Merdeka Day

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan
Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

Flag image from: www.fg-a.com/flags18.shtml

Millionhair, not Millionaire

Mingling with millionaire relatives is very demoralising for me especially so when it's a whole group of them. It often sends my already low self esteem spiralling downhill. It made me feel that personal ambitions of mine are unattainable. I don't like the feeling. I prefer my "millionhair" friends, we've got more in common; it makes me feel comfortable with who I am and puts me back in reality.

Single guy + married woman

Someone told me that he met somebody special. He even showed me a photo of her, a very beautiful young Thai lady. I felt happy for him and congratulated him. Then he told me that she is a married woman! I tried not to act shocked but my mind was saying "Doh!!!??!?!??!" He saw my heartshaped pendant and asked where I bought it from because he wanted to buy one for the lady. He told the lady what if her husband asks where she got the pendant from? She replied that she'll just say she bought it herself. Doh!!???!?!?!? I was stumped.

Cajun Nuggets

I tried Macca's new Cajun Nuggets last Sunday and boy it's certainly got oommphhh ... spicy and tasty, I'm LOVIN it. As with any spicy promo including KFC's spicy chicken, it is only available for a short period of time. So, what to do eh? It simply means that Mr & Mrs Oink Oink here are getting some again tonight before it's GONE.

<---- Photo © 2005 McDonald's Corporation, Australia

The Rich Gets Richer

I don't know what to think of the rich who earn millions of $$ a year ... yet pockets welfare! Below is an excerpt from www.smh.com.au

I also want to thank all you who have given suggestions on the door locks :) - much appreciated.

-----------------------------------------
Source: Sydney Morning Herald <-- link to full story
Wealthy parents grab $65 handout
By David Humphries
August 12, 2005

MILLIONAIRE WELFARE

- Family Tax Benefit part B introduced in 2000 for sole parents and stay-home mums

- No means test for a maximum benefit of $65 a week.

- In 2003-04, 31 recipient families each earned more than $1 million.

.Last year, million-dollar families numbered 76; the benefit was paid to 38,500 families earning more than $100,000

The Government has promised to review its non-means-tested family payment after figures revealed that more top-income Australians, including millionaires, were lining up for the maximum benefit of $65 a week.

Last year, 76 single-income families who earned at least $1 million a year received Family Tax Benefit part B, introduced in 2000 by the Howard Government to assist sole parents and stay-at-home mums. A year earlier, only 31 recipients earned at least $1 million.

The benefit, paid to the stay-home parent regardless of the working spouse's income, also went to 352 families who earned more than $500,000 last year.

The welfare lobby said the annual distribution of up to $130 million among 38,500 families earning more than $100,000 a year "could be much better spent on low-income families".

The director of the Institute for Private Enterprise, Des Moore, a former senior Treasury official, sees it as part of politics-inspired "welfare creep".

"Contrary to the idea that social security is supposed to be for people in greatest need," Dr Moore said, "it has been expanded under this Government to the point where social security as a percentage of GDP has grown by 3 percentage points since Whitlam."

The distribution of Family Tax Benefit B payments was revealed by the Family and Community Services Department in answers this week to Opposition questions.

Labor's welfare spokesman, Chris Evans, said yesterday that battling families faced "savage cuts to their incomes under the Howard Government's so-called welfare-to-work policies" while millionaires' row was "sucking even harder on the welfare teat".

Need to keep fit :(

I need to get fit again like in these stone age photos :(

Kingsford (previous apartment), Sydney 2001

Coronet Peak, Queenstown, New Zealand 2002

Where are my current photos? Alamak, too embarassed to show! I hope I get a little incentive to keep fit by reminding myself I used to weigh less, doh! For the record, I have put on 10kg since the above photos were taken ... *sob sob* No one's to blame, I had been overeating and lazy. So if I could pull myself together again and keep fit ... maybe I could fit into all my spring/summer dresses once more, hahaha, wishful thinking again ... great dreamer I am!!

Still busy, won't write much.

Door Locks & Bed

DOOR LOCKS

I notice that houses in gwai loh countries generally do not have door locks installed to the bedrooms. I can understand the logic but having been brought up in a country where door locks is a necessity to any home, I don't feel safe sleeping at night without being able to lock the bedroom door.

Since it is not standard practice to install door locks to bedroom doors here, our new home will not come installed with them. I am considering paying extra to have at least our master bedroom door fixed with the door lock. Will it be a good idea to install door locks to the rest of the bedrooms? Suggestions are most welcome, thank you very much.

BED

Thank you Papi & MrsT for your opinions, King size bed it shall be! As for the bed, maybe I should just settle for a more typical bed such as this ... a little bit of country style ...

or should I get an ensemble instead? Doh ... decisions, decisions ... too many choices = headaches.


I am taking a time out from blogging for now ... busy with some artwork. However, I'll be popping by my favourite blogs now and then.

TRACTOR PIC

I almost forgot, this is for MrsT ... me on the tractor ... New Zealand 2001.

4 Poster Bed

Been rather busy the past few days running to the bank and solicitors for our land settlement. Also went to see my Accountant for my tax return. All done!

We went window shopping for household furniture yesterday. I don't know what got into me but I fell in love with a four poster bed that was on display at the mall. It looked something like the photo to the left.

The posts are detachable and may be replaced with a nice knob if preferred. It's not that expensive, much to my surprise. It costs about AU$350-AU$450 excluding the mattress and curtains (is that what it's called?).

But I am undecided. I know I am a fickle minded person. So we'll have to see how I feel once our home is completed. Kiwi G is such a good sport, he doesn't mind me having a four poster bed.

We're also thinking of getting a King size bed but is that a norm?

By the way, Council has approved our house plans but we have to finalize some changes to the facade with the builder before we approve commencement of construction.

More boring stuff

HTML SPECIAL CHARACTERS

See the tiny green hearts next to my post titles? They're merely symbols, not images.
Here are two sites with tables of special html symbols: here and here
It comes in handy when you wish to type characters such as
¢  £  ©   ¿   °   ½   ¼   ¾   ♣  ♥  ♠


WEBHOSTING & DOMAIN NAME

Web hosting - I have been using www.tera-byte.com web hosting service since year 2002 until now. Their technical support is first class! Support emails are usually replied within half an hour or sooner. These guys are located in Alberta, Canada.

Domain Name - I have one with Network Solutions (USA) which used to be a bit pricey (when I first bought my domain name from them 5 years ago, it was about US$37/year but the price has gone down so much since);

I also bought several domain names with Name Cheap (USA) at US$8.88 each per year. There are cheaper ones around but since Name Cheap accepts payment via Paypal which makes it very much easier for me, I decided to go for it. They also threw in one year free WhoisGuard for every new subscription or transfer.

One can easily look up the owner of the domain and his/her address (I use my PO Box address for confidentiality purpose but all my domains with Name Cheap have WhoisGuard, therefore none of my information, not even my name will show up).

A small note about domain names: I always place a registrar lock on my domains. This will lock my domain records at the registry level and prevent them from being transferred, modified, deleted by a third party or prevent against unauthorized transfers and hijacking.

Since a 'registrar lock' can also make it more difficult to transfer away from a registrar, it might be a good idea to look for a registrar that allows the ability to automatically unlock your domain names at any time without having to call or email them.

But alas, these days, some webhosting companies even throw in a free domain registration for you when you sign up with any of their webhosting packages.

*Yawn* I am feeling sleepy and bored with all this talk already ... zzzZZZZZ *snore snore*

Mailwasher

I usually don't talk about tech stuff in real life nor online simply because I lack the knowledge. However, from now on, I'll just write a little about some cool links that might be useful to others.

I receive many emails a day, junk mail, blank emails, junk fwd exe file attachments, hate mails, virus attachments, you name it, I got it! I used to dread downloading my emails until I found Mailwasher. It allows me to preview all emails; blacklist or delete spams, virus & junk exe file attachments, without having to actually download them first onto my Microsoft Outlook email programme.

Unfortunately the free version has less features but works just as good and may be downloaded at PCWorld.com - Mailwasher

Meet the neighbours

Met the neighbours to our soon to exist new house yesterday. This is a photo of the back of their house, located behind our house, not directly but to the left.

We were looking into their kitchen and admiring the finishings except for the floorings which have yet to be done, when they happened to drop by.

We had a small chat, introduced ourselves as their future neighbours and the lady invited us in to have a tour of their new home. We were in awe of the size of the home of course *salivating*

They're a lovely couple from India, migrated here 17 years ago, have three children, aged 27, 25 and prolly 10 respectively. Lucky children!

They told us that their front doors were dismantled & stolen and the glass sliding door at the kitchen, damaged by thieves! No wonder they are moving in this Friday to guard the house despite the floorings not being done yet.

It's nice to have befriended one neighbour already.
Hopefully the rest of the neighbours are friendly too, we'll see.

Born from a rock?

Had been sick the past few days but am a 100% now. When I was a little girl, I often asked my parents and older siblings how I came into existence. The answer would always be the same (they must have made a pact to give me a standard answer) ie "I was a result of a rock explosion". Nice! And I actually believed them. For years I tried very hard to imagine myself coming out of that rock. I can't remember at what age did I realize it was all a joke (prolly 10 onwards? slow, I know *LOL*). Perhaps the picture below holds some truth to the rock explosion myth .. hmmmm now I have to rethink the theory ...

1998: Moreaki Boulders, South Island, New Zealand

Many gigantic round boulders lying along the shore, gave me a feeling of being in an alien inhibited place

Msian Food

Almost every other Malaysian blog I stumbled upon, has alluring salivating photos of Malaysian FOOOOOD! Thank you people, it reminds me of what I left behind. But honestly, thank you because I enjoyed looking and wishing upon those photos *LOL* Nothing can beat the atmosphere of eating at hawker stalls, kopitiam and best of all, mamak or "mak mak stall" (Kiwi G's vocab), haha. Please kidnap me out of Sydney!

New Zealand

Last night, I stumbled upon a blog about a family starting a new life in the land of the long white cloud ie New Zealand, oooh how envious and I wish them all the very best.

The mention of New Zealand makes me very happy. I am absolutely in love with that beautiful country. Everywhere is so scenic, peaceful and dreamy ... perfect for a great dreamer like me. I have always thought I wanted to live in New Zealand for good but now I am not so sure. Half of Kiwi G's uni mates and cousins have chosen Sydney over NZ; citing career opportunities as the main factor and secondly, probably the beautiful Sydney weather.

Anyway, I won't elaborate on this (my heart is torn between KL, NZ and Oz). If I am brave enough, I'll post a few photos of my happy times in New Zealand taken a stone age ago *LOL*.

Webcam

Plugged in my stone age dinosaur webcam this morning for fun. I hardly use webcam (mainly because my friends back home complained that it's so blur they can't even see my face, hahaha). It is so outdated (bought it about 5 years ago at AU$300+) and very grainy, thanks to older technology. As we know, webcams today cost a fraction of that price and transmit very clear images. So if anyone wants to know what kind of image resolution stone age dinosaur webcams produce, look at my piccies here, hehehe (sorry, they're dark, will turn on the lights and pull the blinds open next time). Nah, I won't be buying a new webcam, no use for it yet.

Skype

Rang home using Skype last Saturday. It's really cheap. 30 minutes call from my PC to land line phones in KL costs only GBP0.81 or USD1.41 or AUD1.89 or RM5.36. The sound quality is sooo clear, no echoes. PC to PC Skype calls are free and just as clear. Now I have no excuse not to ring my sis in the UK (she's always the one with initiative to phone me - she is computer illiterate eventhough her kids use the PC at home). Hard to teach an old dog new tricks I guess? Hehehehehe, sorry sis, I know you don't even know my blog exists.

Bewitched

Watched Bewitched last night. Light hearted comedy but nothing very special about it. Nicole Kidman is dainty and beautiful as always.

The trailer for King Kong was shown before the movie started. Wow, it looked great, the special effects were awesome!! There was a scene where King Kong was fighting off some gigantic dinosaurs to save Naomi Watts (another dainty and pretty actress). Great work Peter Jackson! Am definitely gonna watch this one. The storyline looked a bit different too from the previous King Kong movies, cool!

I'm no movie expert but my own verdict for the movies I have watched thus far are:

Batman Begins : 9/10 (I may be biased on this one)
War of the Worlds : 5/10
Bewitched : 6/10

My verdict on TV series:

24 : 9.5/10
Alias : 9/10
Smallville : 9/10
Desperate Housewives : 8.5/10

London attacks

My heart and thoughts goes out to those who are affected by the tragic bombings in London. I hope all their loved ones are safe and sound. It is such an anti climax to the earlier celebrations of the Brits winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

Each time some horrible attacks like this happens in the world, it makes me very sad and hesitate to start a family. Sept 11, 2001 had a very deep impact on us (not that we have any loved ones directly affected by it) but somehow, it was very devastating to me especially when it was followed by constant news of possible attacks here. It made me and Kiwi G purposely delayed as well as contemplated not to start a family at all. As time passes, the wound began to heal. Just as we are now ready to produce a mini-me ... such horrible thing happened again.

I wish everyone safe and well. Let's all be happy and thankful, life is short.

War of the Worlds

Forgot to mention that we watched War of the Worlds on July 6th. I must say, it was below my expectation. Special effects were good just like any other Spielberg movies. But the story is a bit slow and not that great. It's all about running and hiding, not many interesting dialogues either.

Google Adsense update - I managed to make a small amount of USD5.51 within 24 hrs (for 7,800+ page impressions and 98 clicks). I'll report on this again at the end of the month.

Oops just realized that there is an inappropriate advert popping up on one of my website pages ie Witchcraft! I immediately added that URL to be filtered by my Adsense account. Unfortunately there might be a 24 hr lag for my account to be updated. So, I quickly removed the Adsense script from that particular page, just to be safe and see if that witchcraft ad still pops up when I reinstall the script back on tomorrow.

Google Adsense

What? Another Adsense money making wannabe?! *LOL* No worries, you won't see ads on this blog. I am trying out Adsense on my website (yes I have a website, hehehe). While I was pasting the scripts to some of the pages and uploading them to my server, Adsense managed to rake in US$0.23 via my website ... that was about an hour's time. Not bad at all for a modest website. I'll leave Adsense there for a month and will report on the progress.

Next, my nephew SMS me two nights ago informing that he is applying to hospitals here in Sydney for his medical elective posting next year. I sure hope with all my heart that he gets it. I would love to have him get some working experience at the hospitals here. He will make a great doctor ... all good hearted people will and he is one of them.

My mom just had a cataract eye surgery. She will be discharged today. Have to ring home later. No worries, it is a common surgery, I am sure she is well, otherwise my bros. would have rang me up if things didn't turn out too good.

Lastly, am going for a bit of late night shopping this evening. One thing I don't like is that the late night shopping here takes place on Thursdays. Why not Fridays? Thursday is pay day I suppose. For my dear friends back home who are wondering what "late night" shopping is; well over here, most malls and shops (except major supermarkets, pubs and some eateries) close by 5pm everyday and earlier on weekends (yes, that boring ahhhhhhhhh) except Thursdays when they are opened until 9pm - that is why we call it "late night".