My So Called Life

This morning, the Radio 4 guys were driving for some money for the Malaysian Tsunami Victims to help them to get back to their daily lives. One of the caller that pledge RM200 made a good point when he talk about the upcoming new year celebration. Every year there are fireworks and huge events to welcome the new year. He was suggesting that the nation grief for our lost and the money to the fireworks are channeled to the victims. I thought that was a wonderful idea, then again, up to this stage, the fireworks would have already been purchased, and I am not sure if the local government who would have paid for the fireworks could do anything about it. In Penang, the new year is celebrated mainly in the esplanade and Gurney Drive. Since tsunami alert are given till end of the week, will the celebration this year still go on? By the way Siti Nurhaliza is to sing at Gurney Drive on new year eve... I wonder who could make the decision about the celebration?

Grill, the one word that cross every house owner's mind, a deterrent, a fashion and a device that makes our home, a prison. All the houses in my Taman already have Grills installed in them. Every window opportunity that a thief could squeeze thorough are implanted by steel bars. Personally, I despise steel bars, they make the home to look more like a prison. But it is something that everyone can go without. The bars are meant to be a deterrent, and could never stop a persistent robber. However, when a home does not have any bars, it automatically becomes an easy target compared to the neighbors. I was recommended a new window that has steel bars built into the frame and they look pretty stylish, however, these windows cost a bomb to install. I am still at a delima on weather to install or not... I guess it is better to be safe and be sorry.. or in this case.. be broken into...

Testing out a tool that I stumple upon, it is called w.bloggar and it is able to connect to multiple blogs with on just one interface. It has a bunch of text formating feature which is great. I am still playing with some of the features... pretty cool... oh, the current version v3.03 does not support MSN Spaces... [Listening to: Look What You've Done - Jet - Family Style (12/24/2004 10:20:54 AM) (05:29)]

Recently, there were a few bloggers who threw some ideas around on making video for PPS, and I was rather intrigue by the idea. I took a few snapshots of the resident Bloggers site and compile them with Photo Story 3. I could not decide on the music to include, so I just put in what I have been listening to for the past month. Anyway, it is a lame attempt, I would like to see what kind of response does this generate. PPS Promo Video 3Meg .wmv file

I remember once Jeff Probst, the host of survivor took the vote from the camp and then take a jet ski across the ocean to the Studio to announce the vote.... This time, the stunt 'tidak kurang dramaticnya'... He took a 'parang' and chop his way through a jungle from night till day to a plane, and then parashute down to a bike and ride to the studio and announce the winner. Everyone were already at the studio and the last two contestant were already waiting. The last two were all clean and neat and surprisingly, gain some weight, much weight actually...

Xinhua - English I am holding out for this...

My Space, My Words, My Domain ? New Guidelines For Banks I just install the "Blog This" plug in on FireFox and tried it out on this posting. Regarding the new Bank Negara ruling, I believe it may not be a good thing after all. On the surface, it is good cause the banks no longer have the freedom to charge what they want, and so the price of service are regulated. The bad thing is now, other banks who do not charge, may start to consider charging. Why not? The price is regulated and no one can charge more, most likely, everyone will have the same charges. So, in all, the consumer may be in for a raw deal. But then again, this may not happen, the other banks may still decide not to charge anything.

Microsoft started Beta on a new Blogging tool called Spaces. I notice Microsoft likes to put 's' at the end of a word and make it a name for their product. Windows for instance, and now Spaces. Well, this is beside the point. I have tested out the webhost / client and found many interesting features that are rather impressive. In many ways, it is much better than Blogger, and then again, in many ways, it fall far behind. Nevertheless, I did a mini review at Msn Spaces itself which I setup. Check it out at http://spaces.msn.com/members/shagalot/ Yea.. the blog address is rather sad... I still love Blogger.com blogspot address.... Oh, by the way, read the review from bottom up...

I found out yesterday evening that our Office Cafeteria sell iceCream from 2-3pm everyday… mmm…  what a wonderful finding.. I am going to try some today…  

I came across Earl Ku's site and was intreague by the little mail icon on the top right. I imediately searched in google and found a site that actually generate little mail icon. They not only genegrate for Gmail, but for other mail services as well, such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Rocketmail, etc.. I generated some dummy mail address below to illustrate how the icon looks like. Pretty Cool... Mail Icon Generator - by nHacks

Everybody wants a Digital Camera, it is top of the US Christmas Wishlist this year, overtaking the favorite DVD player last year.  Even my 6 th Form sister in-law tried to coax my wife into getting one for her birthday.  Digital Camera is the latest device that changed the world.  Developing films was once a way of life, going into the shop and some shops boast 30 minutes services.  Digital camera have changed or revolutionized in how everybody live their life, especially in documenting them.  The price of a digital camera is not that cheap compared to the old Analog Cameras, but, the freedom to just snap away and decide on the good prints basically put the cost to the back of the consumer’s mind.  As time goes by, the price of a digital camera will drop, similar to the computer models, however the latest and greatest camera will remain to have a high margin and highly priced.     I do see a short life of digital photograph...

I had a go at the LOTR Risk last night with two of my colleagues. Many of my colleagues have bought this game and I was curious on why it is so attractive. Hasbro boast that one can play the game like the original Risk or play the LOTR story. We played the LOTR plot, however, we did not play the entire rules. The game setup is exactly the same as Risk, but the game have additional cards, which are the Mission / Adventure cards. These cards add twist into the game, making it more interesting and less predictable. It can enable you to quickly finish and win or prolong the game. There are many ways to win the game, eliminate all your opponents, have the highest score at the end of the game (when the ring is destroyed at Mt. Doom ) or the one of Sauron’s Minion finds the Ring. With the plot similar to the epic, it is easy to lost one’s self into the game. The game only supports 4 players at a time, 2 good and 2 evil, this is 2 less than the regular risk game. I wonder why...

The new Nirvana box set was released late last week and I was curious to find out what was in the box set. The set comes with 3 CD of 61 Nirvana songs that have not been released before and one DVD. I am not much of a Nirvana fan, but was intrigue by some of their songs. I felt compel to check out the latest installment from them since Kurt eliminated himself. This release is full of live or demo (at least it sounds like it) recordings that are raw and unedited or enhanced. This is how Nirvana is like, loud, crude and at times, senseless. I believe a fan would love all the 61 songs, but for me, I will stick to the selected few. I would not spend my money on this box set. I would rather buy individual tracks from itunes or elsewhere. “You Know you are Right” was one of the last songs that Kurt wrote and sang and was tainted with some legal issues prior. Critics says that this was Kurt’s best. To me, I love the acoustic guitar moves and the way he sings the song which ...

I finally decided on Energizer and bought the 15minutes charger that comes with 4 2200mAh batteries for $27 at Target.  There was this guy at the Canon Talk forum at dpreview.com that advice against Energizer because the charger, according to him charge the batteries in burst mode, and is bad for the batteries and also cannot charge other types of batteries other than Energizer.  I decided to get it to test it out, to find out if what he was saying is really true.  To me, I don’t really care if the batteries last forever or just last 500 cycles.  Nothing is forever anyway, the more we recognize this fact, the more we can deal with changes.   Anyway, I got the batteries and whola, the batteries were ready in 15 minutes.  In addition, there was also a cooling fan built into the charger to cool off the batteries.  This is the first time I sees any cooling fan in a battery charger.  The fan is making a loud noise, like all fans ...

The question I have been asking myself is, do I need to upgrade to the DVD burner? Do I need the extra space that DVD provides? Today I backup all my photos onto the CD media, and we know that CD media have a data life of approx 5 years, which means, to be safe, I will have to transfer my photos to new CD every 3 years (to be safe). CDs are relatively cheap today however limited to 700mb of space. DVD on the other hand, offers triple the amount in space, but still the same of data life 5 years. Apart from the additional space which would translate to less media, there are nothing much to it. I think I will still stick to my CD-R’s for a while, till my next computer upgrade, maybe 8 years from now.. by then we may have better media..

I notice these buttons on the hotel phone recently. Will have to try them out before I leave….

Well, the race has begun again and I have not blog of it yet. The new rule in this round of the race is that each member of the participants can only participate in 6 of the road blocks. This will seriously hold some teams back. Also I have notice from the past two episode, the racer gets to overnight at midpoint before elimination the next day, this gives level the playing field and any gain accumulated earlier previous day is gone. Not sure if the entire race this will continue.

As I was prowling through the web, I found this site from Matt Blaze who have done some extensive testing and talked about reliability of batteries.  The heat produced during charging destroy the batteries in time and if the charging temp is too high, our batteries will have a short life.     I was thinking, in the long run, does it really matter? Does it matter if the battery were suppose to charge 1000 cycle, and we are only able to charge 900 cycle? By the time, the battery reach say 700 cycle, the market would already have new and much higher capacity batteries, and the batteries price would be cheaper.  In addition, by 700 cycle, the capacity of the battery would have drop significantly and where previously one could get say 100 shots off, now can only get say 60 shots.. by then we would be looking for a new battery.    Nothing last forever anyway…

I was reading through the camera manual, and was amaze by the heap of disclaimer, warnings or clarification built into it. Above is an example.. I bet Jessica Simpson must have used a canon camera before and call in. Help Desk: Canon Help, How can we help you? Jessica: I have this camera, it was fine when I was using it indoors, but when I bring it out, on a sunny day, the screen goes dark… its like a vampire camera… Help Desk: Miss, this is normal, it is today’s technology limitation man, the camera is not a vampire.. Jessica: Oh great.. I was worried for a moment, the camera might just bite my hand when I wasn’t looking or something…

With the new camera, I need to get new rechargeable batteries. I did some digging and found the highest mAh is 2500mAh and the fastest charger is 15 minutes. I have not decided which to buy yet. Energizer Energizer have a few kind of chargers, the 15min charger, the 30min charger, the car charger and the regular chargers. The energizer web site is rather rich in information, especially on how rechargeable batteries work . There are also information on other batteries types and also how to care for your batteries and a whole heap of batteries information. Best battery site I have seen, with nice cartoonist illustration and animation. The Technical Information is available, but it was not detailed enough for my liking, and this is the only drawback that the site has. Charging Time Cost 15Min $3x 30Min $27 Car Charger (2 hrs) $26 Regular charger (4-8hrs) ...

I have heard that the health of a certain person can be accessed through the finger nails, if the nails are not growing smoothly, having bumps here and there, and the surface is not shinny and looked healthy, the person is sick internally.  Well, if it is true, I am really sick now as my finger nails are currently looking horrific.. plenty of bumps and lines and totally dull in color… maybe I should go see a doctor…   Doctor: “Mana sakit?” Me: Emmmm, Badan Sakit Doctor, you cakap la, you kan doctor Doctor: {listern to chest and measure pressure and temperature} Me: Jadi Macam Mana? Doctor: Oh… jangan risau… sakit sikit saja… nah, ambil ini ubat, ada apa apa balik jumpa saya…

I have recently changed the look and feel of Penang Bloggers site, to have a grand title and a side column / bar to house all the Penang Blogger Sites.  Wonder if we should have a Blogger meet-up in Penang .. Lucia ??? Peter??? Want to do it again?

Some of you may have remembered, about 2 years ago, there was a new transport introduced called SegWay, a two wheel transporter that looked like some futuristic transport tool but with wheels. It was highly publicized as the new alternative short distance transport module but, it did not really caught on as the price was humongous, and it is still expensive with one unit going for $4K or more. Well, in about 100 days ago, Josh Caldwell left his city Seattle and embark on a trans-American adventure on his Segway going at 10mph max. Together with his support team, he crossed state by state and finally today arrives at Boston on the east coast. The entire journey are logged on the web and can be found at www.10mph.com/ .

I was at a trrific light two days ago and suddenly ths bumpper sticker caught my attention. I manage to take a quick photo before the lights turn green...

It started with 2 flights a day, then it has 3 flights a day, then at one time, there were 4 flights a day, and then back to 2 flights a day when AirAsia expended to Johor and other neighbouring region. The worst thing of the 2 flights a day schedule was that the flights are at odd hours, the second flight is at like 11pm, always inconvienent to travel at this time. Well, that is gone again and the KL-Penang route now have 3 services a day. The same compertative prices still avaliable. I will just fly again, since the flight times are now very convinient... AK 312 KUL PEN 07 : 05 07 : 55 2004-12-01 2004-12-31 AK 316 KUL PEN 20 : 30 21 : 20 2004-12-01 2004-12-31 AK 314 KUL PEN 13 : 50 14 : 40 2004-12-01 2004-12-31 ...

Mountain Dew – Code Red (Cherry Flavor) Mountain Dew is my favourite softdrink of them all, and when I was in US a few years ago, the volume that I have drank is only second to water. And so, when I saw this Diet Mountain Dew Code Red in the vending machine, it is just natural I would buy and try it. This drink comes in a 20oz bottle, which is 1.25pt and 591ml. The color of the drink is light red in colors and even the bubbles are red in color. The first taste was awful, I don’t know what to explain of it, as I can’t comprehend it at all.. it taste like medicine, maybe because medicine has been made with cherry taste, it did not taste like cherry to me and it just taste awful. That’s all I can say about the taste, it is not that sweet as this has a Diet tag. The drink has some level of sourness in the aftertaste. I don’t think I would buy this drink again, I can’t even finish this bottle. It does not appeal to me, the only interesting thing of this drink is the co...

Card Game Enthusiast – Cash Prize to be won, $2500 USD as first prize, and all this happening in Sunway Pyramid on Dec 19 th . There will be a card game based on the Marvel comics called Marvel VS System hosted @ Sunway and registration is open for anyone to join, RM50 is the registration fee. If you have not played the game before, get on it, you still have time to practice… USD$2.5K is up for grabs. The game is easy to pick up , just need a little investment, not more than a couple of hundered , and you will be on your way to win the stash. In previous Magic the Gathering tournaments, people who just happens to be there and have never played the game before could win wonderful prizes.. . So, get your ass moving and start playing the game.

8.57am Sunday morning, a typical slow and cold morning. Wanted to try something new today, I landed myself at the Starbuck @ Barns & Noble at Tanasbourne. As a nation that lives on Coffee, the Starbucks cafe has been popping up at every corner of the street, it has come to a point that Starbuck and other Coffee Café resembles the pubs in UK and Kopi Tiams in Malaysia. Many of the patrons that "sits in" indulge in wifi, writing personal journal, drawing sketches of other patrons, reading, dating and chatting. Its like Live is Good, no matter how bad things are outside, the problems seam to stay outside. People are busy chatting, laughing, living in a world of their own, deep into what they are doing. All this over a cup of coffee. As my Mocha Grande becomes lighter and lighter, I am continuously reminded that time to leave is near. Life is good at Starbucks, but outside it, it’s a dog eat dog world.

As a closure for today, I manage to get the Encore CD from another Target on the way back from Woodburn. Gavin Degraw at Woodburn was a dollar more expensive than Target, and so I did not get it. Timberland 15% also did not yield anything. The day ended with a nice cold beer from the local brewery called Fat Tire and some hot and spicy wings @ Hooters.

I got to know of Eminem latest album Encore a few days ago while searching for a gift for my friend. The album was set to be release on Nov 12 (yesterday) but on Nov 11, it was already out at Target . There were two version to this cd, a limited edition and a deluxe edition. The limited edition is a box set with photos lyrics and ringtones selling at $28 and the deluxe edition just the songs (with 2 CD) was selling at $14.99. I wanted to get the CD from Bestbuy as the deluxe edition was selling at $9.98 online, and there is an option from Bestbuy to pickup from any of their local shop after ordering online, without having to pay for shipping. Thinking that the retail price would be the same, I head down to the nearest Bestbuy at Beaverton . I was totally wrong and the CD there was selling at $14.99. Disappointed, I left the shop and decided to go home and purchase online and pick up from the shop later on. On the way back, I stop by Target and found that Target was...

In my latest passion for music, I have been prowling CD shops and CD sections of malls for the best price CD and the latest gig. I came across this cache of online music subscription cards at a corner of Target and one that really caught my attention was Real Rhapsody . For $14.99, the subscriber gets one month of free flow listening to their 800 000 collection of songs and on top of that, the subscriber gets 15 songs to burn directly to the CD. Tempted by this offer, I bought one off the shelf and started the easy process to signup. Initially I thought RealRhapsody will work off Real Player, but after signup, I was prompted to download and install a separate RealRhapsody player. It is actually a simple player, which I believe is web based, and have direct connection to the web. RealRhapsody needs to be connected to the web to operate. There is an option to save the songs to the local drive, so that you do not have to stream the songs all the time, however, again, if the web co...

The Malaysian consumer has the legal right to ask for a refund of a goods sold that are defective, etc.  However, the process of getting this refund is not easy.  Shall the shop keeper refuse to pay the money back or exchange for the defective item, one can go to the Magistrate court, however, the process is tedious.  Here are more information…   http://www.gov.my/MyGov/Home/CitizenSpace/BySubject/LegalMatters/Acts/Consumer/  

Does anyone know what is the publish price of Canon A95 in Malaysia and what are the accessories that comes with it?   Does anyone know the street price for this camera in Malaysia?

Does anyone know, what is the market price for Canon A95 in Malaysia? Or what is the advertised price?

Yes, the Amazing race is back with Season 6 , November 16th, the race around the world begins. The usual mix of characters fill majority of the cast with the usual Grandparents, Parents, Long distance, Models, Father-Daughter, Sisters, Bestfriends, and a new odd couple and this season it is the Wrestling family. Here are the winners for the past 5 Amazing Race, who will take the Million this time? Well, looking at the past race winnings below, it has bee 3 friends and 2 married couple, if I were to make a non-intelligent guess, it would be a Married couple winning this time. Amazing Race 5 - Chip & Kim (Married Parents) Amazing Race 4 - Reichen & Chip (Married Couple) Amazing Race 3 - Flo & Zach (Friends) Amazing Race 2 - Chris & Alex (Friends) Amazing Race 1 - Rob & Brennan (Best Friends) The biggest winner so far has been Phil Keoghan, who has been busy with his new show, NOW (No Opportunity Wasted) on the discovery channel. As usual, Phil will be at t...

Remember Michael Hanscom? former employee of Microsoft, who got fired for posting picture of G5 docking at Microsoft office. Well, another person just bite the dust, this time, it is an Air stewardess from Delta airline. She got suspended indefinitely without pay after posting her photo on her blog in a plane with her uniform on. I think both got to do with company image, it is not that they are criticizing the company or anything, but the company felt that the company's image was somehow tainted and they want to either set an example or they do not want to tolerate such behavior. Truly speaking, no one is immune in a company, everyone is replaceable, it just takes another add in the leading newspaper and whoala, hundreds or thousands will be queuing in the door for a job....

Freebie The new REI over at Tanasbourne had a little publicized grand opening today. The opening time was 10am and they were to give out cash vouchers from $5 to $100 and nice REI water bottle to the first 300 customers that walk through the door. And so, attracted by this freebie, I make my way to the retail at 10am. To my surprise, the little publicized event was rather grand. There was a 30 meter ramp with snow brought in from the nearby Mt. Hood and x-treme snowboarders were enjoying their morning stunt. The queue to REI main door on the other hand was a mile long, zigzagging the narrow street and around the snowboarders. I was not fortunate enough to be the first 300 to get the cash vouchers and nice water bottle, however, they did give a nice carabineer keychain, as a supplement for those who weighted in line on this cold morning. There were some food served too, hot coffee and freshly baked cookies and donuts, but I already had my fill at the hotel and couldn’t...

I have been very curious of late, does Google AdSense pay? If it does pay, is it alot? For those who have installed or subscribed to this service, can you share if you have benefited out of it?

Exchanging contact information between hopeful romantic interest as time goes by: 1920's: Pls pass this letter to your Master/Miss, says that is is from my Master/Miss 1940's: Your area has Telegram? 1970's: What is your phone number? 1990's: What's your email address? 2000: What is your Blog address?

ABC Primetime Live have a very interesting poll, the goal is to find out how much sex Americans are having. And the result? Check this out. Will Majalah 3 do a piece like this??

As you have it, when you have black, you will have white, when you have positive, you will have negative. And so, when we have Fahrenheit 9.11, we will have Celsius 41.11, the temperature the brain boils. http://www.citizensunited-interactive.org/C41.11/

Heng Chicken Rice Ball 

My HouseMate Thinking 

After quite some time laying low for a while, I am back. Since my last post, quite a few changes have happened. I am now married, my house has OC already, and I am going to US for two months for assignment.

Coldplay 

Dear Penang Bloggers, anyone wants gmail invites can send me a mail to kewlang+gmail.com, I have a few to give away...

How Did these Guys climbed up the roof?  

As Amazing as the race gets, a surprising annoucement was made last night, a new Amazing race-season 6. Seson 5 is yet to be completed, and Season 6 is starting on Sept 25. Yes, Sept 25. With this new annoucement, I am predicting a new surprise, which is the top 3 from season 5, when they have reached the finish line, will have the opportunity to join the new race for another 1 million dollars. Will this back to back feature kill the race, Will the viewers be tired of the race?? Well, we will see. The Season 6 casting was in secret, and the production was also very quiet. The Season 6 site has little to no information at all, except on the airing date. With such secrecy, I am sure there are bound to be surprises. Could this be the season where the winners from previous seasons returns? Well Survivor has done it with thier All Stars series last season, even fear factor has "Fear Factor Secon Chance" for those who did not win the first time round. We will know by Sept 25. ...

From a Distance! 

Paper Face 

Don't Jump! 

Following the pointer from Hafiz Ismail on the "Windows XP Malay Interface Pack", I downloaded the file and tried it out. The download and installation were all easy and without any glitch, whoala, my 'Start' Menu becomes 'Mula' Menu. First thing I did was went for a tour on my entire system and found that only a certain softwares / menu the interface has changed to Malay, the others, such as office and IM, etc.. all still remain in English. I also can't help laughing at some of the terms that has been translated. One of which is the 'Run' command, it has been changed to 'Jalan'. This laugh is mainly because the terms that are used a rather alien, and not used to. After thinking further, I am also not sure why I find the terms funny. For example, at IE, 'Home' was changed to 'Rumah', when I first saw it, I laughed, then after thinking further, I think 'Rumah' really represent 'Home' the best, there...

I booked a flight from Png - KL on Monday and was quite happy to get flights on this long holiday weekend. Though the flights were not as cheap as AirAsia like one of my friend got it for (RM9.90), I was rather happy cause i do not have to pay full fare for a MAS ticket. So, after booking the ticket on Monday and got the confirmation mail, I was happily doing my things through out the week. By wednesday, I thought I should print out the e-ticket so that I could check in on Friday. I was surprise to see the system was down. Well, since the system was down, I did not think much of it and proceeded with my week and then this morning, I remembered that I have yet to print the e-ticket. So I went to MAS online and to my horror, my booking was no more there. Something must have happen during the down time and cause my booking to be deleted. I then called the 24hr reservation hotline to confirm if my name is still on the flight, and luckly for me, the booking has been confirmed. I a...

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