Stages in a Relationship...

If you've not seen them, Wong Fu Productions is an amazingly talented group of people who've been producing a lot of videos on YouTube and I have to say that their work is crazy good.  Here's their latest short and I think this pretty much relates to everyone who's been in a relationship.  I love how the message was relayed and the progression of the short in general.

Did it strike a chord with  you?  Click here for the behind the scenes and director's commentary.

Penny Auction... Real Bargains or A Gamble?

A month or two back I stumbled on an online bidding site called Penny Auction which allows you to bid on mostly gadgets and electronic items (which tend to be quite pricey) and should you win, to purchase it at least 50% below market price.

In order to bid, you are required to sign up for an account with them at no cost and you get a number of free bids (I think it's 3 bids) to kick start your bidding experience on the site.  Once you're out of bids, you will need to buy more bids in order to participate in the on going and upcoming auctions.

HOW IT WORKS

The concept is very simple.  Each bid is in an increment of RM0.01.  Each item being auctioned will have a preset duration on their timer and every time someone bids, the timer is restarted.  To win the auction, you will need to be the last bidder when the timer ends and the system confirms that no other bidder is present.  There's a 50% off market price guarantee as well so for every item in the auction that is won at a price higher than 50% retail price, the winner need only pay up to a maximum of 50% and the balance is compensated by Penny Auction.

April's Fool on Gmail

I've never been a fan of April's Fool and maybe I've done a couple of pranks in the past when I was a kid but that's about it.  I do however love to read on absurd "news" people and companies tend to put out on April 1st.  Such example being Gmail:

Seriously?  Gmail Motion?  I thought this was hilarious the moment I saw the feature box on the login page:

Click to enlarge image

They even went the extra step to make it look legit by putting it up on the top right corner of your mailbox page:

Supposedly it works by using your computer's camera to read your gestures and movements and their algorithm translates that into commands.  But would you be ape-ing around in front of your computers with these gestures?

Click to enlarge image

Click to enlarge image

On their YouTube page, a commenter who had probably thought Gmail (Google) was serious suggested it would be better if they'd recognize sign language for this new feature.  I didn't personally click on the "Try Gmail Motion" button but I assume it will tell you for real that it's a joke.

What corporate April's Fool joke did you see this year?

Another one would be that the iPad 2 will be hitting Malaysian shores on April 18th and is available for preorder now.  Since there has been no official statement from Apple sources to validate this, let's just assume this is another April's Fool joke too.  That said, the actual release in Malaysia might not be too far off either.