Fast forward, last year on the end November, I have to move to another house as my current rented house is going to be sold by the owner. So beside looking for a new house, I also arrange for moving my internet & satellite TV services to my new house. On 1st December, I enter my new house & my satellite TV been installed the next day. Sweet  How about my internet? Unfortunately, being told at the ISP center, there’s no available port at the new location & I have to wait for up to three months. Thinking about that, I canceled my current Streamyx subscription & reapply new application because if I don’t terminate the old one, I have to keep paying even though I’m not using it. So I wait. From my past experience with TM, this going to be a long wait.

Fast forward, January, still nothing. So, on 13th January 2012, I submit a report asking about my application & the status of port availability. The next day, I received a reply as below;

TM's 14th January Reply

It’s just some confirmation email to tell me my report had been forwarded to the respective department. On 19 January 2012, I finally got my phone installed at my new house but no internet yet since the installer for the internet is other contractor. I also took that opportunity to ask my phone installer when can I get the internet. He don’t know but said the port is available since he manage to see it himself while setting up my phone. So not that long for my internet eh. No, wrong. On 30th January 2012, I received an email from TM Customer Care Support at 1157 telling me that my internet application has been processed & the modem installation  been scheduled on the same day at 2100. I replied back asking whether I need to make arrangement with the installer or just wait. They didn’t reply, until the next day 

TM's 30th January Reply

My 30th January Reply

TM's 31st January Reply

On this latest reply, TM Customer Care Support told me the installation been rearranged today at 2100. If I wanna change it, I should contact the installer. Since I’m okay with it, I didn’t contact the installer. Again, I wait for nothing. Feel cheated, I send another email on the next day with added sarcasm 

My 1st February 2012 Reply

TM Customer Care Support replied back telling me the installation date been postponed to 2nd February 2012. What the fuck?! I didn’t bother to reply that email and went on calling the installer on 2nd Februari to ask whether he’s coming today or not. It’s frustrating when the installer said he can’t come because “it’s too late already” which also can be translated as “I don’t work outside office hour”. Why the hell the  TM Customer Care Support set the installation time at 2100!?? Then, the installer set my latest installation date to 4th February at 1600. Feeling disgruntled and hopeless, I just say yes. On 4th February at 1346, I received an email from  TM Customer Care Support telling me the installer couldn’t come on 2nd February. Talk about too late eh. I replied with a little bit of added spice 

TM's 1st February Reply

TM's 4th February Reply

My 4th February Reply

TM Customer Care Support replied my email on the same day but still with no sincerity to solve the issues. The answer is pretty much cannot be accepted & scripted at the same time! So, I get back to them on the next day demanding a clear explanation of the cause of my problem. This time, more spice

TM's 4th February Reply II

My 5th February Reply

TM Customer Care Support replied back on 6th February, again with no definitive answer. “..your issues is still in progress”? What the fuck is that? Thank you for being so obvious TM. I replied back by asking the same question.

TM's 6th February Reply

My 6th February Reply

On the same day, TM Customer Care Support replied stating the reason of all this fuss. Their reasons? The installer tried to contact me & I’m unreachable. What the fuck!?! Can this get any worst already? I received more bullshit by each reply. This really push it over the top. You can guess what my reply next.

TM 6th February Reply II

My 6th February Reply

Update 7th February 2012 - They post a reply. The usual sorry & shits.

TM's 7th February Reply

Conclusion

This is not over yet. Far from it. What to expect from Telekom Malaysia anymore? Their service sucks, the help desk reroute the customer in an infinite maze, the installer keep shitting on scheduled installation & worst of all, I have no other option but rely on their services . Seriously TM, fuck you. Fuck monopoly. Fuck you for treating your customer like shits. This is a very interesting journey. I do hope TM realized all this problem & rectify it. So TM, I end this post with some pointers for you to ponder;

• If you can’t fulfill your promise, don’t give one.
• If for some reason things go against you, quickly give an acceptable explanation pertaining the issues. QUICKLY.
• People have expectations. They don’t like to be kept waiting in the dark.
• Please redo your scripted answer, it’s getting old already.
• Monitor your contractor & installer.
• Not all your customers know nothing about technical stuffs. Most of them know more than they should.
• Don’t be so secretive and don’t be too obvious either.

Petaling Jaya, 1 September 2008 – As a result of the significant 20% excise increase, and taking into consideration the consequent impact of sales tax, trade margins and the higher than normal inflationary impacts on our own cost base, as global tobacco, paper and fuel costs have all increased by double digit amounts, British American Tobacco Malaysia has revised its cigarette prices.

The new cigarette prices, which will be effective Monday, 1st September 2008, are as follows:-
 • Dunhill Fine Cut 20s range RM 10.00
 • Dunhill D360 20s range RM 9.40
 • Dunhill King Size 20s range RM 9.00
 • Dunhill King Size 14s range RM 6.50
 • Kent King Size 20s range RM 9.00
 • Pall Mall Plain 20s RM 9.40
 • Pall Mall King Size 20s range RM 7.50
 • Pall Mall King Size 14s range RM 5.50
 • Pall Mall King Size 25s RM 8.20
 • Benson & Hedges King Size 20s RM 9.00
 • Benson & Hedges King Size 14s RM 6.50
 • Perilly’s 100s 20s RM 7.70
 • Perilly’s King Size 20s range RM 7.50
 • Perilly’s King Size 25s range RM 8.20

Source: British American Tobacco Malaysia

My Take
Since it’s really a predictable move, I’m not surprised at all. At some point I would say it’s a good move because the intent is to discourage people from continuing the smoking habit. But, on the other hand, is it effective? Each year we see increases, but does that stop the habit significantly? From my personal experience, no it does not. People will seek for alternatives (be it legal or not) and to be honest really…the solution to remedy the smoking problem is always not laying on money, it’s the attitude (and hunger, lust, craving for it…hehehe true smokers know what I’m saying ). Will I stop? Maybe in the future but surely not because of price increases

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The long awaited final version of Mozilla Firefox 3 had been released. Well, I’m eagerly awaiting this release to see how much different would it be compared with the Beta 5 version. To be honest, not much. There are some add-ons that I used is still not updated and I kinda can accept it since it’s not Mozilla’s concern (and to some extent, the add-ons developer themselves is not at fault here), so I’ll wait. But, it’s not going to stop me from updating and feeling impressed with the enhancement of the new release. One thing though, since the beta, I kinda feel the smart location bar is off to my liking. I mean, its size is kinda big, although I really like that features. Maybe I’m not used to it…yet. Thumbs up to Mozilla for fulfilling their promises to release it today (local time). If you’re wondering about the new features, you can view it at Mozilla Official Site.

P/S: Maybe it’s kinda too late I put this below, but better late than never I guess. Come on, join the initiative to set the world record!!

P/S 2: Well, due to the world record initiative thingy, the mozilla.com site was unreachable from around the world, occasionally responding with the message, “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable”; even the spreadfirefox site is not spared from the outage . It seems ok after a short while; a couple of refresh works for me. More news at the Netcraft’s news section.

Abdullah also announced a RM625 annual cash rebate per vehicle, for owners of private vehicles with engine capacities of up to 2,000cc, as well as pickup trucks and jeeps with engine capacities of up to 2,500cc. Owners of private motorcycles with engine capacities of up to 250cc will receive RM150. Payment will be made via Money Order upon renewal of road tax, from July 1. For owners of private vehicles with engine capacities exceeding 2000cc, road tax will be reduced by RM200. Owners of private motorcycles with engine capacities above 250 cc will get RM50 reduction in road tax.

Again quoting from The Star Online by Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad

“Any announcement by the Prime Minister (today) should be seen as a part of the implementation and not the final step,” he told a press conference after opening the 1st Malaysian Construction Summit 2008 at the Putra World Trade Centre here yesterday.

I don’t know what to say. I’m not owning any kind of vehicle (yet) but I do know that somehow this will effect my daily life expenses. I can imagine that after this many stuff will see a price increase (cigarettes anyone…?). Heh..it would not surprise me if even the price to enter the public toilet will increase. Jokes asides, it somehow a relief that the price will not reach RM4 per liter (as being anticipated earlier). But still, is it the right move? It been said that the revise of the subsidy plan is to decrease loses and direct the fund to another commodity (say like…foods maybe). The current price also will follow closely to the world market price, so there’s a chance the price will drop (IF² the world price is dropping). I really want to see that happens although it’s kind of unlikely

Around my neighborhood, all the oil-pump station is flooded with vehicle owner that want to fill their tank with the ‘RM1.92 oil’ for the last time. I could imagine maybe I could find someone that kissing the pump terminal as a sign of goodbye . Owh…with this announcement, the previous ban³ that been imposed on foreigner’s vehicles (they can’t fill their tank at Malaysia on certain area) will now be lifted. If any of my words here brings doubt to you, refer to the official media statement made by the government. Unfortunately, it’s in Bahasa Malaysia.

P/S: I’ve taken several pictures at the nearing oil pump station. Will upload it later because needs a little touch up. ~~sigh~~ I need a new camera I guess…

Just today I had downloaded the latest release of Nine Inch Nails, The Slip. Well, before any of you blabbering about piracy and all that stuff, I will tell you that this release is free to download (legal in any way). Quoting from the frontman of NiN himself (Trent Reznor) from their official site

thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me

The release contains 10 tracks and IMHO, according to my ears their genre kind of fusion between alternative rocks, electronic, and a little industrial rocks. I never seriously followed all their previous releases (only heard a couple of their previous tracks once in a while), so I kinda can’t say much about the latest release in terms of comparing it with their predecessors. What can I say is (personally), it’s a little out of my listening taste but I still find it interesting somehow. Maybe I need more time.

So, I can’t say more than that. Some might argue that this kind of release will not be that good, but I beg to differ. I do think this release haven’t fallen low like that and it’s still offer a quality tracks. Download and judge it yourself anyway. The best thing (beside its free to download) is you can choose the audio format; from the usual .mp3 until the humongous file size of either FLAC, Apple Lossless, or WAVE. Follow the link on their official site and you need to give out your emails to receive the download link. If you intend to own the release in the usual form (physical audio CD, etc), the band also plans to release in the form of CD and vinyl around July.

Enjoy

Additional Info

1. 999,999
2. 1,000,000
3. letting you
4. discipline
5. echoplex
6. head down
7. lights in the sky
8. corona radiata
9. the four of us are dying
10. demon seed

length: 43:45

When was the last time Arsenal wins a silverware? If I recalled correctly, it was during the 2003/4 season where the team become BPL champion with impressive records by not dropping a single point throughout the season. They’d been given the nickname “The Invincible” because of that. In cup competition, the last time was the FA Cup 2004/5 final when they beat Man Utd on penalties. So, it had been a couple of seasons the team experienced the “trophy-less season”. In my opinion, that’s the major reason why some players want to butt out from the team.

Trophy-less is one thing, how about individuals in the team? Is Wenger to be blamed for this trophy-less plague? I humbly think that Wenger’s way of doing things was a little excessive. I share his belief in developing youngsters but not leaving the team without enough in depth cover. Look what happen when the likes of Rosicky, Eduardo, Sagna and v. Persie received an injury; (with respect) other players that cover their roles seems not fit to the task (save by the likes of Walcott and Bendtner).

So, my mumbling here come to an end. Without doubt, Arsenal must strive harder than ever next season. They must start winning trophies or maybe the likes of Fabregas or Rosicky will leave the team. Maybe Arsenal can start with signing a few quality names to cover certain positions, mainly on the defense. I really hope that Flamini is the only one leaving this seasons though

EDIT: It had been confirmed, Flamini will go to Milan on a 4 years contract agreement.

Well..kinda don’t have anything good to share, so here’s another useless post; about my new monitor. Ermm…not so new really…it had been about 3 or 4 weeks I guess. My previous Philips 107E5 CRT had failed me after years of dedicated services. I do notice however, maybe it had a chance to be revived by sending it to the repair guy, but I skip that and gave it to my ex-housemate instead. Not that I feel I’m too rich or whatsoever; it’s just suffice to say that I didn’t think the monitor will last long enough after repair…the problem will keep on coming (you know…the “repair-broke again” cycles). After some thoughts and selling some of my internal organs (I don’t have a job yet~~~), I’ve decided to splash my little (and hard earned) cash on Samsung SyncMaster 931BW 19″ LCD monitor.

The 931BW had a native resolution of 1440*900 (16:10), so it’s wider than the typical 5:4 or 4:3 ratio been normally seen on CRT monitor. Other specs, it sports a contrast ratio of 2000:1 with Dynamic Contrast, 2ms response time and a luminance of 300 cd/m² or nits (do check the official site for the accurate specs; I’m a sucker on info accuracy). Design wise, it didn’t have a stand that allows height adjustment (it doesn’t even rotate), so it brings problem to people that like to adjust it. It’s okay for me, because of my shorter physical height, I don’t have any problem at that department. On the back of the unit, it has a detachable power cord and both jacks for DVI and RGB inputs. Visuals were good…no ghosting was apparent on fast pace scene video and the color seems accurate to my eyes (without using any benchmark or tools to support my statement…it’s just me). Owh…and the minimum dead pixel that can made you eligible to claim the warranty of sort is 7 and my unit didn’t come with any (alhamdullillah~~~).

Conclusion

So, this is the part where I would say that this product is great because I’m using it. No, not quite. If I’m not mistaken, there are already some vendors out there that already produce a similar sized LCD but with a higher native resolution (1680*1050 and it’s a ViewSonic if I’m not mistaken). The unadjustable stand also leave some to crave for more but as I said earlier…no biggie for me. About the dead pixel warranty…I don’t know…but I do think that 7 is a big number. All in all, I’m a kind of person that appreciate simplicity…so this unit with a simple design and easy functionality, what more could I possibly want? This is my first venture on this LCD matters, so it’s a good buy I guess. Although I’m still missing my Philips 107E5 (due to the fact that I’m too used to its 1280*1024 resolution), I’m grateful enough about what I already have. Besides, I’m kinda like a “silent” Samsung fanboy~~~