A Year of Smoking Apple

It is exactly a year ago I purchased my first Apple's iPhone and since then, my iPhone 4 has changed the way I work and play more than any other gadget I have had - I would say, mostly for the better.

The downside: there's always distractions a tap away.  I find myself getting distracted more often than not.  That has led to more than a few stern talking-tos from family members and friends, wondering why on earth I can't go an hour without doing something on the iPhone...at the dinner table, a bar, or even on vacation!

There had been a few kinks of software clashes on my current phone but in general, I am quite happy with it.  So happy, that I went and bought the AppleCare Protection Plan to extend its warranty for another year before the current one expires.   


Can't bear to even imagine living a day without it you see - the addiction is that bad.

Watched A Movie In Style

You walk in through an exclusive entrance, in you go to a lounge area where you collect your complimentary popcorn and drinks.  And when you enter the cinema, 23 cushy first-class airline seats are all you can locate.  Not to mention the impeccable infrasonic system and the massive screen in place, the whole experience resembles a red carpet reception for no one but VIPs.  

Thanks to the Grand Cinema, where its Standard Chartered Starsuite that puts ‘luxury’ back in the movie theatre.


Thanks to BBHH, I have never felt more pampered watching a movie.  

Coke Light Or Coke Zero?

A long time debate which I am sure would have cropped up in times of friendly chatters.

They have exactly the same nutrition information, no calories, no fats, no carbohydrates and no proteins.  However, compare a non-sugar "diet" drink with its sugar laden sibling, I think I will take sugar any day of the week.

It's sugar and excess calories, fair enough.  But sugar I can deal with and burn off if I choose to.  There is no telling what that chemical aspartame does to our body.


Anyway, is it me or do you also think Coke Light taste better than its brother Zero?

Cherry Chomper

Love cherries but hate the mess of trying to pit them by hand for your young child?


How about a tool that pits your cherries on your behalf and takes all the work out of serving cherries?  Shaped like an adorable cartoon character, all you need to do is place a cherry in its mouth, press the head and you’re good to go – the rapid plunging action will push the stone through the cherry, leaving it perfectly pitted and ready to eat.


Awesome stuff isn't it?

When You Say Nothing At All

Do you ever wonder how you are perceived by others?  Or what kind of person that stranger across the room is like?

I have heard a few of my close friends comment that I have a knack for reading people and have been right most often than not (touch wood) in reading some poker faces.  How ever much I would love to admit I am a natural, the truth is - I really think anyone can do it.

I would say there's a lot to do with empathy though.   For some it is a matter of cues from body language and for others, it is an almost supernatural sense of what people are feeling.

People surrounding us are constantly telling us what they think even when they are not speaking.   Should we choose to pay more attention to how they feel via their behaviours, choices and reactions, we will get to read into it a lot more than their words can tell. 

If you want to know what people really think, or if you wish to read them like open books to you - pay attention to their true feelings written in their every nuance and expression.  

Just allow yourself to go into familiar situations and environments with a totally different perspective. 


You will be quite amazed what you can discover - in most cases, the exercise will only be confirming traits you have already known.  

You've Got Mail

Emails have crept into every part of our lives, from business to pleasure whether you like it or not and there are times when I can’t really tell if my emails are being read. Hate it when people at work don’t respond. 

I mean, I don't want to assume these people are throwing my emails straight away to the bin, but if they are reading them, this bunch certainly isn’t replying!  Not once, but always!

You then started to think if the problem lies in you and toy around with the idea of sending shorter emails, ask for a response by a certain deadline.  You even tried sending to nobody nobody but one person.  Thought that will fix it but still, you end in vain. 

A fruitful solution, anyone?

A Little Business Etiquette Is Too Much To Ask For

On one occasion like today, I had simultaneously three meetings to attend.  What would you do to prevent situations like that?  Would you try to prioritise and reschedule?  Or would you do what airlines do - overbook to compensate for no-shows? 

It is a no brainer for me - you wouldn't find double-bookings in my calendar at any time because if you are warranted a meeting with me, you get my full attention - as simple as that.  If for any reasons I can't make it, I let you know with the longest notice I could possibly give you. 

I have had to wait for someone who entered into the room fashionably late today for a meeting with me.  I got an apology - not for eating 35 minutes into our first meeting, but the honesty of admitting he has forgotten about this appointment entirely.  


Off to an unpunctual start but I must say, I like his honesty. 

Throughout the meeting, I can see that he's a man of great vision, simply judging by how unprepared he was in his stance.  He must also be a man with exceptional multi-tasking ability in order to take in what I had to say while replying emails on his laptop with his eyes constantly referring back to the screen.

His admin probably won't lose her job for not influencing her boss' punctuality .  It's his that I am worried. 

Or may be it's just me.

Stop Trying Too Hard

I know.  It has certainly been a good while.  

Editor of alampy's space is glad to report that things are generally in order and the only one who is not quite orderly is yours truly.

You will, I guess, be caught quite out of the blue to learn that I have discontinued blogging for the last week, with very minimal activity recorded in Facebook as well.   The experience for me seem to blur into one long episode of endless business meetings day in and day out.

So I took some time out to recuperate because I know like most things, when you try too hard, you fail. 

The same holds true in jobs.  In our efforts to reach the top, we spend endless hours working feverishly to dig ourselves into an ever-deeper rut. We take on more projects than we can effectively handle, we volunteer for extra work, or work extra hours in attempt to out-produce the competition, we have to speak up at meetings (even when we have nothing too relevant to add).  And the endless list stretches on to what seems like infinity - totally draining you out.    

It is like, sometimes we think that the kids will be very impressed with something you deliberately arranged for them, when they really don't care whether they are just playing with other kids in the hotel room or whether they are splashing around in the pool, or literally running up and down the stairs like maniacs. 


Like a black hole, trying too hard sucks in boundless energy and gives nothing back.  Eventually it begins to show. Instead of having a healthy quest for success, we develop a crushing fear of failure.  My golf is another fine example - you tried too hard, you hurt yourself.

The lesson to all this - Work smarter but not harder.   And stop trying too hard - period. 

No Longer Man's Best Friend?

This dog here reminded me that this is the 8th year that our family dog, Bo Bo has left us.  I can still vividly recall how devastated we were, losing a dear member of our family who had been with us for a good 14 years!


Dogs are said to be man's best friend and many would agree without me having to elaborate.  Funny to find out from a recent poll conducted by the Royal Society For The Protection Of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is saying otherwise. 

According to their survey results - the personal computer has overtaken the family dog as man's best friend. 

They found that just 6 percent believes that 'most people rely more on their dog than they do on their PC', while 67 percent thinks the opposite to be true.

I admit we can take our Tablet PC for a walk, but I reckon it will still be a while before the first PC fetches our slippers!

Why Can't You Show Your Teeth?

I know we are not allowed to frown or grin when taking passport photos, but didn't know we can't even show teeth!

This requirement only applies to UK passport applicants at the moment and they are told that it is to do with biometric assessment works blah blah blah...or facial recognition - whatever you like to call it.


Perhaps the real reason is that the immigration officials worldwide could be terribly frightened and nauseated by the British dental work?  But we do learn something new each day don't we?

The UK Passport Office's guide for professional photographers is very interesting, because it explains not only what the requirements are, but why.

Have a look in here.

My Favourite Quotes from Dumbledore

Out of my day to day activities that look so outstandingly dumb against the magical world of Harry Potter's, one character in the story that has constantly inspired me has to be - Professor Dumbledore. 

There are several quotes that I really like from the various movies - recording them in here.  


"After all, it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

"Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young..."

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"


What about you?  Do you have your favourite to share?

The End Of An Era

As Harry Potter’s beloved professor Dumbledore tells him in a dream-like sequence as the movie gears up for its big finish: “Of course it’s happening inside your head.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

Yes, we knew the wizardry isn't real, but it has been with us all these years, watched each movie as they came out onto the big screen and it very much felt as if we became part of Hogwarts. 

It is interesting to look back at this whole journey and hard to believe that it has finally come to an end.  And if you are like me - who have not read any of the books but have watched all the movies, all questions were answered in this film and for that, I think this film went way above my expectations.  Unlike Part 1 where the film seems to drag at parts, this one starts and ends before you can even blink.

Feeling deadly hollowing, what would be life after Hogwarts?

Do You Need A Bag?

I have noticed how many retailers these days will actually ask me if I want a bag.  And often it pulls me out of routine and I would say no.  I can see how that in itself would reduce a lot of bag disposal and create a positive change!

I also sometimes question some of the benefits of plastic bag reduction.

I reuse many of the plastic grocery bags in garbage containers or for other purposes, and when I cut down on them I find myself buying kitchen catchers (which are no better environmentally, possibly worse) instead.

Charging for plastic bags is just another tax on overtaxed consumers to me.  Lowering taxes for all the people in this country should be the number one priority of government and business. 


In general, cutting down is a good thing, but it's really just a side note on the environmental discussion.

An Impromptu Dinner Date

You know how some dinner gatherings can take forever to organise and to actually get everyone to nail down a day and eventually agree on a cuisine can be harder than one can imagine.

Well, dinner tonight was one of those let's-see-who-can-make-it kind of dinner.  The result?   Great turn out even with only a spur of moment's notice. 

I don't know about you, but I am always ready and very willing to go out for a dinner during the week because I have an excuse to break up the monotony of the work week, wind down a bit and let come what may the following day. 

Came across this in a cafe the other day and it's so rightly put:

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

Eat well and have a golden week my dear readers!

Google Plus Or Really...A Minus?

I recalled its Twitter-like Buzz didn’t get much positive buzz and its Wave service waved goodbye before it was even officially launched! 

Been wanting to fiddle with Google+, Google's latest social networking service, only to be told that it is “still ironing out a few kinks in Google+”.


So it’s not ready for everyone yet.  

Indebted To Our Teachers

When more than 30 of my high school classmates gathered for a reunion dinner in the weekend to celebrate the school's 105th Anniversary, there was a lot of catching up to do.  Spirited conversations filled the dinner as party-goers traded details on everything from careers, on to travel tips, then to their kids and husbands.

Here and there, talk sometimes turned to another interesting subject as well: appreciation and affection for our teachers.  One friend recalled fondly her favourite headmistress.  Another expressed admiration of a Chinese History teacher.   And the funny thing was - we actually met some of them in dinner, they haven't seem to have aged a single year!  I wondered if they have been swallowing preservatives along with their textbooks or something!  

I thought to myself - if only teachers could hear these tributes to their lasting influence on students' lives, that would be marvellous wouldn't it?   Exactly.  Why on earth not.

I took the opportunity, ran over to one of my favourite history teachers, and very simply - I told her I thought of her when I was touring Egypt.  I recalled all the intriguing stories she told us about the ancient Egyptian civilization, the mystic fictions linking the Pharaohs, Cleopatra and Tutankhamun.

Retiring next year she is - after decades of teaching, still absolutely enthusiastic about her subject of expertise and as you can imagine, she is so thrilled to hear that after 20 odd years, some mumble jumble out there still remembers the tales she told!

Yes.  I have always liked History.  I come to appreciate we can't possibly live today without carrying a bit of history of anything.

At a time when many educators think they are more likely to be criticised than commended, a word of praise can make all the difference and this same mumble jumble has learned a thing or two nonetheless all these years - to thank her teachers for their job well done.  

What about you?  Have you thanked a teacher recently? 

What Does My Name Convey?

Talking about English names in my previous two posts, I actually must thank my mom for picking "Audrey" as my English name - proud and loud.



Many, who would immediately associate the name to the classy, elegant and beautiful actress Audrey Hepburn, will be vastly disappointed should they want to find the same visual quality in me.


I learned from young age that idealized delusions of the past won't help shape me and so I am more than happy being named Audrey as who I am and stay absolutely cool when someone says,  "You don't look like an Audrey at all."

And you can't really blame these people when googling images of "Audrey" gives you about 15,500,000 results of Hepburn in 0.05 seconds! 

So we knew Audrey is not likely to be a CEO (according to LinkedIn), but how exactly should an Audrey come across? 

This is http://www.kabalarians.com 's take on the name:

• Your name of Audrey creates a passive, friendly, easy-going nature, but your desire for sociability and the pleasant things in life makes you too easily influenced through your associations.
• You are too generous and if appealed to will give all you have because you find it difficult to say "no" and mean it.
• You do not like to create tension or friction and will try various means to avoid such situations.
• You are very idealistic.
• You have imagination and many ideas but lack the ambition and drive necessary to accomplish your undertakings.
• Although the name Audrey creates idealism and the urge to help others, we emphasize that it causes procrastination, lack of confidence, and the inability to realize your goals and ambitions.
• This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the nervous and fluid systems.

Okay, either my mother picked a wrong name for me, or this website is totally crap. 

Feel free to have a go at yours!  

Name Of A CEO

A recent research by LinkedIn suggests that a lot can be told of a person from his or her name.  After scouring its repository of 100 million professionals, LinkedIn has released some fascinating data about first names and career paths.   


CEO Men were most likely to be called Peter, Bob, Jack, Bruce and Fred, while women CEOs were often called Deborah, Sally, Debra, Cynthia and Carolyn.  


Probably because not many people bearing my name registered in LinkedIn to generate the big-enough pool of statistics in there, may be yours would be.   


Worth checking it out and might even worth changing your name to Bob or Debra if you think that helps get you up the corporate ladder!

The Wackiest Naming Conventions

What do these words have in common?

Show, Pascal, Willie, Rain, Sunny, Can.

Yes.  You can just about form a sentence out of those few words if you try hard enough. 

They are actually names of people I know.   Names that stood out right on top of my head, making my acquaintances with these people unique in a way.  




English names chosen by Chinese can often range from weird to wacky and the above spectrum gives you a taste of how bizarre it can go.   

When westerners pick Chinese names for instance, typically they would seek help from a Chinese naturally, and if they so have to do it, usually they have some kind of interest in the culture or at least the language itself.  




I am thinking, perhaps Chinese people pick English names as a perceived convenience to English speakers - probably explains why we hear more about odd-sounding English names.  Just a hypothesis of mine really. 

To add to the list, I have known several girls named ‘Kinki’, and men name "Dick". 

How about you?   Have you got some wicked ones to share?

Good Old Backing Data Up

How do you backup your music, photos and data files by and large?   Remember when ZIP drives came out?  100MB of cheap, portable storage, and they were such a saint over floppy?  Well oh well, if mine still operates fine, I can probably stick in 20 photos in there, no problem.  But that's all. 

If anything happens to my hard disk right now as I type (touch wood), there goes my 10 years worth of digitally-taken photos plus a music library that will play nonstop for 60 hours without repeating!  Can't afford to lose any of the 120GB of data for sure.  I currently resort to the tedious exercise of regularly copying all my files in my home computer to an USB External HDD and I have been wondering if there are more ingenious ways of doing that.  


I can probably set up automated backups with external drives, but then either I have to remember to plug in the drive at the right time (so much for unattended backups), or keep the drive plugged in at all times, which means my backup isn't physically separated from my computer - losing the whole point of disaster recovery!

I tried exploring the options of automated online backups - a physical separation between my hard drives. The problem: horribly, horribly slow.  Gave up on that and back to my good old 2.5" Hitachi HDD.



Then in the last year or so, Dropbox appears as a rather popular "in the cloud" tool for backing up files.  One can go for just the free service offering limited storage or sign up for a plan and store all our data in the secure cloud and be able to access it anywhere, any time on any devices.  Making the big assumption of course, that we have internet access always!   

We have certainly come a long way from days of a floppy disk, yet backing up what we need to back up is fundamentally the same. The storing, transferring and sharing of 2GB only with Dropbox  - so far so good, particularly impressed with the ability to drag files into my iPhone as I want them!   


I however, can't wait to see how Apple's iCloud will beat Dropbox.  Apple may be late to cloud computing, but what's that saying about better late than never?  Late has worked for Apple before, and I expect it to do so again. 

Enough said, it's time to backup those precious files of ours.  

Thank You For Queuing

Standard Chartered bank has launched their service pledge Asia-wide, committed to providing counter service within 8 minutes from the moment you walked into their branch.  If they can't deliver, a dollar will be donated to a charity organisation.

A refreshing marketing campaign nonetheless, but it is a rather tacky way of saying that ‘we have improved our customer service level and efficiency’.

I can imagine their customers who are lining up to be staring down at their watches from time to time.  That was exactly what I did and just when I was about to take note of a broken pledge, I was served at the 7th minute!

May Be There Are A Thing Or Two To Learn From Dad

At one point in life, I have gotten very angry at my father for not being what I thought he should have been.  He was just never there and when he was, he was drunken, mad and irrational.   My classmates and relatives all seem to have fathers who were more caring and fatherly and I just thought why didn't I deserve better?

My friend has just lost his dad and she has a sick mother to look after.  She basically is petrified.  We met recently after she has gone through the various stages of grievances and god, she looks like she has been through hell.  I was really thankful that she was the one who did most of the talking when we met, not because I didn't know what was appropriate to say to her, but she has shown me a way of life.

All these years of resentments, I came to realise my very own father did the best he could with the tools that he had to work with.   I mean if the old man before me did things that were right then hopefully I should pick up those traits.  If he did things that I knew so well that were wrong, I sure need to learn not to do those, right?  

In other words, learning from my dad’s mistakes has helped me upgrade the “set of tools” that I can use to do my best in life.

I hope it's not too late to accept my father for who he is, has enabled me to become a person that I truly want to be and simply because I don't need a better reason to do so - he is my father.

The Rolling of Toilet Rolls

"Life is a lot like toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the faster it goes... "

I can honestly say it feels like my loo rolls seem as if they are spinning entirely out of control!

Toilet rolls aren't something you buy daily or weekly for that matter (unless you have a big household that eats them!).   I have been going after the same brand for years and each time I bought a pack of 10, their retail price seem to have gone up by yet another 10% - I'd say consistently for the last 6 months. 

That sucks, but nothing much I can do when we are faced with a weak dollar, an inflation that is forever spiralling upward and when loo roll remains a necessity to wipe your behind with!

What I do not like is the cunning ways of how the manufacturers are trying to hide by:

1) cutting each sheet into a smaller size,
2) rolling them up in a smaller roll AND
3) putting up the price!  

Imagine that 2-ply, 3 sheets for a wipe - that's like a decade-old habit you can't easily change, right?  By making the product lighter, taking the assumption that our habits don't change, they can get more rolls from the same amount of paper and happily make more money out of that!   How about we try to surprise them by starting to conserve on paper consumption!   That might work.

Since we are on the subject of toilet rolls, how do you hang them by the way?  

A Retro Toy I Once Had

One of my favourite toys when I was young that includes a synthesizer, sequencer and a calculator all-in-one. 


I knew it was my favourite because I didn't allow my sis to go anywhere near it for years!


I so have to share this YouTube video with you sis and anyone who might find this retro toy of significance.  

A Novice's Advice On Wine Pairing

A circle of friends has organised a 20-course gourmet dinner party and we were tasked to bring a bottle of wine each.  Amongst these friends were regular wine-pairing experts who really know their stuff.  


I went and picked my wine after some research but all along before the dinner, I was thinking...I know fairly well what I like, but what about the others?  What if I got it wrong? 

Food and wine pairing is getting more and more popular and I have recently even come across water pairing (believe it or not).  Everyone around me seem to have a better educated palate these days and they are all throwing out big words like the nose, the tannins and what not. 

This day I ask myself, does the snobbery pairing exercise really matter?


At the end of the night, even though I got a bit carried away, I have mastered the most important lesson in wine and food pairing.   The essence was the fact that I was really wasting my time worrying about getting it wrong in the first place.    

There are no rules as such.   While you might want a sharp contrast on the pairing, I might on the other hand, prefer one that compliments each other.  

Basically, if I really have to give it a rule of thumb, it will have to be the food and the wine itself has to taste great on its own.   I mean, if the food and wine are more at the divorce end of the relationship spectrum, at least we will still be able to enjoy each on their own, isn't it?  

And most important of all, it is the company that matters.  As long as everyone enjoyed themselves, then it was a success on its own regardless of what the experts would have us believe.  

Nice meal and a good wine,
definition of a good time!