Gayla spent 10 years at Saks Fifth Avenue as Director of The Fifth Avenue Club, their exclusive personal shopping service. With a desire to learn more about style and expand her horizons, Gayla left Saks to begin her business, Cou-Tours, which offered private, personalized shopping excursions to Paris.

At this time she also developed a pseudonym, Dr. Styles, who on the local morning shows, along with her assistant Nurse Accessory, would drive her fashion ambulance to Houston businesses and ambush women to make them over.

Despite its early launch woes, the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm appears to be selling strongly, coming in a No. 3 on NPD’s list behind the Curve and the iPhone 3G.

After the Storm comes the ever-popular BlackBerry Pearl—which, like the Curve, is available on all four major U.S. carriers—followed by the Android-powered G1 on T-Mobile.

So, how did the Curve manage to overtake the iPhone 3G? Well, as the NPD group notes, availability on all the big carriers always helps (the iPhone is, of course, still only on AT&T), as well as its $99 (with a new two-year contract) price tag. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless probably helped boost Curve sales with its “buy one, get one free” promotion, according to NPD.

And here’s a potentially worrying trend for Apple: the NPD found that RIM’s share of the smartphone market rose a solid 15 percent to a full 50 percent, while both Apple and Palm (which didn’t land a handset in the top 5) both saw their shares fall 10 percent.

Of course, it could be that smartphone shoppers are holding off on both iPhones (given that a new model might be announced as early as next month) and Palm handsets (seeing as the red-hot Pre will likely go on sale in a matter of weeks).

Then again, never underestimate BlackBerry, which still has some of the best smartphones in the business and has price and availability on its side, whereas the cheapest, AT&T-only iPhone 3G remains at a somewhat lofty $199 (with contract). By: Ben Patterson

1. iPhone lite: This phone would be a cheaper and thinner version of the existing iPhone to target customers who doesn’t require all the features on the iPhone. This up to some extend explains why the Cupertino Company had been acquiring PA Semi, Arm and PowerVR licenses.

2. Media Pad: This new product could be something like the Amazon candle, but with a larger screen and would likely support the present functionalities of the touch and the iPhone. Media Pad in all probability have a virtual keyboard. Media Pad could possibly be the reason why Apple place orders for the 10-inch touchscreen.

This latest rumors ruled out the possibility of Apple developing a CDMA compatible version of the iPhone. Apple COO and Interim CEO  Tim Cook earlier did rule out the possibility of manufacturing CDMA compatible iPhone citing that the technology would be wiped out in a matter of years. These is all good news, but we have to wait for Apple to open its mouth.

Right now, we are spending future generations into the poorhouse, and we really don’t care as long as we have the cash to keep the cable on, pay for text messages, or purchase $600 shower curtains.

President Obama said something yesterday about us no longer being able to spend, spend, spend in government, but I guess that does not include the healthcare reform Obama wants, the stimulus package we “need” or else the Earth will start hurling into the sun, or for the US to either bail out or purchase the US automakers.

I look at things in simple terms, and here is how I see things:

Some people made some really foolish moves when purchasing homes – people who could not really afford homes purchased them on really shaky grounds because they figured that the housing market would go up 10% per year. Then when it looked like this was not going to happen, people started defaulting on loans, banks foreclosed on houses they did not really want to own, and property values fell in many areas of the country.

The government got involved because elected officials need to appear to be helpful. What I never understood was that some Federal oversight failed, regulators were sleeping at the wheel, so as rational beings we wanted the same people who made the mistakes to fix the problem. We did that because they have the expertise. I am still scratching my head on this one.

We passed a bunch of spending bills, and some of them did very little to help the economy. So our legislators decided to spend money in other ways. It reminds me of seeing someone on the side of the road, head bend, hood popped open, wondering why the car has stalled. He (face it, it would be a “he”; a “she” would call AAA) takes a monkey wrench (or other item in the toolbox) and whacks part of the car. If it doesn’t fix the problem, he whacks another part of the engine. We are kinda doing the same thing right now, but our monkey wrench is 1 Trillion Dollar spending bills.

Here is what people are not talking about: (1) Unemployment is on the rise, but people are still making mortgage payments. What happens in several months when people start blowing through their emergency funds. (2) Most ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) have not ratcheted up, yet. The first wave will hit in a year or so. What happens when this occurs.

Both of these events are what I like to call “Holy Cow” events. They are big, may affect housing prices and the economy, and will probably need our legislative bodies writing hundreds of billions of dollars in spending (because that’s what legislatures do).

Part of me wants to dress like a native American and attend one of these tea party events – though I think dressing like Pocahontas is not really PC unless you are on a Disney property.

Me, I am looking at the stock market gain more than 1,000 points over the last month or two, and I still think about the bad news on the horizon. But stock brokers are smart, right? I mean, they are a bit smarter than mortgage brokers and bank regulators, right?

I have started thinking about this tea party tax protest some more. Why could it not have been some wine tasting tax protest instead? I mean, that would have more appeal to me, and after thinking about this, I could use a drink.

Slot machine maker International Game Technology says 38-year-old Rachael Renee Romanick hit the jackpot Sunday night at Terrible’s Rail City in Sparks.

Romanick says a friend persuaded her to join him at the casino that night. She says she had been playing the machine for about 10 minutes when she landed the big prize.

The largest jackpot ever won was $39.7 million at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in March 2003.

IGT says it’s pleased that the “life-altering prize” went to a local resident.