Jaxon’s Review

Okay, it’s a good budget because it benefits me directly. I’m a diesel car owner — a 2.8cc pick-up truck — of which road tax is about RM1,480 a year in Peninsular Malaysia.

Now the government decided that the road tax for diesel car will be the same as petrol car. I’m not sure how much is the road tax for a 2.8cc petrol car. I’ve tried checking the JPJ website but could not fine find any information.

During my nearly three years stint in Singapore, I had also brought the car to the island state and all the things that I needed to know about the procedures, the charges, and even parking charges in areas throughout the island, are just a click away on the republic’s Land Transport Authority website.

Ah, come on JPJ. Please make the rate available for viewing online. Your website will be all the more informative if you do that.

On another note, I’m not sure if diesel car owners in Sabah and Sarawak will get to benefit from the announcement. The road tax for diesel cars in the two states is already low. I used to pay RM375 road tax a year for the truck when I was still driving it in Sabah.

Madame Monet and Her Son by Claude Monet

What makes you tick? Do you have goals?

If you do, how have you pursued them? Half-heartedly or relentlessly? What makes you pursue the goal relentlessly like hyenas bent on robbing the lions of their kills?

Come to think of it, do you tick at all?

Do you pursue anything at all in life or are you just drifting along, letting the tide of the day beats you around? I don’t.

Actually, I lied. I have goals but have not really pursued them they way a stubborn rottweiller pursued an intruder.

The thing is I just let the mind do the pursuing while I do the couch-potatoing.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci

A mind game

That is the problem with us sometimes.

We don’t believe in pursuing our goals physically and mentally; and believe even less in pursuing them unceasingly every moment of our waking life.

I wish that lightning would strike me

You know what? Sometimes I wish that a lightning would strike me.

A lightning that won’t be too strong to kill or paralyse me but enough to re-align the wiring inside my brain and make me a genius.

That way, I can accomplish my goals by the sheer power of my brain, like having the ability to comprehend the art of writing compellingly or compose music comparable to that of Mozart or produce paintings destine to be a classic like those of Da Vinci, Monet or Van Gogh.

But lightnings won’t strike to make a person genius. It strikes on its own terms.

So what does that leave me? Nothing, except to rely on the thing called the desire to pursue the goals.

Cafe At Night by Van Gogh

Man, you just got to believe in what you are doing

Sometimes, to keep on going, you’ve just got to believe in what you are doing because if you believe, you will work hard and if you work hard you will eventually achieve a portion, if not a major part, of the goals.

You will be relentless in your pursuit and you will rise and keep on going when you fall. Because you believe.

Opps… I lied, again

Actually, I lied about having lied to you just now. Actually, I’m pursuing a goal right now and I have been doing that day in and day out, thinking about how to achieve it everyday and every hour, except when I am engross with work.

I’ve been burning the midnight oil and ignoring the sleepy eyes and the fatigue mind to pursue a dream. Because I believe in the goal that I have set myself on achieving. That is the single reason, I now come to realise, why I tick!

Seventeen days to be exact without a blog post on Jaxon’s Review. The truth is I was down with a nasty fever.

I didn’t know what had hit me, although I was pretty sure it wasn’t dengue or that funny, tongue-twisting viral infection called the Chikunguya.

The tablets above are what the doctor had prescribed for my severe cough. In fact, I had asked for the strongest antibiotic he had in his clinic for I suspected that some mean worms were holing inside my lungs, but he told me I didn’t need the antibiotics. All I needed was medicine to bring the cough down.

Am still recuperating and only manage to summon my strength to resume blogging today, with my head still throbbing and my joints aching.

Which got me into thinking. Had I been a problogger — one who relies on blogging and blogging alone as a source of income — what potential loss of income I could have suffered during the 17 days of no blogging?

The issue still left me wondering. In the meantime, I’ve also found other use for the medicine. As a subject for my photography hobby.

The bullet ridden car. Photo by NST.

Hitmen on the prowl. A businessman was in critical condition when gunmen fired 30 shots at him at Taman Len Sen in Cheras yesterday. The pub owner had just driven out of his house in his Mercedes when two cars pulled up by his vehicle and the men inside opened fire. I’m staying in Cheras but not in Taman Len Sen.

I’m currently in the process of preparing a long report — perhaps the longest blog entry I would have ever written — about one particular issue that has been bugging me about the issue of blogging for money.

I’m still researching the topic and expect to complete the report in a week. In the meantime, if you are living in a particular locality in India, you don’t need blog to make money.

You just pee

PPP. Pay per pee. You just pee. That’s it, pee. And you will be paid 10 paise or an equivalent of RM0.77 each time you pee.

The RM0.77 reward is about the twice the amount I usually get per click from the Adsense ads on this blog. Meaning, I can earn more money peeing than blogging.

I can play some dirty tricks, like drinking a lot of water so that I can be sure of having had to pee at least 20 times a day.

Let see, 20 x RM0.77 = RM15.40 a day. Not bad for a pee. That is way above my Adsense income.

The whys and wherefores of peeing

According to a report in the Times of India, the move is to encourage people to use toilets and the urine collected is used for research, to test if it is a good fertilizer.

“In fact, many of us started using toilets for urination only after the ecosan (eco-sanitation) toilets were constructed in the area. Although it was novelty of the project that initially attracted many, people have also realized the health benefits and stopped using public spaces to relieve themselves.

“Now even children in the locality do not urinate in the open, thanks to the 10 paise incentive,” Times quoted S. Rajesekaran, 42, a lorry cleaner as saying. [Source]

Nevermind that I’m a Malaysian from Sabah, I still get to enjoy the free water in Selangor.

As I mentioned in earlier post, consumers in Selangor — those who receive bills from Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd — are given free water of up to 20 m3 per month or equivalent to RM11.40, starting with the June water bill.

The latest water bill I receied (see above) is RM6.84 but I don’t have to pay the amount because the usage is still within the 20 m3 of free water.

In some ways, the free water has helped cushion the hike in electricity tariff.

Starting today, consumers in the peninsular will have to pay more for electricity, that is if they use more than 200 kilowatt hour (kWh) per month.

Average users will have to pay around RM5-8 more

My average monthly bill is around RM70 a month under the old tariff of 21.8 sen per kWh and subsequent 28.9 sen per kWh unit. My household is using about 290 kWh per month.

Under the new tariff, I will have to pay about RM75 a month for the same amount of usage.

One little piece of good news, is that there will be no change to the rate for the first 200 kWh of usage.

The bad news is the charge per kWh unit will now be increase to 30 for the subsequent usage between 201-400 kWh.

Calculate your headache

Below is a rough estimate of our headaches, sourced from Tenaga Nasional Bhd website, assuming there are no drastic changes in the way we consume electricity.

Which category of users are you? If you are in the low-kWh type of users, the tariff increase won’t be too hard to take, especially if you are in Selangor because you now get to enjoy a free water amounting to 20 cubic metres a month or an equivalent of RM11.40.

Here is a screenshot, also from Tenaga Nasional website, of the new tariffs.

Too bad I don’t have the old ones. It would be good to make a comparison.

The government today announced the extention of petrol and diesel subsidy cash rebate to owners of private vehicles up to 3,000cc in the interior areas of Sabah and Sarawak.

But even with the new rebates, I’m still screwed. My car is 2,800cc but I won’t be eligible for the rebate because I’ve brought it to Peninsular Malaysia where I am currently working.

As you know in the peninsula, only cars up to 2,500cc are eligible for the rebate. So no matter what measures the government is introducing to lighten the burden of the people, I’m still not qualified to take it. It’s the case of head I lose, tail you win.

Man, I’m screwed. For me, there’s nothing that can mitigate the effect of the fuel price increase, except to swallow everything — lock, stock and barrel — and hope that my stomach could take it. Not even the cash rebates announced by the government can lighten the burden.

Here’s what the government said:

“Owners of cars up to 2,000cc, as well as pick-up trucks and jeeps up to 2,500cc, will get RM625 for each vehicle while motorcyclists with vehicles up to 250cc will receive RM150 each.”

But I don’t have a motorcycle and my Toyota pick-up truck has an engine capacity of 2800cc. In any which way, I’m screwed.

Tengah malam tadi barang naik lagi. Bukan alang-alang. Melonjak-lonjak sehingga tidak keruan. Kusangkakan subsidi sampai ke pagi, rupanya subsedih di tengah hari.

Jika beginilah keadaannya, dari kenaikan sampai keturunan, tiadalah kedudukan.