Jack Rack

This is a repost.

Car-man requested to blank out key amounts. Seems Jack got a very very good discount - we owe it to the workshop not to publish the actual amounts.

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Jack recently went for surgery to fix that annoying steering rack noise. The nosie has worsened so it was high time to do something about it before anything untowards happens.

used steering rack rm ###
wiper (front) rm 26
wiper (back) rm 16
power steering fluid top-up rm 8
alignment rm 20
labour rm ###

Total: RM ###
That is equals to roughly the price of 20 standard paperbacks.
Or 30 if you buy off Borders 3-for-price-of-2 promo. huhu

Booked Jack

After the recent social over-exposure of pre + during + post wedding, I did what I've badly wanted to do for the past few months - retract from everything and everyone* and bury my head in the sand. And the best available sand to stick your head into is - books!

I went into crazy mode and dropped everything (including blogging, as you can tell) to recoup in September. My read list for September:

1 Misforture by Wesley Stace
2 Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
3 Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists by Gideon Defoe
4 Call Me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale
5 Pirates! In An Adventure With Ahab by Gideon Defoe
6 Identity by Milan Kundera
7 Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Impressive? Not as impressive as my book-buying binge(s!) for September. Which I will not list because no point making myself feel guilty. :-P

*everyone except delightful new hubby

Jack's Back!

Mileage: 78046 km

Jack apologizes to his regular readers for the lack of activity for the past month. The tracker registered a surprising number of visitors although the content was never updated. Jack thanks you for the loyalty!

Jack wants this tattoo!

With all the recent Jack-cidents I think Jack deserves a tattoo like this:

Jack-cident

THE INCIDENT

One day before the wedding - Jack gets agitated with pre-wedding jitters and accidentally reverses full-speed into an unlucky Iswara. We braved into Jalan Masjid India, KL to grab a last minute item. In the melee of people and cars and more people and no parking and.. and... the combined effect was bad on my nerves already frayed from wedding stress and family stress. I took a wrong turn in a car park and reversed to get back from the exit gate and CRASH.

Oops. My first thought was 'Oh no I gonna get scolding from car-man'. I came down with my newly inai-ed hand and all and inspected Jack, while the other car's people did likewise. The was no dent on Jack's rear bumper, just a barely noticebale scratch. I breathed a relief that it wasn't a bad crash - then turned to inspect the other car. Double oops. The Iswara bumper was hanging of the car, sporting a nice big happy dent.

We traded phone numbers, I told the guy (pretty decent chap) to get it fixed and I'll pay him back the damage. I didn't pay him then and he didn't insist, I'm flattered that there still is trust in this ugly city. A quick call to car-man confirmed the bumper to be around RM150 max.

He called up few days later asking I had a prefered mechanic, but since I was in the midst of travelling around for the various reception I asked him to go ahead to his usual one and let me know. He called back a day later quoting his the mechanic's assement = RM750. Wah liao. He listed some items which I politely listened to but did not understand. I then sadly gave up the intent to settle this myself and got car-man to help settle the matter.

Car-man insisted to see the car to verify the claim. We met up with Iswara guy and car-man saw the damage, look at me, shook his head, and set up arrangements to fix the car at his friends workshop. The high position of Jack rear bumper (Jack's ass, if you will) hit the Iswara's front bumper at a beautiful spot that broke his front grill that in turn broke both his light brackets, and also smashed his bumper. Ouch.

The Iswara was fully repaired at cost-price RM 530 at CSK Auto - they left the labor cost up to us to give however much. So nice, Thank you CSK Auto. Recommended for you Auto needs

CSK Auto Service Centre
25, Jalan SM11, Taman Sri Manja
6 Mile, Off Jalan Klang Lama, PJ

Cousin Sha, who was with me at the time of incident, observed - "Wah. Now we know. Spectra very strong". Hahaha. That thought did cross my mind. Poor plastic-type new Iswara. The mechanic said that the new Iswara has a good reputation for touch-and-break.

Why did I blindly reverse full speed into a stationary car? Maybe my grandma's pantang larang took effect - the bride is not supposed to leave the house in the three days before the wedding. Or maybe it's the mirror I accidentally broke the previous day - 7 more years of such bad luck! Or maybe I just needed more sleep. The accumulated tiredness would explain the TRAFFIC LIGHT KISS and the PARKING MALL SIDE SCRAPE. :P

Mrs Jack

Me and car-man on our wedding day - 20 August 2006. Thanks to all you guys who graced this wonderful day with your presence at our ceremony. =)

Notice Jack tumpang glamer in this pic.

3-Week Jack

Jack gets a 3-week break from daily driving to KL hell with my 3-week work respite. I'm off to get/got married (pardon my tenses. I'm post-blogging and confusing myself).

What a hectic 3-weeks!

Week 1 - Pre-wedding mayhem
1.1 Jack makes multiple trips to LCCT (Low cost terminal. Now Everyone Can Fly!) for scattered relatives arrival.
1.2 Jack makes a cheap-booze dash to Seremban.
1.3 Jack zaps around running various wedding errands.
1.4 Jack makes very regular pilgrimage to saree-blouse man (the many trips is largely due to 1.1)
1.5 Jack ventures (once) into KL for a last-minute thing and meets THE INCIDENT.

Week 2 - Wedding & dinner & dinner
Sunday - Noon wedding at NUPW Hall in PJ
Sunday - Return home ceremonies for both houses in Subang
Monday - Off to Damai Laut Resort (Perak), one-night stay wedding gift from family friend
Tuesday - Wedding Dinner reception hosted by car-man's parents at home in Sitiawan, Perak
Wednesday - Back to Subang. Wade through wedding debris and pack for trip.
Thursday - Flight to Sandakan, Sabah.
Friday - Parents-in-law anniversary, dinner hosted by brother-in-law in Sandakan
Saturday - Wedding Dinner reception hosted by my parents at stilts-on-sea seafood restaurant in Sandakan.
Sunday - Flight home to Subang. Wade through leftover wedding debris and pack for long trip.
Monday - Drive to Kuantan (2 cars. Don't ask. I just feel I need my wheels.)

Week 3 - Rest in peace and quiet
Jack spent the final week in Kuantan. I brought Jack to Kuantan to aid in my mission to explore the town to decide if I would uproot my life (friends, job, routines, familiarity) in KL and restart here.

The decision? Still pending. I explored as much too know there's a good-enough Popular and a lot of decent Kopitiams. And that Kuantan is a very nice town. That's as far as I got, cos despite my many plans I ended up sleeping away the past weeks' fatigue instead.

I felt very depressed having to return to KL and its 3 lane roads choked with cars and noxious carbon emissions. Or maybe I'm just depressed having to return to work this Monday. Boo hoo.

Jack Tax

Jack's legality was due to end on the day I was due to legally change my taraf perkahwinan. So off we went to visit the nice insurance lady and the banks again.

One year insurance : RM 1, 046.oo
One year road-tax: RM 126.50
Bank processing charges: RM 15.00

Pre-wedding Jack

Mileage : 42712 km

What's with the silence? Jack not dead (yet), no worries.

He's alive and well and for the past weeks have been busy zooming around doing wedding-iy stuffs. Around KL and Seremban and Melaka hand-delivering wedding invitations. To the tailor(s). To the garland-makers. To the hall. To the food-tasting. To the planner's office. To the registrar uncle's house. To the wedding officiator meeting*. To the bridal shop. To the bridal house**.

There is yet more activity in store for Jack as we (eagerly) count the days towards D-Day. But there might not be much mentioned here. I've got enough wedding-iy stuff in my face and enough chorus of voices greeting me 'How's the wedding preparation?' everywhere I go to not want to blog about it. I believe you will understand. =)

So please come for my wedding ya***. I will be very pleased if you guys can attend and witness this exciting day of my life. If you haven't received an invitation yet buzz me (sorry hehe).

* Registrar - conduct marriage registration legally. Officiator - conduct ceremony according to custom.

**Got diffrence la. Bridal shop is that person who put powder on your face, knots your hair with flowers and ties your saree so it looks better than everyone elses. Bridal house is the one with lots of white wedding dresses displayed at the window.

*** Don't be like some persons (unfortunately blood-related) who is waiting for me to beg and plead for her to come and show her bitchy face and spoil my wedding. Hahaha. I would be pleased if you will come attend my wedding because you are genuinely pleased for me to have found my man whom I wish to spend the rest of my life with.

Jack on the Road

Funky stuff you sometimes find on the road.

What's that? Let's go have a closer look.

Looks like its a spideman..

It's a poor spiderman all tied up and left to die!

Rude Jack

Stat your Monday with ... rudeness & 'nice' people!

One of my top grouses is people who cut queues. Those damn farkers who cut a mile long of cars waiting patiently and selit in at the last minute. at the junction and contributes MORE towards the long wait. For Jack's daily commute this is especially annoying at the Jalan Kinabalu - Jalan Sultan Ismail turnoff.

Today, a very nicely maintained Honda cut in front of Jack right at the junction. This being my pet grouse + it's a bloody Monday and I don't wanna go to work so damn early but I have to cos traffic is a killer + traffic is already a killer with Jack having been on the road for close to an hour + a weekend of being heckled about wedding wedding wedding (xxxx - a lot of unsaid words here that I cannot put up for political reasons), I did the KL road-conduct manners thing - flashed the stupid bugger (sb) and waved a cute little finger.

At which the sb took offence (oh, he was so doing the correct thing all this while) and started staring cock at me through his rearview mirror. He slowed down and started crawling, which is extremely intelligent of him considering he cut queue to save his precious time and now he's spending it wisely by trying to annoy me. Hahaha.

Kereta cantik tapi tak pandai bawa. Kesian. Maybe not sb's fault also, maybe his mak bapak forgot to teach him manners.

Anyway he put up his staring game till I took of my sunglasses and stared back at him, at which sb dropped both his gaze and frown. Maybe he's a God-fearing Melayu man, cannot make eye contact with females. So pious. He unfortunately took the same route as I did (maybe he thought I was tailing him into the inner roads) but went further that me as I turned off to park. Which gives him the advantage of knowing where Jack is lepaking right now.

Let's hope Jack has all his wheels and has not acquired a brilliant new scratch by the time I go back today. Couldn't care less, though. I hope his balls get infested with maggots and his eyebrows catch fire in a hilarious freak accident. Happy Monday!

Guzzler Jack

Mileage : 39894 km

I've been told countless times that a Spectra is an oil-guzzler.

I never paid much attention before as .. err.. well it was not much of a concern. But now that I'm sitting bored in Jack daily as I commute to work I've been noticing things more. Like, the odometer is quite interesting to watch. And it's quite fun to reset at every full tank to see how far Petronas Primax fuel can go (okay, so I've not made this a habit before. So?)

Jack clocks in barely 380km town-driving for a ful tank of ~RM75.
Wow. Time to re-do my finances.

Further Spectra fuel consumption discussion here

UPM Jack

Jack visits Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) to get little bro registered last Sunday.
The resgistration process was quick and very well coordinated. I was impressed with the internal traffic management.

Step 1: Park car at designated 'Tempat Letak Kereta Ibu-Bapa'


Step 2: Take bus to Kolej Kelima. There are dedicated buses for the respective colleges, frequent enough not to be crowded even with the mountains of bags and pails and teddy bear (?).


Step 3: Register.


Step 4: Get hostel key and 'check-in'.

Rajin-rajin belajar, adik. Enjoy campus life!

Jack Stuck

I woke up late this morning and Jack got stuck in traffic for 1 hour 10 mins.
With amazing luck I managed to replicate Jack's action - by getting stuck in the office lift with two just-as-lucky colleagues.


Have a bad day, folks.

Japan GT (no Jack)

Jack gets car-napped to Seremban while I spend the day at Sepang ogling at people ogling at Japan GT babes.


GT cars lining up at the pit lane


On the starting grid

GT babes

Grid Activity

So cute. Michelin Man!

Alex Yoong after A1 demo run

Guys from work: does this Intergra Cup driver look familiar?

Decision Jack

Mileage: 38806 km

This morning while getting off Jack after parking him I noticed my sunglasses lying limp on the dashboard. I realised it has been ages since I last used them... Jack reaches the office as the sun is just beginning to shine and leaves office when the sun has long retired.

This sad observation just adds another pebble to the decision scale. For the past 2 months I've caught myself frequently grousing about working in KL. Since Jack complaining week to week makes a boring read, and is making me a tediously boring person, I've decided to make a decision about doing something to solve this 'problem'.

Step 1: Decide to do something [DONE]
Step 2: Decide what it is that needs to be done.

I have on hand two possible solution. Either I change address of residence, which is not too easy considering I just bought the house, or I change address of working place, which is not easy because of.. of... I like the work *choke.

Between dismantling my Ikea shelves or dismantling two-and-a-half years of work history, the choice seems obviously obvious.

Sareed Jack

Mileage: 38450 km

Jack makes a trip to Seremban for wedding saree(s) shopping.

A cousin of mine runs a home business selling selected sarees brought in direct from India. We spent 4 hours shifting through a roomful of choices, sitting comfortably on the floor enveloped in their kind hospitality.





































We left happily with our purchase of 5 sarees and 5 punjabi suits, including a wedding saree.
* Wedding saree not shown. Pantang.

Jack Holidayed

Mileage: 37962 km

I LOVE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!
No jams! 45 mins to work - ON FEDERAL HIGHWAY!

Which means I'm at the office now at 7.45am. A bit too early :p

Subang-Kuantan Dash Jack

Jack makes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Kuantan.

11.00 am - Leave Subang
Journey was pleasant, not much cars on the road. Had cousin Kesv keep me company and join me in sampling the food at Temerloh rest stop (not recommended, duh).

2.45 pm - reach Kuantan
Whee! Get to spend some time with car-man. Rindu.

6.17 pm - leave Kuantan
At car-man's insistence left before the day gets dark. He wanted me to clear the Kuantan-Karak stretch before night, at least. People say the highway got 'things', but actually is just so staright and boring that bad single-car crashes happens often. Plus a lot monkeys cross road without looking first. I saw two-and-half monkey corpse on the way back.

10.01 pm - reach Subang
Smooth journey, except for a slight (45 mins) crawl before the tunnel. On the clear streches of highway I noticed no one barely went over the 120km/h. (I didn't either, I promised I wouldn't and strained my neck keeping the speed. Try driving at a slower than normal speed - you'll feel your neck straining to get ahead. Inertia maybe.)

Anyways I was quite surprised, nice roads and no hell-speeding. Was it because the cars were mostly filled with families on holidays? Or was it just the laid-back style of driving that city people cannot understand? Or was it city people but driving slower cause it's ho-li-day? Hrm...

7.5 hours spent in the car to spend 3.5 hours with car-man.
Worth it? You bet.

Smarting Jack

SMART: Build nice hotels in and around Putrajaya.

SMARTER: Build nice state-of-art convention centre in Putrajaya.

SMARTEST: Hold meeting in said convention centre. Host participants in hotels in KL and close major roads at peak hours so the most-honored participants can travel to meeting in time.

Jack Track

Jack spends the weekend at the race track, for the Hong Kong Classic Car series. The boys got down and dirty while I sat amongst the towers of tyres doing what I always do on weekends - reading. =)

Crawl, Jack, crawl

Mileage : 36777

Home - KL stats :

Home - NKVE - Jln Duta - Jln Parlimen - Jln Kinabalu - Office [30 km, RM2.60]
Office - Jln Kinabalu - Federal Highway - NPE - Home [22 km, RM3.60]
Office - Jln Kinabalu - Federal Highway - Home [21 km, RM0.00]
Office - Jln Parlimen - LDP - NKVE - Home [26 km, RM1.00]

When you spend so much time stuck in your car daily you'd come up with ways to pass the time too. I'm an avid mileage meter reader now. Sigh.

Jack Optimax

Jack makes a few trips to Optimax at TTDI these past few days as I get my eyes fixed. I'm typing this post through newly lasered eyes, AND without any optical help. No glasses, no contact lenses. =D

This morning I woke up to my life long dream of waking up and SEEING without having to first reach for my glasses. =D

So how was it? The first visit to Optimax was for a 2 hour eye examination. I went through about 7 eye test machines as they tested for sight, cornea thickness, refractiveness, acuity, etc etc. After confirming on suitability (25% of patients get turned down for unsuitability, for example too thin corneas) and degree of short-sightness and astigmatism, I went back with blurred vision from the pupil-dilating drops they administered for the test.

Second trip...

Surgery day. Register, get pupils dilated for surgery and dressed in hospital gowns (very classy one, got cloth cuffs. Fuyoo). The nurse explained the after-care routine, then the doctor personally sat with each patient and talked about the upcoming procedure. I remember one line he said - "If you hear any zzz zzz sound ignore it, thats the laser doing its work. If you smell barbecue, ignore it, thats the laser..."

I was not nervous at all going into surgery, after all its a 30 minute procedure and I'm getting my eyesight (!!!). The three hours leading up to the actual surgery was a tad boring, especially with a fellow patient yapping away with anxiety beside me. Then it came my turn. Yeahoo, I thought..

The first thing the doctor does before we go into surgery is mark two dots in each eye, with a blue marker. That totally freaked me out. How come in the gazillions of counselling and information they provided they failed to mention this? Since I shrank back (come on, he's touching the eye with a marker!!) and the marks he made were not visible enough, he had to do it again and touched up the marks in my eyes twice. EEeeuuwwww.

Then we go into the surgery room and the procedure begins. During surgery a ring is fixed around the eye so you can't move it; then the cornea top is sliced open, lifted, the laser applied, and the cornea top put back in place, smoothed down and that it.




While the surgery is under way there is a lot of bright lights hovering over the eye, and the first instict is to blink, right? The ring over the eye prevents this, and although I was desperate to close my eyes agaisnt the lights invasion I can't. At that point of time I remember feeling extremely extremely horrified. That feeling I'm not keen on going through ever again.

Then the cornea slicing part. Haha the thing is you're awake throughout the procedure, and you have to maintian your eye looking at a given guiding light. So.. you get to SEE you cornea lifted, SEE it returned to position, SEE the doctor smooth it down with whatever instrument that is. Damn geli. Eeeee. My hands are going weak just typing this out. Eeeee...

If you're thinking to laser your eyes (Sorry Juon I hope this didn't scare you), go for it. The results are worth it. But be prepared lah, don't be hero like me. It's not a walk in the park, its shit scary actually. :p

* Thanks to the current wave of O% credit card installment that made this surgery possible.

KL KL KL Jack

Mileage : 34875 km

Jack and me gets a lifestyle change. Earlier mornings, new routes, more walkings (me) and more sun (Jack). I'm now based in KL and currently surviving the change, with a LOT of complaints. Sigh.

Foiled!!

Jack goes back late from office, waiting as we (my specially gifted colleagues and me) work into the night completing our very special project.

If you work in my office, it is not advisable to turn your back on your evil scheming colleagues; especially if it is your birthday. Otherwise you may get this:

Microsoft Jack

Mileage: 34512 km

Jack goes to Sime Darby Convention Centre (huh? haha yes I didn't know this existed either) for Microsoft's ISV Summit 2006. It was the usual subtle Microsoft propaganda, well-done as usual.

Matthew Hardman presenting Windows Presentation Foundation

Special Note: Aaron Tan Dani is an exceptional speaker. If you attend any MS events in the future lookout and try a topic by him. He's got the experience + that special something that makes his talks extremely alive and interesting.

How is the seminar? many has asked. If you're a work-related person I'll give you the standard 'OK, some good presentations on new products' answer. On a more personal note I've achieved my main objectives in attending the event.

1) Meet people aka Build Bridges
I was a bit disappointed to discover my ex-company no longer runs the event, they lost the contract to another events suite. I was looking forward to meeting the old bunch, but another day/event then.

I met some ex-colleagues and some ex-schoolmates, so we traded stories and work-situations as usual. Completely bored waiting for the event to start, I struck up some conversation with some equally bored-looking persons. More stories and work-situations. Ha, now I have friend in the online banking system business.

2) Catch up aka Staying Current
Good to know the newest things around, since IT is a business that goes out of date very fast. Got a good look at Microsoft latest newest freshest developer tools.

I was quite curios about the Microsoft Team Systems, having come across this many times in stalking that blond-haired demigod of my past. (Hehehe. An obsession is hard to rid of). Now I know that Team Systems is the best integrated software development platform to build the mission-critical applications that businesses depend on. It combines powerful new role-based tools, customizable processes and guidance and an integrated server to help teams drive predictability, visibility, and control into their software development process.

3) Learn new things
I learnt... to make sure to remember the floor you parked your car at. I remembered the location but forgot to note the floor. Had a fun time visiting all 3 levels of car-park looking for Jack. Thank goodness there's only 3 floors overall!

Service Jack

Jack spends the day at the mechanic while I mope at home nursing an inflamed eyeball writhing with conjuctivitis. (Sucks to be mc-able sick on Saturday AND Sunday)

I want new eyes!! Since these are not readily available on the market, I had to console myself by getting Jack new tyres instead. His back tyres were in pretty bad shape, exhausted on one side each. They were causing quite a racket (anyone riding in the back seat of Jack can tell) so its time to get some new wheels, figuratively. At RM194 per piece, Jack left me quite broke.

Service Bill
Engine Oil RM 85
Oil Filter RM 18
Labour Free (friend friend ma)
Filter and Complete Check RM 12
2 Tyres RM388
2 Tubeless Valves RM 10
Wheel Balancing RM 10
Alignment RM25

Total - a wallet-emptying RM548

Vacated Jack

Jack stays at home while I go off for a 4-day vacation around Kota Kinabalu, with a choice bunch of colleagues. Bliss....
(We emptied half the office btw - teehee).

1) One day in gallivanting around KK town.

2) One day shivering in the mountains at Kinabalu National Park.
3) One day salting and burning in Pulau Manukan.

*natives will notice there is something really wrong with the first pic.

Jack?

Mileage: 34005 km

What's this long awful silence??!! Either Jack (and me) is too busy enjoying life to have the time to blog, or having a no-life too dull to blog about.

KL commute Jack

Jack experiments what working in and traveling to KL entails. Sooner or later (sooner, more likely) we're getting displaced to KL office, seeing that the benevolent company has bought a whole building, so this Monday we took a trial run exploring the option of taking Star LRT to work.

I'm pampered. I hardly ever take public transport (unless you count airplanes). The prospect of taking public transport daily to work is something new and not at all exciting. Much as I prefer driving (ah - the personal space), I'd rather keep my blood vessels intact than drive out of USJ in the mornings.

Trashycan has outlined the available options of getting to work in KL from Subang. This is the route Jack and me tried.

7.20am leave home
7.50 reach Star LRT Bukit Jalil. Actually I didn't realize until I was at the station platform that I was actually lost. I meant to reach Star LRT Sri Petaling station. =P.
8.02 Finish U-turn, leave Jack in open-air parking (RM 1.50 per day), walk across big drain to station, zap TouchNGo and wait at platform.
8.25 Reach station Sultan Ismail.
8.26 Got scared by the rush of people hurrying out of the station. What's the emergency? All the otherwise wonderfully dressed people were rushing head forward, legs trying to desperately catch up. Like chickens running across the street hahaha.
8.27 Finish gaping at the chickens running across the road. Begin walking to office. Getting acquainted with dirty diesel-ly KL air.
8.40-ish Reach office.

Not a bad daily commute. The traveling time can be cut down quite some, since I not that familiar yet.
Not bad, leave at 7.20am daily as opposed to currently leave at 8.20am...

Malacca Jack

Jacks goes down to Malacca for the weekend, for Lou Peng's wedding.
We bunked in with Anah for this trip - Thanks Anah!


Having had a relatively tiring week, I had expected to be wasted and tired and moody by Sunday. With a KLIA trip on Friday evening, another KLIA trip on Saturday morning, after which I drove back to Subang then on to getting stuck in Sunway jam (construction, construction) in the ghastly afternoon heat and THEN drive down to Malacca... I was expecting to be tired and was a bit afraid of being bad company.

But the drive to Malacca is awesome. GRIN. Once past Seremban it is a pleasure to drive drive drive. Jack and me had a fun time cruising along on the nice road, taking in the beatiful scenery. I agree with Anah, once past Seremban the scenery turns very pretty. Having promised Car-man I won't take Jack pass 130 km/h, we kept a steady speed and it still was a beatiful beautiful drive.

Haha, plus we discovered Malacca is not that far after all.
Satay celup within reach. Woohoo.

I meantioned I expected a tiring weekend rite? I hadn't expected the place I was sleeping over at. I've been to Anah's house pre-renovation and during renovation, but the post-renovation home is - wahliao. I left the house and Malacca extremely calmed and rejuvenated - take a look at these pics to see why.

Once again, Thank you Anah!

Jack up the petrol price

This blog is running for just a year and already there were two posts on petrol price increase, a 10 sen jump on May 5th '05 and another 10 sen jump on August 4th '05

Now we have a third jump at 30 sen to 1.92 sen.
30 sen.

There's not much to say that's not already been said, no?

Haha...

Jack's colleague get's a sticky prank on his master's last day of service at my workplace.

Jack Around

Jack's been out out out so there was not much time to blog. Here's the short excerpts on what he's been up to.

1) MPH Sale
Jack brings me and Anah (yippee I got her to come down from Malacca) to empty our wallets at the annual MPH Warehouse sale. Jack then had to lug back our stacks of purchases teeheehee.

2) Ikea
Jack visits Ikea with me and Anah. Then Jack had to lug back that absurd thing we both bought teeheehee.

3) NUPW Hall
Jack checks out NUPW Hall for wedding venue. Me and Car-man got a proper tour of the place and people running them, so this is where we're going to tie the knot. Yippee.

4) Bugs
Jack drives head-on, full-speed into a swarm of bugs and thwacked them all. Jack got a screen full of disgusting semi-liquid splotches. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

5) Kuantan
Jack takes a day-trip to Kuantan for the wedding dinner of Car-man's colleague. His colleague, an Aussie, got a duo of musicians performing folk tunes with guitar and banjo and accordion. Funky.

6) KLIA
Jack goes to that place again, this time to get my parents. Together! They were actually kind enough to come down in the same day and same flight this time. Hallelujah.

JACK TURNS ONE!!

Mileage : 28088 km

Jack turns one today. Congrats! All four wheels intact, body slightly dented but still able. Cheers! Here to long life and health (please don't deteriorate into a write-off before I finish paying for you in the next four years). Cheers! Only 8000 km above the standard mileage average of 20k km a year!

Jack's in a bit of a spot though. I've collected his new road tax yesterday but forgot to paste in on.. Oops. Jack will be creeping around silently with his dead road-tax today. Ssssshhh...

Errand-Monday Jack

Monday. Jack and me do what we usually do on Mondays - run around doing errands that can only be done during certain hours because everybody works the same days and times. Lunch-time errands is out for us Cyberians (there is nothing in Cyberjaya). This Monday, among other things Jack went to check out two more halls for wedding venue.

We have a hall booked but due to certain reasons we're looking at some alternatives. Don't ask, I won't answer. So this Monday Jack went to Thean Hou Temple at Jalan Syed Putra and MPPJ's D'Klana Hall.

The D'Klana Hall was abuzz with activity when Jack and me stopped for a viewing. They were setting up the place for the upcoming MPH warehouse sale. Boxes and boxes of books sprawled acroos the hall while the staff unpacked and got them on the shelves. Eeeeeee...... It was a lot of work ignoring the excitement buzzing in my pores (ok. yes. I'll never be a poet) and actually notice the hall.

What was more disturbing than the stacks of books was the atmosphere. Pre-event setup. So much activity, staff in t-shirts running about co-ordinating. Beyond that I saw the long-hours on the feet, the tapao lunches, the actual event day of people people people. The smile smile smile for the crowd and the 'can you believe this guy' at end-day. The teardown after event, demolish and pack and post-mortem back at office. Sigh...I miss doing events.

Different combinations of eyes nose mouths, different temperaments. Beats the different snippets of code code code I'm seeing daily now. But would I trade back? Haha.. the grass is always greener on the other side.

Anyway this Monday ends. This will be our next to last errand-Monday, I'm back to full-week work next week. Well that's a trade-off, and I hope it is a good choice.

Valentine Jack

I love you too...

Taxing Jack

Jack is approaching his birthday, so its time to cough up cash to keep him legally on the road.

Getting his insurance and road tax renewed was an unexpected adventure. Previously for Baby Knacil was a straight-forward process - on road-tax-die day go Kurnia renew insurance, then go Post office renew road tax. Done in 2 hours or less. Simple.

Jack just had to be difficult. For a start his birthcert is with the creditors, which means I can't renew his road tax directly. Usually insurance companies can liase with the banks to do this for you, so that one less headache BUT....

I renewed Jack's insurance at a branch of P&O Orient in Taipan. Service is excellent, the sole lady in the office is from a past generation of cheerfullness and politeness. It's like conversing with a teacher from those days. She regretfully informed me that since Jack's birthcert is with his creditors in another state therefore they will not be able to help liase with the bank on the road tax. Hai. She was very kindly, giving specific people and things to do to get things done at the creditors branch down the road.

Jack's extra-steps process - one week earlier go to P&O Orient renew insurance, tehn go to creditor branch get road tax renewed (remember to mention inter-branch transaction), then one week later go collect road tax. A bit less simple.

Jack just had to be extra difficult. It turns out the company who dealt with Baby Kancil/Jack trade-off botched some things. Jack's road tax expires on February, but his insurance expires in May (???. I also don't know. Tu lah, tak check). This mismatch is bad because your road tax and insurance MUST match, so the alternative was to extend Jack's insurance 3 months and renew road tax for 6 months so they both are due for renewal in August. Canggih.

Then in August there will be a repeatorama of this process, will less one hassle of mismatched documents. Hai. Another thing, after holding the insurance policy thus far, I just noticed that my address was recorded wrongly. House number 55 instead of 58. Goodness.. so folks, forget the fine print. Remember to read the whole bloody thing.

Ka-ching!
Insurance extension : RM 335.47
Road Tax : RM 63
Road Tax Processing Fee : RM 10
Road Tax Inter-branch courier : RM 5

Jack's Perak Tour

Some photos from Jack's CNY dash across Perak.
All photos taken outside relatives's homes,
whom kindly hosted Jack and passengers.

Sitiawan

Taiping

Ipoh

Jack's Weekend

Jack has a nice weekend running about.

He's gone scouring Subang area for a decent hall to hold a wedding.

He's gone for a little birthday party for a close friend of car-man. His friend's little boy's birthday, and we chill with car-man's associates of parents towing little kiddies. Did I feel a bit out of place in this crowd of grown-ups? =)

He's gone for our annual CNY lose-our-money gathering at InnSann's place. Nice catching up, bar that cracking whining incident. =) =)

Hehehehe. Come snigger with me if you get the joke.

Jack is Back

Mileage : 27002 km

Jack comes home! Yippie!

Bro brought him back nicely washed. He took some photos of Jack traipsing all over Sitiawan, Taiping and Ipoh, but he's yet to pass them to me. So for now I've got only one pic of Jack, outside my in-laws house in Sitiawan.

Oh.. don't look too puzzled. Car-man is the son of an old old family friend, so my grandma wanted to drop in say hello to his parents. My grandma and his grandma were chums waaaaay back then in this small little town.

Resolve Jack

Jack is still off holidaying, at this moment in Taiping. Without me.

In a previous post I mentioned my resolve on curbing my book buying tendencies. Last Sunday (CNY Sunday) car-man took his sister and kids and me for a treat to Aquaria KLCC. And alas, KLCC means Kinokuniya beckoning in her sultry voice..

Aquaria KLCC was quite fun despite the crowds - do make a trip. The Living Oceans gigantic aquarium is worth a WOW. We went through it twice, it was pretty amazing. I'm not telling you more, go see for yourself.

Kinokuniya called, and unfortunately I answered. I got Khaled Hosseini's The Kita Runner and Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh. Plus I nearly popped my eyes at the sheer variety of books on offer. Now I'm itching for another visit.

Technically, I didn't actually go back on the vow. It was, I quote, 'ban Jack from malls with MPH, Popular and Borders'. Hahaha.. I exploited the loophole in my own vow. Kinokuniya is not banned, and it wasn't Jack that took me there.

Hahaha. Or in other words I'm just no good at keeping resolves.

Holiday Jack

Mileage : 26439 km

Happy Chinese New Year, Folks.

Jack goes to Sitiawan for the long holidays with Bro as Grandma's get-around. I stayed behind missing him (Jack, not Bro) terribly, but I am adamant I don't want to travel anywhere outside of Klang Valley. The nightmare of inching along KL-Seremban highway at 5km/h ALL THE WAY two cny's ago has left me a lasting phobia.

It's a weird feeling not having Jack around for so many days (he's back on Thursday). Without him I actually feel sort of crippled. Not that I'm totally without wheels, I have Bro's car for use, plus car-man's ride is around (plus driver, no less. teehee). It's just odd not having your own wheels at your instant disposal - takes a bit of your 'grab keys and go' freedom. I feel that tad bit restricted, but well I'll make do.

The city during CNY is one of my favourite scenes. Such measly traffic on any given road! wheeee.... You can actually pick and choose parking spots. wheeee... Zig zag like crazy across three lanes. wheeee.....

Jack Serviced

Mileage : 26142 km

Jack goes in for his first independent service at CSK Auto Service Centre, Taman Sri Manja. This is a dependable workshop whom car-man refers his more-valued ex-customers to.

Engine Oil : 83.00
Oil Filter : 16.00
Labour : 12.00

Total : RM 111.00
(includes tuning to fix the annoying k-tak sound when the steering is turned full right).

Obsessive Jack

Mileage: 25803 km

Jack spends the first half of Sunday at IOI Mall Puchong. He / We left soon in the afternoon, forced out by the nauseating last-week-before-CNY crowd. Gosh, people. Keep your kids (especially the ones still needing diapers) at home. I would have thought this common sense. I mean, would that baby in the pram actually be looking forward to a trip to the mall?

Shopping in any mall, must, MUST, as usual include at least an hour browing through the locale bookstore. After ages engrossed amongst the shelves of IOI Mall's newly facelifted Popular bookstore, I walked out empty-handed... amazing...

Actually what's amazing is that I'm still keeping to my 'vow' of not purchasing any new books until I've done with the previous batch I bought. I'm being lenient in applying this rule to only books bought this year on, cause I do still want to buy books (hand itchy).

Early this year I got three books from Borders Ikano in their buy-three-pay-for-two promotion. I've done Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, am going through Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and have Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans to finish before I can get anymore books.

Wish me luck! In keeping my resolve to not get any new books before this batch is done. A tall order, but must.. keep.. resolve. (fingers crossed). I therefore ban Jack from any malls containing an MPH, Popular or Borders. Which is most malls, so I'll just have to keep home these holidays and work on my latest obsession.

Oh ya, in not getting any books I consoled myself by finnaly getting that needlework I've been eyeing since Uni days. It's a spectacular shades-of-brown potrait of the Hindu Lord Ganesha. This is my brand new, 180 x 220 stitch-count cross-stitch obsession. =)

Jack Limit

Push yourself to the limit! (Sounds motivation-ish?)


Jack pushes to 150 km/h, his best yet.

This is on Jack's best acquainted road, the Subang - KLIA strech of the Elite highway. This time around its to send off car-man for his 4-day business trip (lucky bugger) to Delhi.




Wasn't me at the wheel though. I usually freak out at around 130 km/h. Amazing how effective images of my father crying over a senseless death is to that leg on the gas pedal. Hrm.. Amazing also such images are non-existent when capable people like car-man pushes the car past the usual speeds. Haha yeah it's my driving I don't trust, not Jack.

Now, let's try for 160!

Jack Raya Korban

Hari Raya Korban is a day when Muslims reaffirm their faith in God, giving thanks for the many blessings that He has bequeathed to them. Excerpt from here.

Hari Raya Korban, Jack is crusing along the pleasantly empty highway when he notices the two motorcyclists in front riding a bit strangely, twisting about too playfully. Jack pulls along parallel to the mat motor and whoa..

Hari Raya Korban, and Mat Motor in baju melayu (baru balik dari masjid kot) ups and does that stupid superman both-legs-in-the-air thing.

Hari Raya Korban, pandai anak-anak Setan Malaysia meluangkan masa buat kerja-kerja berfaedah.

Hari Raya Korban, jom berkorban ramai-ramai kat jalan raya.

Con Jack

Mileage : 24635 km

Jack takes part in an elaborate 'Con The Parents' project this weekend.

Cousin Sha and Kesv evil-ly plot to surprise their beloved parents. Sha is currently studying in Russia, and comes home only once a year during the summer holidays. This time around, with a month long winter break and an increased monthly allowance from JPA she decides to come home in January. And not tell the parents (this is more Kesv's idea, the Con part haha).

To give you a feel of things, the mom Amma is prone to waterworks about Sha being so far away and all that. Surprising Amma (and dad Acca too, of course) with a sudden appearance is quite a big thing. The naughty kids were plotting months in advance and were excitedly replaying various scenes of the 'surprise' meeting. We crossed our fingers hoping it doesn't end with Amma fainting hehe.

So Jack fetches Sha from the airport on Sat, and sneaks her back to Seremban on Sunday. The parents were down from Terengganu as Kesv managed to con them with some reason or other to make the trip here. Then... Surprise!

Hehehehe. The reactions and happenings unfortunately words cannot capture. Suffice to say project 'Con The Parents' was a huge success. A bit of happy tears and lots of smiles all around.

Bad, bad children...

Jack-cessory I

As most of you are aware, Jack is named after Jack Skelington, the title character of the Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. In keeping with this, Jack (and previously Baby Kancil) is littered with accessories from the movie .

This is one, it's a slipcover for that flap at the head of the front passengers. The slipcover comes with lotsa pockets for stuff and a fat little Jack doll. This one is long-serving, it rode with Baby for some time before Jack.

**the above does not come included with the Monster beside it.

Jack-in-law(s)

Mileage: 24140 km

Jack spends the new year in Ipoh, carting Bro and his other half home to meet his potential in-laws. Tee hee. I, meanwhile, spent the turn of new year like I always do; indoors, away from the crowd and noise, catching the coundown and fireworks on tv for the few crucial minutes then back to my favourite past-time - sleep.

Jack spends some days in Ipoh with Bro's potential in-laws (tee hee. I can't help repeating) while car-man and me takes a day trip to Sitiawan on New Year's Day to visit my (not potential anymore) in-laws. Pleasant weekend all around.