Temptations & Ambitions

Yes, PayPal now accepts topup via Malaysia's online banking (FPX). This means there is alternative apart from credit card.


Maybank2u. CIMC Clicks. Hong Leong Bank. PBe.


However, you'll be charged RM2 per top up transaction. Fair enough.

But if you're using RHB online banking, there's no charges! Because they are the ones who liaise with PayPal.


So, if you need Facebook credits, PayPal is the answer, because other methods cost u a bomb.

If you're buying from e-Bay (international), use PayPal, because they are the best middleman who refunds you if there is a fraud.


Just so as long you're paying any money out of Malaysia, use PayPal. Even if you have a credit card.


Just make sure you don't fall for any phishing scam for your PayPal account.


If you do, I'll say, "Don't use PayPal."


*Note: This "advertising" is unpaid for and is the author's personal opinion. :P
And btw, this is really old news, since this service is available since October 2010. 

This is actually a post dated May 2011, but some careful thoughts (and procrastination) took some 6 weeks to finish this post.


After being to 4 bridal studios in KL and 6 in Ipoh ( A whooping 10 in total! ), I've learnt my lesson rather well. I think 10 could be a record for anyone to achieve, because a restrospective look at my own actions may put myself in a light that some may think as crazy. I've asked around, and most (70-80% of the time) of the couples signed up after their first visit. Some ended up loving it, some hating it, and some is amazed how the bridal studio can be such a cutthroat in the first place, being all sweet in the first place and ignore you once the payment has been made.

I'm going to spare you the fine details. but here's some tips that I could share of, if at all possible.

1. Accept the Fact that You're a Newbie.
   Some people can't take it that they're new when it comes to bridal stuff. Don't blame yourself. This is one aspect that most of the time, is your first and (hopefully) last. Your first step is to look around for wedding forums and some blogs, hence if you've found your way here through google, I consider this is your first step to wisdom. For those usual readers, perhaps you can ignore this part. n_n"
   
   There's no point acting all-knowing, even the bridal studio sales assistant can see through your acting. Just sit comfortably and listen to what they've gotta say and offer. What you've gotta avoid is splurging out your wallet immediately, as most of them are more than willing to go for the kill on your first visit to any bridal studio. It's almost always an easy kill.
   
   
2. Consult Your Friends Who Got Married Recently!
   
   If you'd consult your grandmother, I bet you'll hardly get any good advice. Get a cousin or a close friend who had gotten married recently, up to maybe 5 years. A lot of factors, including pricing and services may change rather drastic over such a short span of time. You wouldn't want to go looking for a studio which had gone bust already! Better still, go to wedding forums and search for the comments of the bridal studio you had in mind. You may find invaluable experience from them. Of course, each bride has her own ideals, but listening to more will do you no harm.
   
   Do not feel insulted if you were told that the wedding album will be neglected after a few years despite you paying so much for it. That, is the reality indeed, but you could live for the moment, within your budget, of course.
   
   
3. Know Your Budget.
   Do not fall for the "Once in a Lifetime" gimmick. There are a lot of once-in-a-lifetime events in your life, including exams. What the bridal studio care is your money, and it's almost for sure that their tagline would be "Sucking You Dry". Work your package within your budget. Sure, it's a nice thing for camwhores, but having no honeymoon/ borrowing money because of exorbitant bridal photography package? You must be looking for trouble.
   
   
4. Visit a Few More Bridal Studios Before You Decide.
   
   Run a few more rounds if you have to. Even if your hubby complains. There is no such thing as a really cheap offer. After a few rounds, you'll find that the offers are around the same. Maybe a little bit of difference, but there are of course, a lot of aspects to look into, including the gowns, album designs and their services.
   
   Almost all bridal studio would not allow you to take their brochure away, but no one stops you from memorizing the general details. Write it down on a piece of paper as you exit a bridal studio. It's good for comparison, on a different perspective.
   
   
5. Do NOT Pay anything at all on your first visit!
   
   You'll never know when you would regret it. The bridal studio sales assistants will go all out for the first blood. They'll sugar coat their words, and mentioned that the "lucrative" offer they had for you is only valid for your this visit. Sure, they'll throw in a lot of free gifts or "upgrades", especially when if this is your first time visit. You'll find out later that those are already included in the package's worth. Anyhow, they may want you to pay a deposit ranging from RM100 to 100% of the package (I know, it sounds ridiculous to pay all, but there are people who do so), but don't fall for it. All you need is something that suits your needs (and your budget, of course). If the offer is real good, they won't be afraid of you walking off as you'll come back later.
   
   
6. Never commit too early.
   
   You plan to have your wedding in 3 years time. Your photoshoot is bound in 2 years time, at the earliest. Well, it's not about the possibility that anything can happen within these two years to your relationship (touch wood), but the bridal studio may go bust before that. Many brides-to-be made this mistake, by paying deposit way too early, sometimes up to 100%. The studio closed down before they could do anything, and there wasn't any refund given.
   
   Of course, the worst cases are those when they could not collect their album, which most have finish paying(monetary and time) by then. This can't be helped, but booking too early should really be avoided.
    
   
7. Avoid Commitments in Bridal Fair
   
   This is seriously, not about having commitment issues.
   
   Yes, they do have bridal fairs. In fact, there were 3 that I knew of that was held in KL in the month of May 2011. The truth is, the fair are usually organized by sisters company (Affiliation). Hence, the range of prices would be similar for the bridal studio packages in the fair. It's good that you visit the fair for a rough idea of how it is like, but you wouldn't want to be a ripoff by committing there and then. Plus, it is advisable to visit the bridal studio that you are interested in, as you might want to browse through their wedding/ evening gowns. You wouldn't want to look at the gown selection in horror just prior to your photoshoot!
   
   However, if you happened to be already in it, just hope for the best. It might not turn out that that bad, just that it might not live up to your ideal expectations. It might even turn out fantastic. I'm saying this because I'm not such a risk taker.
   
   
8. Browse Your Wedding Gowns/ Evening Gowns Before You Decide
   
   As mentioned earlier, this is one of the reasons why you should drop by any bridal studio. Of course, the crowd does says a lot about the place. A bustling studio on weekdays is a sign of prosperity while an empty studio on weekends is a sign of impending doom. Browsing the selection of gowns will give you a rough idea of what's in store for you. Depending on the prices, you may be allowed on certain selection ( they have different names, from VIP, VVIP, Designer costumes, but it's essentially discrimination based on your package price).
   
   While wedding gowns can be dirty or dusty or with holes, this can be solved with some photoshop skills, as assured by the bridal studio. What they can't help you, is the fact that you're bringing these out for your actual wedding day/dinner. Well, that is, unless you can dimmed the lights real dark that you can't figure out any difference at all.
   
   
9. Bridal Studio Service is equally as important!
   
   Let's face this. Your wedding photoshoot is no longer just like your parents or grandparents, where they take a photoshoot of you, frame it up, you collect and pay, end of story. I dare say most bridal studio, offer it in a package involving wedding album. This means that you'll be dealing with them more often than you'd ever imagined. A basic number of visits to the bridal studio can be up to 8 times at the very least, so do make sure your sales assistant is able to be there to service you, as it'll make things easier, especially those who had little spare time out of work.
   
   The basic 8 visits are:
   
   • An initial visit for booking and deposit downpayment.
   • Wedding gown tryout and alteration
   • Bridal photoshoot day and payment (partial sum or all of the rest, depending on bridal studio)
   • Bridal photos selection for album
   • 1st (and hopefully last) touchup of the photos awaiting for printing
   • Wedding album collection and final payment
   • Selection of wedding & evening gown a week or two prior to actual wedding day for alteration and cleaning.
   • Taking your wedding gown and evening gown for actual wedding day (and maybe return)
   
   Depending on the efficiency of your bridal studio, the number of customers, and your free time, these 8 visits may be spread out up to a year or more. 3-4 months would be the minimum amount of time. Of course, this may not include other additional visits, which may include the multiple trips you make for changing your mind on the gowns you had selected prior, 2nd photoshoot session due to poor weather on the 1st, the number of times you have to come to select the photos, or demanding for other changes to be made on the design of wedding album.
   
   My point is, you will need to communicate with them very often. Hence, service is very important.
   
   
10. What is Not in the Invoice, Will Most Likely Not Be in the Deal.
    
    Okay, and so your sales assistant promised you this, this, that and that. Everything seems fine until the day the actual deal came through and you found yourself shortchanged. You transformed into a bridezilla/groomzilla, ruining the makeup and your whole bridal photoshoot process. And it all came down to the invoice you kept. True enough, it wasn't there, just some early sweet talk promises. Some may end up rather forfeiting their deposit, and some have to top up a lot.
    
    You wouldn't want this to happen to you, would you?
    
    Intentionally or not, people do forget. The whole process for this bridal studio thing may span over 6 months or a year. It is wiser to keep everything written down on the invoice/ receipt. Assumptions are lethal in this field. Most of the time, they will honor what is written, unless there can be an ambiguity in the interpretation of invoice, especially if it's written in Chinese. Therefore, try to iron out all the hidden charges here, from your collagen ampoule for make up, body foundation, fake eyelashes, manicures down to the retrieval of soft copy of your photoshoots.
    

And for 11... oops.. Did I say 10? Alright, I'll stop here. I do hope that these tips would help at least a tiny bit for those bridal starters. Otherwise, just let me gloat in pride of my holiday activities apart from watching all the movie blockbusters.

Somehow, I am glad that I am not in one yet. The nihilistic comments swarming around FB is just too much that I'd rather not be in it 1st. It may sound gloomy, but in actuality, a gloating remark in guise for admiration in awe. Your first caesarean section, your first invasive procedure, your first piss in your pants, etc. It felt like back in primary years, where everyone goes rushing to their moms to tell what had happened, getting all excited over any single small thing. Just that the difference is, FB is the new mom. Tell this mom of yours and it'll tell the world about it. Acts like real moms, aye?


Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're wrong to do it, because by doing so, I'll be denying their freedom and rights for expression. Better this than some 24/7 religious comments, everytime, without fail, on how women should dress like a dumpling. Of course, this make it sounds as if the religion is all about sex and nothing else.


Anyhow, it is just not my style to do so.


Or perhaps it is also not my style of carrying the habit of upholding something called the UKM's pride. Seriously, I failed to see why are we so obsessed with the pride as such. Okay, so we're bound to make some mistakes during housemanship, and we may not be competent...yet. We have to learn, indeed, instead of gloating in past pride, on how not to let UKM down. It may have been a joke by the specialist, but taking it too personally is just.... no comment..

As the saying goes, those who dwell in the past glory will not be able to strive ahead. Look at how our Malaysian textbooks boast of the glorious days of Islamic civilization, so much that they filled the whole world history syllabus with it, making it as a small consolation gift for the pride of "We were once a great nation". In such process, the other civilizations were neglected, from Greek, Rome, to Renaissance. They failed to see that it is a natural progression of time, how great nations rise and fall, and what's even more important, the cause of their failure.

I guess we are all just humans. No one could escape from imperfection. That makes the world a whole lot more interesting a place to live in. Diversity is all that makes us special. *And even losers are special in their very own way(*Taken from the book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother"). I just hope that this houseman dropout (me) will be able to blend in soon enough. And to declare to the universal mom about what I did in the hospital.


Nah, just kidding.


On a second thought, I'm not.


Oh wait, just kidding. :P


*All the best to fellow housemen, wishing you smooth journey in your undertakings. Do not take it too personally of my post, as it is just my personal opinion. I do not wished to be called in the wee hours for revenge. (I know you guys are still up by then for on-calls, but I'm not, as I'm still under my very own cosy blanket.. n_n").

Tick, tock...

Tick, tock..

The clock strikes 7. And a half of course, at GMT.


The buzzing stream of activity hurls its way into the core of the site known as malaysia.gov.my.





Most of the Malaysians were asleep at that time. Apart from some late night city dwellers roaming in Mamak or the night clubs. Of course, not to be forgotten, the bikers, also known as "Mat Rempits", on their suicide trips to prove their mettle against each other. And one always wonder why is the blood bank running low most of the time.


Tonight, was a bit special. The hackers were looking for something political. Something to put their hands on the people of power in Malaysia. It was meant to be political from the first place. Featuring hackers from various countries, the site, and the country, was bound for doom. 

Or so they thought.


The first obstacle was language. The first wave of attack from Europe came to a halt. Fresh stream of tweets flew around the globe. "Why the heck are we hacking into a site with such foreign language where no one really learns it out of the country?"


And perhaps the Malaysian hackers, who preferred to be called the locals, weren't adequately competent. They blame it on the education system. It took them more of a translation task in the team, whilst their mastery of the language weren't exactly top notch. And the site's English was mostly a direct translation from Bahasa Melayu. It didn't make it any better.


After some time, they finally got through, with the password "Nasi Lemak". The hackers learnt from the locals that it was a delicacy. Maybe they should try that the next time they come to Malaysia. Put that on the top of the "to-eat" list.


Once they were in, it was found out that the site was based from a cheap server provider. Time was wasted to hack in directly to the site. The server provider would have been an easier prey instead. They figured that blogger.com would have a tighter security than that server provider.


Next was the access and retrieval. It was the most torturing night of all. The bandwidth was very slow. The locals told them it was the norm. Malaysian government has an extremely low bandwidth, perhaps just 1 Mbps. No wonder its always "Server Down", with its limited bandwidth, during their local University application, National Service inquiry, etc. The hackers thought that the Malaysia government was very brilliant, providing such a natural obstacle from hacks. They're in it, but definitely hard to get anything out of there. The hackers were all restless.


Slowly but surely, everything went through. Language wasn't really the main problem, but there weren't anything much inside. There wasn't much of the Economic Transformation Programme in it. Or any government secret revolving around the project. No one really knows who gets the job. The financial accounts don't tally, so was the budget. In fact, it doesn't make any sense at all. Malaysia's server network wasn't extensive nor connected to other agencies. It seems that each agencies had a tender for its own, at surprisingly exorbitant price for the various low cost servers and services. 


Finally, the hackers came to a unanimous decision. It was too much of a hassle to break in. Malaysia's system must have either been too top-notched, or someone had blotched it. either way, they did not get what they were looking for. No more political ploys. All they could do is just some amateur work: Disrupt the site and left their mark on the site.


It was a hell of a night.


They knew they should have targeted Singapore instead.


*Sigh*


*** This post is a piece of fan-fiction written by the author, inspired by the recent news of attack on malaysia.gov.my. Of course, fiction will remain fiction, but it sometimes allows us to explore the possibilites of what could happen should it really did happen.


For more on the news, you can read up in The Star: Hacker Group to attack Malaysian Govt portal.

Believe you me. When I'm mentioning this, it is no Marvel series of X-Men. We produce you with our Malaysia's X-Women instead.


Let's say, if you're looking for first class prostitute service, would you be imagining females as such below?


Can you even try picturing them in kinky sex positions or offering some blowjobs?
(FYI, oral sex is not exactly legal in Malaysia)


Before you proceed any further, please equip yourself with a plastic bag in hand. You may need to puke. And that, is because they'll need at least Mystique's shapeshifter ability or Professor Xavier/ Snowqueen's mind manipulation to make them look decently as a prostitute.


I'm sure you know of the recent hoo-haa by this clown organization, so I'll stop commenting further on this Old Wives Club.


Make no mistake, I am not in support of prostitution and I have nothing against old ugly hag. Physical beauty lasts as long as a candle's lifetime.


What irks me is the mindset that blames women on everything while the men are all totally saints. And to think that all men are only looking for wives of prostitute qualities! When are we going to escape this barbaric mindset? A successful marriage is absolutely not all about sex, and definitely not always the female's fault if anything should happen. 


As you can see, marriage harmony has taken a whole new definition in this global era of modernization. While the previous era saw many wives pledging full loyalty and spends time serving their husbands at home and in bed, the new era demands mutual respect from each other and the sharing of responsibilities whenever possible. The female empowerment globally, has given females an equal say in almost everything, and (almost) equal rights with males. That is equal rights for education, equal rights for job opportunities and equal say in the financial books (if not more). The world may not be perfect, but we're trying to make everything fair.


Some may blame such empowerment for the increasing divorce rates in the world. Yes, the increasing numbers may seem worrying, but if this had been further looked into, you might see a different picture. While K-pop is one of the latest trends embraced by all, I wonder how many would realize that cases of domestic violence in South Korea is one of the highest in the world. The Korean men blamed it on their culture running in their veins (sounds familiar, regarding this culture-culture habit that must be followed regardless?). But the fact is, the number of educated Korean women had made it possible to reconcile and defend themselves, to be aware of their rights, hence also the number of divorce cases (one of the highest in the world, if not the highest). Of course, divorce is not the solution of family dysfunction, but it acts as a last resort when all else fails and your husband is still a jerk and a violent beast.


My point is, it is not that empowerment had a direct effect in causing the number of divorce cases spiralling upwards, but it is the increase in awareness and ability to defend themselves from such injustice, ranging from domestic violence or the "slavewives" mentality.


As we always say, it is easy to rear a pet than to live with another human being. Differences can be ignored if you have a pet. You can feed a dog with catfood and it'll adapt. But human beings? Any differences will need to be sought out and reconciled, with a pinch (or two, or many more) of tolerance. Therefore, it is no longer as easy as before to maintain such "marriage harmony". As many would have foresaw, it has proceeded slowly but surely to being a much more civilized marriage institution. Of course, the challenge is greater than before, but if one is aware of such changes and have the proper mindset to embrace it, the task will be easier, and believe you me, it might even be a stroll in the park after all. This, perhaps, is what I would call first class. :)

P.S: And I am in the beginning of this very challenge.  :P

Sometimes, words as such are rather misleading, at a glance. Or was it intentional in the first place? :P