This Saturday, 21st of July 2007, I am going to attend a meet up that is going to be organized the Malaysian PHP Community.

It’s been a while since my last attendance to any technology related seminars. Since the venue for this event is at my former university, I think I will have no problem finding the place. Apart from that, Laadvamore stays at the hostel just behind the faculty which I go there almost every weekend to see her but of course, she has to wait for me finishing the entire talk if she wants to ask me to go out.

I don’t have any formal web programming qualification nor education about server-side scripting but I do have basic PHP knowledge which I’ve learned from W3School myself. The only PHP scripting I know is limited to Wordpress blogging software but I have a few plans of developing my own modified Wordpress plugin and themes later on.

Highlights from the program agenda which I’m looking forward to is:

• PHP in the business world
• Scriptaculous Drag and Drop Demo
• PHP vs Ruby
• PHP system in Government Agencies

I guess ZeMMS might be interested to listen about How To Bake Cake using PHP afternoon talk. I had download CakePHP a while ago but I had no idea where to start or even understand what the package is all about. I think I would rather stick to Wordpress for now. I’ll try and network with the people I’ll meet up over there and see how things go. I’m guessing it would a be very eventful day for me.

If you are interested to join, register yourself here and I’ll see you there.

Yesterday was a boring but at the same time interesting day for me. It was my first time going to court. From where I live, it took me less than 15 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, there were no parking spaces because of some official launching ceremony by a minister so they closed down all the parking lots outside the building. I parked my car at the Federal Territory Mosque just opposite the Jalan Duta Court House and took a 5 minutes walk.

Last year, I went to a meeting with my former company at Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage Malaysia and I was told that they are going to occupy the Bangunan Abdul Samad building and the court department will move to their own building at Jalan Duta. I guess they’ve already moved by now. When I arrived at the new court house, the building is huge. I have no idea where to go to so I asked the reception counter and my court room is on the 3rd floor. After I got on the 3rd floor, I walked down the room was almost near the end of the corridor. After I submit my subpoena letter I got, I had to wait for the court session to start. Half an hour later, the police officer in charge of the room told us (there were like 6-8 people waiting like me) that they might start a little late because of the launching ceremony of the new building or so.

We waited, waited and waited and the judge still didn’t show up. It was nearly 1pm so I got out of there and had my lunch. After lunch, I got back at the court room before 2pm and again waited. Then the officers were telling about they tried and contacted the judge but she’s not reachable. It was not until 3.00pm the court room was being handled over to another judge on call.

The judge appeared and all the suspects (I think there’s 14 altogether) were ushered to the suspect area. They were all look like drug junkies and most of them pleaded guilty to the court. Some of them got away when their urine test came out clean, the lowest bail after being considered was RM1500, most of the bail were RM4000 - RM5000 but no one paid for that amount. They would normally requested for the court to lower the bail. For those convicted, they’ll have another date for them being brought back to court.

In my case, the guy pleaded guilty and his lawyer gave him a bad look and shook his head for him not to plead guilty. I heard my car’s plate number being read out loud, I wrote about what happened to my police report earlier so I was there just in case something happened to the statement that was read. The guy’s mother sit just behind me and for a while, I felt enlightened seeing all those people caught by the justice system. Eventually, the court adjourned at 4pm and I left the building as quickly as I could. It’s a complete waste of my time coming to court. I’ve wasted half a day of my leave day waiting for the judge, it’s ridiculous.

Anyway, the experience has taught me of not to do things that might lead to get caught by the police of the justice system. It is a cumbersome to deal with it so the lesson of the day is, don’t get caught! ;-)

This weekend, I’m slowing my pace a little by spending my time at home. It seems like every weekend, I’m off going somewhere or doing something outside. It’s kind of a good thing but being out means more money going out. Anyway, last weekend I went to one of my friend’s wedding at Kuala Lipis, Pahang. I’ve never been to that place before so I was looking forward to that trip.

My journey started at Rawang, accompanied by Laadvamore, we braved ourselves through the roads of Genting Highlands where Laadvamore got kind of sick and threw up by the roadside. It was a 3 hours drive with my car’s odometer indicates 175km since out last pit stop but we finally arrived at a place where I’ve never set foot on. Armed with Laadvamore new Sony Ericsson W700i, I took some pictures along the way:

Interesting facts about Kuala Lipis (source: Wikipedia):

• Kuala Lipis was the capital of Pahang until 1953
• The current Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Malaysia’s renown Datuk Siti Nurhaliza was born there

The thing I’ve missed is:

Malaysian pop diva Siti Nurhaliza and her family still live in Kuala Lipis and the house she built for them became the talk of town as it was rumoured to cost millions of ringgit. It has now become a tourist attraction. The town council even provided directions to the house on a signboard and made parking space for tour buses available near the house. Recently, her wedding reception for friends and fans here was made an official function for the whole town by the council.

That’s a reason to go back to Kuala Lipis, oh yea..the bride’s friend is a friend of mine. I wonder when is she getting married. She’s still single, anybody interested..ekeke.. ;-)

Thanks to the TV series Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), I have some clues of how the justice system work. It maybe kind of different here in this country compared to the United States but there’s not much different from what I’ve seen so far. I got a call from my mother last Sunday that a policeman was looking for me at my grandfather’s house (just 5 minutes drive from where I live), she asked me whether I’ve done something wrong somewhere. I couldn’t remember any so I asked my mother to forward the handphone of the police officer who went searching for me.

It was then explained that I have a “sepina”. I’ve heard of “sepina” before, it’s some kind of court order that is an order for you to show up in court. I called up my friend who is studying law about it and he confirmed it. I then spent a few hours doing online searches on what is a “sepina” really is but never found anything. I was puzzled, I searched on the online dictionary, the legal dictionary but it was no where to found. It was only when I use Yahoo Answers, I found out that “sepina” is actually spelled as “subpoena“. Read more about “What Is A Subpoena“. Click on the image below for an enlarged view (I’ve blurred out some of the information to protect my identity of course).

So, what did I do wrong? I never did. It was all about what had happened to my car last year. This would be my first experience being in court. From what I’ve understood, someone got caught and my car was the victim but what I don’t understand is, why should I be testifying when I wasn’t there witnessing the crime? It could be because of what happened to my police report the other day. Well, I have to attend the court scheduled next week to see what is really is. I’m not sure if I need to apply for a leave, take half a day off or just take a couple of hours off but I do know that it is compulsory for me to go to court or else I am going to get charged for holding on to something fishy.

Here’s a catchy phrase- “See you in court!“