Chatter Of The Squirrel

Iran receives missile shipment

Enough said.

Malaysian Customs

Here’s how things work…

I order some toys from the States, thinking I’m getting some good discount.

The stuff is sent, and I await my loot patiently.

I get a PosLaju from PosMalaysia telling me my stuff was detained at Customs.

I had to drive 75km to KLIA, plus an RM6.80 toll each way, and try to release my stuff from the Customs.

They told me that I have to fork out 5% for import tax, and 10% for sales tax.

WTF??

Oh, that makes a total of 15.5% tax by the way… The sales tax is calculated after the import tax is added in. You have to pay a sales tax on your import tax. What sales tax?! There’s no sale involved! It’s for personal consumption! You’re detaining my goods, and EXTORTING me for 10%?!

Wait, it gets better.

This tax is on your Cost & your Freight & the Insurance on your Freight.

Double WTF?!

I had to pay a sales tax on the import tax of the insurance for my freight! And let’s not forget that this was freight for goods that was only half delivered to me, and was costing me an additional RM30 just to pick it up from the airport myself….

The shipping was USD78 for gosh’s sakes!! I am getting taxed for my shipping!!

You know what this feels like? It feels like having your German Shepherd hit by an 18-wheeler truck, and seeing it smeared across 2 miles of highway. Then receiving a bill 2 weeks later for the road crew cleaning up the guts off the highway…

And this is just an innocent hobby!!

If I had been importing a shit load of Clinique eye-shadows, I would have been safe, cos that crap is tax-exempt. But if a friend overseas were to SEND ME A PRESENT, I’ld be taxed to kingdom come!

So, here’s the thing now…

All these tax stuff? It’s at the disgression of the customs officers. They have a big book on what’s taxable, but that’s just guidelines. They don’t want someone to get hold of that book, and find loopholes to avoid custom duties. So they have the disgression to say what goes or not.

I’m not a charming fellow, nor having a gift of gab, nor the boobs to turn men’s heads. But I am able to look pathetic. This comes from dressing comfortably & modestly, wearing hair that hasn’t seen a comb in weeks, and youthful looks that make people think I’m 5yrs younger than I actually am.

Eventually, he only gave me an 8% tax on the whole thing, cos he trusts me that I’m not a rogue trader, and that I really did buy all those toys for myself. That’s the kind of disgression that the customs guys have.

That still took a bite out of my savings, but it didn’t completely obliterate all of what I saved from ordering overseas.

Lesson learnt: make smaller orders. Merchandise worth less than RM500 will be released through customs with no problems. Anything more, even a gift, will be taxed.

And on the way back from KLIA, I passed an over-turned poultry truck. Not a pretty sight. Dead chickens scattered all over the highway. So, those of you in Klang Valley, do stay off the discount poultry for the next few days. Just in case someone tries to sell the roadkill.

DVD Media

Sometimes, my Search-Fu turns up some incredibly informative websites, but I often forget them again when I need the information later.

So here, I’m bookmarking it on this blog.

If you’ve got a DVD-R burner, you’ll find this useful too. Because if you have mountains of data to backup, you’ll appreciate knowing what kind of DVD media you should use.

I recently gambled and bought 100pcs of DVD-R discs. They were irresistably cheap at rm48 per spindle. Turns out, this batch was made in Singapore, supposedly one of the places with better manufacturing processes.

We’ll see.

Finally… I can delete my …um… “backup” of Battlestar Galactica.

OOTS: #309

Lots of funny cryptograms in the latest Order of the Stick.

Have been getting lax about putting up the translations. But here it is:

Panel 3: Elan, I’m in love with you.
Panel 5: Elan, I’m in love with you. Completely in love. Love, love, love, love!
Panel 7: My dad is being held ransom by an evil dictator. I’m not really in the thieves guild anymore.
Panel 9: I cheat at solitaire. I have a tattoo you’ve never seen. I kissed a girl once. OK, OK, more than once!
Panel 11: Elan, it turns out I may not be exactly what you would call -

Did you guys know that the best place to get the fastest translation is on the Giant In The Park’s own message boards? Check it out here the next time I don’t deliver the translations.

Antike: Risk on ‘Roids

Played a fantastic game last weekend…

Friday night, I dropped by my friendly local gameshop to pick up a book: Primal. It’s a much anticipated book that many of us had waited ages to get. Got a special price due to my status as PressGanger, a position I might elaborate upon some other time.

There’s quite a good crowd at the shop that night. Many were there for Primal, either to buy, or to hassle those who bought it for a quick read.

Yes, this is what I do on some Friday nights. No pubbing, no dancing. Completely devoid of wench nor wine. Just basking in the camaderie of fellow gamers.

Then someone brought a new boardgame: Antike.

It is a game of conquest, almost like Risk, but runs much faster with no dice-rolling for combat resolution. Antike is German for Antique, refering to the age of the ancient civilizations around the mediterranean region, like the Greek and Arabic civilizations etc…. probably…

We got a group of 6, mostly first (me) or second time players. It took no more than 15min to learn to play, and another 10min to get a feel for the flow of the game.

You collect resources in the form of gold, marble, iron or coin; which you then spend to build cities, troops, galleys, temples, technology etc. Sounds simple, and it really is.

But the action is fast paced, and the tension is sharp. It requires constant vigilance of your borders, and non-stop mindgames with your neighbours to anticipate aggression.

I won the first game I played by feigning weakness all through the game while my neighbour’s aggression was diverted elsewhere ^_^.

Everyone was so charged that they couldn’t stop at just one game, and we went another round even though it was already midnight. This time I was most aggressively attacking, but victory eluded me.

Got home at 2.30am, still too charged to sleep. The moment I closed my eyes, the math and numbers rattled unceasingly in my head, trying to come up with a superior strategy to dominate the board.

The guys who brought the boardgame will be putting the game up for play at their new cafe opening on 1st May.

Be sure to check out:
The Settler’s Cafe
32, Jln SS22/21 Damansara Jaya
47400 Petaling Jaya.

This is affiliated with the Settler’s Cafes that are already enjoying popularity in Singapore.