For me the other day, it was during a long, LONG meeting.

The PM was constantly tapping and rubbing his rubber shoe (squeaking no less) against a metal bar on a table during the ENTIRE presentation.

I don’t even KNOW what was said during the presentation, I was so distracted and ready to crawl out of my skin.

It grated on my nerves so much, I was ready to leap across and scream in a silent whisper (eh? eh!?) “STOP .. PLEASE. STOP RUBBING YOUR SHOE AGAINST THE METAL”

It was like fingernails on a chalkboard for me, and it was as though he had no idea that the squeaking noise was bothering any one else.

For the love of all things sacred, keep your hands and feet to themselves, don’t fidget, tap, or pace back and forth like a ping pong ball when you’re presenting or a listening audience member, and STOP IRRITATING ME.

*arg*…

Another one is when little conversations unnecessarily pop up in corners of the room and keep going until someone turns and gives them the evil eye. A comment here and there is fine, but if it’s a conversation, save it, or take it outside.

So anyone else wanna rant?

And now for the sparkly surprise!!!

Valentine’s Day Giveaway!

And if you’re really irritated at work, pick yourself up by entering my Valentine’s Giveaway! You get a $50 gift certificate to Bruno Jamais Restaurant (hmm this sounds faintly familiar ) and a piece of jewellery from Bridget Lynne Designs (THIS is the sparkly surprise!!!! Hah! )

Enter by emailing me at: brokeinthecity at gmail dot com with the subject line “Valentines Giveaway“. That’s it!

Contest ends: February 10th 2008

(So you have time to use it if you’re in NYC )

I need some healthy lunch ideas that aren’t going to get stale, or at least some different ideas so I can switch it up.

So far, I’ve only been eating the following:

Smoked Turkey Breast sandwiches with Avocado, Tomato and Boston Lettuce.

Something easy to make and assemble without it being mushy when I finally go to eat it.

And I also don’t want to make chicken breast and rice or noodles, because apparently once chicken is cooked, it can only last for 3-4 days in the fridge :\

I don’t want to get sick, so it’s not an option I guess.

Any tips on how to spice up the main meal? I am fine with the snacks (veggies and fruit), so that’s taken care of. Oh and hardboiled eggs. Mmm..

What about teriyaki vegetables and rice? I really need something more vegetarian, and more meatless because I’m getting paranoid about eating too much meat.

They say for a longer life, we should really eat less meat, at least go vegetarian once or twice a week.

At any rate, too much meat is bad for me.

So, any tips? Hummus and pita maybe?

My skin has been not only breaking out in ridiculous amounts of cystic acne on my chin and around my nose/mouth area, (grr .. birth control pills… ) but it’s been drying and flaking REALLY badly due to the dry winter air and the cold snap we’ve been experiencing.

And since I ran out of moisturizer before (I used to use Vichy SPF 20 moisturizer, but they changed the formula *ick* and I can’t stomach paying $30 for it any more)…I knew I had to do something about my skin acting up.

Here’s the blurb from the Dove site:

Deep Moisture Day Lotion SPF 15

Make a difference in the healthy appearance of your skin. Deep Moisture™ Day Lotion SPF 15 combines UV protection and rich moisture and vitamins A and E to provide moisturizing nourishment and hydration. Suitable for all skin types, this light, fresh lotion leaves skin soft and protected from the sun’s harmful rays.

Nutrient lipids
Broad-spectrum UVA/UVB protection
Hypoallergenic
Non-comedogenic (won’t clog pores)
Dermatologist tested

Dove Deep Moisture Day Lotion is recognized by the Canadian Dermatology Association.

I’ve never tried Dove face products, but I like their hair products, so this one at the cost of $10.10 after taxes ($8.99 before), is good enough for now.

What I’m happy about is mostly that it’s an SPF 15, and that it’s non-comedogenic.

I hope it helps.

I had considered Neutrogena too, but I wasn’t sure that all that AHA-BHA stuff wasn’t going to make my skin WORSE, and while it said “oil-free, won’t clog pores”, it didn’t actually say “non-comedegenic”, which made me a wee bit suspicious.

So how did my budget fare this month?

Here’s the budget for January 2008. As you can clearly see, I went OVER budget in 2 major categories: electronics & travelling.

Everything else pretty much came under budget or wasn’t even spent at all (Clothing, anyone?)

Electronics
They’re really all one-off purchases (scanner, external hard drives for backing up work), but there’s going to be ONE LAST major electronics purchase coming up either this month or next (probably next) – a laptop…

So I can imagine that one pretty much wiping out at least half of my Emergency Fund. But hey, what can a woman do? When she needs a personal laptop, she needs a personal laptop!

Travelling
I had actually budgeted perfectly, but unexpectedly I realized I could go up earlier than I had originally anticipated in December when I bought my tickets ahead of time to get the best price, but since they are NON refundable and NON exchangeable, I got screwed.

Oh well, I have to take my time with BF when I can. And besides, he’s footing 50% of the bill, which means that what you see up there is not really indicative of what I ended up paying. In fact I may have come under by a bit..

Other than that, my budget was pretty accurate this month, especially with the not spending much on toiletries/clothing unless they’re the essentials.

I also have quite a bit leftover in Groceries / Going out / Starbucks / Entertainment because I quite simply don’t have the time to wander around in a mall or see friends as regularly as I used to, so I just don’t spend the cash. Most of my time is spent with BF, and we don’t use/need much cash to be happy/entertained (phew, what a relief!)

I’m really surprised at the Groceries budget, but I suppose it makes sense considering I’m not even around on weekends, and I only buy food for my lunch, a bit of breakfast in the morning and a bit of a light dinner (usually fruit).

I think I’ll keep it at that level though, just in case in some month I decide to eat more.

Update: $400 for rent is what I’m giving my parents instead of the $1500 they wanted before. Tres reasonable right? Considering I’m also buying my own food, etc

So, we’ve all pretty much agreed that I need a personal laptop to separate work from personal life, and it’s clear from all of your comments (*heart*!) we all have differing opinions on different brand names and products.

But the problem is that I have a wedding coming up in the summer that I have to fly to. Estimated total cost for this vacation? About $2000 (flight ticket, hotel, food, sightseeing etc).

And the laptop I want to buy, my budget is max of $2000, but ideally I’d like to get a laptop for $1300 or less. $1500 is what I’m expecting.

Meg (from All about Appearances and The Bargain Queen), has enlisted the help of her wonderful techie husband to spec out a Dell laptop as an example of what to get.

But I can’t help feeling a sense of dread about Dell, only because I’ve owned one before, and it was truly a hunk of metal I wanted to kill at the end of the first year Plus, it was freakishly heavy.

I’ve heard these other names so far: Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic as possible contenders.

Acer is definitely out of the running (my friend has one and not having volume control buttons (for example) on the actual laptop is NOT a possibility in my mind).

.. however, last night as I was mentioning to BF that I needed a new laptop (and this boy owns like..8 of them), he told me that the IBM ones are quite sturdy and reliable-ish (depending on which one you get), but that Apple is the best. Which I’ve heard many many many times from many others. Other than the whole “it’s a different OS”, I’ve heard that the Mac reliability beats them all into the ground.

So I looked into the Apple MacBooks (no way am I getting a MacBook Air, I’m not insane..) and I saw the 13″ screen one for about $1099 USD ($1250 in CAD but I have a workaround solution in mind for that), as the base model, that comes with pretty much everything I want.

The only caveat in my mind was that it didn’t run Windows.

Now, I know that the Mac operating system (OS) is infinitely better than Windows, but I just can’t give up my Windows programs. I just simply cannot. I don’t want to spend a couple months or so learning the interface, and trying to get things to work.. no thank you.

But then I heard that you can actually install the Windows OS on the MacBooks, and things got interesting after that.

So, I’m considering Apple with a Windows OS…. and according to LifeHacker, you could actally get a program for about $80 USD that lets you run BOTH Mac and Windows OS programs on the SAME desktop without having to switch from one OS to another.

How sick is that?

Yes, I’m a bit of a geek.

It’d be great to run Apple programs (which are ridiculously simple and very intuitive unlike Windows), alongside my necessary Windows applications….!!!

So, am leaning towards Apple, with a Windows OS…. And the price isn’t too far off from what I was willing to pay.

The only last doubt is that it’s 5 pounds. It may not seem like a lot, but.. ugh if I have to lug that thing around… although to be fair, it’ll be more of a desktop for now – as I just need a personal laptop, and even if I travelled with it, I would set it up like a desktop in my hotel as well.

So to sum up, the reasons why “portability” isn’t really THAT big of a deal:

1) I wouldn’t be lugging it around WITH my work laptop. How bad would that be?

2) It’d be like a desktop – I’d leave it at home or in the hotel, but occasionally bring it out to play… but rarely.

3) 5lbs isn’t TOO bad. I’ve had worse I guess.

4) I get the best of both worlds – Windows and Mac.

5) Umm it’s cheap? Or just as cheap as what I’ve been drooling at in Future Shop & Best Buy

6) I may be able to score some sort of discount

7) Reliability/ease of use is MUCH more important than portability by far, but it would’ve been cute to have both.. except I won’t pay an additional $900 USD (MacBook Air) for portability.