Movie Review: Ghost, Starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore
Oh what a classic movie this was.
I have a vivid memory of going to see Ghost 
But then, I suppose that was nearly 20 years ago. (Faints at the thought that *that* much time has passed).
What made watching this movie so poignant this evening as it was screened on Movie Magic 2, is watching it, and knowing that Patrick Swayze has passed.
I wondered idly if his wife can bring herself to watch it. He looked so young and vital in this movie, clearly a far cry from how he left this world after suffering so long from cancer.
Patrick Swayze may not have been one of those classic A-list actors, but he was always A-list in my book. Because so many of his movies were integral parts of my adolescence. I mean, hello! Dirty Dancing! When I heard Patrick had passed away, it seemed so remote, so disconnected from me. Then a few days later they were playing “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen on the radio, and it really hit me. He’s gone.
What a sad loss to the acting world.
“Ghost” is definitely one of those movies to add to your home DVD/media collection, and also a great reminder to tell your loved ones, that you love them (and don’t just say “Ditto!”) because life is short.
Goodbye Patrick. We miss you already.
An Exercise Bike: Game vs Makro
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked in retail, for about 18 months. I learned something vitally important. Well actually 2 things. First off, I learned that I never *ever* wanted to work in retail again, but more importantly, I learned how important customer service is.
It’s not rocket science.
It’s not even difficult, but it requires, a degree of energy, a modicum of patience (this does not apply to twenty something computer store clerks of course), and most of all a burning desire to succeed (hit your weekly/monthly target).
As a result of this short time in the retail industry, I am surprisingly sympathetic with store clerks. They spend long hours on their feet, have ridiculous targets to meet, and are often not incentivised to do so.
However, it has also made me increasingly dissatisfied with bad service. Because as I said earlier, it’s not rocket science, and a lack of service is not only careless and unnecessary, it just plain PISSES ME OFF.
Take this weekend for example. Thanks to an unexpected tax rebate, after paying off some bills, the husband and I decided that it was time to add to our home gym set up, and to speed up the recovery of the husbands knee after surgery, and so we set off on a Sunday morning with both kids in tow to check out some exercise bikes.
Our first stop was Sportsmans Warehouse.
Pros: Nice selection of really high end equipment, and had we not decided to stick to a smallish pre-determined budget, we could have really set ourselves up with a really good bicycle.
Cons: Had to seek out a sales assistant as they were all chatting at the back of the store. The one who did eventually reluctantly come over to help us was not knowledgeable enough to answer our questions (about tension/resistance/magnetisation etc) and frankly I didn’t like his attitude, which was one of ‘Oh this is such a waste of my time, because no one ever buys an exercise bike on a Sunday morning when they have their kids with them.” HAH.
Also: we asked about getting the battery in my Polar Heart Rate Monitor replaced, and we were advised by the guys at the service desk to send it to Polar ourselves, because they would take too long to do it. Which to me translates as, “We’re lazy bastards, do your own work, why the hell should we service your watch, for a measly battery?” Nice. Management, it might be time to chat to your peons about customer service, and brand management, and oh yes, vision.
Our Second Stop on our quest was Game.
Pros: A fairly good selection of bikes, with a good price range.
Cons: Spent nearly 10 minutes looking at bikes, without being greeted even ONCE by staff. Had to ask someone, to find someone to help in that area.
Notes: However, once that sales clerk turned up, he was extremely helpful, knew his products, and went and found one that was not on display, and offered to set it up for us. However, and this is what really annoyed me, we asked the sales guy if we could get a cash discount. In this current economic climate, with stores going out of business left right and centre. I reckon that stores should be hungry to make sales. It is a big ticket item, and it would barely dent their margin. Good for the sales guy, and he went to ‘get authorisation’. Management said, “No.” So I said, “Okay, then we’re not taking it.” Sales guy then said that the store was putting this particular bike on promotion on Thursday (down from ZAR 2699, to R2499 – a discount of approx 7%). So we asked why they can’t give it to us for a 5 % discount, and let us buy it today, given that we were standing right there, and willing to take it.
The answer came back, “No.”
So we left.
I just WILL NOT buy an item of that expense without getting a good deal. It’s not even like I was asking for the promotional price. Sorry Game, but you missed out on a nice sale, on a quiet Sunday morning. Sucks to be you!
So we then drove to our third stop, Makro.
Pros: Busy, exciting promotions going on, in store. Time between us looking at an exercise bike, and getting attention from a sales guy? Approximately 5.6423 seconds. Even though he was demonstrating a treadmill to another couple at the same time.
Price? ZAR R2499.00
Deal? Done.
Here’s the one we bought:
It was fairly easy to assemble, given that it came in a box, although it did require two people to do this – one to hold stuff in position, and the other to turn the screws in the right place.
Time to assemble from start to finish: About 20 minutes.
How does it work? Really, really well. My top three points about this exercise bike, are:
- It is seriously quiet. I mean my very light sleeping children to do not wake up, when I stumble out of bed at 05h30am and have a work out.
- The seat is easily adjustable (same as the ones at a Gym), and its comfortable. Yeah, why should my butt take strain just because it’s exercising right?
- It has a built in heart rate sensor, so I don’t have the added shlep of putting my polar heart rate monitor on (plus it needs a new battery anyway).
What are your experiences with buying big ticket items like this? Did you get good service? Bad service? Send us your thoughts! Leave a comment with your experiences!
Free Resources for WAHMs: Free Fax 2 Email Number
Are you a WAHM (Work At Home Mom) and need a fax number?
Did you know that you no longer have to rent a phone line, in order to be able to receive faxes? In fact, you no longer even need a fax machine!
Instead you receive your faxes, as attachments to your email! Doesn’t that make life a lot easier? It will certainly save you costs in the long run, and anything that saves on paper, saves trees, and that’s good for the planet, which scores major points in my book.
You can go to this website now, and get your own free fax to email number, by simply signing up. (Only available to South African Residents).
- A fax to email number can be printed on your business stationery, and business cards as soon as you receive it.
- People then fax as normal to the number, as you’ve given it to them.
- You then receive the fax, on an email, attached as a .pdf file. Most computers can read these files, but if you have any trouble, then you need to download Adobe Reader (look for the free reader bottom right).
- It’s really that simple to begin to receive faxes. This is really useful, if you need to receive fax orders for the business that you are running from home.
- If you have a smart phone, like a Blackberry or iPhone, you can then also receive your email wherever you are, at the shops, waiting to pick up your kids from school etc. So you need never be out of touch, or miss another order!
Fax 2 Email is by no means a new technology, but it certainly is very helpful, particularly when you are first starting out in business on your own, because it opens yet another potential communication channel between you and your customers. This service is provided free by Vodacom, as they receive an incentive from Telkom based on the number of inbound faxes. Therefore it costs you, the consumer nothing to receive your faxes on email. There are numerous places that offer this service and you are under no obligation to use vodacom as the service reseller.
Please note that for you to SEND a fax is not free. However, if you are operating with email and internet, in most cases, companies should provide you with an option to email information that you need, or even email in scanned documents as an alternative to sending a fax.
There should always be a way to do something for free.
NessWorld, in support of WAHM’s everywhere.
We’re Back!
Apologies for the delay in posting! An unforeseen computer disaster (namely a gorgeous 18 month old toddler, yes mine, decided that my Macbook looked better on the floor), followed by a shortage of Apple Macs in this country kept me away from you all for far too long!
The good news is we’re back and better, tastier, and way more delicious than ever before!
I have several new posts lined up, and I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I’m going to enjoy writing them during this coming week. They are going to be of interest to those of you (us!) that work from home, and some of the lighter stuff will be of interest to anyone, so please remember to share your favourite posts on stumbleupon, digg, become a fan on facebook, subscribe to the rss feed, and even follow us on twitter for up to the minute updates.
Remember that this website is here to entertain, support and be a place to find resources for WAHMs (work at home moms) all around the globe, so the more people who hear about us, comment on the site, and use it as a place for networking, the better for all of us.
Coming up this week will be the first of what I hope will become many, many profiles of WAHM’s as we aim to grow our network, and support each other.
read more
Free Resources for WAHMs: Invoicing Software
Many things are given away for free on the internet these days. A great deal of these things that are given away for free, are useful. A great deal more of them, are of no use at all.
Therefore it is really great when you find something that makes your life infinitely easier!
As WAHMs we need every last spare second that we can squeeze out of the day, so when I found Paymo’s free Invoicing and Time-Tracking Software, it proved to be an absolute gem!
Image courtesy of www.paymo.bizSo Why Is It Free?
Paymo, state on their website that they want to support freelancers and small businesses, so the use of their service is free for companies with 3 employees/users or less. Once you need to add a fourth user, they begin charging for the use of their service at USD $ 3.99 (approx ZAR 24.00) a month per user. Please note if you have the need to produce more than three invoices per month (for those freelancers dealing with multiple clients), they have a very affordable $9.99 per month unlimited invoicing option, which is totally worth it!
That is still a bargain, given the scope and functionality of their product!
Image Courtesy of www.paymo.bizSo How Does it Work?
In a nutshell, the strength of Paymo, for myself in particular (as a freelancer) lies in their time tracking feature of their software.
Once you’ve signed up for an account and set up your details, you simply click on the tab (on their website that says) Time-Tracker. This opens up a handy little widget in a new browser window (Windows users) or in the Dashboard (Mac Users) that you can click to say ‘start’ or ‘stop’ as you are working on your clients project.
Each client/project/task can have it’s own per hour billing rate. So for example, you could charge more or less depending on the who the client is, how difficult the work is etc. It is all completely customizeable.
Image courtesy of www.paymo.biz
Why Do You need it?
While Paymo, is designed with freelancers and small businesses in mind, the time tracking feature is just one of several that would come in really useful to any small business.
- It’s internet based, so you can log in to your Paymo dashboard from anywhere, and produce an invoice (snaps fingers) just like that!
- Clients can view their invoices online, eliminating the need for printing out invoices and mailing them (save the trees!) or alternatively they can be downloaded and emailed as a .pdf file.
- It will produce reports for you showing you how much time you work, and how much you ‘slack off’ if you enable the time tracking feature. (This feature is nothing short of beautiful, since it colour codes each client/project differently too, showing you how much time you are spending on each one.
- It will show you which invoices are paid and which are not, because they’ve included a handy feature which allows you to enter payments from your clients etc. So while it is not accounting software per se, it’s certainly extremely useful when it comes time to show your accountant what you’ve earned, and for seeing which of your clients still owe you money and what for.
- The invoicing feature can either drop in information from the time-sheet, or if you’re are running a product/service based business on a by sale basis, you can simply type in the description, quantity and amount and voila! Impressive and professional looking invoice is ready for dispatch.
- It has multi-currency support, and I was pleased to see that it offered the ZAR as an option!
- Simply upload your logo, and away you go!
- It works on Windows, Mac AND Linux!
Do not underestimate the kind of time that this wonderful service can save you. If you are able to bill your clients in a snap, it makes getting the money in that much quicker and easier. It’s been tried and tested by me based on photographic and graphic design clients to great success.
Have you heard enough? Want to know more? We’ve linked you up below so you can click through to sign up.
If you liked this post, please use the ‘share this’ button to share it on facebook/twitter/technorati/stumbleupon/digg/delicious/blogger/wordpress and more.
WAHM: Work At Home Moms
If you are a mom who works from home, then we want to hear from you.
We want to hear your stories, chronicle your endeavours and help you with networking, marketing and advice. If like-minded women can come together and share information then everyone stands to benefit.
Please contact us via email, so that we can arrange to promote you through this website. Alternatively use the contact form on the Editorial Page.
Please provide us with the following information:
- Your name, and business name (if you have one)
- A description of your business i.e. Photography/Catering/HR Consulting/Avon/Tupperware etc etc
- What you love about being a WAHM and what you find challenging.
- Contact Details – i.e. email address/website/geographic location (it doesn’t matter where in the world you are!)
- Anything else that you’d like to add (a photo of your product or of you would be great!)
From this information we can put together a profile post on you and your business which we will then email you to proof read, before publishing it.
This is so that we can build a community of like minded individuals, who support their fellow WAHMs either through directly doing business with one another, or promoting on another through marketing etc.
One of the longterm goals of this website is to produce a physical directory of products and services offered by WAHMs and distributed globally in the form of a magazine.
To have your profile done, on NessWorld, please email us now, and remember it’s free.
Follow us on Twitter
Add yourself to our Facebook Fan Page
Please leave us a comment below!
read moreMovie Review: Angels and Demons, Starring Tom Hanks
Summary: Wow! Some of the best special effects that I’ve ever seen in a movie… and the most recent movie during which neither the husband nor I could bring ourselves to pause in order to make tea.
Yes, Angels and Demons
The Da Vinci Code 
It also features Tom Hanks, reprising his role as Professor Robert Langdon, the eminent symbologist.
Now while it once again, features the Christian church as pivotal to the plot, it does not come as close as The Da Vinci Code
What it does do, is make us hurtle headlong right alongside the main characters in a race against time to find an explosive device hidden somewhere in Vatican City.
The pressure is added by the fact that the entire catholic world, is in suspense, waiting to hear (see) the announcement of the new pope, and crowds have gathered in St Peters Square. All the cardinals are cloistered away in ‘conclave’ to select the new pope, and with all this added drama it makes for a heady, suspenseful movie, during which you are absolutely unable to move from your seat.
Once again, Professor Langdons seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of history, symbols and religious iconography is called into play to solve the clues left by the mysterious Illuminati, who have claimed to be behind it all.
Some interesting points:
- Tom Hanks hairstyle is much better than in The Da Vinci Code
- Ewan McGregor, is still hot, even as a priest. Sorry, but it must be said. One thinks that one would have a hard time seeing him as anything other than Obi Wan Kenobe, but thankfully his acting is so polished and he establishes his character so well, that you aren’t even slightly reminded of roles that he has played in the past.
- Stellan Skarsgard (can’t do that funky Swedish thing on his name with my keyboard) is brilliant in his role as head of Vatican Security, and the character we all love to hate. It doesn’t help that he too, is brilliantly good looking as well.
- For the guys, they’ll be pleased to know that the one and only female featuring in this movie, Ayelet Zurer, is your typical gorgeous Italian babe, so they need not feel left out in the eye-candy stakes. Although, the story really doesn’t leave any time for ogling.
Angels and Demons
So, would I recommend getting this for movie night? Yes, but with the following provisos:
- Please do not let your kids watch Angels and Demons
- Do not make popcorn for this movie, any sound whatsoever will distract you from the incredible pace of the story. Best not to shift around on your leather sofa too much either while watching unless you can do it silently.
- Visit the loo before pressing ‘play’ on the remote. There are no slow bits, so you’ll either have to keep it in, or rupture your bladder. Up to you. Pressing pause, is an option that you will NOT consider.
- You can order your copy of Angels and Demons
