lower your taxes, give away books

April is nearing the end. Are you being a good Malaysian? Have you filed in your tax forms?

Among other things, we can lower our taxes - or at least get back our pre-paid PCBs, by buying books (and magazines). You can get tax deduction by claiming up to RM1,000 expenditure on books and magazines. That's a big sum, and could lower by quite an amount from your taxable income. When it comes to taxes, a ringgit is a hefty sum, isn't it?

Even if you don't enjoy reading books, once in a while you'd buy a copy or two of magazines to kill time while waiting for someone, school books for your children, yada yada yada...

Or, you could buy books as gifts. C'mon, you do give away presents to someone, right? While it may be nice to buy those small things your loved ones have been hinting on you all-year, giving away books would work for you, too. It's a win-win thingy. You'll not only enrich someone's life (great people reads, and leads), you'll also be doing yourself a favour. Everyone would be happy, because of you.

Err... here's a list of books that I want this year. Well, at least one of them.

http://www.bike-maintenance.com/maintenance-books.htm

Make my day. Save the receipt(s) for next April (and make your day, then).

who's your favourite painter?

I like Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, although not all of them.

Why?

Because his brushstroke is unique. I'm no art buff, but I know what I like when I'm looking at it.

My favourite of his all must be 'Irises'. There's a mystery to the single white one, amongst the other 'normals'. The overall colour blend is nice - blue/indigo and green, the accompaniment of oranges on the top left corner, dashes of yellow, and earth on the bottom left corner.

On the subject of art, my kind of art is more towards geometric and definite. No wonder why among my past ambitions was to be an architect. Well, I guess a mechanical engineer suits me too. Once in a while I get to draw, those geometric and definite lines with Autocad. If I really have the time, I'd go old school: pen, paper, ruler, stencils and geometric stationeries.

I remember during art classes through my school years , I'm more keen towards letterings/typesets, logos, posters and such. I guess that's why I'm into XS - because of the definiteness, while offering a work of art when it's finished.

Some time ago I attempted to convert Irises into XS sheet so that I can make it a major project. However, it turned out to be quite massive and requires many, many different colours. Well, having the painting as my office PC desktop wallpaper is okay too.