Aggie Shoots. Aggie Scraps.

This is what schools and offices prepare students and employees these days – disaster preparedness. Whereas before people from all walks of life are taught what to do in emergency situations, they are now taught how to deal and be prepared for disaster. The past years have gifted man with disasters in epic proportions – earthquakes, storms and city flooding reaching two stories high and tsunamis. These types of occurrence is something we can never really prevent, but as the title says, we can always prepare for.

For one thing, the government has advised all homes to prepare a disaster kit for each member of the family, a waterproof bag or plastic that has the following: a bottle of water, flashlights, extra batteries, a set of clothes, crackers, medicines, and your essential documents. Pelican Cases molded plastic containers that seal with an airtight and watertight gasket.

There are now even micro cases that can hold and protect your cell phone, photographic camera, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), electronic games, pager, radio, and other valuable small items – we are all in the electronic age and most of these are now counted as valuables. I would invest in one for the family just in case.

If you have been following my blog for quite some time, you would remember how time and time again I would complain and whine about my need of a printer. I am a scrapbooker – I need one! Everything in my wish list has been crossed out one by one (it took a long while, but at least it happened!) – a laptop, an external hard drive, a Wacom pen tablet – except for the printer.

I am thinking I can get one next month, mainly because I have loyalty reward points I can cash in from my internet provider and one their items is a printer. Technically, I can just buy one, printers have become considerably cheap and so does their ink cartridges. HP Ink Cartridges are the best cartridges (so are HP printers) based from feedbacks I heard from fellow scrapbookers – fast drying, less bleeding, lasts a long time.

It is not only me who would need a printer, my two kids will be in school in June so it will be easier for them to print things off the internet when doing homework. My son goes to my Mom’s (whose house is a few blocks away) to print projects!

I have been surviving using my laptop for two months now ever since the motherboard of our computer gave up on us. While I am ok using G (my lappytop) for work, it is sometimes a pain when I scrap. I have been used to scrapping using a big screen and sometimes when I load Photoshop it takes forever to load. I am not keen on upgrading my laptop or getting a new one because with a 2GB RAM this is already fine (I just have too many applications open at once). We are saving for a new desktop though, and the husband has been convincing me to just apply for payday loans online so we can have a working computer already. I am still thinking about it as we are still paying off something from our credit card. I do not want to pay too much on loans every month. I just finished paying off a three-year loan and I won’t be doing it again.

Technically, a point-and-shoot camera lust. Ever since becoming involved with Project365 I want to make sure I have a camera everywhere, so I lug my SLR along. There are times that it wouldn’t be safe if I bring it along (when I commute) so I essentially miss some pictures I would have wanted to take, like for example, withdrawing money from the ATM or my son having a hair cut at the barber’s. Unimportant things that capture our life at its finest – does that make sense? Hopefully I would be able to get one after we enroll the kids for next school year and we buy big goal #1 in our list this year. This makes me all the more determined to save. Since I do not work in an office setting, I no longer qualify for a payday loan .

I am choosing between the Canon Powershot SD990is and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. The Lumix has better reviews but I cannot afford a $400 point and shoot camera – my husband thinks it’s impractical.

A few months before the year ends I realized that save for a printer and a new point and shoot camera, I have everything I need to scrap all the time. I might need new external hard drives but that would not be a priority anymore. I might be able to get a new printer if I sell some of my make-up stuff (too much stuff!), there are some really cheap ones I can get for $50. It will be great for school stuff and printing coloring pages for the princess.

While for the point and shoot camera, I am still torn. My mind tells me to not spend on a camera that is over $300 but my heart tells me that if I invest on something really good, I won’t need to get new lens for my dSLR. I want the Canon Powershot SD990 (within budget!) but the Panasonic Lumix LX3 is calling my name! It really is something you can take with you like an SLR without its bulkiness. In times like these, I really wish Santa was real!

I just have to share this piece of information I have gathered from a lawyer friend who I had lunch with just today. We met up in one of our favorite restaurants which had free wi-fi internet connection as our meeting involved her getting some information from me as witness to one of our friend’s annulment cases. I was actually surprised she would want wi-fi connection as she can just record our meeting using paper and pen. But she was using a new application developed by LOGICBit Science and Technology Corp. called Houdini ESQ.

It is an application that can work on any OS in any computer in any browser that allows a lawyer to access ALL central information with just one tiny click of a mouse – anywhere, anytime. It will surely be a huge help in data gathering in trial cases. It saves time, money and effort. All information about the trial – judge, counsel, witnesses – are saved and each of the legal team can see it once it is updated. It really changes the legal profession, as you can see. It can cut down paperwork and updating research work in half.

Houdini ESQ is a web based enterprise case management application. You can control what you can share on this application. It clearly is very powerful:.

We sold our Kodak digital camera last week. It was really bittersweet letting it go but we decide to just let it go for now – we will have plenty of more time to buy better things. Because of it, I already listed the things I want to have, even if it is not Christmas yet!Take note these are unreasonable things I want and am not getting them ALL just wanted to share them with you I want a netbook like the one Sony Vaio put out (or the HP mini Vivienne Tam!) but I do not even go out a lot to justify getting one. I still have my trusty Dell Inspiron 1525 thank you very much

The Ixus 980IS

Ipod Video Classic 120gb Latest New Generation

And finally, a NEW phone! HAHAHAH!

PictureMate Zoom – PM 290 Compact Photo Printer

Retails at: US$229.99
Can be bought at Php10,000 (price negotiable)
Sold here at around Php12k-15k

From the site:
    * Print beautiful photos and archive to CD
    * Photos last up to 4 times longer than lab prints1
    * Crop, resize and remove red eye – PC-free
    * Smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant over 200 years1
    * Prints sepia, B&W, wallets

The perfect companion to any digital camera, PictureMate® Zoom Compact Photo Printer is the ideal choice in portable photo printers. With PictureMate Zoom, you can print vibrant, 4" x 6" photos and save them to a CD. Just insert your memory card1 or connect your digital camera or USB flash drive. In seconds, you’ll be previewing photos on the huge, 3.6-inch LCD photo viewer. Then, use the PC-free photo editing features to crop, remove red eye, enhance colors and more. When you’re ready, simply hit the Print button and get a 4" x 6" photo in as fast as 37 seconds1. Then, press the Save to CD button and let the built-in CD burner do the rest.

Each PictureMate Print Pack contains everything you need to print stacks of beautiful photos, including the photo cartridge and photo paper. And, packs are available with either glossy or matte paper – all at an everyday, low print price!

Finally, my prizes for the Wacom Penscrappers Contest have arrived! You can view my winning entry here.

They are here! FINALLY!

My prizes finally arrived!

These are all about USD500 when I looked over at Amazon and I feel so lucky to have so many friends who voted for me, thank you very much! The point and shoot camera could not have come at such a right time because yesterday, my SLR lens broke It must have been broken when my Crumpler bag fell down ~ so right now, I’m charging the camera and will test drive it tomorrow! All these are FREE! My husband could not believe it either. His credit card was saved from swiping from a portable credit card machine because these are my wish items for the LOOOONGEST time

It never ends does it? First, the SLR, then the laptop, then the EHD, then this:

I got this for my birthday last Monday. I got it for an incredible price because Circuit City was closing down and stocks were 30-70% off until all are gone. A friend was very very kind enough to buy one for me. Imagine my shock when I saw this retails for PhP31,990 at most malls here. I got this at almost 70% off then, promise

This is the best buy for the year. (Up until I get a Wii, of course!)