a nice ang pau for CNY 2008. I can see the money come rolling in instead of having wings and fly away. So, I guess the year of the rat is not a total unlucky year for me if I can blog for money.