Migrating to Firefox

Finally I looked into other internet browsers as an IE alternatives. Upon asking around, Firefox seems to come in as the one with the most recommendation. I will give it a shot...

My 2006 Financials in REDS

The year 2006 came and gone with a sense of urgency. Much had happened in just 365 days. As I close my personal financial statements of 2006, it reviewed some interesting ... as well as not so comforting facts about my spendings. Here's the statistics:

A total of RM4580.45 had been spent on food and beverages. The figure accounted for about 6% more than what I have budgeted in December 2005.

As for transportation ... well ... the figure is ugly. It exceed more than 71% of the forecast. Here's some of the breakdown:

• Fuel = RM2053.00 (Driving a Kenari-mah! Manual sum-more!)
• Parking = RM80.50
• Tolls = RM297.40
• Service/Maintanence/etc. = RM1403.30

I had also spent RM435.00 on cinemas. On average of RM10 a show, that's like a total of 44 shows a year! This qualifies me as a movie enthusiast!!!

Around RM580.00 was spent on literature.

Summary:

I had not planned well enough and ended up spending an approximate of RM1800.00 more than I should. Of cause this figure is not 100% accurate since my accounting was not prudent enough...but given the fact that it captured around 95% of all my expenditures it was a pretty good feat!

FY07 will be more prudent in accounting and planning. I have also included a better breakdown and budget allocation and reporting.

Finally, it is cool to know where my expenditures went.

Footnote: This report is not presented in full and covers only items which yours truly wishes to review. This report ONLY covers expenditures. Believe him when he says, "Overall, FY06 for me is in RED!"

About Statistics

Statistics! When I was a college undergrads, I really hated studying statistics. I even met up with a lecturer and dumped out my reasoning as to why I did not need statistics and math to made it through my undergrads programme and/or life.

It has been almost 3 years since I graduated. Now, I love statistics. Numbers tell stories. Thus I googled around and found that Malaysia has a Department of Statistics...OK...I am ignorant about this...do you know such one exist in Malaysia? Anyway, check it out: http://www.statistics.gov.my/index.php. It has been in existence since 12 October 1998!

What fansinates me is the World Population Clock. It is updated by the seconds. Here's the screenshot as of Thrusday, 21 December 2006 00:13:49 GMT+8:

We will revisit this World Population Clock again later.

The website does not offer much statistics except those of the country's economy. Well...something is better than nothing :). I am expecting things like the following but can't find any:

• Income distribution vs. age/race/states
• Internet adoption peneration in states
• Political figure approval rate
• Internet Banking adoption rate
• Job/Career preference
• etc...

Maybe this can't be found in the Department of Statistics of Malaysia. Perhaps these are trivial. Perhaps Malaysian are still developing their mentality on the usefulness of statistics. Perhaps we are ignorant on this...

Anyway, intro to Malaysia can be found at:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia
• http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/malaysia_statistics.html
• http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Asia/malaysic.htm
• https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/my.html

Ok, back to the World Population clock. The time now is Thrusday, 21 December 2006 00:30:28 GMT+8:

In about 15 min or so, world population increase by 2297 souls of which 18 0f them are Malaysians. Not bad! I wonder how they keep track of this. Worth a ponder, no?

Angkasawan is Astronaut

This is great news. Angkasawan (that's Malay Language for astronaut) is finally not doing something pathetic in space! The previous blog by me on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 entitled A Malaysian Thing mentioned that Angkasawan is ready to do some pathetic stuff in space.

I am glad in the news release today that says that the Angkasawan will be conducting some researches posted by the local tiertary bodies as well as research institutions though the result will not be published.

The institutes, which drew up the experiments and will supervise the Angkasawan, are Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Malaya, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Universiti Darul Iman, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysian Genome Institute, Aviation Medicine Institute, Sunway University College, Health Ministry and Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute (Mardi).

The experiments will be in the fields of life sciences, space medicine, physics education and food technology.

I am OK with this...provided on the food technology portion has nothing to do on how to make roti canai in space...

The 12 Days of Christmas Parody

Christmas is coming. The mood is in the air. Here's this year's best parody for the holiday season. Enjoy! Oh do pay attention to what happens on the 1st Day of Christmas as well as the 10th Day of Christmas. Enjoy...

Oh...just in case you are wondering what's my favorite for last year? Well, it was 'The 12 Pains of Christmas'. Enjoy it too...

Merry Christmas everybody!