March 2006

The Archives

• 9th Malaysian Plan

  03.31.06 | Permalink |Information, Penang| 4 Comments

  Penang got a second bridge and a monorail.

  68. Apart from this, regional growth centres will be identified in several regions to spearhead development. The Southern Johor Economic Region will be developed in a comprehensive and systematic manner. The construction of the Second Penang Bridge will spur growth in nearby areas, including mainland Penang, Kedah and Perak and, will spur economic activities particularly for businesses that benefit from the port facilities and air cargo services

  85. A National Commission will be established to regulate the overall public transportation system in the country and a specific commission will be established for the Klang Valley. Integrated transport terminals will be built in Gombak and Bandar Tasik as transit hubs to Kuala Lumpur. The Government will also implement a number of major projects across the country, including the Penang Monorail and the Eastern Dispersal Link in Johor.

  Read about it here, the transcript.

• Bringing Up Boys VCD Review

  03.10.06 | Permalink |Children, Christianity, Parenting, ProductReview| 10 Comments

  
  
  
  Series 1 – Boys Will Be Boys.

  For those who have boys at home, I would recommend you get this parenting VCD. It teaches you how to raise boys, not that you don’t already know. It enhances your skills I suppose. It is conducted by the famous Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family.

  In part 1, he tells you why boys are different to girls. I quote “Boys are different from girls physiologically, emotionally and socially. The series begins with Dr. Dobson examining how God designed boys. These masculine traits can often irritate and confound parents but were intended to be enjoyed and celebrated – as well as molded and “civilized.”

  It is a 60 minutes show and plenty of good illustrations. It cost RM19.90 per VCD and RM200.00 for the whole series. I enjoyed part 1 & part 7 and I will get the entire series.

  In first part of the series, it tells you how boys are created differently, even from the making in the womb. How the testosterone floods the womb and this hormonal bath alters the way boy’s brain are structure in many ways. The connections between the two hemispheres of the brain are actually damaged. As a result, boys have a harder time integrating and articulating what they know, feel and believe. Boys and Girls are different.

  How many of you find that when you are talking to your husband and he is not listening? Men/Boys have the ability to filter things that they do not want to hear. I often find that true. Dr James Dobson has one very useful method, is when you want to communicate something important to your boy/hubby, touch him with yr hand and look him in the eye, you will get his full attention.

  One illustration he gave, a father who tried to make his son drink milk and he refused. He asked him 7 times and he refused. Later the father thought that he has a competitive characteristic in him. He told the son, let’s compete and see who drinks the fastest. He divided the milk into 2 glasses and on the count of 3, both finished the milk. Next the son told the father, let’s make it 2 out of 3 wins. Parents do need to be creative, these days.

  Have fun with it.

• Penang Hot Spell

  03.09.06 | Permalink |Information, Penang| 13 Comments

  Penang is facing a hot weather spell, the newspaper said it will last till 10 more days. It just rained but no help, it is still hot.

  I am on MC for 2 days. I woke up with a swollen eye. I couldn’t open it at all. I was very frightened. I went to the doctor.

  Doc: What can I do for you?
  Me: Eye swollen, yesterday was fine but waked up swollen.
  Doc: What happened?
  Me: Weather so hot that it melted my contact lens, I guess.

  He applied some eye gel and bandaged my eye. Now I am typing with 1 eye bandage like a pirate. I really have to be careful with contact lens. I do clean it everyday but not sure what happened. It’s the hot spell fault!

  I am fine, I still can see.

• Insurance Claim

  03.05.06 | Permalink |Information, Management, ProductReview, Service| 11 Comments

  
  
  

  How come when someone sells insurance to you, they can absolutely be like an angel? Bowing to all your wishes and never saying “No”. The opposite of this is when you try to claim, the customer service officer can really give you a hard time. Don’t ever buy insurance from XIX Company (*name changed, but you get the idea*) because the claim department officers are very unprofessional and the claims policy is ridiculous.

  One day my hubby was telling me that my PIL is whining because he cannot claim his hospital bill from the insurance company. You know, elderly people treasure every sen very valuably. He was trying to claim from his company insurance policy because he had the accident when he was working. Apparently he has submitted all his hospital bills to the insurance agent. After a few months, the insurance rejected his claim because of a missing deposit receipt. You know, you have to make a deposit before you can admit to the private hospital, in case you cannot pay.

  It is absolutely ridiculous right, in a logical manner that the claim was rejected even though the true copy of the hospital bill is in tact but the deposit receipt is missing. The agent asked PIL to go back to the hospital to issue another but the hospital will never issue another receipt, the best they can do is to certify a copy. The insurance company refuse to accept certify copy. PIL was so upset because he went to the hospital a couple of times. Everyday he complained to us.

  I decided to help him out, made a call to the claims department. No one have a definite answer to the claims. The officer asked me to write a letter to appeal. The manager said there is no guarantee the appeal will go through, it depends on the committee.

  Me: Why is the deposit receipt so important when you have the actual hospital bill?
  Mgr: It is our company policy. *policy to give the customer a hard time* Furthermore, it will prevent the customer to claim from other insurance company.
  Me: I am a having a hard time just to claim with the original actual hospital bill from your company. Do you think other insurance company will let me claim using a deposit receipt???!!!
  Mgr: *speechless for a few seconds* Please submit an appeal letter.

  What a disappointment? I wanted to complain them to Bank Negara. Anyway, I thought of giving the company a chance, draft out an appeal letter for my PIL to sign and send. After a month later, PIL whine again because no news from them. I decided call.

  Me: I have sent the letter of appeal a month ago.
  Officer: We didn’t receive anything, the computer showed no record. *Excuses*
  Me: Can I fax the letter to you?

  She gave me the fax number and I faxed it in. After a few more weeks, I called in to check the status else they will probably sit on it. With claims, you have to call in every now and follow through, give them a hard time too.

  Officer: The cheque has been issued and has been send to the Penang branch on Feb 12.
  Me: My PIL has not heard from the Penang branch.
  Officer: You just have to wait for them to call you.
  Me: Can I call them?
  Officer: If you want, I cannot stop you.
  Me: *How RUDE!!!* :wall:

  My PIL received the cheque after calling the Penang branch agent. The cheque was RM160 less than the original amount. In the letter, they put “out of goodwill that they have approved the claim” Good will my foot!! :shoot:

  Anyway, the whining stops.

  *Note, by the way, if any of you have trouble claiming with your insurance company after dealing with them and still negative, you can bring your case to Bank Negara.
  Website: http://www.bankinginfo.com.my/index.php?ch=19&pg=31*

• SMS Contest

  03.01.06 | Permalink |Information, Service| 12 Comments

  
  
  

  I won 1 big one, 3N SuperStar Virgo ex-Singapore Penang-Phuket Cruise for 2. The prize doesn’t cover seaport tax and flights to & from Singapore. Anyway, it is better than nothing. Any one knows a good budgeted hotel in Singapore?

  I have won a couple of SMS Contest before. With SMS Contest, you really have to be careful because a lot of it, is out to get your money. I usually participate if I know I have 70% chance of winning. You also have to see who is sponsoring it, so that you will not be cheated.

  So how did I do it? One night I was watching Quickie on 8TV during Chinese New Year One of the advertisements flashed on the screen, a CNY contest to win a cruise. I have a lot of balance on my phone so would like to exchange it for a vacation. I am not a phone person, at one time I had RM600 on my phone. The main purpose of my handphone is for emergency calls or locating my hubby in shopping mall.

  With SMS Contest, you need to set a target on how much you willing to invest. For me, at most I wanted to invest was RM200. Actually I used less than that. Anyway, this contest is fairly expensive, RM1 per SMS. With that, you know that not many youths will like to participate in it, which tells me higher chances of winning.

  I login into 8TV website to read more about the contest and did some research.

  The contest goes like this.

  1. You need to register your name, IC before you start. (RM1)
  2. You need to send XXX to start the game. (RM1)
  3. You need to answer 5 objective questions to score points (RM5)

  It doesn’t matter how long you take to answer the questions but you need to get them right to get the points. I check up the Internet for answers. They only have a few set of questions and it will be repeated throughout. By the end of the contest, to win you have to score the highest, they called it rank 1. You can also pay RM 1 to check your ranking. See, it is all out to get your money.

  At first, I played till I got 200 point and that got me to top ranking. After a few hours, someone went up to the top again. I felt that there is another person who wants to win this prize. Anyway, I score another 100 points and was top again. Next day, I was second. I scored another 100 points to get back to the top but it was not for long. Ok, I need to strategize and cannot keep this going, else you will drive the other person’s adrenaline up to compete with you. You don’t want to do that in a contest.

  The contest end on 12th Feb. On 12th Feb, I check my ranking again, it was still 2. It tells me that I have only 1 competitor. It is not hard to win, right. At 11:15pm, I pump up my score till 500, and check my ranking, it was rank 1, to check how far behind the other person was. I added another 200 points at 11:55pm. It is fairly impossible with 5 mins to score so another 200 points right. At 12:00am, I check my rank, it was number 1. Yeah I won.

  Warning, not all SMS contest work like this, so try at your own risk!!!