Finding a house in the US has become real easy

I just got to know about this great rental site called Rentals.com. Their listings include a variety of rentals including apartments, condos, townhomes, vacation rentals, and more. Said to be the most popular rental listing Web site, you can find a house in every American state. The site has loads of houses for rent, the choice is amazing.

I decided to give it a test run to check out houses available for rent in New York, more specifically for apartments. The search was quite easy and I quickly narrowed to the search down to apartments. There's an amazing number of choices but one that caught my eye was the luxury apartments in Kamson Community : Forest Hill Terrace. Not really sure about the area but the green vegetation outside the apartments really attracted me. I would have appreciated some pictures of the interior as well though.

If you are looking for a place to rent in the States, I definitely recommend this site.

Sleeping princess

To get my daughter to sleep is quite easy, all I have to do is take her for a spin on the car and it won't be long before she dozes off.

Last Sunday afternoon, all of us went to the Pool Meadow bus station to see off Muz. His bus was going directly to Heathrow airport where he was catching a flight for Malaysia.

As we were leaving the house, my daughter made a very serious comment, "Mama, I don't think that I want to live here anymore", while shaking her head (meaning she want's to follow Muz back to Malaysia). I wanted to laugh but held myself as I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Unfortunately for my daughter, she again fell asleep and wasn't able to say bye to her favourite uncle. I say 'again' because she fell asleep when we went to pick him up too.

She was quite upset later when we got back home and found out that Muz had left, crying "I miss Ayah Muz".

We had a dinner party at our friend Lisa and Zur's place and she was quite reluctant to leave the house. Her mood improved considerably after she met some friends around her age (Lisa and Zur's kids).

At the dinner, I meet another avid photographer and blogger. Check out Mama Sarah's blog about life in the UK.

Baby mammoth found in Siberia

Check out this amazing video story about a 10,000-year-old preserved baby mammoth that was unearthed in May by a reindeer herder in the Yamal-Nenets region in the northern Siberia.

Will it provide some answers to the ongoing global warming debate?

Related Link: Baby mammoth discovery unveiled

Ayah Muz visiting

Rahil's favourite uncle Ayah Muz is here visiting. He's in Uk for a business trip and after finishing his stuff, took the bus to drop by our place.

Rahil had been eagerly waiting for him and I took her along with me when I went to fetch Muz from the Pool Meadow bus station. When I reached, I found that she had already slept. She only woke up later at home. At first she was a bit shy but then she opened up soon afterwards and would not stop talking.

Need encouragement?

Go go on over to Kay's blog - 'Howtoencourage' for some inspiring words. As she says:

You never know when a moment and a few encouraging words can impact a life.

The template is quite simple and the colour scheme is pleasing. However, I would have preferred it if she had increased the contrast of the text against the background. Would make it easier to read. The links on the side bar are a bit distracting and I suggest that she reduce the font size.

One way to brighten up the blog would be to upload some pictures along with the interesting posts. I didn't go through the whole blog but I did read all the posts under the label "Encouragement for Kids". Really interesting and I would definitely try to put her advise into practice.

Bloody inefficient energy company

When we first moved into our house, it already had a prepaid card meter system installed for both the electricity and gas. As we preferred to be billed, our landlord had both replaced to electronic meters. The company we signed up for is supposed to be one of the biggest in the UK and has ads running on TV all the time.

A few months on I was a bit worried as we hadn't received any bill as yet. Looked up their website and called up their customer service number. Was asked to push a couple of numbers one after another and I finally got a ring tone. However after several minutes nobody answered. At that time we didn't have a house phone and I was calling from my mobile - I hung up. Emailed them asking them for a bill. Received a prompt reply and they asked me to send them my meter readings. This I did.

After a few weeks I received a letter from Siemens (their official metering partner, it seems) asking me to fill up a a small form with the meter reading and send it back to them. I was a bit concerned as the letter was addressed to "New Customer" with our address but I sent it back anyway,.

Weeks went by but still no bill arrived even though we received 2 new prepayment cards. I again sent them an email and called them up too. This time I got through and explained that I had changed to a metering system. The people at the other end were quite polite but seemed to be quite clueless to what was going on and couldn't give me any satisfying answer. Was passed around a bit but finally assured that everything will be settled.

While waiting for the bill, I had the billing changed to my name rather than my wife.

I got the shock of my life when we received TWO bills in February - one for £584.57 and another for a whooping £1,193.97 (both dated 18 of Sept. 2006). The bills were addressed to the "New Customer" but both had separate account numbers listed. Around the same time, we received 2 more prepayment cards addressed to my wife.

Of course I was worried. Remember this was in Winter and we had 2 kids with us. Just imagine what would have happened if the gas and electricity were cut off.

I called them up and after being passed around a few time finally spoke to someone who told em that there had been a mistake and if I could give them the meter reading AGAIN.

Waited for some more time but the bill still didn't come. Called them up again - got passed around and I had to explain everything all over again - that we didn't have a prepayment meter, the bill was wrong as we only moved in around the end of Sept. blah blah blah.

We finally received a bill around the end of March and another in June. All the while no body came to check the meter readings, which means that our bills were estimations.

In the end, fed up with the company and after finding out that other companies were offering much cheaper rates, we shifted to EDF energy last month.

However, the story does not end there. After we moved to the new company, we have been visited by representatives from the previous company, not once but TWICE. They wanted to change our non-existent prepayment meter to the newer version.

The difference between a developing country (for example, Malaysia) and a developed country (UK) is that they are (supposed to be) more efficient and have better customer service. That is also the same argument behind the privatization of services but it seems like they have messed up everything here in the UK. Customer service is almost non-existent even though we have a number of companies to choose from.

Give me Tenaga Nasional anytime.

updated with extra info: 18 July '07

Getting yourself pierced, get quality jewelry

Someone once asked me whether I am into body piercings. I was a bit confused as to why she asked me that question until she clarified that she had noticed that my ears had been pierced. No! I am not into body piercings and the ear piercings, well that's another story.

Anyway, I noticed that body piercings are on the rise in Malaysia, especially among the urban youth. Of course when we talk about body piercings, you also have to consider the body jewelry. There's no point if you are going to get your belly pierced and put an ugly looking stud in it.

What about this 14kt White Gold Round CZ Solitaire Navel Belly Button Ring? Now we are talking. This ring costs $49.99 (retail price $119.99) and is available from Freshtrends.com, one of the leading body jewelry sites on the net. Check out their huge range of Gold Body jewelry including tongue rings, nose rings, navel rings among other quality products. Sign up with the site to receive discounts, coupons and other news via email. They offer free shipping on domestic (US) orders above $25. They also ship internationally and it's free for orders above $40 via USPS First Class Mail.

Check out the site for their weekly offers.