I first got to know about a personalized gift service called Morty when I walked past a kiosk in Kinta City. I thought that it was an awesome idea to create a “cartoon” image of a loved one to be printed on various gift items. When I found out that Eric Chua, the creative mind behind this cartoon personalized gift idea is from Ipoh, I was very surprised.

Over the long National Day weekend, I placed an order for a personalized mug with Eric Chua. I didn’t know what to expect since it was my first order of a personalized gift. I sent in a photo of myself to Eric by email and I selected a template from his website eric-chua.com. I wanted to tell him not to draw a cartoon that resembles me too much as I am shy and don’t want to post the cartoon picture of myself on my blog if she looks like me too much, but I didn’t so as to give him a free hand.

The first draft came in soon after and I thought to myself, “No, she doesn’t look like me. Not at all. Should I accept this or should I request for changes?” To get a second opinion, I sent the draft to a friend and he told me that the cartoon looks exactly like me, he could almost hear her talk! Really? I guess I should look into the mirror more often!

The funny thing was that the longer I looked at the cartoon, the more I see myself in her, looks-wise. Eric even caught my facial mole on her! Impressive!

I gave the OK to Eric so that he could proceed to print the cartoon onto a mug. I was told that the mug would be couriered to me by SkyNet. For your information, if you live in or around Ipoh and would like to pick up your gift yourself, you can do so from either Ipoh Parade or Kinta City.

My mug arrived this afternoon by courier, about five days since placing the order, and I did it late at night, night owl me. The package was very well wrapped, with layers of newspaper and bubble wraps inside and outside of the box for extra protection. See, even if you order a mug like I did, there is no worry that it will be damaged in transit.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the quality of the mug which has blue colour coating on the inside, the finishing of the printed cartoon and the overall service of Eric Chua Personalized Gift Ideas. He is a very friendly and courteous guy and most importantly, he communicated so I actually knew what was happening over the five days from the placement of order to receipt of the gift item.

Eric Chua’s service is highly personalized so if you wish to order a personalized gift, send in a photo and request for a quotation. For this mug, it costs MYR55, inclusive of drawing, printing, courier and handling charges. For people who are looking for “couple gifts”, it would be MYR75. Basically, for every additional person to be drawn, there will be an extra MYR20 on top of the MYR55 first person fee.

If you have been looking for a gift that stands out, whether it is for a birthday, Christmas, wedding, and especially Valentine’s Day, you really should give Eric Chua a try. The many happy recipients of Morty gifts can testify to the personal touch put into each gift. I love my mug!

While window shopping on Merdeka eve night, I chanced upon a Maxis broadband promotion and couldn’t resist subscribing to a package. I do have Celcom 3G internet and DiGi also as backups for my Streamyx but I am looking for ways to lower my overhead costs.

Maxis seems to offer a better deal compared to Celcom and in addition to a Merdeka (Independence Day) offer, even a stingy me signed up for a package. To sign up, I had to pay MYR100. I was given a “notebook”. No, not laptop, but a paper notebook. LOL This is the reason I never refer to a laptop as notebook!

When I came home and called Customer Service to make some enquiries regarding the Maxis Broadband that I subscribed to, I was told that I am not advised to access the internet from my mobile phone because I may incur GPRS charges which is separate from the Maxis broadband that I subscribed to. This essential mean that I may have to pay more in addition to the plan that I will be paying.

Now, this doesn’t sound right. It makes Celcom Broadband Advance sound cheap! I asked the promoter to find out for me about additional charges if I were to access the internet from my mobile phone and she, after calling Maxis Customer Service, gave me the same reply. She was rather apologetic about it.

So I went to Maxis Centre in Ipoh this afternoon to make sure for the third time if what I was made to understand was actually true. I figured that if it’s true then I would cancel my subscription and get a refund on the MYR100 that I paid, since I have one week free trial to try out the service. I have no issues with the service or the bandwidth (yet) but I definitely do not fancy receiving a monstrous bill at the end of the month.

According to the staff at Maxis Centre, there is no additional charge from the plan that I am subscribed to. I am going to make a note here and take it up to them if there are charges outside of my plan when the bill arrives. Good luck to me!

This ESCADA Marine Grove sample came in a postcard through airmail this morning. It was a surprise as I have totally forgotten that I have requested for it. And even if I do remember, I would not have expected it to arrive this soon.

Compared to the earlier ESCADA Desire Me and Incredible Me parfum samples that I received in a similar fashion in late November, 2009, this one took just 2.5 weeks to arrive from the day of request. The earlier two samples took something like 2.5 months! That’s a huge difference!

Unlike both Desire Me and Incredible Me, without opening the small Marine Groove sample pack at the back of the postcard, there isn’t any distinct fragrance at all that I could tell but I am just a collector and not a user so these samples will be left unopened, forever.