Wednesday, April 29, 2009

GPRS internet...

... it's very useful!

Last week, when i lost my wallet, I wanted to find Citibank's phone number, used GPRS on my phone. Then when I went to JPN Sri Rampai, I was trying to locate the exact location, used GPRS to surf their website from inside my car.

Later while waiting at JPN, used GPRS to surf my automotive forums to kill time. Then few days ago, was lost looking for a new futsal center, stopped at a petrol station to search for the exact address.

It's such a convenience. In fact, was even contemplating to activate 3G so I can surf faster on my phone.

But yesterday, the bill came. My call charge was less than RM30, but, GPRS usage alone costed me an eye popping RM50.30! In total, I spent less than a full hour surfing the net on it. It's so freaking expensive. Most websites are not mobile friendly. They contain background image and lots of other images that just kill your GPRS bill.

So no more mobile internet for me. Only if really, really, really need to.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Why i quit badminton

it's sooo expensive!

Nowadays a tube of good quality shuttlecocks (I always use RSL silverfeather) is RM44, for a dozen shuttlecocks. So that works out to almost RM4 each. For singles game, it may last 2-3 sets. If doubles, it can barely last a single set. Depending on players skill as well. I noticed less skilled players tend to destroy shuttlecocks much quicker.

And normally, I would play at least 4-5 sets every time. So that's easily 3-4 shuttles into the rubbish bin. Made worse, when there are 5-6 of you, but none of them actually have shuttlecocks in their bags! Even worst when I just brought out a new, crisp shuttlecock, played for just one short set then have to give way for friends to play. When it's my turn to play again, I end up with a well-used, badly damaged & wobbly shuttlecock and nobody even bother to replace it. And of course, I will then have to supply another new, crisp shuttlecock. Everybody else just look

*sigh*

seems i better go back to my running & cycling

JPN vs JPJ vs Maybank

Mcm yg korang tau, aku hilang wallet last week. So biasalah, proses mengadap naik turun jabatan kerajaan untuk dapatkan replacement kad semua. Boring, tapi terpaksa buat jugak.

JPN
Pagi² dah terpacak kat JPN cawangan Sri Rampai. Takde orang langsung tunggu kat dalam. Bila masuk, tgk atas kaunter dah letak signboard, "Sistem tergendala". Ceh, patut la takde orang. Diorang kata tak tau bila boleh OK & advise pegi cawangan lain. So terpaksa gerak pegi Maju Junction.

Kat Maju Junction, pun tak berapa ramai orang. Tunggu around 15 minit, nombor giliran dah naik. "Wah, cepatnya!" Kat kaunter, tunjuk report polis, check cap jari & bayar denda RM110 (huhuhu...) dah settle. Tak sampai 5 minit kat kanter. "Hebat!" Dia mintak pegi kaunter ambik gambar. Sangat efisyen. Dengan pantas aku masukkan kertas nombor giliran dalam kotak tulis 'Excellent'. Kotak tu utk rate servis diorang. Tgk ramai yang masukkan dalam kotak Excellent pun.

10 minit lepas tu, ambik gambar & settle dapat KPT sementara. Impressive, tak sampai 40 minit in total. Kalau dulu pegi JPN busuk² pun 1/2 hari melepak baru settle.

JPJ
Lepas JPN, terus shoot pegi JPJ Wangsa Maju pulak. Ramai orang, mcm biasa. Tapi yg bertambah serabut, orang² yg berkeliaran kat luar. Agent kedai kereta, runner lah, etc.. Kat parking, siap ada orang jual polish kereta. Kat depan pintu kaunter ada org bukak meja register credit card. Apa ni? Macam pasar borong!

Kaunter pertanyaan pun, muka kerek je. Campak² je borang. Tak explain apa². Pegi ambik nombor baru cakap kene isi 2 copy. Dah isi 2 copy, tanya photostat IC & gambar pulak. Nasib baik diorang dah ada 'deal' dgn kedai mana ntah, bukak booth photostat & gambar passport instant dalam ruang menunggu tu. Tapi sungguh tak proper, letak photocopy machine & mini studio kat ruang menunggu tu.

Tunggu tak sampai 2 minit, nombor giliran dah naik. Wah! Hebat! Replace road tax motor takde problem, tapi nak replace lesen pulak ada problem. Katanya takde rekod. So balik rumah ambik lesen 'L' & 'P' yg lama. Dia check, still takde rekod. Mcm tak pernah ada lesen! Hampeh. Dia kata, maybe tak tukar ke lesen penuh lepas habis lesen P. Then balik rumah lagi, nasib baik dapat jumpa slip renew lesen tahun 2001 punya. Bawak pegi JPJ balik, so diorang kata, since ada proof, diorang akan key-in balik rekod. Tapi kene tunggu jugak 2 minggu. Katanya maybe orang Pejabat Pos dah delete rekod. Apa² je lah....

Ngeri sungguh. Nasib baik ada lagi simpan lesen lama² yg dah berbelas tahun tu. Kalau tidak, kene masuk driving school balik wei! Tak dapat aku bayangkan aku kene balajar driving balik. So korang better berhati-hati. Simpan la lesen yg lelama tu.

Tapi officer kaunter tu, very helpful. 3 kali pegi, yg first je kene ambik nombor. 2nd & 3rd time terus je pegi kaunter. Ada inisiatif nak tolong.

Maybank Jalan Gombak
Lepas JPJ, pegi Maybank pulak. Ambik nombor giliran, selang 2 orang je daripada giliran, tapi tunggu punya la laaaaaammmmmaaaaa. Sejam jugak menunggu. Swasta skrg lagi lambat daripada govt? Apa laaa....

Dah naik boring tunggu, baru la sampai turn. Dah la mamat jaga kaunter tu panggil aku adik. Sampai la dia tgk nombor IC aku & sedar, aku ni tak la muda mana hahahaha ATM card dpt kat situ jugak. Tu pun nasib baik dia nak accept KPT sementara. Fuh, lega.

So in the end, Govt 2 - Swasta (Maybank) 0

hehehehe thumbs up to the efficient govt service nowadays

Update 5:19PM: aku baru je realize, from M2U savings account dah tak nampak, ada credit card account je. Call Helpline, dia kata kene re-register new M2U & pegi branch link kan balik credit card dgn M2U yg baru. Then kene buat balik favourite payee, 3rd part transfer, etc.. Hampeh sungguh. Hari tu masa buat kad ATM baru tak nak inform awal². Adoi la... Semua computerized, boleh je transfer semua sekali.

Govt 2 - Swasta (Maybank) -3075

p/s: geram ni

Friday, April 24, 2009

Penang

Last weekend, went to Penang with my family. Arranged by my uncle. Reached Penang on Saturday afternoon. Our first visit was to Toy Museum.

Toy Museum
Touted as the biggest toy museum in the world. I expected much from it. Entrance fee was RM10/adult and RM6/child, if I remember correctly. It was housed at an ex-club actually.

Inside, it was not like how I expected. It was quite dark and gloomy, and at some spots, dusty. At some places, the wooden floor was dilapidated and broken. The display shelf is very basic & most of the exhibits (if I call them as such) are haphazardly arranged. The exhibits mostly are figurines, figurines and more figurines. It failed to even amuse my 6 years old cousin. It's like looking at a teenager's personal figurine collection and nothing much. This place and items has potential, but just need more investment to further improve it.


Penang Hill
Went to Penang Hill on Sunday. To our surprise, so many people were there! First had to wait to get a parking spot, then had to wait more than an hour since ticket for the next train was full!

I imagined a breezy journey up, sitting down, relaxing and enjoying the scenery. Not gonna happen mate. When the train came, it was so jam-packed full. I would say, even worse than the Bas Mini Wilayah days. No air conditioning made things even worse. Tropical climate, no A/C, packed enclosed space with a lot of people, some of them foreign tourists, I leave that to your imagination...

The climb gradient was very steep. I almost thought it won't be able to make it up the hill. Really, really steep. Like vertical steep. It may not be that apparent in pics, but here's my attempt to capture it.

When we reached the top, it was like, uuummm errrr nothing. Really. OK nice view of Penang Island, but nothing else. The climate was not even comfortably cool since the hill is not really that high anyway. The only interesting thing to note is this binocular.

I believe this is at least 20 years old. I remember the last time I was here, I was still in primary school. Looking through the binoculars. And now it's still there! Great! And the magnification was also extremely good. I can clearly see the Penang Bridge. Can even count the cars on the bridge! Here's a view from on top.

After about an hour or so we left. In the end, I guess people came only for the train ride. In case you're wondering what so special about it, it is a funicular train. No, it's not funny! Here's an article on wikipedia: Funicular Railway

But yesterday in thestar.com, I just realized that Penang government is planning to replace it with a modern system. To me, without the train, Penang Hill is nothing...

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Astro = basic need?

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/4/23/nation/3754732&sec=nation

Taken from thestar.com.my

I have to agree with the authority this time. For me, Astro is NOT a necessity. I live in KL for the past 19 years, but we only had Astro since last year. Not that we can't aford it, just that we don't feel any need for it. And alhamdulillah, even without that, our family survived. Both my sis and I managed to graduate, all without Astro.

Stopp all the BS about Astro being the source of information, bla bla. From my observation, 90% of Malaysians are only interested with the entertainments. AF lah, Raja Lawak lah, and what other crap is shown on Astro Ria. Never, not once that I sat with my friends and they discussed about the documentary shown on Discovery Channel last night, but countless times, they talked on and on about AF and similar shows. And never once that I have seen a schooling teenager asked to change the channel from the entertainment channels to the 55_ channels...

So if you ask me, Astro is definitely a luxury, not a necessity, and if these people can afford Astro, then they don't deserve financial aids from the government. There are others who are more deserving. Those who really need the basics, food, clean clothing, a place to live. And the fact that only 20 people showed up for the protests, proves that this is the minority, just ignore them.

I say, good move by the ministry.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Lost my wallet :(

Suddenly I have so many things to post about. But the latest one is, I lost my wallet last night. It was at Tapah R&R. Must be somewhere there since I last took out money from the wallet there.

But a few minutes later in the car realized its lost and returned. Asked around, especially the cleaning workers there and they didn't find anything. But they did help to view the CCTV of the area, unfortunately, didn't see anything.

I think it's not my rezeki lah. But now have to think of all the hassles. Getting replacement MyKad, driving license, motorcycle road tax, ATM cards & credit cards. *sigh* what to do

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

HCOC Sepang Track Day

Re-drafted to shorten the post :)

HCOC = Honda Cars Owner Club

But that didn't deter me to join their closed track day today. Went together with Fahrein (Civic FD2Rs), Harun (Civic FD2Rs) & Edrin (EG6). The session was nice. A total of 40 cars only, which is very few. Divided into two groups, newbies and non-newbies. Obviously, I did not qualify as a newbie anymore :(

During the 20 minutes warm-up session, after a sighting lap, started to attack already, to test out the new Endless CCR brake pads and Hankook RS2 tyres. Purposely braked at 150m mark to the high-speeed first turn, however, I over braked and had to lift. WOW! Superb brakes!

But round T1, the car was understeering like a sand barge! Felt like the track was wet, which it was not. Really, really bad. But continued to complete the lap. On the 2nd hot lap, same story, bad understeering. While trying to catch up to an FD2R ahead, going down T12, the car was understeering towards the outside kerb. Twitched the steering a bit more, to try to make it round the corner, but the rear just snapped! I went into a big spin! Damn.

Immediately pitted afterwards. Found out, parts of the front tyres were badly delaminated (see pic below), because I spun over the kerb. So sad and dissapointed since those are new :( Parked the car and rode shotgun with Fahrein in the 'race simulation' session.


Back in the pits, friends advised me to check my tyres pressures. They were 270/240kPa front/rear hot. Kinda high. So lower them to 250/220kPa hot. Then out I went, this time with DCCD at 'full open' setting. Less understeer, but it was swerving badly around long sweeping corners. I thought I had a puncture! So back into the pits. Up to this point, I just did less than 5 hot laps. Definitely too few laps. But despite all that, recorded a new best lap of 2:47.

Again, reduced tyre pressure to 240/210kPa hot. But had to wait till the last 'race simulation session' to try it out. I was the 4th car, with an EG6 and three FD2Rs ahead. After a single sighting lap, all hell broke loose! Passed the EG6 right after the starting line and by the first corner, I was side-by-side with the 3rd placed FD2R. But he had the line, I had to yield and stayed behind. At the start of the back straight, quickly passed the FD2R ahead of me and then caught the next one, at T15's braking zone. The CCR pads gave me a lot of confidence and allowed me to outbrake the 300kg lighter FD2R! Amazing.

The next FD2R was a bit harder. We were side-by-side into T1, but he had the grip (and bigger balls), went round the outside and get the better line into T2. Again at T4, I was on the inside. He tried the same tactic, but unfortunately T4 is an uphill corner where turbo torque is very handy. I managed to pass him and was ahead of everybody!

The FD2R tried to keep up but made a mistake into the T7/T8 complex and dropped back, passing the baton to a pair of EG6s, which one of them is a fully prepped track car. Managed to hold them back for about a lap. But at the very difficult T9, under pressure, I braked too late and totally missed the apex, releasing the two EG6s.

For the next 2 laps, I was on my own. The others have fallen back quite far behind. But I noticed my water temperature was approaching two third mark, so eased up a bit. Later the brown EG6 missed his braking to T14, so I managed to pass him again. Almost passed the red EG6 track car too, but by then the race has ended. It was quite exhilarating to see the chequered flag being waved from the tower. Felt like a real race!

Even though it was just a simulation, that made the session well worth it. I had great respect for FD2R and their legendary track performance, but I've proven that my car is not a slouch either ;)

Observations:

- Endless CCR: expensive, but worth it. Consistently touched 199km/h before braking at 150m into the frist and last corners. In fact, it was strong enough to unsettle the back of the car going to T4. My pivot speed meter showed 1.2+G of max braking force! Superb

- Hankook RS2: not as grippy as I expected, but maybe I expected too much. These are not slicks anyway ;)

Car settings:
- 270/240 kPa hot + DCCD auto = huge understeer and snap oversteer. Judders under braking. Useless.
- 250/220 kPa hot + DCCD full open = less understeer, very unstable through long corners, tyres felt greasy
- 240/210 kPa hot + DCCD 15% locking (one click above ful open) = good setup. Still understeers around slow & tight corners, but throttle can be used to reduce it