I’ve never actually been inside a VW Golf GTI before and I went with a friend to go look at one today as he’s in the market for a new ride. His target is actually the Fairlady but there has been a lot of recommendations for him to look at the Golf instead.

We stopped by the VW Sales Office at The Curve Mutiara Damansara on a rainy evening. We did the normal check the car out in the showroom thing first. Sat in it, gave some stupid comments back and forth entertaining ourselves. We then asked pricing and upgrade option questions before we asked for a test drive.

We got into a dark blue base model GTI. I was in the rear passenger seat as I wasn’t the one buying the car. The first thing we noticed while we were getting out of the lot was that the car sounded like there was something loose under the chassis. The salesman told us that it was something embarrasing for them as their service centres deprioritize fixing their internal cars to give way to customers. It was a little annoying and mildly concerning that a car with 11000 kms on the meter had things already coming loose.

We took a short drive out of Mutiara Damansara towards the Penchala Link. First in full auto mode then with the shift-tronic. The gear shifts were nice and smooth and the car was quite powerful although we didn’t get the push it any harder because of the wet surface. My buddy mentioned that he felt the rear come loose a little as he was accelerating up. We’re not exactly sure whether it was the car’s setup is having some problems, the wet surface, the fact that my buddy has never actually driven an FR car with 200 horses on a wet surface or something else. Either way, tt was a very short test drive and we’re going to make another appointment to take a longer test drive.

I was actually surprised by how much I liked the car once I got a ride in it. I’ve always heard good things about the Golf GTI but it was never really the kinda car that got my juices flowing. Well, in terms of styling it still isn’t. I’m not exactly big on hot hatches. However, if I was looking for a nice family car that I can also push hard or maybe take it to the track once in a while, I think that this pretty much perfect with a DSG gearbox and all. If I had 200 grand lying around doing nothing, I’d definitely have one in my garage.

This was the surprisingly impressive thing that I had mentioned in my previous post. I’m definitely looking forward to going for a longer test drive.

I had 2 very different experiences today. One was surprisingly impressive and one was highly disappointing. I’ll start with the disappointing one first, dinner at Popeye’s Chicken and Seafood in TTDI.

We’ve been meaning to try Popeye’s at TTDI it’s just a few doors down from our favourite banana leaf place in TTDI called Jaipur. So tonight, I suggested it to B and she was game. We had one chicken combo and one shrimp combo. The first thing I noticed was that the shrimp combo was way smaller than I had expected. Looks way bigger in their posters but I let that go since most of the food from any outlet looks nothing like their respective posters. For those that are interested to know, the combo comes with 1 biscuit, 2 sides (coleslaw and mash) and a medium drink.

Now to the taste, I was very disappointed my first bite into the chicken. I had expected to get the same kinda fried chicken I got when I was in the US. What Popeye’s chicken reminded me of was KFC’s Hot & Spicy without the spicy. It’s crispy but the chicken is dry, bone dry. The mash was pretty good as it was served with cajun based sauce. The coleslaw is better than KFC but just barely. The shrimp was served some some tartar sauce but essentially it was rather dry and tasteless as well. Finally, the biscuit. Yes, it was disappointing as well. It tastes nothing like the biscuits and gravy I was used to. Strangely it was salty and bland at the same time.

Overall, it was really disappointing and has now taken up a spot in our “ban list”.

I’ve been really lazy to write recently and actually have a few things that I need to write about. Just couldn’t get around to it.

There are quite a few stories for me to post and will pick myself up from this lazy patch and get writing again for those of you who actually read this blog. Stay tuned.

I was sent a news article today taken from the Sun newspaper that says that the Malaysian police can knock on your door to check on pirated discs. It basically says that the police are losing in the fight against piracy with their raids on the disc sellers. Now they are going to target the people buying the discs and a a crackdown might happen at any time. Penang police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob says that “If the police receive reports against members of the public for possession of pirated discs, we will take immediate action. We will knock on their doors,”.

Our Malaysian police are again focusing on the wrong areas. The increasing reports on Mat Rempit attacks on innocent victims should be looked at first instead of something trivial like whether a member of the public has 3 illegal discs. I understand the the police force are trying to show themselves as good law enforcers but they should be protecting the public by focusing their attention on the more critical problems in society today.

I’ll tell you why the police is losing in their fight against piracy. It’s corruption. Nuff said!!

Facebook users are being urged to be wary of third-party apps after it was revealed hackers have launched another hoax program designed to steal social networker’s login details. Sophos says that the ‘F a c e b o o k - closing down!!!’ app sends bogus emails to users’ contacts, claiming they’ve been reported “for violating our Terms of Service”. The message continues: “This is your official warning! - Click here to find out why you were reported!”. However, any web user clicking the link will give hackers access to their profile and personal information. Clicking the link also forwards the fake message each user’s friends.

The warning comes just days after it was reported that a number of users of the social network were downloading the ‘Error Check System’ program that sent messages to a user’s friends claiming they had problems viewing their profile. Facebook has since removed the application, but there are reports that similar rogue applications with names such as ‘My account’ and ‘Reported For Rule Breaking’ are currently circulating on the popular social networking site. Am I the only one who thinks all these Facebook apps are completely useless? Seriously, 99% of them are just waste of time or an attempt to spam all your friends and then profit on ads placed in the app. I would be much happier with application-less Facebook.

Source: PC World

After years of wanting (and actually needing) a hammer drill to add to my collection of tools. Too many times have we had to borrow a drill from a friend or family member just to make that one hole in the wall. After that, we’d usually find things to drill so that it made the loan more worthwhile.

In deciding which one to get, it basically came down to getting the best bang for my buck. I could have gone for one of those cheapo ones that you can get at Tesco or Giant but I wanted something a little more robust that would be able take a bit of a beating. Somehow for me, when it comes to powertools, I only think of Bosch and Black and Decker. The Bosch ones look very nicely built and robust. But they were much pricier than the equivalent Black and Decker. So in this current time of an economic crisis, we should all be a little budget conscious, I went for the Black and Decker CD70K. it had the best bang for the amount of cash I was willing to spend on it.

The one I got was the CD70KA package which comes with some other goodies like a kit case, drill bits and some screws and stuff included. I got it at a really reasonable price which has a story on it’s own which I will detail further down. Some key details about the drill itself are that it has a 13mm keyed chuck, it’s got hammer action (duh), variable speed in both directions, it comes with a secondary handle for better stability and it has a 710W input power motor. Considering that I’m just using it for some DIY stuff and it’s not work tool, this meets all my requirements.

I promised to tell you the story of the price of the item. As you can see from the first photo, I got the set at RM229 at Jusco Home Centre 1-Utama. There was some confusion in the pricing when I asked the sales assistant to take the unit I wanted off the chained rack (yes it’s chained). There was a unit priced at RM229 but the rest of the units were priced at RM249 or some not priced at all. So obviously, I asked him to take the RM229 one but he had to go check the system and in the system it lists the item as RM249. It was a young boy and he said that if he scanned in it would be RM249 and that the price was probably an old price or something.  I kept insisting that the if the item has a price tag that says RM229, I want it at that price. After some discussions between him, the cashier and another sales person in that section, they agreed to give it to me at that price. They had to bypass the cash register and enter the item in as just “hardware”. Whatever it is, I’m happy I got it at this price.

Now to find somewhere that needs a hole to be made.

It’s another sad day for Malaysian politics. One of many in recent times. Elizabeth Wong, State Assemblyman from Bukit Lanjan has quit of the nude photos of her being circulated.

The circulation of the photos are clearly a political attack from the other side. So in essence they have won this battle and gotten what they had hoped to achieve with this circulation of these photos which were an invasion of her privacy. I believe that the people of Bukit Lanjan (myself included) do not care whether there are nude photos of her or not.. or even if they were taken with her knowledge or otherwise. It is whether she has been doing her job or not. The answer is yes she has. So, it is sad to see that she is forced to quit because of this.

In winning the battle, her political enemies and the enemies of her party have gained a by election in Bukit Lanjan. However, the will lose the battle… badly. I forsee that the people of Bukit Lanjan will come out in force to vote PKR again. Probably with a bigger margin than before. We have seen this in many of the previous by elections in recent memory.

We, the people, are will no longer sit by and watch dirty politics continue to spread in our country. The voice of the people will be heard in all the by elections and I am looking forward to seeing the devastating losses to the people who have forcefully ousted the people who were in the office.

In short, I predict that Pakatan Rakyat will win the by elections in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau in April 7. They will also win the Bukit Lanjan by elections whenever it happens. I predict 3 landslides victories.

* Note: I’d like to clarify that I am no longer a Pakatan Rakyat nor a BN supporter. I just like to comment on the way I see things from a neutral point of view. I believe in justice and appal dirty politics.

In typical Khir Toyo style, he has come out to make a statement that shows how much of a caveman he is… again.

In relation to the current nude photo scandal of PKR rep Elizabeth Wong, he is asking for her to resign because according to him this “is a moral issue and Malaysians cannot accept leaders with moral issues and so she must vacate her State Assembly seat”. He also added that  it is morally wrong for a single woman to allow a man access to her room. Well, yea… if you’re a caveman stuck in the 15th century. Come on, wake up and smell the pollution. This is the 21st century, only a conservative, fundamentalist caveman would have this view.

If you actually look at it correctly, she is the victim in this case. The photos were taken without her knowledge or consent. Honestly, I would not be surprised if Khir himself had something to do with the circulation of these photographs to discredit her. This is typical of his style.

He himself was recently detained by police for taking part in an illegal rally. Go clean up your own house before pointing the finger at others.

I have to start of by saying that I’ve really been going through a lazy patch recently. I’ve had a few very many things to say but I never actually got round to sitting down and writing them. However, recent events have really gotten on my nerves and I really need to put something down.

If you’ve not heard, Malaysian politics is in a huge mess right now. Yes, I know it’s been a huge mess for a while but it got worse recently with the current state of the Perak state goverment with former PKR state assemblymen jumping ship over to BN. I’m personally fine with politician disagreeing with their own party and wanting out but some of them were ship jumpers the other way not too long ago before the 2008 General Elections (GE2008) saying that they’d lose faith in BN and wanting to join PKR. What happened, you suddenly regained faith in what you had lost before? Is this even possible? Or is there something more sinister in the background happening?

The words “money politics” have been thrown around by both sides right from the completion of GE2008. Both sides have been pointing the finger at the other. Actually, PKR is now crying fowl that they members have jumped shipped to BN but not too long ago, Anwar had announced that he was going to take over the government using this same tactic. Well, he had not successfully met any of his declared dates for the take over, but it seems that Najib has now taken a page from his opponent’s playbook and has successfully used it. I really don’t know if money was involved in any of the defections but this is Malaysia… it is not uncommon for money to have played a huge role.

Dr. M made a statement that the elected state assemblymen had the right to switch parties as it was their prerogative. True. However, I know that most Malaysians voted for the party for both the state and parliamentary seats. Most didn’t care who the person was on the ticket as long as it was the right party logo. By allowing these blokes who used our votes to get into office (probably didn’t actually get anything done), and jump to the other side is just not doing the will of the rakyat.

Either way, all this jumping and talk from all sides have made me totally lose faith in Malaysian politics. I have never been very interested in politics anyway but this has put the last nail in the coffin. I’m done. Until and unless something drastic changes in the way things are run in this country, I’m anti-politician. I don’t care which side you’re from and what wares you’re hawking, I ain’t buying. I’ve had enough of the lies and the lack of progress shown by all politicians. They are in it for themselves and no one else. The democratic process is dead here because the government in power is not the same one the rakyat voted for.

If you tried to sell me an extended warranty plan on anything in the past, I would have declined without thinking twice. However, I’ve actually changed my stand on extended warranty plans especially when it comes to laptop computers.

My change of heart came as I’ve recently taken a string of laptops belonging to my company that had broken down due to different problems. The ones causing most concern were the expensive items like motherboards and LCD screens. All these were laptops that had just completed their 1 year warranty period. These are repairs that cost just under RM2000. Besides, the laptops that I’ve personally taken for repair. I’ve also had people who come to me for PC and general IT advice who have had this situation as well. So it’s a pretty disturbing trend.

With that in mind, my parents recently purchased a new laptop and I was again offered the 3 year extended warranty program. My original programming declined the warranty but I changed my mind as soon as I got the machine back home thinking about all the out of warranty situations I had dealt with recently. I went back the next day to get the Extended Warranty pack for RM199.

Having said that, I think your decision on extended warranty should also be based on how long you intend to keep the machine and whether you’re the kind of user that would change your machine after about a year. If you’re a basic user which would usually mean your upgrade cycles are much longer than the power user, then getting a couple of years of additional warranty does makes sense because the machine will probably be with you for a while.

I would still never buy extended warranties on desktop machines, though. If my desktop motherboard died after the first year, replacing it with a motherboard of the same range costs a lot less. This is because almost any motherboard that would fit your desktop casing (most commonly ATX) would work. You could probably get a small upgrade for a little bit more money.

So, I still don’t think that extended warranties are required for all situations but definitely it does make sense in some.