Me, Myself and My Life Stories

Johor Premium Outlets @ Indahpura

2012-01-16T15:01:00.000+08:00

Finally I managed to pay Johor Premium Outlets (JPO) a visit last week during my monthly journey down South. You can actually see the place from North-South after passing the Senai (U) exit. It's actually quite simple to reach the place. You just exit Senai (U), then take the Tuas Exit and finally Indahpura Exit. From here on you can just follow the direction since you can see the outlet from here. Parking was not an issue and the fee is RM3 per entry.

Once entering the main entrance (since there's a few actually at the side), you can see a lot of outlets on both side. There's even Maybank around for you to get some cash right away.

Burberry Boutique

Armani Boutique

The place is divided into upper street and lower street. On the lower street you have the usual brands like Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, Zara, Braun Buffel and lots more to choose from.

Towards the end, we have the Nike Store.

Plenty of shoes to choose from but nothing really fancy me here. Can't get my training glove too. Sigh~!

Starbucks is here together with Coffee Bean, Baskin Robbins, Crispy Crepe, Kampachi Japanese restaurant and a few not so familiar names.

Charles & Keith Reduction Boutique

Levi's Boutique

A/X, CK and DKNY are on the same row.

Other than Nike, they offer Adidas and Puma too.

Here are some of the sales at Braun Buffel during my trip.

Sales items are off season but who cares. The discount ranges from 30-70%.

Wallets are normally 20-50% discount here.

For bigger items like bags, it ranges from 40-50%.

Surprisingly the 70% are for their shoes.

If you are hungry after a long shop, there's a big air condition food court with various type of dishes for you to dine in.

Actually if you don't mind getting off season's items, this is definitely a good place for good bargains. At least it's 100% genuine. For items like bed sheets (Akemi) or sports clothing, we don't really care if it's season or off-season right? Was told that it would be crowded but was surprised that it wasn't when I arrive. Maybe it's a weekday during lunch hour. Do give this place a visit if you are around the area.

Designer Fashion & Sportswear

Suite	Store
902	Adidas
436	Armani Exchange
334	Armani Outlet
220	Brooks Brothers Factory Store (Opening Soon)
700	Burberry
328	Canali
434	CK Calvin Klein
508	Cotton On
432	DKNY
422	Esprit
516	Flow
416	G2000 Outlet
528	Gap Outlet
532	Guess
426	La Senza Lingerie
430	Lacoste Outlet
524	Levi's Outlet Store
232	Michael Kors
1000	Nike Factory Store
100	Padini Outlet Store
212	Pink Jambu
604	Polo Ralph Lauren (Opening Soon)
418	Poney Outlet
404	Puma
518	Quiksilver
222	Raoul (Opening Soon)
414	Rip Curl
520	Roxy
330	Salvatore Ferragamo Company Store
234	Shanghai Tang
420	Timberland
216	Tommy Hilfiger (Opening Soon)
308	Universal Traveller
224	Versace (Opening Soon)
606	Zegna Outlet Store

Shoes

Suite	Store
512	Charles & Keith Reductions
400	Clarks
316	Geox
304	Pedro Outlet
402	Skechers
300	Vincci

Accessories & Jewelery

Suite	Store
412	City Chain
214	Evita Peroni
324	Swiss Watch Gallery (Opening Soon)
306	Tomei (Opening Soon)
320	Wear + When (Opening Soon)

Fine Leather & Luggage

Suite	Store
312	Bonia (Opening Soon)
408	Carlo Rino
228	Coach
230	Coach Men's
428	Fossil
314	Oroton
310	Samsonite Factory Outlet
322	Tumi

Gifts & Speacilty Items

Suite	Store
302	Cosmetics & Designer Fragrances
206	Fidani Chocolate
602	Maybank
318	Royal Selangor
522	The Body Shop Outlet
210	The Cosmetics Company Store (Opening Soon)

Food & Beverages

Suite	Store
1002	Absolute Thai
502	Baskin-Robbins
401	Crispy Crepe
204	George & Dragon Café
504	Kampachi Japanese Restaurant
200	Starbucks Coffee
500	The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Awaiting

2012-01-04T10:42:00.002+08:00

When most of the people are happy with the released of iOS 5.0.1 JB which was released few weeks back, I am still stuck with the original settings. Yes, I think you know where I am heading with this by now. pod2g , the hacker who gave us the untethered JB recently is now hard at working on the JB for the A5 devices (namely iPhone 4S and iPad 2). He had just twitted yesterday that he had made a "step" on the new A5 processor and the JB for it will be out as early as next week (fingers cross). He also recommended the users to upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 now before Apple roll out the new iOS. So at least there are something to look forward to next week for me. I am so getting bored of the same old lock screen and home screen. I need my SBS, Bite SMS and Winterboard themes.

Price Comparison Between Telcos

2011-12-14T10:09:00.002+08:00

Finally the pricing between the two main telco namely Maxis and Digi had been revealed for the new iPhone 4S. You can find the pricing for Maxis and Digi here. Again Digi had stated in their website to be the "most affordable iPhone plan in Malaysia". Are they? Well to save you the time of comparing, someone just did the comparison for you and it's here. Since Digi do not have a 12 months plan so we can only compare a 24 months plan between both of them.

*information from LYN forum by Huei*

iValue 3 vs iDiGi 238

	Maxis	DiGi
Calls (mins)	1500	1000
SMS	600	600
Data	5GB	5GB
Total Payment 16GB	RM6500	RM5834
Total Payment 32GB	RM6800	RM6134
Total Payment 64GB	RM7150	RM6434

iValue 2 vs iDiGi 138

	Maxis	DiGi
Calls (mins)	667	450
SMS	400	400
Data	3GB	3GB
Total Payment 16GB	RM4970	RM4202
Total Payment 32GB	RM5320	RM4502
Total Payment 64GB	RM5670	RM4802

iValue 1 vs iDiGi 88

	Maxis	DiGi
Calls (mins)	333	200
SMS	200	200
Data	1GB	1GB
Total Payment 16GB	RM3850	RM3410
Total Payment 32GB	RM4150	RM3710
Total Payment 64GB	RM4500	RM4010

Siri is ported to iPhone 4 via H1Siri

2011-12-06T10:17:00.001+08:00

OK, so we had been hearing this for days now. Some people from China called CD-Team had finally managed or should I say dare to port the Siri over to a device other than iPhone 4S. Actually there are some other people who had done it before but since it's illegal to do so they didn't distribute it to the mass. Anyway, this CD-Team managed to port Siri over using a proxy server which they created and work on their own. Mix feedback was heard online throughout these few days as some people managed to get it to work while some didn't. Some messed up their phone and put it in a infinite loop of respring mode. Some had their phone restore several times before managed to get it to work. For those who managed to port it, were managed to operate Siri but at time they will encounter server error as their server are crowded with people trying to connect to it. The developer had informed that they will shift their server to another location for better connectivity. Well, we will just need to wait and see now.

So here's the step-by-step method on doing the porting but take note that I will not be held liable for any lawsuit that you may face in the future and also damages to your devices. Take note that this port only works with iPhone 4 with iOS 5 and above.

It is recommended that you have a clean restore of your iPhone before you proceed.
Your iPhone 4 must be jailbroken for this tweak to work obviously.
Got to Cydia --> Managed --> Source --> Edit and Add this repo (http://www.cydia.be or http://www.iphone3gsystem.fr/cydia)
After adding that repo, search for H1Siri and install it.
Reboot your iPhone but remember you need Redsn0w to reboot it since it's a tethered jailbreak.
Go to Setting --> General --> SIRI and Enable it.
Try rebooting it a few times if you can't get it to work.

Some of the people had some issue during Step 6 as they can't find the Setting icon anymore. But I guess the most common one would be "Sorry, I'm having trouble connecting to the network" or "Sorry, I don't have a network connection" error. But once you are connected, Siri is live and active. So do try this out (at your own risk). Well as for me, I might wanna wait for the real deal is here. I mean no point installing something that is half way there right? But who am I to judge. Have fun peeps~!

Infinity Blade II

2011-12-05T08:52:00.001+08:00

Finally Infinity Blade II (IBii) is OUT. I'd been waiting for this game for some time now. Had been playing Blood and Glory (which has the same game play as this) but IBii beats all of the others in it's rank. I mean, this could be one of the best or maybe the best game I had ever played. Be it game-play, graphics, sounds and repeat-ability. The game came out last weekend and I'd been playing with it for days now. Currently at level 17 on the 6th Rebirth. Those who played the first installment should know what I am talking about.

You can watch the trailer here. It's damn cool~!

You can check out the new game-play here. There are now three types of weapons for you to choose and master. You have the normal sword & shield, two handed and dual-wielding combat styles. Other than that, you have plenty of new items like the new gems system for you to socket it to your armor, shields, helm or even ring. Totally amazing.

I would totally give this game a 4.8 out of 5 for now. As I am still waiting for the Arena game mode which players can duel together in an arena to see whose the MAN. But nevertheless, the game is worth every penny spent. Go download it from iTunes now. It's only $5.99 for now. You can download it from HERE. Enjoy and let the swords clash~!

Register for an iPhone 4S now

2011-12-01T20:57:00.001+08:00

Finally it's here ... well soon anyway. It's the phone everyone been waiting for. Again, it depends if you are migrating from iPhone 3GS or from iPhone 4. I am still deciding whether to upgrade from my iPhone 4 for now. But heck, I'd just make a reservation for the phone through maxis website. You can do the same over HERE.

Untethered Jailbreak?

2011-11-09T11:22:00.000+08:00

For those still waiting for an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5. I think you still got one hell of a time to go. pod2g from the Chronic Dev Team had just tweeted today that they had found an exploit recently which might be able to use for an untethered jailbreak. But don't hold your breath though. As no date had been confirm on the ETA of it. As for me, I am running my iPhone 4 on iOS 5 for weeks now with Redsn0w. No worries of reboot till date and I am covered since both my desktop at home and notebook in the office can be use to reboot it. Settled~!

In another note, for those who heard that someone successfully ported SIRI to iPhone 4, well it's fake. We did heard this news before after the launch of iPhone 4S that someone DID managed to do it but since it's against the law to port it over to another iDevices other than iPhone 4S, hence the idea had been put to rest. But recently, there are rumors that Apple are doing testing or experiments with SIRI running on other iDevices namely iPhone 4 and 3GS. At least they are agreeing that SIRI are able to run on other iDevices other than the new dual A5 processor. Hopefully they are finally opening up their mind on this. We'll keep our finger cross on this for now.

SemiTether Jailbreak for iOS 5

2011-10-25T09:27:00.003+08:00

Well, since I had posted the tethered JB on my previous post, I thought it's just good to update you guys of an update to it. No it's not untethered JB. I had upgraded my iphone 4 to iOS 5 last week using Redsn0w JB. Yes, it's tethered but what the heck. iOS 5 is too cool to say no to. Now here's an update by BigBoss. But first let me explain what is the difference between a tethered and and untethered JB.

Tethered Jailbreak

This is after you had jailbreak your device and tried to reboot it. Your device will get stuck in the apple logo screen or goes into recovery mode (USB cable to iTunes picture). You will now need the Redsn0w software to reboot your device. So you're in a big problem if your phone suddenly rebooted or need to be rebooted after a software install in Cydia or out of battery.

Untethered Jailbreak

Simply put it, it's the best of them all. You can freely boot and reboot your devices as many time as you wanted. All thanks to GeoHot for last year's limer1n exploit.

So what does this semi-tethered do? Well it will let your phone reboot and has the standard function made available. But apps like Safari, Mail and all the Cydia installed apps and tweaks. At least you can make calls and SMS right? So here is how you install the Cydia based semi-tethered app.

Go to Cydia and Choose "Manage"
Choose "Sources"
Choose "Edit" and then "Add"
Then enter this URL "http://thebigboss.org/semitether" and Choose "Add Source"
Return to Cydia after installing the app
Go to Search and search for semitether
Choose to Install and after installing your device will be prompted to reboot.

You device will now be able to reboot but to make all the apps workable, you will need to boot tethered once more using Redsn0w. This is still in a trial or beta mode so do try with caution and do back up your data. Have I used it? Nope, I had Redsn0w installed both on my laptop and desktop. So it won't be any issue if my phone did rebooted. And if my phone ran out of battery? Heck, any phone need to be recharge after running out of battery. What's the difference right? Cheers~!

Tips on Improving Battery Life Running on iOS 5

2011-10-17T14:48:00.002+08:00

I had read on reviews and feedback from users who had upgraded to the iOS 5 that their battery life decreased a lot. This seemed more obvious on both iPad and iPhone users as compared to iPod. Well, you can expect the extra battery usage since there are so much new features (200+) in the new iOS 5. So here are some tips on improving your battery life. Most of them are settings which you can disable since you do not need it to be running at the back.

Disabling Bluetooth (Settings/General/Bluetooth > OFF)
Disabling Location Service (Settings/Location Service > OFF)
Turning OFF Notification Service for some/all of your apps (Settings/Notification >OFF)
Disabling iCloud Services (Settings/General/iCloud > OFF) *this maybe the most significant one.
Disabling Ping (Services/General/Restrictions/Enable Restrictions/Ping > OFF)
Disabling Time Zone Adjustment (Settings/Location Services/System Services/Set Time Zone > OFF)
Disabling Diagnostic & Usage Reports (Settings/General/About/Diagnostic & Usage > Don't Send)
Reset Network Settings (Settings/Reset/Rest Network Settings) *this will reset all your password, VPN and APN in your network settings.
Some users also suggested that removing and adding back your email account helps. Hence, you need to Delete Email Accounts -> Reset Network Settings -> Reboot -> Adding Email Accounts

Some of the users even mentioned that their battery life drop drastically down to half, even during standby mode. Some iPhone users even complaint about their phone heating up. There are mix opinion on these issues, some blaming it on the iCloud and had disabled it. Some are blaming on the Time Zone Adjustment setting. I haven't upgrade to iOS 5, so I am not sure how is it affecting my phone. Let me know how is your iDevices acting up after upgrading to iOS 5. Hope the above tips helps you.

iOS 5 is LIVE

2011-10-13T09:51:00.000+08:00

Finally the long awaited iOS 5 had been released hours ago. I had posted an update on that several months back and after iPhone 4S was released last week, the long awaited iOS 5 had finally been released by Apple today. And the iPhone Dev Team took no time in exploiting the new iOS 5 and gave us the JB for it. Well it come with no surprised actually if you are following the updates (like I did). They had already JB iOS 5 GM version which is pre-loaded for iPhone 4S so they just need to tweak a bit before releasing it to the mass after Apple releases iOS 5. You can download Redsn0w and Sn0wbreeze to JB your iDevices now.

I am going to explain here how to JB using Redsn0w 0.9.9b4 for iOS 5 devices. You can download Redsn0w [HERE] and Sn0wbreeze 2.8 beta 8 [HERE]. Note that Redsn0w only support the following iOS 5 devices:

iPhone 4
iPhone 3GS
iPod Touch 3G
iPod Touch 4G
iPad 1

Nope, there is no JB available for iPad 2. God bless those who are running on 4.3.3. Since it won't support iPad 2, that goes the same with iPhone 4S. Cause both of this iDevices are running on the new A5 processor. Both Redsn0w and Sn0wbreeze are tethered JB unless you are using 3GS running on an older bootrom which is untethered. I am not gonna go step-by-step with the JB in here. Well unless my friends or readers out there requested it (a bit lazy). There are reports saying their iPhone got stuck on the loading page. This might be cause by the Cydia apps crashing as it's not supported by the new iOS.

Some of you JB owners used AptBackup, PkgBackup or xBackup from Cydia to backup your apps but do take note that not all apps support the new iOS as mentioned earlier. It may crashed on your iDevices in some cases. And even in iTunes, you will need to reinstall all your apps since not apps are supported on the new iOS. Here's a YouTube video showing how to JB using Redsn0w. Enjoy~! And again, please back up your iDevices before you do anything. And the writer won't be taking any responsibility for anything that happens to any reader's iDevices.

The Legacy of Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T11:37:00.000+08:00

I was driving my car early this morning when I heard the radio mentioning someone died and it sounded like Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Yes, it's confirmed after I quickly browsed through Apple's website during the bumper the bumper jam. You can send your regards and condolences HERE. It was just a day (more or less) after Apple unveiled their latest iPhone 4S to the market. I think it came to a shock to all the people in the world hearing about this. Everyone knows that he decided to take an absence of work before the launch and I thought that he just wanted to recuperate after a long work. Everyone knows that he survived his past cancer problems but I guess God decided that HE too wanted someone as genius as him to be next to him up there. Maybe God wanted an iGod? OK, bad joke.

Along these years, Steve changed a falling company and rebuild it again and now being the leader of all the smart phones companies. He had brought us iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad which changes the technology world entirely and bringing the game up to another level for all the other makers. Now everyone tries to beat Apple. It is definitely a sad day for all of us Apple fanatics out there. He will be miss but his spirit will move on and be with us each time we pick up an Apple product. We just hope that his predecessor can carry on the torch and bring Apple to another new height. God Bless and May Your Soul Rest in Peace~!

Finally it's iPhone 4S and Not 5

2011-10-05T09:53:00.001+08:00

Finally the cat is out of the box. It's official that iPhone next generation phone is dubbed 4S rather than 5. This means that it's just an upgrade rather than a whole new design of the phone. Honestly I am a bit disappointed. I am really looking forward to the 4" display that we had been hearing for so long now. But people over at Cupertino. Their shares even drop 5% after this announcement during their Let's Talk iPhone event late yesterday (our time). Nevertheless, the new iPhone 4S do come with a lot of "upgrades". Here are some of them worth mentioning:-

Dual-Core A5 Processor: It's the same processor that the current iPad 2 is using. Apple claimed that it's 2 times faster in performance and up to 7 times faster graphics as compared to it's predecessor, iPhone 4.
8-Mega Pixel Camera: Well, at least they got this right. I think the new iPhone should have at least an 8-megapixel camera since most of the smartphone in the market has it for so long. The camera also comes with a larger f/2.4 aperture. Other features like improved backside illumination sensor, auto white balance, advanced color accuracy, face detection and also reduced motion blur-ness.
HD Video Recording: Now you will be able to record full HD 1080p videos on this baby. It also comes with anti shake reduction feature during recording.
World Phone: It is also dubbed the world phone because it is able to work both GSM and also CDMA network. Apple claimed that they are the first manufacturer that come out with this feature as the phone will automatically switch to a better network between these two. In other word, better coverage.
Faster Network Speed: The speed has been doubled to 14.4 Mbps on HSDPA.
Improved Battery Life: Each time Apple comes out with a new phone, they made the machine more faster but at the same time better battery life. This is one of their key feature for me. Since it's pointless if you increase the performance on the battery expenses.
SIRI: SIRI is the new personal assistance that everyone has been talking about since it was demoed online early this year. You can use SIRI to composed a mail, make a phone call, search online and even locate a place just using voice control.

Other than all that, the new iPhone 4S comes loaded with the new iOS 5 which come with more than 200 new features that we have been talking all this while. iPhone 4S is available in US for $199 for the 16GB, $299 for 32GB and $399 for the new 64GB capacity. As usual, US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia will be able to pre-order on the 7th October and will be launching one week after on the 14th Oct. Other countries like Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithunia, Luxemberg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland will be on 28th Oct. The rest of the world would need to wait till the end of the year for it. Looking at the brighter side, I can re-use my current casing for the new iPhone 4S. Saved a lot of $$$.

Nasi Lemak 2.0

2011-09-27T10:53:00.002+08:00

Finally I had managed to watched this very movie which caused so much buzz lately in the cinema. Not it's not Johnny English. It's our own local production called Nasi Lemak 2.0. The movie is directed by non other than the controversial blogger Namwee. I wasn't sure if I wanna watch this movie in the first place but I had a few good response from my friends for the movie and decided to watched it before it was taken down. Damn, booking the ticket itself was damn hard. Almost all the halls are full each day. Even the midnight shows. Finally managed to get some tickets over the new MBO at Subang Parade.

The movie features a lot of local celebrities like Adibah Noor, comedian Afdlin Shauki, singer Reshmonu, violinist Dennis Lau, local singer Karen Kong, ex-DJ cum blogger Pete Teoh and some veteran actor and singers like Dato' David Arumugam (Alleycats) and Kenny & Chee (babba & nyoya) and lastly Miss Malaysia herself Nadine Ann Thomas. The movie focus on Namwee as Chef Huang who acts like a savior to the neighborhood after being saved by someone when he was young. He and Kak Noor (Adibah Noor) are like fire and water as the latter sells nasi lemak at her stall opposite his restaurant and was doing very well. Xiao K (Karen) came over to seek Chef Huang help to save her family restaurant and this embarks the journey of Chef Huang and Xiao K.

Along the way they meet with Baba & Nyonya (Chee & Kenny) who teaches Chef Huang how to cook real sambal. Then they went to meet Curry Master (David Arumugam) who only speaks Tamil to learn about spices. Finally they meet with Hero Resh (Reshmonu) and also fisherman (Afdlin Shauki) who has four beautiful wifes and kids. Finally Chef Huang has a final showdown with his former classmate, Lan Qiao (Dennis Lau). OK, maybe the story line isn't that solid but heck it's a movie about our country and the best part is that we can really relate to all of the stuff from the movie in our daily life. Take for instance, electricity being cut off without any warning, how cold our local car's air cond is and how the power window stop working after 2 years. There are a lot of remarks made towards the government but it's all very true.

It talks about unity and the spirit of 1Malaysia in the movie. How 3 different races work together to achieve peaceful harmonious living. The director did take some shots on some issues like the Lingam case and also the pornographic sex scandal case by one of our local chief. I think, only us Malaysian can truly understand and feel the whole movie is all about. I don't think anyone like Hong Kong or even Singaporean understand some of the jokes being made in the movie. Unless you really do follow Malaysia news a lot. Lastly, the movie does gave me a lot of laugh and something to ponder on. If there's a chance, I would watch it a second time. haha~! Walao Eh Walao Eh Walao Eh~!!!!

My New Onkyo Home Theater

2011-09-19T15:56:00.001+08:00

Finally I'd bought my home theater to go with my 50" Full HD Plasma. I had initially gave up the hope of getting an AVR and just get those Samsung or Panny's home theater system but when I saw this baby, I know I need to have it. It's Onkyo HT-S5300 home theater set which come with 7.1 system. The best part, it also come with an iPod/iPhone dock (charging) to go with it. How cool is that. I had initially plan to get a 5.1 system but since this system can go up to 7.1, I guess I can always use it later on when I have an AV room of my own.

The HT-S5300 home theater comes with Onkyo's R580 AV receiver. It supports the new HDMI v.1.4a (which support 3D and Audio Return Channel). Although I am not currently using a 3D-TV but at least I am ready for it if I do upgrade in the future. It comes with audio & 1080p video processing via HDMI and I have 4 of those on the input and 1 output. I'm currently plugging in my Unifi TV box and also Media Player into the AVR. I still have two more for future use (i.e PS3 or XBox) and also Blu-Ray player. As usual, the AVR supports the highest level of sound like:

Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High-Resolution Audio;
Dolby Pro-Logic IIz which features 2 more front high speaker input and
Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-bit DAC (PCM1690) for all Channels.

There's plenty of stuff in the specification sheet but I do not know from one to the other so no point writing it all out in here.

The home theater come with one big 25cm Cone Sub-Woofer . Particularly like the conic legs underneath. Makes it look so classy. This baby weights 10.7kg. Not that heavy actually.

As mentioned the home theater is a 7.1 sound system so it means there's 7 speakers and one sub-woofer. The top horizontal one would be the center front speaker. It has a max. input power of 130W with 6 Ohms impedance. The two tall vertical speaker underneath the center speaker would be the front surround speakers. And the 4 smaller ones would be the surround and surround back speakers.

Lastly the iPod/iPhone dock for connecting my music with the AVR and also movies (480p only). The dock is so slick since it's a match with the AVR. And most importantly it charges my iDevice at the same time. How cool~!

So here's a rough diagram showing how a 7.1 surround system is being place. Being the geographical nature of my current living room. I am not able to place the 4 remaining surround and surround back speakers for the time being. Maybe I really need to do some modification on my plaster ceiling to pull the cables back from the AVR. For the time being, just gonna enjoy the current 3.1 system (which sound sound good on DTS). Tested my new home theater on Resident Evil and Ip Man 2 on DTS. Damn the sound system was so blardy loud. But as the technician said, the speakers need to be season in due time for better sound quality. Well let's see then. For the time being, gonna copy some DTS movies from my friends to test my new baby out.

(Picture courtesy of Cbiz)

Les Mill's 3rd Quarter Review

2011-09-09T10:55:00.002+08:00

It's been a while since I updated my Les Mill's GX launches. Well, I am not that much of a hardcore comparing to last time maybe. I still join the classes more than ever but I don't really bother or craze for the upcoming releases anymore. Just finished doing all the new releases for the program which I normally joined, Body Pump 79, Body Combat 49, RPM 52 & Body Step 85. Actually I did Body Pump 79 unofficially few weeks back under some instructors class before. Had a feel of it and I really like it. So let me go through briefly on the releases. Again, these are just my opinions and do not reflect on the program itself.

Body Pump 79 focuses more on core workout. Well actually all the Les Mill's program this time around focuses on core muscles anyway. Warm up was nice with the cover music from Taio Cruz's Higher. We're finishing off the warming with a bicep roll this time around. We have a squats combo of 4 singles and 4 bottom halves this time around. 2 sets of those combos and 2 more sets of additional 4 singles and bottom halves to the end. This track really kicks to the heart. We can sing along with Sean Kingston's Party All Night with the Chest track. Nothing particular special here. 8 singles combos with 2 sets of 4 bottom halves. There is a break after the 3rd set though so you can load up.

Now here's the nifty part of the Back track. The over head press is back (I think it's called that technically). We have 3 over head presses then down for 3 singles before going up again for two more sets. There are a total of 2 sets of those combos before finishing off with just 2 sets. Your heart should be on the 80% mark by now at least. Triceps is a bit easy as we start with triceps extension and down triceps push and some bottom halves before going to dips and over head towards the end. And you can definitely sing your heart out with Lady Gaga's born this way in Triceps. Biceps isn't that tough this time around too. I like the music from Bon Jovi's livin' on a prayer for Biceps. We have quick up and slow down then 8 bottom halves. The combo is around that.

The killer track would again be the Lunges. We have Fireworks on Body Pump 78 now we have Bruno Mar's Grenade. Let's see, we start off with squats then lunges back to squats then lunges (2nd leg) back to squats then lunges (right leg) and lunges (left leg). We have singles and two bottom halves, down and hold, singles and 8 bottom halves combos in between. Yes, it's that freaking crazy. After killing your legs, we continue with our shoulders. Scooter is back and we have the new standing back move with the plates which we normally do on our knees. We start with push up and end with push ups too. The raises are similar to Raver's In the UK actually.

Warmup: Higher – Logan S. feat. Mandy Brewer
Squats: Closer To The Edge – Mekon Garden
Chest: Party All Night (Sleep All Day) – Sean Kingston
Back: Written In The Stars (Sunny Dee Remix) – Jason Born
Triceps: Born This Way – Southern Light
Biceps: Livin’ On A Prayer – Altiyan Childs
Lunges: Grenade (Damn-R Mix) – Jason Born
Shoulders: J’Adore Hardcore (Extended Mix) – Scooter
Abdominals: We’ll Be Alright – Travie McCoy
Cooldown: The Crow & The Butterfly – Shinedown
Alternative 5 – Triceps: If We Ever Meet Again (Hans-O-Matik Bigroom Radio Cut) – Pandora BX

Thanks God that the new Body Combat 49 is a good one, or at least I do think so myself. For me it's back to the basic. We have a good warm up track from Jay Sean's Down for the upper body and Linkin' Park's New Divide for the bottom. This is one hell of a long warm up track. It's close to 10mins. I realized that we did the knee twice for the warm up. It is said to warm up our legs for the later tracks since we have lots of kicks and lunges. Track 2 & 3 are quite short to compensate back to the long warm up I guess. I particularly like Track 3 because of the song Barbra Streisand. There's not much lyrics in it but the tempo and the beat really goes well with the chorey. I did this release twice but I don't really remember the chorey much now. All depends on muscle memory nowadays. LOLX!!

Track 6 which suppose to be a conditioning track, well is not. I think Les Mill's had long decided that they are going to scrap that. We have a lot of front and back kick couple with block combos. It's tiring but I like it. Muay Tai track is a fan track. We have lots of knees again. Yup, just go crazy with this one. And finally the final peak track. We have the 8 singles jab cross and two single punch each combo. Then there's double upper on each side and back to the punches. Lots of fun indeed. For the abs track we have the circular push up back again. Well technically it's called circular-square. You will know when you sees it. Overall it's a cool release.

1a. Down - Studio 88
1b. New Divide (M & Ace Remix) - Rivendell
02. Kick In The Teeth - Badlands Inc
03. Barbra Streisand - Northern Accelerators
4a. Lord Of The Rings - Nick Skitz vs Blissphoria
4b. Hava Nagila - Alex M vs Marc van Damme
05. Don’t Need - Hixxy & Technikore feat. Intraspekt
06. Unfaithful (Nivara Remix) - Comeea
07. Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) – Swade
08. Turn To Me (Supreme & MOB 2010 Remix) - Trinity
09. Dance With Me - 3OH!3
10. Somewhere In The World - Altiyan Childs

Before the release, some instructor told me that it's not going to be a good release to teach. Damn~! But once I did it for the first time, I can still accept the whole release. Well except Track 1, 4 and 6 at least. After the second time of doing it, I can accept all the tracks accept track 1. Really~! What the hell is that? That track totally lost me. I don't really feel the motivation in it. Luckily track 2 is a strong one and managed to bring the whole class back to the peak. I can really feel the motivation in this track. The first hill belongs to Lady Gaga again with Born This Way. Totally love this track. Mixed Terrain takes time to grow I guess. Nothing special. Interval is just pure intensity. You go up and you go down. It's a short spark and off you go. Nice way to shock my heart in this track. Speed work is a bit plain for me. It's similar to some previous release to the extent that I think it's an identical twin (even the chorey). Finally we have the last Mountain to conquer. We have a new move called Benchmark Resistance. Well to put it simple, we ride with the climbing resistance. Don't we all? haha!

Pack Ride: Beautiful People (Club Version) – Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi
Pace: Take Over Control – Martina Lorene
Hills: Born This Way (Kris McTwain Remix) – Other Ego
Mixed Terrain: All In – Badlands Inc
Intervals: Witchcraft – Blau
Speed Work: Disarm Yourself (Club Mix) – Dash Berlin feat. Emma Hewitt
Mountain Climb: Discover (Club Mix) – Paffendorf
Ride Home: Science & Faith – The Script
Stretch: The Lazy Song – Bruno Mars
Alternative 3 – Hills: Rhythm Of The Night (Alex K Remix) – Frisco vs Corona
Alternative 9 – Stretch: Choose You – Stan Walker

Finally, Body Step 85. I like the We warm up. Cause some of the recent releases do not have a good warm up. I am talking about the music selection (or remixes) to the chorey. This time around, we have Chris Brown and Maximum for the warm up. We start the warm up with a vertical board orientation. Actually I don't really like vertical orientation for the warm up. Sigh~! Step Athletic has a nice song to it. At least we don't have something silly like the quick burpee like the previous releases. Mixed Strength is similar to One Night in Bangkok actually. We have a lot of triple movement on the floor. Power Peak has a new move AGAIN. We have some push ups towards the end. Argh~!!! Really anti-climax. Step Recovery was nice and easy. We have the usual knee lift and repeaters on each side. Party Step was alright if I remember right. Didn't do the Speed track since it's a 45mins class. But the instructor did told me it's a really nice one. Final Peak track is a good one. Reminds me of Final Countdown actually. We have 8 repeaters on each side then cut down to 4. Lots of over the board even from the start. At least there's no silly chorey with the plates again.

Warmup: Here I Go – Maximum
Step Warmup: Yeah 3x – Chris Brown
Step Orientation: The Call – Graffiti Girls
Step Athletic: Sure Fire Winners – Solar Collective
Mixed Strength: Who’s That Chick – Ultimate
Power Peak: Jump! – Mickey Index
Step Recovery: Muscles – Annie Lee
Party Step: Show Me How You Burlesque – Carla Cross
Speed Step: Objection – Mirage
Peak: Real Things – DJ Riddle
Recovery/Leg Strength: Uprising – TransNoise
Cooldown/Stretch: Rocketeer – Original Fire
Alternative 8 – Athletic Circuit: Revolution – Colorbox
Alternative 9 – Athletic Circuit: Last Train To Trancentral – Bodytronixx

PS: tracklist and posters courtesy of nzglen

Is This Your Final Destination?

2011-08-29T14:27:00.001+08:00

Recently I had just finished another long run movie after Harry Potter (8 Episodes), Planet of The Apes (6 Episodes) and now Final Destination franchise. Gosh~! How many times do they really have to get kill? Well anyway, we can't blame Death for making his job a bit interesting now, can we? The first franchise started from the year 2000. It tells a group of teenagers who cheated death as one of them had a premonition thingy before the actual thing happens. So the group of teenagers and adults left the Flight 180 before it explodes into flames. But as they all said, you can't cheat Death. So one by one is being killed/died with accordance with the way they were supposed to die in the initial plan.

This first episode gave us all a very good and suspense feeling of death and what is reflects on our real life. I mean, every little thing that we do might lead to our own death or some one else. How cool in a twisted sick way I might say. But the way the director, James Wong lead the audience gripping on their seats on how the person is going to die was just awesome. So at the end no one survived except Ali Larter which come back on the second franchise. Highlight death would be Sean William Scott being decapitated by the metal plate flung off from a passing train. Cool~!

The second episode comes 3 years after the first. Since they thought they can make some really big money of out how people die. Well, death do sells. So the second part of the movie tells of a bunch of people got save from a freak Highway 180 accident. Trust me, it's really out of the world. So this bunch of people started to die one by one just like the initial movie. But some one gave them an idea on how to prevent death is by creating another life. Well some bullshit bout balance of life where a life will eliminate off a death mumbo jumbo. OK, here's the interesting part of the movie, they found bout the plane accident (Part 1) and the people on board are related to them one way the other.

Hence, them (people from Part 1) who were saved from the initial plane crash had created a chain of event which resulted the people in this movie to be still alive and death is not happy about that. But at the end, everyone's dead. As they said, no one cheat death TWICE. Highlight death moment would be the guy being cut in many piece by the barb wires. Wicked~!

The third installment come 3 years later in 2006. This time around, a bunch of teenagers (yes, it always revolves around young people) who went for a roller coaster ride called High Dive and survived yet another freak accident. I think Death is slacking off his job by now. So the survivors did some research online and found out that there are similar cases (plane crash and road accident) where the people who survived those accidents, die one by one after that. So they had decided to fight against their fate and at the end 3 of them survived. But not for long as after 5 months after they all goes their separate ways, they some how bump into each other in a subway. One of them saw the number 081 (in reflection of 180 which is also the same flight number on the plane crash in Episode 1). She had a premonition again but this time it's just few second a head so they didn't have enough time to save themselves. At the end, all of them die. Highlight of the movie would be one guy being penetrated by a flag pole. I mean, how bizarre can it get?

This movie came 3 years later (I think it's a trend) in 2009. This time, Death comes in 3D. Yup, the movie jump into the 3D bandwagon. The movie focuses on a bunch of audience from McKinley Speedway who had, Yes you got it, survived another bizarre freak accident. Crush to death by a spun off tyres out side the stadium? I mean, death really wanted her to die so badly. But at least, Death is getting more creative after the 3rd installment. Again, they thought that they can cheat death again by skipping an accident on their own life but heck they are wrong. This is the part where the 3 left survivors who get together in a cafe to celebrate their victory against Death's plan. At that point, the main actor had another premonition about Death's coming plan and realized that all that had happened after McKinley Speedway and all the other death is actually a red herring from Death to bring them all together for a final showdown. No money for guessing who won at the end.

Now, after 2 years, in 2011 Final Destination 5 had reached the 5th installment. I assumed this is the last but we never know. It all depends on the box office I guess. If the cinema goers still like it and would pay for more, why not? The story tells of a company retreat went wrong when the suspension bridge which their bus is on decided to give way, due to strong winds. An idiot would know that Death got something to do with it. Well, the main actor had a premonition and pulled his colleagues off the bus before it plum to the sea. And you know what that does to Death's reputation by now. It's a big No No. So one by one of them die in some freaky horrifying ways. OK, sometimes, the director did get too creative especially how the gymnast fell to death after some freak accident during practice.

In this episode, the coroner (same guy from all the episodes, which brought us to believe he is Death himself) gave them some light on how to save their life. They need to kill someone innocent or not meant to die in order to skip the death toll on themselves. One particular funny moment would be the guy visited the spa and the conversation he had with the Chinese masseur. Anyway, three of the survivors left (why is it always three?) and the couple finally managed to board the plane for their trip over to Paris. Now here's the catch, when I saw the date of the ticket, which is dated in the year 2000 and the tickets read Flight 180, I know what is going on. Some teenage kids got kick off the plane right before taking off since he had a premonition that the plane is going to explode in mid air. Yes, it's the same flight 180 from the first movie. So both of them die and the most outrageous part would be the third person who survived got killed by the fallen parts from Flight 180 WHILE DRINKING IN A BAR!!!. I mean, how ironic can that be? Death really have some really sick sense of humor. hahaha!

iPhone 5 Coming Soon

2011-08-23T11:50:00.001+08:00

It's been a while since I updated on the iPhone news. Well since there's been a lot of speculation on the net lately bout the coming soon iPhone 5, I had decided to just mentioned some of it for my readers. Apple had been testing and releasing iOS 5 betas for developers for months preparing the apps developers of their new update (via iOS & iDevices). The launching of the new so-called iPhone 5 is more realistic with both AT&T and VP confirming that the new iPhone 5 would be launch early October (supposedly on the 7th) and are taking pre-orders as early as 29th & 30th September. It means that Apple will launch the new iPhone around 2nd or 3rd week of September before the pre-order. And with Apple's past record, they will announce their new iOS few days before their new gadget (i.e iPod & iPhone). So expect to hear the launch of the new iOS around the first week of October. To tell you the truth, I can't wait to update to the new iOS 5 while waiting for the iPhone 5 to arrive on our shore (maybe late 2011 if we're lucky). Till then, I am alright with fooling around with the iOS 5 since the JB has already been available for it. Fingers cross!

Planet of The Apes .... The Complete Episode

2011-08-22T12:10:00.001+08:00

After watching the The Rise of Planet of The Apes few weeks back. I was really amazed how much the digital world had improved. For me both have their own advantage. I walked in the cinema with high expectation since I heard great reviews from the media. And at the end, I walked out the cinema full of praises on the movie. The star of the movie would be Caesar of course. I think everyone will agree with me on that. It tells the story of a Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) trying to find a cure for Alzheimer. He uses apes to try on the "cure" and unknown to him that the "cure" enhanced the brain functionality of the apes. The first ape was name "Bright Eyes" (it's the same name Dr. Zira from Planet of The Apes from the 1968 movie gave the astronaut, Tylor).

Cut story short, Bright Eyes gave birth to Caesar (you will hear this name again on the 3rd installment of the episode) who in turn freed all the apes and bring his kind to a revolution. Hence the tagline of the movie, Evolution becomes Revolution. After watching the movie I was really tempted to re-watched the original 1968 movie again. Yup, I'd watched all the 5 episodes since I was really young. And so I did.

The 1968 movie stared Charlton Heston (he's like George Clooney of our time). It tells of an astronaut, Taylor who crashed landed on a planet after going through a worm hole. The year written on the ship is 3950. He believe that it's another dimension or planet when he discovered that the planet is inhibit by talking apes and humans are being hunted for sport and used as test rat like we so did in our time. Human can't talk in the future and during a freak shoot out, Taylor throat was hurt and he wasn't able to speak. During that time he meet Dr. Zila and her husband Cornelius. The apes go crazy when they discovered that Taylor can speak and decided to dissect him and experiment on him (just like we human will do if we found a talking ape). But Dr.Zila & Cornelius help Taylor escaped to the forbidden zone. There he discovered the ultimate truth of the human race. The planet is actually earth some 2000 years in the future. The story ends with Taylor discovering the Statue of Liberty as in the movie poster. Cool~!

The second installment came two years later in 1970 starring James Franciscus as Brent the astronaut from Taylor's time coming in search of the latter. Taylor was ventured into the forbidden zone together with Nova and went missing. Brent discovered Nova and was brought to the Ape City where they meet Dr.Zila and Cornelius. They were caught and was being sent for target practice. They managed to escape with the help of Dr.Zila and Cornelius and decided to venture into the forbidden zone in search of Taylor. There, Brent found the New York subway and know of the fate of the human race. There they encountered mutated human with mental powers which captured Taylor. The gorillas decided to venture into the forbidden land in search of them and at the end battle with the human over there. Brent, Nova and Taylor was killed at the end but before Taylor died, he had activated the doomsday bomb and everything on the face of the earth was annihilated.

The third installment came a year after that in the year 1971. It continues with Dr.Zila, Cornelius and Dr. Milo landed on Earth several years after Brent and Taylor went missing. Three of them salvaged the space ship from Taylor's crash site and managed to repair and flew off in time watching the future earth being wiped out from the doomsday bomb activated by Taylor. Dr.Milo was killed by a gorilla in the zoo (ironically) while Dr.Zila and Cornelius is being treated like honored guest when humans found out that they can actually speak. But a certain Dr. Otto found out about the down fall of the human race and destruction of the earth in the future and decided to stop at all cost the birth of Dr.Zila's son. Yup, the baby was born at the end and was name Baby Milo (in memory of Dr.Milo). And yes, this is how the brand Bape (Bathing Ape) came alive. Both the parents died at the end while leaving Baby Milo to Armando of the circus.

After 20 years of the killing of Dr. Zila and Cornelius, Baby Milo grew up and name Caesar (I don't know why). The world as told by Dr.Zila previously had used apes as household pets replacing cats and dogs. Cats and dogs in the world died of an infection several years back and human decided to train apes to be their pets and subsequently slaves to do their works. Caesar shouted "lousy human bastards" when he saw some guard mistreated an ape. Armando gave himself up but Governor Breck & Capt Kopl didn't believe him as they believe that the child from Dr.Zila still lives. At the end Armando died and when Caesar found out about this, he had finally had enough and decided to raise up together with the other apes and take back their freedom. As he believe that freedom can only be achieve with power. At the end of the movie, the city burn down in rubble and Caesar walk off together with Lisa, her partner.

Finally the last installment of the movie. I am a bit confused of the time line but I will try to explain as much as I can. The movie starts off with some introduction of The Great Lawgiver in the early 21st century (if I am not mistaken). He tells the history of the ape king, Caesar after a decade of the ape revolution and the downfall of human race. Caesar tried to find a place where human and ape can live in harmony. Human are still not equal yet and are being watched by apes at that time. Human are teaching apes how to write and read. Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (the same tagline from Bape line of clothing) is the oldest and sacred rule of the apes. With the help of MacDonald (the descendant of the assistant of Governor Breck) and Virgil, they managed to obtained the footage of Caesar's parents trial and got to know some part of the future.

The descendant of Capt Kopl is now the so-called leader of the inhabitant of the waste land once called New York city. They discovered the ape city and decided to destroy it once and for all. General Aldo gorilla head decided to kill all the humans and even Caesar if he tries to stop him and accidentally overheard by Cornelius (Caesar's son) and killed him. The human led by Kopl attacked the city but was defeated at the end. The remaining of the soldiers decided to activate the doomsday bomb but at the end called it off. Caesar believe that the future can be change depending on how the ape and people can learn to co-exist with each another. And that is how the movie ends with the Great Lawgiver looking upon the human kids playing with the apes.

R U Ready?!!

2011-08-16T14:04:00.001+08:00

Wow! It's been a while since my last update. Honestly, a bit lazy after moving into my new place. Too comfy to do anything. Just wanna sit down on my nice comfy sofa while watching some movies on my big screen TV. It's really true what they said, that when you have your own home, you won't be going out that much anymore. Now I totally understand and agreed with this idea. So what's up with my life lately. Well, let's see. I'd cut down on my classes in gym. After close to 5 years of work out I had finally decided to slow down on my pace. Getting old? Well, maybe I am just entering another phase of life. There are priority in life and well, working out in the gym shouldn't be the only life I aim for.

OK, enough bout the serious stuff. Last week me and babe went over to Taman Pertanian, Bukit Cahaya over at Shah Alam. Babe went over previous with her friends for the Flying Fox thingy. This time around we went over for Paintball. Yup, this is my first game of paint ball. We paid around RM100 (inclusive of lunch) for 500 rounds of bullets. I think I get that correct since I am not the one that booked the game. There were 10 of us that morning. But one of the girl decided not to joined after her bf paid the money. haha! She was too afraid after hearing the sound of the rifles in the park.

So we were briefed on how to operate the air rifles and gearing up before entering the battle field. The equipment was a bit gross since it's very wet and smelly. Sigh~! The air rifles is quite heavy but since I work out a lot, it's a piece of cake for me haha! There were a lot of people when we arrived around 10am. The place was fully booked but we still managed to get a spot to sport. First terrain was jungle where we get familiarize with the rifles and aiming. We split into team of 4 person each and started the game. Rest awhile before moving up to the next location. I think they called it Sacred Ground or something. It's much bigger and more room to move and cover. There's a Marshall to monitor us together with our scout.

We finished the game around 2.30pm. Damn it was a long day. I was super exhausted. I got shot once on the tummy (damn that hurt) and grace another on my head. I need to say that I am pretty good at this game although it's my first time playing it. Got myself a lot of head shots too. haha! Playing Counter-Strike or any other FPS is really different from the real one. You got to smell the sweat, the dirt and the fear in your enemies eyes when you aim at that. Definitely going back again with more people to join. And it's so damn exhilarating when I got to shout to the other team "Are You Ready?". Beh Tahan!!!

New Toy @ Home

2011-08-02T11:43:00.000+08:00

Finally my new toy had arrived. My friend initially told me I can get it on Sunday but at the end since most of his staff was not free, the delivery need to be delayed to Monday. Had waited in the house anxiously waiting for the cargo to arrived. Actually I never saw a 50" Plasma box before. I saw 42" or maybe 47" in the shop and it's really large. Finally when I saw them carrying down the box, it was really large. The plasma itself weight more than 30kgs. So they opened the box up and started to set up the stand as I am putting in on my new TV console soon. Nope, not hanging it on the wall.

Well, since my TV console is not here yet. The plasma will just have to sit on the floor for the time being. My media player on the left white the iPTV box on the right. Just nice. Gonna bring down the router and add in a switcher too after the TV console had been installed hopefully by the week end. Quickly tested the quality of the plasma with some of the Full HD movies downloaded from my friend's achieve. What better movie to test rather than Avatar. And no that is not Avatar on the screen, it's Resident Evil IV on 1080 also .

As you can see, the old 21" CRT next to the new 50" Plasma. It's like David & Goliath. Still flicking around with the settings and I am really glad right now that I am locating my Plasma under the stairs now. Cause it's far away from my sliding window which will give reflection issue if you are gonna watch it in the afternoon. Now I don't have to worry about glaring and other lighting issues. I can even use the plasma to go online and check in Facebook. Cool~!

Full HD or 3D Plasma?

2011-07-19T09:40:00.002+08:00

I posted few weeks back of my interest to get a Panny 50" Plasma. But as I was shopping around Ikano last weekend, I stumbled upon LG's 3D Plasma inside Harvey Norman. Checked out the spec and all, and everything seemed to be in place with Panny's U30K model. The only difference would be Panny come with Full HD while LG come with HD Ready. But then again, LG's PW450 is a 3D Plasma. So which is more important? What is so special bout this 3D plasma you asked? Well for one, it's their new technology using passive 3D rather than the conventional active which you see everywhere. So what's the different between passive & active you ask? Here's a few advantages which they claimed on their new passive 3D technology.

Flicker Free
Light and Comfortable
Battery Free
Reasonable for extra glasses
Brighter Screen
Flexible Viewing Angle (wide angle)

But they do have their limitation such as vertical limitation which I still haven't tested it out. The active 3D uses 1080 on each eye which means they are showing you true HD whereas passive cut down the resolution into half on each eyes to 540. You will see the difference if you really look carefully but I don't think that is really a major issue here. Most importantly it's flicker free which means you won't feel dizzy or nausea once you take off the glasses. It's light and so comfortable that you don't even know that you're wearing them. You don't have to recharge the glasses as there's no battery needed. And the glasses are so darn cheap. You can get extra 5 pairs of them for less than RM200 as compared to active glasses which cost you close to RM400 a piece. You can have a wide angle of viewing on this passive technology as compared to active which restrict to a certain angle only.

So coming back to my predicament of either Full HD or 3D. Do I need Full HD or not? I did read around forums and reviews about this. They all agreed that for a 50" TV and with the recommended distance, you can't really see the difference between them two. Unless you're sitting 2.5m away from it, you won't really notice any difference between a Full HD or HD Ready TV. I had personally tested this last night by watching Panny's X and U series side by side. At a distance of 3m and less, you can still see the difference in sharpness on the wording especially. But if you go further back, you can't differentiate them two. I am sitting 13feet away from my TV at home, so I guess I won't see any difference. Picture quality, contrast and brightness is the same. Even if you're playing games or watching a movie at home.

Then come the question of, "Do I really need 3D?". Since there isn't much 3D movies out there for the time being but 3DTV is the way to go in the future. The good thing about LG's new 3DTV is that, you can convert normal 2D to 3D. It's not true 3D but you do have the depth difference after switching it on and wearing those glasses. Another cool feature is the control of depth for the 3D. This comes useful for me since I am sitting further away hence I need a deeper depth in the 3D effect. So confusing on which to purchase now actually. And another thing, LG's model has a higher resolution of 3M:1 while Panny only 2M:1. Not sure if this makes any significant difference over here or not. Never really have the chance to compare U30K and PW450 side by side till date. I need to decide soon as I really need a good TV for my home. For my video, you can watch it [HERE].

You Will Always Be Remembered

2011-07-12T11:13:00.001+08:00

It's been a sad case after another. Well I am not talking about the Bersih 2.0 rally since it's been talked about 24-7 every where online possible. Last week me and my friends had just lost a long friends of ours. She had fought with her enemy for the last 2 years plus and we all know that she still put on a smile for all of us when we sees her. We know that she is suffering and in pain inside due to the cancer cells attacking every inch of her body but she is a fighter and never gave up hope. So we as her friends, didn't either. We supported her as much as we can spiritually, mentally and physically. Whatever helps. But her battle came to an end last Friday morning when I received a text from my friend. She had breath the last breath and left us with just her fond memories.

We are all deeply sadden by this but we know that she is now in a better place with God looking down upon us. We should really be glad that she had fought this long and never gave up even though the doctors had given up hope. She still fight on and believe that everything will be alright at the end of the road. But God love her too much and decided to bring her nearer to HIM. And we respect that although we are all missing her and thinking about how she make us all smile with her jokes and antics. Ivy, you will be miss deeply among us and trust that we will never forget you. And you will always be remembered as the fighter, the dreamer and the funny lady in my heart.

In another note, I'd just found out that one of my colleague had just been diagnosed with Leukemia. The doctor had 90% confirmation on that yesterday. It was another sad gloomy day in the office for all of us. She is still very spirited when my colleague meet up with her yesterday evening and even joke bout the result from the hospital. We will all pray for her and hopefully she will pull trough during this difficult time. I think the most we as friend can do now, is to pray and just help as much as we can and supporting her all the way.

Protein in Eggs

2011-07-06T11:56:00.000+08:00

Lately I have been trying to control my diet since I am starting to do free weight as to classes. I had mix opinions in my dietary but at the end, they all agreed that taking 12 eggs a days is recommended. This is because I need the protein from the eggs to bulk up and also to repair my muscles from the exercise. But for me, 12 eggs is a bit too much even for me. So I took 6-8 a days. But how bout the yolks? I heard that the yolk gave high protein hence I still need to take some. My gym-mate recommended me to take 4 eggs with one yolk. So I took 3 whole eggs and 1 yolk since I don't wanna take too much cholesterol from the yolk. It's a bit confusing since we need the yolk's protein but then at the same time it gives bad side effect if taken too much.

So I went online and search around. Found out that actually egg white gave an average of 4g of protein whereas the yolk only 2.7g. The cholesterol all came from the yolk alone (213mg). The carbohydrate is around the same for both (0.34g). So why do I need to take any yolk then since the white can provide me higher protein? I had the perception previously that the yolk provide higher protein but now from what I read, it's the other way around. Some friend asked why don't I take protein. Well that is another option of course. But eggs gave the most natural form of protein that the body can easily absorb. Protein in eggs is so much higher than the one you find in fish and meat too. It is 100% bio-available, which means that our body will full absorb it (amino-acid) without any wastage. As opposed to other form of protein we take (i.e powder) which need to be broken down into other form before our body can absorb it.

So at the end, egg is still the best form of protein and for our body. But depending on your exercise routine, it will determine how much do you really need to consume it. Some research shows that we do not want to exceed 300mg of cholesterol a day but a yolk alone already gives a 213mg. So just take it moderately I guess. But as all the dietitian will agree, eat moderately and in balance. We need to have a balance of everything in our diet. Cutting down in oily and fried food is definitely a must if you want to stay healthy needless to say if you wanted to buff up. So balance your exercise with good healthy diet.

Street Fighter IV Volts

2011-07-05T10:22:00.002+08:00

I was browsing the new apps section in iTunes when I came across this. It's Street Fighter IV Volts. It'd just released on the 30t Jun. I only managed to download it the next day since I need for it to be available in the free section. There is a new introduction price for this new apps as follow:

**FIGHT TIME SALES**

For limited time, we are offering “Street Fighter IV VOLT -Battle Protocol-(Fixed price $6.99)“ for below price!!

“Starting” 2011/6/30 : $0.99
From 2011/7/1 00:00am PST : $1.99
From 2011/7/2 00:00am PST : $2.99
From 2011/7/3 00:00am PST : $3.99
From 2011/7/4 00:00am PST : $4.99
From 2011/7/5 00:00am PST : $5.99
From 2011/7/6 00:00am PST : $6.99 (Fixed price)

Price goes up one day at time so get while you can!!

So if you are getting it today, you can still save $1 from it's fixed price of $6.99. Anyway, what is new from this installment of Street Fighter IV Volts from it's predecessor? Well for one, it has 3 new characters namely, Barlog, Vega and Cody. The graphics seemed to be almost the same with the predecessor but with some minor change in the Ultra Combos execution CG. I trust that Capcom is doing as much as possible to mimic the iPhone version of the game with it's Arcade or PS3. I still can't really feel the Retina Display on the game here but it's still a very awesome game.

Other than the 3 new characters, the developer had also added a new feature which enable the players to fight against other players around the world via WiFi. Yup, you heard me right, you will be challenge by anybody anytime if you enable your WiFi. I was surprised too when I was being challenged during my first time playing this new version. But it was very laggy from my side. Not sure how it was from the other end though. Mind you I am using my home's Unifi line that time.You can earn points and status after each duel and show it to the world. Pretty nifty, since you can now brag to your friends of your awesome-ness. hahaha!

My First Media Player - HiMedia H600A

2011-07-04T13:06:00.000+08:00

Finally I'd decided on my media player after some long online searching through forums. The winner is HiMedia from China. OK, I know some of you are probably thinking how good is a China made product is. Well, this could be the heavy weight champion of the media player if I do say so myself. And the price is really reasonable too. You can probably get a media player for less than RM100 nowadays but I am looking for something that support 1080p Full HD for my coming plasma TV. So I need something good and also not burn my wallet at the same time. You can have other more expensive brand like Ac Ryan HD2 or Western Digital's Media TV, but those price tag will go as high as RM500-RM600 and above. So I don't need that.

I am looking for something that support most of the common video files like, *iso, *ts, *mkv, *avi and *rmvb. Second would be the video format which support from 480p up to 1080p (60Hz). So for 1080p I will need a HDMI 1.3 input from the media player which is really important. Not many players out there which support a 1.4 version of the HDMI but I am not using that for my Plasma so it doesn't make any different here. I heard that v1.4 only applicable for 3D-LED for their high speed transfer. Another important thing is the user friendly GUI and also redesigned remote control. The remote control is really solid and has all the short cuts available with a single push of a button. It doesn't really look like anything from China in fact.

Just tested it out with my old 20" CRT TV the whole weekend and was really satisfied by it. But using it on a 20" CRT is like installing a turbo charge engine inside a Kancil. LOLX! Now I am still thinking whether to wait for the new LG's PV250 50" FHD Plasma or just get Panny's U30K instead. Contemplating~!!!

My Makan Blog Being Featured ^^

2011-06-23T11:24:00.002+08:00

I received an email informing me of a reply on one of my makan blog [HERE] and didn't give it much thought since I do received some spam posting sometimes. So when I decided to look at the posting saw the reply:

Hi BaBy OcTopUs,
Kindly be informed that this post has been reprinted on JoinMe.com.my & JoinMe.com.my, Thanks

So I clicked the link and saw it's actually a page where they select some of the food bloggers post and re-post it in theirs to promote it.

Two of my posts which got posted up to their website. How happy. Well at least I know some one reading my blog all this while and appreciate it. Not all the work for nothing : )

Which TV To Buy?

2011-06-21T10:31:00.003+08:00

Finally I am moving nearer to my home entertainment system. I am getting a TV soon and had been discussing with my neighbors and friends bout it. I had been scouting around for months deciding what to buy. LCD, Plasma or LED. Some friends are recommending LCD but some of my more experience AV fans had recommended Plasma instead. But I too considered LED for a while since I can get a smaller size LED for the same price of a larger Plasma. But all of that is behind me as I had decided to go with Plasma now after long consideration. I had been eyeing for LG's 50" Full HD Plasma since early this year. Price is within my budget but since I haven't moved in my house (at that time) I had put the idea on hold.

Now I had moved in and it's time to get myself a decent TV. So my quest continues where it left off last time for a home entertainment. I was again faced with a decision either to go with a 3D Plasma since the color is more darker and reflection issue is lower on it's panel. But definitely the price of a 3D Plasma would be higher comparing with the standard one. At the end decided to go with the normal one. Now is the brand issue. As mentioned earlier, I had been eyeing for LG for so long but lately my friends had recommended me Panny and well, the thing that hinder me of it was the pricing. But now my friend was able to give me a really price for the Panny Plasma that is similar to LG. How can I say no.

Can't wait to go test out the Panny new 50" Plasma this week. Gonna mostly test on it's USB connectivity and the files that it support. Since we download a lot of movies, so the model should be able to support the common files nowadays. Hopefully I can bring the baby home early next month so I can enjoy my shows through my Unifi in HD quality. And moving one step closer to buy my PS3 too. lolx!! It's such a good time to dream in the morning when my head is still half awake. After getting my Plasma, the next would be getting a good soundbar to support it. But that is another story la~

Les Mills Release 3rd Quarter

2011-06-15T11:15:00.001+08:00

It's been a while since I wrote any reviews on Les Mill's releases. Well, since I am in the mood right now and I the tracks are still fresh in my head. I thought to give it a go. This review is based solely on my own opinion and not biased to anyone. Not going into real details for some part of the release. So you get the idea how much I like/don't like that program. LOLX!! So here goes. As usual, I am will only write on the four GX programs which I joined namely RPM, Body Combat, Body Pump and Body Step.

Body Pump 78

Like the Warm Up track from Basshunter. Little squats movement in this warm up though. Sing a long track in Squats with Beautiful Monster. Not that tough, can add on weights. Bottom halves of 4 not that much. So you can load up. Chest is quite difficult cause you the track is so darn long. Well for me that is. Gun & Roses are back. The last part of bottom halves before the break and singles all the way seemed a bit crazy but I like it. Back track is a no brainer 3 sets of similar combos. We have four in a row for two sets and down for singles.

Triceps is simple in this release. You can go crazy in this release. We have the usual extension and body blast before going to the board with the plates towards the end. Again, you can load up on biceps in this release. Great song from Pink, Raise Your Glass which I personally really love. Combo of 4 bottom halves and quick up and slow down. You have dead lift pull over for you to rest in this track. Lunges should be the toughest track but heck, I go crazy with my weights on this track. This is a HUGE track with squats then lunges and squats then back to lunges and squats then lunges on both side towards the end. Gotta be one of the toughest lunge track without the knee lift movement to date. Shoulder track is good with powerful music of Welcome to Africa. Started off with push up then plates and up with plates and McRaises and finish off with the overhead. Abs is quite similar to the previous release which I think they are going more on the side crunch. Overall, I like this release, and I can do it for 3 weeks.

RPM 51

Had the chance to do the launch with Lilian and Fong last week during the launch. The focus or objectives is the 15 second speed work on track 2, 4 & 6 and load up on track 3, 5 and 7. Warm up with a nice song from Ke$ha again. Pace track is good with Half Way Gone (although we're only on the second track). First Hill Climb with Raise Your Glass although it's not the original mix from Pink. Now your muscle should start to feel a bit of pain. Mixed Terrain track from Flo-Rida's Turn Around really blend well with the chorey. Totally love it but felt like it's too short. Interval training is good with Are You Gonna Be My Girl. Don't really like the Speed Work from Tiesto since I can't really 'feel' the music with the chorey. LOLX! LP is finally in RPM with the last Mountain Climb. Well, not them but their remix of Numb which I really like. Not my favorite remix of the original but still alright. In my opinion if the last standing attack is longer by 10-15seconds, now that is a Killer. Felt like I can still push a bit more towards the end. Overall, the release is alright not as crazy as the previous one but I am live with this.

Body Combat 48

This release is definitely better than the previous one from my opinion. Class was packed and didn't know what to expect. We have a nice upper body warm up with In My Head and Airplanes which both I really like (the music that is). Don't think there's any new moves in this warm up. Smooth Criminal is back for this release. It's a recycle from Body Pump 44. Like the music and also chorey. We have a new 'step-evade' move on track 3. It's a 4 step move to evade and back. Not bad. I can live with that. We have eskiva and front kick combo during Track 4. Track 5 was nice with a familiar track of If I Were You (from Body Combat 22 Warm Up). Really nice track. Track 6 was treacherous with plenty of side kicks and also front and back kick combos.

Muay Tai is a long one but with simple combos. You started off with 4 descending elbows and double knee of each side. 7 punch and crosses with one descending elbow and a whole lot of knees. The last power track is bringing everything home. We have masterblaster in the house again. Like the music and chorey too. Plenty of punches in this track and the whole release. The Black Eyes Peas is in the house with The Time for the abs track. Plenty of abs working on this track. Definitely a tough baby with 2-2 push up and triple bottom halves shoulder push up. Then you go to legs extension and a new tougher extension with crunches. Nice cool down and that's it. I can do 3 weeks of this release. So that say's a lot.

Body Step 84

I gotta say that I am really looking forward for Body Step 84 but I was really disappointed. Let's see why. Warm up was still bearable with some new moves but I totally lost it (in terms of my mood) during Track 2. Damn, I can't even heard what the music is playing, just heavy bass. Track 3 don't really help much too with some new chorey. Movement is the same but the way they combined it seemed odd. The burpy is back during the Mixed Strength. I totally hate doing burpy. Power Peak tried to pick up the paced, well a bit for me at least. Step Recovery was alright. Party Step was alright too and I was looking forward to the last Peak track to save me from this release. But damn, it's so irritating. There's this new movement in the Peak track. Well actually it's not a new movement but rather combo where we need to carry a weight (5-10kgs) and during the last part of the track and switching back to single and back to plates. Damn it's so anti-climax for me. Some of the members already told me bout this before the class and I thought how bad could it be. Well, it's really not my favorite of track definitely. Came out and told Brian that he won't be seeing me for 3 weeks in Body Step class. LOLX!!!

iOS 5 Coming Soon

2011-06-08T09:58:00.001+08:00

I had read about Apple's iOS 5 not too long ago and now it's already been released. Well don't go running to your iTunes and updating your phone that fast. Cause Apple had released the iOS 5 Beta (build 9A5220P) to developers of iOS Developer programmers. So unless you are one of those apps programmers, you won't be having it anytime soon. But let just run through the new features of the upcoming iOS 5. It seemed that they are 200+ new features bundled in the new update. Apple revealed the new iOS 5 features recently during their WWDC 2011 keynote. The main features would be the Notification Center, iMessage, Newstand, Reminders and Twitters integration to your iDevice. The new iOS 5 also enhanced the existing apps like the Camera, Photo Album, Safari, Mail and Calendar. And you know what's the coolest thing? You don't need a computer for the new iOS 5.

Here are some of the features found by BGR on their test run of the new iOS 5.

Preference to open pages in Safari in a new page or in background (amazing!).
More alert choices for emails, calendar, and the ability to buy more.
Ability to create keyboard shortcuts (autotext) to replace custom phrases. The default entry is “omw” which is replaced with, “On my way!”
Software update option in settings to check for the latest OS.
Sync now button to wireless sync to iTunes
Ability to customize how notifications in Notification Center look — you can customize how many recent ones to show, 1, 5 or 10, if it’s showed in the lock screen, if it’s in Notification Center, and also the alert style, banner or alert style.
Twitter installs directly from the settings page if it’s not installed directly, you aren’t even taken to the App Store.
FaceTime button in iMessage messages at the top now
Tweeting photos is, so so slick. It displays on Twitter as powered by Photobucket, and it’s from iOS.
There’s a new option to print out from the Maps app… hilarious.
You can make new albums right from the device itself in Photos.
You can move and add photos to albums.
Doesn’t look iMessage is fully baked in here yet.
You can customize the default alert times. This is so needed — so now when you enter a calendar entry, you don’t have to set the default alert time you like — I’m a 15 minute calendar alert type of guy.
You have to go into the message and tap “mark” for Email flagging.
It seems that Reminders sync with Exchange (Tasks basically), but you can’t set location-based reminders if you’re on Exchange, just with iCloud. You can selectively choose where to sync the reminder though, it’s just not streamlined if you use Exchange.
You can set the caller ID for FaceTime calls, so if you call someone, you can choose it to display your cellular number or email address.
In the weather app, there is a new pane for a current location which will show you weather for wherever you are.

Some other features courtesy of FeedGoodChicken are:

The iPod app on iPhone is split up into music and video like on iPod touch.
There are a few new accessibility options, some audio controls, such as fading left or right, and something about gestures in menus I'm not quite clear what it does yet.
You can actually see the amount of local storage taken up by specific apps, organized by size.
Also it may be worth mentioning that the Newsstand cannot be placed in a folder.

I am particularly interested in their Camera apps and here's some of the features about it.Lock Screen

Shortcut - When you double click the Home button, you will get a new Camera icon next to Slide to Unlock button, you can tap on it to launch the Camera app from the Lock screen.
You can access the Lock Screen shortcut to take new photos even if you have a passcode set, but you won’t be able to access the camera roll without entering the passcode.
Grid lines has been added as an option to help you align your photo.
Gets pinch-to-zoom gestures, which will make the zoom feature a lot more intuitive.
Single-tap focus and exposure locks to compose a picture on the fly.
You can use the volume-up button to take photos rather than the on-screen button.

Some other new features would be the ability to create an album in your phone picture album which is so needed and waited for so long. Yes, I do have a 3rd party software to do that but I believe an in-build feature from Apple would be more preferable. You are now able to do cropping and rotate your pictures which is really good. You can also remove red-eye effect finally from your phone. I know some of these features comes standard with some other smartphone, but we are glad that finally Apple do the same with theirs. Here are some of the pictures for the new features.

And you can even Sync with other iOS devices through iCloud if your Photo Stream are Enabled. These updates isn't super cool but does give us some real neat update to play with. There are other enhancement like the Safari, Mail and Calendar but I am not so into that section for now since it's more towards iPad users. But you can check it out yourself online if you want to know more. Hopefully we will have it soon. I will say it will mostly be out within 2 months or so. Can't wait to test it out.

On the side note, iOS 5 had been successfully Jailbroken by the Dev Team. haha! Although it's a tethered JB but it shows that it's possible to exploit the new iOS. You are also able to Sync to your PC WIRELESS. Yup, no more cables. iTunes 10.3 is out but you can't update it directly from your iTunes. You can download it from their website link or HERE.

Si Beh Sui~!

2011-05-31T09:22:00.000+08:00

This is a post long over due since it happened exactly one week ago. Well thinking back right now does make me felt a bit happy right since all the bad luck had passed. So my story started last Monday when I realized that my road tax expired on the day itself. Dang~! Luckily I got my lunch buddy with me who has contact to renew my insurance through the phone for me. But I still can't renew my road tax since the car registration card is not with me and the post office gonna close soon. Why can't I renew it the next day, well cause I have a last minute appointment down South after lunch hour which requires me to drive down early in the morning before the post office opens. Dang~!

So I 'slowly' drove and hopes that there's no road block on my way down. When I just started to felt a bit relieved since I am just a couple of hundred kilometers form JB, I heard a loud noise. I thought it was a stone hitting onto my car but I got suspicious and decided to stop the car and have a look. Damn~! I got a flat tire and I am rushing for my lunch appointment. So I quickly get all the tools out and changed to my spare tire. Well at least my spare tire is still able to make the journey down.

Renewed my road tax and just realized that my driving license had expired more than 3 weeks. WTH?!! This month had been too hectic for me till I forgot all bout anything else. Remembered the meeting I was supposed to have for the trip? Well after a long discussion and a few drinking session, the client decided to put the whole thing on hold. WTF? After all the work and time me and my company had put in, he decided to put it on hold. Sigh~! Speechless~!!! But at least my I managed to secured another deal while I am down there.

Reached the usual hotel I am staying and while I am checking in, the front desk told me that the room I was supposed to be in had a blardy beam right in the middle of the room. So I decided to upgrade my room to Deluxe and he told me it's the last room on the floor next to the Exit with a number 24. And when I wanna changed back to my original room he told me that he found out that the room haven't been clean yet. WTH? So I got no choice and upgrade and stayed on the last room of the floor. Well since I am not that superstitious, I guess this is alright. haha! Ya, after all this complaint and I am not superstitious.

Other than all the above, my trip had actually been quite nice and fruitful. Since I managed to closed another deal and traveling down Singapore to meet up with my friends. And I think I meet with Stephanie S while I am sipping my coffee too. Now, that is the highlight of the trip. haha! All Wells Ends Well I guess.

Free Weight + Machines Workout

2011-05-11T11:32:00.000+08:00

Started my machine + free weight regime yesterday on my lower body with an instructor. He invited me to joined him with his own training every week. Well, since I have time to spare and he is so kind to offer so I obliged. He was telling me that we were supposed to do some biceps and chest and maybe core workout since we be having a lot of lower body workout (BS, BP and BC) on that day. But when I arrived, he started to briefed me on the work out plan and it was mostly on lower body. OK, I am still comfortable with that since I do not know what to expect at that time. I started off slow with 25kgs (maybe more I forgot) on each side and do a 12 full range Squats. I am still able to do that without any challenge and we quickly moved on to the next machine, the Leg Extensions machine. It's main objective is to train our quadriceps. Now here's the hard part of the training starts.

Started off easy with 25kgs with 12 reps and add additional 5-10kgs after each set which at the end the weight goes up to 45kgs. Damn, my thigh still hurts now as I am writing this. This is the first time I am working my thigh so much. I did RPM, BS and BP and never did my thigh felt so tight (oh that rhymes). Walked back and did the Squats again with increase weight since he said I can managed more. Dang~! I was dying after the 3rd set. Moved on to the Leg Press machine which again works on the quadriceps. Did a 12 reps again with 60kgs of weight. Then walked over and did the Squats again and changed to the Seated Leg Curl machine. This machines trains our hamstrings as opposed to the Leg Extension machine. Just to balance the front back back muscles of the leg. Did the last set of Let Press and ended my first machine workout.

He told me that I should be feeling pretty hungry than usual that night since lower body workout let us work more on our body compared to upper since it's the biggest muscle in our body. The classes after that was definitely more challenging than usual since my body isn't used of the new exercise yet, which is good. BS was still alright with me taking some options rather than go all out like I normally did. BP was killing me during the Squats tracks. I can't even do a full range without feeling pain on my quads. Dang~! Didn't shuffle that much during BC too since my legs felt like they are giving way during the 5th track. Anyway, this is something new and I really hope that I can continue with this since I am a bit tired of the classes nowadays. Need to find something else to excite my body. And NO, I don't do outdoor sport especially MARATHON!

Tablet Ownership & Brand

2011-05-06T10:42:00.000+08:00

I was reading through some articles when I saw an interesting chart. The figures above was done by media research firm, Nielsen and I just make it looked nicer with Excel. ^^ Anyway, it clearly shows that iPad had claimed more than 80% of the whole market segment for tablets. This is based on their Mobile Connected Survey done on the first quarter of 2011. FYI, this survey is done in the US only. Sadly the nearest competitor is from Samsung's Galaxy Tab with 4% of the market segment. Another proves that Apple dominating the tablet market and also slowly climbing the smartphone market at the same time.

Speed & Ping Test ^^

2011-05-03T23:34:00.002+08:00

After few weeks of subscribing of Unifi, so here's some of the test that I did just now. This is a Ping Test that I did. Let me explain what does this test do first. Ping Test from what they explain is:

Use Pingtest.net to determine the quality of your broadband Internet connection. Streaming media, voice, video communications, and online gaming require more than just raw speed. Test your connection now to get your Pingtest.net rating and share the result with others!

Packet Loss (0%)

Packet loss is the percentage of data "packets" sent to a server that never arrive. Anything abobve 0% should cause concern since it could result in poor quality VoIP and stuttering in online games.

Ping (5ms)

Ping is how long it takes a "packet" pf data to travel from your computer to a server and back. Delayed responses in Internet applications would be due to higher than desired ping. A lower ping value is preferred.

Jitter (1ms)

Jitter is the variance is successive ping measurements. A perfectly stable connection would have no jitter. A lower value is best, but some jitters is to be expected over the Internet.

Overall I got a Grade A for my Ping Test. Cool~!

This is the usual Speed Test that we all use to determine how consistent is out Internet service provider and verify it is delivering the connection they promised. As you can see my Ping is so damn fast, 3ms is considered quite fast. I subscribed to their 5MB package and the contract did promised a minimum of 80% of the 5MB and I got 5.1MB which is more. Lucky me. Maybe cause my area is still very new. Upload speed is also very close to the 5MB they promised. Overall I am a satisfied customer, for now. Hopefully they can maintain the speed they promise. ^^

iPad 2 Out of Stock

2011-04-29T11:07:00.000+08:00

Finally it's HERE and it's quickly running out of stock as we speak. Above is the pricing for the new iPad 2 which we already suspected/know the pricing will be. It's the same as the previous iPad when it's launch last year. So no surprises there. The only surprises would be the stock running out so quickly. Saw in the fan page that some of the customers are pissed and unsatisfied with some of the outlet as they claimed that the staffs reserved all the units for their family members and friends. Well, you and I know this is normal. It's just a matter of how they gonna answer to the consumers now. Anyway, if you do not want to queue up like mad and being told the stock had finishes after more than an hour queue, you can go to apple store HERE to booked online and delivery is around 1-2 weeks I heard. As you know, the iPad 2 come with 2 color, White and Black. So choose the one you fancy ~!

PS: source and picture courtesy of machines.com.my

White iPhone 4 is coming to town (soon)

2011-04-28T12:42:00.001+08:00

Finally the WHITE iPhone 4 is officially going to be launch tomorrow onwards. You can find the details from apple website. Apple made the following statement regarding the new White iPhone 4 launching.

Apple today announced that the white iPhone 4 will be available beginning tomorrow. White iPhone 4 models will be available from Apple's online store (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores, AT&T and Verizon Wireless stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

White models of iPhone 4 will be available in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macau, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, UK and the US, beginning Thursday, April 28 and in many more countries around the world soon.

So for those out there who haven't got their hold of the current iPhone 4 and those waiting for the White, the wait is over. I guess the new White iPhone 4 will be arriving on our shores really soon similar to iPad 2. Now, a White iPad 2 really goes well with a White iPhone 4 doesn't it? ^^ So does this mean that with the new launch of the White iPhone 4, the launch of the next generation iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S will be delayed? Maybe after fall this year?

iPad 2 is coming to town

2011-04-28T09:26:00.001+08:00

Finally iPad 2 gonna be arriving on our shore as early as this week, well Friday to be exact. Until last Tuesday, not much has been disclose by Apple's local resellers or dealers. The Star paper had announced that iPad 2 is going to be available from this Friday onwards. Apple did made a statement during their special event last March on the arrival of iPad 2 on our shores. Finally Apple had made an official announcement today on the launch of iPad 2 on these following countries:

Apple today announced that iPad 2, the second-generation of its breakthrough post-PC device, will arrive in Japan on Thursday, April 28 and Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and eight additional countries on Friday, April 29. iPad 2 will be available at Apple retail stores at 9 a.m. local time, select Apple Authorized Resellers, and online through the Apple Store (www.apple.com) beginning at 1 a.m. Additionally, iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in China beginning Friday, May 6.

Finally the wait is over and I am so looking forward to their smart cover after seeing the ad with it. Will I get it? Nope, I don't need a 10" iPhone/iPod but sure is great if someone gonna get one for me. ^^

One After The Other

2011-04-20T09:24:00.000+08:00

What a weekend full of sickness and mishaps. It all started on Friday night while I am home alone eating a souped up extra spicy thick Tom Yum noodle I bought Phuket recently. I woke in the middle of the night feeling that my throat was all dried up and it's one of those super sore throat coming soon. So I quickly drank a lot of water and went to the loo a couple of times the whole night since I drank the whole 3 liters of water that night alone. Next day, sore throat become better in the evening but my nose started to get clogged and running side by side. Super annoying at this stage as it was damn hard to sleep. The next day the running nose still continued and my sore throat had finally gone. But another bigger surprise is creeping up my body slowly. Sunday night was the worst for me as I couldn't really sleep that well. I had a bit of breathing issue. I can't take deep breath and need to rely on my mouth to inhale and exhale.

Try imagining having running nose and difficulty of breathing at the same time. FARK!! Got up for work the next day with the whole body aching and clogged nose again. I still have difficulty breathing at this point but not as difficult as I am lying down. After the meeting, I decided to visit the doctor and she told me that I have no high blood pressure and the fever. But I have an infection on my throat which explains the soreness. Plenty of flam in my lung which blocked my lung hence making me difficult to breath properly. She diagnosed me with a mild asthma and I was shocked. I never had this experience before or any history of if. Well, maybe it's a good time that I cut down on my cold drinks. haha!

Took medical leave for Monday and Tuesday and stayed home. On Tuesday, I'd decided to drop by the gym to give myself some workout and since I requested some tracks from Sue P, I know she's gonna kill me if I FFK her class. Skipped BS and sent my car to the car wash over at SS15 petrol station. Was talking on the phone with my lunch buddy when I felt a pull on my necklace. Initially I thought it was someone I know just pulling a prank on me but it I know it wasn't when the pull become intense and it happened so fast. The next thing I know, I saw this young Malay guy alone on his bike attempted to grab my necklace but failed. He didn't even wore a helmet that time. Everyone nearby came over and asked me how I am.

Luckily he was alone on the heist and wasn't able to grab a hold of my necklace that firm. If he had an accomplice, I think I would say bye bye to my necklace by now. Luckily he didn't grab my iPhone, which I am really surprised. Anyway, it was a shocking experience for me but nothing was taken and I wasn't hurt, well if not counting the small red bruises on my neck due to the pulling of the necklace. I am all fine. Wednesday morning now and back to the office working with my nose all fix and breathing back to normal. Boss out station for the next two days, so it's just me and the office. Sweet~~~~!!!

Finally Up & Loaded

2011-04-15T15:23:00.002+08:00

Finally the day for my Unifi installation had been done this morning. Appointment was for 9.30 but they came at 10am, I can accept that. Took half day off work (^^) to monitor the installation. I had already planned where I wanted to place the modem, router and phone which is on my living room upstairs. Hence I need to pull the fiber up to my back room and across the room. They are alright with the idea and when they look around my back lawn, they realized that the floor cover for them to do the cabling had been sealed. Damn~!! They give me the option to hack open my cement floor. HELL NO!!

So they have no choice but to hack open the outdoor cement to conceal the fiber to my house. I think my contractor didn't realized when he sealed up the hole during the construction. Damn~!!! As you can see from above, they made a pathway on the walkway and covered it back with cement with the cables inside.

No this is not a ball of thread. It's actually bigger than you think. It's actually a big roll of fiber optic cables. Yup, one whole roll of them. They were quite generous in their installation although it's mentioned that only first 15m of fiber are FOC and any additional will need to be charge to the owner.

So what do I get from the package? I subscribed for their VIP 5 which cost me RM149/month. The package include this DECT phone from Motorola. I have unlimited free calls to all TM fixed line nationwide. Fixed rate of 10cent/min to all mobile numbers nationwide.

This is the wireless router that come with the package. It's actually from D-Link but TM OEM from them so you can see a big TM logo on top of the router.

This is the modem from HuaWei. I am not sure why they didn't just give me a wireless router with modem all in one. Now I have an additonal power supply plug for the modem and router. Sigh~!

Last but not least the IPTV box. With this I can watch FREE local channels and some other not so popular ones outside the country. For those Channel [V] or Hollywood movies, you will need to pay from RM6-RM9 to subscribe. For VOD (video on demand), you will need to pay more and for limited time only. For now, it's FOC to all Unifi subscribers to view all the channels until end of this month. Woo Hoo!But first I will need to find myself a TV first. Damn~!

And as promised, my connection was able to achieve at least 80% of the 5MB.This is tested using my iPhone 4 on WiFi. I heard my friend can even get more than 6000kbps at PJ area.

Plant Hunting

2011-04-11T13:02:00.004+08:00

It was the weekends and we decided to go plant hunting for the house. Since the Master had already advice me on the location of my wealth in the house and I need to enhance it by placing some plants over at the spot. So we decided to go for some plant hunting last weekend. The location is non other than the old Sg. Buloh road. There's plenty of shops along the street and it make it more harder to decide which shop to get it from. So we just try our luck on the first shop and managed to get two pots of Zamioculcas Zamiifolia or we Chinese normally called it "Fatt Choy" tree. Babe wanted two pots of this plant right in front of the house as suggested by the Master. I just Google this up and found out that it's a poisonous plant. Huh?! For real? But I am placing it outdoor, so I guess it will be alright.

Babe wanted another pot of tree namely Corn Plant (Dracaena Fragrans) inside the house as it is famous being an air purifier and a lot of people placed it inside the house. So we went over the next day and got another pot of this corn plant for the dining section of the house. The plant do not need much sun light and able to live in gloomy places hence it's suitable to be place in door. I just need to water it once in a day or two.

And we got another small plant in a pot for the bathroom. ~~Not sure what's the name of the plant but~~ I like this Cactus Jade (Crassula Ovata) plant because of it's cute miniature size. Easy to maintain is another factor of us choosing it too. Minimal watering but best if it can be placed outdoor at night. I think we need to get some other small pot for the other bathrooms but no hurry. As the Master said, the more green I have outdoor, the more 'green' gonna come my way~! ^^

Lost & Found

2011-04-10T00:16:00.000+08:00

It was Friday morning and I was getting ready to work. As I was walking out from my porch to open the front gate, I saw something furry on the next house pillar. Initially I thought that it was a lost puppy and when I walked closer, I realized that it was a 'labbit'. I was thinking whether to bring it in or just leave it as I was worried someone would make 'satey' tonight out of this furry creature. No time to decide as I need to leave. So I text babe and told her about this. She as a caring animal lover as always, drove over my place in search of the labbit. After some time of searching high and low, she managed to locate 'him' behind a sand hill 2 houses from mine. So she kept the labbit inside the toilet and poured him some water. Seemed like the labbit was really thirsty after his 'adventure' out that morning.

Babe saw some kid from across the street searching for something early on but didn't managed to find him to ask what he was looking for. We suspect it was the labbit. Decided to keep the labbit for the time being and babe also drop a message at the front guard house of our finding and asked to be inform if anyone reported a missing pet. Made a shout out in my community forum too but no one seemed to know anything. A lot of people seemed interested in the labbit and wanted to adopt him. This include babe too. But the next day, as I was cleaning my porch, I saw the lil kid and quickly walked over to asked if he lost anything. He told me a white & black labbit. I told him I found the labbit and it's in my bathroom. He quickly throw everything in hand and rush over my place. Return the labbit to him and the father walked over to thanked us. Felt really nice knowing that we help someone reuniting with their love ones~! ^^

Hello Phuket (Again)

2011-04-01T11:02:00.000+08:00

It's been at least 2 years since my last trip over to Phuket. And after that trip I was quite reluctant to return for a second trip. Reason was because I don't found that there's any attraction left for me to see unless I am going out to the beaches again (which I am not that interested). But since babe was so into the trip with her friends, I'd decided to joined in the fun. We arrived quite early that morning around 8am their time. (it's one hour earlier than our time). We checked into our hotel and started off with our walk around town. I was expecting hot and sunny weather over there since Phuket seemed to give me a 365 days bright and sunny skies but I was into some surprises when I arrived. It was non stop raining or at least drizzle for the first 2 days. Since I am not going out to the sea again, so I am not much affected.

Babe and I woke up late in the morning enjoying our sleeps for the first time during our trip. Normally we would need to wake up early to take our breakfast and rush for the activities ahead of us but this time around, we were really laid back. Nice~! The place didn't really changed much from our last trip over. I remembered Bangla Street to be much crowded than this time around. But maybe it's due to the raining weather, that it deters the partying outside the streets. But you still see a lot of foreigners walking half naked around town as usual. We were bundle up in rain coats for the first two days which really sucks. This time around we managed to do some elephant trekking and also enjoyed some thrilling ATV rides across the muddy roads up hill. Yeah~! ATV rocks!!! (FYI, ATV - all-terrain-vehicles).

The weather turned better on the last two days and one of my friend hooked up with the local agent to bring us around town for some good food. Richard (the agent) brought us over to this place around town which according to him served the best Thai BBQ buffet and I had to agree. Food was good and it was dirt cheap. More pictures will be uploaded on my food page soon. Since I have no time to arrange them all right now. Went for oil massage the night before we say goodbye to the land of half naked ang moh. The last day weather was really good. No sign of raining at all. We did the city tour which I didn't know existed. haha! We visited the look out point at Karon top. The big Buddha statue on the Nakkerd hill top which is between Chalong and Kata beach. Visited the shooting range and also kart circuit for some drifting action before lunch. Visited the famous Wat Chalong temples but sadly the monks were asleep when we arrived caused I wanted them to pray on my elephants statue.

Rushed for last minute tour of the old town which is quite familiar to us since it filled with Chinese culture in it. We saw the Chinese temples which resembles the ones over here in Malaysia. Rushed for last minute shopping before headed to the air port. This time around, I didn't really took much pictures during my trip cause I had took most of the pictures before so I am a bit reserved. All of us had a lot of fun during this trip and honestly speaking, I had more fun than I expected to be. Bought tons of cup noodles and also tit bits during the trip. Managed to bought Phuket SB mug to add into my collection. Thought to bring back Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Bangkok mugs but babe worried it would be too heavy so decided to just get one for now. Maybe on my next trip over Chiang Mai or Pattaya I guess. Reached home and settled down around 1.30am. Still pull myself up for work this morning and I felt so refresh after a long holiday.

Just Another Weekend

2011-03-22T10:53:00.000+08:00

I had officially moved into my house more than a week now. Felt really good living under my own roof and waking up every morning seemed so great. Although I need to endure some extra time in the road due to longer distance and jam from my previous place, it still felt so good. Last weekend, babe and me went IKEA shopping again for a last minute dash on their sales. Bought a lot of stuff over there but couldn't get their clothe hanger which is one of my main reason over. Was told by the staff that it was out of stock. Dang~!! Walked around IPC and then to Curve for some Starbucks sessions. Went to Daiso and again bought tons of stuff for the house. It felt great spending all the money knowing that it's for your own house and all. Life is good~! ^^

Finally Moved In

2011-03-15T09:29:00.000+08:00

Finally I moved in to my new home last weekend. The official moving in date was last Wednesday but I had just slept over that particular night as my clothes wasn't fully shifted over yet. Did the whole traditional moving in ceremony that day alone and my invited my lunch buddy to join me for lunch. Sourcing for those traditional ceramic type stove (or what you called it nowadays) was really a head ache. Finally decided to get a mini BBQ grill to replace it. Well, we need to improvise when we can't find what we wanted. Started the fire up and walk over it and shout HUAT AR!!! (OK, I added that last part myself at the last minute).

I was advice to bring the furnace in to boil a pot of water and make a coffee/tea to drink. But some of my friend told me to cook some red bean dessert out of it. I opted for the first as it's more convenient and well, the oven took ages to cook the dessert if you ask me. Turned ON all the lights in the house for 2 hours and finally hanging up the 9ft long red cloth in front of my main door for 9 days (Cheong Cheong 9 9 wor). Lunch buddy came and decided to dine in with KFC that afternoon. Another friend came along and we chatted for a while waiting for the rain to stop before driving around the area scouting for properties. And 3 of us supposed to be working that day. lolx!!

Everything is done and I overnight on that day before returning to Puchong the next day. It was last Sunday when I finally stayed and drove to work the next day (Monday). I was a bit worried at the beginning of the traffic condition since I heard the it was quite bad lately. But I was lucky this week as it's the school's holiday and traffic was not that bad. Trying out a few route to work this week to have an idea how long do I have to get myself prepare every morning. But it's nice staying under my own roof. The satisfaction of the tiring and long wait for my house to get ready finally paid off.

iOS 4.3 & iTunes 10.2

2011-03-04T11:06:00.001+08:00

Since I got constant request or questions on what to expect on the new iOS 4.3 lately, I had decided to write something up so that everyone can share about it. Is it out yet? Yes and No. iOS 4.3 Golden Mater had just recently been released to developers and not to public yet. But it's expected to be released sometime around 11th March. As for iTunes 10.2, I am downloading it now as we speak. So what's new? Is it safe to upgrade? Is it worth upgrading? Let's see now. I will try to explain what I know and understand from what I heard and see. So it might not be 100% accurate but at least 95%.^^

The iOS 4.3 will see some improvement on our mobile Safari browser in term of loading speed. You will also see some new feature like iTunes home sharing, Air Play enhancements and my personal favorite, the Personal Hotspot feature for iPhone 4 users. Let's get into details for some of the new features mentioned earlier.

Faster Safari:

There is a boost in loading speed from our mobile Safari due to the Nitro Javascript engine which is currently being used in our desktop version of Safari. You can expect two times faster in loading a page compared to the current version. Or so they say.

iTunes Home Sharing:

This is something only available on the Mac & Windows PC but now it's available on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This new feature allows music, movies and TV shows to be shown on your iDevices from your iTunes library. How? Via local Wi-Fi network. How cool is that? Now you can walk around your house with your iPad while listening to your music or movies all around your house.

AirPlay Enhancement:

I am not such a big fan of this update (it's already available since iOS 4.2). Basically it allows iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch to wirelessly stream digital content to their Apple TV 2G. In this new update, users are able to stream these digital content using 3rd party apps and website rather than pre-installed apps such as iPod/Video apps and YouTube.

Personal Hotspot:

As the name explain, iPhone 4 users can now utilize their 3G network to create a hotspot for other devices via Wi-Fi. Imagine you are having an iPad (Wi-Fi only) and wanted to go Online but you don't have any local network Wi-Fi in your area. You can now switch this feature ON your iPhone 4 and create your own personal hotspot. It can support up to 5 devices in a combination of 3 Wi-Fi & 3 Bluetooth and one USB device. Actually I had been using this feature since my iPhone had been JB. But will most probably switch it back to this since it's an official update from Apple themselves. But I will compare the differences of them two of course.

Others:

You can now change the font for your Notes. There are 2 more extra for you to choose from
You can now Cancel/Delete an App during installation. (Finally)
You can now customize the alert for your messages. It means that you will be able to set how many times you will be alerted on an unread SMS/MMS.
App Store Update page had been redesign for easier viewing and update.
You have a new Push Notification feature for Ping (Apple's social network for music).
You have a new WAIT button to be added into your contact number. This will make a pause on your call for that specific contact before the phone actually make a connection.
You get a new Parental Control for Ping.
Location Service option had been moved to the Main Page in Settings.

The new iOS 4.3 is compatible with all iPhone 4, iPhone 3G[S], iPod Touch 4G/3G, iPad and iPad 2. So for those iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G users, iOS 4.2.1 will be the last update for you guys.

iTunes 10.2

You need this update to upgrade your phone to iOS 4.3. Nothing much in this update except it improve Home Sharing, Browse and Play from your iTunes library. But as I said, you need this new version to be able to use iOS 4.3.

Not Naked Anymore

2011-03-02T12:24:00.001+08:00

Finally my house is not naked anymore. The curtain shop had just finished my curtains and called me up yesterday afternoon while I am having lunch with my brother. Yesterday timing was so perfect for me. I had a good lunch with my brother nearby our house when the phone rang. The workers can come over and start installing the sliders and all. The whole process took around 1.5 hours to complete. Not too long actually as there are two of them and both are very efficient in their work.

There are only two rooms which I had decided to do the curtain which is the living and master bedroom. The rest of the room, I had only asked them to installed the sliders on top. This way, I can just get the curtains any time I wanted in the future. Since there are no one living in the guest rooms, I didn't see any reason to put curtains on them since I need sun light to come into both the rooms. Why? Because the Feng Sui Sifu told me too. haha!

The workers were so nice to give me extra hook for the rails for support. Initial was 3 and I added 4 during negotiation and on site, this guy told me he can give me five. Great~! Since I am hanging a double rail curtain with over 6m width curtains, I think I need more support for the rails.

Couldn't find a good angle for the master bedroom curtains as it was really dark after I let the curtains fall. I am using a thick anti-sunlight which block most of the light coming in. Plus the yellow down light in the whole room makes it even more soothing and suitable for slumber. I think the front thin piece of curtain for this master bedroom cost the most as it's the latest design in the shop. Ouch~! So finally, I can move in real soon now.

Air Asia - Thank You

2011-02-28T13:53:00.003+08:00

It was last Friday and I still haven't received any correspondence from Air Asia side and decided to give Datuk TF a mail to follow up on this case. Yes, I wrote a nice decent nice follow up letter and not a complaint letter. Since I understand that rudeness doesn't really solve problem but just worsen it. Anyhow, the weekend past by really fast and it's already Monday now. Was browsing through their website for tickets for Bali and decided to checked on My Booking under my profile section. To my surprised, the second booking wasn't there anymore. I am half joyous since there's two possibilities. One, they had decided to refund me the money, second, they deleted the booking and still deciding to refund me in credit shells or through my bank. Well, anyway, I confirm again with the booking number search and it's really gone.

This is what they wrote above:-

Thank you for emailing AirAsia.

In response to your email, we have cancelled booking number (ZCD5SN) and process for refund.

In future, please check with your issuing bank before proceeds to book second time.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Should you need any further assistance please follow us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/AskAirAsia) simple inquiry or submit online form.

Kind Regards,
Mani
Customer Care

Went for lunch and when I came back to check my mail, I saw a mail from their customer care department. From the letter above, I assume that they will revert the money back to my bank account. Yes, finally I am going to get my money back. And hopefully soon. Since my friend had waited for more than 1 month for the whole ordeal and she is still waiting till date with no one to follow up with. Just wanna say thank you to Datuk Tony for a good follow up on the customer's complaint and reassuring that our voice are heard. With this kind of service I am definitely gonna use their service again in the future.

Air Asia - I'm Still Not Satisfied

2011-02-24T12:28:00.026+08:00

If you read from my previous post, you know what is happening between me and Air Asia. So continuing were I left off. I had decided to have a Live Chat session from their website. Since some of my friend told me it's quite 'effective'. So I logged in around 10am and was 78 in queue. Waited for 1hour before my turn which I don't mind since I am in the office. When finally it was my turn, I was asked a few general repeated question which I don't mind again repeating. My name, contact and booking reference. After that, he gave me another email to write my 'complaint' to. WTH?!! I had waited for more than an hour and he just gave me an email account? You can just publish that email in your website and stop wasting our time waiting in the Live Chat room.

So I calmly replied the guy and wrote in a mail to the mentioned email. At this point, I had received an email from Datuk Tony from his personal email. Although it's a short mail but he had passed my case to two of his staff namely Francis and Cheah who is both got cc from the same mail. So while I am waiting for a reply/call from them, someone from their office called me up. I had asked from which source did they reply me from and it's from the email I sent out after the live chat session in the morning. That was fast. The guy told me the same story again but this time around they are willing to refund me in terms of credit shell which is some sort like a pre-paid money in my Air Asia account. And get this, it's only valid for 90 days. WTH!?!! Where/When am I supposed to go? I had just booked tickets and it's for end of the year. Do you still think I am going to make another booking in 3 months? And will you still have any promo tickets within these times?

I told him that I am not satisfied with the credit refund and demanded a full refund/credit to my credit account. He put me on hold and talked with the manager. Same answer, this is the best they can do. I asked to talked with the manager and guess what, I was put on hold again. And guess what he said when he came back to the phone, "My manager is not free at the moment to talk with me but that is the best offer we had for you now". WTF?!! Then what's the point of this whole conversation? So he asked me to write in to their feed back form from their website on this issue. WTH?!! Another form to write into? How many do you have? Controlled myself and went into the website and search for the page which he mentioned. It was so darn hard to find it (not sure about you). Wrote in and now waiting for someone to call me again. Sigh~!!! Worst online booking experience ever. And I thought these kind of stuff is a click away. Duh~!!!

Air Asia - Call Me Back!!!

2011-02-23T10:01:00.000+08:00

Air Asia just started their promo for their 1 Million low cost fair again yesterday. I managed to logged in right after midnight and the line was still very smooth at that time. But due to some lack of information from another friend, I had to wait for half and hour to finally get the info through. By that time, their system had already been flooded by customers logging in. Tried it till 1.30 in the morning and it's still the same. So decided to try again the next day. The highlight of the story actually comes now. I managed to log into Air Asia's website and finally search and found the date which I wanted to choose which is 9-12 Dec which has a RM25 promo. So I click and ding dong ding dong finally I'd reached the final payment page.

Keyed in all my details and proceeded into payment and I waited for the page to show me some kind of confirmation but it didn't. So I waited and waited and finally after 5 mins or so I had decided to check for my booking status from my Profile (since I am a registered user). Managed to logged in without a breeze but again it return a blank page at this stage. Tried a few times but to no avail. Tried calling their Premium Hotline which cost RM1.95/min but it was always engaged. So decided to give the booking another try and after numerous hanging and error of the page I had managed to booked the same flight but on a different date. I had booked on 14-17 Dec instead since the first date (9-12) didn't have the RM25 promo anymore. Made my payment and again it hanged. WTF!!!

Checked in my profile again and after several attempts, I had finally managed to log into it. I got the shock of my life when I saw them confirming two of the booking I had made. In other words, charging me for the (9-12) and also (14-17) flight. WTF??!! I had tried to call their Premium Hotline again and finally managed to get through to some girl. The girl wasn't much help AT ALL!!! Asked of my booking ref number and details (which last less than 5 mins) and put me on hold for like 10-15mins. Blardy hell, the farking charges is so expensive and she put me on hold?!! It's RM1.95/min for god sake.

Finally she came back and told me that her Manager can't rebate me the second booking charges cause it's not on the same date. HUH?!! As I mentioned, the reason I had booked on a different is because of the promo issue. I had asked to talk with the manager since I know that she can't make any decision. Then she put me on hold again (for another 10-15mins) WTF?!!! Don't she know that the price of the call is farking expensive? And finally when she came back, what answer did she gave me? "Oh, we have a lot of calls coming in today (I assumed complaints) and the manager is not free at the moment to talk (entertain) to me. WTH?!! She did said that the manager gonna call me back later of the day and jotted down my contact number half way through when I was put on farking HOLD again!?!! WTF?!!! I'd hold for 5 mins or so and decided to hang up and let her call me back. But it didn't happen.

I was really pissed the whole morning and expressed it out in my FB when a friend of mine told me to tweet Datuk Tony. But I didn't have a tweeter account so I'd decided to leave a message on his personal page. To my surprise he replied my message after 10mins. He asked me to write the booking ref to his personal email and will come back to me. Wow~ That is efficient. I am not sure if he's the one who replied me or his PA but heck, at least someone did. At least the action did lower down my fire a bit. Well, now lets see if anyone return my call or mail.

When Are You Moving In?

2011-02-18T10:09:00.000+08:00

I think that is the most heard question I had recently. Yup, it's referring to me moving into my new house. Well, after the first house cleaning, I went back last Wednesday to have a check on it. As expected, the floor was covered by a thin layer of dust. So I guess I need to go over again this weekend to have another go with mopping and sweeping the floors again. At the mean time, I am also scouting around for curtains and it's rod around town. Been to Baagus and it was damn expensive. Went over IKEA yesterday and saw something similar with half the price. Now I need to look for curtains for both the master bedroom and also living room. You can't move in living without any covers right?

Still deciding whether to get a complete one or tailor-made one instead. Still deciding on both since I am not so into fabrics and design while babe is too busy with work to scout around town for it. Before moving in, I need to consult my Feng Shui Sifu for a good date and also the proper procedures. Gonna make a call or trip over his office to discuss on this. Since everyone was telling me that I can't even move my old stuff as it's considered shifting/moving. So I can just get some new stuff like mattress, fridge and washing machine for the mean time. But those stuff are ex-stock so I don't think it will take them a lot of time to send it. Maybe they can deliver it on the same day I move in. Oh, thinking of moving in my new house really brighten up my day.

V Day - House Cleaning

2011-02-16T09:42:00.000+08:00

So how do I spent my Valentine's Day? House cleaning of course. Yup, no candle light dinner or romantic one day trip up Genting or what so ever. I took leave on Monday to start my house cleaning campaign. As you all might already knew, my house had finally completed and it's time to do some cleaning before I move in. But the thing is that there's plenty of dust around the house and this need to be clean off several times before it's clean enough to move in. My friends did told me that even though I had move in for several weeks, the dust will still be there. So I still need to clean my whole house every single weekend.

It took me 8 hours to clean the whole house and luckily babe joined in after her work to help out. The blardy dust kept coming back even though I had sweep and mop the floor several times. But we were really satisfied at the end of the day when all the interior part had been clean and we even had our first lunch over there. Well, like I always said, it's not the place but the company which matters the most. We continued our cleaning up till 8pm and decided to called it a day. Babe was super tired and so am I, so decided to come back again during the weekend to give it another go. Even bought a bottle of acid to clear up my wet kitchen's tiles as proposed by some of my friends. Will try it out this weekend and see how it goes. Hopefully everything goes well and I can move in by the end of the month.

Greenpois0n to Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1 [Windows]

2011-02-08T10:25:00.000+08:00

Finally after a long wait, The Chronic DevTeam had finally released the JB for iOS 4.2.1 for all iDevices. The had first released the Mac version a day earlier and the Windows platform a day after it. It doesn't take much of their time too when they again released another version of Greenpois0n to JB Verizon's CDMA iPhone 4 yesterday. So let me go through the step by step tutorial again on how to use this Greenpois0n to JB your iPhone 4. This JB is meant for iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G only. Actually the same JB is applicable for iPod Touch 4G, 3G and iPad too. But I am focusing more on the iPhone devices in here. As always, just a reminder that JB your iDevices might probably void your warranty so do proceed with caution. And always remember to back up your data before your do anything further. This is a JB software and it doesn't hacktivate your phone so for those factory lock phones, please wait for the unlock software.

You must have the latest iTunes or at least a 10.1 and above version installed in your PC.
Update your iOS to 4.2.1 using the new iTunes version beforehand.
Again, back up your data before your start the JB process.
Go to this website to download the Greenpois0n RC5 b2 version for Windows or this mirror site here.
Extract the file to some where and you can start your JB process now.
Connect your iPhone and POWER OFF.

7. Open the Greenpois0n software and click on the Prepare to Jailbreak (DFU) option.

8. You will now be instructed to put your phone into DFU mode by following the steps.

9. Press & Hold the Sleep/Wake button for 2 seconds.

10. Next, while still pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button, Press & Hold the Home button together for 15 seconds.

11. Now release the Sleep/Wake button while still Holding on to the Home button for another 15 seconds.

12. This will bring your phone into DFU mode and you will see the Ready to Jailbreak button on the screen. Click on it and wait.

13. You will see a bar showing the progress of the JB on your phone now.

14. When the green bar is full, the JB is completed and are prompted to click the Quit button.

15. At this moment your phone will have what they said scrolling with verbose text. The phone will reboot itself after completion.

16. In your Home Screen, you will see a new Loader application in there. Click into it.

17. Cydia is the only option in there so select it and press Install.

18. After installing Cydia, you can choose to remove the loader by selecting to Uninstall it in the Loader.

19. Now your phone has Cydia in it and it's successfully JB. Update your Cydia and you are done.

There are reports/feedback saying that Cydia isn't inside the Loader after launching it. If this happens, you can try to install Cydia with Redsn0w 0.9.6 RC8 from here. Remember to just choose to install Cydia from the list and not anything else. You are also recommended to do a clean restore if the above method doesn't work. Do proceed with caution and again the writers would not take liable to any damage to any our the reader's iDevices by following the above instructions/guide. So have I tried it? Nope, cause I am waiting for iOS 4.3 to come out for more feature to upgrade. But there are friends of mine who did it and succeeded from the guide above. So enjoy folks~!

A Good Holiday

2011-02-07T21:01:00.000+08:00

It's a bit late but it's still the festive season so here goes. Wishing my readers a Prosperous & Wonderful Chinese New Year. A lot happened during this few days of festive season. Went back to my hometown, meet my grandparents, cousins and nephews and friends. But didn't really have much time meeting them either. Most of the time I spent at home with my relatives and cousins. And did I mentioned there's plenty of food single day? I do mean tons of cook food all the time. Imagine waking up everyday and having 5 to 6 meals a day. I mean other than eat it's just sleeping and updating our status with the cousins. But hell, we all are connected through FB, even my aunt and uncles. So most of us know what is happening among our family. Came back on Saturday and managed to catch up with my friends before they leave. Catch a CNY movie today and gonna be back to work tomorrow. Already been receiving calls from my boss and customers today for stuff to follow up tomorrow. What a quick weekend rest for me. Now it's time to work again~ Ganbateh~!

Great Day

2011-01-27T08:34:00.000+08:00

Finally I'd watched the much hyped pre-CNY movie from our local production house. If you haven't heard of the movie before then you definitely not living in Malaysia, trust me. MyFm had been advertising about this movie even before it was shown in the cinema. Tian Tian Hao Tian or Great Day for those who doesn't read Chinese (like me). The movie as mentioned is Astro's second baby since last years success, Woo Hoo. Since I watched the movie in DVD last year and was quite satisfied with it, I had decided to give this year's movie a go in the big screen instead. Every morning, the DJs would boost that the cinemas are always sold out and so on and forth. But luckily my friend managed to secure tickets for the movie on a Wednesday night. And so they say the rest is history.

Great Day basically is not just all laugh but instead slotted in a lot of messages and advice which reflect on our real life. It tells of filial to our parents and how people nowadays treat their old ones at home. The scenario are basically real life and I think everyone in the cinema would be able to connect with the characters as we all heard or at least been into that situation before or going to. The story starts with two old man who lived in an old folks house over at Perlis. Both boosted how filial and successful are their sibling and one of them challenged the other to sneak out off the house and meet their children. But only one managed to do so. He sneak into the back of the truck of Ah Hock (played by Jack Lim) who is a filial son living with his son and mother who is struck by Alzheimer.

I am not going into details what happened and how's the ending would be as I am sure you need to watch it yourself to really judge how good it is. Yes, you heard me right, it's really good. Even better than Woo Hoo last year. At least this story has story line and a strong message and topic to address to the viewers. It's not just all laugh and leaving the cinema with a smile in your face but rather a question of how filial are you to your parents. I think my friends managed to connect with the movie since the ladies managed to shed some tears in the movie while I am still trying hard to get myself into the mood but at the end didn't shed any tears. No I am not cold hearted. It just that they need to work harder to get me to cry anyway. I am easily moved mind you.

Highly recommended for the CNY season now. Bring your families, bring your friends, bring your love ones and watch it together and feel the warmth and love oozing out. haha! The radio is a bit over selling the movie for me but still the movie is a really good one and improved a lot from the first. In terms of story line and it's main issue to send to the viewers, it's spot on. I am brave to say that this movie is on par with our neighbor's country movie any other day. At least it gives them a run for their money now. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

The Green Hornet in 3D

2011-01-25T16:39:00.001+08:00

Finally I'd watched The Green Hornet last week. Is it good? Well let's just say that it's way cooler than the original one for sure. But you can't really compare the original 60s starring the legendary Bruce Lee and Van Williams in the TV series. The new Hornet stars comedian Seth Rogen as the playboy publisher Britt Reid and Jay Chou as his partner Kato. The movie tells how the Green Hornet come about. Britt Reid is a spoil guy who waste his youth on booze and women all his life. And when his father sudden death brought him back to life, he was introduced to Kato. Kato is hired by his late father to take care of their automobiles. And also taking care of both the father & son's morning coffee.

So one night, they decided to cut off the head of the statue of his dad, Britt came about on a robbery and with Kato's super kick ass martial arts, they managed to save the day (or rather night). And from that night onwards, Britt had an idea of protecting the city from the villains. How? By posing as villain themselves of course. Why? Cause this way, no one know that they are the good guys and they can get close to the villains. Yes, it's a bit crazy but that's him. So they embark on this adventure where Kato started creating new gadgets like the fart guy. Damn I can't stop laughing when Kato told Britt that he was off for a week after shooting the gun at himself. And of course, the Black Beauty, which Kato build. Black Beauty is of course the cool cool ride that The Green Hornet rides.

The story line isn't that strong with a lot of slap sticks jokes here and there, but I can live with that. I have not much high expectation for the movie except plenty of jokes from Seth in the movie. You can't really compare the original ones with this as it's totally different in terms of story line and the direction of the movie is going. I mean, it's a hero fighting with villains and having fun in between. It's a funny movie to watch on a weekend and not much thinking needed for the movie. Try to maximize your experience by watching it in 3D. Since the effects are so cool. (Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0)

Progress Is Slow

2011-01-21T14:26:00.000+08:00

As you all know (well those for those who know me at least) that I am eagerly waiting for my house to be completed (renovation) to move in. I had been renovating my house for months now. I mean for the time (since late Sept) that I had spent on it, you assumed that it's a major renovation work but trust me, it's just minor works. Maybe it took a bit more time because I didn't appoint a main contractor to foresee the whole project but rather sub contracting it out individually. I can save cost on this but at the same time, need proper coordination in between them. The major problem would be the wet work contractor which did my table top for my wet kitchen and patching work for my house. To make the matter worst, I just found out half way that he took my house renovation work as his own side income. So the work done are not as good as the one I had seen before from his company. So I complaint and he did his best and took his time to rectify my complaints.

Initial plan would be moving in before Christmas last year or latest before New Year. Then due to some delays, I had decided to give another 1-2 weeks (for the work that can be done in 3 days) more and move in before CNY. But now, I feared that it might be drag to next week which is the week before CNY. How am am gonna move in during that time? I had surveyed all the appliances to be bought but put it on hold as I am not sure when I need the goods to be deliver now. Still chasing the contractor to install the taps for the kitchen and he can start cleaning the house already. He can even start cleaning while installing the taps for me since it doesn't require any major work. But the contractor is planning to do it simultaneously with my brother's house since it will cut down on the cost (I suspect) or so he said.

Anyway, I am not a bit tired and exhausted from chasing and calling or driving up and down the highway almost every single day and spending my weekends going over my house and checking up on the progress. I would like to just sit back and just let it take it cause. Cause I really tired now. And the festive season is just around the corner. So there's gonna be a long holiday up ahead and I am not sure what's gonna happen. So I am just gonna sit tight on my seat and let fate take it's course.

Paranormal Activity 2

2011-01-16T15:54:00.002+08:00

I read about the review for this movie beforehand from the newspaper and it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. But nevertheless, as I always said, don't believe everything you read in the paper. So I made a trip over to the nearest cinema with some friends to give it a go. There's always some criteria for me for watching a good horror/scary movie. First it got to be a midnight show or at least something that will bring you to midnight after watching it. No point watching a horror show in the afternoon right? Secondly, get somebody who really watch it and not closing the eyes most of the time during the movie. At least we can discuss bout it after the movie ends. Lastly, watch it in a cinema and not the leisure of your home. Well unless you got a freaking good sound system at home that is. Cause for most of the time, it's the sound effect which gives your those sudden scare.

So what does the sequel has to install for us. Please do not read through if you're gonna watch it as it contains spoilers which might spoil the fun of the whole movie. The sequel of the movie actually explains what happen 60 days before the first installment. So if you have any questions like how the hell it all started and why is Katie's picture was found in the attic, well here's the answer to all your queries. The story revolves around Kristi's sister Katie who just gave birth to a baby boy name Hunter. Strange things starts to happens when they returned home from the hospitals. Strange noise from the kitchen, shadows and others like the mysterious walking pool cleaner.

The movie started off slow and started picking up momentum towards the end with some really good frights. Sound again plays a major crucial part in any horror movie and this is nothing less than that. Loud sudden thump sound or cabinets springing out all at once and pans falling downs are some of the good effects in the movie which gave the audience some really good experience. Apart from the first movie which focuses more on hand held camera which at some point seemed a bit lost and dizzy, the sequels has a better way of showing it. It's from surveillance camera and I do like the last part where the husband uses night vision camera to search in the basement for Kristie. Damn that is some good shots.

Overall, the movie is definitely better than the first. Well for me and my friends of course. I am not sure about the rest of you but I did enjoyed this second installment. Haven't had any good scary movie for a while now and this is one of the best they have to offer since the first part. Definitely worth a watch even you didn't watch the first episode. But you do get a bit confuse towards the end when you saw Katie if you didn't watch the first though. And again, this is not a real story. So don't ask me if it's really happen or not. It's just make to look as real with our life as possible. Again the movie shows that we do not need high budget movie with big cast to have some really good horror movie. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

Infinity Blade

2011-01-12T10:45:00.000+08:00

This is how it all started, with the first bloodline.

Everyone is asking me what game am I playing nowadays. Well, it's not GodFinger anymore since i had maxed the level and bought everything they had to offer in the store. The answer would be Infinity Blade. The game is develope by Chair and the most impressive part is the graphic which is powered by Unreal Technology. It was just voted by IGN as "iPhone Game of The Year". The game features an action-RPG combination type of game-play which in other word, a no brainer game. But it's not as simple as it seems. Although you don't have to give yourself a head ache on the story line but the boss fight gets tougher and tougher by the bloodline you played.

The graphics is the best iPhone games I played to date and what anyone could offer.

You start off with some pretty easy enemy which the tutorial will teach you how to evade or block the attacks and when to counter back when it's the time to do so. You will need to tap left/right to evade the particular swing of blade and when it's time for you to attack, you just need to swipe along the screen to do the attacks. You can swipe from left to right or up to down to do any kind of damage you think possible in a certain amount of time to the enemy.

You know what they say about how big is your sword and your lil brother right?

You are not just fighting with medieval enemies but also some machines equipped with some sharp nifty hammer out to crush you. As you can see from above, the weapons, armors, helms can be customized. You can buy or discover these items along the way. You can buy with the money you earn or found in the store. Sword has their own element and so does the shields, so do equipped them wisely when dealing with specific enemies as they will gain from your mistake.

Wow, some large sword you got there bub!

This is the second last boss fight before you meet the head honcho at the bad sitting on the red throne. The game gets easy along the way when you got a hang of the swings and how to evade or blocking them. But when you thought that you saw all the moves, guess again. When you reached bloodline 25 and above, the moves becomes faster and the combos are somewhat more challenging for you to evade.

At the end, there could be only ONE

There's two ending, where one of them you died after being slain by the King. Then the game will start again from the beginning with the second bloodline and it's your son now coming to avenge you after 20 years (the years varies). The other ending would be the one when you kill the King. You will uncover a bigger plot behind. But let's not spoil the ending for you all right now. The new update version 1.1 consists of 5 new weapons, shields and helmets and one armors. The maximum level had been increased from 40 to 45 too. The game is connected to the Game Center for achievement to be unlock. So it's pretty cool showing that off. Me? I had all the weapons in the Store and Max it all up to the last one. Now at level 45 and 26th bloodline and going. Waiting for the next update with the bundle of cash I have in my pocket. Hope you enjoy the game as much as I do.

Graphic : 4.5 out of 5

Sound: 4 out of 5

Addictiveness: 4 out of 5

User Friendly: 4 out of 5

Hello 2011, Goodbye 2010

2011-01-02T15:12:00.001+08:00

So what happened last year? I had my ups and downs during 2010 but overall it was a good ride most of the time for me. Let me share what are some of the highlights for my 2010 calendar now.

My first concert of the year and also 2nd for S.H.E in Malaysia. A good way to start the year off.
During the mid of the year, I had finally received the keys to my new home. After a year long wait, finally it's ready and the start of my new life.
I had finally proposed to my long time sweet heart on her birthday. Pre-planned my whole proposal and with some help from some good friends, the night turned out to be a memorable one.
Finally babe and me went for our long awaited trip over to Taiwan. It was a long wait since we bought the tickets more than half a year ahead but it was worth the wait. Memorable and sweet memories.
Upgraded to the new iPhone 4 from my old iPhone 3GS. hahaha!!!

Hopefully by this year 2011, my house will be ready for me to move in before Chinese New Year and I can start to plan ahead for my BIG DAY. Yes, most of the people started asking me bout the DAY since late last year. Soon la, you will all know when I had decided it. OK?! haha! Happy New Year to all my readers~! Cheers!

note: pic courtesy of Google Image search

Two Weddings & A Christmas Dinner

2010-12-27T10:54:00.003+08:00

Last week was definitely a hectic one for me. Christmas eve was a bit pathetic by spending it home alone watching movies at home. I am not complaining here since it's nice spending some quality time on my own (???). Why am I alone? Well, babe was busy going shopping with her mom for her brother's wedding the next day (Saturday). Anyway, dinner was set on Christmas night and it was a small gathering of only relatives which I thought was nice and simple. After the dinner we had second round over at the parents house and we tried to leave early as I got another Heng Tai session a couple of hours later at Sri Petaling for my ex-colleague.

After a short nap, woke up and got ready for Terrence's Heng Tai session. Yup, it's that time again where the Zhi Mui (ladies) make a mockery of the Heng Tai (guys) day. Reached at the rendezvous point at 7am and we managed to wrapped everything up around before 10am. Surprisingly the games are some what simple and more 'gentle' from the previous ones that I had experience or saw.

Drove super fast back down to babe's house as we forgot to pick up the Christmas dinner present from her house last night. Damn~ I am sure I got a speeding ticket over at KESAS on the way back as I am doing 150kmh when I saw that blardy blue shirt fella in front of me. Quickly had a quick nap for an hour before getting ready again for the wedding luncheon. The whole event was really nice as I had the chance to meet up and chat with my ex-colleagues. Food was good and the ambiance was great.

Finished up and left for home to wrapped on the presents before resting for a while before the Christmas dinner with the mates at gym. Managed to find the secluded place and we felt so homely as it's really inside a triple storey-house. Food was great, the best company we could have and the noise and non stop laughter and joke cracking sessions we had are unforgettable. Luckily the neighbors next door didn't called the police to complaint on noise pollution from our side.

As usual, gift ex-change sessions was hilarious and full of surprises. I was really nervous for the person whose gonna get my present as it's a bit unpractical but damn it's so cute. Was relieved that TJ got it and she's really loving it. Dinner started a bit late but we all had a lot of laugh and finally when the food arrived, we all dig in like a bunch of hungry wolves. Food was marvelous and even the senior citizens in the other room couldn't spoil our mood that night. We concluded the night after midnight as some of us need to work the next day and I need to send babe back to Klang. Just wanna say thanks to the organizers for successful dinner and definitely a memorable one. Merry Christmas again and a Happy New Year Yer All~!!! Cheers!!!

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

2010-12-24T09:55:00.000+08:00

I wanna take this festive season to wish all my readers a Wonderful Merry Christmas & Memorable New Year. Best Wishes & May All You Dreams Come True on this Magical Moment. Ho Ho Ho!!!

Can I Make It In Time?

2010-12-14T09:50:00.002+08:00

Good news and bad news. Good news, my house gonna be ready soon. Bad news, I might not be able to move in before Christmas. Sigh~! The reason being my contractor had been stalling the work from day 1. Gosh~ I practically need to be there at the site and check on his almost everyday and calling him to chase for the renovation work to be done. Was a bit upset that no proper layering of the floor was made during the construction but he did promised to clean up everything at the end of the renovation (which he did). But still there are some paint marks which could be avoided left on some part of the vinyl.

I am now busy driving around town surveying for some minor lighting (i.e eye ball, staircase lighting, gate light and motion sensors in front of the house). Just finished installing the grills and my wardrobe cabinets but still waiting for the kitchen cabinets and hopefully it will be ready soon. Gonna arrange for the electrical guy to do the installation of my down lights and fans by this week and hopefully get it done by this weekend. Hopefully I can move in by the end of the year. So many to do and so little time left.

Just The Way You Are

2010-12-10T10:37:00.000+08:00

Oh Her Eyes, Her Eyes

Make The Stars Look Like They're Not Shinning

Her Hair, Her Hair

Falls Perfectly Without Her Trying

She's So Beautiful

And I Tell Her Everyday

Yeah I Know, I Know

When I Compliment Her

She Won't Believe Me

And It's So, It's So

Sad To Think She Don't See What I see

But Every Time She Asked Me Do I Look Okay

I Say

(Chorus)

When I See Your Face

There's Not A Thing That I Would Change

Cause You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

And When You Smile,.

The Whole World Stops And Stares for Awhile

Cause Girl You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

Her Lips, Her Lips

I Could Kiss Them All Day If She'd Let Me

Her Laugh, Her Laugh

She Hates But I Think It's So Sexy

She's So Beautiful

And I Tell Her Everyday

Oh You Know, You Know, You Know

I'd Never Ask You To Change

If Perfect Is What You're Searching For

Then Just Stay The Same

So Don't Even Bother Asking

If You Look Okay

You Know I Say

(Chorus)

When I See Your Face

There's Not A Thing That I Would Change

Cause You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

And When You Smile,.

The Whole World Stops And Stares for Awhile

Cause Girl You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

The Way You Are

Girl You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

(Chorus)

When I See Your Face

There's Not A Thing That I Would Change

Cause You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

And When You Smile,.

The Whole World Stops And Stares for Awhile

Cause Girl You're Amazing

Just The Way You Are

From Bruno Mars Single Album 'Doo-Wops & Hooligans'

Why?

2010-12-09T13:15:00.000+08:00

What happened when I skipped 2 weeks of Body Pump class? Legs shaking during yesterday night's back track. My legs was a bit not the usual form during Squats but I didn't give much thought to it. The back track is not even a tough track as we're doing 'Why'. My right leg started to wobbled during the start of the track and both legs were shaking madly towards the end. Gosh~ I told Marcos my legs were shaking after the class and we laugh about that. Didn't joined RPM after that as I wanted to rest my legs for tomorrow's classes. Hopefully I can get back in shape next week to do some back to back classes.

KL International Motor Show 2010 @ PWTC

2010-12-06T11:50:00.000+08:00

Nissan GTR R600

It's the time again where all the guys started rushing to PWTC with their DSLRs, digital cameras or phone camera trying their best to grab the best picture with the sexy model in this year KLIMS 2010. I think it was 4 years ago on my last visit over with my ex-colleagues. And this time around, they rang me up and asked me to joined them yet another time. This is place is so pack of people taking pictures of the models rather than the cars itself. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of professionals taking pictures of those nice cool rides. But after the official work is done, there's no harm taking a pic or two with the model now ain't it.

Nissan Fairlady 370Z Roadster

Nissan does has a large stage this year with their big cars especially the newly launching Teana sedan. Not seeing any Cefiro though. Nissan's models are more reserved and professional if you ask me.

Chevrolet 'bumble bee' Camaro

Bumble bee is in town. That is the headline that everyone is saying before. Finally I saw the real bumble bee in the flesh (or rather metal). Sadly that you need to pay extra to get an up close and personal picture with the yellow Camaro.

KIA Cadenza

Saw this new KIA on display which caught my eye, Cadenza. Cadenza actually derived from an Italian word if I am not mistaken. Not sure if the car will be made available here soon or not. But it's been displayed last year over at Riyadh Motor Show at Saudi.

Rear View of KIA Cadenza

KIA Optima

The all new KIA Optima 2011. This is going to get Hyundai's Sonata a run for their money. Customers can choose either 2.0 or 2.4 liter standard or hybrid engine. Runs on direct injection and variable valve timing for the non hybrid. Not bad for a mid size sedan car. Forgot what's the price tag on the baby but we did ask the sales person. I think it's around 150-160K. Around the same with Hyundai's Sonata 2010.

KIA Optioma Side View

KIA Optima Rear View

Maserati Grandcabrio

I think I get the name right. Who doesn't recognize that logo in front of the car right. The name speaks it all.

Maserati Grandcabrio Rear View

Maserati Quattroporte

Damn the name is winding. But they make good cars.

Austin Martin DBS

I can't really differentiate the DB9 and DBS model. I am still determining between this two model. I finally decided it's a DBS based on the front grill and also the head lamp. Maybe you can let me know if I am right or wrong. Definitely a cool sweet ride since it's Britain's secret agent official car.

Lamborghini

Not a big fan of Lamborghini so I am not too sure what model is this. Anyone, please fill in the blank. Thanks. I am thinking a Gallardo maybe. But that's just me.

Ferrari 458 Italia

Everybody know the front horse logo signify horse power and that is what this baby is all about. Raw horse power and 560 h.p powered by 4,499 c.c V8 engine.

Ferrari California

The much hyped car from last year. Not bad for a hard-top convertible. Powered by front-mid mounted gasoline direct injection 4.3 L (260 cu in) V8. I think you can drive real slow in this ride right in front Pavilion.

Saw this in Auto Gear once. Not sure what it's called but it's really fast. Worried of getting wet riding on a motorcycle, then you can opt for this baby. But I am not sure how much you need to fork out for this baby.

Hyundai Avante 2011

This is Hyundai newly launched Avante (Elantra formerly). It's latest 1.6L Gamma Gasoline Direct Injection engine and a 6-speed automatic transmission really do speak for itself. This is the first GDI with 6-speed automatic compact sedan featured in Korea. HID headlight with LED. Did I mentioned that it also come option with an open panoramic sun roof.

Hyundai Avante 2011 Side View

There are plenty of cars like their new Sonata 2010 and also Sante Fe and also Tucson but I guess we all saw it all this year.

Toyota FT-HS Hybrid

OK, frankly, at a glance it's like Waja to me. Don't ask me why. Is the car smiling at me? At least this is the most futuristic hybrid car around.

Why does all Toyota's hybrid cars looks like spaceships? And NO, I am not taking picture of that model. I am actually asking her to move away from the car.

Toyota FT-HS Rear View

Honda Insight Hybrid

The much talked about hybrid car of the show, Honda's Insight. Why? Cause it's only RM98K. That is almost 30K lesser than Totoya's Prius Hybrid. Saw any resemblance?

Powered by 1,339 c.c with in-line 4 cylinder engine. Has a 123 lb-ft torque @ 1000-1700rpm. It's a 8-valve SOHC i-VTEC system. Running on DC brushless motor with 13hp @ 1500rpm. Able to output 100.8volts of power from the Nickel Metal Hydride battery with a rated capacity of 5.75 Ah. Design using Continuously Variable Transmission or CVT. The specs seemed decent enough for a hybrid but most importantly how much does petrol cost? They claimed it's as low as 10cent/km. So you be the judge of it.

Honda Insight Rear View

We were always wondering why all hybrid's car rear are always that weird. Weird as in it's form or design. But we found out why when we saw the cut out of the whole car later on.

We open up the rear bumper and it's really spacious surprisingly. So where does all the space comes from? Well they have to compensate that with the passengers seat at the back. The seats are really cramp at the back if you compared it with Prius. We push the front seat all the way to the back and the rear passenger seats are really uncomfortable. Trust me, if you are traveling for more than half an hour, you don't wanna sit at the back. But for the price you're paying, why not?

Honda Insight Front Cut Out

This is why the rear bumper are lifted so high. It's because the battery are stored at underneath the spare tyre compartment. And they can't place the battery underneath the passenger seats at the back for safety purposes I guess hence the cramp design consequently.

Honda CR-Z Sport Hybrid

Honda featured another new hybrid which is their new CR-Z 2011. It's a in-line 4-cylinder engine type running on 1,497 c.c. A combined horse power of 122 @ 6000rpm from the engine and electrical motor. It's a 16-valve SOHC iVTEC.3 types of driving mode to choose from (Sport/Normal/ECON). But they are not promoting much of this model during the show.

Honda CR-Z Hybrid

Not sure what is the price tag for this baby but it's sure is nicer compared to Insight.

Honda Civic Type R Euro 2011

Now this is what I call a street ride. Honda is famous for their signature Type R logo with the red color on the letters. I noticed the leather seats and fine thread work on the seats and straight away shouted TYPE R. Yes, it's their famous Civiv Type R Euro model. This is a special edition with 3-door which only market in Japan.

The car's 2.0litre VTEC engine does not meet the Euro V emissions regulations hence it's not coming to Europe anytime soon. So it's only gonna be seen in Japan for now. Technically the specs are unchanged from the 2009 Type R with it's inline 4-cylinder 2.0 litre engine that produces 201hp at 7800rpm and 142.3lb-ft of torque available from 5600rpm. Acceleration to 62mph can be done in 6.6sec and top speed is 235kmh.

This car is so meant to be made in red.

Lexus IS 250 Hybrid

Even Lexus joined in the fun with the hybrid bandwagon with their two luxury sedan cars.

Overall, the whole motor show seemed a bit small to me compared to my previous visit. I'm not sure why. I expected more maybe. I didn't really went into Proton's hall and look at the 5 concept models namely Jebat, Tuah, Lekiu, Kasturi and Lekir. Kasturi is actually a dressed up model of Saga BLM with a facelift, Tuah from a next generation Persona, Lekiu a front-wheel drive SUV similar to Exora MPV, Lekir is Lotus Europa and finally Jebat from the newly launced Inspira. A was hoping to see more Europeans cars like Audi or BMW or even Mercedes. Peugeot did showcased their newly launched 3008 and also 5008 MPV though. For RM15, I think it's still worth the time and make sure you have plenty of memory for all the pictures you're gonna take.

One of thos days

2010-12-02T09:34:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately as I time is really catching up on me nowadays. No I am not dying. Duh~! I mean I don't have enough time to work, rest and blog that's all. Anyway, my last post tells of my trip to Taiwan with my babe. After the trip we are back to our normal routine of work and family. As for me, I am rushing for my house renovation as the contractor is delaying the work while I am away on holiday. Had to go over almost everyday for the whole week to check on the progress and kept calling him up. All the traveling, driving, work and gym might had exhausted myself without me realizing it. Hence, I am sick like a dead rat this week. It started off with a mild fever with me shivering cold at the middle of the night and some minor sore throat. Well this is all a sign of major sickness coming my way from my pass experience. Drank lots of water and sore throat is gone. Decided to visit the doc and she told me that I should experience diarrhea in these few days time. Damn, she's good. I went right to the loo once I reached home that day. And I had been having no appetite these few days due to the antibiotics which she gave me. Now I am hungry, weak, tasteless, lost of appetite, exhausted and still have to get my arse up from the bed to work every morning and still make time to go monitor my house progress everyday. I hope that my life would return to normal soon or I am going to die of exhaustion.

Welcome To Taiwan

2010-11-22T23:48:00.003+08:00

Arriving at Taoyuan International Airport on Sunday morning (14 Nov) with a bit of cloud in the sky. Weather forecast for the week is cloudy with a bit of rain. I can accept that.

First stop, Wufenpu as babe and me wanted to get some clothes for the trip. Cheap? Not really. But there's a lot of choices here for the ladies.

National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. Windy and a bit of rain but that doesn't stop us from taking a picture or two. The Prime Minister is coming on that day so we can't enter the memorial hall. Sigh~!

Yehliu's eco-park famous stone formation the Queen's Head. You need to queue up to take picture of the head though. As you can see the neck portion of the stone is getting smaller and according to them will be broken anytime. So better snap a picture of it soon peeps.

The famous Chiufen mountain view from the top. Totally breathtaking and one of the most windy and coldest place we been in Taiwan.

Trip over Chiufen old street isn't complete without taking a picture of the 'old stairs' down memory lane. Simply nostalgic.

Fisherman's Wharf a.k.a The Lover's Bridge. Another windy place as it's next to the sea. We hold hand in hand all along the bridge. Memorable.

Tamsui Old Street which is famous for their Tia Tan (steel eggs). The best place to buy them as they have a lot of flavors to choose from. Other than that, you can also have a taste of their local delicacies such as stinky tofu and ice cream to name a few.

Martyr's Shrine. You can see the famous guards on duty here by the main entrance. Yes, they won't move an inch but don't try to be silly here as there are other uniform guard at the side to watch over them. Wait for the time when they change shift and you can see some really nifty marching.

The famous Ximenting center. It's busy as hell during night time with movie-goers queuing up to the numerous cinemas over there. The place is also known as cinema city by local. Plenty of clothes and food to choose from. Even had the famous Ah Chung Flour Rice noodle over at this area. Nothing special though. Totally over-rated.

We were lucky as it they were holding this International Flora Exposition while we were there. Plenty of flowers and others futuristic stuff to see at this place. Entrance fees is TW300 for the whole day. But you need at least 3 days to finish the whole place.

A must visit place at one of the section in the flower expo, the Future expo. But there's a long queue, so just be patients. It's worth the wait.

The busy busy Ximenting center in the afternoon. Totally love this shot. Gonna rain really soon. Felt like Times Square over at NY or Tokyo~! :P

You trip isn't complete without visiting the busy street of Shilin night market. Plenty of food and clothes for the ladies. Had my homestay over at this place for the last 3 days. Simply marvelous. Eat and shop all day long.

The Rainbow Bridge where all lovers fall in love. Great view and memorable scenery with my beloved.

Another shot of the busy street of Shilin night market around 11pm on a Friday night. Crazy~! The road and street are pack. Havoc but you got to love this, it's totally Taiwan.

We have the twin tower, they have this 101 Tower. Blardy tourist spot. haha~!

Now you know why there are so many tourist taking pictures outside KLCC right?

FF Empire's New Spinner Bike

2010-11-12T10:53:00.001+08:00

Finally the old bikes are replaced by the new ...

This is something new for us RPM members as I need to do trial and error on the height and distance of the saddle from the handle bar and all. This bike is similar to the one which TF is using right now. It's not our old 'resistance bike' but rather a 'spinner bike'. After a class with the bike I notice that the resistance level do not some time to get use to. Since it's a new bike, the resistance is always there which is good. One bad thing I found out bout the knob is that it's too small and too near to the handle bar. So imagine when you're doing standing climb and quickly come down to speed work, you will need to quickly reset the resistance, but in this case, you will need time to do that. Secondly, you will need to turn a lot to achieve the standing resistance from seated which is not the case with the old bike. Did I mentioned that the handle bar seemed a bit too thick/large? But you do have the slot in front to place your towel and bottle which is really convenient. The bar although is thick but to me it's a bit short cause I can't really place all my palm into it during ride easy position. Sigh~!

There are some good side about the new bike of course. Looking at the enclose structure of the frontal part of the bike, it's impossible for our sweats to sip in. This prevent phantom bike phenomenon from happening and at the end less maintenance too. Better adjustable seat's lever. This will surely cut down on those broken knobs or over turned screws you saw on the old bikes. But the rear part of the seat do seemed a bit too long to me as I my leg got hit by it for several time when I am coming onto the bike last night. Clumsy me. Well these are just some of my findings anyway. Nevertheless, I am still very happy with the new bike. Just need time to get use of it.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

2010-11-07T23:32:00.000+08:00

I saw the preview of the movie few months back in the cinema and I had to say it's really interesting. I had to watch this movie. Finally I managed to watch the movie today and I totally love it. It might not be the best action movie I watched late like RED or A-Team but heck it brings a new meaning to teenager's love movies. The story tells of Scott Pilgrim who dates a high schooler, Knives Chau. He is playing in a band with his friends whom one of them is his ex. The story gets interesting when he meet up with his latest ex-gf, who is the lead singer of another famous band meet. But he found his true love when he meet a new girl in town, Ramona Flowers.

He managed to break off with Knives and be together with Ramona. But the thing is that, he need to get pass Ramona's 7 exes. Well, you thought how hard can that be? Trust me, they are all some crazy guys and even one chick. You know that this movie is gonna make you laugh really hard since the director, Edgar Wright brought us Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Yes, I watched both that movie and I guess not everyone seen or heard of it before. But trust me, it's damn hilarious. It's another boy meets girl and breaks up with her and meet another girl who had 7 exes trying to kill you. Add that to some really cool special effects and for those who really like PC games, this is your cup of tea. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

Renewing My Passport

2010-11-02T11:30:00.001+08:00

Not being any different from my fellow Malaysians, I had decided to renew my passport almost at the last second before my trip. Since I know that they can renew my passport within a day, I had decided to take my own sweet time. But I need to confirm my itinerary beforehand, hence I need to renew it earlier than I expected. Anyway, I just found out that we have this Kiosk machine available at selected branches of the immigration department for renewing your passport. So I went over to Pusat Bandar Damansara and give it a try. Arrived around 9.15am and went straight to Block I. You can see Giant hypermarket on your left the Kiosk a.k.a KIPPAS (Kiosk Pembaharuan Passport) is opposite it. Don't bother looking for parking anywhere above, just go straight to basement 4 and below. Since all the above are reserved parking anyway.

Make sure you got all the documents:-

Old Passport (make sure you are having the chip build in at the last page cover)
MyKad (the one with the smart chip in build)
Photocopy of your MyKad front & back (on the same page)
1 x Passport Photograph of yourself
Bring Cash (RM300 for 5 years & RM100 for 1 year)
Pen, as there are no pen for you to fill in the envelope on your details later.

Word of advice, make sure that the photocopy of your MyKad is visible and clear. Make sure the passport picture of yourself is valid and check with the photo shop. Bring extra cash as some of the cash might not be accepted by the machine (similar to our cash deposit machines).

Once arrive, make sure you get an envelope from the side table to write your full name, I.C number and contact number on it. Then walk over to the Kiosk machine (4 machines and pray that most of them are working) and touch the screen to choose the language.

Insert your old passport into the slot and it will be read. Most of the time, you won't encounter any problem at this early stage unless your passport isn't the new one with the build in chip.
Insert your MyKad into the slot with the chip in first with your picture facing up. Most of the time, problem will start here. I tried mine twice and only got it on the third. Try cleaning the chip surface with an eraser or just your finger. And pray hard that it is readable or you're gonna do it manually.
Place your right hand thumb on the scanner to verify. Ladies, make sure you hands are dry and don't applied moisturizer or stuff on it beforehand. I heard it will make the scanning process difficult.
You can retrieve both your passport and MyKad at this point and take out your cash (either RM10 or RM50 notes only). Choose either 1 year renewal or 5 years and slot in the cash. And please, not all at the same time or you're gonna jam the machine and everyone behind you are gonna kill you for that.
Place your old passport, photocopy of MyKad, passport picture into the envelope and slot it into the place instructed. You will be given a piece of resit and notify of the time to collect it. It's written there, one hour after the deposit, but I think better make it 2 hours to be safe unless you are waiting over at that place.

I am now waiting in my office and it's almost time to collect my new passport. I hope that all the documents and papers are in order or I am going to be very mad later. This KIPPAS really beat the hassle of waking up early and having to queue up with the rest of the people to get a number (which normally only serve 150 people a day). One good thing about doing it the old fashion way is that, they will check all your documentations and make sure everything is in order before you leave. Anyway, it's a new thing for me and hope that this post gives some ideas to those whose gonna renew their passport soon an option. Cheers~!

Updates:-

So I came back around lunch hour although the resit asked me to come back after an hour after the deposit of the envelope. You will need to go to 2nd floor to collect your new passport. You will need to go to Counter 17 and pass them your resit (from the Kiosk machine) and they will give you a running number. Now pray that their system is not down or you're gonna spend a long time over here. Don't worry if your number is far from the current one as they don't follow the running numbers. The guy from Counter 16 will call you over and now will need to present your MyKad and verify again with your right hand thumb on the scanner. Walla~ you're done. He will give you your new passport and you are off to go home. It took me around 25 minutes to complete the whole process. Long? Well, it's alright for me. Beats doing it the manual way in fact.

I Survived Body Pump 76 @ Empire

2010-10-29T11:55:00.003+08:00

I didn't really realized that Marcos was gonna do the new release in his class for his own practice till Track 2 actually. We did The Climb for warm up and I was thinking to myself, "this is not an old track and I did most of the warm ups tracks (at least everything after The Climb was released by Miley Cyrus). But when he did Telephone for the Squats track, I was confirmed. I didn't really update myself with the new release nowadays. The warm up was quite alright nothing too strong. Squats track as mentioned was Telephone by Lady Gaga but being remixed by Pandora BX. Quite a straight forward track. We have the singles with 4 sets of 4 bottom halves on each set. Then the fast down and hold before the 2 count up is back and going back to 2 count up and down. Great sing a long song. Actually he did the Chest track even the week before and I didn't even realized it as the song, Beautiful Day was an old song by U2. We can load up for this track as there's a break towards the end.

Love the back track as you can really work your muscle with the tons of triple wide rows in this track. Again a no brainer track with 3 similar sets. Started with the dead lifts and go up twice clean & press and down for two single rows before going wide with 4 sets of triple rows. Combined all that and if I am not mistaken, there's an additional set of clean & press on the last set before we end. Triceps was a killer if you load up this time. Ke$ha is in the house for the Triceps this time around. There is no need for the bar for the Triceps track. Which means we have lots of dips, french press and kick backs. We started off with bench press (please load up on this) then triceps push ups (lots of singles and double down & up). Finished that off and we are going to kick backs and finish off with standing overhead triceps dips.

Biceps isn't that crazy this time around as we have 2 breaks with 4 sets of similar moves. We have the new move from bottom to half way and down 3/4 before going back to half way and back down again before continuing with 2 singles. I think we have at least 4 sets of that. Lunges started off with squats so you can load up before going to individual lunges on both side, quite easy. We had one of the toughest shoulder track during the last release, so it's quite hard to top that. For the new Shoulder track, we started off with push ups (I think) and going to plates for side raises. But get this, we are still on one knees but doing the side raises. Cool~! Some Mc Raises before finishing off with the over head with bar. In fact, this track seemed to be quite easy for me even though I am carrying 7.5kgs for the overhead.

For the abs track we have the alternate knee and abs crunch before ending with a new move called arrow push ups or some sort. Imagine you're on your plank but doing push ups. You will need to stretch your hand to the front (hence arrow) and then to the side before going back to the plank and then we move to the other arm. It's something similar to the previous release but different hand movement. I think they copied this from BB (since K-bear showed me this move before). Cooling down with Kris Allen's The Truth and there you have your new Body Pump 76 release. Sorry if there's some mistake on the chorey as it was a Wednesday night class and I had too much in my head. Enjoy~!

House Renovation Continues

2010-10-28T14:04:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last updated the status of my renovation. So what is the status now? Let's see, the electrical wiring and air conditioning work is up, plaster ceiling are done too. Scout around town for electrical appliances & kitchen accessories these few weeks. Got myself some really good bargain at those warehouse sales during the weekends. Backyard been cemented up and the fencing had been aligned too. Back door taken out and walled up done at the same time. One big hole at the back of my house right now as I am waiting for the security door to arrive. Damn~! There's one freaking big hole at the back of my house right now. And the security door company told me it's gonna be next week before they can send the door to me. WTF~~! At the mean time, started off with the table top on my wet kitchen while waiting for the door to arrive. Need to inform my cabinet people to start manufacturing the cabinets now. Grill almost ready and can be install anytime next week. Looking for painters to do repainting work inside my house while looking for shops selling cheap paints too. Hopefully can be accomplished before my Taiwan trip next month.