Like many regular Google search users, I stumbled upon their latest doodle, in conjunction with Sesame Street’s fortieth anniversary. Although I watched Sesame Street almost every weekend morning, it all seems so long ago I hardly remembered anything about Sesame Street or even know that it’s celebrating its fortieth anniversary.

I must have enjoyed watching Sesame Street as a kid but frankly, I cannot remember any of the shows except for more popular Sesame Street characters like Elmo and Cookie Monster. I guess it is because of the stiff competition that Sesame Street faced from other children’s shows.

With this reminder from Google, I spared some time reading up on Sesame Street and revisiting their website. Of course this has brought back wonderful memories of Sesame Street characters. Too bad I do not have children or we would be watching reruns of old Sesame Street shows already before a new season begins on 10th November.

According to a survey by Universum, Google has been polled as the top company in Global Top 50 Business Companies to Work For and Global Top 50 Engineering Companies to Work For. To compile this list, more than 120,000 students from top academia around the world were approached.

Here are the lists:

Global Top 50 Business Companies to Work For
01. Google
02. PricewaterhouseCoopers
03. Microsoft
04. Goldman Sachs
05. Ernst & Young
06. Procter & Gamble
07. J P Morgan
08. KPMG
09. McKinsey & Company
10. Deloitte

Global Top 50 Engineering Companies to Work For
01. Google
02. Microsoft
03. IBM
04. BMW
05. Intel
06. General Electric
07. Sony
08. Siemens
09. Shell
10. Procter & Gamble

You know, I am self-employed and I never bothered with these corporations before or wondered what sort of benefits or bonuses employees get. But seeing these lists, I have a new appreciation for how tough it is to get employed by these companies, and as I have friends working in such companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Procter & Gamble, Siemens and Shell, I have a new respect for them. It certainly is not easy getting in, harder to hold on to the job, I think.

I received the latest bill for my broadband service, Streamyx, a couple of days ago and was glad to see that the company is offering a free 12-month subscription to Hypp TV, their website that streams online TV channels for a small monthly subscription fee.

I have to admit that although I have known of Hypp TV for a long time already, I have never visited the website before and only did so because of the free offer. I wanted to sign up after checking that some of the channels are not available on satellite TV which I am also subscribed to. Well, at least i don’t think they are available. I don’t even turn my TV on. LOL

While in the process of filling out the form, I encountered a problem and changed my mind about signing up. Is Hypp TV really free for 12 months for Streamyx subscribers? What happens after that? I don’t want to get an auto billing before my offer expires. Is the streaming quality good enough to be worth the trouble or would it be better just to turn on the TV?

There is no denying that it is very appealing to be able to watch TV on the computer. I have no problems multi-tasking as it is. So if you are a Hypp TV subscriber enjoying the free offer by TM for Streamyx customers, do let me know if you are enjoying the content on Hypp TV.

I just realized that I left school more than 15 years already after the recent reunion with my old school mates. How time flew by!

Although I was glad to have completed schooling at that time, I know that I should have continued my studies and not drop out of college. It’s too late to regret now but luckily, even though a lot of time has passed, I could still go back to hitting the books again thanks to university online courses that are readily available and accessible.

My uncle, who is an educator, told me that online courses and certifications are now recognized by employers provided they are from accredited institutes of higher learning. While some people have told me that fees for online courses seem a little higher, think of the time saved and the convenience of studying as and when you like, at your own pace and according to your own schedule.

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My friends and I are always on the lookout for new investment options. Thanks to access to the internet, we are able to do intensive research on various forms of investments before putting our money down. Because of age factor, most of us are in favor of long term investment and because we are all busy working, our preferred investment is something that requires the least maintenance. Some investments require a lot of time and attention, some requires additional financing. I can’t speak for the rest but for the time being, I am not able to put in more money that what I have currently saved up.

We have been contemplating investing in precious metals, particularly in gold. Gold is an extremely viable investment because it does not require any additional “top up” of capital if we are not able to. It also does not require the kind of attention that stocks do or carries as high a risk. In addition, the price of gold has been holding strong for generations already. Even if gold is not something we like investing in, gold makes valuable family heirloom too.

A good time for gold investment is actually now. Although the price of gold is on the high side, a correction is expected soon and that is a good time to go in. Although some people may say that gold has already hit its high with over a thousand dollars an ounce, I think that with the stock piling of gold and other commodities by super economies like China, the price of gold will hold, if it doesn’t go up as quickly as an investor would like it to.

We could make or break investing in the commodity market provided we ride on the tide, seizing opportunities as they present themselves. And thanks to China’s massive investments and takeovers of mining and mineral companies around the world, interest in commodities have remained strong these past couple of years which caused prices of all commodities to skyrocket despite a weaker economy.

I’ve been thinking that since gold investment involves quite a large sum of money, a good way to see profits is to pool our capital together. I don’t think this should be a problem since we all have the same investment goal.

Bing, Microsoft’s very own search engine, has a new feature called Visual Search. It is still in Beta right now so visual results are limited to only the most popular of topics but currently includes celebrities, sports, politicians and entertainment.

Using Bing’s Visual Search, you would need to have Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 installed on your computer to be able to display visual results in what we iTunes users know as “cover flow”. I use the iPhone and have to say that cover flow is nice to look at but it is not that user friendly. Maybe I am just a fuss pot. LOL

But in any case, whether Visual Search is here or not, unfortunately, I have not even used Bing once since its launch! I guess Visual Search will not be something that would convert me from a Google Search to a Bing user but I will surely give it a trial run later just to see how good it is!

As a single person whose age is advancing, even though I swear that I am not that old to be still single, the most common question I get asked is, “Are you dating yet?” I have to say no so far. I do have male friends who are single and we do get along fine but so far, only as friends. I cannot imagine myself being married to any of my single friends. I guess either my circle of friends is too small, my requirements of a husband is too high or I simply haven’t met the right person to WANT to spend the rest of my life with.

I came across a singles quiz just now and completed it just for the fun of it to find out why I am still single. I don’t really believe quizzes like these and always take the results with a pinch of salt.

Quiz by CupidMarket.com
Quiz brought to you by Online Dating

Anyway, no matter if you are male or female who is single, you could still complete this fun quiz. There are only seven short questions with multiple choice answers and would only take you a minute or two to complete. Let me know your results once you are done! All in good fun, you know?