Ice Wine ....

Bahija read about ice wine some time ago ......I've never tried ice wine, curious how it tastes like la...tonight Bahija had dinner appointment @ Solaris Mont Kiara. I arrived early and shopped at the Cold Storage there, suddenly saw this ice wine, quickly bought it la, free 2 wine bottles sekali... so so now , when can I officially open it ??? who wants to share this moment with me ???? Right now my thought is perhaps April 1 evening :)

Nyonya dinner ....

My little youngest sis attended the nyonya cooking class @ Hartamas ( RM 100 ) last Saturday ..tonight she tried her new skills...lots of hardwork. It's neat to have the whole family gathered together, and Makan Besar :) - a fun time to reconnect with each other... Yummy nyonya food too :- nyonya chicken, nyonya fish, and eggplant with shrimps

Tonight, we had fun time chilling at my sis new condo. Hmm, Bahija had the thought of staying in a condo liow....smaller space, easier to manage, shld be more secure, plus new place, cleaner , as compared to mummy's old house , costly to renovate ....hmmmm

apple ipodS ???

First of all, Bahija still hasn't own an ipod yet :( ....

Secondly, my KL 2nd niece - JAS got all As in her UPSR exam.... last week, my KL 1st niece - JOS also got all As in her SPM exam .... yeah, this family very dahysat :) , Bahija remembered very well she went broke promised to get them ( 3 sisters ) gifts if they did well in their exams. So far, in all the major exams, all 3 of them seem to sapu all As la , hee

Thirdly, thesedays, all of them started blogging, hahaha, so this Ah Yee gets to 'secretly' read their blogs , know what's in their mind, very cool indeed. hehe. So, JOS and JAS , both of them eyeing for ipods , of course la , ipod is cool...even their old Ah Yee also eyeing ipod ...

Apple Msia store is available now , I could order an ipod , get free encraving too .....but but but dilemma , takkan I buy 3 ipods , aiyuh - that is RM599 x 3 - mahal lah.... plus ipod is considered luxury item for a schooling teenager wor , right ? I am afraid that their parent will not be happy with this Ah Yee for spoiling them, not showing good example for being thrifty , why must it be ipod ? why not ipud ? why not other way cheaper brand ? .... aiiii

cheap printing ....

Bahija wants to share some info on printing .... if one doesn't do a lot of color printing, it's not worth to buy and maintain a color printer on our own.... the ink will get dry out easily , and color ink not cheap as well , color printer is cheap, but maintenance is high.... Thesedays, color print is cheap. For a good quality A4 size color print - no limit on how many colors , it goes by size...A4 is $1 , A3 is $2 - my friend can get cheaper than my price ... there are many printing places now. Those in KL , can go to Jalan Brunei , near Jalan Pudu , behind Berjaya Times Square area ....those in Subang, can go to SS15 - near Taylor Business School. I go to SS15 , there are a few printing shops along the road , they do photocopy, printing, binding ....using latest technology. Those days , things that I photocopied, kept for few years, the ink faded. Now I switched to digital photocopy, the shop owner said ink will not fade la , let me keep my documents for few years and test it out yea :)

OKU parking lot..

Today, I went to University Hospital, PJ with my lovely mummy, she had doctor appointment....While I was driving around the parking complex to get a parking space....I saw a young teenager girl quickly parked her 4-wheel drive on a OKU ( Orang Kurang Upaya ) parking space .....just in case you don't know what is OKU parking space , the parking space is colored in blue or in other bright color with a wheelchair logo - to signal people that those spots are specially reserved for the less fortunate folks..... so , the young teenager sapu one OKU space. Then next, another indian couple also sapu another OKU space , in my mind , I thought they could be old folks who couldn't walk well, so OK la, let them parked.... so I purposely waited for them to get out of their car, entah-entah both of them could walk very well ..... that was an inconsiderate act, again, for their own benefit - they simply parked their cars at OKU spots. It's very common that OKU spots are easily taken up by the normal folks.... when the 'real' OKU folks come, they couldn't find any parking ....aiii
Over at General Hospital ( GH ), KL ...this kind of scenarios SELALU happen, until GH has to hire a guide, stand in front of the open air OKU parking lots, jemu matahari , sweat under the hot sun , station at the OKU parking spaces, put up signs, chained the spaces - and manually open the parking spaces when a genuine OKU folk drives in ..... if not, none of them get any spaces. GH is open air , the road , the buildings are not well built for handicapped .... it's extremely difficult to wheel someone along the road , from the public parking spaces to the hospital. I tried once , killing me ....

Thesedays , a lot of the shopping malls, new business commercial areas have started to build and reserve OKU parking lots, of course , being us, the first class facility, third class mentality - a lot of abusers around the town , I just wish all of us set an example , start to educate folks , make them aware that having a pair of healthy legs, being able to walk is a blessing, please park nicely , be considerate and bless the less fortunate folks ....

I wish I could or dare to confront the teenager and the indian couples today , told them that their act was wrong .... I didn't - haaa, i was rushing for my time, but I'll set a prayer for them, by all means , they'll learn this lesson very soon :)

Help the needed community .....

Hi all , previously I've briefly mentioned about a community project that is setup and run by my church.... Here, I want to promote it again .... it is called CareMart .... please click on 'caremart' link... the link show u the map and direction to go there....it's a mini supermarket , for all the grocery you buy , you are donating all the profit to the less fortunate folks. We have a list of legitimate recipients , they are poor or hard-core poor families .... they come to CareMart and buy their items at a very very cheap price. The items they can buy at discounted price are rice, bread, some canned food , washing powder, Milo , milk powder - the necessary items, whereas items like coke, nescafe no discount, as those are 'luxury' items.... If you are thinking of gifts for friends, perhaps can get CareMart vouchers :) , there are RM10 and RM50 vouchers.

This is a community project , we are not Giant, Tesco or Carefour , we don't have the capability to keep huge stocks , thus can't keep the price as cheap as them....the selling price is whatever the price we bought from the supplier with some profit margin. The profit goes to charity. So, when you go CareMart , please don't compare the price as those 3 big boys lah , we can't compete with them, plus we are not in the business to compete with them anyway ...the objective is very different :)

So , again .... those of you who have a lot of cash to spare , who doesn't know what gift to get for friends or family , perhaps go for "CareMart vouchers " :)

Any easy way to add label ????

Bahija is thinking to label my blog posts ....do I have to edit every post, and add the label one by one ??? is there any short cut ? add one by one banyak kerja leh , sampai 2004 leh , alamak ......

far far away from home ....

2007 , Bahija was in USA , had a great bday in CA - unforgetable .... 2009, my friend, Dragon Bootidelicious is in USA now, hope she's OK there alone, far far away from home, from her hubby , from her little baby girl ... she celebrated her bday there, hope she have had a great one....perhaps drank some champagne at Empire State Building , or Statute of Liberty ...... oh no , may be not .... may be her work place is far from the tourists happening places leh ....may be she gets to play with snowman nia .....can't wait to hear her fun trips pretty soon .....

Faith Factor

Sunday Star under Fit4Life section, there is an article about 'Faith Factor' - can faith really work miracle and heal the body ? there are some scientific explaination...some of coz still mystery. It's quite a good read, try read it ..... this article covers chant, meditate or pray.
I'm still a new baby christian, it's my 4th year now :) , I've had the privilege of attended some seminars, workshop, 1 healing session, prayers marathon...have heard some marvellous stories, indeed some are miracles. I've seen elite knowledge workers whole heartedly believing in Miracle, knowing that God will grant them the miracles. 2 weeks ago, I attended 'Hearing God's voice' seminar, the speaker touched my heart when he shared his experience in healing an epileptic child, a child who had 5 seizures a day. Since the healing prayer, the child had 1 seizure in 2 months time. Wow , that's something. This speaker is highly motivated, it's very encouraging to listen to him, to look into his eyes, or even to walk up to him and had him lay his hands onto my tired burdened shoulder .... Now, I have a long way to go on faith journey, good thing is that I'm improving , the joy comes when I'm able to receive the message that God wants me to comprehend ...trust me, it is ! Hallelujah ... For this simple Faith, I've told God that I want to give a public testimony , I want to stand in public and share a miracle I've been asking for , that is to heal my Teddy Bear , either stop or reduce his seizures tremendously.....for the past few months, I've been demotivated, feeling very tired and frustrated that after changing multiple medicines, his fits wasn't reduced yet gotten worst. I'm out of ideas, in the midst of considering his brain surgery option....yet in fear. I'm glad that He sent this great man, Marc Dupont to my church, helps up-lifted me a bit :) ..... F.a.i.t.h is just 5 characters, yet it is extremely hard to master, I shall continue to pray :)

不 通 气 part 2 ....

This time , imagine you are driving on a main road, busy 2 ways traffic main road.... there are yellow lines on both sides..Now Msian traffic rules, yellow line means not to enter , not to stop, not to park .....in short all the NOT TO. So imagine , on a busy traffic period, cars parked both sides on the yellow lines , then next to the stationed cars, another car stopped just next to it ( like double parking ) - why the car stopped - waiting for someone or someone out from the car to go buy something .... This leave a small pass thru way for the cars on the main road, then slower traffic, then jam.....

I wonder how their brain is built on ? how did they develop their brain ? did they drink the same milk powder as I did ?? or were they alien from other space ? It's bad enough that cars already illegally parked on the busy main road, add on top of this, there are still many inconsiderate drivers who simply stopped their cars anywhere they like , at their convenient, their behaviour caused so much troubles to others, many folks stucked in jam just because of them wanting 'easy way' for themselves. Then the geram part is , didn't they themselves also encountered the same situation as well ? I wonder what's their heart beat or temper level when they themselves were in my shoe today , stucked in long jams, wasting so much time and petrol , WHY ? because others simply stopped the cars anywhere they like ....

I am praying that people has some sense, has some good civic-minded juices. Don't do the things you don't want others to do on you. For example, I hate those drivers who purposely drive outer lane , then at the junction, insisted to cut queue and sqeeuzed in, padahal there are a lot of drivers patiently queueing behind on the correct lanes...these kind of drivers thought they are smart, they know how to save time. Aiiii. I hate those behaviour, thus I keep reminding myself not to do this.... if circumstances happened that I needed to cut queue, I keep waving my hands as signs of appreciation, as well as sign of apology. I make sure I don't abuse it.

If more malaysians learn to embrace this ' 通 气' attitude, our society will be a much happier one to live in .....this is my prayer item tonight !

不 通 气 ...

Thesedays, I am spending a lot of my time at my mum's house, for simple reason, mum's house is only 5 mins away from my work place....jimat cost and masa :) . Early morning, she always complained to me about her inconsiderate neighbours, strories goes like this , 7 am - the elder generation will walk the dogs around the neighbourhood , then let the dogs 'poo poo' ...they conveniently want their dogs to shit anywhere except their own compound, then the 2nd shift 7pm, this time their sons or daughters came back from work , the younger generation pula yang walk the dogs , again , letting their dogs shit everywhere.... My poor little petite mum, she takes care of the whole household, she faithfully doing marvellous job taking care of Teddy Bear, on top of that, every day at 7:30 am, 7:30 pm - she always has to go check around our house , just to make sure there's no poo poo in front of our house , so that when her daughters drive their cars out of the car porch , or drive in to the car porch , we won't 'accidentally' terpijak the poo poo .... my poor mummy faithfully been cleaning all the poo poo , those are not good smelling poo poo , OK , disgusting ....

When I was studying in USA, I observed the americans walked their dogs , and the dog-walkers brought along a rubbish bag , or I call it 'poo poo' bag ...they cleaned up the poo poo and threw the bag into a dustbin. Everyone happy and clean. My brother stays in Hong Kong , I observed the same practise, all the dog-walkers carried a bag to clean up the dog shits. It's a happy clean environment.

Over here in my home land , I just find this 'dog' thingy ridiculas. The owner so pandai , make the dogs shit at others' place , happily easily bring the dogs back to their own clean house. How considerate it is .... some of my mum neighbours who don't have dogs , they complained to DBKL, complained to certain authorities - because they are geram, so am I. Then the funny part is , when those dog owners knew about the complaints, they dare to be upset with us , they dare to bad-mouth us , HELLLLO ! what kind of logic is this ? you dirty my house with your dog's shit, yet when I complained, you came and angry with me ....therrrrrrr !!!!!

气 死 我 !!!

my black sweety is sick ....

This morning, Bahija and Teddy Bear were on their way to church, Teddy Bear is attending special kids class thesedays, he is improving a lot, he is learning to draw straight lines, to say some english words such as apple, papaya, orange, sleep, listen , it's a great joy seeing him improving week by week.... me, being his sister and teacher, I'm very proud of him, really am .... my goal is that he can write his own name. Anyway, side track liow... so today , a friend called me to pick her, thus I detour from my usual route, on the way to pick her ....mid way, met with an accident... 'BANG' - alamak, I've tried my best to sway to the right side. My black sweety no major damage, but stratch on the left hand side lor - back to end :( , tyre wheels also kena .... Aii, just hope the repair won't cause a bomb ...because the person who hit my sweety is my church pastor leh, the accident wasn't my fault at all. I was on my fast lane going straight. Yea, I also terperanjat, haaa.... shall I say it was a divine appointment for both of us..the funny part is that I am feeling pai sek to claim from pastor , and worrying that the repair costs would be high ..... however, I can't do anything leh, guess has to repair and claim as it is.... my black sweety is new to me, and she was looking extremely sexy prior to the accident ...aiiiii

pray for our country

April is a significant mth for someone , and for us - the msians. There's a change of power... thesedays, we can see the various political issues in P state, there's the tamil community with the sensitive race issues , the 'A' word not allowed to be used in catholic publication ...Tonight, my church prayed for the above, we are praying for this whole week too, people need to have wisdom and peace in their heart, to do the right things ..... especially our leaders. At the end of the day , me , as an individual msian, I really wish for a peaceful, fair community... As I sang the song related to Malaysia, I want myself to be proud for being Malaysian. May God bless us this, protect us during this critical moment.

privillege abused ....

Last December, AR went for a vacation in London. Bahija quickly emailed him, asked him to help Bahija's friend, to purchase some LV bags. Bahija owed a BIG THANK YOU to Ringgit. Ringgit is a true great friend, friend who dare to comment, help to make Bahija a better person :) ...I truely value my friendship with R & AR... So so Ringgit told Bahija that AR would have no issue if Bahija wanted to get the LV bags for herself, coz AR and Bahija friends ma , as always AR has been a great helpful friend.... however, this time round, Bahija was asking a favor for another person , a stranger to AR , to spice things up, for commercial purposes as well, resell those bags....When Ringgit hinted to Bahija, Bahija 'ter-realized' how insensitive she has been ....she abused her privilege liow. I totally agree with AR and R. AR , I'm very sorry for that incident. I'm smarter now - haha. Hope I've learned a mini lesson here, and no repeat in the future ....

employed vs self-employed ....

This is my 8th months of being a sole proprietor .... I'm still learning , still adjusting ... At this point, I'm still positive about this arrangement, it's a new environment for me to explore. I don't know how far I could go ....just glad that I have this opportunity to try things out

Employed vs Self-employed
EPF, medical vs none
mthly income vs may not be mthly
fixed working hrs vs flexible
lots of colleagues vs solo
lunch kakies vs solo
BE form vs B form
PCB (potongan cukai bulanan) vs pay once yrly
EA form vs none
Bonus vs no bonus

One of the thing I realize is that , I don't have EA form, when I walk into the bank to apply for half a million loan , the bank most likely will reject me , because I'm new in my sole proprietorship. Bank afraid that I may not get my future business income .... Due to this reason, one of my friend decided to quit and go back to his employment environment, so that he can continue to apply more loans from banks , especially now , since loans are cheap ( according to his strategy lah ) ....

housing loan ....

After my previous post of BLR 5.5%' , I have another idea to share .... Like I said , right now the BLR is reduced to 5.50 or 5.55% ( confirm with your bank ). Those of us who bought properties > 2 yrs ago , our conventional fluctuate loan deal most likely was BLR + 1 , BLR - 0.5 or something within this range , that translate into 5% to 6.5%. The best way to tackle this is , after the locking period, call the bank loan department, ask if the bank could do you a favor , for rewarding a loyal customer, help you to reduce the loan interest rates. Whenever my locking period expire, and if I don't have intention to fully settle the loan, I'll call the bank and ask them to reduce, so far so good, the bank will entertain, the only drawback is that , bank will enforce another new locking period ( 3 to 5 years ). For those who opted the fixed or islamic loan, the rate is fixed for the whole tenure , say if it was set at 7%, it would be 7% for the whole tenure... Time like this , sometimes is good to review, re-calculate the penalty cost, and survey the refinance package , if the new bank can give you a better deal , which resulted huge savings in interets, then by all mean, do the refinancing ...

For those of you who need a loan calculator , one which is easy to use, can dump in any amout of loan any time , and still be able to show you how much interests paid .... ping me - email me , I'll send over to you :)

financial stocks , anyone ?

I have been keeping an eye on these 2 counters , a beginner , trying to make some sense out of the stock market , haaa ....

MBB year lowest was $4.74 ( within the last 52 weeks ), year highest was $9.92
3/3/2009 - MBB day lowest was $4.78
4/3/2009 - MBB day lowest was $4.84

PBB year lowest was $7.85 , year highest was $12
3/3/2009 - PBB day lowest was $8.35
4/3/2009 - PBB day lowest was $8.10

My guru taught me , how low is low ? how high is high ? these depends on the individual's taste bud.

completed property

my work partner just bought a completed property recently ...this is one of the program pushed by our government , whereby the developer built the properties first, then sell after completion... It's good for the buyer, as we buy what we see, we get what we can see and touch .... however, one area to look out is - a completed unit , once deposit is down, developer expects full payment within 14 days ...The buyer has to ensure the loan, S&P , contracts all can be completed ASAP. because there is no more progressive payment here... once loan approved, must rushed for S&P contract ...so that payments can be channelled to the developer right away. Remember, usually from the loan offer letter to completed S&P - it takes min 1 to 2 mths or so, so how ??? I think the buyer need to highlight to the developer , must ask for further extension - as in free interests or no penalty extension... In this case, sometimes a completed unit come with Strata title , available for title transfer ....this will complicate things again, because engaging lawyers , ding dong with Land office for the title transfer usually takes 2 to 3 mths .....without all these, bank may not want to release loan to developer ...again, as buyer, is there any protection to shield from penalty charges ???

just be careful, if you are thinking of buying a unit from this kind of program ....

RoomService.com

This is one of the thing I heard from the workshop I attended a day ago.... RoomService to your door step , how convenient, how cool it is ... I knew room service is available in the hotel. Now you can get it to deliver to your house , should rename it to 'HouseService' eh ...

I think Bahija likes this service a lot, as I'm quite lazy sometimes, sometimes I just like to hibernate at home, wake up with pj, then on computer chatting, surfing, working, or do housework ....just enjoy staying at home, and not wanting to take a step out of my house... time like this, I can logon to RoomService, check out the menu - be it Chiles, HardRock Cafe, Italiannies , chinese or tandorie or anything that is available ...click and order...then yummy food delivered to my doorstep within 1 hr , with extra RM10

I haven't try it yet, will give it a try very soon....for extra $10 - I think worth it , save me petrol , parking, hassle of driving to the restaurant, still can wear my pj :) ... Hope the food still taste good when it reaches my hand , I'll update you once I've tasted this yea :)

BLR of 5.5%

Bahija is in the midst of re-compiling her finances .... since I'm self-employed now, no EPF , no medical ...everything on my own , suddenly missing a huge chunk of '$$$' ....thus, I need to spend wisely, save more for the rainy days ......

I have the privilege to be a housing loan customer, it started with high BLR, it was like 9%, 7% back then ...my loan started with 13.3% , gradually dropped to 7.3% , then 6.8% ....

1998 - 13.3%, 9.05%
1999 - 8.25%, 7.8%
2000 - 7.8%, 7.7%
2001 - 7.7%, 7.3%
2002 - 7.30%
2003 - 7.30%
2004 - 7.30%
2005 - 7.30%
2006 - 6.80 %
2007 - 6.80 %
2008 - 6.80 %
2009 - 6.80 %

Right now, for a new housing loan, the offer is BLR - 2.4%, BLR is revised to 5.55% , so that means a new housing loan is only 3.15% ONLY !!
How much is FD rate now ? it's only 2% , inflation rate is 4 to 5 % ...

So, what am I trying to say here ? Haa, I also dunno yet :) , wish I am a smart investor ... however, looking at the simple math, it's better to get a housing loan for 3.15% own a property , than to keep money in FD, may be ? hmmm

For those of you who are thinking to apply a housing loan, check out HLB new loan - it's similar with Standard Chartered flexi loan too, combine the current or saving accounts, daily rest and the money u put in saving/current - actually help in reducing a lot of the interests ( at the end of the tenure ) ...worth to consider. Banks are very creative theseday, keeps lauching new and better programs, and if one listen carefully, understand and abide well, it does help in the total interests amount paid

2 1/2 hours jam ....

Today, I took a day off , went to KL Sentral attended a free workshop. Good that I went, heard some neat information from the industry folks ..... Finished workshop at 5:30pm, it's heavy rains...down pouring. waited for a while, then quickly rushed to car , was carpooling with ZE. The minute we exited from KL Sentral and entered Jln Maharajalela ...we were stucked in jam, all the way to Jalan Duta .... for 2 1/2 hrs , we were wondering what the heck happening ....thought the construction of Duke Highway causing the massive traffic jam .... luckily ZE's parent was on the way home, they called and hinted us to detour from Jln Duta , took Hartamas - Segambut a bit - then Jalan Kuching ....

so tonight, many many many folks stucked in jam, some even worst, some car owners practically lost their cars , seeing their cars submerged in the water ...the root cause was the KL flood. This time flood in Jalan Ipoh Batu 1 onwards, including PWTC and surrounding .... aiii , KL flood is getting worst ...

Sunday night, my own house Bkt Rimau entrance roundabout - also flooded ... someone seriously need to look into this and take a wise action , to reduce the suffering, instead of 'tidak apa' attitude :( - the flood is a 'human-created' flood , I am very sure it can be avoided