proton exora

The latest Proton car has been launched today. It’s Proton’s first MPV, the Exora and it looks quite good too don’t you think. It’s much much better than that horrible Juara.

The name Exora is derived from Ixora, a flower commonly seen in most bushes or shrubbery around Malaysia. It’s called bunga jarum-jarum if I’m not mistaken.

The Exora is built on a newly developed platform, and it’s the second platform (ever) developed by Proton, so it is something to be proud of, I guess, for a Malaysian.

The new MPV is powered by a 1.6-litre CamPro CPS engine with 125bhp and torque of 150Nm, with prices below RM80k. Apa lagi, kalau ada duit tu, pegi la beli! Heh.

And woohoo! Man Utd just won 1-0 against Porto FC in the Champions League second leg quarter-final. Yeayeah, we’re through to the semi-final against Arsenal. Yeah I know, very off-topic but who cares.

f1 red flag at sepang

What an exciting Formula 1 race in Sepang today. Too bad the rain forced the race to stop before all 56 laps were completed. The race started at 5pm Malaysian time, which is 3 hours later than usual. I assume some ‘clever’ guy at the top wants the Malaysian Grand Prix to start later so that the people in Europe don’t need to wake up that much earlier than usual. Heh.

The inconsistent weather forecasts made the race much more exciting. The teams were contemplating when they would need to change tyres to suit the weather and what type of tyres they need to change to. And when the weather did change, they were a lot of teams going into the pit-stop to change tyres, so the standings keep changing and changing. Hmm I noticed that I've written 'changing' and 'tyres' quite a lot in this paragraph. Won't get much marks then if this were to be an essay to be submitted. Who cares anyway. They were a lot of overtakings as well of course, besides the tyre changing.

But at the end of the day, the rain poured too heavily so they had to show the red flag, which means that the race had to be suspended and the cars had to line up behind the red flag line and wait until it’s safe to race again. It was actually dangerous for the cars to race in that condition. They were a lot of cars spinning at the corners already (which I secretly think is indeed a little bit fun to watch but is actually dangerous for the safety of the drivers, so let's just pretend I didn't think that ok).

Since it was getting too dark, and the 2-hour racing period was nearly over, the race wasn’t resumed and they used the standings at Lap 31 to determine the official race standings. However, the drivers (and constructors) only get half points because they didn’t complete more than 3 quarters of the race. Well, half points are better than no points at all.

And the winner of the Malaysian GP was Jenson Button from the Brawn team, his second win of the season. Looks like the Brawn team are doing very well. The Ferrari and McLaren teams seem to be struggling to adapt to the new rules. McLaren only has 1 point and Ferrari don’t have any points yet! Looking forward to the rest of the season. It’s gonna be very exciting, close, and fun to watch!

new logo, new pm, new/old tax haven (?)

The foundation for the open source mobile software platform now has a new logo:

It’s supposed to be a software company/foundation, but the logo doesn’t represent that at all. It looks like some toys company or something. Well maybe mobile phones are toys to some people, *shrug*. Anyway, it doesn’t look professional to me. Good thing I’m not working there (anymore?). Go to their website to find out more, or just go straight to the foundation’s blog for informal-ish kind of updates. There should be an explanation somewhere in there explaining the beautifully-challenged logo.

*******

So we now have a new prime minister in Malaysia, and it seems that lots of people hate him. I guess I should also say a lot of people like him as well. I should, but maybe I don't want to, but I just did, but hmm... too many but's already. Maybe he’s not the best choice, but maybe he’ll be better than that previous one. Ish... too many maybe's la pulak. Oh well. I just hope that they concentrate on reviving the economy instead of playing stupid, childish politics. Good luck on your new job because you’ll sure be needing it, my dear sir!

*******

I read in the news today that Malaysia is one of four countries blacklisted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for not agreeing with tax standards. One in four. Wow. And it’s not everyday that Malaysia goes in the news here. My beloved country is apparently a tax haven. Hmm better stash away money there ASAP. Oh yeah, now I remember, I don’t have that much money to stash anyway, *blaargghhh*.

*******