Wes Borland was in Town :O

For those who don't know who Wes Borland is, he was the guitarist in the band Limp Bizkit. He was the most unique Guitarist I've ever read about. Not many people are like this, daring to take the step outside their comfort zone and being different from everyone else. He has solo projects ever since he left the Bizkit band. The latest project called Black Light Burns isn't too bad, I would say if you liked NIN then you'd definately dig his new stuff. All in a great guitarist.

Too bad I didn't have a chance to meet up with him. We were in the same State on the same days, but I just didn't get that chance to even see him. But Edwin did...grr. Lol.

Here's a photo of him in Limp Bizkit:


Here's another photo of him Now:

BMW 325

This is the BMW that I had a chance to drive. Let me first say that it's my first time driving a BMW and I was quite impressed with the drive ability of the car. I won't go into the details but it's just a great driving car.

One of the best movies this year, a great movie to start off the year towards more goodies to come.

I would say "Not a movie for your girlfriend" unless they like the gore and built muscular warriors. The quality of the show is just fantastic and the choreography was a whole new thing, flying limbs and the aggression, through the roof.

Watched it with Ian, Jiannin and Nigel in KL. It's the first time I have watched a movie in KL and I must say GSC's new seat design with space is comfy.

Andy's Movie-O-Meter : 9/10

tha' Driver Selection -update-

Well bad news people. I didn't quite make it past the 2nd interview session. Although I know I did well at the driving session. The people who were selected weren't actually good drivers. Made me think why I didn't get selected. I have a hunch that its something that happened behind the scenes that some of us aren't aware about. At least Sifu and Hammy made it through. I hope they go all the way.

I'm back on the island now. Took the 8am bus from 1-U called Aeroline, I'm actually impressed with their presentation and customer service crew. From the time I bought the ticket till I arrived they were pleasant to deal with and talk to. www.aeroline.com.my

Moving forward, I might just have another chance to do Driver Training for some other company without the political issues. I just hope I can get it :)

A bad Suby week

It seems to be a bad week for the Subys. Even Sifu's suby is acting up and giving some headaches. The car just decided to stall when you least expect it and when troubleshooting it just doesn't want to fault!. But we've traced it down to a cable or two that is causing it to stall and sometimes not start at all.

But here's another experience, sifu and I were heading to Ikea and heading down from the LDP. Just before the TV3 broadcast center the car just stalled and we coasted to a stop at the side of the road. Managed to make sure the zone we stopped in was safe enough for us to get out and diagnose the problem. Alas no matter how hard we tried it just didn't want to start. Left the car at that area and managed to get a guard at the nearby office area to keep a look out for it until the tow truck arrived. In between the car stalling and getting help from the guard, we decided to have dinner at 1-Utama and just do a little window shopping at Eneos, then we headed back home to shower and after a mamak session with Adrian and Ah Wai.

The next morning around 9:30am we headed back onsite and the tow truck also arrived at the same time. Car was loaded in 15 mins and was unloaded at the workshop 20 mins later. Spend the whole day assisting them and trying to figure out what the hell is causing the problem, we only narrowed it down to some loose wires.


Sifu's Suby on the Flat Bed

tha' Driver Selection

Woke up at 7am to get ready for the Driver Selection at Sepang. Thank You very much for the ride Joe. His BMW was comfy for the whole journey. Some familiar faces at the selection but we're all friends. So there were like about 21 people i think. The briefing session started at 9am and lasted 15mins before we were told to go to the test area, it was located at one of the car parks.

There were like 11 units of the brand new 325i. Every car had 2 people and we would take turns in the car to practice and be evaluated. I must say that the whole session is excellent. Instructions were clearly mentioned and all the examples of what is expected in the test was also highlighted to all of us. I will refrain from mentioning what we did since I had to sign a clause regarding these tests and trainings.

After that session came a short interview session with the trainers. I don't think I did well cause I fumbled alot haha.

Too bad I didn't have a camera and I forgot that my damn phone also had a camera :( gah!. So no photos to show.

I have a bad feeling about this..

Have you ever had that nagging feeling that the day is just not going right...or maybe you might feel it's going to perfect. It's just one of those days for me.

So work was good nothing too dramatic happened, calls were good, customers were surprisingly great even the home ones. I've never felt that relaxed for quite a while now. Maybe it's also because I'm on long leave and here I am in KL again for the 2nd round of the Driving thingy. Felt good that I made it past the 1st round but I usually consider myself lucky.

Anyways I decided to take a drive down to KL since I'll be here for a while. This is when things started to get kinda weird. First off, I forgot to publish a report at work, that i suddenly remembered just before the Juru toll. Felt kinda bad that my colleague had to do the extra work :( 1 hour and 20 mins into the journey and while I was driving uphill, Suby suddenly had a weird smell coming from the engine, then slight knocking, then a different smell, what's worst is the thermal gauge was nearly at HOT!. All this and I was driving uphill towards the Tunnel and there wasn't any place to stop, the next 2-3 kilometers was downhill. So I managed to ease and nurse till I saw an emergency lane, then everything went silent. Suby just died on me and there was smoke coming out from the hood. I was asking myself, what did i do wrong? Popped the hood to help cool down the engine, it was definitely overheating. About 5 mins, the Plus Highway Patrol assisted me by putting some cones to alert other cars. Then they left, since they couldn't do much anyways. After about 45 mins a tow truck guy known as Basri came over to help me out. Telling as much as possible about what could be damaged. But the best part is that he offered to help me tow the car on a Flat Bed truck for RM500. That's pretty darn good in a situation like this. Then I made some phone calls and decided to go for it.

It just felt weird. The day just felt too perfect, hard to believe but I wasn't even pushing the car! All I wanted was to drive at a normal pace and make it to KL with 1 full tank from Penang. It just goes to show that anything can happen and it just did.


Suby on the Flat Bed Tow Truck.

**I know Basri the tow truck guy would most probably never read my blog, i want to say thank you anyways. A kind hearted Malaysian.**

Becoming A Driving Instructor?

It has always been a dream of mine, working for a car company and driving their cars. Becoming a test driver and all. Alas that kind of chance isn't easy to come by in this country. So the next best option is to become an instructor, I guess. Haha.

So I got this SMS from my driving Sifu in KL mentioning that there is an opportunity to become a driving instructor! Now that's a chance that I wouldn't want to miss out on. So like everyone else, I submitted my entry form and waited for a response from the company that is hiring. (I am not allowed to disclose the name of the company unfortunately) I got a call on Thursday afternoon, I was actually shortlisted and out of 150 people only 50 were selected. Nice gal over the phone, Eliza. Made an appointment for Saturday morning.

Since it was nearly the end of the Chinese new year I decided not to drive down to avoid the jams. Then I franticly searched for available flights to KL. I found it cheaper to fly MAS, Air Asia prices actually hike up if you book last minute.

Then came the flight. It was a good flight, was kind of boring but I managed to keep myself busy reading a book. Took the KLIA Express train to Central Station where my Sifu gave me a ride. All the guys actually met up at his place and we all ended up playing GT4 and mahjong till 2am. LoL.

Interview Day
I needed a ride to the hotel that the interview was held. Managed to hitch a ride from a Malaysia Rally Legend that I won't name for now. He actually asked me to drive him, I was like woha! Are you sure? LoL. Drove the new Proton Satria, it was my first time and I'm quite impressed with the build of the car. It's pretty solid and although I didn't really push it the handling was surprisingly good.

My interview time was at 9am. So I waited and waited for my turn, it ended up being 9:45am but all was good for me. hehe. There were 3 people in the interview. I was nervous but I think I managed to talk calmly and smoothly. Most of my buddies also turned up for the interview, Julian, Gareth & Hammond brothers and a few others. After my interview, I headed to KLCC to do some shopping, ended up spending lots of time in Kinokuniya book store looking for books and all. Continued walking around till my works actually hurt! Spent loads of time in the electronic shops, Sony had their PS3 on display on their big Sony LCD tv's and the quality of the video is excellent. I'm definitely getting my hands on one when I have enough money saved up.

I had nothing else to do so I met up with the gang again in the hotel and we all talked as some of them had their interview times delayed. So it was 7pm when we all left the hotel and headed for dinner at the Curve. There is this Vietnamese noodle shop which is quite good. I kinda forgot the name but it's quite popular although you need to adjust to the aroma of the spices they use.

Here I am now, just wasting some time before I head to the airport in a couple of hours.

Wishing All My Friends A Wonderful and Prosperous New Year!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2007!

Another weekend in KL and a quick trip Back to PG

It's nearly a week since I was in KL again. After GRA's Driving advantage, suby developed a slight problem which couldn't be solved. So I had to leave suby to the experts to take a look. It seems that the Mass Airflow Unit was giving problems. But after much troubleshooting they found a burnt wire that actually caused a pin on the ECU to evaporate. Lucky YSKHONG MOTORSPORTS had the expertise to sort out that issue.

Hopped on a bus back on Monday night and went back to KL on Saturday. Sorted some other small issues that was caused from that burnt wire and all was good. So a Saturday night in KL, people would usually go partayyy. But nooooo, we motorheads would rather go driving (not that i was against it). Thanks to some of the GRA members who planned this trip. So having got the car back and ready to go, I met up with the gang. At the Karak pump station, in total i think 10 -11 cars actually made it for this trip. All the way up to Genting's First World Hotel to have Starbucks.

The best part of the whole trip which only lasted 15-20mins in total from the pump station to the top was keeping up with Rally legend "YS Khong". FYI, he was testing the new and current version of the Honda Civic 2.0L i-VTEC. Mind you it's an Automatic tranny car!. I'm happy that I could lose all the other Putra's that could drive fast in a straight line and keep up with uncle YS. I could only keep up with him. :)

So after all that, it was 4am when i got into bed. Then I woke up at 8am and couldn't sleep anymore. I decided to hang around for some GT4 on the the PS2 and when I left KL it was 8:45pm. Afraid of being too tired and the possibility of dozing off at the wheel, I decided to get back to PG as fast as possible (without killing myself ahuh). 1 pit stop at Tapah for Fuel. 2hours 30mins later I made it to the Juru toll in PG.

Then it was back to work as usual on Monday.