Thursday 13 August 2009

Never Put Your Comment In Facebook, Here's Why

Saw this post at PM, and would like to share.
This is a hilarious reason why we should never simply put stupids comments in FB.




Also, remember to never blog about your bad day at work cos your boss is a jackass, cos you'll never know who reads your blog.

Saturday 8 August 2009

Task #1 and #2. Paint guest room 1 and 2

As i mentioned sometime back, i had already painted one of the guest room with my dad's help. I needed him to show me how to paint correctly and to learn from that experience so i could do the rest on my own.

The whole process took around 3 hours, which we painted 2 layers. That time, i was in charge of doing the corners/borders, and looking at how dad painted the main portion of the wall.

The end result was surprisingly well done, just like a pro. My dad is ever the handy man.

Guest room 1 in Lime Freeze.

DSC00027_edit

Nice, right?
The green gave the room a fresh and revitalizing feeling. As though the energy has been super charged.

Ok, so the guest room 2, my wife and i decided to do it ourselves. The room is not that big, and we had stolen my dad's painting techniques seen how it is done, so how hard could it be?

For this room, we chose a very different colour.

Ok, so here is how the room looked like before we started.



Here are all the ingredients you need. Roller, brush, paint tray, paint, pencil, wooden stick, etc.
also remember to use masking tape to tape off all the bottom portion of the wall.

DSC00030_edit

My wife doing the corners.

DSC00033_edit

Note the colour we used is pastel purplish/pinkish.
We chose this colour because we liked the calming effect it gave off. You can really see if at the end when the room is done.

Reaching the high corners.

DSC00034_edit

Progress at half time.

DSC00035_edit

Once we finished the 1st layer, we let it dry for a while, then proceeded to do the 2nd layer.
We started with thicker paint for the 1st layer, and then the 2nd layer dilutes with more water.
And we had to be careful on the amount of paint we are using as we barely had any paint left once we are done.

* Note to self: 1 litre of paint for this room size, 2 layers.

Finally, the room is done. And that is after 4 hours later.

DSC00039_edit

Nice or not?

The colour is just nice, luckily not too dark.
Hope anyone staying here could feel the calmness aura emitting from the wall.

The next time i have insomnia, i'll know which room to sleep in. hahahhaahha

Friday 7 August 2009

Task #12. Kitchen wallpaper liner

That night after i got my list of home improvements, we quickly decided to tackle task #12, which is basically the easiest of the lot.

I just need to stick some stickers, right?

DSC00045_edit

Got this from Ace Hardware store at Sunway Pyramid for RM 54.90, 10 meters long. This is the self-adhesive type, so just peel it off like a sticker and stick it. There is another cheaper type, which is of cloth-type material, but is not self-adhesive, so you need to apply glue to stick it. I figured that playing with glue could get messy, so what the heck, for once in my life, i rather pay more.

DSC00040_edit

So we start off with one section of the kitchen wall, as shown above, perfectly plain and boring. Time to jazz it up.

DSC00042_edit

My lovely wife figuring out how to cut the liner. Note that it is not as simple as just cutting to the required length and stick it onto the wall. From the earlier picture of the kitchen wall, there is a light switch on the path where i need to stick this, so we have to cut around the liner to accommodate the switch.

DSC00044_edit

Tada!!!
Looks nicer right?

DSC00041_edit

Another part of the kitchen wall with the wallpaper liner.
Sure is cheaper than putting in border tiles.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Home Improvement plan

For all married guys out there, there comes a point in time when our wifes would suddenly give us a set of tasks to do around the house.

This happens once you have settled into your new home, and is relatively comfortable living there. Then all of a sudden, the wifes would slap you with a list of what needs to be improved around the house (even though you may argue that everything is fine, why fix something that ain't broken?)

And that is the dreaded home improvement plan.

Last weekend my wife gave me such a list.
And her dateline is set for the end of Aug 09.

Here are the items in the list (not according to priority).

Tasks:

#1. Paint guest room 1 (easy)
#2. Paint guest room 2 (easy)
#3. Paint master bedroom (easy)
#4. Paint upper living hall (need to top up my insurance premium)
#5. Paint main living hall (a lot of walls to cover)
#6. Paint study room (easy, as soon as i can clear out the junk in the room)
#7. Paint outside (please don't rain)
#8. Window tint (please kill me!)
#9. Fix accessories for guest room 2 (drilling on tiles!)
#10. Fix kitchen curtain rod (easy, but messy)
#11. Fix study room curtain rod (easy but messy)
#12. Kitchen wallpaper liner (child's play)
#13. Living hall lighting (need more ^@#$!#@ $$$$$)

The notes besides the tasks are self explanatory.
Wish me good luck.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Thanks Panasonic for the free air conditioner!

Sometime back in April i bought a cheapo Panasonic air con for my house's guest room where my brother-in-law's family would be staying for a few months.

It was the most entry level model that anyone can find in the market. And if air cons were shoes, then this would be the Croc knock offs that is being sold in the pasar malam. Basically it just blows cold air out. No fancy ionizer, plasma cluster, allergy free, death rays, or what ever new technology is being put into an air con nowadays. I got it for RM 1050, including installation, which i was lead to believe was a good deal.

DSC00071_edit2

Anyway, few days later, while i was reading the newspaper, i saw that Panasonic is having a contest, which is giving a way 333 prizes every month, for 3 months. That's like 999 total prizes up for grabs!!!
So without waiting, i quickly went online to check for details of the contest.
Found my way to the Panasonic website to download the entry form and get a better understanding of how the contest works.

Panasonic333

So basically the contest is pretty simple.
Each RM 300 you spent on any Panasonic product entitles you for 1 entry. So the RM 1050 i spent got me 3 entries.
Answer 2 very idiotically simple questions. And no slogans whatsoever (thank god!)
Complete the form, attach a photocopy of the receipt and the original copy of the warranty card and send it back by post.
Cross your fingers, count your lucky stars and get ready for a lucky draw.

Pretty simple right?

Each draw happens at the beginning of the month, eg. i purchased my air con in April, so i am entitled for the May lucky draw. And each month, 111 lucky person would win an air con, another 111 would win a refrigerator and the remaining 111 would win a washing machine (crap prize).

I mean how hard would that be right? After all, i got 3 entries. Eat dust to those who bought a measly rm 300 product hahahaha

But then later only i realized that at that time, Panasonic was having a lot of promotions, especially with the Viera plasma and LCD TV (i too was almost tempted to swipe my card for a cash and carry 32" LCD TV promotion)

Then it hit me that my measly 3 entries might not even win me anything. Sure, there are 999 prizes to be given away, but we could be talking about thousands of entries. Anyone who bought the plasma and LCD TVs would get no less than 9 entries alone! Thats 3 times higher chance than me.

Well, if it is mine, then it is mine.

Very quickly i forgot about the contest. I did remember checking the newspaper in the beginning of May for the result but didn't see any. In fact the May results came out sometime in mid June i believe. Talk about being slow!

Then one fine day, i got a call from Panasonic that i had won the air con in the 333 contest. She asked me to check the past few day's newspaper. At first i thought it was a prank. I mean, i need to see some proof before i get too happy for the wrong reasons.

Sure enough, when i checked back the newspaper at the date she mentioned, there it was, the results.

DSC00064_edit

Wohoo!!! That's my name!

DSC00067_edit

Ok, so now i have to wait for a letter from Panasonic, informing me which Panasonic dealer i should contact to collect my prize.

After a few weeks of endless waiting (surprisingly the more you expect of something, the longer the wait seemed), the letter finally arrived.

DSC00069_edit2

The dealer was the shop where i bought the cheapo air con from. I promptly called the dude up and demanded my well deserved prize inquired about the prize.

"Erm, your air con haven't come yet lah"

"So when can get?"

"Donno leh. When come lioa, i give you a call"


Well, that's what basically happened and after another few weeks of waiting, finally the dude called me to inform that the prize is in his shop. After doing some research, i tried to persuade him to trade the prize (1.75 hp inverter) to a non-inverter 2.0 hp, which should roughly be the same price tag. But no deal he said, since the prize came directly from Panasonic and he won't make a cent from this (apart from the RM300 commission for being the dealer of the contest winner)

So after haggling with the installation price (yeah, inverter uses different piping and is much more expensive to install and service, which is why i preferred a non-inverter version), I finally got it down to RM280 (non-inverter installation is around RM150) and asked him to come today.

Installation was a breeze (well, i would assume so. But heck, i wouldn't know since i was at work today but my dad did called me up saying they broke a few roof tiles which by the time i got home was already repaired but the question is where did he find some new tiles to replace the broken ones?)

And why the heck was the air con unit installed so high up? And whats with the ugly white cable concealer?

* Note to self: remember to paint it over.

DSC00063_edit

Now still testing the air con performance.
For a 1.75 hp, the blower is quite strong and effective to cover the whole living room.

Though at first it took some time to cool down the whole area (area was not confined and the air escapes everywhere), but once it is in high gear, we found ourselves shivering under its strong cold currents. Don't play play ar.


DSC00061_edit

Ah... Panasonic... you complete me. my living room.

Saturday 1 August 2009

Business trip to Senai, Johor

I just came back from Senai yesterday after a tiring week attending Baan training there.

Went over to Senai on Monday morning, taking the 7.30 am MAS flight, which means i took the taxi at 6.00 am, waking up at 5.00 am. Add that to the fact that i slept at around 12.30 am, that means i only got like 4.5 hours of sleep the night before.
So you can imagine how tiring it is to travel like this.

Once touchdown, it is straight to the office. And enduring another 8 hours of training (well, you know sometimes these can get pretty boring).

Once the Day 1 training is done, time to check out the hotel.
This time i stayed at the Puteri Pacific Hotel JB. Ahh, this hotel certainly brings back memories, as few years back, this was where i called my Second home.

It was called Pan Pacific back then, and i have stayed here collectively for more than 90 days throughout (probably even more, i lost count). Too bad they don't have any reward programme, otherwise i'll probably be a Gold/Platinum member by now.

And it is within walking distance to the City Square mall, so it was a good choice for me.

DSC00019_edit

The comfortable bed. This will be my bed for the next 4 nights.

Just FYI, i slept on the left side of the bed (the opposite side of what is shown below).
No specific reason for choosing the sides, but just make sure the other side is piled up with stuff eg. clothes, bags when you sleep, to prevent ahem from getting too comfortable.

DSC00020_edit

For dinner, my colleague and I went over to City Square and tried the Portuguese Chicken. At RM 11.90, it was a deal for half a chicken, but later we realized that the chicken was kinda small, and it was only so so in the taste department. But we saw a sizeable crowd there, so i guess we KL people have higher expectations on what we eat. (hahahaha)

DSC00021_edit

After dinner, time to head back to the hotel and start working.
Yes, the perils of being on business trips. Seen it before, will again.

Sunrise the next morning.
Look at the dirty glass windows!

DSC00023_edit

Another round of sunrise the next few days, greeting me in the morning to endure more boring trainings.

DSC00025_edit

So does the sunsets, greeting me when i get back to continue working my ass off till wee hours into the night.

DSC00024_edit


C'est la vie. What a wonderful life.