This is a response to Malaysia Boleh Ke Tak Boleh?? by Jayce Ooi’s Paradise post. It’s not as definitive, but just a rough guideline on how to survive in a big city like KL for under 3000.

To survive in big cities:

1. Don’t eat out for every meal of the day. Eat dinner at home.
2. Skip Starbucks and all the expensive foods. Only bread, cookies and home made coffee.
3. Don’t own a house. Rent it. Or, rent a room. Or, live with your family.
4. Don’t keep on buying cars. Once that Proton’s loan has been paid, keep on driving it.
5. No Astro. RM100 can be spent else where.
6. No drinks while eating out. Bring along a (big) bottle of water from home.
7. Car pool.
8. Plan your journey to avoid jams during peak hours. Pay toll if you have to.
9. Selectively pay toll. Pay on peak hours and only to skip jams.
10. Work from home.
11. Skip movies. If ya have to watch, do it on Wednesdays or early morning shows because they’re cheaper.
12. When eating out, go for economy rice only with loads of vegetables. Meat is expensive. Noodles make you hungry too soon. Bring along snacks (cookies or biscuits) for tea so that you can eat dinner at home (cheaply).
13. Budget = RM 6 per meal. Eat out only once or twice a month, preferably during weekends to socialize. Eating out budget = less than RM20 per head. So if you stick by the rule of only one meal outside, each day you’ll only use RM6.
14. Learn to make simple meals - egg sandwich, noodles (mee suah & spaghetti is cheap), bread, biscuits, home made rojak, fresh fruits, 1/2 boiled egg, cereal, mush room soup, fried rice, ham, baked beans, etc. If there’s enough variety going, you’ll tend to eat at home.
15. Drive a small car. It’s cheaper in price and also usually saves more fuel.
16. Skimp on parking. Pay selectively depending on time and location. Not entirely legal but…
17. Don’t skimp on breakfast! Eat a heavy breakfast then go light on lunch and dinner. If you skip breakfast, my god will your lunch cost you a bomb. Also, breakfast can be real cheap (cereals, biscuits, home made coffee, eggs) and healthy.
18. Buy new clothes / shoes annually. Only during sales. Ideally done during festive seasons.
19. Buy branded / good quality stuff. Don’t skimp too much. It’s more expensive in the long run. Example: shoes, pants and watches. Don’t need to be premium labels but good enough.
20. Don’t buy a watch, use your cell phone for time.
21. Buy 2nd hand.

Ultimately though, you need to ask for more pay

OKI booth girls

Went to PC Fair in KLCC again. The crowd seems to be getting larger each time this event is held. Organizers should really stop trying to stuff more too many booths inside and allow free movement. As it currently is, there are only a single point of exit. What happened yesterday was an actual stand still of the crowd in one of the hallways. People could not move! Then I had to backtrack with much difficulty and went out of the hall, much to the displeasure of the guards which insisted that I couldn’t leave via the entrance. Screw la, no one can reach the actual exit at that time.

Came back empty handed, since I didn’t have anything on my mind to buy right now. Checked out prices for the Radeon 4870 and 4850, two items that would probably be a next purchase. Even this is not really true because gaming has taken a back seat to many things in my life

I did came back with some shots of interesting stuff there:
1. WiMAX IPTV demo
2. Intel ATOM showcase - mini laptops
3. Booth babes

More pics in my flickr photostream

My fav shot - finally, I have evidence that Yong Soon is often
bullied by his sweet heart

2 friends from my home town of Sungai Petani are getting married. Yong Soon is to wed his high school sweet heart, Edeliene. I still remember their first day. It happened right after lunch or tea with a group of friends. Anyway, without further due, click the link for some photos of the lovely couple.

Yong Soon & Edeliene wedding website by mywedding.com

When I started using Facebook, it was because of the attraction of a cool new platform towards a geek. After being on it for quite some time, I’m actually pretty happy that I signup so long ago. Initial use of course centered around adding current friends, colleagues and family members. As time passed, I change jobs and realized that Facebook allowed me to keep in touch with most of them and I was happy. Of course, the average Joe can still say well, there’s email and cell phones - you don’t need Facebook to keep in touch. Quite true. And that’s why I didn’t say I was ecstatic because I used Facebook, certainly the other channels of communication negated the benefits of Facebook.

No, feeling ecstatic came a few weeks later when a childhood friend whom I’ve had lost contact for a decade or so got in touch with me again via Facebook. I forgot whether it was me that found him or the other way around (but I remember searching for him and coming up with nil when I first joined Facebook). This ex-school mate of mine, Aqrehan, earlier found me when I signed up for a loan in a bank he then worked in but being the air-head that I am, I lost his cell phone number. Boy was I pissed off with myself. I’ve now got in touch with yet another ex-schoolmate through him. That makes 2 of the gang (there were 3 close buddies in the gang).

Today, again, through AQ, I found Dina through his Facebook contact. It is days like this that I get reminded that technology, as great as it is, takes a back seat to on of its purpose - bringing people closer. Without a platform like Facebook, these friends would only be memories, forever cherished yes, but never again to be seen.

Today, I’m a happy guy that my old friends are no longer just memories. Now excuse me while I go through their pictures.

I’m off to BarCamp Malaysia (odd name if you ask me, bar but no beer?) tomorrow and Sunday. Will probably spend the whole 2 days there so up till 6 pm, I’ll probably be offline. The organizers aren’t too sure that there’ll be Internet connection. Apparently the place is new so nothings been set up yet, including WiFi. I’m not equiped with a 3G modem so no near-realtime updates. I’ll try to post something if and when I can but I suspect that blogging about the event will probably only happen later at night when I’m back home.