Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category

I just watched one of Ghibli studio’s anime - Only Yesterday. It’s about a Japanese lady reminiscing her childhood days and moving on to the next level of her life in the present. In the anime movie, there are scenese when she and her friend as children had to attend radio exercise sessions in her summer holidays.

This radio exercise accompanied by special music is what the Japanese call, “Radio taiso”. The Japanese been doing it since world war II and practiced by every one - school kids and even office workers. This morning exercise has become part of Japanese culture and perhaps it wouldn’t be too much to say that everyone in Japan would know the exercise ritual by heart. It is said the purpose of this exercise is not only to promote good and healthy lifestyle but also to create unity among classmates and co-workers.

We love Japan because they produce cool animes, good Japanese dramas, horrifying ghost movies, amazing gadgets, and much more. Perhaps we should even try to bring this Japanese tradition into our schools and workplaces. Hey, it may even help get rid of belly fat faster.

A good friend emailed me a url of a really interesting website - thisiswhyyourefat.com. If you cannot guess already, the site is filled with mouth-watering,fat rich food pictures. The pictures are submitted by readers from everywhere.

<photo via thisiswhyyourefat.com>

Looking at a double coronary burger, I wonder how many hours one would need to exercise just to burn all those calories away?

Nevertheless, I just got to admit,many of the  food in the website does look wonderfully yummy…

Well, I’m quite sure if I like to eat these sort of rich food, a fat burner would be my close companion.

I love gadgets. Well, most people I know likes gadgets. Some cool, cute, interesting and even wacky. Just like these usb speaker that looks like your American Standard toilets.

Interesting… very interesting…. that someone would want speakers that look like toilets.

But then I suppose, novelty items are kind of an in thing these days.

I claim myself as a non-morning person. But my husband would argue with me that there is no such thing as a morning person or night person. According to him, human beings are primates and also part of the animal world. Most animals that cannot see well at night would usually sleep when the sun is down and wake up at the break of dawn. When he puts it that way, sure it makes sense. Originally, in the olden times people usually prepare to get to bed when it gets dark outside. However the more technologically developed we are, starting from the invention of electricity light, we humans began to sleep later and later.

So okay, human beings are not made to be a morning person or a night person, we all should sleep early and rise early. But since nowadays, our light bulbs are bright as daylight we can do things that normally we do in the morning. And some people like myself, prefer to work at nights because it is rather quiet since most people are already asleep. But is it something genetic? That we are born to be a morning person or a night person? Nope, just habit.

I guess, I have to agree with my husband. There isn’t such a thing as a morning or night person, but habit would make one either of the two. Although I didn’t really mind to become a night person, but since I have to wake up early everyday to prepare breakfast and all, the habit of sleeping late is taking its toll. I have not even touched 30 but I believe if I don’t start changing my sleeping habit, I better be prepared to be needing tubs and tubs of anti-wrinkle cream. Or botox. No matter whether you are a human being of the 18th century or of the 21st century, enough sleep is essential for health and beauty.

A diamond studded mercedes. This is Saudi Prince Waleed Bin Talal’s 38th car, a diamond studded SL600 Mercedes and is worth $4.8 million.When you earn billions, less extravagant auto accessories would be insufficient huh??
When I checked the hungerreport.org website, it is said about 115 million people in the world are hungry. And there are some people who drive more than one car and afford to encrust their luxury cars with diamonds.

Sad eh?

With the existence of the internet, comes a new way of window shopping. Online window shopping. Something which I love to do sometimes. Shopping is therapeutic but just browsing at things at the shopping malls can be as therapeutic too I feel - makes me feel good just looking around most of the times.

Now, online window shopping too can be a relaxing thing. I love to browse and read about the latest gadgets, or products that has been long in the market yet I’ve never seen before. Products like the latest blackberry phone to sleeping aids like the bed wedges, all are interesting to see and read about.

According to some, technology may be a hassle, “the end of human civilization” (quote from “You’ve got mail”. ). But to me it is some sort of a blessing indeed being able to window shop without ending up with sore feet.

You Are 60% Addicted to the Internet

You’re somewhat addicted to the internet - but who isn’t?You can keep it under check, and you’re by no means a hermit.

There are about 1,596,270,108 internet users throughout the world. The users growth from year 2000 - 2008 is 342.2 %.   [Information source via internetworldstats.com]

I have been actively using the internet since mid 1997. It was the first time ever I used the computer too. I was hooked ever since. I find the internet to be a treasure trove of information that are easily obtained just at a few clicks of the computer mouse. From information about the historical events that occured on the day I was born to information about the best weight loss pill on the market. So much so that even if I plan to buy something that cost more than $20 I’d go and read reviews about it. :p Now with all the social networking sites like friendster and facebook, multiplayer role playing online games and more, the internet has become a lot more interesting compared to when I first experienced being online.

With all the things you can do on the internet nowdays, hard to blame anyone who are addicted to the internet isn’t it?

Summer is great. Despite the heat, you don’t have to worry about your clothes too much. No more thick coats and heavy boots where ever you go. But the only problem is the UV rays that can be rather dangerous. There is a popular website,  which nearly everyone here visits,  that provides UV alert that tells people when it is not advisable to be under the sun too long.

The sun can be a friend and it can be a foe. We were brought up to believe that sunshine is good for the skin. But they didn’t really tell us that too much of it is not good. The UV ray from the sun can cause skin to wrinkle fast. That is a price to pay for a nice sun tan.

However, nowadays with so many medical breakthroughs being made, there is one particular product that was claimed to really work pretty well to admonish not only wrinkles, stretch marks and also some other minor skin flaws. This product is called strivectin.

No injections, or operations needed because strivectin is a facial cream that you apply on your facial skin just like you’d do with any other creams, 3 times daily. It is said, only within 28 days you will be able to see an improvement on how your skin looks. Wrinkles or stretch marks would slowly diminish.

You may obtain strivectin from many places, but currently you can get a 177ml sized tube at vitasunn.co.uk for only GBP £84.95, when it originall retails at GBP £134.95.

Perhaps in a way it is fortunate for me that I don’t really like to sunbathe because I don’t want to get too brown.So less wrinkles for me then.

Isn’t it strange that some ugly looking clothes do have the knack of being very comfortable when worn? Perhaps that is why Ugly Christmas Sweaters tend to be one of the popular holiday gift of all times - especially from grandmas, aunts and mothers. I know my husband received sweaters from his mom for Christmas every few years. They don’t really look that amazing but they do their job well.

If you tend to be an Ugly Sweaters fan or plan to buy one as a holiday gift you can go to one website that dedicate itself to supplying a huge variety of sweaters for all ages. Pet ugly sweaters, Men Ugly Sweaters, Women Ugly sweaters, and Children Ugly sweaters. All, in my opinion, came at a reasonably low price.

Their items is rather limited at the moment though I think, but as I’ve read on their blog, seems like they are growing their inventories and going global with more and more orders from outside the US. I guess ugly sweater parties do take place every where.

Browsing through the sweaters I have an idea what I should get for my husband as one of Christmas presents. Just getting to see his face when he first see that he got an ugly sweater for Christmas would be interesting.

When one is  old, doing a simple task like going up and down the staircase can be a painful undertaking and even dangerous if one is not careful. My own grandmother stopped going up to the second floor of her own house because climbing the stairs was too painful for her.

It is with such people in mind that the Stair Lifts and wheel chair lifts are created. To make movement in the house for such elderly or sickly people a lot easier. They can continue to move around their own homes independently or with little help - not only to carry themselves up and down the staircase but also other things like laundry, food, and other things.

One of the world’s leading accessibility equipment and home elevator manufacturers is ThyssenKrupp Access. Helping and enriching the lives of many for nearly 60 years. Their latest environmentally friend invention is The Volant - uses 50% less energy than other conventional stair lifts.

The stair lifts offered are not only designed for the mostly used straight staircases but also spiralled ones as well. Being such a useful contraptions the stair lift and wheel chairs are, it is indeed a wonder why they have caught on in Asia or a least where I came from. For I know there are many people like my grandmother who would appreciate having one.