What is the priZe of Truth?

What is the price you are willing to pay to find out the truth?? How about this, one of Msia leading radio station is offering you RM1,000 PRIZE money instead, for you to find out the truth? Sounds like an awfully good deal... no?

They are actually offering you the opportunity, to hook up the person you wanted to grill for truth on a polygraph machine, throw in an expert and he will tell you whether the person is lying or not! Read it here.

This morning, a wife puts the husband secretary on the hot seat, whom she suspected that the husband was having an affair with. The brave secretary took up the challenge, and she came clean with the accusation. However, that was not the end of the story, the secretary subsequently revealed that the husband is indeed having an affair and it wasn't the first time he was having it!! The wife actually left the radio station in tears.. unable to continue with the broadcast anymore as the truth was unbearable.

I supposed she and the secretary will receive the RM1,000 prize money... however, at what price??

Would you dare to take up the challenge?

I am a locksmith today

This morning, I received a call @ 7.00 am from my staff, that the door entry system in the office is faulty and they couldn't get into the office. Being a regional IT helpdesk, this is a serious problem as we're contractually bound to deliver the services from 0700 - 2000, 7 days a week & 365 days a year. Even though I have been working for the past 8 years, none of those years have prepared me for a situation like this. I was kinda dumbfounded... like.. harr... yes.... hrmm... geeeee.....

I forced myself out of the bed, quickly got ready and rushed out of the house (not before I kiss my wife good morning and said sorry to her for not being able to send her to work), and armed with some "ka chang", I arrived at the office as a lock smith. Btw, it was crazy traffic this morning, due to our beloved Bolehland politicians and policemen... I am sure many will concur on this.. it was really mad mad traffic jams, I was lucky that I got out of the house at 7.20am and reached the office in 30 minutes, a lot of my staffs were caught in the jam for hours! Anyway, I am not going to write more about the situation as the political dramas in Bolehland is just getting so ridiculous to the point that it doesn't warrant my time to blog about it.

It was too early, maintenance ppl of the office building have yet to arrive, and I do not have the contact number of the company that has installed the system. Hence, I was forced to act on the situation. Armed with a crowbar and a screwdriver, I started dismantling the magnetic point and after an hour, I managed to force the glass doors open! Phew.. lucky for me nothing was broken in the process and we manage to resume our services with minimal disruptions.

HOLA!

I know.. i know.. I am indeed feeling guilty for neglecting my blog for so long. It's just that so much have happened both in my personal and working life for the past 11 months and I just couldn't find the time to update my blog.

Up from the date of my last post - back in 31st July 2007, I have since changed 2 jobs, made a business trip to Barcelona, Spain.... bought a new puppy (which is btw so adorable!!!) and I am in the midst of planning my 2nd trip to Spain. This round I will have the opportunity to visit Madrid!

I have just purchased a spanish language learning kits and I am determined to order something other than sandwiches for my dinners on the next trip! :P

Lucky Draw - Count ME IN!!

I have won something during the lucky draw from the last 3 companies' annual dinner that I have attended. Yes... I feel kinda lucky!

2007 - A brand new Artek portable hdd casing that comes with 80GB Hitachi 5400rpm 2.5" hdd.







2006 - A brand new toaster and a water filtering machine










2005 - A brand new 512MB Ipod Shuffle








Anyone that needs some lucky draw "drawing power"? :P Please invite me to your company's dinner!

My new pair of sports shoes... in 4 years

I have been searching for a new pair of sports shoes for very very long and now I've finally found it!!!

See it here!

My first painting

Since the first time I saw the painting more than a year ago…. I was captivated by it.

Yesterday, when I walked past the gallery. I made the decision to purchase it and this will adore the wall of our new house.

It’s a good investment, and I am very happy with the painting. Some facts about the painting.

A Special Moment (Le leçon de tricot)

45 x 33 inches

Oil on canvas

Signed and dated 1874 (l.r.)

Emile Munier (1840-1895)

Munier was the must favored and prized student of famed French artist, William Adolph Bouguereau. It was as a result of Bouguereau's training that the porcelain-like features of the skin are derived in his paintings. He traveled with Bouguereau and A. Lucas studying and painting in the various museums through Europe.

His favorite subjects, as those of his teacher, were genre scenes and portrait paintings (primarily of peasant girls). Munier exhibited frequently in the Parisian Salons between the years of 1869 and 1895. At the Paris Salon of 1882, Emile Munier received honorable mention for a portrait of a young girl.

Today, Emile Munier has become the artist to watch. Most collectors are comparing him to William A. Bouguereau. They feel that his works are very under valued. Works by Emile Munier can be found in important private and museum collections through out the United States and Europe.

Excel excel excel.. I wanna excel!

Yes, I wanna excel in using Microsoft Excel. :P hehe…

I love the versatility Excel offers and recently I have been trying my hands on writing VBA (visual basic for applications) codes to design my own functionality. Have managed to produce a module for comparing values in different columns and also another one in generating an HTML outlook message directly from Excel.

I have not been writing any programming codes for more than 4 years already and it is rather refreshing to use it again.

Pretty cool!!

Busy weeks ahead

We have just received the house keys last week and we have been busy meeting up with contractors and drawing plans on the renovation of the house.

I am definitely delighted with the news that a traffic light will be constructed on the cross road leading into the housing area. There has had been couple of accidents at that cross road already and I have been constantly thinking about it.

Been getting lots of referral of contractors from our friends and colleagues as many of them are doing renovation to their house as well. It is good to share and see a lot of examples before making our decision.

Well, I am going to KLIA after work to pick up our flight tickets to Perth. Yup, the trip is pretty much confirmed and I am also busy preparing the itinerary for the trip as well.

Shocking Burglary

Just chatted with one of my ex-colleague, she’s just lost all her hard-earned money two weeks ago to bunch of f@$%^ burglars. The house was ransacked at mid-night, when all the family members were fast asleep upstairs.

She’s lost two laptops, handphone, wallet, digital camera… and the worst -> her new Toyota Vios!!!
I can’t help but to feel the pain for her… all gone in just one night. It also made me think of my newly completed house. I gonna plan and do all I can to secure the house.. but we can never be too careful in this country now.

Sunway Alam Suria – Our Home

Yes, we’ve just received the letter from Sunway City that our house is ready for vacant possesion.

This is our first house, and we’re both very excited about it.

Planning planning and more planning on what to buy and where to put em…

Shall post some photos on the new house soon!

My new Compaq nc6400

Just received my new notebook from the office administrator yesterday. It’s a new Compaq nc6400.

It’s a T7200 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB DDR2 ram…

I’m the envy of the dept right now.. the first one to receive the first batch of the new laptops.

To my fans -> Haha.. if there’s any

Well, I haven’t written anything personal on my blog for quite some time now. Been busy writing my own fictional novel. Yeap, for those who have been following Lunar Warriors, it is my own creation. Still lots of ideas and images in my mind that I would definitely like to put in words. It’s still at its infant stages, hopefully I will have the motivation to keep writing and finish the whole story.

Monday Moaning

People like to say good morning… but I prefer not to be greeted this morning. I am moaning over the complaints and sh*t passing acts that have magicked into my mailbox this morning.

It’s a common process where sh*t will fall into the mailbox over the weekends because I am not in the office to shove the sh*t away before they get to me. The sh*ter most probably is having constipation during weekdays because sh*t happens usually over the weekends (coincidentally I am off during weekends)

There’s a huge difference between taking responsibility & taking respons(h)i(t)bility.

Respons(h)i(t)bility usually carries the following characteristics :

- Fall from the sky
- In huge volume that will usually get you stuck knee-deep
- It strikes you right in the head and you don’t even know what is happening, and when you realize it, you are already dirty and stuck thus need to clean up the mess to set yourself free.
- If you get lucky once and you manage to clean up the sh*t, the probability of you being hit again dramatically increased!

Taxi… hello Taxi?? – Part One

I’ve never really taken taxi in Malaysia and after my most recent experience with them, I will pretty much avoid them in the future.

On the third day of the Lunar New Year, I was travelling back to KL from Penang. I’ve reached the Jln. Duta bus station and wanted to continue my journey to either KL Sentral or Puduraya. To my surprise, there’s no longer any feeder bus servicing the Duta station to other locations and due to its “unique” location in the city, we’re pretty much sitting ducks to the preying taxis lining up the station.

To side track a bit, the authorities tried hard to alleviated the traffic congestion in Puduraya by relocating the northern bus services to the Duta station, however they’ve only brought the buses here, without the connecting public transport infrasturucture. Trying to get to Duta station pretty much cost me as much as a bus ticket to Penang. Standard half-boiled implementation and short-sightedness of our local authorities.

Anyway, I was greeted with the usual “pick-up” line from the taxi drivers –

Driver : “Bang, mau pegi mana?”
Me : “KL Sentral, berapa?”
Driver : “ RM 12”
Me : “Oii, mahalnya..”
*Silence followed for 5 seconds*
Driver : “Ok ok…. kita pakai meter”

Without any other alternatives, I hesitantly agreed and hopped on the taxi. Few minutes later, we’ve reached KL Sentral with the fare meter showing RM5.40. I was laughing to myself, there you go… RM5.40 only. Who knows……

Driver : “RM7.40..”
Me : “Huh?? Meter tunjuk RM5.40 sahaja?”
Driver : “Naik dari Duta ada RM2 surcharge.”
Me: “Tadi tak ada cakap pun”
Driver : “Ini standard la, u tak tau ke?”

Exhausted from my travelling, I just don’t feel like arguing with him and paid the RM7.40. I’ve later checked the supposed “RM2.00” surcharge claim and found out that it’s untrue!!

To be continued….

Holiday's over!!! Nooooooooooooooo

It’s the fourth day of the Lunar New Year and I am already back in the office typing away on my keyboard.

Gosh, the number of emails that I will need to go through is mind boggling. It is almost 6.00pm and I am all ready to go home, and suddenly THUNDER + LIGHTING… it is raining cats and dogs now…

Sigh……………

Will the real leader please SPEAK UP!

I am not a believer of seniority at work. I am a firm believer of appraised performance. However, very often we’ll still get people sitting on top of you because of their seniority. It’s downright frustrating that in the event of any incident or problem that requires their position to speak up, they’ll choose to keep mum over the issue simply because they do not understand what is going on to make any intelligent comment!

To manage does not equal to lead. To become a manager simply doesn’t make you a leader in the process. Leaders in any given organization or fields of specialty have clear authority over their comments and speech. We often HEAR our managers but we will only LISTEN to the leaders.

Cai Shen Ye (God of Prosperity) is coming to town…

You better watch out, you better not cry
Better not pout, I'm telling you why
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town
He's making a list and checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
Oh! You better watch out, you better not cry
Better not pout, I'm telling you why
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town

Time flies, Year of the Golden Pig, will come knocking on our doors on the 18th Feb 2007.