Election 2013: Lain Kalilah! – Part I

After exactly 4 years in power, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the dissolution of Parliament and general elections to be held on 5 May 2013. I was glad that general election was finally called but the problem was that I was scheduled to run a 10KM marathon at the Borneo Marathon to be held at Kota Kinabalu, Sabah!

Unfortunately for the organisers of Borneo Run, they did not anticipate the election day and had to reschedule the run. The organisers changed it to a midnight run (first time in Sabah!) on 5 May 2013 so that runners can return to their respective voting areas to vote after the run. Unfortunately, someone stole some detonators in Kota Kinabalu and the police advised the organisers to cancel the run! To avoid a terrorist attack like the Boston bombing, the organisers cancelled the run – when we were already in Kota Kinabalu! I am told that over 2000 runners traveled to Kota Kinabalu to run the Borneo Marathon.

Notwithstanding the bad news, I took the opportunity to attend some ceramahs in Kota Kinabalu City. Prior to that, I attended some ceramahs held at Happy Garden and Taman Desa, both fall under my constituency. The ceramahs were massive – perhaps a few hundred people. Ceramahs in this general election have turned to be a festive affair with hundreds and some even thousands attending.


At Happy Garden. Tereka Kok and Nurul Izzah spoke at this ceramah.


Taman Desa with Asalkan Bukan UMNO (ABU) ngo Harris Ibrahim


Some came prepared


Lim Lip Eng (Segambut candidate)

But the first ceramah I attended at Kota Kinabalu City was one by local opposition party, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), in particular by Melanie Chia. It was a small ceramah held at a small park near my in-laws place. She spoke in Hokkien, a dialect that I do not understand. Nevertheless, I managed to catch some of her messages when she put some slides on.


Melanie Chia’s ceramah.


Basketball court on the right XD

After leaving Melanie Chia’s ceramah, I headed to Pakatan Rakyat’s, national opposition parties collision, ceramah held at Foh Sang. It was not a ceramah. They were playing PSY’s Gangnam Style and Gentlemen! They were got people dancing there!


Gangnam style!

The ceramah continued after the song. There was a small commotion during the ceramah. President of SAPP, Yong Teck Lee tried to storm the stage after a speaker blamed him for the Project IC. The police were there to mediate the situation and Yong went back to his ceramah held one street away from Pakatan’s ceramah. I thought the police was trying to stop the ceramah because the ceramah played Gangnam Style and Gentlemen!


PAS Candidate for Tanjung Aru came with his entourage of tudong clad ladies holding PAS flags. It was a common sight to see Chinese waving the once feared PAS flags in this election.

I later stop at Yong’s ceramah. There were quite a lot of people – far much more than his fellow colleague, Melanie Cheah.

Sabah’s political sphere is quite different from Peninsula Malaysia. They have many parties which are not aligned to each other. 3 corner fights are normal. There is even a 7 corner fight!


This is how you campaign in Sabah!


Found this in my MAS flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

Since I didn’t get to run, I ended up eating non stop in Kota Kinabalu City. The next blog postings will be about food and thereafter the election results and my views about the results.

Samsung Laser Printer – SCX-3405

As some of you may know, I operate a paperless home office. Paperless here doesn’t mean “no paper” but less paper. I do not retain physical copies of my files and I scan all my hard copy documents before disposing them or returning them to clients. This saved me a lot of office space.

Paperless law firm is not a new concept. I’ve know many large international to local small firms doing that. In fact, I was trying to help the KL Bar to implement a paperless system.

I still print and photocopy documents. I currently use a worn out second hand photocopy machine, an old printer and a Samsung Monochrome Laser Multifunction Printer (SCX-3405).

The second hand photocopy machine is nothing to shout about. I rented it for RM90 a month. It breaks down once in a while but it will magically heal by itself after a few hours. But there had been times where the machine broke down while I was in a hurry. Thank god for back up printers.

The Samsung printer on the other hand is great. It’s a 4-in-1 multifunction device. I use it for personal and office use.


Surface fit for anything A4 size and below


Quick installation guide. Very, very easy. It’s plug and play!

It can print, copy, scan and fax. I normally use it to scan incoming documents (for archiving purposes). There’s a feeder on top of the printer which allows me to copy numerous documents at one go.

One great function about this printer is that it has wireless printing from mobile devices.

Couple of months ago, my firm had a little disaster.

My roof leaked couple of weeks ago after heavy rain. Many of my documents were damaged by water. Documents printed by the old printer were badly damaged. The ink faded! However, documents printed by my Samsung printer was okay as the ink did not fade.

Other than that, the water flooded my room and consequently my laminated floor was damaged. The power tripped causing a few electronics to short circuit. My Samsung printer was also exposed to the incoming water. Fortunately, it is still working after having a “bath”.

For more information on the Samsung printer, please visit Samsung’s page.

Think Party Thoughts! – Part II

After barely 5 months, my wife and Jessica’s little startup ThinkPartyThoughts, an online boutique partyware store, is now available at Sundays, Bangsar Village II!

Sundays is owned by the Ms Read family who owns Ms Read (well known plus size clothes boutique), Plan B and Ben’s Independent Grocer. Helen Read’s daughter bought their products and was interested in putting their products at Sundays. It’s a big breakthrough for my wife and Jessica as their little startup is just a few months old. Sales have picked up quite a bit. The ladies worked 24/7 to get their products out!

My Thoughts

This handcraft business is quite interesting to me. It’s a tedious job. My wife and Jessica spent a lot of their them putting things together. I help them out sometimes by doing no-brainer jobs like gluing things together. I usually give up within an hour. I could be spending an hour making products worth RM100 (just a rough estimate). However, my time cost for my legal services is about RM700 an hour. Thus, the work didn’t really interest me.

Of course, I have no control over ThinkPartyThoughts’ business but it doesn’t stop me from wondering how can one scale this business to a multi million dollar business. My wife has a book that says handicraft business doesn’t make millions but I beg to differ. So long there is a demand, millions can be made.

I think the most effective way to do so is to outsource the production of the handicraft. It could be to housewives or even our local kampung folks. We could pay them for each piece that they product (e.g 1 – 5 cents per piece). With an endless (rather substantially) supply of ready to sell products, one can have increase their distribution chain.

It goes without saying that distribution chain must be wide. Other than local retailers, I think focus should be given to the foreign purchasers who want to purchase high quality handicraft at a lower price. ThinkPartyThoughts products are in essence “western” products thus it appeals to Westerners too.

Other than that, ThinkPartyThoughts can pivot by offering to their distribution network by selling products of other aspiring handicraft entrepreneurs. The former can charge a commission for each product sold.

Well, easier said than done. Nevertheless, I think following this method the business can flourish faster and easier.


ThinkPartyThoughts has really quite name cards!

Lastly, ThinkPartyThoughts will be at the Markets@JayaOne on 18 May 2013! Details are below!

Time: 11am – 6pm
Venue: Jaya One, Section 13, No.72A,
Jalan Universiti,
46200, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor

Optimum Chiropractic & Physiotherapy Centre 

Remember the problem that I had with my heel? I blogged that I went to a Chinese tit tar to get it fixed.

It did work for a while but the problem persisted. Few months ago, I decided to go for western treatment and Anna-Rina recommended Optimum Chiropractic & Physiotherapy Centre to me.

The owner, Dr. Lee, took only few seconds to diagnose my problem. My painful heel was due to flat foot! He immediately recommended me to wear shoes inserts with arch support. I also changed my Crocs slippers to Birkenstock slippers which have arch support.

I’m glad to report that the problem is gone! I also got Dr Lee to sort out a muscle tear on my shoulder. He got it fixed within a few sessions. But it did costs me a bomb to fix my muscle tear – first session was RM150 whereas the remaining sessions cost me RM100.

Address
M-1-12 Plaza Damas (Hartamas Shopping Centre), 
Sri Hartamas,
50480 Kuala Lumpur

Website: http://www.chiropractormalaysia.com