Reno & Decor Can Kill

I just realised that renovation does cost a bomb! Like, a huge C-4 bomb to your money coffer . if you intend to have the modern chic look, as though a designer himself has put some touch to your home, be prepare to fork out a big lump sum.

Nowadays we see magazines showing how to decorate your house depending what mood you want to set it to be: modern, retro, feminine, you name it. And it always looked so nice from the glossy page isn’t it? It makes you yearn for something similar too isn’t? I know I do.

Apart from going through magazines and numerous googling session, I finally understand that it is not easy to build your “dream home”. Unless you have a plush bed of cash waiting at your beck of call. It is definitely not likely, if you have a budget to adhered to.

Let me break down to you my result of early research into reno & décor:

Bathroom

If you were thinking to get a chic modern bathroom (think white small cabinet with small white porcelain sink, white toilet bowl & mirror) that will easily set you AT LEAST RM2k back. Oh, I haven’t even look at the bathtub price.

Now think again if you have two or three toilet that you want to renovate. Naturally you can change the faucet design to any other that they have, but that too is a cost, mind you.

Kitchen

Don’t you think range cooker is all in the rage nowadays? I do. In fact, after having been using it for quite some time in oversea, I came to adore it. I was thinking of getting one, but then when I take a look at the price, I almost had a heart palpitation. A range cooker with hood can easily set you RM6k back. And I am looking at the cheapest here.

My colleague told me, the metal sink with two partition for washing costed her RM600!

Now, I haven’t even been checking out the price for custom made kitchen furniture yet. You know, those cabinet doors that don’t bang upon closing, Chic modern design with the colour of your choice. But I was told, be prepare to fork out twenty grand for it. Again, my blood pressure shoot up like the geyser.

Electrician and plumbing work will cost about RM4k.

Retiling

Let’s say you bought a pre-owned house and you hated the sight of the floor tiles. After all, big tiles is in the rage now as compared to small tiles. A quick quotation told me it will cost approximate RM7-8k.

I forgot how much it cost for a build in wardrobe though. I guess my mind starts go hazy after seeing all the cost involved just to decorate a place to call home.

Furniture

A simple 3 Seater sofa cost about RM2-5k (depending on the brand & design, material: fabric? genuine leather? bycast leather?)

A bed frame with a relatively good mattress cost about RM2-5k too, depending on the brand,size, thickness etc.

Nightstands, cabinets are not that costly, but it will probably cost you about RM1k?

Oh did I mentioned, the above cost is only for a tiny condo? I shudder to think of those Semi-Ds.

Initially, I was dreaming of getting a custom made shoe rack and a daybed. But now I have soberly shelf it to the back of my mind.

Haze Made My Mind Go Hazy Too~

Damn the haze!!!

I am back to feeling sick again!

For more than a week, I was constantly at war. My immune system was battling with viruses so rapidly that I have to keep adding “back up troops” 3 times a day.

It started with the feeling of hot. I knew I was feverish then but I persevere on. I continue to go to work like normal and pop panadol in due time. Very quickly, my fever subsided.

But Mr Cough lingers on. For a week, I was coughing and coughing and coughing so badly that I’m beginning to feel embarrass to go to work. I wouldn’t want to spread the germs to all albeit “sharing is caring”. though I don’t think any of my colleague will be particularly happy if I do

I tried my best to cough gently and, less noise, less frequently. It kinda works because not much people realised that I was even sick. It is either I’m too insignificant to be noticed or I managed to masked myself pretty well.

Unfortunately, I am someone who hates to take cough syrups. I can self-prescribe myself medications, but I just wouldn’t touch the cough syrup. Only for cough alone, I would turn to Chinese medicine. Normally, I am not a big fan of Chinese medication due to my mistrust of their credibility however, for cough, I personally think that swallowing black pills is so much easier than swallowing *raspberry* cough syrup.

Yuck!!!

Anyway, just when I thought the worse is over and I have won the battle, the taste of victory that still lingers in my mind  suddenly vanished.

Come Monday, and here I am, sick again.

I woke up and my throat felt parched like sandpaper. Then when I drove to office, I find the weather much too gloomy and instantly I knew that the haze has taken a toll to the worst. A few hours confined in my office cubicle had me feeling rather heaty and I just knew it. I knew I’m having fever all of a sudden.

Drink more water. I know.

I had been drinking tonnes of water but it doesn’t help. Not my fever nor my sore throat.

Throughout the day all I’ve been thinking was to go home and rest.

Naturally I didn’t do that, simply because I already spend a better part of the day at office. If I were to go for MC, it’s kinda a waste IMHO. So I tell myself that I will persevere until end of the day, and if I am still feeling shitty, I can then go to a doctor and get myself a MC for a good rest the next day.

Insurance Agent Sux!!!

Can someone please tell me honestly what does an General Insurance agent does? Yup, I am talking about car insurance agent.

Truth to be told, I have no idea at all. None. Apart from collecting money for insurance renewal, very promptly I may add, what else do they do?

Aren’t they the one knows best of laws and regulations and procedures and stuff when it comes to claims and accidents and all? Aren’t also they are supposed to give us the best advice/guide us on how to handle/proceed when it comes to the moment in need?

In my fantasy world (I know it is a fantasy now for even putting hope in agents!) I sincerely believed so. But now I know better. Apart from taking commissions and protecting their company’s pocket, they don’t give a damn to any policy holder.

Sadly, this happened to my family. My brother met with an accident early last year and subsequently a lot of things happened which I will not elaborate here…when we refer to our agent to make claims, then a lot of issues came up. Finally at one point, when my brother enquire further, the answer he get is “I don’t know”

Like is this even acceptable for an agent to say “I don’t know”? Like, can’t she (yes, a mature lady) find it out? Check with company or such?

No. She didn’t think so. In the end, my brother has to solicit a lawyer to act on his behalf to make claims on the party at fault. Naturally, once lawyer is thrown into equation, everything settled smoothly.

And promptly.

Oh, and now the agent says, since we have solicitor lawyer to make own claim, this has nothing to do with the insurance company anymore. To put it bluntly, this is not part of her job scope anymore. Her work is done! Though I don’t know what did she do in the first place.

Another case, again my brother met with an accident late last year, and the repair cost plus lost of use is claimed on the party at fault too. In order not to tempered with my car’s NCD (yup, he was driving my car then), we have to pay upfront to the service center, and then claimed back from the party at fault.

This my friend, is deemed not part of our agent’s jurisdiction either. According to her, if we want to expedite the payment and such, we need to chase them ourselves since we are not claiming our own insurance company, but as a third party claim.

So it means, all the endless phone calls to service center and also the other party insurance company is to be borne by ourselves. This has nothing to do with our agent.

It has been more than half a year and we have still yet to receive any payment. Through the wonder of Google, I did find out from forums that it takes forever to get paid and such hence most dubbed insurance company as leech – because they are all bloodsuckers!

Now back to square one: What does a General Insurance Agent do again? It seems like quite a lot of things are not “fallen under their jurisdiction” anyway.

Perhaps its just me, but I surmise that my agent sucks.

BIG time!!!

Me, an IT geek?

I am so very proud of myself. And also to whomever that create the wonder of world wide web, as well as Google. With it, I can do magic as well.

Just take for example, last week I have some difficulty accessing to my online 2D game. For some unknown reason to me, my laptop just failed to access to the web server, despite numerous attempted to uninstall, reinstall, not to mentioned copy the entire file from another computer.

It can function well on my bro’s computer, but not my laptop. That kinda make me depressed for like, nearly a week. The depression sunks deeper especially during the time when there is double exp event going on.

Just when I thought, enough is enough! I gotta take control of the situation myself. So I called up my friend, who’s a genius in IT see if he can find out the root of my depression. But alas, my friend is not free. About to embark on a weeklong holiday escapades with family.

For a short moment, I was thinking, “oh well, it’s okay, I’ll just wait for another week to fix my situation. No biggie”

But then my itchy backside gets the better of me. Out of some spur genus, I went and googled online to see if I can fix this mess myself! After several failed attempt at searching at the wrong area, I finally found it.

I finally found the “cure” to my depression. It was unbelievably easy, once you know how, and why. It was just some stupid security pre-setting from Window Vista which I have to manually made some changes to.

Seriously it was that easy. Just a few clicks away and voila! I can play my beloved game again.

Now, I am always eager to go home after work just to continue my game. Call me a game junkie if you must, but my current addiction will last me for a while.

p/s: my laptop is not designed for game, plus it’s like, 4-5 years old? So the RAM cannot support it to the fullest. I was toying with the idea of getting a new monster CPU, but then, reality bites! We are talking about moolah here-.-“

Something that I seriously lacked off right now.

Darn!