RuehYinn & Juleen @ blueepinkk.com

What do you do when you are feeling stressful and bored at the same time?

You read…yes, you read!! Just grab a book from your bookshelf and read. If you don’t have any book to read at home, just grab one from the bookstore, pay for it and read. Normally I sleep when I feel stressful and bored.

But if I still feel the same after a good and loOooOog sleep, I will read…

By now, you should know that I am currently very stressful and bored at the same time. So much so that I got myself 3 books today. And thanks for SL’s privilege card, these 3 books only cost me RM 75… and they aren’t any lousy books okay. Unbelievable isn’t it ? …

and the books…

I got myself:-

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb, who claimed you don’t need to have the skills and strategies to be successful. All you need is just luck and nothing else!

Blink by Macolm Gladwell, who claimed snap judgment can be far more effective than a cautious decision. When you need to make a decision, just use your instinct ! The power of thinking is when not thinking at all…

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, a book co - written by an economist and a Wall Street Journalist who explores the hidden side of everything like … why do drug dealers live their mothers, what makes a perfect parents and what do school teachers have in common with sumo wrestlers?

Why am I getting all those weird books? Frankly, I don’t know. But I think it’s always good to look at the other side of the coin. My FM, Mr. TC, always advice me, “Never accept the face value only” and “there are always two side of the story“. Hopefully by reading those books… I will become smarter and not …

becoming nuttier !

Anyway, please allow me to give you some tips on how to get cheap books from the Times bookstore at the Pavilion:-

- Firstly, choose the books that interest you

- Next bring the books to the counter. Don’t pay for the book just yet. Request for the Privilege Member form and fill in all the required details. The membership fee is RM20 for 2 years.

- Upon filling the Privilege Membership form, you will receive 20% discount on your 1^st purchase and RM 3 instant rebate. That is a lot of saving, my friend!!

- Lastly pay for your books and membership fee!

You will also get this card:-

Despite the RM20 membership fee, I think the membership is cool because you are entitled:-

- 10% discount off books and stationery with no minimum purchase at all Times bookstores in Singapore and Malaysia.

- 5% discount off wide selection of magazines at all Times bookstore in Malaysia only.

- Best of all, you get 10% discount off on food and drinks at the café. If I am not mistaken, the café are reserved for members only.

Go visit Times bookstore now. I am not promoting for them and I don’t get any commission okay. Just remember, don’t buy books to accumulate DUST ….!!

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Lessons that we can learn:-

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

~Mark Twain

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

~Charles W. Eliot

Eventually Fuel Saving Tips (Part II) has arrived. I know there has been a lot of request asking me to finish the Fuel Saving Tips’ series. So here you go my friends and my FM, Mr. TC. I hope you guys will enjoy reading. However, let me pre - warn you guys that, I never guarantee this tips to be logical…

Anyway, my one and only tip is to… migrate to Venezuela. If you do not know yet, gasoline in Venezuela is the cheapest in the world – 1/15 the price of a litre of bottled water, and 1/25 the price of a litre of milk.

So what’s the big deal RuehYinn? Let me show what’s the big deal…

Firstly,

Price of gasoline in Venezuela = RM0.16/liter

Price of gasoline in Malaysia = RM2.70/liter

Big Deal No 1: You’re paying whopping 16.875 times more than people in Venezuela !

Secondly, assuming you are driving a Proton Waja (fuel consumption of 9.0 km/liter), every RM100…

You can travel 333.33 km in Malaysia

You can travel 5625 km in Venezuela

Big Deal No 2: RM100 is only able to sustain your fuel consumption for 4 days ( approx. 1/2 week) in Malaysia but enough for you to drive in Venezuela for 4 months before the next refueling.

Don’t ask me about the road tax, car price and etc in Venezuela. I have no clue… But isn’t the gasoline price in Venezuela already very appealing for those that are so upset about the recent gas price increase?

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Alright, to add in some sweetener to my tips, allow me to convince you further why you should move to Venezuela…

1. Venezuela is a beautiful country. There are the snowcapped peaks of the Andes in the west; steamy Amazonian jungles in the south; the hauntingly beautiful Gran Sabana plateau, with its strange flat-topped mountains, in the east; and miles of white-sand beaches fringed with coconut palms on the Caribbean coast.

Originally uploaded by josemazcona

You have snow mountain, big jungles, beautiful beach and landscape, what else to complain?

2. This is more appealing toward the guys. Believe it or not, Venezuela is one of the countries that produce the highest number of prettiest women in the world. No, I am not talking about dumb blonde or dumb pretty. I am talking about women that are not only attractive but intelligent also. Look at the statistic below:-

As of 2007, best performing countries for MISS WORLD title are:-

As of 2007, best performing countries for MISS UNIVERSE title are:-

These table are taken from Wikipedia, so I assumed it is pretty reliable. But guys, please brush up your Spanish before approaching the beautiful Venezuelan ladies. Else, don’t come back empty handed to Malaysia and bash me up for convincing you guys.

3. And also my intuition tells me, you might be the few Malaysian that migrates over to Venezuela. So, in order to make a living, you could just open an authentic Malaysian buffet restaurant. Who knows? … because your product is a niche, you became the largest Malaysian buffet restaurant chain in Venezuela. You will be freaking RICH …$$$$$ ! Malaysia Boleh… show them our spirit and make us proud !

So do you have enough good reasons to migrate now?

What about you RuehYinn?

As for me, I have decided to stay in Malaysia. No doubt, recent gasoline price hike is hard to swallow but I believe the decision is inevitable. I would rather take a short term pain than having illusion that we’re somehow insulated by the rising price of crude oil. Let’s just hope that our government ( I pray really hard, alright?) will use the money coming from the saving on the subsidy to improve the nation. Ohh… I forgot to tell you, over subsidizing gasoline in Venezuela has caused the country to have too many cars; i.e. bad traffic congestion and government lack of funding to improve the country’s infrastructure…

NOW YOU DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT !!!!!

** If you are interested, click here for Fuel Saving Tips Part 1

I was about to write about my Fuel Saving Tips Part (II) until I saw the The Star’s today newspaper headline. The headline for June 3, 2008 is “NEW FUEL SUBSIDY” and “Govt to announce scheme tomorrow, say Pak Lah“.

I stopped for a while, deciding whether I should continue writing or not. I decided not to, simply because I wanna see what kind of new subsidy scheme the government is going implement and most importantly what are the rakyats’ response after the long awaited announcement. Who knows the announcement might cause me to re-consider my tips. However, I don’t think that is likely. In fact I think you guys will love my tips so much, that you all might just embrace my idea without any second thought.

So just stay tune for the Part II on Fuel Saving Tips.

Before I end this post. I just wanna let you guys know that, I am feeling touched and encouraged by you guys. You guys?…yes you guys the readers. You all are just superb. Look below:-

My blog has been in new record setting spree since May 31. As of midnight, I already have 94 views on my blog. To be frank, I am very happy each time I see record high hit but at the same time I am not convince that I will repeat the feat. But with you guys’ support, I have been hitting record high for the past 4 days.

Even I have to die now, I think I will die as a happy man and end up as a happy ghost…hahaha!

Anyway, from the “deepest” bottom of my heart, I wanna say thank you guys for your support. It does encourage me to continue writing. I have personal target actually, that is, if I continue writing for the next 6 months and consistently getting 250 hits everyday, I shall consider getting myself a domain and host it. It would be great if I can do that in the next 6 months. Now you know my target, so why still sitting around? Go spread the news about my blog….hahahaha.

If I have the opportunity I want my blog to be as “powderful” as kennysia’s and xiaxue’s blog. Imagine getting 17,000 - 20,000 hits a day. Wahhhhh……

Now leave me alone to IMAGINE !!…Shoooh…

Moral of this post:-

If you can imagine it, then you can have it!

Latest Update: Total hit for June 3 is 100.

As I was crunching the newly introduced “Reese’s Peanut Butter Pieces” candy in the office, I was wondering whether this chocolate will be affordable in the future. Anyway, the chocolate candy that I was talking about was introduced by Mr. Kar Fu (not that I wanna feature him all the time, but so happened he bought this delicious chocolate candy):-

Apparently, this super - duper - delicious chocolate candy is manufactured in Pennsylvania, United States. And I was shocked!! I was astonished to find out United States, a developed country still producing such a simple consumer product. And then, I was wondering how much does it cost for them to ship it worldwide. Fuel is involved when you talk about production and shipping. Come on, please don’t tell me you only chew and swallow and you never wonder how your food came about. However, look at the graph below:-

The oil price has increased more that 80% year on year. It has been the most talked about topic around the globe lately. The chocolate candy has inspired me to start a post on how to save on your petrol cost. I shall write them in ….. errr….hmm… just two (2) series. The first shall comes from others and the second will come from me.

Anyway, I came across this advice some time ago. From the writing it does sound logical, but since I am not a petroleum engineer, I would not know whether this is the ultimate truth. But what the heck, I shall share with you guys, anyway.

Picture originally posted by TPorter2006

Tip 1: Only buy or fill up your car or motorcycle in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Since, all petrol kiosks have their storage tanks buried underground, the colder the ground the denser the fuel. When it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening, a liter pump into you car in not exactly a liter. It was claimed 1 degree rise in temperature makes a lot of different. And almost all petrol kiosk do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

Tip 2: When you are filling up your gas tank, do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to the fast mode. Normally, the trigger has three (3) stages; i.e. low, middle, and high. When you are pumping on low speed, you are essentially minimizing the vapors that are created. All hoses at the pump have vapor return, therefore if you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes into you tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank, so effectively you are getting less worth for your money.

Tip 3: And never pump gas when your car is completely out of gas. The reason is simple, the more fuel you have in your tank, the less air occupying its empty space. Petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.

Tip 4: If you notice a fuel truck is pumping into the storage tanks, do not fill up your gas tank at that station. There is likelihood that the petrol/ diesel is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles at the bottom. Dirt in your car engine will decrease you car’s efficiency.

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They sound logical, don’t they? However, I do not know how much money you’ll save by following the tips above. I did experiment on Tip 2, and I can assure you it takes so long for me to fill up my gas tank that I can see the next driver waiting in line was scolding me in %^&#$#@. I don’t know, you guys go figure out what it means by %^&#$#@.

Again, I am not suggesting the tips above are the ultimate truth but it does add on to existing fuel saving tips such as:-

1. Do not drive with under inflated tyres;

2. Drive smooth and steady;

3. Do not sudden brake too frequently;

4. Do not wind down your window as you are driving;

5. Send your car for service as scheduled;

Blah blah and the list go on…..

Stay tune for the final series on this topic. Feel like taking a break and have a kit kat…. Talk so much also useless! And goodnight!

Photo originally posted by troutfactory

Tips by: Ramesh Patel

Edited by: RuehYinn (Patel?)

** Click here for Fuel Saving Tips Part II