Playing With Rubik's Cube

Magic cube was once my toy when I was still a kiddie. I can still remember at that time, solving and arranging 1 out of 6 faces was just like rocket science to me, not even dare to think about solving the entire cube.

Recently the trend of playing this magic cube was alive again! From a 5 years old kid to an adult like me, magic cube had become a toy on leisure. With Internet technology, solving the cube is no longer hard and it is something that everyone can do!

I started to play the cube from the influence of a 14 years old kid. At first I was hesitate as the "rocket science perception" still worried me. However, after some persuasion and encouragement from him, I decided to give myself a try! After all it is not just a toy. It is a brain game!

I then bought myself a cube from a local toy shop. There are many types of magic cube sold on the market, each one vary from price and quality. I got the one with fluorescence edge which cost RM14.90. I thought this kind of cube can be played in a dark ambience, but it actually cannot as the color of each face are not fluorescence!

The 14 years old kid became my mentor for the cubing game. Yeah... learning from younger is not something you should shame about! Besides that, I also look for some info about this game on the Internet. From there I just realized that the official name for the cube is called the Rubik's cube, not magic cube. This is 3x3x3 Rubik's cube, the standard one for competition.

It is not that hard to solve the Rubik's cube actually, there are plenty of resources on the Net that teach you the way. But I would suggest that visualized tutorials are much effective than the written one. You can just go to Youtube and search for "Rubik's cube solution" and you will get overloaded tutorials about it. Just pick any you feel comfortable and I am sure you can do it as well!

So far, I can only solve the cube in around 3 minutes (more or less depend on the luck). The most recent world record holder is Erik Akkersdijk from Netherland who solved the cube in 7.09 minutes!! Just can't imagine how he did it, but here is the video for your eyes opening and it was absolutely amazing!

Well, I never think of break the record as I believe I can never do it with my degraded brain, but I hope I can achieve the target of under 2 minutes one day (but dunno when as I am worry maybe this is just another "3-minute-heat" for me).

The Lousy Polis Saman SMS System!

Received a letter from Traffic Division Bukit Aman today with the receiver is my brother. The letter is about an unpaid traffic summon reminder which was quite shocking as I didn't hear my brother mentioned about any summon before. So I called to notify him which himself was caught in surprise as well.

There was an instruction in the letter saying we can actually use SMS service to check for summon. I knew about this service but never try on it before. So I asked my brother to use the service to get the summon information. From what I read from the letter, I told him how was the SMS syntax should look like.

After he tried, there was no summon recorded on his name. As both of our name is just an alphabet difference, I started to suspect if they wrongly type the name on the letter. To play safe, I tried the SMS service to see if the summon was under by name. I followed the syntax "Polis Saman (IC Number / Car Plate number)" then sent to 32728.

However, I think it was a wrong syntax so the system returned a message to me and charge me RM0.50 for this (as shown in the picture below). In this message, an example of the syntax was given. It was actually far more easy!! Just "POLIS SAMAN" follow by car plate number you wish to check. It was definitely not as complicated as mentioned in the letter!

 

I sent again and this time the reply shocked me! It said that my car was having a summon cost RM100 and due on 11/12/09 which is today!!! Without much thinking, I rushed to police HQ tried to clear the summon.

After the police traffic on duty checked on his system, he told me there was no record of summon under my name! WTF???!! I told him the situation and he offered to check the record for my brother. After checking, it was confirmed that there was an overdue summon belongs to my brother!

Can you see the lousiness of the Polis Saman SMS system here? It just provided the wrong information yet charge RM0.50 for each SMS! In another word, we pay for the wrong information! I am not sure how frequent this happened but what is sure is that some enhancement or improvement should be taken immediately to the system.

Polis Saman SMS system is a widely use system in the country, thus lousy service like this should be avoided so that the public can use it with confident and sense of reliable. Wrong information will just bring more trouble for the general users who forced to pay for the service! This is definitely unreasonable!

A Farewell @ Cafe Cafe Sibu

This was just another farewell lunch for my company. A farewell lunch for us usually will mean 3 things. 1st, we gonna lose another comrade who share the same poor old boat with us in the middle of an ocean yet still trying hard to struggle for life. Secondly, the departure of any of us means he/she had successfully swim to the shore and the brighter days are awaiting in front, so we sincerely wish him/her all the best in future undertaking. Thirdly, we got a free lunch paid by company within a fixed budget which is among the very few consolation we get for serving the company.

The farewell lunch this afternoon was not an exceptional. We still share the same 3 meanings. What was different with the previous farewell lunch was the leaving comrade is more "special". Perhaps I shouldn't call him a comrade as he always live in his own world, with his own thought and never want to share the boat with us.

He is hoping we are happy for his leaving but for us actually this leaving won't make much difference in our life despite more mess to be cleaned. Well, his contribution to the company is definitely undoubted but I am sure if he could have better communication skills, he will definitely excel further in his career.

Anyway, no matter what's the argument or misunderstanding we have previously, this leaving marked a fullstop on all these. His departure means a better future is awaiting for him and I sincerely wish him all the best!

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Not forget to share some of the dishes we ordered this afternoon. We had these at Cafe Cafe Sibu which I reviewed about it before.

Creamy Pasta with Turkey Ham which is shell pasta cooked in homemade cream sauce, capsicum and fresh herbs. RM15.00 per set.

 

Spaghetti Marinara served in olive oil, creamy seafood white sauce, herbs and paprika at RM13.00 per set.

 

Kapitan Chicken Set which is steamed rice served with sauced chicken, marinated vegetables and snacks cost RM9.50.

 

Beef Masak Hitam served with steamed rice, buns and marinated vege (RM14.00).

This is the set I ordered called Nyonya Fried Rice. Quite a nice dish you can try. The rice was fried with dried shrimp and fresh prawns. It has strong dried shrimp taste, so if you are fan of this, then this set lunch maybe will become your favorite.

 

 

The set came with baked chicken in padan leaf but I personally felt that the chicken is tasteless although the presentation was awful. It also came with snacks and marinated vege. It costs RM13.50 per set, quite worth if compare to other dishes.

 

For dessert, we shared some cheese cakes. This small piece of cheese cake costs RM7.50 but it was creamy and delicious!

 

Mini Motorbike Show @ Sibu Gateway (3)

The third part of the mini Motorbike show @ Sibu Gateway is the 2 customized scooters which I personally felt most impressive. 2 different line of modification - one is cool and another is cute.

If you wish to see more modification, you can click my part 1 and part 2 here.

The cool one is the FILA decorated red-white-blue combination of color's customization. It is actually mimic the Ducati-FILA Superbike which was introduced by Ducati team at year 2004.


That's why you can see the owner surrounded the scooter with the Ducati-FILA Superbike team photos. I personally love the combination of color which was the most shinny and striking color among the participants.


Not only the body decoration was mimic the Ducati-FILA Superbike, even the exhaust was amazing! A small scooter but the exhaust is as big as the one placed on the real Superbike!


The last one which I crowned it as the cutest modification of all! It was the Monster Inc scooter team! I did come across this team near some blog, but this is the first time I saw it with my own eyes.

The team had 2 scooters on display. One has less modification but with light blue and white color to match the Monster Inc theme color.

The other one was neatly decorated with Monster Inc cartoon. From the light to suspension to the seat and the rear as well as the head, every part of the scooter were carefully modified to suit the theme.

I particularly love the head modification. The front lamp of the scooter had been customized to be the big eye of the single-eye monster "Mike" as in Monster Inc animation. Look carefully, there were 2 small horns on top of the lamp. That's was to mimic Mike's horns.

If you look in details, that Mike really has 2 horns on his head! From here we could see how particular the owner is in order to produce a Monster Inc theme scooter. It is a creative piece of work and well done to the owner.


There were 2 speakers being installed near the foot pedal and underneath the seat is a big bass speaker.

The team also used various kind of Monster Inc related toys and dolls to decorate the compound where the scooter was placed to produce the cuteness and the cartoon atmosphere. They were the only contestant prepared their own camp in order to protect their beloved scooters for being exposed under the hot sun.

This team definitely has the package to win the 1st prize in this competition. But somehow from the informal information I got on the Internet, it only won the 3rd price. Well, maybe the organizer had their own set of judging standard. No argument on the result, I am not an expert to judge it though.

Anyway, it was a nice show for me which I did enjoy it. I spent almost an hour under the hot sun just to shot these pics while the participants still busy with their decoration. Despite of getting darker skin, I guess I was satisfied and wish that I could meet a bigger scale of such autoshow in the future.

Mini Motorbike Show @ Sibu Gateway (2)

This is the continuity from 1st part of mini motorbike show @ Sibu Gateway last Saturday. As promised, this one will be far more explosive than the first part.

If previously it was about motorcycle modification, this one is on scooters customization and decoration. I was impressed how much efforts the scooter fanatics spent their money and time on their interest.

Most of these participants I think are members from Scooter Attack Custom Sarawak and Sarawak United Scooterist Community which had taking part in all kind of autoshows all over the state.

As this was just a mini event, thus only 4 scooters participated. In this post, I will reveal 2 out of 4 of these very neatly modified scooters.

The first one is the black color scooter with BMW logo attached in front of it. I am not sure what model of scooter is this but definitely it is not BMW scooter. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

This guy I think is one of the Sarawak United Scooterist Community's club member as he used the community logo as the major decoration on his scooter.

Not much fancy modification on this scooter, but one thing that caught my attention was the way its seat being opened. I don't think my poor English can clearly describe this, but I am sure the photos are self explanatory.

The seat of a normal scooter can be flipped in 90 degree's form, from rear to front but this one as you can see in the photos, it was something like 45 degree to the right side! I think this is not a simple modification.

Look more carefully what is under the seat which normally is a compartment for helmet storing? It was a sound system that allow the playing of music! The owner did demonstrate the quality of the sound system and I found it was cool!

“Ultraman or Power Ranger?" That was my first impression when I met with the following scooter.

The head part of the scooter is damn cool and it looks something like my childhood hero the Ultraman! If I am still at that age, I think this is definitely one of the motorbike that I dreamed of!

It was named "Spain's No.1" which until now I still doubt of it as I couldn't have the "Spain" feel by looking at this scooter. I am sure it deserves a cooler name.... well... such as... emmmm.... "The Little Phoenix"?

Aiya... that's sounds too Chinese la!! Perhaps I should just leave it alone!

The rear part of the scooter looked cool as well with some sort like a phoenix tail (I know... I am still too Chinese-minded!) with a sharp end.

As you can see from the photo below, this scooter had actually won quite some prizes in various competition before. If not mistaken from what I read from the newspaper, it won the 1st prize for this event as well! Well done!

In the coming write up related to this event, I guarantee cuter scooters will be revealed to you! So if you are interested, please stay tune!

Dolphins In Swan City

Recently if you walked onto Sibu town, near Chamber Road or adjacent to Sibu Central Market you will notice a very eyes-catchy and shiny stainless steel dolphins sculpture being placed among the zen balls fountain.

This ain't a new thing for Sibu people as the sculpture already being here for almost a month now. For a town which is surrounded by swan sculptures (as Sibu is called Swan City by local politician), the existence of Dolphins certainly brought some attention as well as argument to Sibuian especially about the significance of the art work.

Me too had doubt about it at the first place. Why dolphins? Sibu isn't near to any beach I guess and is not the local council keep promoting Swan mascot to represent Sibu?

My doubt and perhaps most Sibuian's curiosity were answered on the day where the sculpture was officially opened on 20th November 2009 by 2nd State Finance Minister Wong Soon Koh. A memorial arch built adjacent to the art work explained everything.

This sculpture is actually owned by Sarawak Ho Kang Yu Clan Association which is a joint project between the association and Sibu Municipal Council as an effort to beautify Sibu town thus develop its tourism industry.

"The dolphin has universal appeal, symbolizing freedom, joy, grace and serenity as well as uplifting the spirit of many people." I think this sentence carved on the arch explained why dolphin is chosen.

To my understanding, I think the authorities concern wish to use dolphins to represent the friendliness of Sibu people. Well, in my opinion it not sounds too convincing but acceptable.

The mascot was positioned to face South-East as according to Feng Shui, this position signified harmony and prosperity. Hopefully by this, it will bring happiness and good luck to all the people in Sibu.

Well, as a whole, no matter you believe in Feng Shui or not, or you still conceptually doubtful about the mascot, one thing that we can't deny is that its existence definitely had added more color to the town of Swan.

Mini Motorbike Show @ Sibu Gateway (1)

This was an unexpected event I bumped into when I passed by Sibu Gateway this morning. If not mistaken it was organized by SeDidik Sdn. Bhd., a non-profit organization managing child and family development program for Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC).

It was a mini modified motorbike show participated by about 9 participants. It was an eyes-opening thing for me as I didn't expect local youngsters willing to spend so much money just for their beloved motorbike. Perhaps it is not too over if I said the bikes are their 2nd wife in life! ^^

I don't have long elaboration on each of the displayed motorbike, maybe you just take a look at the photos I shared and for those bikers, I believed you will be a good judge for them.

This Benson & Hedges decorated bike quite impressed me. For those who might not know, Benson & Hedges is an international tobacco company, which its cigarettes products were very well-known in our country once. However, I didn't notice much of its cigarettes anymore in our local market recently. I am not a smoker, so I maybe wrong for this. You are welcome to correct me if I made a false statement. ;)

Anyway, the gold and black combination of color which is the main colors for this branding were applied on this motorbike. Under the hot sun, the "golden bike" seems to be very outstanding thus it was one of the center of attention for this event.


Even its exhaust was very neatly decorated. I guess this is one of the dream for most of the motorbike lovers.

The following was another well-modified motorbike. I didn't know how to elaborate on it, but I think the modification had changed its original look entirely.


The disc brakes were impressive and the exhaust was hide under the seat.

Another modified bike on display...


A Sarawak patriotism modification with Sarawak's flag color yellow, red and black...


... and last but not least, the all black modification...



These are only part of the modified motorbikes I shared out for the time being. If you wish to see more impressive and attractive modification, please stay tune. I will reveal them in the coming posts and believe me, they are far more explosive than this!