June 2009
Monthly Archive
June 27, 2009
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Apparently, the second term school holidays have been extended for another week, following the rising number of Influenza A H1N1 in Brunei.
As of the time of writing, no less than 25 cases have been confirmed in Brunei. All these happened within a week. The big number of cases reported is due to a few causes; among them are returning travellers during the school holidays and returning students from the oversea studies. It was feared that the congregation of students in their schools might increase the number of confirmed cases. It might be a wise move, but will it really make a difference?
I hope that parents would keep their children at home and not letting them go to crowded places. It would be missing the points of trying to controlling the infections while big gatherings of people still taking place.
June 26, 2009
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(image from CNN.com)
News carriers around the world has reported the unexpected death of the King of Pop.
Michael Jackson has died at the age of 50 and believed to have died of cardiac arrest. More stories from
CNN,
Yahoo and
BBC.
Also, Farah Fawcett, one of the original Charlie’s Angels, has lost her battle against cancer.
June 24, 2009
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Is Kuala Belait becoming the ‘in’ town or a hand-me-down town?
Two of the restaurants of the same family, which were closed down in Bandar in the past year, are going to be opened shortly. Zaika and RMS Diner will be opening its doors for the residents of Kuala Belait. Fans of Indian food would be glad to see another Indian restaurant here and so will the fans of Western food.
With a big population of expatriates in Kuala Belait and Seria, I do hope these two restaurants will stay longer than they did in Bandar.
June 23, 2009
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So far, six confirmed cases of Influenza A H1N1 infections have been reported. All six were returning travellers, so perhaps it was safe to say that they picked up the infections when they were away.
So shall we panic? Shall we skip work and school? Shall we just stay at home? Definitely no. All the patients are being quarantined and unless you were in close contact with someone with the infection, you are probably safe.
So what should we do to prevent infections? Carry on with life as normal. Practice personal hygiene; cover your mouth when you sneeze and cough. Wash hands regularly.
Now with the school holidays are almost over and many travellers are returning home, especially from Singapore and Malaysia, which are Bruneians’ favourite country to visit, the number of infections may increase. So the need to be more cautious is now greater.
Whatever it is, I just hope the spread of this flu is contained and controlled, Amin…..
June 22, 2009
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Here are belated birthday greetings to the two fathers, who celebrated their birthdays yesterday, which coincidentally happened to be Fathers’ Day.
To the eldest brother in the family…….
(with his daughter…..)
And to a brother-in-law……..
Selamat Hari Jadi. Moga panjang umur dan murah rezeki………..
and to all fathers out there…
Happy Fathers’ Day
June 20, 2009
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Many congratulations to Brunei DPMM FC players, coaching staff and support staff on winning the Singapore League Cup. Brunei DPMM FC became the first foreign team to win the Cup. More unbelievable was the fact that Brunei DPMM FC was playing in its frist season in the Singapore League.
We were having some appreciation do at LLRC last night for contractors who were involved in the maintenance activities recently. I was with some of football-crazy colleagues staying put watching the football match. Our MD, who happened to be the Deputy President of Football Federation of Brunei Darussalam (FFBD), was also there. Together, we were all shouting and cheering at every shot on goal, every miss and every save. It was really nice to see him letting his hair down and showing all sorts of emotion. When the penalty kicks were being taken, suddenly the room became more packed and most of us could not bear to sit down. When the winning penalty was scored, you coudl imagine the euphoria and the scene in the room as everyone cheered on and congratulated each other. The grand luck draw during the appreciation do had to be postponed to let us watch the match till the end.
It was good to see a team from Brunei winning a trophy in a foreign soil. Perhaps this will signal the resurrection of the glory days of Brunei football. Afterall, we won the Malaysian Cup 10 years ago. And I hope that the relevant people in both FFBD and BAFA would sit together and sort out the mess that we saw at the beginning of the year when BAFA became deregistered, FFBD was quickly formed, AFC decided to stick to BAFA instead of FFBD and Brunei DPMM FC was almost thrown out of the Singapore League.
Again, many congratulations. Apparently the team will arrive at the Brunei International Airport in the early afternoon today. Come and welcome the team home.
June 18, 2009
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Here’s wishing a niece of mine who celebrates her 15th brithday today.
Happy Birthday!
Moga panjang umur dan murah rezeki.
June 17, 2009
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It was good to see the rain again. I thought the day started beautifully as it rained in the morning. With rain, the haze should clear away. So I thought….
The rain did not seem to reduce the haze. The bushfires along Lumut-by-pass road did not seem to be in a hurry to end. The wind was blowing towards my workplace, so eventually the area got covered by haze. It was quite bad; I could smell smoke in the office. Luckily we had one of those industrial air purifiers, which I put in the middle of my office. It was slightly noisy; but I knew I would choose noise over polluted air anytime.
At the lab, we have one of those machine that monitors air quality. We had started the air quality monitoring since early last week. It seemed like the haze got worse in the evening. It was probably caused by the land breeze that blew the haze towards the plant. On Monday evening, there was a period of three hours in the middle of the evening when the PSI (pollution standard index) exceeded 200. According to the Brunei’s
Department of Environment, Park and Recreation, PSI of over 200 is considered to be very unhealthy and the wearing of dustmasks is recommended. Fortunately, the PSI reading during the day is below 100, which is considered as good or moderate.
However, please take the PSI reading with a pinch of salt. The PSI reading differs significantly from places to places, as it depends on the air quality at that particular place. I am not sure how many air monitoring equipment the government has, but I recall hearing there are those equipment at the Brunei International Airport and the KB Weather Station near the Pandan Mosque. There is one each at the BSP Lab and the BLNG Lab. Therefore, if you spot bushfire in, say, Muara and the haze is contained within that area, the air quality reading that you see might not tell you the whole picture about the air quality in the whole of Brunei as the equipment is in the Berakas area.
Also, the PSI being reported is normally the 24-hour average. The haze could be very bad in the evening, reaching PSI of over 200, but it could clear up during the day with PSI of below 100. Therefore the average PSI over 24-hour period may be sub-100. It would be good to see the hourly average as it can tell you an almost up-to-date PSI reading.
The haze outbreak that we are facing at the moment is considered to be localised haze, meaning that the haze that the residents in Lumut see is caused by bushfires in the Lumut area and may not be felt by the residents of Seria. The haze episode that Brunei experienced in 1997-1998 was caused by regional haze as it was caused by forest fires in almost all parts of Borneo, which blanketed the South-east Asian region.
June 15, 2009
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It’s Monday morning and I am already feeling like a headless chicken.
I feel lost at work. I could not sit still and I keep going out of the office, looking for things that I don’t even know what they are. And I have to think what I need to do this week.
Not a good start to the week. Hopefully it gets better as the week wears on.
June 13, 2009
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Facebook announced recently that all users would be able to choose usernames of their own, which would be used to direct to their own profiles on Facebook. Before this, all users are referred to by a series of numbers. Now, with their own unique username, the profile is more personal to the users. The username could be in the form of the user’s own name or just about any possible name or word.
I have got mine.
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