SiauLiang

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Some stuff about my work.

I’ve been really really really busy with my work. Typical Malaysians and their last minute tax submission.

I always feel like writing about my life at work, but I think some stuff are better not to be on the internet to protect, well, privacy of some people, since the Miri is seriously small, and I think it’s not right to share some really shaddy business practice here in Miri.

BUT! This thing I am going to write must be written! To all those studying accountancy, PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS SILLY MISTAKE! The irony is that, this silly mistake is done by our very own bookeeping department.

I was assigned to prepare financial statement for this alcohol retailer. And the bookeeping is apparently, done by one of my colleagues from the bookeeping department. After looking through her bookeeping records and double entries, here’s the few things that I see strange:

• There’s no sales account.
• The cash in hand account is deficit. Negative. Imagine having negative amount of money in your wallet, which is pretty much impossible.

After inspecting the transactions in the accounts, I found out that she’s been:

• Crediting cash in hand on every “deposits” transaction that she sees in the bank statement.
• And on every cheque drawn out from the bank, it is debited back to the cash in hand accounts.

That’s the technical part. Right, now I am going to simplified this into layman terms. Basically it goes like this. I deposit RM100 everyday to my bank accounts for 15 days. After that, I withdraw RM1,500 in one lump sum. Then, I deposit RM100 for 15 days again. Then I withdraw RM1,500 in one lump sum. And I do this for one whole year.

Seriously. How do I prepare a financial statement from this accounts?

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Sue the Internet!

Spin offs with the recent Pirate Bay court case.

Let’s sue the internet! Hah!

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MLM Again!

I have a few friends who’s quite active in the MLM scene, and to tell you the truth, I hardly contact them after I get to know their background. I’m not sure why these MLM marketers just don’t know how to be frank about what they want to tell you when they ask you to go out lim teh. Why do they have to be so secretive about it? Why do they have to conceal their true intention, but instead, they cover it up with “lim teh”?.

I am going to talk about this stalker who’s an MLM marketer, and yeah, I finally agree to go out lim teh with him after a few weeks stalking my mobile. We met after work in a coffee shop yesterday. Like any other MLM marketers, they started the conversation casually, asking how’s life, how’s work, how’s study, how’s your girlfriend, etc. And after 5-10 minutes of bullshit, he say that he has something great to share. He talks about how our life would end if we’re employees, he talks about the stages of life and its enjoyment, he talks about retirement. Then he talks about the 4 types of people, and how one can enjoy life if they manage to jump from side A to side B. He talks about the active income and passive income stuff. Well, if you read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I’m sure you will know about this 4 types of people I talk about.

And then, he started to talk about the MLM company that he joins. He talks about how powerful the company is, how big the company is, how great their products, etc. He talks about the opportunity of him, able to talk to a Datuk casually. He brag about how the MLM company rewards their member if they manage to achieve a certain ranking. Fully sponsored vacation to places of attraction. All those nice stuff lah.

Well, I kept quiet and nodded most of the time when he talks about this stuff. Well, I agree with him when he talks the stages of life and the 4 types of people. I have nothing to disagree when he brags about the powerful MLM company that he joins. I have nothing to doubt, I mean, it is quite well established, as far as I know.

Then, he starts talking about how one can make money with a so called 20×20 plan when they join this MLM company. He says that, on the first month, you only have to find 20 customers and you can get a profit of around RM2,000 plus a bonus of around RM600. After you’re stable, then you can look for 20 distributors, and if this 20 distributors can find 20 customers like you did, you can earn lots and lots of bonus by just having your downline working on the customer. He says that looking for people is very easy, the chances are big, because there’s thousands of people in Miri itself. Then he talks about the rankings and all the earnings nonsense la. The winning phrase at the end of the story is:

“Now, do you have RM85 to spare?”

Epic WIN conclusive end.

Right, so anyway, I said “No”, cos I really don’t have RM85 in my wallet. Then he asked for my IC and I said no. He claims that this RM85 is refundable if I don’t get rich within a year. No gain no loss, as he claims. And so I said, “If you insisted on me joining and guarantees me this kinda of passive income in a year time, why don’t you tell me your story? I am curious about your successful story”.

So my first question, “How long have joined this company?”

He answered, “Last year May, but I only started seriously doing it February this year”.

Then I asked, “How many sales have you closed up until now?”

He answered, stuttering, “Er… so far none”.

So I proceed, “Right, and how many people have you recruited so far?”

He answered, “So far four.”

Then I said, “Miri has thousands of people, no? And you haven’t even close any sales to anyone, and thus far, you have recruited 4 people which I guess thus far also haven’t close any sales, right? I figure you have worked really hard to get this 4 people right? And working hard, is this even passive income that you’re claiming?”

“If you fail to achieve your own 20×20 plan, and yet you’re trying to get me into doing it, what makes you think I can achieve it?”

He kept quiet.

And guess what, since he failed to recruit me, he try to get me into buying his products. He say how good his RM18 toothpaste is compared to the regular RM5 toothpaste I use at home. He say how one can have economical benefit by using his products. Well, I didn’t manage to shoot him this time, cos my mum called me and asked me if I’m coming home for dinner. Well, I quickly use the “mum call me to come home” reason to get out from the scene. And yeah, our talks ends there.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think that their products is bad. In fact, I am using one of their products, and I must say I am quite impressed with what it can do compare to other products that is offered in the market. And as for their business plan, I think it’s not a bad one either. The 20×20 is achievable, though I believe the 1 month duration is a bit too short for people like me who’s currently employed full time. I don’t despise the business plans and the products. What I despise is the marketers.

Why do they have to be so persistent? I love to make money my own way, I have my own plans ahead, and my financial planning is not for you to bug in. I’m not seeking your financial advice, so please, don’t talk about financial planning with me. I have my own plans for retirement, and it’s not the MLM way.

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1st post of 2009

Wow. It has been a while since I’ve written something here. About 2008, well, I kinda fail to achieve most of my resolution. Sigh. Shitty 2008. Well, I just wasted a year, so why look at the past when I should be focusing on the future? I just hope I will achieve my target for this year.

Financially, I want to at least save up to 6 months expenses and have them in my savings. Then, I will slowly plan what and where to invest. I do hope to achieve this, cos so far I have save up 3.5 months expenses, and I think it shouldn’t be that hard to save another 2.5 months expenses.

As for my ACCA, I plan to finish off my Skills module, and hopefully I can start working on my Oxford Brookes programme next year, after I got my result. So, I’m guessing I will be staying around in Miri for another 2 years at least. That is, if I pass all my Skills paperby next year. All I can do is, study hard, work hard, and play hard of course

Those are the 2 main targets that I wish to achieve, by hook or by crook. And as for my MiriBloggers project, well it has been pending for years already. I have bought that domain and paid RM99 twice. This year will be the 3rd time. Heck. When will I start working on it? Sigh. Kill me, please, someone?

And today is the 15th day of January. Soon, there’s Chinese New Year coming and I have yet to buy my new year cloths. How sad eh? Blame my boss lah, so late already still not yet come up with bonus. How to buy leh? Anyway, after the Chinese New Year, I think I will be extremely busy with my job. I remembered last year I have to work 7 days a week, from 8am to 9pm. That’s even worst than people working shift. Heh. I do hope our team can cope with the workload for this year.

That’s all for now. In the next few days, I would be writing about tax on online income. There’s a lot of debate on this, so I think I will try my best to clear the doubts.

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Dead Mouse

This morning, my colleague suddenly come to my desk and ask me, “Have you ever see a dead mouse?”

I answered, “Yes. Why?”

He said, “Well, you wanna see one now?”

I replied, “Er… Ok…”

He brings me to his desk.

He flipped his computer mouse upside down. Then he said, “There. Dead mouse”.

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The Acer Aspire One

My bro came home with an Acer Aspire One. He asked me to format that toy to a WinXP, from its original operating system, a Linpus Linux Lite. So, I go ahead and search for a tutorial, cos this netbook doesn’t come with a optical drive. I found a great video tutorial on it.

Behold!!! 17″ screen vs 8.9″ screen. Captured when I was formating the Aspire One.

The Aspire One is pretty amazing. It’s small, it’s fast, and it’s convenient. Too bad I was gonna format it to the bulky WinXP. The Linpus works pretty well if you just want to use it to go online in a cafe, or get your documents done, but can be quite limited if you plan to use it as your media player. Certain video files just won’t work, and installing codec can be a headache for a non Linux user like me. From the guides I read on the net, there are ways to overcome this incompatibility by installing VLC alongside with the preinstalled mplayer, but I was too lazy to read on cos I am going to format it to XP.

So anyway, the whole process of formating and installing all the drivers took about 2-3 hours to complete. I used nLited version of WinXP to fit it into the Aspire One. I was too afraid that it will get too laggy because my friend told me that Windows running on SSD drives is like driving a Mercedes on a Kancil engine. It will be very slow. I tried all the optimization trick that I found on the web, and everything works great without much problem

Oh, not forgetting, games. Yes. Games. I copied Warcraft 3 and played the damn popular DotA Allstars on the Aspire One. Amazingly, it can run with 8MB video memory allocation.

It’s amazing how this little netbook can run a 3D game without much problem.

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Busy Study

Therefore, lazy update blog. See lah when I got go food hunt again, economy not good, so can’t always go out eat

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A Cost Saving Measure

My colleagues and I went to a shopping mall yesterday, looking for new cloths. You know lah, got sales mah… So I go look look see see loh, not necessary buy mah… And guess what? I laughed all the way walking down the aisle of cloths. You know why?

I bet the management is on a budget constraint. And they too, happen to have extra water pipes laying around, so as a cost saving measure, they decide to use water pipes to hang all their cloths. My colleague even joked about washing hand there.

How can they use water pipes there? I thought they have all those proper steel structure to hang their cloths? What a laughing stock.

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A visit to Citrus and Secret Recipe

It was yet another Saturday. Yet another food hunt for me and my colleagues, J, V, and FC. This time we decide to go to two expensive place, Citrus and Secret Recipe. Our hunt started of with Citrus. We went reached there around 6.30pm, and it wasn’t that crowded that time, which was good.

And this is what I ordered. The Citrus Breaded Chicken.

Nothing too special about it. It’s crispy. It’s hot. It’s er… chicken. The plate is big. The salad is nice. It has really cool presentation. And the butter on top makes the chicken tastier, but I think this is a no-no for the girls who like to keep their body in shape. For RM15.90, I’d say it’s a little bit expensive to compare with the cheap Jing Wood cafe’s western food, but I think for environment like this, it’s not too shabby.

The chicken chop, ordered by J, my colleague. And the mashed potato is looks kinda special, and the taste is simply amazing. And for the chicken, it’s just like normal chicken lah… The most important thing is the sauce. And for me, the black pepper sauce that my colleague ordered is a bit too salty to my liking. Perhaps they can fix on that next time. Oh, there’s a hidden cauliflower underneath the chicken chop. Hah. And this thing cost RM15.90 too.

My other two colleague V and FC ordered baked rice.

The baked riced is cheesy enough. The portion is large. And the price tag is RM11.90 if I’m not mistaken. The most important part is that, it’s cheesy enough. I think their baked rice is better than what Double Star offers.

And as for our drinks, I ordered something new on their menu, the Caramel Milkshake

It’s a little too sweet to my liking. Perhaps it’s the caramel. Caramel are meant to be sweet, right?

This is Funky Monkey, also new drinks in their menu.

Now this drink is super nice. I should have ordered this instead of the caramel milkshake. It’s chocolate drink with a twist of banana, thus the funky monkey name. The taste is just nice. I highly recommend this drink to everyone that comes here.

And as for our dessert…

I forgot what’s this ice cream thingy called. I know it has some honey, chocolate, coffee and chocolate flavoured ice cream, and crunched oreo cookies. RM9.90 for this 2 large scoops of ice-cream. The ice-cream is good, but this dessert is a little pricey, in my opinion.

Oh by the way, this meal is paid by my boss. He and his family happens to dine there as well. Perhaps he don’t want to lose face not paying for his staff eh… Hahahaha…

And for our second round, we went to Secret Recipe. A second visit from me. Hah.

We went in, and thank god there are seats for us. When my J and V looked at the menu, they’re tempted. Both of them ordered Seafood Curry Laksa.

The laksa looks delicious from the looks of it. J and V say its nice, and would love to go for it some other time. I somehow didn’t taste it. So, I wouldn’t comment much on it.

Me? Well, I did ordered something. But I just share them with FC cause I was really full, but the pictures in the menu somehow seduced me to order it. Hahahaha…

This is something that I remembered the most when I got my spaghetti. J said, “Wow, your spaghetti ah… The mee so big one ho…”. All 3 of looked at him and I answered, “Spaghetti is suppose to be big sized. You think have kolo mee sized spaghetti meh?”. -_-”

And after I finished my spaghetti, I realised there’s something in my spaghetti.

Perhaps my eye lid hair or eye brow somehow dropped when I eat the spaghetti. Or perhaps it’s the cook’s hair in the plate. Now I began wonder how clean their kitchen and cooks are. Perhaps their safest bet is still the cakes… After all, from what I heard, they don’t bake it locally, the cakes are air-freighted to all the branches across Malaysia every morning.

So, that’s all for today. It seems like my blog is turning to a food blog…

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A visit to Secret Recipe Miri

Me and a bunch of friends went to Secret Recipe last night. It was so crowded it felt like as if they turned off the aircond inside the building. It was that many people. We got lucky cos when we got there, a bunch of people paid their bills and went off.

So, are you ready to see some cakes?

This is the Marble Cheesecake. Taste like normal cheesecake. Nothing special, and the portion is smaller than any other cakes. Their signature creation, as what they’ve describe in their menu. My recommendation? Don’t go for this, nothing special about it. Try other cakes.

Chocolate cheese. This one is nice. Highly recommended. Chocolatey and cheezy and the same time. Makes me hungry everytime I think about it. Anyone that comes here should try this.

This is Walnut Brownies. I have never eaten any brownies before, and my thought upon my first bite, “I should have ordered this”. The chocolate topping is not too sweet, not too bitter, just right. Hack, I even dump my cheesecake to its chocolate to create my own chocolate cheese.

This is the Cappucinno cheesecake, or Espresso, kinda forgot already. All I know is it is one of the 2 coffee flavoured cheesecake in their menu. This is definitely a thumb up for a coffee lover like me.

Conclusion? RM6.50 for a slice of cake is burning my wallet. But I don’t mind going there again, once I got my next pay check. Their menu shows that they have a few promising food.