Grey November

Come 1st September, petrol stations in Malaysia will introduce RON95 fuel at RM 1.75 and scrap RON92.

The fuel we are using right now, RON97 will be priced much higher (presumingly 25cents more than RON95). Now thats the Govt’s way of screwing you sideways, nice and deep into the ribs where it hurts the most.

Since I wouldn’t be around to get skru-ed next month, I paid a visit to BHP Kayu Ara to get a taste of RON95 before hand.

And yes, RON95 selamat digunakan untuk keretamu unless you drive some sports sedan.  Refer to your petrol cap or manual.  Performance and consumption is minimal, at best.  So stop complaining.

Generally, my car drinks around 45L – 60L of petrol at every pump interval.  Simple maths will compute :

45L x 1.80 (existing RON97 price) = RM 81.00

45L x 1.75 (RON95 price) = RM 78.75

45L x 2.00 (RON97 after RON95) = RM 90.00

So yes.  Continue to support BN in the next general elections please.

Always wanted to do a “How To” on this.

Got a set of front disc brake pads to replace the thinning set on my ride.

Things got really messy and rather complicated/easy, depending on how you look at it.  So the “How To” was aborted =p
Just remember guys, that there are only two things separating you from the tarmac; tires and brakes.
Save on other stuff, but please do get quality products for these. Your life does depend on them.
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bapak borek, anak rintik. happy father’s day dad!

Yet another DIY today.  This particular one is long overdue.

My kereta’s kepala harimau hilang for a few months now.  Buta tanggal one rainy day.  Head over to any Brother’s outlet in your vicinity to get another Made-In-Taiwan/China/Bolehland spare for roughly RM15 per piece.

Pyring the emblem out is a straight forward process, just use a screwdriver.  The left over double sided tape on the bonet is a bitch though.

Use double sided FOAM tape.  Before taping the emblem on, remember to clean the residue tape left on the bonet using a blade and kerosene/polish.  Careful with the paint job though.

Celaka imitation product again is just THAT much smaller compared to the original (notice: the black marks).

Now, the belakang emblem needs a bit more effort to change.  Pop your boot and unfasten these 4 nuts using a spanar.

Basically you are removing your license plate lighting assembly.  Just in case the previous image doesn’t give a good view on where the nuts are, see above image.  While you are at it, give your car a good wipe after stripping it. =)

The back emblem has a screw holding it on.  Remove it and you know how to reasemble everything.

Anyway, tomorrow is dad’s birthday.  Like dad, like son huh?

PS: Sorry for the horrendous retouching of the number plates.  And my plate is not BOLT HOLE x4 =p

I’ve developed this penchant of DIY-ing practically everything, no thanks to my knack of breaking alof of stuff.

The most recent is my rear right tail lights (thank you palm tree-chai and my own bodohness).  Guess this is going to be my 1st of hopefully many better situation HOW TO.

Step #1:

Get a replacement tail light assembly from kereta potong/spare part shops/aftermarket shops whichever suits your tastes and budget.  Newer models/aftermarket assemblies may/may not be compatible with the electrical wiring set-up.

Step #2:

Open your boot and open the plastic cover shielding the electrical portion of the assembly.

Step #3:

With care, slowly remove the electrical board from the assembly.  Care not to break the fragile plastic clip-like thing that holds the board onto the assembly.

Step #4:

Using a suitable sized open end/ring spanar, loosen the three nuts holding the assembly to the body.

Remove the assembly from the body with/without brute force.

Replace the old assembly with the new unit.  In my case, the “Made in Taiwan” assembly came with rubber seal that was too thick.  Removing the original assembly seal and exchaning the thick seal with the old one seemed to work better.

Step #5:

Cautiously insert the electrical board with bulbs back into its position.  You dont want to break a few bulbs in the process.  Make sure the board sits properly.

Step #6:

Last but not least, test the assembly before and after finalizing the DIY.

THERE YOU GO!

Now, peculiar minded people such as myself would go get a good quality yet much lower priced imitation product.  Here are two setbacks of non original parts in this case.

Setback #1:

There is a 0.5cm gap at the top portion of the assembly.  Nothing serious as any water will then flow down out, avoiding electrical wiring.

Setback #2:

The new assembly seems to be a tad short on the right side.  Will have to take another look at this, perhaps could be the assembly is not seating correctly.  A quick check shows that imitation product is of a marginal difference in dimension.

This past whole week I was greeted with nothing but negativity in whole. That aside for the time being, I was in Miri last week for a couple of day to go through the Shell Recruitment Day.

This picture turned out to be the only nice picture in my trip.

The flight to East Malaysia was decent enough, no frills from Air Asia making up for the lack of legroom in the A320. In total the flight to Miri Airport took just slightly over 2 hours without much turbulence.

Sorry for the poor stitching.

Miri town is a peaceful one. In comparison to KL, congestions here are nothing, maybe perhaps of the non peak hour traveling schedule that I had to adhere to. One thing I noticed that there wasn’t any bus services around. Taxis were buzzing around like usual though.

The Shell Recruitment Day was held across Miri River in the Piasau Camp, or as locals would call it the Shell Camp as many expats stay in the estate like bungalow units. The final stage interview took place in Piasau House No. 100 where the it was the ex-residence of the Managing Director.

Piasau 100 fronting.

The Piasau 100 was turned into a meeting place and for SRD purposes since Shell began having 2 Managing Directors and the both of them can’t share the house no more.

Piasau 100′s living room which is around the size of the entire floor plan for a low cost house.

Here I met Cheah (Mech), Chin Wen (Mech), Naguib (Mech), Seow Kim (Chem) and Zaid (Chem). They were a pleasant bunch even though half of us were undergraduates and the other half were already in their respective industries.

4 central units make the freaking hall icey cold.

All six of us there were pondering on the 4 central units in one living room. Too much money to fling about perhaps Shell?

Minibar outside the living room on the back of the Piasau 100. Further back in the coastal shore.

The whole SRD was a individual assessment interview without any competition what so ever with the other candidates. From the Civil Engineering line, I was limited to not many technical aspects except for Discipline Engineering (Structural Design), Environmental, Well Engineering (Offshore) and perhaps Logistics.

Thank you Kak Dayang for coordinating the SRD Miri

In SRD, all candidates are assessed on 4 criteria’s; Capacity, Achievement, Relationship and Technical [CAR(T)].

Skipping the boring parts, I got a call 2 days after SRD and I was not given an offers as I didn’t pass the SRD on the technical part. All 6 weren’t offered.

In my absence in Miri, one of lecturers decided to give us a river development project that includes a dam, power generation turbine and a resort. The sad part is that most of the works are Civil works when I am the only Civil undergrad in my group of 14 Electrical undergrads.

On a even sadder note, my car was scratched on the left hand side and repairs for my rear right absorber bush and front driver lower arm will cost me in excess of RM 500 when I decide to get it fixed sometime next week.