This is the most expensive training I have ever attended, at well over RM7,000 for 5 days.

My instructor was Semi Yulianto, senior technical trainer/ consultant, EC-Council’s Instructor of the Year 2008 for Asia Pacific and a regular feature at hacker conventions in the region. He’s got one of the longest certification lists I have ever seen (23), including MCT, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNP and CHFI.

Semi was born in Pontianak, Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The exam’s held Friday afternoon, takes 2 hours, 50 multiple-choice questions (A to D), online via Internet. Hence if Internet down, can’t take the exam. I passed the exam at 98%.

It seems that EC-Council Phileo Damansara Time.com internet connectivity is rather unstable, some innocuous sites appear to be blocked.

There’s no exam for the LPT, I was informed that I need to pay USD500 (not included in the ECSA training cost, renewable yearly) and submit my CV and letter of confirmation from the police stating I do not have any criminal record to EC-Council USA.

Apparently Malaysia has less than 10 ECSA/LPT practitioners now.

The market rate for LPT work in Malaysia is RM2,000 per day.

For those budding hackers out there, turn your passion into a career. Being a trainer can be a lucrative profession. Semi mentioned that he works 2 weeks a month and gets minimum RM14K per month. If he does other work, that’s extra. Plus he gets to travel frequently to countries in the region.

At first glance, there seems to be 2 types of urinal in the men’s public toilet:

But looking closer, the ones on the right are not urinals at all:

Could’ve been easily mistaken for one though, don’t you think?

Therefore, I think these types of sinks should never be installed at places where one would partake of the amber liquid…

It was a great event, and amongst others, the Aseana Percussion Unit showed how to please the crowd. First, get down from the stage and play your instrument among them:

Then take it one step further: give the audience members your instruments, get them up on stage and let them play, in essence let them be temporary bandmembers:

Surefire crowd-winning tactic.

Echoing what others have said, one could’ve seen the concert without even paying anything, and the view from the first floor’s even better than the RM50 seats. Heck, freeloaders had a better view of some of the performers than those in the most expensive seats!

So, for the third festival, you know what to do…

Anyway, on the same level as the concert is surely Kota Kinabalu’s most expensive public toilet, the so-called Platinum Club VIP Toilet, where you had to pay RM1 to enter.

Sure enough, there are aromatics and LCD screens inside, and sinks in every room:

One complaint: it ran out of toilet paper…

Now I am not sure if Ferrari paid the owner of the car to display its name on the car, but I think the answer is most likely no.

Of course there are quite a lot of people who like to “decorate” their cars like this.

Perhaps without us realising it, we’re giving the relevant companies free advertising. And in many cases, we even bought the stickers to be stuck on our cars. So not only are we giving free advertising, we are paying for it!

Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

If Ferrari pays me money to advertise for them via my car, I would gladly envelope it with their stickers.

There are many varieties of food to try, and the place is very clean and parking is free as at the time of writing. There’s a playground for the kids too.

This eatery also probably has the city’s most high-end free-to-enter washroom, boasting undisputably the city’s most interesting urinal:

Yes, it’s the infamous urinal with a garden, and that’s right, you can see through from the other side of the glass, it’s not one-way

A common sight in Western countries perhaps, but in conservative Malaysia?

This urinal has taken at least one person aback.

1920: Got a forwarded email from a friend that said: “Just got the news that the Petrol Dealers Association has asked all petrol station across Malaysia to stop selling petrol/diesel on Thursday
(6/26) - close their station. The Ministry has called them for a meeting today to avoid all this but so far no news yet. So if possible fill up the tank on Wed.” So probably it’s best to avoid the madness now, and fill up tomorrow if necessary. Most likely the association and the relevant ministry will come to a compromise and everything will be back to normal come tomorrow.

1818: A senior member of the local media informed that gas stations owners are asking for additional commission. If not ALL gas stations in Malaysia are going to close for 8 hours on 26th June (Thursday).

1755: A brother informed that there are long queues at all gas stations in Tuaran and Tamparuli.

1702: A friend informed that he’s been queuing for 45 minutes at a station in Kota Kinabalu: rumour has it that gas stations are not going to sell any fuel starting tomorrow, for reasons as yet unknown.

1629: A brother informed that he heard many are filling up: rumours are making the rounds that gas station workers are going to stage a boycott. 4th of June 2008, déjà vu?

1438: first of countless blog entries on this matter featured on giuk.net appears

Martin Karl “Max Martin” Sandberg (above), 37 wrote, or co-wrote, the following worldwide smash hits:
- Britney Spears - …Baby One More Time
- Backstreet Boys - Shape of My Heart
- “Oops!… I Did It Again” by Britney Spears
- Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
- Bon Jovi - It’s My Life
- Backstreet Boys - Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely
- Backstreet Boys - Quit playing games with my heart
- Backstreet Boys - As long as you love me [one of their signature songs and to me the undisputed pop song of the year in 1997]

Jorgen Elofsson (above), 46 became a full-time songwriter in 1994, and wrote, or co-wrote, the following songs:
- Westlife - If I Let You Go
- Britney Spears - Sometimes
- Britney Spears - (You Drive Me) Crazy
- Il Divo & Tony Braxton - The Time of Our Lives (FIFA’s official anthem for the 2006 World Cup)
- Westlife - Fool Again
- Westlife - My Love
- Will Young - Evergreen [to me one of Westlife's best ever songs]
- Kelly Clarkson - A Moment Like This [this is surely a favourite at weddings]
- Gareth Gates - Anyone Of Us (Stupid Mistake)
- Gareth Gates - Say It Isn’t So

Now how about someone only slightly more famous in his time.

Music lovers will surely remember Giorgio Moroder, who, together with Phil Oakey had a big hit in 1985 with “together in electric dreams”. Well, Moroder wrote that number. What you might not know is that Moroder also wrote the following classics of the 1980s:

- Berlin - Take My breath away (1986)
- Irene Cara - Flashdance … what a feeling (1983)

Next up, Diane Warren (above), 52 who wrote:
- Celine Dion - Because You Loved Me
- Milli Vanilli - Blame It on the Rain
- Trisha Yearwood - How Do I Live?
- Aerosmith - I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing
- Belinda Carlisle - I Get Weak
- Debarge - Rhythm of the Night
- Laura Branigan - Solitaire
- Laura Branigan - Ti Amo
- Faith Hill - There you’ll be [Pearl Harbor]
- Bon Jovi - Stick to your guns
- Cher - just like jesse james
- Toni Braxton - unbreak my heart

Songwriters, be inspired!!!

Sex VCD exposes wife’s lesbian affair

A HUSBAND suspected his wife was having an affair with another man. He was wrong. To his shock, he discovered a VCD with explicit scenes of his wife having sex with a woman.

Harian Metro reported that the woman was the wife’s office colleague and the affair had been going on for the past few months.

The paper said the man grew suspicious when his wife came home from work with love bites on her body. He thought she might be fooling around with a male colleague.

He confronted his wife, who denied having an affair with any man.

A whole new light was thrown on the affair when the husband found the hidden VCD and discovered that his rival was a woman.

Source

Being a fan of sunsets, I don’t think I have seen one better captured on camera. Talking about sunsets, I think we need to slow down more and appreciate these amazing, huge “paintings” in the sky that lasts only a few minutes every day; I don’t think even Michelangelo could match these great frescoes of the heavens. In fact, on Sunday around 6.30pm while at Grace Point I saw this on the sky:

OK back to TV Smith: he also took some street photography that ranks among the very best I have ever seen, including a photograph of whitewater rafting in Kiulu while being watched by a buffalo.

Heck, he even managed to make Kampung Likas look beautiful!

I’ve had a few encounters like this over the years, in places like Kg Morodobou (Kota Marudu), Kg Libang Laut (Tambunan-Ranau border) and Kg Talantang (deep in the jungles of Kiulu).

One of my most memorable experiences is helping to carry musical equipment, including heavy amplifiers, guitars and loudspeakers through miles of muddy and mountainous jungle paths to a relative’s wedding reception in a remote village. Yes, people who live there definitely don’t need to purchase any strength equipment at all: you’d get your weight training whether you like it or not. Definitely no electricity there, had to use a generator. The “stage” was a bamboo floor simply put onto the ground. To top it off, it was raining heavily throughout the reception, the tarpaulin cover was leaking (rainwater was dripping onto the instruments!) and I slipped and fell at least once on the slippery ground, ruining my clothes. Truly Woodstock stuff.

Then at another reception several years later, I gingerly made my way downstairs after trying to sleep through all the chatter, only to find the stairs almost impossible to go through.

The latest kampung wedding reception I attended was last month, although it was not as extreme as my previous experiences.

At the usual receptions held in halls, restaurants or hotels, you probably won’t find the following:

The JKKK Chairman himself barbecueing wild boar:

Extremely loud band playing right next to the newlyweds’ bedroom, but this boy couldn’t care less:

Then I witnessed, for the first time ever at a wedding reception, the band performing Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. I only had a mobile phone to video the momentous event, but you get the idea:

If you’ve never experienced nightlife, kampung style, I recommend you try it at least once.