5 minutes and never a title

I've been surfing for hours now looking on how should I lay out my living room in my "future" living place.

I've found some great websites while I was at it; mainly these two:-
i)http://howshouse.com/
ii)http://www.instructables.com/

The first is about home decor basically, telling about the neatest furnish he could find out there and sharing along his design ideas in his newly bought house.

The latter is more on DIY stuff. Now this is something I can keep coming back to..might take up some projects there every now and then (grin...)

Anyways, here is a pic of cool concept of a cabinet I found called the StairCase



Damn neat I'd say. I always thought that the space up above should be better utilized to make more room down below.


But back to the living room. Right now I'm thinking of having mine like this. But of course, not exactly like that. It's not gonna be that japanized - we can't afford lavish spending quite yet. But the concept is there..a square-ish table with pillows (I'm gonna get a whole lot of them...) and a dinner table (which I'll get from my sis later).

I don't know why they'd be bothered to comment about us in Malaysia when they have their own shit right in their own backyard. But maybe I shouldn't take this personally - I mean everyone's a critic right?

My uncle (the son of my atuk busu), which was posted in Libya as a diplomat - has passed away last Thursday due to a car accident. 

Last Thursday us Comptelian went down to Bangi and had ourselves quite a feast. Berbuka puasa to be exact. It was quite nice actually to be able to break fast with all of them. There were me, Theenesh, Luqman, Shahril, John, Razali, Ida, Kari and the man of the hour - Rossi.

It was a break fast cum farewell party kinda thing. Rossi is gonna be leaving (already left by the time tis piece is written) Comptel to pursue his dream at IBM. Big company I'd say. Do I envy him? Perhaps. But I surely don't envy what he's doing. I'm not the sales-guy type if you catch my drift (in other words my communication skills sucks).

But anywho all the best to the guy. Everyone has a dream to pursue, a living to make, a hope to realize. Mine? I'm not sure...but I'm sure as hell won't be leaving Comptel anytime soon thats for sure.

I would post a few pics from the event if I had any; which I don't right now (obviously). Guess I'll be updating this post later on.

There goes one of my teh tarik crew...

I guess it has been quite awhile since I updated my blog space. During those time a couple of interesting stuff happened in my life.

My graduation is among them.


Frankly speaking I couldn't care less about the degree prior to the convocation. I mean, I've already secured a job - what could that piece of paper get me anyhow? We all know that experience matters more than that paper.

But as I came that Friday for my convocation rehearsal - and saw those familiar faces of friends; I'm just glad there's a thing called "convocation". At least on that day, I got to meet back my friends from back in the day and play catch up with them.

I drank too much of teh tarik on that day thats for sure... Later that night we all went and had a 'makan besar' at one of the nearby seafood restaurant. The bill amounted close to RM100. There was six of us. But only two were paying. Me and Pedot.. since we had more 'rezeki' compared to the rest I guess. I certainly didn't mind it at all. It's not everyday we can eat up together like that - and well I guess I kinda agree with the saying; good things are meant to be shared.

In other news, my not so little brother has gone up to the US of A. He's in Purdue now... hopefully making good use of that noggin of his. I admit that the house now seems quieter than usual (obviously). Abah now has a new routine whenever he's home for the night - ym-ing with Din whenever he got back from work. Times have changed he said. Back then he used aerogram to write home to kampung - which would take around 2 weeks to..not fro. Now, with ym..he could easily see his beloved son all the way from across the globe. I guess he must be glad. I am too. :)

The pics below are from his majlis doa selamat which took place a week or so before his flight to the US. Kinda like a 'hari raya' photo don't you think..hehe~

Idin, Nadya, Amat, and Yours Truly

And I haven't mentioned this!! I'm engaged!! Wahaha..demmit I've been too busy I guess I forgot to even write this down in my blog!

Our Cake

Anyways last month on the 12th of July, I got myself engaged with the gal of my dreams; Amatullah. The majlis itself was pretty simple - more like meet up of my family and hers. There's no makan-makan and all that. I was not there during the meet up - but I think things went pretty well. Hopefully we'll be married next year.

For now though - kumpul duit la beb~

I've done a lil' research as of late on whether I should take some personal loan to add to ASB savings.

The result was quite interesting.

For my case, I had about 20k in ASB savings prior to the loan.

If I take a Rm30k loan with 15 years to pay it with RM250 monthly, I'd end up paying the bank in total of RM15k in interest.

After 15 years of that, I'd end up having RM173,693. Minus the RM15k paid to the bank, the true amount I have is actually RM158,693. Retrospectively, if I'd gone the conventional way, I'd have RM162,957 in savings - and thats the total amount. That means I actually lose out some RM4k because I'd have to pay the bank.

But if you stretch that a little further, let say another 5 years, then you'll see the numbers kinda evens up on both side (conventional and loan).

Stretching another 5 years, I begin to see an increase in return from the loan side - in which the difference between the loan and the conventional method amounts to RM10k.

This effect is perhaps due to the fact that in ASB the bonus is counted using a 10 year formula, so your investment history really can make a difference.

So in the long run - taking a loan to use as capital for ASB investment is actually rewarding. By long I mean real long..like 25 years kinda long (in the example the period of loan payment is 15 years, the period to actually break even is ~20 years. )

I've decided to start a posting today to jot down every weird thing that I did after I've been at it (coding) for some serious amount of time. So every now and then this blog will be updated on the weird stuff I did that day.

Let me start off with what just happened to me just now..

1. I decided to take a slight break from coding and go watch some videos. After awhile though, I find it rather a bore and decided to shut the window down. Guess what I did. My fingers instinctively went and typed ":q", as in the quit command in the vi editor. And it didn't stop there actually. At first I was like "Why the hell wouldn't this damn thing shut off..". And then I realize - I'm not in UNIX!!! Took me like 2-3 minutes to realize that fact.

Zimbabweans are billionaire. And they're gonna get to be a-gazillionaire too, if their inflation keeps on going like the way it is now.

I've been following this news for a couple of weeks now on BBC. For the record, Europe's inflation is like on 4% and Malaysia our very own is at 7%.

Zimbabweans rates meanwhile is like 2 million %.

It'll take like a couple of hundred billion just to buy bread over there.

Imagine the zeroes on that.

Britain and Ireland have the highest average incomes in Europe but come bottom in terms of quality of life, while Spain and France are at the top of the index, according to a study published Wednesday.

Britons have to pay sky high prices for fuel, food and other essentials, while having among the shortest holidays, latest retirement age and lowest life expectancy, according to the survey of 10 European countries.

Ireland, which like Britain has seen a huge market-driven economic boom over the last decade, is even worse than its bigger neighbour, coming in last in the European Quality of Life Index by U-Switch, a British service comparison website.

"We may earn substantially more than our European neighbours but when it comes to quality of life we remain the sick man of Europe," said Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com.

"Soaring food prices and inflation, not to mention high property costs, are placing the biggest squeeze on disposable incomes in well over a decade," she added, noting also below-average investment in health and education services.

The study assessed 19 factors affecting quality of life, ranging from income and working conditions to healthcare, education and cost of living.

Britons have an average net income of more than 35,000 pounds (70,000 dollars, 44,000 euros) a year, about 10,000 pounds more than the European average, while Ireland comes second on more than 29,000 pounds.

But they pay between six to 18 percent more for fuel and 49 percent more for gas, not to mention spectacularly high housing costs. Ireland's gas bills are more than twice the European average.

At work Ireland comes worst in terms of retirement age, with an average of 64.1 years, followed by Britain on 63.2 years, while life expectancy is 78.1 years and 78.9 years respectively, the lowest barring Italy.

At the other end of the scale, Spaniards have the lowest average income, at some 16,800 pounds, but low taxation and cheaper essential goods prices put them at the top of the overall quality of life indicator.

France comes second, notably benefiting from the longest holidays in Europe at 40 days and the second-lowest retirement age at 58.9 years, just later than Poles who retire at 58.4 years old on average.

The findings come as Britain and Ireland face a sharp economic slowdown fuelled by the global credit crunch, which is also threatening other European countries although they have enjoyed less of a boom in recent years. - BBCNews Online.

Life.

My life is made up of many distractions. I guess distractions is too negative a word, but I'm just calling it like I see it.

And I don't even see it as a "bad" or "negative" thing in a sense. At times I would call it as just "living" my life.

There was this one period of time in my life where I am void of these so called "distractions". Back then, I felt like life was so damn boring. I mean all I did back then are just series of repetitions; get up, got to work, go to lunch, drive back, sleep, get up..etc. That is; until I got some actual work to do from my boss. I guess in a way I am a workaholic type of person, always looking forward to the next sets of challenge life (or work) can throw at me.

That, referring to my job - was my sets of distractions during the day. And at night, I usually am "distracted" by my sayang. I guess all in all them distractions help me forget how slow and boring life can be sometimes and spice it up some here and there.

Going to the movies, playing them computer games, reading the next title from Tom Clancy; you may call it what you want - but to me they're all just distractions. A distraction we all need to get through the journey called life.

Just read the news today. It seems the inflation rate in Euro has risen up to 4% from their previous 3.7%. Read more here.

4% huh? Ain't a little bit more or less the same as Malaysia's rate?

"The grass is always greener on the other side" my ass. Hehehe~ Malaysia Boleh-lah!!

News Flash! A guy I knew during my time at Uniten has just been sodomized - or at least thats what he claimed lah.

And I was like, what the fuck! Is this for real? I mean I know the guy did have some issues back at Uniten (you can read up on him in his " nemesis' " blog, riwayathayat.blogspot.com) and all, and after that he seems to be heading into the Malaysian political scene. Didn't keep my tabs on him after that (during my times in Uniten - the write up in riwayathayat was kinda entertaining so I kinda was following it at times - you can imagine how bored I was back then...).

Anywho - boy was I shell-shocked to find out that he became the latest victim in another "Anwar Gone Wild" episode. Babi pun tak giler macam ni.

Some people are saying he was planted in PKR by BN, prior to the General Election last March. I guess if that was true then kudos to him - being able to get to the 'aide' department in just a short period of time.

Is it a BN conspiracy? Reasoning would suggest that this would provide our deputy PM with the perfect diversion over RPK latest allegations against him. And so far I can see that it's working - with the media having no mention of RPK in recent times.

Or can it be a PKR conspiracy? In another perspective (if I were a BN guy), I could say that Anwar told Saiful to lodge that report purposely so that he (Anwar) can gain the support of the rakyat and bring on his momentum to become the next premier of the country. Now THAT, is what I call a great Hollywood script.

Alas, at the end of the day - one can only wonder what really happened...

Rule No 1.

Find a girl - check.

Rule No 2.

Get a ring - check.

....


Thats right fellas - today, on the 28th of June 2008, I have bought a ring to give to my lady for our engagement. Hopefully things work out alright ya? Insyaallah.

Today I've had the opportunity to see the movie WANTED. I had to admit, I was actually expecting a lot from the movie - after the seeing the cool trailer and all that, and fortunately for me - it truly delivers.

You see, I've been waiting to see the movie for 5 days (I booked the ticket on Monday). Not to mention I got no significant job to do this week at the office so that in itself kinda puts you in a "I can't wait for Saturday" mood to sink in.

At the end of the movie - I felt satisfied. The same feeling I get after watching "300" and "V for Vendetta". It was truly value for money in my book. Or perhaps I'm just a sucker for a neat FX and a good plot.

Whatever it is, you can bet I'll be looking forward to the next installment of WANTED should there be any.

Kudos to the director Timur Bekmambetov for once again having to come out with a great sci-fi flick. After watching his earlier movies - "Night Watch" and "Day Watch", I came to like his style of directing, much like how I enjoy watching movies from Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is famously known for fun plot and witty dialogues. Timur is of a different kind - but I enjoy his movies nonetheless.

A bit pity though that "Dusk Watch" won't be coming anytime soon. I kinda hope that it won't be Americanized per say...cause I kinda enjoy the original two, so a russian ending would be perfect for it. Nonetheless, here a bit of news on the last of the trilogy. Click Me!

The news today seems to read oil prices is gonna come down pretty soon. Well I hope so. I've just read an article on NGV just now on the NST - apparently a full tank gas price of a 1.6L Chevy is just RM9. Yep, you read right - that's RM9. Geez. And I'm driving a Kelisa and paying like 7 times that amount for a full tank.

Lets do a simple math here.

9 (per week) X 4 (weeks per month) = RM36.

70 (per week) x 4 (weeks per month) = RM 280.

What a difference that is. A conversion to NGV would cost around RM 3500 or so. Savings from the conversion per month would be RM280 - RM 36, which would be around RM 240. Now for me to get back that RM 3500 would take me about 3500/240 which would be 14 months or so. But then my car is not of a 1.6L type, so I think probably within a year or so lah.

Now that's an idea worth considering.

Oil prices are going down, or so says the article I read at Yahoo.com. Oil price have been steadily climbing and at times I think the oil companies are enjoying every minute of it and making sure that it's gonna stay that way. The other day there was a strike at Shell Nigeria - can't remember the details but the plant had to be closed down. So you know la what happen if an oil plant goes down - supply would decline, thus prices would go up. Now I'm not saying that is the sole reason why the oil price worldwide is rising, but probably more or less it's one of the triggers.

Anywho, the strike eventually came to an end. But then a few days after I think, some bugger decide to attack the rigs. Is there a connection? I dunno, but somehow I smell something fishy is going on there, as if Shell is deliberately hiring someone to attack it's rigs. But then again - that's just an unproven theory.

In other news, CERN is gonna conduct the world's biggest particle physics experiment - perhaps conjuring up a mini black-hole along the way. Reports have been given that the new black hole would not - and I repeat WOULD NOT suck our beloved planet Earth into it. You can about it more here. You know at first the news itself is like weird joke..you know..Earth getting sucked into a black hole. But then I'm not much of a particle physicist. So who knows? Is there really any probability of a black hole sucking the planet?? I mean..wow. Talk about science fiction. Maybe I should read up on this..maybe I should.

Yesterday I went to UNITEN..or more specifically YTN - to tie things up with them in regard to my scholarship, aka "melaporkan diri".

I even applied for a half-day leave the day before that - semangat giler! :P

I reached UNITEN at about 8 am. After about 30 minutes or so waiting/discussing with the fella, I am told that I can pay 20% of the total amount - and that would be about around RM 17k lah. Not bad. 5 years of learning and hardship - and I was like earning RM 66k for all those years. Not bad at all.

Alhamdulillah.

And even better they didn't even mention that I have to work at TNB - which by the way, is not a bad way to make a living. It's just a matter of interest - and I chose not to work there because of it.

So it was then like 8:45am..and my office hour starts at 9am. And I applied for a half-day leave. So I thought to myself, just what the heck am I gonna do now? Go to Kajang and get them fuel rebates? Heck no. Don't wanna trouble myself and waste more fuel just to look for parking at that place. Gila.

So I called up Elsie, and asked whether or not she can omit my application the day before. She said yeah..you can come... So inside I was like, "yippee~~", although the fact that I don't have any real job to do back then is quite a troubling thought. Hurm. But that is yesterday's story la. Today's a different thing.

Got quite a lot of things to do today. Owh such fun.

As usual today I was driving to work early in the morning, listening to FlyFM. They got this one segment whereby they'd ask the listener to share with them their thoughts on that day's topic. Todays topic was - 'what are you doing when other people are not looking? '.

It was a pretty much interesting topic.

There was this caller though which I thought had the best thing to share. Sonia I think was her name.

"You know sometimes when other people aren't looking, I kinda had to pull a bit my underwear to place it better la - you know..adjust a bit if there's a wedgie and things like that.."

And I was like....that is soo true~ (and laughing hysterically in my car)

Now normally I don't post other people's blog here - usually it's more of quotation of sorts or perhaps some useful thing that I think other might benefit by reading. Today will be an exception I guess. This post is from the Ancient Mariner - one blogger that I like keep tabs on since the recent general election.

Here goes.

Like everyone else, I am still reeling from the double whammy of the rise in fuel prices and yesterday's increase in the electricity tariff. I suppose all hell will now break loose with other increases: price of food, transport fares, crime rates etc.

This old sea dog who served many years for God, king and country and trying to survive on a pittance is now sufficiently pissed off to want to go shoot somebody.

And they wants us to 'change our lifestyles". Have they ever stopped to think what will happen if many people leave their vehicles at home and go to work in trains and buses today?

To those of you who voted in this government: Go Eat Shit and Die.

I just found out that for people in Venezuela only pay like RM0.16 per liter of fuel. (Wan Norazizah interview in MalaysiaKini ). Guess this is what the Singaporean must be feeling like right now towards us Malaysians back then (and perhaps still right now...till August I guess.)

So for now, me,..the young working 'adult'..will be driving to and fro with my car air-cond turned off in an effort to save my hard earned cash. Sigh~.

p/s: Now Mika (that's my boss btw) if you're reading this, Comptel ought to give travel allowances to their staff from now on! Hehehe~ :P

Learning should be fun.

And so it actually is. I found this quote tucked neatly into one of the manuals that I got during training.

The Action cannot be completed because Unknown is busy.
-- Microsoft Word 97 Error Message

Now 'that' is a quote you don't get to see everyday.