Interesting personal blog

A friend told me that my blog has become less interesting after I starting writing about technology, business and e-commerce. According to her, it was more interesting when most of my posts were about my personal life.

I don't know why but I too prefer personal blogs over blogs with technology or any other specific theme. Somehow I feel more involved. "Where’s Mommy’s Prozac?" is such a blog. The 30+ mother to two teenage girls and a teenage stepson writes that

"My life is all about drama, drama, drama."

One of the posts I really found deeply touching was about the death of her brother - "In Memory of My Brother".

I also found out that we share the same interest in music. Most of her favourites are also mine too.

Buying Euphoria

Euphoria is the new fragrance from Calvin Klein. My wife wanted it and so I thought it would be an ideal Mother's day gift.

Checked out a few online retailers and as I wanted to pay with Paypal, I narrowed it down to Harrods and Boots.

The prices of Euphoria Eau de Parfum 30ml, were same in both: £28 (approx. US$55/ RM192). The only difference was the delivery charges. £4.95 for Harrods and £2.95 for Boots. So naturally I choose boots.

The final charges was £ 33.90. This included "Gift boxing" (£2.95) and a free card.

Looking on the net, I discovered that I could have got it cheaper. The cheapest prices are at:
1. Fragrance Direct: £26.94 (£24.99 + P & P: £1.95)
2. Cheap Smells: £26.45 (£25.50+ P & P: £0.95)
3. Supaperfume: £26.45 (postage free).

Do you know of any place I could have got it cheaper?

Next time before I shop online, I will definitely do a little bit more research to find the best prices.

Tags: Boots Calvin Klein Euphoria Fragrances Harrods Perfume

Web directory with a new concept

There are so many directories on the web today and all of them seem alike. However, I just learned about one which has a slightly different concept not used by many directories.

So how is this directory different?

Well, instead of sorting listings by popularity, Page Rank, or alphabetically, Big Web Links Directory aims to list the best and most popular websites on the Internet, sorted by the contribution amount. The mininimum is US$29.90 for a new listing. You can contribute to a listing to increase its ranking.

Every submission will receive two direct links: one within the specified category and one on a dedicated page. The top 10 listings are shown on the homepage, while the top 20 listings are shown on the top links page, which is a significant benefit for those listings.

The owners of this new site hope to have a very respectable Google PR soon.

So what do you think of this concept?

Car booting March 18

I have posted a few posts about our favourite pastime here in Coventry - searching for bargains at car boot sales. From today I am going to post a list of stuff we bought at every car boot sale we go to over here starting from today under the label: booting.

Here is the list of stuff we bought at the CJ's car boot at Stoneleigh sale last Sunday:



1. 3 books:
i) Bag of bones by Stephen King. 30p
ii) The sigma protocol by Robert Ludlum. 40p
iii) The reality dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton. 50p

2. 2 folding camping stools. £5

3. 3 jigsaw puzzles. 50p

4. A frying pan. 50p

5. Pair of rubber gloves. 50p

6. 4 framed drawings of classic cars. £2

7. A Mothercare framed baby carrier (not in picture). £3

Total spent: £12.70

Related post:
- Rainy carboot day
- Car Booty in Coventry

Tags: Car boot CJ's Car Boot

Eco tourism in Hawaii

Ecotourism is not a new thing and this concept of tourism is slowly but steadily gaining in acceptance. People can define ecotourism in several ways but I would like to describe it as:

Leave nothing but your footsteps and leave with nothing apart from your nice memories (and the pictures).

There is also a growing breed of eco-friendly tourists - the ecotourists. People who love to travel but are environmentally conscious and friendly. Like millions of people around the World, I love traveling and I would definitely wouldn't want to do any damage to the environment of the places I visit.

One place I have always wanted to visit was the islands of Hawaii. I found out that there are environmentally friendly Hawaii trips for the eco-tourist too.

As opposed to trips offered by the automated sites
Kauai Ecotourism Vacation Rentals hand-picks their properties and offers first class service for you. This local agency claims to lessen "the damage to the spectacles of nature on Kauai and the other Hawaiian islands".

So if you are planning to visit Hawaii, do check out their site.

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

Freak snow in Coventry

A lot of people had told me about the crazy English weather but I never believed it until today. Spring is in the air and the daffodils are blooming. It was bright and sunny in the morning and suddenly this afternoon, it suddenly started to snow.



Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

Tags: Snow Weather Coventry

T-shirt contest update

I have a contest running on my auto lah blog, which ends on the 25th of this month. However, I am really disappointed with the response. Only 1 entry so far.

On discussing with my wife about the poor response, we came up with some possible reasons why the contest has not attracted that many entries.

1. Number of visitors to my auto blog is quite low.
2. The prizes (2 T-shirts) are not attractive enough.
3. Very few people have actually driven the Dodge Nitro.
4. Asking people to link back to my blog with keywords may have turned off some people.

As a result, I am putting the link back to my blog as optional.
You also don't need to have driven the Dodge Nitro to write about it. Just tell us what you like about the design or the specs.

There are 8 more days to go, so feel free to join in.