Haze, rain (flood and traffic jams), haze, rain (flood and…), haze… I’m beginning to see a pattern emerging here. After one week of lung choking haze, number of MC’s increase. Yes, I contributed one day, too. Then the papers will be out with their swords against those people contributing to the haze e.g. evil logging companies, poor enforcement by neighbouring companies, restaurants serving sizzling steaks, etc. Then comes one day of super heavy rain. I guarantee you the next day there’ll be front page pictures comparing the ‘haze’ and ‘no haze’ KL skyline. Usually with Mat Salleh tourist pointing to the sky. (Yes, everyone, don’t forget the haze will be…

Regular readers of this blog (yes, all TWO of you) will remember me mentioning about my (un)trusty old Proton Iswara, which DBKL is considering to award the “Oldest Proton in the City” special prize soon. These days I seldom use it, due to a variety of reasons, namely – air-con not working, engine overheats every time I get anywhere within 2 meters of Jalan Tun Razak, etc. You get the picture. So recently, its been spending a lot of time parked outside my house depriving the grass under it of sunlight, so much so there’s a patch of yellowing grass everytime I reverse the car out. Then last week my…

I know this happened before, but simontalks.com is closed temporarily due to the $%@#$ haze and related respiratory illnesses. Normal services should resume in a day or two. Hopefully. Some more tomorrow not holiday for me man. Anyway, for those who can’t remember how our country looked like before our neighbours tried to choke us to death… i think it looked something like this…

With the advent of file-sharing and [tag]Bittorent[/tag], i guess less and less young people are watching TV. I myself get impatient at the first sight of advertisement breaks, not to mention waiting one week for the next episode to be shown, or in the case the Hong Kong TV serials, the next day. Astro has introduced their AstroMAX device, although i haven’t seen it, it sounds a bit like a [tag]TiVo[/tag] but with much less features. Anyway, broadband internet connectivity really just took off here in Malaysia in the last few years (although one can argue Screamyx isn’t really giving you ‘broad’-band all the time…). So in that sense i…

Thought for the day: If you have lots of credit cards your wallet now, you probably You probably don’t use some of them a lot; or can’t say no to those annoying credit card salespeople. *** If you have lots of 1 ringgit coins in your wallet now, you probably still don’t know that they aren’t worth anything now. *** If you have lots of 1 sen coins in your wallet now, you probably eat at McDonalds a lot; or pay utility bills over the counter. *** If you have lots of RM50 notes wallet now, you should probably watch out for pickpockets. *** hmmm. How many more days to…

Makro is now being put up for sale, and some insiders are saying that Wal-Mart are considering buying it to enter the Malaysian market. I’m not too sure if certain quarters are all too comfortable with Sam Walton’s mega corporation coming into Malaysia, with their vicious reputation. But for those who unfamiliar with the Great Malaysian Hypermarket Wars, here’s a little rundown of the contestants… Tesco – In the Blue and Red corner, we have Tesco, proudly representing the British way of life. Do I like them? Hell, yeah. Everything is well arranged and brightly lit. What’s good with them? Ample parking, usually covered. Easy to maneuver your trolley. And…

I’ve mentioned my neighbours before, and after a quite few months, they’ve acted up again. As I’m typing now, one of the couples staying there are having a massive shouting matches (I’ve no idea what’s it about, I can’t make out the screaming words at the top of their voices). It’s a bit like those Hong Kong serials really, except they not as good-looking or have designer apartments, and also here they use a lot more vulgarities than on TV. A LOT more. These shouting matches tend to follow a certain pattern, but I notice it not because I’m so the very paat, but with these thin walls of my…

Saw this at the carpark. Picture of the Day. No idea what it says, though… :pbpbpbpb In a totally unrelated matter, i’ve got to mention this – Silencers is absolutely spot on – Go and watch Black Lagoon. It’s brilliant. ****** (pic from wikipedia. Is there any other good English fansites?!) [tags]anime, black lagoon[/tags]

A few days ago, Suki was just crowned the first ever “One in A Million” champion. I hardly watched the show, the timing didn’t agree with me, but by and large I follow most of the local (and foreign) reality TV singing contests. But first, some definitions – these shows are really just singing contests, not much different from your school year-end “talentime” contest. But the difference in these so-called “reality shows” is that instead of the just judges scoring the singing, the scoring is entirely (or partly) decided by the viewers – either via call-in votes, the ever popular SMS votes (text messaging) and even online voting. Further to…

Marketing property is pretty much the same as marketing anything else in Malaysia – lightbulbs, credit cards, second hand cars. The all hype up their products, focus on one or two of their ‘best’ qualities, seldom show the research or calculations to back their product, and more importantly, overuse cliched marketing buzzwords and catchphrases that everyone else is also using. Property is really hot in Malaysia these days. Everywhere in the Klang Valley you see condos sprouting up like toadstools after a monsoon rain. And together with it, the beautiful computer-generated graphics of the building, with the lush greenery in the background (whereas in reality its filled with other people’s…