About a month back, I came across this Blog from Penang, the title caught my attention, “3rd Dimension Board Game Café“. A board game café?, after checking out the blog in detail, the title actually explains it all, there is now a board game café in Penang. It is a café, that not only serves light food, and lets you hang out for long hours, but also serves you board games. They have over 50+ selections of board games and card games, ranging from ordinary to exotic. The regular charge is RM3 per head per hour on weekdays and there are various kinds of promotions that goes by month. The café also host board game weekend where you only pay RM5 for a good 5 hours of game play, and it comes with a free drink too. Board Game weekend time and date are posted at BoardGames Meetup Site.

I remember, my first board game was a Monopoly, it was my birthday, and my dad took me to The Store supermarket (Malaysian Wallmart), and let me have a go at the toys section. My first board game did not survive the test of time, after thousand of hours of game play, pieces got misplaced, eventually I had only half the game left. Board games in Malaysia are expensive. Mainly because all the games are imported, and sold at MRSP, and also due to the currency conversion. Even during sales, there are only the usual 20-30% discount, and even then, it is expensive. So my young days I grew up with the more affordable Malaysian games, like the Gasing (spin top), guli (marbes), etc.. Not exactly board games, the Gasing and Guli still promote skill building and strategy, a good exercise for the body and mind, not to mention social skills.

In the US, board games are part of family fun and pass times. It is the best companion for the rainy day or snowy days in the cold climate. Board games there are truly affordable, one could buy one and get another free during Sales at the toys r us, or get any of the popular games by parker brothers at $9.99 (during sales). When I was there, I build up my own collection of board games, but its no match to 3rd dimension where they have over 50+ selections. They even have Settler of Catan, a popular designers game that is slowly creeping in the ranks in world of board games. The board game helps to keep your mind fresh and constantly challenging the mind of different scenarios at every minute of game play. It is not a lonely game, and enables you to socialize and build good relationships with friends and family alike. There is now a platform for this in Penang, and its at 3rd Dimension Board Game Café.

The café is located at Bayan Lepas area, and the map is posted on the blog. The blog provide updates on events, customers who visited the café, and also promotions. It’s a good place to test out games, so that you know which ones you likes before go spending your money on the ever expensive imported games. It’s a good place to bring your family, to instill good values for your children and family through games, and it is also a good place for the love birds to get to know each other better. If one is single, it is a good place to meet up with people of your same interest.

Toll rates for five highways to go up on Jan 1

KUALA LUMPUR: Toll rates for five highways will go up on Jan 1 next year as the Government can no longer afford to subsidise toll increases, Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said Monday.

– news from The Star newspaper

I spent a lot of time on the highway on the last two weekends and there were loads of construction on the highway, mainly to expand additional lane making the highway into a 3 lane highway. I was thinking to myself that the toll rates might increase since there were upgrades, this was only yesterday. And today, the star reports increase of toll charges.

When I was at the M’cca-KL north south highway, there were some parts closed to just one lane. This caused a bumper to bumper jam on the highway, it took me 2 hours while usually the journey would take 1.5 hour. Could we take any legal action against the highway operator for causing jam? for not delivering to the promise of safe and fast travel? Why would I want to pay to go on to the highway, and travel at 20kmph? I could have done that on the trunk road.

The toll increase covers 5 highways, and in my opinion, this is something the government do upon themselves. Firstly, the contract between the government and the toll operators are shabby, the contracts seam to be favoring to the toll operators, rather than the rakyat, especially on the clause where the toll operators are allowed to increase the toll at every certain number of years, this means the government are bound by contract to allow the toll operators to increase toll, and when the rakyat complains, the government take it upon themselves to subsidies the toll. Now the government cannot afford the RM2bil of subsidy, they are forced to allow the toll increase. For me, if the government were to make any contract with any companies to provide service to the rakyat, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the contract favors the rakyat, and still allow the companies to make a decent money. I don’t see this happening….

A good read below..

Privatization of Highways in Malaysia: The Peril of not Consulting End-Users – A.-R. Abdul-Aziz

You now have 2 chances of winning an Intel Core 2 Duo PC, one over at Jeffooi.com, by just answering questions and another, a photo compertition at intelapacphotocompetition.com. Jeff Ooi’s competition is giving out a PC and open to Malaysian residence only, while the photo competition is giving out a laptop and open to the entire APAC region, and two laptop will be given away to residence of China, Hong Kong and the rest of APAC respectedly. Waste no time, get yourself over to jeff ooi’s blog and get out your digital camera and let your creative juice flow.

Jeffooi.com – 1 PC up for grabs
intelapacphotocompetition.com – 6 laptops up for grabs

There is an ancient Indian story of a man who lived as well as he could. But along the way, there were some sins he committed. So when he passed, his few sins required him to serve a short time in hell before going up to heaven for eternity.

Hell didn’t look that bad to him. There were no fires and the food was plentiful and looked and smelled delicious. But everyone seemed aggravated.

You see, in hell, the spoons were longer than people’s arms. Every time they tried to place the spoon full of food in their mouth, food would drop over their shoulders. They were cranky because they were so hungry, could smell the delicious food and it was so close, yet they could not get the food in their mouth.

Finally, the man was transferred to heaven.

Upon entering heaven, he again smelled the delicious food and could not wait to curb his hunger. Heaven looked exactly the same as hell. Everything was pleasant and he saw the same spoons in heaven as he had in hell. Shocked for a moment, he noticed everyone in heaven was happy. No one was cranky or aggravated.

You see, in spite of the large spoons, the people in heaven were able to enjoy the delicious food. This is because they helped each other by feeding each other.

I thought this would be a good sharing, amid recent media frenzy over UMNO’s yearly “Amok”. Life has always been difficult, more when govern by narrow view and the failure to see the biggest picture. The reality today is that Malaysia, is a multi-cultural country. Malaysia can only become stronger if we all work together, not apart. Its like in the story, the difference between “Hell” Malaysia and “Heaven” Malaysia, is if we all help each other out, and not selfishly trying to feed oneself, which in the end, leaving oneself hungry. So, the difference between heaven and hell is just within one’s mind.

Having said this, it is not wrong to fight for the well being of one’s race, however, to help one race by stirring hatred towards another race, this is outright wrong. History has time and time again proves, that only those who work together will prosper. If one fails to see this, then one is forever doomed to be in “hell”.

Quality can make or break a brand name. This is why huge brand names put in millions and billions into their R&D to not only innovate but also to ensure Quality. Sony has release a few of their mechanical test, showing how tough the Vaio laptop is. The series of test consist of various drop test, Shock and Vibe, compression and twist. Check out the Video in the link below.

Building quality into the product may sometimes be a disadvantage to the company. When the product quality is so good, consumers / businesses do not worry about the warranty. The black market becomes the place of choice of getting the product as they are cheaper. The recent Microprocessor Heist in Malaysia is one example, who would want to buy a microprocessor from the black market? It doesn’t come with warranty. Well, who needs warranty, if the brand name is trusted. The pirates can cheat and steel on the expense of the company that does R&D.

Back to the Sony Vaio test, it is called Use Condition test. Many companies do this test to ensure the product that they sell would withstand the regular user condition. By saying use condition, in no means of just turning on and taking the laptop from one place to another, it is to the extreme, llike droping the laptop or twisting or stepping on it. All major companies do use condition test, and this explains why your handphone still works well after dropping it. The company built the phone to be drop. And any phone that does not withstand drop, is not worth buying. Now, one may ask, how do we know if a certain company does use condition test? Well, we don’t, the only assurance is that most of the major electronic brand names does, and you can sleep well buying the brand name.

Sony Vaio test (In Japanese)