Friday, January 29, 2010

Builing A City

I am bored right now. So I want to talk about something that I like to do in the past time. This also can be made a "good" example to our local assemblyman. I do made the suggestion based on the one that came out in the newspaper few months ago, that they should at least try and play this game before running the city/area. No harm trying right? Ok. I am talking crap right now.

I am actually talking about the game of SimCity. I am sure that a lot of you heard of this game before and some might even try it. It is not as easy as it look. You need a lot of planning and patient to run this game. If not, you will end up in debt and eventually got fired by the people.

It is basically about building a city. How you do it is entirely up to you. The basic thing you need to know is that like any other city, you need water, electricity, sewer plants and landfills. Then you have to think of public interest such as school, library, park, clinics, hospital and such. This will take time and how and where you put it is very important. You want people to like you and not hate you.

The very first time I played this game, I don't know anything about running/building a city. So I ended up using all my fund to build city that in the end put in in debt as I never really think of the people need. In time I progressively learn that building a city must not be rush and (again) plan wisely. So what I did was to build a subcity (Yes, my land is vast). Small city comprise with three area of residential, commercial and industrial. After year past by (the time can be set to fast in the game), those small cities eventually connected and became one large city a.k.a. metropolitan with highways, airports and stuff. (That is why I said it a good start for our local assemblyman to try this game).

It is fun to build a city and it also good for your brain actually. It made you think. So who said games is bad for your kids. I think sometimes games play important role in developing a teenage brain. Just my two cent.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Birthday Treat

Once a year I will pick one person and that person will have the privileged of receiving gift from me worth more than RM1000. It just my way to make people happy actually.

I am not a gift type of person. So normally, I won't give out any gift to people except my loves one. However, exception is given to one person per year and I will always do what ever it take to make it the best present ever.

This year quota had been used. So to my fellow friends, you have to wait next year for the random pick again. If you get it than you will know about it. Cheers

December 2008 - Wii
May 2009 - Nokia E52
January 2010 - Krabi Trip (Flight + Hotel + Expenses)
??? 2011 - ???

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Hospitalized Follow Up

Date: 25.01.2010 - 26.01.2010

For the thousand times. I really hate needle. Still I have no choice but to endure it as they need to inject me with some contra in order for the doctor to be able to look into my blood vein clearly.

I am again admitted to the hospital. This time is not because I am extremely that sick. I need to do my follow up. The three months medical treatment is up and they need to know if the medicine is actually working or not. What other way by looking at the brain directly. Since the problems lies there in the first place.

Didn't I tell you I am on Warfarin? So basically I easily bleed and bruised and boy did I bruised when the nurse did it wrongly. I was laughing actually but then again, I am weird as normally will laugh if I'm in pain. Tricking the brain? Second time the charm.

The scan was only about an hour. A very long boring hour where I just lie down and cannot move at all. It was loud too. Plus I actually had to wait for my turn since I came late and they had to rebook me for the next available slot. I ended up doing it in the afternoon. It's ok. More sleep for me.

Results came out at night but only in the next afternoon the doctor came in and tell me the big news. She wanted to be really sure, so she dropped by in the morning just to informed me that she had to consulted few other radiologist before giving me the final result. I saw it already but I want to know it from her.

In the end, she said I can start working back. They concluded that it just very small and easy to manage with medicine. I was smiling to my ears when I heard about it. I still asked her a lot of question and she gladly answered it to me to reassure me everything was fine. I can see the comparison from the old and latest x-ray shows a lot different and I am happy for it. The pain is still there but I learn how to manage it already and with medicine it should be fine.

Now. Seriously. I need to start studying again? OMG?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Better Seat Vs Better Room

When we talk about travelling there are a lot of things to be plan about. So many things need to be discuss and budget is always the main concern as most people prefer to travel on a light budget in comparison to high budget travel.

So basically right now I am talking about what to choose when travelling abroad via airplane. The thing is for me I always feel travel by plane is still as luxurious as it was years back when the first plane took off. Not everyone can travel by plane as sometime the fare can be expensive even for a short distance trip. I love to travel on Business Class or First Class if available but money always seem to be the problem. The cost for these seat can be as much as 10x the cost from normal Economy Class fare. So I don't think it is wise to pay that much of money for a single trip. Long flight can be consider but short flight for example a 45 minutes flight can be a waste of money. If you have a lot of money and don't know how to use it you can always bank it into my account. Thank you.


I was told by a friend, paying big amount of money for a plane trip is not really worth the money at all. It is better for you to spend it on a nice room in the hotel. When I think about it again, I guess he was right after all. I believe, a comfortable hotel room is more better and nicer than a seat in the plane. I can actually pay for a nice suite for the amount of money if I were to pay for a Business Class seat. Why not spend on the ground than on the air when it lasted for only 20 hours maximum?

So from now on, I think I will be travelling on Economy Class unless there is a great offer from the airline for the upgrade of the seat. I will spend more on the hotel room and be more comfortable staying as I am most likely will be staying for more that one night normally. Plus, if I am lucky enough, the hotel normally will upgrade me for free to a better and bigger room.

Well you decide which one you like the most...

Better Seat or Better Room?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Glee

Yes people. Glee is coming to town. I just watch its first episode (finally) and I can say I started to see why 15 millions viewer love it so much. This might be the first time ever musical TV series ever been made I presume. I am too lazy to google right now. So I can say it is awesome.

It so reminded me of high school. So real. So like yesterday. Definitely not going to miss every episodes of the show and if I can't make it to watch it, I will definitely try and find a rerun of it. Starworld is showing now every Wednesday night at 8pm. So calender all set and alarm all tuned.

Glee for you and me.......... :D

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Friday, January 22, 2010

Euro Trip For Parents

I like to do planning especially travel planning. Right now, I am doing planning for my parents travel to Europe. They wanted to go there and I haven't got the time to check the pricing and stuff. Now, my mom been forcing me to do it fast because she wants to go there next month.

I need to start calling the travel agents and book the flight tickets for both of them pronto. So little time. How to get cheap price in this kind of last minute situation? Plus, my dad now is at Sri Lanka for some meeting and he need to summit his leave also. I think my mom got it covered for that maybe. Let settle this first.

Let see. Which company offers the best and cheapest of all? Headache. I need to do it slowly yet at the same time I need to start calling the travel agents for price quotations. Only after confirmation on the travel date I can book for the flight tickets. Yes, I am buying the flight tickets separately in order for me to get a better or cheaper price for it.

So please pick up that phone NOW !!! ;)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

My Mom Got A New Phone

She been asking for it from me for ages. She said people been telling her that her current phone is out of date already. So she demanded me to buy her a new one pronto.

My budget swing up and down for this year but what the heck. If she happy why not. So I went to the phone shop and bought her a simple yet nice and up to date phone. It's a Nokia 5130 XpressMusic. As usual, I enforced my policy of I see, I like, I buy. Which means, the first shop I went in I will just straight away paid for it. With of course after a fierce bargain with the shop keeper.

She need to learn to do it everything by herself. So from opening the cover to putting in the simcard, I guided her through and it was pretty simple and she managed to do it in just one go. The funny part started when she wanted to start using the phone. Its a little bit small for the font even though that was the larger setting we could set, she complaint. She keep pressing the buttons without reading the title and ends up opening applications she doesn't need to. So I told her to do it slowly and read before pressing any button. Once she get the hang of the phone she be alright.

She thought it was touch screen. So sometime she press the screen instead. Now she wants something sophisticated.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

This movie is so cool. I didn't know Vampires are actually a nice creature. Vampaneze on the other hand the bad one. Too bad though that best friends now got to turn onto each other.

I love watching movie with magical and exotic creatures. It is something totally wild of imagination and really a lot of thinking need to be done before the movie is made. So the out come is always nice when there is such thing in it. I have absolutely no idea what I am saying right now actually.

Ok. Here is the thing. I wish I can become a Vampire but the one that can live on the day time as well. So basically a half Vampire perhaps? Any Vampire out there? I am here. Come find me. :D

Rate: 8.5/10

Refer link: Wikipedia

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Buying On eBay


As far as BUYING on ebay goes,

1. You can possibly use a seller's inability to spell to your advantage to find some good deals. Sites like ebuyersedge.com (typojoe.com, etc) will search ebay for common misspellings of keywords you enter.

Most interested buyers will never see these misspelled listings, reducing the competition and most likely ending price.

Ebuyersedge also gives you the option of saving your favorite searches, then sending you an email when an item is listed matching one your saved searches, giving you a jump on other potential buyers.

This works best with 'Buy It Now's, but is also effective with auctions.


2. Whenever you send a question to a seller, use the "Ask a question" link that is on a page of another item they're selling that you're not interested in.

Maybe send the seller an offer to end the auction early. All they can do is say no.


3. If you bid on an ebay auction, use a sniping service (hidbid.com, auctionsniper.com, etc.) to avoid bidding wars, and hopefully save some money by not drawing early attention, and not giving manual 'nibbling' snipers a chance to react.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Price War

Noticed something on the price. It is the same but yet so different. Well you be the judge.



Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Round And Round We Go

It has been a while since I last rode a bicycle. Lucky for me I still remember how. I had to bring the bicycle from my other house all the way to my parent house since I had been neglecting it for a very long time. I am sure it misses me very much.

Ok. Straight to the point. I was trying to go to the post office and I wanted to try back my skill on cycling. Boy, am I rusty. For the first three kilometre, I was struggling like nobody business. Basically everything is out of the normal. Like oxygen. Where did the oxygen go? After a quick pit stop at the mini mart I regain my energy back (and oxygen) and somehow I manage to handle it normally again. Horray.

Since I am in no rush on going to the post office, I took my very own sweet time to cycle there and ended up arriving in 30 minutes. It was not really that far actually just 3.5km perhaps. Still, I haven't been cycling for a very long time (not a very good excuse isn't it?).

It was fun. I will definitely going to do it again tomorrow. I am going to cycle to the beach next and with my iPod next to me. I won't be bored to death while enjoying the breeze.

Oh ya. I reached home and my door was wide open. Oh shit alright. I did not lock the door. How careless can I be?

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Time To Start Studying

In about three more weeks I might be able to start working again. I can't wait for it but at the same time I really feels lazy to open back all my manuals and start studying. There are a lot to cover and now it seem like I have little time to do it.

I always am a lazy person. Who said I like to study? I know also that who ever read this blog hate studying too. I wish I have the power of memorising things in just one look/read and it will be stored in the brain forever. I do have high imagination where I imagine that I have a super power by just touching any books and know everything inside it. How cool that will be?

I do have to wake up to the real world eventually. Probably I am going to start next week (lazy bum). I know I am delaying it but seriously I have no mood on reading anything. My brain is still in idle mode. So basically no matter how I read also there not going to be a single information stored in this brain.

Yup. My brain is like computer. So now it need to reboot and that going to take me awhile since it has been on idle for a long time. Perhaps cleanup and defrag need to be done too.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Delay Posting

I am not feeling well at the moment. So I will have to temporarily not updating my blog until I am feeling a bit better.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Selling Stuff On eBay

It is not easy to start selling things online. There are a lot to be consider or otherwise you will lose money instead of gaining it. Normally, it is better to start selling for local market before going for international.

I am giving out some information purely base on my experience. It might be helpful for those who wanted to sell their stuff online.

1. Know what to sell. Basically you can sell almost anything you can think of. Just look around you and you will find that 90% that you actually have is saleable. It just the matter of making money or not. I started with selling my unwanted stuff like CD or DVD. It is easier to ship as the size it almost identical as normal post.

2. Calculate your shipping cost. The next thing you want to know is how much your shipping rate going to cost you. The rates are all depends on weight and location. The heavy it is the more expensive it will become. I will normally average out the shipping cost and set a fixed price for it. That way I would gain some additional profit from it. If the cost are more, I will simply cover it with the profit gain.

3. Fees. eBay  is imposing fees for all the items you are selling. Be sure to calculate it correctly. For me, I just make it easy, my profit is normally 15% from the actual value of the item. On top of that I will just add up the predicted fees from eBay. I will still gain profit even when I have to minus for the fees.

4. Communication with buyer. This is the utterly most important thing when selling an item. You must communicate and tend to you buyer immediately. Just think it as you own a shop and when your customer asked you something, you answer to them directly. That way, your buyer will like you and probably buy your stuff.

5. Receiving payment. eBay at the moment only accepting PayPal as their mode of payment transaction (for non-US citizen). So do be mindful as PayPal do charge a small fee for all transactions. You have to add this fee to your sale price or you might lose some of the profit. To cash out your money from your PayPal account however need you a valid Visa credit card. I am unsure but I heard some of the Visa debit card is also acceptable.

Useful link on calculating profit/loss with eBay and PayPal fees added HERE.

Good luck with your online trading.

My ebay LINK.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Maxis One Club


Let see now. I received a mail from Maxis today and it is not my phone bill. It is actually a club invitation by them. I have no idea about it at all until I opened and read it. Maxis now is offering a privilege club for its selected customer. You must be invited to join the club.

How do they choose their member?

Well. From the T&C, they have two type membership - Elite and Select. Both required a minimum usage of RM1000 and RM150 per month for one year with good credit history and no call barring. It is FREE.

What do they offer?

Personally, I think they offering quite a lot of good discounts, services and privileges. Priority call made to their call centre. They even have Concierge Service to assist on:

1. Travel Informantion & Assistance
2. Entertainment Assistance
3. Gift Assistance
4. Business Services
5. Domestic Medical Assistance
6. Automobile Assistance
7. Home Assistance
8. Additional Assistance

Selected privileges such as:

1. Exclusive Invitations
2. Birthday Treat
3. Maxis Specials
4. Maxis Rewards

Post Sriptum: I thought Maxis CS always pick up my call immediately without me waiting since ages ago also.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Owning Platinum Credit Cards

I am a die hard fan for Platinum credit card. I remembered when I first got my very own Platinum cards from CIMB, I was jumping up and down with joy. It was even better when the bank actually gave me two cards, one is for Mastercard and the other one was Visa. I started to apply for many more Platinum credit card after that and all my applications was approved except for Maybank which I had to wait for a year to actually obtaining it.

The only reason for me applying for the Platinum cards is simply because of it design. I have absolutely no idea why I like the Platinum cards design so much. I think perhaps it looks exclusive to me.

People won't think that I actually own a Platinum card. I notice that most of the shops think that I am only a supplementary card holder (under my parent) but it was the other way around. I don't really care what people think about because in the end it all about paying back the card in full after charging it. Owning a credit card does not mean you can spend all of its credit up to the limit. You definitely have to pay high interest rate if you fail to pay your card spending.

In term of the privileges, different banks offer different privileges. I already cancel out a lot of my credit cards as I am a avid collector and not a user maintaining only four cards presently. There is no point for me to keep my card active if I didn't use it at all.

Some of the Privilege I can list down are:

1. Complimentary access to KLIA and LCCT Premier Lounge.
2. Priority Banking - No line up, No waiting, No hassle.
3. Higher credit limit.
4. Dedicated Customer Service.
5. Personal Concierge Services.
6. Specially tailored Platinum privileges and rewards.
7. Cash back.
8. Exclusive Discounts & Rebates.
9. 0% Interest Balance Transfer.

Next target: World Mastercard and Visa Infinite

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Avatar

Never in my life I watched something so extraordinary. It was totally breath taking. I can assure everyone that this is a must watch movie for 2009. Release on December made it an epic movie of the year.

I was at first thought that this is only a mere animation. Upon seeing the movie I can't believe my eyes. The graphic was superbly done. The whole 2:45 hours I sat still and watched the movie with disbelieve. You might wonder why I can't stop praising about this movie. If you haven't watch it, go now and watch it. For those who already know, you might understand why we go for third watch. Rated by me: 5*.

I don't want to spoilt the story, so I will not talk about how the movie go about. If you really want to spoil yourself with it storyline, read here at Wikipedia:Avatar.

The soundtrack. I must say it is really out of this world. I can't even stop listening to it over and over again and never got bored of it.


Post Scriptum: I wish our forests are like theirs.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Ipod Touch For Me

I finally got it. My very own 32GB iPod Touch. I have been eyeing this thing for months and now I can declare myself as an Apple user.

I still don't really know how to use this thing properly but I will sure to learn about it in no time. Right now I am exploring the iPod Touch directly and also via iTunes. First time user. So I am a little bit slow on this.

There are a lot of applications and games I can download for FREE. Not to mention most of the applications also been sold with a minimal price of US$0.99. However, a valid credit card needed for buying it. Still, it is cheap.

I bought it at Singapore for only SG$420 (SG$1.00 = MYR2.445). So technically I got it cheap. I didn't know that they have it for 64GB also. Otherwise, I would had bought that one instead. The good thing I notice about Apple product is that they have an international warranty. Which mean, I don't have to fly down to Singapore if there is problem with my iPod. I could simply just head down to the nearest Apple store at my place.

Will I turn into Apple fan? Maybe just with iPod Touch for now and we see how it goes from there.

Happy New Year