Cup Kozy

Been wanting to get a Cup Kozy for awhile now, but I held off until they announced a coupon code last Earth Day for 40% discount off any purchase on their Etsy store. (Thank you, Earth Day sales!) 

Paid only $4.20 with free global shipping thrown in (it's $7 for the plain, $8 for the limited special editions). I ♥ free shipping.

After nearly 4 weeks of waiting, I finally received my order on Friday - yay.

Yes, every order comes with a sticker and a button

I haven't road-tested it yet, it's still a pretty good idea of a product - cuter than using serviettes to absorb the cold and the drink sweat from my to-go drinks or a disposable cardboard sleeve for the heat from my hot drinks.

(Images are from Cup Kozy, Ltd)

Coffee Joulies

Saw the link on Gizmodo yesterday and I had to check it out for myself. It's currently a Kickstarter project seeking production funds, it took them less than three days to reach their $9,500 goal and then some (it's currently at the $47,000-level with about a month to go), which goes to show that either a lot of people are drinking the same Kool-Aid, or it's a pretty damn good idea. I am of the latter.

From joulies.com's FAQ,

"Coffee Joulies are magic beans that you put in your coffee to regulate its temperature. They absorb excess thermal energy when the coffee is initially poured too hot to drink, cooling your coffee down to a drinkable temperature three times faster. Once your coffee reaches the right temperature the beans release that stored thermal energy back into the coffee, keeping it in the optimal temperature range twice as long."

They basically absorb the extra heat from your hot drinks, which cools the drink enough to be drinkable and the stored heat is released back into the drink to keep it warmer for longer. 

To be one of the first people to own them, just pledge $40 for a 20% discount for a set of 5 ($50; which comes in its own way cute bag). Pledge $100 and more, which gets you a set of Joulies and a travel mug and a box of 20 of these things (the bulk option) if you pledge $500 or more.

I'm not sure how big each bean is and I can't tell from the video (as one of the Daves was holding them in his hands). I, for one, wouldn't mind getting them, but paying $48 (plus international shipping) is a little steep, even for a cool idea. Reading the information on the Kickstarter, they sound like a great idea if you drink out of travel mugs a lot (which I personally don't). 

Decisions, decisions.

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• Coffee Joulies use phase change material to make your cup's temp just right (geek.com)

Group buying sites - yay or nay?

I've been hearing about group buying site Groupon and the group buying concept for months (even the ones in China, which predates the Western sites) before I had any idea that anyone's doing the same thing here. Whatever you want to call it: Deal-of-the-day or group buying, the craze has hit hard in Malaysia, especially the Klang Valley because it's commonly believed that people in the Klang Valley have more money, hence got more disposable income to blow on these things :P

Image via WikipediaUnlike the US counterparts, most of the deals here go on for at least a few days so that people would have time to get in on the action to buy the vouchers for themselves, friends and family. That, and we've only got less than 10 million people in the Valley, so chances of a deal getting sold out really quick is not likely.

Payment options are also pretty abundant and easy for you to part with your money - from online banking (via your bank's internet banking portal), credit cards, offline cash deposit (for people who don't have credit cards or internet banking) and also Paypal (woo hoo).

A quick poke around Google also yielded that it only costs $400 to buy a script for group buying sites - which you can recoup easily enough if your deals are any good. This kind of explains why all the sites look so damn similar. 

I got to know some of the first local group buying sites from cold-call emails, asking me to check them out. The rest I got to know from all over the Internet, particularly the Facebook ads (which I admit to clicking). Fortunately I haven't been getting a lot more of these emails recently, as there are plenty of them now from this blog post (who knew there were so many more - holy cow!). 

As far as the deals go, most of them I could do without, but I still stalk the sites regularly in case they had a deal that I finally want in on and I'm on several email lists. If you look at enough of them, you'd see some of the same businesses advertising the same deal on different sites. 

As far as my buying habits go - I won't buy vouchers that I'd have to travel too far to redeem, but I'd buy vouchers for things/places I've been wanting to try (that's not too far), and also cheaper wax sessions, because let's face it, it's not cheap to look good, even decent :P

I've bought vouchers from several sites over the last few months and I've had okay experiences when purchasing and I've not had a bad experience redeeming them at the respective outlets. The actual product or service however, is another matter. If you want me to try buying and redeeming from the rest, you'd have to reimburse me :P Makes me wonder how much repeat business the retail outlets get post-deal. 

What I'm a little annoyed with is that these sites don't have a freaking RSS feed, which makes it a little tiresome to check sites out everyday and there are only so many emails that I can glance at and delete. Even when I check into these sites from the same place each day, I get bugged with the prompt to enter email address to subscribe to their site updates. Oh, and the Facebook Connect thing - I know it's a convenience thing so that you're not stuck with remembering multiple login details, but seriously, Facebook already has its privacy problems.

I know I sound really sarcastic about the concept, but as a consumer, I like it because no one wants to buy something at retail price if you can get it for cheaper.

Go, group buying sites.

My Ultimate Yuppie Want - a Dyson Air Multiplier

When people get higher earning power, they buy certain things to mark those milestones: a nicer car, a house, that LV bag... the usual stuff.

Not me - what I want is a Dyson bladeless fan - or as they call it, the Air Multiplier. Never mind that you could buy at least about 20 regular bladed desktop fans (assuming the average price is RM50) with the money spent on one of these, but it's cool to look at.

The Air Multiplier line comes in all these designs: the table fan (10 and 12 inches), a tower fan and a pedestal fan.

The Air Multiplier works like a reverse vacuum....



It's safety is also widely touted since it has no blades, but you learn a thing or two with the regular desk fan, you know?

Image by michael.aulia via Flickr

Yes, it's basically an overpriced appliance and a frivolous want, so sue me. But I would like to have one because of the smaller footprint than my current desk fan. I don't know about anyone else, but this would be the one thing I hope to see the Chinese knockoffs since only the uber rich with their higher levels of disposable income can afford these things.

PS. I also found out that Dyson products are put together, and have offices in Johor Bahru - how's that for Made in Malaysia?

Platypus SoftBottle

Been looking for a Platypus SoftBottle for a little bit because I wanted to find something smallish and portable as I'm not a fan of the Nalgene or SIGG bottles. Thanks to Google, I found a shop in PJ that carry them and is not too far away - COREZONE in SS2, which sells camping equipment

I have to say I have never been to that part of SS2 - I mean I usually drive past that row of shops over the years, but never actually stopped. There's always a first time for everything. That said, even if I wasn't there for a Platypus SoftBottle, it's a place worth checking out because of the variety of products available. Excuse me if I didn't know about the place sooner, okay. I also didn't know that the place had been around for five years :P

I wanted to get the older design (RM31.50 for the 0.5L), but they didn't have one with the closure cap, so I got the new, colourful next step up for RM36.

There’s not a hard bottle out there that’s cleaner, greener, and more flexible than a Platypus SoftBottle. Each one comes with our Clean-Taste Guarantee™ and it’s made with zero BPA. The SoftBottle is green, too, because it’s ultra-reusable and lightweight, it uses less energy and materials.

Finally, your SoftBottle defines flexible. It fits in a drink holder, a round pocket, a flat pocket, or any hand. When empty, it rolls up and fits anywhere you want it to fit. Plus, it weighs 80% less than hard hydration bottles.

Available with Closure Cap or our new dual-valve HyperFlow^™ Cap.

I'm in the roadtesting process and we'll see how it goes.

COREZONE (same row as Yee's Tuition Centre)
42, Jalan SS2/24,
47300 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia.


Tel: 603 7873 5560

MyDeal, Groupsmore and Groupego

There have been "deal of the day", collective buying sites popping up in Malaysia recently - there is nothing Malaysians love more than a good deal, especially on new businesses like restaurants, spas and everything else in between. How it works is that there would be a new deal every day (usually) which needs a minimum number of buyers before it is officially a deal. Because the concept is still pretty new here, these deals run for a few days so that people won't miss out.

It works out both ways - the businesses get some marketing and promotion with the deals they set up with these sites, and we as consumers get to know that these businesses exist and get to try out something new at at least half the price.

I only found out because I get emails from these sites beckoning to check them out . Being the curious cat that I am, I did.

One of the first that I know of was MYDEAL.com.my - the only deal I've bought so far was a full car wash, vacuum and tyre shine deal at Regal Valet for RM7.50 (u.p. RM15), which I didn't get to use in the end because my bro wanted it for himself (he couldn't buy it online due to certain circumstances), but he said it was pretty good. Hmph. (I made him wash the Jeep in lieu of)

After weeks of stalking, I finally bought in a deal at Groupsmore, which was RM39 for either a (u.p. RM98) Brazilian or a full leg wax (u.p. RM108) at Apronbay, a new place in Bangsar.

The buying experience was also pretty easy on both MYDEAL.com.my and Groupsmore - I bought both deals via online banking (remembering to kill the popup blockers for a bit to do it is one thing). Groupsmore also lets you bank in payment at a cash deposit machine as an option. Hmm. 

And today, I got an email from Groupego, which is still currently on its first deal, which I doubt I'm getting even though it's only RM1. I'll just keep checking in, all the same. 

This is gonna be interesting. 

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• My First (and last) Groupon Experience (kevinlochner.com)

I want the Daria DVD set. Really.

I had the pleasant surprise in my inbox last week that MTV has finally released Daria: The Complete Animated Series ON DVD! Holy crap!

I never thought this day would come - mostly because they've got trouble with the music used in the show. Apparently they've taken it out and put in some other generic music in its stead. Bummer.

I would get this if I could still have the collector's edition tee  shirt (5,000 only) that has that classic line from the show, 

"I don't have low self esteem. I have low esteem for everyone else."

from the same email. Was tempted until Amazon stopped me from getting it just because I'm in Malaysia and they don't send Region 1 DVDs outside of US and Canada. Phooey. 

I'm sure there's a way, but at the same time I'm not willing to pay so much for it either. Oh well.

Anyway, here's the DVD trailer...

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• The 'Daria' box set: Why we want, no NEED, it (cnn.com)

My Kuru Toga pencil...

Call it a filler post.

Got the Uni-ball Kuru Toga pencil in the mail some weeks ago (bought off eBay, with the payout I got from Planet Pulse)... here's some pictures (taken with both phone and camera - the quality's pretty obvious as to which is which). I bought another one in silver when I was in Singapore - way cheaper than this one, I should tell you.





























Check out the amount of postage...




































I've not written a whole lot with the pencil, but even with the change of lead, I can't seem to get the output to be as dark as I'm accustomed to with my other mechanical pencils.

Otherwise, it's a cool concept and I heard there's a new Kuru Toga out already in a form that I would prefer... Another scouting trip down south?