Man on the Moon

All this talk about sending a Malaysian to the moon reminds me of an incident some time back.

I have always been a sci-fi fan and love to imagine that one day there might be a colony on the moon. Though that is unlikely to happen unless someone finds something precious there. Everything is economics. Governments and organizations won’t fund a project unless they are sure to get some economic benefit out of it and a space mission is definitely not going to be cheap.

Anyway, we were attending a talk at Islamic Outreach ABIM, Ampang Hilir. After the talk we were having lunch when one guy started a discussion. He looked educated and well to do (looking at the size of his Mercedes Benz). He was of the opinion that man never landed on the moon and all the moon landings starting right from Apollo 11 mission, were all fake – a drama staged by NASA and the US Government. So Neil Armstrong and the others never landed on the moon.

At first I just tried to be polite and listened but after a few other people started agreeing with him, I decided to speak up.

It is simply not possible that all the moon missions were a hoax perpetuated by NASA.

I gave him a few logical arguments. Are there satellites in space right now or is that another hoax by governments and space agencies around the World? Is there a space station or again another hoax? Where did the pieces of moon rock come from? Are the films made on the moon fake? Are all scientists in this World so stupid as to be fooled?

His answers were like “If they can make Star Wars look so real, why not?”

Of course he could not possibly win an argument against me. However, he went on an on about a particular website, which proves that man never landed on the moon. Like the flag on the moon was fluttering and so on.

I had to gently remind him not to believe everything that is published on the net. At the end, I could see he had really worked himself up and simply refused to see my point of view. I decided to end it by moving to another table.

Do you guys believe that man never landed on the moon?

Related news:

The Star report

I am Malaysian

Overheard in a shop in Bangsar.

Lady No. 1: You look Chinese. (you have Chinese features)

Lady No. 2: I am Chinese.

Lady No. 1: But, you speak Malay so well.

Lady No. 2: I am Malaysian

Ikea Kitchen Planner

I can hear some guys going, “Not Ikea again!”

Yes! This is another Ikea post.

If you have visited the Ikea Malaysia website, I am sure you would agree with me that it is pretty boring. There is just a map of the location and Store locator and an online catalogue in the pdf format.

Just compare it with their site in Singapore, , which is much more interesting and informative.

Anyway, while we were in Ikea on Friday, we were surveying the furniture in the Kitchen section when we noticed some of their staff playing around with the computer. Out of curiosity we went to take a closer look and discovered that it was a kitchen planner.

It is a software where you “can customise your layout, drag and drop kitchen units, and appliances and view the layout from different perspectives.”

My wife was telling me how great it would be if we could have that software on our computer so we could design our dream kitchen at leisure.

Yesterday, my wife informed me that the software was available for download from the Ikea Singapore website. In fact she had already downloaded it and was playing around with it.


Screenshot

Try it out. However, it is a ‘PC only’ software. Sorry Apple fans.

IKEA the Right Choice

If you were in Ikea yesterday (Saturday) afternoon, you might have noticed a guy busy dismantling a bed near the customer service area. Yeah! That was me.

Our new apartment is completely bare except for the electrical switches and plumbing. As we didn’t take the renovation package offered by the developer, we have to do it ourselves, one step at a time.

Do it yourself (DIY) is still a new concept here in Malaysia. However, as prices of services go up, I reckon that DIY is going to get more and more popular here in the future. Ikea is the pioneer of this movement (at least in furniture) and creating more Prosumers (a consumer who is also a producer) in the process. Anyway, going back to my story...

- First of all, we have to fix the lights (13 in total) and 3 ceiling fans.
- Then fix grills to the windows and door. At the same time, fix railings for the curtains.
- Next would come other furnishings including wardrobes and kitchen cabinets.

As money is a constraint, we decided to go for stuff, which is good quality, reasonably priced, yet doesn’t look cheap. Some of you might be asking “Where Got like that?” (Manglish).

Read on my friend and you will discover that quality, style and cheap prices do indeed come together (sometimes).

Of course, our first destination was the Ikea store in Damansara (5 minutes away from our new apartment). We paid several visits this month to look for ideas, as well as to survey the prices. Before you ask, yes! We also visited dozens of furniture malls around the Klang valley as even paid second hand furniture shops in Taman Tun a visit.

After looking around quite a bit, we were either not happy with the quality or the price. Some “Super Sale” deals came with hidden conditions or were of crappy quality. The “quality” stuff came at super prices too.

In the end, we have decided to completely furnish our house with Ikea stuff. Well! Actually partly furnished.

We spent last Friday and Saturday buying all the lights, light bulbs, 2 ceiling fans, several curtain railings, 1 Queen size bed, a single bed, a wardrobe and a table. Apart from the fans, we bought all the rest from Ikea – all of it for less than Rm1000/

Which brings to the first part of my post. What was I doing dismantling a bed?
No! I did not get a part time job in Ikea.

On Friday, we discovered this place in Ikea, which we had never explored before – the ‘As Is’ section. This section carries old showroom furniture (technically, it’s not second hand), slightly damaged stuff and old stock.

Even though the stuff here does not have any warranty, a lot of it is in great condition. We bought the table, the curtain railings and the two beds here. The Queen size bed was a real bargain (we got it at a fraction of their real price) because it had a small chip on the headboard - nothing that a small paint job won’t fix.

Anyway, while paying for the stuff, the cashier mentioned that we would have to dismantle the furniture ourselves with tools provided at the service counter. It was not something I had been looking forward to actually but I had no choice or so I thought.

I spent nearly an hour dismantling the two beds with help from the Ikea staff (and their tiny S shaped screws), when we casually asked one of them about the delivery services. The guy gave me a strange look and told me: “Oh! If you use our home delivery service you don’t have to dismantle the furniture. Our staff will do it for you.”

[NOTE: All delivery within the Klang valley will cost you RM65/ for any number of items. If you want them to assemble the furniture for you, that's an extra 5% of the cost of the products.]

I felt like a complete idiot - all the hard work for nothing. I could only look at the bright side. At least I know how to dismantle them we want to move anywhere next time.

Would love to design the kitchen and fix the cabinets myself – when we have more money. And probably all the stuff will be from Ikea.

Keys to Our Apartment

Last Friday I drove down to Bandar Damansara Perdana in the haze with face-masks on. We were really excited because we were finally going to receive the keys to our apartment.

Initially I had wanted to write to the newspapers and relevant authorities about the unfair treatment we received (read older entries here and here) from the developer but I decided not to after consulting with my friends. According to them, it won’t do any good and might ultimately harm us because bad publicity about a property can bring down the value. And I definitely didn’t want that to happen as we plan to rent out our apartment in the near future.

We went up to our unit to check for defects and also to ensure that all the fittings, etc., etc. were there as per our purchase agreement. The lifts were working and I noticed that they had cleaned up everything. I noted that they hadn't put in the fire extinguisher (near our door) yet.

We were satisfied that everything was in place. However we could not check the electrical sockets as we had not fixed any of the stuff yet. There was no water supply too. So how the hell are we going to check whether the drainage, faucets and toilet flushes are working?

We were definitely NOT satisfied with the finishing/ quality of work. It seems like the developer had done up the place in a hurry. There were hand print marks on the walls, some uneven tiles, one window that can’t be closed and stain marks. We have several months to complain and we took pics of all the defects. We will make sure they fix it all up.

Really, really disappointed with Saujana Triangle Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of MK Land and developer of Flora Damansara where our apartment is located. Before this we had only heard praises about MK Land.

I know that ours is not a high cost property as compared to their other projects in the same area but we do have our rights as customers. For people withouot APs (like us), RM180K ++ is a huge amount of money for an apartment. Yes! It cost us that much.

They should realize that most of those who bought the apartments are young couples, buying their first property. As they say a satisfied customer is a good customer. On the other hand, an unsatisfied customer is a pissed off customer who might not come back again and is going to spread the word. And I am a pissed off customer now.

I wonder whether I shot myself in the foot (yeah, I am going to look for a tenant soon).

The apartment is actually not that bad. It is a corner unit (3+1, 1080 ft) with a really great view (green hills and a lake). In fact I think we have better view than the (more) expensive properties being developed by MK Land here (e.g., Perdana Emerald). I will put up some nice pics asap and you can decide for yourselves. The one I took that day really came out bad due to the haze. As it is a high rise apartment (we are somewhere in the middle), its quite airy and we felt cool even without any air-conditioning.
Got this from their website
The location is also ideal as it is near to One Utama, The Curve, Ikano Power center and Tesco, easy access to the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP). It is near to KDU & KBU private colleges, and a medical center is coming up soon.

Yeah! The good and the ugly.

Friend From Dubai

Friday afternoon, I received a call. The caller said his name was Joy ....

I had forgotten all about it - Joy, a friend presently residing in Dubai had e-mailed me a week before that he was coming down with his wife to KL for 3 days and 2 nights and I had agreed to meet him for dinner on friday. However, it had totally sliped my mind that I had a relative’s birthday party to attend at the same time (That's another story however and maybe another post). I promised to meet up with them the next day.

Anyway, on saturday morning, I picked them up at their hotel in Bukit Bintang. Had bit of trouble finding their hotel. I just drove round and round and my insticts led me to the rear entrance of their hotel.

As it was their first trip to KL, I took them to the most famous tourist spot in the city – Kuala Lumpur City Centre and the Petronas Twin Towers. They were really fortunately because there was a nice breeze and the sun was hidden behind clouds. We sat down at the Dome restaurant and got to know each other. Before this we had only communicated through e-mails. As both husband and wife were architects, they guess they really found the Twin towers fascinating.


We talked about life in the gulf, about our occupations and about our home town (Yeah! We come from the same place). I learnt that Dubai is a metropolitan city state with a large foreign population. According them, there is a construction boom in Dubai (which is good news I guess). I also learnt one design limitation that they faced – almost all buildings they design must have an arch feature - representing Islamic architecture.

After years in the desert kingdom, I guess they love visiting places with a lot of vegetation – They exclaimed: “Its so green in here!”

Next on the itinerary was Petaling Street – KL’s so called China town. It was crowded like it usually is and we went around a bit looking at all the stuff available there. They were not interested in buying the imitation products but Sujata, the wife was amazed to find that the imitation Dune perfume on sale at one of the stalls smelled exactly like the original (her favourite). I assured her that it was indeed fake. I though that it would be a great chance to play tourist myself and took some pictures. They bought some souvenirs and we left soon after.

By then, my stomach was growling and I took them to Bangsar and to my favourite eating place there – Devi’s corner at Jalan Telawi. I love the variety of food available there. Joy loves to taste exotic food and I wanted him to try Patai. Unfortunately, it was not available. However, he loved the sambal they had. His wife is not as adventurous but she loved the Indian food.

We also talked about our experiences and I was quite amazed at what an amazing life Joy had lead and how he finally ended up in Dubai. I guess that would be another post.

I guess they were pretty much tired with the whirlwind tour of KL and I was leaving for Kedah later that evening, I finally dropped them off at their hotel. I wish I had more time to show them around.

In case you are reading this post, Joy, I hope that you had a nice time here in Malaysia and hope you come back again.

Rain Rain

My version of the old nursery rhyme - Rain, Rain, Go Away

Rain, rain, don't go away!
Come again, today.

Rain, rain, don't go away!
Little Rahil wants to play.

Rain, rain, go to Sumatra too,
Never let the haze come again.




Yeah! I know it's kind of lame but I am praying that it rains today.

Convert Normal Pix to Cartoons

For quite sometime I have been working on a way to convert normal pictures to cartoon-like images – you know, similar to those in comic strips. You can also use them as avatars. After Googling a bit, I found a Photoshop tutorial, which unfortunately was quite complex and turned me off.

I tried Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop, Irfan view and even Paint but they didn’t give me satisfactory results. I remembered that I have a great yet free image manipulation program on my computer which I don’t use much – Gimp for Windows (The GNU Image Manipulation Program) and started it up.

After playing around a bit I found a filter, which was already installed.

Just click on Filters > Artistic > Cartoon.

Just tweak the Mask Radius and Percent Black to manipulate the picture (here I used a picture of my daughter).


It’s not perfect but good enough for most purposes.

I don’t use Gimp that often because it crashes a lot (FYI, I have the buggy version 2.2.7. The new version 2.2.8 has already come out). For a free program, it sure has a lot of goodies and is ideal those who can’t afford to buy the more commercial programs and don’t want to buy pirated software.

Some of the best things in the World are available for free.

EPF for Househusbands

EPF’s (Employees Provident Fund) recent announcement to allow husbands to make contributions for housewives was welcomed by a lot of people, especially the Women’s rights groups. I too think this a good idea and shows that some people have finally recognised the great role that housewives play. My mum is a housewife and she did a great job.

Of course not everybody thinks that it is a great idea. For example, Chanlilian asks, “Do you think that those puny amount of EPF is enough to pay us?”

She also adds, “Don’t burn your poor husband money away doing frivoulous stuffs like buying tupperwares, re-bonding hair, enlarge breasts, tighten down there, slimming centre, buy diamonds so that your girlfriends from primary school can be jealous.”

A vist to any shopping mall in the Klang Valley however, reveals ladies doing exactly that. Finding parking space in One Utama or even Maga Mall is almost impossible, even on weekdays. Most of the shoppers are women (if you don’t count the lepaking kids). One friend once told me that most of these women are girlfriends and mistresses of rich guys, who have nothing to do in the daytime. So they go shopping. I am not really sure as I see a lot of middle class housewives with their kids too.

Anyway, coming back to my topic, there is another group whose voice remains muted and unheard. They ask, “Why only women?”

As we all know, male to female student ratio in most Malaysian universities is highly skewed with ladies even making up more than 70% of the total students in some Universities. The effects are being felt now. The traditional role of the father as a breadwinner has been reversed in many cases with the wife now taking up that role. In fact, many guys now-a-days don’t mind being the homemaker/ home manager (or in other words the househusband).

During the last Asian crisis (1997 – 1998), several of my friends lost their jobs and had to depend on their wives earnings before they could find new jobs. I guess it was not something that they really liked but had no choice. Maybe it was good in a way. It brought families closer, many went back from Kuala Lumpur to their hometowns and several others opened up their own business.

However, I know of several cases where the husband willingly took up the role. A good example is that of guys who gave up their great jobs to accompany their wives who were doing their PhD overseas.

Don’t they deserve their EPF boost too?

Budi Bahasa, Budaya kita

Came back from KL this weekend with an itchy throat. I think it was caused by too much walking in malls + sitting in open air mamak restaurants + KL's polluted air + Smoke from Sumatra. In case, you didn’t know, large parts of Malaysia are still covered with haze due to open burning in Sumatra. Yeah! Even though we are seperated by man made boundaries, we share the same atmosphere and nothing is stopping the winds from blowing their smoke our way. It is not that bad in Kedah and I am thankful for that.

Anyway, while traveling in the LRT, I realized one thing. The Government’s ‘Budi Bahasa, Budaya kita’ (good manners, our culture ) campaign is apparently working (at least on the LRTs). I noticed several people giving up their seats to pregnant ladies, elderly citizens, disabled and even guys with children.

I guess we have to thank Yasmin Ahmed for her TV ad (which was also debated in the Parliament). I guess it made a lot of people NOT want to be that like the guy in the ad.

Yesterday, I was on my way to Pudu Raya on the Putra LRT and some people got up at the KL Sentral station. I noticed this lady whom I thought was pregnant. I looked at two other ladies sitting next to me and it was kind of funny, all of us got up at the same time and give her our seat. The lady sat down while her companion took another. Te guys around asked to take the remaining seat. Looking at the lady next to me, she didn’t look pregnant after all. However, she was wearing a shirt that pregnant women wear, so I am not really sure.

Reminds me of another incident (again on the LRT). Once, I was dozing and woke up suddenly to find a lady’s big belly jutting into my face. ‘Pregnant lady, Pregnant lady’ warning signal went up. I jumped up and tried to give the seat to her but she refused. Actually she was not pregnant. Just another case of big bones.

Harry Potter Mania

I remember the first time I heard about Harry Potter was when I read a review on a website of the latest book (then), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

This was before Harry Potter mania hit Malaysia. I was wondering what the fuss was all about. I mean, it was just another Children's fantasy book, a story about kids. I was surprised at the number of grown ups who were crazy about the whole Harry Potter phenomena.

Once I was chatting on the net with my soon-to-be sister-in-law Ezu, who was then studying in LSE. She told me that she had just bought the latest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and could not put it down. Her final exams were a few days away. I was like, "you mean you are engrossed in a kiddy story book when your exams are knocking at your door".

Soon afterwards I got my hands on the electronic version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and as they say, the rest is history. I was hooked. Yes, an adult earning a living in a subsidiary of a huge company. My wife-to-be soon caught the bug and now, she among the early birds, buying the hard cover version every time a new book comes out- on the first day.

I am sure by now that all Harry Potter fans are aware that Rowling killed off one major character in the latest book.

Well! My wife was quite upset after reading the book and told me that she was moody the whole day. She was like, "How can Rowling do this?"

After I read the book, I refused to believe that the character dies. I told her that Rowling is going to reveal that the person didn't die after all - like Gandalf in Lord of the rings.

According to my wife, I was in denial.

Yesterday, while going through the PPS, I read a blog, which in turn lead me to a site. The author of the site gives very convincing reasons why the character in question did not actually die. Well I quickly notified my wife who was quite happy. I will not put the link here, as I want to avoid spoiling the reading pleasure of people who have not read it yet. However, this is mere speculation, as only Rowling knows what she has in her mind.

I guess we will all know when the next (and reportedly the last) book in the series comes out.

Monsters in Your Bed

Last weekend my wife reminded me that I hadn't cleaned the air conditioning unit for quite sometime. I usually clean the filters at least twice a month but had neglected to do so.

I lifted up the cover and was shocked at the state of the filter. It was so filthy. No wonder the aircon was noisy and didn't seem as cold as before. On closer inspection there was something like black fungus growth inside the unit. Uugh!

My wife washed the filters with water and soap and the basin was all covered with a black layer of grime. That's how dirty it was. I took some tissue, cotton and brush and did my best to clean the inside of the unit. The amount of stuff that had accumulated inside was amazing.

When I was done, the whole floor was littered with black stuff and I was gatal, gatal (itchy, not naughty)all over. My wife was sneezing a lot too. We had the maid come up, vacuum and mop the entire room.

Not good! With Rahil growing up fast, I can't afford to be complacent. What with organisms crawling all around.



I had read about house dust mites (Dermatophagoides sp.). These are microscopic organisms that feed on dead human skin. Their prime habitats are indoor beds. According to this site, 'a typical used mattress may have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million mites inside'.

They are strongly allergenic and are considered to be one of the causes of asthma in infants.

And you thought the picture was scary.

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