@1:29 So Muslim is a race now? Muslims of other race also cannot use Allah?

@1:58 “Tuhan or All… God”, then right after that, “Not Allah is God, never.” So Allah is not God. Okkayyy.

Pity the Mr. K.F. Morat, brought his UPSR karangan and wanted to read but always got interrupted. Hope he knows that he lari tajuk and salah isi. I think what he wanted to say is that Malaysian Islam is new, not the one that “real” Muslims have been practising for centuries.

@9:15 I think he couldn’t find his isi. Tip: Write your own karangan if you want to go on live TV. Use tabs and cross-references if karangan is multi-page. Use a binder. Wear white shirt, and look in camera.

@18:28 If a Muslim is to read the word Allah and be confused because he read it in a bible or from a newspaper called “The Catholic Weekly”, or if he heard it while he is sitting in a church, I think he has bigger problems. Maybe he needs to learn to read first or start to learn how to ask for directions.

I feel that the government should not interfere in the appeal, they should show impartiality by being the mediator and provide a peaceful session for both sides to publicly voice their opinion on national TV. But then again, it’s the Malaysian Government we’re talking about, which were voted by the Malaysian people. So shame on us too.

I wonder why religions are against apostasy or people leaving the “herd”, if you know what I mean. Someone of the faith, please enlighten me on this. I, for one, am for religious scriptures to be written in plain language. Stop all those cryptic writings and explanations. This will cut off the middlemen (scholars, priests, imams and rabbis might be out of work, but then again, isn’t it their duty to ensure that the teachings are correctly interpreted? Achievement unlocked then?) and allow the followers direct access to His teachings. If it’s in the form of Youtube videos with lolcats even better. Now that is sure to reduce apostasy.

Furthermore, I also don’t understand why religions (or is it just the religious leaders) are blaming other religions of trying to convert their followers. If you are doing such a good job, who else can influence your followers to another faith? Think about it. I think it’s the insecure religion (or religious leaders) itself (or themselves) which must reflect on their internal factors of the religion (or teachings) regarding the diminishing of faith. After all, if one’s belief of one’s religion is strong, nothing can shake it.

I am strongly of the opinion that religion only exists in this world because people are weak and need guidance. If a person is of a strong mind, there will be no need for religion. Therefore, I think religion can only be strong, as long as man is weak. Which is exactly what all religions are preaching (almost all, I don’t want to make generalizations of religions I don’t know of). Mind-blowing huh?

To know that there is a greater power than oneself, is submission;

To embrace and understand that the greater power is within oneself, is enlightenment.

- Kelvin Lew, 15 Jan 2010

Are Malay-Muslims in Malaysia sensitive beings? Discuss.

So, my resolution for this year is: Increase my net worth at an average monthly rate of 2% in 2010.

Part of the dream I knew I was dreaming:

Started with me in my Grandma’s room, with my cousin L and MMY. Can’t really remember the conversation. MMY gave me some thing to throw away in the kitchen. Wanted to take a bath, went out, met YPS. She started to ask about my job, I answered it was a better choice, I travel about thrice yearly. I started finding the rubbish bin. Went in the shower, saw a bag on the floor.

Suddenly was in a different room, someone came and played his Metallica CD I borrowed from him. Song started skipping. He took it out and I mentioned I did not play it since I borrowed from him, which was a lie.

Part of the dream that felt real:

I heard that familiar sound at 8 am where my phone will start syncing emails. I stayed in bed and started to feel vibrations under the bed. Took my phone from the nightstand and tried to read the display, but phone couldn’t be turned on. The vibrations on the bed started getting stronger and I felt like I was being sucked in.

Then I woke up.

Job is going well.  Getting exciting while settling in well with responsibilities and routine.

Relationship is getting stronger, but missing her a lot.

Someone close to me is fighting for his life.  Praying hard >.<

Family is well.  Miss them great bunch.

I want to spend more time with friends, dear old friends.  A lot of them going on to their next phases in life.

To life!

I am currently on a EUR500 per month saving and investing plan which has been implemented early this year.  So far it has gone pretty good and growing at a steady pace.  Target is capital growth and income which matches current savings interest rates.  In addition, any additional income of mine goes to a pot where I select some stocks to invest in.

I started off naively with Deutsche Bank’s Brokerage account, PrivatDepot.  Which is freaking expensive as compared to other online brokers.  I thought 5% front end loads were normal.  Until I discovered other brokers are offering at least half of that.  Only in June did I go and transferred all my holdings to Maxblue (also under Deutsche Bank), but way cheaper.  Orders are about 1% total cost, 50% off of most funds’ front end loads, free accounts.

I asked for the difference between these two and my adviser said it is only the lacking of face-to-face customer service and no advice on investments.  Yeah, about that, emails to my adviser went unanswered, and they only recommend their own products.  What good is their advice?

Disadvantages of Maxblue are as far as I see the cost of changing or deleting your orders, and costs involved if your stock has stock splits, give dividends in stock etc.  Otherwise it’s better and suitable for anyone who are comfortable making their own decisions.

So meantime, Maxblue it is.  Yay me!

On a more personal note, I’ve been on and off busy with work and during the evenings and weekends absorbing information on anything I can learn.  From investments to history to sociology.

There were more job cuts announced in the company and might or might not affect me, directly or indirectly.  Lots of uncertainty in the future, which has never bothered me, because the future is meant to be uncertain, lest it becomes boring.

I’m putting as much effort and money as I can afford into different endeavours, such as building up a solid and diverse investment portfolio, planning on a business I hope to run in the near future and overall taking things in as it comes.

I would like to spend more time not working but the reality is it’s not possible.

In other news, what’s up with people who put fancy symbols and weird messages as their MSN nick?  It’s not even creative and it’s really a pain to discern your identity.  Anyway, I’ve just deleted a handful of those from my list.  And seriously, I think Facebook is getting out of hand.  What’s up with all those invitations and crap to those shitty applications?  Did you guys actually read the disclaimer before using the application?  It’s a serious privacy risk.  You are potentially giving away the keys to your house just to be able to “superslap someone with a fish”.

Keep this in mind: Don’t put on the web, what you wouldn’t put on a billboard in a shopping mall.  Now that’s a public service announcement from Kelvin-Lew.com.

I decided to do something to my website and revamped it to use Wordpress instead.  It’s more robust and has a great community which provides regular updates and plugins.  I still have a few more photos to transfer to the new website manually and I will then delete the old site.

I just got back from a talk with a financial advisor from the bank and decided to invest most of my money instead of leaving it in a current account.  I plan to buy a house this year too.

I plan to do more with this site (I hope so), by having regular updates, uploading and collecting all my photos and I was thinking of writing a weekly report of sorts in the tune of a political satire.

So there you have it, a resolution for 2009 of sorts which I plan to do.  Oh yeah, and exercise more too.  Walking 2km a day to and from work is not enough.

Next up would be work life and the beginning of another long journey. That MBA seems interesting though.

No, seriously. I’m pretty stoked about this. I’ve been studying for my degree the past 4 years and finally I can call it a day.

Wish me success and hope that I update this freakin’ website more often. Yay me!