The Personal Blog of Benny Ong – bennyong.com
Oct 25
It has been indeed a month long birthday celebration for me 
October Babies
In the office today, it is my turn to join in the on going monthly team birthday celebrations.
Me Preparing The Cake
Yipeee!
Food… Glorious Food!
There was abundance of food to eat and the most amazing one was the Jelly Cake which looked like plastic. There was a mix of flourescent colours. The alphabets read “Happy Birthday October Babies” and look like an arrangements of blocks used in nurseries.
The Amazing Jelly Cake
I swear the cake will glow in the dark if we switch off the lights. Regardless, it did taste very good. I took a huge slice home to share with my family. Well, it has been a great week for me so far and I can’t wait to be in Langkawi for the early part of next week.
Stay tune for more updates!
Cheers!
Oct 23
If you ever dreamt about working or living in the states, make it happen by submitting your application for the Diversity Visa Program. This allows minority migrants to apply to get a Green Card that will allow you to stay and live there. The official site is http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/. It is free to enter and the submission for 2009 entry are closing on December. Uncle Sam has restrictions on certain nations but Malaysia is cool.
Did you know that there are scam sites that charge for such services? They will compile your submission and charge you a fee to submit it to the above link. Well, might be a business idea for you but why make this type of living when there is so much else to do.
Enter now and good luck!
Oct 22
Just got this in my office mail account and believe it is worth sharing. Wasted two minutes of productivity on it but it is cool. Well, share your results but please note that this will only work in on Malaysian mobile phone numbers:
Guys,
take your handphone and try the following steps:
– key in the 1st 3 digits of your phone number (not the 01X) onto the calculator. – multiply that by 80 – add 1 – multiply that 250 – Add the last 4 digit of your mobile phone number. – Again, Add the last 4 digit of your mobile phone number. – minus by 250
– divide by 2
Look at the results. It should show your phone number…interesting!!
One of the coolest thing ever but I believe it should work with any random 7 digits I guess but haven’t tried.
Benny Ong
Oct 20
It has both been a while since I went to the cinema and reviewed a movie. So, I will start with the flick that I just caught today at the recently refurbished TGV in Sunway Pyramid. (Have you checked out the new wing in Sunway Pyramid? It is recommended)
The movie of choice was the Last Legion because the trailer seems promising and Aishwarya Rai was in the movie as well.
The Movie Poster
Set in Roman times, it tells the tale of evacuating a young Caesar to Britannia for refuge after the empire was attacked by a strong force of the Barbarian King. All allies of the Roman Empire has turn down their support to the young and they are left to defend themselves against a raging army of barbarian. Aishwarya Rai stars as Mira, a middle east warrior that assigned to help out. Don’t let the story board or spoiler as the movie failed to bring the novel to life.
Aishwarya Rai as Mira
The whole movie seems amateurish and it wasn’t the best acting ever displayed. A quick search on reviews of the movie revealed that my take is consistent with industry critics. The fighting scenes were poorly choreographed and the angles used to film the scenes were bad. I am never too picky about movies which indicate that this is filmed in an intolerable level.
As a summary, it is thumbs and toes down. Give this movie a miss and download it (legally of course :)) instead and keep it for those sleepless nights. You can thank me later for this piece of advise.
The website itself is as disappointing as the movie. Only an image file with a link to the trailer. Check it out for yourself.
Well, let us hope that if there is ever going to be a sequel to the movie (the ending seem to indicate such) for it to improve greatly.
That’s all for now. Bye all.
Oct 15
Ice Cream CakeI am totally spoiled for this weekend with a non stop celebration of over 4 days for my birthday. I am sure it will all end today though. However, I woke up this morning (check out my messy yet stylish hair) to blow out candles of an ice cream cake that we got off from Baskin & Robbins in 1-Utama. The cake tasted marvelous and was very rich.
Later in the day, I went to Cheras for lunch and was back home to start installing my wireless router that I bought yesterday from the digital mall. I first setup my UPS whereby my cables still needs some tidying.
The wireless router from Net Gear certainly had better installation guides than Aztech. The installation took less than 20 minutes and now my whole house is finally covered with wi-fi. A final end to my struggle of getting the wireless connection up (due to my procrastination as well :)).
Can’t believe the long weekend is now over and can’t wait for what is in store for the week.
Benny Ong
Oct 14
My modem went dead after the heavy rain and I remain puzzled to what has happened as everything was connected through a power surge protector. I later realized that the source could have been through my phone line instead. It was no harm as I wanted to replace my faulty wireless modem and router from Aztech anyways.
It was already in the pipeline to drop by the Digital Mall in PJ SS14 to get new hard disks and getting some additional gadgets should be no harm.
The Digital Mall in SS14
The place itself was no different from Low Yat Plaza and the drive there was certainly more pleasant. There were countless of floors with techie goods and my all time favourite IT Hypermart All I.T was situated on the top floor. I am always impress by the amount of stock they keep and it being displayed openly instead of asking someone over the counter like many other computer shops do. This outlet is definately a blessing as I hate driving all the way to Low Yat in the city center where it was the first All I.T I visited.
Just in case you need a map to get there which I extracted from their official website:
The only thing I disagree with the whole mall is the shops that charges consumers an additional 2% for paying with credit cards. I believe the sellers should take on the costs and not the consumers. I know there are certain merchant costs involved but if I were to run a business, I would calculate it in a way whereby I would absorb the costs and not my customers. I agree that there are rooms for arguments here but aren’t we moving towards a cashless environment whereby transactions through card should exceed spending cash like many advance countries?
Well, enough said before I get to deep into my views. I can’t wait to install my newly acquired purchases.
Benny Ong
Oct 13
What would be a better plan than Melaka to kick start the long weekend. I had mixed feelings on how the traffic would be like because of the holidays but braving it turned out to be well worth it because it was smooth sailing all the way. The traffic reports of it being jammed packed in the wee hours might have resulted the roads to be clear on the first day of the Hari Raya celebrations.
The drive to Melaka took about just under two hours whereby I finally saw MMU after hearing so much about it. I picked up Song Yia’s brother and friend before heading to the city center for A Famosa. There were not much additions since I was last here about 4 years ago but the only difference was I am now behind the wheels guided by a local.
On Top of St Paul’s Hill
A Famosa Fort: The Most Photographed Landmark in Melaka
Check Out My Big Cannon
It is also worth mentioning the newly discovered wall of the old fort which is just a stone throw away. There are plans to reconstruct the whole wall to it’s original setting. Let’s see how long that will take.
The Site of The Old Wall
The weather which was perfect for walking did not last long and we had to seek shelter in McDonalds opposite Melaka Zoo. Looking at the rain which did not showed any signs of slowing down, we gave up and headed back to our newly made friend’s house to watch Apocalypto directed by Mel Gibson.
After a short nap and refreshing shower, it was time for dinner. We headed to the Portuguese Settlement for food along the beach front stalls. The food was of decent quality and price. After dinner, we hanged out at Wings Music Café before making our drive home to KL.
All and all, it was another day well spent!
Benny Ong
Oct 12
I arrived in the office to be greeted by decorations on my desk with my pictures imposed on different characters. (Thanks to my dearest Song Yia for all the hard work). It was certainly a great start to a very eventful day. Soon before noon, we all gathered at the pantry for the birthday cake. It was a cheese cake which tasted very light which was perfect for the stomach before lunchtime.
Birthday Cake @ The Pantry
Posing With Fellow BTAs
We headed to our usual place in Kuchai Lama called Big Tree because where the eating place was under. We all feasted on a variety of dishes. It was surely very heart warming to see the whole bunch of amazing friends there and what a privellege it is to be working together with them. I always live by the principle of friends work better which is definately a bonus especially in the organization that I am in. It was back in the office later whereby all my presentations and conference calls went on well.
We soon headed to Daorae in Puchong for Korean BBQ. It is my second time but I am glad that JC came along as she finally made sense on how to dine. My family and I were at the same restaurant but the Taipan outlet and were clueless on what we were doing there. Regardless, the service we received was of unmatchable and the staff genuinely seemed polite and happy.
Korean BBQ for Dinner
Looking back at the day, it is scary that 1 year has passed and I can proudly say that it was a good year spent. No regrets! Just for fun, this post was what it was like a year ago.
Once again, it was all thanks to Song Yia for all the effort put in.
Benny Ong
Oct 11
I heard the door bell and there it was the rider for the parcel company, GDex. He mentioned my name and I nod as acknowledgement.
There it was on his hands, a parcel with my name on it. I instantly knew it was a prize from Astro looking at the address of its origin. I quickly ran in the house to open it up and there it came, Amy Winehouse’s album Back To Black (Malaysian Edition) worth RM 29.90 from Universal.
I was trying to recall which competition that I have participated as I haven’t been that active in the arena lately. The only ones I know of are from radio sites whereby lead me to discover the following page on Mix.fm website.
Although the value of the prize is small, it did cheered up my day. It is like an early birthday gift. It has been ages since I won any contests and I believe this is a start to the many more amazing competitions that I am going to win.
Take care all.
Benny Ong
Oct 10
My friends at the office was talking about this over lunch sometime back. I also had the chance to see their blog post on the topic which attracted me.
The website made to promote the upcoming movie The Golden Compass due to be released in Dec is using a smart way to reinforce it’s campaign. They are having a some sort of personality test that will apparently generate your daemon that matches to your answers.
Funnily enough, I did it the last time and the results matched the second time although I believe there were varations in my responses. They ask you a string of 20 questions and there are logical calculations behind that will determine your daemon.
Try it for yourself and let me know what are your daemons and honestly, it makes a great blog post I would say
– Benny Ong –