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“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generation whose words of thanks will not be heard” by Gayland Nelson, co-founder of Earth Day

Want to be an Eco Action Hero? Let’s start with the easiest things that don’t require much effort. A little peek at the things we use in our daily life. I’m sure in the modern world today we use a lot of battery operated gadgets. Digital camera, remote control, wireless mouse, MP3 players just to name a few. By simply replacing batteries to rechargeable ones, you are playing a major role in saving the Earth.

Eneloop, a rechargeable battery, is an environmental friendly product developed by Sanyo. The major advantage of Eneloop is its 1,000 rechargeable application usage. Mine has lasted 1 time, so I have a rechargeable lifespan of 999 to go. Indeed 1,000 rechargeable lifespan count seems huge but in actual fact, who keeps count? Anyhow, I can’t attest to or disprove the claim from the manufacturer.

The white colour AA or AAA sized Eneloop isn’t as attractive as common batteries. Despite the old fashioned appearance, Eneloop is relatively lighter than common batteries. I only own the AA battery set but Eneloop only comes in two specifications, AA or AAA. The major downside is its availability in the market as it’s only available in several countries. I had mine purchased from Singapore. The 2 ready to go Eneloop were placed in a suitcase, driven 4 hours in a car before arriving at my doorstep.

Priced at less than SGD20 for a set, I reckon it’s a reasonable price to pay to be an Eco Action Hero. Although some may beg to differ. After all, the value of money is rather subjective. What’s most convenient from Eneloop is its out-of-package readiness. Unlike other rechargeable batteries, which take at least 8 hours for the first time charging, Eneloop eliminates this need. It comes fully charged. Handy.

In short, if you are photographer or an avid user of any remote control, Eneloop rechargeable battery is probably the best solution for you. You’ll never have to charge your battery ever again if you leave it on the shelf. Ok, maybe a year later, you will need to, as a fully charged Eneloop is able to retain its charge for up to year. It’s only a month for me and I haven’t replaced any batteries yet, so come back again in a year’s time and I’ll attest to my statement above!

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Doctors are a crazy bunch. The amount of stress they face daily, they must have an outrageous avenue to relieve all that tension.

Thus, I was curious enough to find out more about the lives of doctors. While there are many TV series involving life of doctors, one of the more popular ones is Nip/Tuck. They are, to be precise, plastic surgeons, which are still in the category of medical services.

I got hooked on to Nip/Tuck Season 1 and Season 2, but have yet to follow on with Season 3. In a nutshell, the theme behind this TV series is love. Love between husband and wife, love in the family, love between 2 friends and love between lovers.

The plot details the lives of 2 main characters, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon). To be honest, I don’t find the physical appearances of either of them attractive. However, the attitudes and image portrayed by each individual is indeed interesting. Sean is a family oriented family man, a man that lives by the book in season 1. I didn’t like the character change towards the end of season 1 however. I admired the courage shown by Sean dealing with his problems at home, while his determination to patch up the rocky road with wife Julia (Joely Richardson) is truly compelling. Christian, on the other hand, portrays an image of guys your father tried warning you about since you hit puberty. Having watched the series, I got a first hand view into the mindset of a male player. Apparently, in the TV series, Christian is an irresistible, sexy and charming doctor. I can’t help but feel really annoyed with his distasteful, low act to get women into bed. In fact, I felt Christian degraded the dignity of man in Season 1.

Towards the end of Season 1, Sean’s cozy character had an 180 degree change. He killed Escobar Gallardo, a Colombian drug trafficker and had an affair with a patient named Megan O’Hara. It was peculiar to me that somehow the affair presented itself to a “rightful” one, as if all the marital problems were to be placed on Julia’s shoulder. While it wasn’t very nice, I continued watching to see how the mess could turn out. The story evolved further with Christian showing his emotional side when he had sex with a woman named Gina. Ironically, he met the woman from Sexaholics Anonymous and Gina was later pregnant with Christian’s baby. The drama only gets more ridiculous from then on: the baby is African-American, which means Wilburt (the baby) is not Christian’s. When I thought things couldn’t get any more bizarre, the TV series surprised me. Julia finds out that her son is not Sean’s.

So, Julia and Sean’s son, Matt is actually Julia and Christian’s son! This is revealed in Season 2. What a complete mess. This is really not an unethical series to watch at all. I give credit to all the beautiful women featured in the series though. To add complexity to the story line, a new character is introduced: Ava, a life coach for Sean and Julia. Ava turns out to be a pedophile and forms a sexual relationship with Matt. The punchline has yet to come. Season 2 ended by revealing that Ava is actually a transvestite.

So, do doctors have an exciting life? You tell me.

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It was a gloomy morning, my head was spinning when I woke up with a bad headache. My body ached terribly when I turned in bed. “Should I go to work today?” I asked myself, I hesitated for a while. Then, glimpses of the school children’s faces flashed through my eyes. “All the young adorable ones are awaiting me.” With that thought, I managed to gather my strength, out of a sudden my body felt stronger and I finally rolled out of bed, got dressed and went to work.

Sometimes, in our daily life, we are likely to find ourselves questioning our values and purposes in life. One may refer to this pondering notion as the ‘mid life crisis’, especially if your work lies within a mundane routine. A mundane routine; allow me to describe this further in a teacher’s perspective. Teaching the same subject matter - day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. In such regularity, one may question the challenge, the excitement, the reward a teacher may gain from this absolute ‘dullness’ profession. If you do have that in mind, may I invite you to venture on the wonders in the teaching world with the book “Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul“.

From this book, you’ll find stories that open the hearts, touch the souls and enlighten a dampen spirit. Written by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen; the #1 New York Times and USA Today Best Selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Even though this book spans up to 361 pages, please don’t get intimidated with its volume, as each story only takes up to an average of 6 - 8 pages. A good 40 odd stories to read, packed with funny illustration cartoon figures.

The stories are contributed by real, actual people. Every word, every situation you read from the book is real-life experience from people mainly in the United States. Having said that, I begin to wonder if all the selfless persons or teachers are located only in the States? The answer, of course not! Most probably the stories from Asia did not reach the writers of “Chicken Soup for the Soul Series”. If you have an interesting, heart enlightening story to share, the writers beckon for your kind contributions.

Besides inspiring stories from teachers, there are an abundance of stories contributed by students and parents sharing their appreciation of the teachers who touched their life. What I appreciate most from this book is the small phrases in the beginning of each story. It reminds me that life means so much more than your big house, your big pay check and your big car!

I left the book on my table one day, a friend dropped by and she finished 2 stories, while waiting for me to pack up. Her perspective on life changed after that 10 minutes. Need I say more?

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LG Prada KE850 is the offspring from an impeccable union between LG and uber-design house Prada. This touchscreen fashion phone is a very attractive and glamorous creation meant to carve a niche for itself with its innovative slick interface. On second look, it’s somehow identical to the LG Shine KE970 in terms of specs and the glossy interface. However, the large color touchscreen design also looks a tad like the highly anticipated Apple iPhone.

The luxuriously designed Prada phone by LG is solidly built and it measures only 12mm thick and weighs 85 grams, thus, the phone fits in your hand well and it’s easy to slide in the users pocket. Just like Shine, LG Prada KE850 is a fingerprint magnet too. However, I find it very easy to clean off the grime and fingerprints caused. Prada phone runs on a Macromedia Flash user interface and like any LCD screen, it’s terribly difficult to see the screen in the bright sunlight. When the phone is switched on, an intense chorus sounds, a soft gradient lights up the screen and the Prada logo appears on the black LCD screen. What a fantastic feeling seeing the big name on the phone.

The main attraction of the LG Prada phone is undeniably its slick touch display. You will probably need to spend some time on tapping the navigation using your finger as the Prada phone doesn’t come with a stylus. Therefore, dialing and texting can be a little challenging for users with sausage fingers, but when you do get the hang of it, your fingers fly. The touchscreen functionality is surprisingly very responsive and it works far better than I would have imagined, but it won’t work if you use it with your gloves on. However, LG Prada KE850 is somehow blemished by its hardware buttons. It isn’t completely buttonless, there are a few buttons including Dial, End, Cancel keys on the front, volume controls on the left, and camera and key lock button on the right.

Besides, this Prada branded mobile also has a 2MP built-in camera complete with Schneider Kreuznach lens, LED flash and zoom, therefore, you can expect high quality imaging and videoing capabilities. You can play MPEG4, H263 & H264 videos in full-screen mode on the beautiful 3-inch LCD TFT screen. For music lovers, the built-in FM radio and MP3 player sound great with plenty of bass but you can’t minimise it and multitask.

Nevertheless, it is a pleasant surprise that LG Prada KE850 also comes with a document reader which supports popular document formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat and Text files. I enjoy reading ebooks on the Prada phone as it looks good on the high-resolution screen. The phone comes with 8MB of built-in memory and with an expandable MicroSD™ memory option up to 2GB. However, the Prada phone lacks 3G - a familiar disappointment among recent touchscreen phones.

LG Prada KE850 isn’t just a pretty logo, it is a capable feature phone with a luxury-brand appeal. LG has successfully turned the phone into a triumph, even though it isn’t a smartphone and might lack the almighty iPhone’s specs, it’s definitely a great alternative to the iPhone. If you prefer the Prada label to Apple, and don’t mind paying extra for some style and fashion, LG Prada KE850 isn’t a bad choice at all. Who says the Devil wears Prada?

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The first movie, High School Musical, was a hit among younger children when it was broadcast on TV last year. For those who still don’t know, High School Musical is a “made-for-TV” movie/musical about the life at a high school (as the name suggests). Throughout the film the actors and actresses will constantly break into a song all of a sudden, as one would expect in a musical except there’s still plenty of dialogue. It was so successful that a sequel has been released more than a year later, aptly named High School Musical 2.

This time, instead of focusing around school life, the film centers around how the characters spend their time during the summer at a country club owned by one of their classmates. She’s mainly after the male protagonist Troy Bolton (played by Zac Efron) and invites him to work at her country club. However, she’s inevitably forced to hire all his friends as well, which makes for very interesting occurrences at the country club. I’ll leave out the details here, so as to not spoil the movie for everyone.

Just like the first movie, the sequel will definitely appeal to younger children, maybe around the age of 8 to 13. It has a pretty simple story line that children who have watched the first movie will have no problems keeping up with the story here. Yet, while it might be pretty simple, the storyline allows for the actors to break into a song now and then, making the show really feel like a musical. The songs here are pretty good as well, as one would expect from one of Disney’s most successful made-for-TV movies. There are both slow and catchy songs that will appeal to all sorts of people, not only children. My favourite would have to be the song which Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) sings mostly solo. It has a really nice melody and Vanessa adds to that with her great voice.

This film has really been a great success, with Disney also releasing junior novels which have already sold millions around the world. The film also set a new basic cable record upon its premiere, with a total of 17.24 million viewers tuning in, almost 10 million more than the debut of High School Musical, making it the highest rated basic cable broadcast of all time. With the soundtrack of the first movie reaching quadruple platinum, one can only imagine how well the soundtrack for this movie is going to sell. All in all, High School Musical 2 (2007) is a great movie for any kid out there with it simple yet intriguing plot and catchy songs.

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