Picatho's causeries

Walk the mall for exercise

2010-03-16T15:38:00.002+08:00

I think most seniors love Gurney Plaza and Queensbay Mall in Penang, even with its cold air conditioning inside. Maybe it's because nowadays the sun is too shining out at our clime and people are dreading stepping outside. Mall walking, or ambling around a shopping center for exercise, has become an option other than the fitness club.

Mall walking began when the first fully enclosed U.S. mall, the Stockdale, opened in Minnesota in 1956 and local doctors counseled patients recovering from heart attacks to exercise there, away from the snow and ice of Minnesota's harsh winters.

Since I've had given up badminton 2 years ago, exercise to me has become less and irregular. Sometimes it's just hard to summon up the enthusiasm to make it happen, sometimes it's a lost track of time, or perhaps the love of home exercise has faded year by year and gradually letting my treadmill be laid for dust.

So walk the mall or ambling around a shopping center has become my main exercise, and as usual, I went for shopping for exercise at Queensbay day before yesterday with my old partner as well as my youngest granddaughter. I walked tier by tier for several km from the south end to the north end. Not only she, my active two-year-old had given me a chance of non-stop chasing around exercise, her occasional annoying preferences to be carried up with demanding directions had also worked up my old bones.

As I think, by walking the mall and at the same time pointing out the things around her, such as the guard wearing uniform or the shop painted in red color, is grateful!

Political donation not even worth a sen

2010-03-12T12:24:00.002+08:00

I was recently introduced into Facebook by friends for networking and friendship purposes. Naturally first and foremost the friends finding is a very encouraging thing to do.

Luckily I'm befriended in this circle and most of my invitations were courteously welcome excepted there is one political figure in Penang, a blogger who then turned MP, had given me a cold shoulder. Doesn't he know that I'm not going to rub shoulders with him but merely to hear his political views of which I've had admired to long ago. That's why I contributed few sums as a political donation to him during the 308.

Now it seems that my donation is not even worth a single sen. I do acknowledged my friends' saying that all political people are (my notation: not all) non fuck-able!

Sixty's wisdom

2010-03-09T23:02:00.009+08:00

Venue: Penang Corner Club
Highlight: Periodic number-check on some of the Chung Ling (Pri) High School 1970's old boys.

Sixth is a significant number to this group of my friends who have known each other since our secondary school. Some of them are already 60, or will be 60 next year. We are no doubt be categorized into "one could pass away any time within another 10 years" category, and unique concerns regarding health & retirement loom in our horizon.

We met together cheerfully on the last Sunday just to show our respective "LP" faces, to twitter on about health and most importantly to exchange greetings. I boosted that now we basically need more shakes of cock for the last drop of urine when doing a piss. Experiences have shown that how you "use" you "brother" in mid-life does contribute to your health status when you are older.

Nevertheless, though wrinkles were significant not only on our faces but certain part of our bodies, yet we all looked positive while associating. This includes our common instinct that we still can't keep our eyes off a pair of big ones of beautiful animals on the street. Don't blame us since British Medical Journal found that men are more than twice as likely as women to be sexually active in old age but good health is the key for both to feeling naughty.

We all knew that to maintain our health, we need to strike a balance in our life, to control stress, to eat and play well, of which are easy to prescribe but hard to do in this chemical world we live in. "So don't take whatever "LP" foods to eat with binge" I suggested. We all laughed and blithely moving on with other issues until we had cleared the table.

I don't buy a pig in a poke

2010-01-25T22:11:00.001+08:00

As Chinese New Year is around the corner and you can see that all eatable and uneatable new-year-goods, especially pork price, have been viciously spiraled. "Every year is like that lah!" said my wife after she has had bought a dried-duck with 30 percent of price increment over the prior year's pricing. I said to my wife that we should be supposed not to play ducks and drakes with money this Chinese New Year. Eating a kilo of big prawn during this festival for Rm80 is not a valued treat.

Since October, the price of pork had risen from Rm14/kg to Rm22/kg. Breeders claimed for price hike owing to diseases and high cost of pig feeds. Pork sellers and abattoirs claimed for high rental and operation costs. And they are refusing to reduce their profit margin irrespective of social market behavior. They are in other words, real pigs in the majority than good eggs.

As in many economies around the world, rising costs for consumable and food have damaged confidence and made consumers reluctant to spend, particularly on pork meat of which is having more harm than good for health.

Kudos to the government's imposition for the import of pork and pork-based products to relax the pork-price spiral. And at this time they, pork breeders and sellers are seemed to be individually chocked with big sausage in his mouth!

Malaysian kopitiams' top gossip

2010-01-08T20:02:00.004+08:00

Staggeringly three Churches in Kuala Lumpur are set on fire today in the wee hours. The gossip casted a cloud on who was doing it became the top of the list (the list of disgraceful things recently reported in mass media) and is rife in most kopitiams.

You talked, he talked and I talked but the one is quite sure that these arson attacks with venom are done by those savages who have had their stomachs full with supply but nothing had needed to do.

Politicians can't seem to tell the difference between racialism and harmony. Any talk of "allah" is considered blasphemous, but there is a constant bark of empty yapping around.

This is a society in deep, deep trouble and the fixes are mush more encouraging in put off the fire of hate-begets-hate.

New Year starts with sinking feeling

2010-01-07T22:23:00.004+08:00

When most of the people are celebrating to welcome 2010 with great joy, I'm starting the new year with the sinking feeling that's dampened with a first degree of melancholia persecution alike. Days before, My son-in-law's car which was parked in front of my house had it's front passenger's window being smashed and his wallet and some valuables were all stolen in broad day light. This was the third break-in happened within my dwelling just in a year!

One could imagine the high frequency of crime in Kulim, especially my area, Taman Senangin, where the public order is terrible, uncontrolled densities of floating aliens, red-light district, mushroom of illegal Malay-operating stores, privileged preaching house, mat-rempits' play ground, crooks hide-out area, full of litterlouts, open burnings & etc. Almost every day we read of innocent losses in this black-district as a result of the rampage of these detestable groups of people who prey on others who work hard for their money and belongings especially Chinese are of lucrative targets.

Kulim is sickening yet we can't do anything accept to trying to leave the bad (people, disorders, negative environment) behind and take very protective concern to our life and property. Perhaps we should take some preventive measures, such as keeping weapon for self-defense and urging for broad-gauze right of self-defense. For examples, one would be praised instead of be charged if one can kill a robber; we were issued with firearms to keep in practice of shooting-the-black-sheep just like what we've had seen in the oldish cowboy films and let public order to be ordered by conscience and not by law. O! That are all my conservative imaginations.

My close encounter with Ubuntu

2009-12-15T13:52:00.003+08:00

I was all the while much skeptical about Ubuntu. I googled and binged for days on how to get the Ubuntu be installed but yet still didn't have the courage to venture a step farther when booting from a live CD. The hesitation or perhaps the fear had dragged me for a couple of days, as if age had stole onward and benumbed me more and more.

Until the last few days when I came across a statement, posted by one of forum's users like this: "Never wade in water you're afraid to swim in unless it's the Linux pond, cause there's always a life ring in the forums." and that had just reminisced about my words of courage to my little grandchild during a pool-bath time the other day like this: "girl, grandpa is holding your hands and don't be afraid to lay down your body into water." So I took both courages in both hands to explore the usage possibility of Ubuntu.

After 2 attempts of installation, I finally got the Ubuntu having dual booting with Winxp installed inside my Compaq notebook. Everything were seemed workable except the Broadcom wireless lan that was totally not listening to the kernel. I clicked and clicked everywhere to try for any miracle to enable the wireless icon be popping out but gradually getting all in a fluster at the end. Suddenly the impression "is that I'd missed something during the installation" drew away my entire IQ and inadvertently reinstalled the Ubuntu again. Only when after I got the similar defeated desktop, then I realized that I was a computer-idiot! This time I was getting smarter and drew a straight furrow to fire up the Firefox for pounding questions on Google. Finally I got the solution thanked to this friendly tutorial.

Next day, I thought of getting my Lexmark Z1420 wireless printer to work with Ubuntu and as usual I'd to bury myself into search engines. I'd searched arduously for clues, I'd spent long hours of laborious effort, yet Ubuntu was still neglected to marry my printer. I could only bemoaned of being on the horns of a dilemma. The trouble is that I have to alternatively reboot into Winxp to perform my print jobs. If someone asks me to change printer, I'll rather making a U turn back to the road of Windows.

I was much encouraged in learning the Ubuntu-ibus to be functioned inside Tomboy Notes and Gedit as well as enabling my Chinese's files correctly be read-and-written. But Ibus failed to work properly; the system prompted - if you can not use Ibus, please add below lines in $HOME/.bashrc, and relogin your desktop. After inputing these 3 lines; export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus;export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus;export GT_IM_MODULE=ibus, the Ibus eventually worked by firstly to enable IBus daemon; secondly right click on any blanked area of client's window to select Ibus as input method and thirdly right click on the keyboard icon of Ibus in the notification area to select the desired input method from the combobox. Switching to and from Ibus thus required more clicks and is not easier than using Ctrl+Alt keys in Windows for Asian input.

Using Tomboy Notes and Sticky Notes is found to be not productivity improvement over the using of my Windows version of Cinta Notes and Stickies. Cinta Notes allowed me to make multiple tags on single note and the relevant source url address was just automatically be saved. Stickies have more features and ease of use than the Ubuntu's Sticky Notes.

I have the enthusiasm of ripping audio CD to mp3 and the Audio CD Extrator only gave me ogg format unless a Lame plugin was installed. But once there had been an update to the Ubuntu kernel happened, the Lame plugin was just unknowingly missing.

In fact, there is a lot of Ubuntu things to be learned anew like recently I'd learned to press ALT+F2 keys to bring up the run dialog and type smb://192.168.1.70/Chris's Shared to mount and access my wife's shared folder over my home's network. Just hope that my enthusiasm about Ubuntu would not eventually greeted with dismay!

Sadly, BN still have sepsis

2009-08-27T20:38:00.005+08:00

BN's Rohaizat Othman lost a seat in the Permatang Pasir's by-election on 26-08-09 to PAS's Mohd Salleh Man by a 4,551-vote minority against 9.618 total votes.

After that, Penang Umno chief cum Defense Minister Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said "Since the people of Permatang Pasir didn't want to change, thus the future development of this district will be hauled down."

I find his vindictive remark over the failure on the by-election totally repugnant. Did he abused his power to take the bread out of people's mouth?

Instead of accepting their failure, he had bottled up all their anger and resentment and poured scorn on the suggestion that the district of Permatang Pasir would not be developed further.

It sounded like whatever floats his boat that he has the power to decide the fate of the peoples of Permatang Pasir on development.

Please bear in mind that the peoples of Permatang Pasir do paying their income taxes and are legitimate to be given with appropriate repayment on level playing field. Otherwise they must be fully exempted from taxation.

Do you know who's he?

2009-07-25T10:55:00.003+08:00

After reading the 'Fresh twist emerges in Teoh's case.'

It looks like the blogger of t4tbh.blogspot.com has decided to pluck DAP's eyebrows. Allegations after allegations with his supportive version of proofs were have been appended thereunder his blog. It's like there is no smoke without fire.

I've the curiosity which knows no bounds to know the identity of this particular blogger. Nevertheless, who's who the blogger is also a person to be interested by the police and the Royal Commission of inquiry.

In China, often that this kind of curiosity could be powerfully tracked down by an offering of 人肉搜索 (human search engine).

Do you know who's he?

The 45 lessons of life, written by a 90 year old?

2009-07-21T12:42:00.005+08:00

As I came across The Most Singapore Blog Entries yesterday, a topic listed as 'The 45 lessons of life, written by a 90 year old' was found again being blogged.

The snapes.com which often tell for any misconception on circulations revealed that it's not a hoax but it's just an analecta of "Text reproduces newspaper columnist's list of '45 lessons life taught me.'"

The writer, Ms Regina Brett who is a long-time columnist for Ohio newspapers and who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 for "her range of compelling columns that move the heart, challenge authority and often trigger action while giving readers deeper insight into life's challenges" is now actually 53 years old by this year.

"People are still e-mailing my "50 Life Lessons" around the world saying I'm 90. " said Brett in her blog recently. "One person went too far and used Twitter to send out this tweet: Regina Brett was a columnist for The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio. She passed away in her 90s. She left a lot of wisdom." She added.

One of the circulators named as "leeaper" has made his apology posted beneath Brett's blog like this "My dearest Ms Brett, please accept my sincerest apology. I was one of those who made you 90 and I feel such a fool for not having researched it more thoroughly!"

But the conundrum, who's the very 1st person who'd mistakenly or else arbitrarily written 90 as Brett's age, is remains to be seen. Perhaps one would have an interest to submit "Regina Brett is 90," into Google's brain axis and find the clue from about 247,000 results shown. May you?

梦想与目标

2009-07-10T23:00:00.003+08:00

很多人包括我在内，时常都会产生一些梦想和理想。但这些梦想和理想却往往都是含糊或者是空幻的目标。

比如 “我想当州务大臣，袋袋平安，且拥有几百万零吉的豪宅” 这对我来讲，简直就是个梦想。因为这个梦想与目标实在是太离谱了，简直是个goal imposible之意。基本上，先有了梦想，再有了理想，才会有目标之达。但这三个里程碑并非是自然顺序发展的个儿。其中必需靠努力和一系列的因素，才能达到所理想的目标。

且看我们最近内阁所决定的废除中，小学以英语教数理的政策，是不是一个理智的理想？

老马说“2012 年以后，大马人都是stupid fellows。” 言之有理。

各政党高层领导者却纷纷议云 “这是我们一路来所力争的立场与政策。“ 言之亦成理。

其实不然，在目标还未呈现实性之前，阿猫阿狗怎样讲，都是公说公有理，婆说婆有理。只不过是有钱人可以高飞不理；没钱人却难免务必要把骨头送进肚子里。所以说高官贵爵可以将损公肥私之心筹成道理；平民就只有只言片语吃自己！

-- image source: fr. web --

No plastic bags day is ambivalent

2009-07-07T19:31:00.001+08:00

Yesterday I was totally bemused by the 'No plastic bags day' after I'd have pushing a half fully loaded trolley of wet groceries for checking out at the counter of a local supermarket. I stood rooted to the counter front, bewildered by all that 'no-plastic' situation and hesitated to whether to accept charge of 20 sen per plastic bag. At the time when pushing the trolley for unloading goods directly into my car is impossible because I was traveling by 'bus 11' from my office nearby.

Only then I'd remembered that the Penang Government launched the ‘No Plastic Bags Day’ today initiatively mandated with - no more free plastic bags to shoppers on Mondays, and the ayes have it.

Since I didn't want to be overcharged (as I felt) for the providing of 20 sen per plastic bag of merely at a cost of few sen. Therefore I asked the cashier for any alternative thing to pack my goods such as paper bag or fastener tape or string to offering help. The alien cashier was just shaking her head with a simultaneous answering of 'tadak-tadak'.

It couldn't help and the frustration bereft me of words. Inevitably I'd to discard the rest but only managed to checking out with just a handful of my favorite sausages. In causation I have to passing them one hand after another because of frozen-in chill while making my exit. Indeed this 'no plastic' incident was a blessing in disguise, because I afterwards found less dip into my purse.

No wonder I found that it was an anomaly of "only 2-3 kittens" in the store that day!

At the end, the green makes me greener and 'no plastic bag' lets my family be communicated together for averting Monday's shopping as less as possible or otherwise opt for lighter purchase then usual.

My close encounter of 'no plastic day' indicates that:-

1. People would eventually manage to avert shopping on Monday or to make less purchasing on this day.

2. Ancillary items of paper bags or fastener strings should otherwise be provided alternatively. In case of uncertainty or unknowing such as for outstation customers.

3. No plastic day will help to bring austerity included shop rationing and eat less.

4. No plastic day begets plastic-bag income should not be solely favorable to sellers, consumers should also be partly rewarded.

A waste of resources

2009-06-24T23:27:00.004+08:00

A government, most of the times, is simply a wasteful necessary evil. But one thing we can't tolerate is that more often than not, it creates trouble out of nothing.

The Accountant Negara, out of sudden are awaken themselves from comatose state recently to perform outdoor audit, causing business people to be busy on doing an added accounting and clerical chores to response to this so-called extracurricular activity. They are claiming to exercise a program of outdoor audit under Section 12 of The Unclaimed Money Act, 1965 merely to examine a company is whether complying to a small chapter of the said act.

Many can't help but wonder why this kind of activity which has been lain like a sleeping dog for more than 40 years, is now being roused. Is that the Accountant Negara has turned over a new leaf to pull up their socks? Hopefully they can erect themselves to audit the books of Ponzi schemes, Ah Long, fraudulent gold bars operators and illegal deposit-takers etc. more intensive rather than the ordinary businesses.

Nevertheless I'm sure most of the entrepreneurs are bitching about the audit exercise which caused a lot of disquiet among the common business people on how the government is spending taxpayers' money with wasteful resources.

Audit the accounts of entrepreneurs here and there is positively surreal. Government pays more on excessive staffs; entrepreneurs waste more clerical resources to attend and answer to the audit. All in all, it's just a waste of time to run an eye over a few pages of financial reports.

Quite common that we can't find any conciseness on government's tabulations and rulings. The government are always found to be irrational on the administration of public businesses. A new broom sweeping clean is a common manner where a tumultuous, a confused rush. As a rule, they used to stretch the rule according to their own reasoning at will irrespective of the burden of red-tape that will be passed on to the common people. Like many high-handed income tax bureaucrats who are always derisively vilified as the day-light dakoit by many Chinese people.

Some said that Malaysia's laws and rulings are highly volatile. Even many government officers are vague and unwitting on many of the details of frequently anew rulings. And the lack of decent public awareness is a great disadvantage to common people. Since the ignorance of the law excuses no man, but only government man.

The government of the day must not waste resources with minimal or nonsense values. Government funds should be utilized efficiently to reduce poverty and improve the livelihood of the common people and business community. Lets general businessmen peacefully bring home the bacon for the economy to run in order.

My submission is that a three-year comparative list of Accounts Payable, if made possible to produce as a prima facie evidence to replace the daunting audit by the authority, would succinctly and effectively be served as a compliance to a specific part of the Unclaimed Money acts. Simplicity is the best policy!

无辜的小女孩

2009-03-31T23:22:00.002+08:00

可怜片中无辜的小女孩被变态女佣虐待至内伤累累。我惟有默默地为这个可怜的小女孩祈祷。希望她早日脱离苦海！

影片来源

狗眼看人低

2009-03-30T22:04:00.002+08:00

印度于29号在拉贾斯坦邦的基地成功发射“布拉莫斯”超音速巡航导弹。

当时美国、日本和韩国并没有发表任何异议。

朝鲜此前宣布将在4月4日至8日发射"光明星2号"试验通信卫星。

但美日韩官员却“认为”朝鲜发射的可能是"大浦洞"2型洲际弹道导弹，与日本和韩国试图要把朝鲜发射卫星问题提交联合国安理会处理。更谠言要把朝鲜的火箭半道摘下。

从以上的两个事件，足以意识到美国、日本和韩国在这方面不但持有双重标准和偏见，而且还抱着狗眼看人低的姿态，务必要把朝鲜给贬下去。

发射和平的卫星本来是主权国家的合法权利，也是为国家和民族繁荣以及人类进步做出的贡献。迄今为止，世界上多个国家发射了数千颗卫星，联合国安理会从来没有处理过任何国家，也没有把发射卫星视为问题。

印度能坦然试射导弹，朝鲜却不能够发射试验通信卫星。哪“公平”的道理到底去了那里？

是不是因为印度的"布拉莫斯"超音速巡航导弹是与俄罗斯联合研发的，所以美国、日本和韩国不敢有所异议表态？

是不是一有一个大国假定能在朝鲜的背后撑腰，哪那些国家就不会那末地嚣张？

To be frugal or not?

2009-03-29T17:36:00.003+08:00

I told a friend that I had a frugal meal of "Chinese sharkfin" (a figurative expression refers to fried rice vermicelli "meehoon" by Penangists) last night. He immediately japed at me for being too frugal to torture my stomach and teased forwardly that monies couldn't be carried away at a time when our both legs have had strengthened into straight set.

I smiled and retorted that money is indispensable to life, especially during this financial hard time; wasteful acts will make you die first; thrifty acts will make me survive longer. Blithely, both of us had laughed out loudly for our amusing caricatures before our farewell ta-ta.

Yes, neither none of us is wrong nor correct. It's a circumstantial matter of the timing to save or to spend. But I think most of the Chinese are more conservative than Americans of large number who are abundant in living for deficit spending. That's how different culture of spending made different world within countries.

From the economic perspective, nearly 70 percent of activity is derived from consumers. If everyone saves during a slack period, economic activity will decrease, thus making everyone poorer. Deflation as well as the devaluation of liquidity will follow suits, thus making the market into a dead-lock situation just like the marketplace status quo.

On the other hand, if everyone spends and continues to put his money into investments, economy will grow, GDP will surge, development will be boon, thus making everyone richer. The burble game will be back to its spindle. Then you'll see everybody is busying making his job and be able to spend happily.

Recently, economists are reasoning over a point of whether the series of government's financial stimulus would re-instill confidence into the minds of the masses. And when will the market be alive again. Every suggestion does have its own justification and all are really ambiguous.

Despite the w00t & w00t of cash handouts by various governments. My contention is that eventually the market will be back to its normal life as soon as people have forgotten fear, the fear of economy plunging. Usually people tend to forget bad time in short time!

无天无地

2009-03-24T23:39:00.004+08:00

这个国家真糟糕，似乎失已去了法律与人身安危的保障。真是@#%%/#他妈的。。。一言难尽。呜呼哀灾！

影片来源 -

Dangling my cuckoo clock

2009-03-23T17:08:00.002+08:00

In Hokkien, this phase literally means "not having work". It has recently been accustomed to answer with self-sarcasm on most compliments for courtesy when greeted. With the impact of rough economy, I'm now frequently dangling my cuckoo clock.

The global financial storm sweeping the world is inflicting heavy casualties on developed and developing countries alike. Malaysia, in particular, has been hit hard by the back-down of foreign investments and political wrangling.

Thus my saving interest yield has shrunk almost to half; my dividends in terms of shares investments have been acidic; my EPF dividend has also diminished. On top of that, principals in saving have inevitably thinning in value against sharp inflation.

I have however taken my stand on most abstinence - forgo expensive vacations, costly dinners, shopping mall splurges and even less (less adrenaline and pall on it) blogging. I'm therefore opting instead for the quiet simplicity of "dangling my cuckoo clock" at home. Just hoping that my dangling is impermanent!

Social cannibalism

2008-09-19T20:50:00.004+08:00

When a leader begins to fight his own people to hold power by using social cannibalism is a sign of corruption. That's akin to the employment of ISA to the general demos here by the egomaniacs. Where scribe becomes felon but nasayer becomes hero. Social cannibalism is often the sequel to political set back when the human structure beneath him under his kingdom begins to decay.

History has proven that those who have had used social cannibalism by putting their opponents and enemies out of the way by various means, would have eventually succumbed to an end of their kingdoms. The world has experienced many tyrannies.

This country was well along since independence yet leaders still do not know what kind of life its people want and even do not understand that freedom is seemed to be the peoples raison d'etre.

[image source]

勤意点点

2008-09-17T23:07:00.003+08:00

在上班的旅程中，听myfm的林得荣在那边‘考弊考目’地话拳头，实在是过瘾。在下班的回程中，听vivian在那厢勤意的咖啡馆里头‘咯咧咯愫’地抒情，而且还不时在那边对着那枝孤单的麦克风，开怀大笑。听她那把带有点base的笑声，她笑我也笑了，实在是更过瘾。

晚餐间，时常是不知不觉地会越吃越快，因为受到了电视台华语瀑[报]告新闻的音速所影响。那一批华语新闻报告员，除了业剑锋之外，往往都是那么地火急报告新闻，一贯以m16的速度吐[读]完交差了事，有时还会末途而废呢！实在是越听越烦，我讨厌这种肤浅的报告。拜托拜托啦阿姨，请多多参考cctv的华语新闻报告啦！

所以说，不同的节目报告者，将带给你不同的emotions罢。

Who said Malaysia is a safe place?

2008-08-29T13:26:00.007+08:00

Some anak-anak Malaysia broke into my house this morning before dawn and stole my newly purchased Yamaha Nouvo motorcycle. This is the second time of atrocity happened within a year's time. My friends all said that one must always learn to grin and bear it here (the bolehland), because those crime makers are hardly be having their collars felt and be charged. What can you do is bemoaning the haplessness several times at due course!

So this has nevertheless satirized the statement of "Malaysia is a safe place" which is often be uttered by politicians as well as mass media.

Another satire is the Report of lost at police station which took me more than one hour to complete. This includes the time to wake up policemen from logging Z's and the time to help in configuring one OC's printer to get function.

Yeah! Malaysia boleh!

Whither the fluttering of flags in the streets

2008-08-28T22:15:00.006+08:00

Compared to previous pre-national day celebration, fever fluttering of national flags in the streets was an anomaly. The ambience of Merdeka spirit had surprisingly diminished. Why?

Maybe some thought that being patriotism was not necessarily related to the meaning of flying national flag;

Maybe one was reluctant to rise the flag under the volatile political situation although he loved our country very much;

Maybe some had a propensity of keeping his flag inside the drawer to show their discontent about the bad government;

Maybe some reserved to be happier to fly flag later if there were new government born;

Maybe some had have unhinged by the high pump prices and putting up of a flag has become a repugnant thing to them;

There certainly were hundreds of disparate reasons to justify for ambivalence.

But I just couldn't buy a flag under high inflation pressure to wave in the street and I thought of saving money over unnecessary expenditure in order to meet the inflated electricity charges. The only way I can do is flutering the flag over here.

An obeisance to my lost teacher

2008-08-27T20:22:00.004+08:00

An SMS from one of my buddies informed me the news of the death of Loh Cheng Sun, my former teacher, and wish to extend my regrets for a great loss to his family.

In retrospect, my school life under his teaching seems happier than in reality and it reminds me of an interesting incident. There was a time the teacher was furious and chastised one of my classmates with a corporal punishment after receiving the ludicrous answer "coconut tree has hairs" in a discussion about the commercial values of coconut tree. In fact, this was the first time and the only one I'd had seen the teacher in getting his blood boil during my school life. Perhaps it is our human nature to be nostalgic.

Also regretted for not being able to discover his blog earlier.

His posthumous works is however being tagged into my reading list in honoring his memory.

投票

2008-08-26T14:16:00.002+08:00

今天 2008 年 08 月 26, 天氣: 豔陽高照。心情: 不慌不忙。

今天一大清早起床，发现長了針眼的右眼已经消肿了，蠻開心的。老伴也似乎很開心的起了身而正在忙着装扮。因为今天我们都有一个很重要的共同意图；去take part改朝换代的活动。

八点半，来到了投票站, 那是詩歌布朗再也的胡先翁投票站，接受了公正黨支持者的招呼与握手, 然后进場, 给安華补上了两張的上京票。回程哼着take me home country road ......。

Filled with bewilderment

2008-08-15T20:20:00.003+08:00

In the mix of political tussles and mob demagogies that were very tumultuous and enigmatic, I spent the past few weeks enjoying the burlesque about the diminution of national's pump price that has been theatrically discussed. By golly, you can see two fighting cocks (Soo Kuan vs Guan Eng) are bickering before close encounter over a bowl of missing rice in the mean time.

Negative politicians all the while talk about subsidies or else using golden finger for delusion as if it would be a short-term solution to high oil prices, but that simply wouldn’t be the case at all. The dull and disingenuous politicians are selling the sizzle and not the satay. They made you high by verbal guarantee but let you suffered at the end from inflation.

The crescendo in the last movement led to just an orate of Badawi yesterday that declining world crude oil price gave good hope for the government to reduce pump prices. This hope will not very sure be fulfilled in line with a so called "floating price mechanism" for petrol proposed to be implemented this Sept 1.

I'm not a pessimist but I just can't believe the norm of "tunggu tenggoh" (wait & see) attitude, the frequent applicable golden rule of the government of which is basically finished in a state of ambiguity.

Shall the pump price then be lowered?

The artificial pride

2008-08-13T14:52:00.003+08:00

The opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics was generally perceived by peoples as a wonderful display of amazing performances. It is by far the most outstanding Olympic Ceremony that many people did agree. I really enjoyed the moment the former gymnastics star Li Ning was flying high to light the cauldron of the Beijing Olympic.

As I came to understand that parts of the performances were faked; the little girl who starred at the Olympic opening ceremony was shown in mime and one fireworks display was prerecorded, I had a qualm. It reminds me of an old proverb that Chinese people are used to "slap his own face to get it a fatter face in order to symbolize as rich people."

For whatever reasons to overshade the real singer, a seven-year-old girl Yang Peiyi who is not considered charming in the eyes of the authority, is an insult to her. It is actually a discrimination against human nature to want only a beautiful face. I think China has hurt her pride by just profiting her voice and not her face. It is in fact not a sign of humility to declaim against the praise of Olympic where it was all about projecting the beautify image of China irrespective of honesty and reality.

移床

2008-06-26T00:27:00.001+08:00

最近发现家里斗的小红蚁突然来了特别多。搞到四处可见其踪影，从家具，电器，甚至于连老子所栖身的床，都一一变成它们的playground了。

老伴为了避免蚁患，所以就提议我代劳把老窝（蛇鼠一窝的窝；我们对床的口斗语）所靠墙的一边移开少许，想制造一个缝隙与蚂蚁来个楚河汉界之分。那时我真的很懒惰动身，所以就敷衍以半開玩笑地回答说，“老查婆，不用啦，等下我们打仗的时候老窝会失去依靠地振动啦，或者改天再move罢。”

老伴笑嘻嘻地回答，“哎呦！死老公，你还以为你是十八二十几岁啊！三十几年前的会动床表演，没有咯！已家不会摇了啦，快快把床移出一点点好不好。”

为了将就她的意愿，我只好纵令。就把老窝稍微移出，然后再打趣地说，“来，一起来，让我prove给你看，老窝还是会vibrate的。”

“吾麦！我好想睡，明早还要带我们的孙子呢！postpone吧，睡啦！goodnight！”她一面说一面已辗转入被欲见周公了。

听到她这般戏以为常的postpone和goodnight，心中真是领悟到“她真的累了”。

夢幻般的愛情感覺也許無法歷久彌新，但是相敬如賓和心灵相通的感覺就像台灣俗語說的“老伴”那樣的亲切。當愛情的感覺routine了、淡了，但是相敬如賓和心灵相通的生活還是可以將彼此牢牢地繫在一起的呢！

就是这样partake in each other's joys and sorrows，我们又过了另一个安祥的夜晚，也许，这该是第11800的夜晚吧！

Abdullah rolled out 3-of-a-kind ace-spots dices

2008-06-05T23:59:00.006+08:00

In the gambling game of Sic-Bo (Big & Small), if all 3 dices were cast with number 1 red-spot each facing upward, it means that it's an odd for the entitlement of the house to eat all. Abdullah as the house raised petrol prices by 41% and diesel by 63% overnight. Coupled with the impending 18% electricity hike from July. Thus equitably eating up both the subsidies and the surplus of oil production.

Nations are shocked by these unprecedented elevations and be in a puzzle. The atmosphere is now rife with the ubiquitous question of "How can we do with the inflation?"

My friend asked me for how could I cope with the ensuing price hike as a retiree. I bewilderingly answered: "I'm despondent over the Abdullah's way of handling money. Let's hope the "bo loh yong" (incompetent) house could be toppled, let's hope the eastern part malaysians be the first to be traumatized and made a clamor for reform."

I don't know how many people there are equating my thinking!

A real karma strikes

2008-05-30T15:47:00.004+08:00

Although Sharon Stone had made her apology for her previous remarks at the Cannes Film Festival last week that the earthquake that struck China was the result of bad karma. Her remarks were like an arsenic that had hurt deeply the feeling of not only China's people but the Chinese of the world as well. People have a strong animosity against her personality.

Stone tends to be a contentious figure to making controversial remarks. In 1993 she claimed that German Jews "brought it on themselves, man" about the Holocaust, and in 2007 she also said that the tsunami that killed thousands of people was "like, showing those people they should have learned to swim faster." All of her remarks are baseless and are palpably harassing with carping and frivolousness.

Most celebrities who have first class mentality with conscience would always show their love to the community. Only those who have third class mentality with disdain, like Stone, would always deride other people.

Now it seems that a real bad karma is doomed to strike on her. Many pledges by many Chinese mainland and Hong Kong cinemas not to screen her movies again; Cosmetic chains are removing advertisements that containing her image; and a boycott event of products linked to her image is underway. On top of that, Chinese netizens saw her to be a felon more than a bitch!

A tribute to quake rescuers

2008-05-22T21:59:00.004+08:00

Reported by Chinanews.com, 10,000 quake rescuers had courageously rescued 60,745 people out from the rubbles.

"According to a heraldic report, 60,745 trapped people and 1716 cheated-death survivors had been rescued from the rubbles by an approximate of 10,000 policemen, firefighters and medical workers." said by the minister assistant of the Ministry of Public Security, Sun Yongbo during an interview at Beijing, May 22.

If the data were accurate, it would denote an agile rescue that is honorable. Nevertheless, their indomitable efforts to save quake victims should be extolled and be given a tribute.

I feel sadness for those people who had lost their lives in this Sichuan earthquake!

Not a human demeanor!

2008-05-20T15:24:00.006+08:00

At a time when all people with conscience are wholeheartedly making their efforts and contributions to help save as many lives as possible from the Sichuan Province 8.0 magnitude earthquake disaster. A devoid of the heart of shame was incredibly happened at the other end.

A cargo of quake-aid goods which was in the midst of delivery to the quake-hit areas by a group of quake-relief volunteers has seen being frantically robbed by some ugly villagers, who were acting from expediency. not from principle.

The rummage and rip-off of goods took only 3 minutes to completely vacate the cargo.

The volunteers stood aghast at the sudden appearance of the day-light stealers. They could not do anything except to sneer at the stealers "Are you all consider as Chinese people?" 「你們還算中國人嗎？」

Shouldn't those who had made expediency of the disaster, afflict with conscience and feel ashamed of themselves?

Picture source: appleactionews

If I were Black Justice, I'll cut his cock

2008-05-15T17:08:00.005+08:00

The demeanors of father raping his own underage daughter is an abomination and must be seriously chastised.

The just happening news of this "Father accused of raping 4yr-old daughter" and that "Shocked over hubby molesting own daughter" is enough to get on my nerves.

If I were Black Justice, certainly I'll bring this kind of vicious father to heel, by not putting him into jail but instead I'll amputate his cock 3 inches per evil act. Thus letting him to be on the rack for unable to have sexual pleasure anymore for his life. The verdict he had deserved to be punished!

Check into inflation

2008-05-12T23:58:00.004+08:00

The government is determined to bring down inflation as there appears to be a growing discontent about inflation. I am sure most of the Malaysians especially those who are poor are gnashing their teeth with bitch over the depreciation of their ringgit to spend.

"The government was aware of the situation and had made immediate allocations worth billions of riggit to ensure that Malaysians were not burdened by inflation." PM Pak Lah said when delivering the Umno president's message yesterday.

The purport of what he has said is that he will continue using allocations most probably be siphoned from other sectors' allocations to fight for the inflation. I see this as an "apong cooking" business deriding the effort of using only 3 covers to look after 10 pans of 'apong' in cooking. Apparently there is a risk of making some 'apongs' to be spoilt.

Most people know that the best medicine for curing inflation is the form of "inflation targeting" which says that whenever price growth exceeds a target level, interest rates should be raised.

Like China, amid a major wave of international grain price hikes, it has managed to maintain stable domestic prices. Why? Because China's interest rate is keeping pace with inflation.

China had raised its interest rate 10 times in 2007 and 3 times during the early part of 2008. Today their central bank announced again that it would raise their 4th reserve requirement ratio for commercial banks by 0.5 percentage point to curb the rising inflation.

Here in Malaysia, economy has deteriorated sharply in recent years and wages are impossible to keep pace with inflation. Subsidies shall be evanesce under tight government spending.

The crude recipe for this situation is abstention. When interest rate is raised, people tend to spend less and save more, thus making the market deflation becomes an adversary to inflation.

这个世界真糟糕

2008-05-08T20:09:00.005+08:00

这个世界真糟糕，为什么？有些人有得吃，但是却选择不要吃；有些人很想吃，但是却被命运摆布得没得吃。

同样是人，写照不一。

一位美国明尼苏达州，与厌食症搏斗25年的世界上最瘦的男子之一Frail Jeremy Gillitzer。十年前，他以健壮的身材和强健的筋肉成为广受仰慕的男模特，但不幸的是，这一切被使他苍白、憔悴几乎皮包骨头的疾病给破坏了。

照片来源 - ic.eastday.com

一位挨饿，悲惨可怜的苏丹小女童，被Kevin Carter于1993年发现昏倒在灌木丛中而秃鹰在后头等候她的死亡。

照片来源 -http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.htm

有誰經過我家門口？

2008-05-01T13:20:00.003+08:00

劳动节有感而言 - 刚开始写部落格(blog)时，總希望能獲得來自讀者的互動，會進到我家(我的blog)裡坐坐喝杯茶，交換意見、噓寒問暖等等, 甚至期盼能有所謂社群的形成。但后来却发现大部份部落格的讀者都是沉默的，也就是所謂的"潛水客"，也许他們有看了我的文章而不置可否，感覺好像是經過我家門口，瞄一眼然後就走人了。

后来写了一段時日之後，把重点都放在于自我修养阶段和半退休后建立起新的充实生活之上，所以一想写就写，不想写的话就暂停。处之泰然，总算是有时勤忙于blogging，好过呆在家里摇时钟，吃饱等死罢！

其實我認為最balance的生活，應該是休閒與作业並重，一直享有自己的心靈或興趣的追求，一直对社會有所貢獻，而不是截然分成兩段：拚命工作，沒有任何自己的生活；或者退休，完全脫離社會服務的體系，整天無所事事。

再者是"事事不要抱怨，社会充满不公平现象。你先不要想去改造它，只能先适应它。因为你管不了它" 比尔.盖茨的第一金玉良言。

Joy mingled with busyness

2008-04-28T16:43:00.004+08:00

Today's grandpa and grandma lead full and active lives that include everything from parenting and cooking and volunteering. But that's no surprise. Through the years, we have enjoyed many rich and wonderful experiences, and have taken it all in our stride. Now it's time to welcome our 3rd grandchild (our elder daughter's firstborn), named Xin Ying who was borne by caesarean delivery on the evening of March 27. She is delightfully pretty and dainty!

Which one is nicer

2008-04-26T23:00:00.004+08:00

The first one, she is Megan Fox who was seen in the scene of "Transformer," the sexiest woman in the world at least according to FHM magazine. The "Transformer" co-star tops FHM's annual 100 Sexiest Women in the world poll of FHM readers.

The second one, she is one of the motto-girls of Beijing car show. She was claimed to be a highest viewed girl amongst the Chinese Internet users.

Some said that the highlight of "Transformer" was undeniably brunette beauty Megan Fox. More specifically, the sexy post in that car-fixing scene which could nearly made you choke on your popcorn.

Nevertheless, the Chinese motto-girl is said to be very aphrodisiac who was wearing without 'insulation' inside which could bewilderingly made your heart jumps faster.

So, which one is nicer! For me, I prefer the latest.

Encyclopedia Britannica Widgets

2008-04-25T22:18:00.006+08:00

Encyclopaedia Britannica is now offering their free widgets which are allowed to be web-shared. You can now copy the code into your own website or blog template, page, or post in order to share Britannica content with your readers!

Webshare is a special program for web publishers, including bloggers, webmasters, and anyone who writes for the Internet. You get complimentary access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica online and, if you like, an easy way to give your readers background of the topics you write about with links to complete Britannica articles.

I really love it! Anyway, you may click here to see their featured widgets.

Let see how to embed a Britannica widget into a blog or web page template.

Linux的吉祥物飛了起來

2008-04-18T22:42:00.002+08:00

以下的这一段youtube影片，是一位創意十足的Linux粉絲把BBC在4月1日愚人節所發佈的惡搞影片所改编而成的。它被套版變成了一個絕佳的Linux廣告。白白胖胖的企鵝竟然飛了起來，幾可亂真，讓人乍看起來真的像是企鵝飛起來的驚人畫面，十分壯觀哩！

资料来源 - digg

卷土重来

2008-01-26T22:11:00.001+08:00

境及挫折时，除了决一死战和逃避外，你还有第三种选择∶接受它，放下它，然后超越它！.....赖淑惠，作家。

写了几回的blog后，感觉到自己的英文与华文稍为地进步了。间中就因为时间不当，挂碍太多，很多次就是想选择把它给画上一个句点或者是干脆来个putoff。但是，看到了一些的blogmates好像lydiateh，一位四个孩子的妈妈都能畅写如流；lucia，一位热爱慈善的打工者，一样地能笔笔深湛，真是佩服。阿！我看我还是赶快paddle my own canoe罢！再者，看看我亲爱的第二个孙子，顿觉充满希望。

my new blog

2007-04-07T19:11:00.000+08:00

I have a new blog here! Come visit me in my newest site at picatho.iloveblog.com. Now I have a 3-in-1 blog.

Pig's year comes with pig's shit!

2007-02-17T21:05:00.000+08:00

The "no water notice" disgusts me. Yesterday I received a notice from the JBA of Kedah. Mentioned that "Gangguan akan terganggu selama 12 jams iaitu dari jam 9.00 pagi hingga jam 9.00 malam pada 18hb.Februari 2007(Ahad) ini desebabkan oleh kerja-kerja pembaikan paip air utama 200mm dan 150mm di kawasan perusahaan Kulim." It would affect many areas and estates.

I just can't understand why they particularly chose to give a large number of Chinese community "a no water" present (hardship) on the 1st day of the Chinese New Year. Is that the head of JBA Kulim "no brain" or is that the celebration of CNY "not being respected"?

Haai! What to do when facing such kind of boar-ing thing made by the pig-headed administer. I'm yet to choose between 1) Store water for CNY usage; 2) Flee to my daughter's house for CNY festivity.

Books that I've won

2007-02-15T16:44:00.000+08:00

Lydia autographed her book, Life's Like That - "Dear Robert, Congratulations on wining this book in my blog contest. Hope you like the book. Honk!"

Life's Like That is a collection of amusing meditations on Malaysian life written in a humour way. This book is worth reading, for its exciting story and its insight into life in contemporary Malaysia.

I rarely recommend a book, mostly because my tastes differ from those of other people. I must make an exception in the case of this book.

Unless you are fundamentally opposed to facing some of the harsh realities of this bolehland, I highly recommend this book. It will dedicate some smiles as you read through chapter by chapter.

The author, Lydia is aggressively making publicity for her books. Her appearances are not limited only on papers and books stores. She was also having her chitchatting on page 205 of CLEO Feb. 07 and was showing up again her same old personal photo. Perhaps that particular photo is her favorite one, I think so!

Is God the ultimate arbiter?

2007-02-04T22:57:00.000+08:00

I was reading intensively these few days about the Vatican enraged by magazine's confessional expose which was reported by Reuters on Jan 31.

Differences between official Roman Catholic doctrines and what priests told Mr Riccardo Bocca, an investigative reporter for L'Espresso, were had been found after a series of fake confessions.

Over the issue of euthanasia, a priest told Bocca not to worry too much because God would be the ultimate arbiter.

In another confessional box he faked being HIV positive and was told by a priest that whether or not he used a
condom in order not to pass the virus to the woman he loved was "a very personal matter of conscience".

On homosexuality, one priest told him: "Well, homosexuality is a tendency which is a valid human expression. There are even homosexual priests and lesbian nuns." Asked if he should openly declare his homosexuality, the priest told him: "Generally the best thing to do is to be yourself. Come clean. Do what the English call ’coming out’."

The Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin but homosexual acts are.

I've also hopped over to read the related forum regarding to "is masturbation a sin?"

But then, I'm blurred in the din of the sin world over this equation - using of condom = masturbation = prostitution = homosexual act = the sin of wasting seed.

Would god by then be the final arbiter considering sin or sinless of these acts!

Sit back for this CNY

2007-01-30T15:40:00.000+08:00

At the like period of the preceding years, I would have started stocking up CNY groceries, changed new notes and gotten red packets, in order to welcome the CNY festival.

For this year under the new economy, I think I have to lean to tighten my belt. Why? Simply because all the while, those extra prices of petrol, cigarette, toll, fuel, those can eat and those can't eat, had have devouring my income. So there is not much left for my reserve and so in my budget.

Some more, the pricing condition of commodities is worsened this year as reported. The prices of seafood have made a double jump. Vegetables have taken the flood's reason to cost more. One thing for sure, a dollar of today would be exchanged for lessor goods as compared to the previous year's dollar.

As I could feel with all the coolness of marketplaces this year. Chinese people are not warring anymore for CNY goods like before. One of my customers was saying that business is like erectile dysfunction and he has used to "hitting housefly at his store" this time.

Looking around, the immaterial (spiritual) moods which are more important than material (fat foods) mood is aggravated.

At first I thought that the toll agreements inked between the government and highway concessionaires would be made transparent by the Cabinet so as the toll's hike be able to be seen through with clarity. Unfortunately the Cabinet had lastly said "No" and these agreements be remained as secret. That means the government's subsidies was/is channeling to whose pocket remains unclear and is under OSA.

No "tong tong chiang" music in supermarkets? That's why MCA Youth is fighting with Recording Industry of Malaysia (RIM) and Public Performance Malaysia (PPM) over the Chinese NY song royalty issue.

It's sad that the Section 16B of the Copyright Act which was amended in 2000 to confer a new right known as performers' right, had produced many blades in a synthetic manner for cash-cow mechanisms to generate income.

Under the new section, performers should be paid royalties if their sound recordings were broadcast, performed or communicated to the public. And PPM, Music Authors Copyrights Protection Bhd (MACP) and Performers and Artistes Rights (M) S/B (PRISM) were being selected as collecting bodies.

Assuming that one has paid an Astro's subscription of which loyalties had been paid by Astro to the so called collecting body, do you think that it's fare for a restaurant to be charged with fees again for showing up the Astro's program at its premises?

Another emotional disturbance is that IRB imposes tax on allowances. Thus making employees' pocket become shrinkage.

With all sorts of these elements, lets see how far one could spend during this CNY and for the rest of 2007. May the mood of this coming CNY be less festive! For me, certainly yes!

I got a "honk"

2007-01-07T20:35:00.000+08:00

I'm going to buy the book "Honk! if you're Malaysian" by Lydia Teh. This had been one of my new year resolutions to be accomplished. This is perhaps my most frivolous resolution. You may snigger at the implication that one can simply determines to do such little thing. But I figure I can at least get some credit from it. Doesn't mean for the reason just to keep my word to buy it. It's my anxiousness to be enlightened by its contents and be learnt from how Lydia narrated about honk. Last Friday, I finally got it. unintentionally also got another copy of "Secret of Graphology".

With a cup of coffee, few pieces of cookie and a pack of cigarette put in order at a corner of the Gurney's Starbucks, I sat down and started to use my index finger to moisten with saliva at times so as to flick over these two books.

A sip of coffee follows by several flicks of pages. My brain which is retarded has gradually building up some implications on the "honk". To be frank, I'm quite concerned with or about the outlook, footprint, and the presentation, rather then its contents. Maybe I'm a businessman who has lessened with other predilections, being business minded, have had built up these concerns.

I remembered, the time when I had walked out from the MPH to gather with my wife, I immediately received her usual initial query. "you buy what?" "nuh, 2 books for reading." I answered and concurrently passed the whole plastic bag to her according to my established habit. Means that whatever my newly shopped goods would be passed on to her for carrying. That's part of my bad addictions, It's too bad!

As she took out the books from plastic bag in order to have a visual percept of what's that, she felt out and rose up the "honk", "wah! 29 bucks for this comic book you also 'seh tak' (deserved) to buy." "no lah, it's a book about the contemporary instincts of Malaysian. That stupid publisher have had over cover it like a comic book, don't you open up and see?" I explained and added, "Its cover had also caused my misconception at first sight as if it was a comic book which was oddly displayed amongst other conventional books in the shelf. A half covered background graphical image would just be nice."

"Nah! this one "Secret of Graphology" is worthy lah! only 5 bucks." Another comment she had made. I smiled with advice, "don't ever try to judge beautiful woman by her rear appearance. Sometime at the back "sui sui" but the front like a "kui"."

Okay! let me beg a pardon to compare my said 2 books; It's completely based on my own thoughts after my Starbuck's digest. "honk" hereafter be referred to "honk! if you're Malaysian" & "graph" hereafter be referred to "secrets of graphology".

Honk priced at 29 bucks, graph priced at 5. Of course the price differentiation does concern me.

Graph is bound with much smaller size about 4x5 whether honk is bound with about A5 size. I love a smaller one for the advantage of handiness for travel.

Graph has plenty of colorful images and illustrations inside, making reading be blissful. The not so many black-and-white cartoons found inside the honk were small in size and less freshened.

The font used in honk is much larger than graph. Ah! it probably suits my old eyes.

Graph is written in a directive way whereas honk is written in an amusive way by using simple English. I like that because I don't have to get frequent helps from dictionary.

Both contents which are of different categories are not fair to be compared hereof. Meanwhile some phases of honk do really delight my heart and has given me mettle to read on. I've reckoned especially if I were a Chinaman who're not typically wearing Pagoda singlet and baggy drawer, wouldn't be punched & kicked if I'd tried to kiss the author, referring on her saying in chapter 1. Some more, luckily I'm not an industrious wife (car) washer! Hmm! I'm pulling the leg of Lydia!

Well, my conclusion is, honk is value for capacity especially for the younger generation to recognize those old tricks and bywords. But the price tag might ponder some students pausing to put one's hand in one's pocket.

My 1st NY resolution came out of the blue

2007-01-03T23:29:00.000+08:00

The real celebration for 2007 is all about moving forward. Okay, it's a bit late at this time of year, I would normally have already scrounged up PDA and have jotted down all the things I'd like to improve about myself in this new year. The year would already be in full swing, and I'd be on my way to checkout for completing my resolutions. But this year? What a lopsided vehicle.

My 1st resolution of which I've to subscribe for the Star's epaper. What I thought was a money saving conception because it would be paid less from the conventional delivery. But what Hokkianese had said, "tou chit kwan, too teow ah moh hwan." Something like first trimester blues!

Although I had successfully registered with ebrowse.bluehyppo.com but when it came to the payment session for subscription, It was a mad thing. Hmm, I did'nt know whether I was stupid or the Tmnet was stupid. Submitting my correct IC numbers in order to verify my online payment had has turned out to be incorrect, according to their return.

I remembered I'd have submitted a photo copy of my IC together with a duly completed application form when applying for the account of Streamyx many years ago. By right, they should have a right record of that. So I went to my Streamyx's account information page, thinking that it would be an ABC by just editing my personal info, but it was not that easy. It was completely chanceless to perform the task online. They made a written note asking for a personal handling of documentation. After many attempts, all were had failed. I stupidly laughed to myself, "It's called the Malaysian way of online business!" Let better make a highjump and forget about this at this moment.

Next, I'm going to buy Surbex 750, Abbott's vitamin supplements. I believe this to be a matter of concentration, nutrition, and the use of brain to trap certain special set of circumstances. I'll keep you posted.

Eschew for a moment

2006-12-08T16:51:00.000+08:00

"Long time no see. Where have you been"? This was greeted by a familiar fish seller as I was entered the market for a regular weekly stock-up day before. I returned the greeting by telling him that I was busying in putting money into doctors' pockets for the last few weeks.

I was suffering from flu intermittently. The virus was so stubborn like a hateful spams that has refused to go away. Heeling software didn't work. It has remained its attack in between me and my wife periodically, prompting us to keep on changing doctor. Meanwhile, doctors' prescriptions didn't cure us but instead made us in a sleepy manner all the time. Probably the antibiotic-resistent bacteria had evolved, which makes tweaking our immune systems very difficult.

Most of yesterday's yesterdays and today I attempted to clear off all sort of backlogs. Now am feeling better despite few coughs persisted and at least I'm able to regain my mode to write again in this blogs-sphere.

It's been quite sometimes I was just keeping sneezing and seldom kept my eyes on what were happening within the society of these days. I wouldn't really recognize has someone was making troubles! Has someone was asking bloggers to register before you can blog?

Don't bend (distort) the history!

2006-10-05T19:50:00.000+08:00

We found ourselves too tired or else too lazy to cook our dinner last evening. So we had "ta pau" 2 packets of our favorite - "Tiong Kok Sharkfin" (fried meehoon naming in an accredited way by Hokkianese) to fill our stomaches as dinner.

Usually the package's covering is an old newspaper pieced with an inner layer of plastic paper in which this kind of food is wrapped. And it has been my habit to read the wrapping paper simultaneously while taking my Tiong Kok Sharkfin.

Although the news are outdated, sometimes they're just quite entertaining. And this evening was not the exceptional. Hence I found this piece of news dated 02/10/06 fanciful and interested - The story about the critique made by Dato Cheah of Penang Kheh Association against the DCM of Penang, Dato Haji Abdul Rashid bin Abdullah, over the issue of bending the history of Penang.

According to the critique, Abdul Rashid had has in one occasion days before cited irrespectively that the founder of Penang was not the Captain Francis Light (1740-1794), but it was Dato Kanaden (name is assumed as it's since I don't know "mat sooi" he is) who had come to Penang earlier than Light. Cheah uncompromisingly argued that if the perspective of who-is-who the first comer would be entitled as the founder, were to be taken into consideration. Then how about his 3 named ancestors, who had been landed into Penang 4 years prior to the arrival of Kanaden!

"Kanasai!" My noesis of history which was learnt some 40 years ago, has been tought back to teacher already. But what is still I can remember is, Penang was found by Light. Right? And also I can remember there are Light Street, Beach Street, Pitt Street & Chulia Street in Penang.

Perhaps one day, Light Street will be called as Kanaden Street!

Actually, it's none of my business of whether the founder of Penang was Kanaden, Kanasai, Brown or Black. Therefore as usual, as soon as I've had finished enjoying the reading, my delicious Tiong Kok Sharkfin do finish simultaneously. So it has energized me for the enthusiasm to bring up this little news to share with you!

Harmonious cattle of different colors

2006-10-03T17:54:00.000+08:00

I took this picture while I was taking a short puff at the corridor outside my workplace this noon. My first glimpse on this scene was blissful. These three different colors of cattle were getting together in perfect harmony with a common objective of "cari makan" freely at the large green green grass of field.

Resource for living is their most important goal. There is no social malaise inside their circle; protectionism which is sometimes necessary in trade, is not required to be practical between them; no brutal attacks or arguments. So, do they require apologies?

Yeah! I'm No. 1 of TM's Merdeka Plan customer

2006-10-01T15:40:00.000+08:00

I signed up the so called Merdeka Plan with TM on 16-09-05 when I received a brochure of invitation.

Yesterday, I was much surprised to receive a greeting postcard from the TM, saying that I was the No. 1 of their Merdeka Plan customer.

Wait a minute, Hat Chew! It sounds like they're trying to say that I was one of their No. 1 Merdeka Plan customers in the first sentence. But the third sentence then emphasized that being their "top customer" (singular). I think I'm No. 1 kuah!

The greeting message came together with a reward as follow - "Greetings! Thank you for being our number one Medeka Plan customer. We hope that you've enjoyed its benefits and will continue to do so. As our top customer, we believe that you deserve only the best from us. That's why, we've added more value to your Merdeka Plan and are pleased to announce that it now comes with extra talk-time minutes. FREE! Your new Merdeka Plan: 580 local call minutes + 120 national call minutes = 700 talk-time minutes. It's our own way of saying THANK YOU for you continued loyalty. So until our next reward, enjoy and happy talking! Warm regards from TM."

It has been a great job done by TM's customer relation department and is much encouraging.

Thank you TM for the reward! It certainly was nice to be remembered and especially nice to receive more talk-time during this 49th Merdeka!

I see Beijing 2

2006-09-19T07:54:00.000+08:00

We stepped onto the Tiananmen Square to celebrate our 31 marriage anniversary.

The remains of the 589-year-old original solid-tiles flooring which is covering a very large area, is still there inside the Forbidden City.

The 2nd gate of the Forbidden City.

One of the many brass urns found inside the Forbidden City. It measured about 8 feet in diameter and was supposed to be utilized as a reservoir for fire fighting purpose for the Palace.

A large ancient 'time measuring instrument' (clock) made of solid rock of about 5' in diameter which is placed on-top of a wall inside the Forbidden City.

I see Beijing 1

2006-09-18T23:11:00.000+08:00

As I stepped out from the Beijing Capital International Airport, I felt like I was revisiting a brand-new China. Newly retouched airport, new cars on the roads and new highways, were the catches of my first glimpse. The welcoming coach is new and so the female tour guide, is modernly dressed. But most of the vehicles passing by were found to be heavily dusted. This probably could be due to recently hasty constructions, such as new airport, new stadiums, arenas, buildings, roads etc.; for a face lifting for 2008 Olympic!

Not only China's people have changed their social infrastructure, they've changed their lifestyle too. They are now having the opportunity to work five-days-week. They enjoy both a week of holidays for Labor Day and National Day, and months of Winter Holidays. Curiously, many peoples of whom I have had encountered could basically speak Standard English. Some were intonated but are listen-able. Cellphone have become part of their needs like what we have been getting used to. The price of foods has inflated in line with their modernistic lifestyles.

Mountain-people-mountain-sea can be described at many tourist destinations, such as Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. Throngs of local people were also found at Summer Palace. According to locals peoples. Habitual daily exercises at the immense park of the Summer Palace has had become a healthy activity in their lives.

The public toilet, the place where I used to visit frequently, is unbelievably revolutionized! Most of them are equipped with auto sensors in taps, squirt hand soap, dryers and flush toilets. But most of them are aromatic with heavy ammonium flavor as hydrated urine from the large poor shooters over the floor courses the smelly environment. Perhaps, it is due to the heavy trafficking of visitors. Although they have a first class functionality but the mentality of cleanliness is yet to be improved. Anyhow, it is far better than ours!

The word 'queuing' is seemed not presented inside their mental vocabulary. Taking many times of buffet breakfast together with local guests who had brought disorder to the buffet like "hungry ghosts" for fear of unable-to-eat, were the bad experiences. Also, it is quite common that you would get a shoulder-one's-way manner at any entrance, payment counter, ticket counter and etc.

One thing for sure, it is a smokers' heaven. Almost everywhere is smoker free! Not like the one happened in the Hongkong Airport's smoking lounge, where usually 30 to 40 peoples would be packed like Sardine into a 5x15 cabinet in order to blow the cloud. Although it is free to smoke in public unwisely but significantly the number of public smoker has reduced. Even at the crowded Wang Fu Jin Walking Street, a famous night market, there were only a few smokers I'd seen. Was education had played a vital roll for this change, I didn't know.

During my visit to Tiananmen Square, I noticed a unique thing. There was a Malaysian tour was flagging a banner of "halal tour." But I really didn't understand!

At Great Wall, one must keeps right on the stairway in the same direction as how their vehicles run on the road when climbing up and down the wall. For this occasion, the principle is really worked to order!

I was much fascinated with the Underground City, a war protective tunnel which was built by President Mao in 1969 during the time of disagreement with Russia. The passage have 2 tiers. The 2nd tier is built by 18 meters dipper after the 1st tier, which could contain hundred-of-thousand of people. Unfortunately there were only few passages were allowed to be opened for visitors. Luckily, I was be able to manage for a few shots inside the tunnel!

At the Ya Xiu Shi Chang, a shopping mall, I had learned the way of bargaining purchase. My first experience was a poor bargain; a kid's silk suit which is priced at 260RB, was bid for 60RB after a bit-by-bit bargain, whereas my friend got the same suit for only 30RB! My second bargain over a vest of originally priced 380RB was later smartly obtained at 80RB. A quick check on the listed price of a 512MB SD card had caused my stretched-tongue surprise. It was deliberately tagged at 580RB by the average traders, what a whopping of about 600% marginal pricing!

Perhaps, from the perspectives of their cultural change, their living standard, property hike as well as the booming economic, It's a boon for the people of China!

In fact, there are many more to tell. In view of shortening my post, lets some of my shots in the next post (since photos.blogger.com is dead at this moment) to tell in short.

Break

2006-09-05T17:26:00.000+08:00

This evening I came across one of my collections of excerpt, titled "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There." from the World Executive's Digest 1995. The writer Richard Eyre cited about the need of fresh maxims to slow us down and make us more purposeful - that the nature of work and play has changed. Work used to be physical and tiring in this work-oriented world, so play was often passive. Often that work leaves us mentally tired and physically unused.

While looking back over the weeks and months but not see much of "up-colored" in my life. I was like sawing the trunk with a dull saw. I kept doing something and busying myself, never taking time to just sit there and sharpen my saw.

Well and so forth, I'll take a China vacation from tomorrow till the middle of this month, just to collect my thoughts, calm my mind, and regain my perspective.

Happy blogging!

Shall I be impressive?

2006-08-21T23:24:00.000+08:00

During the last few weeks, with the advent of my casual days - post-retirement, there has been a tendency to relax myself as well as my wearing style. However, I found that it's sometime not my preference to wear as I like when outing.

At one afternoon, I went to shop with my wife with the maintenance of my domesticated outfit; frayed collar T shirt, nap rised short and a pair of 2 dollars saddle. I felt the delight and casualness for being at such loose apparel at the shopping mall. I was enjoyingly perceiving my sight seeing while smiling to people who had had eyes-contacted with me.

Within a moment, I strangely felt like something was going wrong. I'd noticed that most of the people who be coming from the opposite direction be throwing a glance at me as if I was so special that day. I could not figure out the odd straightaway since my heart had been soak into a happy-go-lucky enjoyment.

So I asked my wife, "Yong, am I looked handsome today, if not why so many people were used to look at me?" "Of course lah! you're wearing like a boh-thuck-cair-eh-lang (illiterate person) and no wonder people may thing of you as a snatcher, a popular skeptical icon these days." She added, "if there were anything to be happened here, you are likely to be picked amongst the first batch for questioning via cctv."

Her word was later on proved to be literal when I was supposing to make a luggage purchase. That silly salesgirl who had been keeping her closed paces to me, was having her both eyes static at me all the time, as if I was not a genuine buyer! Alamak! what 'dog's eyes see people shorter' (dogmatic) manner it was!

This has proved that it can take only moments for people to pass judgement on you with these initial impressions largely based on visual image. What I'm thinking is clothe may not necessarily 'make' the man or woman. Men with proper tied on may not necessarily having money inside his pocket. But the reality is because image talks with this advanced society, and what our image communicates can dictate the quality of the response.

For the reassessment of my thought of whether should I be impressive, I've found an answer. As professional image consultant, Sharon Moore of Image & Moore Pty Ltd once said "There're only two types of people who don't have to worry about their appearance - the very rich, and the very silly. For the rest of us, it's about managing the impact we make on others."

I think I kinder find my old man style that would probably fit the range of what's appropriated for all occasions. And it's perhaps the Charles Bronson's!

A good resume

2006-08-02T22:21:00.000+08:00

I am fusty on the way of writing a modern resume. Look! here is a typical one that has found in my inbox.

Let's don't muss too hard upon the enjoinment of silence upon bloggers; the enormity of robbers; the unrest of society; an engrossing college story. And enjoy this particular resume!

Remarked that the copyright of the content of this resume is enigmatical.

Here it's:

SECRETARY'S RESUME:
Deer Sir,
I waunt to apply for the secritary job what I saw in the paper. I can taip real quik wit one finggar and do sum a counting. I think I am good on the phone and no I am a pepole person, Pepole really seam to respond to me belly well. I´m lookin for a Jobb as a secritary but it musent be to complicaited. I no my spelling is not to good but find that I Offen can get a job thru my persinalety. My salerery is open so we can discus wat you want to pay me and wat you think that I am werth, I can start imeditely. Thank you in advanse fore yore anser. . hopifuly Yore best aplicant so farr.
Sinseerly,
Peggy May Starlings
PS : Because my resimay is a bit short - below is a pickture of me taken at my last jobb.

Employer's reply:...... Dear Peggy,
It's OK honey, we've got spell check..... Welcome onboard!!!

D-Link DNS300

2006-07-30T22:09:00.000+08:00

I'm annoying with my printing jobs over my home networking shared-printer. Everytime it took me the hassle to fire up my dedicated PC (server) in order to get my document be printed.

I have been considering to get rids of such annoyance by employing a printer server or by using a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which has a built-in print server. After weighing this-and-that, here-and-there, I finally committed with this baby - D-Link DNS300.

Installation of this baby is a breeze. Open up the device's casing, I plug in a harddisk; then I connect it to my wireless router (in case any hub or switch will do) via an ethernet port; and then I hook up my printer to one of the 2 USB ports available at the back of this device.

With the power on, I fire my Firefox (browser) and issue 192.168.0.101, the default IP address of the device. There the interface for configuration is well designed yet elementarily simple. The Quick Start page finds the drive on the network and prompts me to format the harddisk to a recognizable Ext2 format. It is very fast to get my 80g hdd be formatted. Thereafter I can easily create shared folders with configurable rights, define users, assign access privileges. And interestingly, a default no-security public share folder is presented thereof.

This NAS operates as a standalone network file server with good handling of its integrated Linux Samba server talking to and listening from the Windows's environments.

Another interesting feature is I can hook up an external USB drive to another USB port of the device. And I can get my 80g mobile drive be quickly formatted into Fat32 format which I can't be able to do that under WinXP. I think this is an useful function for getting large capacity harddisk to be formatted into Fat32 format without the fuss of breaking into several partitions.

My Canon LBP1210 laser printer unfortunately fails to cooperate remotely and I guess it could be of printer's memory issue, since this Canon printer does not have its own Ram inside. Changing over to my another Canon Pixma 4200 printer is therefore functionable but sluggish. As a reminder, I think my next purchase of printer would be the HP's rammed one.

One annoyance with this baby is it buzzes so intensively (a high db of humming noise) that I have pondered to remove its tiny exhaust fan located at her backside.

Another annoyance is I have to figure out myself on how to switch off the unit. Nothing I could find a single clue from its accompanied documentations as well as from D-Link's website. Oh yes! finally by holding on its power button until its power led is blinking, is the answer. By then I'm not sure whether it is a conventional way.

Anyway, the throughput of files throwing in-and-out within this device is inspiring and is running at a satisfactory condition.
---------------

The good: Choice of desiring space; easy setup; USB ports for printers and USB drives attachment; Samba works fine.

The bad: Headache with its humming sound; lack of documentations; not a solid built.

The bottom line: It prices fairly, at RM550+-; it turns out to become my wireless server as well as print server when connected to my wireless router; a good choice for the average user.

I'm back

2006-07-26T17:55:00.000+08:00

After nearly a month of being away, I finally made my way back to this "lu-kong wa-kong" (bloging) circle. Sorry man! my readers (although it's small in number) Truly being away from the blog wasn't by choice. It was because I've been welcomed to "Gout land", an atmosphere of being suffered from gout.

At there, I've to take a new leaf of life. Diet has to be disciplined. I've to say no to foods that are considered high in purine content such as shellfish, red meats, organ meats, beef, beans and nuts etc. Especially the limitation of wine intake, that is the most heart-cutting option. Gout is not only discriminating me but my wife too. As she'd have to follow me to diet in such a way I did since it's now only "just the 2 of us."

Basically I took Goutnil (painkiller), Indomethacin (anti inflammation agent) and Allopurinol (uric acid reducer) daily that are obtaining over the counter. I've done a broad research on gout and getting to know that the best medicine was regular exercise.

I've also suffered from insomnia occasionally because of gout. Sometimes it felt like an owl - active in the night and sleepy in the day. No matter how I rolled and flipped on bed, it sometimes just couldn't get sleep.

It's all about the culprit, the excessiveness of uric acid resulting to gout!

This morning, I read about the intro of a book called "The Right to Write" by Julia Cameron in the Startwo column. The intro has never the less given me some encouragements to share my experiences with you, that's how "I'm back" be written.

Pressure released

2006-06-30T18:49:00.000+08:00

Ah! Finally it was a pleasure upshot - a release of last minute pressure - after months of harsh working pressure. Eventually I got my office's taxation jobs completed ahead of schedule before June 30. When I saw happy faces of my colleagues who were collectively enjoying the contentment of "mission possible" by beating the job's deadline, I was happy too this evening thanks to the full cooperation of all colleagues.

We had our works this year procrastinated for some reasons: some because we had failed to call upon clients to get task systematically at hand; some because some of our colleagues were still fresh to get idea to start; others because of the "World Cup 2006" heat that makes the whole system to slow down. That certainly included my frequent escapes from "dull and unpleasant tasks" to reserve for watching football!

A darker day

2006-06-01T20:44:00.000+08:00

Today marks the darker day in the life of consumers. Electricity tariff in the peninsula goes up by 12% from today.

TNB said the increase will not affect the low to medium income group which uses less than 200kWh of electricity per month as the existing rate of 21.8 sen per kWh remains unchanged. Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said those unaffected by the tariff increase made up 60% or 3.036 million of the 5.1million households in the peninsula.

Many poor consumers who are delighted that their watt consumption is falling below the marginal hiking point, are happy of being good fortune. As they have believed that the government is having the people in mind before allowing the increase by TNB. So they have expressed comfortably that they are not affected. In fact, it's so stupid for not understand simply the cost accounting implication that "wool is coming from the body of sheep".

Commodities from what you eat to what you use in daily life is mostly produced under a cost of electricity. Since the electricity hike will likely affect business circles in all sectors, certainly the burden would be passed on to consumers. And at the end, it is only those people in the low to medium income group to suffer from inflation.

Inflation and deflation play a vital role in the frugality of economy. Let see how people could stand getting balance within the degree of wealth (income) and comfort (spending) in everyday life! May I exclaim Malaysia boleh?

Pricey dumpling

2006-05-31T20:22:00.000+08:00

Today marks the annual "five month, five day" (colloquial for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month)Dumpling Festival. So my wife likes to eat dumpling.

She bought several her favorite alkalic dumplings home this morning. Although I also like this kind of dumpling but when I came to know the price of this dumpling, I "phewed" as if we were having some kind of golden dumplings. The brutal truth is this kind of tiny dumpling, sized slightly larger then a 50c coin, excessively cost RM0.60 each!

It is unavoidably that sometime we do sacrifice for the beguiling inflation rather than demandpull or costpush inflation.

Pulau Perhentian

2006-05-24T22:26:00.000+08:00

A 3D2N trip to Pulau Perhentian from 12/05/06 to 15/05/06 with a group of church members have given me many captured memories. We have fun there and I really love the sea, the beach, the resort and the little nemo held during a temporary catch .....

Snorkeling around many islands gave me a true and exciting experiences. The resultant white sand beaches combined with a very relaxed atmosphere make this a "get away" feeling.

And ... a quick mistaken jump from a speedboat while making a snorkeling gave me a pain of both ankles' sprain .......recovered just by today. Anyhow it's a great remembrance!

Here are some of my shots ......

The Inaugural NIA Malaysian Conference

2006-05-05T00:42:00.000+08:00

Accountants are facing a big challenge to stay in the forefront of the ever changing commercial environment.

The importance of maintaining professional knowledge has never been greater than today. Not only is there the need to keep up to date on tax, compliance and International Accounting Standards, there is also the need to broaden their knowledge on the impact of globalization on business.

National Institute of Accountants (NIA), Australia have had its inaugural conference together with its conference dinner successfully held in Malaysia on April 26 at Carlton Conference Centre of JW Marriott Hotel, KL. The conference was titled as "Managing change maintaining excellence - challenges facing the Professional Accountant" and was officiated by Y.Bhg Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, the Auditor General of Malaysia.

The conference was designed to introduce to its Malaysian members and accounting people an international seminar which is covering the topics such as Malaysian Accounting Standards Update; Corporate Governance; International Financial Reporting Standards; and Tax Reform - GST Implementation

Showcases such as Singapore's GST scenario and Australia's success IFR implementation, were also presented as a helpful example for the audience.

There was a large audience and me as a Fellow Professional National Accountant member was not the exceptional.

The NIA is now actively promoting recognition of its members, their specialized skills and the accounting profession in general. It is one of the three recognized accountancy bodies in Australia and is also a full member of the International Federation of Accountants.

Those who need further information regarding to the NIA, could contact the NIA Malaysian Branch Office for Mr T.K. Lee at Suite D03-01, Plaza Mont Kiara, No 2 Jalan Kiara, 50480 KL. Lee can also be reached by e-mailing tklee@maxis.net.my.

Cherishing memories

2006-05-03T21:11:00.000+08:00

There're people having their own opinions or reasons to blog.

Few days ago, my wife had just nagged me, "Why are you blogging for nothing?" I simply countered her "Didn't you noticed that I'd lost my writing power on Chinese?

Frankly speaking, I've found myself these days tended to loss memory. But I'm not panicking at all as I'm very clear that I'm losing memory, not my mind. My cognitive function is still working enough for me to carry on blogging!

It's natural that you do indeed lose some slippage in memory as you grow older. But I believe that the natural decrease in memory function that may start at third age is not a sign of senility or of serious dementia like alzheimer's.

"In fact, people between the ages of 65 and 75 are actually better at certain kinds of memory than young adults," says Dr Adams-Price, associate professor of psychology and chairman of the interdisciplinary gerontology program at Mississipi. "Particularly in remembering to do things and keep appointments."

Feeding your head is the art of cherishing memories. If you keep reading and keep learning new skills, the ongoing stimulation of your cognitive functions can minimize memory loss. A pretty consistent line of research says that.

At first, I also thought of giving up blog writing or simply let it be fallen into 'coma' like what Lydia Teh's blog was suffering now. Because my mind just isn't on the ball all the time when writing a blog. Worst than I've to use a classic solution - "slow down," "pause for certain minutes to mentally form my intentions."

But after I've had balanced my learning time and ought-to-do-things time with pretty much respected to function. I've suddenly realized that anything that I can do to make myself pay more attention especially hobbies that require thinking - such as blogging, actually helps to cherish my rusty memories.

Oh yes, besides this and Ginkgo, there is compelling evidence that a habit of exercise can also helps to control memory loss!

OMG the moralities of luxury

2006-04-25T16:12:00.000+08:00

When I was growing up in the lower class of the 1950s, luxury objects were lightly tainted with demean. My mother had always reminded me to live on enough-to-have lifestyle. Luxury or have-in-order-to-show-off objects was the indication of rich people.

After floating in the material world for decades, I had realized that the older culture, my mom's culture, the limited production capacity of the economy sharply reduced aspirations to material comfort, was no longer having relevance. In the modern world, my culture, much greater material satisfactions lie within the reach of marketplace of modest means. Thus a luxury culture which was seemed as an indulgence before has become a consumer culture. Deluxe now is not a goal; for many it is a necessity.

Reckoning that my living is sustained by hard-earned income, I've used to chase after the ever changing modern society. But I've always stuck to the style of off-limits moralities of consumption. I'm happy with what I have now but just a little bit being outdated.

If you want to understand the present material culture, you must understand the overwhelming importance of unnecessary material. If you are looking for the one univocal result of modern capitalism, of the industrial revolution, and of economic betterment, here it is the example.

The multi-millions built MPSP building. I sight with 'wow' impression when I was there to get my business license yesterday. The information counter alone is so luxury that none of many hotels I have had visited could touch with it. The business administrative area is also ostentatiously lofty in style. Air conditioning is of great coolness. Needless to say, the building by itself, is telling of what a luxury construction it be.

Frankly speaking, I was indulged with the atmosphere. I was thinking of staying a bit longer time for relaxation under such impulsion. Unfortunately my license was getting done within minutes as there were more counter staffs than the customers.

In a way, this luxury building is considered as one of the ineluctable results of the national economy and a Malaysian political system. And I must admit the ugly truth that we, the citizens are and will paying for it toward the moralities of consumption! Be it necessary in today's material world, you say.

Rainbow

2006-04-20T14:03:00.000+08:00

While I was reconditioning my DIY little fish pond during the last evening, I saw this rainbow in the sky. It was charming and initially came up with 4 colors. But I was be able to photo down with 3 colors only with few seconds' delay in grabbing a digicam.

It has been years I didn't notice a rainbow. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by Goddess Nuwa using stones of five different colors. Shall it portray an arc of colored light as a remark of fortune or just an illusory hope to me?

An poem of William Wordsworth from 1802, "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold The Rainbow", begins with:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!…

Perhaps, the rainbow was cheering me for a successful finishing of my little fish pond! Here you could see, there were newly purchased 'koi' fishes were enjoying their new home.

I took a few puffs in the garden while witnessing my finished job. I was thinking, since I'm still be able to 'do' things at this milestone and next, what's the coming project ........

Revisit Penang Hill after 28 years

2006-04-10T19:12:00.000+08:00

Since it's my wife's birthday today, I have just found myself wanting to make a plea for suggestions on where to take her for a meaningful outing. We have thought of going to a place of highland like Bukit Larut of Taiping, Gunong Jerai of Kedah, Betong of Gerik and Penang Hill. Finally we selected PH in order to see its latest sharp.

Penang Hill was always a special place, in the fall of 1970 it became my frequent destination for hiking from Botanical Garden.

I have such wonderful memories of my last time at Penang Hill sometime ago in 1978. It was a grace to spend full time at the hilltop while parenting our 3 kids with my wife. I loved the excitement of panoramic views over the Georgetown and the Channel.

When reaching at the foothill, I couldn't find a parking place amongst the 10 over available parking lots. To my surprise, it was unexpected that one of the symbolic tourist destinations of Penang, has only such a tiny parking area!

As seeing I was maneuvering around, a "cari makan" touter was suddenly presented himself to offer for a parking place. He then led us for several turns before entering into a nearby residential area to where I'd imagined in the first place should be a private car park.

But my imagination had eventually turned out to be another surprise as I was directed to park my car at the five-foot-way just in front of a residence and ultimately was asked for RM3. I paid in order not to displeasure her birthday sensation although I'd felt like being rifled to foray people's territory. It was indeed a bad experience.

I took a moment to look around at the hill entrance. Wow! It had completely changed to a new face by not seeing it for 28 years. At least I'd seen an establishment recognized as a special structure. I'd no word to articulate disparagingly about it.

On paying RM4 each for an adult, we were boarding the cable-car, yet another symbol of Penang. I reckoned that nothing was outstanding as compared generally to my last embarkation. It's still the same old day's flavor.

The only thing that had caused to my attention was the ventilation fans inside the cable-car. It could be classified as a stupid DIY job. Several tabletype ventilation fans (similar to the cheaper one that you could find at the Makro) were simply employed as the alternatives and getting screwed awfully at the ceiling. Yikes! an outstanding impression for tourists to remember PH's cable-car. Not a bad idea!

There was a happening of reconcilement during the cable-car journey - I'd reconciled myself to stand up by offering my seat to a foreign aunty, whereas many local chaps whom I found were loath to follow my example. The disgusted Penangists!

On reaching the destination - Penang Hill top, I was fast fascinated with disappointment. I discovered that it's still a place with not much difference since my last visit. It's still a "fishball" area where there are not many places to be rambled about. I'd sensationally talked to myself "was it suffered from any limitation for further development within this 28-years's time!"

With just a little while there, I suddenly realized that this journey was quickly closing to the end. We finally shared the common feeling as what I could hear my wife mumbled "Char chai (idyllically) we should go to Bukit Larut!"

Anyway, it is still regarded as a good tradeoff to spend just RM4 perhead for a cable-car drive. You won't find a similar drive cheaper than that elsewhere in the world. Pou chong (take good care of yourself) and goodbye Penang Hill!

How efficient the Tmnet is

2006-04-08T00:04:00.000+08:00

On Thursday, my Streamyx connection coughed (off-and-on) violently. As I picked up my phone, I could clearly hear the distortions sound kept coming louder than tone sounds.

So, being a humble technical man, I immediately reckoned that this matter would probably be settled under my cognizance. The easiest and most basic way (without the employment of any circuit tester) is simply by using a home-phone to tap on its lines directly onto the primary points of the incoming phone line. Finally I got the same wispy result as what I had received earlier. That meant, I got to call Telekom for help.

Moment later, I called 103 and surprisingly received the answer of "we have received many similar complaints, it's due to the thunder storm, please make your complaint to 400." Yet another corporate style of phone answering behavior. I sighed with &$##!.

Then, I did a web complaint and graciously got the immediate answer. Here they are the communications:

060406, 08:21 - Dear Tan, Thank you for submitting your complaint, our customer support team will attend to your complaint as soon as possible.

060406, 08:22 - Dear Valued Customer, We have received your e-mail and will revert to you the soonest.

060407, 06:50 - Dear Mr Tan, Thank you for your e-mail to TMNet.
Referring to your e-mail, please provide us with the details as follows in order to clarify the problem occurred.
- Contact person
- Contact number (mobile preferred)
- Streamyx telephone number
- Account Number
- Username
- DSL light on the modem blinking or stable
- Error Messages
- Modem brand
- Operating System (Win 98/ Win XP)
- Description of the problem
Mr Tan, please be assured that we will provide you with assistance upon receiving your mail.

060407, 10:23 - I replied - Sirs, I had made my complaint to Telekom (013) regarding to a noisy line and what they had responded was "we have received many similar complaints, it's due to the thunder storm, please make your complaint to 400." Shit! In fact, I'm very sure that it is nothing concerns with my infrastructures, Streamyx or the Streamyx congestion but is merely a LINE NOISY.

060409, 12:35 - Dear Mr. Tan,
Thank you for your e-mail to TMNet.
Mr. Tan, we are glad that the issue has been addressed, please be informed that we would like to advise you to refer to TM Point or call (100) regarding the interruption on your telephone line. Should you require any further assistance or would like to submit any enquiry/feedback, kindly visit www.tm.net.my and click on Customer Support. Mr. Tan, we thank you for taking the time to write to us and look forward to serve you better.

Actually the making of web complaint to Streamyx.com is quite effective in answering. Whereas the actual action is somehow questionable. After several days, they eventually asked me to call (100). Is that LP PL?

At this moment, I can still get the "chi cha chi cha" sound over my phone line. Hopefully thing would be getting proper.

a contemptible 40-30-20-10 game

2006-04-01T21:46:00.000+08:00

Most men are not contented with marriage.

40% of the time:-
He is blissfully happy;
He thinks about his spouse constantly;
He marvels at how lucky he's to have found his wife;
He lives in perfect harmony because he is communicating well;
He is able to laugh even without pocket money;
He whispered words, shared secrets, and sexes are all sweeter because of the discovery of his "true love";
He thinks that all Saturday will be a "fevered" day;
He took all failures belong to his responsibilities.

30% of the time:-
He lets life just goes along;
He focuses on soccer games, 4 digits, gambling, (one or many) and daily works more often then home affairs;
He has somehow let the marriage to be driven by autopilot;
He tends to reduce communication, sharing, or making love; but
He is content and comfortable with the partnership share.

20% of the time:
He is tempestuous;
He thought that his spouse doesn't care about his feelings, and isn't helping with his share of the work;
He took most of all failures return to his spouse's share.

10% of the time:-
He takes on arguing of what are the fairs and gives a portion of what is considered to be his spouse's share.

None of the above is bad. Life is full of peaks and valleys. One is needed to appreciate the other playing through the game. Look, here is a good testimony from http://city.udn.com/v1/forum/article.jsp?no=344&aid=1626321

The Church I went last night

2006-03-30T19:35:00.000+08:00

It's called Kulim Grace Community Centre located at a hilltop and the address are A27, Kampung Tunku Putra, Kelang Lama, 09000 Kulim. It's one of the branches of Grace Church Bukit Mertajam. The centre was dedicated in Oct 97.

Weekly services on Wednesday nights enable people who have to work on Sunday in Kedah state to enjoy worship, fellowships, communion and the Word. Special tuition classes are also provided to help students prepare for their examinations.

I was lucky to have the opportunity in enjoying their cell's comedy shows as well as having an “eating luck" to take their buffet dinner.

Dr Khoo, who's supposed to be my sponsor inquired about my previous absences. I told him "You see! if there is food, big chance you'll find me there". He broke into a laugh.

Killing geese for early eggs

2006-03-28T18:30:00.000+08:00

"Chinese paid the biggest sum in tax revenue, their tax contributions had have enabled the country to become prosperity and progressive." said the former PM Dr Mahathir as reported by Guang Ming Daily on March 26.

As reported, he added "If it were solely depending on the Malays' tax contributions, the country was impossible to achieve the status of today."

The acknowledgment of such realness of which is a doctrinaire hiccough of most of the Chinese leaders at large, is very much pleasing the hearts of Chinese tax payers.

However, what is the taxpayer of thought of most Chinese? I believe most of the Chinese tax payers do have the exclamation "bo pian" with the passion of as if they have been all the while high-handed with tax penalties, especially when it comes to tax investigation.

Many people put the blame on tax's public rulings, which dictate too narrow gap on business related expenses.

The Ruling is undoubtedly a factor, but it may not be the main reason. Maybe the Chinese taxpayers' weak sense of social responsibility is the main factor. Or perhaps it's a real hassle upon the overacting of excisemen.

No doubt that paying tax is a part of social responsibilities but a hasty taxation will certainly make the financial circle impeded.

If I were a farmer, I would prefer to let those geese lay more future eggs in line with long-term strategy. However it does not prevent me to eat up those attractive fat-geese!

As you can see, there're always stupid private business people to develop an unhealthy attitude towards wealth. They have more interest in demonstrating a luxurious life than observing their responsibility to society. For those of them, "kai si"!

All for free parking in Butterworth

2006-03-24T13:36:00.000+08:00

"All parking at public parking lots in Butterworth are free because no parking coupons are available for sale." a grocery shop dealer told me this morning when I wished to buy a parking coupon.

Under curiosity so I went to another outlet hopefully could get the coupons but was told again that "never mind, just parks your car without coupon, since they (council) don't have the stock of coupon, how can they catch you this time?".

When asked how long the situation of the "out of stock of parking coupons" would last. "O, it has been happened since Monday and don't know when the supply will be resumed." a coupon seller answered.

The two same stories had nevertheless strengthened my belief into this silly management fault of the Butterworth Municipal Council.

Ahem, if this is true, as a consumer, I wish that this incident would prolong for a longer period so that I could park my car for free. At the same time, let the “blue uniformed” servants have a chance to enjoy buta gaji for a period. I've no idea whether it is a "win-win" or "lose-lose" situation!

Who are accountants these days?

2006-03-16T22:03:00.000+08:00

Will Finance Ministry license uncertified accountants? This question was raised during 1988 when the Malaysia Institute of Accountants (not the government) conducted raids on those “bogus” accountants by means of Accountants Act 1967 of which they had or exploited a monopoly on a common noun “accountant” as their own brand.

The right of such execution under the Act was somehow jeopardized and was put to a halt by political and public forces.

During that time, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Loke Yuen Yow was desirous of licensing those “bogus” accountants. As published in The Star on 21 April 1992, he said “The ministry was looking into the possibility of amending the Accountants Act 1967 to accommodate them. We are looking into aspects on how to license them”; he also said “We do not want to be seen as victimising anybody by coming down hard on these accountants”.

After some time, the attempt to amend the Accountants Act by the ministry became sleeveless. The whole issue was then prematurely being submerged and the words of ministry were also being damped into the conner of a drawer.

Maybe the Ministry had aroused to a sense of control or called to a state of preparedness, the Section 153 of the Income Tax Act 1967 was therefore amended by Act 451 of 1991 s23(c), by substituting for the word “accountant” wherever they appear in its subsections with the words “tax agent” on the 14 December 1990.

The amendment means that other then advocates, one must has to obtain a tax agent licence from the Minister if he/she is going to act as a tax agent, a tax consultant or a tax adviser.

MIA was then not to be able to shout again upon the “bugus tax agent”. Even MIA members, irrespective of auditor holders, will have to do so under Section 153(4) of the Income Tax Act 1967. The amendment also deviates the meanings of “tax agent” and “accountant”. A tax agent is therefore unnecessarily be an accountant or vice versa.

Meanwhile the government had successfully taking control of Company's Secretary licences and Tax Agent licences under section 139 of the Companies Act 1965 and section 153 of the Income Tax Act 1967 respectively.

These had nevertheless helped to regulate properly the relevant industries in line with the prospective growth of the economy of country. These had also helped to allow those qualified people especially bumiputra in the opinion of Minister to serve the nation. On top of that, the double or treble standards on the definition of accountants would than be properly relegated and thus eliminating a pride from one particular end.

Did you see many bumiputra accountants and secretaries in public service 15 years ago when these trades were the near preserving trades of Chinese? Today I can find many Malay tax agents and secretaries in my neighborhood.

Although the question of will Finance Ministry license uncertified accountants has not directly been answered but it has indirectly been responded partly because of the amendment of section 153 of the Income Tax Act 1967, section 139(A) of the Companies Act 1965......., and one day, maybe new legislations for auditors will also bear.

Taking into consideration of the harmonization of national accounting profession, the moves are much encoraging. And the indirect re-regulatory job that's propeling by the government is receiving.

It is not my style to engage in personal attacks and Christianity forbids Christian to hurt the feeling of others. I felt pity and sad over a senior citizen at the age of 61 in Ipoh who was charged not long ago because of providing tax agency services without a valid licence. He was charged under the Income Tax Act but not the Accountants Act. Accuses such as bad services, helping clients to evade tax etc. putting on them is rather hypercritical.

What he or she lacks is just a piece of paper and on top of that it is illogical to judge that all the so called uncertified accountants are incapable or unethical.

There is always not an ultimate judgment that qualified accountants are good enough on their works and their own clienteles' taxes are of complete integrity without evasion. A statistical research of this kind has yet to be established and thus it is remained unknown, therefore there is no point to say in such a radical way. Maybe the Income Tax Department can tell the ratio reflecting from the numbers of investigation cases.

I personally welcome the move of Lawatan Audit to be performed by the Tax Authority so that tax payers can be educated to well keep on public rulings and be learned to perform their own tax assessment under STS system and of course leniency and transparency are one of the critical factors to the successful implementation.

Deregulations such as simplified reporting tax return in Hong Kong and other countries where dependency on tax service provider is least possible; An easy and understandable on-line tax filing in US; An Australian Taxation Office (ATO) draft taxation determination allows a person who is not a registered tax agent to give tax advice if it is “part of” another service, are of good values to take into consideration.

As for the case of unlicensed tax agents, the government should in good faith looks into the scenario of how do these unlicensed people exist within the market midst and possibly puts them under the government's supervision or else allows them a grace period to exit from the market or upgrade themselves.

Citizen and Government is just like a son and a father whereas continuous punishing on the son due to his passed mistakes is not a constructive worshiping.

Solutions such as warning and education, plays a vital role in harmonization as well as improvement. I hope the honour Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's government is approaching to this kind of “son & father” government.

As for MIA now, nothing they can shout again about “bugus accountants” and “bugus tax agents”, as they've been eating their own words. Perhaps one day, they might descend their pace onto the niche of book-keeping and shout again upon“bugus book-keepers”, who knows?

Are they bribable?

2006-03-15T23:11:00.000+08:00

Few days ago, I saw this advertisement (as pix) published in the Guang Ming Daily. It was supposed to be advertised by a consulting firm.

At first sight, there were nothing wrongs with the public promotion of their services as mentioned but if you have taken a closer look at the bottom line, there was a proclamation of "supported by" several government agencies. And several logos of such government agencies, such as SSM, LHDN, CIDB etc. were had been shown alongside.

The outward appearance of this advertisement has nevertheless given me a misleading thinking. Not talking about whether the advertiser is fully authorized to use the government agencies' logos. My immediate doubt is - is there any connection linked between those named as "supported by" agencies and the advertizer, are they, those agencies, bribable in the sense to allow their logotype identities be cockered? If not, how are they be designated to support a private entity's business.

Tell me if you know the intense or profound reason!

Beaten by a bamboo shell

2006-03-12T22:46:00.000+08:00

If someone tells you that you have been beaten by bamboo shell (in Hokkian) over a certain purchase of goods. That means you have been unreasonably overcharged.

This is a story about my Dell Inspiron 710m purchase. The experience of my third time purchase as a returning customer.

On Mar 3, I logged on to Dell's online purchase portal in order to customize my new order with an additional 512 ram. When I supposed to reach the finishing line, I noticed that the offering section of "free upgrade to 80G HDD" within the customization page was not dedicated. I therefore could not make a check out for such order.

So I immediately phoned Dell and reported the above incident to a sale person called Stanley Ng who was attending my call. At first he was not believing my say but after his own trial error attempt, he lastly acknowledged with apology for the misapprehension of Dell's webpages.

He then helpfully provided me a fax quotation which is shown with a lump sum total price of RM4,464/-. I was quite busy at that time and inattentively confirmed the order.

Three days later, I received the goods in satisfactory condition. But one disappointment was that an invoice is not included in the package. It has been my intention to find out the item by item price so as to determine that I was buying the goods at the right price - the emotion that has all the while annoyed me since the purchase.

On the following day, I phoned up Stanley again to ask for a breakdown figure regarding to my purchase. Surprisingly he was unable to fulfill my request instantly over our phone conversation. He had therefore requested for an off-line moment to enable him to resource the calculation.

Before he could answer, I was thinking whether I am having the legal standing to return the goods under the Malaysian Trade Description Act, 1972? Also, would Dell, which is an international entity, give me a good answer?

Anyway, it is a good lessen for me to be attentive when making future purchase.

By the time I'd finished this writing, Stanley had called me to notify that Dell will refund me for the amount overcharged.

Is headmaster a corrupt master?

2006-03-04T21:47:00.000+08:00

Oriental Daily reported: SJK (C) Chin Woo board of directors chairman Ong Koh Hou, who had advertised notice of rewards almost everyday recently, had announced RM500,000 for the rewards to those who could provide solid evidence that could bring corrupt headmasters to court.

He welcomed feedback and evidence regarding to the matter of corruption made by headmasters. "Many had come forward to give their feedback." Ong said. "However, their information is not strong enough to bring the headmasters to court," he added.

The issue of corrupt headmasters has become a hot topic amongst Mandarin School community.

It is astonished to hear that headmasters are lacking in integrity and have been suspected of playing the game of "flipping two sided images between valet and ghost". In Hokkian, it means "lang si ee, kuei pun si ee". Are headmasters nowadays belonged to gentleman's gentlemen?

We all know that headmasters are usually acting as purchasing head, we also know that suppliers are usually giving away discount/commission to maintain their path as contractors.

One question is - whether the discount given is in kind of benefits such as CASH BACK token or in term of direct trade discount?

Another question is - since headmasters are in the profession of educational business, are they obligated and entitled to pocket discount/commission?

No good days after petrol hike

2006-02-28T14:09:00.000+08:00

The price of petrol has increased by 30 cents a liter this morning, and the upshot was a new surge of financial hardship to consumers.

The Prime Minister's department said that the savings from the price increase would be used for development projects and improving the public transport system for the benefit of all people. It sounds like the funding will be utilized wisely, but then who will assure that the function be going proper? What if the revenue - administration - corruptions - contractors = deficit? Would the saving from petrol subsidy "fly" to plane the bewildered books of MAS?

The simple reason for the petrol increment is justified by giving back the consumers with better public transport system. On the surface, it is a reasonable trade-off. But in depth, how about the ongoing inflation induced by the petrol price increment! The wave of added cost of living is now trigger on. I'm sure at least you'll pay for a higher transport fare!

Consumers in Malaysia have already burdened with taxes such as income tax, service tax, sales tax and import duties. Not only they have to pay for utility bills, also they have to face red-tapes in order to comply as tax payers. Just imagines, they have to fork out more money and more time to sustain their livings.

Salaries are crippled; businesses are going neither good or better; shares market is dour; and the social security is infirm - the poor income resources. Some more the policemen are out to catch the summon debtors; the tax men are out to catch the tax defaulters; city council people are also out to catch the parking offenders - the never ending mouse and cat businesses. For the above, who cares?

My feeling is that the government is like a retired old man who has lost his earning power and is merely relying on monetary support from his poor children. The old man grins while the children lame. By and large, how could the development for a better next generation be yielded?

No time!

2006-02-22T23:41:00.000+08:00

God, it's been so long since I posted something. Truth is, there was either nothing to post or no time to do something to post about. Spring break did not mean as much free time as I expected since I decided not to take too much break from my job commitment. :)

I was not in good physical health for several days during the last two weeks. The worst thing was not the physical discomfort or pain, it was the invasion of the fucking spyware into my home intranet.

The so called VX2 of new variant spyware refused to go away and it hijacked my browser forcibly by malicious web sites such as match.com. No matter how often I changed back the registry settings, they were changed again the next time my system restarted. I'd "caught no ball", therefore had taken the last step - formatting harddisk - of my three network clients. And you know lah, it was a time depleting process to rebuild several systems at once. No wonder some people have said: "A virus can ruin your computer. Spyware can ruin your life".

Americans hijacked my computer akin as their planes being hijacked by terrorists, I've confused who are actually the terrorists?

happy Chinese New Year!

2006-01-26T14:11:00.000+08:00

The year of the Dog is around the corner. I would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous CNY holidays! May this dog's year bring lots of happiness, good health and luck to your family. Gong Xi Fa Cai, Ban Soo Lu Ee!

Now before we usher in the New Year, a little slicking up is needed to be getting in order. Usually in conventional ways, Chinese will perform a spring-cleaning, prepare some cookies, do house decoration with lanterns and red displays, buy new clothes, stock up Mandarin oranges and soft drinks, and will do many other NY related activities such as giving out gifts and the preparation of "ang pow" ....

I reckon this as an obligation rather then convention for parents. Doing the CNY preparation job has other meanings beside traditional means. In fact, this is the best time to get together in perfect harmony for family members and by chance this is the happiest moment that you can find from the happy faces of your children. You are obliged to bond your families by creating the CNY mode in line with the preparation works. Actually, you don't need to have a conceptual thinking or a big deal to prepare for the CNY, just follow some conventional ways to suit your style and situation will do.

I've been doing these for over 30 years. Today I've savoured the fruit. Children have cooperatively come together and have done the CNY preparation works for me. That's why I always acclimate to the mode of CNY!

being tagged!

2006-01-19T11:01:00.000+08:00

I was tagged by Cmos who has "see me up"! The so called 10 words determined essay similar as what the charming girl, yvy who has done a fine meme job.

It seems that there are 4 golden rules which the tagged person must abides to or else he/she would be castrated mercilessly like some Dynasty Ching eunuch according to Cmos. But what has surprised me is that how female could be castrated? Sealing up in a particular way? This one you have to consult Cmos!

The rules:

1) write an entry of between 100-200 words, with the words hereof must be mentioned once only in the entry:

- I
- me
- blowjob
- grapes
- random
- power
- loneliness
- water
- robot
- blue

2) Out of the 10 words, you can only change 2 words.
[I adhere to the order]

3) Your essay must make some kind of sense. if it's not cool, then it won't be getting published…
[if it's a nonsense, also be published]

4) Send to 5 people.

My tags go to any 5 volunteers.

OK lah, hereunder it's mine which is composed into one strikingly unconventional para --

Some things that I have seen and some flicks that people have shown me long long time ago, are completely not different from what are available these days. It is still the same old day's damp-things including the styles of blowjob; the beautiful kinds of grapes shows; the typical ways of random strokes; the traditional power play; the exhibition of motion in loneliness for sharing the feelings; the motion characteristic of spiritual water; the employment of robotics equipments; and many other colorful creatures playing the same old day's sandwich game. These are all the things that nothing special which could be found at some sites that are full of blue birds and red swans flying at that particulars skies! The only big different is the faster speed you get to refresh your eyes thanks to the modern infrastructures. The arts of beauty lie only with real men who know how to perceive. But generally people's smile belied their real feelings of discomfort when coming across these things. If chickenhearted! beg your pardon please!

food shoplifting

2006-01-16T21:59:00.000+08:00

In the public eyes, food shoplifting is quite common and can easily be seen at supermarkets here. Perhaps it is an eccentric behavior; it is an addiction; it is a job; it is a characteristic of barbarian; or perhaps it is a symptom of herpes simplex encephalitis.

Last Saturday, when I was shopping at the Jesco of Bayan Lepas, I was surprising to see many shapeshifters although fetching with children were getting around a counter which was stuffed with offered grapes. They were accessibly swallow the grapes right there. As if they were enjoying a free eating at a free fruit-fair!

At first, I loathed these freebooters but as I saw them made no scruple to perform the shoplifting and without concerning that it was a scurvy trick, I had condoned them. Assuming that they were just a group of people who were simply the first timer to town and who were the misfortune people of this scrubby society. On the other hand, the supermarket authority was not taking any action for such food shoplifting act. Do you hate this kind of food shoplifters?

Too many people regard this as a minor issue. Perhaps many have done it themselves at some point in their life. I think it's worth to spell out the conclusion "Food shoplifting by parents in the presence of children is a shameful act and is frequently a 'gateway' to more serious future offences by children."

the good, the bad & the ugly for 2006

2006-01-04T20:59:00.000+08:00

2006, a year as yet unstained by human deviation, corruption and natural destruction -- a year, too, of new discoveries and achievements waiting to be made. Will the Malaysia prosper? And on the economic side, what will impact our people? What do local soothsayers predict for the new year? natural disasters extent, petrol price surges, electricity rate raises, interest rate rises, share prices sour, intro of GST, inflation and the health concerns for chicken make this 2006 to be a challenging year!

The good things -- political stability is what we are going to enjoy as no election will happen in this year; more income tax reliefs for personal such as increased child refief and lenient estimating tax payable will make taxpayers less burdened; returning of foreign investment is likely to take the hike with the attractiveness of increased interest rate and brassy shares; 50% discount on stamp duty for SMEs borrowing will give SMEs more oats; national saving of about RM16 billion to RM18 billion upon subsidy on petroleum products will drive the budgetary deficit to a lower point of GDP from 3.8% of 2005; much lower import duty on household commodities such as clothing and electrical goods will increase consumption spending and is economically beneficial; and the conservative government steering by Pak Lah who is a non spendthrift alike is likely to save something for the nation.

The bad things -- petrol price will go up due to less subsidy; relatively the cost of living would be increased in term of inflation and probably you would see the increment of electricity rate, toll charges, food prices etc. which would be a big belt for retirees; educational cost would never be justified with cheaper college fee although the gorvernment will give out the investment tax allowances of 100% on qualifing capital expenditures to higher learning institutions; overspending is supposed to spring up as young consumers are vulnerable to persuasive life such as credit cards, telephonic goods and cars that promoting consumer debts, thus putting them at risk of deficits; Medical bill will not be lighten as public hospital is going to collect charges.

The ugly things -- corruption is seemed an unfinished story; social disorder is seemed an inexorable episode; education policy continues to deliberate between mother languages and English, and social services which were all the time lacking societal governance strive to demonstrate with no outstanding manner.

Either good or bad, it is certainly hoping for happier life then the retrospective year. The budget 2006 made last year was aiming to reduce the burden of the tax paying public brought about by the increase in petrol price, improve the quality of life of Malaysians and at the same time accelerate economic activity. May Malaysian enjoy a better living? May the public outlays be scrutinized with more meanings? Inestimably I hope so.

simple page for 2006

2005-12-28T20:43:00.000+08:00

With 2005 drawing to close. Many of us make resolutions. We have the opportunity to evaluate our accomplishments and sift through our less successful life in an effort to move in the right direction next year.

However, we often make the resolutions bulky with very much thought as to what is overloaded in our lives. Something like a year's to-do-list which has incorporated some unrealistic things. As a result, the resolutions usually achieve incompleteness. Instead of making long-listed resolutions that are almost boundless, why not try a new simple approach? Why not just making the resolutions simple enough to be targeted only for a few major wishes, such as "buy a car for RM50k-RM70k; strive for additional income of RM10k etc." It's important to articulate and justify through your beliefs when making resolutions.

I have a friend who has just started a small business but he has made his new year resolutions to include a BMW & a bungalow that's far beyond his financial ability. I assumed that he has been making his 10 years' resolution, may be.

Do consider what is working in our lives and shall be improved rather than hopping for a big leap. Don't make your already busy life more complex by compounding too many major commitments. Putting all those small things as you come across life into perspective that has to be taken for betterment and bringing them to execution by using a daily to-do-list. In such a way, you'll gradually change your life in a positive way without hassle and without procrastination.

Streamlining can be the way you can change your life. It's a simple process based on a three-point plan.

1. Systemize your attitude - create effective systems to help you functions better on a daily basis, and be willing to change your attitude to handle your daily obligations. Time management and problems solving manner are the essence;

2. Reasoning by elimination - don't clutter your life with a cache of possessions and bad relationships. Limit the things you allow to accumulate in your life. Decide to eliminate bad relationships and decide to trash worthless things;

3. Organize - get yourself, your things, your family and your business be organized. Then keep it that way everyday.

Well, I hereby wish you farewells for the 2006 and having a more meaningful way of life!

a man and a pen

2005-12-27T19:21:00.000+08:00

A for apple; m for man; p for pen; and a men and a pen. these were the part of pioneer English lessons I'd been taught at standard vi. I was acquainted with the phase "a man and a pen" coz during that time, man has already been symbolized to pocket a pen which is clipping onto the sleeve of shirt's pocket. In such appearance as a dude, men were fond to carry a pen.

It was nothing crucial with the usefulness of the pen, it was basically used to flash proudly for the pen. A man with a pen didn't necessarily denoted that he could pen with good writing but he would be reckoned as a gentleman who has pocketed with pen. My first pen during that time was a $2.50 Hero, a China makes. It was a fountain pen equipped with a very strong nip and was tough enough that could even be used as a dart shoot-able onto a wooden table. This particular action had became our favorite game to challenge for the strongest amongst our pens during secondary school days. We were loving pen so much and were used to polish it almost everyday in order to give it a shine.

At the end of 1960s, Parker was first being introduced into here and it had fast been recognized as a renowned pen. Those students who had the chance to pin a Parker at their pocket were so regarded as rich kids who were purportedly having a wealthy family to live with. Hero pen users were therefore been categorized as the lower groups peoples.

It is all about a man and a pen in our childhood time. Now some of us, the Hero pen users, have already gone to sell salted eggs (died). This article was penned in memory of our many late schoolmates. My blessing!

the evolution of Santa

2005-12-22T13:10:00.000+08:00

Malaysian of my age were astonished to experience Santa & Santarina as we know them today. Santa's life has diversified into more complex with commercial missions, and is not merely giving out presents to children as St. Nicholas did in the 4th century.

Santa was turning up everywhere as a benign source of beneficence during 1950. This commercial success has led to the North American Santa Claus being exported around the world. Santa was life-sized, jolly, and wearing the now familiar red suit. He appeared in magazines, in papers, on billboards, shop counters, and even at sex sites promoting businesses. I've seen many contrivances of this evolution. Santa is about to sell coca cola drinks; to promote Citibank cards by presenting you a bunch of money [today's ad at TheStar]; to sell Apple's Ipod [today's ad at TheStar].

Nevertheless, Santa's life is gleeful, he has today discarded his reindeer and accompanied by beautiful santarinas commercially [pic of holiday promotion at Everland, South Korea, as shown in TheStar today]. And many santarinas are going nude there [sorry no offend no link here]! He embodies holiday cheer, happiness, fun, and gifts-warm happy aspects of the commercial Christmas season.

Anyway, in our matured eyes, there is nothing fulsome and rowdy associated with Christmas ads. These have appealed to our better side at Christmas. They are designated to sell a product and destined to create festive environment as well. They do so by appealing to something in our souls that comes alive in a special manner during this season, displaying something nature, pure, generous and human concerned, something Christmas....

You know, today is the day Chinese celebrate "dong zhi" or the "thang yuan" festival, which rendering "the arrival of winter" meaning. And my family is enjoying our thang yuan besides the Christmas tree and under the environment of Christmas musics. Ya, we got the sensation of winter during which dong zhi and Christmas are coming together. Is that odd? Otherwise I'll call this as 2 in 1 merry Christmas Dong Zhi!

Happy Christmas Dong Zhi to you!

gold or share, take my count

2005-12-20T22:51:00.000+08:00

Nine years ago, I bought 5k MBFcap shares at RM0.88 per share for the sum of RM4,400. If during that time, I acquired gold at about RM44 per gram rather than MBFcap, I would have 100 grams of gold in hand.

The present value of my 5k MBFcap shares (being converted to 125 MBFcorp) is RM7.50; and the present value of 100 grams of gold is RM6,177. Relatively I had rugi RM6,169.50!

Nine years backs, you needed 100 grams of gold to buy 5,000 MBFcap shares. Now you only need 0.12 grams of gold to buy 5,000 MBFcap equivalent shares.

Huk! to buy share or to buy gold, my experience tells.

I think the future trend of investment is for gold coz the production quantity of gold is become lesser. On the other hand, shares will be issued more and more for the purposes of corporate funding for working capital since most of the corporations now are needing fund to roll.

Renmin Bi also becomes a favourite. It is polishing RM bimonthly in term of exchange. If I were allowed to place a further 10k of investment, I would definitely choose to kunci (lock up) 10k of Gold or Renmin Bi rather than Malaysian shares. Would you follow pace?

Seasons greetings

2005-12-19T21:19:00.000+08:00

Christmas is upon us, new year is coming closed and the Chinese New Year is fast approaching. Like them or loathe them, the temptation of purging your wallet is the order of the day! But don't ever tucker out your saving!

For bloggers, now is a good time to "bing and leap outdoor greatly" (blog). Those of you who aren't obliged to burn the midnight oil should try to get out and about and feel the emotion of the Santa and the god of finance.

But for me, instead of eating, drinking and making merry, I prefer to jalan jalan, see the flowers, see the people, feel the nature.

By the way, I wish you a very merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.

back to Palm for Christmas!

2005-12-18T21:57:00.000+08:00

Just got my new classic Palm TX, my out-of-pocket Christmas present! Simultaneously gave my Dell Axim to my son for his Christmas present too. Yeah! I'm the Santa!

I've been using many palms for many years. From Palm Tungsten T; Zire72 to Tungsten T3. I decided to return to Palm for ease of use or otherwise I'd been feeling distaste on Window pocket PC OS which had bewildered me for TL reactivation of its Outlook system, and also on its incapable memory handling.

I was very impressed with the color screen and the sexy profile. Palm TX seemed faster to me since the Palm OS5 is less taxing on the processor and the simplicity of applications graced my heart. The combination of that gorgeous screen, one-touch to landscape mode and ability of font size adjustment on the move, along with superb handling of wifi, made this the most painless ever-ready PDA I've seen yet!

Palm TX video player is much better than the PPC due to its higher resolution display, better support for file (divx, xvid, mpeg1 & mpeg2, etc.) formats, and much better power management.

Pocket Tunes is just a bliss to sing out good sound for MP3 sound tracks and amazingly it'll be kept running at the background after a few seconds with complete off screen. An Ipod alike!

EReader is having the clarity and freshness of immediate experience with ebooks reading and the association of MSDict (Oxford reference suite) make reading be referential on the go.

Versamail works like a champ. Jogged the GET icon got everything rapidly! The Tasks for to-do-list and HandyShopper for purchase list have served to organize my day-to-day events more easy.

Overall, this was an excellent return to Palm. If I had to grumble, I'd say that Palm's distribution is not stringent. You know, I'd found my default Hotsync username be automatically allocated as "chalie" after the completion of desktop installation. That means the package I'd purchased was not a virgin one! I think the seller who sold the packet to me is going to harm the reputation of Palm!

Let me conclude my commentary on my return to Palm by saying that It's really cool PDA with a classy professional look; nice compact size; tactile buttons; solid; fast; extremely convenient and intuitive interface. It's really the faculty through which my Christmas will be apprehended!

Dunce buying jewelry

2005-12-16T22:34:00.000+08:00

My old partner has reminded me to buy a Christmas gift for our granddaughter in order to celebrate her full-moon day aka Christmas eve. Since I already have a nice jade gems in hand which was bought from China not long ago, so I've decided to buy a white gold necklace to pair with it.

At Megamall this evening, I was examining the shop windows and browsing for a preference to any other. The stupid idea was actually I totally didn't know how to make a good selection. By looking me eying in vain of desirability, a sale girl then approached me and said: "Sir, what are you looking for, may I help you?". I therefore told her that I am looking for a white gold necklace for my little grandchild.

"O, you're coming at a right place, we have plenty of selections, come, I show them to you." she said while leading me to their counter.

"nah, this one is perfect and inexpensive." she said while showing me a pick.

"OK! how much is this?" I asked.

"You see, the price is RM510 on its tag. But you're lucky coz gum gum today we have a promotion, now I can give you a special price at only RM388 net." she convinced.

"Wah! so tiny so expensive, I think I better have a price comparison first then I'll get back to you." I responded with an intention to move away.

"Come lah sir, I calculate another special discount exclusively for you," she said and then was making a tit tit tak tak on the calculator and lastly added: "OK! this is the bottom price - RM288, I guarantee you wouldn't find this price at other shop."

"But I still feel inappropriate for the price over such a small necklace, probably I need to feel out a prior cognition about that!" I replied implausibly.

"OK lah! less RM20 again come to RM268 as the last offer in order to compliment your grandchild, OK?" she reconciled.

Eventually I was having a conviction over her many times of discount and therefore made the purchase. Whether it's cheap or expensive, frankly, I'm blur! Anyway It's a good time to be a Santa by giving out the gift.

Bank Negara foreign reserves declining

2005-12-10T11:08:00.000+08:00

Malaysia's foreign exchange reserves dropped 3.4% in the two weeks ended Nov 30.

The international reserves of Bank Negara Malaysia amounted to RM275.3 billion or equivalent to USD73.1 billion as at 30 November 2005. During the period, there was a large external loan repayment by the Federal Government. The reserves position is sufficient to finance 8 months of retained imports and is 5.8 times the short-term external debt. Reported BNM.

They have declined 9.1% from a record US80.4bil on Aug 15, according to central bank data.

GST, what's that?

2005-12-08T22:15:00.000+08:00

One of my clients came across an article about the GST (Goods and Services Tax) that has published by the Oriental Daily News of Dec 05 and he was not fully comprehended with the illustration as shown above.

After seeing the illustration, I showed him a humorous remark and pointed out that there were 2 printing mistakes on the illustration. The last field of "tax on output" should be written as RM5 instead of RM2; the total GST collected by the government for RM5 should be placed under the last column of "net tax payable" instead of "tax on input" column.

FYI, the simple calculation base on the corrected illustration can be determined as:
Raw M'rial Supplier charges Manufacturer RM0.50 and pay it to Government;
Manufacturer charges Wholesaler RM2.50 and pay Government RM2.50-RM0.50(input tax);
Wholesaler charges Retailer RM3.50 and pay Government RM3.50-RM2.50(input tax);
Retailer charges Consumer RM5.00 and pay Government RM5.00-RM3.5(input tax);
at the end, the selling price to Consumer becomes RM100+RM5 sales tax.

Malaysian GST is expected to be implemented sometime in March or April 2007. With a broader base for goods and services being subject to GST, the revenue for the government is expected to be higher and the consumers are the final taxpayers.

Because of the GST, the inflation rate is likely to be heightened sometime in the 3rd quarter of 2006. It is due to the preexistence of GST rehearsal, importers and traders are likely to pre-align prices of their goods for the advance advantage.

when few old chaps meet

2005-12-06T16:18:00.000+08:00

Last Wednesday, few of us, old chaps, met and dined at Chameleon restaurant of Air Itam, Penang with great delight. It has been nearly 30 years we hadn`t met in such a way.

We're of an age now, no longer young yet not entirely "chi cheong fun" (faded out), moving slower and eating less than we did. We had the past in common, were once schoolmates of Chung Ling high school who ate a lot and played boisterously. I remembered them at school, they were minded boys who would study amusingly at class, played games naughtily after school, ventured for sight seeing on weekends and usually tensed up just before examination. One of us, Ah Loong, a cheerful, sandy-haired man of about 280 pounds, was fair being designated to continue as our monitor since the school days of yesteryear. By far, he was the biggest in size and the richest in noesis than most of us.

We touched upon the subjects of sex, health, shares and business but more on health since it was gula that we had always concerned. I wondered why people were only seriously taking good health cares when they had become old chaps. And by no surprise, 4 out of 6 dishes we had consumed that night were vegetables.

When deliberated about the vigra, my introduction of "liap liap cheir", an imitation of vigra which would make man last for few hours as claimed, made them vigorously grasping and shaking their hands to disagree on contrast. Perhaps it was too good for an old chap!

One of us, Ah Saw, queried on how to determine a sounded company by judging on its annual reports. Shit! all the financial reports were man-made, you would not even know the accruals and relays of some crucial items. So I just recommended him to simply weight on the appearance of the reports, thick meant good and thin meant bad. It was that simple!

Another chap, Ah Kiet, was compounding on doing the business of bread maker. According to his imagination, bread would eventually became the major food when the scientists had alas declared that bird flu be transmittable within human. But none of us knew how to bake roti. I think it is time for us to learn making dough from flour before we got flu.

We invariably ended up talking about pain and soul, a spin-off of menopause. Women usually found their menopause when their menstrual cycle ended. Surprisingly we too found our menopause when the "juice of spirit" became lower in quantity and the power of spitting (ejaculation) became nearer in distance. That was how we had chewed out from our talking on this topic. I think this is most probably the general definition of man's menopause, am I right!

By the way of further variation as to rendezvous, Ah Loong suggested that our old chaps' meeting would be made often these days probably before the Chinese new year. See you old chaps!

goose flesh all over

2005-12-01T20:22:00.000+08:00

Not long ago, it was "ehh, Malaysia ini negara Islam, you tidak suka, you keluar dari Malaysia." Haji Bahruddin bin Amilrudin, mp for Jerai, 051028.

This time, it's "If foreigners think that Malaysia police are brutal, please go back to their own countries and not to stay here," Noh Omar, Deputy Internal Security Minister, 051129.

The PM's Office was said to have called up all newspapers yesterday evening requesting the story be shrouded.

The owner of DIS, PM Pah Lah has pointed out that his deputy's statement is totally against Govt's policy on visitors. In fact it is against the whole world's nationalities, not only China.

PM Pah Lah is now become a goalie to play the defensive position on DIS department who stands in front of the goal and tries to prevent another scoring of goal after his fullback has scored an own goal.

When the time Mahatir was steering the vehicle of Malaysia, none of his kaki tangan defied to made him "no facesi"

I wonder whether PM Pah lah is steering the vehicle of Malaysia merely with a single hand, loosing grip to the controlling of power that is designed to be held in order to move it....

p/s my blog's value

My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?

Germination, enervation

2005-12-01T12:53:00.000+08:00

Following a sweet moment not long ago that had irrigated my inner peace , me and my wife were celebrating becoming a grandpa and grandma after our youngest daughter gave birth to a baby girl. It's a fine germination after 27 years!

The baby was born on Thus Nov 24 at Gleneagle Penang, weighing in at a healthy 3.51kg. She is gorgeous, healthy and is suggested to be named as Carmen. We're celebrating every moment with our beautiful grandchild these few days.

The birth of my grandchild is also signalizing that it's the moment I'm climbing down the hill of man's life-cycle. However I'm gaining momentum for every moment to be contemporaneous with her growth albeit the feebleness.

By the time someone is calling you uncle, it's significant that you life is supposed to be anchored. Coming at the last quarterly milestone of life, in fact it's amazing! Inextricably you would find yourself be fancy-free and fascinated with values of association not only to people but to things also. And the power of endurance to physical pains becomes greater. I'm wondering! Perhaps it's rightful that "the meaning of life would be eventually derivable from the understanding of its machanics" which was assumed by scientists and philosophers when converging on the quest of meaning of life.

"I dreamt, and I, so singular, saw myself as plural." -- Lenine

be the curtailment imitated

2005-11-24T23:10:00.000+08:00

General Motors has desperately taken a bid to shed 30,000 jobs by 2008 in order to cut overheads by US17b annually and stave off bankruptcy. Reported The Australian. GM's huge wage, health care and pension costs have seen it struggle against mean and lean Asia competitors such as Toyota, and it's products have failed to keep capturing the imagination of consumers.

GM's Chairman Rick Wagoner said that the slashing billions of dollars in costs is necessary to save the company, and bring it back to profitability. But he admitted it will be difficult for suppliers, employees, and the towns where they work.

The quality and cost of a product are determined largely by the effectiveness and efficiency of the production system. When a business has become sour, most probably the cost of business operating is taken in blames. So a layman's tramp such as cost cutting will be the priority footstep to think about.

In the 1980s, cost-cutting efforts by US companies have typically relied on such approaches as plants closing, downsizing operation, laying off production workers, and selling off problem child units. Experts argue that American firm focus on capital investment as a mean of reducing labor costs rather than improving quality, reducing inventories, and tapping the potentials of good labor force.

As R.Wayne Mondy et al [isbn:0-205-12700-2] cited in the Management Concepts, Practices, And Skills p576, that Basically American managers have been underutilizing their human capital - pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into equipment and technological advancements rather than keeping and retraining valuable employees and gearing their efforts to improve the relationship between work and productivity.

What have made the tendency of layoff workers to become the primary implementation in US? Perhaps it lies on the culture and salutary of workers. Analysts say GM's highly paid workers are well-protected by ample and glamorous benefits, and this cost makes GM cars more expensive than those from foreign competitors.

This tendency becomes much more significant if you take a comparison between US and Japan of the behavior of work force. Japanese companies typically have a group-oriented culture in which workers are taking concern to help in finding and solving problems for company; they love their company with one accord with everybody agreeing. While American teamwork involves group members in one management activity rating other group's performance; they protect their own unit's standing rather than the company as a whole. In such a situation, the cost of human resources formed as the major portion of total costing.

Traditional Chinese-oriented and Japanese-oriented workers have their beautiful side, these workers are not only hardworking but patriotic to their own company. They tend to work as crews with boss on a same boat and treat company as a family. Perhaps the less cumbersome workmen regulations and welfares make them be rational. Naturally the quality and cost of product are determined by this scenario.

Let assume you've hired several workers who are skivvies and are just looking for paid-leave and bonus. They are cleverly doing a simple job by group with whistling. What would you do when your net profit is written in broad reded figures? Certainly you'll follow suit of what GM was doing. Is that Right?

What if the MAS's situation was just like the above phenomenon, could the curtailment performed by GM be imitated?

Why tax comes after you?

2005-11-21T21:48:00.000+08:00

Self assessment system (SAS) for partnership and individuals is with us and indeed has been with us since 2004. The objective is to infuse a practice of voluntary compliance by taxpayers while at the same time reducing the workload of the Inland Revenue Board (IRB). In the accountancy world, accountants were anticipating the change with some excitement and impact.

This has the consequential effect of shifting the responsibility of determining the taxpayer's tax liability from the IRB to the taxpayer. Hence tax audits which would be a routine activity of the IRB, have become a feature of SAS.

Together with tax audits, comes penalty of almost 60% on top of payable tax for understatement or escape of income if discovered during an audit.

For those who get chosen for an audit, possible penalties may just be one expense. Accountancy cost for the redresses or remedies will not come cheap if they are likely to develop into a protracted detailed investigation.

During this two years, there have been cases of tax audits. Being selected for an audit does not in any way indicate that you have committed an offence. But in most cases, it has eventually turned into a probe.

We may well be wondering how we coped with our previous archaic and imbalance system. In the meantime, the changeover will probably be painful for the majority of taxpayers.

Why a taxpayer is picked for investigation? This could be involved with insufficient record keeping or due to one or more of the following reasons:-

Charge out of expenses which is not related to the business.
The obvious fluctuation of stock figures in the balance sheet.
The margin of the gross profit is significantly fluctuated.
Some items of expenses appear too huge to be factual.
The conspicuous absence of expenses distinguished from the conventional items.
Creditors appear to be too large in amount to be true.
There is an outstanding substantial amount of amount owing to directors.
The amount of equity is overturned.
Drawings account is insubstantial in amount to be supported the taxpayer's financial commitments.
There is a blazing purchase of expensive cars and houses.
There is an extensive and expensive renovation to residential house.
Personal's total net worth is not sustainable by the total apparent income over a period of time.
A taxpayer with a very high public profiles.
A company suddenly goes listing with bad tax background.
A particular trade is to be investigated and the taxpayer happens to belong to that trade.
Informer's report to IRB.

Reacting to these abnormal entries could present a boring test for the accountancy profession.

Felt for self-interested

2005-11-17T15:09:00.000+08:00

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

The idea that people act to promote their self-interest is not surprising, but what is remarkable are Malaysia Parliament's deliberations that the actions of these representatives, driven by the desire to make themselves better off with media exposure, result in nonsense welfare.

"MPs slam ad as mocking monarchy" and "DAP's rocket symbol sparks off war of words" reported by TheStar today, has proved to be a remarkably coffee shop convention, forming an unsavory characteristic of Malaysian Parliament. Yet still cannot shake off that nagging shit patent!

Some of them have turned our House into a chi-chat hall. We can't make the nation strong when it is held together with self-interest and folderol. Too often they think that democracy is only in terms of getting one's right. There are a lot of social and economic issues holding back for resolutions. But instead, many oddly issues such as public toilet, tudong, college ranking, English teaching etc ... have become hot topics. I wonder can't it be productively put on resolutions towards social illness, financial order and nation's living standard.

Keep on blogging!

2005-11-16T23:17:00.000+08:00

If you're a blogger, this website is for you. EFF is Fighting for Bloggers' Rights

EFF's goal is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.

To that end, they have created the Legal Guide for Bloggers, a collection of blogger-specific FAQs addressing everything from fair use to defamation law to workplace whistle-blowing.

Other ways they're fighting for your rights:

Bloggers can be journalists (and journalists can be bloggers);
Bloggers are entitled to free speech;
Bloggers have the right to political speech;
Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous;
Bloggers have freedom from liability for hosting speech the same way other web hosts do.

In debt to pleasure

2005-11-16T16:49:00.000+08:00

Credit card has made it easier for people to make themselves insolvents or even bankrupt. Malaysian, especially young consumers are just can't resist the lure of plastic. Over the past few years, personal debt has soared to a high level.

The household lending has expanded at an average rate of 14.3% yearly, according to BNM. Before we even think about loans and mortgages, the average Malaysian householder debts have also increased tremendously. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that personal bankruptcies are increasing.

Issues surrounding consumer debt is not new to the media in Malaysia. There have been reports of soaring bankruptcy rate; the blames on card issuers; the blames on Loan Sharks etc. The phenomenon is that it's easier to obtain credit then it has ever been and free credit cards have flooded the local market.

Politicians and policy makers, and consumers protection groups who feel that consumers need protection from easily went bankrupted. And the amendment of the Bankruptcy Act 1967 came into force on Oct'03 to amend one of its sections as - an increase in the minimum debt which enables a person to be declared bankrupt from RM10,000 to RM30,000. Also the establishment of the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency by BNM, who undertakes credit counseling and loan restructuring for individuals, is scheduled to commence operations in 2006.

What lies beneath the problems of bankruptcy? A common trait is that consumers are vulnerable to persuasive advertising and marketing campaigns promoting credit cards and luxury life styles, thus putting them at risk of accumulating more and more debts that would eventually become unmanageable. Actually the perpetrator is the government's policy to pocket more revenue from public spendings; since because of exports souring, the time has come to boost domestic demand, and one way to do that is to promote the use of credit card.

"Pleasure first, suffered later" is seemed a "debt culture" that has rooted into the minds of teenagers. Chasing after the 5C (car, card, condo, cash & club) and stylish personal image, is now being a Malaysian phenomenon. Although some of the 5C have become essentials but the question is to what degree do they pursue them? For example, some aspire for platinum card or BMW as a status symbol. "Enjoys first, pay later" is also one of the factors of "debt culture". For example, car purchasing without down payment and free interests.

Many young entrepreneurs are doing their live like doing "ah pong" pastry business (typically cooked by using several pots with fewer covers). They just have many debt's holes to be covered perpetually, and the rotating use of credit card and personal loan has become the vehicle of the coverage. At last these financial tools have become rolling bigger and bigger like a rolling snow leading to disaster.

School children are tended to have a "debt culture" behavior too. For example, they opt for new high end notebook rather than usable one. Stylish ma! a reason was given by a schooling child of my client: a 2nd handed P3 notebook bought by the father, produced grumbling about outdated, ineffective and unpresentable; a new expensive notebook paid by instalments later on brought to the child's joyfulness. Oh, the poor father!

Malaysia private consumption continued to drive domestic demand, contributing significantly to economic growth of 6.7% (Q4'04). And is expected to grow by 10.1% increment next year thanks to the people who are taking pleasure first and be suffered later.

Anyway, card holders must take pride in being a responsible credit card user and must make sure that you never overspended. You must avoid using cash-advance privileges to live well materially in advance.

Onerous parents!

2005-11-12T23:09:00.000+08:00

One of my clients asked me this morning about children's education. He has 2 children who are supposed to complete Form v and Form vi simultaneously. He is much worrying of the coming happenings of his children's academic excellency; which future college (oversea or local) be they attended; how much fund be adequate to support the education etc.

He is considered as one of the contemporary anxious parents who has bound with onerous duty. Most typical contemporary anxious parents are contaminated with ideological "tuition syndrome" and "chasing paper syndrome"!

Parents who have striven to keep their progenies' minds open to every possibility and opportunity automatically assigned themselves with commitment to set aside enough education money for each of their children to go to colleges. Most of their worries anchor to assumptions and expectations rather than facts.

They are just eager to make their children be graduated with U degrees as an entry level before their children could make a first footstep into the work-places. They also sacrifice their time a long way to guide and observe their children as a priority in their life. Some are even struggling more for not only keeping their offsprings be facilitated with good tuition money. They also have to support aging parents financially. Hence allow themselves to live at subsistence way.

It's really amazing how voguish ideas about life planning have become.

Most of my clients don't think about whether their commitments make sense. They think these are expected of them, and they're worried that they haven't yet been able to accomplish them. By the time they turn fifty five; the time that above and beyond retirement. Often they're found astounded with empty saving box! Worst even their children are still due to be graduated!

I accent the foolishness of trying to do more than is possible, and the attribution of comparing yourself to others. At some point in your life you must accept the fact that you are not hero and must come to terms with your own limitations. Unless you're lucky enough to become a successor of a golden hill!

Come on parents, you should set aside the question of whether or not you should give whatever resources to your children for higher education. The simple truth is you probably won't be able to do that. And the answer isn't to give up; it's to do the best you can financially if you have weighed the pros and cons and have justified with your retirement plan.