Beautiful.Mind.Life

I’ve redeemed my HSBC’s reward points last week, and yesterday, I’ve got it. A Victorinox travel organiser and an Oral-B Vitality tooth brush, powered by Braun. Excellent. Incredibly fast by HSBC reward center, less than two weeks. Unlike Maybank, I got my Omron electronic weighing scale after more than a month.

I also made an order for two pairs of Crocs, Tideline and Prepair. My wife’s colleague was the dealer or something like it. They told that they can sell several types of Crocs with a very tempting price (the price is around half of the retail price). Rejected stuff, they said. I’m always a big fan of Crocs but they retail price for each pair is rather ridiculous, although I have to admit that they make excellent flip-flops and shoes. Amazingly light and comfy.

Unfortunately, due to the crazy out-of-the-world orders they received, they can only fulfill my Tideline request. The others, including my wife’s, had to be cancelled, or delayed, or whatever, but they did refund. I received my pair yesterday, thanks to Ms Wawa, my wife’s friend. I rushed back home to try it out. I knew it would fit nicely, because I tested the size few days back at Crocs in One Utama. My size is 9, but they said Crocs’ sizes are one step smaller, so I ordered size 10. Got it unpacked, I slipped my left foot in (my wife gets angry whenever I put on my shoes, starting with the left side). Whoaaaa! It didn’t fit as it should be. I checked the size again. Still, it shows 10 (42). Why? I thought I got it tested the other day. Or did I test on 11?

Aaaaahhhhh there goes my raya shoes. Bummer =(

PS: Going to Timberland today haha…

Better. Faster. Easier. Next-generation technologies. More accessible than ever. Exchange support. The world’s most advance operating system.

These are the few advantages listed by Apple for their newly released Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6). Very tempting to me, yet I have been using Leopard (v10.5.8) for just about 2-3 months. Surely, there are lots more to discover and to be learnt. But the temptation of the new OS has been haunting me in my sleep. For just US$29, it’s pretty much within range.

PS: Should I?

PSS: For those who’s in my bandwagon, do visit abdusfauzi. There you can find few good reviews for Snow Leopard, from installing, all the way up to problem solving. More to come!

A few people came to me to better understand what RON actually is, and it is quite a nuisance nowadays, right after the fuel price went up, yet again. Oh, the fuel price is up? Has anyone notice it? Not really though, because it happened quite discretely few days ago. Hardly noticeable. Brilliantly, the RON issue is covering up the few extra cents margin from promised price, once ago.

I have no heart to bash the price hike today as I feel more technical. So let’s get going on understanding what RON is.

A lot of people have been complaining about their engines are rougher than ever, louder than usual, no initial pick up at the start, blabla here blabla there, when they started to use RON95 fuel. I think these are only psychological effects of being on the other side of the river from the government. I don’t mind people criticising the price though, but what came across is more people are complaining RON95 instead of the price.

What is RON? RON stands for Research Octane Number, technically is a resistance measure of fuel to detonate in a fuel combustion engine. The higher the number is, the higher the resistance of the fuel to detonate. This means, higher RON is needed for higher compression ratio vehicle, to avoid engine knock, or premature fuel detonation (explosion due to high compression, not spark ignition). So basically, lower compression ratio vehicles (surely, lower performance cars) won’t be needing such a high RON number. You can fill up with RON97, but there will be no significant result. You can use up to RON300 (if any) if you like, but there will be no improvement in terms of power or fuel consumption.

Let me put it this way. Imagine that you’re buying a bulletproof vest. You have two options. Option number one, a half inch thick vest which can take, say, a .35 calibre bullet, priced at RM1000. Option number 2 is an inch thick vest which can take maybe .45 calibre bullet, and the price is RM2000. And now imagine that in this world, the maximum calibre of the biggest gun is .30. Tell me now, why would you choose option number 2? To feel safer or you just have too much money to spend? This situation applies on the dilemma of RON95 (vest number one) and RON97 (vest number two).

Get it?

To sum it up, there is no pros and cons between RON95 and RON97. RON95 suits the lower performance vehicles, and RON97 for higher performance vehicles. Unless you mess it up. So there is nothing to blame on the fuel rating. The blame should go to you as a car owner. You should start reading the vehicle’s manuals (I can bet only 5% of Malaysians read the manual book provided by the vehicle’s manufacturer) before saying something recklessly.

This confusion is pretty much the same like engine lubrication oil. Everybody thinks that full synthetic oil is the best for all car as it is lighter and more durable. Not necessarily, friends. For vehicles 10+ years old, full synthetic oil will only fork your money more and more. It does not lubricate your engine enough and does not transfer the heat efficiently. Moreover, the thin profile of the oil will easily leak out through minor openings of the old engine. And we actually don’t need those super duper 5W-50 full synthetic rating for our cars, practically in Malaysia’s climate. 50 means that the oil can ‘tighten up’, not to be too thin in a 50 degree Centigrade or above, while 5W means it can actually ‘loosen up’ to be as thin so that it can flow nicely at minus 20 degree Centigrade or lower.

Now guys, tell me, where the hell in Malaysia can we find a place as hot as 50 degree Celcius or as cold -20 degree Celcius? You’re actually spending more for nothing, thinking that you car has increased its power by using more expensive oil, yet you actually doing silly thing by unnecessarily damaging your cars internal parts. A mere placebo indeed. P/S: Just my two cents. Correct me if I’m wrong.

PS: My two cents. Let me know if I’m wrong.

It was sahur time when I got a text from A, my Form 3 Sejahtera (the ‘enlightened’ class) classmate, saying that he’s on his way to my place with his fiance, J. He told me the day before that he will start his engine as early as after sahur, but knowing him so well before, I didn’t buy that. He proved me wrong earlier today by arriving at my place (infact, for the first time to Kemaman) around 0900, plus 30-40km away from track.

There are probably few purposes of his visit here, including meeting and old friend and visiting my newborn son, but surely the top of the list is to sell his MZ 5G product (no offense A. Cheers!).

I believe the duo did a good job convincing us to purchase their insurance product, although we had to have a 4-way conference through the speakerphone later tonight to make sure we fully understand everything. I believe all insurance companies have a main policy of making policies which no one will understand the first time (second, third, fourth… We still don’t fully get a firm hold on it) they look at it. Numbers, words, tables… Just too complicated to get a grip, which is why the agents come into picture.

J is obviously the sharper one (longer experience helps) than A, but A seems to catching up quickly (men has better verbal skills of convincing people, trust me). No matter what, they did good job. Honesty and transparency are the criteria that I look for in n insurance or unit trust agent, and I can find those criteria in both of them. They worked hard (coming all the way to Kemaman to meet only one client proves that) to build up better career, and of course, to fill up their savings accounts as quickly as possible for their coming soon marriage.

Oh, you are getting married Mr.A! How nice to hear someone I know is getting married.

We closed the deal with me getting so close to purchase their product. I will finalize it latest tomorrow, and the deal can be closed soon after.

A, thank you for your visit. Although there’s a financial purpose, I still appreciate it as you’re the first Old Boy to have come to my house, here in Kemaman. Work hard dear brother, as rewards come to only two kind of people, the Luckies and the Hardworkers.

Luck comes and goes.

I’ve got this article, forwarded to me by my wife, forwarded to her by who knows… Wherever it came from, it sure as hell gives good vision and respectively near-perfect accuracy of facts, although we, as the citizen, barely know about all the country’s financial details. Even so, this article below is written based on real time fact and the number figures are closed enough to the figures we always see in the newspapers or TV.

Have a good read. I’m not influencing any of you to be on the other side of the G, but as always, the decision is yours to make. I will always go against the G, no matter what they do…even giving me a cash money of RM625 yearly. RM625??? What a good laughing material.

How true, read on.

Today Tenaga stock rose by about MYR1.00. Volume traded in excess of 35 million units. Yesterday Tenaga stock was suspended. Put these points together.

Let us all ponder…