Orinity

This year, we saw the entry of Apple’s iPhone into the already saturated mobile phone market with a ‘boom’. It seems that Sony feels that it is not enough with just their Sony Ericsson mobile phones and are ready to up the ante. A rumor about a mobile phone based on PSP has resurfaced yet again. If it happens, it will probably be under the flag of Sony Ericsson. The rumor first surfaced in September 2006 when one of Sony Ericsson’s senior vice presidents revealed to CNET Asia that the company was working on something related to PSP. This time, it is after after Sony Computer Entertainment COO Jim Ryan told The Economic Times that a PlayStation phone is a future possibility though challenging. A cross-bred between a mobile phone and PSP? No thanks. The battery life is definitely one issue that will turn me off, not to mention the bulky size of the PSP compared to Nintendo’s DS Lite. I feel that what’s separate should stay as two different products since they serve different functions. While I can type a text message and listen to music at the same time, I doubt that I can game and type text messages at the same time. It just don’t seem to work that way.

Did I mention that I am a Nintendo fan boy? haha!

My friend sent me an email and I must say I need to post the contents here. It is simply too good to not share the laughs!

A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:

Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

(Fantastic reply from a financial person)

Pretty Lady: I’m going to be honest of what I’ m going to say here. I’ m 25 this year. I’m very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I ‘m greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York .. My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you? Among those I’ve dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden ( ? ) , $250k annual income is not enough.

I’m here humbly to ask a few questions: 1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym) 2) Which age group should I target? 3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I ‘ve met a few girls who doesn ‘t have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys 4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)

Here’s a reply from a Wall Street Financial guy:

Dear Ms. Pretty, I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyze your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I’m not wasting time here.

From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain. Put the details aside, what you’re trying to do is an exchange of “beauty” and “money” Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square. However, there’s a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can’t be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It’s not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later.

By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a ” trading position” . If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term … same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or ” lease” . Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool.

Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in “leasing” services, do contact me.

Signed, J.P. Morgan

The World Wide Web has been deeply integrated into our lives, opening our eyes to many things thought not possible. Cell phones and laptops are amongst the digital gadgets that allowed us to access the internet as an when we like. There was sometime, not too long ago, that the click-and-mortar concept was the way to go in the retail sector.

 I am sure that many of you are familiar with online sprees and auctions, which some I have mentioned about a few entries back. ASOS is another online store, with a BIG difference. From what I learnt from Sue in the seminar last week, when ASOS first started their online business, they actually have a monthly online magazine which showcases their items, like an advertorial. Being able to mix and match with such a variety of products definately enabled ASOS to create different styles to capture the general audience’s attention. Once people’s attention are captured, they are more prone to view and buy your items.

There is also a Japanese online store, but this website unfortunately, is all in japanese, so there might be some difficulty in navigating the site. This is how you place your order – View the item selection online and place your orders via phone. Although one might think that since this is an online store, why not make the shopping experience a pure online one? Well, we know alot of shopping sites where we can place our orders at, but how many websites do we know that allows us to interact with a human voice and get more involved in this shopping experience? This also brings in an important factor – Time. By placing your orders to another person, doubts and queries can be settled faster, probably by that one phone call.

Other than having unique display props like the THEO FENNELL exhibition that I mentioned in my previous entry, there are some stores that actually sell products that probably are wacky and attention-grabbing enough on their own. I chance upon this site that sells, let’s put it nicely, novelties, which would probably make us feel like we were walking into one of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! museums. 

Archie McPhee‘s products listing includes rubber chickens, glow in the dark aliens, plastic ants, gummy lips, etc. For a complete product listing, please see here. If that’s not wacky enough, there is a list of the weirdest items that they have.

While the range of items at their stores might be overwhelming to absorb in a single sight, their website is easy to navigate and there detailed descriptions for each item. Interested to buy from them? Do note that international orders cannot be placed online. For more enquiries, you may wish to visit their FAQs page. There are two Archie McPhee stores, which are:

Address: 2428 NW Market Street, Seattle, WA 98107
and 2436 NW Market Street, Seattle, WA 98107

Last Tuesday, I went to a WGSN SINGAPORE Seminar held at Furama Riverfront Singapore. The speaker was Sue Evans, Senior Fashion Editor from WGSN London. I must admit that the first half of the seminar had me almost dozing off not once or twice, but many times. I blame it on a hearty breakfast of MacDonald’s. 

However, as Sue started on the second half of her presentation, I was intrigued by the case studies that she showed us while we were on the topic of the importance of visual merchandising. There were a few shops that captured my interest immediately. After I went back to office, I went online and did a search for some of the shops that Sue had mentioned. The follow are the shortlisted stores and the information I found so far. THEO FENNELL is a celebrity jeweller and his celebrity fans include Victoria Beckham, Liz Hurley, Elton John, etc. The store that was mentioned in my seminar was actually his Show Off! jewellery exhibition, which showcases his jewellery creations in a a dramatic setting. The main structure would have to be a full-sized guillotine with the severed head of Marie Antoinette, whose earlobes were adorned with a 55-carat Burma ruby and diamond earrings worth 395,000 pounds. Sue showed us a picture of the guillotine with the severed head, and thinking that this picture could be found easily online, I searched for it. Alas, I couldn’t find it.

The other displays were as bizzare as the guillotine. A woman in an electric chair, a corpse on a gurney and a tableau of heaven in which an angel’s wings have been chucked into a dustbin in favour of a far greater temptation — a ruby horned heart. Mythological figures such as cherubs, murderers, snakes, scorpions, bats and skeletons were all used as props to showcase the magnificant gemstones and diamonds.

However, one interesting fact that Sue divulged was that this exhibition was only opened for four days, but took 11 months to prepare.