My Interview

I met my friend Pam today.... the one who is going to be my new boss. It was an interview cum chit-chat session. We have not met in quite awhile. She looked pretty much the same. She was a hot hoochymama 15 years ago... really hot. Now... hmmm... not so hot lah.... but bolehlah. Hahaha...

Anyway we met in Bangsar Village 2's Coffee Bean. She wanted to know if I was serious in accepting her offer. She proceeded to tell me more of the project. It sounded very good. I am interested... very interested.

1. The 40% and the increment when phase 2 opens still stands.

2. Accommodation thrown in. My beloved mom gets to come visit for free. This is a benefit she insisted on. I guess she wanted to emphasise on this coz she just lost her mom last year.

3. She's buying a Murano and I can drive that Murano when she is not there as she is based in KL. Wow! Finally, a company car... sort of....

4. After this resort there will be two other resorts and if I do my job well here then I will head the project for the next two with profit sharing options. That sealed the deal actually.

5. I report to her and no one else and during the conversation we established that she and I both have the same goals. That's important.

6. I am fully in-charge. I am to treat it like my own business. I get to pick my all my managers. She only needs to interview the Financial Controller and choose the Financial Controller. Ok... I have no problems with that.

Finally... a chance to build something of my own... mould it the way I see it should be moulded into and not DICKtated by some idiots... and if things go well I might be there for at least 5 years as all the projects are in Langkawi. And if that's the case then... I may finally get to buy my dream car... duty free... hence affordable to a poor man like me.

I am so inspired now. Pam asked me if I wanted an appointment letter now. I laughed at her and said... What the fuck for? Even with the letter, you can still sack me on the spot and I can also NOT turn up for work right? She laughed and agreed... she said that most people would want to have something in writing to 'feel' more secure. I trust her I said... I'll need the letter much later. Not now.

And I already got my first assignment. Proposed manning for Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Damn... the last time I was so excited was when I lost my virginity! By the look of it... I think I should be at my new job by my next birthday.

Retail Therapy

During my trip to Penang I realised that I really did miss my old ride... especially the ICE (In-Car Entertainment) setup. Here's a portion of a flyer I made when I was selling the car.

The car I'm driving now has the stock system in place and the car is 7 years old now so you can imagine what kind of crappy stock system it was. When you travel interstate and listen to the radio then you have a problem  as the frequency changes and you would need to retune to get the right frequency. The stock system had its limitations when it comes to preset stations and the same applies for auxiliary inputs which it did not have. So it was either a CD or mess around with the tuner while driving which is not a good idea when driving alone. In my old set up, you can see there were 6 presets and 7 pages of it which means I could preset a total of 42 stations. I did the same presets of stations but each page was for a different state. Convenient. And in the old set up I had an auxiliary input which I could hook up to my phone or an iPod. It was also my handsfree then... I spoke into the phone while the callers voice was from the car's system. Cool...

So, the thought of upgrading was already playing in mind while in Penang.

This morning someone really spoilt my morning while at work so I decided to do some retail therapy and also 'skive' for a couple of hours.

You guessed it... I took my car for an ICE upgrade. The goal was to change the head unit as the current one was faulty (volume dial cranky) and did not have an auxiliary input and could not play MP3s and also to upgrade at least the front speakers and my budget was not more than RM1k. I decided to use just one brand for this set up and Sony was what I chose. I did it with RM845 which included RM30 for the workmanship.

Head unit: CDX-GT290S. It had the front auxiliary and was MP3 and WMA capable. The guy did his best to upsell the other options which was AAC capable and also USB capable. It was tempting but I stood my ground. Auxiliary is all I needed. I have a phone with 8GB of memory so that's all I need.

Front speakers: XS-GTX1620. I wanted components for the front and this was the only option available.

Rear speakers:  XS-GTX1625B.  I'm on a budget so coaxials it is.

Again the guy did his job and tried to sell me an amp and a sub. At least he tried but I know what I am doing and this is all I am willing to spend on this car. Everything is done now BUT I am really not happy with the installation. As I was skiving and running out of time, I just let it be for now and I guess I will have to take it elsewhere for a better job and also some insulation work.

At least now the music sounds decent and the radio definitely sound so much better and more crisp. Still a long way from my previous set up but so was the investment. Hahaha... you get what you pay for just like the workmanship... RM30... so I got shit.

Oh... and this is my dinner. Tuna Aglio e Olio. I just love pasta... yummy, yummy...

I Miss My Baby...

Miss you so much...

I got into the car today and was just about to drive home and for some strange reason my left leg attempted to step on the clutch. Alas there was no clutch. Bang... kete hang auto lah skang...

Started to reminisce the good old days with my baby. Zooming down Karak Highway at 110kph... taking all the sweeps easily... and to make matters worse, after dinner there was this show on NTV7 which was about cars and they were featuring the Lancer GT... lagilah sakit hati woi...

The dude who's hosting this show somehow looked so familiar. At the end I saw his name... Adian Yein Khalid. This is the dude who sold me my first CAI (Cold Air Intake), suspension and springs for my baby. I think I still have that set of springs in my apartment, unused. Adian used to head Proton's Motorsport Division for a while. Now he's into something else but still is into cars, obviously.

My baby sure has some memories... like flying off a 2.5 feet high ledge... hahaha... will never ever forget that one. I was so high on booze just after some silly pool with the gang... Crazee who was in the car with me was speechless. The bumper fell off... I got out of the car, squatted down, looked at my baby and burst out laughing. Geesh... those were the days indeed.

Bye-bye Baby...

For the past few months, I have been seeing the Mitsubishi Lancer GT 2.0 here in Kuantan. Every single week, without fail, there will be one here at the car park where I work. Every time I see it my heart skips a beat. I really, really love this car.

This is a picture I took from my car... my Beng-Wira, while driving here in Kuantan. I keep seeing it so often that I decided to take a snap shot since I was in queue at the traffic lights.

Here's another look at it from the front. Don't you just love it? It has 152 horses under the hood, stock. I love it so much that I was thinking of pampering myself on my next birthday by getting myself one when I get my 10-year service 'bonus'. But my spirits were dampened when I read that there was a 12 -month waiting period for this car so if I booked it next March then I will only get mine in 2009. And by 2009, there will be a new variant coming out. So.... I guess it's bye-bye baby... :(

Stranded...

It’s a Sunday morning and I’m stuck here as the highway is closed due to the floods. Here I am sitting in Starbucks at 11:45am with my notebook, been here since 11:00am. There’s only me and one other guy sitting here since 11:00am. And this is the only Starbuck’s in this town. Yes, believe it!

I came over to the Berjaya Mega Mall as I needed to drop my car off for a proper detailing job. I parked my car at the Hyatt’s car park early this week and my car got some tree sap or rust, (I don’t know) on it. I dropped the car off at 10:30am. It was still early so I decided to check out the PC fair. I noticed the banners on the road sides so I got a cab and just said, Plaza Gambut please. It took us 3 minutes to get there. And it cost me RM6.00. Yes, no meter and since I'm not a local boy I just shut my mouth, paid and got off. I entered the building... I almost fainted. PC Fair, my ass!! There were only 3 booths and it was basically PCs for sale… mostly second hand PCs. What a waste of my time and money. So, I walked back to Berjaya Mega Mall and it took me only about 15 minutes.

So, here I am having my iced latte and chatting with the only one friend who’s online in Skype. I recently realised that I do not have many friends indeed and that is probably why I feel so lonely everyday.

Sigh!

There are very few regrets in my life… in fact there was only one and up until now, two…

One… getting myself in Azkhaban.

Two… taking this damned job and leaving my crew behind.

But as I always say to my boys and girls… life is about choices. We make our choice and we live with our choice or we make another choice. We’ll never know whether the choice will be right or wrong. If we knew then life would be so simple and we would be living in a very peaceful world.

I guess I’ll go decide what to have for lunch now. Then probably look for a magazine and some DVDs and head back to my dreaded room…

C'est la vie…