Ants Vs Grasshoppers

Older Version
An ant worked hard in the sweltering heat all summer, building its nest and laying up supplies for the winter. A grasshopper thought the ant was stupid not knowing how to enjoy life. It spent its days laughing, singing & dancing thoroughly enjoying the summer. Came winter, the ant was warm, comfortable and had no shortage of food. The grasshopper had no proper shelter, no stored food, and couldn't find anything to eat from the snow-covered ground. So it died and the story ended.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

Modern Version
An ant worked hard in the sweltering heat all summer, building its nest and laying up supplies for the winter. A grasshopper thought the ant was stupid not knowing how to enjoy life. It spent its days laughing, singing & dancing thoroughly enjoying the summer. Came winter, the shivering grasshopper called a press conference and demanded to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while he was suffering. TV1, TV2 & TV3 showed up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper alongside to a video clip of the ant in his comfortable home with a table full of food.

The majority of the Malaysian Parliamentarians were stunned by the  sharp contrast. How could this poor grasshopper be allowed to suffer? Khairy staged a demonstration in front of the ant's nest. Nazri went on a hunger strike along with other grasshoppers demanding that they be relocated to warmer climate area during winter. The Malaysia Government immediately passed a law forbidding all ants from working hard in the summer so as to bring about equality of poverty between ants and grasshoppers. Hishammudin increased 'More Special Reservations' for grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The ant was fined for failing to share 30% of his food with the grasshopper. The Prime Minister announced that this was part of the NEP. No ant should question it. (Don't forget, Tax Audits were introduced and targeted at certain individuals who were eventually penalized heavily for not contributing enough to the well-being of the grasshoppers).

Many years later, some ants migrated to the US and set up multi-billion dollar companies there. Hundreds of grasshoppers still died of starvation despite the 'More Special Reservations'. Losing significant number of hard working ants and free loading the grasshoppers, Malaysia  remained a developing country, despite its abundant natural resources. All because the remaining ANTS were still doing their work. Latest finding showed that almost all the grasshoppers in the political arena and civil service were hoarding corrupt wealth which they refused to share with fellow grasshoppers.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote wisely!

Looking for Mont Kiara Apartments?

I believe everyone has their own dream houses. House is the most important shelter for human beings, thus, a comfortable house is essential to happy living. Some people admire those who are living in luxurious, big houses especially those with added unique designs and I’m one of the admirers too.

Residential houses can be part of the investment properties which can bring huge returns to the investors. As you can observe from the market trends, the properties prices are in an increasing trend. If you are rich enough to have a sufficient capital to invest, you might want to consider looking into the property market.

Mont Kiara has been one of the top townships in Kuala Lumpur. It’s a prosperous place full of wealthy people and it is developed exclusively for the well-to-do offering fine living lifestyle of a city folk. It has also occupied 30% of the top 20 listed properties in Propwall. I think one of the reasons that have made this place so famous is due to its strategic locations in the urban area nearby KL city centre. And as more people now are willing to spend more money to indulge in a luxury lifestyle, a high-class township would definitely attract many people.

I’ve been to a very special mall in Mont Kiara before. It’s Publika Mall. So why is it so special? It’s specially designed as an artistic mall with unique designs in the decorations, the public benches and as well as the shop lots. It also caters for those artists to hold their functions there and publish their products. There are many fine dining restaurants in it too.

For parents who want their children to learn western style of education, there are a few international schools located in Mont Kiara. Here, your kids would be able to meet many international students and learn more on the cultural differences between countries.

There are many places in KL where you can invest especially those with high demands and Mont Kiara is one of them. I personally would consider property investment too if I have the capital.

Beautiful Malaysian Cars!

Or perhaps should I rephrase my title to be “Beautiful Cars in Malaysia”? Haha. Anyway, I’m not here to brag about products of Malaysia such as Proton or Perodua because I don’t think these two brands can even stand a chance to compete with foreign car makers.

 

Well, for the past few months I’ve been surveying on certain cars of different models and brands as I have the intention to purchase it. However, with finance constrain, only those cars with prices ranging from RM30,000 to RM60,000 would appear in my list of samples. (Gosh! I think I talk more and more like and auditor now!) I guess this industrial training does give me some impacts on my mind with the words I use. Lol…

 

I personally prefer a smaller size of car for a start because it is economically cheaper with less fuel consumption. I have quite a strange preference as I like to use manual gear compared to automatic. I think most users would prefer auto gear for convenience while driving but I feel that it’s too bored driving an auto car. At least I can move my hands and legs more often when I drive a manual gear.

 

A few models popped up in my mind when I started the searching process – Perodua MyVi, Hyundai Getz, Suzuki Swift and Kia Picanto. I didn’t know where to search for best purchase deals so I just checked out the official websites of each brand to find out the specifications and prices.

 

At the same time, my friend wanted to find a Kelisa. I was really clueless on where to find a seller for her. But just recently, I found this website which I think is quite useful for car transaction. You can find many types of cars for sale in it, be it new or used car. Although the website is very simple with minimal options and functions, it’s easy to surf.

 

Someone who likes to “lepak” like me, seriously need a car. Without it, it’d be like handicapped. Shout freedom for my next semester!! ^^

The Best of Malacca

This is a brief list of nice places to visit and tasty food to try. The highlighted items are highly recommended. This is solely based on my own opinion and judgment plus some thorough research and review. If you know somewhere better or any nicer food, just feel free to leave comments. ^^

The Ugly Truth About Resorts World Genting

Not only the bad services I received from the front line employees of Genting Highlands, their internal operation is just as bad as politicians’ scandals.

I visited Genting a few days ago. I was EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED with the manners of certain employees. They were VERY RUDE! Spoilt all my mood.

I have a friend who has been working in the casino for 3 years. I met up with her only to realize that Genting doesn’t treat its employees well! This explains why the turnover rate is high.

My friend will be leaving this dark place soon. There is no future for most of the lowest level, front line employees. Promotion is given to those pretty women or those who can “wipe the shoes” for top management people. Otherwise, you lose out. Such a big company and this is how it runs. Injustice prevails.

I know it’s common for most big companies to have certain political issues but to the extent of such way of promotion, it’s just so ridiculous and unacceptable. Not to say the lousy services I encountered during my stay. If not because of the weather, I wouldn’t choose to go to Genting Highlands.

CariBilik - Now Featuring Over 50k Rooms!!!

As a student, I’m sure all of you would experience almost similar difficulties as me when studying abroad or far away from home. One of those obstacles which you might experience is finding a place to stay if you are not staying in hostel. I encountered this problem when I was planning to move out from hostel one year ago. However, I was fortunate at that time because my friends were moving out too. I didn’t even need to search for any rooms because they did all the jobs from searching to inspecting the houses and rooms. I just needed to say, “OK!”

I always love to go for vacation with my friends. The two main problems that we always faced when planning a trip are accommodation and transportation. Usually transportation can be easily settled when one or two of us can drive our cars. Accommodation is a big issue when money is a concern. We cannot stay in luxury, expensive hotel. Hence, we are always looking for a budget inn or a homestay to stay. It’s not an easy job to find although there are many websites offering this service. Sometimes due to limited knowledge about the places that we are going, we need to find a place where it’s the centre of attraction. This can make our travel becomes more convenient.

Recently, I found a website which I think is very useful for me. The link to this website is http://www.caribilik.my/

What I like about it:

1) It offers many rooms for rent with detailed information regarding each room.

2) It also offers short term rentals, which I labelled it as homestay. This means that we can actually find houses or rooms to rent for one or two days if we are planning to do any event or going for a trip anywhere and yet we don’t want to stay in a hotel because we want to spend time together like a family in a comfortable house. I have done this before with my friends when we went for vacation. It really feels nicer compared to staying in a hotel or a budget inn.

3) Each elaboration comes with photos of the rooms or houses with the images of the beds in them.

4) You can search for rooms easily according to the place you want as labelled by them.

5) The rooms are categorized into “most bookings” and “cheapest rental” which make your search easier depending on which type you prefer.

6) There is a map shown for each place that you are looking at to enable you to know the location of the rooms or houses.

7) There is also a calendar showing you the availability of the rooms or houses for rent.

8) You can make instant booking through the website.

9) Besides looking for rooms, you can also post your rental if you have any rooms or houses to be let out.

What I dislike about it:

1) It doesn’t offer an advanced search with detailed specifications like some other websites. Thus, we’ll need to spend longer time to browse through the available rooms or houses before we can get to find a suitable one.

2) It only offers rooms or houses to rent but doesn’t include shops, offices, factories or warehouses which I think is useful for people doing business.

3) Only rentals are available. It doesn’t come with choices of those for sale.

4) The website doesn’t look attractive enough and I think the coverage areas are somehow limited to high traffic places.

Malaysia Vs Singapore

I was chatting with my brother yesterday and since he’s in Singapore and I’m in Malaysia, out of randomness we talked about some differences that these two countries have. The green coloured font is me while the black one is my brother.

Islam-Christianity

I read an interesting article here. Since the article is quite long, I’ll just touch on the main highlight of it. The author disagrees with Dr Ridhuan’s statement that our Prime Minister’s visit to a Christmas function was an act that dirty his feet or sole. The fact is, it is not beneath him to do so. It’s his social duty as a PM.

The rest of the article provides a strong argument for the disagreement above by the author. He also mentioned and provided some evidences on how the top religious leaders who actually respect other religions and acknowledge them.

Then I came across a few paragraphs here which drew my attention:

“It is known that in Islam, we are allowed to marry the ahlil-kitab (people of the book) without them having to convert to Islam. I would ask, if this is so, would our Christian spouse be required to remove her crucifix before we sleep with her every night? How would she pray in our house in that event?

Islam, from the very beginning - and I mean to say from day one - was inextricably connected to Christianity in many ways than we would even care to admit. On the very day the Prophet (peace be upon him) was revealed the first verse Iqra', he did not know what had happened to him. He ran back home in fear, trembling in shock. Do you remember who told him that he had been appointed God's messenger?

It was none other than Khadija's (the Prophet's wife) cousin, Warqa bin Naufal, a Christian with knowledge of biblical lore, who told Muhammad (peace be upon him) that he had been revealed a divine message, just like Moses before him. Such was the close association between Islam and Christian on the very first day of its existence.”

I never knew that actually a non-Muslim need not convert to Islam even if she or he is married to a Muslim. Why then in Malaysia anyone who is married to a Muslim need to convert to Islam and NEVER get to convert back to its own religion even after a divorce?

Does this show freedom on us, the rakyat? The fact here is that we are actually being controlled so much by the government that all those freedom mentioned in the laws are actually not fully applicable. Not only in terms of freedom to choose own religions, also freedom in other aspects as you can see from the cases like Teoh Beng Hock’s and Atlantuya’s death.

Has our government been cheating on us all this while? If they are truly clean, then why didn’t they just reveal the truth?

Malaysia Real Estate

When you look at the word “property”, what comes to your mind? Money? Investment? Wealth? Real estate? That’s right! You are getting closer to my main focus of this post today. How many of you have ever thought of investing in real estate as a means to get wealthy? Well, I personally have thought of it. But how many who thinks of it really achieve it successfully?

I don’t have much knowledge in investment and also real property. But from a common point of view, the prices of residential houses are increasing over the years. For example, a double-storey terrace house which was acquired a few years ago for about RM125000 can now be sold for about RM250000. Quite a large increase right? After taking the inflation into consideration, it might not be that much but still I think benefit beats the cost.

I’ve looked into some local real estate websites and most of them look the same to me except for the design and some of the features in them. There is this website called PropWall. It looks tidier compared to others which I’ve seen. The information provided by them is arranged in a proper way which makes browsing easier. However, it does not contain as much information as some other property websites which cover more areas inclusive of updated news and events and relevant articles. And because it is tidy, it does not look interesting which makes it unable to capture viewers’ attention for long. The design is quite simple and plain. There isn’t any highlight in it such as special deals or special features which resulted in lack of selling point.

But there is one link in this website which attracted me – Milan Doshi. I think many of you who are not in property investment field might not know who is him. Neither do I, until I saw his link in the website. He is a renowned speaker on investment property who has been coaching on how to get rich from the property and stock markets. At least, I know another great man now.

I believe investment would really be rewarding provided we know the essence of it from top to bottom. Everyone can invest but not all can make a good return from it. After all, it still depends on your knowledge and skills.

Mega Tower Project

I came across this article where our "intelligent" Deputy Prime Minister told PNB to ignore the critics by the public and continue with the mega tower project with the reason that those who oppose to it are jealous. What the heck?! My dear DPM, what's the link between building a mega tower project and jealousy? I wonder if your brain is functioning well.

He further stated that this project will benefit the country. I can't see there is any benefit that we can gain from this tower except gaining a place in Guinness World of Record. Excuse me, DPM! In what way can this tower benefit us?! Are we going to use it? It is a basic necessity for the rakyat? NO!

So you keep saying it's not funded by the government but investors. Who are these investors? Where do they come from? Investors make up the general public! Or maybe the politicians? But in the end, all the money still comes from public. Where does politicians get their emoluments? Tax payers lah! Who else?

Malaysia - "First In Everything"

I came across this article. It revolves around Malaysia cases, those widely known and how our government responded to them. It is interesting and sarcastic in a funny way.

I believe not many of us (Malaysian citizens) really care about our nation. And because of our care-less-ness, that's why our government is taking our resources (tax contributions) for granted. We only know how to complain, but have we ever encountered them? Question them? You may say that we have the opposition party to do so for us, but how much can they change?

I love Malaysia. I love this country. I love the place. I love the food. I love the culture. But I just don't love how the government is treating its rakyat!

Another Provocation Case

I just read a news on the termination of 988 DJ, Jamal and its CEO, Wong.

Reasons: They violated 10.2 and 10.3 of the license conditions.

Condition 10.2 states: “The licensee shall not provide any content which may upset the sensibilities and sentiment of any race or religion in this country.”

Condition 10.3 states: “The licensee shall not provide any content which contains cultural and moral values that are against the community aspirations of the nation.”

For more details of the news, you can read it here.

I wonder are other countries' leaders doing the same thing to their citizens? Why can't we just be more transparent? What is there for our leaders to fear of if they are doing the right thing?

Apa Pun Boleh!

I just read a post from here. Our government thinks that "Malaysia Boleh!" and then "Apa Pun Boleh!"

We are capable of hiring 1.2 million civil servants with total population of 25 million while Japan is only hiring 380000 civil servants with total population of 120 million. Is Malaysia trying to compete to get into Guinness World of Record to have the most numbers of civil servants??

I don't know if this is something good or bad. More people being hired by the government can mean less unemployment. But who are paying for their salaries?? The taxpayers!!

Even if the government wants to help out in reducing unemployment, I think this is not the right way. I think as Malaysians, all of you would have come across the services given by the civil servants. Slow, procrastinate, unfriendly, inefficient, ineffective, bla, bla, bla... Even if they increase the number of civil servants to serve us, the public (or perhaps serve the leaders only), it won't increase their efficiency in any way. It's just a waste! Waste of resources!

Whether a country can prosper or not, it depends on one thing. ATTITUDE! Yes, it's the human's attitude we are talking about. If you are good, you won't be unemployed. If you are willing to work hard, you won't be unemployed. If you have the will, you will surely have the way to get yourself employed. So why does the government need so many civil servants while mostly are "sleeping workers"?