Jan Leow's Blog Page

Should drink Farmhouse milk tho expensive; Marigold taste a bit weird

Milk Carton - Farmhouse milk and Marigold in my fridge

I found Farmhouse milk taste better though it is almost twice as expensive than Marigold milk. I know the milk prices has been hiking up unprecedented. If in order to keep price low by adding fillers into the milk, eventually it is going to taste weird.

Many food price in Malaysia has been soaring as much as 30%. This is way above the official CPI of 5% which is incorrect. Milk is no exception and has been going higher and higher month by month.

My colleague who has dealings with Nestle and Dutch lady often came and reported that they face very difficult price pressure from imported milk.

Milk processing nowadays is just not milk, but it includes additives some for enriching such as calcium to give it a marketing selling point. But sometimes fillers can be used such as silica, though they are inert and passing through our gut harmlessly they do nothing for the benefit except to lower pricing and remain competitive in the market.

I don't know what Marigold has put into their milk, but it sure taste funny. So whenever I felt like saving a couple of bucks and bought Marigold milk, I do regret as it didn't really taste like milk.

I guess the best way is still to pay for quality and get Farmhouse milk which perception wise felt more like real milk!


[20/1/2012 Note: about Malaysia inflation in relation to carton milk]
The official CPI or inflation rate in Malaysia is about 5%. But the actual is far higher since the official CPI can be manipulated (CPI rate is based on a basket of goods, some of which has very low or no inflation due to government controlled item, and those that soared, would be taken out of the basket so giving it a low CPI average rate eg housing and cars are not in the basket of goods) to fit the government propaganda machinery to attract foreign investment. For the man in the street, the CPI is meaningless. I recalled in early 2011 a carton of Marigold milk was RM4/carton. And early 2012, I saw Marigold was retailing at about RM5/carton, so that's about 20% increase in a year!

Device failure one after another! Must be Murphy's Law

Just my luck, I got several electronic device failure one after another. Must be Murphy's Law at work here! First after a battery change, my wife Toyota Wish car remote control didn't work. The Toyota service people should have known better than to change the car remote batteries. Now it needs to be reset in order to work.

That's probably minor compared to my car remote when I accidentaly shorted my Toyota Altis car remote while changing the broken casing. Should not have used a screwdriver to pry out the electronics. Now it doesn't work anymore.

Next was the old HP fax printer, the modem was strucked by lightning long time ago but still could be used for printing and scanning. While trying to print some documents, the roller was making a ruckus, and finally I got ink cartridge error. I could try buying a new ink cartridge since the current one was already very low on ink anyway. After giving it some thought better not. It could be more than just a faulty cartride because the roller was making such awful noise. Besides ink catridge are expensive and I would have wasted money if the HP printer would not print. So that' the end of life for this HP printer.

My good old Intel D915 GEV motherboard with Pentium 4 - 3 GHz system. Was passed to the church but now it won't boot! I wonder if reset the BIOS would make it work again.

And finally the church PC which I was attempting to reinstall Windows XP. Well some people weren't too keen on using Ubuntu Linux though it would be far more virus resistant than Microsoft Windows. So I got down planning to dual boot it. The partitoning went fine without a hitch. Installing Windows XP was a different story. First round I got boot error. Strange, tried reinstalling a second time and the PC just hung after the initial booting diagnostic start up screen. Tried several reboot still got the same "hanging there not going anywhere" leaving me scratching my head. It could be the BIOS going crazy on me. For now the PC is not working. If the BIOS goes, the motherboard is just another dead wood. Schucks! And this good old Pentium 4 Intel 3GHz with an Intel 915GEV motherboard is a rather good piece of hardware. I should know, I picked the parts myself when I bought it in 2005. But now it no longer works. Argh!

Looks like I will need some replacement hardware starting with a new printer like this Epson Stylus T13. Oh, well.



[update 15/11/11]

Fixing my Intel D915 GEV computer system



Spend the better part of my late nights fixing up the good old Intel D915 GEV motherboard PC. Apparently the hard drive died causing the whole system to freeze up. Hard drive kaput means just change the dead drive without having to purchase the entire PC system, because if the motherboard died, it would be a major replacement. Unfortunately due to the flooding in Bangkok, Western Digital plant is underwater, and that plant account for 50% of the world's hard drive supply.

Which means there is a shortage of hard drive in the market driving up the prices 100% or more! When last I check some vendors are selling at double and some at triple the price! And in All IT Digital Mall section 14 PJ, much to my indignation the sales guy didn't even want to sell to me and was reluctant to give me any price indication!

I'm not going to spend that money yet until Bangkok recovers and Western Digital production is back online. Fortunately I still got an old 40GB PATA IDE WD 7200rpm drive. Well it won't be as fast as a SATA drive, but it will have to do for now.

Working on public holiday

Should have checked my calendar before saying yes. So now I will have to do some work on a public holiday, today. Anyway, it could still be a good point and show willingness to work on off day. I do get a replacement leave for it which was not too bad. However, my timing with wife and son would be a little skewed for matching.

Anyway looking forward to another family time together next round. For now, show some work enthusiasm, hopefully would get into the good books of eccentric boss.

Bible always says work not unto man for they will have a tendency to let you down but instead, work as unto a worship to Lord and build your treasure in heaven.

For now, just be thabkful that I have a job, though it has poor direction, but I still able to sustain through all its misgivings and live through it to tell the tale and get an income from it!

Time for car wash! At Esso near Damansara toll

Looking through my car windshield while having my car wash at Esso near Damansara toll

Yeeach! Shouldn't have parked under the tree, it was splattered with bird droppings! So time for car wash!

When will city hall organise a crow shooting coz the population is increasing and now my car is very beautifully decorated!

Anyway it has been a long while since my last car wash however being a holiday weekend, most car wash centre around my house has packed for the weekend. Fortunately manage to find one at the Esso station just after the Damansara toll exit.

Fortunately the queue wasn't too long as many people has gone for some holiday somewhere or balik kampung to see their family. Usually car wash centers are packed during weekends but this time round was rather short.

My car washed and after back home applied the Rain-X for rain repellent. Most likely as luck would have it (in my experience) it always rains after you have washed your car! Haha!

Cheers!

MPSJ 10km Run 2011 Route Map and Event

Time to go for MPSJ 10km Run. Got the form and now signing up for it. It's been awhile since I last ran for 10km after laying off from running. Initially I went for 7km for the last two races, and this time round the race for my category is 10km. So it would be good to see if I can stretch to 10km this time round.

MPSJ 10km Run 2011 route map

As usual the race will start from the MPSJ grounds and go around the Subang Jaya area and then back to MPSJ. I'm not a fast running so I would most likely take about >1 hour to complete the race.

The run will be on:
Sunday, 4th December 2011
Flagging off at 7am in the morning
Starting point: Kompleks Sukan Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya (MPSJ)

Might be a little tough for me though I hope I would be able to complete the race within the allotted time frame!

Baby 17 Months Old

My baby is 17 months old! And according to Baby Centre, "you may notice baby ability to do things by himself such as undressing herself, brushing her teeth without your help and tenderly nursing her dolls and stuffed animals. She's learning how to take care of herself, and others and she'll refine this ability as she gets older."

Well, he still a long way off for that. But I did notice he is asserting himself and wants things his way or he will throw a tantrum or fake cries. Can't be giving in to whatever baby wants as that is a sure way to spoil him. Loving him is sometimes requires doing some tough love, as he would need discipline. Because in future, a disciplined person would be able to take care of himself as well as others.

Ady boy beginning to assert himself and wants his way. I think time for discipline. Any suggestion for toddler this young?

Hmm... Ady boy beginning to assert himself and wants his way. I think time for discipline. Any suggestion for toddler this young?

It would be good to start early otherwise it will become difficult when he gets older. Yet on the other hand we would like him to explore the world and learn new things for child development.

Must be a way to balance what he can and cannot do.

Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android