Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows price war

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) is $17.99 on Amazon.com. On the other hand, it is £8.99 on the Amazon UK site.

Compare that with what UK supermarket chain Morrisons is offering. The last Harry Potter book is only £4.99 here. No! I won't be queuing up anywhere when the clock strikes midnight. However, I will be rushing there tomorrow morning and hope that there are still some copies left. If not, my next choice will be Asda where it is going for £5.

It is still £8.87 at Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Waterstone's and Woolworths are sellingit at £8.99 per copy while it is £10.99 at WH Smith.

The price war is on in Malaysia too. According to a news report, bookstores here are protesting against hypermarkets Carrefour and Tesco, slashing the price of the book from the recommended retail price of RM109.90 to RM69.90. The four major bookstores there, namely MPH, Popular, Harris and Times announced at a press conference, that they would not sell the last Harry Potter book. Cry babies!

Updated: 22 July 2007

Tags: harry potter harry potter and the deathly hallows morrisons

Drink your vegetables

I have been a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) for most of my life and I have no regrets even though a lot of people always say "Pity, you are missing out on all the tasty food". Actually I am not missing out on anything.

I find it quite strange that some people hate vegetables. This natural food contains different vitamins, minerals and others, which has so many health benefits. There are so many studies that have shown that a regular vegetable intake can prevent diseases and help in controlling your weight.

If you are one of those guys who hate eating vegetables but want the good benefits of vegetables, why not try drinking them. That's the idea behind a daily dietary supplement called "My Daily Veggies" brought out by a company called Lane Labs, LLC. This company is giving away thousands of free trial packets to promote this daily nutritional supplement. You can also get 7 day My Daily Veggies Free Sample containing a total of 14 USDA servings of whole vegetables($10.00 value). They will only charge $1.00 on your credit card for shipping and handling.

If you don't want to drink it, you can easily incorporate it into one of the recipes given on the site or your own. I might try it out too.

The first interview

Just came back after attending an interview. It is the first since we moved to the UK. Technically it is the second because I was once interviewed over the phone.

It's raining cats and dogs here today and I had to walk a bit to the place where the interview was conducted. Was able to find free parking and thankfully I had my wife's umbrella.

The interviewer was nice and we had a nice discussion about online shopping and some issues before we got down to actually talking about the job. Am a bit apprehensive as he mentioned the dreaded words I hear a lot now - "You are a bit overqualified for the job but it should be OK."

I really hope I get it as I am itching to getting out to work again. The salary is nothing to shout about but would be a welcome addition to my PhD fund.

Bowling shirts made in the USA

Most cloth manufacturers in the developed countries have now moved production to China, India and other countries where the cost of production is cheaper. It's simple economics. This is true of many American brands. However, there are a few survivors who still produce their clothes in America and proudly carry the 'Made in the US' label.

There are still many American customers who will buy these American-made products even though they are slightly costlier than those available in the local hypermarkets, for patriotic reasons. I guess the brand names have something to do with it too. People trusts the quality of the brands. A good example are the American-made retro bowling shirts and rockabilly shirts. they have loads of designs but the most popular shirts on the site happen to be the retro bowling shirts.

Hardy and family comes visiting

Our dearest friends, Hardy and Zaza and their cute son came visiting yesterday evening. This is the second time they are visiting the UK from Holland. However, this time they are here for a longer duration. Check out their blog 'Bringing up an AIdan and handling Holland'.


Fathers and sons

European rail info site

When I was a kid in London, I had a very close friend called Marco. They were from Portugal and his mum used to work with my dad. We lost touch after we all left the UK for our respective home countries. I have always wanted to go to Portugal and find out what ever happened to him.

I suddenly remembered him as I was going through the Railshopper.com website and came across the Portugal Rail Pass Tickets. This site is ideal for searching for Europe rail passes, tickets and schedules.

I hate to be blunt but the site looks quite boring. The site needs more brightening up and more images might do the job. For example, night life pictures of Lisbon in the above mentioned Portugal page instead of that ugly looking train image.

I also suggest that they get rid of their amateurish looking logo and get one properly designed. Having said that, the site does have loads of useful info and visitors would probably come back for that.

Blog overhaul required

Next on my list of blogs to review is Anylees' Wonderful. I don't want to be rude but I cringed when I opened the blog. The reason - it is the generic Blogger template that I hate the most. Nothing against the designer or against the blogger but light green dots is not just my thing. I am not really fond of that red colored font either as it makes it hard to read the posts. My suggestion to Anylee is to get a brand new template with a nice header.

Most of the posts are short and few are quite interesting. As I have always pointed out, longer original posts tend to get more comments. Some pictures to go with the blog would be a good idea. Yeah! This is true for my own blogs too. I keep telling myself that I should have an image to go with each post but so far ....