my new blog

I have a new blog here! Come visit me in my newest site at picatho.blogspot.com.

Pig's year comes with pig's shit!

The "no water notice" disgusts me. Yesterday I received a notice from the JBA of Kedah. Mentioned that "Gangguan akan terganggu selama 12 jams iaitu dari jam 9.00 pagi hingga jam 9.00 malam pada 18hb.Februari 2007(Ahad) ini desebabkan oleh kerja-kerja pembaikan paip air utama 200mm dan 150mm di kawasan perusahaan Kulim." It would affect many areas and estates.

I just can't understand why they particularly chose to give a large number of Chinese community "a no water" present (hardship) on the 1st day of the Chinese New Year. Is that the head of JBA Kulim "no brain" or is that the celebration of CNY "not being respected"?

Haai! What to do when facing such kind of boar-ing thing made by the pig-headed administer. I'm yet to choose between 1) Store water for CNY usage; 2) Flee to my daughter's house for CNY festivity.

Books that I've won

Lydia autographed her book, Life's Like That - "Dear Robert, Congratulations on wining this book in my blog contest. Hope you like the book. Honk!"

Life's Like That is a collection of amusing meditations on Malaysian life written in a humour way. This book is worth reading, for its exciting story and its insight into life in contemporary Malaysia.

I rarely recommend a book, mostly because my tastes differ from those of other people. I must make an exception in the case of this book.

Unless you are fundamentally opposed to facing some of the harsh realities of this bolehland, I highly recommend this book. It will dedicate some smiles as you read through chapter by chapter.

The author, Lydia is aggressively making publicity for her books. Her appearances are not limited only on papers and books stores. She was also having her chitchatting on page 205 of CLEO Feb. 07 and was showing up again her same old personal photo. Perhaps that particular photo is her favorite one, I think so!

Is God the ultimate arbiter?

I was reading intensively these few days about the Vatican enraged by magazine's confessional expose which was reported by Reuters on Jan 31.

Differences between official Roman Catholic doctrines and what priests told Mr Riccardo Bocca, an investigative reporter for L'Espresso, were had been found after a series of fake confessions.

Over the issue of euthanasia, a priest told Bocca not to worry too much because God would be the ultimate arbiter.

In another confessional box he faked being HIV positive and was told by a priest that whether or not he used a
condom in order not to pass the virus to the woman he loved was "a very personal matter of conscience".

On homosexuality, one priest told him: "Well, homosexuality is a tendency which is a valid human expression. There are even homosexual priests and lesbian nuns." Asked if he should openly declare his homosexuality, the priest told him: "Generally the best thing to do is to be yourself. Come clean. Do what the English call ’coming out’."

The Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin but homosexual acts are.

I've also hopped over to read the related forum regarding to "is masturbation a sin?"

But then, I'm blurred in the din of the sin world over this equation - using of condom = masturbation = prostitution = homosexual act = the sin of wasting seed.

Would god by then be the final arbiter considering sin or sinless of these acts!

Sit back for this CNY

At the like period of the preceding years, I would have started stocking up CNY groceries, changed new notes and gotten red packets, in order to welcome the CNY festival.

For this year under the new economy, I think I have to lean to tighten my belt. Why? Simply because all the while, those extra prices of petrol, cigarette, toll, fuel, those can eat and those can't eat, had have devouring my income. So there is not much left for my reserve and so in my budget.

Some more, the pricing condition of commodities is worsened this year as reported. The prices of seafood have made a double jump. Vegetables have taken the flood's reason to cost more. One thing for sure, a dollar of today would be exchanged for lessor goods as compared to the previous year's dollar.

As I could feel with all the coolness of marketplaces this year. Chinese people are not warring anymore for CNY goods like before. One of my customers was saying that business is like erectile dysfunction and he has used to "hitting housefly at his store" this time.

Looking around, the immaterial (spiritual) moods which are more important than material (fat foods) mood is aggravated.

At first I thought that the toll agreements inked between the government and highway concessionaires would be made transparent by the Cabinet so as the toll's hike be able to be seen through with clarity. Unfortunately the Cabinet had lastly said "No" and these agreements be remained as secret. That means the government's subsidies was/is channeling to whose pocket remains unclear and is under OSA.

No "tong tong chiang" music in supermarkets? That's why MCA Youth is fighting with Recording Industry of Malaysia (RIM) and Public Performance Malaysia (PPM) over the Chinese NY song royalty issue.

It's sad that the Section 16B of the Copyright Act which was amended in 2000 to confer a new right known as performers' right, had produced many blades in a synthetic manner for cash-cow mechanisms to generate income.

Under the new section, performers should be paid royalties if their sound recordings were broadcast, performed or communicated to the public. And PPM, Music Authors Copyrights Protection Bhd (MACP) and Performers and Artistes Rights (M) S/B (PRISM) were being selected as collecting bodies.

Assuming that one has paid an Astro's subscription of which loyalties had been paid by Astro to the so called collecting body, do you think that it's fare for a restaurant to be charged with fees again for showing up the Astro's program at its premises?

Another emotional disturbance is that IRB imposes tax on allowances. Thus making employees' pocket become shrinkage.

With all sorts of these elements, lets see how far one could spend during this CNY and for the rest of 2007. May the mood of this coming CNY be less festive! For me, certainly yes!

I got a "honk"

I'm going to buy the book "Honk! if you're Malaysian" by Lydia Teh. This had been one of my new year resolutions to be accomplished. This is perhaps my most frivolous resolution. You may snigger at the implication that one can simply determines to do such little thing. But I figure I can at least get some credit from it. Doesn't mean for the reason just to keep my word to buy it. It's my anxiousness to be enlightened by its contents and be learnt from how Lydia narrated about honk. Last Friday, I finally got it. unintentionally also got another copy of "Secret of Graphology".

With a cup of coffee, few pieces of cookie and a pack of cigarette put in order at a corner of the Gurney's Starbucks, I sat down and started to use my index finger to moisten with saliva at times so as to flick over these two books.

A sip of coffee follows by several flicks of pages. My brain which is retarded has gradually building up some implications on the "honk". To be frank, I'm quite concerned with or about the outlook, footprint, and the presentation, rather then its contents. Maybe I'm a businessman who has lessened with other predilections, being business minded, have had built up these concerns.

I remembered, the time when I had walked out from the MPH to gather with my wife, I immediately received her usual initial query. "you buy what?" "nuh, 2 books for reading." I answered and concurrently passed the whole plastic bag to her according to my established habit. Means that whatever my newly shopped goods would be passed on to her for carrying. That's part of my bad addictions, It's too bad!

As she took out the books from plastic bag in order to have a visual percept of what's that, she felt out and rose up the "honk", "wah! 29 bucks for this comic book you also 'seh tak' (deserved) to buy." "no lah, it's a book about the contemporary instincts of Malaysian. That stupid publisher have had over cover it like a comic book, don't you open up and see?" I explained and added, "Its cover had also caused my misconception at first sight as if it was a comic book which was oddly displayed amongst other conventional books in the shelf. A half covered background graphical image would just be nice."

"Nah! this one "Secret of Graphology" is worthy lah! only 5 bucks." Another comment she had made. I smiled with advice, "don't ever try to judge beautiful woman by her rear appearance. Sometime at the back "sui sui" but the front like a "kui"."

Okay! let me beg a pardon to compare my said 2 books; It's completely based on my own thoughts after my Starbuck's digest. "honk" hereafter be referred to "honk! if you're Malaysian" & "graph" hereafter be referred to "secrets of graphology".

Honk priced at 29 bucks, graph priced at 5. Of course the price differentiation does concern me.

Graph is bound with much smaller size about 4x5 whether honk is bound with about A5 size. I love a smaller one for the advantage of handiness for travel.

Graph has plenty of colorful images and illustrations inside, making reading be blissful. The not so many black-and-white cartoons found inside the honk were small in size and less freshened.

The font used in honk is much larger than graph. Ah! it probably suits my old eyes.

Graph is written in a directive way whereas honk is written in an amusive way by using simple English. I like that because I don't have to get frequent helps from dictionary.

Both contents which are of different categories are not fair to be compared hereof. Meanwhile some phases of honk do really delight my heart and has given me mettle to read on. I've reckoned especially if I were a Chinaman who're not typically wearing Pagoda singlet and baggy drawer, wouldn't be punched & kicked if I'd tried to kiss the author, referring on her saying in chapter 1. Some more, luckily I'm not an industrious wife (car) washer! Hmm! I'm pulling the leg of Lydia!

Well, my conclusion is, honk is value for capacity especially for the younger generation to recognize those old tricks and bywords. But the price tag might ponder some students pausing to put one's hand in one's pocket.

My 1st NY resolution came out of the blue

The real celebration for 2007 is all about moving forward. Okay, it's a bit late at this time of year, I would normally have already scrounged up PDA and have jotted down all the things I'd like to improve about myself in this new year. The year would already be in full swing, and I'd be on my way to checkout for completing my resolutions. But this year? What a lopsided vehicle.

My 1st resolution of which I've to subscribe for the Star's epaper. What I thought was a money saving conception because it would be paid less from the conventional delivery. But what Hokkianese had said, "tou chit kwan, too teow ah moh hwan." Something like first trimester blues!

Although I had successfully registered with ebrowse.bluehyppo.com but when it came to the payment session for subscription, It was a mad thing. Hmm, I did'nt know whether I was stupid or the Tmnet was stupid. Submitting my correct IC numbers in order to verify my online payment had has turned out to be incorrect, according to their return.

I remembered I'd have submitted a photo copy of my IC together with a duly completed application form when applying for the account of Streamyx many years ago. By right, they should have a right record of that. So I went to my Streamyx's account information page, thinking that it would be an ABC by just editing my personal info, but it was not that easy. It was completely chanceless to perform the task online. They made a written note asking for a personal handling of documentation. After many attempts, all were had failed. I stupidly laughed to myself, "It's called the Malaysian way of online business!" Let better make a highjump and forget about this at this moment.

Next, I'm going to buy Surbex 750, Abbott's vitamin supplements. I believe this to be a matter of concentration, nutrition, and the use of brain to trap certain special set of circumstances. I'll keep you posted.

Eschew for a moment

"Long time no see. Where have you been"? This was greeted by a familiar fish seller as I was entered the market for a regular weekly stock-up day before. I returned the greeting by telling him that I was busying in putting money into doctors' pockets for the last few weeks.

I was suffering from flu intermittently. The virus was so stubborn like a hateful spams that has refused to go away. Heeling software didn't work. It has remained its attack in between me and my wife periodically, prompting us to keep on changing doctor. Meanwhile, doctors' prescriptions didn't cure us but instead made us in a sleepy manner all the time. Probably the antibiotic-resistent bacteria had evolved, which makes tweaking our immune systems very difficult.

Most of yesterday's yesterdays and today I attempted to clear off all sort of backlogs. Now am feeling better despite few coughs persisted and at least I'm able to regain my mode to write again in this blogs-sphere.

It's been quite sometimes I was just keeping sneezing and seldom kept my eyes on what were happening within the society of these days. I wouldn't really recognize has someone was making troubles! Has someone was asking bloggers to register before you can blog?

Don't bend (distort) the history!

We found ourselves too tired or else too lazy to cook our dinner last evening. So we had "ta pau" 2 packets of our favorite - "Tiong Kok Sharkfin" (fried meehoon naming in an accredited way by Hokkianese) to fill our stomaches as dinner.

Usually the package's covering is an old newspaper pieced with an inner layer of plastic paper in which this kind of food is wrapped. And it has been my habit to read the wrapping paper simultaneously while taking my Tiong Kok Sharkfin.

Although the news are outdated, sometimes they're just quite entertaining. And this evening was not the exceptional. Hence I found this piece of news dated 02/10/06 fanciful and interested - The story about the critique made by Dato Cheah of Penang Kheh Association against the DCM of Penang, Dato Haji Abdul Rashid bin Abdullah, over the issue of bending the history of Penang.


According to the critique, Abdul Rashid had has in one occasion days before cited irrespectively that the founder of Penang was not the Captain Francis Light (1740-1794), but it was Dato Kanaden (name is assumed as it's since I don't know "mat sooi" he is) who had come to Penang earlier than Light. Cheah uncompromisingly argued that if the perspective of who-is-who the first comer would be entitled as the founder, were to be taken into consideration. Then how about his 3 named ancestors, who had been landed into Penang 4 years prior to the arrival of Kanaden!

"Kanasai!" My noesis of history which was learnt some 40 years ago, has been tought back to teacher already. But what is still I can remember is, Penang was found by Light. Right? And also I can remember there are Light Street, Beach Street, Pitt Street & Chulia Street in Penang.

Perhaps one day, Light Street will be called as Kanaden Street!

Actually, it's none of my business of whether the founder of Penang was Kanaden, Kanasai, Brown or Black. Therefore as usual, as soon as I've had finished enjoying the reading, my delicious Tiong Kok Sharkfin do finish simultaneously. So it has energized me for the enthusiasm to bring up this little news to share with you!

Harmonious cattle of different colors

I took this picture while I was taking a short puff at the corridor outside my workplace this noon. My first glimpse on this scene was blissful. These three different colors of cattle were getting together in perfect harmony with a common objective of "cari makan" freely at the large green green grass of field.

Resource for living is their most important goal. There is no social malaise inside their circle; protectionism which is sometimes necessary in trade, is not required to be practical between them; no brutal attacks or arguments. So, do they require apologies?

Yeah! I'm No. 1 of TM's Merdeka Plan customer

I signed up the so called Merdeka Plan with TM on 16-09-05 when I received a brochure of invitation.

Yesterday, I was much surprised to receive a greeting postcard from the TM, saying that I was the No. 1 of their Merdeka Plan customer.

Wait a minute, Hat Chew! It sounds like they're trying to say that I was one of their No. 1 Merdeka Plan customers in the first sentence. But the third sentence then emphasized that being their "top customer" (singular). I think I'm No. 1 kuah!

The greeting message came together with a reward as follow - "Greetings! Thank you for being our number one Medeka Plan customer. We hope that you've enjoyed its benefits and will continue to do so. As our top customer, we believe that you deserve only the best from us. That's why, we've added more value to your Merdeka Plan and are pleased to announce that it now comes with extra talk-time minutes. FREE! Your new Merdeka Plan: 580 local call minutes + 120 national call minutes = 700 talk-time minutes. It's our own way of saying THANK YOU for you continued loyalty. So until our next reward, enjoy and happy talking! Warm regards from TM."

It has been a great job done by TM's customer relation department and is much encouraging.

Thank you TM for the reward! It certainly was nice to be remembered and especially nice to receive more talk-time during this 49th Merdeka!

I see Beijing 2

We stepped onto the Tiananmen Square to celebrate our 31 marriage anniversary.

The remains of the 589-year-old original solid-tiles flooring which is covering a very large area, is still there inside the Forbidden City.

The 2nd gate of the Forbidden City.

One of the many brass urns found inside the Forbidden City. It measured about 8 feet in diameter and was supposed to be utilized as a reservoir for fire fighting purpose for the Palace.

A large ancient 'time measuring instrument' (clock) made of solid rock of about 5' in diameter which is placed on-top of a wall inside the Forbidden City.

I see Beijing 1

As I stepped out from the Beijing Capital International Airport, I felt like I was revisiting a brand-new China. Newly retouched airport, new cars on the roads and new highways, were the catches of my first glimpse. The welcoming coach is new and so the female tour guide, is modernly dressed. But most of the vehicles passing by were found to be heavily dusted. This probably could be due to recently hasty constructions, such as new airport, new stadiums, arenas, buildings, roads etc.; for a face lifting for 2008 Olympic!

Not only China's people have changed their social infrastructure, they've changed their lifestyle too. They are now having the opportunity to work five-days-week. They enjoy both a week of holidays for Labor Day and National Day, and months of Winter Holidays. Curiously, many peoples of whom I have had encountered could basically speak Standard English. Some were intonated but are listen-able. Cellphone have become part of their needs like what we have been getting used to. The price of foods has inflated in line with their modernistic lifestyles.

Mountain-people-mountain-sea can be described at many tourist destinations, such as Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. Throngs of local people were also found at Summer Palace. According to locals peoples. Habitual daily exercises at the immense park of the Summer Palace has had become a healthy activity in their lives.

The public toilet, the place where I used to visit frequently, is unbelievably revolutionized! Most of them are equipped with auto sensors in taps, squirt hand soap, dryers and flush toilets. But most of them are aromatic with heavy ammonium flavor as hydrated urine from the large poor shooters over the floor courses the smelly environment. Perhaps, it is due to the heavy trafficking of visitors. Although they have a first class functionality but the mentality of cleanliness is yet to be improved. Anyhow, it is far better than ours!

The word 'queuing' is seemed not presented inside their mental vocabulary. Taking many times of buffet breakfast together with local guests who had brought disorder to the buffet like "hungry ghosts" for fear of unable-to-eat, were the bad experiences. Also, it is quite common that you would get a shoulder-one's-way manner at any entrance, payment counter, ticket counter and etc.

One thing for sure, it is a smokers' heaven. Almost everywhere is smoker free! Not like the one happened in the Hongkong Airport's smoking lounge, where usually 30 to 40 peoples would be packed like Sardine into a 5x15 cabinet in order to blow the cloud. Although it is free to smoke in public unwisely but significantly the number of public smoker has reduced. Even at the crowded Wang Fu Jin Walking Street, a famous night market, there were only a few smokers I'd seen. Was education had played a vital roll for this change, I didn't know.

During my visit to Tiananmen Square, I noticed a unique thing. There was a Malaysian tour was flagging a banner of "halal tour." But I really didn't understand!

At Great Wall, one must keeps right on the stairway in the same direction as how their vehicles run on the road when climbing up and down the wall. For this occasion, the principle is really worked to order!

I was much fascinated with the Underground City, a war protective tunnel which was built by President Mao in 1969 during the time of disagreement with Russia. The passage have 2 tiers. The 2nd tier is built by 18 meters dipper after the 1st tier, which could contain hundred-of-thousand of people. Unfortunately there were only few passages were allowed to be opened for visitors. Luckily, I was be able to manage for a few shots inside the tunnel!

At the Ya Xiu Shi Chang, a shopping mall, I had learned the way of bargaining purchase. My first experience was a poor bargain; a kid's silk suit which is priced at 260RB, was bid for 60RB after a bit-by-bit bargain, whereas my friend got the same suit for only 30RB! My second bargain over a vest of originally priced 380RB was later smartly obtained at 80RB. A quick check on the listed price of a 512MB SD card had caused my stretched-tongue surprise. It was deliberately tagged at 580RB by the average traders, what a whopping of about 600% marginal pricing!

Perhaps, from the perspectives of their cultural change, their living standard, property hike as well as the booming economic, It's a boon for the people of China!

In fact, there are many more to tell. In view of shortening my post, lets some of my shots in the next post (since photos.blogger.com is dead at this moment) to tell in short.

Break

This evening I came across one of my collections of excerpt, titled "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There." from the World Executive's Digest 1995. The writer Richard Eyre cited about the need of fresh maxims to slow us down and make us more purposeful - that the nature of work and play has changed. Work used to be physical and tiring in this work-oriented world, so play was often passive. Often that work leaves us mentally tired and physically unused.

While looking back over the weeks and months but not see much of "up-colored" in my life. I was like sawing the trunk with a dull saw. I kept doing something and busying myself, never taking time to just sit there and sharpen my saw.

Well and so forth, I'll take a China vacation from tomorrow till the middle of this month, just to collect my thoughts, calm my mind, and regain my perspective.

Happy blogging!

Shall I be impressive?

During the last few weeks, with the advent of my casual days - post-retirement, there has been a tendency to relax myself as well as my wearing style. However, I found that it's sometime not my preference to wear as I like when outing.

At one afternoon, I went to shop with my wife with the maintenance of my domesticated outfit; frayed collar T shirt, nap rised short and a pair of 2 dollars saddle. I felt the delight and casualness for being at such loose apparel at the shopping mall. I was enjoyingly perceiving my sight seeing while smiling to people who had had eyes-contacted with me.

Within a moment, I strangely felt like something was going wrong. I'd noticed that most of the people who be coming from the opposite direction be throwing a glance at me as if I was so special that day. I could not figure out the odd straightaway since my heart had been soak into a happy-go-lucky enjoyment.

So I asked my wife, "Yong, am I looked handsome today, if not why so many people were used to look at me?" "Of course lah! you're wearing like a boh-thuck-cair-eh-lang (illiterate person) and no wonder people may thing of you as a snatcher, a popular skeptical icon these days." She added, "if there were anything to be happened here, you are likely to be picked amongst the first batch for questioning via cctv."

Her word was later on proved to be literal when I was supposing to make a luggage purchase. That silly salesgirl who had been keeping her closed paces to me, was having her both eyes static at me all the time, as if I was not a genuine buyer! Alamak! what 'dog's eyes see people shorter' (dogmatic) manner it was!

This has proved that it can take only moments for people to pass judgement on you with these initial impressions largely based on visual image. What I'm thinking is clothe may not necessarily 'make' the man or woman. Men with proper tied on may not necessarily having money inside his pocket. But the reality is because image talks with this advanced society, and what our image communicates can dictate the quality of the response.

For the reassessment of my thought of whether should I be impressive, I've found an answer. As professional image consultant, Sharon Moore of Image & Moore Pty Ltd once said "There're only two types of people who don't have to worry about their appearance - the very rich, and the very silly. For the rest of us, it's about managing the impact we make on others."

I think I kinder find my old man style that would probably fit the range of what's appropriated for all occasions. And it's perhaps the Charles Bronson's!

A good resume

I am fusty on the way of writing a modern resume. Look! here is a typical one that has found in my inbox.

Let's don't muss too hard upon the enjoinment of silence upon bloggers; the enormity of robbers; the unrest of society; an engrossing college story. And enjoy this particular resume!

Remarked that the copyright of the content of this resume is enigmatical.

Here it's:

SECRETARY'S RESUME:
Deer Sir,
I waunt to apply for the secritary job what I saw in the paper. I can taip real quik wit one finggar and do sum a counting. I think I am good on the phone and no I am a pepole person, Pepole really seam to respond to me belly well. I´m lookin for a Jobb as a secritary but it musent be to complicaited. I no my spelling is not to good but find that I Offen can get a job thru my persinalety. My salerery is open so we can discus wat you want to pay me and wat you think that I am werth, I can start imeditely. Thank you in advanse fore yore anser. . hopifuly Yore best aplicant so farr.
Sinseerly,
Peggy May Starlings
PS : Because my resimay is a bit short - below is a pickture of me taken at my last jobb.

Employer's reply:...... Dear Peggy,
It's OK honey, we've got spell check..... Welcome onboard!!!

D-Link DNS300

I'm annoying with my printing jobs over my home networking shared-printer. Everytime it took me the hassle to fire up my dedicated PC (server) in order to get my document be printed.

I have been considering to get rids of such annoyance by employing a printer server or by using a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which has a built-in print server. After weighing this-and-that, here-and-there, I finally committed with this baby - D-Link DNS300.

Installation of this baby is a breeze. Open up the device's casing, I plug in a harddisk; then I connect it to my wireless router (in case any hub or switch will do) via an ethernet port; and then I hook up my printer to one of the 2 USB ports available at the back of this device.

With the power on, I fire my Firefox (browser) and issue 192.168.0.101, the default IP address of the device. There the interface for configuration is well designed yet elementarily simple. The Quick Start page finds the drive on the network and prompts me to format the harddisk to a recognizable Ext2 format. It is very fast to get my 80g hdd be formatted. Thereafter I can easily create shared folders with configurable rights, define users, assign access privileges. And interestingly, a default no-security public share folder is presented thereof.

This NAS operates as a standalone network file server with good handling of its integrated Linux Samba server talking to and listening from the Windows's environments.

Another interesting feature is I can hook up an external USB drive to another USB port of the device. And I can get my 80g mobile drive be quickly formatted into Fat32 format which I can't be able to do that under WinXP. I think this is an useful function for getting large capacity harddisk to be formatted into Fat32 format without the fuss of breaking into several partitions.

My Canon LBP1210 laser printer unfortunately fails to cooperate remotely and I guess it could be of printer's memory issue, since this Canon printer does not have its own Ram inside. Changing over to my another Canon Pixma 4200 printer is therefore functionable but sluggish. As a reminder, I think my next purchase of printer would be the HP's rammed one.

One annoyance with this baby is it buzzes so intensively (a high db of humming noise) that I have pondered to remove its tiny exhaust fan located at her backside.

Another annoyance is I have to figure out myself on how to switch off the unit. Nothing I could find a single clue from its accompanied documentations as well as from D-Link's website. Oh yes! finally by holding on its power button until its power led is blinking, is the answer. By then I'm not sure whether it is a conventional way.

Anyway, the throughput of files throwing in-and-out within this device is inspiring and is running at a satisfactory condition.
---------------

The good: Choice of desiring space; easy setup; USB ports for printers and USB drives attachment; Samba works fine.

The bad: Headache with its humming sound; lack of documentations; not a solid built.

The bottom line: It prices fairly, at RM550+-; it turns out to become my wireless server as well as print server when connected to my wireless router; a good choice for the average user.

I'm back

After nearly a month of being away, I finally made my way back to this "lu-kong wa-kong" (bloging) circle. Sorry man! my readers (although it's small in number) Truly being away from the blog wasn't by choice. It was because I've been welcomed to "Gout land", an atmosphere of being suffered from gout.

At there, I've to take a new leaf of life. Diet has to be disciplined. I've to say no to foods that are considered high in purine content such as shellfish, red meats, organ meats, beef, beans and nuts etc. Especially the limitation of wine intake, that is the most heart-cutting option. Gout is not only discriminating me but my wife too. As she'd have to follow me to diet in such a way I did since it's now only "just the 2 of us."

Basically I took Goutnil (painkiller), Indomethacin (anti inflammation agent) and Allopurinol (uric acid reducer) daily that are obtaining over the counter. I've done a broad research on gout and getting to know that the best medicine was regular exercise.

I've also suffered from insomnia occasionally because of gout. Sometimes it felt like an owl - active in the night and sleepy in the day. No matter how I rolled and flipped on bed, it sometimes just couldn't get sleep.

It's all about the culprit, the excessiveness of uric acid resulting to gout!

This morning, I read about the intro of a book called "The Right to Write" by Julia Cameron in the Startwo column. The intro has never the less given me some encouragements to share my experiences with you, that's how "I'm back" be written.

Pressure released

Ah! Finally it was a pleasure upshot - a release of last minute pressure - after months of harsh working pressure. Eventually I got my office's taxation jobs completed ahead of schedule before June 30. When I saw happy faces of my colleagues who were collectively enjoying the contentment of "mission possible" by beating the job's deadline, I was happy too this evening thanks to the full cooperation of all colleagues.

We had our works this year procrastinated for some reasons: some because we had failed to call upon clients to get task systematically at hand; some because some of our colleagues were still fresh to get idea to start; others because of the "World Cup 2006" heat that makes the whole system to slow down. That certainly included my frequent escapes from "dull and unpleasant tasks" to reserve for watching football!

A darker day

Today marks the darker day in the life of consumers. Electricity tariff in the peninsula goes up by 12% from today.

TNB said the increase will not affect the low to medium income group which uses less than 200kWh of electricity per month as the existing rate of 21.8 sen per kWh remains unchanged. Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said those unaffected by the tariff increase made up 60% or 3.036 million of the 5.1million households in the peninsula.

Many poor consumers who are delighted that their watt consumption is falling below the marginal hiking point, are happy of being good fortune. As they have believed that the government is having the people in mind before allowing the increase by TNB. So they have expressed comfortably that they are not affected. In fact, it's so stupid for not understand simply the cost accounting implication that "wool is coming from the body of sheep".

Commodities from what you eat to what you use in daily life is mostly produced under a cost of electricity. Since the electricity hike will likely affect business circles in all sectors, certainly the burden would be passed on to consumers. And at the end, it is only those people in the low to medium income group to suffer from inflation.

Inflation and deflation play a vital role in the frugality of economy. Let see how people could stand getting balance within the degree of wealth (income) and comfort (spending) in everyday life! May I exclaim Malaysia boleh?