Yearly Bonuses and Credit Cards

Public Servant should be thankful that finally their prayers of getting their annual bonuses in December rather than in January had been answered. His Majesty happily consented and inform his subjects through his 61st B'day's Titah last Sunday. I am truly in favor of this decision and I understand the predicament that the public servant face every year. Parents are the most grateful of the lot as they now have that extra cash to buy their children's school books and stuff before the new term begins. Before this it is sad to hear that some parents have to use their children's "Duit Raya" to buy those things that I mention above.

But do you know that the scenario of not having money at the right time, although you know that money will come in buckets load in the following month, is a good reason why you have to own a credit card. This is where the beauty of having this so called plastic cash kicks in. A wise thing to do when buying school books in December (prior to the sultan's titah) is to charge everything with our credit card and taking the advantage of the 40 days of no interest charge on our purchase, by doing so and with the right timing, we will definitely can settle our debts in January as soon as the yearly bonuses are being paid.

Sadly, owning a credit card nowadays is badly interpreted as having an imaginary cash that can be paid by installment plus whatever interest imposed. One should remember that to tap the wonders and flexibility of a credit card one should always realise that whatever amount charge to the credit card must be backed by real cash either from the next month's salary or from their personal savings. Anyway, from this year onwards, December will be a "happening" month and since it coincide with the school holidays we can just imagine how huge the traffic jams will be at the Shopping Malls, Fancy Restaurants, Car Accessories Shops, and off course, the infamous Kuala Lurah and Sungai Tujuh.

All Hail Fernando Torres

Finally my prayer had been answered, a quality striker for Liverpool at last. I hope this will be the missing link to make them click and win the Premier League this coming season. I have high hope for this young lad although I have never seen him play, but base on what the tabloids and what my friends have told me, he should come good.

Well that is typical of me, I consider myself a Liverpool and England Fan and not a Football Fan. What it means here is that I only watch football games that involve those two teams and I never watch any other team play even though it is a Champions League Final or even a World Cup Final! So since Liverpool never play Atletico Madrid for the past few years, Torres is a stranger to me. (But maybe youtube can help me here)

On a sadder note, Liverpool have confirmed that they have renewed their partnership with Carlsberg as their official club sponsor for a further three years!!!! Ironically, Liverpool did not win the league as soon as Carlsberg sponsor them in 1992. The Liverpool Board should have realise by now that this intoxicating drink is bringing them bad luck and not to mention of depriving me the previlage of having their new jersey for the past 14 years. Tantu pulang Hua Ho kali mensponsor! Sia-sia pun, tepaksa tah nunggu tiga tahun lagi.....

Autobots Rules

Last Saturday night me and the guys watched the most awesome movie ever made by far. I guess by now you all have heard that the Transformers movie receive rave reviews as soon it was premiered in our local cinema last Thursday night. The CGI was excellent and near perfection.

That is the beauty of today's technology, I wonder how will Star Wars last three episode, which was filmed and produce in the 70's, look like if it was filmed and made in this decade? The Transformers movie will now set the standard on how will other Sci-Fi movies should be made in the coming years, so expect more of the same or even better next summer.

The Transformers was originally a Toy made by a Japanese company by the name of Hasbro and Takara in 1984. Due to its popularity in Japan, a animated television series was later created and reach our shoreline not long after that. That is why most of the fans nowadays are those in the late twenties and early thirties.

From my point of view, most of the animated television series during the eighties and early nineties are far more better than what is shown to kids today. I can still remember The Centurions, Thunder Cats, He-man, Mask, Inspector Gadget, Justice League, Flintstones, Silver Hawk and much-much more. All of this will certainly be a box-office movie if it was bring over to the silver screen.

"Kesalingbolehtukaran"

Funny word eh, I only knew that this word do exist in the Malay Dictionary days ago when my friend show me his appointment letter as a Security Committee for todays event held at Istana Nurul Iman. I think this is the longest Malay word out there unless there is other words that I'm not aware of. What it's basically mean in English is "Interchangeability"

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the Interchangeability Agreement between Brunei and Singapore Currency. It was way back in 1967 that the decision to peg both currencies was initiated. Although the agreement was done nearly half a century ago, not many people, especially from Singapore, are aware of the parity of both currencies. I find it really annoying when the cashiers at most of the shopping establishment in Singapore have to look closely at our money and sometimes refer to their superiors/managers before accepting it at the payment counter. This issue never happen in our country as we are all aware of this parity stuff and we never question the retailer when they give out change which comprise of Singapore Dollar, unless it is crinkle or old like what happen recently.

I'm a bit surprise that only now and after today's event the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) will take several actions to educate retailers in Singapore to accept Brunei Currency. Hopefully after this, my Brunei 20 cents will never again be rejected at Burger King like what happened during my trip to Singapore recently!

The Republic of Kazakhstan

Last Saturday my organization was visited by a couple of delegates from one of the bank in Kazakhstan. As a fan of Discovery Travel Channel, I've heard a lot of this country but never met a Kazakh in person. From my observation, as far as appearance is concern, the Kazakh are not like the typical Russian that we usually associated with. The Kazakh are more of a mixture of Mongolian and a little bit of Chinese.

I was with them from early morning till lunch time and also during dinner. Having watched their country only through the tele, I have a couple of question to ask them just to know more about their country coz it is not that often we can meet and talk to a Kazakh in our lifetime. However it was not an easy matter as none of them can speak English! We communicate via an interpreter who is a Russian studying in KL. Since I have to relay all my question to her before I can get an answer from one of the Kazakh, it is like having a commercial break in between so I kept most of the question to myself and hope someday I will meet an English speaking Kazakh like Borat! Ha Ha Ha.

Do you know that Kazakhstan was the ninth largest country in the world. Although they are huge in size, their population of around 15 million people are consider tiny if it is measure in number of people per square kilometer. To get the idea of how big this country is, I was informed that they have three international time line, they are equivalent of the size of the whole country in Western Europe, they can consider themselves as Asian or Europeans, and a picnic trip to the beach of the Caspian Sea, which is located west of the county, is like traveling from Brunei to Singapore and back, four times! No wonder most of the delegates wish to see Muara beach as soon as they land in Brunei last Friday.

Job Responsibility

In my organistion when a successful candidates was recruited, he or she will be given a offer letter which need to be responded by them before there were taken aboard to work with our organisation. I think the same format was use for those who were recruited by the goverment since my organisation is a statutory body within the Ministry. The letter clearly stated the post offered, salary cap, information on TAP regarding how many percent need to deducted every month, the need for a medical check up and lastly there is one clause which I like to ellaborate more in my blog today.

The clause or requirement rather, sounded like this "Bersedia berkhidmat di mana-mana cawangan di semua daerah". This is more of a notification or an instruction for the successful candidates that they may be transfered or assign to any branch in any of the four district of Brunei Darussalam at any given time. However, this one requirement is usually taken for granted by the new employee. I guess they were so excited to read the letter that they stop reading it as soon as they see the amount of salary that they going to received every month hence the last clause were never taken into consideration seriously.

This is what happen to me today when I instructed one of my staff to replace her friend at another branch of ours as she is about to take her annual leave next week. As soon as I told her of my intention, she hastily refuses along with a bombardment of 1001 reason. Although some of her reason are pretty legitimate but the question here is, what happen with the clause that I mention earlier, it is not just for show and when the time comes he or she must abide with what was clearly stated in their offer letter. My friend once told me that I should never ask someone during an interview if she is willing to work extra hours or able to commute daily to different branch or district because we will definitely get a straight YES from them, but when the time do come for them to do just that, their promises vanishes in thin air like magic! Funny eh.......

Getting Married

Tomorrow one of my close friend will have his "Bersanding" ceremony after having done his Solemnisation or "Akad Nikah" yesterday. Since he is a close friend of mine, I did manage to hear all the things that he did prior to his wedding day in terms of the preparation and all. I guess he had done his homework to insure he will have a grand day tomorrow.

I'm sure organizing a big event such as this is not an easy task but I can't give furthur comment on this as when I got hitched a couple of years ago, I only had my "Nikah" ceremony which was held at SOAS Mosque. I'm sure my experience was not that bad as to compare with what my friend has endure for the past few months. I never had the stress of thinking of what "hantaran" need to be purchase, the number of guest that needs to be invited, what kind of souvenirs to give, how many wedding "tent" need to be set up and much-much more. Me and the missus use to say how fortunate other people are, to have a nice huge wedding but after a while we realised that we were actually far better off for not having all those as to compare to the stress and hassle of having one.

On top of the preparation, one thing that is also important to think of is the amount of money that is going to be spent for the whole thing. The question here is how much is the average amount need to be allocated? I believe no matter how simple you plan to have your wedding you still have to fork out thousand of dollars. Most of my friends agreed that if it is not because of their parents request of having a grand wedding day, they will definitely opted for the "Nikah" ceremony only as they think they can use the extra money for other things.

Anyway, I'm not against all this, if you have the money why not, however the future of our culture and heritage does not look good. If the majority of the newly weds think that their big wedding is just a formality to satisfy their elders, than I will not be surprised that they will not object to the decision of their future sons or daughters having a small but nice and meaningful wedding.