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| Thursday, 31-Aug-2006 06:52 |
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Merdeka!!
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Outside Narita Airport waiting for Aizul-san
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More playing around with the new camera
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Merdeka..... hmmm... i still hafta work as it's not a public holiday here... the price one has to pay by being here.  I managed to get the photos i took on Tuesday resized on batch processing so now i can upload all the pics without the tedious task of resizing them all one by one. It'll be the first pictures I publish on the web using my dSLR camera, although all in Auto mode. Enjoy...
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| Sunday, 27-Aug-2006 14:10 |
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Japan!! again....
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I've arrived in Japan. As for now, I'm staying in a hotel, at least till the 9th of Sept so i have internet access. Not sure about after that tho. The flight was good. Managed to sleep thru some of it. Still sleepy as i type this and will probably go bed soon. So, tomorow we head to SVC Tokyo which in Kanagawa Prefecture for a meeting. I'm currently staying in a town called Tsukuba. It's about 50km from Narita Airport. Gosh I'm sleepy.... Still haven't read the manual to my first Digital SLR camera... maybe i'll do that too get myself to sleep!! See ya guys... 
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| Monday, 17-Jul-2006 15:48 |
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Thundercats
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Thundercats were one of the cartoons that played a big role in my childhood days. The most impressive piece of artwork i did when I was still in the UK was Mumra's head gear!! hehehe but i reckon most of you reading this (I'm assuming there's more than one person) have not seen or forgotten how the first episode was... well, I just managed to download ALL of thundercats from the first to the last!!
Now that I'm more grown up though, alot of it seens to be too idealistic and simplistic to apply to the real world but still if i were a 10 year old again, I wouldn't want to grow up without the thundercats!!
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| Friday, 14-Jul-2006 14:01 |
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Tennis
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Got into the Corporate Division Tennis team for the annual PETRONAS sports carnival at the end of the month. Best thing is I'll get 4-5 days off from work to join the training camp and an extra few days for the competition itself!! hehehe!! Cool ey!!
Here comes the weekend!!
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| Wednesday, 12-Jul-2006 14:37 |
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Presentation
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I had a very important presentation to give yesterday with 3 other collegues on the training program we went to in the States and UK. We had to give this presentation to one of the senior managers of the Base Oil group of the Lubricant Business of PETRONAS. They were the ones that forked out RM50k for each of us to go on this training program. The manager that we had to present to was known for being very unforgiving and sort of a perfectionist. He was rumored to walk out of the room if he didn't like the first slide of a presentation! I was pretty chuffed about my performance as i prepared the bulk of the presentation and delivered the most important bits as well. And supprise, supprise I didn't panic and i didn't make a fool outa myself. I was calm and collected, knew my facts, spoke clearly and gave the audience equal amount of eye contact. The manager was impressed with our presentation and commended us for our efforts. He even suggested how we could further develop ourselves to be recognised professionals in our field!  all in all it was a good day yesterday and i gave myself a well deserved break for the rest of the day reading about what's the best 600cc sports bike in the market now... hehehe
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| Wednesday, 5-Jul-2006 10:40 |
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Finance
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It apparent to me now that a big part of being a grown up is related to finance and how one manages them. Inevitably, one must learn to balance out mortgages, loans and bills with what ever income one gets, whether fixed or side income. Obviously the side income thingy is a big subject on it's own but a few recent events regarding my credit card made me think about the little things that one can save on if the right choices were made.
Okay, there were two things that happened to me while using my credit card. The first incident was the renewal fee. Unlike the UK, there is a charge in Malaysia for the privelage of using a credit card. On my particular card the charge is RM80 and the corporate rate which i get brings the figure down to RM40. I have 2 credit cards from the same company, one visa and the other a mastercard. The first year was free so i applied for both but i only really use my Visa card. So when i saw that they charged me the yearly fee i promptly called them up to cancel my mastercard. Guess what happened? They waived the annual fee for both my Visa and Mastercard!! That was brilliant!! Apparently they'd rather loose the annual fee than loose a customer.
Second incident happpened today. A person from the credit card company called to inform me that I have made a late payment and was charged a late payment fee. I was supprised cos i normally pay on-time. So i checked my on-line statement and realised that i did not make a late payment and promptly called them up again. I didn't even get to the part that the payment was not late, the company said they'd refund the late payment charge (which was not that much to begin with anyway). So I'm very happy with the service i get from my credit card company and i think signing up with a good credit card company coupled with a very disciplined spending habbit is a major part of good financial managment. yes... i think I'm starting to grow up....
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| Monday, 26-Jun-2006 12:00 |
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Villawangsamas
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Just got my membership to the Villawangsamas yahoogroups approved!! So, i have access to a few photos of the property i'm banking nearly half of my salary on . It's not gonna be ready by mid 2007 but here are some pics for those who might be interested in becoming my neighbours I think there are still a few units left but they will be pricey by now...
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| Sunday, 25-Jun-2006 14:46 |
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Grinding halt
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I used to revel in how Britain grinds to a halt when ever it snows a bit. Compared to scandinavian or north American countries the amount of snow that falls on the British isles is minute but the impact this has on UK's productivity is huge. why am i ranting on snow. Well, we have the same equivelent here in Malaysia, or more specifically Kuala Lumpur. We cannot handle rain, albeit too much rain. Flash floods pop up like little cancers on our roads whenever it rains longer than 3-4 hours. The thing happened to me last week when it rained a few hours before i headed back home but it kept on raining way pass office hours. There were at least 2 flooded roads on my way back, one reducing a 3 lane motorway to a one lane one and the other caused my usual route back home to be closed. a trip that would normally 30 mins took me almost 2 hours that day!! (ofcourse i did take quite a detour that day)
we what we need now is to water-proof Kuala Lumpur!!
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| Wednesday, 14-Jun-2006 15:30 |
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Cats
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The title's so as i am writing this while the famous musical "Cats" is playing on my desktop while I type this on my laptop. I watched the live musical in Edinburgh during my student years but hehehe... i slept through part of the play.. hehehe... Some of the songs are really good. and the dances look much better in real life. I can see the faces of the actors when they're on VCD/DVD better though.
I'm noticing I get quite good miliage from my car these days. it could be do to more highway miles i'm doing these days. Going to all these weddings are giving me better miles per gallon. Also, i think the rainy weather is making me use the air-cond at it's lowest setting hence saving me petrol! So to those of you who drive here's a Top Gear Top tip: try to drive with the air-cond off or at it's lowest(warmest) setting. It will save u petrol. I can go at least 500km on a RM50 fill which is about 26 litres malaysia price. cool!!
Farid, my head of class for all of my upper secondary years just got married last weekend! He married his long term girlfriend cum our classmate whome he dated after school! hehehe... someof these ppl have very movie convertable love stories... Anyways, his parents retired last year so they moved to quite a remote place in Klang/Shah Alam area. In the middle of what used to be a pam oil plantation. I was dreading the bumpy road (amplified by uncompromising sports suspension) but when we got there, the house was absolutely gorgous!! the area what huge as well!! All this got me thinking. That night I asked dad what his plans were after he retires. We have a piece of land in Gombak, near UIA. I asked if he wanted to build a house and retire there. hehehe, he said it's gonna be a good 7 years before he retires but if possible he wanted to return to Kelantan, his home state. I'm not sure if my mum will like that, she can't take the Kelantanese culture very well. Interesting... we'll se how it all unfolds.... I can't speak kelantanese, and i don't wanna live in Kelantan. Good thing my job is here in K.L (for now)... but life after retirement is really something to think about!! it's getting late.
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| Sunday, 11-Jun-2006 15:41 |
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ATM episode
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Before - still had the big 21 inch crt. Look at the cracked wall
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After pic - taken with phone hence the poor quality pic
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Apparently looks simmilar to my cd case!!
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Cashpoints as they are called in the UK are notorious for malfunctioning and not giving your card back. Guess what? it happened to me today!! bugger!! The thing froze while in the middle of processing my transaction. It said to wait while the machine was processing my transaction. How long can one be patient for? I was just worried that some random person would walk up to the ATM and find some cash dispensed... my cash!! but i called up the bank and they asked me to call them again tomorrow. Hehehe... i'm taking advantage of the situation and told my collegues I'll be in late tomorrow to settle the matter at the bank which i will do ofcourse. This also alows me to wake up a little later than usual and ehem... watch the footie match on tele tonight. Iran versus Mexico. I don't have satalite or cable tele so I'm stuck with the terestial TV channels. They don't show all the shows but I have no choice i guess. Other matches I can catch on streaming video from some chinese peer to peer technology. The quality isn't perfect but still very watchable. Downside is the commentary is all in flippin Mandrin and sometimes the thing needs to buffer itself in the middle of all the action!! I wish i had faster internet now! =/
Neeways, managed to read 70% of this month's issue of Personal Money in a day!! hehehe this also means that i didn't do much else on that friday at work. hehehe. The Restructuring exercise at my workplace is really starting to bare down on people. Last friday, 2 people got notified that they will be transfered to KLCC to the new group caled capability managment group. Much to my collegues' anger, the post offered was more HR related, not technical at all!! Word has it they only want people with a minimum masters degree to be in the new Research Centre... fingers crossed but they also said that the young execs may be sent to pursue their masters degree... hehehe... if that's true then cool!! may get to go back to Erengland then! hehehe..
Finished painting my room!! Didn't turn out like in the book. My wall's not that smooth and square anyway so i did the best i can. But I'm still quite pleased with it. Atleast there's a sense of colour and zest to my room everytime i wake up now!! Check the pics below for before after pics. Gosh i hate Mondays....
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