5 minutes and never a title

Home loans.

Last night me and buddies talked about managing our wealth. Basically it revolves around how all of us can get rich.

Money makes the world go round they say.

My friend Symofz has recently got enlightened with the idea of financial freedom. I came across that word like 5 years ago. But I guess sooner or later we all would be thinking about that. As you get older, you responsibility will be higher. Got people to take care of, things to buy.

One of them is a house. Or many houses should you fancy that. But people don't have those ridiculous amount of cash when they got out of their university. Nope - they can only depend on whatever meagre salary they can get from their first job.

So people like that who wants to buy a house (like yours truly) resort to borrowing money from the bank.

I've read some articles..got into forums, trying to understand the nature of the subject matter.

Conventional loan VS Islamic loan. Which is better? Can Islamic-based loan still be as competitive or better than the conventional types? These are the question that dwells deep in my mind as of late.

Of all the websites I've been through - this one in particular deserves a mention in my blog. It provides a wealth of information and a good place to cross reference most if not all the home loan packages that currently available in the market right now. A great site for a newbie like me.

I guess this is my first time blogging about a donut.

It's THAT good.

Hahaha. I mean, I don't know about you guys. You might say I'm a bit exaggerating or what not, but erm..yeah I am aren't I. But it's nice to be able to eat a different kind of donut from the ones you usually get at Dunkin Donuts.

I just had a 'Moonraker'. This type of donut has a chocolate topping with sizzles of cocoa pops on top. Crunchy and yummy at the same time. I'd show it to ya if I hadn't ate it already.

The biggest difference that I can spot between 'it' and the donut from Dunkin Donut is the size. Big Apple donuts are quite small. I mean they aren't that thick and can be quickly munched. Due to it's rather small size, you tend to get better taste of the various toppings that is offered - or in my case the chocolate coated cocoa pops.

Maybe it's the 'in' thing right now. Everybody seems to queue up at Big Apple Donut these days.

Oh did I mention that the donut was given to me by my fiancee?

Hehe..you gotta love them freebies :)

Today I went to my uncle's house..or to be technically correct - my extended grandfather's place. He's the brother of my grandma, and he's Chinese.

Happy Chinese New Year to him and his family.

It's nice to able to visit the other side of the family, the side which gave me some Chinese-features to those who've noticed. Recently he's been diagnosed with 'Dengue' fever. Lost some 20kg because of that. Whoa..

His lawn of bonsai's is perhaps the personification of the man he is; hardworking and patient. I hardly know the guy though, you know when you're young you tend to take these things for granted.

Got some ang pows too...hehe..three days worth of lunch. :)

Later that day my family (which includes my sister's family), went to Chilis for lunch. Frankly I'm not a big fan of the place (for obvious reasons), but since dad deem it fit for us to eat there, so...

Just had a fish and chips. I heard that the burgers there were awesome - but I guess I'm just not comfortable to try it out. In any case, here's a pic of my nephew trying to hit on the girl next door. Go Aqeel go!!

SIFE

Yesterday I was invited to the "annual" SIFE dinner. The theme of the dinner was "Vampire". At first I was like..what the hell am I going to wear for this dinner...then I thought "hey, Edward Cullen didn't wear anything fancy..why should I?". I went there with a baju Melayu instead. Hahaha~

The dinner was held at Country Heights Resorts Sports Club. The houses there were HUGE! Freakingly huge. Each house there had like 5-6 cars in their parking lot. Talk about being filthy rich.

Anyways, I got there quite early it seems (I was like the first guest to arrive...). Disappointed at first. But later when all the guys came it didn't felt that bad after all.

There was a variety of food being served. Fried rice, spaghetti, pasta, chicken wings, sliced beef etc..etc.


Old friends. No matter how you hate and loath some of them in the past, in the end - the bond is still there. I guess that's the beauty of SIFE Uniten. I remember all the ups and downs we had. The tense (very tense) moments, the laughter, the tears. But I guess it all worked out well in the end. As years go by, we all went on with our different ways - but SIFE Uniten brings us back together every now and then. I sure am glad that I was a part of something during my undergrad years. Huda mentioned about my Rumah Nur Salam project. Ahh..those were the days. I surely hope that SIFE Uniten would never abandon that Rumah Nur Salam.

I admit, perhaps I am not that much of an entrepreneur (despite having been the president of the club once). But mingling(is this even the right spelling?) with the lots of them sure make me think that I am/can be one. All-spirited, optimistic, resourceful, opportunistic kind of people. You sure need these type of poeple every now and then.

Ahh, and Puan Kamariah was there. She was like 'there' from day one. The way Juli (rep from Muadzam) mentioned Puan Kamariah in her speech made Pn K sounds like a legend or a myth from the golden days of SIFE. Like for the time in her life she has finally found a 'unicorn'. Haha. Yeah...I guess we all missed her strong presence in SIFE Uniten. It's good that she's back.


Salmonella

Last Thursday me and my fiancee went to Alamanda to have a lil' dinner. I am not gonna go into details on like what we had and such - what I want to write about right now is about Salmonella, the virus.

I am sure most of you guys out there loves/craves munching on those Famous Amos cookies. I admit, I crave for those things too (Hi, my name is Hafidz, and I'm an addict). So anywho, she (my fiancee), offered to buy me them cookies while we were there (Alamanda). So I was like, yay~..and asked her to get me my favourite "premium choice". It so happens that they we'rent selling it then.

I was like..owh..da habis ke. So I picked-lah another kind. And I didn't think anymore about it. Until today.

Malaysia's health ministry Thursday said it was investigating the Famous Amos cookie chain after it withdrew dough from several of its outlets here amid fears that it was contaminated by the salmonella bacterium.

....

"There is only one dough (suspected of being contaminated with salmonella), called premium choice, which we had carried and (which was only) available in limited locations," the company's general manager Jesrina Liew told AFP.

"The batch which they suspected of contamination is still in our inventory and has not been distributed yet. (The premium choice cookies) we have recalled were from an earlier batch of dough and had not been contaminated," she added.

And then I went - "Owh..padanlah..". Yikes.

The world as it is today.

Israel is invading Palestine. Again. Currently the muslims in Gaza are being bombarded by missiles and bomb and what not in order to, as the Israelis call it 'ward off terrorists'.

Now I will not be elaborating over that...I guess I am just tired man who can't stand cliches over more cliches. Palestine has been like that ever since their neighbouring 'Islamic' countries seems to have a knack of turning a blind eye whenever Palestineans got attacked and raped like that. Been going on for years - and maybe for many more years to come. Not to say that I like what I wrote just now, but just be honest - with the current pathetic state of the muslim community, will Palestine ever be free and Isreal be put to justice?

It's like a cruel and sick cycle. You see a peace treaty. Then somehow it got broken. Israel will smash Palestine.

And then comes the part where the world it seems to get excited and have lots of 'rapat umum','tunjuk perasaan', forums, seminars, tv shows, articles, aid deliveries and yadayada. A lot of actions there...but it's not like it all matters anyway. The damage has already been done - and will still be done, since weirdly it seems that Israelites do live outside the boundaries of law and order. They live inside their own code-of-conduct, and the rest of the world can use whatever type of law we see fit just as as long that we don't ever fuck them over.

You can't call them names. You can't touch them. You can't take them to court. That would be blasphemy (sarcasm of course). That would be anti-Semitic.

Later when the Israelis have done like a good amount damage, then it's time to go home. Owh..ade peace treaty rupenye. And all of a sudden you have this peace treaty here and there. How convenient. And owh, it was the US who arranged for the treaty to place. How nice of them to play mediator. Everybody goes back home. The shows over - until the next rocket goes over the border lah. Then the cycle goes again.

In a way, should muslims all over the world unite and defend Palestine, that would be a red alert for the rest of the religions all over the world. Fear for Islamist supremacy will rise, and a World War between religions could develop.

That is some deep and scary shit. Save Palestine? Or save the world?

Below are an excerpt of some crap that I took from the NSTP. I mean what the hell is he trying to achieve here? To express anger, regret and dissappointment? A psychiatrist might be interested in those things. The Israelis? You'd expect 'them' to listen to you?

Politicians are a weird bunch indeed I'd say.

Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said about five million pupils and 360,765 teachers from more than 10,000 schools would be involved.

"This is to create a wave of pressure for the Israelis to stop their violence and oppression of Palestinian civilians."

He said the ministry would be working with the Information, Foreign, and Youth and Sports Ministries, as well as Peace Malaysia, to expand the campaign to a mega scale.

"When we protested against the US invasion in Iraq, we managed to get 200,000 people into Putra Stadium, Bukit Jalil.
"We are confident that youth leaders from political parties, including those in Pakatan Rakyat will join us in this fight against the Zionist regime," he said after his ministry's New Year gathering at Putrajaya International Convention Centre here yesterday.