The most mundane and dreaded is all done

With that kind of title... you must be wondering what the heck I'm talking about.

Quite simple, really. THREE words: Income Tax Submission.

Have you done yours yet? If you haven't done so yet... are you waiting until it hits 11:59:59 on 30 April 2007?

One word of advice: Get it done early and you might just avoid the probability of a server crash of sorts due to the pressure of heavy traffic experienced by the servers on that very last day.

You know it... I know it... we all love to procrastinate over things we don't usually like to do.

So, after all said and done... you should know that the e-hasil web submission module on the LHDN website is really easy to use and it took me just about 5 minutes to get all the information keyed in.

Believe it or not... that is probably like 5 times faster than the time it took me to find all my 2006 income tax related information (documents and receipts for filing) and to draw out the relevant numbers.

F1 GP 2007: Sepang , Malaysia

The race has just ended and it was a fantastic one to watch. The McLaren team led by Ron Dennis had put in a tremendous amount of effort to bring their cars up to be on par with the Ferraris (winner of the Melbourne race just three weekends ago)... and it had really paid off for them with 2-time defending world champion Fernando Alonso coming in 1st and rookie Lewis Hamilton in 2nd.

I also see that Hamilton will be a big player in F1 in the years to come after seeing how he expertly edged his way from 4th on the grid to be ahead of both Raikkonen (3rd on grid) and Massa (pole on grid)... and subsequently defended his provisional 2nd place spot in the race while allowing his teammate Alonso to widen his time gap with the Ferraris prior to the first round of pit stops.

It also seemed that the Ferrari team was caught speechless with the tide being in favor or McLaren. Massa who ended in 5th too didn't make it any better for the team. He seemed to have lost the spirit to earn back the 3rd place spot that he lost after losing control of his car in an attempt to overtake Hamilton (a few laps before the first pit stops) coming out of a turn and ended up driving over the curb and some grass.

The next few paragraphs... comes in spurts and may not connect with one another.

Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber (probably the longest serving driver in the Petronas sponsored team) - he did a good job finishing in 4th for the second race in a row.

Nico Rosberg had once again become a victim to the Williams' car unreliability that he is now rather familiar with. That's really unfortunate since things were really looking good for him. He could have earned some points if the car hadn't died in the last leg of the race.

Ever notice that world champions have a tradition after winning a race? The legendary Michael Schumacher will jump and punch the air on the podium. Fernando Alonso has a more amusing quirk - he does a silly little jig (and it is a different jig for each race won) on top of his car after he climbs out of the cockpit in the parking area next to the designated podium area.

Did anyone notice that there are a lot of British drivers in the line up this year followed by the Germans?

One last thing... it is beginning to look a lot like we are going back into the days of Ferrari vs McLaren. A neck and neck fight to the end - or will it? As Murray Walker once said - The opposite of F1 is "if".

p/s: If you want to look for a laugh... google up Murray Walker quotes and read them... he is famous for spitting out words with enthusiasm and quite often stating the obvious or plain old goofing things up.

F1 GP 2007: The Iceman Cometh?

I wanted to say this for some time... this could very likely be Kimi Raikkonen's year in F1. He finally has a very decent car to drive - a smoldering red FERRARI. When he was a wild card rookie for Sauber Petronas in 2001... he did pretty good tremendously well during his time driving in a mid-range car. That's why I believe that he will one day be a world champion in F1 racing.

However, I do wonder if Alonso will still be able to defend and retain his title in the somewhat more unreliable (historically speaking) McLaren in the past few F1 racing years? He had a good start coming in second in Melbourne but will destiny continue to smile brightly for this young gun?

Relatively speaking, his understanding on how to get the best out of the car he is driving could be compared to that of Michael Schumacher. How else can you explain why Fisichella who is put into an almost always similarly set up Renault in 2005 and 2006 cannot deliver the results that Alonso showcased? Whatever it is, I'd still like to see Alonso in the top 5 at the very least... and to spice it up, a close fight between Alonso and Raikkonen would be spiff-spanking purrrfect.

Hmm... what about new drivers like Nico Rosberg? I hope to see if he can continue to bring out the sparks of brilliance he demonstrated in 2006. He showed much promise in some of the qualifying rounds and in laps before car reliability issues poked its ugly head out to kill any hope of raking in points for the Williams-Cosworth team.

And in case any of you haven't quite figured it out yet... I'm a fan of F1 and not strictly supporting a particular team. I truly enjoy watching how the drivers dish out their skills against all odds on-the-track (including team strategies that turn out awfully horrific in nightmarish proportions)... and occasionally... it's just nice to find out if the BMW Sauber team (as it is known today) is making any headway into fighting it all out with the big kahunas.

Oh yeah... that goes for the the Toyota team too since they are a relatively young team in F1 - having entered the fray only in 2002 with high expectations of making it into the top team in something like 5 years. That's pretty ambitious and we know they didn't really make it as a top team yet. They are aiming to win in their 6th season (tsk, tsk, lofty, lofty, but to be successful you need to aim high - real high).

Here's a quick look at how Toyota has fared over the years:
<key> 'team position at end of season'/'total number of teams' in season or year
10/11 in 2002 (ho-hum... the back-marker days)
8/10 in 2003 (still in the back-marker days)
8/10 in 2004 (yup... still in their back-marker days)
4/10 in 2005 (whoa, nelly! now that is a huge improvement!)
6/11 in 2006 (oops, a drop! back to the drawing board to crank it way up...)

Phew... I'm done FOR NOW!

You'll see more of my F1 ramblings as the season rolls on until the end of the year... haha!