Swordie Bloggie

A row of shops at Tamparuli town which was build during the colonial-era was burned down early yesterday, 9 December 2008. It was in the newspaper today and also in some blogs. The fire started from a jewelry shop around 5.30am.

Mrs. Lee, the third generation and who has a 20-year old son (forth generation) operator of the Lok Hing Coffeshop, said they lost everything in the blaze. Reading through other’s blog about their memories with the shops before it gone makes it more touching…

Officer-in-charge of the Tuaran Fire & Rescue Department, Mazlan Sarman, praised the six local volunteers who were part of the volunteer fire brigade who did whatever they could to control and put down the fire.

Police do not suspect any foul play but are investigating. The cause of the fire is not know yet but suspected by a bad electrical wiring or equipment.

Why electrical equipment? According to a report, most of the recent fires are caused by electrical equipment. And these cheap and low quality electrical equipments are believed imported from China.

Public are advised to use only certified (by SIRIM) electrical equipments although they are more expensive. If you notice lately, we are flooded with all kind of cheap stuffs from China. These cheap stuffs include electrical equipments, eyeglasses, toys, cloths and many more…

The economy is not good right now… cheap stuffs are the choice. But we have to be selective when we want to get something cheaper or at low quality…

The simplest rule is: if it using electric and/or generating heat, try not to buy and use the low quality although it is cheaper… do value your life.

On our way back from Kudat on last Friday, 28 November 2008, we stopped at a few stalls along the way. Traveling around Sabah by road is a great experience. We can see great scenery… almost still in its original natural habitat.

There are stalls selling handicrafts, fish, crabs, vegetables, herbs, birds, fruits and many more by the local peoples staying along the roads. It’s great to see these people doing their business happily. I don’t think they care how much they make in a day. Imagine, they are able to survive without money because they can eat what they planted, what they catch at the river, what they hunt or collect from the jungle… and share or barter trade with their neighbors. For us, I don’t think we can… we need money to pay our bills, loans, buy foods… everything need money… money… but money. Without money, we can’t eat.

One of the stall we stopped by is the one selling corn (jagung)… they are selling two types of corns… jagung pulut (pulut corn?) and jagung manis (sweet corn). They sell the corn fresh, still with its stalk. They also sell ‘pangang’ or barbecued corn. I bought two bundles with 5 corns on each bundle… one bundle ‘manis’ and one bundle ‘pulut’. I also bought some of the barbecued corns and we ate some at the stalls. Imagine if they have popcorn machines, they might even sell pop corn right at their stall… and we will be enjoying eating popcorn in the middle of nowhere minus the cinema 😆 The barbecued corns taste very nice… sweet and hot… coz they are fresh from the oven 😆

Nothing much to do today except went to hit some balls at Lintas driving range at 9.00 am. Wanted to finish the 200 balls, but it seems impossible. I only manage to hit about 120 balls and headed for some food at the nearby shop… breakfast with noodles and fish 😀

Then do some adjustment to my shutterbomb photo blog. Do you know that the Google custom search is so powerful?… But the only drawback is I can’t make the search box centered… anyone knows how to do it?… I tried to ‘center’ it with the ‘p’ and ‘div’ tag.

And I’ve been neglecting shutterbomb… maybe it is time for me to upload photos there… coz my 250gb mobile drive is half full with photos I taken.

Today, went to attend Digital Photography Talk at Pan Pacific Sutera in conjunction with the Federation Asian of Photography Association (FAPA) convention. It started around 10.30am. The FAPA convention is held at 1Borneo… about 15km from here.

Me and a friend was the first few registering at the Level 1 of Pan Pacific Sutera… we arrived just after 10am… we are the non member of the FAPA convention registering I guess… coz most of them are busy with photography session outside the hotel near the swimming pool.

Then when it started, it is in Chinese… OMG… how lah?… ayoyo… never mind lah… just listen lah…

Lucky, the speaker is talking about how to enhance photos with Photoshop… so can guest what he is doing… ‘agak agak saja lah’… but even his Windows is in Chinese character… odoiiii dogo…

The talk end at around 12pm. Since nothing to do, we decided to have lunch at 1Borneo, where the FAPA thingy and Photo Exhibition held.

After lunch, we walk to the South Atrium of 1Borneo where the photography exhibition is held. The photographs displayed are great… Then I noticed someone familiar… at the corner of the stage. They are doing some photography thingy. I went there and ask if he is Flanagen… aahh… correct lah. Then there is another familiar face… Edgar… I never met them before in real life… only in their blog… 😀 Another ‘famous’ photographer is with them… but forgot lah the name/blog… hope Flanagen and Edgar can enlighten me here… I can add him in my blogroll.

They are doing a ‘noble project’… 999 Portrait Project… to capture 999 portraits to put into Canon magazine… I think lah… you can read at Flanagen’s “We want you for 999 Portrait Project!!” and Edgar’s “999 Portrait in 1 Week Project and We Want YOU!”

But I did not know what they are really doing at that time… although they did ask me to participate… I think I was still ‘pening-pening’ after attending the talk in Chinese. Feel bad did not participate… I only know more about it after reading their blog after I went back… but hopefully I will go there again on Saturday or Sunday… to see the Canon booth… I want to see their gears… hopefully they will showcase their super duper gears… just like what they did in KL… but I doubt it… and hopefully they will be still there doing the noble project… OK, to those of you who want to participate in the 999 Portrait Project, go to 1Borneo… I think they are doing it for 1 week… not sure when it going to end… hope they can tell… 😀

OK, I was missing for a while… but yea, I’m still around 😀

Well, I was down with some weird flu last Friday… not the Black Friday or the recent Friday but the last Friday Friday…

After a meeting last Friday Friday, I started sneezing. As usual, I treat it as normal kind of sneezing flu… which normally I counter with vitamin C and consuming loads of Ribena.

Unfortunately, it was quite bad during the night. Not only my nose blocked, but my left ear was blocked too… and it made me so worry coz it never happen before. The next day, Saturday, I went to my usual clinic. The doctor gave me antibiotic, flu medicine and pain killer for my ear which cost me $45 all together. The flu medicine supposed to be the drowsy type… so I was thinking, I will get better fast with it. But it looks like it doesn’t give me any drowsy effect… and I was still down on Sunday… and coughing started attacking me!!! So I went to buy a cough syrup… not from the clinic but from the supermarket.

And on Monday I have to continue with my Journey Around Sabah… this time to Kudat Region. So, I was overdosing myself with Vitamin C but I was still very weak on Monday but continue with the journey anyway (will talk about it next time).

While I was down with the weird flu, my mind was racing coz I have to settle a few things… I really need to clear them since I will be away for a week. Some of the things I need to settle are my bills, loans and credit cards. I don’t want to be handicap while I’m outstation… I don’t want to encounter another incident of credit card cannot use coz it hit the limit or mobile broadband suspended coz bill not settled!!! With all my might, I manage to settle all these before my journey… and even manage to spare some time to read the “jd power credit cards” survey news 😀

And till now, I’m still coughing but OK… and it looks like there are so many people having flu and cough these two weeks… must be the rainy season.

No time?… This one is for sure going to boost the tourism industries for the whole of Malaysia… yeah right!!!

Shah Rukh Khan has no time for us lah… This Bollywood star got no time at all to attend the ‘state government’ official function to receive his Datukship on 29 November 2008… He is too busy with his schedule taking Fentraphen… The ‘state officials’ (the poor victims?… including the TYT?… and the people?) are now trying their best to arrange for an alternative date… for ‘him’ at the people’s expenses.

According to the news, the whole idea to confer this guy with ‘datukship’ came from two guys. The idea was mooted by former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin and with the Melaka’s Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam defending the idea. These two guys said ‘this will help boost tourism in Malaysia’… are you sure for ‘Malaysia’?… nope, I don’t think so… you watched and likes too much bollywood movies…

When the idea become news recently, it drew criticism from the public, including NGOs… some said ‘datukship’ is getting ‘low class’ nowadays… one reason not to respect or look up at ‘datuk’. And nobody listen to the people’s at that time… and now this what happened… so how lah? Maybe it’s true, more tourists will come…

Yoga is bad!!! Yoga is evil!!! Yoga is not good for you!!! You must not exercise with yoga!!! You must not do your slimming with yoga but you must use diet pills!!!.. HUH? That is so bloody funny… bloody funny isn’t it 😆 Nobody said that… it’s from me, I said it 😆

But yes, recently there was a big fuss about yoga!!! It blows everyone’s mind… It’s very hard to swallow… it took me sometime to swallow and understand why… and I think I found the answer… yes the only answer you ever need… and I found it myself while inside the ‘thinking room’… it’s probably because yoga is against the nature’s order… yes yoga is against the nature’s order… you don’t believe me?… you think I’m kidding?… heck no… it’s because yoga can make someone, a four or five footer twist, bend curl or whatever to their body and enter a 2 by 2 aquarium… that is so unreal :O

I was a Reader’s Digest subscriber for more than a year. My subscription expired in August or September this year, meaning I’m not supposed to receive any more of their book after August or September.

But funny, I keep on receiving their book although I did not reply that I want to continue with my subscription with them when I received their reminder in August or September. Then I received an invoice from them last month asking me to pay the yearly subscription. I said, hack with you… I did not ask you to continue my subscription and throw away the invoice.

Then this week, I received another of their book together with the invoice. Crap… I don’t want this book… although I did read it 😀

So today, angrily I called their billing section in Kuala Lumpur. First, their automated answering machine is wasting my money coz it was talking craps so long… Hello… cut the craps please. Then I got disconnected after like almost 3 minutes listening to their craps.

I called back, and this time I manage to get a real human on the other end. I told her that I received their invoice although I don’t remember that I’ve instruct them to continue with my subscription. She asks for my account number… the invoice account number. I gave it and she quoted my name and she said she will cancel the bill immediately. Just like that?… Cool… but I asked her what am I going to do with the books… should I return it to them? She said I can keep it… as complementary… Cool…

Yes, that’s cool… I got 3 free books for free. But that is not the right thing to do… you should not bill me in the first place since you did not receive any instruction from me… from me OK… errr… But they are being polite also for not stopping my subscription, who knows my instruction came late right?… emm… right… ok lah, they WIN… after all I got three free books… but it did make me angry when I received their invoice. Thank you lah Reader’s Digest for the free books… I should have waited until next year before informing you 😀

OK, economic is not good at the moment but that doesn’t mean you can’t maintain a good health. Sure some will start reducing food intake… good that they will become slimmer, just hope they don’t go to the level of starving themselves and left with skin and bones only.

Talking about reducing weight, there is one type of fatty acid supplement called Tonalin CLA. CLA stand for Conjugated Linoleic Acid. CLA can be found in beef or diary products and composed of 13 different isomers of linoleic acid. It can be found as health supplement for reducing weight. What so special about CLA? Well, CLA helps balance between body fat and lean muscle. Meaning if you diet by supplementing yourself with Tonalin CLA, your body will have less fat but with enough lean muscle. When you are slim, you are slim in good condition… still with enough lean muscle to be healthy and not skinny with bones only 😀 Lately, I always feel hungry… it must be the weather… no space for dieting then…

4 November 2008, Barak Obama captures historic White House win and said ‘Change has come to America’. As we all know Obama is from the minority group, black. His father, Barack Hussein OBAMA Sr. is black from Kenya and his mother, Stanley Ann DUNHAM is white from Kansas.

It shows that American thinking is not as everyone think. America is a place where all things are possible. Can we still question the power of democracy in America after this?… their democracy has spoken!!!… since its independence day…

Obama was born in Hawaii. He has blood relation to Kenya, Africa and of course America. He also indirectly related to Indonesia since his mother married to an Indonesian after divorcing his father. And there is also news where a Chinese family in Kudat Sabah also related to Obama. Obama will be taking office as the 44th President of the United States in January 20, 2009.

Today, majority doesn’t spell rule… but it has to be talent and quality… and democracy and freedom. So how is Malaysia going to look at this?… Time for CHANGE?.. I’m sure everyone has their own answer… for me, Time for CHANGE… for talent, quality, freedom and democracy 😀