The World Wide Waiiiiiiit

The broadband over the last week is so damn SLOW makes me want to instantly switch to a new broadband service just to spite tmnet...wimax...other viable alternatives.....when?????

How to be unpopular in any country

If you ever wanted to get in a fight or insult anybody in any country......ethnic slurs

My perfect apartment....

NOT! It's impossible to have one. Not when there is renovation going on a few floors above you. Quick I need to borrow those things that airplane ground crew need.....

Reading the Reader's Digest

Last night I was reading some pretty interesting stuff in the Reader's Digest. Surprising as I usually find things in Reader's Digest pretty boring. I can't put my finger on the exact reason, but when you've got to put in gimmicks in the book like "laughter is the best medicine" so people will get some funnies while reading, something is kind of wrong with the content. I'll just share some excerpts from this months edition that I found interesting.



Antioxidants in pill form don't work or actually may be harmful!

Apparently all those vitamin tablets that ring in billions of dollars in sales such as vitamin C, E and what not don't do anything to help the body and may even be harmful. Antioxidants are meant to neutralize something called free radicals which are produced in a body's chemical reaction. These radicals are linked to a lot of diseases like Alzheimer's, stroke, cancer, etc.

The funny thing is that the pills work fine in the test tube, but not in the human body. There is good news though! The good news is that natural antioxidants such as vegetables and fruits still work as advertised and effectively neutralize free radicals.

Mainly for the guys and girls who are trying to get pregnant and think guys are the problems.

Exercising regularly helps with sperm quality ....big surprise right? Although, apparently wearing tight pants when going to gym lowers testosterone count. I knew it!!! I mean it's just wrong for guys to wear tight pants to any sports....including speedos. There is a reasoning for that now.



Next...spending hours on a bicycle seat may cause impotence. That's it. I'm never gonna ride a bicycle again.

Of course, take all this information with a grain of salt.

Voices from the sounds of sirens? I think not....

Just finished watching the girls competition for american idol. The girls are really good , but the front runners aren't the sweet kind of sound that leave you thinking of sirens. Old fashioned belters seems to be in vogue this year. Unfortunately they aren't a whitney houston look-a-like, though they do sound just as nice as her. How shallow do I sound? hahah... this isn't american radio idol.



One major hottie is on american idol this year, Antonella Barba. She probably won't get cut even though her singing is sort of bad. After all tv viewers have eyes and surely would like to see more of her in the coming weeks. I guess she would have to sing just average to get far.


Alaina sort of looks like a hotter,younger mariah carey. What do you think? But like Antonella, the buck pretty much stops in the looks department.

Anyways, these days don't get much time to watch american idol. But maybe I would if I had the TV in my room......perish the thought.

From the smoldering ashes.....

The blog recovers just like a rising fiery phoenix.....ok a little over dramatic. I found something that I wasn't sure was funny or serious....so.....judge it for yourself....=P

ladder theory

Donald Trump = Teddy bear

The Miss USA ruckus reached an interesting development just today with the boss, Mr. Donald Trump giving the current winner a second chance after firing her. The second chance requires her to go into rehabilitation program.


To recap, Tara Conner or Miss USA has been a very naughty girl during the contest and her duties as the winner. The press reported her doing things such as drugs, sleeping around, and underage drinking (drinking age is 21 and over in US).

While I’m not an apprentice fan, I do know that Mr. Donald Trump is infamous for his “You are fired” clause. I also know that he has smacked potential “apprentices” upside the head for years on his popular TV show.

Has Donald gone soft? He’s had no trouble firing some previous Miss USA winners. What makes this one different? Well most of the problems with the current winner seems like behavioral problems “on the job” while the previous firings were for things such as nude photos for magazines and being married with two kids. The previous two firings were for things like lying on your resume. Those winners probably deserved to be fired. It’s like applying for a degree job without a degree.

Perhaps in light of this, the problems are fixable; the problems being drinking and partying like an animal. But sorry, if you do drugs, you are screwed in any job. In Malaysia, you get the death penalty. So, yes I think Donald has gone the way of the big soft teddy bear.

Return of the booty video: Façon Sex

Every now and then I come across something interesting. If you ever watch Channel V or MTV, sometimes they will play some RnB or Hip Hop videos. And on rarer occasions, some of the videos will show gratuitous “booty.” Americans, more specifically hip hop artists basically invented the “booty video” quite a few years back.

What I mean by booty video is one of those music videos where the rapper looks like he’s partying and surrounded by lots of skimpily clad women. More recently though, these videos have sort of taken a back seat as the hip hop videos have evolved to a more sophisticated genre. For instance, usually now a days, the videos will have the singer hanging with their famous posse, some cameos of famous artists, collaborations, awesome locations, etc.

I can hardly remember the last time I watched a “booty video” done by an artist. R Kelly and Puff daddy did some back a few years ago. I can’t remember their songs. One I do remember is the Thong Song by Sisqo. But that is from the year 2000, really old. It’s a bit rare nowadays.

Ah, but today, I chanced upon this throwback to the old days of booty video done none other than the French! I woulda never guessed the French would be all about the “booty,” they are so sophisticated!

The song is basically saying “move your body... shake your ass... in a matter of sex!!”

It’s kinda catchy!

Woohoo! Most bloggers are women

Woohoo!….most bloggers are women says the Star newspaper. Well, I added in the “Woohoo” part in. Studies like these go a long way in explaining the blogging world. Besides that, some 74% of bloggers are under the age of 25.

The report also mentioned that politicians’ blogs were somewhat more interesting in Malaysia compared to other asian countries. What makes our politicians so blogolicious? Never mind, I won’t answer that question. I’ll be the first to admit “politely” that we’ve got some …….colorful politicians in Malaysia.

Back to the main point….Woohoo! most bloggers are women. And most of them are of younger age! Not your grandmas and aunties! Ah….but I have to admit if the majority of bloggers were men, I don’t think I’d read their blogs too much. The only exception being that their blogs are really entertaining or if they were really close friends.

Okies…so check out hottest blogger. Go there and get your thrills =D

South African Prison Break!

Just a few days ago, an inmate by the name of Ananias Mathe broke out of the maximum security prison, “C-Max.” Apparently, he greased himself up with petroleum jelly and slid between the bars and out the window.

He then tied some clothes and bed sheets to serve as a rope and climbed down the prison wall.

A year ago, I probably would have never cared. One guy breaks out in South Africa, so what? I’m in Malaysia. Big …..deal. When I read it, I got intrigued into how he did it. Why? You might have guessed, I faithfully watch prison break. It’s freaking addictive.

People have different opinions on shows they like, but for me prison break takes the cake. Well, to be honest, I initially thought I wouldn’t enjoy watching a show with a bunch of prison inmates trying to get out. Seriously, does that sound really entertaining? Furthermore, no hot girls, except for one and she only appears for a few episodes.

Despite first initial thoughts, the show turned out great. From the intriguing storyline to the colorful characters, I liked almost everything about Prison Break.

I love a good TV series as much as anyone. It’s fantastic producers and tv networks bring shows like these to the public because between watching TV and meeting friends, there isn’t much to do in Penang. Thank goodness for TV shows….

Does Kevin really lose out for divorcing Britney?

Sometimes things pay off and sometimes they don’t. Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, I think it’s fair to say the divorcing of Britney spears and Kevin Federline is common knowledge.

Kevin seemingly didn’t do a lot to help the marriage. The press reported Kevin partying with strippers and drug usage. Now why the heck would this guy want to put himself in a position to divorce Britney Spears? The wife is pretty hot, she’s rich, and she’s a superstar. Besides that, it seemed pretty clear she was into him. She took a break in her career to have kids with him.

Most guys want girls like her.

Ah, but it’s easy to talk from the outside looking in. How about from the inside looking out? When the wife is the main breadwinner in the family, the husband might feel like he’s under a lot of pressure. That would explain a lot of the divorces out there. For example, take the case of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey or Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon. Between Kevin and Britney, Britney is the ONLY breadwinner. So, imagine the pressure.

Rationalizing aside, Britney divorced Kevin, and because of the prenuptial agreement Kevin signed, he doesn’t get much of her money in a divorce. Kudos to Britney, she was smart enough to realize things may go downhill and she had much to lose if they did. But apparently when you are famous, prenups only go so far.

Any moron divorcing Britney Spears will walk away with a huge sum of money in some form or another regardless of a prenuptial agreement. If the guy is too stupid to figure out how, surely someone smarter will advise him. All he has to do is ask this question to any person willing to help him: “I just signed a prenuptial agreement. In case of a divorce, how do I get paid???”

So obviously Kevin thought about or at least asked this question. He’s already gotten at least 2 million USD from the MTV series on his marriage to Britney Spears.

Currently I know he revealed two more ways to get paid: custody of the kids and a sex tape of him and Britney. Who knows how many more he’ll reveal?

You can’t lose when marrying Britney Spears.

The Covenant?

Let me start by saying you might not want to read this if you haven’t watched the covenant. Don’t worry though, I won’t be giving away any spoilers.

Recently I watched The Covenant, a movie about these kids with super powers. It’s a somewhat fun show. Though the movie most likely won’t win any awards, for RM9, at least I thought it was entertaining.

While watching, I had this strange flashback to my younger days of watching Dragon Ball Z. I used to lurve Dragon Ball Z with the powerful characters and the unpredictable storyline. Then it got somewhat boring somewhere at the 200^th or so episode. What show doesn't? It has something like 300+ episodes !! While the Covenant doesn’t have any of the actors with glowing blonde hair, the eyes do change colors and some of the stunts and powers are rather Dragon Ball Z-like.

For me, if the story is mediocre, the action better entertain me for the hour and a half (I know my standards are pretty poor). Thank goodness the movie did that right. Some movies are really horrible at both action and story such as Stormbreaker.

I don’t think I’ll ever take a UK-produced movie seriously again. Stormbreaker had an eye-catching preview, which is why I watched it. It has got to be the most horrible show I've ever seen. The only other UK based movie I’ve seen in the cinemas is DOA. At least that had some pretty fly girls.

I especially liked her. ^^

The action in DOA was a little better than Stormbreaker. In the story department, DOA struck out. No offense to UK citizens or fans, but UK produced movies are out of luck with me in the future.

So back to The Covenant, the movie has something for everyone. It has action for the guys. Also, girls will probably like the male actors in the movie. Unfortunately, there are only few girls in the movie for the guys to see. Overall though, I kinda liked it. I'm easy to please.

Ever thought about buying a medical insurance investment plan?

A few years ago, I considered buying insurance to cover any medical procedures should anything happen. I do believe basic medical insurance is necessary should anything go wrong. For example if I didn’t have insurance, should I require some minor surgery and hospitalization; a huge chunk of my savings would be gone. Why? I would have requested the best of everything.

The best hospitals…..

The best doctors……….

The best nurses……….

Need I say again that I want the best! I’m going under the knife here. Especially the best nurses…..

With insurance, the hospital cost is minimal, perhaps even nothing at all. This is how I justify the yearly insurance premiums.

So recently I realized that I wanted to buy insurance as I’m on my own now. Thus I contacted my local insurance agent, my mum’s friend. Well actually she contacted me. It’s amazing how quickly top insurance agents can track a potential new customer.

She worked out a “ insurance/investment plan” for me. Note that this is different from buying insurance and renewing it yearly. To sum it up, starting at age of 26,I would be paying RM1950 per year for about 20 years. After that 20 years, I wouldn’t need to pay any more (in theory) and I would be insured until 70. The total cost would be RM39000 over my lifetime. I also enquired about the normal type of insurance which would be close to around RM80000. The coverage would start from age 26 until age 70 and the features were almost exactly the same. Hmm…well, I feel any “plan” warrants a bit of investigation. Should I pay for the plan or the normal insurance? Heck, this is a big amount.

On the surface, it seems like the plan was the best way to go since it seemed half the price of the normal insurance. But to check I ran some computations in excel with the GH350 health one premium rates at the Pan Global Insurance. First I added the total premiums I would be paying until I was 70. Second I calculated how much I would earn after saving RM1950 per year for 20 years with an interest rate of 3% (hypothetical rate. FD is 4% right now) until the age of 70. Finally, I compared the total premiums (RM79000) versus the amount of money I would have in FD (RM117,000).

As you can see, subtract RM79,000 from RM117,000 and RM38,000 is what you get left in the account allocated for insurance. Seems like not a bad return doing things yourself, but wait. Now, using the previous as a model, let's look at a more thorough analysis. I only save the balance left after paying premiums (RM1950-premium costs) yearly and varied the interest rate between 2% and 4.5%. There is a large discrepancy. At 2%, I would be under funded by RM29000 and at 4.5% I’d be over funded by RM12000 by the age of 70. When I say underfunded, it means that I've got to top up the account. For over funded, it means I've got an extra amount in there. Let me point out, although this is a better analysis than the original model; there is only so much one can do. In real life, a lot of things can happen differently.

The one thing I don’t like about these “investment/insurance plans”, is that the insurance companies have a way out. Say a policy is under funded. Then I’ve got to pay the insurance company to make up the difference or I’m off the plan. Also by the time I hit age 70, a big chunk of the extra money will be used to pay other “fees” such as administration, commissions, etc.

On the other hand, paid professionals do manage the insurance and take care of all the hassle. And most probably will do a good job – keeping my fingers crossed. Putting money in others’ hands always involves a certain degree of risk as you trust this person not to screw it up.

One more thing to mention, paying normal medical insurance versus the “investment/insurance” plans seem a lot more expensive, but over time and depending on the annual return rate it’s different. For my "investment/insurance" plan, a poor rate of 2% will under fund my insurance policy by RM29,000, while an excellent return rate of 8% will still under fund my policy RM9449. To reiterate, using my detailed model (basically a do it yourself plan), at 2% I get a RM29000 underfunding, but at 4.5%, I over fund my policy by RM12000. Using this comparison, the do it yourself method and buy the normal yearly insurance sounds a lot better than going for the "investment/insurance" plan. Of course this is theory, and doing the money management is harder than it looks.

Looking at how insurance is such an expensive purchase; I hope someone finds my post useful. In ending, I’ve got to put a disclaimer. These are my own findings and others might have different conclusions. Use this information at your own risk. If there are any questions, email me at leonsllt@yahoo.com or feel free to post comments on this article.

Obese Malaysians

Today, I remembered something in the newspaper I read last week. Sometimes, I have to recall from the recesses of my memory new topics to blog about. Anyhow, the big subject was Malaysians were getting too obese.

Now, I’m thinking, wait a minute. Compared to other societies, especially Americans, are we really that bad off? Certainly we don’t see a lot of Malaysians as fat as this guy.

Still, generalizing based on personal observations, isn’t a great idea. So let’s look at the food Malaysians typically eat compared to food that Americans eat. I’ll list down a few fat related facts from the Men’s Health Magazine August 2004. In this edition, Men’s Health did a study on the nutrition of local food.

I'll compare the local food to the famous McDonald's burger: the Big Mac

For the above, the Big Mac comes in the lowest in calories, among the lowest in fat, and tied for the lowest in cholesterol. In one oustanding case, Char Koay Teow has 4x the amount of cholesterol than in a single Big Mac.

Looking at these facts, one has to conclude we are in a “Stealth” obese society. Heck, Malaysian food doesn’t look fat, I'd probably never guess in my wildest dreams that the Big Mac is healthier than all of the above 5 foods. At least when US people get fat, they know as they hock down steaks, burgers, and what not. These are pretty massive pieces of food they consume.

Here in Malaysia, a couple of plates of Char Koay Teow or Mee Goreng per week, and before you know it; you’ll hit the obese category.

=(

The New Yahoo! Mail Beta

Last week, I started to use the New Yahoo! Mail Beta. But previously I used something like this:

I know. Why am I sticking with Yahoo, while I could go use Gmail? It definitely puts yahoo mail to shame. Something about Yahoo, I just can’t simply change to Gmail or another base. Or maybe I’m too lazy to shift my main email address.

Anyhow, for those who haven’t tried the New Yahoo! Mail Beta, it’s a sexy looking site.

Well, not exactly sexy in that way, nevertheless, pretty attractive for a web based email. Overall, it’s rather intuitive, especially for outlook users, and for the first time deleting emails doesn’t require checking off and deleting. Just highlight the mail and press the delete key on the keyboard. I don’t know if web mail companies realize this, the old style of checking the box requires a lot of tedious hand to eye coordination.

From what I know, the New Yahoo Beta mail has been in beta for a few months. Initially, some of the reviews said that it was very slow. In the current version, the speed is acceptable, although this depends on the individual’s tolerance. That said, Yahoo Beta mail has good features. And it’s nice enough to overshadow the loading speed for me. Those with slower internet connections, I have no idea how slow it is and thus might have a different opinion of the web-mail.

Richard Branson

I had an interesting conversation with Timothy this past weekend. This involves Mr. Richard Branson, the founder of all that is Virgin. Mr. Branson is Stewie’s most inspirational business hero. The ultimate poster boy of entrepreneurs, this man has been through all depths of hell in the business world and has lived to tell about it. In fact he’s thriving like a plant on “super-gro” fertilizer.

Before I read about Sir Richard Branson, I thought that he was a rather normal businessman. Stereotypically thinking, I presumed that his character was similar to other rich people such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. Of course he never did fit that mold. When I finished reading about him, the book destroyed any preconceptions I had.

Let me digress and point out the motivation for entrepreneurship. People sometimes say “I’m doing business for entrepreneurial glory and because I love doing it.” Don’t pay too much attention to that. People do it for the money. It’s the same anywhere, sports, music, etc. In the end, it’s all about the Benjamin’s – the faces on the US dollar. Or in the case of Malaysia, the Zetis – the faces on the RM note. Anyone who says otherwise is lying through his or her teeth. No offense. So anytime someone appears on MTV or Channel V saying “I’m doing singing for the love of music,” just replace music with money; and you’ll have an accurate statement.

As interesting as Branson’s story is, the average person will have trouble following in his footsteps to entrepreneur riches. This man is like an athlete who has some insane talent. Think of the Wayne Rooneys, the Michael Jordans, etc. The truth is most people will never have that kind of talent, so most people can never expect to become fantastic entrepreneurs in the mold of Richard Branson. So what is Richard Branson’s entrepreneurship style? It took me a while to come up with this term, I’ll call it “Run and Gun” entrepreneurism.

So, “Run and Gun” entrepreneurism, exactly why do I say it like that? After reading Branson’s book, How I lost my Virginity, I had this feeling of the wild wild west shoot-em-up movies. A few survive, but most end up dead. People will disagree, but I feel Branson is a bit like this in his book. It’s one of those too good to be true stories. So, Branson is insanely good, lucky, or he told a damn good story. Speculation aside on the accuracy of his autobiography, I believe he’s insanely good. I can’t really argue with his results.

Sometimes, I believe people read this story and immediately say “holy shit, I wanna be just like that guy.” Hopefully, they’ll calm down and realize that jumping into the fighting ring with a guy 5 times your size without a well-planned strategy doesn’t sound like a good idea. I lost count how many times Branson has almost went bust. Surprisingly, he always managed to come back. Most people fall down and never get back up.

Hazy Days

These days newspapers have been calling out Indonesia for the haze. Unfortunately, it seems like Indonesia is doing very little. Without a doubt, everyone would like this problem solved. We long for haze-free days.

So thinking positively, I’m offering some solutions. If you can't beat it, make the best of it!

1) Lower the alcohol tax. By lowering this tax, people get will consume more alcohol and forget about the haze. When people are drinking, they tend to forget what kind of air they are breathing.

2) Scream at Indonesia more. Yes, nagging at someone to fix the problem would definitely help, though unfortunately that person might start to resent you. But hey, it gets results. It’s not like they haven’t heard the protests before, or have they?

3) Give a RM15 subsidy for cover charge at clubs. When people are partying, they tend to forget all their problems. In ancient Rome, having big sporting events such as gladiators was a common strategy to keep the masses appeased. So it’s a no brainer that people would take their minds off the haze if their attention was elsewhere.

4) Add the playboy channel to Astro. By adding Playboy to TV channels, people will be less reminded of the haze problem. They will be watching girls skimp around with no clothes on. Usually, people can think only one thought at a time. Certainly they won’t be thinking haze and girls skimping around at the same time.

5) Declare hazy days a national holiday. People happily look forward to hazy days now that they get an off day. What better way to soothe the anger of the public than to have more holidays?

True thse are not real solutions, but what can the common citizen do? So, in ending, I would like to share with you some words from the famous Bob Marley.

“In every life we have some trouble,
when you worry you make it double
don't worry, be happy”