pelf-ism is contagious

Yes, I am NOT kidding you *winks* Can you believe it?!

Yesterday when I was in the office, I received a call from Annie. She asked me to get a new laptop because mine is already half a decade old.

I was reluctant to get a new laptop because, why.. My loyal Acer is still functioning! I can still use it to do my (much-dreaded) paperwork, to tabulate my raw experiment data as well as to run basic statistical tests, I can still use it to design a very pretty poster, to chat with my sister, the list is endless..

Moreover, I am really not that kind of person who buys a new product unless the current one breaks down. Like I was telling J the other day that I would not get myself a new car, even after I have started working. Instead, I would use my car until it dies on me one fine day and I would have to leave it by the roadside. “But by then, the old car will have NO value whatsoever anymore! Why don’t you sell it and get a new car when the old car has still got some value?” he would argue. Makes perfect sense to me though *smiles*

I digress.

Anyway, I was telling Annie the same thing. But she insisted that she would like to learn to use the computer and that the dinosaur at home takes way toooo long to startup. Plus there are a lot of stuff in that dinosaur and that she was always afraid she would accidentally erase any of our “data” in it. She wanted to learn to surf the Internet, to play mp3s and to chat with Mei Mei and I.

The dinosaur, by the way, refers to the 10-year-old PC we have at home. I remember receiving it from my paternal grandmother when I scored straight As in my PMR. It was our first computer, and we had a lot of sophisticated software installed in it. It is still useable today, but the speed of the processor (or what-nots) has been slashed down to one-fifth of the original. It takes quite some time to start up but takes only a jiffy to shut down (lazy PC). Sometimes the PC hangs whenever we open one too many applications at the same time.

Mei Mei has this tendency to name the old, big bulky stuff we have at home. The dinosaur is one. Our Canon Prima Super 130 is another one. The Canon film camera was the newest one we bought before we went to Hong Kong in 2005. It cost about RM 600+, if I am not mistaken, one of the best we could afford back then. But now that we both have our own digital cameras, she calls the Canon camera “an elephant” *smacks forehead*

I digress again.

So Annie was offering me RM 1,000 for my old Acer. And Mei Mei, who happened to be at the background said that it was too much. According to Smart Alec Sister, RM 800 should be sufficient.. ARGH…!

I was browsing through Dell’s website, and came across Inspiron 6400 and Inspiron 640m which I thought was OK, price-wise la. Now, my budget is about RM 3,500 but the cheaper (AND powerful), the better
So I need some advice and suggestions from you guys. One, what laptop brand/model would YOU recommend? Two, who wants to adopt my sister? Kekkkeke *winks*

By the way, Annie = Mum *grins*

I was rudely awakened to the fact that there are indeed people with hearts made of stones.

Just the other day I sent an email in which the content was a slightly-modified version of this post, to my friends. To my utter disappointment, nobody responded to the email. None of them replied the email, none of them mentioned anything about the email, about Eden, about the handicapped.

And these people I call my friends, didn’t even bother writing back to tell me that they would either support Eden’s cause, or would help spread the news around or that they would keep the email at the back of their minds for further action when they are more financially-independent. But no, none of them said anything. Nothing.

And these are the people who would normally reply mass emails with pictures of recent vacations with their respective boyfriends, I don’t know, maybe just to show off, or with news of recent additions to the family, or with news of recent promotions and engagements. Or simply with news of the good things that are happening to them at that particular moment in time.

I don’t know. Are they too caught up with their own lives that they cannot find time to help other people? Or should I give them the benefit of the doubt that they have already pledge a certain amount to other charities? Am I being too pushy in trying to get people to be concerned with what I am concerned with?

ARGH.. Maybe it runs in my blood. I remember when I was younger and still in school, I never failed to chip in some money whenever the prefects went around to collect donations - either for victims of natural disasters or for the girl next door whose father had just passed away. And I always find it very natural to dig into my wallet for a note or two whenever somebody comes to me with a petition to either build a new temple or a church or a school building.

Which reminds me of an incident that happened in 1992 when I was in Standard 5 and my sister in Standard 1. Back then we had to wear a custom-made name-tag that bears our own name on our school pinafore. My sister’s class teacher told the new students to bring RM 1.70 for a new name-tag. So she brought that amount plus some extra money for food. Apparently, the school head-prefect went to each class with a Milo tin and collected donations for something I couldn’t recall now, and guess what my sister did..?

Hhahaha, yes, she dropped the money my Mum gave her for the name-tags into the Milo tin!

So when the class teacher requested for the money for their name-tags, guess what my sister did?

Muahahaha, she cried while she ran to my classroom and told me that the head-prefect took her money!! I thought she was “robbed” in school until the head-prefect came to my classroom.. Muahahaha.. I couldn’t stop laughing and at the same time felt bad for my sister, so I did what most good sisters would do - I went to her classroom and paid her class teacher the money for the name-tags.

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