boon's log 3507.01: The Old, The New and The Ugly

It's either a sheer coincindence or perhaps someone in Proton has pissed someone in Petronas pretty bad.

If you've seen the latest Petronas' series of Merdeka (Independence Day) TV ads, you'd probably know what I talking about. In one of the many versions of the ads, it depicts one villager deciding to move out of the kampung (i.e. village) to the city to find a better job. And in the process, he needs to inform the penghulu (i.e. head of the village) about his departure.

And since he (the villager) owes the village chief some money, the chief requests him to built him a boat and by doing so, he will consider all the debts cleared. The villager can take all the raw material, etc. that he needs from the chief's garage... free of charge!

So, this villager, goes home to start on the boat. In the process, he saw an old boat lying by the tree and that kind of lit of some lightbulb in his head...

(P/S: I've put up a side-by-side story which sounds very similar to the Petronas Story)


The Old...

So he stopped working designing a new boat from scratch and started on refurbishing the old left over that was under the tree. The video then showed how he spent time doing the "repair work" - patching leaks, repainting, etc. Off and on, the chief came by to check on the progress, while the villager covered the boat when the chief came along... "secret! new design! wait until we roll it out, then you will know how it looks like!"

And finally it was done! He rolled the boat into the river... Tada! The "New" boat is out!


The New...

Just then, the chief came by and asked about the boat and also deliver some good news! He said that he (the chief) does not need the boat anymore and that the villager can keep it for himself, as a gift. And as an added bonus, he gave him a motor to go along with the boat! Of course the villager was estatic! But upon returning to the boat with the motor, he was shocked with what he saw... the boat the he build and thought he could get away with by building from an old boat, was half in the waters...


The Ugly... (by the way, incase you cannot see it - there are TWO gas gauges)

Just then, the following words rolled up...

"Can what we build today, take us into tomorrow?"

You can view the YouTube video here.

I cannot help but to see the strong similarity in the 2 - Proton and Petronas. The newly launched Proton Persona is basically a Proton Gen.2 with an added few-inches of trunk space. They may do some face-lift here and there, but face it, the customers are not dumbnuts. People are nick-naming the new car Proton Gen2.5 - where the 0.5 stands for the few inches of added trunk room. Seriously, Can what they build today, bring them into tomorrow?

Proton's been reporting quarter after quarter of losses, and paying off dealers here and there. Something is wrong somewhere (or everywhere). Someone within the corporation needs to rethink how they do business (design, quality, reliability, etc.).

I'm sure that you've seen the Champion of all Protons! Presenting... the Proton Juara (Juara is Champion in Malay)...


The Proton Champion (2001-2003)

boon out...

boon's log 3407.02: The Drive of Life 2007

You may have heard of the Astro On Demand promos quite recently where they are releasing the newest and latest TVB series at the same time as HongKong TVB. And while still maintaining the Astro WahLaiToi for the older TVB series (like those released in 2005/6). Though you are already paying for the WLT channel/package, you still need to top up another RM0.99 for each episode on the OnDemand Channel. That generated 2 trains of thoughts: One being, "it's okay, just pay another 0.99 cents for each episode", while another says, "Dammit! I've already paid for WLT and they still want to squeeze some more money out of my pocket for Chinese Serials?".

Well, I stand in between. I do not mind paying for the Canto serials - partially because of the "First Five Episodes Are Free" campaign did actually WORK! (i.e. to tempt you to buy the remaining serials). BUT (there's always a "but") if there is a cheaper option, why not go for it?!


歲月風雲, The Drive of Life, 2007.

The first OnDemand Serials - The Drive of Life, is a joined effort between TVB from HK and CCTV from China to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Handover of HongKong back to Mainland China. It depicts the ups and downs experienced by Hong Kong-ers prior to the handover and after, focusing on the story of three brothers separated since their teenage years, that evolved into a story of steel and motor-car industry and so on... The other attractive point of the serials is that it has a long list of reputable TVB actors and actresses, namely Damien Lau, Miu Kiu Wai, Charmaine Sheh, Myolie Wu, Mah Tak Chung, Lam Fung... and the list goes on.

It's quite rare that I actually follow Cantonese Serials, only when a good one that comes along and catches my attention. So, how do I get my Drive of Life episodes? Well, I'd suggest utorrent.com. If you are okay with a one-day-delay, lagging behind HKTVB, then, downloading's your next best option.

boon out...

boon's log 3307.03: Transformers, 200k, Dopey, a "packed-KL-trip", booze, Movies and a rubik's cube

Last update was almost almost 3 weeks ago. Here's an account / highlights what's happened in the past 3 weeks.

IL and I went to Toy's "R" Us to get Emma a gift for her upcoming birthday. The adorable darling's turning 1 (One) this coming August. Can you imagine - her very first birthday! After shopping for a while, we've finally decided to get her a toddler in-car "wireless" activity toy... (cannot find the picture in the web)

then when we went to pay up, I bump into this cool mask:

Optimus Prime: "Hello! Lu jiak pa ah boui?"

It actually has a mike linked to the front of your mouth and with the press of a button, it translates your voice into a machine-type voice. And it also has all the famous lines by Optimus Prime. I nearly got it, but saw the tag was RM169 - I thought better not. There are better ways to depart with my RM 169 than paying for this. Ever heard Optimus Prime speak Hokkien before? Well, here's your chance - just drop by the nearest Toy's "R" Us and look for the mask.


It was also about time that I celebrated my 1st car's 8th year in service. She's been serving my family faithfully. And coincidentally, when I check, the car's reaching her big 200k mark. The car that has traveled all the way down to Singapore and back. 8 years and 200,000km of sights, sounds and accidents. Excellent car... Here's a tribute to my Sentra...


The big 200

And here's Dopey to celebratemy car's 200k km mark...


Captain Dopey

The car's still going on strong, I believe she can go for another 200k easy. We're planning to keep her until she cannot run anymore, 'cause it's no point (and value) to sell it now and not gain enough to get a new(er) one.

Then we headed down to KL for my uncle's 70th Birthday Bash. Yup, the big Seven-Zero. It's a lot of hard work to actually reach where he is right now and Salute to the Captain... Captain Morgan. The daughters and I (small part) organized a surprise party for him at EQ KL. The party was cool, but the hotel kinda below expectations - regarding food, hotel outlook, and carpark. They have SO LIMITED car park spaces! And they even forced me to park on the exit ramp of the carpark and charged me 8 freaking bucks for it! Real lousy. Anyone who suggests to go there in the future, I will warn them - go somewhere else, do not go to EQ. And with Ab coming along and with my parents, we had a packed car... really packed car - mostly Ab's stuffs. It's almost like shifting her entire room down to KL.


Packed to the brim

As usual, we crashed at Times Square and paid RM150 for the Brooklyn 2-bedroom Suite - which is not a very bad deal at all, though some of the light bulbs were not working and Dad complained about no hot water on the first day (but we believe he forgot to switch on the heater). We even got a good view of the city as well... (but too bad it was hazy...)


Hazy view of the Petronas Twin Towers from the 33rd floor of Berjaya Times Square


Of course, what's a birthday bash without some booze... ;)

Overall, the trip was not as hectic and tiring as I feared and thought. The dinner was great and everything went on quite as I expected - the late nights poured into the "Down memory lane" PowwerPoint prez was very well received. As for the trip, I expected ourselves to be dead beat when we got back to Penang on Sunday. But the night we arrived back from KL (with a short dinner break in Ipoh), we even had enough energy to catch Pursuit of Happyness - which by the way was a pretty good movie - we did not fall asleep. ;)


Pursuit of Happyness

We also took Monday off just to recuperate (which, we discovered, was not really necessary). So we took our time to have some good breakie at a old coffee house along Carnarvon Street (excellent Loh Mee and Loh Bak).


Old coffee shop along Carnarvon Street, Penang

We ended up in Toy's "R" Us again after that because I was "inspired" but Will Smith from Pursuit of Happyness to go get myself a Rubik's Cube. Yeah, it's been a while and it feels good to bond with the cube again. I cannot remember when was the last time I laid my hands on one of those. And I got re-aquainted and hooked, almost immediately. They even have a website: www.rubiks.com.


Rubik's Cube

And finally, we walloped another 2 movies the rest of the day: 300 and Blades of Glory...whereby both were just so-so.


So-so movies...

We'd prefer Pursuit of Happyness over these 2 anytime. The previews for the latter 2 looked interesting, but when you get down to it, it's really not that good...

... and then before we know it... it was back to work...

boon out...