This is to wish all my Muslim readers a Happy Hari Raya Adil Fitri tomorrow and thereafter. For my non-muslim readers, Happy Holidays to you too. I am in a holiday mood already looking at the photos and in a mood for some satay or ketupat. Incidentally, I have been invited by one of the company staff for a Hari Raya celebration in his house and he has given out Hari Raya cookies baked by his enterprising wife to most of the office workers in the office and one for me too. Of all the staff around, he has the best personal relations, remembering us during this festive season. I hope the balik kampung rush will not see too many accidents and fatal deaths like last year.

With The Love Guru, you can tell Meyers is trying to create another success along the lines of Austin Powers, but failing miserably. The thing about Austin Powers was despite being a dumb comedy, the movie had a likable, fun protagonist. In Meyer’s latest outing, we get the Guru Pitka, a Charles Manson look-alike who has an obsession with penises. It’s somewhat fitting that he resembles Charles Manson, a notorious cult leader, as by the movies end I had a strange urge to kill myself. Not only is the Guru creepy, he’s also very unfunny. Whether he’s making lame puns about “life” or talking about penises, he never manages to elicit any laughs whatsoever. It could be that his jokes are just bad. Certainly using jokes straight out of a children’s joke book isn’t a recipe for success. It could also be the fact that Meyers is so desperate for a laugh, he himself laughs at every joke and continuously looks at the audience, attempting to entice them to laugh along with him. You get the sense that he realizes the jokes are unfunny and the glances at the audience are his last failed attempts at getting a few laughs. Guru Pitka’s character development just adds injury to the insult. One minute Pitka is being hailed as a spiritual healer who lives to help people and the next minute he’s insulting a midget for no particular reason. There’s no consistency to the character at all, which is what this movie is missing in comparison to Meyer’s last few. Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers felt like real characters, where the Guru doesn’t really have any character; he randomly does whatever moves the plot along forward.

To receive payment from a USA company for writing articles, I need to apply for a Tax Identification Number (TIN) from the USA. I cannot apply for SSN or social security number as I am not a US resident. As a foreigner, I can only apply for TIN and I have emailed my US company yesterday to help me in the application but until today, I did not get any response email from them. Looks like I have to apply by myself alone and I am checking up the web sites and printed out the application form last night. I still don’t know who to approach to certify my identity card and driver’s license copies as true ones. I may have to look for a Notary Public to help me in this or worse come to worse, just sent the copies without being certified to the USA address for the TIN application. This is a hassle to get payment from the states.

As a freelance web designer, getting jobs for web designing is not easy. You have to actively post in forums, chat with potential clients and do email marketing to look for prospects. I have worked as a freelance web designer since 2002 doing only front end designing. I leave the backend database configuration to my webhosting company to settle for a fee. You also need to look for available domain names to register and host in your web server. With the help of a friend, I can also offer setting up blogs using wordpress. Installing Wordpress has many advantages. You can add custom plugins that are ready made as Wordpress script is an open system and not chargable. You can also change the themes to suit the season such as Christmas or Chinese New Year. It is better to have your own personal domain name than using free ones like Geocities which will put up their banners and is slower with less server space.

My 3 wordpress blogs from the same hosting company were down recently and since then, I could not publish a single post. This explains the lag of time taking several days. When my hosting company checked my sites, they were able to publish a test post in KL. So there was nothing wrong with my wordpress files. By the way, my olive green t-shirt by Wordpress is coming soon. I have ordered via liewcf who graciously will pay for the postage fees to Penang including the postage cost to order the t-shirts from UK. This is my little support for Wordpress. And only today, after emailing my hosting company again, am I able to publish my post as you can see here. Otherwise I was contemplating of switching to Blue Host in USA.

USA was in recession some time ago recently and now Japan may face recession. With prices of oil skyrocketting high and cost of loving increasing, many people are finding it hard to cope. The middle class and lower middle class are tightening their belts and trying to save whatever they can. They eat out less often, and car pool to save cost on gas. People need to change their lifestyles to suit the bad times in order to get by with their same income. And in the recent news, pirate in Somalia have hijacked 2 Malaysian ship and demanding millions of dollars for the release. Even a French yatch got hijacked with 2 French men in the latest incident. And USA is helping Malaysia in negotiating with the pirates. Thanks for the goodwill help.

When I left Singapore to come back to Penang due to work pressure, I rested for about one and a half years. Then it was time for me to work and my second sister bought a personal domain name for me to host my web designing services for a start. I had to begin from scratch learning HTML on my own. I did spend many hours by the computer to find customers and managed to find about 3 customers who hosted with me and let me designed their web pages. Marketing was not easy and sometimes there are many months I don’t even have a client. I also surfed many web sites to learn about designing web pages and compare web hosting reviews for the best deal. I also went through webmaster reviews to learn up more information for my freelancing job at home.

When you work at home, you need to have an online presence to reach out to the masses that is global and borderless. It is a form of advertisement for you, showcasing your products and services from a web site to the world. Freelancing from home is not for everyone but if you can survive earning a moderate income doing web designing then it can save you money on travelling and using up gas.

My father’s church friend got kidnapped in the car park of her apartment and was blind folded for 2 days. She was driven to the ATM to withdraw her money, at a maximum of RM5,000 per day. Therefore, never keep too much money in the bank that can be withdrawn. And yesterday, she called my dad in a very weak voice to call the parish priest to pray over hear. The ordeal of the kidnapping made her a total wreck. She is now warded in a private hospital. One of her eye is swollen due to the very tight blind folding. She was captured by 3 indian guys in the carpark and while being blind folded, she could hear malay and chinese conversation of her captors. People are desperate and will do anything to get money - whether legally or illegally. This kidnapping was mentioned in the local press too to warn the public and not to be alone when going out.

Above is a shot taken in Grand Canyon, one of the 7 wonders of the world, during my trip to USA.

I visited USA in 1998 on my own expenses during in between jobs. I went to the West Coast of USA visiting Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and San Francisco. It was a trip well worth the money. The most humourous time was visiting Disneyland with plenty of themes for each section. There were many tourists attractions and many roller coasters and adrenaline pumping rides for the adults and simple yet fun rides for the kids. I took many photos and compiled them into 2 big albums for posterity sake.

There are also other attractions in USA with discount such as Kennedy space center discount, San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, architectural buildings, Hollywood, Universal Studios and the like. You can also sign up for Atlanta tours, Boston tours, Chicago tours and many more.

The entrace to the Riviera Hotel that I stayed in Las Vegas.

My trip to USA was very enjoyable and I went alone with a tour group. I also took a humourous photo of bronze statues of women holding hands together with naked bums as shown in the photo above. It was a nice shot, something which I cannot find in my country. The statues were dressed as cowboys wearing boots. There are many moments of awe when visiting USA for the first time. I must say that it was a trip well worth every penny. At least I get to tell people that I have been to USA.

There is a special promotion Trusted Tours are having where a person can win a $150 Magellan’s Gift Certificate by signing up for their newsletter.