Yeap, I am being conned, live, as I am writing this blog. It all happened last week, when I got an unanimous call from a lady with this thick southern China mandarin accent. She claims that she is from a company based in HK named Hong Ji. She gave me this coupon number AG9826 that I can use to gain entry into some sort of event in KLCC. Of course, I knew that was some kind of hoax, and didn’t even bother to go.

This week they began their full fledged attack. Knowing fully well that their victims will never turn up, they called me up again yesterday. Their story was that my number turned up as number 3 in their lucky draw, and I won HKD330,000! You will have to be crazy to fall for a trap like that. I knew it was a hoax, but I did not hang up. I continued to dig. I came to know their office number is 03-27727300, and the lady who called me up, her name is Mei Ling with the number 016-4731132. Go ahead, call them up. Mei Ling said that the money now sits in Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong, and that I have two options.One is to go personally to Hong Kong to the bank to claim this money. Of course, their victim will most probably not go there to do that. Which leaves them with only the option to do a telegraphic transfer. I gave them my phoney name, phoney IC number and phoney Maybank account number. Let them work their magic.

Today Mei Ling just called. I just hanged up the phone. They said that Hang Seng Bank in HK is ready to transfer the money to me. They asked me to call the bank in Hong Kong at the number 00852-30658212 to speak to the officer there. There is a temporary account that my money now resides in, and they mentioned the account number is 0012-484-1001. The password to the account is 9826, same as the number of the coupon earlier. Upon calling the number, they asked me to press 2 for Cantonese, then 1, followed by 9. After verifying my identity, I will be able to get my money by 12 noon today!

What a fake!

Guys, if you are reading this, you may want to call them up. I’m too busy (but free enough to update this blog! hehehehe) Anyway my fake identity number is:

Name: Liang Han Wai
IC : 780916-09-7979
Maybank Account Number : 1080-4547-3884

Go ahead, knock yourselves out!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Those not familiar with the word drift might relate this to the act of floating along with the current of water flow. The drift that I claim is crazy is not some nuts who is floating on water, rather it is applicable for a weird lateral movement of a car.

Allow me to explain. A car is designed to assist human in getting from point A to point B. Most of the time, point A to point B does not lie in a straight line. One turns the steering wheels to steer the car wherever one intend the car to go. According to Newton’s First Law, a body in motion tends to stay in motion IN A STRAIGHT LINE. To make a body (in this case, the car) turn, an external force is applied to it. The act of turning a car involves force exerting on the car.

more…

Popularity: 1% [?]

I knew all along that there was a thing called RSS-feed. But little did I know that it would be that useful to keep in touch with my friends.

Yup, RSS. Rich Site Summary. Sounds very simple really. A standardized XML format that is exposed to the outside world for all to see, and feed upon. I hadn’t thought about it, until I found out how important updates with my friends are often missed, simply because my current Random Blogroll is not good enough. As its name suggests, it simply displays random blogrolls, with no preference to the latest changes that my friends made.

Fortunately in the world of Wordpress, plugins of that sort are readily available. I downloaded and installed Feed Reading Blogroll. Sounds lame, but it does what it claims to do.

Although I do have a qualm that it loads like a snail, it does not bog down my website. That’s because it’s AJAX enabled. That means that my website will load independently from the Blogroll feed. So even if the Blogroll Feed took an eternity to load, my website still loads normally. Does anyone also share the same problem with me? If not, could you please suggest to me a better plugin to use?

Hmmmm ….. now I know who among my friends are active bloggers. And also I have also subscribed to some cute Asian chicks website. Keeps me updated whenever there are new pictures to see! Yum yum!!

Popularity: 1% [?]

*Sigh* ….. the worst has happened. Against the will of Tun Dr Mahathir, and legions of parents around Malaysia, the stupid Muyiddin has announced that Science and Math be taught back in Malay. This is a 180 degree turn back towards the prehistoric era. The Malaysian education system is going the way of the dodo.

As mang0 has already summed it up, I have either the option of teaching my girls in English myself, or sending them to an international school. I think I am more inclined towards the latter. Malaysian Educational system just don’t have the edge anymore to remain competitive.

This harks back to my early schooling days when I remembered a very important event in life. It was the early nineties. I applied, went for interviews, and was finally offered a scholarship, the Asian Scholarship to go study in Singapore. Naively me and my parents turned down the offer. I can understand their reasoning. My dad was afraid to let me go that far. I was only a teenager about to go into the wild puberty stage. Letting me go there alone would have exposed me to all kinds of vice. (Hey, isn’t that great?! HAHAHAHA!!! ) Thinking back, I felt kinda regretful. I would have enjoyed a better life there in Singapore. I mean, come on, I hate the life in Singapore, but I don’t mind the 5 times more purchasing power the Singapore Dollar gives me! My life would have turned out differently. I could have married another girl, or maybe even still be single. But I would have missed having Kit Yan and Hui Yan

I got lucky in my years of schooling. I have been schooled in a Malay / English medium all my life. Nevertheless, my grasp of the English language was not very strong. Blame it on the education system, only academically strong but no real world exposure. I got my break when I became close with Vinod Nair, of mixed Indian and Chinese parentage. I owe my English to him. I later found out that he had wanted to learn Cantonese from me, but turned out he landed on the losing end of the deal!

I also had a lucky break in St Michael’s Ipoh, where I did my Form Six. There, EVERYBODY speaks English as the main medium, even the Malays. Our physics teacher, Mr Ng, encouraged us to learn physics in English, although STPM was conducted in Malay. He told us that in order to prepare ourselves for the university and subsequently to the world, a full grasp of the scientific term in English is compulsory. Come on, the “hardware = barang keras” joke is an exemplarily example of the silliness impracticality of using Malay as a technical language.

All hail the Dark Ages of education in Malaysia!

Edit 13 Jul 2009: It seems that certain factions of the chinese and indian community also wants to abandon the English as a technical language too! I am deeply aghast!

Popularity: 1% [?]

I am sure you have read this already through some forwarded mails before. This is really classic! Just a case in point for how absurd a direct translation from a decent terms in English can go haywire in Malay:

Hardware: barang keras
Software: barang lembut
Joystick: batang ria
Plug and Play: cucuk dan main
Port: lubang
Server: pelayan
Client: pelanggan

That server gives a plug and play service to the clients using either hardware or software joystick. The joystick goes into the port of the client.

“Translated”
Pelayan itu memberi pelanggannya layanan cucuk dan main dengan mempergunakan batang bahagia jenis keras atau lembut. Batang ria itu dimasukkan ke dalam lubang pelanggan.

Have you also seen how silly the translation in cinemas can be? They are better off not translating at all! Tell me a few examples if you have any.

Popularity: 1% [?]

This was during the school holidays in 2008, specifically Monday 17 November 2008. We went there on Cai Hong’s car, because we had a lot of things to bring along and using the Wira with the huge tank at the back will not do.

Cai Hong had a ticket for free stay at their bungalow, since she was an ex-staff there. We arrived there at about 10 am and proceeded to the resort without checking in first.

There was a lot of things to see and do. And a lot of interesting pictures to be taken.

Yan Yan was so scared of the guy!

more…

Popularity: 1% [?]