Fucking, Austria

No, I am NOT swearing. Seriously. This is the name of the place in Austria. It's a small town of 30 odd households.



The biggest problem in this quiet little town is that the sign board get stolen once too often by English speaking tourist! Fucking's mayor, one Mr. Siegfried Hauppl has had new theft-proof road signs installed to stop tourists stealing any more. The new signs are bolted and welded to steel posts. "It would take all night to steal one," says Hauppl. And he's f***ing right. In case your don't know the meaning of the word, read this for context.

The best part of living in this town is you have the license to swear! Luckily this town is NOT in an English speaking country. If it is :

Husband : "Honey I'm going Fucking."
Wife : "And just who are you f***ing?!"
Husband : "No, I meant I'm going to town."
Wife : "OK then, just make sure that you pick up my sister from Fucking."

Or this :

Son/Daughter : "Hi Mom! I just came back from Fucking, look what I've got you!".

And here's some of the things that you shouldn't do when you are in or around this town :

1. Call your wife and she asks you where in the world are you.
2. Yell "I'm coming!" in English.
3. Get lost on your way to Fucking and ask people for directions as in asking a pretty gal : "Hi Miss, can you show me the way to Fucking?".
4. Catch a cab and tell 'em you want to go Fucking - and the driver takes you to a red light district.

Now if you'd excuse me, I have to go get myself a ticket to Fucking.

It never rains but it pours

It's 3:57pm and I find myself at another Starbucks again. This time, it's the one at the Amcorp Mall, PJ.

At the rate I'm going, I should find the list of all Starbucks in KL and cover each and everyone! That will be an interesting achievement. I have been the following Starbucks so far :

1. Evergreen Hotel, Penang (the one behind it, next to MPH)
2. The Summit, Subang Jaya
3. Amcorp Mall, PJ
4. KLCC, downtown KL
5. Jaya Supermarket, PJ
6. KL Plaza, downtown KL
7. Carrefour, Subang Jaya
8. Ikano Power Center, Damansara
9. 1Utama (new wing)
10. Damansara Uptown
11. Mont Kiara
12. Borders@Berjaya Times square

The are 16 branches in Selangor and 30 branches in KL. That makes 46 and I have only covered 12 out of 46. Maybe we should have a Starbukcs Blogathon! Anyone care to join me? Or do you want to guess which Starbucks I'm going to be at next ?

Now back to the topic of the blog - It's pouring in, the work I mean. I have 4 assignments and 2 proposals due this week and a half. The due dates - 30 Aug, 1 Sept, 3 Sept and two on 5 Sept and 6 sept. But I will definitely try my best to blogs in between breaks!

Speaking of work - Little O was crying all the way to school this morning, after 1 week of holidays, she seemed to have forgotten that schools still exist. Here we go again ...

Happy Merdeka Day!

I'm back ...

It's 2:11pm, I am back in Penang again. Blogging away at the very same Starbucks except this time the air conditioner has broken down and the technician is fixing it right now. It's raining out there but hot and humid in here. I am sitting right at the main door, trying to catch the cool breeze rushing through. I came all the way from my in-laws' house to escape the heat and now this ... that's life, "coz you'll never know what you're gonna get" so says Mr. Gump.

Speaking of life, it's been a tough 2005. Business is not going well, revenues are down, the company cutting expenses like there's no tomorrow. So much for 5 years of toil.

Personally it's even tougher, making ends meet is becoming a real challenge. While doing part time writing does help somewhat, but I'm still miles away from recovery. That's becuase I've just moved into a new house and renovation expenses has been higher than expected, but that's fine provided I receive the sales commission which was promised. But that didn't happen. Some I'm stuck with a mother load of debts. Some of it from the banks, some from relatives. It totals to 8 to 9 months of my full salary. Right now my salary is half of what it used to be, it's been like this for 4 months already. Keeping up will get even more difficult. Lucky for me Mrs O and Little O have been very kind and loving. Being home alone for the past week made me realise just how much I depend on them.

One thing I've learnt in all this - is that when you start up a business with a few other people, you're never in full control. You can do well on your side but something else happens on the other side, we'll all screwed. It's not that I want to blame others but I feel that I'm not in full control of my destiny.

Next time, I'll be sure start up something on my own.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel ? I sure hope so. I just hope it is not the light of an oncoming train.

In the meantime, I've got some interesting plans going ....

Writing for a living.

It’s 12:43pm and I am in Penang. At Starbucks to be precise, the one right behind Evergreen Hotel. So what am I doing 365 kilometres from home? I am at my in-laws place, my other half’s home town. While the grandparents are cuddling their little O, Big O here has the chance to slip away and do some work here. Yes, work on a Sunday. But it’s not work really, not when you enjoy it.

Remember my blog on being a writer ? "Pen for hire". I’ve been on the ball for the past 6 weeks, written more than 15,000 words. I’ve never in my life written so much in such a short time. I’ve also made more than RM5,000 and that has been very encouraging, especially for a guy who’s had some serious pay cuts due to the employers’ financial difficulties, not to mention the rising oil prices.

What have I written ? Several articles for a telecommunications magazine, two white papers for MNCs and one advertorial to name a few. I have more coming my way and it is getting to be rather overwhelming. I had to stay up all night last Thursday to finish a white paper to be submitted by the client the next morning, it was the fastest RM1,000 I’ve ever made. It’s tough work, considering the fact that I have to go back to my real work the next morning, looking fresh and all. I was a zombie by noon.

I'm getting good feedback for my work too. I've even bought a few good books on the craft of writing e.g. "On Writing Well" by Willian Zinsser. Great book, a definate must read for aspiring writers.

At the rate that the assignments are coming in, I might as well quit my day job and do this full time! Heck, the income can be much higher than my full time job even! But I’m hesitant, because I do have my financial commitments and being a freelancer means that the income is not that stable. Guess I will have to carry on status quo until or if the freelance income becomes more stable.

Let's wait and see.

How good is your English ? Part I

There are many pairs of words in English that sound alike but have different meanings.

Can you tell the difference between :

1. Affect and Effect
2. Access and Excess
3. Accept and Except
4. Beside and Besides
5. Compliment and Complement

Hit comment and try to answer it WITHOUT referring to the dictionary.

More tomorrow ....

It's like changing your under wear ...

Last month 2 of my colleagues bought the new Nokia 3230. One of them had a Sony Ericsson K700i before and only had it for less that one year. The Nokia 3230 was going for about RM1,200.

For me, I still have my Sony Ericsson T610, which I won from the company entry in an industry award sponsored by Ericsson back in 2003 and it’s just over 2 years old. Before that I had a Nokia. 8210.

Someone I know bought a Vertu 4 months ago and it boasts a sapphire scratch proof screen cover with titanium buttons and all, the price? RM25,000. And the data cable connector to the PC costs more than RM500. Talk about being excessive, I can get a 60 inch Sony LCD TV with that kind of money!


Would you spend RM25,000 on this ?

Practically all of the people whom I know do NOT own a mobile phone for more than 18 months. But no one I know has upgraded their TV set for the past umpteenth years, a spanking new 29 inch Sony TV costs less than some of the higher end phones!

Here’s some of their excuses :

1. Left the phone in the back of a taxi

2. Mobile operator is sponsoring the new phone

3. The phone fell into the toilet - believe it or not, I’ve encountered no less than 3 cases! And you definitely don’t want to put that THANG on your face even if you manage to fish it out of the toilet. This happens a lot when you put your phone in your hip pocket and when you drop your pants to do your business .... or worse, it happens right after you finished your business! And what's more, it's not the usual semi solid stuff because you had nasi lemak with lots of sambal belacan the night before. You'll have to think really hard whether you should flush the toilet or not.

4. The phone went wonky after was accidentally dropped and don’t feel like repairing it.

5. The dog ate the phone – just kidding … but there is an urban legend going around those lines.

6. This one happened to a friend of mine in the UK – he was driving with the windows down and he left the phone of the dashboard in front of him, he then made a quick right turn and the phone flew out the window and was run over by a truck! Poor phone, but he managed to salvage the SIM card from the wreck.

7. The vibrator stopped working.

So what’s your reason for changing mobile phones ?

Mobile phones are not really phones these days. It’s with you for at least 8 hours a day. Some people sleep with their phone … I mean use it as an alarm clock. Heck, a mobile phone IS a statement of your lifestyle. It’s your fashion statement, you don’t so much carry your phone, your wear it. It a toy, you play with it. You want to be seen with the latest phone. And Nokia has made a big business out of that. In fact people have described that they "feel naked" without their mobile phone.

Do you know that there is an estimated 14 million mobile phone users in Malaysia? That’s double the Internet users. And Malaysians send/receive more than 2 billion SMS per year. There are 800 million mobile phones on this planet and if the “less that 2 year replacement” rate goes, that’s whopping 400 million replacement unit market a year! No wonder people like Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung are pushing new phones like there is no tomorrow!

The Haze, API and Air Purifiers

The air pollution index or API system that you have been hearing in the news normally includes the major air pollutants which could cause potential harm to human health should they reach unsafe levels. the API system closely follows the PSI system of the United States.

The air pollutants included in Malaysia's API are ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (N02), sulphur dioxide (S02) and suspended particulate matter less than 10 microns in size. FYI, one micron is one millionth of a meter or 0.000001 meter or 0.0001cm.

The index is categorised into various easily understandable range of values,

API DESCRIPTOR
0-50 good
51-100 moderate
101-200 unhealthy
201-300 very unhealthy
>300 hazardous

I stay in Shah Alam, one of the worst hit areas. My last check at the Department of Environment web site shows API reading at 430, up from 371 at 11am. Mrs. O called and said that it is the worst she’s ever seen. So I excused myself from work at about 4:00pm today and shopped around for an air purifier. There aren’t many choices – I ended up with Sharp Ion Plasmacluster FU-440E.

The Sharp Air Purifier is a portable floor standing unit, it measures 41.5cm wide x 58.5cm high and operates very quietly. It even has an air purity indicator – green, amber and red. The FU-440E is suitable for a room of up to 31 square metres.It has 3 layers of filtration, the dust filter, the activated charcoal filter (washable) and the HEPA filter. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air filter. It is an extended surface mechanical filter having a minimum particle removal efficiency of 99.97% for all particles of 0.3 micron diameter, it will filter out tobacco smoke, pollen and most types of bacteria. My brother is an industrial engineer and he said HEPA is the stuff they use for the “clean rooms” at the wafer fabrication plants – where they manufacture microchips like Intel and AMD. The fliter can last up to 5 years under “normal operating conditions”. It’s got a Quick Clean function as well. The replacement for the 2 filters will cost approximate RM200, the HEPA filter does cost quite a fair bit. Unfortunately it does not filter out carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide.

The price ? Cost me a whopping RM1,499 and it was 5:00pm already, I was coughing and started having burning sensation in my eyes. The guy at the shop said that these units are moving real quick, they sold 8 units in the past 2 days! I loooooked suspiciously at him and asked whether is he artificially inflating the price or not! And of course he said no. Heck we don't expect him to say otherwise, right? Time was not on my side, so I took a deep breath and swiped my Alliance Bank card for a 12 month easy payment scheme, which works out to be RM125 per month. This thing looks good too. It has a very nice and sleek design, it looks high tech.



I was home by about 5:30pm, I took it straight into the master bedroom and set it up immediately. When the purifier starts up, it takes the first 30 seconds to check the air purity levels. The indicator was on amber and after operating for about 30 minutes, it turned green. As I walked in and out the room after that, the air smells different, the burning smell is no longer in the room. I then logged on to the web and checked around for prices - the thing retails in the US from about USD300 to USD499. So RM1,499 is just about right, I'll let him live.

By the way, the purifier also removes odours throught its activated charcoal filter. You will need to wash the filter with water once in a while.

Disclaimer – I do not work at Sharp nor do I sell any of their stuff.

Hope you’ll find this useful.

Get ready for Triple Play

Triple what ?

Triple play is a term used by telecommunication people for a service that combines video, voice (VoIP) and high speed Internet in one pipe. So what's the big deal? We have all 3 already, right ? We have TMnet Streamyx or rather Screamyx for high speed access, Astro for video/TV services and Telekom Malaysia for voice. I pay RM88 a month for high speed Internet, RM100 for Astro and about RM50 to RM100 for phone calls. That makes 88+100+100 = RM288 a month.

How about having all 3 for RM150 or less? One flat rate, unlimited calls, downloads and 500 channels to choose from. One service provider, better still, one bill.

Telephone operators that used to offer ADSL to homes are now piping video over the same infrastructure. Reason ? They need another source of revenue because voice call revenues are falling under intense competition from people like REDtone or VoIP providers.

New technologies like ADSL2 and ADSL2+ can now go from 6 Mbps to 20Mbps, enough bandwidth for high quality video to be streamed to your home. MiTV is said be using IPTV technology for their service of 50 channels, though the launch date keeps changing. Timedotcom is doing their trials for netTV. If these people get their act right, you will be able to select which TV program you want to watch and when.
So no more fighting over which channels with you family members and you can watch it on your PC even! Pretty soon you can say goodbye to "service temporarily not availble" messages on your Astro screen when it rains. This thing is real and it is happening in the US and Western Europe.

Now there is a an even better trend - industry experts are thinking of combining 3G mobile networks with Triple Play and what do we get ?

Four Play.

Now that is REAL fun.

Oil Peg

When they announced that the peg is going to a managed float mode, I was very happy. My initia thought was that the appreciating Ringgit would take the pressure off the increasing oil prices. But much to my disappointment - oil prices went up again and this time it's 10 cents! This is the biggest increase so far.

I have a 2 litre car - which used to do RM0.11 per kilometre, up until last week, it was doing RM0.145 per kilometre. With this new increase, it'll probably do RM0.16 per kilometre. Making a road trip to my in laws place in Penang via the North South Expressway used to cost about RM200, now it's going to cost from RM220 to RM240. I hope they woouldn't increase the toll anytime soon, but electricity will be the next to go up. Cost of living is going up - but salary seldom go up as fast.

May be I should buy a scooter and ride on to work! Install solar panels for water heating and solar cells to power the air conditioner.

Better still - may be I should start up a business to market solar cells for houses and buildings. Care to join me ?