The supremacy era western powers have enjoyed over the past centuries have lead to a lifestyle of complacency, low competitiveness and false optimism. To maintain their dream, spending next and earning later is never questioned and in fact, encouraged to. Although this do have an effect of growing the economy, the bubble is inflating as well. Soon or later when everyone are succumbed under the pressure of unsustainable debt, the dream shall burst.

Well, already so.

Unions, pensions and the social benefit systems are corroding the competitiveness of their people with a number of reasons.

Employees empowered by the unions, are not flinching or backing down from their sometimes unreasonable demands. Strikes and threats are common. Do understand that if you are servicing a mortgage for a beautifully made home, loans maybe for 2 cars and a bunch of credit cards, you won’t be negotiating much with your employer anyway.

They are keeping up with their standard of living with their spending habits. Its their dream you are talking about here.

“Well, why not spend? We do have a pension to back us up anyway. Saving up? Erm… Never thought of..”

In those dream, people find work easy to come by. Thinking that they will have a better job every time.

But what happen when you can’t?

That’s when the problem comes. First, you won’t be likely to get your retirement plan. Probably a severance pay instead. Second, debts to be honored. Lastly and hopefully you won’t be into this; declare bankrupt.

Downgrading your living standard.

Selling away your home. (If you are lucky to find a sincere buyer.) In the U.S., there are millions of unsold, foreclosed homes still on the market. Renting is a much easier, cheaper option and you won’t be worried over another liability. Not wise to buy another place, although its likely to find one easily at a reasonable deal but home prices on average, are on a falling trend still and doesn’t seem to hit bottom yet.

Let’s say you have that solved at the moment. Whats next?

You still have bills to pay and mouth to feed. You need a job. But job doesn’t come by easy these days. In Spain, over 20% of the youths are jobless. With unemployment rate in U.S. at a high of 9% and who knows how much higher somewhere, you are left with not many options. You are left with either taking a huge pay cut or/and doing something you won’t like or remain jobless.

More and more jobless people have given up on looking for employment and turning to their government for unemployment compensation. The burden is passed on to the government’s responsibility. With fewer taxpayers, a shrinking economy and more people on social benefits, you see today what happen to these western powers. They are facing huge debts and are looking for more.

Their living standards shall fall, to an extend when they start spending within their means, have savings, living prudently and accepting a much lower pay.

Not forgetting, accepting a much lower remuneration is also a key factor on staying competitive with countries such as China and India. If they can find 100 people doing the same thing at 10% of your pay, don’t question why your job get outsourced, question what can you do to deserve that pay and what you can do but they can’t.

A bit of an adventure should do us – mid-lifers good…i guess. Not to the extend of endangering yourself (maybe a little..) but loosening your self senses can at least lessening the imaginary weight (stress). Call it sort of a release, getaway, nothing-to-do sorts or what,

I just want to travel.

Away and away, far far away.

Politics are on everyone’s mouth these days. Everyone has stuffs to share, thou most of it negative. Except for the other “half” of the population , almost every citizen is quite hype up over the whole saga. Each counting down to the coming polling day abidingly.

The silent half i guess, were on their couch, eating their popcorns and enjoying the show. Probably they find it amusing.

Its expected this election day will be a different one. As I have told my friends, the simmering anger growing from netizens coupled with the poor ratings of the ruling party from last election are tell signs that change is inevitable. Only sooner or later.

Looking at Barisan Nasional from Malaysia, Liberal Democratic Party from Japan, Kuomintang from Taiwan and many others, nothing is permanent. Changing for the good or worse, we have to embrace it’s coming.

As so, I have something for the ruling party.

Holding on can only make things painful. Its difficult to let go when you thought shouldn’t have happen so. Maybe it’s time for reflections, starting from the heart. And if you are really sincere, your actions will tell.

Hopefully one day, your party shall be the one we endear before.

For now, let the people decides.

Think of how small we are in this world.

Existence isn’t simply an occurrence for we…we together, can be the reason.

His picture explains clearly why:

Picture by Pail Tan

Makes me wonder, when you as customer disclaim in return: “No 100% payment. Thank You For Your Understanding Too.”

Or if I am selling food: “Sorry hor, not up to standard not my fault hor. Giam Sia for your understanding”

hor: singlish, a form of expression with no particular meaning but adds “certain substance” in the message across

Giam Sia: A typical hokkien(dialect) lang of saying thank you.

So time to stop whining and get down on it today. I did a brief research on some candidates and made some comparison on their specifications which I hope you kinda find it useful.

The Maca Powercase felt damn heavy in my pocket but I like the fact that it’s design is classy and simple. Due to about 1mm distance from the tip of the casing to the power button on the phone, I have to reach deep into it which I find it sightly distracting. Other than that the overall feeling is good but as I said earlier, I’ll give it a week before making my summations.

Mili Power Pack 4 Battery Case (3000 mAh) is the most expensive of the lot. Looks good and that’s a ring at the back of the casing which acts as a stand for horizontal position. At 3000 mAh, I assuming this phone can last you around 3 days without charge. While its certainly eye-catching, its also the thickest among the three casings. I bet its battery size got to do with the 22mm thickness here. In the end didn’t go for it as I can’t imagine carrying a big lump of brick in my jeans.

ExoLife was actually my keenest choice but I couldn’t wait for the delivery. Moreover being a typical retail shopper, I prefer to see the real stuff in front. Don’t get me rumbling about online purchase. Got my fair share of complains..

Ok back to the Exo. The lightest at 59gm and thinnest at 14,5gm, nothing techy about it because size of battery usually goes with battery capacity. If you increase the capacity of this battery to 3000mAh from 1500mAh, you probably will get the same size and weight as their counterparts here. Looks good also.

Anyway, I can’t find it in stores here. My guessing is that probably they don’t do wholesales to retailers here. I bought the Maca Powercase eventually and currently its working fine but let’s see what awaits in a week’s time.

Updates: 2 weeks after, my Maca Powercase refuse to work anymore. I suspect it has something to do with a friend’s built in USB car charger. While charging, the phone keeps switching between charging and normal modes. The friend was saying that the car charging system was trying to read on the USB device.

So I went down to it’s service center. After some quick verification and checking, a young technician acknowledged that it’s not working and did a one to one change with no question asked. The whole process is quick and the service is good.

Till now, battery case is working fine, hopefully.

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