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Beautiful leather strap from Fossil - RM 149. I've always wanted a leather strap for my Pebble watch. Not sure where to find a quality one in PJ. Turned out, Fossil in One Utama has a good range of choices. I'd recommend you start there.

As President Barack Obama tours the Hannover trade fair, hundreds of people are demonstrating outside against job cuts at the American technology and consulting company IBM. Some 200 IBM workers staged a noisy rally on the edge of the fairground Monday to protest against the measures they say will cost 900 jobs in Germany. Demonstrators held up placards reading "Profit, profit, profit, where's the human?" and "We are family? One IBM. Find the mistake.” A union leader called on protesters to "be loud - maybe the president will hear you." Obama is in Hannover to promote American business at the world's largest industrial trade fair. IBM Germany didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. via wthr This is an interesting way to stage a protest. On the other hand, don't all American companies cut jobs every year, anyway? What is the difference? And would POTUS cares since this is almost business as usual for his country.

It seems that a few days in a week, Ph Khoo, the headmistress of SKTM, stand outside the school gate in the morning and greet parents and children who come to the school. I thought that shows how genuine Ph Khoo is towards the well being of the children and to build relationship with the parents. Other days when she’s not the one standing, her Penolong Kanan (Deputy), Pn Leong and others, will be there. How many schools do you know that the headmistress and deputy stand outside the gates and greet you?

At some point, you realise you can make games anywhere, and it’s then that you ask yourself those quality-of-life questions. Is this a great place for families? Does it have an amazing nightlife? Is it rich, historic and safe? Does it have amazing educational institutions? Does it have a hardcore tech scene? Is it incredibly beautiful? via Romero Games Ltd . One popular game developer moved from USA to Ireland. Ireland. For games development! Really? Anyway, I was curious and went to the website. I really like the "quality of life” question quoted above. It’s what we should be asking ourselves everyday. Malaysia can’t give us any of those. We should really be thinking about moving, one time or another.

ugh… it happened every year. and every year we bitched and point fingers at Indonesia. and every year we swear we will bring justice to the Indonesians. And yet, it happened again EVERY freaking year!

Why the need for change? The answer in one word: Relevance. The KSSR was introduced to overcome certain shortcomings within the older system, the KBSR. It is hoped with this new restructured and improved curriculum, our children would have the necessary knowledge, skills and also the values to face and overcome the challengers of the current times. In this fast paced progressive world, what worked very well in 1983 is just not good enough today. via peekabook . Yesterday I was looking at Jane’s Math homework and I thought it is very difficult for a Standard One. After speaking to a colleague, it seems that our Primary School these days are using a new curiculum called KSSR that is more relevant to the fast changing world. The blog above which I linked have a darn good explanation. Good job!

So when his disciples started distributing their bits of bread and fish Jesus was counting on the people gathered to do the right thing. Despite all our cruelty, stupidity and folly Jesus had faith in the miraculousness of man. He believed in humankind’s greatness. On that day his faith was well placed. For me that’s the miracle of the loaves and fishes. via Waiter Rant The quote above by Waiter is from his beautifully written Man of Faith post. It contradicts totally with my losing the moral ground post but he put it so eloquently that it restores some of my faith in humanity.

There seem to be a huge exodus of Malaysian Chinese to Singapore in the last two months. I know of three colleagues who secured a job in Singapore and have moved over. I also know of four other colleagues/friends who are actively looking for a job in Singapore. What is happening? Well, we know what’s happening. Malaysia is in chaos. There is a lot of corruption at the top. People do not see a future for their children in Malaysia. I feel the same way. But I also feel that I am stuck - I can’t leave the current company; I am not that young anymore; and I am afraid of a change at this age and times. Are we doomed? And yet, this quote is always on my mind: "there is no pure or impure land, only pure or impure mind” What it means is that if you are not happy with where you are today and you don’t change your mindset, no matter which country or company you go to, you will still be unhappy. The environment and place does not determine your happiness or peace of mind. It is you, yoursel...

https://apple.news/ADmv17H5iThiXcU9lOX-JKQ ugh, sharing news into Blogo is just a copy and paste of the link. Not attractive at all.

Have two incidents to share, both from the wife’s observations: During Jane’s first day in SKTM school, her mother went with her as it is unfamiliar grounds. While they were in the canteen, with the mother prep-ping her, 3 little girls came over, two Indians and one Chinese girl. Probably coincidence, I am not sure, but they were from the same class as Jane. My wife spoke to them to please take care of their new friends and showed her to her class. All three girls held her hands and shoulder and walked her to the class. Yesterday, as wife was waiting for Jane to walked out of her school, she saw two Standard Three girls, one with tudung and the other Indian, giving each other a hug before saying goodbyes and parting their ways. We were touched by the sincerity shown by kids. They have no prejudice and are not racist. I remember my own primary school time where I have Malay and Indian friends. But, as I grow older into my Secondary school, the rift grew apart. I hang out more with frien...

One of the things I like about Blogo for Mac is that I could be typing in one window, and it actually showed me a live preview in the other window - as I was typing. And oh, the other thing I really like is the ease of uploading photos and cropping them. And seeing the uploaded photos in the live preview made it really easy to pen down my thoughts.

Have you ever wonder what is happening to the Malaysia society these days? I looked at the curiculum of my daughter’s Primary One and there are "Pendidikan Moral” (moral studies) almost every other day. And yet, the state of moral in the society is at its worst. Take what happened to me in Kota Damansara this morning. I was at the commercial area, in my car, when another Mercedes reversed out of it’s parking. I stopped my car, waiting for the Merc to come out, giving it space. But the two cars behind me decided not to wait, they swing to the left and tried to overtake both me and the Merc. The first car, Kancil, was able to over take both of us, but not the second car, Honda Jazz. The Merc moved along, with the Kancil in front of it. I followed behind and Merc and instead of falling in line, the damn Honda Jazz decide that she has to in front of me and cut in instead. I was pissed but I wonder, seriously, whatever happened to common courtesy? I am an not angel myself, being gu...

Sometimes you just need to have a great piece of writing software to help you concentrate and let the creative juice running in your brain. Web browser is great but it's also full of distraction. That is why there are so many popular text editors such as iAWriter or Vesper or even journals like Day One to help you write without distraction. I'm sure there's a lot of blog editor app as well and I'm trying this one out called Blogo. It's a new app for iOS but not new for the Mac and more importantly, it's by a startup company which has an aim to help make blogging fun. And it works as a front end to Wordpress and Blogger. Let me try it out and I'll share with you how I feel about this app later. Edit: the app is great but I think there are still some kinks that needed to be worked out especially when it comes to integration with Blogger. I believe it will be more fitting for Wordpress, being the popular blogging platform, but there seemed to be some bugs wit...

I love Awesome Notes, an app I used to journal my thoughts. I sometimes use it to "release" my anger by tapping my thoughts furiously into the notes. But a journal is just a journal - it's just notes. It doesn't help me track my mood and help me analyze what might have cause it and how I can help myself avoid this in future. In come MoodNotes, an app by two certified psychologists. This app is very simple to use. And you don't need to journal an essay. You just tell the app how you feel and what happened and choose some potential feelings. A very simple mood journal-ling. And along the way, it will ask you to categorize how you feel and maybe provide some options for you to think about how you can avoid this mind-trap in future. I have been using it for the past one week and I enjoy the ability to do some simple "anger management", lol Read more about it here .

One thing about signing up your kid into National school (Sekolah Kebangsaan) is that this act seemed to be a taboo among parents. Conversation with my friends usually go along the line of: Friend: where did you send you kid to school? Me: we used to send her to Chinese School but find that the Chinese school system does not agree with her. Friend: ya ya, I tell you, my son also suffers in Chinese school (and conversation goes on about the amount of home work the child have to face and weight of bags will ensue... ) and then comes the question. Friend: so, where did you send your kid now? and I think everyone is expecting the answer to be "international" or "private" or, the in-thing these days are "home schooling". Me: Sekolah Kebangsaan Friend: oh! (silence, cricket chirping)