Golden Screen Cinema gives out a free ticket to any member on their birthday month. I just got mine today. It is very simple. All you have to do is to sign up as a member in www.gsc.com.my. Fill in your particulars. If your birthday falls on the month of June, you have the whole month to redeem the ticket. FREE ticket is valid for movies marked asterisk (*) only and valid in all GSC cinemas nationwide. You need to print out the birthday coupon and bring it with you to any GSC cinema to redeem the ticket.

The good thing is you do not need to wait to redeem the ticket. If your birthday falls on this month, you can go ahead and sign up to get the coupon. Remember to bring your myKad when you are redeeming the ticket.

I watched Kungfu Panda with my free ticket. You do not need to make any purchase to get the free ticket. Isn’t that nice.

T&C Apply:

*For movies marked asterisk (*), kindly refer to GSC cinema listing in major newspapers and GSC website.

If you are like me who loves to surf with the iPhone and do not like to spend too much money, you can subscribe to a data plan or use free WiFi. So how much are those plans out there? I found out some useful info from Digi website on data plans for Digi and other competitors. You can pay RM66 monthly and surf all you want. Isn’t that great? Hrmm..better surf at home on my broadband and save some gas money.

Stay at home is always the best.

I have collected many plastic bottles, soft drink cans, milk tins, batteries and other stuff to recycle. However I am searching high and low for the recycling bins in Penang Island. Believed me, I cannot find any. Where are they?

I search Google and I found this help website called GreenCrusaders.com (http://www.greencrusaders.com/) ran by Don & Mylene. I wrote to them and they told me what to do with my collections. You can read their website on what can be recycled and you will be amazed at what you will find.

They told me that the Recycling bins do not work in Malaysia. Ha! I kind of agree with them and they don’t even need to tell me the answer. People will throw any kind of rubbish into those bins. Worst those bins may get stolen too. *shake head*

If you are into recycling, helping to reduce waste, you can drop your stuff here:
Malaysian Nature Society
673-B, Jalan Kebun Bungah, 10350 Penang.
Contact: Mr Kanda (04 227 3673 or 013 453 7992)

Friends of the Botanical Garden
673-A, Jalan Kebun Bungah, 10350 Penang.
Tel: 04 227 9915

The Enlightenment Home Assoc. Penang
16, Jalan Bawasah, 10050 Penang
Contact: Miss Linda Moo ( 019 510 6066) or Mr Mok (016 495 9886)

For me, I thought of another tip about recycling that is only buy recyclable products. I will reduce buying plastic bottle drinks. I heard only some plastic bottles can be recyclable, not all. Oh well, I am not sure which is which. It is better to buy drinks in a can. If I want juice, buy in a box. Maybe mineral water should come in a box too.

If you want good batteries, buy rechargeable Eneloop batteries. I tell you those batteries can last a long time, even without charging.

If you do not want your children to live in a dumpster, start recycling now and stop generating more waste.

There has been a rise in car laptop theft. In one of the companies I heard, 5 laptops get stolen every month. It is an alarming figure. I always wonder how the thief does it. Some say that they have a mystery gadget to detect a laptop in the car.

I read many articles over the Internet, people are saying they used a battery or Bluetooth detector. If it is a Bluetooth detector, maybe they can detect there is a notebook in a car. However in a parking lot, can the Bluetooth detector accurately point out which car is having the notebook? Some say battery detector. Now every car has a car battery so can the detector tell the difference? One engineer claims that detector cannot work over metal. He could be right or maybe not.

The most acceptable answer would be the theft has a syndicate. These syndicates will be waiting at the gate of the big companies which give out notebooks to most employees. They will follow the employee to where ever they go. Most people will not go home after work. They may have dinner or go do some shopping. If they are silly enough to leave their laptop in the car, they will be the next victim.

Bottom line, don’t ever leave your laptop in the car. Self awareness is the best defense. Next I will post about how you can catch the theft that stole your laptop.

*Geram* *Geram* *Geram* *Frus* *Frus* *Frus*

Today I received news from Apple that Apple will launched 3G iPhone on July 11th and half the price with twice as fast. What is Apple CEO doing? Basically he is going against the law of business. Now I wished the oil price follows this type of law, Steve’s law.

Anyway, I am not upset at the price going half but twice as fast. It is making my first generation iPhone so cheap and non-sellable. Sigh.

Let’s hope I can upgrade the firmware image to iPhone 2.0. I read that the beta version is hackable. The release version, I guess have to wait for it to release right before one can hack.

What are the great features with new iPhone? Enterprise, SDK and New Features. Finally, you can use VPN to connect to your Enterprise network securely to access email, company applications and intranet. With SDK built in, you can even program Enterprise applications. New features are contact search, iWork, MSOffice interface for viewing Excel, Word doc & PowerPoint slides, bulk delete, save images, scientific calculator, parental controls and languages such as Chinese & Japanese. You can even write Chinese using a writable pad. Lastly it has 3G and GPS. WOW. It makes me want to get another one.

It will be sold in 70 countries. So sad Malaysia is not one of them. The price…see for yourself.

Yesterday when the announcement of the rise of petrol price from RM1.90 to RM2.70, everyone wanted to pump petrol before it happens. Yes, it will save them RM20-RM30 if they can get to the petrol station. It caused havoc everywhere, cars queues were 1 km long. You probably have to jam for an hour or more to pump.

Thank you all for SMS-ing me, emailing me or called me. However it was really a waste of time, energy and petrol for me to queue for 1 hour or more to get that savings.

Today, guess where was congested? Our own office cafeteria, it seems that everyone decided to eat in. The queue to the counter to get food was long but not longer than the petrol Q. Hehehehe. The cashier counter was as long.

The next thing that goes up will be electricity, food, etc. Let’s hope my year end increment will go up too. Life is so meaningless. Don’t you think?

I first discovered the Big Apple Donut when it landed in the Curve KL. Now it has makes its way to Jusco in Ipoh. I am waiting it to come to Penang. Let’s see who make it here first, JCO or Big Apple. I wonder how much the franchise is.

Once in a while, I will be craving for donuts and it is still 2 hours drive to get to it. I was happy when I return from Cameron Highlands, I am able to drop by Jusco in Ipoh to get a bite of those donuts.

It goes well with my cuppa of Cameron tea. Simply delicious….

I love Chinese dessert especially “tong sui” meaning sweet soup dessert. We have red bean soup, green bean soup, almond soup, bubur cha cha, herbal egg, peanut soup, black pulut soup, sweet potatoes soup and sweet sago dessert. It makes me drool just thinking about it.

There is this eating place in I-Avenue Bayan Baru Penang call Chopstick. They served mini bowls of red bean, black pulut and peanut soup. All 3 are my favorite soup. I like the way they served it in small portion so that I will be able to taste all 3 soups. They should prepared more variety and I think it can sell well.

Last time when I was small, there is this “tong sui” seller who comes around our house. We used to line up to buy his desserts. We drink them for supper. Yeap, we Cantonese like soups a lot!

Yesterday I was cooking up a little drama in my dream. I dreamt I was assisting some high tech crooks to get some memory chips. I wasn’t sure whether they were crooks or good guys. I helped them to enable the chips so that they can fit it into their high tech machines to view a video. The video was encrypted with some message in it.

The crooks had to leave my place in a hurry. While they were leaving, the FBI agents came to my place and pretend not to see the crooks. All agents walk passed them. The crooks pull me aside and questioned me. I told the crooks that I was on another case that the FBI agents needed some info from me. The crooks told me not to release any info to them. Suddenly I felt I was in a high profile with such intelligence helping 2 groups of people to get to the information they want.

I woke up feeling good. I wonder what it would be like if I was a FBI agent in real life. Oh well, maybe I watch too much TV but I must say it was really a good dream.

A month ago, I have just completed my tax submission. There is something not right about our tax system. It seems that it is not working for lower income group and it doesn’t benefit them. Why do I say that?

Take for example: We get books rebates up to 1000.

If you are earning 2500 a year, basically the rebates don’t apply to you because you are not subjected to tax. You get no benefit from the book rebates.

If you are earning higher and after all the deduction, the taxable income is 10K. You are entitled to a 3% discount or rebate on books up to 1000 you spend.

If you are earning higher and after all the deduction, the taxable income is 70K. You are entitled to 24% discount or rebate on books up to 1000 you spend.

More than 250K, you get a 28% discount.

If you see the trend above, it means the more you earn, the more discount you get. Therefore the richer you are, the more money you save.

You then argue, hey I pay more % tax if I earn more. Regardless of the book rebates, you still pay the same %. You cannot say because I pay more tax, I should have more discount with books. Not right at all. My point is that the book rebates is not equal for every body.

It should be made that lower income earners should benefit more from it versus higher income earners. This is not the case. Someone ought to rethink of a better method. Don’t you think so?