Caramel Toffee //

I got a letter from the Scholarship Division of MoE today in which I was asked to fill in a form and fax it to them as soon as possible. That’s what I did, and thank God the phone in my room doubles as a fax machine too. At first, I made a stupid mistake by forgetting to put the form face down, so I pretty much sent an empty fax to them. I corrected the mistake and sent the fax again. A few minutes later, I got a fax from them which irritated me to a great extent:

The fax number 03-xxxxxxxx cannot be used.

Please fax to number 03-xxxxxxxy.

(Jot this down and inform everyone).

Joy. It’s a formal letter and they made a mistake like this? Return the money Telekom Malaysia charged me for the fax!

Okay, I’ve finished ranting. At 8.30pm earlier, I got a surprise visit from Ain, Alia, Daniel, Basir and Jo. The boys went for a dip at nearby hot spring and later, the two girls joined in and they went to the beach. I was surprised when they called me up saying they were going to drop by, but really, I haven’t seen them for a while. Alia, Ain and Daniel attend Australia’s Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Basir at Exeter’s College of St. Mark & St. John (Marjon) and Jo goes to New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington (Victoria). We chatted a bit, and had a laugh about the mistake made by the Scholarship Division.

The title itself is self explanatory. I went on a designing frenzy for two days, which resulted in me forgetting to update all of my blogs when I really should. I’m trying to get my online store project up as soon as I can. It’s not much, actually. Just a small store offering print-on-demand and high quality silkscreen-printed t-shirts, custom-design service, mugs, caps and other small stuff. There are many similar store like these, but almost 95% of them are US-based or international-based. I thought it would be more convenient to set up a Malaysian-based store for us Malaysians. I hope to be able to launch the shop before the term starts.

Which reminds me… I have to add extra $2 to my monthly hosting bill for a dedicated IP. Else, I won’t be able to properly install my SSL certificate. The Visa credit/debit card payment gateway via Siteheart is settled and the payment gateway is secure (encrypted, 128 bit). I just thought it would be nicer for the whole store to run in secure https mode. Go me! Work harder!

I made a few t-shirt designs yesterday, and my personal favourite is this:

Wait, I love these too…

Click on those pictures to get a better view of them. I really want to get them printed and wear them around!

I also played around a bit with Stylish Geeks. You can go play around with the ‘Skin Me!‘ module. I added a new theme to the site to those who are fond of cheerful colours.

Okay. I think I better go and work on my store project… And finish uploading Junjou Romantica scans to Junjou.info. Uploaded Volume 5 - 9. I need to upload Volume 1 - 4.

The first Kelantan branch of Tesco is now open. It was initially scheduled to open 2 weeks ago, but the recent flood had caused a delay in the actual launch date. So, this morning, it was officially launched. The complex is big, but not as big as KB Mall. I have to say that the interior is very impressive. The food court is situated just right - you’ll reach the food court once you get into the complex from the parking area. I’d say the placement is convenient. You can can choose to either eat first and then shop or the other way around.

There are a few other shops in the complex. Reject Perfume Shop, Nagoya Textile, InfoMusic, Beauty & Slimming Center and more.Customers rushed to apply for free Tesco clubcard. You can say that the place was really crowded up until this evening before I left.

Bought a few stuff from the complex. I think the complex is off to a good start. Spent around RM150 at Nagoya, and another RM70 at Tesco. I’m thinking of going back to the complex later to buy some discounted perfume. Well, it’s only discounted because we don’t get the perfume box with our purchase. There’s a reason it’s called ‘Reject’ perfume shop. Box or no box, RM150 for 100ml Eau de Parfum that normally costs around RM185 - RM250 is a great deal. Afterwards, I treated Mom and Dad to some ice-cream on the way back.

I don’t think this will be a competition to KB Mall’s Pacific or Kota Sri Mutiara’s Billion. The products available in this new complex differed in quality and brand name. For people who are on tight budget, I’d say this is a blessing for them. We don’t have Carrefour, but at least we now have Tesco. The fact that it’s situated along Sultan Yahya Petra’s bridge which connects the main road to the heart of Kota Bharu is sure to attract customers too.

Nevertheless, Kelantanese should rejoice not because they now has Tesco. Kelantanese around the state should be glad because new store means more job opportunities. Cheers!

I came back at 11 something last night and was too tired to write down the events that entrailed. So yesterday, I when to check out my ASB. I was glad that I got around RM700 of profits out of the whole sum, meaning I had a little over RM700 extra to spend on what I’ll be buying before flying off to New Zealand next month. It’s sad that my long break is finally coming to an end, but at the same time, I’m glad that I’m now a second-year student. Getting through the first year was tough; I hope I’ll do a lot better this year. I withdrew a small amount of RM1,500 from my account to buy some stuff.

Back to the topic at hand..

After going to the bank, I picked up a few blank shirts I I ordered for t-shirt printing purpose. I hoped to settle the order of 20 t-shirts and 15 mugs before next week. Once I’m done, I may be able to get a clean profit of around RM10 per shirt and RM8 per mug. That’s already a lot to me. Sounded a lot for 20 t-shirts, but  those include design charges for 3 different designs. While designing is fairly easy, completing a satisfactory design is definitely not. Especially if your customer is very fussy

And then I went shopping (again)! Initially, I wanted to find a new luggage but later decided to buy one in KL instead. Spent Rm135 on a set of affordable women suit (suit, shirt and long skirt), RM112 on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, RM20 on two cheap black tank-tops and RM105 on lingeries.That made a total of RM372, so I still haveRM1128 left.  I think I’ll go buy some sports wear with them. And the luggage. And maybe, a new mp3 player. Mp4 makes no impression on me because I don’t like to watch videos or anything on small displays (as I blatantly expressed in one past blog post). So now, the important stuff left to buy are:

1.  Sony Vaio CR 23/GN: RM4,488
2. Motorola V9: +- RM1,500
3. Sony DSC-T20-B (RM1,199) or the DSC-H3/B (RM1,399)

Aaah! Lots of money! Feel so sad to watch them flow away from me :((

The new year premiered with accompanying rain and freezing cold temperature the whole day. Just when I thought the rainy season is finally gone, today’s continuous rain made me think otherwise. It felt so nice to sleep under my favourite thick comforter, and leaving the bed was the hardest thing to do. Last year, January kicked off with glaring sun, but this year it’s the total opposite. I could barely do anything without a sweater too. You can say that my tolerance to cold weather sucks.

I didn’t do much today. Slept in, write, read, eat, write, surf, read, slept some more. Visited a number of interesting blogs today. Well, it’s hard to keep up with all the interesting blogs after disappearing from the blogging world for so long. Hope I’ll get the hang of it soon.

The rain made my brain go into what I call the ‘brood-and-muse’ mode. It was on a whim that I wrote the latest entry in Stylish Geeks: Anticipating Malaysian Virtual Scenario in 2008. All that I wrote there was based on my observation and my own experience, coupled with my hopes. There’s one thing I forgot to mention in the entry - local-based online advertising. Last month, I wrote about ‘junk ads’ flooding Cari.com.my and some other sites. I hope 2008 will get people to be more mature. No one is going to believe ads like ‘Fire your own boss’ or ‘Make $10,000/mo without working’. Those ads are absolute eyesores. Like some Japanese people said, ‘there’s no such thing as free lunch‘. We only gain what we deserve.

Malaysian sites developers, especially the Cari.com.my team should monitor the ads being put up in their classifieds directory. I’d say more than 50% of the ads are not at all relevant to category listings.

Also, I’d love to see how local advertisers like Nuffnang, Nufflets, GrabMyAds and Advertlets compete in the growing virtual community and online advertising network. It’s not surprising if more similar companies announce their presence in the near future.

One more thing… I’d like to welcome Adi to the Caramel Toffee family. Hope we can be friends His new blog is not ready yet, but later on, you can always have a look at http://adi.carameltoffee.net.

Laters~