Swordie Bloggie

In the local news today… Harder to Find British Pound… well, I guess no one wants to keep large sum or do not want to sell off their pound for the past few months coz its value strength against other currencies has depreciated very much… Previously, the pound is the most expensive currency… well, it’s still the most expensive but not that expensive any more… it’s affordable… a year ago, one pound is about RM7.20, but today it is only RM4.75… that’s RM2.45 or 34% value lost…

My guess why it is harder to find pound in the Money Exchanger or Pengurup Wang coz those having pounds are not selling them yet hoping it will go up again… and other are buying and keeping it while the pound is low and sell it off once it goes up later… after reading the news, I think I want to buy some pound while it is low right now… I played currency before but it’s to dynamic and I end up losing some… 😛 Keeping gold IRA is much safer for long term I guess… no I’m not talking about gold by IRA the Irish Republican Army… but Individual Retirement Account 😛

Gold is the most valued metal in the market… every countries keeps gold for their economic strength… so having an IRA gold is not bad… it’s a good way of saving… but unfortunately I don’t think that saving programme is available here… not even the 401k gold… 😛 And now I’m thinking… which one is better, buying currency or buying gold?… Just look at this statistic… Gold bullion coins in the early 70’s is $25,000… and today after 30 years, that same gold bullion will valued at $524,999.00 😛 You just have to keep it… you don’t have to worry about it’s daily, monthly or yearly price like the currency… they are less headache to keep compared to currency… but currency can make you rich or poor in short period… don’t have to wait for 30 years… 😛 OK, I will make up my decision later… probably not going to commit any of them at the end… 😆

Some people likes to put stuff on their body… jewelery or tattoo… man or woman… guy or gal… boy or girl. But I really don’t like to have extra stuff on my body other than cloths… and I do wear wrist watch before… but now I no longer wear wristwatch for almost 10 years I guess… that was since I started fully using the clock on the my mobile phone… 😛

My last watch was the Casio G-Shock MR-G Titanium model MRG-1… I think it was a limited edition… 😛 Now, looking at the newer G-Shock watches, I think I want to wear wristwatch again… 😛 I need to put some metal on my body… they said it’s good to have some kind of metal on your body… but the metal must be suitable for your body… so it’s kind of personalized jewelry… and the one suitable for me is the silver type… errr… steel… errr… white metal… errr… not sure what’s that really mean… probably not gold… well good, I don’t have to spent much on gold then… 😆

Then I read something recently… the kinekt gear ring… NO… not the Kinect 360 for the Microsoft Xbox 360… this kinekt gear ring do not require any external power… well, it’s a ring… just a ring with gears which can turn… and it’s cool… I’m sure it’s gonna be really cool if it used as wedding rings 😀 Here is the video of this cool jewelery…

Imagine standing on a piece of board for 45 minutes and traveling at about 7 miles per hour without any mechanical power or what so ever… not on the ground or air… but on the surface of water… that is truly amazing…

This is exactly the 13 power boarders experienced for riding surfboard on the Alaska’s Turnagain Arm Tidal Bore. Foot cramps for  doing lots of turns on the stand-up board is part of the thrills… five miles is a long distance you know… if your foot muscles are not fit enough for the balancing act on the board, you might not last the 45 minutes rides of your life… me? I don’t think I can… furthermore I don’t know how to swim… 😛 But no worries, there was no reported Offshore Accident so far… only happy stories 😀 And I’m sure the surfers has their life covered with insurance… you know… just in case… you never know… it’s a long journey… 😛

Anyways, this time the act by Eric Newberry, Dave Calkins and Mike McCune riding on the waves was recorded by photographer and multi-sport athlete Scott Dickerson… and he recorded the whole scene while gliding on air… yea, he was on paraglider… how cool was that?… one is on air and another on water… 😀 I hope and wish I can visit this place, Girdwood Alaska, one day… the place looks awesome… fantastic… 😀 And do enjoy the aerial video of the rides…

What is the good thing with new year?… there are many… getting new stuffs… or loosing something, which is very unfair sometimes. Well, towards the end of last year, the management suddenly decided to ‘encroach’ into our training cum meeting cum multipurpose cum store room… 😛

We have been using the room for IT training and when it is not used for training, we used it for meeting or discussion… we have lots of discussion each month. And earlier this year, we were promised that the room will be renovated so that we can have a proper store room. So, discussion on how the training cum multipurpose room and the store room gonna be was done a few rounds…. and the final design was agreed by all. But now, that is just a dream… we lost the training cum multipurpose room and only given the store room.. 😛 sad… now we have nowhere to go when we need to conduct meeting or discussion… 😛

The supposed to be training cum multipurpose room will be turned into office instead… 😛 Who ever going to sit there gonna be very lucky… new walls, new ceiling, new computers… everything are new… even the venetian blinds going to be new… probably they gonna get the blinds from www.blindschalet.com 😛 I hope they will allow us to change our blinds and paint our office too… as a compensation for taking away our precious multipurpose room… 😛

Late last year, on 20th to 22th December 2010, Tunku Abdul Rahman College or better known as TAR College, performed a three days raise money via haircut campaign. The haircut charity campaign drive is for Hospis Malaysia with the theme ‘A Cut Above Charity’.

Donors had their haircut for RM10 which are channeled to the charity fund… And how much did they collected after the three days A Cut Above Charity drive?… you will not believe the amount they collected by just doing haircut… they raised more than RM22,000 :O WOW… I never imagine anyone can make such a huge amount of money by just doing haircut… 😛 Maybe I should invest on haircut business this year… 😛

And on the last day of the campaign, seven volunteers went totally bald… all because of charity… but there is nothing to worry by going totally bald… the hairs sure grows back soon… if it doesn’t, there are many hair transplant experts around… 😛 And going bald nowadays is a fashion… so nothing to ashamed of… 😆 But I don’t think I will do it… cutting my hair very short is not a problem… but going bald is a bit difficult.. although my hair grows very fast one… 😛

The politic drama in the country seem to be turning into comedy drama. The current turmoil in the Selangor state government is the latest. The appointment of the State Secretary is making loads of confusion… it’s like a three corner election. The state government says one thing, the federal government say another thing and the palace says this thing… and it seems all of them are contradicting each other… 😛

This drama is not bringing any good to the country… especially to the foreign investors… and most probably the solution is only can be found in the court of law… since all three are disputing the constitution. If it really goes to the court, we gonna need good lawyers who really can interpret the constitution… probably we need to get Business Lawyer Au services from The Butler Firm 😛

The Butler Firm is a boutique litigation firm from Austin, Texas. They provides sophisticated and sound legal services to corporate clients in Business Litigation Austin. Maybe it’s good for our legal practitioners here to get the service or learn one or two from them since the people are getting ‘doubtful’ with the judiciary system lately. Of course we are not just referring to the constitution crisis but many of the ‘illegal’ corporate activities exposed by the infamous wikileak recently. The exposure by wikileak has open the pandora of the ‘dirty’ corporate activities in the country… I’m sure The Butler’s Complex Commercial Litigation Austin expertise will be useful on all of these… 😛

Malaysia won the Suzuki Cup on the 29th December 2010 although loosing the match that night against Indonesia with 1-2 score the reason being they won the first leg earlier on 26th December 2010 with 3-0 score. By winning the cup, 31st December 2010 was declared as public holiday… but not all are happy with the declaration… those who are not happy prefer the public holiday to be on 3rd January 2011. Why? Because those who are doing end of year works at full speed such as closing the monthly/yearly account was put on break… they need to close everything by 31st December… but now, they have to clear everything on 30th December… they can’t back date the system if they were to continue next year on 3rd January… and Suzuki Cup is a small cup… only eight countries participated 😛

Anyways, there is a more interesting story… not about soccer or football, but basketball… soon NBA might have a second superstar from Asia… currently there is Yao Ming wearing jersey number 11 for Houston Rockets from Shanghai, China. Now, there is a 7 footer (7-foot-2  or 2.18-meters to be exact) 15 years old teenager from New Delhi, India… Satnam Singh Bhamar 😛 India is banking on him to be the second wave from Asia after Yao Ming.  Bahmar who was among eight players – four boys and four girls, is on three-month stint at the IMG basketball academy in Florida.

Bahmar says the training methods in Florida is very different and noticed there is a huge gap in the standard of players in India and the US… “I think players here (India) need to forget their style of play,” he said… the personalized basketballs  training they received in Florida in short period made them on par or better than India’s national players… “I was unable to match top (Indian) seniors before I left for my training, but I can already feel the difference when I play with them now in practice sessions.”… emm… wonder if India gonna declare a public holiday if they win a basketball cup in the future… 😛

It seems that the department is hiring too much new staffs this time… every morning a bunch of new staffs are gathering outside the HR department since late last year… and sometimes they are quite noisy while waiting their turn to be called at the waiting area next to the lifts… which unfortunately my office, IT department, is sharing the same floor with the HR department.

These people are not coming for interview, but to report duty… I understand that there are more than 20 civil, electrical and mechanical engineering jobs to be filled this year. And not only engineering jobs are to be filled, but there are also about 30 jobs for assistant engineers and technicians. So far I’ve seen about 11 engineers name from the official list…

So what’s the problem with this sudden surge of staff other than the noise they are making?… well, now we have to cater for their IT needs… new PCs… new printers… new network connections… new email accounts… And it seems that we are depriving the existing staffs’ IT requests because of these extras… who are ‘hijacking’ all the IT stuffs… looks like this year is going to be a busy year…

I guess it’s still ok to say Happy New Year… 😀 This gonna be my first posting in my blog for this year, 2011… 😀

What did we do during the new year eve on 31st December 2010 and the first day of 2011?… Well, family, cousins and guest had little barbecue and fireworks… as usual, the main barbecue is the lamb 😀 there are also sausages, chicken wings,  satay and pork barbecued on that night… also some noodles, root beer, beer… and some acsonix to get rid of pimples for eating too much barbecue and staying late… 😛 just kidding… 😆

Anyways, just like the previous years, fireworks is the main and most fun activity on that night… usually it just like a fight… or should I say war?… whenever someone launched their fireworks, others will response with bigger or more fireworks… especially when it get closer to 12.00am… and of course when the clock hit the new year, not only the fireworks but firecrackers will echo the whole place… that night we launched about 30 fireworks and burned four blocks of 8 feet long firecrackers… 😀

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On 28th December 2010, our class of Form Five Science 1987 from St. Michael Secondary School, Penampang, had our first reunion… that’s after 23 years. There are 21 of us in the class… 13 girls and 8 boys… but 2 girls and 2 boys were not able to attend this first reunion… hopefully we will be in full assembly in our next reunion.

To make the event memorable and interesting, we planned to have slide show… our pictures during the school time. But unfortunately getting old pictures was not an easy task… most of us do not have the pictures anymore… not even the 1987 annual magazine… 😛 So sad… at the end, we only managed to compile less than 20 photos… and a printed copy of the scanned annual magazine… yes, the original magazine was scanned and then printed… and I believe the copy I was given is a photocopied of the scanned printed copy… so, you can imagine how bad is the images… or probably the scanning software they used to scan was set to a very low resolution to save storage space… 😛

Anyways, all efforts was not wasted, the event went  successfully… and manage to make souvenir for each of us… a mug with our class photo on it… 😀