1. Yeap. Selamat Hari Raya Haji to everyone.

2. The Alza is NOT an MPV. It’s just not. no. nehi.

3. Snapping a rat’s spine can be a bit traumatic… until it’s told on the internet. Then I realised I did a service to Subang Jaya.

4. I think I just rescued quite a number of old car owners. I left a comment on miti’s blog which went unpublished. And then next thing I know, they decided to cancel the regulation that required >15 y.o. car annual check.

5. I lol-ed:

Oops, wrong one…

A little teaser perhaps? Like all car manufacturers always do?

Ok, that’s more like it!! This is actually the first and only clear picture of her that I can get, it’s really difficult to get one for this very big bird.

Her full name is SQ317 A380-800, SQ indicates it’s a Singapore Airlines’ fleet. 3XX is reserved for A380s in their fleet. A380 is… well, this…

Click for larger view

And the 800 is the total maximum passengers it carry if it is configured to all-economy seats. Which it isn’t. This is Singapore Airline we’re talking about, so you might expect it to allow their fleets to have more than ‘all-economy’ configuration. With the business class being the most spacious provided by any airliner, and even more spacious higher-than-first suite class, it has 471 seats in total. So the suite and business class eats up almost double space per economy seat, but to be fair, I do believe they pay far more than double for the price ticket…

My flight to London was in MAS’ MH002 B747-400, so having experienced both planes, I can compare, and I must say, it is very easy to pick the winner. The A380 is quieter, experience less air turbulence (which makes flying feels like a very violent roller coaster ride), is more spacious even in economy class, it is an amazing engineering feat.

Yeap, that’s my seat!!

I guess I have been watching uncountable number of A380 documentaries at Discovery Channel and National Geographic. I remember the endless droning of superlative figures the narrator spits out (“it is enough to stretch over two football fields” kinda line), the delays of its launching date, the problems it faced, one being ensuring the German and French counterparts to be able to share documents, as they use different software thus different formats. I even remember an episode on Singapore Airline’s maiden flight from Changi to Melbourne where the most expensive ticket goes to $100,000. The result, is that you’d get a sense of admiration for all the kind of difficulties it had to go to be able to fly at all…

… and land safely. Unknowingly that it burns 20% less fuel had I been flying in a Boeing 747. It is just magnificent, magnificent… and magnificent.

A side profile view at last… but still obscured =.=

In the mean time, I suppose I will organise another teh tarik session for The Junk Car Club (TJCC). Hell, it’s about time to catch up with si-fu, hopefully Paul Tan, KickingDust and the rest. Details will be known next week perhaps, when Paul Tan returns from Japan.

Phew, August passed by without a single post, I ought to feel guilty huhu…

I perhaps should share with you all that I was doing a part-time job at MPH Bookstore Subang Parade. To be honest, working there gives me a very mixed feeling, I can’t tell whether I loved it or hated. It’s more like both, as I can’t deny each other’s points. I wanted to tell in more details about this, but I’m kinda afraid of the consequences, so I’ll close this matter here.

I have since resigned from it, only to get busy preparing for my raya trip to London, yeah!!

Malaysia Boleh, yeah!! MAS’ Boeing 747-400 MH002

My second sister, who works in Dublin is coming down as well, she’s basically the main purpose for this trip, as my family haven’t raya with her for… a while, yeap. It’s been 8 years since I last visited this place, it’s about time!! To date, Heathrow’s immigration is still very slow, I believe I had to wait about an hour queuing up to pass through it. It felt disappointing, as you’d expect a country which is more advanced than ours to be more efficient. Plus, it’s their gateway to the world, having a slow immigration clearance is to give a bad first impression for foreigners. I now can trust the award KLIA received better, although it still has room to improve. Which is why KLIA is the 7th best airport in the world at the moment, sadly, since it was 4th the previous year…

Earlier that day, while buying stuffs at Bazaar Ramadhan, I came across my former classmate. It’s been awhile since I last saw him, and now when we finally met, I was shocked to find out that we’re going to raya at the same city and in the same flight. So I did some catching up, and I guess the next time I have a yumcha session, I ought to notify him, hehehe.

Back to London, the weather to date, is pretty cold, but only as cold as an air-conded building in Malaysia. As for Hari Raya aka Eid Mubarak, it’s quite an experience celebrating it with Malaysians here. It feels like I’m back in Malaysia, the food, the people, the language, so it didn’t feel too bad.

One massive problem I’m facing now is lack of charger for the camera. I really should’ve listened to myself, that is to just bring the charger from home. No, I had to be foolish enough to believe my eldest sister that told me my 2nd sister will bring the charger, which she did, until I discovered that it couldn’t fit, despite both of us use Canon Ixus cameras. Worse still, my second sister forgot to bring her camera… *facepalm*

This problem had to solved soon… by ebay.co.uk!! Will update more soon. Later~~

Happy Eid Mubarak 2009!!

My computer is broken since almost two weeks ago, the mobo was completely irrepairable. This has cut down the time I could go online significantly, as if it is already not troublesome enough for me to go online right now with my mom nagging on how I’m probably developing gay feelings to Anwar. To her, the internet = all things Anwar… and maybe cars and computer games, which will turn you into a being worse than mat rempit. Wargh…… I can’t facebook, lowyat, paultan, other blogs, etc. Terribly sorry if I appear “dead”, but it seems so until I can get a replacement.

Anyway, another issue with another different friend of mine. Back in March, this friend of mine have an option of getting Myvi, Savvy or Satria Neo Lite, all manual transmission. I advised him to go for Savvy as it is fuel efficient, the Myvi is just nonono, whereas the Satria Neo is pricier than the Savvy. But he prefers the Satria Neo cuz it’s THE Satria Neo. Well, if he insist, yes, it is better looking, it has 1.6 Campro, it is in a higher class than Savvy.

Besides, he used to buy a 2nd hand Satria year 2001 IIANM last December. Unfortunately, he was caught by JPJ for installing Xenon lights without adjusting, so he headed to puspakom. Then, he discovered his engine has duplicated serial number, in other words, he’s driving a stolen car. And so he had to wait for awhile for puspakom to compensate his the car, which was RM15k IIRC. I never had the chance to see it. It was gone as quickly as it appeared. Too soon before I could look at it. Tough luck…

Then he found this one 2nd hand satria year 2000 IIRC at puchong, going for RM10k, with about 70k++ mileage. Now that I think about it, just maybe, the mileage had been tempered, but whatever, at RM10k, it’s quite a bargain. The interior is a bit shabby, but the seller offers to clean it and make it in tip-top condition before giving it to him. My friend paid for its booking. It was blue in colour.

But alas, before he can settle it down, the next thing I know, he told me he booked another 2nd hand Satria, and it is his favourite colour, black. The interior is also as good as new. I remember the troubles of getting it back from the seller of the blue satria, and in the end, he couldn’t get the booking fee back in full, as the seller had used some of the money to re-advertise in a motoring ads again.

Then his father asked him to just get a brand new car. And so he burnt the booking fee for the third black satria with brand new-like interior. So that should give an idea of how Satria is a desireable car. Emm…… desire has a new name… Brilliant tagline indeed for Satria Neo.

And so it was decided. A black Satria Neo Lite it was, although I pestered him until the end to take iridescent white cuz I think that is a better colour.

But then, disaster comes.

No, the major problem is not quality, although he did experience two problems: his left headlight faded, and his hand brake couldn’t be engaged even after it was pulled up, but they were easily solved by the SC. He did have to wait for the headlight replacement for awhile. His power window still works as good as new. These two problems caused his dad to say “why not go for city or civic?” Pulak dah…… dah beli baru nak sanggup naikkan budget……

The major problem is fuel consumption. At first it was a nighmarishly bad at around 8-11km/L. I said it will improve after the 1,000km service, and adviced him some tips on how to save petrol: constant speed, 90km/h, get to top gear ASAP, check tyre pressure frequently blablabla. So he no longer do 180km/h, smoking C-class, or all sorts of nonsense. Subsequently, his f/c did improve, he did achieve 14-16km/L. Phew…

But as it is currently a long summer break, he is doing less trips to the highways (stays in Cheras, college in Subang Jaya), and most of the time driving around his neighborhood. With RM10, he can get less than 50km, which is around… above 20sen/km, or below 9km/L. And now his dad wants him to get a Myvi or Swift or Civic Hybrid. Maybe he can keep the Neo. Maaaaybe…… but more importantly…

JUST WHY IS HE ABLE TO INCREASE HIS BUDGET ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNLY AFTER PURCHASING THE SATRIA NEO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!! WAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH~~~~~!!!!!!!!!

From my point of view, his problems are not outlandishly ridiculous like the granpa’s story that proton bashers in paultan/motortrader/lowyat/internet likes to tell. I have another friend whose dad bought a Mini Cooper S around the same month as his Neo too. Whenever the driver side’s door gets wet by rain or car wash, it will make very annoying noise when power window is used. That’s Mini Cooper S, yes, the turbocharged variant, less than a year old. This friend also has 320i E90, which had to be in the workshop for a year. ONE YEAR. Sitting in the Naza SC waiting for parts to fly in from Germany, only to break down again and again. So really, quality defect is not an exclusive problem in Proton, but then again, BMW is famous to be Banyak Masuk Workshop. Nak pakai, kene sanggup bayar la.

And I clearly remember talking about Savvy’s fuel efficiency, and he’s getting the manual if he was to go for it. Spare parts for it will be cheaper than AMT’s, and if he bothers to engage with savoc communities, he’ll know where he can save more too.

But alas, the damage has been done. His dad may not welcome another Proton at his home. And so he, the friend I was talking about in the last post and I went to showrooms last Wednesday. Here’s my verdict for all showrooms we went:

The good: Suzuki

The salesman was friendly, we were talking like buddies by the time we left. I was excited to know he used to own a Ford Focus mk2 pre-facelift, but sold it as he had an accident (he bought it 2nd hand in the first place, lol). Fearing bad omen (baaaaw… T_T), he now owns a Swift. Now that’s a good salesman, as he can give his experience of owning it, quoting his own f/c, cost of maintainance etc.

The bad: Honda and Toyota

At Honda, there was a saleswoman who approached us, but she was very quiet. Also, there is very little info about Civic Hybrid, even she don’t know where one can get a test drive of it. But according to the brochure, it can do 21km/L, and with 50L fuel tank, it theoretically can 1,000km per full tank. Also, I discovered new City’s rear headroom is pretty bad.

Toyota was even worse. The salesmen would look at us with a “if you don’t have the money, leave” face. Plus, their cars were just awful. I now found out the rear headroom in dugong is still too little. Altis was no better. Seriously, Persona and even Saga has better headroom than these two… and the City as well. The dugong J on display had centre console that turned all three of us off. 1 DIN radio, manual for a price that’s more expensive than the better-equipped Waja CPS, ptooih. They even put info nearby it on how it compares with another competitor, heh, must’ve been the City, which have already sold 10k units. The dugong, is getting the pressure to keep the sales up it seems. However, I managed to get info about the upcoming 3rd gen Prius. It will arrive next month (August) and it will be around RM175k. KNNCCB, mahal sangat lah!!!

The ugly: Perodua

Lying is ugly when it’s exposed. Saying most cars today still have 3-speed auto, while bragging Myvi has 4-speed is absolutely bullshit. I have to admit, it may have an edge with using timing chain, while most other cars use timing belt, but still, I believe that is a rather small advantage. Sure, the belt may snap, but hey, who knows, maybe chains can fail too. And I remember she was saying about Myvi being DOHC, whereas some Proton has SOHC. Oh puh-leez… the 1.8L Honda Civic is SOHC, is there any problem? And AFAIK, all Proton today is DOHC… from the Saga BLM to the Perdana V6. The saleswoman was also talking about Myvi is also japanese, why need to pay extra RM30k for swift? It just sell under perodua badge to get tax exemption, other it may have to sell RM70k, RM80k if under Toyota badge. Hmm… Sounds not bad, except that it kills the point of being a national car. Ok, maybe Proton used to do that in its early years, but does Perodua have an ambition like Proton to produce its own engine, platform etc with the profit they make? Or they’d rather just ship it to Japan without questioning? I asked her about Nautica too, criticising it for being fully-imported and she said they have to sell a lot to be locally assembled, and there might be issue with Toyota Indonesia (which brings in the Rush). They’ve not been getting APs, cuz no demand, but then again, they want to push sales for Myvi n Viva. Hah, Nautica fails. Annoyingly, I see them quite often in Subang Jaya. Grrr……

I just had a drink with my friend, and he told me his father planned to get him a brand new car below or around RM90k.

Unfortunately, having owned a Gen.2 before (which was abused very badly), his father is reluctant to get him another Proton (his current ride is a 2nd hand Honda Civic). There goes the Satria Neo CPS… or a Persona… or Gen.2 CPS… or Saga… Argh…

How about a Perodua Myvi? Nope, it’s underpowered, ugly, handling of a boat, thirsty, it’s just rubbish.

Toyota dugong? Nope, it’s too ugly I’d rather be gay with Mariya-san. <3

Honda City? Urgh, God it's bloody expensive and THAT UGLY GRILLE!! Besides, my friend wants to try avoid Hondas as its maintenance cost is killing him. Now who was it that said Japmobiles spare parts are cheap again?

Nissan Latio? Hmm… hmm… hmm….

Suzuki Swift? Sounds right. But there's the worry of second-hand value, maintenance cost and spare parts availability. And somehow there's a feeling you could've got something better. Like Satria Ne– Argh……

Maybe Korean– Err… right, that sounds like saying Malaysians drive as civilised as the British drivers…

Maybe the Peug 308, but his dad might refuse to get a conti…

How much was the cheapest Mazda3 again…

Zzzz……

Or maybe his father should buy himself a car and pass on the Ford Escape to him. Get a Ford Focus or something.

Hmm… that's the best option aside from buying a Proton, cuz all Japmobiles now feel like rip-offs. Though unlikely. Argh…

Got back from jakarta ystrdy evening. Man, prices of some of the clothes, bags n stuffs alike are unbelievably cheap!! Will be writing abt the trip when I can get the pics from Aida n finish uploading them to my photobucket album. Man, I should get a DSLR sooner I suppose!! EOS 400D is nice, but I’m kinda undecided to get EOS 1000D or 450D, hmm….

To those that I have yet to wish, Happy Chinese New Year!! It’s the year of the ox, where the feng shui masters and all are talking about those born during the year of the rabbit (like me) are unlucky harhar.

Well, I have become a millionaire this year:

You’ve been rickrolled lolololol!!

Okok, so its 1.5million rupiah, or RM502.50, but numerically, it’s still over a million bwahahahahaha. Man, Nokia 5300’s camera is sad without natural light…..

And another thing, since now is the festive season, roads around KL and here in Subang Jaya are so empty you can literally sleep on it safely. But that sounds like a beggar’s PoV on road, so from a petrolhead’s PoV, it’s a great time to drive, yeah!! Like roads, internet has become abnormally smooth……

I saw 8.4MB/s briefly before that…

Since the mid term test was over last week, I’ve been caught up with Macross Frontier. It started out nicely, even epic I would say for the first episode. Then, it somehow went downhill story-wise. The animation was kinda inconsistent too, I could go on for more, but I’d like to stop here because I don’t care!! It’s a gem I’d say, I have yet to watch any series that is this focused on music. Very. Good. Music. So good, even Putin is a fan of Ranka-chan (sorry, Kurogane, I’ve gotta borrow this from you):

Taro Aso, you’re not the only politician + otaku … in the world.

Right, tomorrow… I mean today, I’ll need to get to LCCT at 730am. Be back this Saturday, so re ja~!!

11.161 L of RON97. Right…..

Was Putrajaya mourning the loss of Yang Di Pertuan Negeri of Negeri Sembilan? Or it really is not a place to spot fireworks during new year’s eve? It was disappointing that we assembled too late (around 10pm) to go to The Curve or OU or KL from Cyberjaya, so Putrajaya may not sound too bad, except that there aren’t anything to watch aside from rempits err, rempiting. Zzzz….

Anyway, a browse through some 2008 cherishable moments:

GACC 2008

Describe listening “BANKAI!! TENSA ZANGETSU!!” from the seiyuu himself, Masakazu Morita. Epic. A handshake with him? Epic. Unable to be among 100 to get his autograph? Phail… T_T

That’s Games, Anime, Comic Circle, held annually at MMU Melaka. It was kinda crowded, but that actually is a good indication that otaku-ism and gaming is quite popular here. Hopefully, next year will be held in a bigger place, and a female VIP guest perhaps? It’ll be seriously cool if they can get Rie Kugimiya coming this year *wishful thinking* [ ^_^ ].

8th March

YB Hannah Yeoh (Subang Jaya ADUN) and YB Loh Gwo Burne (Kelana Jaya Parliament) did the impossible. And YB Tony Pua. And YB Nik Nazmi. And more. Now, if any narrow-minded fools still ask me why I “support” DAP, well….. YB Hannah-chan kawaii desu nee~? <3

Anyway, fast forward to today, I believe most Subang Jayarians are rather satisfied with her.

Penang Trip

Epic nasi kandar Line Clear is epic.

The Dark Knight

Ya rly, y so srs? Well…..

Ironman’s hero drives an Audi. Sorry, but today, BMW is no longer the cock’s choice of automobile anymore. It’s Audi. And since batman drives a batmobile and a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, he’s much, much cooler than that cocky….. tinman.

Code Geass R2

Most entertaining series of the year. Yeah!!!

The Tower of Druaga: Aegis of the Uruk

The dawn of a new era of watching anime: streaming on youtube, crunchyroll n another site I forgot, provided by the anime studio themselves. With pretty good subtitle.

As for the series itself, hmm….. rather average, but pretty enjoyable. Loved its OP, Swinging by Muramasa.

PD trip with family

There’s a twist: we stayed at The Avilion this time around. Very nice place. Spotted a Civic Type-R european version with Singaporean plate number.

Soon-to-be “Datuk” Aya Hirano

Well, it fits her, agree?

See, wearing tudung CAN be cute.

Lucky mak cik.

Pictars sauce: her blog.

Aya Hirano (Suzumiya Haruhi – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Konata – Lucky Star, Misa – Death Note), has never been to anywhere outside Japan, US, and Bali (Indonesia) from what I heard. For appreciative enough to visit us for her 3rd DVD and photoshoot for a February issue of a magazine she’ll be featured, we might next hear Datuk Bandar KL recommending her to be given Datukship just like Datuk Shah Rukh Khan. Think I’m joking? She’s an otaku’s Goddess, just look at this, this, and this. I just gotta take it from linkinstreet:

“Jesus fucking christ, if the USA were THIS motivated they would have captured Saddam 5 years ago, and Osama 3 days after 9-11.”
- Epic comment by DmonHiro, presumably an American.

Phew, this has been delayed too much even if I first drafted it on 1st Jan, so sorry that this post seemed rubbish as it goes… not even beyond halfway. I’ll perhaps update it eventually with more pictars n events that I missed here, but I’d thought I just have to publish it now before it gets too stale.

Anyway, what’s in for 2009? Well, for a start, this 28th-31st Jan, I’ll be heading to Jakarta with Fariq, Aida, and Aida’s mom….and hopefully Alif and Fawwaz (aka Tomok)!!! Aida wants to look for some nice clothes, we’ll also be heading to Bandung as well. I’m so excited as this’ll be my first time riding a plane since 2001 to London, and this’ll also be my first time ever to ride an Air Asia plane. Immediately however, I’m facing a problem: I have just returned from Subang Terminal to try n renew my passport only to see the system is down, and according to a phone call to Shah Alam’s Immigration, the whole country’s system is down too. They’d better get it up hopefully by the end of this day, I WANT to make it for the return all-inclusive rate of just RM422!! A check to MAS showed a ridiculous RM1,221 for a similar flight 0_o But oh well, 5-star service n rather last-minute booking, so it’s kinda understandable. I experimented with a date 2 months in advance, MAS rate is three hundred something, so MAS do have cheap flights too. Well, it’s not like I’m goin 2 months later, but it’s just that I know it is possible for MAS to be cheap too. Yeap.

Darn, November passed by without a post. Anyway, Some quickies on what happened since the last post:

- Top Gear Season 12 is teh secks.

- Jeremy Clarkson’s Thriller is ultimately all about the CLK AMG Black

- I have Rowling’s latest book, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”, but hardly time to read it (still stuck at page 25 -_- ). My next post will definitely be a review on it.

- Congrats to Datuk Ahmad Fuad on being the mayor of KL What a reverse, Datuk Ab Hakim is MPSJ’s President after you, and now you’re the mayor of KL after him lol. Zati mesti heppi ye uncle datuk, ehehehe.

- I got a Canon MP145 for RM185 at a warehouse sale in USJ1. Recently, PC Fair sold it for RM199 + 4GB Toshiba USB + Canon backpack + Canon French designed hand n face towel. Now if I can oni get all those for RM14….. T_T And my, I see more ppl getting Canon than other all-in-one printer compared to the last PC Fair…. Lexmark, HP, Epson, Brother, what happened? Oh yeah, getting pwned by Canon, muahahahaha.

- I broke tradition by attending PC Fair on a Saturday rather than the usual Sunday. Fortunately, I was the 2nd last customer to own the CISS system. It was for just RM120 n it was selling like hot cake, yeah!! Now I can go for a print whore, muahahahaha.

- Who cares if there’s a fatwa to ban yoga? And dear ulamas, there’s just no stupider way to get publicity than to show how friggin narrow-minded you are. So quit it. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

- I am not the only Malay(sian) that thinks it’s all right if a non-malay becomes the PM, cuz seriously, all I care is he/she buat kerja. Properly.

- Datuk Nizar, you disappoint me…. as an engineer, you really shud do something abt the Perdana V6 rather than “changing your lifestyle”.  If you want to, err…..no, I reckon you MUST meet Datuk Syed Zainal face-to-face. He can be reached at 03-80269669 or syedzainalabidin@proton.com

- I am addicted to Rie Fu’s latest single, Romantic. That short hair style however, doesn’t suit you IMHO, Rie Fu-chan~ <3.

- BUAT KERJA (do my work)!! So that’s all for now. I’ll be back next week perhaps, when my assignments can finally get out of the way =.= ….

Hmm….. so many datuks in my post…..

The news’ just in. My deepest condolences to his family and close friends. Ashraf, I pray that you will stay strong in this hard time. Your brother had been a nice guy to have company with.

By the time I reached his house yesterday, the body had just arrived after being flown from Terengganu. What an experience… a chilling one. Accompanying him to his last resting place in USJ19, it was really intimidating to watch a body that once spoke to me gently and kindly being buried 6 feet under very, very heavy, solid wet soil.

And I must note how Mother Nature knows how to tell when there’s a tragedy: the sky was dark on Wednesday evening (when the plane went missing from radar), and it rained heavily yesterday (Thursday) morning (when the body was found). It was noticeable as the sky has been bright for……quite awhile.

Now I have to write to The Star that Ariff was a Subang Jaya resident, and the other pilot is probably the one from Sungai Buloh.