Happy Birthday Malaysia and also to Anuar

As tomorrow will be 31 August 2006, Malaysia will be celebrating it's 49th birthday. Happy Birthday to my great country MALAYSIA.

At the same time, I also like to wish my friend Anuar a very happy birthday too, he also celebrate his birthday on 31 August but I do not want to mention his age... he is matured enough!!

Getting transferred

Finally after much speculations, have received my transfer letter to a new place of work today. It was funny that rumours in the office gets around very faster. The most interesting thing is that other people tend to know what will happen to me rather than I know what will happen to myself.

I will be reporting to a new place of work on 18 September 2006. It's back to my previous Division where I have left 10 years ago. At first I felt sad and worried. Sad that I will be leaving all my colleagues that I have worked with for the past 10 years. Worried what will happen to them and also what lies ahead for me.

I told myself, life still have to go on. My former colleagues will get along without my presence. I will get to work on new assignments. However, they will many changes that I would have to go through after building relationships with many people other than my colleagues. Vendors, branches staff and other Division's staff who I have worked closely with and have build good working relationship.

Huh.. just have to clear off my present work place of all those papers and files that I have kept for the past years and start with a new chair, new PC and new cubicle at my new place of work.

Wish me luck!!!

Images from Taiping Zoo,continued

Pictures from Taiping Zoo

Here are some shots taken at the Taiping Zoo:

No, this is not part of the zoo exhibit.. it's a girl I caught in candid eating her ice cream

Trip up north

It was the school holiday again. I was on leave and feeling restless. So I decided to take a trip up north. I decided to go to Cameron Highlands for a photography trip since it's a nice heaven for shutterbugs. To my surprise, none in the family other than my son want to join me since they have they own program. So off we go, me and my son to the north but not to Cameron Highlands. He said that he have not been to Penang for a long time, so a change of plan we are off to Penang instead.

We woke up at 7.00 a.m. on 25 Aug and was on the way with half and hour. The first stop was the Lata Kinjang waterfall at Tapah, the same place I went during my last trip to Taiping in December 2005. I wanted to show my son the magnificent waterfall. Nothing much changed there since my last visit. There were no campers except for bunch of scouts. It was not a surprise because the place was not well kept to attract more people. Walk up to the peak of the waterfall to snap some photos and we were off on out journey to Penang.
We cross the Penang bridge and the first stop was to the snake temple. I was lost in the Bayan Lepas area because the whole place has changed since the last time I was there. There was a long flyover bridge and many new commercial and shophouse buildings. I called my friend Tham Weng Onn and asked him for directions to the temple. The temple has not changed a bit. The same snakes and people there. Only thing new was a snake sanctuary they built net to them where there were many species of snake kept there for exhibition. Managed to snap photo of some albino snakes which is quite unique.


Next stop was to check into the hotel. Since it was the school holidays, all hotels were packed full. My wife managed to get us a room at the 5-star hotel, Hotel Equatorial. I remember the last time, I can easily see the hotel which is on top of Bukit Jambut from the road. With all the new development of the flyover and commercial areas, the hotel view was hidden away. The hotel was a nice hotel but a bit pricey, but what the heck! We got a room where we can see the Penang bridge.
Next stop was to the famous pagoda temple, Kek Lok Si at Ayer Item. Nothing changed there, the same old stores selling souvenirs along the steep steps leading to the temple. Coming down from the temple, we stop over to shop for the famous nutmeg fruit and oil and also the tau sar paih. My son could not remember what a nutmeg taste like or even what it was. Once he smell the nutmeg oil, he loves it!!

We went back to the hotel to freshen up for our next journey to the famous Gurney to savour the hawker food there. We managed to park at Gurney Plaza and walk of the complex to the store. The hawker stores area has been renovated and is a lot more cleaner and hygienic. We had a few dishes from various hawker stores and wow the food was good. Our tummies were full while walking back to the complex to get our car. My son complained that legs were in pain. I wondered why he said that. They whole night he complained about his legs and could no sleep. In the end we found out that the strain from climbing the steep steps at the Kek Lok Si pagoda temple caused the pain of his legs.

The next morning my son said that he did not have a a good night sleep because of the pain of his legs. I decided that It's time to continue our journey back home. We checked out of the hotel early and drove to the ferry terminal to take the ferry across Butterworth. My son could not remember how the ferry looks like and how wonderful the ride was. when he was at the ferry he was amazed and enjoyed the ferry ride.


The next stop was to Taiping and he wanted to go to the zoo. We spend about 2 hours there and took quite a number of photos of the animals that were displayed there.

After Taiping, we were off to Ipoh to taste the famous taugeh chicken rice. We had a heavy and enjoyable lunch. My son suggest that we pack the taugeh back home for the family since, he loves it so much.

We took off from Ipoh and reached home about 5.00 p.m.. Guess what?? My son went up to bed and slept through the night till the next morning..(without taking his dinner and bath) that's 13 hours of sleep to catch up with his sleepless night at Penang. He no longer have any leg pain.

Another coin for my collection

I was at my company's bi-annual management seminar at Sunway on Saturday 19 August 2006. As usual, the Management would like to re-fresh it's management's staff on it's strategies to achieve another great year. As part of the programme to keep all of us "awake" , question in relation to the speaker's notes were posted to all the participants and the prize is a coin. After the seminar ended, the answers slips were collected from all the participant. After that, we adjourned for luncheon.

During lunch, there were two coordinators who approached out table and asked for my name. I acknowledge and was told that I have won a prize for the quiz and was requested to wait at the red carpet area to collect the prize. Well what a surprise, of the total 1,400 participants, there were 1,300 managed to get all the answers. Out of the 1,300 plus, 20 were picked to get the prize of a coin from the Management.

The coin was presented to me by my MD and it was a silver coin. The design of the coin was the same with the one I got for my long service recognition award. Wow, another coin to my collection, one gold and one silver... what a way to go!!

By the way I have checked out the price of silver.. cheap stuff only US$12-00 per ounce. That's about RM50-00 .. nothing compared to the gold coin but what the heck I am proud to own one since more than 1,300 other could not get hold of it!!!

A Kinky convention in LA

Here is a video clip I found in iFilm on a kinky convention in Los Angeles. If you feel offended by women with big boobs, please do do proceed but what's the hard in watching... there's nothing being "really" exposed. One more advise...best view if you are on broadband connection:

Self Portrait

Just to cheer myself up, I am posting this happy self portrait in my new tuxedo. At the same time I have posting pictures of other people none of which is showing myself off!!.The picture was snapped by my friend Anuar who is getting ready to a get himself a DSLR.

As usual a larger version of the picture is also available in my photoblog.

The Ten Years Itch

Contents of posting has been saved as draft after been read by my regular readers.

My favourite Miss PBB contestant

The grand finale of Miss PBB was held during the 40th Anniversary Dinner. It's where all the winners representing the various states and Head Office belt it out for the grand prize of RM8,0000-00. The girls were well trained by professional modeling agency and have been rehearsing for this night for the past 10 days. There were a total of 16 contestants vying for the grand prize. Of all of them my favourite is the contestant from Melaka, Ms Rosmund Kuan who is only 19 years old. She caught my eyes among all the other contestants due to her facial structure and her fair complexion. She ended as the top five contestant and in the end was crowned as first runner up. I have complied a collage of the photos I have taken of her and have chosen three photos to work on which can be viewed at my photoblog.

In traditional wearIn her sexy gold bikini

Sharp shooters in Tuxedos

PBB 40th Anniversary Dinner - Opening Fanfare

To see bigger size of the photos, please proceed to my Photoblog.

40th Anniversary Dinner

If you have noticed at the side chatter box, I have promised my friend TT some of my photos taken at the dinner in my new tuxedo. well eat you heart out, here are some photos of me and some beautiful ladies friends of mine. More photos to come stay tune.

Plagiarism... what's that?

Do you know what is plagiarism?l Click on the the hyperlink to the word to get the meaning.

Well my friend TT place a moment at my blog to inform me that the content on my posting on the PM's warning to blogger was also "copied" or plagiarised. She directed to a site, http://copyscape.com to check where have the contents of my posting appeared. True enough, there were 9 sites (including mine) that have the same words of the posting. Well I was the one who copied the content from the article that appeared in the Star.

Thanks TT, you have made my day. I sometimes also place other people's posting at my site. Now I got to a bit careful so that the other blogger would not "sue" me for infringing their copyrights.

The new Nikon D80 is coming

Barely less than 6 months after getting my Nikon D70s, Nikon will be launching the new D80 on 9 August 2006. But it will not reach our shores so soon.

Here are some facts about the new camera:

1. It's an amalgamation of the D200's 10 MP sensor and a few parts grated into a D70 body.
2. A new firmware to control the camera.
3. Luckily, it's almost identical to the D70s in most regards except:

• 10 Megapixels, up from 6
• 2.5" LCD up from 2.0"
• 4.5 FPS up from 3
• 1/250 sync speed, down from 1/500
• Top panel illumination now switched on by twisting the power button, just like D200, D2X. The D70 had a separate button.
• Takes SD cards, not CF

Performance
Most likely the same image quality or slightly better than the D200.
Identical materials and robustness to the D70.

Recommendations
If you have something to shoot today, get a D70s from stock. If you can wait, forget the D70s and get your order in for the D80.

PM: Those who spread untruths on the Net will be detained

I got a call from Lye Hock in the office this morning, he said "Hey, we are in the front page of The Star". I said that I have not read the papers yet and was wonder what he was talking about. He told me to see what's on the front page of the paper. I quickly logged on to thestar.com.my to see the headlines:

It read:

BLOGGERS BEWARE

KUALA TERENGGANU: The Prime Minister has issued a warning those who spread untruths and slander on the Internet will face the law.

If information in blogs, websites and online portals were incorrect, bordered on slander, caused disturbance or compelled the public to lose faith in the nation’s economic policies, their authors would be detained for investigation, said Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

We cannot allow such matters to flow through uncontrolled,” he told newsmen after attending a briefing on the proposed Islamic Civilisation Park in Pulau Wan Man here.

They say all kinds of things, make all kinds of dubious claims. We cannot allow them to abuse the freedom earned under the media. If left alone, they can say or pass on all kinds of things.

Abdullah also said that those who sent out such information via short message system (SMS) would also be held accountable.

If they abuse the freedom more than the present freedom given without any restriction we cannot allow it,” he declared.

Where in the world is there such a freedom, where one can freely spread incorrect information and slander without having to own up to it?

Asked if he was calling for a control mechanism, Abdullah said he would leave it to the police to investigate first.

It was reported recently that the Internal Security Ministry was investigating several online sites following a string of misreporting that caused tension and confusion among Internet users.

I knew that this event will come one day. I have already mentioned the stupid idea of posting seditious messages on your own blog way back on 10 October 2005. As for me , I knew the sensitivity of words to put in my blog... so I am not worried with the warning by the PM.