By popular request… 
This is how the ground floor looks like. Mine is exactly like the unit of the right. The back faces North. The front door faces South.
From the main door, when you look inside, this is what you will see:
The dry kitchen is the area with the blue sink. So, can you imagine the kitchen design now?
And this is a view of the wet kitchen, from the ground floor toilet:
While waiting for the Certificate of Fitness (CF), we have been looking around for a contractor to do up the grilles, kitchen cabinets, electrical wiring, etc… We have also been going around looking for lights, furniture, electrical items such a refrigerator and fans, etc…
For the first time in my life, I think I’m going to actually pay for grass! Not the one that is used to smoke, but the green thing that we see at the roadside, etc… I’m not too pleased with the cow grass and will probably look into planting pearl grass instead.
We have not decided on anything yet. We’re just looking around for the best price. We have been told that Puchong is a good place to source for lights, in particular, this place called Top Ten. As for electrical items, Puchong also comes up tops. But I’ve also been told there’s a shop in SS2 that is quite good (next to Murni).
See how it goes… Mega Sales is in August…
Oh ya, CF is expected in the next 1-2 weeks. That’s when we can officially move in or start our renovation works. Yea!
When we collected the keys to our new home last month, we were given a set of house plan as well. With that, I downloaded Ikea’s Kitchen Planner and got busy. And a few weeks later, this is what I managed to come up with…
What do you all think?
A few weeks back, my brother suggested that the whole family go for a holiday… So, after taking into account the number of people, the budget he had and logistics (one uncle stays in Singapore), we ended up at… A Famosa Resort in Melaka.
It was a 2D/ 1N trip… In on Saturday and out on Sunday. We arrived at the resort around lunch time but since we could not check in first and we wanted to try the ‘local’ food, we headed to Melaka town. The drive took the makan place took us almost 40minutes! 
So it was lunch, sight-seeing, shopping and then dinner at Jonker Street/ Walk. We then quickly headed back to A Famosa as we wanted to catch the shows at Cowboy Town. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived, it was already almost the end of the show. We only got to watch the parade and then the fireworks.
We walked around the area… Its more like a funfair. You have your carnival games, a bowling alley, some trapeze thingy and bumper car (yeah!). We almost trashed the car. My bro and I would drive around the ‘ring’ first to gain speed and then go head-on… We could hear the metal crash against each other. We came out with aching backs… No kidding!
We had brought decks of cards… But dunno why… When we got back to the 4 room single storey bungalow, everyone was tired and just went to sleep. Next thing I knew… It was morning.
We then headed to Animal Safari for our breakfast. Nothing really great about dinner. You either choose porridge, nasi lemak + rendang chicken or western breakfast (egg + baked beans + sausage).
First thing we did after breakfast was rush over to watch the Elephant show. I have to say… I feel sorry for the elephants. *sigh* My aunt said she even saw an elephant shed tears… I mean, they were dancing and shaking their heads (looks as though they were on ecstasy) and being poked with what looked like quiet sharp objects. I guess they animals suffer because people like us continue to visit places like these… But the elephants were really great!
Then we went for the safari ride…
Lots of deers too… Not tiger food though
After that, I went to this chicken place… You see different types of chicken. I saw lots of cute chicks there too…
There’s actually lots of animals here and I have to say I enjoyed this place more than I did at the National Zoo. I went to the Zoo about 3 years back and don’t recall enjoying myself this much. But of course over here, I got lots of vegetarian kaki…
All in all, I think we all enjoyed ourselves. It was a well needed break for the family. But would we return? I don’t think so… Cause it just don’t have the pulling factor. I don’t see why I would wanna return to the cowboy town. The animal safari… I can always go to a pet shop… Or the Zoo. Still, its a nice place to go and relax if you’ve never been there. But make sure you go in a group. I don’t think you’ll really enjoy if you go alone or with just a friend.
I had dinner with my in-law’s place… And Mrs Tai followed me back home… Yea!!! Someone to pamper me…
I have been looking around for the Thai triangle cushion and have been asking family and friends visiting Thailand to keep an eye out for me. Latest was Sherman who was in Thailand for a short holiday just two weeks back.
Anyway, he was being extremely helpful to the point that he texted my just a few days ago to tell me that he saw this triangle cushion being sold here in Malaysia — Carrefour Subang.
So off I went this evening to Carrefour to check out the Thai triangle cushion and bring one home. At the same time, took my mum to my friend’s diner located close by (the e-Tiara Apartments). My friend owns and runs the diner — Ben and Nick’s Diner. They serve good Western food.
After dinner, we rushed to Carrefour, got the cushion and went back home… I was all excited about the Thai triangle cushion and the four new Wii games I had just bought earlier today. Mum was just as excited and curious about the Thia triangle cushion and pestered my to unpack it and try it out. I have tried out the Thai triangle cushion before at a friend’s place — that’s how I first found out about it. I find it very useful and plan to get a few of this for my new home. Mrs Tai and I will probably buy these Thai triangle cushions instead of sofa sets, provided they are really practical and useful. And that’s why I just got one first… To try it out.
After unpacking it, I rolled it all out and it becomes a bed!
This is really cool, huh?
Then it took me another 15 minutes to figure out how to turn it into a chair… Surprisingly, there are quite a number of combination and I recall getting it right after just the first few tries. Then I remember folding the cushion back into the storage position (all folded up) and then trying to unfold it back into the chair position… That’s when I realised it’s not as easy as it seems… You can tell I’ve never been good with Rubik’s cube…
But anyway, after 15 minutes, I finally got it…
We’re still testing out the Thai triangle cushion. Getting my family and friends to try it out over the next few weeks and see what is their feedback. If everything is OK and I don’t get any sore neck, I’m going back to Carrefour to get more of these Thai triangle cushions… If you wanna try out the cushion, do drop by my parent’s place…
And in case you are wondering, they cost rm69.90 each. Well… Since I can’t find it anywhere else at the moment, I think it’s a bargain.
Have you ever wondered how spammers got hold of your email address?
Well, if you are using Gmail, there is one little feature in Gmail that can help you find out and even manage the spams. I found out about this only a few months ago and have yet to try it out.
You see, some dodgy websites that requires you to provide your email address can sometimes also sell away your email address to spammers (they could actually also be the spammers themselves). With this google feature, you can leave a ‘marker’. For example, if you want to register on my website (www.adriantai.com) and your email address is gmail@gmail.com, you can actually sign up as gmail+adriantaidotcom@gmail.com. Emails that comes from my site will still arrive at your mailbox because Gmail will not recognise anything after the ‘+’ sign.
You can then create a filter to filter out emails sent to mygmail+adriantaidotcom@gmail.com. This way, when you start getting emails that is not sent out by www.adriantai.com, you know something is not right and your ‘email address’ is probably in a spam list now… That’s when you change the filter to direct emails straight to the trash!
But don’t worry… www.adriantai.com don’t do such things…
For more details about this, do check out the Gmail blog. Let me know if you need a step-by-step guide. I’ll be more than happy to write one.
Today is my first day back at work after a month long break. Once again, I have to really say that I’m very fortunate and grateful that my present employer allowed me to take the month off since I’ve only joined them in May itself!
My boss is in town so I managed to personally thank him for the arrangement and approval. I believe the one month break was something very important as it helped Mrs Tai and myself get through the difficult and painful time. Without the break, I really don’t know what would have happened. As it is, both of us are doing fine now. Mrs Tai is now back at her parent’s place as she is still on maternity leave.
Things in the office is fine. I guess everyone’s heard about it. One month away, so as expected, there’s lots of stuffs to follow-up and complete. There is a long to-do list and I definitely want to catch up and complete them all ASAP.
Things don’t stop after office hours. It seems the upgrade of the Setia Alam Residents’ Association (SARA) forum didn’t go as smoothly as planned and I ended up spending about two hours working on it. Luckily the members were very understanding and looked on the bright side (new version means better features) instead of demanding for my head on the floor…
We collected the keys to our new home in Setia Alam today!
We can’t move in yet because we are still waiting for the Certificate of Fitness (CF). We are expecting to get the CF in July. Give or take about two months for the developer to rectify the defects (we’re being generous here by giving two months). Then another 2-3 months for some basic stuffs like grilles, kitchen cabinet, etc…
We should be staying there by end of this year!
For most companies, SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedures. But for some, they actually stand for Silly Operating Procedures.
I can easily give examples of how these SOPs are designed by people who are not in touch with reality. For example, last year when a tenant moved out in a hurry, I did what was considered the SOP — call the utility companies and check to make sure all bills are paid, etc… One of them was of course Telekom Malaysia. They said there were some outstanding payments. I told them that my tenant had actually ‘migrated’ and will no longer be using their services. My tenant was no longer in Malaysia and could not be contacted. I advised Telekom Malaysia to immediately terminate the phone and broadband services.
Telekom Malaysia then told me that their SOP does not allow anyone other than the customer to request for termination. I can understand the logic behind this… Eventually, the phone service was terminated but not the broadband. When I asked again much later, they said broadband services had to be separately terminated. And if the user does not issue a termination notice (or do not realise the termination notice is separate), the service will still be active. The thing is, the broadband service requires a phone line. So I asked if there is no phone line, how can the broadband service still be active? The customer service people said its SOP.
Fast forward till nine months later… The outstanding amount is accumulating. Since I was still holding some deposit, I told Telekom Malaysia I would use the deposit to make partial payment (outstanding bill is more than the deposit). Again, I told them it is pointless to continue to charge for it since the tenant has left nine months ago… I was told the same thing — SOP. The service will be automatically terminated once the outstanding amount reaches a certain limit… Wait… I just made partial payment… So I asked them, does it mean now it will take Telekom Malaysia even longer to deactivate the account? The answer is — YES.
How silly can things get? I know that TMNet (Telekom Malaysia’s internet subsidiary) will sometimes issue a notice if you default payment just after two months. So how come this one can still go on after nine months? I suspect the notice is just notice and the limit is something like rm1000. So, if you wanna abuse their Silly Operating Procedure, you just need to sign up for the wireless access, which costs an extra rm10 which you will not pay anyway (this way, even after the phone service is terminated, you can access from their wireless nodes). Then don’t pay your bills. If you sign up for the rm66 per month unlimited package and add the rm10 per month for wireless access, you should be able to get 13 months of free internet. But of course, don’t blame me if you get blacklisted or this don’t work. But so far for that ex-tenant of mine, the service is still on!
Another case of Silly Standard Operating Procedure, this time with one of our local bank (this is also the bank that at one time said they will only deal with bumiputra companies for purchases, etc). It seems that to open a joint account in this bank, the relationship must either be parent-child, siblings or husband-wife (we are not talking about business accounts). And for husband and wife, you actually need to bring along your original marriage certificate! This is the first time I have heard if such thing. Banks are now charging service fees so I would expect them to be providing me with SERVICES not DIS-SERVICE! And I think our government’s effort to promote MyKad is definitely not working with LOCAL banks. This bank still requires us to fill up something like 2 sets of forms (that’s like 6-8 pages)…
Mrs Tai and I got annoyed and decided to walk down the block to another bank. We walked to the customer service counter and asked for the form. We also asked in advance if they needed to see our marriage certificate. They said there is no need for the certificate and there’s no form to complete. We just need to produce our MyKad… The process was impressive. The relevant information was extracted from MyKad and the details were then inserted into a form which was then printed out. All we needed to do was just sign! This is service we don’t mind paying. Shame on you, Maybank!
I just have to take another shot at Telekom Malaysia. I am sure many would have seen this advertisement before:
It’s written very clearly in the advertisement… “No fixed line rental*” with an ‘*’. How bad can the ‘*’ be? Look closely at the bottom and it says:
“Streamyx Combo monthly subscription fee is inclusive of monthly TM fixed line rental”. I must hand it to the marketing genius who came up with this… Is this actually legal — to claim NO fees and then say the fees are included (which actually means there are fees to pay)?