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...

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.

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

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

Did you notice?

your monthly income tax deduction for PCB is higher this year? That is if your income is below RM10k, which I believe most of us are. So my post below will apply for this income bracket.

Starting this year, LHDN are using new PCB deduction calculation and from their new formula, our monthly PCb deduction is higher now than before. For e.g. for someone with RM4k income, for last year, his PCB would be RM140. But for this year his PCB would be RM170 i.e. RM30 more.

LHDN's reason for the above change? They say to target for 'actual tax' or something like that, so at the end of the year, when we get our bonuses, they will deduct less PCB, and they won't need to repay us the excess tax. Yeah right, that is IF we get bonus this year, in current economic climate.

I know to their defence is, if they over taxed, they will return the excess to us (which to their credit, lately is done within a few months, a vast improvement since last time), but haven't they heard of the saying 'RM100 today is better than RM100 tomorrow'. That's inflation for you. For RM100 today, assuming 4% inflation rate, you really need RM104 to get the same value next year.

And also, their move contradicts EPF's move to allow lower EPF deductions so the public will have more disposable income. For e.g. for the same person above, 11% EPF is RM440, but with 8% EPF, it's RM320. So that's RM120 more disposable income for him, if we ask EPF. But bring LHDN into the picture and he need to pay RM30 more PCB so that'll leave him with just RM90 more disposable income.

I'm not saying LHDN's move is not right. By targeting for actual tax, it'll reduce their burden and also saves us from the wait of receiving the returns. But the timing is a bit questionable. I guess, it's just waiting for someone to discover this turn it into a big issue. And as usual nowadays, will probably be with some political influence as well...

No wonder

my room is so full of stuff. Take a look at this:


Take a look at the date/issue. Some dates back to year 1996! And now is 2009 already. Those are 13 year old magazines that I'm keeping. I discovered these while having a major 'spring cleaning' of my stuff recently.

But I know exactly why I held on to these. They had reviews on Kawasaki ZX7R, which was my dream superbike at the time. More or less, until today, I still have a soft spot for it. If only it's re-introduced with modern engine & suspension bits, in exactly the same styling, it'll top my wish list, no doubt.

Also found during the spring cleaning is inaugural issue of the 'Traffic' magazine. A short-lived car magazine focusing on styling. I was in the editorial team pic! I was their car audio contributor at the time. Reading back the articles, even I myelf was amazed that I wrote them hehehe memories

Cuaca skrg ni...

fuh setelah sekian lama tak post blog, hari ni baru la rasa ada masa & ada mood nak post. mana taknya, dah 2-3 minggu meting 9:30AM - 8:00PM. nak muntah dah asyik meeting je.

pagi tadi on the way pegi keje kene hujan. sampai ofis sampai menitik air daripada seluar. isk... dah dekat nak sampai baru hujan. baju hujan pun tak bawak sbb kat rumah aku OK jek.

this month dah 2 kali hujan pagi. dan 2 kali jugak lah aku lambat sampai. hari tu mmg aku keluar lewat sbb tak nak sangkut dlm jem. so sampai pukul 10. buat selamba jek... hari ni pun, sampai kul 9:10, tapi lepak gym kering kan baju & seluar sampai kul 9:20. nak buat mcm mana. bukan sayang nak bawak kereta, tapi kalau bawak kereta, lagi la tak sampai ofis...

malam semalam panas tak hengat, pagi hujan lebat plak... susah nak predict dah cuaca skrg ni...