What can one do with RM50?

Lots of things:

1. Get a Baskin Robbins quart
2. Buy an ok pair of shoes
3. Eat 1 kg of crabs cooked in sweet chili sauce
4. Watch a movie in Gold Class
5. Buy a SuhWEET hairband from Diva to wear with my pretty dress to an upcoming dinner
6. Donate to charity
7. Buy the 'Red Prophet' by Orson Scott Card (which is UNAVAILABLE in every bookstore in KL)
8. Buy an AirAsia ticket ....somewhere, anywhere.....
9. Buy a tank of petrol
10. Pay for my Credit Card Annual Service Fee to Bank Negara....

So, I currently have credit cards from ummmm 2 international banks and 2 local establishments. So I have like a total of 9 credit cards....yikes, almost as bad as that government servant who reportedly had 10 right?

I only carry 5 around with me - god knows why I need so many....but maybe cos they give different offers/privileges at different establishments.....I can never remember which card gives me discounts where so I basically just ask the waiter/cashier and then pay with the card that is applicable.

But with the upcoming RM50 Service Fee, I shall be cancelling all but one - now the banks are ALL asking the big ole question - what to give my cardholder so they will keep my card???

Well, I'll tell you what I want:

1. Discounts that are relevant to me - don't give me gifts or purchase with purcase, I want the good old monetary discount!
2. The widest possible portfolio of merchants - I don't mean range - I mean portfolio as in, if I'm interested in shoes - give me the longest list of shoe merchants I can get discounts at.
3. The best possible discounts - don't give me the measly 5% - if I can afford to buy a Jimmy Choo, I don't need no 5%! (WHY DO MERCHANTS NOT UNDERSTAND THAT????) If you give me a 25% discount minimum, I might think again about buying something I don't need! (Don't worry, I'm not a shopaholic! I'm a discountaholic! Can I start a group?)
4. Ease of payment - over the internet, over the phone, without extra costs - better still if I can set up a monthly instruction to pay the statement amount automatically unless otherwise instructed. BETTER STILL - the Bank will call/sms me to tell me this is my amount for the month - do I wanna pay or not. So that reduces the scariness people feel about paying their credit card bill blindly cos you knowlah, if there is a wrong transaction in there and the money's gone to the bank, it could be quite hard to get it back!
5. This next one - I've been talking about for some time for Malaysia but now the banks are starting to do - paying with points. Though again, I'd like that the points are not like 180 = RM1. Which means I am literally paying RM180 (from past transactions) to pay RM1 in my current transaction (I guess this is when you get rewarded 1 Bonus Point for every Ringgit you spendlah). I know the points are from the Bank's income but still man - can we maybe say like 50 points for RM10????? I'm on the side of the consumer here! I also love it where I can also pay a portion of my bill with points - it's like getting a discount right there.
6. Customer Analytics and Differentiation in offers. Nowadays all the banks give the same offers - dining, slimming, exercise machines, hotels in god knows where....where is the GOOD Stuff???? The credit card I stick with should perform Accurate, Timely and Comprehensive Customer Analytics and find out what makes me tick. And give me benefits in those arenas. They could also call me up/email me once in a while just to say - Hey, what kind of discount would you like? Hey, I wanna give you a gift for your patronage - what would you like? Hey, here's free 3 days 2 nights on us at the Four Seasons Langkawi cos GOD KNOWS I never win any contests!!!!!!!!!!!! At least I know I'm a name and a face to them instead of just a Customer Number.

Now I'm stuck between choosing HSBC and EON Bank. Which one will emerge the winner??? HSBC doesn't really do a lot of fun stuff - I know their customer demographics are probably the older set and the RICHER set but that doesn't mean they can't cater to people like me right??? I mean I have the potential to become OLDER and RICHER - I AM their target market (albeit 15 years from now!!!) They should catch me now!!!!

And for those of you asking - EON? As in the Car Financier? As in E-O-N???? Well, yeah! EON Bank! They have a pretty wide range of discounts and their MATTA credit card gives lots of travel opportunities.....Aiya, so difficult - I would say this - HSBC should modernise their package and start looking at the young and stable and potentially old and rich....cos baby - I'd love to take you home!!!!!!!

Why are people searching for 'Ludicrousity'???

So I realise that I wrote a blog post about this word - ludicrousity - a long time ago. I wondered if it was really a word and it seems that alot of people have in interest in it as well....very strange.

Ok - i took 2 mins out to search for it on the web but nothing interested me. And I found out my blog post is the first in the results list - hmmmm....they should read my other stuff too and tell me if they like my style, my topics.....I would love to write a column somewhere....do I have to know someone who knows someone to get to do that????

Today is a Holiday

Hi - it's been a while and I HAVE felt guilty - obviously just not guilty enough to log in when I get home. It's kinda tedious, I spend the whole day tearing around the office, getting around all the red tape and paperwork (in this day and age can you believe it?), even though I have so many topics to share, I just can't seem to wanna switch the computer on. And I have gotten emails about it....so here I am, on a holiday - writing.

I just got home from a business trip, yesterday I spent a LOT of time watching Sex And The City (hmmm....for a moment there, I was like...is it 'Sex IN the City'.....). It's amazing how Sarah Jessica Parker can maintain Carrie Bradshaw the way she was from the very first Season to the very last....And now, because I've jumped straight from the Serial to the Movie, I can see, Miranda looks better, like she's come into herself and just looks better, more confident and content....(well, to me she was never the looker of the show but in the Season 6 - especially when Big comes and talks to the girls about going after HIS girl in Paris - Miranda looked really good in that scene - I kept wondering if her eyes always looked like that!) Carrie looks a bit older but her mannerisms, the way she talks, walks is all the same.......she has that same style of talking about her that the Friends tease Ross about.....not that they both share the same style but that they each have their style and it's never changed.

Carrie is so cute - she makes me want to walk the way she does - or should I say strut....like she's full of life and joie de'vivre, with a little hop, skip and jump.

Ok, I don't know why I'm writing about Sex And the City.....I meant to come in at different times today to just write. I'm 'On Holiday' cos I've contracted Conjunctivities in my left eye. Not the first time in my life and not the first time from contact lense wear. Anyways, it's swollen, itchy, pus-sy (NOT 'pussy') and oozing some times.....Yahoo!!!! S-E-X-Y!!!!!

And I'm so busy at work too -sigh!!! It's a good thing no one else uses this computer, or else I'll have to Dettolise it.

Hmmm...sitting in front of the window now, it's a nice overcast day but still with light just not heat and watching the men outside clean the place - the neighbourhood has these landscape people...it's a nice feeling, just sitting here with my coffee 3-in-1 and watching the daily grind....

Ok - more later.....Toodles.

Antibiotics Save The Day??

In the future, if I have kids - I'm going to train their bodies to be strong - how? By NOT subjecting them to antibiotics for every little thing. I realise that that is such an important quality to have - to build up your body strong enough that it can easily fight off invading armies of germs whenever, whereever......How does one build up the immune system again after it's been wracked by antibiotics????

Project Runway Out - Stylista In

Oklah - this one is quite good too....

MUMBO JUMBO

Ya I know - it's a condition called 'LaZiness'......I have so much to say - I was just thinking about it on the drive home from work today - it's why Twitter was created cos people were too lazy to login into Blogger everytime they felt they had something to say about the world! Well, at the very least, I'm not someone who has the computer on 24x7 - so coming home and logging on just to stare at yet ANOTHER computer is not relaxing or a passion I want to exercise at home.....hence so many of my valuable 10-sen thoughts are gone with the wind!

Was listening to my Ipod on the drive home (see! I'm ALL woman - I multitask on my drives home!) and I just realise that I really like Taylor Swift - I think she is very pretty and I really enjoy the songs she sings - albeit, the few I know seem to sound a bit the same but still - they make me move my head and the lyrics and jingles stick in my mind. I notice though that she seems to have very good breath control - she sings non-stop....reminds me of when Celine Dion tried out 'Treat Her Like A Lady' and asked, "When do I breathe????". Heeheh hahaha

OOooh, hubby will be back in town tomorrow morning - tomorrow morning we will be breathing the same Malaysian air!!!! Woo hoo!!!! This is the longest we've been apart - or so I've been telling everybody....sometimes I wonder if people get sick of me when I start to say, "my hus....." or "my in-la...." They probably yawn under the cover of ....food or tudung or something!

Hubby being away though gave me food for thought on the topic of fidelity. It's no fun being all afraid of someone being unfaithful to you - all that worry, suspicion, hurt, frustration, rage, non-understanding of why ANYONE much less someone who professes to love you would do something so horrible to you! I can't imagine partners who actually catch their other halves red-handed with someone else! Oh.My.God!!!!! I am sure some people will say it's cowardly or just say it's plain wrong -me, I can't even find a word for it! It's so BEYOND wrong, hurtful, irresponsible, callous, cruel, selfish, arrogant, etc. etc. etc.

Well, I don't think JH would intentionally hurt me or shame me this way, lay to waste all that I ever felt for him, did for him, sacrificed for him, planned for him - but him being away just gave rise to those feelings you know - like "What IF you didn't know your man was cheating on you?" Mum-in-law and I were chatting about how a woman always knows - but somehow.....I don't think so.....(weird since I was the one who actually SAID 'a woman always knows').

I can say one thing, the one time I was cheated (?) on, I didn't know. Either he was a darn good liar - which is possible since now I know there are so many things I didn't know about before, or I was just too blind and arrogant. Notwithstanding the fact that I WAS under a great deal of stress at the time, a very emotional time but I didn't expect it, and as such, I didn't see it I think. That's why, I am nervy that perhaps one day too, I might miss the signs with JH. I can hear him denouncing cheating this right now but like I always say, ONE NEVER KNOWS!! There are no guarantees and there are no insurance policies (if you wanna love right) so, I guess we just have to take the plunge and risk it huh? But OOOH, when the heart breaks, I can tell you.....it changes your perception of everything!

I think I can write about it quite easily now even though I can't quite convey the heartache and trauma one goes through but at that time, I'm telling you - there isn't quite anything like it. And being a female, of course, every conversation and behaviour runs through your mind like a million times and a million times again just to re-check or validate or try to excuse what you reasoned out.....It's a dark dark time.

But like I wrote about several years before - there are ways to see the end of the tunnel so no SON OF A ....... is worth dying for.

AIyo, I didn't set out to write something like this - don't know how it got here!

Let's see what else do I wanna talk about.....Citeebank is not very user friendly - I don't like them. Everytime I use them I remember why I scrapped their credit cards before. My electricity bill is, for the second time, being 'dibiayai oleh Kerajaan Malaysia' - yup - because I'm such a good blogger, the Govt of Malaysia is paying my electricity bill. I'm.....hungering for some time away - with hubby.....ummmm....I wanna go watch Victor/Victoria in Singapore at the end of the year. ummmm...I love Atilia, our home grown singer but I can't find any of her songs on Limewire or any of her albums......

Oh! YES! A MAJOR GRIPE! Project Runway is now NOT AVAILABLE on Youtube! NOT AVAILABLE! The horror!!! Due to licensing!!!! How am I going to watch the seasons then?????? AHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I stopped at Season 3 some more! AIyoyoyo......Recently I caught Amazing Race on tv which I've not watched for ages....seems interesting again! So, ...ahem ahem......

Sakai Ourselves-lah!

If you speak Hokkien, you'd probably understand my title. If not, think ~knocking on your own head with your knuckles~...

I've lamented the quality of this Japanese place before....last Sunday, for god only knows what reason, I had the clever idea of going to eat there again - this time the outlet at The Curve.....I had already been quite hungry from 10am but waited til 11.30am for this place to open.

Sigh, I took the exact same thing I complained about before - the sushi that only had topping on one piece and the other one was an empty or rather 'topless' beancurd rice.

JH ordered some scallop newbie and we had some other stuff.....the bill came to RM60 over for the two of us (do we overdo things???). Sigh, things have NOT improved - we've decided to award it with the 'AEK' prize. From now on - JH and ET's 'AEK' list.....

So far the awardees are:
1. Sakai Sushi
2. Pizza One

(all names are changed to protect the privacy of these establishments). AHEM!

Cry-worthy song

I just heard this tonight on my Ipod....I Loved Her First by Heartland.

Here is an excerpt of the lyrics:

Look at the two of you dancing that way
Lost in the moment and each others face
So much in love your alone in this place
Like there's nobody else in the world
I was enough for her not long ago
I was her number one
She told me so
And she still means the world to me
Just so you know
So be careful when you hold my girl

Time changes everything
Life must go on
And I'm not gonna stand in your way

But I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
And I prayed that she'd find you someday
But it still hard to give her away
I loved her first

How could that beautiful women with you
Be the same freckle face kid that I knew
The one that I read all those fairy tales to
And tucked into bed all those nights
And I knew the first time I saw you with her
It was only a matter of time.......

It's one of those songs that can make me cry - much like 'Butterfly Kisses' by Bob Carlisle from way back when.....now, THAT one I cried EVERY TIME I heard the song. This one by Heartland, at first I thought it was talking about an ex-love but then when you listen carefully, it's actually about a father's love for his daughter.......well, the phrase 'the love of a father' kinda gives it away...... hahah

Globeshopper to the rescue?

Where to buy Victoria's Secret in Malaysia????

PRIVACY for some but not others - the ironies of life!

AIyoyoyoyyo - since the phishing scam - I've been paranoid and changing my passwords and logins everywhere and forgetting what I put in! Sheesshhh!

I actually don't have much to write about, just checking in and fooling around... Oh yeah! I should mention something - you know when you get your bills for utilities that you use like credit cards and handphone bills and usually the organisation provides you with a reply 'Cheque' envelope duly addressed back to their payment centres and free postage?? Well, I've just recently started using a new bank's credit card - an international bank and guess what! I realise they provide a blank envelope AND no postage!!!!!!!

I was thinking it would be much much easier to pay them since they only have one branch in the whole of KL and even so, located in a terrible far away place (from me).....but no! They're too cheap to even be friendly with customers like that! Sheeesh!

What else do I want to gripe about - let's see......my face is really spotty! I never really had a problem with acne before in my entire life, but perhaps due to my 'bragging' nature about having gone for only 10 facials in my entire life and not having bad skin during this or that time of the month.....I'm getting payback! And IN A BIG WAY!!!!!!!! Ever since the wedding, I've been having these quite terrible breakouts with big zits right on my cheeks, near my eyeline.....sian! I really look quite fugly now with my glasses, bad hair, bad skin, fat body....... :(

I've been on youtube recently - voyeuring, not posting......and I don't know if I've mentioned this but I found kandee the makeup artist who is quite cool and another girl - aubrey who looks Filipino but lives in the States.....the first one I saw of her was a bad one where she was trying to curl her short hair.....I think she wasn't in the mood for a shoot so the chemistry was off, the charm was missing and witty banter? Elek! But then I saw some other ones.....and she can be quite addictive! She's got 4000 subscribers! I mused out loud to JH - wonder if I just sat in front of the camera, people would subscribe to my channel.....just sit there and look pretty - oh, sorry, fugly now....perhaps I'll be the digital circus freak?

Anyway, I like to watch youtube for great singing talents like Charice (whom I've blogged about before....but is scarily MATURE for her age), Project Runway episodes and make up and hair how-tos.....though I never use the tips but I love watching 'the magic'!