It’s a known fact that eating garlic and onions make you socially repulsive.  But garlic and onions also have known curative properties.

Garlic, for one, is known, and I have personal experience with this, to drastically lower blood cholesterol.  The downside is that you have to take it chopped and, yes, raw – for at least 2 weeks. Say goodbye to your non garlic-eating friends.

Onions, as far I’ve heard, is like the anti-flatulence vegetable. According to WikiPedia it has many medicinal properties, but it doesn’t mention purging air as being one of them.  But again, personal experience has taught me that onions make you fart, which at least leads to a less bloated stomach.

Recently though, something peculiar happened to me and I haven’t been able to verify it with evidence, anecdotal or otherwise. So here it is.

Super Onions & Super Garlic

Being of the single persuasion recently I have had the freedom to eat as much garlic and onion as I can stomach. It is important to note that my tolerance for garlic and onions (and chillies, for that matter) is quite substantial.

Also of importance is the fact that I have, in the centre of my lower jaw, two teeth that overlap, which are annoyingly prone to plaque buildup.  Perhaps because it overlaps in a way that protects it from any but the most stringent, multi-directional-approach tooth brushing.

Anyway, plaque, as you may know, is stubborn and never leaves on its own. So it was quite a surprise when mine did. A little bit at a time.

Dentist Grade Tools

It was only when I went at it with a plaque scrapper (you don’t have one?) that I realise how easily it really came off.

And it made me wonder; what brought this on?

Usually odd things in my body are due to a persistent change in diet, and the only change in my diet has been the edition of serious amounts of garlic and onion. Like 2 or 3 onion and a bulb of garlic at every meal.

So I searched Google to see whether or not the removal of plaque has ever been attributed to garlic and onions, or whether garlic and onions can in fact remove plaque.

I found nothing to answer this question, but having had this experience I  can’t help but wonder: do garlic and/or onion somehow work in on plaque to make it easier to remove?



When you ignore people on Facebook, they pretty much disappear from your world, assuming that Facebook is the only part of your world where you ever encountered them. Ignoring people in real life is substantially less effective and much more work.

Ever notice when mutual friends reply to a comment on their posts left by the Ignoree? The friend appear to either be having a conversation with themselves or give replies that are out of sync.

If you are the Ignorer, you will sometimes remember that you are, and put 2 and  2 together to conclude that what you’re witnessing is half a conversation between your friend and somebody you’ve chosen to exclude from your Facebook life.

The same goes for when you are the Ignoree – although the realisation that you are the Ignoree is an entirely different feeling all together. Sinking, I believe it is.

The only way you know you’re being excluded from whatever comment / update / post was made in first place though, is by picking up on random snippets of other people’s responses to an apparently non-existing post. And to pick up on those, you must have been expecting to find yourself on some or other limited access list.

At least Facebook privacy works in that regard – a powerful blade that cuts both ways. Deep.

Facebook Life

Also, if you’re spending too much time on Facebook, like I clearly am, then some statistics might cause worry.

Like having 515 friends, for instance, of which 235 are in common with your recently ex girlfriend.  And realising, at about the same time, that of those remaining friends of yours, at least 80% are overseas / out-of-reach / a business contact / were added after a night out when you had a bit too much to drink.

The world suddenly looks a lot smaller and your prospects of future good nights out  a lot slimmer.

It’s the price you pay for the choices you make.



For me a major WordPress Blog annoyance is the WordPress Revisions feature. It essentially saves a copy of your post or page every time you update it. If you share my frustration, here’s how to stop or limit WordPress Revisions and clean current revisions from your database.

Remember kids: Backup before you try this at home

WordPress is an awesome blogging platform with many useful features, but WordPress Revisions is the one feature I have never said about “oh, wow, I wish I had the previous iteration of this article“.  I back my database up regularly (and so should you), which gives me a backup of my article anyway, so for me it makes sense to disable WordPress Revisions all together.

There are various plug-ins that can handle this for you, and I recommend that you use one of them if you’re not comfortable fiddling around in code.

Otherwise, open your wp-config.php file, which resides in your WordPress root/install directory, and add either one of the following lines before the ?> at the bottom of the file.

To totally disable WordPress Revisions to prevent additional copies of posts and pages being saved, add this:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', FALSE);

To limit WordPress Revisions to say 1, 2 or 3 revision copies only, add this and change the number to suit your preference:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 2);

The following line of code will erase all the WordPress Revisions in your blog. I did this, because I don’t want any copies anywhere – it reduced my 7.4MiB database to 3.2MiB, which just shows how much space WordPress Revisions can occupy (and this is a development database, which means it’s still relatively small).

Do you really want to delete all your WordPress Revisions?

Open you favourite MySQL interface software (commandline, PHPMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench – they all work), back up your current database and then enter the following command:

DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = "revision";

Your database will now be wiped clean of every single WordPress Revision (but obviously not your actual article or pages). In any case, please take my my advice: back up your database.

And… you’re done!  You should now have a significantly smaller WordPress database, which will speed things up a bit – it really makes a different if your blog is huge, less so if you only have a few entries.

Happy blogging!

I’ll be the last person you’ll ever see at a screening of a regular football (soccer) game, yet, like many, I find the World Cup irresistible. And it’s not just because I’m from South Africa either.

Fine, a large part of me is drawn to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa for the very reason that it is in South Africa.  The minor parts of me are drawn to it because teams competing against each other on a country-level brings out something very competitive and patriotic in me.

Bafana Bafana – Boys Boys

Of course the team I support first is the South African Football Team, which are known as Bafana Bafana in the same way the South African Rugby Team is known as the Springboks. It’s a term of endearment, which contrary to their Wikipedia page, actually means Boys Boys. From my understanding, at least.

But it seems as if the rumours are true. You know, the rumours that said that the only reason South Africa is in the Football World Cup at all is because we’re the host nation.

Yes, our national soccer team doesn’t have a fully stocked trophy cabinet -  the Africa Cup of Nations it the only trophy in the cabinet – but we do have some skills.  And one or two players in other country’s club leagues.

So Bafana Bafana might not be the smart choice to bet on, but they’re my number 1 priority to support. Even though thus far they’re not doing that great and might soon be out of the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup.  But until they walk off the field for the very last time, I am a South African Football Supporter through and through.

In The Meantime…

While South Africa isn’t playing my allegiance lies with other African teams and Asian teams, and it’s them I root for in games that do not involve South Africans.

I saw the dark side of South African fans in our game against Uruguay.  The vuvuzelas where roaring, the crowds were cheering and then South Africa was 2 down against Uruguay.  Suddenly the vuvuzelas fell silent and the crowds became quiet – shortly after the stadium started to empty.

I know it was a terrible game – South Africa stood around as if they too were spectators.  But for our fellow fans to desert them like that hurt.  If it hurt me as a fellow supporter, imagine how the team on the field must have felt.  If they had the wind taken out of their sails by the goals against them, I can’t even imagine how the silence of their supporters must have been the kick in the ribs while they were down.

South Africa in the Rest of The World Cup

So experts and those who know nothing both agree: South Africa probably won’t advance any further than the pools in the 2010 FIFA World Cup on their home ground.

But France is not exactly in good shape either – in fact, they’re much worse off than Bafana Bafana.  For that reason I think our Boys still have a chance.  A slim chance, but a chance non-the-less.

If we beat France, and we beat them good to get our Goals For up, they might still have a chance.  And if Bafana Bafana wants to take that chance, I will be right behind them cheering to do it with gusto.

I promise that if the team doesn’t let the country down and try their hardest, the country won’t let them down.  You might not win, but at least die trying.

Go Bafana Bafana, go Boys Boys!

Here’s Some Quality World Cup Links for Instant Info

• Google.com’s Most Recent Scores & Upcoming Games
  It defaults to South Africa time (on Google.com), but you can your local time by using your local Google: google.com.my for everything in Malalysia time, for instance.
  
• FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa Full Schedule of Games
  Defaults to South Africa time, but you can set the time zone for easy conversion and have the times be for your time zone.
• FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa Standings
  A must have chart for following your team and see which other teams pose a threat – or not.
• Twitter.com’s FIFA 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa Coverage
  Not all of it is interesting, but most of it is certainly relevant.  If for some reason you can’t follow the live broadcast of your favourite game, you can always tune in to Twitter and follow the live game there.  Could be exciting… And if you hash the 3 letter code of a country, like in #rsa, or #worldcup – you’ll get a nice little icon next to it on the Twitter website.

I can’t be sure when exactly it happened, but at last Maybank enabled all the goodies on their debit card and is it finally the only debit card I need to do everything, even online purchases and PayPal payouts.

Late & Shaky Start

When Maybank first released the debit card with the cherries design, this was a little over a year ago, it was a bit of a half baked product.  It had the very exciting Visa logo on the front, and I, like a many bloggers, thought it was the digital money I could carry in my digital wallet to pay for my digital life.

Unfortunately you couldn’t buy anything with it online, put money into your PayPal account or receive payouts from your PayPal account.  The debit card essentially had no benefit over Maybank’s black-and-yellow ATM card and you had to pay RM12 to ‘upgrade’ to it too.  The only plus point was that because of the Visa system, as opposed to the Visa Electron sub-system of the old card, you could swipe it in more physical shops. Whoop-de-friggen-doo.

For me and those who were hoping to join the effortlessness of having a card that you could use like a credit card, the Maybank Debit Card v1 was a big, fat disappointment.

For my Paypal requirements (it had to be a Visa card), I applied for a TuneMoney pre-paid Visa card (what a hassle that was) and otherwise shopped at websites that was Maybank direct-debit ready.  Not ideal, but my digital life went on.

Fate Steps in and Demands Reassessment

So last week I lost my wallet.

It was in the door of my Myvi – you know, in that handy door-handle / mobile-phone-holder / not-really-a-wallet-holder space, when I opened the door and didn’t see my wallet drop out, had coffee (for which a friend paid) went home and the wallet was never heard from or seen again.

Needless to say, cards were canceled and lost cash was cried over.  The Maybank card was easy to replace and I was going to replace the Tune card too. But when I called the Tune call centre, I was put on hold so long that it drained my already-faulty battery and I never got to re-order the card.

As if fate had not overplayed its hand already, I then stumbled upon a blog post somewhere, which said Maybank’s debit card v2 is now the card it should have been when it was first released. I followed the trail of breadcrumbs and wouldn’t you know it, it’s true.

Activate Your Maybank Debit Card for Online Shopping

First things first. If like me you’ve been paying for your AirAsia flights with the direct debit function, you will have been craving to just whip out your debit card and pay for it right then and there. Now you can – but there’s a bit of a song and dance to do first.

• Log into your Maybank account;
• Right at the bottom under Utilities you’ll see “Maybank Secure Online Shopping Registration“. Click.

• You’re then taken to a page where you have to fill out passwords and stuff. I only have 1 card, so I don’t get a choice, but if you happen to have many cards, then you might have to select the right card based on the 16 digits on the front of the card you’re working with;
• Type a Maybank Secure Online Shopping (MSOS) password. Think about it – don’t make it your Maybank2u password, or your email password, or your Facebook password. Remember, this is your life’s savings you’re working with, so don’t choose a password anybody that knows a bit about you can guess. But remember it;
• Retype that password, just to be sure;
• The Personal Assurance Message can be anything. A yo’ mamma joke if you like. It will be used when you’re about to make a payment – you will be diverted to a Visa verification website to type your MSOS password – to ensure that website you get directed to is an authorised website, your unique Personal Assurance Message will be displayed. If it isn’t, you shouldn’t type your password.
• The Expiry Date and CVV is as it appears on the card you are registering;
• The Hint, I feel, is pretty stupid, because this is likely fairly common knowledge. Choose the question you think the fewest people will know and will be the hardest to find out.
• Answer is the answer to The Hint above. Type it in a way that you will remember it.

Once you’re done, your card is registered and, technically, you can go out and spend the contents of your savings account from the comfort of your plastic card.

Right after doing this I went to buy something online, but for some reason it didn’t recognise my password, even though my Personal Assurance Message was displayed. I can only imagine it takes a few hours.  I’ll update this when I successfully purchase something online.

Link your Paypal Account

Next, of course, you would want to use your Maybank debit card to cash in on your stash of mula that’s been accumulating in your PayPal account. I’m sure you know how this works:

• Log in to PayPal, go to Profile and click on Add / Edit Credit Card (Ha! We’re going to use a debit card);
• Click on the yellow Add a Card button (bottom right);
• Select the card type (Visa) fill in the details, check the address and click Add Card;
• PayPal will query your card in the background, and if everything checks out, it will be listed as 1 of your credit cards;
• On the right of the entry, under Action you will see Link & Activate Your Card. You have to let PayPal deduct US$1.95 from your account to test / verify your card (which is credited back to your PayPal account upon completion);
• Once that’s done, you then have to enter the 4 digit number that appears on your debit card statement to complete the process.  It may take a day or 2 before it shows up though, so log out and go do something else;

And that will successfully link your Maybank Debit Card to your PayPal account, which will enable you to ‘pay’ money from your debit account into your PayPal account, and vice versa ‘download’ money from your PayPal account into your Maybank debit card.

Maybank Debit Card Withdrawals When You’re Overseas

One last thing you might consider is having your Maybank debit card activated for transactions / withdrawals while you’re overseas.

The first time I tried drawing money from Singapore, it failed. I was also unable to pay for my accommodation, although that might have been unrelated. On my return to Malaysia the call centre did say the debit card needs to be activated for overseas transactions.

Since then, I’ve been able to draw money with my Maybank debit card from overseas ATMs that display the Visa logo in Bangkok, Phuket and again, Singapore.

The Journo advised me you can activate this feature at any Maybank ATM in Malaysia, or you can do like I did and give the helpful people at the Maybank call centre a buzz on 1-300 88 6688 if you’re in Malaysia or on +60 3 7844 3696 if you’re not.

Now, life is good. Thanks for listening to your customers Maybank, I’m glad your debit card finally caught up.