Gold - Preservation of wealth (might be wrong, but that is what I believe)

As I wrote this piece, I just opened my first Gold Account with Kuwait Finance House. A firm believer in Gold investment since early this year, I was searching for the best shariah compliant gold investment account. Luckily KFH launched their new shariah compliant gold acoount product just a few months ago.

In short, today I met a lovely Customer Service Executive by the name of Rafizah- Mrs Rafizah I would assume looking at the ring on her finger. (damn!). She guided me and my father on the product and was very nice and informative. To be honest, I already made up my mind 2 days ago that I would open a gold account with KFH. She did not actually "sold" me the product so to speak, but she did "assured" me that I made the right decision.

All I needed to do was to open a normal saving account with KFH, and all the gold transactions must go through this account. Minimum initial investment was 10grams, with the price of RM129.25 per gram (as of 24 May 2010). Unfortunately, I could not transfer my money from Maybank to KFH, so I needed to withdraw cash from the nearest ATM machine. That pretty much limited my initial investment. Anyway, not to be distracted by petty issue, I quickly withdrew money from the nearest ATM machine, and bought XX grams of gold as my initial investment.

The theory goes that gold prices will increase exponentially in the next few years as oppose to linear appreciation like in the previous years. The chief culprit is the world economic downturn has spark panic amongst investor and spook them out of bonds, shares and equities. So, people now are turning to land and gold to preserve their wealth. I am not jumping the bandwagon, but rather choose to diversify my investment and thought that gold would be the safest investment as the value will always be parallel with inflation at the least. Thus, owning say a RM10k of gold now would be the same "value" in the years ahead, whatever the inflation rate factor is.

Looking forward to monitor all my investment portfolios. I would expect my gold investment to be atleast double in value in the next 5 years. May this be the first steps of many good things in life. Amen.

Note : As far as I am aware, only KFH offers shariah based Gold investment account. The other two banks, Public Bank and Maybank, only offer conventional account. "What constitute a shariah gold investment account?" you might asked. I did some digging on this, and apparently to qualify to be shariah compliant account, one major criteria is that the bank must be able to show the buyer the physical gold whenever the buyer wants within 3 days maximum. As an example, if I bought 10 grams of gold, then decided that I want it in physical shape rather than just "statement on a piece of paper", the bank must be able to give me the physical gold within 3 days. I can't remember which bank, Public or Maybank, which mentioned that their gold is kept in a facility in New York, and would not be able to give the buyer the physical gold.

I also must note that KFH trades 99.5% fineness gold rather than 99.9% as used by Maybank or Public Bank. Although this means that the gold quality of KFH is slightly lower quality and cheaper than the two other banks, a gold is still a gold. Most important factor in my mind is the transaction must be Islamic, and until the likes of Maybank or Public Bank can offer islamic gold account, I will have to stick with KFH.

One other disadvantage of KFH gold is, although you can have the physical gold in your hand, you cannot turn it into jewellery. This is due to KFH gold is specially wrapped in a box with serial number and they will not buy back the gold from you other than in mint box condition. So, you can say farewell of turning the gold into pendant or ring if you have any intention of selling it back to KFH.

The one that got away,

As I listen to a song by Chantal Kreviazuk (who? well she sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" from the film Armageddon), entitled "Feels like home", I can't praise enough the ryhthm and lyrics of that song. And listening to the lyrics, does made my mind reversing a few years back.

I guess, the song reminds me of my old flame in some ways. Don't get me wrong, I do not hold my past anymore. It is just sometimes you wondered,was she the one who got away?

For the better, it was a turning point of my life and hers. And, it was better that we parted. "Redha" is the right word to sum up the break up. Life goes on.

The crave for anything bitter.

Probably after watching too many food programmes on the telly, I have a fondness of evaluating food base on its texture, flavour, taste and presentation. I'm not too fussy about food. My favourite food is my mum's meehun, and that kinda set the expectation of the food I consume. I love Malay/malaysian food.

However, with the influx of foreign food, I kinda fancy Italian foods right now. They are healthy in a way and with the blend of herbs, the aromatic smell of them are just gorgeous!

Despite all that, I realise that after having all the entres or main courses, I must have something bitter as a desert. Be it coffee or dark chocolate, they are a must.

Thinking about it, I do not like sweet food anymore. The other day, I was having a Mocha at Coffee Bean. Even to my own surprise, I requested the Mocha to be "on the bitter side". When I buy chocolates, I'll make sure that they are atleast 50% cocoa and they must be Dark Chocolates. To add texture, I like to have crunchy almonds or hazelnuts in them. Anything that adds sweetness such as raisins or fruits are a definite NO!

I guess, having things bitter do have a good effect. I would consume less sugar and less fatty milk. What the heck, bitter it is from now on!

The forgotten war

Not many of us are aware of the war that is still ongoing in Chechnya between the Chechens and the Russians.The Chechens, labelled as a nationalist movement by some, rebellious traitors by Moscow, and Chechen terrorist militants by the West, but as a Muslim, I rather call them "Muslim Freedom fighters".

After the collapse of now defunct federation, the Soviet Union, a lot of nations/republics within the Soviet Union declared their independence from Moscow. Led by a former Russian Air Force General, Dzhokhar Dudayev , a native Muslim chechen, Chechnya declared independence in 1991. Chechnya is a major hub for Russia’s Oil infrastructure and the political domino fallout if Chechnya successfully gained independence (i.e countries such as Tartarstan was also rumoured to have considered abandoning the new formed Russian Federation) would be a major disaster for Moscow, and thus prompted the first Chechen War.

The First Chechen war erupted between December 1994 until August 1996. The fighters were formed by two groups, namely the Chechens themselves and also a group of muslim brothers from all the around the globe. These foreign mujahideen group was led by a fearless leader, Ibn al-Khattab and the Chechens by Dudayev himself. In short, the Chechens/mujahideen alliance won the first war.

The second Chechen war erupted in 1999. Russia, beaten in the first war, was very determined to recapture Chechnya to stop the Domino effect of countries declaring independence from Russia after the first Chechen War. The war is still on going to this very day, although it is now pretty much a guerrilla war rather than a full scale open war.

Casualties of wars reach in their thousands, with most of Chechens become homeless and living in fear. Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, is under constant attack daily. However, the clever media manipulation by the West and Russia only tell us a one sided story. We constantly reminded the “act of terrorism” done by the Chechens/Mujahideen such as the Beslan siege, Moscow Theatre siege and other suicide bombings, but never were we told the sufferings, degradation and atrocities that were and still are inflicted to the muslim Chechens.

We must not forget the heroes and the shaheeds (martyres) of these two wars. Dudayev, Ibn Khattab, Shamil Basayez, Zelimkham Yandarbiyez and countless others, either native Chechens or the global Mujahideen, have fought bravely and died to the cause. But remember, as Allah revealed in the Quran:

“Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord; They rejoice in the bounty provided by Allah. And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined them (in their bliss), the (martyr's) glory in the fact that on them is no fear, nor have they (cause to) grieve.”

- Surah Ali Imran : 169-170

“Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the Garden (of Paradise): they fight in His Cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in Truth, through the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his Covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.”

– Surah At-tawbah : 111

As a muslim, I would urge you to join and support the cause of our Chechen brothers and surf the website http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/ for the latest information from this tiny Caucacus nation. We might not have the courage to fight in the name of defending our fellow muslims in Chechnya, but atleast we can support the cause with our supplement (Doa). Insya Allah.

Dude, Where's my six pack?

Don't you just hate it when you worked out so hard but someone still calls you "berisi" or a more direct word "fat"? Well, i am one of those unlucky guy who works hard to loose the extra pounds around my waist. I would say succesfully in the first 6 months of my exercise regime.
Back in January this year, I felt great. i knew that i only needed to loose maybe around 5kg to pose "Brad Pitt topless style" on the beach. However, that dream faded in February as i completely stopped doing my 8km routine.
A few weeks ago, after abandoning my exercise routine for nearly 5 weeks, a few of my colleagues started sneering "Eh.. ko makan berisi la. Serius". How annoying is that!

Unfortunately, I got the same comment today. A supplier, which i have not seen for a good 4-5 months, commented the same thing. He said "Apsal cam buncit je!". As a supplier, I do not think he would dare to insult me. So i guess he was telling the truth. =(.

Anyway, to my defence, i have been running again in the past 4 weeks now and added a new routing to my exercise. I am now doing 300 sit ups everytime I go to the gym. Hence, the so called "buncit" is actually my six packs trying to force their way. I think most people misjudged my six packs as buncit. Honest!

To all my doubters, I have this to say to you "Give me till end of May, as I shall parade my six packs for all the world to see"! Enough said.

Anonymous... thank you whoever you are

comments left by an anonymous on my blog has not gone unnoticed. I know that the so called anonymous is actually the same person and likely someone from my Facebook friend's list. So, whoever you are, please reveal yourself to me.

Thanks!

Eureka!!.. (The day the light bulb inside my head lit up)

Those who took Physics at high school can recall a story about a Greek mathematician named Archimedes. Like every ancient Greek great thinkers, he managed to first understand that the volume displaced in a liquid (in his case, water displaced as he was entering his bath tub) is equal to the volume of the body submerged in the liquid. With this sudden discovery, he lept out from his bath tub , coined the famous word "Eureka!" and ran down the streets of Syracuse naked, obviously full of joy.

I had a similar experience last Friday, 16 April 2010. Before I go on, I must stress that no naked running happened or joyful yelling occured. That would be a total embarassment for a professional like me. (Although, in the future I would not rule out any possibilities of that happening due to the birth of a child or some girl agrees to marry me).

Last Friday, I was thinking about ways to connect my beautiful Nokia handphone to all my social networks. In this day and age, surely there must be applications that can do that. After browsing the net, I found out an application called Nimbuzz, downloaded it on my handphone and Walla!.

At first, I thought it would just be a typical stupid software as it is available for free. Tried to log in into my facebook and it worked. Realising that I was hoping to get in contact with someone using Yahoo Messenger, I quickly setup a yahoo account, logged in for the first time, add a mate of mine who was online at that time and.... it worked!! Although he was sitting 5 meters from my desk, here I was, chatting with him. (by the way, I am not gay!! I was just checking whether the software worked or not).

The first word came out of my mouth was not "Eureka!" but a more modern version of it, "COOL!!". It was a joy to see that I have caught up with technology. I felt like a light bulb just lit up inside my head. Really.

A colleague of mine kept reminding me that I looked like a small kid full of joy as my face literally brimmed with excitement. He quickly brought me back to earth by stating that I had had the handphone for a good few months and the real surprising thing was that I only knew about all the applications now rather than few months ago.

I must admit that my excitement will not changed the world like what Archimedes had discovered. However, in my little world at that time, I did felt like running naked in the streets of Bukit Jalil and shouting "Cool!!" all the way to Shah Alam.

Again. Let me say it one last time..Cool!!