BuzzLife

The Indonesian used to use stones to wash their clothes while the Chinese used leaves. One century later, soap or more commonly known as detergent has become a neccesity household items in our daily lives. Would you buy a washing machine that doesn’t need detergent to clean your clothes? Skeptical, no?

Makers of white good products have since evolved in technology to bring the detergent free washing machine to our homes, much to the dismay of detergent makers. First it was Sanyo who unveiled the world’s first hybrid washing machine which do not require detergent in 2001. The invention has drawn a strong protest from Japan Soap and detergent Association. The detergent makers disputes Sanyo’s claims that the detergent free washer cleans better and falling flat on cost saving. The product did not have a success story.

Next, the Korean Daewo washing machine says "no" to soap in 2002, using quite a similiar technology. Daewoo claimed that their newly-invented washer has more washing power, up to 20% cleaner than conventional washers. It not only saves detergent but saves water as well.

And recently the Chinese maker Haier joins rivals to offer consumers a choice of no-soap washer. But buyers have been slow to take a spin, as people just can’t believe clothes can be washed without detergent. Haier patent right technology is based on a similar mechanism to detergents: using the interaction of acidic and alkaline ions to clean dirty substances.

Haier Natural Wash is going at RM3,999 for a 7 kg top-load detergent free washer vs. RM799, the price of a conventional 7 kg top load washer. The price difference itself is good enough for you to buy approximately 200 packets of 3 kg powdered laundry detergent. This can easily last you more than 15 yrs of consumption! Is it really cost saving? Is it worth buying? Do your own calculations!

This month has been a hectic month for me, both physically and mentally. Saropah, my excellent domestic helper is taking her one-month breakaway in Jakarta. The twice-a-week helper whom I engaged earlier had last minute withdrawn from our agreement, with a very good reason, too many "projects" and her priority will be her long-term customers. (She considers us her temporary customers lah).

So, here I am, juggling between a demanding hubby (ahem..), 2 active heroes, a high-flying career, a promising business, a built-up area of 2200 sq ft home and a blog which is losing readership because of scarce updates.

In fact, I am quite surprised by my energy judging from the fact that I haven’t done any housework since Saropah joined the family. That was 6 years ago! Thanks to the anti-oxidants and chelated mineral which had been my loyal companion since Jan this year.

Today, she is due to be back on board Air Asia Flight no. AK953, ETA 4.00pm. My only concern was whether she will reach Jakarta Airport on time judging for the fact that her hometown Brebes is hundreds of miles away and the requirement from some pegawai that she has to pay 1.5 million rupiah as levy to exit the country although she has the surat pelepasan cuti. (Will blog about how corrupted the pegawai there in the next entry).

I was crossing my fingers real hard as we drove to LCCT to pick her up. It was raining so heavily that we can’t go anything faster than 60kph. As a result, we reached LCCT at 4.30pm, half an hour behind schedule. A check at the Information board, we knew that the plane has not landed but no mention of delay or whatsoever.

At 5.15 pm, we went to check at the Information counter and were told that the flight was diverted to Penang due to heavy rain. When I asked for the ETA of the flight, the friendly chap at the information counter kindly told me that they have no information! And he kindly gave me the Air Asia flight operation room hotline to call, 03-86604320. I was expecting to hear a computerized voice but surprisingly I was greeted with a sweet voice. The lady gave me the same answer, no information yet. Errr.. is this what we called Low Class Cost service?

We waited until 6.45pm and another phone call to 03-86604320, I received the same reply. Sorry ma’am, no information yet. We continued to wait patiently at the International Arrival hall exit. 15 minutes later, a familiar voice called me as I was busy keeping an eye on my 2 Js. It was Saropah with an exhausting but smiley face. I am still wondering why the same reply.. no information yet whereby actually the aircraft has left Penang for KUL? Hmm… low cost carrier….

I received a pleasant surprise in my email box 2 hours ago with the subject titled Hello from Toronto.

It was an ex-colleague. She has a MBA degree, holding a managerial position in a giant multi-national before she was laid off due to the company relocated to a neighboring country. Her hubby is a R & D manager for a giant multi-national, who resigned out of frustration of the stressful job. They have a 4 year old child.

They left Malaysia for Canada for good, to seek for greener pastures two months ago. They have sold all their assets in Malaysia, gotten the PR status even before they live in Canada. (Canadian government only required "First Landing" for pre-approved immigrants).

In the email, she said that they are coping well with the cold weather, their son has started school and likes it very much.. No mention of their career prospects though. It is of course very likely that money is much better in Toronto, otherwise who is crazy enough to give up a 5-figure monthly income and settle down thousands of miles away from home.

That reminds me of a childhood friend who once headed to an unknown territory to seek for greener pastures. She’s a medical specialist married to a fellow medical specialist and they have 3 young children. Both husband and wife work for a private hospital in London, earning an income which they could never get if they come back for their medical practices in Malaysia public hospitals. (Malaysia government required all medical doctors to do a housemanship in public hospital for a minimum period of not less than 12 months). Read this link).

10 years ago, they left home sweet home to pursue their specialist degree in UK. They got married and settle down in London. They flew 2 Malaysian retired ladies all the way to London to babysit their 3 kids because the salary of a nanny in London could be equilvalent to your own salary (That’s what she told me)! The 2 retired ladies are on social visit pass and have to come back to Malaysia every 6 months.

A week ago, I received an off line message from her, "Yek Nee, we are coming back to Malaysia for good. We’ll stop over in KL, can we meet up?"

Why? I wonder.. She was earning a great income and I thought that she has settled there for good. Isn’t the grass on the other side greener?

One and only one reason, the children. Who is going to take care of the children now that the 2 nannies are so homesick that they don’t want to work anymore? Home (Malaysia) is where you can get immediate help in case of emergency. Money at home (Malaysia) may not be better, at least we have subsidized petrol and food items, and price control over other stuff.

Me? Home (Malaysia) is the sweetest. The only 2 reasons should I decide to leave home sweet home is to seek for clear blue skies whole year round and to be able to drink the water directly and confidently from the tap.

Janet.. may you achieve your aspiring dreams and hopes in Toronto.. and Vivien, welcome home..

First, it was crawling like a turtle, then suddenly it was totally inaccessible! I had problem to access to Streamyx for the last 48 hours. It is public holiday and I can’t get any technician to troubleshoot for me. My IT consultant aka my genie brother is not reachable until Saturday..

Meanwhile I just have to bear with the pain-in-the-neck dial up. At least I am thankful that I still keep the back up, otherwise I wouldn’t know what I would do with my internet withdrawal syndrome should I have totally no access to internet..

To all my muslim friends and Saropah, my maid who is on holiday now in her kampung Brebes, Selamat Hari Raya AidilFitri..

Happy Deepavali to all our Hindu friends,

Selamat Berpuasa to our muslim friends

Happy Holiday to the rest.

Big brands normally uses high profile celebrities as their spokesman/woman. Samsung has been using Malaysian pop queen, Siti Norhaliza, Panasonic mobile phone’s spokesman is Taiwanese singer Jay Chao. And homeground Malaysian very own brand Pensonic is spending millions of $$ to get 12 up-and-coming Malaysian celebrities of various talents and professionals to be friends of Pensonic.

And guess who are LG Malaysia’s latest spokesmen? None other than Malaysian 2 most influential bloggers!! Jeff Ooi and Kenny Sia. (Both were featured in Sept issue of NewMan mag). Jeff, the more matured is running a pantun (poem) contest for a LG Chocolate giveaway while the much younger Kenny is giving away an LG White Chocolate for the best real life story of things desperate crazy people do, with both giveaway running almost at the same time.

I do not know how much LG pays these probloggers, all I know is LG top guys must thank their Marketing guys for saving them lots of promotional $$ getting probloggers as their spokesman in comparison to celebrities, and yet receiving as effective results, if not better.

What a witty way for LG Malaysia to clear their LG Chocolate to make way for the next new launch Shine.

This blog entry is inspired by Lilian’s (aka 5xmom) Operasi kurang berat badan to shed off 5 kg of her weight.

I didn’t realize how alarming obesity is in Malaysia until I did a google search for this entry and found this astounding statistics: 47.1% of males and 60.2% of females suffer from abdominal obesity which increases cardiometabolic risk. Source : Bernama. 

Reading Lilian’s blog and her readers’ comment, I am curious to know how most overweight people manage their weight. Over hi-tea with my former univ mates today, I found out that a lot of overweight people actually diet and attend slimming programs to lose weight. Diet means either they skip meals or they cut down their daily intake of food and slimming program means forking out thousands of $$ for those liposuction programs or taking slimming/diet pills which have potential side effects!

But does it really work? Does it really shed off your weight permanently? Or is it just a short-term solution to a long term problem?

Dr. Ray Strand, in his book, Healthy For Life, says,

"Diets fail due to the tremendous amount of will power required. Anything which depends on will power won’t generally do well. Diet also fails because many eliminate or dramatically reduce a major macronutrients such as carbohydrates or fats. Such diets are out of balance and sooner or later our bodies will begin craving the nutrients that they have been denied."

"The most significant reason why diets don’t work is because diets do not address the most underlying cause of weight gain, which is insulin resistence. So.. what is the answer to this obesity epidemic that will allow us not only to lose weight but also to lose it permanently?"

Dr. Strand further explained that the reason we are in the midst of the current obesity and diabetes epidemic is the fact that our bodies are just not as sensitive to our own insulin as they once were. Becuase of our inactivity and poor eating habits, we have become less and less sensitive to our own insulin.

So.. how do we lose our excessive weight permanently? The only hope is to reset our body and reverse this underlying insulin resistence so that we can "tip back" into a normal metabolic state or in another words go through a behavioral modification programs that allows us to firmly establish new, healthier lifestyles that improve insulin sensitivity. 

So.. the buzz word here would be how to stay lean for life, the solution to the long-term problems. Find out more how you can DO it here..

Big J, my first born is 6 today.. How time flies.. My buzzworkinglife has deprived me so much of his milestones. He has already outgrown the "follow mummy everywhere" stage. Sometime I just can’t believe that my "little" boy is now preferring to join his best friends rather than go shopping with mummy… hmm.. I guess before I realize it, he may have already become a MAN.. hahaha.. kind of scary when I think of it.. when my little boy becomes a man, it automatically means I become an OLD lady!!!

Sounds like I have no guts to face the reality, of getting old, huh.. hahaha.

Happy Birthday to you, Jerard.. Love and kisses from papa, mama and little Javen..

I love corresponding ever since I was a little girl in pinafore uniform. Those days, my close buddies and I could "advertise" our names and home addresses in the newspaper columns in search of pen friends (or boyfriends, ha!). I used to receive dozens of letters and I would screen through them one by one checking for their pix and asl..(age-sex-location, LOL). Then I would reply them one by one and waited for their replies..

I remember I had pen pals from overseas, as far as UK, the States and Aussie.. and I would wait patiently for the snail letter to arrive, stretching my neck each time the postman passed by.. At that time, I was wishing and hoping in vain that the letters from my favorite pals would arrive instantly.

20 years later, my dream comes true.. the instant messaging, emails, VOIP services, at a click of the mouse, my message is sent across in a spilt of second.. Who could predict those days that a letter which normally takes weeks to arrive can now arrive in a second!! Now, this is what we call revolution of technologies!!

Speaking of technologies.. whaddya think are these????

Pens with hidden camera??

If I tell you that these are Personal Computer, would you believe it? No? Take a closer look..

Now I call that revolution of miniature computers! The advance of bluetooth technology..

Hmm.. I would love to replace my 2 kg Toshiba lap top for this futuristic "lap top"!

Photos from reader Amri via email

Sony’s global replacement programme for potentially hazardous lithium-ion laptop battery hurts the brand badly! The recall was not only painful for Sony, but for those affected laptop makers as well.

For the record,

Dell has recalled 4.2 million Sony batteries with additional 100,000 units coming up next.

Lenovo (the company which took over IBM’s ThinkPad last year) would recall 526,000 Sony batteries.

Toshiba is recalling 830,000 Sony batteries.

Apple is recalling 1.8 million Sony batteries.

Fujitsu is the next laptop maker to recall Sony batteries.

To date, HP is the only major laptop maker which declines Sony battery-swap and so far  the recall has totaled 7 million units.

Although Sony has offered to reimburse computer makers for the costs involved in the recalls, the recall is equally painful for computer makers. They have to set up a way to receive millions of faulty batteries and exchange them for millio of new batteries, thus creating logistical difficulties.

With the brand image severely damaged, it is not surprising if computers makers are likely to look hard at shifting some of their business away from Sony and giving to its 2 main rivals, Panasonic and Sanyo!

Source : AFXnews

Errr.. I am no financial planning expertise but I do know that I have to plan for my golden years (just in case hubby ditches me for a much younger bimbo, ahem) and the kids’ education. So.. I have been growing my wealth the smart way by investing in unit trusts funds using both my Employees Provident Funds (KWSP) and cash.

Earlier, I wrote about the best practices of unit trusts in this blog, and the editor of Personal Money Magazine, the EDGE Magazine on Managing Your Finances, contacted me for my story. 

Check out the October issue of Personal Money Magazine. There is an extensive write-up on investing your EPF monies. This humble blogger’s short story is featured on Pg. 43. Errr..I wouldn’t want to put up my "sexy" pix and story here so as not to infringe the copy right of the magazine. Go to the nearest newstand, grab the October issue for more tips on managing your finances.. or just to peep at this humble blogger’s physical outlook.. hahaha.. don’t vomit blood ya..

Thank you editor Tan Su-Yin for the opportunity to guest star in Personal Money Magazine.

A big cheers to writer Elaine Boey for the great write-up, and not forgetting,

Photographer Kenny Yap for the superb pix…

(as if I just won an Oscar award …)

If you are able to read this post, it means blogsome is now back to normal.

As of 11.50pm on 7th Oct, when I update this entry, Blogsome announced that one-third of their blogs (obviously BuzzLife falls under the unlucky one-third) are inaccessible due to database crash! Now, that sounds a bit panicky as if all my previous posts have gone into trash!

Only 6 months into blogging, I was just about to learn how to crawl when this piece of news chills me off. I believe the administrators are trying their best to get things back in order. They have given their assurance that no data is lost. Well, it would be unfair to push the adminstrators or to complain about them. Afterall, they don’t charge me a single cent for maintaining this blog.

Well, this may be a gentle reminder to me that I should get my own domain.. Hmm..