Barber, Oh Aneh.

I complained to my barber that he was charging me very expensive at RM8 to crop my hair. After all, I have not too much hair for him to cut. I went there twice a month just to keep the shape of flat top, for my crew cut. Otherwise, it will be out of shape and I really feel uneasy with my spiky hair, like porcupine. This guy is really professional and he enjoys cutting hair not only for a living but also as a form of art. I enjoy his way of hair dressing as he cut every inch of my hair as though he is craving a piece of art work.

That's why I still travelling all the way down to Nilai for my hair cut despite shifting to Seremban a year ago. Sometimes, it is nice to pay someone who enjoy working for you.

AirAsia Flying Higher and Higher

AirAsia has been expanding by leaps and bounds over a rather short span while the national airlines MAS has been suffering huge losses year after year until Idris Jala successfully turn it around a couple of year ago. Tony Fernandes is surely one of the most innovative entrepreneur who thinks outside the box. AirAsia which is synonymous to Fernandes is one of the most successful business story highly rated by the industry. With the expansion of Labu LCCT, Fernandes is eyeing for 60 million passengers in 2013 with a combined total of 184 aircraft, making MAS shamefully left behind with the estimated fleet of 125.

The concept of AirAsia which clearly shown in its tag line "Now Everyone Can Fly' is the main success factor for this budget airline to outperform its elderly brother MAS. I have to travel every quarterly to Padang, Indonesia since 1999. From Pelangi Air to MAS, none of them last long. Pelangi used to fly to Padang with its Fokker which could sometime be a nightmare to the passengers. I can recall there were far too frequent delays, the worst being a 10 am flight delayed a couple of time until finally took off at night due to mechanical problems. When MAS was operating that route just two or three years ago, it was not even quarter full at times. Now, with AirAsia, the flight to Padang is mostly occupied as the fares are cheaper especially to the Indonesia passengers. Most of my friends working in Indonesia often praise AirAsia as it is much cheaper for them to fly back to be with their family. Similarly, those Indonesia passengers coming over to Malaysia for medical treatment or shopping can now enjoy very much cheaper air fares as compared to MAS.

I think Najib should consider making Tony his finance minister when he comes into power in March, 2009. Then Tony can make use of his exceptional talent and innovations to make everything cheap for us. Cheap toll, cheap petrol, cheap food, cheap house, cheap education, cheap police summons, cheap taxes, cheap car. How nice?................I must be dreaming.

War to spice up crude oil price???

I wonder how long can we continue to enjoy the current low oil price as crude oil rises above USD 47 a barrel due to the eruption of war in the middle East. It goes to show that whatever comes down will go up and whatever goes up will come down. As the whole world is condemning Israelis for the attack on Gaza Strips, maybe, the oil producing countries will have the last laugh as the tensions in the middle East will likely lead to the rise in the crude oil prices.

Is the war politically motivated? I mean is the waging of war by Israelis is not really because of their conflicts with Palestinian or so-called to fight terrorism but with other hidden agenda? May be there is a conspiracy to spice up the price of crude oil so that it will stimulate the world economy again? As you can see, USA is keeping mum on the attacks by Israelis on Palestinian.

Well, we will never know. This world is full of conspiracy, just that common people like us are too innocent to understand the complications of this world. What can we hope for is that the tensions in the middle east will soon be resolved peacefully, and the crude oil don't ever go up too high again.

Bye bye, Cars.My

Melee in his column Melee on the move, at Cars.My revealed that he is going to wind down the magazine he has been running for 8 years. I have been a fan of Cars.My mainly because of its more domestic reviews on cars that are more relevant to local car industry. Unlike some other popular car magazines which feature more reviews or articles published by their sister companies abroad.

Mel says that the readership of his magazine is down despite good efforts he and his crew have consistently putting in. Alas, Magazine is not like cigarettes or alcohol where people can get addicted to it. Most people would rather go for a movie for their pass time rather than reading. More so, information on cars and other stuffs are readily available through Internet nowadays, so why bother buying a car magazine?

The decision for Mel to go on line may be is a timely one. Hopefully, good efforts by true car enthusiasts like Mel and his pals will still get appreciated by the fans. Otherwise we may one day reading car magazines from overseas which may not tune to the our local situation.

No Calendar? Hello, It is 2009

In the past, I would have received plentiful of calendars and diaries before the year end. Worst still, I would normally find out that some of the past year dairies were still not being used when I was doing year-end cleaning work in my office. This year, I have yet to get one diary or calendar as at the last day of 2008. What exactly happen? I really don't know. Is it that bad coming into 2009?

I talked to some of my friends of late and there seemed to be too much of pessimism coming into 2009. Stock market is bad, business is bad, everything else seems to be bad. There is no one with optimism, everyone is saying that next year will only get worse.

Well, good or bad, life must go on. Worse come to worse, tie up your belt, cut your expenditure, save more money, and let see what will happen. Perhaps this is a good time to give us a wake up call. Look, maybe we have overspent in the past, or maybe we are over-dependent on credit cards or maybe we don't really need a new car or new house anyway, the old one is still in good condition just that it may look a bit old. Perhaps we should cut down on smoking, beer session, buying 4-D. Or maybe it is a time for us to realise that we are not so forcible and not that resilient anyway.

If winter comes, can spring be far behind? I really hope that we can see some light at the end of tunnel. But if next year is indeed a tough one, I wish all my friends to be blessed with good health so that they can be strong enough to fight the worse ever financial tsunami. No free diary or calendar never mind, I'm going to buy one for myself tomorrow.