It's already coming to the end of March!!

It has been a long long time since I have written anything in my blog. To be honest, my hobby of writing blog is slowly fading away. WHY?

There are few reasons:

One - I am lazy
Two - I noticed that other people are also lazy writing in their blogs too
Three - Got other hobbies
Four - Nothing interesting to write
Five - Lazy
Six - I am still in Kuala Lumpur since my last trip to Manila in November
Seven - Lazy
Eight - Lazy
Nine - Lazy
Ten - Lazy

I managed to bump into some of my former colleagues and they mentioned how come they have not been able to see any updated to my blog.. well the above said it all.

What I have been doing for the past three months?

Well I am caught up in a new hobby - downloading TV series via Torrent. So far I managed to download the following shows Nip/Tuck Season 5 (I bought the full set of DVD from Season 1 to 4 when I was in Shanghai), Heroes Season 2, Project Runway Season 4, Hell's Kitchen Season 3, CSI New York Season 4, CSI Las Vegas Season 8, The Celebrity Apprentice (Season 7), Amercia Next Top Model cycle 10 (that's for my daughters), American Idol Season 7 and The Sarah Conner Chronicle - from the Terminator. Apart from TV shows, I also managed to download a bunch of movies like Rambo and Hitman without any censorship!!
I have even upgraded my Streamyx line to 1MB to enable fast downloading of the shows. I would keep my PC on to download the Torrent while I am away working and if there are adequate Torrent seeds, the file would be completely downloaded when I come back. Normal file size is about 380 MB for a 45 minutes show.

What started my download craze was when my wife requested me to get her a DVD player because the DVD player which was used for her TV was spoil. I managed to get a Pioneer DVD Player which can play DIVX format in addition to the normal DVD format. I experimented and found out that I managed to convert some AVI format shows to DIVX format where I can play it using the DVD. Great!! Once the AVI files are converted to DIVX I would burn them onto a DVD-RW disc to be played using the DVD player. After some time, I found out that the DVD player can also play files in AVI format, that has saved me lots to time and disk space to convert the AVI file to DIVX file.

Since I am not on any overseas assignment, I have the time at night to watch each TV episode which is recorded from HDTV before I go to bed. The quality of the images were excellent with stereo sound effect. No worries that I missed the episode on Astro and at the same time I can watch the episode just after it has been released in the States for show like The Celebrity Apprentice and America Next Top Model.

Workwise, I managed to attend the AGM for Public Bank and managed to meet up with some of my former colleagues. What was fed up was that some of them still think that I am on assignment in Shanghai... come on lar... I was in Shanghai in March to June 2007 and this is already 2008.. where the hell you got the information from???? But at least I am glad that the have not forgetten about me and my name. Maybe next year, they would have forgotten my name and by the next they would not have remembered my face!!!

No overseas assignment for this year since the travel budget is rather tight and I am running a few projects around the world remotely from my office in PJ. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, e-mail and teleconferencing!!

Ahh... the General Election.. I did not want to write much about if. Scared that I might me picked up under ISA and I would be writing my block from the detention camp in Kamunting. I am glad that the people of Malaysia have spoken. Most of the people that I spoke to before the election said that they would want to vote for the Opposition just to ensure that the current Government are kept on their toe by the Opposition. After the election, the results really surprised me that the Opposition managed to win so many seats. The share market fell more than 15% before and after the election. But I think this is a wake up call for the Government to know that the PEOPLE are not too happy with what is happening. Time for now for the Opposition to show what they can do and time also for the Government to improve what they need to improve.

Next week (24th March) my daughters will start their new education lives at the University. The elder one will be taking up a Degree course while the younger one will embark on a Foundation course leading to a Degree course upon completion. For them is a new journey of their education life but for me is a new journey for financing their education after they have enjoyed free education in the past. Luckily, I need not send them overseas since the degree courses are available in the country. The education journey for my daughters will set me back about RM100K for the next four years. On the brighter side, this is my investment in them for their education and career future.

Two Formula One Grand Prix have happened and today I am happy that Ferrari has won the Malaysian Grand Prix.

That's all for now!!