Got a set of Ladybird’s Baby Touch books from Singapore for Gabriel.

I think he absolutely loves it.

I think the one he’s holding is just the right thing for babies his age — they are made of cloth (and some plastic, I believe). This way, they won’t hurt themselves with the book. But besides that, the plastic makes it noisy and babies just get intrigued by the noise… It’s called the Baby Touch Snuggle book.

Anyway, Gabriel stayed up quite late last night. He just didn’t want to go to sleep and made a lot of noise (not the crying type, but rather it seemed like he was ‘talking’). Mrs Tai said while I was away, he was very quiet. He would go to bed early, etc… But last night when I got home, he just didn’t want to sleep… He’s happy to see me?!? I was jokingly telling Mrs Tai that maybe he’s complaining to me about how bad Mrs Tai had treated him the past week!

…going back home, to Mrs Tai and Gabriel…

I was told a fresh IT grad in Singapore can earn about SGD1800 – SGD2000 per month. A fresh grad in Malaysia earns about the same figure, rm1800 – rm2000 per month.

Economy rice is Singapore can be as cheap as SGD2.50 for a plate of rice and three types of vegetable dishes.. It costs me rm3.50 in KL. Vegetarian fried rice in Singapore costs SGD3.00. It costs at least rm3.50 in Malaysia.

Is it any wonder why Malaysians are flocking over to Singapore?

Merlion in Singapore

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Friends come in many shapes, sizes and colour. Some would appear almost daily for a period of time, only to disappear after a while. Others would not appear friendly in the beginning but over time, they stick by through thick and thin, and remain closeby — not too close to be ’stalking’ you and yet not too far not that they forget you.

We had a visit from one such friend today. She was my former MD (Managing Director). When I first met her, she came off as someone who is very cold and unfriendly. After all, when she was about to join the company as the new MD, I had ‘heard’ a lot of things about her. Her tenure as the company MD was quite short — I think it was only for about two years.

We kept in touch after she left the company and over the years, she is one of the few that still remains in contact (yes, my first impression of her was not accurate). There would be the occasional calls or greetings. She would also pop by this site just to see what’s new in my life.

And today, she dropped by our place to see how we’ve settled in as well as to see Gabriel. There was the usual story exchange (she likes to travel) and consultation — she’s seen a lot and knows a lot more than us! As always, Mrs Tai and I were happy to see her.

Thinking back to the days when I first met her, I realise what I had ‘heard’ was not an accurate picture of her. No doubt she had to make some not-so-popular decisions, but I guess she had her reasons. I was glad our paths crossed as I have learnt a lot from her (and every now and then, there are still new things that she is sharing with us).

Well, you know who you are… And yes, I still remember we’re supposed to try out that Thai vegetarian place in Centrepoint, Bandar Utama.

I like this photo very much…

Gabriel and I

It was taken a few days back by Mrs Tai at the garden just opposite our house…

Mrs Tai told me that she noticed Gabriel’s now starting to learn how to ‘move’ himself while he’s lying down. She first noticed it yesterday when she woke up to find his legs facing her, but didn’t think much of it. This afternoon, she saw him move himself! She put him straight and a few minutes later, he started to move his legs and in a short while, he’s moved 90 degrees…

Dunno how else to explain it… Imagine the hands of a clock at 12:30 and then 90 degrees to make it 3:45.

And this evening, I saw him remove one of his gloves. Don’t really know if Gabriel just got lucky or what. But Mrs Tai says she’s seen him do the same before…

Time really does fly… He’s now able to do a lot more and pretty soon, he’ll be running around the house breaking stuffs…

Virginia Shea explains netiquette as

Simply stated, it’s network etiquette — that is, the etiquette of cyberspace. And “etiquette” means “the forms required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be required in social or official life.” In other words, Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online.

These days, most websites are very ‘interactive’. They will either have a forum or a place for visitors to leave comments. Making a site interactive is important as it allows for two-way communication and indirectly, it helps increase the site traffic (visitors will return to check on replies, etc). A high site traffic is good for commercial sites as it usually translate to good revenue from advertisements. It also means the site is ‘popular’.

However, many seem to have forgotten their manners and rational thinking when it comes to the internet. Maybe people think they are anonymous when they don’t use their real identity (actually, one is not that anonymous on the net — the authorities can actually trace you if they want to). It’s not that difficult to see people calling one another “stupid”, “moron” or even worse on the internet. It’s very common in online forums. You can also see that in the comments section of some of the more popular sites.

The same happens in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. I have seen many who get agitated over computer games on Facebook!

While it is good to be passionate about something we love or have feelings for, we should always remember not to get too emotional. We should remember that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. We should always respect this right and worst case, we agree to disagree.

I’ve seen my fair share of such encounters — people YELLING (i.e. using CAPS) at you when you miss out on their reply, people accusing you of being biased, etc when you do move their posts (as a moderator, I need to maintain some kind of order in the forum and at times, I need to move posts to the relevant topics or delete when required), people starting to ignore you in REAL LIFE after a ‘disagreement’ online, etc…

When I look back at all these, I sometimes wonder if these people are like that in real life? Do they YELL at their friends for asking a ’silly’ question? Are these people so easily offended to the point that they write-off friendships over small disagreements? Do these people go around calling people names and using profanities just because others have different views?

Just sharing some of the ‘core rules‘ as listed by Virginia Shea in her book Netiquette (you can find the online copy here).
Rule 1: Remember the Human
Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life
Rule 3: Know where you are in cyberspace
Rule 4: Respect other people’s time and bandwidth
Rule 5: Make yourself look good online
Rule 6: Share expert knowledge
Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control
Rule 8: Respect other people’s privacy
Rule 9: Don’t abuse your power
Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people’s mistakes

So, next time you are in an online forum or posting a comment, be mindful. Remember that there’s always a human behind it all — OK, there’s the exception when it comes to spambots with the purpose of trolling, but that’s another story.

This year’s Chinese New Year is especially different. It is warmer than usual… Maybe it’s the weather — it’s been quite hot lately. Maybe it is the lion dance that came to our house (courtesy of the developer, SP Setia). Or maybe it is the first time we’re actually celebrating Chinese New Year in Setia Alam. But I think it’s because this year, we had very dear friends dropping by to visit us.

On the second day of Chinese New Year, Steven & family and Jonathan dropped by for a visit. It was Jonathan’s first visit to our place. As for Steven & family, it was not their first to our place but we are equally happy and very touched each time they dropped by. It’s hard to see both of them since Jonathan lives in Singapore while Steven’s family is in Perak.

On the third day of Chinese New Year, we had Derrell & Su Fei, Dean & family, Kean Lai & family and Jude dropping by! Both Mrs Tai and I were extremely delighted by the visit! To me, visits from old friends are even better than visits from ‘Choy San Yeh’ (God of Prosperity). This year, besides the usual chatting and catching up, we also compared notes on being new parents — yup, Dean, Kean Lai and Derrell became fathers last year too (it’s the second one for Dean)!

Here are some photos of the lion dance (mouse-over the photos for caption)…

And here’s a photo with three of the babies — Katherine (Kean Lai), Matthew (Derrell) and Gabriel. But have to really look hard for the babies in the photo… heh heh…

Thank you everyone for making this CNY so special… And yes, I know there’s going to be another group coming this Saturday!

Hmmm… If you’re waiting for an invite, please don’t. As always, you dun need an invitation to drop by our place. We welcome family and friends all the time!

Well, it’s not really the first since we have moved into this place more than one year now.

What makes this year different is that we decorated the house and try to really make it lively (well, minus the fact that we didn’t actually have time to really clean up the house and that the two Ikea cabinets are still waiting to be assembled).

So, presenting our mini effort…

Mrs Tai had a shock when she saw what I had done! She commented that it looks like a classroom now…

I told here that was the idea. The theme for this year is ‘Back to classroom’… OK, OK… I’ll try and do a better job next time. Oh, ya… That’s the new 14″ super-duper slim, 3D TV on the wall…

Pssst… The decorations were only put up on the evening of the SECOND day of CNY.

One more thing… GONG XI FA CAI!!!