Paint Job Finish

Finished my paint job on the 25th December. I used Nippon Satin Glo as my interior paint, with Aqua White as my main wall color and Willow as the feature wall and my kitchen as well. My master bedroom will be Pink Lady (need to follow the wife's demand), while Yellow Splendour and Blue Success for other rooms.


For door and window grills, I use ICI Gloss with Suede as the color.




For my outside wall, I use an ICI Weathershield and pick Terra Cotta as the color.



ICI Maxilite is being used as the undercoat for the entire house.

Now, my next step which will run simultaneously is building a brick wall to replace the old fence, installing awning at the backyard, installing a new front wooden gate and putting a new grill for the main entrance.

Estimated time of completion will be about two weeks from now which I will use that time to browse into kitchen cabinets. Interior fittings such as lightings, fans, pipings, washbasins and air conditioner will be the last.

Paint My Home

I bought a second hand house and the house has been emptied by the previous owner, although it is still not officially mine, but I can do some minor renovation. When I inspect the house, the condition was not good. Few basic things are missing, such as the washbasin, broken doors, missing ceiling fans, lights are in bad condition, the list goes on. The wall was full of writings, drawings. The front gate was broken pretty bad. It was like a haunted house. I did not expect this things to happen because the house is being occupied by the owner, and the conditions looks very differently when me and my wife inspected the house before deciding to buy.

The bad condition had given me and my wife good reasons to spend some money with renovations that will suit our taste. The best thing is we were able to get the house way beyond market price, a 30-40k lower than expected market price. Things that we will going to do with the house are :-

1. Interior and a little bit of exterior painting. This is exciting because me and my wife decided to play with multiple colors. I will use Nippon paint and an Indonesian friend named of mine named Yanto will help with the paintwork.

2. The broken front gate needs to be repaired. A friend named Anuar who his a a renovation contractor offered me the repair job plus some modifications so that my iron front gate will have a wooden touch. I also asked him to add some awning for my backyard.

3. Laminated flooring has always been my wife's wish list. We decided to laminate our master bedroom as I still want to preserve the tiles on the living room and other rooms.

That's for now. Tomorrow I'm gonna fork out a grand for paints. That's the first step in our
renovation.

Dad's Injury

My entry earlier was about Dad's nasty incident with his chainsaw. Me and my wife went back to see Dad on Friday before going to my wife's hometown on Sunday. Here's the chronology of the incident.
1. It was Tuesday (2nd December), 4.30 pm, Dad and Mom was at the garden, doing some work. Dad decided to cut a bunch of bamboo trees.
2. Dad cuts most of the bamboo using the chainsaw, as he walks past those bamboo, Mom told Dad to shut off the chainsaw but it was ignored by Dad.
3. As he walks, he accidentally sways the chainsaw and it hit Dad's upper knee. He shouted in disbelieve, and dropped the chainsaw.
4. Mom saw blood coming out from Dad's knee. According to Mom, Dad's flesh was tangling from the open wound. Dad's trousers was torn and full of blood.
5. Mom applied some cloth on Dad's wound and then she carried Dad inside a trolley, about 50 meters back home.
6. At home, Dad changed his trousers and amazingly drive his car to a clinic with Mom sitting next to him. Mom wanted to drive but Dad insist he still could drive.
7. At the clinic, the doctor told Dad that one of his blood vessel was cut off by the chainsaw, his muscles torn apart. The doctor added that if Dad went to the hospital, he would be admitted for one week. The injury required 8 stitches on the outside and some stitches on the inside of the wound.
8. Amazingly, it was Dad again who drove back home. During all this ordeal, he never felt any single pain.
9. That night, Dad could not sleep as the pain slowly began to takes it's toll. So as the night after.

I bought Dad a dozen of Black Fish Essence (Pati Ikan Haruan) so that his wound could heal faster. Today is the 8th day after Dad's incident, and according to Mom the wounds are healing. The doctor will open Dad's stitches next Monday (15th).

The Chainsaw Incident

I received a call from my mom informing me that Dad had injured himself with a chainsaw on 4.30 pm, Tuesday. According to mom, it was an accident when Dad was using the chainsaw to cut come bamboo tree. The chainsaw hit his left knee. Mom was surprised and shocked to see the incident but managed to control herself. She tied Dad's wound using a piece of cloth. Then Mom carried Dad back to their home (about 50 meter from the bamboo tree), and send Dad to a clinic. According to Mom, Dad refused to go to the hospital because he may be admitted for a week. It was quite a deep wound which requires stitched inside and on the surface of the injury. The chainsaw also cuts one of his blood vessels. I talked to Dad and he told me he could feel the pain at night as he did not take painkillers due to his allergic towards modern medicine.I'll be back tomorrow evening to visit him. Need to find some traditional medicine for Dad so that the wound could heal faster.

Malaysian Bank Account Hacked

Taken from The Star Online

Wednesday December 3, 2008

KLANG: Ramli Saidon had the shock of his life when his account was short by a large sum of money when he tried to withdraw cash at a bank in Subang on Nov 28. “I found that RM3,132.44 had been siphoned off.“I am the only one with access to the account,” said the 49-year-old father of seven.Ramli said he immediately informed a bank staff who logged into the account in an attempt to block it.

While the staff was attempting this, Ramli was shocked when informed that RM5,500 more was being transferred out of the account right under her nose.

Ramli, a junior aircraft maintenance technician with Malaysia Airlines, said the bank staff had frantically tried to block the transaction but failed.

“I was later informed that someone had done an Internet transaction to transfer my money to an Indonesian bank via a New York bank,” said Ramli.

He added that the culprits had also used RM500 from the stolen RM8,632.44 to top-up their pre-paid mobile phone, said Ramli from Kampung Melayu Subang.

With the help of his close friend Sobree Hisham, Ramli lodged two police reports as well as made an official complaint at Bank Negara.

“I don’t know what else to do after this as I believe I have exhausted all avenues. The loss is really hard financially because I am the sole breadwinner. I am only left with only RM1,000,” said Ramli.

Besides losing his November salary, he had also lost the money obtained through a loan from his co-operative.

“I took the loan to pay my son’s fee for his studies at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and to buy school uniforms and other necessities for my other children,” he added.

Ramli hoped the bank would assume responsibility for what had happened and reimburse him.

“It is my hard earned money and I will still have to repay my co-operative loan,” said Ramli, adding that he was forced to borrow more money to meet his commitments.

Ramli added that he had not given details of his account to anyone including members of his family.

However, Ramli said he had only given his account number to a foreign bank when he took a loan from it.

A spokesman for the local bank said they were investigating the matter and would be liaising with Ramli soon.

-----> According to my own source, a group of hackers originating from Indonesia is targeting Malaysian banks. I have known this for a couple of months and my source told me that those hackers only need your full name, bank account number and maybe the mykad number to be able to transfer money even with the existing of added security measure such as TAC used by Maybank2u. I do not know how do those guys hacked the bank server but I am pretty sure they could do it, and they could always execute a reverse engineering process. For my readers, please be careful especially when doing internet banking and avoid using internet banking on public computers as they might install a keylogger inside.

Heavy Rain

A scene during heavy rainfall yesterday. This shot was taken using a SE Camera Phone from the driver's seat. The time was 5 pm. Location was near Subang Mah Sing.

Heavy rain is expected in the Klang Valley during this time of the month. Yesterday I was on my way to fetch my wife, I encountered one of the heaviest rainfall this year. It was 5 pm but the atmosphere and surrounding was so dark. I need to drive slowly with my lights and my eyes wide opened. Luckily my transporter is a a bit high so I could drive thru floods easily.

Violence In Kuala Lumpur

The Sun

Mob attacks impatient driver
Charles Ramendran

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 10, 2008): About 100 motorists and motorcyclists attacked an impatient driver and his three passengers for allegedly being a menace during a traffic jam near Jalan Loke Yew early Sunday.
The passengers cowering inside the car after they were mobbed
The four, including a woman, all in their 20s, suffered injuries in the attack at about 3am.

Sources said the traffic jam was caused by a road accident earlier when a 21-year-old storekeeper, who was riding a motorcycle, was killed and three other motorcyclists were injured when they were knocked down by a car which made an illegal U-turn after beating a traffic light.

Witnesses said that as hundreds of motorists edged bumper to bumper in the jam, a car tried to weave through the traffic. Initially, several motorists gave way to the driver while others chided him for his impatience.

However, when he continued his antics and ended up hitting a car in front of him, several motorists lost their cool and stepped out of their vehicles to confront him. They were joined by others, who began smashing the car’s windscreen and windows before assaulting the driver and his passengers.

The mob dragged the occupants of the car, who were injured with cuts from the shattered glass, and continued to beat them up.

The attack stopped and the mob dispersed when four police patrol cars turned up.

The driver and his three passengers were sent to Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where they are said to have received outpatient treatment.

After The Obama Fever

Everyone's been talking about Obama right now. I'm quite surprised to see him winning the election because of his color, but I'm a bit skeptical on McCain winning because of the Bush Version 2.0 issue. I do know that Americans does not admire Bush style especially the ongoing war and the economic struggle inside USA, but I'm not gonna put all my hope to Obama because simply I just think he is just a slightly improve version of what's going on right now and the past few years. The problem for us Malaysians are most of us is being spoonfeed by CNN or BBC because we thought that their media is not biased. Try searching the net using the keyword Anti Obama, you'll find interesting information which is good to balance things. I bet he'll be using the war on terror justification to continue the war, especially after being briefed by the intelligence agency. On the other hand, I do hope that he will have a positive side on the economy.

I'm in the process of buying a small house, our lawyer had called me to sign the Sales and Purchase agreement. I need to fork out RM 11k for downpayment as this is a second hand house, so I'm in a tight budget right now. I've been doing some research on home loan and I think that the CIMB Islamic Variable Loan suits me although not 100% fine. (No home loan suits 100% the borrower).

I decided to opt for a Mortgage Life Insurance rather than MRTA. From what I've found thru a bit of research is buying MRTA is simple because it's just a one time pay off of something not more than RM3k (depends on the value of the house) but MRTA does have limitations on things they cover, and it will reduce its value of coverage. Mortgage Life Insurance in the other hand will require a monthly payment (again depends on the value of the house) say for example RM 150/- per month until the end of the home loan tenure, but the best thing is, I will get back all the money that I've paid at the end of the tenure (RM 150 x 12 months x 15 years of tenure) which will be RM 27,000 plus an additional dividen or which could be from RM 3k - RM 5k (depends on the rate). Full Stop.

Slow Mo Life plus The Toyota Problemo

I feel like living in a slow mo world. I can't wait for next year's May. That's when my wife is scheduled to deliver our first baby. I need lots of cash to do some preparation. I'm also in the middle of a negotiation with someone on buying a second hand house. The price may be an extra 10k from the original price before (last 4 years). It's just a small house but it suits me well. I do have plans.

I encountered some problems with my new Toyota, well not a major one though but still irritates me when I hear some strange knocking sound whenever I rev my engine. I sent it to Toyota a week after the first diagnose and now the problem has been settled perfectly by them FOC as my car is still under warranty. They even gave me a free tyre patch. When I asked those Toyota boys about the problem of my brand new Toyota, the answer is a straight Tear and Wear which does not seem to satisfy me enough given the Toyota logo and name printed on my car, and furthermore it's only 10 months old. It seems that the term locally assembled does make an impact on the quality, I hope not. But one positive side, thumbs up for the Toyota Service Center at Shah Alam !

Injured

Last night while feeding some wild cats, I was injured when one of them suddenly attacked me with her claws to my finger (3 deep wounds) I've applied some traditional medicine on the injury but still can't type much using the keyboard. Update on this blog may halt for a while. TQ

Salary, Bonus, A Close Up Filter and DSLR

Greetings all. I checked my payslip today and was surprised to see that my total salary for this month + bonus was RM 12,000 /- .. ! I've never received a pay check this much.
I went to Subang Parade with my friends, Pian and Nazri where we stumble across a shop named DSLR. As the name suggest, it sells Digital SLR camera. Pian bought himself a Canon EOS 400D which for me is a good camera. I bought a Close Up Filter to be used together with my Nikon D60.

What is a Close Up Filter. Well basically for those who like macro pictures but do not have the budget yet to buy a macro lense (which can cost thousands of Malaysian dollars), the close up filter is an alternative as one filter cost only around 50 MYR, though the picture quality is not as good as a macro lense.

Below is a clear explanation of close up filter which I took directly from http://www.digicamhelp.com/accessories/filters/closeup-filter.php

Close-filters, also known as close-up lenses, attach to the front of a lens or lens adapter and extend the close-up range of a digital camera. Though not as high quality as a lens, close-up filters are small and lightweight.

Close-up filters have diopter ratings such as +1, +2, +5, +7s and can be bought individually or in sets. They can be stacked to provide more magnification than if only one close-up filter was used.

If you stack filters, the order you do so is important. Always put the strongest filter closest to the camera lens, then the next strongest, etc. When using a standard filter and a close-up filter simultaneously, attach the close-ups first and the filter last.

When using close-up filters use as small an aperture as possilbe since there is less depth-of-field.

Close up of dust on my electric fan.

Close up of a person's nose. See the detail of the hole.

Back to my hometown during Ramadhan

Me and my wife went back to my hometown on the 6th of Sept 2008 because I will be celebrating Eid at my wife's hometown, so I figure out that spending a Ramadhan's weekend with my parents will be a good idea.

Home Sweet Home

When we arrived, mom as usual was in the kitchen, preparing food for us to break fast later in the evening.

My mom prepares pulut panggang (a traditional malay food)

We celebrated dad's birthday that night. Dad's birthday was actually on the 17th but my mom decided since me and my wife were already here, why not celebrate it early. So, me, my wife and mom went out to get a cake at the bakery nearby.

He is now 64 years old.

The next day we went to a place called Bazaar Baitul Mal at my hometown. The bazaar sells a variety of Malay traditional costumes. My mom told me this bazaar is better than the town of Tangkak.

View inside the bazaar

After visiting the bazaar, which my wife did her shopping spree, we went again to the bakery where we bought dad's birthday cake. This time we were around to buy some Eid cookies.

Cookies being made inside the bakery shop

The best thing is, few days when we got back from my hometown, I received a good news early in the morning when my wife told me she was pregnant. Now I'm anxious to wait for a new life in our marriage.

My Mobile History

I started using mobile phone in late 1998. At that time, my Alcatel One Touch Easy was considered one of the smallest and the best. It costs me around rm600++. My line back then was Maxis as it was considered the best GSM line. We still have TM Touch back then.

Sony Ericsson PH 337 was my choice together with a Vodafone prepaid line when I was at UK in the year 2000.

When I came back to Malaysia and started to work, I quickly grabbed a Nokia 3210 and reactivated my Maxis line. The 3210 was one of the best as it was the first mobile sold in Malaysia without an antenna. The year was 2002. I could not remember how much did I pay for it but the figure could be around 800 - 1k.

In the year 2003, I was introduced by a salesman at the Mobile Shop, Jusco Bukit Raja. I immediately fell in love with the quality of its ringtone (polyphonic). I pay almost 1k for this small mobile. It's name is Panasonic GD 50. One of the best thing it can do is surfing the internet with WAP. No GPRS yet.

Surfing the internet seems fatal to the phone as it was attacked by virus. Immediately I send it for repair and luckily I still got my 3210 with me. After a second malfunction to my Panasonic, I grabbed the Samsung X430 at Subang Parade. The first flip mobile in my life and it seems to be more stylish than the other. I used it a lot especially when I'm calling my girlfriend (now my wife) for long hours. Was still using my old Maxis number. Taking a glimpse to the calendar, it was the year 2004, and I couldn't remember how much I paid for the phone, but it's definitely not more than 800. [Update : My wife reminded me that I traded in my Panasonic for the Samsung at a Subang Parade mobile phone kiosk]

When I heard about the Sony Ericsson W550i in 2006, I asked my girlfriend to accompany me to Carrefour Subang Jaya where I finally grabbed an AP set worth RM 900. The sound was awesome and loud as well. It has a camera too ! But I am more interested in the Bluetooth, MP3 and 3GP function. Owh.. I switched to Celcom Postpaid, as the coverage of Maxis at my rented house was very poor. (during that time)

Finally two years after owning the W550i, I finally swicthed to Sony Ericsson K530i. (Read my previous entry). I still kept all the phones except Panasonic because I never ever traded my old phone for a new one (minus the Panasonic). And still maintaining my Celcom line, I switched my sim card to 3G, just to suit this new 3G phone.

New Mobile Phone

Yesterday I bought myself an original (Midlands warranty) Sony Ericsson mobile phone. The K530i which I bought yesterday at Shah Alam cost me RM699 with a 1GB Memory Stick, though you can always get the AP set about rm100 more cheaper than what I pay.

Among the features that I got from this mobile is MP3, FM Radio, Bluetooth, a 2MP camera phone and 3G for video calls. Someone told me that I could use my mobile as a modem for wireless broadband as well. All of this for a price not more than 700/- .

I still use my W550 Sony Ericsson for my second line.

Ramadhan

It's 4.40 am and as I'm writing this entry, my wife is busy preparing food for us to eat. It's sahur time, and this morning will be the first day of Ramadhan. Things that I will anticipate during the fasting month is :-

1. Bazaar Ramadhan ( a lot of unseen drinks and foods will emerge during this month)
2. Loud firecrackers erupting not only at night time, but in the early morning hours during sahur.
3. Buffet Ramadhan. (Paya Serai at Hilton PJ is quite a good choice, I'll try another one this year)

Her New Notebook, Mine as well

At last, I finally been able to buy my wife a new notebook, and being given a job by her to maintain this notebook,so technically it's mine as well [hehehe...] . I bought the Toshiba Satellite M300 at Evernew Digital Mall, PJ for RM 3099/- plus a free upgrade to 2GB RAM, free Toshiba Notebook Bag, free Notebook Backpack Bag, a free 2GB Thumbdrive [which belongs immediately to me, since my wife just bought a similar thumbdrive last month], a free lock and also a free headphone. I also bought myself an original Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. And this new notebook comes with an original version of Vista Home Basic which I'm still struggling to use. If you ask me, why do I choose this notebook, the answer maybe because the beauty of it, that was what my wife told me. She had already set her eyes on this one since last weekend when we were browsing through shops at Cineleasure and The Curve. And yes, I admit her point of view. It is a beauty, thought it can't be seen through the pictures available here. See it yourself at the showroom.




My new notebook specs :-

Intel® Core[TM]2 Duo Processor T5750 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
160GB (SATA) with shock absorbers ( wow !! they have shock absorbers for hard disk, I thought they were only for cars)
DVD SuperMulti Double Layer Drive (DVD ± RW/RAM) with LabelFlash^TM Technology (I only understand that my notebook can burn a DVD, been using a CD burner too long, now it's time to DVD!! - *found out that LabelFlash means I can actually print out a picture on my DVD)
14.1" WXGA (200NIT) Clear SuperView TFT display (it's so beautiful)
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (haven't tested it yet, maybe i'll install some games)
2.35 kg in weight (Lighweight category for a heavyweight user!)

Good News Fever

Received my good news at 11am on Monday. Thanks to everyone, thank you God. Then it's fever time + sore throat. Went to Dr Taufik's clinic on Tuesday. Now, still high on drugs given by Dr Taufik.

Happy Wedding Day for Mira

Just now, one of my ex student visited me. The purpose of the visit is to invite me to her grand wedding, just around the corner. Me and the missus are still deciding because there's another wedding involving my wife's friend which happened to be my ex student as well. (My wife is my ex-student as well).

So for Mira and her future husband Hazman, Happy Wedding. We wish you good luck.

A picture of Mira taken from friendster

Vacuum Cleaner

Finally my 'unbranded' vacuum cleaner which I bought around RM 100++ from a hypermarket broke down. I've learned my lesson of not using a branded electrical appliance. A friend of mine told me that his 'unbranded' vacuum cleaner was broken down as well. Sensing the need to act fast as vacuum cleaner is an important thing, I rushed out to Courts Megastore near The Curve with my wife, last Saturday. We were so desperate to find a bagless vacuum cleaner, that we nearly bought the display machine but were only told that the spare parts are incomplete. Then a sales promoter showed us a Samsung Bagless Vacuum which has the price tag of nearly RM400. We were so impressed with his explanation, the design of the vacuum and the easiness of it. So we decided to purchase the vacuum until we were told that it was also out of stock.

A visit to SenQ SACC Mall that night settled us with a brand new Panasonic Vacuum Cleaner which cost us RM300 plus 1-1 insurance. What I found out is that the suction power is so much powerful than my previous 'unbranded' thing.

Model No.	MC-5010
Input Power (Watt)	1600W
Suction Power	350W
Dust Capacity	4.2L
Power Control	Variable
Cord Length	5.0m
Floor Nozzle	2-step
Cord Rewind	Yes
Extension Wands	Telescopic
Dimension (LxWxH) mm	574x304x273
Replacement dust bag:	Bagless

The Fruit Season

It's work again. Hectic days are expected ahead. I managed to squeeze some precious time to go back to my hometown together with my wife and my bro in law on the 5th of July. It's fruit season again. Early in the morning, we went to dad's orchard ( An area of land devoted to the cultivation of fruit or nut trees) to do some fruit pickings. Managed to grabbed plenty of em. Below are the listings of fruits in the orchard.

1. Durian
2. Mangosteen (Manggis)
3. Rambutan (Hairy Lychee - Spanish)
4. Duku
5. Durian Belanda (soursop)

2007 End Year Trip

Our end year trips saw me, my wife and all my in laws traveling to Malacca. We stayed at Putra Sayang Resort, Padang Kamunting, Malacca. The resort is situated in front the beach, but I must say that it is not as beautiful as the Langkawi beach.
The best thing I could grab besides learing how to swim on this beach, is the grilled fish and its privacy.
I could give a rating 3 out of 5 as the beach is not so clean but also not so dirty as well .

The Beach View

Rice with Ikan masak Asam Pedas plus fried eggs and drinks for 6 people was Rm 30/- at the stall above.

Sports, Politics and Photography

I am a bit sleepy this morning. and until now still being sleepy. The reason for this symptom? EURO final. We here in Malaysia get to watch the finals at 3 am in the morning and need to wake up at 6 for work. I must admit that although I'm a fan of football a.k.a soccer, but did not watch all the live telecast, due to the miserable time shown live on TV. But thanks to satellite TV, I still managed to catch the score early in the morning and watch em back after work. Congratulation to Spain for capturing the Germans with a solitary goal. I don't support any of em, I only support the goals and pray hard that the match will ended in normal time, because I need few hours of sleep before going to work.

Something that catch me through out this Euro is how much the players encountered bloody cuts on their heads and faces. I remembered that few years back it is rare to see someone suffering nasty cuts on field, but in this Euro we could see an average two games per cut with Michael Ballack of Germany being the last to suffer during the final game. Something need to be done or else all footballers will have scars on their faces just like Ribery of France .

Talking about politics, an unrelated incident with no connection with Euro is the Anwar Ibrahim sodomy case that seems to rise again. I am not in any position to judge whether Anwar is guilty or not, but he was charged with sodomy few years back and what happened than was Malaysia witnessing plenty of ugly demonstrations.

Let's monitor closely this event as it may or may not be a turning point for someone or something. Whatever it is, I do hope that it won't lead to total chaos. Enough of the sufferings due to high petrol prices and its domino effects. We Malaysians do not want anymore chaos. Let's settle this peacefully.

This morning I finally found out that my DSLR shutter has a life span. But when I tried searching for it thru the internet, I could not found any concrete answer, only suggestions of the possible life span. A positive outcome is that I managed to find out my total shutter usage until now, which is around 1000 ++ , not bad for a month old DSLR. And I do found out that the lense in my posession [besides my kit lense] is not a macro length, but a focal point length, great for capturing portraits with bokeh.

"Congratulations Spain" and "Good Luck Malaysia, may it pass us peacefully"

Credit Card Ban Lifted

Finally, credit cards have been accepted again at petrol stations. Below is the news taken from The Star Online.

GEORGE TOWN: Some of the 200-odd petrol stations here have started to reaccept credit cards from motorists as a method of payment after a “stand-off” of more than 15 hours.

Shell petrol station operator Seraz Ahmad, 45, said he started to accept credit card payments from motorists at his station in Jalan Mesjid Negri after being advised by the petroleum company at about noon yesterday.

“I am glad to put the matter behind me as many of my customers have complained about the move. I hope an amicable solution will be found to resolve our problem of earning less profit following the recent fuel price hike.”

A check on Penang Island also revealed that Caltex and Petronas petrol stations have started reaccepting credit card payments but not Esso and Mobil.

-- i'm glad to hear this news, and hope it won't happen again. The move by these petrol stations is not unwise, why put the burden on customers? It's funny to see Malaysia as a develop nation but unable to use a plastic on fuel.

Today.. In Person

Everyone's busy today, doin' something they called OBE. Ahh.. work is work is work, managed to find some room to have a quite moderate workout during lunch hour, at least I do sweat.

Finally managed to worked out on my salary, I think I could afford to buy my wife a decent notebook and also a desktop for my photo/video editing.

Today's news, petrol station will stop receiving payments via credit cards for petrol. This is ridiculous. I use my credit card for petrol, because I don't like carrying much cash, and because I like to pump my petrol to FULL. And I will pay all the amount at the end of the month, this I have put in practice for almost two years. Damn It! It's difficult to see which party is wrong, but whichever is, the affected one will be the user, ordinary citizens whom had been lately effected by so many things.

Today is The Wife's Birthday

Happy Birthday my wife. She wanted a new laptop for her work, but I could not afford to, as my petrol sucks big time.

I too wanted a desktop PC with plenty of RAM, right now I'm using a 4 year old laptop with a broken built in keyboard.. makes it difficult for me to write .

DSLR mania

i purchased a brand new Nikon D60 with kit lense. It is exciting to explore various aspect of photography. After reading thru mags and the net, now I know what is an aperture,ISO, shutter speed,exposure, Auto Focus..

Below is my camera


I tried various settings to try capture pictures. These are some of the result which I uploaded to my fotopages as well.

From Perdana to Avanza

Greetings all, it’s been quite a long time since my last posting, do have a lot of things to share, the first is my transport migration from a Proton car to a Toyota.

My old 2.0 Perdana

Previously my main transporter was a 2.0 Perdana which sucks petrol. And after considering my budget, I decided to choose a Toyota Avanza as my new transporter. My friends seems puzzled on why I chose Avanza as they told me an Avanza is an old man’s car. Well I couldn’t agree with the statement as Avanza has more curved design, an Unser could well be an old man’s car, but Avanza is designed for young couples.

Unser 'The Old Box'

I’m really satisfied with my Avanza for various reasons, first it is a Toyota with less problems, saves petrol because it is a 1.3 VVTI engine, it could easily go through ponds of water on roads [which occasionally happens after downpour], unbelievable pickup [to my surprise], more room for luggage, the list goes on.

Avanza

One of the drawbacks my new transporter is the behavior on highways, reaching the 110 km/h speed has set the RPM to 3600 which is high as I usually get a reading of not more than 3000 rpm at 110km/h on my previous Perdana. And the engine sound seems to be more louder than my Perdana at that speed. But hey, I don’t mind because I could always put a sound insulator to reduce the engine sound barking. As for the speed – RPM thing, I seldom drive my Perdana more than 110km/h, so I don’t mind. I’ve driven my new transporter back to Perak dan Johor and I do not have any trouble speeding up to 130 km/h, but it sucks fuel .

So thumbs up to my new transporter. Oh.. it cost ,me RM 645 per month with a downpayment of RM 6400 . Cheers