As you know, many will cancel your credit card due to RM50 service tax per card. My first attempt to cancel the card failed. I called into one of the credit card customer service helpline. The CS told me either I write in or visit one of the branch to fill in a form. I was hoping she will fax me the form and I can fill to fax to the bank. No such service. I know one bank that provides this service.

I went to the bank, fill up the form and surrender the card to the bank officer. I hope that is the last I see the card. You need to clear payment before you can cancel.

One of my colleagues told me he did that last year. He went to the bank, fill up the form and surrender the bank card to the bank. However months later, the bank sent him a new card. He called the bank and asked but the CS could not help him. She told him to check with the HQ. The CS also told him that there is no charge to the card, she suggest he keeps it. How ridiculous.

One of my blogger friend suggested that we cc Bank Negara when we write in for cancellation. One important note, please registered the letter if you are sending in a credit card. You don’t want the mail get lost and end up in the wrong hands.

Well, I managed to cancel 1 and have 3 more to go. I need to move my monthly payments to the one I retained. Then I am done. No more owning more than 1 card even if they give me free!

I read in the newspaper that government is introducing RM50 service tax yearly per credit card, starting Jan 1. They cannot make up their minds, they stopped, they introduced, they stopped and introduce again. It is a never ending story. Make us do work only. I really hope they pull back this decision.

Poor me, I have to start cancelling all my credit cards again. It was not my fault to have so many, the credit card company just give me free of charge with no fees. I applied 1, they give me 2 both Masters and Visa. Some of them are just discount cards like the Ikea credit card I just applied.

Poor Credit Card’s sales staff, they will not get many people applying for credit cards next year. Everyone will want to save RM50. It will reduce credit cards sales job and it is not good for the country.

Poor people who had installments tie to their credit cards, they cannot do anything but to pay RM50 for nothing.

As for me, I have to start canceling my credit cards now….2 more months to go. Now which one should I keep? That’s the hard part.

I am not a person who can read a book from cover to cover unless it is a comic book. I have read many books but never finished reading it. Most of the time I will scan read and skip chapters. Do you do that?

However I need to read to learn the latest and upgrade myself. I have so many books that I want to read but I don’t have a lot of time. Look at the stack of books I have to read to prepare my big task next year. I am already sweating now. I have been called to take up the Sunday School as a superintendent. So pray for me.

Not to mention, I also need to read books related to work. I am so glad with the technology today, I can just do a quick reading on the Internet for the latest techie news. Sad to say, many young people read a lot of stuff from the net but not actually reading a book. For me I still prefer the good old book.

Now I wished there is an osmosis process to transfer the books stuff to my brain just like that. Ok I am dreaming…..

The other day, someone bought really delicious durian for us to eat from the Orang Asli plantation. It is good to eat durian together with friends.

I got to know that if we drink water from the durian shell, it can cool our body down after eating such heaty food. Eating mangosteen helps too.

Next I learn that if you wash your hands with water from the durian shell, it can get rid of the durian aroma from your little fingers. My friend told me that there is a chemical in the inside of the durian shell that will neutralize the smelly fingers. It really works!

Yeap I cannot resist eating durian! Yummy!

I have a sleepy time zone. I get very sleepy when it is around 7pm – 10pm. The other day I had a meeting at 9:30pm and I was really sleepy at 8pm. I could hardly open my eyes. However I took a short nap but it was not sufficient. I had to wash my face.

After the meeting, I was so alert and not sleepy. I can go on working till very late up to 4am. What’s wrong with me? Even if I sleep early at 9pm, I still get sleepy the next day at 7pm.

Maybe I have the sleepy time zone. By the way, no matter how early I sleep, I still cannot wake up early in the morning. Yeah I am not a morning person. I am the owl!

Finally, I will get to use the VOIP phone. My company is implementing VOIP phone and everyone is excited. VOIP is calling using the network with voice and data capability.

Actually I tasted VOIP using my iPhone over skype. It goes through the internet to make a call. The quality is not bad and it is cheap. I used it often when I am travelling. I can call home when there is wifi available. Calling LAN line is free. I like this concept!

Last trip when I went on the SIA airlines, they had new planes with new set of bigger Entertainment screen in front of the seat. The screen slightly bigger compare to the old ones. The entertainment software has also been upgraded. It is easier for me to maneuver through the selections.

I always like SIA entertainment programs. It has lots of movies, songs, TV programs and games to choose from. However I wished they put more reality, comedy, CSI and popular shows. My last trip programs weren’t so good. I was bored on the return trip not having stuff to watch.

Another thing SIA has to work on is the frequent miles. It is not very useful as I still have to pay more even with a lot of miles collected. Sometimes the promotion tickets are better than reward miles. The tax and surcharges are costly. It is useless and I rather go with other airlines.

A few months back, I was scouting for nice curtains for my apartment. Well, tailored made curtains are very expensive. If I had the time, I could sew it myself but I just didn’t have spare time.

I know Kamdar, the local fabric store offered curtain making. The labor is pretty cheap about RM7 per piece. For standard size curtains, it is very much worth it. The tip is to purchase a wide enough cloth to minimize joining pieces together. The less join, the cheaper the curtain is. There are fabrics with wider with like 60cm, 90cm or 120cm.

Anyway, I saw a design that I like but it was a two piece curtain sewn together. To add to it, the windows in my apartment are not standard. All of it needs to be of the size of sliding door curtains tall and the width is also non standard too. Therefore, I need to tailor make all the curtains.

I am pretty pleased with the finished product with the price I am paying. It is really beautiful.

What do I do without Google or any online search engine? I used it every day to get answers. A few months, I was trying to backup my blogs. When it hits 7.5 MB it stops. I used the export tool that comes with WordPress but it didn’t completely backup the entire blog.

I google for answers and I found some cool plugins. I found one which I installed to backup the database on WordPress itself. Now I do not have to go to cpanel to do it. The plugin is called WP-DBManager. It even allowed you to schedule your backup periodically so you will never forget.

However I wanted to save my posts into XML format for a reason. I couldn’t find the answer directly but it was one of the comments someone made on a plugin. He mentioned to increase the memory limit in wp-setting.php. Wow that does the trick. I increased it to 64MB and the export tool just worked. It is amazing.

I can say that the search engine is my online tech manual. You can find almost anything in the internet. I was able to hack my iPhone because of it. It saves me some money there too.

I went down from Penang to KL during the Raya Holidays. My family wanted to stop at Ipoh McDonald like we always do. This time around, it was a little confusing due to the road changes along Ipoh. I wonder who design the road there. The road was split into 2, right going down to KL and left going into Ipoh.

Basically you have to make a choice at the split. You need to keep left if you want to go Ipoh. If you miss that, you have to make a U turn at Simpang Pulai that is quite far down. Same goes on the other side of the road. By the way, both roads are parallel but it has a divider between the 2. The way it is design is really confusing especially for newbie driving on this highway. So watch out!

By the way, the traffic was really bad going up north, Ipoh to Penang. Fortunately we are on the other side, was free flow all the way.