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Sometimes, I wonder why can’t people just say ’sorry’ or apologize to another party. The older people are, the more difficult it becomes. Children seem to be very good it this. They can say sorry anytime. No problem at all.

For organization or corporate world, some people take it that by saying ’sorry’ or apologize is to admit defeat. They will try to modify their words to pacify the other party and will stop short of saying ’sorry’.

Recently, this happened in Malaysia too. The government stop short of saying sorry to the 6 brave judges from the 1988 judicial crisis. In return, the government will make a goodwill ex-gratia payment to the six brave judges as a recognition of their contributions. Can money really heal a 20-year old pain, embarrassment and injustice without an outright apology?

Maybe, we should draw some inspiration from Elton John’s song….

What I got to do to make you love me?
What I got to do to make you care?
What do I do when lightning strikes me?
And I wake to find that you’re not there?

What I got to do to make you want me?
What I got to do to be heard?
What do I say when it’s all over?
Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

It’s sad, so sad
It’s a sad, sad situation.
And it’s getting more and more absurd.
It’s sad, so sad
Why can’t we talk it over?
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word.

What do I do to make you want me?
What I got to do to be heard?
What do I say when it’s all over?
Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

It’s sad, so sad
It’s a sad, sad situation.
And it’s getting more and more absurd.
It’s sad, so sad
Why can’t we talk it over?
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Yeh. Sorry

What I got to do to make you love me?
What I got to do to be heard?
What do I do when lightning strikes me?
What have I got to do?
What have I got to do?
When sorry seems to be the hardest word. 

It has been awhile since my last blog post. Even that, it was motivated by a Youtube video that a friend send to me. Now, I am back to blogging again. Blogging seems to be the right thing to do in Malaysia lately.

Prior to March 8 Political Tsunami, blogging was a ‘dirty’ word. Bloggers are unemployed, good for nothing people and worst of all, people who have nothing good to write about the government. Unfortunately, this blog got nothing to write about the government. Nothing to write does not mean I have no opinion :p

Actually, I was caught up with the 11th General Election euphoria. In this election, the campaign atmosphere was electrifying. Candidates, especially those from Barisan Rakyat, gave spectacular speeches. Bloggers even joined in the fray. Many bloggers like Jeff Ooi, Elizabeth Wong and Tony Pua were elected. Bloggers, who did not participate, like Haris Ibrahim, Raja Petra and Zorro campaigned actively for their fellow bloggers. No need for me to introduce them any further. Just go to Youtube and look up for their name and you can find them giving speeches to thousands of people.

Post Tsunami was even more exciting. Barisan Rakyat won in 5 states, 82 Parliamentary seats including 10 out of 11 Parliamentary seats in Federal Territory. MCA, MIC and Gerakan were almost wiped out from Parliament. Gerakan lost its crown jewel in Penang. Barisan National was denied their two-third majority for the first time in 50 years.

Abroad, I am following the election in USA. My candidate is Barack Obama. Listen to his speech on Race in the video below. Bear with it as it’s 37 minutes long. Once you have heard him, you will probably think you should have him as your leader.

I received this nice Youtube video from a good friend today. It came as a surprise as this friend has never send me any YouTube video before. I thought it might be worth watching. When I watched, I was totally amazed by the performance of these two special people.

It never occurred to me that handicap people can be so good in dancing. The girl is without a hand and the guy is without a leg. Yet, they delivered such a great performance which can put many people with perfect arms and legs to shame.

It makes me wonder what can we not achieve in this world if these two special people can put up such a great performance. They dare to face the world bravely when most of such people would be hiding in their home. They dare to take up dancing even when they lack the basic and most fundamental requirement - normal arms and legs. Yet, they prove to the world that they can do it when they set their mind to it. They did not allow what others think of special people to be a barrier to them.

Their performance really motivated me to try out things that I dare not do. Today, I will start doing things I never dare to try and get them going. What shall be my first challenge?

Long time ago, to carry a credit card is like a carrying badge of honor. Silver credit cards were so difficult to get, let alone the gold cards. To carry a platinum credit card was like as if you have achieve something in life. But, the reality is that you are more than prepared to spend more and owe the banks more money.

Since then, credit cards are getting easier to apply for. To apply for a credit card is so simple. Show one card, you will get another. On top of that, credit card companies will offer you free gifts to encourage you to spend more. The more you spend, the better the gifts will be.

Nowadays, without your knowledge, you find credit cards dropping at your door step. I am not joking. Last week, I received a mail notifying me of my new PIN number for a StanChart credit card that I never applied for. I had to waste some money to call up the call center to insist that they should cancel the cards.

Today, I received another call from OCBC call center informing me they are offering me their Robinson OCBC credit card. Again, I had to waste sometime to turn them down.

Please don’t send me any free credit cards. I cannot afford to pay my debts. Let alone do credit transfer!!!

Chinese New Year means visiting relatives. It’s for the younger generation to pay visit to the elders. So, if you are the younger one, you have to travel the distance to pay respect to the elders. This is something you cannot avoid and there is no possible alternative. Today, I visited 3 aunts staying across the city. Traveling from one house to the other took up so much time.

When I visited one of my aunts, I had an interesting discussion with my cousin-in-law on car shipping. He was based in Moscow for many years before being posted back home again. Since he lived in Moscow for four years, he was allocated an AP to bring in one vehicle for his own use. His initial excitement about bringing in a tax-free car has turned into a nightmare when he realized that it wasn’t easy to import a car.

Bringing a car home from abroad requires a lot of paper work especially if international car shipping is involved. Clearing customs inspection on both sides of the borders and getting the paper work ready was not something he was prepared to do. He decided to engage a company which specialized in auto transport to handle it for him.

After he has engaged the help of this specialist, only did he manage to relax and let things take its own course. However, he still reached home first and the car reached him two months later. He came home by air and his car left Russia via St Petersburg and sailed across the Artic, Atlantic and Indian Oceans before seeing its master again.

May the year of the Golden Rat brings you great health, wealth and prosperity.

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Wan Xe Ru Yi

To find out more about your horoscope, read this:-

Born in the year of Pig

Born in the year of Dog

Born in the year of Rooster

Born in the year of Monkey

Born in the year of Goat

Born in the year of Horse

Born in the year of Snake

Born in the year of Dragon

Born in the year of Rabbit

Born in the year of Tiger

Born in the year of Ox

Born in the year of Rat

Steve Balmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, has announced its intention to acquire Yahoo Inc for US$44.6 billion. This move is understandable as Microsoft is loosing out to Google in the search engine race. Google is growing leaps and bounds since its IPO in 2004.

Corporate mergers and acquisition seem to be the trend these days. Big corporations are on buying spree to acquire small companies at lighting speed these days. Most companies cannot grow organically and the other option is to acquire other businesses to boost their bottom line.

If this acquisition goes through, it will be the largest ever for a technology company. Jerry Yang will retire a very rich man and he has secured the wealth enoughfor the next few generations.

Let’s see how this acquisition will work out.

My weekend routine is so predictable. Wakeup and then send my daughter to ballet and music class. While she is having her ballet lesson, I will have my breakfast. When she is having her music class, I will spend time doing window shopping especially in the books stores like Borders and MPH or go ogling at gadgets in electronic stores.

This is the time I can spend checking out on the latest books and sometimes, get some of them. Bookstores in Malaysia are unlike Barnes and Nobles which has its own publication. Barnes and Noble’s published books are cheap and they have nice photographs in it. These photographs are not as nice as that of National Geographic but they are nice enough for me.

Beside conventional books, audio books and videos are taking up more and more space in the bookstores. I have been toying with the idea of buying audio books to listen when I am driving considering I have to spend about 2 hours on the road each day. I have tried on Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People while I was driving but most of the time; I got distracted by the traffic, rouge drivers and pretty drivers :p Perhaps, I should be more disciplined to concentrate on what Stephen Covey has to say.

Last weekend, I went shopping for a new laptop for my wife. The number of laptop models and accessories really amazed me. The choice of brand and accessories seem infinite. The laptop price continued to drop while the functionalities keep improving.

Shopping for laptops is like shopping for any commodities. There seem to be a price war among the outlets. Initially it was difficult to decide which laptop brand to choose from since the price was so competitive. There were Lenovo, Acer, HP, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sony Viao and Apple. Eventually, I decided on cost and functionalities.

Since cost was the main deciding factor, I decided for an Acer laptop. The outlet that I finally bought the laptop even challenged me to find another outlet who can sell the same model and configuration at a lower price. I guess he knew his competition well. I could not find anyone who could even match his price.

I bought an ACER AS4920-5A0516MI model which came with Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 1.86 GHZ and 160GB harddisk. It came with Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG for wifi, 56K modem, Bluetooth, 1.3mb Acer Crystal Eye and 5 in 1 card reader for SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD. Additional stuff that came with the laptop were a computer bag, acer optical mouse, notebook lock and a headset. I upgraded the RAM with Apacer 2GB DDR2.

The total cost was only RM2,590. It was quite affordable. The price of laptop seem be going down. How I wish this was the case when I was a student in university then.

Once the 5 years for my computer is up and I qualify for tax rebate for a new computer, I am going to buy a laptop. No more desktop computer for me. I want to be able to blog from Starbucks at my convenience.

When I was in Bandung with my friends, the one from Dubai extended his invitation to us to visit him. During our vacation in Bandung, he told us so many interesting things about Dubai that really generated lots of interest among us to visit him in Dubai.

First thing first, he offered us free accommodation at this house which is in a gated community for expatriate. Even though it is no Burj Al Arab, who cares as long as it’s free and comfortable. Anyway, we cannot afford luxurious hotels like Burj Al Arab.

He recommended a few ‘must do’ activities in Dubai. Shopping is top on the list. Dubai is a shopping haven and it offers all the luxurious and branded clothes, bags, watches, perfumes and gadgets like iPod, xBox, mobile phones and PDAs at a very reasonable price. He reminded us to bring not one but a few credit cards if we decide to visit him since shopping in Dubai is really great.

Next is to spend a night in the desert. He has done it before and he wanted us to have the experience living in a desert.  In Dubai, there are oasises which provide good quality accomodation to travelers. The way my friend described the night is the desert is like living through the Arabian Nights fable. The stars are so bright in a total darkness of the sky. I have to see to believe him.

The third thing to do is to go for desert dune bashing on a four-wheel drive vehicle. His family has tried it and they enjoyed the adventure so much. All of them recommended us to try dune bashing. It may sound easy but the four-wheel vehicle is driven by professionals who can navigate the vehicle on moving sand especially when you go downhill. I got to try it believe him again.

I might just stop over on my way back from England in September. That is provided I have saved enough money.