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| My breakfast mates are missing |
| 01.30.05 (7:03 pm) |
As we all know Malaysians have 5 meals a day.
Yup, we have breakfast or brunch or late breakfast, lunch proper, tea-break, dinner and supper.
The late breakfast and tea-break is a habit Malaysians pick up from their school days. School in Malaysia have morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session has its rest-break at 10.00 am and the afternoon session at 4.30 pm. This has conditioned the bodies of every school-leaving citizen to get hungry at about those times everyday. Hence, why we have breaks in the morning and afternoon. If you want to do business in Malaysia be aware of these times. You may find that everyone is missing from their posts.
This morning I am missing my breakfast kakis - literally meaning feet but akin to "running-mates". Noone seems to be around. Maybe its because today is a monday (we all know what mondays do to us) or is it because people have gotten out of the habit of morning breaks? Probably I am in the dark from a directive from the PM that states no morning breaks?
Whatever it is, I'm hungry. Will probably scout them out for lunch.
Why the fuss with breakfast kakis? Eating is as important to Malaysians as breathing. Why bother wondering whether we live to eat or eat to live? Just eat and breath le, less headache.
Eating together is an Asian thingy not exclusive to Malaysian life. We eat together all the time. At work, at home and even when hanging out. It incorporates a sense of belonging, a sense that you are not alone while performing your most basic human activity. A fall back to the time when the survival of the human race was in their ability to live together.
Sharing of food when having meals together normally reflects how close-knit the group is. The closer they are, the more evident the sharing will be. Footing the bill for the meal is common among Asians especially as a symbol of ones status in the group. Among businessmen it is a show of who has the most money.
In most cases when older folks are in attendance, the younger ones will foot the bill. Working young-adults are required to foot the meal when parents are in attendance. Violate this and you might turn to stone.
Nuts, its time to scout out my lunch kakis.
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| Vote spam |
| 01.30.05 (1:26 am) |
This must be a first. Check out the comment for this posting.
Yup, spam me with porn, spam me with viagra adverts, spam me with the latest weight lost program or on how I can make more money by selling paper-cut dolls but spamming me in order that I vote for you?
That takes the cake. I won't vote. People should vote base on merit and whether the blog is worth reading or not.
Obviously, you have not heard of Malaysia. In Malaysia we vote the political party rather then the person. Yup, put up a rubber chicken and it will still win the popular vote. Its simple and a non-thinking process. Makes governing the country easy and straight forward. Heck, the same government has been around since independance. No, we are not a one party country, the opposition did win some seats in the election and they do have they're say. Just that this one party keeps winning.
On the other hand, the US system their presidential election is both complicated and down-right un-comprehensable. You may win the popular vote (most votes) but you may loose the electoral vote (by winning states). Two sets of numbers, double headache. Partly because Americans love statistics. They love numbers and totally dig playing around with numbers. Election day is a numbers game.
Iraq's election is at a close today. Its great to see democracy practiced again in Iraq. Now, would the Americans leave Iraq? Let's wait and see.
It's interesting to note that Iraq was partly founded by a westerner (a guy from Wales) - think Lawrence of Arabia. He lead the Arabs towards their goal of an independant state, which we now call Iraq.
I hope Malaysians would not forget where they came from. That we too came from a revolt. A revolt from years of being underneath another power. Neither should we hate these powers since without them we would not be. Its a funny situation where we were form from a state of oppression and exploitation. Born out of the fires of a dominating force.
So would I vote for this website? Nope.
Why? Its not worth it. Besides the guy complains about school uniforms. Dude, we had school uniforms since independance and nobody complained.
By wearing school uniforms do the rich and poor look the same. Where we become friends not because of what we wear or how cool our sneakers look but rather on our personalities and character. Now thats worth voting for.
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| Turbo charge cement truck |
| 01.28.05 (3:28 pm) |
Shoutout: zainframe
Yo zainframe, great to hear from you. Yup, normal Malaysian made 16" rims will turn any car into a cement truck but life get rosier when those rims are K-Speed rims. Imported light weight,alloy k-car rims from Taiwan - yes, I got them at a discount and the Japan ones are soooooo expensive. Couple those rims with some Yokohamas from the Philipines...life just got slightly faster.
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| Driving the Avanza |
| 01.26.05 (5:49 pm) |
It arrive yesterday evening.
I'm proudly driving my wifey's blue Avanza. It's nice to drive, a little under-powered but I'm not going to race it and real spacious. Just a while ago I managed to fit in four slightly big size fellas into the car and it drove well. Toyota has a winner with this car.
I have had to revise my mod list for this car because I found out that the tyres I intend to fit in may not be suitable. I'm still sticking to 16" but will have to go for thicker 55 series tyres rather then my current 45 series.
My plan today is to get it tinted and have the air press installed. I will not touch the sound system (yet) since it is sufficient. It came with a cd player and four speakers. Heavy on the bass and treble with no mid range or tweaters. I also realized that there is not room to fit in a sub-woofer, unless you can hang it from the roof.
I'm currently looking at what the Indonesians have been able to do to this car. The Avanza was launched there sometime in late 2003 and the styling scene is much more matured then in Malaysia. Some Avanza have sacrifice the third seat row to fit in speakers and sub-woofers, pretty rad rides but definately not for the family.
I've also come across a forum made up of Avanza owners from my side of Malaysia. The mod discussions seem to center on the performance of the engine rather then the styling of the car. Tweaking the engine to give you more power and millage is the order of the day.
Unlike Indonesia which focus more on styling (exterior + audio systems).
The different interest in modifying cars is probably because Malaysian drivers are more concious of escalating fuel prices, which in my opinion may go up again this year. If you can't effort fuel there is no point in having a rad ride. How to impress the crowd when you can't get from point A to point B?
As for now, wifey's constant reminder (nagging) of "do not mod the engine" is still ringing fresh in my ear. So rather then face the wrath of the gods, i'll go along the line of the Indonesians and just focus on styling.
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| Hooray for the free stuff. |
| 01.25.05 (6:49 pm) |
I'm a stinker for anything free.
Free t-shirts, food, movies, music, money...
Firefox has hit 20 million ++ downloads since November 2004. Hurray, the users are taking back the web from Mangosoft. Why pay when you can use a free browser thats better then IE? Switch, switch, switch!
My buddy spoonfork has the breakdown on the number of users to his site who use Firefox. Yup, Firefox is catching up.
So what are you waiting for? Support the revolution and save humanity from Mangosoft. Download Firefox.
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| Malaysian Property Bargain Buying |
| 01.24.05 (4:10 pm) |
I admit it, Malaysians are bargain gurus.
We buy discounted-wares and still ask for a discount. We see stuff on sale and still ask for additional cuts on the discounted price...and we get away with it. Thats why nowadays, Petaling Street is such a dangerous place to go for bargains. There was a time when you could walk away from a seller after haggling the price, today they'll tackle you to the ground and demand that you pay what you've asked for even if you don't want to purchase it.
We are a buy-low, expect-big customer market. Lights go up when there is a bargain in the offing...you get the picture.
Lights did go off for me last night when I got wind of a hotel for sale (RM8 million), 100+ hectar land for sale (RM31 million), an apartment and a small house. Enough light went off, you'd think I was a christmas tree.
To me the only bargains that really matter are properties on a discount. Yup, property like houses or buildings that are probably haunted, had murders committed in them, located in bad luck areas or prone to being coverted into a boat house once a year.
If you want be a millionaire by the time you're 40 then get into property investment big time. Buy into areas that are up and coming. How to identify areas that up and coming?
Dude, buy whatever the politicians are buying. They probably know something that we don't and they'll get into it first before telling their parents about it. Especially if the politician is on the city planning council, local area rep or in the land ministry.
Well, I drop the idea of the hotel and the land - nope I'll pass that to some other people and claim the commission. The apartment and house interest me more. My mini project for the next few months, its fun and it make wifey happy. Heck, its more fun then putting money into the stock market.
Talking of the stock market, if you have money stored away dying of inflation, buy in now. The Malaysian market is heading down, share prices are closing low and are more affordable. Buy-low and hold it till the market rebounds probably in the middle of this year.
Happy birthday (25th January 2005), wifey! Love you!
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| Apple's mini dream machine |
| 01.23.05 (12:55 am) |
Apple is going mini.
Yup, they have release two items that I am putting on my wish-list (besides raking in a million ringgit) for this year. The iPod Shuffle and the Mac Mini.
The Mac Mini interest me more, due to it's size, it can be configured to do a lot of things. You can plug it into a monitor in the kitchen and play cooking DVDs, plug it into speakers and you'll have a top-grade sound system, surf the net on you 29" flat screen TV, MP3 player for your car, etc,etc.
Costing $499, which translate to RM2,000, it on the high side but you'll get all the blessings of Apple craftmanship. Plus, its so much cooler looking then a normal tower pc, not to mention so much easier to lug around in a bag at 2.9 pounds. You'll be rearranging your pc every day with this baby.
My life is boring compared to...
He's a sponge, lives in the ocean, has his own tv show, adored by millions of kids and he's GAY!.
Yup, SpongeBob gay? My life is totally scum-at-the-bottom of the barrel compared to a cartoon sponge accused of being gay. In a world of war and poverty, we have people spending their money and time trying to prove or dis-prove a cartoon character sexual directions.
Common, he a cartoon, sang a rather mild song and he gets accused of warping our children's minds.
Nuts, don't watch SpongeBob or you'll be gay.
Hm...why don't you just band Gensomaden Saiyuki - it's 4 guys on a road trip. They all share the same room, ride the same jeep and talk crap - must be gay.
4 guys on road trip = gay-demon-killing dudes.
Before you know it jack and jill were actually gay lovers who fell down the hill.
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| The customer owns the diner. |
| 01.22.05 (9:21 pm) |
Only in Malaysia do we re-arrange the diner.
While at lunch today, something struck me much like when wifey points out the fact I love to buy wallets. Diners are at the mercy of self proclaim deco-artists. Yup, we move tables, chairs and whatever thats in the way to make room for our eating habits. If your group is larger then 4 persons you are allowed to move another table to accomodate the 5th person. A whole table, even if the poor soul is the only one sitting at it. Chairs move along with the table much like con-joined twins. And re-setting them back to their original positions is the job of the waiters.
At eating stalls (hawkers le) we have the added chaos of taking orders. Along with the moving of tables, chairs and orphan babies, we have the occasional blur person trying to decide what to order. They sit, look into thin air and just cannot decide what to order. All this and the poor waiter is standing there waiting.
Yes, eating in Malaysia is an interesting affair. We are masters of organised chaos.
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| Because I can |
| 01.21.05 (10:55 pm) |
:D I'm bored and because I'm paying for this line....
[image]objectzero_6815656 49.jpg[/image]
Ryan sleeping
I'm helping a friend get popular online so run over to dryspin's blog. Nop, I will not be paid but at least I can try claiming free lunch from her for the next few months. Or maybe I'll charge royalty, 2 cents per referral.
I'm getting my new car, Toyota Avanza, next week. With constant reminders of "do not modify the engine" from wifey ringing in my ear, I'm already contemplating the upgrades I'll do.
My upgrade list goes like this:
Approved by wifey
1. Sun Cool green tint.
2. Oversize air-press (you put these over the windows)
3. 16 inch rims + 2 Yokohama and 2 Bridgestones tyres.(swipe this off my previous honda)
4. Semi-bucket, orange coloured, padded, racing baby-seat for Ryan. (dude gets all the good stuff)
Seeking approval from wifey
5. 4 way SONY Xplode amp.
6. 2 Mohawk Component sets - 4 two way speakers, 4 tweaters, 4 crossovers
7. Small tube subwoofer - yes, something in the region of 10 inches.
Dreams + need donations
8. hm...sun-roof?
9. leatherized interiors
10. lcd screen
Now, if everythings goes well; this will be one cool 7 seater.
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| Broadband woes |
| 01.21.05 (8:19 pm) |
:D My broadband at home is now fixed...on my own time and cost.
Such is Malaysia's only broadband company. I returned my modem to be replaced after it got shorted out by lightning. I was told that they have run out of modems and are currently waiting for a shipment to arrive...when? No idea.
I also got wind that this company has changed modem provider. The modem they supplied was cheapo (both in appearance and cost) but the new modem is even more el-cheapo. It's cheaper then the old one they supplied to me.
In order to maximise profits they are willing to cut down on quality by supplying sub-standard cheapo modems. This in turn throws a dirty ball at the customer,who pays good money but gets bad service.
Rather then using sub-standard stuff for my iMac, I bought a router-modem which cost me RM190. Avoiding lightning strikes and over-usage, this modem would probably last me till Ryan turns 10.
The funny thing is no-one has any experience configuring this router-modem for an iMac not even the broadband-company engineers. So I'm proud to say after some minor tweaking of the Network Settings in Mac OS X, I've got it running. Now, should I sell this knowledge to the broadband-company?
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| Malaysian Share Market Blues |
| 01.18.05 (11:02 pm) |
The Malaysian share market is like a yoyo.
While the yoyo is making a comeback in recent months, it is closely mirrored by the Malaysian share market. Share prices fluctuate each day much like a yoyo. For the past few days losers have outnumbered gainers by a factor of 2. While small fish investors (your truly included) are sweating it out.
Two weeks into my foray into the share market and I've still behind by Rm50 ++ in order to break-even. I bought heavily into a low-budget airline, jewellery manufacturer, gas company, slot-machine maker and a steel mill. Overall the jewellery manufacturer has given me a return of over RM130++ but the rest are in the red.
My mistake was to buy them on the day Malaysia's stock exchange's index was at its highest. The day after it broke that level, the index dropped and it's been dropping since. This means that I bought the above shares at a time when they all were at their highest for this year. Which translates to me losing money. NUTS!
Donald Trump wannabe
I've been following closely The Apprentice. Yup, I've been sucked into the reality-tv whirlpool and I'm destined for a life of pure fantasy and fallacy. You've got to admit the fact that the show is fun and educational. In order to win you must be smart, ruthless and money-smart. Plus, you don't have to have big breast or chest hair to impress the judges. All you've got to do is make more money then the other team.
Donold Trump being who he is, is going to milk this show for all its worth. I've noticed how companies are now jumping over each other to place their products in the show. They too see the potential of aligning themselves with the Trump money-machine.
In Malaysia we do have such successful business-men but here you've got to align yourself with the politicians in order to get your trump-card. Malaysia is all about who you know rather then what you know. You can be the greatest jack-ass in school but if you align yourself with mega-powerfull politicians, chances are you'll be richer then you can imagine. Still you don't really need big boobs and chest hair to achieve those things.
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| Linux on my lap |
| 01.17.05 (8:24 pm) |
It's alive!
I've successfully installed linux on my notebook. It was not smooth-sailing when I had to spend the whole weekend trying to get the GUI to load. Apparently my graphic card driver (SIS) does not support linux as well as it should. Instead I had to download another version of the graphic driver from a third party programmer and overwrite the one bundled with the Mandrake installation cd. This I only found out yesterday.
Now I have a close as possible alternative to an Apple notebook for about a third the price. Its slow since I've got only 128MB of ram ,which I plan to upgrade to 256MB by next week, and runs on a processor created by a company formerly known as Cyrix. The whole system cost me a little over RM2,000.
The notebook is cloned and does not come with a battery and is actually (technically) known as a desk-note. It's parts (I'm told) are real size PC parts which are crammed into a shell the size of a notebook.
My only complaint is heat. If you plan to tan your thighs then look no further - get a desknote. Cyrix were known for producing cheap (cheaper than AMD) but fire-breathing processors. Tip: synthetic pants and desknotes do not go together.
My Malaysian day
Entering the office today was a shock. Not only was I late (my car-pool buddy woke up late) but a certain office mate has now claimed extra equipment to put on her desk. Company policy dictates 1 employee 1 pc. On a good day I may have two. 1 is my company issued machine and the other my own sweat-purchased machine.
She now has 2 company issued machines. It has cause quite a stir among the other office mates. Not only because of the fact she wants to control 2 machines but also because she doesn't know how to use the extra machine - an Apple G4. Why is it sitting on her desk? Paper-weight, I guess. Heck, she can't even use a PC properly...
Don't you just love office-zoo-like behaviour. You see this behaviour among chimps or monkeys. Lesser apes (monkeys and chimps) at times try to stuff as much food into their mouths for the sake of having more than the other ape. We want to show the world our dominant standing by the amount of stuff we have around us or in our mouths.
If only she ask herself, why on earth do we have extra stuff when in actual fact is only increases her workload?
One, she will have to maintain the Apple G4 ... well at least use it. Two, she will now have to fend off the eire of the other office-mates and three, she may have to explain her actions to the company - she's too dumb to realize she broke a company policy.
We did not evolve from monkeys but we sure act like them.
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| Linux jazz |
| 01.12.05 (8:22 pm) |
I´m now at a Linux workshop.
I´m hell-bent on installing Linux on my note-book, once I get my note-book hard-disk replaced.
I cannot afford an iBook (yet) so I´ll settle for a Linux box with all the feel of an iBook. I must mention that the Apple OS is in fact a cousin of the Linux platform. Apple made a great move by shifting their operating platform to FreeBSD which is similar to Linux since they both share a common ancester, UNIX.
The past week has seen me venture into online investment. Yup, bought some Malaysian shares and spent restless nights thinking about dollars and cents. On my entry into the share-market,Bursa Malaysia, the market hits its highest level for this year but came down the very next day. I also had the mis-fortune of selling some shares (which I bought by mistake) the day before they hit the stratosphere. I can only wonder how much I could have gain if I had waited for one more day.
My photography has taken a back seat for the time being while I settle my finances and duties at work but I´m hoping to make some trips outside of Malaysia this year. Among places that I hope to visit are Bali which right now is quite affordable.
Peace.
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