Swordie Bloggie

Once again Sabah Paintball League Cup (SPL) will hit another season for the 3rd time. The Sabah Paintball League Cup 2012 3rd season will kick-off this Saturday and it will be held for two days (28 & 29 January 2012) at Likas Sports Complex.

KK Paintball Centre (KKPC) has successfully held the league without fail every year since 2010. Each season will have 3 legs and from these 3 legs the overall champion will be decided. Last year Team Hoodlums brought home the SPL 2011 Cup.

Other than SPL, KKPC also has two other events to be held this year. The Nexus War Game 2012 (NWG 2012) and the Sabah Tactical Cup 2012 (STC 2012). The NWG has been held since 2010 while the STC is the new even and to be held for the first time this year.

We hope the weather will be favourable this Saturday and Sunday so that the 18 teams competing in the SPL2012 will have a great game. There will be two teams from Brunei while Sarawak, Melaka and Labuan will have one team each. For the first time, there will be an all ladies team… the Barbarinas. And the youngest player for this season is a 13 years old lad.

The youngest player for this season.

To promote the Sabah Tactical Cup 2012, a demo game by Team Revolucion will be held during SPL 2012.

The tactical game field for scenario or jungle settings.

And to those who hate the sun or do not have time during the day to play paintball, KKPC also conduct Night Paintball.

SPL 2012 field was setup on 24th January… here are some photos during the setup… it’s gonna be very exciting… don’t forget to drop by at Stadium Likas this Saturday and Sunday to watch this exciting and adrenaline pumping game…

OK, we are in 2012… 2011 is over and turned into history… last year, the global economy was very challenging… causing a few countries to the brink of collapsing… some manage to recover, not much but enough to avoid riot. Some change government after fierce rioting.

Some financial analyst forecast 2012 will be more challenging… some said the economy will be so so… not much recovery but ok ok. Fortune teller and astrologer said 2012 will brings lots of hopes and happiness to all the zodiac.

Well, although some believes 2012 is the final year for mankind… life must go on… for hope and to go on with life, I will believe the astrologer… if last year economy was bad… food prices shoot up like rocket, lets hope foods will be more affordable this year. If last year it’s hard to own a roof… lets hope this year the price of houses goes down while the economy recover so that those houses for rent will have a new owner this year.

So what is my plan for this year?… I hope I can stop buying gadgets so that I can save more money this year. But the gadgets around like the AR Drone really tempting… and the coming Canon G13 or G14 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 gonna spoil my plan… Oh man… I hope not… I better renovate my house instead… I have not taken care of it for so long…

It’s amazing when you lose something and stop looking for it… gave up hoping of finding it again… never ever… but suddenly it appears after years later… like sixteen years later… and it is more amazing coz the way you found it back… 

Well, this is what happened to Lena Paahlsson of Sweden… she lost her white gold wedding ring 16 years ago in December 1995 and it reappears again in October 2011… If getting back what you lost 16 years ago is almost impossible, what make it more amazing is that the way she found it… she found it on a carrot she grows in her garden…

Sixteen years ago, she took off her ring and put it on the kitchen counter to do some baking with her daughter for Christmas. When she realize it gone missing, the family tried to search for it everywhere in the kitchen… they even open-up their farm house floorboards but still can’t find it… she gave up…

That was until recently in October this year when she was picking the last carrots in her garden… suddenly she saw a glimmering metal ring around the carrot… and realize the ring is her wedding ring she lost 16 years ago… it’s hard to believe but the family believes the ring must have fallen among the potato peels which was fed to the sheep or turned into compose. So, if it was eaten by the sheep, the sheep must have pooped it in the garden… or if it was mixed into compose, then it must have been thrown into to the garden as fertilizer… that are two explanations the family can give. But if they have Metal Detectors at that time, they could have found it earlier…

Anyway, the ring no longer fits Mrs Paahlsson anymore… she plans to enlarge it so that she can wear it again… another amazing lost and found story…

On Thursday, 29th December, our office held a dinner for our senior officer retirees who retired this year… there are six of them. Actually there are more retirees but these six are only representing the senior officers. So out of these six, guess how many attended?… Only two coz there rest are not available for the night… probably they are having functions coz of year end… or probably they are out of the country having vacation… but definitely not stuck in housing for seniors coz these retirees are ex-senior officers so surely they have their own house and probably doing a good business after their retirement.

Anyways, the dinner was held at the Cruise Lounge… and a few people do not know this place… one even came by taxi from his hotel… so when I receive the invitation, I have to ask where is this place just to make sure… well I’ve been here before a couple of times sometimes ago… but I don’t remember the name. It’s at Tanjung Aru next to the Sunny Supermarket… it is visible from the main road but you have to drive further in coz the front of it are their sporting fields and their building are way behind.

When I arrived around 6.40pm… the invitation was 6.10pm… I saw three of my colleagues chit chatting at the parking… and it turn out only four have arrived so far, and me the fifth. I thought the place they going to held it is the same place I had my breakfast before… but when I asked my colleagues if we going to have the dinner at The Cruise Cafelounge by pointing at it, they said no, it’s at the back… huh?…I did not know there is another place… the place is called The Cruise Lounge… the place is quite small, but OK… no wonder they only invited officers. And I did not stay long coz I feel old if I stay too long with the retirees…

The fastest train I ever ride is the KLIA Express or Express Rail Link (ERL) from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to KL Central Station. It travels up to 160 km/h, but since the 28 minutes journey is quite smooth, you won’t feel the speed, except when it go through under bridge which is something like tunnel… that’s the time you will feel the ‘vacuum’ and when it pass with another train from opposite direction, it will shake for a while… air turbulence.

And the fastest machine I ever ride is the Boeing777… which can travel up to 900 km/h. But when you are inside the plane, you won’t feel anything except when the plane drop altitude suddenly or when it tried to avoid air pocket or air turbulence or probably thick clouds.

Back to train, in October there was big news in Sabah where a train hit an oil tanker… it caused a massive traffic jam in front of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA). The train could be travelling around 60 or 70 km/h and luckily there was no casualties… only some injuries like broken legs… some passengers jump out from the train.

And in China, on 23rd December 2011, a new bullet train was showcased to the world… the super-rapid test train is capable of travelling at 500 km/h… yes that is five zero zero km per hour… it’s fast… China made their big ambition to build the largest super train network a decade ago into reality. But with this super speed machine where there will be hundreds of it in the near future, it’s hard to imagine how China will do their simulation or collision estimation and avoidance so that train collision like the recent collision in July can be avoided. In the July collision, two of its high-speed train collided…

Recently Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (JPN) or National Registration Department (NRD) launched a new generation of the national identification card better known as MyKad. The first generation of MyKad was introduced in September 2001.

According to JPN, the new generation MyKad will be tougher coz it is made of stronger polycarbonate… let’s hope it is tough coz the current MyKad really bad… not tough enough… there are many complains about it… in fact other types of cards such as credit cards, ATM cards, reward cards and membership cards are much more tougher. These cards don’t get faded, torn or break like the MyKad.

The it was first introduce in 2001, MyKad is not just identification card but supposedly able to take over the functions of driving license or ATM Card, but becoz of its problematic nature, no one are interested integrating their driving license or ATM card with MyKad… coz the chip on the card is unreadable sometimes and it gets rusted too.

JPN said, the new generation of MyKad’s chip will be tougher and more reliable and it has 80kb compared to the old 64kb storage. The card has been tested by SIRIM and some international standard agencies. The new MyKad also has laser engraved photo of the owner and some security and invisible features…

The public can start replacing their old MyKad starting middle of January 2012 depending on their location… as for me, KK’s JPN will only start replacing the old MyKad in the middle of February 2012… let’s hope the new MyKad will be able to solve the illegal immigrants problem over here… else it’s just a waste of money…

Last week, 22nd December 2011, the central bank of Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), introduced the fourth complete series of Malaysian currency. The first series of Malaysian dollar (ringgit) was issued in 12th June 1967 and some other series or partial series was introduced in 1982, 1989, 1996 and 2008. The currency symbol RM for Ringgit Malaysia was introduced in 1993. Before that, it uses the symbol $ and M$ interchangeably.

The new banknotes are RM1, RM5, RM10, RM20, RM50 and RM100. All the banknotes are made of polymer. Theoretically the RM20 is a new note… coz it was taken out from circulation about 16 years ago in 1995.

Currently the commemorative series are on sale now for RM300. I wanted to buy it during this week before the year end, but unfortunately I keep forgetting to go to BNM to buy it. I hope BNM will still have stock next week… next year. BNM will only put these new banknotes in circulation on second half of 2012.

For those who like to collect or buy silver coins, BNM has introduced the third series of Malaysian coins earlier on 26 July 2011. These coins will be circulated starting early 2012. I also hope that BNM still have commemorative series of this coins for sale… else I just have to keep the first new coins I get… that’s what I did before to collect notes and coins… lame…

Star Rating here… Star Rating there… haiyooo… every where also Star Rating… And NO, it has nothing to do with Hotels’ Star Rating… it’s all about work performance… Mechanisms to measure and rate the performance of the agencies in the Public Sector… with star rating…

First it was just the usual general star rating to measure and rate the overall performance of our department, somewhere in Jun or earlier… and our section was tasked to handle the ICT management area… I can’t really remember when exactly they asked us to start doing it coz previously we have our boss to take care of that…. Then we became headless in October, so I have to take over… and I’m so lost about it…

Then at the end of October, another kind of star rating came… this time, it just star rating for Finance and Account Management by the Akauntan Negara… gosh, this star rating is making all of us going nuts. The worse part, we have to redo our inventory… the documents we used for our inventory are no longer valid.. coz it was replaced since October 2010!… What the heck… I never saw any circular about this… No choice but we have to redo everything registered since October 2010…

But lucky we have two in one system for the staffs to apply stuffs and to register anything we received… and we called it eShop… yes, the word came from ‘shop’ and it’s like a Retail POS System that you can find in supermarket… although we don’t have shop, we need similar ‘shop’ system… coz we need to keep stocks… to keep track what stuffs people request and took from us. We have been updating all our inventory for more than a month… I really hope we can finish everything by this week… so that we will start everything new and fresh next week… next year… Without the system, we may not able to complete it in short time… cross my fingers…

The most talked about… discussed… argued… amongst  the government/civil servants or staffs since early this month is the Public Service New Remuneration Scheme… the Saraan Baru Perkhidmatan Awam or SBPA in short. The government of Malaysia is introducing a new scheme for the government staffs to replace the old scheme, Sistem Saraan Malaysia or SSM which was introduced in 2002.

What are the ingredients in the new scheme that made a lot of people don’t like or worried about or not satisfied with?… From my observation and after reading the documents provide by the Public Service Department (PSD) or Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA), I feels that there are two major issues here…. one is the exit policy… and second is the salary table. There are other issues but I feels they are not that critical for accepting the new scheme… In fact there is only one critical issue which is the exit policy but I put the salary table as critical too which I will explain later.

OK, lets start with the first issue… the exit policy. According to the new scheme, those who scored below 75% in their yearly assessment will not get their yearly salary increment. In the previous scheme, only those scored below 50% are not given salary increment.. meaning the new scheme is much tougher. And those scored below 70% will be given six months to buck-up. If they fail during assessment at the end of their six months assessment, their service will be terminated. In the previous scheme, termination of service is not that obvious, meaning even if you score 50%, you will not get boot out… you just won’t get your salary increment. This mean the new scheme is super tough… those who is currently underperforming or not in good term with their boss are in great danger… if they signup for the new scheme this year, they might be receiving their gifts for retirement in 2013…

As for the second issue… it’s not really an issue but it just that everyone are eager to know how much salary increment will they get in the new salary table coz the Lampiran C which supposed to contain the new salary table is not made public yet… the Lampiran C is still treated as Classified or Sulit… only the head of department and some key personnel are able to view the table… as for me, I got my source and have seen what I will be getting… if what I saw was true, then I will be getting more than RM500 next year including my salary increment which falls in January…

Oh… there is another issue which is quite important… we are only given 15 days to make up our mind before the expire date on 31st December 2011… failing to return the answer form will be considered not interested with the new scheme. But luckily the dateline has been extended to 15th January 2012… but anyways, I will opt for the new scheme… hope I wont score below 75% in the future…

It’s Christmas eve and I’m sitting in front of the TV and notebook writing this piece… sneezing every minute till my throat hurts… yea, I’m having flu at the moment and it’s quite bad… not as bad as I’m totally knock out, but it just that tears keep on dropping from my eyes… then my nose will start feeling itchy which made me sneeze hard… very hard till my throat hurts…

It started yesterday at office…  and I tried to fight it with paracetamol which did help a bit. I took 2 at office then 2 during the night…  I think that’s the most paracetamol I took in a day… usually I don’t take any paracetamol at all but use Ribena the concentrated fruity drink full with Vitamin C or just my Vitamin C pills… The reason I’m having this flu is I ran out of Vitamin C for the past 2 weeks… meaning I have not taken any of my usual daily 1000mg Vitamin C… I guess I’m too dependent with Vitamin C…

So this morning when I woke up, it was not that bad… but after sometimes it was getting bad again… so I decided to visit the clinic at Hill Top around 11 am… and I was given a bottle of cough syrup and three types of pills… took a short nap just now… feeling a bit better with less runny nose now… Looks like I will be drowsy and shaggy most of the time during Christmas this time… but better than drunk… but I don’t drink anyway…. hahaha…

And today, there are many helicopters flying around… and one even landed near my house which looks new and guess they are just testing it… coz when it was approaching the ground, both ‘pilots’ open their door and look at the ground… probably checking whether the tires are touching the ground… and yes I said tires coz this heli is using tires instead of the usual two bars on both sides.

The Sabah Air 9M-YHM… Agusta A109S Grand

And the rest flying around are police helis… probably checking Christmas traffic jam or checking for potential flood area… yea the weather is gloomy and it looks llike going to rain… probably big rain tonite or tomorrow…

Police helicopter 9M-PHK… Aerospatiale 355N Ecureuil 2

Anyways, I found something COOL just now, I guess I’ve seen this before but was not paying too much attention… well it’s something military… something tough… something spy… something electronic… something small… something UFO… no, it’s not the miniature super tough military industrial pc… but it’s a drone… not a military drone but more as big boys toys… this drone has 4 rotors and remote controlled with Android… yea with Android phone or tablet… I want to get this next year since I can’t get this for Christmas…and want to use it to take aerial video… and ‘spy’… hahahaha…

Merry Christmas… and have a great weekend…