Fly Away

Am using MMS to post this. I am at the airport now. Yes, it's the start of my vacation. Been here since 6.30AM and my flight is at 9AM. Getting hungry already. Hope they serve breakfast in the plane. 1 more hour to go. Hmm... how should I kill time?

PhotoHunt: High

My participation in PhotoHunt comes a bit early this week. I will be on my vacation starting tomorrow until after the weekend, and I do not want to miss this week's hunt. So this is my entry for the theme "High".

So this is what the term "Highway" means.... ;-p

(Picture taken along Federal Highway. The building... and the car are Volkswagen's)

PhotoHunt

Yippee!!!

I am so excited. My next short vacation is just around the corner... in 2 days time!! Yippeeeeee...

I really need all these short vacations to look forward to, so that working life doesn't feel so dull. Luckily I have Enrich points from my previous travels that allow me to redeem for my coming trip. They are expiring end of the year. Anyhow I still need to pay for the airport tax etc which came up to about RM380.

Well life's like that I guess... we earn, we use... then we come back and earn again. I will worry about the coming back and earn again part later. For now, I am just going to indulge in my excitement!!

Blame it on the rain

When I got up this morning, I told myself "Today I must go to the gym". To make the motivation stronger, it's always nice to get someone to do that along with you. After all, once you made plan to meet someone, you will have to turn up.

So I SMS'ed JW to see whether she was interested to join me at the gym. She is like my gym buddy during the weekends now and then. Like me, she too needs plenty of exercise... hahaha... (she is so going to call me an a**hole for posting this).

However she had plans with her family and was unable to join me. In her SMS, she was like very sure that without the external "motivation", I would end up staying home. I replied back and with great determination said that I would definitely go and get fit while she remains out-of-shape (oh gosh... she is definitely going to slaughter me now).

So I got out of bed, cleaned up Axel's mess (I leave him out of his cage at night and he has been marking his territory here and there) and did some surfing for forums about my new phone. Got to know a few interesting applications for it and experimented with them. By the time I was done, it was already passed noon. So I thought I would go gym only around 3-4pm.

Then the heavy rain started to come. It rained for such a loooooong time until evening. I don't know about you guys, but my energy level goes very low when it rains. So I ended stuck to my couch in front of my laptop and TV (yes... multi tasking). My gym plan just went down the drain along with the rain water.

I know this may be unfair, but I am definitely blaming it on the rain.
Hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow. I have a gym to go to. ;-p

PhotoHunt: Metal

This is a picture of some zebras.

I know, I know... I know the theme for this week's PhotoHunt is "Metal".

So here's a METAL zebra for you!


PhotoHunt

Traffic Jam

5.30pm at Federal Highway. Don't these people work late?

Do fish sleep?

Question: Do fish sleep?
Answer: Yes

According to Cambridge Dictionary, sleep is defined as the resting state in which the body is not active and the mind is unconscious.

So although you don't see fish closing their eyes, they do sleep. They just don't have eyelids to do the eye closing thing.

For my fish when they sleep, they just float on the surface of the water. They usually do this in the morning and are all active at night.

LG KS20

I did it!!! I couldn't control myself any longer and I did it!!

Last Sunday I went to Lowyat and bought this beauty that I have been ogling at from websites and brochures.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my new love - LG KS20!

Since then I have been spending much more time at home playing around with my new phone, customising it and hunt the net for nice softwares to install. This is actually a good thing as I am too broke now to frolic outside.

There are some glitches here and there; some which I managed to troubleshoot, some still outstanding. I tell you, the feeling when you finally get the problem solved was ecstasy... like the time when I finally figured out how to pair my new baby with my bluetooth handsfree.

This is my first 3G phone and having my first video call was like... again ecstasy. I did check on the charges though.. for Maxis to Maxis or Maxis to other network, it's charged like your usual voice call rate. That's a good deal right? I just have to find more friends who have 3G phones to video call with.

However I am having problems sending MMS although receiving is okay. I called Maxis CSR a few times but they could not help me as this is a very new model and they don't have the settings yet. They asked me to go to any Maxis Center so that the people there can set them up manually.
** Update: Found out the root cause and it's nothing to do with my MMS settings. My contact numbers have a space between the country prefix and the number (+xx xxxxxxxxx). This is automatically set by Outlook for contacts and when synched, I got that in my phone too. When I remove the space and send the MMS, it worked!

The camera is really good! Although it's only 2 megapixels like my old phone, the quality and shutter speed are so much better. Somemore auto focus leh...

Old (HP rx6828) vs New (LG KS20)

Like any Windows product, I did get a few "hanged" moments but after resetting, it is working fine again. The "hanging" part happened when I was installing some softwares... guess some of them were just not compatible... you know, like some people with some people.

At the moment, some of the outstanding issues I hope to find solutions to are:
- Problem logging into Skype through this device. Connected via WIFI. Kept keeping the error message "Cannot connect to Skype. Please check your connection".
**Update: Oh I managed to get this working. After installing or uninstalling the programs, it's good to do a soft reset. I did it and my Skype can connect now. Problem is I can't use it to make VOIP call. The voice quality is very badly chopped up. This apparently is due to Skype not compatible with the Qualcomm chipset in KS20.
- Setting up Activesync to my device via bluetooth. Well...I never had this luck with my previous phone too.

For professional review of this phone, you can go here and here.

PhotoHunt: I Spy - Take 2

This is so damn embarrassing! I had no idea that "I Spy" is a game of spotting something from a picture. See what deprived childhood I had!

Anyway I am reposting my PhotoHunt for this week's theme.

Can you spot the pedigree out of the pack? What breed is that? How many of them?

(Click to enlarge)

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt: I Spy

This was me spying on some renovation workers.

PhotoHunt

Lap Dog

According to Wikipedia,

"A lap dog is a dog that is small enough to be held in the arms or lie comfortably on a person's lap. Most lap dogs fall into the toy dog category. A lapdog is not a specific breed, but is a generic term for dogs of a small size and friendly disposition. Lapdogs were bred primarily as pets rather than for functionality."

I have an itch

Oh dear... I am getting the itch again.

I met an ex-colleague at a wedding dinner recently and he told me about this new PDA phone. That devil him!!... you see.. I have this weakness for PDA phones.

Anyway I started to look this phone up in the internet to learn more. I finally understood why my ex-colleague is so into it.

Take a look:

It's a LG KS20 (Specs)

Yes I know. It's a LG phone. When I told this to my friends, they were like.. "What?!! You want a LG phone?". Hmm..does LG have a bad reputation or something? When I hunt around at the phone shops in Digital Mall, I can say that 99% of them did not have any LG phones to offer. Apparently LG phones are not in demand. I was shocked as from what I read in the forums, LG's Prada and Viewty are very popular in other parts of the world.

Anyway back to that beauty. I was told that it was launched in Malaysia a few weeks ago but so far, I have had no luck in seeing and feeling one upclose and personal. The price tag is around RM1,888.

Gosh..the itch... should I scratch it??

Malaysia General Election 2008

Today, history was made in Malaysia's political scene and I just had to mark this in my blog.

Yesterday was Malaysia's 12th General Election voting day. I started following the results from about 9.30pm until 2.30am this morning when I got too tired to go on. Anyhow by then, the result was already pretty clear although some states' countings were still going on.

The people's voice were heard loud and clear.

News below was taken from Star Online: General Election:

Sunday March 9, 2008MYT
5:55:52 AM
BN wins federal govt but opposition takes five states

KUALA LUMPUR: The Barisan Nasional will form the next Government as it has won more than half the parliamentary seats.

However, the coalition suffered some of the greatest defeats in its history. Barisan Nasional chairman Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in accepting the results, said this was clear proof of democracy at work in the country.

Among the results yesterday were:

• The Barisan lost Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor,


• PAS strengthened grip on Kelantan,


• Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting won in their seats,


• Among ministers who lost their seats were Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin,


• Gerakan acting president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon lost to Dr P. Ramasamy in the Batu Kawan parliamentary seat.

Meanwhile, party leaders urged for calm and police have banned all victory celebrations.

PhotoHunt: Different

The theme for this Saturday's PhotoHunt is "different". So I am putting up this picture of a very different type of car.

Looks pretty much like any other car, doesn't it? Well...but it's different. "What's the difference?", you may ask. Lets put on some lights...

Can you see it? No?.... lets go for the close ups then.

Now, do you agree with me that this car is different?

(Photos taken in Siam Ocean World, Bangkok)

PhotoHunt

Work-Life Balance

I dunno why but this "Work-Life Balance" term was stuck in my mind today. Hmm.. could be because I have been able to leave my office around 5pm for the past few weeks. My company practises flexi hours and so, I opted to start working at 8am and leave at 5pm to avoid the heinous PJ jam.

This schedule has been good so far as I get to resume going to my gym (actually I started to go back only yesterday after wasting 2 months of my gym fees), to catch the 6pm TVB serials or just to go home and play with Axel. I knew it was time for me to return to gym after Axel constantly outruns me.

So to me, I would like to think that I am having "Work-Life Balance" now as I really focus on my work (with a little side of IM and internet surfing, hehe) during office hours and have time for my personal activities after office hours. I do need to stay back once a while but it's not like a long term thingy.

However I think the definition of this term varies from one person to another.

I remember in a previous company, a "high up" manager came for a visit and had a face to face chat with everyone. In my session, he started to talk about "Work-Life Balance". What he has said actually shed some light into my question on why the work culture there is so bad. I actually left the company after less than a year... nothing that I was proud of... but something that I needed to do.

Anyway back to what he said. He asked me "Do you know why in that term, the word 'Work' comes first?". "Because without work, you won't have money to enjoy your life". "That's why in Work-Life Balance, you must put work first so that your life can be balanced".

I was dumbstruck. Although I wanted to disagree with him, I knew what he said has a tinge of truth in it.. but the question is, how far in front would that company expects you to put work first? Would it be at the expense of your family, your friends... your sanity? As the saying goes "Somethings cannot be bought with money".

Well I guess it really boils back down to what we actually want, right? Everything does come with a price... and it's really up to us to decide whether we want to pay for it or not.

Mission Impossible

I saw this old clip I had of my hamster and thought that I can make it more interesting, hehe. With Homemaker's recommendation, I decided to try playing around with Microsoft Movie Maker. Voila! .. and that was my first attempt.

The main and only actor in the clip was Kimi, my cream coloured Syrian hamster. I named her Kimi based on the colour of her fur. You see... cream coloured in Japanese is pronounced as "kimigakatta". By the way, you can get a good Japanese<->English translation site here.

I had her for 2 years and she died about a year ago. She was a very tame hamster and I would let her climb all over me. I do miss her sometimes...

Here are some of her glamour pics:

Chinese Painting... Animated!

This is so beautiful.

First Time in a Wedding Dinner

I just came back from a wedding dinner. No, don't get misled by the title of this post. This is definitely NOT my first time in a wedding dinner. However the following are indeed the first that I have experienced in any wedding dinners before:

It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I got asked "What happened to your hair?!!" at least 5 times within half an hour. These were from ex-colleagues whom I haven't seen for the past 6 years.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I did not know where I should be sitting. You see, it's supposed to be a poolside buffet dinner but it rained. Due to the rain, the table that we were assigned to cannot be seated. No one was there to inform us what we should do and where we should sit. Ended sitting and eating at the reception couch.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where there seemed to be food rationing. There were only 5 buffet trays of food. There were these servers scooping the food for you... you know like in a hostel or a prison. No asking extra is allowed...like in Oliver Twist. Even if you did, you would not get it.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I stayed less than 2 hours. I reached there at 7.00pm, started to queue for food around 8.00pm, got my food around 8.10pm, finally found a place to sit and eat at 8.15pm and left at 8.30pm.

Geez, now that I have finally gotten over my shock, I am sensing hunger approaching. Guess I better make myself some Quacker Oats.

PhotoHunt: Party

I hunted up and down, left and right... and realised that I don't have many pictures for this week's theme. Oh dear... have I actually reached a stage of hermithood?

Anyway the only party pictures I could find were taken during the Loy Krathong festival in Pattaya, Thailand in Nov 2006. "Loy" means "to float", and "Krathong" is a small raft traditionally made from a section of the banana tree trunk. They are decorated with folded leaves, flowers, candles, incense etc.

Loy Krathong is a very big annual festival in Thailand. During the full moon night, these small rafts will be released into the river signifying the letting go of one's grudges, anger and defilements.

So this party that I attended was to commemorate this festival. It was held in a hotel and mainly targetted to foreigners. There were dancing, singing, beauty pageant (yes, you read that correctly) and traditional performances.


After all the performances and eating, it came to the highlight of the party... i.e the releasing of the Krathongs into the water. Every guests was provided with a Krathong each. Instead of the river, we released our Krathongs into the pool instead, hehehe. Aiya, it's the same significance ma.

That was my first Loy Krathong celebration and I really enjoyed it.

PhotoHunt