A little off topic, but recently here there are news all over about the death of a local model named Diana O’Brien who was found dead in China as she went over there to do some modeling work. Apparently, the agency made her do things that are outside the scope of simply modeling as well.
I saw a news report about it and you can see the same one at: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/model-murder-mystery/

Tragic story indeed. On a side note, what was very strange to me in terms of the reporting that I couldn’t help but react to was that the reporter mentioned she “spent the final two weeks of her life in a very Chinese area”. I just thought that was such a strange way of labeling a community and not to mention she was in China after all.

The story made me think on how many times we get a little too excited about going to bigger places in hopes to achieve more. As a result, we think more about the money and growth potential as oppose to our health and well being. I have often heard the phrase “You can’t be wealthy if you are not healthy” which always makes me think about what I am really doing as oppose to following an opportunity mostly out of fear of losing out.

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This has got to be one of the most perplexing money grabbing fees that I have seen for a cell phone. Coming August this year in Canada Bell and Telus Mobility will be introducing a 15 cent fee for simply receiving a text message on your device. Before, it was free to receive messages but it costs you money to send messages.

Apparently they can’t afford to allow people to receive free text messages or something along those lines. This makes me wonder how it is going to work for text messaging services such as our public transportation system Translink. Nowadays, you can simply send Translink a text message with a special number and it will automatically send you a text message all of the bus schedules. I guess that means someone will get charged for sending the message and then receiving one too.

I wonder how high of a bill heavy Blackberry or other data phone users are going to experience with this.

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Over the weekend my dad went on a small trip with some of his friends and he came back with a whole load of seafood that they caught themselves such as fish, oysters and muscles. Because he got so much, he wanted to give it to other members of the family as well.

My brother had an interesting comment about that as he was wondering whether or not it was safe to eat since they caught it themselves. That immediately made me think of the tap water story I wrote about yesterday where most people can’t help to think that if it doesn’t come in some kind of package or store it much be very dangerous to consume.

I bet if you really needed to save money doing things like this in terms of trying to acquire your own food the natural way can save a lot of money. I once saw a person who actually had his own garden where he grew some vegetables as a hobby. Similarly, he seemed very paranoid about consuming it since he grew it himself.

I always have the thought that what you are paying for when it comes to things like these are not necessarily better in terms of quality or safety, but rather you are paying for the convenience of having someone else doing the work for you.

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Apparently here there is going to be some kind of ad campaign created to educate people about tap water here and how it is safe to drink. The article I read basically revolved around bottled water and how various commercials have made people believe that tap water has a high chance of being unsafe to drink. As a result, people shell out money for bottled water.

There was an interesting fact too where it indicated that today a litre of bottled water was actually more than a litre of gas. I wonder if anyone has ever done a case study on how much money they have saved by either bottling their own water or simply relied on tap water.

Kind of strange in some ways when you think about it as it’s like someone spending money to convince another person to simply eat the apples that grow in his own backyard tree as oppose to going to the store and spending money.

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What a surprising and bizarre story this is both from a business and financial point of view. Recently in the UK there was this court case in regards to tax a exemption on Pringles. You can read more about the court case at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2008/1558.html

In a nutshell, basically in the UK apparently any product that is classified as a “potato crisp” are subject to a sales tax that the company must abide by. However, lawyers for the Pringle chip company successfully argued that Pringles were not potato chips as they are apparently “not made from potato” and therefore the company should be reimbursed for decades worth of taxes that have been paid out.

So at this point, it looks like the company will be reimbursed for all those years of tax payments. I always thought they were potato chips personally. Now I’m just waiting for the crazy lawsuit where some consumers will claim that they thought they were buying potato chips for all these years and feel misled and are now seeking for compensation……

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