Looking back in time

Lets get into the time machine..

Boarding the plane to India in January. Finally Air Asia serves donut on board. But it’s really sweet, even sweeter than the one we have here in the mall, make sure we smuggle lots of water in, since water on Air Asia is not for free. India… nice country.

The cat some how mingle with other male cats and got herself 4 kittens back in February! Somehow only one of them survived, one got sickness and can’t eat properly, died few weeks later. Another one got suffocated while got trapped in the fence, so sad. Another one got under the wheel of my housemate BMW, at least we did a proper burial for him. Poor thing.

March, a month of nice weather in my area. This shot was taken in the morning before I left for work.

April, a new visitor tries to join our mini pethouse. He was really skinny when he first came by, we fed him some catfood and he gobbled it down. Sometimes we just close the gate when he’s inside the compound, and he would get panic trying to find a way out. Poor thing. After a while, the owner came to claim him back. Gee. After we fed him with so much food.

Went to Bahrain for the first time in May. A couple of Oooh.. Aaaah. Nice place there in Manama. Can consider to migrate there in the future.

Farewell dinner for my colleague in June at Luna Bar and went down to Soi 23 at Menara Pan Global for proper dinner. Thai food! Yum yum.

Went to Riyadh for the first time in July. Wow, surely it is hot over there. First time sweating like mad 7 am in the morning. Gasoline price is crap cheap there, I think the taxi driver only paid the attendant MYR 4 for a full tank.

Went to Taipei for the first time in August. Lots of things to eat. Strange the people there are not fat. Malaysia has a lot of things to eat too but people here are fatter.

Attend my sister wedding in Netherlands back in September. Cold place there. People there are generally friendly. Would go back there again if we have the chance. We took the route from London – Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam – Eindhoven – London. Perhaps can try another route next round!

Went back to Taipei again in October, and sat in a fruity plane this time. This time we stayed in the Shih-Lin area, night market just right below the hotel. Very noisy.

Installed HSBB back in November. Speed is impressive until now. And the price is kind of pricey too. So far no other alternative can give us the same speed over here.

Final days of 2010

After a long December, finally we have to part with 2010. Hopefully rabbit year will be more generous to all of us.

If tomorrow is a public holiday, then today is the last working day of 2010. I don’t really like abrupt public holidays being announced, they should schedule it properly, at least like give us 1 week advance notice, in order for us to plan things properly.

Hopefully I did not schedule for an appointment with the doctor this Friday, or else I need to re-schedule for another date. But that means I gonna apply for leave on the first week of 2011. Really early to apply for leave..

Another thing is that iPhone charging is really slow. My Nokia can be fully charged in 1 hour, but iPhone is taking 3 hours at least. Gee.

Cisco VPN and Nortel VPN #2

This time we did a fresh installation and managed to encounter a new issue when both client are being installed.

http://ianding.blogspot.com/2010/09/cisco-vpn-client-and-nortel-vpn-client.html

The previous issue could be caused by McAfee antivirus/firewall as well. After we removed the antivirus from the PC, seems like both VPN client can work fine, for the first time, until a reboot, then:

The NIC will not have any IP address, it will be the same in all NIC currently installed in the PC, inclusive of USB, WiFi and LAN card.

ipconfig /renew will say that the adapter cannot be initialized or something like that.

Microsoft has told us to reset the Winsock/TCP-IP stack, still it is not fixed, some netsh script. Download their FixIt program and still it’s not working.

We have tried to remove TCP/IP protocol from the adapter properties and reboot the system and add the TCP/IP protocol again, still it is not fixed.

Then we have also tried adding TCP/IP v6 protocol and it is not fixed.

Finally, we tried to add IPX/SPX protocol into the adapter properties, and hey, the adapter is finally getting an IP.

Wondering what went wrong back there, IPX/SPX should not be used anymore nowadays, hmmph.

Ban on 1Malaysia advertisement

I just realized that we will need to throw away our Touch N Go card too because there is a 1Malaysia logo on the card. Gee. Glad that now they made a U-Turn.

Merry Christmas!

Well, this year Christmas is a bit special. Because I’ll be celebrating it in a state of extreme poverty.

Anyway, this is just a short post as I’m still at work at this hour.

Cheers peeps!

Popeye @ Wangsa Walk

Somehow I feel that the workers there are pretty arrogant or some kind of discrimination is really serious there.

I went there for a few times now and the impression I get is worse than typical KFC or McDonalds. Serve them right that they have no customer during last Saturday afternoon! Haha.

The first incident is that, I went there late evening. There was hardly any people queuing up at the counter, great, I thought. So I walked up to them and tried to make my order. Somehow the workers there just assumed like I did not exist and did not even bother to look if there is anyone in front of the counter trying to make an order. I stood there for more than 3 minutes, then come along a few girls in a group and the counter staff attend to them immediately. I left the place immediately after that.

The next incident is that, I went there again with my sister hubby, which is a Guai Lo. Wow, the staff were so attentive. 2 of the workers were attending to us. Even when I tried to speak Malay to them, they can respond in English. A stark difference compare to my previous visit.

Actually this is not a problem if other fast food chain does not exist.

At the nearby KFC beside Carrefour, their staff does not have such problem. Either we are alone or in a group, everyone get treated the same way.

Probably they need to send their staff to some kind of course or something.

Balance

No matter how good is someone, or something, there is surely a bad side of him as well, usually it’s hidden nicely until when we are really close with him, then we will find out. But then usually it’s already too late, damage has been done. Turning back would need some sacrifice as well.

Example, like a firewall device, usually what we see is that, the firewall is working fine and blocking and rejecting unauthorized traffic. Now that it is crapped up, the firewall is rejecting our own VPN traffic but allowing public traffic. While we are waiting for a replacement, we have no choice but to reboot the firewall everytime it happens.

The most important thing is that, there must be a balance between the good and bad side.

Blogging

What’s the main purpose for maintaining a blog? To impress people with your good looks? To inject some humour into the daily mundane life of people around us? To provide updated information from your current location? To show others our skill in performing something? To get noticed? To let others keep track of our daily life? To sell off unwanted stuff? To become an online retailer?

Whatever it is, everyone will find some use for their blog.

I have been blogging for 7 years now. And even though I know I’m the only visitor on my own blog, yet I still don’t get bored with it.

If you don’t appreciate yourself, nobody else will.

On flight seating

Have you ever requested a stranger to switch a seat with you before? Frankly speaking, I haven’t, only people have requested me to do so.

Yesterday on my flight back to M’sia, there was this old chap, wanted me to switch my seat with another old chap so that he can talk to his friends.

What logic is that?

If you want to be seated together, you should tell them when checking in. If you can’t get the seats together, you should just postpone your trip and check in earlier next time.

If you want to talk to them, can’t you just walk over to their seat and talk?

I have been through this a lot of times and I must say, it is quite annoying. So yesterday I couldn’t hold it anymore, and I just replied him really loud, ‘Not again!’. Even he pleaded me to change, I just told him ‘No way’.

If you don’t like where you are being seated, please speak it out loud when checking in, or do web-check-in a day earlier, you can choose the seat you want.

Since I travel alone all the time, I am really flexible with where I can be seated.

I have only switched my seat for families before, i.e. family members wanted to sit together. I would never do it for friends who want to sit together and yak.

Chinese Guy

When I was at the satellite terminal last week queuing up to buy some food at Burger King, there was this chinese guy who just walk straight up to the counter and wanted to order the food.

Service is slower than usual at Burger King but hell, I have lots of time to kill, so I could just wait.

I am sure that he saw me that I was queuing up behind the person making the order and he should just queue up behind me.

Instead, he just pretended like he saw nobody there and proceed to the counter straight.

Then when the person in front of me was done with their order, he tried to order but the cashier refused to serve him. Instead, the cashier asked me to come forward and order instead. The chinese guy just pretend like he doesn’t understand and keep on ordering. Then the previous couple which was ordering then turned back and told him that he has to queue up in Mandarin, then only he quietly walked away.

What a jerk! What’s with his manners?

This is Malaysia and we do practice queuing up!

I’m ashamed of myself for being a chinese guy as well. I hope this is not the common perception of chinese guys in the world. We need to get rid of such people in this world to make the world a better place.

Terminator, anyone?

Taipei, Taiwan

Been to Taipei for 3 times now and each time staying in different part of Taipei.

First time was in Nei Hu, seems like a new area. As all the buildings seems quite new and modern, and there are still some under construction. At least when I was there, there is a new metro line serving it already, so it is very convenient to go into the town. I went to Taipei 101 for the first time as well, and there’s nothing much to shop there except branded stuff. Went to have a cup of tea at the rooftop of ShinKong building nearby Taipei 101.

Second time was in Shih Lin area, where we were just staying right on top of the night market. Visit the night market? No problem. It’s just a few steps from the hotel. It can be quite noisy sometimes to stay near the night market but it is convenient. There is a metro station nearby too but we didn’t take metro at all. Just took cab all the time, as the customer building is very near the place.

Third time was in Ban Qiao area, seems like an old city of Taipei and the buildings are quite old and dilapidated looking. Somehow, the hotel we stayed this time is the best out of the other 2 which I have stayed. It’s called Grand Forward hotel, right beside the Fu Zhong metro station. The room is so big that I think we can put 2 double bed inside it. The bathroom has a separate shower cubicle together with bathtub on the other end. Breakfast is good as well. The room even has it’s own equipment for exercising, with ironing board, weighing scale, hair dryer, digital control (touch screen) for lights and air cond, big LCD TV and also daily complimentary fruits.

One thing I noticed in all Taipei hotels is that, all of them offer complimentary breakfast and Internet access, which is just so nice for business travelers.

Hopefully one day I would be able to go there for leisure but not work, then we can spend more time exploring Taiwan.