Down south to Melbourne

In mid 2007, I crossed international border for the first time, heading east toward Egypt and later Saudi Arabia. But now, I can proudly say I've travelled further south than my own Malaysia Truly Asia :)

It was nice and shiny Saturday of 21 Feb 09 when we boarded AirAsia flight to Singapore. Transited there for a good 8 hours before heading further down by Emirates to Melbourne where we stay for the whole 7 days! It would be a sea of words trying to explain our trip there, so I guess the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" make a lot more sense here :)






For more pics, browse our Melbourne '09 trip web album :)

RM862 for a laptop screen

It was christmas eve, and I have a movie date with my wife. We saw Yes Man (Jim Carrey as the leading role) and you may read her post about it. But before can rest our butts on those cushy theatre seats, we had to run a few errands.

My mom-in-law's laptop just past its 1st birthday when its screen busted. The damage? uniquely, an internal plasma shatter - you can see some liquid-like lines on the screen, but it's not on the external. Anyway, it took her a year later to finally decide it's worth a repair :p and that was 5 weeks ago.

So now, we're picking it up at Highway Point (Acer-appointed service centre), at the Berjaya Times Square. A total RM862 for the entire Acer Aspire 5050 screen replacement: RM762 for the screen, RM100 for labour. It took couple of weeks for the laptop to get back to us. But I guess since it involve going to and fro between the actual service centre and the pickup centre, that is more than justified.

Okay, so that was only our first errand. For the next items on our list, we had to split: she stays in the building and look for our friend's wedding gift and I went across two blocks to Low Yat plaza for a couple more tech stuff. As I step outside, whoa, people really do celebrate christmas away from home. There were flashing red hats, foam sprays and money exchanging hands between avid celebrants and occasional hawkers. There are also food hawkers, but I've digressed enough.

Without much bargaining, I bought a two-satellite speaker (RM39) and an Acer power adapter for RM100. Wow, up to now you probably thinking, "Gees, Acer surely has one too many defects". But to their defence, the owner's children don't really know how to appreciate a budget laptop ;) It's cheap for a reason... don't hammer it like a Thinkpad.

Anyway, this reminded me of my own. I have a BenQ laptop and after 18 months of constant beating, my power adapter gave up; this was also about the same time the fan gave up. Mind you that in 2005 it seems hard to find spare parts for BenQ laptop so I had to go for a universal power adapter that can fit most models. That time, it cost me RM180: a fortune if you're a student :p

Backlight inverter was the culprit

My BenQ Joybook 5000 notebook have been acting out for about year now. In a few irregular occasion, the lcd screen just dimmed out (or off). You can somehow still make the image displayed but it was so dimmed like putting the brightness to the lowest level. And I was like, "Dammit, first the cooling fan gave up and now the screen!"

Fortunately, after educating myself (through Googling :p) of what causing it, I was bit relief. Apparently the backlight inverter (the thing that tell the lcd backlight to turn on or off) was feeling the heat from MAXed out brightness. Intermittently, it will shut down when it got too hot.

But the fortunate aren't so as it cost me RM280 for the repair! So last Monday (i.e. 10Nov) I dragged my 2.8kg notebook to Lowyat (to be more specific, Vital Computers on Level 2) and have my screen fixed instantly. Good that everything Lowyat's is prompt.

That reminded me of my sister's more unfortunate Compaq 1000 notebook disaster when the motherboard died (but of course due to spillage by her 2-year-old daughter). It cost her exactly RM850 to replace the entire motherboard but as Lowyat is, I walk away with the newly 'refurbished' Compaq in just an hour :)

Lesson Learnt:
1) Don't max out the brightness of your LCD
2) Don't let your children play with the notebook with drinks somewhere near!

Walimatul Urus Faiz & Nadirah

Time goes by, and you hardly notice. 4 years of my most beautiful life was luckily shared with my special someone. And tomorrow, I'll take the next step... getting hitched :) I'm here glad to invite those who know me or Nadirah to our wedding reception. Check out the jpegs...

Kajang. Saturday, 12 July 2008














































Alor Star. Saturday, 19 July 2008

PocoPoco Dance

It's January 26, and my day started early today. I'm up by 5.15 - that's even earlier than my work day, which i have to commute like an hour to KLCC. It's our PMU annual gathering (aka family day) today. So en route to Genting View Resort (the venue of course) at 7.40am, it was the usual hillside's foggy morning. So foggy, i barely have sight of what's up front 10 yards.

Sleepy, coz it's after all Saturday :p But I'm very much fortunate having my fiancé coming along or rather I'm coming with her... we both work in PMU.

Family day is just a family day, but to highlight the morning, we had a poco-poco dance to ramp up the crowd's energy. It sure is interesting seeing a bunch of people learning how to dance :p

Going back to places

Getting to know places is almost always fascinating. Let's reserve sometimes for those moments when we just like to be by ourselves, at our most familiar surrounding. But it is always more intriguing to be back at places we've been. There are memories of the holidays in the beach, in the far-fetch island with loved ones. Or maybe just revisiting your old college and university.

People say, experiencing a journey is half the fun - planning it holds the other half. And I most definitely in the latter part. It has been a while since I left my so-called second home. It has been where I practically lived and pursued my undergrad for five full years. It is where joy meets sorrow, where my heart set and grow. I've lost old flame, found new love and lived so high. And as time pass by, the day draws nigh.

I'll be looking forward to see what's what and what's been tronoh ipoh manjung bota lumut taiping :)

Life is twisted at the very best

Life sure is twisted. Make a plan for one thing, but don't be surprised if it turned out completely out of dimension.

It took me 5 years to finish off a degree in electronics; and I'll tell it wasn't a walk in a park. Or at least to me ;) So when I finally got the scroll, like anybody else, I was expecting a job within my major profile. Yikes! Was I wrongly predict life.

I start off as an application developer. For the uninitiated, all I was doing is pure Java programming, and if that sounded geeky, it is because it is. Truth be told, it's the best suited job I've ever had. Withal, I couldn't work there for long. I was a sponsored student and being so, leave you bonded to the company for years, unless you have cash to repay all the loan lump sum. :-O

Just a couple of months working as an A/D, my sponsor offered me a job. Again, hoping to land at least a managerial position in electrical department, I got not entirely the opposite, just a little off the dimension in reality. Business planning: my new job scope. But it's not the job definition that makes my life felt goes deja vu. It is the unofficial expectation they had upon me: an English expert.

I'm just a decent writer (not the best at it either), be it in English or Bahasa, but that does not make me an expert in said languages. :-?

P/s: I have to be discreet on naming companies, just in case ;)