Sultan of Freebies

I realized that I had a lot of freebies lying around my house. By freebies I refer to the promotional stuff, which were thrown in Percuma (for free) when buying other stuff.

Take a look at some:

This webcam came for free along with my subscription to the now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review. Good enough for normal use in the office.

For subscribing to Reader's Digest. Rarely used.

Tool box for buying Petronas Syntium engine lubricant.
Guys love tools.

Open

Buying Petronas Syntium engine oil another time got me this sleeping bag too. Never been used.

Jacket for subscribing to National Geographic. Really warm.
There is another old jacket which I got for subscribing to Time magazine. No picture here.

My latest freebie - Belt bag with bottle and pen knife for buying Mobil engine lubricant.

I also get an umbrella everytime I renew my car insurance. I am not counting the corporate and door gifts including pens, bags, key chains, etc.
I hereby declare myself the Sultan of Freebies and I don't care if you disagree.
Tags: Freebies Gifts Promotion Sultan of Freebies

Changes to ah ok lah

Regular visitors might have noticed a few changes on my blog.

1. The description is no longer "a guy with a little tidak apa attitude".
It is now "Kicking the butt of guys with a Tidak Apa attitude".

2. Removed Haloscan comments. Realised that it was not very popular with most of my visitors.

3. Moved several links (not linking to me) to another page Tidak Apa.

4. As mentioned earlier I have also got rid of the Webstats4U site statistics counter.

5. Link buttons clustered together in 2s to reduce the length of my sidebar.

The blog now loads slightly faster and hurrah! No more pop-ups.

Just wanted to emphasise that

saya
ANTI
rasuah
(I am anti corruption)

Help stop corruption. Don't give bribes and report those who demand bribes.

You will also notice that I try not to use unparliamentary language on my blog. So if I do mention the word "Gatal" anywhere, I mean it in its literal sense in B. Malaysia - itchiness: a ticklish or uncomfortable sensation in the skin (BBC link).

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Tags: Anti rasuah Blog Gatal Tidak apa

Led Zeppelin and the evil one

Last weekend my wife and I were driving to the Giant hypermarket in Kelana Jaya and we had a Led Zeppelin CD on.

Yeah! Both of us are fans of classic rock. Anyway, while listening to one of the tracks, I thought I distinctly heard the words 'Mordor' and 'Gollum'. My wife who's like an authority on Led Zeppelin, told me that the song was 'Ramble on'.

I totally forgot about it but as I was about to go back after work, I suddenly remembered it and did some research on the net and yeah I was right.


It says here that both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were influenced by the writings of Tolkien. Interesting!

T’was in the darkest depths of mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But gollum, and the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.

If you don't know what the heck I am talking about, I guess we come from different backgrounds and interests.

HINT: Lord of the Rings.

The full lyrics of the song here.

Another interesting link: The Led Zeppelin and JRR Tolkien Home Page

Tags: Heavy metal Led Zeppelin Music Rock Tolkien

Hammer the crab

Eating a fat crab the Malaysian way.

1. First you take the cooked crab and place it on the table.

2. Take the hammer provided.

3. Take nice aim and hit the sweet spot with just the right force.

Hit it at a wrong angle and the crab may fly off the table to the ground. Of course you can invoke the 5-seconds rule if you got a thick skin and don't care what other patrons might think. However, in the worst-case scenario, it may fly onto the head of the person at the neighbouring table who may not be your average normal mild natured Malaysian.

Hit it too hard and you crush it into a thousand pieces flying everywhere. Leave your silk shirt costing a few hundred bucks at home if you are not skilled.



At the Kelana Jaya Seafood Centre

You can see that eating a crab the Malaysian way, is an art and a science.

ps. I am a vegetarian accompanying omnivorous family members.

Tags: Crabs Food

Dan Brown Speaks Up

The past few days, I noticed a lot of blogs talking about the new movie, the Da Vinci code based on the novel by Dan Brown.


Now, the author finally breaks his silence.

Watch the video here.

"Science and religion are partners."

"Christian theology has survived the writings of Galileo and the writings of Darwin. Surely it will survive the writings of some novelist from New Hampshire."

Related older posts:
- Relaxation and Dan Brown
- Freemasons in Malaysia

Tags: Da Vinci Code Dan Brown movies

Statistics counter source of popups

Some visitors to my blog started complaining about popups whenever they visited my blog. I was a bit surprised as I haven't had this problem before. After doing some research I narrowed down the source of the popups to my site statistics counter provided by Nedstat (now known as Webstats4U). I have been using Nedstats for a long time, since 9 September 2003.

Nedstat was taken over by Webstats4U in 2005 and I thought that the service had improved. What I didn't know was that they were putting popups in my blog through their JavaScript code. Of course they are providing their service for free but I hate pop-ups. And I discovered that I am not the only one. Read here, here and here.

Last month, I started using the statistics counter provided by Onestatfree.com and it's even better than the one provided by Webstats4u.

So bye bye Webstats4u and thanks (but no thanks) for your services. According to the last recorded statistics:

Total number of page views up till now: 49087
Busiest day so far: 6 February 2004
Page views: 352
Page views today: 57
Page views yesterday: 68

Forecast for today
On average 69 percent of the daily visits are made before 17:15. Based on the number of visitors of 57 today so far, today your site may have 82 page views (+/- 3).

Last 10 visitors
1. 24 April 16:03 Access Communications, Canada
2. 24 April 16:16 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia
3. 24 April 16:17 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia
4. 24 April 16:24 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia
5. 24 April 16:30 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia
6. 24 April 16:41 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia
7. 24 April 16:50 Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
8. 24 April 17:02 TMnet Telekom Malaysia, Malaysia
9. 24 April 17:03 TMnet Telekom Malaysia, Malaysia
10. 24 April 17:12 Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia

Country of origin
1. Malaysia : 29489 60.1 %
2. United States : 8328 17.0 %
3. Singapore : 2318 4.7 %
4. United Kingdom : 1928 3.9 %
5. Australia : 1090 2.2 %
6. Hong Kong S.A.R. : 680 1.4 %
7. Japan : 588 1.2 %
8. Canada : 535 1.1 %
9. Philippines : 472 1.0 %
10. India : 309 0.6 %
Unknown : 411 0.8 %
The rest : 2939 6.0 %
Total : 49087 100.0 %

Tags: Blog Popups Statistics Webstats4U

Blah blah blah

Blogging from the Starbucks outlet in Giant hypermarket in Kelana Jaya. The connection here is really fast. Much better than in the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf outlet in One Utama. Forget about speed, I couldn't even connect to the web then.

Just came back after having lunch at the Eastin Hotel, Damansara. The buffet was great with lot of choices, the food was delicious and best of all there was a discount for HSBC card users. A long overdue treat for some very special people.

Did anyone catch Majalah 3 on TV3 yesterday night? I found their research on Hang Tuah quite interesting but I must admit that it left with more unanswered questions rather than any findings. It was in Malay but there were English subtitles in the bottom. It was really funny when 'antiks' (meaning antiques) was translated as 'antics'. The guy responsible must be more careful in the future. I kick the butt of guys with a tidak apa attitude.

I am not sure whether I had blogged about it but I got a place in the doctoral (PhD) programme of a reputed UK university. My wife got a place too at the same place. It was surprising because I know of several guys whose applications were rejected. Unfortunately a few days back I received a letter from the University informing that my application for scholarships was not successful. My wife has no problems as she is being sponsored by the government. I guess we can't have it all....

I once wrote a post making fun of house husbands. I may now end up as a house husband myself - looking after the kids, cooking, washing clothes while I wait for my wife to come home. Scary. I GOT to find employment there.


Tags: Hang Tuah PhD Starbucks TV3 Westin