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!

When I spotted these buntings along the road to Stadium Indera Mulia (indoor stadium) on my way to PC Fair last week, I was very excited. I remember the branded warehouse sales that I went to previously also held in the same venue and the good deals that I missed when I was taking care of Snoopy.

So just now, under the hot sun, I made my way there to try to beat the crowd to the promised special offers, purportedly up to 70% discount. Upon arrival, I was quite taken aback that there was no crowd and plenty of parking spaces. For a second, I thought that I got the dates mixed up or something. But there was a little activity under newly erected canopies in the car park adjacent to Stadium Indera Mulia. Duh… is THIS the warehouse sale? No wonder no one was interested! The previous ones that were organized occupied such a large space; taking up the entire indoor stadium AND the car park. This…? And the banner screams of a warehouse sale in “Teluk Intan”. This is Ipoh!

Anyway, since I already arrived, I went to have a look. I wanted to buy shoes but most of the merchandise was targetted at new parents, from prams to baby beds, wet wipes, diapers, etc. You get my drift.

Frankly, I didn’t notice too many “brand names” except for Anakku and Lilian, where bras in a multitude of colours are being sold at between MYR10 to MYR20. And then there are more upmarket brands like Liz Claiborne, DKNY and Victoria’s Secret (VS) but these are all rejected goods with their labels slashed. Despite this, their price tags certainly didn’t reflect their rejected condition. I don’t mind that they are rejected and I can close an eye on their price tag because of their brand and quality but because these are Western brands, they are all so large, I couldn’t find anything that fits me.

I didn’t stay for long. I’m in fact pretty disappointed with the range of goods and the fact that I didn’t spot anything that was selling as low as 70% off. Anyway, if you would still like to go and have a look yourself, this “branded” warehouse sale would be open from 11am to 11pm daily until 9th September, 2010.

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!