We were at Jusco supermarket shopping for Lamy abc that was on sale when I came across this new range of Unicorn Colors Notebook.  It first caught my attention with the range of attractive colors mini notebook.  Ranging from Bright Pink to Refreshing Green, all imaginable attractive colors are available.  I spotted the Black Large notebook that looked like a Moleskine.  Picked it up and the hard cover felt like a mole.

Currently I could only find this notebook at Jusco, despite my numerous attempt to contact the company Unicorn for more details, I dont seam to find this notebook being sold elsewhere.  The notebook came with an Expandable Inner Pocket like a typical style moleskine and it has an Elastic band holding the entire book tight.  The book has 96 plan 80gm paper and it responded quite well with my Lamy Safari.  There were no smear through at the reverse side, nor were they any bleed through to the bottom sheet. The notebook was priced at RM19.90, much cheaper than some of the competitions.

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Let me see, wow, the last dated post was in September 22nd of this year, and before that was July, of which I have not been writing much this second half of the year.  Feeling guilty over this, and the urge to write something down, I thought I would share a few words.

For the past two days, I have been attending a class “Influencing Skills” sponsored by the government.  I walked into the class without any expectation, and today, I walked out slightly enlightened about behaviors and most importantly, I learnt a little more about myself.  Like many soft skill classes these days, behavior profiling is part of the key curriculum.  When the instructor Tony started to go through the main 4 quadrant of personalities, namely Socializer, Relater, Controller and Thinker, I found that I have characteristics in all of them.  I could not identify with any particular group, mainly because in my mind, the characteristics of all the groups were playing.  Just last week, I was the “Controller”, I was leading an audit in our Contract Manufacturer and I was taking charge, giving orders, and short in patience.  I could also relate to “Thinker” where I have been doing Product Qualification Reliability engineer for the past year, where I have to pretty much work on my own and analyze and device qualification strategy and doing some research.  I was silo and kept pretty much to myself. 

Then, going back further, I could find myself as the “Relator” who have been emotionally engage in task and when I express and appeal to get things done, I usually approach from the emotional perspective, giving the task an emotional meaning and expressing how the person could relate to the task emotionally.  As I sat in the class, living through these traits of life, I came to myself when I had my first job, a little over 12 years back.  I was a socialize then.  I was a Failure Analysis Engineer, a job that requires me to work in the lab, but I knew everyone in the plat, from facilities, to planning, not to mention, production, product engineering and even finance.  I even knew the next plant people.  This network enable me to be effective in my work and subsequently got me what I wanted then.  I was also the socializer when I was in the University.  While my friends prefer to stick with each others, I had friends from almost the continent.  It daunted to me that me, myself and I have been a Socializer all this while.  Then this trait of personality starts to pop up across my adult life.  This explains many of the things that I do, and it explains in some way who I am. 

It was a revelation that woke me up to some level.  There is this level of joy and happiness for being able to know oneself.  Being able to realize how oneself behaves and most importantly, why.  For this, I am grateful that I was selected to join the course, I was grateful that the instructor put forward a compelling structure of the class and revealing content.  Knowing this now can help me to move on in this journey of self discovery.  Sometimes, one do not have to leave your home to find one self, and this is one instant. 

1Malaysia seams to replace Malaysia in every print, radio and TV advertisement.  The other day, the news over the radio was referring Malaysia as 1Malaysia.  So, I wonder, has our country change it’s name?

Its only a month out and I have to upgrade the Iphone twice.  Fist with Iphone 3.01 to fix a damaging SMS hole, and now Iphone 3.1 for additional functionalities.  I for one am most intrigue with the new Apps function where I can save Apps on the Itunes and drag to the phone when I want to use them.  In the past, I have to delete Apps so that I can keep my pages clean, but now, I dont have to anymore, I can just store them in my Itunes and drag them to the phone when I want to use them. 

Jailbreaking, I have been wanting to jailbreak the phone mostly because of the GPS function.  I am going to Hatyai, which does not have 3G coverage, this makes the phone google maps useless.  A lot of the phone functions that requires high speed internet like the google maps are useless without 3G.  So, for me to use the GPS function on the phone, I have to either purchase an App for USD79 to safe maps onto the phone, or jailbreak it.  Guess what, I choose the jailbreak option.  If the apps are much cheaper, like say USD19.99, I would have purchase them.  I recently purchase the Farm Frenzy for USD0.99.  A worth while purchase, we have spent hours on the game, and currently still not finish yet. 

Then again, the risk of jailbreaking, so I have been putting it off, maybe till the lastday before I go to Hatyai.  I now have other priorities, rather than spending time to understand how to jailbreak and how to restore. ..

First, Maxis Called me, telling me the iPhone 3Gs I’ve ordered will be delayed till Tuesday next week.  I was suppose to pick up the phone at launch tomorrow.  They did not have enough units for all the subscribers, and so they decided to give what they have to the people in KL.  Folks like me from the north will have to wait till next Tuesday.  I thought it would be better to give based on who ordered first.  Those buggers from KL who ordered on the last day would get first than me… does not sounds fair to me.

Ok, someone screw up somewhere, those who pre-ordered from the north will not get the phones tomorrow.  If like this, why get people to pre-order and promise to deliver on 31st July? Now, its been delay, only ‘I’m Sorry’ from someone who was not responsible does not seam to be comforting enough.

Fine, the unit got delayed, what can we do rite, so that’s that.

Then, at dinner time, I got another call, oh, its been delayed to Wednesday, instead of Tuesday… wow, seams like this is getting worst by the minute.  Ok, this time, the Maxis guy  said they are working some ‘Mystery Gift’ out.  Oh, if you are giving me some merchandize with your logo on it, I am not interested.  An original iPhone accessory would only do justice.

So, ok lor, delay already, another day push out, what can we do at our end.. I was already starting to be depress…

Then, when I check my mail just now, I got a mail from Maxis.  I thought they were nice to send me a mail of apology of the delay.  Oh wait, my name ain’t Ng It Cheng… Another screw up.

They can’t get the date right, now they can’t even get my name right, well, they mix up me and other customer.  That’s Maxis for you… And they are going for IPO?

Oh by the way, Maxis says, it is worldwide shortage, so it is because of Apple late delivery…

I still thought Maxis should have handled the ‘crisis’ better.  Firstly, offer apology and offer something nice to the customer for the mixup.  Secondly, if you are going to commit a new date, make sure it is right, and not to push out again a couple of hours later.  Finally, get your customer name right.

Update:

Finally on Aug 2nd, I got a call from the collection center to come collect.  Got my unit, got yellowish tint as reported by many Low Yat forumers and no crack on the white body.  The collection process was about 45 minutes without hassle, just need to wait for the guy to do his thing behind the counter.  Confirm the package, the unit, confirm the Imei number, lock it in and unbox the unit.