Moving room record.

I am like a nomad. Or hunter. Keep changing room in these 3 years. 

Okay, this is my record. I had moved for total of 6 times. This Saturday, i will move again, which is the 7th times.

Update* I am now staying in my 9th room. Not moving anywhere anymore.

My rental from the first one until now.

First room: RM400, near to LRT, air cond, inclusive electricity, need to pay to use washing machine, cannot cook in the house, can cook in the room, furnished with one broke bed frame.

Second room: RM250, near to LRT, no air cond, inclusive of electricity, free use of washing machine, cannot cook in the house, not furnished. Only got one stand fan.

Third room: RM350 then increase to RM370. Near to LRT, no air cond, inclusive of electricity, free use of washing machine but its manual type, can cook in the house, furnished with bedframe and cupboard.

Fourth room: RM380, near to LRT, got air cond, not inclusive of aircond usage (use around RM60-80) every month, so total need to pay is about RM460/month. Furnished with everything, can cook in the house.

Fifth room: RM500, near to LRT, got air cond, not inclusive of air cond usage (use around RM60-100) every month, so total need to pay is about RM600/month. Furnished with everything, can cook in the house. Its medium room above my fourth room.

Sixth room: RM200, small room. No air cond, not inclusive of utilities, not furnished, can cook in the house. Small room and far away from LRT which cannot reach by walking. 

I had went to see another room which will be my seventh room. RM500, got air cond, inclusive of electricity and wifi, fully furnished, far from LRT.

Had been quite happy to be able to find this room. 

Updated on 31 March 2016

7th room: RM500. Small room with aircond. Inclusive of utilities. Furnished, can cook in the house. Far from LRT station. Comfortable staying here until the new owner want to renovate the house. So I am asked to go find new place to live.

8th room: Medium room with aircond, RM500. 2 months deposit, exclusive of utilities. Can cook and far from LRT station. Electric bill reach RM150 per month because of some irresponsible tenants. Worst experience here. Left the place without even taking back my deposit.

9th room: RM400. Small room with aircond, 2 months deposit too. Can cook and not too far from LRT. Electric bill around 50-80 per mnoth. Comfortable place and have a home feeling. Will stay here until my house is completed.

Playing claw machine

How to play claw machine effectively? Here is some advice.



First, we need to know that the claw machine is programmable. However, each machine is programmed differently by their owner so that their earning is much higher than the cost. So some can be really hard to get and some can be not so hard. 

1. Don't choose which toy you want to get. You should choose the easiest and nearest toy to the winning spot.
2. Try to grab the correct part of the toy. Most of the time, I grab the bigger part of the toy for example, if the head is bigger, I will grab the head. But it also depends on the claw size. If the claw size is smaller than the head, then don't.
3. Don't play the machine that have the toy stick together closely without any gap. That will be the hardest to get.

Here is some picture of the toy that I win from the claw machine. 

Tropicana City Mall. I get this toy by spending about RM10.

Tropicana City Mall. Looking at the claw machine and see if there is any potential toy to be win.

Tesco Ara Damansara. Win these 2 toys by spending RM4.

I win these toys from Miri and bring all the way back to KL. They cost me around RM20.

Win this during the trip to Miri too with my brothers. We spent about RM50 for these but my younger brother spent the most for 1 toy only.

This is like the cutest toy from all the toy i got. Captain America! But I already give it to my friend.

So here is the total 9 toys that I win. 

Actually I had already given out 3 toys to my friend. So in total, I had won 12 toys from claw machine. Total money I spent on claw machine should be around RM80-100. I can't remember exactly how much but if I am to calculate from retail price, one of this toy will cost around RM16, so I think I still earn from this but playing claw machine is not about earning. It is about satisfaction.

My sin of gluttony.

I tried meat diet for the last week, about 9 days. It was a successful one. So I started to eat meat back yesterday. I had siewyuk wantan noodle for lunch and kenny roger for dinner. 

I thought of having two days of meat meal for every week. It is for health purpose. But today, I can't stand to eat some great meat, so I went to KFC. I had dinner plate, the set with 3 chickens and take away one zinger burger for dinner. Imagine how heavy is all the food.

After my lunch, the temptation to play claw machine came. I went up to Tesco at Ara Damansara and change RM4. More on that in later post.

The problem is, the zinger burger that I bought back to office, that I thought to have it for dinner is in front of me all the time. That feels terrible. I keep on thinking when is the dinner time. So suffer. In the end, i ate it as snack at 4pm. 

After having it, I can't eat anything anymore because I feel too full. I went back home straight without having anything for dinner. And just drank a milk and went to bed. Such a sin of gluttony....I really wonder how to control it.... someone can give me some special suggestion?

Weird dream story

Like normal dream, people usually don't remember it when you wake up. But with enough practice, you can actually remember it.

Usually, the dream is the freshest the moment you wake up. It is that moment we must utilize to remember it. 

So last night, I woke up from a sad dream. The dream takes place at my house in Sibu. My mom was still alive in the dream with the grown up version of my brothers and I. All of us were having a great night there. Then my brothers and I went out for something. Couldn't remember exactly for what. 

Suddenly, disaster happened. Not sure if it is an earthquake or what but it caused our route back home blocked. We can't go back in and my mom can't come out. So we keep on trying to find way to go back home. 

Until 3rd day, we finally found a way home. We used a skateboard, to go through a small place, coming out from the back of the housing area, the location where we always hang out when we are a kid, then use the skateboard to go home.

I used my maximum speed to go home, and saw someone skinny with long hair sitting at the house hall. Looks quite scary but she is actually my mom. She looks skinny because there is no food in the house for her to eat for 3 days. Mixed with the real life feeling, I hugged her and cried. The keep on sobbing because of crying and then I woke up. The feeling was so real that I think I am still sobbing after I woke up.

 This dream really gives me a special feeling. I had no idea why I will have this dream.

Funniest experience as Web Developer

Friday morning, feeling tired with blurry eyes, I reported MC to my boss and continued my sleep. 

After few more hours, I woke up. Then I checked on my email and slack to see if there is any request that I need to help on. Nothing.

I decided to not eat meat in any meal for 1 week. So I went to Simple Plan in Paradigm Mall to have my lunch. I can't remember the name of the noodles that I ordered. After lunch, I went to have some dessert. 

Here come the interesting part. I was worried that issue might come up any moment when I was eating my meal or desserts. So I brought my macbook together. However, nothing came up. So I thought "ok, maybe I should watch a movie before go back". I went to buy ticket for movie "Boboiboy". The movie time is 2.50pm. I went into the cinema at 2.45pm. While sitting in the movie hall, my phone vibrated. Someone mentioned my name in slack. I checked and find out there is some big issue. The product does not appear in front page. It's the featured product. I updated the database a day before for the featured product. I tested at development site and it works well but who knows it doesn't work well in live site.

A bit frustrated, because the movie almost start, I bring my bag out from the movie hall, turn on my phone hotspot that only have 5% power left, turn on my macbook and start checking source code outside the hall near the stairs. Some people passed by and keep looking at me but I have no time to look back to them. While worried that my phone battery will run out before I fixed the bug, I still keep calm and continued fixing. In less than 5 minutes, I fixed it, and the featured product appeared properly in live site.

Off my phone hotspot, macbook and went in back to movie hall. Movie started for about 5 minutes, but it's fine. Feeling satisfied and accomplished. Hahahaha. Thank God for such a unique experience. 

Web Development Freelancing Price

I joined a few programming groups consist of mostly Malay people. So, suddenly one of my friend from previous company contacted me and asked if I do freelancing. I said yes but when he asked me what is my rate, I got no idea. I never really charge a person for a project. I did freelance once but end up got cheated. So now I am becoming more careful to do freelance.

After asking around, I came up with a rate for myself for now as of March 2016.

Hourly rate

Complicated task : RM 160/hour

Medium task : RM 120/hour

Small task : RM 100/hour

And I am not accepting data entry task.

Pretty sure this is quite standard because I believe 1 hour can achieve a lot of thing. 

This might change also in the near future. 

Twinz Residence at Puchong Jaya

I had finally reached a new milestone. 

I bought a condo in Puchong Jaya, which is still under development. The completion is at 2018. So I had welcomed those who are my good friend, to come for my house warming dinner.

The condo cost around 648k but the rebate is quite good. The rebate from developer is 15% so I don't need to pay down payment. I only need to pay booking fee (RM 5k) and lawyer fee (RM4500+). The booking fee will be released back to me upon the first draw down by the developer, so it should be around 1-2 months. That means, the total amount that I need to pay is only RM4500+ which is the lawyer fee. And since the down payment is 10%, the extra 5% will be released back upon vp. So meaning I will get about 32k cash from developer after vp.

Actually this is my first house, so I am very excited. There are 3 rooms and I even thought of not renting out the room at all. I think I will be able to cover the pay on my own. So I had thought that 1 of the room should be the guest room, for my friends or family who pass by KL and need a place to stay. Then another room is to put my gadget and workstation. A window's computer and macbook is good enough. Then another master room for my own.

Here is some of the picture.

 

This is the medium room that I planned to make it as my workstation.

This is the view to the master room and medium room

 This is the master room.

This is the view of living room. It looks nice because it is a showroom.

The view of the medium room. I like this design very much.

Closer look of the living room.

The kitchen. So important for my future wife.

Yeah, this is the master room, view from the side of the door.

So since I had done all the signing and officially own the house, i went to the site.

 This is the construction site. It's just started.

At first, i cannot even think where it would end.

So the worker also have their own resting place.

All of these really consume up a lot of my time but it worth the effort. I am really happy now because I already settled one of the resolution in 2016. Hope more will come.

Insulting as joke

Have you ever been ridiculed or insulted or being used as a joke by people, and then you take it seriously because it doesn't sounds like a joke at all.

I have.

I worked like a cow during a normal working day. Then the HR team is trying to put up the picture frame on the wall because we have a new picture. So I helped them because all HR staff is girl. So while choosing the best tools to help them(between hammer and screwdriver), the guy from sales team came and try to help out too.

I had many works so I am actually quite in rush at that time. At that moment, the Sales Manager came over and talk to his sales department staff "you are working on everything except your own work". Then he looked at me for a while and say "CZ is different. He is very free" 

I am really pissed at that time. I'm helping out because they needs help. Not that I am very free. I got tons of works that I need to do. The HR girl who heard that also said "wtf?". Then, I really cannot hold back, so when he walked away, i point my middle finger to him. He then turned back and I pull back my finger. Not sure if he saw that or not but I wish he saw that actually.

So after 1 week or 2, I told my Head of Department about this. He said sales department is just sad. They are not happy people.

My point here is, sometimes, this Sales Manager who tried to make people laugh, failed terribly. Or he is not trying to make people laugh at all. He is just trying to make people look bad. He let his staff do the works, and other department do their work in the front line, so he is safe at the back, hiding in his egg shell, and keep boasting with his title of Vice President of Sales. If he is trying to joke by insulting people, guess what, I don't think he is likable by his friends. My opinion against him is, he lacked of social skill and got the position because he is blood related with the founder. 

If he saw this post, I don't mind. That's my opinion against him. He can continue to ridicule me and I will continue to annoy him. Let see who can last longer.

Commitment at work

I always think that being committed to work is what an employee should do. Not everyday, just during working hour and sometimes during night time or weekend if there is an urgent case.

Well, it happened to me that we are going to live a new version of website. So the Head of Department told us to be on standby for Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. So I cancelled all my activities and commit to it.

Friday night, I worked until 11.45pm migrating the data from old platform to new platform.

Saturday, I woke at 9.00am to sign my house purchasing agreement, got back home, then bring my laptop out to work in Sushi Zanmai while having lunch. I migrated the second batch of data there. Saturday night, I continue doing development for the new platform after came back from a dinner.

Sunday morning I got too tired and sleep until 11.30am again. I continue my work in Starbucks, doing the error checking at checkout and payment details page. 

In all this 3 days, the progress for front end development is very very slow. It is almost like no one from front end team is working at the weekend. 

I got totally pissed when I saw a message from one of the front end guy saying "I'm back" at Monday 12.10am. We should have completed the website by then but failing to commit to it earlier causing us to delay the living date.

I am just pissed....

Concierge E-Commerce the way to go?

Is it true that concierge e-commerce is the way to go now? 

This is just my 2 cents.

From consumer point of view, buying things online speed things up. I can view the item that I want through e-commerce website by a simple search function. If I cannot find the item that I want, that means the search function is not good enough. People who can buy online usually are good enough to key in few keywords of item that they want to buy. So finding results of item through search engine is definitely not a problem for them. However, for consumers that who are not able to use e-commerce properly, usually they will just stop by some place and buy the item they want in a shop. Unless the item is not available anywhere nearby them. But yeah, most of the time that happens. 

As for Business owner point of view, having concierge for e-commerce platform is almost like opening a shop to sell things. The operating cost might be doubled or tripled because you need a team of good IT people to set up your website. You also need a team of good people to key in those product information. All of them are more expensive than hiring few shopkeepers or sales assistant to help you to do stock receiving, stock take, selling and merchandising. But, e-commerce still has it's advantages. It is accessible worldwide. Meaning anyone can buy as long as they have internet.

So let's take a look back to today's market. When people mention about e-commerce, we will think of Lazada, Amazon, Ebay, Taobao or Rakuten. It is hard to beat them in doing promotion and marketing because they are the big player in this industry. 

Comparing e-commerce and concierge e-commerce, of course concierge e-commerce will require higher operating cost because they need to have a group of good people who can have a friendly chat with the customers. Still, concierge e-commerce will be able to net all the remaining people who are not good enough to purchase properly through e-commerce website. So both pros and cons are there.

But if I am given a chance, I think I wont start a concierge e-commerce business due to all the reasons above. :) For me, internet business that is self sustainable are like stock photo, video hosting, digital advertising, famous information site and some other field that I don't have chance to get in to yet. So do lighten me up if you are in a business that is sustainable but not in the list I just mentioned.