The Original T-Payne

Ramblings of a Young Female Entrepreneur

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Exquisite Magazine Tea Party

So it is very official, Toni Payne Cosmetics will be representing at the Exquisite Magazine Tea party this Saturday at the Tiger Tem Tea Room. Exquisite Mag is womans magazine owned by London based Tewa. The tea party was created as a forum to empower women in the field of business etc etc, even though I do not have the nergy to go into details right now, I like the concept. Anyhoo Ill have pictures as soon as I get them.

Boy oh boy, If you look up tired in the dictionary my mug will be right there cheesing at you. I mean I have been working non stop for the past week getting about 3-4 hrs of sleep in between. The one thing I love about it though is my body knew things had to get done so she did not give up on me. Now that I am done with my current project, I feel like passing out. lol. :-

I always get questions about starting a business. The number 1 advice I give people is, if you do decide to take that route please make sure it is something you are VERY passionate about. Reason is, business can be very unpredictable. I have heard horror stories about people giving up everything they have for their business only for it to crumble. I have also heard good stories about people starting businesses with minimal dough and hitting it big. Personally, I think yeah, you can be lucky, but if you are passionate about what you do and are not motivated by money alone, things will come easily to you. Plus those days when things are slow, (you will likely have that in the begining) you won't feel so bad, you'll just work harder.

Now, I dont think business ownership is for everybody. You have to know that yeah, you dont have to answer to anyone and you pretty much can set your own hours but trust that your 8 hr days are gone. I have pulled 3 nights straight with no sleep, I would doze on the chair for 5 minutes and jump right back up. Doesnt seem normal, but when you have to get things done, well you have to get things done. Anyhoo, occasionally ill be giving my point of view, from my experience. :-

Flavor of love is over. lol. Gosh!.. that show is just entertaining. Well I am happy he chose Delishis. NY is kinda off, if you know what I mean. Ill have to blog about that later seeing as I am very tired, I will go rest now.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Toni Payne Signature Apparel in LAG

Starting next week Toni Payne Men and Womens' Signature Apparel will be available in Lagos.
Note to ladies who decide to rock this outfit, it is HELLA sexy on so use it to your advantage. Someone asked me how and when she should rock it. I said, well, I rock the tank and bottoms casually, Occasionally I will put on the set, thow on some white pumps and do my mirror dance jamming to some proper music. hehehe.. Yes I dance in front of the mirror.lol. Yes it can be worn as casual lingerie, throw on some pumps and you are good to go.
Another lady who got the red and black "FaYa" said it made her feel sexy in a naughty sort of way and her man loved it, she said "It was not too obvious I was trying to seduce him, it made me look very young, fresh and sexy". Well go on with your bad self.. All hail the creative mind..lol..

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Dr Phil: Nigerian Scams Segment

I watched the Dr Phil Segment on Nigerian Scams today and the one thing that kept going through my head was how poorly done the show was. First of all, too many generalizations, they only had one side of things and the only Nigerian man they brought on there to talk said a few words that had no bearing to the situation at hand.

The correspondent that they had "Aaron Heselhurst" was VERY irresponsible in his report saying things like "They have got kidnappings, murders, rapes going on all the time in Nigeria by Nigerians" "Its just this ugly reputation that Nigerians can be dangerous". Ignoramus!.. I'm thinking' Mr Dumselhurst, are you trying to tell me crime is a Nigerian thing?

Personally, I do not know a single Nigerian that is into fraud and trust me, I know a looooooooot of Nigerians. All the Nigerians I know and associate with are hard working, brilliant people. These types of show, unless they show the two side of the coin, does not do much for the good people bred out of Nigeria. I know these Nigerian fraudsters learned it from somewhere and no matter how much these people try to make it seem like a Nigerian problem, it is absolutely NOT. I have gotten scam emails from all over the world, Nigeria, Malaysia, United States etc.. Fraud is EVERYWHERE, but they wont discuss that.

Now, my take is, if someone I do not know sends me an email saying send me 10,000 dollars and I will put a million in your account and then we can split it in half. If I send the 10,000, then by golly gee I deserve to be scammed. Like duh, duh, that should automatically ring an alarm. Unless your are Santa Clause why choose to dash a stranger so much money.

The women shown on this segment, I kind of felt sorry for because they were obviously desperate for love but common now. I think they were not on the bright side because, first of all I would not be sending money to some guy I met on yahoo chat (like who meets people in chat rooms this day and age of serail killers etc). I mean, he says to send him $750 for a ticket from Nigeria to San Fransisco. Babe, do you homework, what kind fo ticket was that. From my experience flying to Nigeria, unless he was planning to ride in the cargo hold, he would be paying nothing less than a grand. So, you sell your furniture for a man you have never met, rack up a 900 dollar phone bill for a man you have never met, send over 3,000 dollars to a man you have never met. Is it me or is this sounding like maybe it was an expensive lesson she deserved to learn. All this because out of the millions of men in the United States you could not find one that could love you the same way a man you have NEVER met could. Yeye! lol.

Anyhoo let me stop rambling. I did not appreciate the show at all, it was just too one sided and yah Nigerians are not all bad people, if you are going to talk about the small percentage of bad Nigerians, to make it fair, you need to highlight the majority of good ones. Then again it wouldnt make for an interesting show and wouldnt do much for his ratings. Its like me saying all white Americans are child molesters and serial killers or all African Americans are gang bangers or all British people are pedophiles. That would be very ignorant because we all know that is not true.

I hope Dr Phil and his correspondents realize no one country is all bad. Every country has its good and bad seeds.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Driving Under the Influence

First and formost if you know you have been drinking or taking meds and cannot operate a vehicle please do not do it. I had a wonderful thursday night/ friday morning so I woke up feeling energized, happy and pretty much in a great mood only for the rest of my day to end on a not so lovely note

Friday night I went for a job somewhere in south LA, upon arriving at the event I decided I wasn't feeling it and wanted to leave. Something told me to leave, don't stay but of course I had to defy my instinct and ended up paying for it. So I stayed at the event and left at about 12:00am, got a call from a friend that she needed a ride from the location so Iwent back to pick her up and we made our way home. After dropping her off, I headed north on the 101 probably at about 1 am. I had my music playing enjoying the drive and 10 minutes to my house I heard and felt a loud boom. My car goes out of control and all I could think about was wow, Ive been hit, straigten your wheel.

I get my wheel straight and finally get my car to stop. Park the car, check for injuries, blood etc. At this point all I could see was shattered glass everywhere, my ear piece was gone, my cell phone flew to lord knows where. I got out of the car shaking like my chihuahua. lol. look back and see a lone car in the center divider facing on coming traffic, walk towards the car and at this point one CHP car is already at the scene.

Now, when the girl finally gets out of the car you could tell she was out of it. She smoked a cigarette and just stands there not saying anything, she pretty much looked like she did not care( this is where my anger management kicked in). So the whole time im looking at her like is this chick for real?

To cut a long story short, for whatever reason, she kept going back into her car for lord knows what, acting really weird. More CHP came, gave her a test to check her alchohol level. One of the officers brought my car over to the side of the road we were on so I went to inspect the damage on my car. My passanger side is totaled and my interior had glass everywhere. The other officers got our info and cleared the scene.

Yesterday morning I called the Mercedes dealer I normally take my car to and they basically referred me to their auto body shop because they do not do in house body work. I took my car in the shop and as I suspected that passanger side will be replaced with a new one. The guy who checked my car showed me skid marks on the back passanger side. Somehow she climbed on my car with hers so her tire tracks were on my car. WOW! This whole thing just reminded me of a VW commercial, one second you are minding your business and the next you dont see it coming but boom!

So this morning I called the number she gave the police and spoke to a lady who claimed to be her mother and basically said the girl doesnt live there, is no where to be found and once she finds her she will have her contact me. She also said the owner of the car (the girls boyfriend) is incarcerated so ermm we do not know if she/he has insurance or not.

I also called the police station and the only information they could give me was that one of the parties involved in the accident was in jail (since it wasnt me I am guessing its her) and the accident was a DUI. The police report will be ready in a few days but all in all, it puts a big ? into my travel plans, because I have to make sure my health is in order first.

So, because someone decided to make the wrong decision friday night/saturday morning I have to pay for it with my time, my health and maybe my money.