afifplc

The end of Blogger era

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 14:33:00 +0000

Believe it or not, I've been blogging here at Blogger.com for 17 years now. Since the heydays of blogging until Tik-Tok and Instagram killed the blogger star (I'm far from a star). If you noticed, it's been a downward spiral in my quantity of blogging. From 30 to 40 posts per year until a dozen two years ago and just a single post last year. Why? To be honest, I lost the energy, time and motivation to blog. Especially on a big tech platform like Blogger.

There's a good reason why I deleted my Facebook account many years ago, stopped posting on Instagram and Twitter and turned to open source and decentralized social media like Mastodon, Pixelfed and Loops. I've written in detail why I moved to Mastodon from Twitter and then why I ultimately moved away from big tech social media in this long post on my new blog at Micro.blog.

So to all my friends and long-time blog readers (yes all 3 of you), you can find me blogging at Micro.blog from now on. I pay $1 a month for this blog and it's well worth it. It's beautiful, clean and minimalist just the way I like it and more importantly, it's not owned by a genocide-compilicit company like Google. Until then, see you at my new home at afif.micro.blog (you should ditch Google too). Thank you for your support all these years.

A whole new world

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 13:41:00 +0000

On my desk at home, there's a little Google Nest Hub device on Photo Frame mode which displays a selection of photos of my family members. From my bachelor days, till the time the kids were born, through major milestones in their lives. Amongst them is a picture of a scrawny little boy at a playground, grinning on a slide with his little sister in tow. If you tell me one day that little boy is going to be getting a scholarship and doing a degree in the United States, I may find it hard to believe. But just last week, I bawled my eyes out saying goodbye to him at the KLIA airport for exactly that.

I always knew Adam was good academically, ever since he was in primary school, earning top grades in class. During his UPSR exam however, he only got 5As out of 6 subject and understandably he was distraught. There goes his chance of getting into a good boarding school. But as fate would have it, he somehow got into a proper and good boarding school. One at the north of the state, some one hour drive from our Casa Riana home. Never been apart from the family, Adam surprisingly adapted to life in boarding school pretty quickly. The fact that he gets to go home every other week also helps. Linda and I also played our part, visiting him at school whenever we can or every time he called us.

Time flies and before you know it, Adam was sitting for his PT3 exam during form 3. Despite his best efforts, Adam did not manage to get his target of straight As (a solitary B I think). That itself was quite an achievement but knowing Adam, he will not settle for second best. Don't worry too much about it I said to him. You still have two years ahead to get good results in your SPM exams. Fast forward two years later, we did not know what his result was until his name was called on stage for getting straight As. We were all elated of course. We knew he would do well but had no idea he'll got all 10 As.

That result along with his prowess in the debate team and other extra curricular activities opened up an assortment of opportunities in term of scholarship offers. We encouraged Adam to apply to almost every scholarship available. He did all the hard work of writing the application essays, video essays and attending interviews after interviews tirelessly. In the end, for all his hard work, he was offered a JPA scholarship with a chance to further his studies in South Korea. We were sure glad for that golden opportunity but to our surprise, only a week later, Adam was offered another, even better scholarship by a statutory body of the government of Malaysia. Alhamdulillah.

Needless to say, we accepted the better offer and Adam was given the option to do his A-Levels at either Sunway College or Kolej Tuanku Jaafar. Thinking a boarding school near to home was the better option, we encouraged Adam to pick them and he did. Studying at KTJ, a private school is a whole new experience for Adam. The facilities and resources were on a different level from regular government school and we constantly reminded Adam to make good use of the opportunity provided. Before he could continue his degree at a university of choice in either the U.K or U.S, he still need to get at least 3 As from 4 A-Level subjects. Knowing A-Level exams, I'm fully aware they're definitely not a walk in the park.

Before you know it, two years flew by just like that. Adam really enjoyed his time at KTJ, judging by the activities, dinners and parties that he attended. I should know how fun it can be at a private school since I've been working at one for the last 11 years. Still, Adam has a really important exam that he's got to ace and after he's finished with that, we had a nervous two months to wait before he got his results. It's not that we don't believe in Adam but in the small chance that he does not get the required As, we'll have to pay back all the financial assistance that was given to Adam since starting upper sixth in full. Trust me, it's a lot.

Adam applied for a few universities in the U.K and in the U.S. His dream college was the one in New York, an ivy league school that I shall not name for now. We didn't put much hope about Adam getting into that school and maybe they were impressed by his admission essay but to everyone's surprised he received an unconditional offer into that very school for the fall admission date. We were ecstatic of course, especially so Adam because he actually got into his college of choice.

Adam already got one As for Physics but the rest of the result would not come out until 2 days prior to his departure. Regardless, we still need to prepare for his departure and spent thousands of our own money for the purpose. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends for their emotional and financial support for Adam and us. They were simply so generous and kind. How could I ever repay them back.

T-2 days before departure. We just finished changing some ringgit for dollars at the PKNS mall. It was 1:00PM, the time two A-Level results were supposed to come out. We urged Adam to check them on his phone. Much to our relief, he bagged one A* and another A for his Computer Science and Maths papers. That's his sponsorship guaranteed. Alhamdulillah again.

We left for the Kuala Lumpur International airport Terminal 1 at 3:30AM that somber Wednesday morning with two luggage full of stuff. Asif came along, obviously. My mom was there, along with Linda's parent, my uncle and my cousin from Kota Damansara and also Linda's sister and her husband. We got to the airport to be greeted by about a dozen of Adam's friends from SM Sains Hulu Selangor and KTJ. They took a lot of effort to show up that morning, some drove straight from work and some event rented an Airbnb nearby for the purpose. Good friends like that are hard to find. I hope Adam will remember that and never lose contact.

After the baggages were dropped and check-ins were settled, Adam spent the last few minutes of his time here hanging out with his friends. I know I wished he would spend his time with us, his family instead but I don't want to intrude. His friends did made all that effort to be there that morning so they fully deserved it. When it's time to actually go, we exchanged long hugs and there were not a dry eye in sight. Linda and I especially bawled our eyes out while hugging and saying our goodbyes to Adam. Although he did not show it but Adam said he's scared of going to a whole new place all by himself. It is indeed his first time out of the country without his family. Previously I've been planning all our trips for the family and he just tags along.

After all the tears were shed, Adam walked pass immigration and into the boarding area without any untoward incident. We went our own ways and Linda and I back home. Maybe it was because a lot of people cried but I felt this pang of immense sadness, something I have not felt since my father died many years ago. Linda was even worse, anything she sees that reminds her of Adam made her cry spontaneously. You must understand that this is the first time we are apart from our very own children. And by 14,976 kilometers away too mind you.

Adam was very lucky to have some Malaysian seniors at the university putting him up to stay a few days before starting college. The newly wed couple even brought him around town for sight-seeing and even some shopping. Now that Adam had actually checked in to college, we still miss him and worry about him every single day. Yes, I know we can chat or Facetime him any time but we still worry for him for this next few months at least until he truly fully settle down.

I hope that Adam can quickly adapt to the changes and challenges that he will face in a foreign land far-far away. I know it won't be easy at first, especially without your family or friends to help but I'm confident you will raise to the challenge like you always do. I know that you are a strong, independent and driven young man who will not easily give up. I pray that your four years in New York will end up with that precious computer science degree and then you will be happily reunited with your family (and friends).

Final words. This is your time Adam. Time for new adventures, new experiences and new lessons in life. Make new friends, learn new things, travel far and wide if you can. Here's to a new chapter in your life. Here's to whole new world and new adventures. Remember that you will be in our thoughts and our prayers, always.

Best TV series of 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 03:46:00 +0000

Back by popular demand (nobody asked really), here are the best TV series that I've watched in 2023.

Derry girls

Derry girls came out in 2018 and features only 3 seasons and 19 episodes but boy what good episodes those 19 are. Set in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, a young girl and her cousin embark on many exciting adventures after they attend a Catholic girls' school in the midst of a national conflict. It's so funny, must watch.

The Last of Us

Are you tired of zombie TV-series? I know I am but what sets The Last of Us apart is that it's based on a popular video game franchise, it's zombies are caused by fungal infection (something new) and also starring one of my favourite actors, Pedro Pascal.

Better call Saul

Breaking Bad was easily one of my favourite TV series of all time so the spin-off series should be just as good, right? Actually watching the first 2 episodes for the first time, I didn't like it much. That's why it took me a year after the series ended before I started watching it again and grow to like it.

Silo

This Apple TV original is yet another dystopian series but with enough suspense, twist and turn that kept the viewers wanting more. Can't wait for season two of Silo next.

Ahsoka

Any Star Wars series will automatically make this list, no? Ahsoka is not as interesting as Mando or Obi-Wan Kenobi but it does feature Anakin and some missing back stories from the Clone Wars.

The Bear

If you think chef Carmen looks kinda familiar, it is because he played Lip in Shameless. In The Bear, Jeremy Allen White tries to transform a struggling hot dog join in Chicago into a Michelin star restaurant. Sounds boring right? But there's something about The Bear that keeps you wanting more.

One Piece

I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan of One Piece the anime but any silver screen adaptation of the popular series is worthy of a watch. This Netflix adaptation did not dissappoint (although some people can never be satisified) and I thoroughly enjoyed the first season. Just hope that it does not get cancelled anytime soon.

The summer I turned pretty

A cheesy teenage romance drama? Really Afif? I thought so too in the beginning but Lola Tung (Belly) is just so cute and before you know it, I finished the entire 2 seasons. Available exclusively on Prime.

Bangkok trip 2023 - Day 5

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 12:48:00 +0000

Our last day in Bangkok was less busier than the previous four days. We ordered halal food for the kids and then walked to the Platinum Fashion mall some 1200 meters away. There, you can find all sort of clothing lines for sale at a pretty affordable price. Just a few hundred meters away is the Siam Paragon and Siam Center, another two well known malls in Bangkok. After much (window) shopping, we rushed back to the hotel because of the midday check out time. We did not check out until 12:40 PM but the hotel staff were kind enough to overlook that.

From the hotel, we took a Bolt to the Darul Aman mosque area again meaning to have lunch. The last place, Rotinies that we went to was already closing so we decided to try Farida Fatornee restaurant just next door. Sadly for me at least, the tom yam there did not taste as good as Yana or Samat and they were 180 baht each which is quite steep for my liking. I will give Farida Fatornee a pass if I ever go to Bangkok again. From there, we walked to the Phaya Thai BTS station to take the train to the airport. We learned from our lesson earlier and arrived 2 hours before departure this time. We walked through immigration only with our mineral bottles confiscated this time but no worries because we bought some more in the duty free area, including the customary chocolates.

The plane leaves 10 minutes early and we had a smooth journey back to KLIA 2. And that concludes our 5 days (actually 4) visit to Bangkok. I think we are pretty happy with our first overseas visit via air travel. We get to visit most of the places on our itinerary and we did many of them on a shoestring budget. Sure we splashed out a bit at Yana Restaurant and The Grand Palace but they were worth it. We tried to walk our way around Bangkok and our hotel is ideally located close to two BTS stations. But having a 4 years old in tow means having to take a stroller along and navigating Bangkok's busy streets, zebra crossings and overhead bridges to go to the other side of the road is no easy feat. That's why half the time we take Bolt or Grab rides to cover short distances in the city. Our Bolt rides cost on average 120 to 160 baht for a 6-seater car while Grab starts from 200 baht onwards.

Our first visit to Bangkok, like our first visit to Singapore was a rushed affair, if I want to summarise it. We rushed everywhere and simply did not have the time to soak in the attractions or atmosphere. That's mostly because we came for only four days (if you discount the late morning arrival). There's simply not enough time. Staying longer will naturally cost us more. Our return flight ticket already costed us over 4,800 ringgit so the rest of our itinerary had to be on a shoestring. That said, Bangkok, the capital of Thailand is a brand new experience for all of us. It's not as clean as Singapore or even Kuala Lumpur but it has its own unique charm. Everything feels a lot cheaper here, goods and services, except for the usual tourist (traps) attractions. For once I'm glad the exchange rate is more favourable here compared to down south. People there are generally more friendly, with more Asian warmth, compared to the cold, unfriendly folks in Singapore. Despite reading and feeling alarmed about the numerous scams that they warned about in Bangkok, we thankfully did not encounter a single one of them. Perhaps we've been vigilant or maybe they've been blown over proportions. Would we visit again? Sure and perhaps next time at a more leisurely pace.

One thing for sure, this is not going to be our only visit to Thailand. There so many more places to visit, including the popular beaches down south or the cool highlands up north in Chiangmai. With hotel prices and goods being so much cheaper there, it's little wonder that Malaysians and other tourists are flocking to the kingdom in droves.

Below is our carefully planned itinerary. We tried to save as much as possible apart from the plane ticket and attraction entrance which are out of our control.

Day 1

6:30 PM: Park car and take ERL to KLIA 2 at Salak Tinggi station

10:45 PM: Flight Air Asia FD 430 to Bangkok (RM4800.00 for 6 pax, return flight)

12:00 AM: Arrive at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok

1:00 AM: Take Bolt (6 seater) and check in to Gold Airport Suites (1 standard double room: RM95.63 per night on Agoda)

Day 2

8:45 AM: Take Bolt to Lat Krabang BTS station

9:30 AM: Take BTS to Phaya Thai BTS station

10:00 AM: Walk 900 meters to Picnic Hotel, Bangkok. Left luggage at hotel lobby (1 standard twin room: RM548.69 for 3 nights on Agoda)

11:30 AM: Walk 800 meters to Victory Monument bus stop

12:00 PM: Take bus no 539 to Sai Tai Mai (Southern bus terminal)

12:40 PM: Have lunch at Sai Tai Mai food court

1:30 PM: Take van to Damnoen Saduak (80 baht each)

3:40 PM: Take boat to Damnoen Saduak floating market (600 baht per boat)

4:32 PM: Take songthaew to Samut Songkhram (30 baht each)

5:40 PM: Watch last train at Maeklong railway station

6:15 PM: Take coach bus at Samut Songkhram bus terminal (100 baht each)

8:40 PM: Arrive at Mo Chit BTS station. Take train to Ratchaprarop station

9:00 PM: Walk to Samat Muslim food for dinner

10:30 PM: Take tuk-tuk back to Picnic Hotel (140 baht for 10 minutes)

Day 3

6:30 AM: Take Grab to Hua Lamphong (Bangkok) railway station.

7:45 AM: Buy train tickets to Lopburi (30 baht each / ordinary ticket)

9:30 AM: Train depart to Lopburi

12:45 PM: Arrive in Lopburi

1:00 PM: Have lunch at Khao Mok Gai Soi Ko Sa restaurant near Nurous mosque

2:15 PM: Take pickup truck to Khaochin sunflower fields (1,000 baht per car return trip)

4:15 PM: Return to Lopburi train station

7:30 PM: Delayed train to Bangkok arrives

10:15 PM: Arrive at Hua Lamphong train station. Take Bolt to Sathorn pier

10:43 PM: Take last ferry to Asiatique

11:00 PM: Dinner and sightseeing at Asiatique

12:00 AM: Take Bolt back to hotel

Day 4

9:15 AM: Take bolt to Darul Aman mosque

9:30 AM: Breakfast at Rotinies next to the mosque

11:00 AM: Take Bolt to The Grand Palace (500 baht per person)

1:30 PM: Walk 1 kilometer to Tha Thian pier

2:00 PM: Cross river with boat and visit Wat Arun (200 baht each)

3:00 PM: Take Bolt to Chatuchak weekend market

6:00 PM: Walk to Mo Chit BTS station across the road. Take train to Siam station and walk to MBK Center.

8:00 PM: Dinner at Yana Restaurant on the fifth floor of MBK Center

9:00 PM: Take Bolt back to hotel

Day 5

9:15 AM: Walk 1.2 kilometres to Platinum Fashion mall

10:30 AM: Walk 500 meters to Siam Paragon mall

11:40 AM: Take Grab back to hotel

12:30 PM: Check out from hotel. Take bolt to Darul Aman mosque

2:00 PM: Had lunch at Farida Fartonee restaurant

2:30 PM: Walk 800 meters to Phaya Thai BTS station. Take Aero train to Suvarnabhumi airport

4:00 PM: Check in luggage and clear immigration

6:15 PM: Depart to KLIA 2

10:20 PM: Arrive at KLIA 2. Take ERL to Salak Tinggi station

Here are some of the tips or things we learned for our first time in Bangkok:

1. Taking Bolt rides is always much cheaper than Grab. We are not sure about meter taxies but chatting with a Malaysian working there once, he claimed they're even cheaper than ride-sharing cars. Provided you get them to use a meter in the first place la. I don't know how long Bolt can maintain that low price because startups like them will eventually raise their price once they captured enough market share.

2. Tuk-tuk rides are not cheap and they can cost as much as a Bolt ride plus it's not so comfortable to be in, out in the open in the Bangkok traffic. If you must or just wanted to experience the ride once, negotiate the price beforehand and make sure they're not much different than a Bolt ride.

3. Taking an ordinary (3rd class) train to Lopburi is great if you have the time and want to save on your budget but bear in mind, they're quite slow and stops at many-many station. And if you're unlucky like us, you may get delayed up to 3 hours on the journey back. A better option is take a bus or shuttle coach in Lopburi town.

4. Halal food is not hard to find in Bangkok but getting there requires a lot of walking or some kind of transportation. An easier alternative is to just order them via Grab.

5. Some banks (like CIMB) require you to activate your debit and credit card first for overseas use so you'll have to call the bank for the purpose. Other banks will simply let you withdraw money using their debit or credit cards at any ATMS that have the MEPS or Visa/Mastercard logo.

6. Buying a Thai SIM card or eSIM is always cheap on Shopee but if you need to do a banking transaction that requires a TAC or OTP, you will need to turn on roaming on your Malaysian SIM anyway. Maxis charges RM39 for 3 days roaming while Yoodo charges RM13 but using your existing data plan. My experience with Yoodo roaming has been below par at times, especially in rural areas where it struggled to get 4G reception.

Places that we didn't get to visit:

National Museum of Bangkok

Museum of Contemporary Art

Museum Siam

Children's Discovery Museum

Jim Thompson's House museum

Asiatique ferris wheel

Pratunam market

Chao Phraya Express boat (for the sunset cruise)

✈ Read the complete 5 days trip:

Bangkok Day 1

Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 3

Bangkok Day 4

Bangkok Day 5

Bangkok trip 2023 - Day 4

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 07:23:00 +0000

Our fourth day in Bangkok was a pretty busy one. First thing in the morning, we took a Bolt ride to the Darul Aman mosque in Ratchathewi to have breakfast. You can find rows of halal food stalls and restaurants around the area including the one where we had breakfast - Rotinies right next to the mosque. The basil chicken fried rice was good but the beef skewers was especially delicious.

From there, we initially took a bus from the guide on Google Map but seeing that it's not really going to our destination, we hop off and decided to take a Grab instead. The Grand Palace is one of the most popular/must visit place in Bangkok so we did not want to miss it even-thought the ticket price is 500 baht (RM67) each (kids under 120 cm go in free).

Under the hot afternoon sun, we get to see beautiful palaces and temples with elaborate decorations, huge mansions and halls, interesting statues and magnificent towers. Since it's hot, we just breezed through most of the attractions without spending too much time admiring them. The 500 baht ticket includes entrance to the Queen Sirkit textile museum, the Arts of the Kingdom Museum and the Khon Thai classical dance performance but we skipped all of that because we need to be on schedule to visit other places.

From the palace, we walked some 1 kilometer to the Tha Thian pier to take a small boat (5 baht each) to Wat Arun just across the river. Entrance to Wat Arun is 100 baht each and they will be raising the price to 200 baht next year. Wat Arun is a big monumental Buddhist temple right on the river, with an iconic, ornately tiled central prangs dotting the area. Some visitors will rent elaborate local costumes and take pictures around the temple. Like The Grand Palace, Wat Arun is one of the must-visit attractions in Bangkok.

From Wat Arun, we took another Bolt to the Chatuchak weekend market. A visit to Bangkok is never complete without visiting this famous market. You can find a lot of cheap clothes, shoes, (imitation) bags, kitchenware, souvenirs, decorations and food (including a few halal stalls). You will be spoilt for choice and be prepared to spend at least a thousand baht each at the market. Don't forget to try the coconut ice cream while you're there.

From the market, we took a train from Mo Chit to Siam station and walked to the MBK Centre mall. Another famous halal eatery in Bangkok is Yana Restaurant, located on the fifth floor of the mall. The food can be quite expensive but they are really-really good. I don't say this lightly but their tom yum with coconut milk is probably the best that I've ever tasted in my life. We paid 1800 baht for a dinner for six but it's worth every baht. The restaurant even gave us a voucher where you can claim a free t-shirt from a store downstairs.

✈ Read the complete 5 days trip:

Bangkok Day 1

Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 3

Bangkok Day 4

Bangkok Day 5

Bangkok trip 2023 - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 06:40:00 +0000

The Hua Lamphong or Bangkok Railway Station.

We rise bright and early today meaning to catch the 7:30 AM train to Lopburi. I called a Grab to the Hua Lamphong train station (also known as Bangkok Railway Station) and bought regular-class tickets (30 baht each). The train was not scheduled to arrive until 9:30 AM. Linda got her train schedule information from one of the blogs so apparently the information were outdated.

While waiting for the train, we tried looking for some halal place nearby to have breakfast. We found two on Google Maps but one was already closed for good and the other was not open yet. In the end we bought some snacks from 7-11 (again) for our breakfast.

Being a regular train, it was slow and stops at a million stations along the way. We chose to sit at the wooden chair coach for aesthetics reason but my butt hurts after the 3 hour long journey. You will find food paddlers, selling an assortment of food on the train throughout the journey although we chose to not buy them for hygienic and halal reasons. This time of the year, you can feel the occasional cold breeze blowing from the winter in China everywhere on the northern part of Thailand, including Bangkok. Even more so on this train ride and at night time. At Lopburi train station, we crossed the tracks to get to the Nurous mosque where we can find one halal restaurant there. Just ask the street food seller in front of the mosque about the halal restaurant. They belong to the same owners/family. The noodle soup was superb and the food was really cheap at Khao Mok Gai Soi Ko Sa (name of the halal restaurant).

The Khao Mok Gai Soi Ko Sa halal restaurant in Lopburi.

After praying and cleaning ourselves at the mosque, we tried to find a transport to the Khaochin sunflower field. Somebody said we can always find a songthaew to go there but after looking for a while, they’re non-existent. Apparently, songthaews don’t go to the sunflower fields because it’s too far away and not close to the main road. In the end we hired a pickup truck for a thousand baht to take us there and back. You can ask one of the Grab bike riders waiting outside the train station to call for a private van.

Taking a pickup truck to the sunflower fields after we refused a more comfortable SUV thinking we could get cheaper fares.

Waiting for 3 hours for the delayed train.

The sunflower fields itself was quite small than I had imagined. There's about 2-3 acres of sunflower fields that I can see and they bloom from December to February. There's no entrance fee whatsoever, surprisingly. The pickup truck driver offered to take us to another sunflower (or is it flower?) field but we needed to catch the 4:30 PM train back. The most important thing is, my wife got her wish fulfilled. We bought some sunflower seeds at the stalls beside the field. The return trip was delayed by 3 hours for some reason and we had no choice but to sit around and wait until 8:30 PM (from the original 5:30 PM departure time). In hindsight, we should have taken a bus or bought express train tickets back to Bangkok. Sure you can enjoy some beautiful sceneries along the way by train but you'll be spending half the day just for the travel.

The free shuttle ferry to Asiatique from the Sathorn pier.

Despite arriving at the Hua Lamphong train station at 10:15 in the evening, we managed to catch the last free shuttle ferry to Asiatique riverfront place. It was a minor miracle because we thought we had surely missed our chance on the ferry for arriving so late. Once you get to Sathorn pier, you may find the jetty is already closed. The free ferry shuttle to Asiatique is to the left side which is open until 11:15 PM. Asiatique is basically a bunch of shops and eateries next to the Chao Praya river. Most of the stuff on sale are more expensive than say, Chatuchak or other malls, including the food. However since it’s nearly midnight and don’t have time to find any nearby halal food. (the famous Halal Food Centre has already closed), we ate some from the expensive stalls which charges 200 baht for a meal. The sign says halal but there’s no way to verify so we just tawakkal and eat.

After the late dinner, we walked around a bit, took pictures in front of the ferris wheel and then took a Bolt home. The ferris wheels costs 500 baht each to ride so we decided to skip that. So that concludes our 3rd day in Bangkok.

✈ Read the complete 5 days trip:

Bangkok Day 1

Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 3

Bangkok Day 4

Bangkok Day 5

Bangkok trip 2023 - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 06:04:00 +0000

Famous Thailand 7-11 food

Naturally everybody overslept because we checked in so late last night. We only left the hotel at 8:00 AM and took another Bolt to the Lat Krabang train station and then a BTS to Phaya Thai in downtown Bangkok. From there, we walked to the Picnic Hotel some 800 meters away. On the way, we get to sample Thailand’s infamous 7-11 food. I had some halal spicy chicken burger and they were surprisingly delicious despite coming from a plastic bag.

The halal food stall on the top floor food court at Sai Tai Mai

Counter 10 where we bought van tickets to Damnoen Saduak

We left our luggage at the hotel lobby as planned. It was 11:00 AM and we asked how much for an early check in. For 700 baht each room (RM94), it was too much we thought and proceeded to walk to the Victory Monument bus stop for our next leg of the journey. We took bus number 439 to the Southern Bus Terminal (Sai Tai Mai). There we found a solitary halal food stall on the top floor food court and had a quick lunch. At the bus terminal, we bought tickets to Damnoen Saduak floating market at 80 baht each. You look for counter number 10.

The van was hot and stuffy and the aircond didn’t feel cold at all. That's the price you pay I guess for taking a public transport instead of a private hire van. It took 2 hours to reach Damnoen at 3:30 PM and as expected, the van dropped us at one of those ‘scammy’ boat jetties . The salesperson quickly approached us for boat rides but we casually walked away to find a cheaper boat. As we walked, the lady quickly offered us discounted prices up until 600 baht per boat. As it was late and we didn’t want to wast any more time, we took up her offer.

It’s a short 40 minutes ride on a motorized boat. As it’t almost 4:00 PM, most of the floating market sellers were gone and the only ones left are souvenir shops. The boat stopped at each and every one of them, hoping that we buy some of the overpriced things on sale. We were steadfast and refused any. Everybody knows they are much cheaper at Chatuchak or one of the markets downtown.

First songthaew ride.

After the boat ride, we took a songthaew to Samut Songkhram. It was our first time on a songthaew and I must say it’s quite hot in the afternoon sun. Samut Songkhram is where the famous Maeklong railway station is located and we get the chance to see the last train coming along the mostly closed market at 5:40 PM. From there, we walked to the local bus terminal to get a shuttle coach to Bangkok for 100 baht per pax. The shuttle coach was fast as it sped over Bangkok's bumpy roads and highways.

Samut Songkhram bus terminal.

The coach dropped us at Mo Chat BTS station where we took the train to Ratchaprarop station where Samat Muslim Food is situated. There was a queue outside the place that night but we waited anyway because halal food is not easy to find. The food was really good especially the tom yum with coconut milk. I think we bumped it Nelydia Senrose and her friends there.

First tuk-tuk ride.

After dinner, we rode our first tuk-tuk to our hotel. 140 baht for a 10 minutes ride sounds expensive but we wanted the experience. All six of as were packed into a medium-sized tuk-tuk as it zipped through Bangkok's infamous traffic. After having exhaust fumes from cars and trucks blowing at our face together with blaring traffic sound, I don't think we would want to ride them again. We didn’t check in our hotel until 10:30 at night. Picnic Hotel was a decent hotel with clean rooms and comfy beds at a very reasonable price. Next door across the street from the hotel, you can find a laundromat, a 7-11 and even a Lotus's Go Fresh mart. There's two BTS stations less than 1 kilometer from the hotel - Phaya Thai where you can take the ARL to the airport and also Victory Monument station.

If you catch a whiff of septic odour in the air, that's normal around Bangkok apparently. You can smell them everywhere coming from the sewers including outside high end shopping malls.

✈ Read the complete 5 days trip:

Bangkok Day 1

Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 3

Bangkok Day 4

Bangkok Day 5

Bangkok trip 2023 - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 05:55:00 +0000

Our second cross-border trip after getting our passport was to Thailand and the kids voted to go to Bangkok instead of Jakarta or Brunei. This will also be our inaugural international flight. We bought the tickets 6 months in advance so that it's slightly cheaper.

After spending much of the day preparing and packing, we thought why not go after Maghrib prayers since it's not long to go after all. Linda packed some chicken briyani to go, meaning to eat at the airport. On the way, we stopped at the Nilai R&R to get some drinks but it was suddenly jammed there for some reason. We wasted a good 15 minutes in traffic.

We parked our car at Salak Tinggi ERL station (costs 15 ringgit per day) and took the train to KLIA 2 (RM19 for 5 pax). That's another 35 minutes. By the time we got to the airport, I had to run to check in our baggage. The Air Asia crew gave me the run around on which counter to check in. I went to four different counters before finding the right one.

After rushing to eat dinner, we hurried up to the boarding gate. Thankfully, the flight was delayed (as they always do). We didn't lift off until well after midnight.

At the final immigration counter, some of our beauty products like facial cleanser and toothpaste were confiscated. I totally forgot about the liquid in flight rule. We can only bring aboard tiny little amounts of liquid products (no more than 100 ml) and they must be in transparent bottles and bags. In hindsight, we should have checked them in with our baggage.

The flight was smooth and trouble-free. We got in Bangkok around 1:00 AM local time, which is 2:00 AM Malaysian time. Our original plan to take the hotel shuttle van was scrapped after we found a cheaper ride-sharing option called Bolt. I only get to sleep around 3:00 AM. The Gold Airport Suites hotel were decent but the walls are too thin and we could here everything outside. Whenever anybody closes a door, it sent vibrations through our walls. At RM95 per night, we could not complain much because we just wanted a place to shut eye for the night or in hour case for less than 5 hours.

I blame this on Tony Fernandes and Air Asia for changing our flight time 3 times from 6:00 PM until midnight. We could have arrived earlier in Bangkok and have a good night rest, ready for tomorrow's itinerary.

✈ Read the complete 5 days trip:

Bangkok Day 1

Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 3

Bangkok Day 4

Bangkok Day 5

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max review

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 13:53:00 +0000

How do you write a review about an iPhone? The new iPhone is basically the same as the last iPhone except for faster processor, better camera and in the 14 Pro's case - Dynamic Island.

My last iPhone was an iPhone 13 mini. It was small, lightweight and great for doom-scrolling on social medias. But I sold it off and switched to the bigger, 14 Pro Max for the following reasons.

It has a bigger screen. Yes it will be a lot heavier and I need to hold it with both hands for comfort. That said, I consume media a lot. Especially during my free time. And let's be honest, the 13 mini was too small to enjoy watching anything for a prolonged period of time. I know I could always watch them on my iPad but unlike my iPhone, I don't carry my iPad everywhere I go.

With the original Apple leather case

It got a better camera. Before this year, I always capture photos whether on my digital camera or my iPhone in standard JPEG format. I did not care much about shooting in RAW because I thought they will not make much of a difference. I knew now, shooting in RAW or in iPhone's case, ProRAW make a hell of a difference, especially when you edit in Lightroom or similar apps. The amount of details that's not lost to post-processing into JPEGs are amazing. It's no wonder why serious photographers take pictures exclusively in RAW. When I want to take really beautiful or special pictures, I turned on ProRAW in my iPhone's camera settings. The camera on the 14 Pro is also 48 Megapixel, a massive upgrade from the 12 Megapixel found on previous generation iPhones.

Regular JPEG shot

ProRAW processed with Lightroom

It has always-on display. I never thought I would see this on an iPhone, but it finally came. At last, I can see the clock, notifications and widgets even when the screen is locked. It may not sound like a big deal to many but it is to me.

Finally, it has Dynamic Island. Yeah I know the pill-shaped Dynamic Island looks gimmicky at first but it will become much more useful in the future when more and more app developers continue to adopt it. I especially love the sound wave animation that is shows while playing music and the live-tracking features with delivery apps. Plus, if nothing else, it is a nice change from the regular notch bar that you usually see on almost every other phone out there.

Apart from those three main features, the !4 Pro Max also has a bigger battery, a super bright, 2,000 nits LTPO display and emergency SOS via satellite. The stereo speakers sounds really good and everything runs faster on the 14 Pro Max like installing and opening apps. For download speed, I got up to 200 Mbps on 4G and a sweet 1,049 Mbps on 5G.

Should I waited for the slightly better and newer iPhone 15 instead? At the time purchase, the 15 was some 6 months away, plus the 15 has proven be significantly more expensive than its predecessor. The 14 Pro Max cost $897 compared to $839 only for the regular iPhone 15 model. Yes, USB-C and Action button are nice, but I can still live with the regular Lightning port for a while longer. All in all, I'm quite happy with my 14 Pro Max so far and it will be a some time before I plan to upgrade to a new iPhone (my wager is 3 years minimum).

My 10-year work anniversary: A Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I passed my 10th year anniversary working at this company. Needless to say, it was the longest I've ever been at any company in my working career. The longest I've been at a single company previously was 5 years. Sure they've been ups and downs and little troubles and tribulations but nothing serious that made me considered leaving the company. I'm a loyal kind of guy, in life, football club, love, friends and also career. If the company treats me well, I have little reason to look elsewhere.

In the 10 years that I've been at this company, I've gone to a job interview at another company a total of one time. And even that's only for an institute affiliated to a major statutory body in Malaysia. An acquaintance who worked there set me up for an interview which I ultimately did't get the job because they found someone better. Frustrated? Sure but then, I wouldn't be spending the next 6 years at this lovely company had I nailed it.

I must confess, the job can be stressful at times. Especially if you get a demanding boss with never-ending orders and tasks. Of course I was expected to do my work, whatever it is assigned to me by my superiors but a good manager can be the difference between a stressful week at work and a peaceful one. I've had my fair share of difficult managers but all I can say, much of them have moved on to other places and the ones that I have right now are quite alright in comparison. So I can say I'm mostly at peace now coming to work.

My former boss once asked me, Afif, how long do you want to do tech support? I don't have an answer back then but I believed I want to do something that makes me happy or at least content. I still do tech support from time to time but, I'm on the second level now. Mostly dealing with systems, applications and servers. There's less brunt work but more wrecking your brain to find a solution for all sort of user issues which can make my blood pressure go up from time to time.

Where do I go from here? To be honest, I'm in what they call - my comfort zone. And you can't underestimate how much I love my comfort zone. I'm hanging on to it like my favourite bolster. I like the work schedule - early in, early out. Short working days during the term breaks. Free one week holidays every year. Guaranteed bonus every year (although the amount had been stuck at 1 month these past 3 years). There's a little bit of increment too for everybody. Like I said, it's a very comfortable zone. I don't have the motivation to find any jobs elsewhere, unless something bad or drastic happens or something came up, an opportunity that I can't refuse (whatever that may be).

I've learned a lot, from my colleagues, my friends, my superiors, my customers (staff, students and parents) and also from experience. It made me more mature and gave me so much wisdom and valuable lessons. I think I've grown so much these past decade and I must thank the management for giving me all the opportunities and career development path. There's still so much I will need to learn but I have all the time in the world here.

For my 10th year anniversary, the company gave me a thousand ringgit in cash and then organized a little tea party for all staff that reached that milestone. That's me and around two dozen others. Some are in the 15th year, some 20th and the longest that day is 25 years. Will I'll still be here in another 10 years time? Only time will tell. Honestly, I can see myself retiring here.

Singapore tour 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 14:28:00 +0000

For our inaugural trip out of the country I ran a poll with my family to choose between Bangkok, Jakarta, Brunei or Singapore. Majority of the kids picked Bangkok but little that they know that for Singapore, we'll be going to the Universal Studio Singapore (USS). Being the cool and kind parent that we are, we decided to buy plane tickets for Bangkok in December and visit Singapore/USS as well in July.

As I said, it was our first trip out of the country. My and wife and I may have visited southern Thailand near our hometown border when we were little but that didn't really count. I took us 6 hours and a thousand ringgit to apply for our passports at UTC Mini Keramat a few months ago but it's a price we need to pay for an opportunity to travel the world (eceh).

As always, we didn't pay for any tour guides or travel agents for our trip. We planned the itinerary down to every detail. Unfortunately for us, the ringgit to Singapore dollar exchange rate were at their all time low so we really need to plan a shoestring

budget for our visit. That's why we spend over a hundred ringgit buying Brahim's briyani packs for the trip. Sounds a lot but bear in mind, food in Singapore is going to be much much more expensive.

We booked our hotels and bought USS tickets beforehand and ordered our Singapore eSIMs on Shopee. Then I fill up the SG arrival card form on their website which you can do two days before entry. Apart from that, remember that your passport must have six months or more validity before you can use them.

Our journey started on a Thursday afternoon after the kids came back from school. Sure we can leave earlier but we didn't want the kids to miss a lot of school. Skipping them on Friday is bad enough. From KL, we stopped by Malacca meaning to have Asam Pedas Pak Man but unlucky for us, the restaurant was closed for the whole week. Malay restaurant owners and their propensity to close shop for weeks on end I tell you. In the end we had lunch at some random restaurant next door which cost about the same as Pak Man's.

We booked an AirBNB at Setia Sky 88 condo in JB. Not bad for RM170 for the entire unit. Next morning we had breakfast at Anjung Selera Larkin and then parked our car at a friend's apartment near Jalan Abdul Samad. From there we took Grab to JB Sentral. From JB Sentral we just walked to the Customs ,Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex next door. There were some crowd queuing to enter Singapore but it went pretty smoothly thanks to the autogate where we can simply scan our passports and go through. Sadly it also means there's no more stamping our passports like the old days. How else am I going to show people where I've been?

From the CIQ, we took a bus to Singapore immigration. The bus stand is just below the complex and we paid around 4 ringgit each. On the Singapore side, the entry is slightly longer because they were more thorough with the inspection and also scanned all our luggages and belongings. I forgot that I put a pen knife somewhere in our toiletries bag so poor Adam had to undergo a minor interrogation before being given entry into Singapore (note to self: remove any knives or sharp objects from luggage before travelling).

From the SG immigration, we took another bus to Kranji MRT station. This bus only accepts cash (with no change) or curiously enough, Visa cards only. Linda and I used our Visa cards but we had to pay extra for the kids because no changes. Also, we can only buy EZlink cards which is our Touch n' Go equivalent at MRT stations and not at that bus stand. At Kranji, we finally bought our EZlink cards for $10 each (with $5 value) and reloaded some more for our travels. Because it was already late, we decided to skip Merlion park first and head straight to Sultan Mosque instead. We arrived at the Bugis MRT station with just enough time to join the Friday prayers at the mosque. Linda and the rest crossed the street to eat at Zam Zam restaurant. Linda told us the restaurant owners were less than pleased to see her spend too much time at the tables eating only roti canai and fried noodles. They were too eager to vacate the table for other customers to use.

So instead of having lunch there, we walked a bit to kampung Glam nearby and had lunch at Kampung Glam Cafe instead. A plate of fried chicken and rice with iced tea cost around $23 for the five of us which is relatively cheap compared to Zam Zam. Of course if your convert the currency, it will be around 79 ringgit which is a lot but everything IS much more expensive in Singapore, there's no getting over that. One thing I noticed, most shops don't accept cards or QR payment and only cash. At least we are ahead of them in that department. Afterwards we took a bus to Lorong Geylang 23 where we'll be staying. The Geylang lorongs are infamous for their red light activities but we didn't see anything in broad daylight and also it the iBis budget Singapore Ruby hotel is the cheapest hotel we could find there with the least scary reviews. Even then I had to pay over 1550 ringgit for two tiny rooms for two days. Could have we booked a cheaper hotel in Johor Bahru instead and commute there? Of course but we wanted to save time and energy during our holiday so we decided to pay more for a two days stay at the same hotel instead. At least we can leave our belongings there and travel light to our destinations.

In hindsight, we should have come to the hotel first, drop our heavy luggages and then proceed with our travels. Lugging around a packed 24 litre bag was less than ideal. After checking in and refreshing ourselves, we walked a bit to Geylang road to board the bus there. The best thing about Singapore is, their streets are mostly walkable unlike Malaysia. Add that with their excellent and reliable public transport, you don't really need to own a car to travel anywhere. Our bus took us straight to Fullerton road which is next to Merlion park where we can see the Merlion statue. Your visit to Singapore won't be complete if you don't come there at least once for the obligatory pictures. From Merlion we just walked along the waterfront boulevard to Marina Bay Sands and the iconic floating Apple Store there.

From Marina Bay Sands, I actually wanted to go to Mustafa centre but the family outvoted me to visit Gardens by the bay instead. Lucky they're just next door to the mall so we could just walk over there. Visiting in the evening gives you the chance to enjoy the light and music show around the Supertree grove at 7:00 PM and 8:45 PM. This month's theme was musical and it was a sight (and sound) to behold. You just have to visit Gardens by the bay at night.

Our second day in Singapore was spent pretty much inside Universal Studios. But first we had breakfast at Geylang Serai Market and Food centre which an acquaintance tipped that they serve inexpensive food which was true enough. Nasi lemak with fried chicken at $4 and friend rice at $6 are relatively cheap la. From there we took the bus to VivoCity and then the monorail to Sentosa Island/USS. Being a weekend, there were unsurprisingly a large crowd before the entrance to USS. We queued for half an hour or so and after a little pushing and shoving (by others, not me), got ourselves in. Contrary to popular belief, they don't really check your bags for outside food or drinks. With crowd that big, it was simply not feasible.

While Asif, Linda and I queued for the kiddy rides, the rest of the kids made their own way around the park to queue for their preferred rides. The tagline for USS should be "60 minutes wait for 5 minutes ride" because that's the recurring theme during our visit. Yes the attractions are aplenty and some of them were quite exciting and fun but I didn't get the chance to enjoy much of the good ones due to my parental duties (I'm looking at you Asif). The only fun ride I managed to try is the Cylon later in the evening. When I was younger, I could take this ride headlong without any problems. Now, the extreme roller coaster ride gives me headache and a backache and I had to close my eyes most of the time. That's the universe telling me I am old.

The elder kids however, enjoyed themselves thoroughly with as many rides as they managed to queue for. Honestly, I don't think I want to queue for an hour on average for each ride. We had dinner at Goldilocks restaurant in the theme park. For $17 for each meal, it cost us over RM270 for lunch that day. Daylight robbery, that's what it was, nothing less. We didn't leave the park until it closes at 6:00 PM and Asif crying because we don't buy him any of the enticing toys. Sorry kid, we burst our budget buying lunch earlier so maybe next time. After USS, everybody was tired and while I wanted to go to Mustafa centre next, the pain of paying $90 for lunch still lingers and we really don't have the mood or budget to do any more shopping. Ultimately, we just took a bus back to our hotel and enjoy our packed Brahim's briyanis. They're a lifesaver, literally.

On the last day we had Changi airport's Jewel on our agenda. We checked out of our hotel and took the MRT to the airport. From terminal 3, we walked all the way to Jewel when you can actually take the SkyTrain there (nobody told us). Jewel was impressive of course, a giant manmade waterfall right inside a shopping mall. On the rooftop, we saw a playground area where we thought Asif could enjoy himself. True to theme, the playground is $8 per head per entry so that's about it. After Changi, we took the train straight to Kranji MRT and then the bus to Woodlands. And that concludes our Singapore tour of 2023.

All in all, our first trip to Singapore would be much more enjoyable if not for the terrible exchange rate. While we can blame Mahathir and 60 odd years of BN mismanagement for that, the fact remains, visiting Singapore, especially USS is not for the masses, especially middle class people or lower with not much disposable income. Sure we could probably skip USS and do some more shopping but this trip is not just for us adults but more for the kids. I don't know when we will be visiting the island state again so might as well go to USS while we're at it. Those tickets are sure damn expensive but the memories are priceless.

There's a lot of things we can look up to Singapore about. The excellent public transportation, walkable streets, good public facilities, tourist attractions, high currency value, good education system and good job opportunities. That said, one thing I noticed is that Singapore is lacking customer-friendliness, especially at eateries and regular shops. One morning, the owner raised his voice at Warung Syuhadah because I asked about the nasi lemak price too many times. Can you blame me when the food are so expensive there? It's a cold, profit-driven world here, no room for empathy or hospitality. Sure they have skyscrapers and beautiful attractions but I'd still take our wide open spaces, lush jungles and greeneries any time. I can't picture myself living in the small confined space of this city state for long.

Despite our shortcomings, I still believe with the right administration and policies, we can be on par or even better than Singapore in 30 to 40 years time. Just don't start voting for PAS/PN again cause that's going to take us in the opposite direction.

As with any place you go to, there's surely going to be some ups and downs. Singapore is an expensive travel destination and you better be best prepared if you ever want to come visit. Would I recommend it? Sure if you can afford it. At least stick to the city centre and skip the monetary black hole that is the Universal Studios.

Here's some pro tips for your first visit to Singapore:

- Make sure your passport is valid for 6 months or more
- Fill up the SG arrival card form minimum two days before entry
- The Woodlands bus only accept cash or Visa credit/debit cards. Plan accordingly
- You can pay for the rest of Singapore buses/MRT rides with EZlink cards, Visa, Mastercard or cash (no change though)
- Children under 7 years old travel for free, don't even need to apply for the children concession card
- Download MyTransport SG app to plan for your journey, find bus stops/MRT stations and find out which bus/train to take
- Download SimplyGo app to check EZlink card balance and get the cost for bus/MRT rides
- Leave your luggage at the hotel first even if you cannot check in yet
- Most shops only accept cash or NETS card, not many accept credit/debit cards or QR pay like Alipay
- You can buy and reload EZlink cards at all MRT stations
- Order Singaporean SIM or eSIMs from Shopee. They're much cheaper than local telco roaming charges
- Maxis/Celcom users must disable voice mail and data roaming to avoid automatic roaming charges
- Order Wise debit card and reload Singapore account. You can use the Wise card to make free ATM withdrawals (debit/credit card withdrawal will incur charges)
- Try to visit USS on weekdays to avoid the weekend crowd
- Do not bring any knives or sharp objects in your luggage/backpack!
- If you're on a budget, bring a lot of Brahim's meal packs. You can simply reheat and enjoy the meal in your room

Suggested Singapore itinerary:

Day 1

Morning

Breakfast at Anjung Selera Larkin

Change money at Max Money B.Point or JB Sentral

Park at Kim Teng Car park: https://goo.gl/maps/FAVdrgg7R7ELLnst7

Grab to JB Sentral

Walk through Malaysian immigration

Take bus to Singapore immigration (pay with RM)

Walk through passport control, scan luggage

Take bus to Kranji MRT (pay with SGD or Visa only), buy EZLink cards (SGD10 with $5 value). reload around $15-$20

Kranji MRT --> to hotel to drop off luggage

*use MyTransport SG app to plan journey, find bus stop/MRT station, which bus/train to take

*use SimplyGo app to check EZlink card balance, get bus/MRT fees

Afternoon

Take bus or MRT to Bugis Street

Visit Bugis Street --> Sultan Mosque --> Arab Street

Lunch at Kampung Glam Cafe

Check in hotel

Evening

Take bus to Fullerton Road or MRT to Raffles Place

Walk to Merlion Park --> Marina Bay Sands --> Apple Store --> Gardens by the bay (light show at 7pm & 8:45pm)

Return to hotel

Day 2

Morning

Breakfast at Geylang Serai Market and Food centre

Take bus or MRT to VivoCity

Buy monorail tickets at Level 3

Take monorail to Universal Studio Singapore (open 11:00 AM). Can bring water and food in backpack

Lunch at USS is $15-$17 per person

Evening

Return to hotel or go to IKEA Alexandra

Day 3

Morning

Take bus or MRT to Mustafa centre

Afternoon

Take MRT to Changi Airport

Take SkyTrain to terminal 3 --> Jewel

Evening

Take train to MRT Kranji --> bus to Woodlands --> JB CIQ

Grab to car park

Optional:

National Museum (paid)

Singapore Botanic Garden (free)

Singapore Zoo (paid)

Singapore flyer (paid)

Natoional Gallery Singapore (paid)

Sim Lim Square (electronics)

First time passport application for Malaysians

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 05:49:00 +0000

Key takeaways:

Go to immigration office at UTCs on weekdays
Come as early as possible
Prepare copies of required documents
Wear dark-coloured clothes
No need to take passport photos beforehand, including for toddlers
Prepare to inform your height
Bring books or gadgets to keep you occupied
6 hours average waiting time
Passports issued on the spot
Electronic payment only

Believe it or not, I have not applied or owned a passport all my life. I remember being across the border to Sungai Kolok once or twice during my childhood and to Bangkok once when I was 12 with my grandma but those are using either border passes or my grandma’s passport back when you can list children under your care in your own passport.

So now that we have visited all 14 states and territories in the country, it’s high time we fly out of the country to see something foreign and something new. As always, I tried to search around the web for some kind of guide for first time passport applications but most that I found are pretty generic and not really detailed, first person experiences. Now that I’ve been through the whole experience myself, I thought I would want to share them with anyone who has never had a passport before just like me.

For the official guide from the Immigration Department of Malaysia, you can refer to this website. If you refer to the website, there are many different documents required for different categories of applicants. In my example, my family and I are all born in Malaysia so it’s a pretty straightforward process. Let’s use this hypothetical family of six example below.

For first time applications, you do not need to take passport photos, even for your toddler despite the recommendation on the website. If you can make your toddler or infant look straight into the department’s camera for a few seconds, you’re good.

Now which immigration office do you go to? If you look on Google Maps, there’s about a dozen immigration offices in KL and Selangor that you can go to including those in Urban Transformation Centres (UTC). Naturally, I went to the nearest Immigration office next to my home at Hentian Kajang which is open on weekends. We got there around 8 o’clock and got in line with about a hundred other people. By 9 o’clock, the officers finally told us there’s a power outage and the technician can only come after 10:00 AM. Even then, there’s no guarantee they can fix it in time before the office closes at noon. So we basically spent nearly an hour queuing in that hot shoplot for nothing. While I can’t blame the officers for something beyond their control, the lackadaisical attitude of the building’s management was really appalling.

I don’t imagine all other immigration offices suffer such issues but we’ve decided that we don’t want to risk it again. The next day, we picked the Keramat UTC some one hour away in Ampang. Why? Because I got a tip that it was not so crowded (it is still crowded but bearable). Also, we went there on a Monday. Yes the kids will miss school but going to Immigration counters on weekends is simply not worth it because the queue will be really long and the office closes at noon so there's no guarantee you will get a queue number or finish in time.

We got to Keramat around 8:30 AM. There's the Damai LRT station (KJ8) next door if you want to take the public transport. The first counter we went to (11), the officer checked to see everybody was present and made sure all our documents and copies were in order. Then he gave us our queue number which was 1102. Since the current number was 1003, I assume there’s over a hundred people before us and braced ourselves for the long, long waiting time.While waiting, you can measure yourself and your kids at the measuring wall next to the benches. You will need to provide your height as well as your phone number in the application form. Since you’ll be waiting for a long time, it is prudent that you bring a book, a Kindle or even a laptop to fill up your time. Sure there’s always your phone but there’s only so much scrolling and reading you can do on your phone before your eyes get tired for looking at the small screen. The immigration office at this UTC is small but at least it’s air-conditioned and cool and the crowd was still under control.

The other benefit of choosing a UTC, is that there’s a few shops around so the kids can get food and drinks and in Asif’s case, toys to keep him occupied. If you go to the Keramat UTC, you can park for free at the Keramat Mall next door. I assume other UTCs in the state also have similar facilities (although no free parkings). I happen to have eczema on my thumb so my left thumb print doesn’t register on the biometric scanner. Lucky for me, there’s a National Registration Department counter just next door so while waiting for my number, I got in line and requested a letter confirming the issue with my fingerprint. Without that letter, I could have had a hard time getting my application processed.

Protip: wear some dark-coloured dress for the photo-taking because if you wear light-coloured clothes, they will ask you to wear either a tight sleeveless blazer or cover your shoulders with a black piece of clothing (I assume a hijab?).

5 hours later, we finally got our number called. I went to the counter and submitted all our documents. Then we took turns to get our pictures taken and papers processed. Those above 18 need to sign the application letters while those under 18, have to have their fingerprints inked on the paper. You may notice that Mama Zila had 4 copies of her MyKad above. This was because all children under 18, in our case 3 of them need to be assigned to either the father or mother for confirmation. While waiting for our passports to be ready (yes they issue them on the spot), we made ourselves to the payment counter to pay for the passports. As a reminder, this immigration office only accepts electronic payments, either debit or credit cards. No QR codes, eWallet or online transactions accepted.

After 6 hours and 15 minutes later, we finally got our first shiny red passports. It sounded like a pretty straightforward process but the long waiting time was a real bummer. Could have they improved the processing speed? Without procuring more staff or acquiring some state of the art techs, I doubt it. I believe the officers did the best they could to process our application along with hundreds of others daily using the current system. Whether you go to a UTC or an actual Immigration office, the queue will be just as long and the only way to beat that is to come early and queue outside the office at ungodly hours, say 5 or 6 in the morning.

Thankfully we only need to do this once for our first time application. 5 years later when our passports expire, we can always do the renewal online at their website. Good luck and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments!

The case for Mastodon social

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 15:28:00 +0000

If you’ve known me for a while, you’d probably realize that I was a Twitter junkie. As a matter of fact, I’ve written a few blog posts about it. I spend hours of my screen on time on my phone on Twitter daily. If I had any free or idle time, Tweetbot is the first app that I open on my phone every time. I like Twitter so much, I paid for and later subscribed to a third-party Twitter app called Tweetbot. It’s a sleek little app that was miles better than the original Twitter app.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, I was a little bit optimistic but mostly indifferent. He did pretty well at Tesla and Space X so that's where my optimism came from. Best case scenario, he would make our collective Twitter experience better. The worst he could do is leave Twitter alone as it is and not make it any better or worse, right? That’s where we were dead wrong. In the beginning, he monetized the verification system, selling it as a feature of Twitter Blue subscription at $8 a month. Fine, he needed to recoup some of that $44 billion loan that he borrowed. He learned soon enough that letting just about anyone buy the verified blue checkmark without any verification is a recipe for disaster when about a dozen people bought the subscription and changed their Twitter username to impersonate brands and public figures causing some companies to lose billions in their stock price.

In early January, Twitter quietly killed the API connection to many popular third party clients like Tweetbot, Fenix and Twitterific (An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other). Like I said earlier, the official Twitter app sucks, big time. The timeline’s not chronological, it follows some stupid algorithm and it’s full of ads. Third-party apps like Tweetbot is the opposite of that. The timeline is chronological and it remembers my last reading position and syncs between all my Apple devices. This is particularly important because I read every single tweet from the 233 people that I follow. Also Tweetbot lets me hide ads, mute users, keywords and hashtags and a slew of other interesting features.

Third-party apps were crucial in Twitter’s development. They spur innovation, creativity and tremendous growth for the platform. As a matter of fact app developer, Sean Heber created the first Twitter app, Twitterific way before Twitter bought another Twitter client - Twittie and made it as their first official app. The word “tweet” was first coined by Sean himself and he developed the “pull to refresh” feature which was adopted by Twitter and also many-many other apps outside of Twitter. To say that I was upset when Elon killed the API would be an understatement. I was enraged. If the idiot wanted the ads revenue in third-party apps, he could have easily enforced the API to show ads. Instead he just killed third-party apps altogether and forced every user to use his crappy app.

So what does one do? Rage-quit Twitter and social media altogether? The thought did occur to me but I’m still too weak and somewhat addicted to it. Instead, I started to slowly move towards another social media platform - Mastodon. What does an extinct proboscidean got to do with social media? Nobody knows why Eugen Rochko, the creator, chose to name this software Mastodon after the extinct elephant-like mammal, but you cannot speak about Mastodon without touching the Fediverse and ActivityPub protocol. The Fediverse (Federated universe) is a collection of thousands of independent social media servers that talk to each other seamlessly. They communicate with each other using a common technical standard called ActivityPub. One of the most popular types of Fediverse server out there is Mastodon, a Twitter-like social network but unlike Twitter it’s decentralized.

Imagine the emailing system. You have many-many companies providing free and paid email services out there, from the more popular ones like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo to personal private email addresses with their own domain (like khairul@sambalnyet.com). These many disparate email providers all communicate using a few different standards to send and receive emails such as POP3/IMAP and SMTP. But these standards enable us to send emails from let say Gmail to Yahoo and vice versa or to any other email providers in the world. The same applies to Mastodon. The first Mastodon server (or instance) is mastodon.social created by Eugen in 2016. People who register with mastodon.social can interact with other users on mastodon.social as well as people on other servers who use the same Mastodon server type for example mstdn.social or mastodon.sg or kopiti.am, just to name a few. There are thousands of servers to choose from out there, some you can sign up immediately, some you need to apply to be a member. Alternatively, you can host your own Mastodon server using your own domain and connect to the Fediverse. Let's say I’ve got the domain afif.com and I created my own Mastodon server and configured my server to connect to the Fediverse using the ActivityPub protocol. I can create any usernames such as @afif@afif.com or @abdul@afif.com and I can interact with anybody from other Mastodon servers either directly or with my posts (similar to tweets) appearing in the Federated timeline. If I want to, I can let anybody register to my Mastodon server, create a username and they can use @username@afif.com as their Mastodon username. Creating a Mastodon server requires some basic technical knowledge but it is relatively cheap and some of that server hosting costs from as low as USD8-10 a month.

And Mastodon is just one type of server in the Fediverse. There’s also Pixelfed, an Instagram like social network, PeerTube (YouTube), MicroBlog and WriteFreely (blogs) and Friendica (Facebook) just to name a few.. They all use the ActivityPub protocol and they are all decentralized servers unlike Twitter which is one company/server who controls everything (think a megalomaniac sociopath like Elon Musk). This is important because no one can buy and control everything on the platform or enforce arbitrary rules according to their mood or whim. Every server sets their own rules, they can block or allow only certain people on their servers. If a user would like to move to a different server for any reason, they could just sign up on a different server and move their current username to that new server in the Mastodon settings page. All your posts, favorites, boosts (retweet), followers and followings will be moved to that server in a short time. You don’t like one server because it promotes hate speech and homophobia? Move to another server. You actually like hate speech but a lot of servers like to block you? Create your own server!

After Elon Musk became a dick and killed Twitter’s API connection, many Twitter app developers who previously depended on the platform for their livelihood suddenly found themselves without a major source of income. The wise ones quickly turned their attention to Mastodon and in a short time, released some amazing Mastodon apps such as Ivory (formerly of Tweetbot), Ice Cubes, Woolly, Mammoth, Toots, Tusky and many more. As I said earlier, I loved Tweetbot very much and was outraged when Twitter killed third-party clients. With Ivory, it brought over the best features of Tweetbot plus many more since the Mastodon API has very little limitations unlike the Twitter one.

The only downside of Mastodon, at least for now, is that most of the people I follow are still on the bird app. The few people that actually signed up for Mastodon rarely toots (tweet) there so I had to start fresh and follow total strangers but with something interesting to post. That’s 88 people in total at the time of writing so I can finish my entire timeline within 20 minutes. I understand not everyone has the same kind of feeling or appreciation for quality third-party apps or they’re not a ~~junkie~~ power user enough to use anything other than the official app. So right now, I still go to Twitter from time to time to check the timeline but I also try to post more on Mastodon. If you want to crosspost from Twitter to Mastodon, there’s a way to do that using Moa Party to copy everything you post or retweet to Mastodon. Bear in mind though that Moa Party (and similar services) uses the Twitter API and with Musk’s erratic behaviour and mindless management style, that API could be killed any second. I guess not a lot of people realize the benefits of having a decentralized social network system. Elon Musk is one good example but with Mastodon, if one server goes down, the other servers can still communicate smoothly with each other using ActivityPub just like the World Wide Web. They don’t realize this yet but one of these days they need to learn to wean off from Musk’s golden titties (if you know what I mean).

So, did I pique your interest enough to try out Mastodon and join the Federation? There’s a couple of good guides about Mastodon out there, starting from the official Mastodon page and then FediTips which is where I got most of my reference for this blog post. You can pick a server to sign up from here and FediGarden provides a small curated list of servers to help new users decide before joining Mastodon. Mastodon.social used to be a good server to start with but it is now a bit crowded with over 950,000 users on it and had recently become targets of DDOS attack (here’s looking at your Space Karen). But if you still would like to sign up on Mastodon.social, you can use my private link here. Come join the Federation, it’s fun and less toxic than Twitter. Don’t forget to follow me at @afif@mastodon.social!

The dreaded Show more Tweets button. I read every single tweet on my timeline and when I tap this Show more Tweets button it will usually skip a few dozen tweets to the top which is infuriating. I had to tap on hold on the button and pray that it doesn’t skip forward. I don’t have this issue on Tweetbot.

The beautiful Ivory user interface, from the makers of Tweetbot. Comes with custom themes, app icons, customizable menu buttons, iCloud sync for reading position, cute sound effects, mute filters and most importantly, ad-free (there are no ads or algorithms on Mastodon unless you’re following a brand). Ivory for iOS subscription costs RM9.90 per month or RM69.90 a year. You need to pay for quality apps because these developers need to make a living. That said, Ice Cubes for is another great Mastodon for iOS/Mac app that is free but accepts donations through the app.

There are multiple timelines available the Mastodon interface. There’s the Home timeline where you see posts from accounts you follow directly. They can be from the same server (mastodon.social) or a totally different server. The Local timeline shows every post from all accounts on the same server/instance, in this example from mastodon.social. The Federated timeline shows all posts from many-many servers in the Fediverse, meaning servers that utilize the ActivityPub protocol. Bear in mind though, the Federated timeline only shows posts from servers that your server users have interacted with recently. It’s impossible to show every post from every server on the Fediverse because there are too many and the technical demand will crash the app or user interface.

The Ice Cubes app shows the instance (server) information. You can see how many users have signed up on this particular server, the admin contact info, how many posts have been posted and the rules enforced by the server creator/admins.

Pixelfed is an Instagram-like Fediverse server. Technically you can login to your Pixelfed account on a Mastodon client like Ivory here and view your local, Home and Federated timelines. The only catch though, Pixelfed for example only allows posting of photos plus text on the server and you will not be able to post texts only (without any photos) in your Pixelfed account. The same applies to Micro.blog which is a blogging server but supports the Markdown syntax so you can see hyperlinked and formatted texts in your timeline if you follow any users from the server. The default character limit for every post is 400 but some servers allow up to 1,000 or more. It all depends on the server admin but you will need to click read more to read the rest of the post.

There are no central verification or “verified blue checkmarks” for application or purchase on Mastodon. If you see any profiles with the blue verified icon, it is just a custom emoji that is supported on that server. Mastodon.social itself doesn’t support the verified emoji but it does support dozens of other emojis listed here. You can add a custom emoji to your own profile by adding :customemojiname next to your display name. In addition, you can verify yourself as the owner of the account by putting a simple link back to your Mastodon profile on a website that you own. For example, I just paste the link back above on any page on my Blogger blog and it will show the green verified icon on my user profile/bio.

Steam Deck review

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 13:34:00 +0000

Imagine being able to play your entire Steam library on the go. Not using a Windows tablet but a dedicated video game deck complete with controls. Well imagine no more because that’s exactly what the Steam Deck is. I have quite a number of games on Steam, purchased over the years (usually during sales) but never could find the time to play them, you know with work and other familial commitments. So they’re just stuck there in my Steam Library waiting for me to play them. I’m resigned to the fact that I could only play most of them when I retire.

So when the Steam Deck came out, it was godsend. This is perfect for me, I thought. But then they were released in a limited market and were priced prohibitively expensive. Fast-forward a year later, the grey import set has come down considerably in price and they’re readily available in the local market at the price of mid range smartphones. That’s when I know it’s time to save up and get myself this Steam Deck.

The basic 64GB eMMC Steam Deck costs from as low as RM2K here but I opted for the faster 256GB NVMe SSD at 500 ringgit more. The local drive is replaceable despite the DIY guide looking a bit scary. In addition to that there’s a microSD card slot which theoretically supports up to 512GB of external storage. If you put in a microSD card in there, it will be treated as a local drive so you can install games straight onto it. The console comes with a Valve-branded hard case so you don’t need to buy a separate case for it. There’s a small indent/hole at the bottom meant for you to store the charger and cable. The charger brick is US type because this is a direct import unit.

First impression: it’s a pretty big and heavy device, especially if you compare it with the Nintendo Switch. The 7” touch screen is flanked by a pair of controllers and small touchpad meaning to replace a mouse/trackpad. Powering the Steam Deck is a custom AMD APU (CPU plus GPU combined) and SteamOS which is a modified Arch Linux distribution. It also uses the Proton compatibility later that allows most games developed for Windows to be played there. The Deck loads the Steam app by default although you can switch to the (Linux) desktop mode with a few clicks. Going into the Steam Library brings you a new tab which lists games that are “Great on Deck”, meaning they were verified to be fully compatible to be played on the Steam Deck.

Now there are three types of games for the Steam Deck. Games that were fully verified will be marked as Verified, currently about one third of my Steam Library are marked as verified. The next type is playable, meaning the games should be playable on the Deck but certain parts of the games will require touch input either the built in touchpad or using the touchscreen. Compared to the verified type which can be fully maneuvered using the controller. The last type is unplayable meaning that games that still can be installed on the Steam Deck but may encounter multiple bugs and issues should you proceed to play the game.

My favorite game, Football Manager is marked as playable on the Deck so does Rise of Industry and Need for Speed. Horizon 4 which I just purchased is marked as verified and plays beautifully on the console. FIFA 22 which is part of the EA Play subscription is marked as unplayable but I installed it anyway without any issues. Launching the game however requires a few tries because it usually does not load on the first two tries. Once you get past the launch menu, you should be able to play FIFA fine on the Steam Deck. The built-in controller works fine and so does the PS4 controller connected via Bluetooth. Since the Deck is heavy, the external controller support is godsend. Apart from Playstation, it should connect to Xbox and Nintendo controllers fine too. Many games marked as unplayable employ some kind of anti-cheat controls or digital rights management (DRM) such as FIFA and PUBG.

As I remarked earlier, this Steam Deck console is quite heavy at 670 grams. The screen is pretty big at 7” but I usually connect it to my 24” monitor or big 55” living room TV for a better viewing experience. I just used a regular USB-C to HDMI adapter for the connection. There is a USD89 official Steam Deck dock but as you can see it’s pretty expensive and difficult to get your hands on. The connected display, scales reasonably well although you will see a double blank space on each side of your display for some games.

Apart from games from the official Steam library, you can also install games from outside the library like Epic or Origin and most of them will run fine. If you install an emulator software like Emudeck, you can also play all the classic NES, Genesis and Playstation games on the Deck as well. Portability is the major benefit of getting a Steam Deck although the battery does not last very long. Playing FIFA 22 for example will get from 100% to 16 percent in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Other less graphic and processor intensive games should last a bit longer. Since the Deck requires 25W of power, you will need to plug it into the power socket often, unless you have a power bank/station with that much power output. Forget about regular power banks or in-car power supply.

Storage space is another aspect you should consider. The Steam Deck does come with up to 512GB of local nVME drive and up to another 512GB of microSD slot but PC games these days are huge and you could use those space up with less than a dozen games. I suppose the same can be said for desktop or laptop PCs but at least you can upgrade to multiple internal hard drives on those computers.

Gaming experience has been fine so far. Horizon 4, a supposedly verified Steam Deck game only hung on me once although it was connected to a monitor and my PS4 controller. Playing FIFA 22 is even more buggy, especially if you’re connected to an external display. If the display gets turned off, you will lose access to all external controller functions and you will not be able to resume the game with the built-in controller. That’s why I often save my FIFA game first before leaving it for long or just to be safe. Playing emulator games though has been nothing short of a pleasure, without any issues whatsoever.

Who is the Steam Deck perfect for? If you already have a sizable Steam library or other PC-based games library, yes. If you’ve been collecting Nintendo or Playstation games before, then you should probably stick with them, unless you want to play PC-based games as well. Yes it is portable but the battery quality is under par at the moment plus you might want to connect to an external display to make the screen bigger. If you already got a maxed out gaming laptop, then that could provide a better experience. But if your personal PC or laptop is medium or low specced then the Steam Deck is great for you.

One final tip: if you want to put a screen protector on the screen of the Deck, avoid using the matte type because it will make the screen less clear.

Ada apa dengan Melly? Live in concert

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 14:07:00 +0000

An expensive concert? In this economy? That’s what I first thought when my son suggested that he, my wife and I buy the tickets to the inaugural Melly Goeslaw concert in Malaysia last week. It was still 2 months before the concert and after I hesitated for a while, I gave in to my son and wife’s cajoling. A few days before the concert, we found out there was a back to school theme where everybody was encouraged to wear school uniforms to the venue. Being the good sport that we are, I bought a school shirt and my wife and son prepared their school uniforms. My wife borrowed one from our eldest daughter.

We actually bought the ticket from a reseller who bought it from another reseller. Normally I would be hesitant to do such a thing, buying tickets not from the original source but they have sold out a long time ago. Of course we did some thorough investigation on the seller and she did provide us some personal and social media credentials for us to validate. In the end the tickets were legit and the seller had in fact sold the tickets because she got some better seats up front.

We drove to the KL Convention Centre that evening, where the concert is happening at the Plenary Hall. True to form, we saw scores of concert-goers in their school uniforms. Ladies and gentlemen in all shapes and sizes flocking to the concert hall. The organizers really know how to hype up the event with a variety of photo booths and other gimmicks. Around 8:30 PM we started to proceed to the Plenary Hall. Thankfully, we passed the ticket inspection without any issues and got to our seats on level 3. It was the furthest seat from the stage but that’s all we can afford for the concert.

To be frank, this was my first concert in like 25 years or so? The last concert I remembered going to was the free KRU concert at Dataran Merdeka. This will also be my first one inside a hall. The concert started a few minutes before 9:00 PM. The atmosphere was electric and the crowd was alive with anticipation. Melly Goeslaw and Ada apa dengan cinta? the movie was huge during our teenage years. Going to her concert, listening and singing to her songs brought back a lot of sweet memories of that time. I remember me, Linda and her gang watching the movie a dozen times, chasing after Dian and Nicolas all around KL when the pair flew over to promote the movie. It felt like we were 21 again that evening.

Melly performed over 20 songs that day. Most of them were regularly played over here and a few not so well known tunes, at least for Malaysians. She sang pretty well for a 49 year old. Not so much dancing and jumping but her antics and jokes were entertaining. 3 hours really flew by just like that. Overall it was a memorable and captivating concert. I can speak for everybody that we were thoroughly entertained that night. There was a potent mix of nostalgia and memories from when we were young. Although not cheap (according to me) I do believe it was money well spent. Would I go to another concert again in the future? Only for a select few singers and bands. Sheila On 7, you next?

Garmin Forerunner 255 Music review

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 06:40:00 +0000

My last Garmin, the Fenix 5X Plus was a fine watch. The screen is tough and it has many features a modern smartwatch can offer. The only downside is that it’s a tad heavy on the arm. Am I a weakling for complaining about a big, heavy watch? No but after wearing it for some time, you will notice it weighing your arm down. Why tolerate such a thing when you can get lighter alternatives?

As always, choosing a new watch, a smartwatch especially, is never easy for me. An Apple Watch is always an option but it still feels fragile to me plus I prefer round, circular watches compared to Apple’s square ones. The day Apple designs an round smartwatch will be the day I'll throw them my money again. The only version of Apple watch that slightly appeals to me at the moment is the Apple watch Ultra but naturally it’s beyond my budget at the moment. That leaves me with just a few Garmin models including the interesting Instinct Solar which is powered by solar cells on the watch face and also the cheap Forerunner 55 (bezels too big) and the older but smaller Forerunner 245 with slightly less features. Ultimately I settled on the Forerunner 255 Music because of its many features and also because it comes in this pretty whitestone colour compared to the non-music version.

First impression: it’s a really lightweight smartwatch (49 grams) especially coming from the Fenix 5X Plus. The watch face is clean and minimalist, mainly because it doesn’t have the graphics on the bezel like it did on the Fenix series. The bezel on the 255 is slightly smaller than the Fenix (I feel) and instead of the rugged tough metal look of the latter, this one has a clean plastic frame with a hint of blue on the surface. Out of the box, it comes with the standard Garmin proprietary charger, a few stickers and nothing else.

You can read in detail about this watch’s many features on its official product page or the dozens of reviews on YouTube. I will only highlight a few that I find useful. First thing I noticed about the 255 is that it has a lot more data fields compared to my previous Garmins. Or maybe I never realized my Fenix or previous Garmins had these data fields as well. While running, I can now see the distance, elapsed time, pace, heart rate, total calories AND the time of day at the same time plus many others. You can configure up to six different data fields at once on the watch face. Gone are the days the I wonder what time is it already when I'm trotting slowly on the road in the evening since I'm too lazy to click the button to show the actual time.

Apart from that, I can set the time solely by GPS (instead of syncing it with my phone), read my blood oxygen level through the pulse oxygen meter and see how high I am with the barometric altimeter sensor. I can add Spotify or Deezer music app on the watch, sync offline music, listen to them using Bluetooth earphones and also control music that’s playing on my phone (endlessly useful on a bike). The 4GB on board memory is enough to sync up to 500 music files.

Battery life depends on how much you are using all the features on the watch. With regular GPS use, the watch can only last three days. With light use (ie no exercise at all), it can last up to a week. One thing for sure, it can charge from 20% to 100% in less than an hour. Another improvement the 255 has compared to the Fenix is that it connects to my phone via Bluetooth more readily compared to the latter. Like when I leave the watch downstairs, I don’t have to reconnect it to the phone manually next time I wanna use it. Little things but it matters when you have to do it daily.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my new Garmin smartwatch. It has just the right amount of features at a relatively affordable price. The Instinct Solar is an attractive proposition but it looks too much like a G-Shock (which I don’t like) and it has some limited range of watch faces plus a monochrome display. Its closest competitor, the 245 is slightly older and cheaper but it lacks the altimeter which I feel is a downgrade coming from the Fenix series. I love the more detailed, customizable data fields for activities. Lack of solar charging can easily be compensated by its fast 1 hour charging (I usually carry a power bank everywhere anyway). The white chassis and bands is a refreshing change from the usual black or gray colours. If you’re looking for a Garmin smartwatch at around 1,500 ringgit in price with many good features then the Forerunner 255 is perfect for you.

Best TV series of 2022

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 02:55:00 +0000

It’s that time of the year to list down the best TV series (IMO) that I’ve been watching in 2022. These are all new series of course. There are good subsequent seasons of previous years best TV series but I am only going to review new series here as always. Without further ado, in the chronological order that I watch them:

The Book of Boba Fett

This list will not be complete without the latest installment of a Star Wars universe series right? The Book of Boba Fett has some crossover from the Mandalorian but it is mostly about Boba Fett after (spoiler alert) he was left for dead after losing a battle with Luke in the Sarlacc pit. From then on Boba went on to become the new benevolent crime lord of Tatooine. Mildly entertaining this one but still worth a watch for all Star Wars aficionados out there. Available on Disney Hotstar.

Peacemaker

A spin-off from The Suicide Squad movie, Peacemaker is an entertaining comedy staring John Cena as the superhero/villain that believes in achieving peace at any cost, usually with disasterous aftermath. Throw in some nostalgic 80s rock ballad and you got half an hour of comedic gold. Available on HBO Go

Severance

What Apple TV+ lack in quantity, they sometimes make up for it in quality in rare good series such as Severance. Imagine you needed to separate your consciousness between your work life and the one outside of it. Meaning you have no idea what’s going on in the world outside your work life and vice versa. Beautiful cinematography and set design, what’s not to love about this sci-fi psychological thriller?

Obi Wan Kenobi

This new Star Wars series is the one I look forward to most this year. Ever wondered what happened soon after the Jedis were annihilated after Order 66 and Anakin became Darth Vader? Well this series is supposed to take place 10 years after that but that gives us enough time for Luke and Leia to grow up a bit and become part of the main characters of this series. I don’t want to spoil this series too much but suffice to say the fight scene and the amount of nostalgia and call back were enough to keep you tethered to your seat.

Andor

Two Star Wars spin--offs not enough? How about three? Andor, a prequel to the Rogue One movie, is the third Star Wars series released this year. Telling the origin story of rebel spy Cassion Andor several years before the events in Rogue One. It has a darker and more mature tone compared to previous Star Wars series and enjoyed critical acclaim from the fans. To be honest, I found it to be too serious and gloomy but hey that’s just me.

Ramy

There’s usually two types of muslims in America - the strict sharia-abiding one and then the non-practising one. Ramy falls into the third-category which mixes and matches his Islamic life with the modern secular world. An entertaining comedy and provides an interesting insight into the modern muslim world in America.

Wednesday

It took me a while to watch Wednesday. I thought the preview looked too cheesy and boring, But after a while, I saw rave reviews from netizens about this series so I decided to take the plunge and watch it anyway. Wednesday is a crossover of Sabrina, Riverdale and a dark Harry Potter. I enjoyed the dark comedy portrayed by Wednesday Addams in this series. It was just entertaining enough to watch it until the end.

First Love

First Love also comes recommended by netizens (mostly from Twitter). At first I thought how good can a Japanese romantic series be right? A cute leading actress plus some good theme song is a winning combination for me. Viewers will be taken on an emotional roller-coaster ride from the beginning to the end of this series. Girls, prepare your tissue papers!

Southern tour 2022

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 15:50:00 +0000

For our annual end of the year family trip this year we had a few places in my mind. Initially it was Labuan off the coast of Sabah. And then we contemplated going to Singapore but both places were prohibitively expensive for our budget. Labuan’s return flight was over 3,000 ringgit and we had to make passports for our entire family which would easily run to 1,000 ringgit. Let’s not even talk about Singapore’s dear exchange rate (damn you UMNO). In the end we settled for a little tour of the southern states, mainly Desaru, Johor Bharu and Malacca. We originally wanted to stay in Mersing as well but we simply didn’t have the time (nor the budget) plus there was news of flooding in the area.

Traffic was surprisingly smooth heading south that Friday afternoon. It rained occasionally but nothing heavy. We stopped by Yong Peng to try the supposedly famous 40 hari kari kambing restaurant. To be honest I don’t understand the hype because it tasted just like any ordinary kuzi lamb and mandy rice. The queue was extra long too although I can’t deny the lamb price is much cheaper than anywhere in Selangor.

Later that evening we arrived at the Lotus Desaru Beach Resort. As the name suggests, it is a resort along the Desaru beach near Kota Tinggi. It’s a huge place, they must have had hundreds of rooms in each block. We have two decent rooms in our suite with a little bath tub in the master bedroom. It’s reasonably clean so I can’t complain. There was not much furniture in the living room apart from a little sofa next to the small dining table. Next to the room suites is their water park which comes free with the room or 5 ringgit per person. The water park is just your typical hotel/resort water park with a few slides and a moderately big dipping pool. I went down the slide once and then waded in the pool for a few minutes and then I’m out of there. The kids seem to enjoy it though. They spent hours in the water.

Breakfast the next day was okay I guess. They serve the usual budget hotel menu like nasi lemak, fried rice, friend noodles, sausages, roti canai and porridge among others. I suspect the resort was fully booked because the Seaview restaurant was packed with holiday goers. So full it’s basically a factory assembly line. We didn’t get a chance to stroll along the Desaru beach just next to the restaurant because there were strong waves and the entrance was closed. Still we get to see the strong waves hitting the sea wall, spraying water on sightseers. Overall I would rate Lotus Desaru with 3.5 stars. A decent place to bring your family during school holidays. Perhaps if you booked the place earlier than we did (12 days prior), you might get slightly better rates.

The next day we drove for an hour to downtown Johor Bahru. We purposely booked a hotel next to IKEA Tebrau so that we could literally walk there later. Just kidding, who in their right mind would want to walk 500 metres to anywhere? Actually I could have walked had we not had a toddler in tow and a considerable shopping list. Besides, it rained heavily later in the evening. IKEA Tebrau is surprise-surprise is just like any other IKEAs I’ve been to in the country, from Batu Kawan to Cheras to Damansara. You go to one IKEA, you’ve been to all. The Tappen mall that’s connected to IKEA was a decent mall with the usual fare, a few shops and some recreational arenas like archery and wall-climbing. We even managed to steal some time to visit Aeon mall next door looking for a Robocar Poli toy for Asif. We didn’t find any and only found some at a Penn-mart toy shop nearby.

Later that evening we headed straight to JB city centre actual for dinner at Jalan Stulang Laut. We’ve been there before the last time we visited JB and Legoland, most of them don’t remember anything from that last visit because of old age it was quite some time ago. The seafood dinner was okay and affordable I guess. We would have enjoyed ourselves more had we not been interrupted by beggars and an assortment of traders every few minutes. Our last itinerary for the day was the Danga Bay park which features a little fun fair along the coast of the Johor straits. The entrance to the park was jammed and the parking lot was packed that it’s a miracle that we even got a parking spot. But found a spot we did so the kids get to enjoy some fun rides at the amusement park. The rides were pretty affordable, starting from 4 ringgit and up to 10 ringgit each and they include a big merry-go-round, train ride, tea cup ride and others.

Vertilex hotel that we stayed at was small which barely fit a queen-sized bed and a bathroom. But for 73 ringgit each and a last-minute booking, it’s a fair deal. Besides, we spent most of the time outside so we thought it would be wasteful to book a more luxurious hotel.

The next day we headed to our final destination which was Malacca. But not before we stopped by Johor Premium Outlet which is similar to Genting Premium Outlet and Mitsui Premium Outlet. Traffic going into the mall was already congested but we braved on anyway because Adam wanted to get a pair of shoes for his birthday. Like their Genting outlet, this one is packed with people, even more so on Christmas day. There’s the usual long queue outside of their anchor tenants like Adidas, Nike, Gucci and Coach and also the few restaurants that open. The goods prices are not that cheap mind you, driven even further up by Singaporean customers I suspect.

Unlike GPO, the atmosphere here is hot and humid whereas Genting’s was cool and refreshing due to their higher latitude. It was made even worse by selfish smokers smoking in the middle of the walkway. The management is partly to blame for putting those smoking bins right next to the benches. It’s an open invitation to those assholes. In the end, Adam didn’t find the shoes that he likes so our visit was almost a total waste of time. I said almost because my wife did buy some clothes for our toddler there.

Later we stopped by the Machap R and R lunch. I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering why there’s so much flies in the Kulai/Machap area. The rest stop was infested with flies. For our final stay, we booked a Airbnb unit next to the seaside. Too bad our unit did not face the sea but instead faces inwards toward other units. Waking up to the straits of Malacca would have been awesome. The owner provides self check in with clear instructions on how to get in and where to park. The studio unit is reasonably clean with one queen bed, one sofa bed and a small mattress, good for 3 people but no more. The bath tub in the bathroom is a bonus. You have access to the condo's swimming pool on the 13th floor.

Imperio Residences looks magnificent and imposing at first glance but very few locals actually live here and they're occupied mostly by holiday-makers like us. The rest of the building looks under-maintained and run down because of the lack of tenants. The place has potential for sure, it’s just too bad they didn't go through with the mall downstairs. There's a washer and dryer combo machine provided but you'll have to bring your own soap. The dryer part of the machine doesn't really work well so you're left with some damp laundry. Consider that before you use the machine. Other than that I have no complaints.

From the condo, we drove to the Malacca city centre on Christmas eve for sightseeing. Even for the short 5 kilometer drive, it took us 22 minutes to get there with all the traffic. In the end, we parked near the Tabung Haji building and walked 500 metres to Jonker Walk. I’ve been meaning to visit Jonker Walk for years. Heard of the name but never really got the chance to visit. To be honest you won’t miss anything much because there’s nothing much of interest there. A few souvenir and handicraft stalls, a bunch of food and snack stalls and that’s about it. You’d probably have more fun visiting Petaling Street or Chow Kit than this.

Now we’ve been to Malacca city centre a few times before but never at night. The place has a totally different vibe and atmosphere at night, especially the loud and flash trishaw rides at the centre. I usually ignore those cringey trishaw rides but not with little Asif Yusuf along who demanded that we ride them. For 25 ringgit each, they took us for a short 15 minute ride around the city. It would have been memorable if not for the loud obnoxious music blaring from the onboard speakers. They’re totally unnecessary.

So that concludes our 4 days 3 night tour of the southern states. Thankfully traffic was not that bad and was pretty smooth in fact for both to and return trip. I can’t say the same for people coming and going in the opposite direction. Did I feel refreshed and relaxed? If not totally, at least a little bit. I don’t really have the extra budget to pay for this vacation but I went along with it anyway so that my wife and kids can have some fun away from home. Now that the vacation is finished and I’m back to face reality, the prospect of paying for all my credit card spending excess is not really fun but hey at least my loved ones are happy, right?

Apple Device Support Exam questions

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 03:04:00 +0000

I was required to take a certification exam by The Management recently to prove that I have the necessary qualifications to deal with users and customers at work. The Apple Device Support exam is for technical professionals who support Apple devices in their organization. When you pass the exam, you earn the Apple Certified Support Professional digital badge. The exam costs USD158 (around RM717) to take and you take it online using the Pearson VUE website. It has got some really hard and tricky questions (and answers). So hard that I had to take the exam twice (yes I flunked the first one). The upside of that failure is that I could recall some 80 to 90 questions from the exam by memory which I have turned into this exam Google form below.

I tried to look around for any revision or "dump" questions for the Apple Device Support exam on the web but the ones that I found are placed behind a paywall and there's no guarantee that they're even legit. If you plan to study the old school way, you can refer to the Apple Device Support tutorials page and reviewing the learning objectives page. They always include the latest macOS and iOS version there. Other than that, many of the questions are based on your experience using, deploying, repairing and troubleshooting Apple devices including Macs, iPhones and iPads. For that, there's no substitute for wisdom.

Hopefully this exam questions that I created can help a fellow brother or sister out for their Apple Device Support certification. If you find these questions useful, feel free to donate to my account below or buy me a coffee. Thank you and all the best!

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GE15 result and analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:52:00 +0000

Quite a few people predicted no single party or coalition could win enough seats to form the government for the 15th general election and rightly so. A few months before the dissolution of parliament, BN was at their lowest point while PH was only going back on track thanks to Rafizi Ramli and his Ayuh Malaysia initiative. PN however was quietly gaining traction through social media especially Tik-Tok which I could have dismissed before but clearly underestimated their influence.

Done my part. Slim to zero chance of making a dent here but at least I’m proud of my choice pic.twitter.com/adEBuNqKKX
— Afif (@afifplc) November 19, 2022

I went home with little hope of seeing any major upset or change in my home state. Three decades of brainwashing wasn’t going to change in a few years, if ever. But went home I did, to exercise my democratic right. It’s hard changing people’s minds. Heck I wasn’t even sure who my wife going to vote for because she’d been very cryptic with her choice. My in-laws were a lost cause because they’re sure as hell going to vote for PAS/PN again. What surprised me the most was that my sister and brother were going to vote for them as well. It’s either they truly believed their cause or they were also influenced by the social media campaigns.

My mother and grandmother were traditional UMNO/BN voters and until a few weeks before the election, were all but sure to vote for them again. It was not until I made a sustained campaigning session through Whatsapp and in real life to them that I managed to change their mind. My grandmother was even simpler. I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. So for the first time in their lives, they voted for somebody other than BN in the general election. As for my siblings, I did make some last minute appeals to them but it was too little too late. My brother for example was flown in straight from Sabah and shuttled via bus specifically to vote for PN. Where did they get all the money from?

After shuttling my grandmother and brother, I drove back to Tanah Merah to pick up my wife and send her to the polling station. I know she’s divided between voting for PH or PN but I think I managed to convince her enough to vote for the former. I hate it when political parties abuse race and religion to buy votes. It’s the worst premise ever to elect a government, especially for a 33 month government who failed spectacularly.

Pukul 3 baru sampai rumah semalam. Zombie mode on pic.twitter.com/0ScH8TnpEa
— Afif (@afifplc) November 21, 2022

We didn’t go back until the next day because it was thankfully a weekend voting day this time round. I thought we picked the right route via Gerik and PLUS north-south highway but it was jammed anyway. We didn’t get home until 3 o’clock in the morning and I had to get to work 3 hours later. By then the result all but confirmed we have a hung parliament with no single coalition capable of getting more than 112 seats. I was bemused yet a bit alarmed when PN announced they got the numbers to form the government that night despite the fact that they only won 73 seats. Even with GPS MPs in the bag, they still need to persuade BN to join the motley crew.

The next day it becomes clear that PN didn’t actually manage to get BN to join them. Instead they enticed 15 BN lawmakers to jump ship and support them. This might actually work before the anti-hopping law was passed but not anymore. Any MPs that disobeyed their party’s direction will lose their parliamentary seat and trigger a by-election. The fact that PN was more than willing to fund the rogue MPs by-election is both sickening and a testament of how deep their pockets are.

If this is true then @dapmalaysia & @guanenglim have a lot of explaining to do pic.twitter.com/VLnpM9b7gr
— Afif (@afifplc) November 22, 2022

So for the next four days, there was some serious negotiating and horse-trading going on behind the scene by each coalition. PH with 82 seats could have secured enough seats to form the government if they had GPS and GRS from Sarawak and Sabah respectively behind them but unfortunately they didn't. While in power for the short 22 months, PH and DAP especially burnt a lot of bridges with the Sarawak based coalition which they don’t easily forget. That’s why GPS had no qualms joining hands with PN despite Mahiaddin’s anti-Christian rhetorics and the extremists in PAS. BN on the other hand declined to join any coalitions at first and resigned to be the opposition but that will not resolve the hung parliament situation.

Agong should appoint PM from PH since they got the most seats and let Anwar form a minority government. Up to him to work out a CSA with BN & GPS
— Afif (@afifplc) November 22, 2022

On November 23rd however, the head of all major political parties that won seats in the election were called to the palace. Previously when the monarch did this, Mahiaddin was selected as prime minister so I was obviously distraught at the thought of history repeating itself. And then comes the rumours that Anwar could finally be appointed prime minister but still nothing confirmed. I even tweeted that the king should appoint Anwar as the premier cause his coalition won the most seats. He could even lead a minority government with some kind of CSA or MOU with other coalitions.

On my birthday, news broke that DAP’s secretary general - Anthony Loke and their chairman Lim Guan Eng flew to Kuching and apologies wholeheartedly to the Sarawak government for all their past shenanigans. That’s surely a good sign isn’t it? In the afternoon, the entire country waited with bated breath on the result of the head of parties meeting with the king. Some time around 3:00PM the palace finally announced that the king had agreed to appoint Anwar Ibahim as the country’s 10th prime minister after getting GPS, GRS and BN to support him. It was the best birthday present ever.

😚 pic.twitter.com/8PogjNEvcn
— Afif (@afifplc) November 24, 2022

Apparently the king had asked PN, to join Anwar and create a unity government but PN, specifically Mahiaddin, categorically refused. Anwar on the other hand agreed to form a unity government with BN and the rest when asked and the rest is history.

It’s an open secret that Anwar and Zahid has a long history between them of the positive kind despite the latter being the current president of UMNO and BN. As a matter of fact, that relationship all but helped Anwar secure BN’s support for the premiership. Besides, Zahid and his lieutenants were pretty pissed when Mahiaddin attempted to steal their MPs behind their back instead of being a gentleman and negotiate openly and transparently like Anwar did.

A week later, when the ministers and the cabinet line up was announced, I and I'm sure many Malaysians were disappointed to see Zahid Hamidi appointed as deputy prime minister and minister for rural development. But I understand realpolitik. His appointment was probably one of the prerequisite or reward for BN supporting the government. BN got 7 full ministers while DAP who won the most seats in PH only got four. Some suggested that this was DAP’s sacrifice to stem the anti-DAP sentiment among the electorate which I believe could be true. As long as Anwar kept to his promise of not interfering or appear to magically let Zahid Hamidi get off his 47 criminal charges scot-free, I can live with that. It’s still better than seeing an islamofascist government screwing with our future.

I do hope they will hit the ground running and do an incredibly good job even for BN and GPS ministers who had a history of underperforming previously. This is paramount if they ever want to halt the green wave of PAS and PN that’s drowning the entire country.

Just yesterday, PN won a landslide victory in the Padang Serai parliamentary seat in Kedah bringing their final seat count to 74. If the remaining state elections were to be held in the near future, there’s a real possibility that PN will sweep clean all the states save for Penang and maybe Selangor. Like I said, decades of religious indoctrination and intense social media campaigning months before the election turned the tide in PN’s way. I am genuinely terrified at the prospect of the ultraracist PN and islamofascist PAS governing the country. We’ll be transformed into a mini Afghanistan in a decade or two.

The road to a prosperous, peaceful and progressive Malaysia is long and winding with enemies waiting to pounce on the sides at any opportunity to topple this government. This unity government will have their work cut out for them because PN will have no qualms to continue abusing race and religion to their advantage. The siege-mentality, us versus them, malays versus other races narrative pioneered by UMNO and adapted by PN will not be easy to dismantle. Anwar Ibrahim and his coalition partner must do a really damn good job to win the hearts and votes of the common folks, the fence sitters and those who were tricked or influenced to vote for PN last time. It will not be easy but hopefully they will have the next five years to achieve it. For our future and children’s sake, they better do it.

GE15 thoughts and predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 14:07:00 +0000

At around this time next week, we’ll probably know the results of GE15. Could BN claim a comfortable victory? Will Anwar finally become the Malaysian prime minister? As of this moment, who knows.

From the ashes of GE14, UMNO has gone from strength to strength, initially colluding with PAS in the name of “ummah” and then ditching the islamist party after they felt that they are strong enough to go for it alone. I’m not sure whether Malaysians have a really short memory or they have this tendency for self-destruction because a majority of them keep voting in BN in the last 3 state elections. Did they not remember how much money Najib and Zahid have stolen from the country, from you and me all these years? Do they even care that we will all be paying for Najib's 1MDB crimes until the next generation? I guess some of them don't.

I honestly thought PPBM or Bersatu’s fate were sealed when they failed to establish an electoral pact with BN. And then came PAS to their rescue when they agreed to join the band of traitors to create Perikatan Nasional. In the west coast where the PAS brand is toxic, they campaigned and contested under the PN flag. On the east coast, at their safe seats, they go with PAS’ banner. A cunning but shrewd move I must say and many will be fooled by this ploy. If the state elections are anything to go by, PN actually presented themselves as a credible alternative to the corrupt BN. Not everyone who hates BN is willing to vote for PH so PN is another choice for them.

What can I say about Pakatan Harapan? Post Sheraton move, Before Rafizi Ramli came out of political retirement, the pact was in disarray and disjointed. They were fighting each other, throwing insults and barbs that were definitely not helping their cause. Rafizi came back, won the PKR VP seat, got into action with a clear plan and strategy and pulled the coalition together. Now he’s hot on the campaign trail, attacking BN and PN, exposing scandal after scandal perpetrated by the incumbent. If PH were to ever win this election, they can thank this messiah from Kemaman.

And what about Mahathir and his ilks? He launched yet another race-based party, tried to cooperate with PH at the last hour but failed and now works with a bunch of racists from ISMA to contest in GE15. While I’m not so sure about Bersatu’s demise, I can say for sure this will be Mahathir’s final show in Malaysian politics and he will ride into the sunset when his fledgling party loses every seat that they contested.

As for my prediction, I’m gonna say it will be very tight. There’s a few new variables that will make this election hard to predict the outcome. There’s Undi 18 and then automatic voter registration. The state elections were not a good barometer of youngsters' preferences and which party they lean into since the voter turnout was rather low. While they can be media, especially social media savvy, they could also be easily duped by mass propaganda or disinformation campaigns. Honestly they could go either way and it’s really hard to tell before the election. As for automatic voters registration, the newly registered voters could come out and vote in droves for the first time or they simply won't bother.

I predict no single coalition of the big three (BN, PH and PN) will gather enough seats to pass the magic 112 number but BN will still manage to form a government with help from their old BN partner in Sarawak, GPS. In this nightmare scenario, Zahid Hamidi will become prime minister and all his ongoing criminal cases will be mysteriously dropped and the country will go to the dogs.

Another possible scenario is BN plus GPS still won’t have enough seats to form a government but PAS will stab Bersatu at the back and collude with UMNO to form the next government in exchange for ministerial and GLC posts and the country will still burn to the ground.

Of course, my dream scenario is for PH to win a simple majority and bring this country out of the doldrums. But I am a realist and realistically, too many of the electorate are still easily manipulated, emotional especially when it comes to race and religion. Throw in political apathy and you have the perfect recipe for conservatives (read BN & PN) to gain inroad into the malay heartland. Just winning the majority of the seriously gerry-mandered urban seats will not be enough for PH. Undi 18 could still make or break PH chances though. They could make an educated decision or they would simply reflect the voting trends of the older generation.

Looking back, I made the same grim prediction before the surprise GE14 result. I dearly hope I will be proven wrong once again this time round. I pray for the citizens of this country to make the right decision next week. As for me, I will still be doing the 12 hours, 1,000KM round trip to my hometown to vote, despite the dire prospect of voting in a PAS stronghold. If PH makes strong gains in Kelantan, I might not change my voting location to Selangor yet. If not, I might as well become a Semenyih voter next time because all hope is lost with that state. Why even bother.

Pangkor Island vacation 2022

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 14:37:00 +0000

It’s been a while since we last visited Pangkor island with the family. The last time we went there for a family day event, Adam and Mia were a bunch of wee little kids and I think Hana wasn’t even born yet. It was an impromptu holiday plan we made for the long Deepavali weekend. My parent in law was coincidentally in Manjung at the time so we decided to hop on to Pangkor after visiting them.

The drive to Lumut was a breeze thanks to our turbocharged X50. We booked the ferry tickets at Marina Island jetty which were pricier than the regular Lumut tickets but a lot less crowded. We didn’t want to risk the Deepavali crowd. We parked our car at the designated car park which cost 20 ringgit per day, expensive I know but at least it’s relatively safe and we didn’t need to bother our relatives to drop us there. After like 10 minutes later we arrived safe and sound at the Pangkor main jetty.

We took one of the familiar pink Pangkor vans to get to our hotel at the Puteri Bayu Beach Resort. Since it was last minute, we could only snag two standard rooms for RM230 each to fit all six of us. I must say the rooms are a wee bit small and they could improve on the facilities and cleanliness, especially the bathroom. I’m still bitter that they don’t provide any hairdryers and instead offered to loan us one from the front desk for a 50 ringgit deposit. Incredulous in this day and age.

The upside of this hotel is that it’s a beachfront property and you could walk straight out to the beach. There’s a small swimming pool as well should you decide to not bathe in saltwater. The beach is relatively clean compared to say Port Dickson or Dungun. There’s the odd animal dung here and there but apart from that it was quite spotless. The less accessible a beach is, the less polluted they are I conclude. The kids had a ball playing and bathing in by the sea. Right opposite of Pasir Bogak beach where we stayed is the exclusive Pangkor Laut island resort which starts from RM2,096 per night. Will we ever get to stay at such a luxurious resort? Not anytime soon and not with my current pay grade. Remind me to get a better paying job.

Fortunately for us, dining out is not much of a problem because there were a couple of roadside eateries operating about 5 minutes walk from the hotel. We had lunch and dinner at two of them and the prices were actually reasonable for a tourist attraction. If you didn’t know, Pangkor island is in fact a duty-free island and you can find duty-free shops dotted everywhere around the place. Linda and the kids had a ball picking up duty-free chocolates at a store nearby and she even went home with a brand new pot.

The next morning we had some mediocre breakfast at the hotel café. The menu consists of fried rice and noodles, sausages, baked beans, samosas, porridge, toast and some more noodle soup. I’m not sure whether they are still recovering from the economic effects of the lockdown or they’re just being cheap. I would rate their breakfast as 2 and the hotel overall 2.5 stars. Honestly, we’ve had much better-tasting food at other hotels at the same price range.

Since we’re short of time, we didn’t get to try any of the activities like island hopping plus snorkeling or visit any other part of the island. Perhaps we could return again some day and stay longer at a better hotel. All in all, it’s a two days well spent at an island resort not far from KL. Plus we get to visit relatives.

Aqiss riverside camping

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 14:06:00 +0000

I don’t know when my wife got the camping bug but I reckon it was either from his siblings or from some groups on Facebook. Being an avid hiker/camper myself, I see absolutely no problem with that. We’ve planned for our first family camping trip for a while now. We’ve been gradually buying camping equipment and gears - tents, sheets, pots and what not. Our first big family camping trip was supposed to be last month along with my in-laws but unfortunately my parents-in-law got Covid while staying at our place so we had to do a raincheck for that.

The next camping trip did actually happen. Linda found this little place near Batu 12 in Gombak, not far from UIA. I’ve never heard of Aqiss River Camp before so I had no expectations of that place. After an hour’s drive from Semenyih, we reached the campsite which goes through a picnic site (I didn’t notice the name) and up a steep hill which my beat up old Alza barely manage to climb.

At first glance, it was a proper campsite with a proper flat camping base, a little verandah right next to it, toilets, running water and a power point somewhere. I fumbled a bit trying to set up the new big Quecha living room tent for the first time but managed thanks to some help from a bystander. The tent says it would fit 6 people but honestly 5 would be more comfortable.

The Relang river right next to the camp was flowing with a fairly strong current thanks to the rain the night before. Still, Mia, Hana and I managed to take a dip for half an hour or so in the freezing cold water although we stayed mostly by the river bank. We had barbecue cooked by Adam that evening. The campsite was fully booked that weekend so we had neighbouring campers all around. They all looked like seasoned campers unlike us and we didn’t chat much with them.

Being in Gombak, the cell and Internet reception was pretty good there. At least the kids and I don’t get too bored when we had nothing to do that night. Adam spends most of his time either doing homework or revision. I admire his dedication. Me, I tried to sleep early to catch the early morning football later that morning. You know the one where we lost 3-2 to Arsenal due to some shambolic refereeing and VAR. Like I said, the tent could barely fit 6 people and I think I speak for everybody that we didn’t have a good night sleep that night with so little space to even flex your muscles. Next time we’re gonna need two tents for the family to sleep comfortably. The fact that the Karak highway is just next door and you could hear the loud traffic noise 24/7 didn’t help at all.

The next day we had a proper bath in the river now that the currents had calmed down considerably and the water less chocolaty in colour. Everybody joined in for the morning shower. Not long after that we packed up and left the site.

How was our first family camping trip? It’s a mixed bag really. Memorable but it could be more comfortable. Now I’ve been with about half a dozen hiking and camping trips before but this family camping trip is a lot different from what I’ve gone through. For my hiking trips, we pack light, most of the time with no tents but fly and sheet and minimal gears so that we don’t have to carry all the heavy stuff throughout the trip. For a family camping trip, we tried to be as comfortable as possible. That’s why we packed up as much stuff as we could fit in the car including the non-essentials like pillows, speakers, tables, extra food and cooking utensils . Since we could park the car right next to the campsite and we could pretty much unload everything easily, packing light is not an issue.

Would we return to Aqiss again? I doubt it. The loud noise from the highway was the dealbreaker. Next time we would find somewhere more peaceful and quiet, like literally. That said, Aqiss River Camp is conveniently located right next door in Gombak and the facilities are adequate so if you don’t mind the noise, it can make for a good family camping site.

Mac mini 2020 review

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 13:24:00 +0000

My last Mac mini was an old 2014 version of the compact Apple computer. It was not so bad if it was running the original OS that it came with (Mac OS Yosemite) but I I needed a newer OS to run the latest apps on the Mac so I upgraded to Mojave and then later Monterey which caused the chronic performance issue due to the slow HDD drive. Eventually it took me 2-3 minutes from login to open a single Chrome tab which is forever in modern day computing standard.

Hence why when I sold the old Mac mini and saved some money to buy a new one. I was torn between the cheaper 2018 Intel Mac mini with SSD and the newer but slightly more expensive 2020 M1 Mac mini but after much research, I decided to go with the latter. For only 2,000 ringgit, it proved to be one of the better investments I have made in recent times.

The one that I got comes with an 8 core CPU and 8 core GPU with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD. Pretty basic but it gets the job done. It has two Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI and one ethernet port. You can connect one display to the Thunderbolt port and another display via the HDMI port at the same time. The Thunderbolt/USB-C port can transfer data up to 40 Gb/s so if you got a Thunderbolt SSD drive connected, it will feel like a local SSD drive.

For one thing, the M1 Mac mini runs blazing fast. It took literally seconds to get from power on to the desktop. Chrome and other apps show up pretty much instantly. I don’t play many games but the one that I regularly play - Football Manager 2020 breezes past the processing time between games. I also rendered a 22 minute 4K video using Davinci Resolve in less than 8 minutes. In a nutshell, the M1 Mac mini is a major improvement compared to the last HDD Mac that I had and I can trust this Mac to last 7-8 years more into the future before showing any signs of decline.

If you’re looking for a future proof, affordable and fully capable Mac desktop computer, look no more than the M1 Mac mini. If you have another 500 ringgit to spare, the newer 2023 M2 Mac mini which is twice as fast than the M1 is now on sale for only 2,499.00 ringgit. I assure you, they’re a worthy investment compared to any compact Windows desktop out there.

Airpods Pro review

noreply@blogger.com (Afif) — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:35:00 +0000

My trusty Airpods died on me recently. Well not actually dead but the right side likes to disconnect from the phone after a few minutes of using which is as good as dead. So I bought a moderately affordable Beats Flex earphones, also from Apple, which is sort of a wireless earbuds but with a wire connecting both buds. When I tried it on, the sound was nice. You can hear some of the bass and the right amount of treble just like the old Airpods. The only issue that I have with the Beats Flex is that when I jog with it, I have that old thumping noise in my ears whenever my feet strike the ground. It’s loud and annoying in the long run. Also the fact that there’s wire dangling on your neck makes it feels like it’s not a truly wireless earbuds.

After a while, I decided I needed to have another Airpods. But it’s not going to be a standard Airpods. It’s time for an upgrade. When I finally saved enough money, I bought the Airpods Pro (first generation). A second hand unit of course, don’t feel like wasting good money on a brand new one. Design-wise, it has a bigger bud but a shorter stem compared to the original Airpods. The rubber tips are replaceable and it comes in three different sizes in the box. You can use the Airpods Ear Tip Fit test on your iPhone to make sure you use the correct ear tip size for your ears.

Controlling music or sound on the Airpods Pro is slightly different from the predecessor. While you double-tap the buds on the original Airpods, you will need to double-click the stem of the Airpods Pro to skip a track. Press three times if you wanna go back and press once if you want to stop or pause. Just like the original one, the Pro is also powered by the H2 chip which connects and switches seamlessly with all supported Apple devices.

What strikes me the most about these Airpods Pro is the active noise canceling (ANC) feature. Probably because this is my first ANC earbuds ever, the difference that it makes is profound compared to regular earbuds. It almost completely drowns out outside noise making the music and sound you hear in your head really clear, giving you a fully immersive hearing experience. Seriously, if you can’t afford Airpods, try any of those good ANC earbuds. It’s a totally whole new experience.

The ANC feature is good when you’re sitting still on your sofa or in a static position but if you’re outdoors and you need to be aware of traffic, then it could be dangerous if you can’t hear incoming vehicles. That’s where the transparency mode comes in. This mode, which can be turned on by long pressing the stem or changing it on your Control Center, provides a balance between ANC and letting in just enough outside noise to your ears. That way, you can still enjoy much of your music while still hearing loud enough noises from the outside. This is particularly useful when you use the Airpods Pro while running or riding a bike.

You can charge the Airpods pro using the Lightning port or you can use the wireless charging feature which is pretty handy. A single charge could last around a week with moderate use. The Airpods Pro is a major upgrade from the original Airpods and the ANC feature is a gamechanger. I would highly recommend the Airpods Pro if you’re already invested in the Apple ecosystem although you could technically connect the Airpods to other Bluetooth enabled devices. Otherwise you might be better off with other, slightly cheaper ANC earbuds/headphones.