The Daily Brunei Resources

I was out in Gadong and Kiulap the other day window shopping Luminox watches. I have only heard of Luminox watches over the last 2 months. Apparently His Majesty wears one. The craze caught on at MOD and almost everyone I met wore one. So I thought I will have a look at what this watch is all about. There are apparently three shops in Brunei which sell these watches, one in Kiulap (same block as Mothercare), one in Gadong (in Centrepoint) and another in Seria (along Baiduri or BIBD). Luminox watches are well known for its illumination system. The watches used a tube system so in the dark you can still use it and these tubes light up for about 10 years. The watches are American based on Swiss technology. The name itself in Latin means night (nox) light (lumi). The watches are fairly reasonable costing from $300 onwards. The one in Seria is the cheapest and the lady in Centrepoint said that the Seria one is not the authorised centre but selling the watches from an authorised centre based...

I have had this cough for quite a while. The medical advice is if your cough persists for more than a week see a doctor. I thought my antibodies are strong enough but the night before, I could not sleep. So first thing today was to drop into the old Borneo Clinic in Sengkurong, now renamed something else, and see my doctor. I was glad it was the same doctor and I came out $50 poorer. Somenone asked why not see a government doctor after all I could probably get away without queuing. You know, I have never done that. If I wanted a faster service, I would always drop into a private doctor and pay my way. I just hoped that this will at least spur the local businesses. Anyway, not sleeping means watching telly and it was the Haiti earthquake which really got me. Haiti is not exactly among the richest country in the world and to have such a havoc in their country is like what my minister sometimes says 'sudah tah jatuh ditimpa tangga but dihempap batu and etc' It's really bad. No...

One of my close friends asked today at the mosque how long is my hiatus. Hahaha... When my computer broke down, I thought it would be nice to take a break until a new computer arrived and my espeed reconnected. Well, a new computer has not arrived, but I am making do with my tiny notebook and I have to admit Telbru was really fast in getting my espeed up and running. I dropped into Telbru's office at the Mall on Sunday and by Monday, someone was at home getting my espeed up again. Unfortunately at that time I did not have a computer ready. Then I was away at the end of December to Singapore and I did a lot of window shopping for computers but at the end, the thought of lugging the box etc, I thought I will just buy one here in Brunei. The computer people at MOD helped me with my PC and we got a quote for a new motherboard. It was $515. I said forget it. I could easily buy a mini Inspiron for that much. So I am still out looking. In the meantime I am suffering from hand cramp fittin...

[I wrote the following piece for Brunei Times for the New Year 2008. I thought it is still valid for the New Year 2010. Happy Reading.] TODAY is the first day of 2008 AD or, to be all-inclusive 2007 CE ("Common Era") since AD stands for the Latin expression Anno Domini — "in the year of our Lord", in reference to Jesus Christ. As the Oxford Dictionary pointed out, "AD" refers strictly to "the Christian Era". So — if you're not a Christian, why were you singing the old Scottish song "Auld Lang Syne" (written by poet Robert Burns and published in 1796) to celebrate the "New Year" last night? In the Middle Ages, even the Church was against celebrating new years, calling it paganism. It was not until only about 400 years ago that the beginning of the AD new years were celebrated. Even then, just as now, not everyone celebrated the same New Year. Celebrating the New Year has always depended on which religion or culture one belo...