Singapura

I'm off to Singapore tomorrow guys and I'm going back to Brunei on Thursday afternoon. Thank god our travel agent were able to book us to a hotel as there are some sort of convention going on there next week. This time around me and the missus decide to ditch out Orchard Road and stay at Pan Pacific Hotel somewhere in the Marina Bay area. The closest shopping center is the Marina Square, Suntec City, Raffles Plaza , City link and off course my favorite of all, Funan IT Mall which is, by Singaporean standard, only a walking distance from our hotel. (Note: In Brunei context, Singaporean will consider a journey from SOAS Mosque to Plaza Athirah as a walking distance!)

Believe it or not, I seldom took a taxi to go anywhere in Singapore as I prefer the MRT and walking while I was there. If the hotel that I'm staying in is located strategically next or "above" an MRT station I will definitely used the MRT from the airport like what I did when I stayed in Swissotel and Royal Plaza, this is only applicable when I'm traveling alone especially when attending short courses as my wife does not like the idea of wheeling our luggage around.

However, tomorrows trip will be a very different ball game as for the first time in our life, my wife and I will bring a small cute baby by the name of Mohd. Asyraf throughout the four day trip. Using the ever crowded MRT while pushing a baby stroller may not be recommended so I guess we need to use the taxi this time. Hope Asyraf will behave and less of his tantrums so that his Umi and Ayah will have a nice trip and do some shopping in peace and quiet. (Command & Conquer 3 here I come). Bon Voyage.......

Ngalih Ku Hari Ani

Went to KB this morning as part of my "On-call" duties throughout my deserving vacation. Today all the big-guns of our ministry made a working visit to all it's department's branch office in KB and Tutong. I did mention in my previous blog that the second week of my annual leave will be very busy as I have to commit to these "On-call" status that was highlighted by my senior manager when I applied for my three week long leave. Everything went well today especially during the visit to my agency branch in KB, the only setback is that I had to drove my own car to KB today! My car was schedule to have a service appointment today at NBT but I have to cancel it due to todays event, the second cancellation in a week!

On a sadder note, The Daily Brunei Resources are no longer exist as Mr. BR plan to concentrate more on his work and his writing in the daily newspaper. His post on the 15 of April was his last and he will certainly be miss by all of his avid fans including me. I admit it was a big shock to me as there was no indication or hint from him in his previous blog saying that he is about to end his blogsite. I was with him all day today and if only I had the courage to say something I surely ask him to forget about his intention and continue educating us with his interesting blog.

Books & Magazines

Today is another tiring day for me and the missus as we were busy packing things at our soon to be ex-house. The heavy stuff will be cleared by this Saturday using a pick-up which I hope will only take two trips as one trip will cost me $50. I think the process of packing stuff is easy compare to unpacking it as my parents house is already full of things and junk staking up in the store room. Today we spent most of the day packing all our old books and magazine and believe me with the amount of books and magazines that me and the missus have, we can already set up a book store and sell it for a profit.

The dilemma of having too much books and magazines have bother me for quiet sometime. I have the tendency to keep all the books and magazines that I bought since I was a teenager. The amount of books and magazine increases when I married my other half more than ten years ago as she also like to "waste" our money on this hobbies of ours. To name a few of the books and magazines that we like and kept is Gila-Gila, Batu Api, Ujang, Match, Womens Day, Cleo, URTV, FHM, Stuff Magazine, Pa & Ma, PSM, EGM, and not to mention my precious Archie comics.

The easy way to save space and money is to stop buying them or to throw it away as soon as I finish reading it but it is easy said than done. Although I've grown out of from some of them and I even have stop buying books such as Gila-Gila and Match, new releases and edition kept on coming that attract me and the missus to buy them from the newsstand. Nowadays magazine that got to do with gadgets and computers is my favourite while the missus are more on those babies stuff. I can't see us stopping buying books and magazine in the near future especially when Asyraf start to read and only gods knows what kind of book that his Umi and Ayah are going to buy for him.

PC Game

We in Brunei always knew that the "Pirates" have manage to do quiet well in supplying us with the latest movies from the silver screen, unfortunately nothing can be said with the pirated PC games. As a gamer I find it very frustrating to wait for our local supplier to come good and sell those recent and newest PC game in the market. In Brunei, as far as I know there are only two computer shop which can supply me with this hobby of mine. However the selection are very limited and most of them are not what you call up to date. Moreover pirated PC games is not as easy as buying pirated dvd as we have virusus to worry about and in some cases some of this game will not work as some of the files are either missing or corrupted.

PC games in Brunei is not really picking up that well, I guess a lot of Brunei gamers here are only interested in those shooting games (Counter Strike) and Football Management (Championship Manager). I got friends who also play PC games but they are only interested in this two genre. I guess not many Bruneians out there who like those point and click adventure games (Siberia, Broken Sword,Myst), strategy games (Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Age of Empires), simulation (The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Sim City) and many more like I do.

I remember this one computer shop who specialised in origional PC games by the name of "Torc" situated somewhere in Menglait way back in the nineties. I believe the owner of the shop is a true gamer so that's why a lot of new and good quality games came to our shore back then and not to mention that it had also created a big hole in my wallet. Nowdays Hua HO is the only sole supplier of origional PC games in Brunei but again the choices are still not that good. So until they broden their imagination on the selection of games, I can only keep my finger cross everytime I make my visit to "Kadai Kominis" hoping that they will sell the games that I really want and that actually work at the sametime.

Cuti Mandatori

It has been a while since my last blog last Thursday. I was pretty busy all weekend finishing my work as I officially got my leave starting yesterday. However I still went to the office on Monday morning to hand over all my pending work to the person who are going to cover me until the end of this month.

After a lot of speculation and deliberation, my MD finally approve my application. My last leave was in August last year and boy do I really need it this time. However there was a catch this time, although my leave was approved, my Senior Manager did not fail to insert the word "On Call" on my leave application, so I guess I can't leave my mobile phone off sight from now on till the 28th of April.

Well I can't complain, it is better than nothing, I guess this is just the "perk" of being a Manager (yeah right). This morning alone I had receive two phone calls from the office asking for clarification on something and one caller even persuade me to come to the office to discuss on an issue as my so called "Acting Manager" is nowhere in sight!

As for the things that I plan to do during my leave, I honestly can't say that I'm going to have some peace and quiet. One thing for sure is I will be going to the office somwhere during the second week of my leave as all Head of Section in my organisation is required to attend a week long workshop! This week alone, me and the missus will be very busy as we finally decide to move out from my wife goverment house and back to my parents house, so expect hard work and sweat during this week.

As for the final week of April, I really wish I can just switch off my mobile phone coz I plan to have my vacation all to myself, the missus and offcourse Aysraf without any intteruptions, amin.........

Night of Frustration

Watched DPMM FC match against Selangor last night, they won two goals to the good but they can get more. Shahrazen as usual busy menacing the opponents defence line and obviously was the man of the match, although he misses two sitter in the match. Selangor who was and may still be consider the Liverpool or Manchester United of the Malaysian League was outplayed most of the time. Rene Kumar lead the defence well, but nothing can be said with the other two imports. Tobar was nearly non-existant in centre of midfield and Caceres left his shooting boot at home. It was no surprise that both of them was subtituted by local players which play better than them. I can't believe Ranko still retain them in the squad, it is either they did well during training or both of them is Ranko's favourite nephew!

Even my cousin is ashamed of our two 'special' imports

The Fans before

The Fans after

On a lighter note, as predicted by a lot of people, Liverpool whip PSV three nil Wednesday morning. Only a miracle can stop them advancing into the semis where I hope they will play Chelsea and not Valencia.

Sweet Revenge

DPMM FC 4 Perak 3, how cool was that! It must be a fascinating game although Ranoadidas said it was frustrating at the same time. How I wish I was there last night. Sweet revenge it is as stated in the BB today, Perak beat us at their own turf and now it is our chance to kick their a**. But the scoreline did not do justice as DPMM FC let in three goals in the win, maybe the abscene of Pg Sallehuddin got something to do with it.

Now how about this result? Liverpool 4 Arsenal 1, sweet revenge you say? I don't think so. Yeah they did great and congrats to Crouch with his hattrick, but I dont think we got our revenge last Saturday. Liverpool met Arsenal 4 times altogether this season and we only won once. The damage had been done, Liverpool humiliated Arsenal only once but Arsenal humiliated Liverpool three times! However if this latest result will cause Arsenal to lose point and drop down to fifth place and out of the European Cup spot, then we will call it even and we finally got our Sweet Revenge.