今天天气多云... Today's Mostly Cloudy

One Million GBP Coca-Cola Windows Live Mobile Draw - This Spammer very patient wor!

2011-10-06T11:18:00.011+08:00

You know, I'm really impressed by this Coca-cola-SG-Bank spammer. They damn patient lor! It takes them sooo long to finally try to cheat me money, maybe they should work on their productivity...

Okay, so after sending my signed Fund Release letter to SG Bank, they very professionally send me a reply from SG Bank's Dr. Carl Ladley (Head of Operations) to tell me to contact this Prize Administrator Mr Paul Clinton again to follow up. Wah, so honored right, Head of Operations contacted me leh!

And then I didn't contact Mr Paul Clinton because I was too busy with my real life, but it was not long before he contacted me. Apparently my fund has been released and my very chio Certificate of Award has been prepared. Some more promised to send me the hard copy wor! Aiyah, wasted they'll never be able to reach me because that is not my name and that address comes from this other spammer that keep sms'ing me...

But then now, the bank needs a copy of Fund Transfer Order from the Crown Court before they can send me my money, and so I need to engage the help of this certified legal practitioner with a weird name called Mr O N Devon...

And almost immediately, I received an email from this guy! In the morning of Singapore time, meaning in the middle of the night in London! Wah! He working OT leh! Sure enough, the very waited-very-long-liao-how-much-do-you-want-to-cheat-me email is asking me to pay him 975 British Pounds!

Notice this Note on the email: "Western Union or Money Gram agents may ask you reasons for the transfer. Kindly indicate Family use because they will ask you for additional documents if you tell them that you are paying for the court documents which take weeks to obtain". Very smart lor.

Ooi, don't play play ok, just in case I don't believe that he is a real lawyer, he sent his ID to prove it wor!

So just pay 975 pounds can get 1 million pounds very good lobang right?

Yah RIGHT...

有冇搞错？点做生意架?

2011-10-05T14:03:00.001+08:00

喜酒正要开始，新郎新娘的老爸老妈已经在门外招待客人。
新郎新娘已经在脑中彩排等一下进场是要怎样走，怎样挥手，怎样笑。
突然之间，酒楼老板跑出来跟新郎新娘说：“哎呀，不好意思！我知道你订了72桌，我也应该准备至少75桌的菜，但今天撞鬼了，我们只准备了52桌的菜！今天的喜酒取消，叫你的客人改天再来可以吗？”

你一定会想：“有冇搞错？点做生意架?”

今天你又去常去的那摊卖虾面的，听老板说他们今天会开始卖新的汤面。
你好兴奋又好紧张的等了又等，老板终于把一碗面捧到你的眼前。
那是一碗加了豆芽的排骨虾面。吃了一条虾，有不一样咩？连大小还是一样咧！喝了一口汤，而且汤也没换嘛！
你问老板，这碗最新的虾面跟其他的那几款有不一样咩？
老板心平气和的解释说：“当然不一样！第3款是原味虾面，第3S款是加了排骨的虾面，第4款是加了排骨和菜的虾面，然后最新的这款4S你没发现加了豆芽吗？”
可是别摊卖虾面的早就已经加豆芽了吧？
结果老板理直气壮的说：“反正这就是我们最新的虾面了，你不买大把人买！”

你一定会想：“有冇搞错？点做生意架?”

One Million GBP Coca-Cola Windows Live Mobile Draw Winner YOUR HEAD!

2011-09-23T13:04:00.004+08:00

Recently I've received a spam message on my mobile, which congratulated me for winning the One Million GBP Coca-Cola Windows Live Mobile Draw Winner and asked me to provide my email address for details. Yah right. My phone not even Windows Mobile lor!

So okay lor, I decided to send them the email anyway and see what's their tricks. I didn't have to wait long for that email to arrive at my newly created email account. So they asked me to fill up and send in a form to receive my one million pounds wor!

A couple of days later, tada! They replied me that very famous European bank called SG Bank will process my winning money and now I have to sign and return this Fund Release letter wor!

I'm very sure and double confirm the next email will ask for my bank account and ask me to transfer some admin fees that must cost a few thousands of dollars.

Let's wait and see.

Another Home (The 'Other' National Day Video)

2011-08-02T18:02:00.003+08:00

Nice production from SINdie!

THIS is the best ever National Day video I've watched all these years!

DIE DIE must watch lah!

My favourite part? The mushrooms and co-driver slapping the driver!

What is my review? Aiyah! I don't know what to say lah!

Why the hell do we need a Fun Pack song?

2011-07-06T09:02:00.002+08:00

Like SERIOUSLY? A song about Newwater and biscuits?

Either the organizing committee is too creative and getting too far away out of the box, or simply too free.

And Lady Gaga agreed to us changing her lyrics? She really won't sue us for copyright?

And actually why don't we edit our own songs? After all it's a national even right?

Like changing "Train is coming" to "Pack is opening... pack is opening..."

Nyo don't know how to order from menu anymore

2011-05-14T19:13:00.002+08:00

Nyo: How the hell do I know what meat am I actually eating?
Mehly: Geez, after all the replacements, I've no idea as well!

BEWARE of Fake WP Volunteers Network

2011-05-11T20:51:00.001+08:00

BEWARE of Fake WP Volunteers Network at www.wpvolunteers.org

A website is collecting volunteer information without the knowledge of The Workers' Party. Please do not entrust your information with them. Please share this information with all your friends who want to volunteer with WP.

If you do not see a link publicised from either Workers' Party's Facebook page or Workers' Party's website, it is definitely not an official Workers' Party site.

GE2011 - Who is actually the victim? And the bad guys?

2011-05-10T21:10:00.004+08:00

The election is finally over and the blaming game starts now. But are the victims really victims? Are the bad guys really the ones to blame for?

Victim #1: George Yeo forced to leave Aljunied GRC.
The misunderstood bad guys: Workers' Party not giving much choice to the residents in Aljunied GRC.
The REAL bad guys: PAP who didn't swap George Yeo out of Aljunied GRC after 2006 elections. Then, Sylvia Lim and her team won almost 44% of the vote granting her the position of NCMP. Since then (actually even before 2006), Sylvia Lim has been actively visiting and listening to the residents in Aljunied GRC. And PAP did not think that WP will attack Aljunied again in 2011 elections? If the Joo Chiat MP can be swapped out, why not George Yeo from Aljunied?
The REAL victim: Workers' Party who has been blamed for PAP's internal affairs.

Victim #2: Residents of Aljunied GRC forced into voting George Yeo out.
The misunderstood bad guys: Workers' Party not giving much choice to the residents in Aljunied GRC.
The REAL bad guys: PAP who if have done a proper job for the past 5 years, the residents will never be moved by Workers' Party's offer of 5 opposition members in the parliament. MM Lee who summoned the evil shadow and cursed the residents to regret and repent for the next 5 years. In response to emotional blackmail, most people will just let emotion gets in the way and walk the opposite path. Especially true for the young ones.
The REAL victim: The rest of Singaporeans who did not vote in Aljunied GRC but forced to repent in MM Lee's curse of the Plegue of Ungrateful Singapore - Plague of Heat, Plague of Flood, Plague of Haze and Plague of sold-out iPad2.

Victim #3: Tin Pei Ling who has been bombarded by relentless netizens on all forms of social media.
The misunderstood bad guys: The Ungrateful netizens who are simply judging based on her age and not giving her a chance to prove herself.
The REAL bad guys: Her admin who didn't write a more touching speech for her during the rallies, perhaps should have asked for some tips from Nicole Seah's admin... oh wait, Nicole wrote her own speeches. Her admin who just could not control her OooOoooOooh till after Cooling Off Day, perhaps should have asked for some tips from Nicole Seah's admin... oh wait, Nicole manages her own Facebook page.
The REAL victim: Kate Spade Regional Sales Manager who will have problem meeting sales target now.

Victim #4: Chiam See Tong who lost Potong Pasir.
The misunderstood bad guy: Sitoh Yih Pin who won the seat in Potong Pasir for PAP.
The REAL bad guys: The residents in Potong Pasir who didn't cast a vote for Chiam. Either they did not believe in Mrs Chiam's ability, forgetting that Chiam See Tong will still be there as a consultant to help her; or they really want that shelter and new playground.
The REAL victim: Sitoh Yih Pin who will now constantly have eyes behind his back watching his every move in the next 5 years.

What happens after GE2011 - Nicole Seah vs Tin Pei Ling

2011-05-08T18:07:00.003+08:00

After surviving this mentally and physically exhausting campaign for a first timer in a brand new opposition party, Nicole will still get back to helping the residents in need on Sunday, and get back to work on Monday.

There is no news on what Tin Pei Ling will be doing after the elections, well besides smiling and waving on a lorry on Sunday, but I suppose she still has to deal with this...

Facebook Petition to remove Tin Pei Ling as a MP with 38k likes so far.

Just wondering, whether SM Goh will want to have a face-to-face with her in his office on Monday as well...

GE2011 - Please vote with your head and heart on Polling Day

2011-05-07T00:51:00.007+08:00

Friends, Singaporeans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to state the fact, not to complain about PAP;
The mistakes that men make lives after election day,
A good politician might not make the best decisions,
So let it be with PAP ... The noble PAP
Hath told you the opposition parties are ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously will we pay for it if that is why we will not vote for them ...
Here, under the rule of PM Lee and the rest,
(For PM Lee is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men but just a little bit arrogant)
Come I to speak on Polling day ...
A good opposition party is like your friend, faithful and just to you:
But PAP says they are all ambitious;
And PM Lee is an honourable man….
Good opposition parties hath brought many feedback from the residents to the Parliament,
Whose issues are brought up to the government:
Did this in the good opposition parties seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, PAP hath not heard:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff like this:
Yet PAP says opposition parties are all ambitious;
And PM Lee is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Facebook page of Tin Pei Ling
when all have kept still on Cooling Off Day,
Which she did broke the silence: was this acceptable?
Yet Tin Pei Ling says it was an honest mistake;
And, sure, she is an honourable candidate.
I speak not to disprove what PAP ministers spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did lead a good live once, without worries of constantly rising cost:
What causes the difficult lives you are having now?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart will be in the coffin there with Democracy,
if all opposition parties have lost their seats today
And I must pause till it come back to me five years later.

GE2011 - 在冷静日这天，送给大家几首好歌！

2011-05-06T21:32:00.002+08:00

这首歌送给反对党大伙儿们，感激他们豁了出去，就为了让政府听到我们的心声。

情与义值千金
刀山去地狱去有何憾
为知心牺牲有何感
为娇娃甘心割寸心
血泪为情流岂有恨
有谁人敢过问

这首歌送给李总理，为他可惜他可能会失去一名爱将。

Only you can take me 取西经
Only you 能杀妖精鬼怪
Only you 能保护我
不用被些蚌精蟹精吃我
只有你够行就是 only you
Only you 别怪师父唠叨
戴回个箍
莫怕死别发颤抖
碰到钉别怕 I understand
要全力去do 要怕就一起怕
喃无阿弥驼佛

这首歌送给所有的选民们，鼓励大家一起站起来为未来奋斗，希望大家明天会做个聪明合理的选择。

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

这首歌要送给谁现在还不知道，因为是送给明天落选的候选人，希望他们下回再继续努力！

Sorry sorry sorry sorry…

GE2011 - My emotional night before cooling down

2011-05-06T12:35:00.002+08:00

Last night, I went to the last Workers' Party rally of the election year.

I rushed off from work and drove more than one hour from my office to the stadium, in a traffic so jammed up that my average speed was 20kmh throughout the whole journey.

When I finally reached the area near the stadium, all the carparks were full. I had to park my car 1.8km (Google map said one) away and walked my way to the stadium under the hot evening heat.

But I did not walk alone. There were loads and loads of people heading the same way as me, some in groups, some couples, some alone, all excited and pumped up.

When I reached the traffic junction at the stadium, looking at the huge crowd spilling out of the stadium, seated outside the stadium, standing along the pavement outside the stadium, waiting to cross the roads towards the stadium, it then occurred to me how humongous the crowd was. Definitely more Singaporeans there than the NDP.

Luckily I was still able to get into the stadium and find a little spot at the end of the field (yes, by then only left the limited space at the back of the field in the stadium liaoz). And there I stood, where for two hours I listened calmly together with everybody, cheered frantically with everybody and perspired together with everybody.

That night, as with the other rallies, Workers' Party took the words in our mind and our hope in our heart, and amplified them through the loudspeakers in the stadium.

Finally, the rally was wrapped up with Workers' Party leading us through the Singapore pledge. Together with all our hearts, as Singaporeans, without rehearsal, we pledged ourselves as one united people again.

When I left the stadium at the end of the night, I knew that if I have not gone to the rally, I would have to regret and repent for five years.

Now, the only problem is... Workers' Party did not come to my house. I have to vote between a cannot-make-it opposition party and PAP.

GE2011 - You Have A Choice

2011-05-06T08:50:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvqu8CR3Hr0

Your vote is secret. Your vote is essential to the future of the country. Vote with your heart and mind. Not with fear. It's time for a change.

GE2011 - Please hear what we want for our public transport

2011-05-05T11:03:00.006+08:00

"I think the underlying motivation for suggesting that public transport should be nationalised is that it can be cheap. But nationalising in many other countries has led to a lot of inefficiency. And ultimately you get cheap transport but it doesn't quite work out." - Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Second Minister for Finance and Transport.

Talk is always cheap. Especially when she is not the one who's taking the public transport. Distributing flyers at the station and taking the train during off peak hours with an army of escort does not count. But these will count...

We're not asking for a perfect world class public transport system. What we want is just a comfortable ride home from a day of tiring work. What we wish for is your understanding of how we feel and for us to understand how are you going to make it different for us.

We need a public transport system that has more heart, not more profit.

GE2011 - Must see their track record before voting lah!

2011-05-05T09:55:00.005+08:00

PAP is always right lah. When we finally have a chance to vote now, we cannot be so lidat and go and anyhow vote lah. So my fellow Singaporeans, before you wake up and go voting on 7 May this Saturday, must think hard hard about all the candidates. Don't anyhow go and believe empty promises. Must go find out more about these people's track record mah! Open your eyes big big and see what they have done to you for the past 5 years!

"It will be sad if people vented their frustrations on other new Singaporeans who are here to find a better life. As a politician, I can stand the heat. When you ask Singaporean residents for feedback, they will complain that they have to wait more than 15 minutes for the bus. But when you ask new immigrants, they are happy that the bus comes in under 30 minutes." - Charles Chong

"The figures may be right, but the conclusion could be wrong."
- Seah Kian Peng questioning The Prices and Earnings 2009 survey by the Swiss bank which stated that the Singaporean worker’s wages has decreased over the past 3 years, while the cost of living has shot up.

"We may be the highest paid, but at the same time it is also important for them to understand we're probably the most effective, the best civil service in the world. And this came about because AUPE and PSD (Public Service Division), we work hand in hand, so on the one hand, we negotiate for fair terms, for good terms, for responsive rewards for civil servants."- Lim Swee Say

“How much do you want? Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant?” - Vivian Balakrishnan on why the monthly PA allowance should not be increased to pay for the minimum three basic meals a day for its recipients.

"I think this is not a trifling amount. But it is an amount that will give us value for money in terms of positioning ourselves, in terms of marketing ourselves, in terms of making sure we are on everyone’s radar screen the next time they make an investment decision." - Vivian Balakrishnan again, this time on why it makes sense to overspend on YOG.

“They (residents) should thank the Town Council for working hard to come up with a diversified portfolio to generate income so that residents do not have to fork out more money.” - Teo Ho Pin about why it makes sense to invest constituency’s funds in high risk funds.

"There would be a group who currently, the ones who are travelling single trips and shorter trips who are not benefiting, but we hope that if they review it say on a weekly travel pattern basis instead of looking at it on a per-trip basis ... look at it as a weekly travel pattern and sometimes also in terms of what is to come later on, more choices ... in due course, I am sure they will benefit as well." - Lim Hwee Hua on the mysterious group that genuinely benefit from the distance-based fare system.

“There are not that many people in Singapore who really want to be extremely good at what they are doing. We are always in danger in Singapore of mistaking excellence for competence. Most people in Singapore are happy to be competent, above average than exceptional. I half suspect that once we get to 75 per cent of that level — which is quite good — you think that’s good enough, you’re already better than the rest in Singapore.” - Tharman Shanmugaratnam

"What happened was very unusual. The intensity was tremendous." - Yaacob Ibrahim on the freak flood. Oh by the way, we were flooded again just yesterday.

"And with so many civil servants around, it is inevitable that there will be some people who are less flexible. Also, as society's standards get higher and education levels improve, the people will demand more of government departments." - Teo Ser Luck replying on the feedback that there are bureaucratic people in his two ministries.

"It is a squandered opportunity for a higher degree of self-regulation. It would have been an example of the genesis of the first step towards a more responsible, a greater self-regulatory regime. But many of those responses were not rebutted nor answered. And I think it is not healthy for some of those to remain on the net unchallenged, unquestioned, and unanswered." - Lui Tuck Yew on the internet and its netizens.

The above quotes are sourced from WikiMe, My Job and What I have said as your MP

Yes your vote is secret

2011-05-04T19:56:00.003+08:00

Your vote is secret and your vote is important.

A lot of people have worked their asses off to ensure you have a voting ticket in this election.

Don't waste this chance in case you kena a walkover GRC next election.

Nobody gives a damn whether you're a soldier, a policeman or work in a statboard because nobody can see your vote.

Vote for the party that echoes what you have in your heart and mind, not the one you have to vote for.

Voting should be free from fear.

Sorry PM, too late to say sorry lah!

2011-05-04T11:17:00.006+08:00

Yesterday was another moment in Disney magic on earth. After the pretty girl married the handsome prince, and the big villain was killed, the arrogant rich man stood out to apologise. Oh yes, that is the first from PAP. Our dear PM said "If we didn't get it right, I'm sorry. But we will try better the next time.".

I can imagine the crowd at Singapore Pools to buy in 4D number 0503 or 0305. It's not everyday that you get PAP to say "sorry" you know?

PM Lee: If we didn’t get it right, I’m sorry
Yahoo! News

PM Lee acknowledged some of the government's initiatives have resulted in "side effects", such as problem gambling among Singaporeans due to the opening of the Integrated Resorts.

He also cited the congestion in public transport because of the increased intake in foreigners.

"We made a mistake when we let Mas Selamat run away. We made a mistake when Orchard Road go flooded," he said.

But PM Sir, why are you only realising the mistakes that your people have made like... now? Like a couple of days before the Polling Day? Why such a perfectly-timed sorry?

And why did the sorry come only after the mistakes have been brought up again and again by the Opposition parties?

Perhaps it is really time to place a few of these young candidates from the opposition parties into the parliament so that they can be there to catch such mistakes made by those old and experienced ministers in the future 5 years, so that "sorry" does not come only once in every 5 years? So that we only hear "sorry" for mistakes that were made donkey years ago?

"Much has been said about foreigners for the past few days, but I fear our anger might have been mis-directed. It is not their fault that our wages has stagnanted. It is not their fault that our property prices has sky-rocketed. And it is not their fault that we are all forced to pack ourselves like sardines in the MRT train. No, my friend. The real target of our anger is the PAP government!" -- Nicole Seah, NSP

"The government has also made a number of mistakes throughout the years, the Mas Selamat escape, the over-budgeted Youth Olympics Games, and the losses incurred not just by Temasek and GIC but also by the various town councils when they used their funds to buy minibonds." -- Glenda Han, WP

Oops, SORRY! The last one was put up by mistake.

My PAP MP-wannabe has been kidnapped by aliens!

2011-05-03T14:10:00.005+08:00

Dear fellow Singaporeans who stay at West Coast GRC, if any of you have seen my PAP MP-wannabe for West Coast GRC who has been arrowed to go Dover, please do let me know. In fact, my friend at Jurong West, also under the West Coast GRC, did not see his PAP MP-wannabe as well.

It is now time for candidates to visit their residents and in fact most have done their homework by the last long weekend (if not what do you think that long weekend was for and why the polling weekend is after a long weekend?). But for some weird reasons, we have yet to have this once-in-5-years visit from our PAP MP-wannabes.

I amd dead worried that some bad things might have happened to them, like falling off the edge of Marina Bay, or kena adopted by alien (no, aliens like Paul, not the Chinese mei mei at the massage saloon).

So please, if you do see any of them, please tell them to come visit me, in case I forget to vote for them.

The GE2011 video that has to be taken down - by Mr Teo Ser Luck

2011-05-03T10:15:00.002+08:00

While Tin Pei Ling's rally speech was like Primary School Story Telling Contest, titled "This morning, I walked 30 blocks", at least there was content in her speech. That's why it was not taken down.

My mom's vote and my vote

2011-05-01T23:06:00.003+08:00

During lunch in a kopi tiam, I was telling Mom not to cook my dinner as I might be going to Party X's rally...

Mom: But Party X is not even contesting in our constituency!
Me: Yah I know, but the opposition party here cannot make it leh! Some more I only support Party X...
Mom: You really too free...
Me: No lah, we cannot just look at our own constituency mah, our votes affect the whole country one leh! So to support Party X, I'm going to buy their little flags and hang in the car!
Mom: Choy! How can you hang such things in the car!
Me: Why not? Not as if mada will catch...
Mom: Why go and challenge the gahmen? Not worth the risk right! Aiyah, anyway don't say already lah! Here so many people, these kinda things wait till go home then say!

And that is a perfect illustration of the older and younger generation of voters here in Singapore.

I'm pretty sure my Mom is going to vote for that party. Not because she really supports and agrees with them, because I've heard her complaining about their policies in the comfort of our home. But she'll still vote for them just to be safe.

And me? I don't like to live in fear.

GE2011 Drama Trailer - Aljunied will pay the price

2011-05-01T17:06:00.000+08:00

When most people are enjoying the freedom of making their own choices, some people living in one area have to endure warnings and threats.

GE2011 Drama Trailer - Don't need co-driver

2011-04-29T21:21:00.000+08:00

If you're good, of course you don't need a co-driver. But if you have been driving like shit for the past 5 years, you really need a slap to wake you up.

GE2011 Drama Trailer - Suddenly MP

2011-04-29T07:58:00.001+08:00

When one guy woke up in the morning, he didn't expect to become an instant MP by noon.

GE2011 Drama Trailer - 35 Seconds Too Late

2011-04-28T22:23:00.001+08:00

When one party was 35 seconds too late for their paper work, one whole cluster of people did not get a choice.

SGElections - 35 minutes and less than 12 hours

2011-04-28T14:14:00.000+08:00

在35秒内，一大群本来可以有选择的人失去了一个难得一次的机会。
在12个钟头内，一个本来默默无名的人突然变成为了政治人物。

张国荣：看着我的手表。
张曼玉：干嘛要看着你的手表？
张国荣：就35秒。
张曼玉：时间到了，说吧。
张国荣：今天几号了？
张曼玉：27号。
张国荣：27号，4月27号。2011年4月27号下午12点之前的35秒你来不及交表格。因为这样你会记住这35秒。从现在开始你不可以参选了，这是事实，你改变不了，因为已经过去去了。下次请早。

Vote for Nyo and Mehly to win a TV!

2011-04-21T08:31:00.002+08:00

"Remember our faces when you vote, and you'll get a chance to win a free 54" Smart TV!" -- Nyo

NOT That Party's GE2011 Manifesto

2011-04-19T18:08:00.000+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/embed/ocgtaT_7324

Nyo's and Mehly's votes vs the upgradings

2011-04-08T09:02:00.002+08:00

"So it's either I'm staying in the wrong ward, or I voted for the wrong party?" -- Nyo

Nyo thinks the party needs a better Social Media "expert"

2011-04-07T08:33:00.002+08:00

"Twitter and Facebook is just a virtual next-to-the-lift notice board right?" -- Mehly.

The IN thing in this Election is to be from humble background

2011-04-06T11:26:00.003+08:00

"Remember not to wear your Lorex watch when you go visit the people!" -- Nyo

Nyo speechless about his speechless wife in forum

2011-04-06T08:54:00.001+08:00

Nyo was wondering why did he even bother to send his wife to the political forum...

Nyo knew he shouldn't have let his maid carry his backpack...

2011-04-05T09:20:00.002+08:00

"Now that the first guy is caught with his maid carrying his field pack, the army is definitely going on witch hunt, and I have to keep my maid's mouth shut!" -- Nyo

Pretty Mehly is joining the election too!

2011-04-04T14:05:00.003+08:00

"Of course I'm qualified to be the new candidate! At least I'll look pretty on town council newsletters and National Day posters!" -- Mehly

I will vote for you reason #5 - IF you are Mr Brown

2011-04-01T14:01:00.003+08:00

Oh yes Mr Brown, I will vote for you on that piece of serial-numbered paper, on your blog and even dial a 1900 number and pay $50 to vote for you...

Even though you cannot make the 5-rooms HDB flat in Queenstown cheaper and I will never have enough money to upgrade.

Even though you cannot ask the private clinics to charge cheaper and I still have to wait long long in the polyclinic queue just to get the universal applies-to-all panadol.

Even though you cannot ask the kopitiam not to use the rising cost of flour/egg/sugar to raise the price of kopi-C for another 20 cents.

Even though you cannot bring down the ever-rising electricity bill.

Even though you cannot stop the self-proclaimed world-class public transport from increasing the fares yet again.

So Mr Brown my friend, I will confirm, chop and guarantee tick for you even though you can't do anything, because the other MPs didn't do anything also. But at least your blog makes me laugh from the bottom of my heart. Oh, and you won't ask for too high a minister salary right?

I will vote for you reason #4 - IF you tell my boss I need a $575 designer chair

2011-03-29T14:47:00.006+08:00

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will use luminous green highlighter on the big fat tick that I draw on your box...

If you call up my boss to tell him that economy has improved so much and I've worked so hard that I deserve a $575 designer chair.

If you have lunch with my boss and tell him that I had accepted a wage reduction during the difficult economic times and worked hard to help turn the economy around quickly, and I so deserve a 2.5 months bonus.

If you give one free maid for each family in your constituency so that somebody will carry my bag for me when I go to work.

If you also plan for a free half day city tour for your constituency to the National Museum of Singapore, the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s City Gallery and Parliament House. Especially the National Museum, because the admission fee there very expensive leh!

If you change our address to something more posh like "Frankfurt Village" or "Bordeaux Town" and forbid people from other heartlands to wear singlets, shorts and slippers and anyhow come here. Maybe like that our HDB flat resale price can go higher.

So Mr MP-wannabe, you don't have to grow up from a low-income family, but before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do to help me get enough income to support my family.

I will vote for you reason #3 - IF you gimme back my Merlion

2011-03-24T09:29:00.007+08:00

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will go to the very ATAS ION to buy a very expensive Mont Blanc pen specially to put a tick on your box...

If you free Merlion from its misery. The Merlion belongs to the people of Singapore, regardless of race, language and religion, or the number of fifty dollar notes in our wallets, and it should be free to stand by the sea while we take pictures and picnic next to it, not locked up for some expensive one-night stands with rich tourists.

If upon becoming a Minister, you will spare a small portion of your pay to buy back the Raffles Hotel from that Qatar businessman, so that we can have part of our heritage back.

If you fire the smart alec in STB who anyhow gave Singapore away to the tourists and while you are there, change the tag line to "Our Singapore".

If you tell the Primary schools to give their vacancies to Singaporeans and let the new immigrants take the left overs. If not, even if I were to queue for 3 days 3 nights outside the school, I still can't beat the rich guy from India who donated a computer lab to the school, or the pei-du-ma-ma from China who volunteered to be the school's slave for 24/7.

If you make it compulsory for fast food chains to employ only people who speak proper English or Singlish. I can understand the aunty asking "You want upsize?" but not the China gal asking "doyouwanttoupsizeyourmeal?".

If you ask immigration to go catch all the loose foreign talented prostitutes and beggars all over the island. Geylang used to be the only red light district in Singapore, not Joo Chiat, Marine Parade, Bedok, Kovan or People's Park.

If you chase away those countless Chinese steamboat restaurants and give us back our Chinatown. Despite the name, "Chinatown" does not belong to China.

If you can give us back our Sentosa. We used to go to the cheap chalets in Sentosa and hang around and de-stress. Now rich new immigrants stay at the expensive bungalows and Singaporeans go to the casino to get poorer and more stressed. Yah I know, already got one MP who said he got debated things like gambling passionately and he got bite. But the casino still goes on right? If we vote you in to talk on our behalf, but when you talk nobody listens, then we vote you in for what?

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

I will vote for you reason #2 - IF you ask SPH to stop playing cheat

2011-03-23T08:55:00.007+08:00

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will vote for you, draw a very nice and straight tick on your box with a long metal ruler...

If you can ask SPH to stop calling some party newbies as Young talent or New faces, and other parties' new faces as Newbies. Must be consistent in the naming mah.

If you can advise SPH that if they want more sales for their newspapers, it helps to have more coverage of the other parties, like 50-50 vs the one party, instead of 10-90 now.

If you can be nicer to me after I've voted for you, like lending me your ears instead of asking "Yes, what now?" during the meet-the-people session.

If you stop treating me like a brainless retard that only knows how to eat, that's why you always have to explain politics to me using analogy of local food like mee siam or D24 durian or chili crab. After all the kopi talks in kopitiams over all the stupid decisions some people made, the average Singaporean does know a bit about politics after all.

If you can do your walk-arounds and visiting not only during election period but also after you are elected. It is not easy to queue up to meet you during your meet-the-people session, so if you really want real feedback from real people living in your constituency, I'll suggest having at least a yearly walk-around in the neighbourhood. Don't worry, we won't bite one.

If you can ask SPH to print all the rally timings and locations on the newspapers so that I can plan where to go and what to watch. While one party has all the air time on TV, the other parties' live rallies are more interesting, and are always full house. If I can know the schedule earlier, I can go there earlier to chop place.

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

I will vote for you reason #1 - IF you take away ERP

2011-03-22T13:33:00.007+08:00

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will vote for you with all my hands my legs and my little pink heart...

If the moment you become a Minister, you volunteer to donate out all your salary to LTA so that they can remove the ERP system and still make profit.

If you strap off motor insurance and put all those motor insurance companies to bankruptcy. Don't worry, if we lang-ga, we can settle ourselves at our Ah Beng workshops one.

If you tell gahmen to subsidise the ever-rising petrol price. If Truly Asia can subsidise petrol for so many cars in their country so big, I'm sure subsidising the little cars in our little red dot should cost even less.

If you tell LTA to summon those buggers who illegal park right outside the shopping malls and block my way to the carparks.

If you put more traffic police on the expressways during peak hours to stop those buggers from misbehaving and banging onto each other, then create super long massive jam and make me late for work.

If you put some Fatimahs at the washing bay every weekend to stop people from illegal parking there so that I can wash my car.

If you can ask those Fatimahs to also take note of people opening their doors in the car park, and if these buggers or their retarded kids are caught banging their doors on the car parked next to them, summon them $500 per bang.

If you can ask that since-when-become-so-ATAS National Library at Bugis to lower their parking fees because that is not really the way to encourage more people to read.

If you strap off all the bus lanes so that people who did pay road tax get to use the roads. After all, the way these buses are driven, if they air-air drive into our lanes, any car will give way to them one, so we don't need these bus lanes and give LTA some more reasons to earn our hard earned money.

If you change the whole COE balloting system such that the poor pays less and the rich pays more. The last that I heard, some MP-wannabe said that if you stay in a four-room flat, you are poor, so I should pay a poor man's COE as compared to the guy staying in Sentosa Cove.

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Planning a Department Outing

2011-03-21T09:03:00.007+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

Boss has just told me that we have still got some bucks left in the recreation fund for the year and suggested that we should plan for a department outing to award the staff and nurture bonding at the same time. Enthusiastically, he called for a meeting involving me and a couple of my assistant managers.

A couple of ideas were brought onto the table...

Assistant Manager A: How about a weekend trip to the Universal Studios?
Welfare Manager: But I don't think our left over fund is enough to pay for all.
Assistant Manager A: Hmm... how about we subsidise with whatever amount we can and ask the staff to pay for the other part of the fee then?
Boss: That's a good idea!

No! That was definitely not a good idea! I know my gals! Going to the Universal Studios will mean that they have the freedom to do whatever they want during the whole outing! Which means that they'll be having fun with the rides and snacking together, and leaving me alone with the other grandpas and grandmas on the benches! I don't want to go to Universal Studios alone!

And so I objected,"No, I think going to the Universal Studios is not a good idea. Everyone will be all over the place, there won't be proper bonding! We should sit down and just have a meal instead! Then people can chit chat and bond at the table!"

Boss: Oh, that's a good idea!

We continued to brainstorm on dining ideas, though I swear I could feel the heat coming from some of my assistant managers after I rejected the Universal Studios suggestion.

Assistant Manager B: I know of this buffet lunch at this hotel which is quite value for money. They have quite a well spread as well.
Welfare Manager: As long as it's within our budget, there shouldn't be any problem.
Boss: Hmm... buffet lunch, that's a good idea!

It looked like almost everybody knows a good buffet at some posh hotel, but I wanted to participate in the discussion as well. And I happen to know of a venue that is cheap and good!

And so I happily suggested,"I know of this seafood place at Geylang that is cheap and good!", and then everybody stopped and stared at me.

Assistant Manager B: Did you just say Geylang?

Ha! I just know that I'm the only one who knows of this treasure! This seafood place serves great seafood and is so much cheaper than those usual seafood restaurants like Long Beach and No Signboard! And because it is in a kopitiam, you don't even have to pay service charge!

Assistant Manager B: So it's a seafood store in a kopitiam in Geylang?
Welfare Manager: Erm... we do actually have more budget than that, you know?
Assistant Manager C: Eeeeee... department lunch in Geylang?
Assistant Manager B: It's even worst if it's a dinner...
Assistant Manager A: Wait... is that kopitiam seafood store halal? We've got Muslims you know?

Oops... I forgot about the Muslims! But almost immediately, I've got a great idea again! We can have two lunches! Geylang seafood for the non-halal and some Malay restaurant somewhere for halal!

Assistant Manager A: So the non-Muslims will bond with the non-Muslims and Muslims will bond with Muslims huh?

Walauz! She must have said that to malu me just because I rejected her Universal Studios idea lor!

Boss: No, this is definitely not a good idea! I don't want people to find our whole department in Geylang!

Damn it.

What a greedy green monster!

2011-03-01T15:18:00.007+08:00

Long long time ago, I used to have a little black box that let me escape from the repeats of repeats on the free-to-air channels and get to watch what the rest of the world watches - fresh new TV programs.

Then one not-so-fine day, the cable operator announced a new digital box which was supposed to do exactly the same thing as the little black analog box, but in digital. Oh, and it didn't have a time display like the analog one. Gradually, the cable operator introduced more channels that were offered only on the digital box. Then gradually and sneakily more channels were removed from the analog box and placed on the digital box. In the end, I was paying full for only half of what I used to watch.

So the greedy green monster whispered to me,"Go change to the digital box lah, only a few dollars more every month mah!", and so I switched.

Then one not-getting-any-better day, the cable operator decided to split the main channels that I was watching into little sub channels. The Discovery channel was split into other sub channels to discover specific things, so you need to watch the Turbo channel to discover cars, Science channel to discover Science, while the National Geographic channel split out a Wild channel for wild animals and Adventure channel for adventures. The main Discovery and National Geographic channels still remained but all the interesting stuff seemed to have gone to the sub channels, which are charged separately.

So the greedy green monster whispered to me again,"Go subscribe to more channels lah, only a few dollars more every month mah!", and so I subscribed to the new Lifestyle group that contains stuff I used to be able to watch on the Education group.

Then one bad day, my video cassette recorder gave up on me. Since I couldn't find any video tape anywhere anymnore (not even Sungei Road), I decided to change my digital box to the hubstation to continue recording. But the customer service told me that they have stopped inventory for the hubstation, and I had to get the hubstation HD instead, which is 75% more expensive because of the word HD. It was not as if I had any other choice, so without the greedy green monster whispering to me, I paid more to subscribe to the hubstation HD.

Then one very very agonising day, March 1 2011 to be exact, I could not view any of the HD channels anymore. Apparently in order to watch a HD channel on my hubstation HD, I need to subscribe to HD Upsize. Else I'll have to watch normal non-HD channels on my hubstation HD.

When the greedy green monster whispered to me again,"Go subscribe to...", I smashed him onto the ground, stepped on him and switched on my TV to watch the AXN non-HD channel on my hubstation HD.

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Useless IT

2011-03-01T09:36:00.007+08:00

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Upgrading the Scholar Wall

2011-02-24T08:43:00.004+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

We have this gigantic celling-to-floor Scholar Wall at the lobby which greets everyone as they take the lift to work everyday. It has little circular photographs of our scholars all over the wall. It is really a great wall that honors our scholars and their great contribution of... of... of great researches.

However, since I was here, I've also noticed that the wall has not been well maintained. The silver words "Our Scholars" right at the top are not so shiny anymore. Someone from Facilities should talk to the cleaners. Also, the color on most of the photographs seem to have faded. This is a really serious negligence and I had to book an urgent meeting with my boss to talk about it.

My boss too agreed that most of the photographs have already faded from color into gray and white and should have been replaced. And since I was the one who took the initiative to bring it up, the important task of replacing the photographs fell on my laps. Thrilled, I informed one of my gals about this great task. But for some unknown reasons, she didn't seem very happy to locate all the scholars in the organisations and approach them for new photographs. Well, she should be! It was an honorable task!

A couple of days later, she sent me the photographs and a scholars name list. To my surprise, a lot of the scholars have left the organisation so she couldn't get their photographs. This is something I can never understand. Why will a scholar ever want to leave the organisation? The pay is great, the career path is even greater, and all he/she needs to do is research! I will retire here if I'm a scholar! Anyway, I couldn't ask Facilities to replace the photographs else there will be lots of empty circles on the wall. So I requested for an urgent meeting with my boss to sort it out.

Of course I went to the meeting with a couple of suggestions. I suggested putting up photographs of to-be-scholars who are still studying overseas, but my boss's concern was what if they break their contracts, or run around naked in Holland Village, or get arrested for children porn. Then I suggested filling up the empty circles with photographs of management staff like myself (that was secretly my favourite suggestion), but that will mean the silver words "Our Scholars" have to be replaced and my boss was concerned with the cost. Finally, I suggested filling up the gaps with text listing our achievements, but my boss was concerned that there might not be enough to fill up the gaps, even if we were to put in "Others" achievements like "100% Attendance in the YOG events by all staff". Well, we can always make the font size super big, but that might not look nice on the wall.

So at the end of the meeting, my boss patted me on the shoulder and said,"It's okay, we'll just leave the wall as it is now, and we'll see to it again next quarter."

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Please use the $70 voucher!

2011-02-23T09:00:00.014+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

We have just bought some new phones in the office and as a gratitude, the vendor has given us a $70 supermarket voucher. But never did I expect that it'll be that difficult to use up this $70 voucher.

I thought it would be a good idea to spend the $70 to top up the pantry with some biscuits and titbits. So as a democratic head of unit, I emailed the department and asked them to submit a list of items that they would like to purchase with the voucher, with details like item description, price and quantity. You would have expected me to be overwhelmed by eager suggestions from my happy staff right? Wrong! After one whole week, I received zero email. So I called my PA into my room.

I asked her why nobody responded to my email and she just folded her arms and said,"Because nobody in the office has ever worked in the supermarket before, so we don't remember all the stuff that can be found there, and of course we won't know the price even if we do know what we want. And the most important thing is, how do I know whether what I want is also what others want? Even for the same potato chips, I might suggest Brand A but others might prefer Brand B! And even if we did provided suggestions, what if the list of suggested items ended up costing more than $70?".

I hope she was not waiting for me to suggest that I'll top up the amount when she asked that last question. I mean, it's not fair for me to use my own money to buy titbits for the department right?

Since the gals are not co-operative enough to spare a bit of their time to come up with their wish lists to be consolidated into a shopping list (which of course will be done by my PA), we needed a plan B. So I told my PA that they could just take the voucher and go directly to the supermarket to do the purchase. But they have to do it outside office hours.

"What do you mean by outside office hours?", she raised her eyebrow and asked. I thought that sentence explained itself. "Which means, I don't want you girls to go shopping during office hours, and not even during lunch time, because that will mean you girls need to take long lunch." To which she rebutted,"So you want us to run the arrand after work?". Finally she got it.

Since it's free money for them to buy titbits, they should be more than happy to do it right? And anyway I'm not asking the whole office to run this errand, just one volunteer will do.

"So now you want one of us to go to the supermarket after work and buy $70 worth of food, and then bring all these loads of food to the office on the next day?", she snorted.

"Yes", I replied matter-of-factly. I was hoping she will volunteer because her husband drives her to work, but instead she just turned around and walked out of my office! I really need to talk to my PA about her manners. And seriously, I don't know why my gals are making this task seem so difficult when my maid can go to the supermarket alone and bring back a trolley full of groceries!

The Diary of a Useless Manager - All those ungrateful contractors

2011-02-21T09:29:00.004+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

Damn it. Another contractor has resigned. This time round, it is an experienced project manager who has been with the organisation for five years. Five years! Can you imagine how much learning and experience we are going to lose? I heard that he has got a higher paid full time job in another company. But we could have offered him another year of contract! How can he just drop his job and leave after working as our contractor for five years, just because the other company offer him a full time position? Ungrateful bastard!

It has always been our organisation's policy to offer more contract positions, after all that was a recommendation coming directly from our ministers, and I totally agree with it. You know, I really don't see any problem with working for us as a contractor. It's not like we discriminate them and treat them with less respect. And it really helps in our bottom lines, because the organisation can save so much on operation costs! No bonus costs, training costs, no employee benefits, they can't take our free shuttle bus and we just need to pay the minimum medical benefits! It's really a win-win situation! They get a job, and we save money!

I really don't understand why is it so difficult to hold on to our contractors. Most of them don't last long in our organisation and the moment another company offer them a full time position, they'll almost always leave us. There is this team in this department where we have a contractor manager leading a team of full timer staff, and this contractor manager position never last more than a year. Sigh...

And with the job market getting better these days, it is getting more and more difficult to fill up the contract positions. There was this guy that I interviewed for a project management position, mind you, it was a very high profile position managing a organisation wide project and the minimum requirement was a Masters Degree with at least 5 years of related working experience. At the end of the interview, I was already certain that he was the right guy. But he had to ask that stupid question to spoil it all! He asked what will happen after the project ended! DUH! Of course he'll be asked to go lah! If not then what?! And the thing that really pissed me off? He then told me that he was not interested in the position anymore! What a waste of my time!

Oh, you asked what about me? Of course I'm a full time staff lah! DUH!

RPG Games you will not want to miss in 2011

2011-02-18T21:03:00.006+08:00

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Final Fantasy XIV

Dragon Age 2

Ni No Kuni

VALKYRIA CHRONICLES 3

Trinity Souls of Zill O'll

Board of Film Censors said The Kids Are NOT All Right

2011-02-18T10:38:00.003+08:00

The Board of Film Censors rated Oscar-nominated film The Kids Are All Right as category R21, applying to 'films that may contain adult issues, themes and more explicit scenes,' and limited its release to one single print. Why? Got naked women in front of mirrors? Got hot sex? Nope. Got fully clothed decent lesbians.

Yap! The Kids Are All Right is a comedy from acclaimed director Lisa Cholodenko, starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. The story goes that the two teenagers went to seek out their biological father and introduce him into the family life that their two mothers have built for them. And of course with the introduction of a "new" family member, the family ties are defined, re—defined, and re—re—defined. Yes it has a funny but touching story line with good actors and actresses, but it also touches the sensitive part of our gahmen.

The New York Times raves that it’s "a generous, nearly note—perfect portrait of a modern family," Entertainment Weekly calls the movie "funny, smart and sexy!", and the Board of Film Censors says "'films should not promote or normalize a homosexual lifestyle". Oh, and they also emphasise a very very important point. They said they already made a concession to allow the film's release, rather than to ban it. So be happy that they allow ONE PRINT ONLY and don't ask for too much okay!

If you're keen in watching that one print, go bookmark Cathay's movie page and look out for the release date. If you're internet savvy like most of us except the gahmen, you know where to find it. Or the last resort, you can always rely on our friendly DVD vendors across the bridge. :)

The Diary of a Useless Manager - It's not just a seventy dollars in-tray

2011-02-17T08:57:00.010+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

That day, my assistant manager told me that we need to procure in-trays for the department. Seriously, I don't see the reason for getting an in-tray. If I've got work for them to do, isn't it easier for me to throw the files on their tables, than to have to aim and throw into the in-tray? And furthermore, they have asked for those enclosed in-trays with drawers, which cost seventy over dollars each! Tsk, tsk, tsk... I really need to talk to these gals about working Cheaper, Better, Faster. Anyway, I told my assistant manager that I can't just approve and I need to check with Finance first, so she sighed and left my room. So rude.

So I went to look for the head of Finance to inform her that I might need to procure a seventy over dollars in-tray for each of my gal in the department. I thought that she would agree with me that this is too much of a spending and disapprove it, but instead, she just rolled her eyes, sighed (again!) and replied "It's your budget, why are you asking me? Anyway it's only seven hundred over dollars in total right?". WTH? Isn't she the head of Finance? Shouldn't she be more prudent to ensure that every buck spent is justified? How can she just let me spend seven hundred over dollars just like that?

While Finance is not doing their jobs, that doesn't mean I can't do mine. So I've decided to investigate more into the reason for getting the in-trays. I designed a questionnaire and scheduled to meet each of my gal face-to-face and interview them on why they need an in-tray. Questions like "Why do you need an in-tray?", "How will you use the in-tray?", "How often will you use the in-tray?", "How will the in-tray assist you in your job?", and the most brilliant one: "Will you say you can still improvise and do your work well without the in-tray?". Smart right?

After spending days of interviewing my whole department, I consolidated all data to analyse them. I know I had to cancel a few meetings and put off some urgent work to do this investigation, but I feel that this is necessary and should be treated with high priority. Oddly, all of my gals seem to have good reasons for having an in-tray. But I believe these can still be considered as excuses for not doing their jobs well with the minimum tools. So I asked my assistant manager, why didn't the previous head procure the in-trays for them. There must be a good reason for the previous head not to give in to them and I want to leverage it!

Then my assistant manager replied,"Oh she did! We used to have in-trays but those were very old and broken and we had to let go when we shifted to this new building. And anyway, during her times, we didn't have that much paper work to do and so we didn't procure and replace." Is it just me, or does she sound like complaining about the amount of jobs that I delegate to them?

The Diary of a Useless Manager - If you don't know, I lagi don't know!

2011-02-16T11:00:00.007+08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

I'm a manager working in a huge local organisation. We have long long time ago claimed to be privatised, but don't worry, we still run our business like a regular statboard. We have to, you know? So that we can still keep all the red tapes.

What you're reading now is my diary which I try to write everyday in the office. What? You think I should be writing it at home after work and before sleep? Siao ah? I want to spend my precious private time doing more important things like watching TV okay! And further more, with the electricity bill going up, I really don't want to switch on my computer and aircon at home. Anyway, since I'm a manager, I've got my own room, so nobody knows what I'm doing inside what!

But then hor, even though this is a diary, don't expect me to update everyday okay. Sometimes I do get busy with real work, sometimes I need to go for long lunches and tea breaks with my bosses to socialise, and sometimes I need to take leaves and MCs. So don't complain this is not a diary when you don't see me posting everyday.

I've got a team of gals working for me in my department, who will take care of everything that their jobs require, including doing my job. And in today's diary, I would like to complain about them.

All my gals have been working in the organisation longer than me. Oh, I've only joined the organisation coming to a year. So naturally they should know more than me right? But sometimes I don't think they are very happy to help. Especially when I asked them to do my job.

I mean, look. I've only been here for slightly less than a year, so they can't expect me to know my job well right? I know I ask the same questions on how to do the same report every month, but hey, it takes time to learn what! And I also need time to pick things up, so if I don't know what is happening most of the time, they can't expect me to contribute during meetings right? But I know that as a responsible manager, I must learn how to delegate. So I came up with the brilliant idea that, instead of taking so much effort to learn the ropes, I should just delegate my jobs to my assistant manager and the rest of the gals. Smart right?

But today, my assistant manager has made me very angry. When I handed her one of the report that I was tasked by higher management to do, she had the cheek to tell me she has not seen that report before and she don't know how to do it! So I told her off: "If you don't know, I lagi don't know!" WTH right?

I don't want to eat alone

2011-01-27T08:52:00.006+08:00

This is what happens when the world, oh okay, at least the country, is in peace, and all ministers and MPs decided to think before they talk. When there is not enough news to fill up the newspapers pages. This is the time when you get to read all kinds of hilarious news like some old actor refusing to pay his wife's alimony after he divorced her for a gal young enough to be his daughter, or the latest "I Dare to Eat Alone" campaign from NUS. My first thought? These university people really very free hor.

Like that also can? Like that also can be a campaign? Then what's next? "I Dare to Fight Alone" to encourage Ah Bengs with parangs to stop gang fights and be brave enough to stand up for solo fights? "I Dare to Gamble Alone" to discourage gambling uncles and aunties from bringing their friends along to the casinos? "I Dare to Contest Alone" to encourage GRC MPs to stop hiding behind high profile ministers?

And seriously, why should NUS be encouraging people to feel good about eating alone? Do these twenty-plus organisers know the meaning of eating alone?

If you eat alone in school, it means you're the kiasu loser who is always busy studying to score better than the rest of the class, prefers to do your projects alone so that you don't have to share your knowledge and you do not want to waste your time taking long lunch breaks and socialise with the other classmates.

If you eat alone in army camp, which I can't imagine how can it even be possible, it means you're the saboking loser who is either too slow and have problem keeping up with the platoon, or too quick and on to sabo the whole platoon. You are definitely the one targeted for blanket parties.

If you eat alone at work, it means you're the anti-social loser who is always on a different page from the rest of the team, and you only have enough guts to shoot arrows through emails. You may be the most hardworking worker in the team, but you're also the one they gossip about in the pantry breaks that you're never invited. If you poor bastard manage to climb up the ladder to be a manager one day, you can be sure you'll be fighting alone as well.

Actually I've got a better idea. Instead of encouraging university students to eat alone, why don't we have a "I Dare to Share Table" campaign? If you're alone, go share table with other schoolmates! Awkward? This is exactly what the Hong Kong people do! In crowded cafes and even dim sum restaurants, the Hong Kong people will opt to share tables with strangers. To the customers, they can cut the long waiting queue, and for the businesses, they can have faster turn-around-time, so this is a win-win situation. How many times in Singapore have you seen a couple taking up a table for 4 and think "Walau, what a waste of table"?

And do the Hong Kong people feel awkward about sharing table with strangers? No. Most of the time they actually ended up chatting with these strangers and share pointers on what's good or bad on the menu. I thought SM Goh has wanted us to start some "Vertical Kampong" spirit without the kampong? This is a good place to start.

Don't blame us, blame your position!

2011-01-21T09:14:00.007+08:00

Recently, some rich and successful young chap who paid $10,000 for MM Lee's signature started a vulgarities war with a rather popular blogger who is famous for his humourous use of vulgarities. Yah I know, you can already see who is at the losing end. Like an army cook challenging Macro Pierre White to a cooking competition. But that is not the reason why this chap is famous overnight.

You've got people pissing off people on the Internet all the time. One day you have Xiaxue and Dawn virtual bitch slapping one another, another day you have Steven Lim bitching about another bitch. While we chase their blogs, tweet about it and kaypoh about it, like a Channel 8 drama series, we quickly forgot all about it. Well, at least these hu-has do not make it to the newspapers like this chap. So what's the difference this time? Because he is a YPAP chairman.

Same reason why while there are perverts and peeping toms caught and charged everyday, it raised a higher eye brow when Danny Soo Ee Hock took upskirt digital video recording of women going up escalators. Because he was the previous YPAP Chairman of Punggol South. Same reason why we remember the scholars who walked around naked in Holland Village or watched child porno in London. Because they are scholars.

So why are we so harsh on these high flyers? Are we being biased? But can you blame us? These people are from the Elite class so they are expected to behave, well, like an Elite! They're supposed to be ATAS-er, Smarter, Holier, not like us Cheaper, Better, Faster!

Just like when you choose your magician in your RPG team, you will choose an elf and you expect him to be intelligent enough to remember all spells overnight, but for your warrior who is a dwarf and only knows how to fight, you can still close one eye if he is stupid enough to fall into traps all the time.

So when we overheard some Ah Beng mechanic who earns just above the minimum wage... oh wait, I forgot we still don't have a minimum wage. Okay let's do this again. When we overheard some poorly paid Ah Beng mechanic swearing or caught some Ah Seng gangsters street fighting, we don't really care. But no, we cannot tolerate any YPAP chairman throwing vulgarities on the Internet. Especially when one day he might become a MP, or worse a minister, and we are paying for his highest-in-the-world pay check.

Why so many book taxis and not enough babies?

2011-01-18T18:19:00.006+08:00

The press said that more book taxis in stronger economy, but in actual fact, this has nothing to do with economy. These are the real reasons why more book taxis...

Because all the taxis are either at the airport or IRs.

Because more taxis taking part in Operation Shadow where they hid in the bushes (or kopitiam) and wait.

Because it is too easy to book a taxi by dial-a-cab, sms-a-cab, iPhone-a-cab, online-book-a-cab...

Because more people are getting more impatient.

Because more people saw that more people are booking taxis, so they also book.

Because more people have given up on over-crowded MRT trains.

Because more people have given up on over-crowded buses.

Because more people cannot afford a COE.

The press also said that Singapore’s total fertility rate has plunged to a record low. So here are the reasons why less babies...

Because more married couples are put off by the idea that they have to queue up over-night for their kids' place in a kindergarten.

Because more married couples are still saving up for the medical costs to give birth.

Because more married women want to keep their promotions.

Because more married women want to keep their jobs.

Because more married couples are busy working OT to be Cheaper, Better, Faster.

Because more unmarried couples could not find a reasonable flat that is affordable.

Because more singles could not find a Singapore-born Singaporean boyfriend/girlfriend.

I wanted to state the last reason as because there are more gays, but I'm worried that MDA might rate my post as NC16.

Yui Live - Feel my Soul

2011-01-11T08:46:00.001+08:00

Is Singapore arrogant or what?

2011-01-11T08:32:00.000+08:00

Recently I saw a TV commercial of one bank claiming that it is "Asia's safest. Singapore best". I was astonished.

This is that one bank which previously had 21 Internet banking accounts being hacked into by a Chinese national, who then made a USD62,000 fortune and ran away to Malaysia happily. How Asia's safest.

This is also the one and only bank in Singapore which not only had their Internet banking, but also all of its ATM machines suddenly gone down for one whole morning one fine day. How Singapore best.

Like some Great Man once said "This was a lapse, what to do, it’s happened", that one bank had definitely heed the advice and moved on. In fact, moved very far away. But it seems that besides one arrogant bank, we have one arrogant politician as well.

One politician said Singapore should not be shy about having one of the highest paid civil services in the world because Singapore's civil service is the world's best and most effective. And coincidentally, that one politician is the same politician who told us to work "Cheaper, Better, Faster". You know, it will really be helpful if that one politician could cite some example of how good and effective our civil services are, for example...

How the YOG volunteers' food were effectively improved only after a horrific lunch picture was posted online, or how the volunteers' free Formula One tickets were effectively sent to them after the event.

How floods in Singapore are effectively taken seriously only after Bukit Timah was flooded X number of times and Lucky Plaza Y number of times.

How the police had effectively searched for Mas Selamat who effectively escaped from the toilet and swam to Malaysia even more effectively on his floating device, and how in the end the Malaysia police had to effectively catch him and return to us. With a price.

How the MOE had effectively attempted to play down the importance of second language in PSLE, only to enrage the people and then effectively blamed them for mis-interpretation.

How more BTO flats were effectively built and pushed out in hurry only after the problem in getting affordable flat has been taunting the people long enough.

How the number of immigrants flooding Singapore is effectively controlled only after there are already too many of them here.

How the guys in SLA had effectively siphoned enough money to buy a couple of Lamborghini's to crush.

And while we are at this topic, I do wish that we could stop claiming that we have a world-class public transport system. That will mean that Japan's public transport system must be universe-class, best in the whole universe, including the Death Star.

Restaurants need to do more than just banning the kids

2011-01-07T14:00:00.009+08:00

Finally some restaurants are putting down their feet to ban kids once and for all. No matter how unfair it may sound to parents, this is actually a very good news for those of us who are not parents. Especially to the couples who have decided not to have any noisy runabout kids in their houses and yet have to go to restaurants full of them.

But then again, some may find this as another case of what the Chinese says "bringing down the whole boat of refugees with a bamboo stick". While most kids are expected to run around the floor in top speed at the top of their voices, there are also kids that will sit down and shut up and eat. For example those who are brought up by drill sergeant dads and discipline mistress moms, and taught to put up their hands before speaking at a dining table. So I agree it'll be rather unfair to these disciplined kids.

So perhaps the restaurants should not reject the kids right at the door, but give them a chance to prove their innocence? Perhaps they could adopt the soccer penalty system where the servers are authorised to present a kid with a yellow card upon inappropriate behavior, and if the kid receives two yellow cards, he or she would be asked to leave the restaurant. And of course that will mean the whole family has to go. Too harsh? What are you expecting? Even for the Singapore Lions, the whole team has to go! Oh... except for the coach in this case...

Actually I reckon the restaurants have more items on their To-do list other than just banning the kids if they really want to make our dining experience enjoyable, or at least bearable. After getting rid of our kids, the restaurants should make these changes themselves as well:

Ban the handphones. A yelling kid will eventually stop yelling when he or she is tired, but a uncle or aunty can go on and on and on...

Put up partitions to divide up large tables from the smaller tables. We are actually not interested in the gossips and catch-ups among a table of ex-classmates/ex-colleagues/ex-whatever. And we really don't have to join in their birthday songs.

Widen the space between tables. Before we can start ordering and eating, we do need to get to our tables. And some restaurants seem to be hinting to us that we need to go on a diet before we can get to our tables. And when we finally managed to squeeze through the gaps, it can be really uncomfortable listening to a chap trying to hook up with a gal or watching the other one all over his gal's hands.

Give us some water. We have already got desalination plants, Marina Barrage and floods so we have got more than enough water to go around and the price of water is going to remain cheap. So give us our iced or warm tap water! If we really like to have a glass of wine or juice, we will still order it on top of the free iced water, you moron!

MBS Sky Park - our $20 night scene

2011-01-04T10:26:00.005+08:00

There's no way that I'm going to pay for the $6 parking fee at Marina Bay Sands, so I parked my car at Marina Square instead. And this gives us the opportunity to walk along the Helix Bridge.

After crossing the Helix Bridge, we were greeted by a land of construction and road blocks. We were so confused that we had to ask a passer-by for the way...

Me: Aunty, which way do we go to the Marina Bay Sands?
Aunty: Har? Don't know.
Me: Er... Aunty, how to go to casino?
Aunty: Oh! Casino har! In front turn left!

Finally we reached the Marina Bay Sands lobby, which is pretty huge with lotsa lifts, with even more security guards standing sternly in front of the lifts. But no sign of the sign to the Sky Park lift. So we've got no choice but to check with one of the security with no expression, only to find out that the Sky Park lift is outside the hotel.

For some reason that must be too chim for us commoners to understand, tripods are not allowed on the Sky Park. So with my ISO set as high as possible and my hands as steady, these are the only photographs that are really acceptable...

Merry Christmas and relax lah!

2010-12-23T16:28:00.003+08:00

To hell with the COE prices! The most buy second hand lah!

So what if we still can't get a good HDB flat! No flat, marry later, produce babies even later! Still got new immigrants to top up right!

Who cares who's going to win the election! Next year then say lah!

Don't you know it's Christmas NOW?

Some great man once say: When the ship comes to the wharf, automatically straight it will become! So go relax and come back next year to worry! Merry Christmas, my friends! :)

Aunty, you give female drivers a bad name!

2010-12-20T17:41:00.008+08:00

That's enough. I'm so having enough of people praising me that I park well. Whenever I managed to park my car without adjustments, one of the guys in the car could not help himself saying "Wah, your parking not bad har!". Yes sir, I've learned my parking well back in driving school and by the way I've been driving for more than 10 years, so why shouldn't I park well? And you should see their faces of admiration whenever I slotted my car neatly into a parallel parking lot.

Unfortunately, at this age of time, men can acknowledge a woman's capability to be a CEO but yet they still can't believe in a woman's driving skill, or worse, parking skill. But seriously, can I even blame them? While most of my girl friends and I have no problem when it comes to parking our cars, there are indeed some hopeless ones out there. And if I were to profile these ladies...

She is usually old enough to be called an aunty. And because this aunty is old enough, this means she has usually worked her way up her career high enough to draw a respectable pay, which means she will drive a large BMW or at least a Toyota Camry. If she happens to be married and with kids, she will drive an even larger MPV.

And how will these aunties park? Lemme illustrate those I've met...

Aunty #1 drove a SUV up a HDB multistorey car park. After she went up part of the slope to the next level, she suddenly reversed without warning or indication to park at a lot at the corner of the lower level, just before the slope. Of course the car behind her had a shock when he had expected her to go up the slope but instead saw her reversing into him. And of course she had successfully caused an accident.

Aunty #2 drove a Camry into a shopping center basement car park. After she parked into a lot, she realised the car next to her had parked on the line so she couldn't get out of her car. So she drove out of her lot again to find another lot. There was only one problem. When she drove out of her lot, she insisted on driving on the wrong direction of traffic for some reason and the whole row of cars have to watch her do multiple-points turn slowly and squeeze pass them even more slowly.

Aunty #3 drove a wide European car into a basement car park. She was quick in her parking and needed no adjustment. In fact she was so fast that I couldn't react fast enough to call her back and request her to re-park because she was parking so close to my car that my passenger had problem getting out!

Aunty #4 drove a MPV and found a parallel parking lot on a very busy road. I'm sure all of you have met Aunty #4 somewhere in your driving life at some point. She drove in and out of the lot in differences of 1 degree angle and meanwhile the whole road got so congested up that it should have been reported on the radio to warn other road users to avoid that road.

And of course we must not forget Aunty #5 who just have to reverse her car so slowly into the lot that you couldn't tell that her car was even moving.

Yui Live - Your Heaven

2010-12-19T08:47:00.000+08:00

To have 3-star toilets, have happy cleaners first

2010-12-17T08:46:00.011+08:00

After only about 30 per cent out of the 30,000 restrooms in Singapore meet a three-star standard, must be from hotels and ATAS shopping centers like ION, the Restroom Association of Singapore (RAS) came up with some Inter-Agency Working Committee (IAWC) report, and targeted to have at least 70 per cent of the toilets meet that three-star standard by 2013.

And in order to draft a three-year blueprint sophisticated enough to justify their jobs and prove that they were working hard, the committee came up with some very out-of-the-box ideas that are totally out-of-touch with the people using and cleaning them.

Like an ERP system for toilets during peak hours. How original. I've written enough of the effectiveness of the original ERP system on the roads so I won't bore my readers here again. And anyway they are smarter than the committee to know when things won't work.

Like giving cleaners the authority to act as "inspectors" to warn or fine irresponsible users. So what will you call people that beat cleaners up in the toilets then? Toilet bullies?

And other ideas - like shared cleaning services, and better restroom lightings and brighter colours to influence improved user behaviour - are just... other rubbishes.

Enough focus on the toilet users. My suggestion to the committee is to look at the other side of the coin instead. The cleaners.

Cleaners are one of most exploited workers in Singapore, perhaps second only to construction workers and maids. One reason is that most of the cleaners are retired old folks who are less educated, and like what we have learned from robbers and con-men, they are the best candidates to cheat and not get caught. Thus cleaning companies find it difficult to resist the temptation of paying them extremely little and exploiting them further.

Unfortunately, most of my elder relatives, even my father, are cleaners, and what I'm about to reveal are real stories happening below the nose of the Restroom Association of Singapore.

When one of my uncle was working as cleaner in a office building downtown, he will always get his pay, which was about $600, at least three months late. The foreign workers were even worse. One of them had his pay delayed for more than six months.

When one of my aunties was working as cleaner in a secondary school, she did get her few hundreds dollars pay on time. But her company failed to pay for her CPF. In fact, the company did not submit CPF contribution for all of the cleaners.

When this aunty of mine resigned and joined another cleaning company, she did get her pay and CPF contribution regularly alright. But the company had a rule that all cleaners shalt not take sick leave. Meaning all sick leaves will be considered part of their 7 days annual leaves. Oh, also, when they are on sick leaves or annual leaves, they have to get a temporary cleaner to stand in for them, and get this... they have to pay for their own temporary cleaners.

My father is working as a cleaner in a NEA waste management plant in Tuas. He gets his pay on time, even his CPF contribution, though not on time. But when I last checked his CPF statement online, I discovered that his company's name has been changed from Company A to Company B. Nope, his employer is still the same and they did not change their company name. Due to the Government's tightening of the import quota for foreign workers, his company has apparently set up a new company and transferred the names of all local cleaners in Company A to Company B, so as to employ more cheaper, better, faster foreign workers. Ah... so my father has become the Phantom of the Cleaning Company.

This is common sense. If the cleaners are not treated fairly, they are not going to be happy. And when the cleaners are not happy, most probably they won't be doing their best at their work. So dear RAS president, I'll suggest that you grab a cleaner out of a toilet and ask him whether he is happy. This might put more practicality to your sophisticated three-year blueprint.

Gimme back my Singlish speaking waiters and waitresses!

2010-12-15T09:54:00.004+08:00

First of all, let me declare that I'm not xenophobic. I work in a MNC with more than half of my colleagues from the rest of the world outside Singapore, and I really have no problem working with India Indians, China Chinese and what not.

However at the same time, that doesn't mean I love to be surrounded by foreigners 24/7. And with the rate that foreigners are coming onboard, we are seeing one foreigner for every two or three Singaporeans now. Which means that I'm still surrounded by foreigners after I get out of my MNC office. I know this shouldn't bother me because gahmen said foreign talents are good for us and I should take it as a good Singaporean. But when these foreign talents start to conquer culinary positions, they start to get on my nerves.

Did you realise that when you order a kimchi soup from a Korean stall in the food court, it is most probably cooked by a China Chinese chef? Did you realise that the local delicacy chili crab that you're offering to your overseas guests might not be cooked by a Singaporean? Did you have problem understanding what the sweet counter gal at a fast food chain is saying, only to realise that she was asking whether you want to "upsize or add any dessert", in English?

When I take a coffee break at the kopitiam, my favourite kopi aunties has been replaced with some young China gals, and my kopi-C siew dai always turn up as kopi-O siew dai, kopi-C without siew dai, or simply kopi. These days I just order Milo to be safe.

When I go to a steakhouse for some good steak, I have to give my order in Mandarin. That didn't really challenge me much because I can always point at the menu when I'm too lazy to do mental translation. The only problem is she has no idea what is "medium rare" and I've got no idea medium rare equals to how many percent cooked. Luckily there is still a local floor manager who can translate my medium rare to whatever percent cooked.

Recently when I had dinner at a Japanese restaurant at Suntec City claiming to sell only authentic home-cooked Japanese food, I had the illusion that I was at Manila. All the waitresses there were Filipinos and believe me, it is not easy to understand a Filipino pronouncing Japanese dish names.

I'm really not xenophobic and I don't care that a foreign worker quarters is located just down the street from where I stay. But seriously, I just want to order my food and eat in peace. I just want my waitress to say "How you want your steak? Medium rare har. You want baked potatoes or fries?".

Second hand car market is back in business

2010-12-10T09:00:00.009+08:00

The last COE prices are simply crazy. The price that I paid for my 1.6L car three years ago can only get me a piece of obscenely expensive invisible paper now. For the COE prices to shoot up the sky, there must be mountains of bids received for the month, which means there must be showrooms full of people buying cars. So much for the purpose of the COE is to deter people from buying cars.

Seriously, if you think that the the real purpose of the COE system is really to deter people from buying cars, then you must also believe that the $100 levy is really to deter Singaporeans from gambling. Which means you are either too pro-government, too rich, or too naive. If the COE system would have worked in keeping Singapore road traffic smooth, then why do we have the ERP system? DUH!

Firstly, why won't the COE system deter people from buying a Toyota Vios in Singapore that costs as much as an Audi A3 Cabriolet in the UK? Because people who buy new cars in Singapore are either too rich, because they have been rich all their lives, or just won 4D/Toto, or received a 2.5 months bonus; or they don't have a choice, because they work till the moon comes up in remote parts of Singapore with limited public transport, like Tuas, or have a handful of kids, parents and maids to transport around. So even if the COE price touches the million mark, they might still consider.

And then for the rest of those who have simply given up on the cannot-make-it public transport, but cannot afford the Audi-priced Vios, the COE system will not deter them from buying a second-hand car. For some of us, this gives a sense of deja vu when the COE prices were just as high about 10 years ago and you can only see P-plates on second-hand cars. In this case, higher COE prices only means it is time for those salespeople to move out of car dealers like Borneo Motors, brush up their smoking skill and get into the booming second hard market.

So in summary, what is the effect of high COE prices? You've still got the same number of cars on the roads, but expect more traffic jams because of more old second-hand cars breaking down.

Jurong is the illegal parking heaven

2010-12-09T08:34:00.004+08:00

Now I get it. Why is it that despite all the foreign workers quarters with their foreign workers, all the pollution from all kinds of factories, and despite it is too freaking far from anywhere else in Singapore, there are still so many people moving over to stay in Jurong. Because Jurong is the illegal parking heaven.

For the cyclist, Jurong is the illegal parking heaven to ride your bicycle to anywhere and park everywhere. Trees, railings, lamp posts, or any other vertical objects are there for you to lock your bicycle to. You just have to make sure your lock is strong enough and your bicycle old and dirty enough so that it does not get stolen. But even when it does get stolen, no worries, you can always steal another loosely locked one on the next tree.

For the motorbike rider, Jurong is the illegal parking heaven where every pavement is your parking lot. Why park at the multi-storey carpark when you can just park your bike on the pavement beneath your flat? You don't have to worry about your bike blocking the pedestrians because in Jurong, they are trained to avoid motorbikes on pavements and walk on the grass or road instead.

For the vehicle owners, Jurong is the ultimate illegal parking heaven where double yellow lines are for decorative purposes only.

On week day morning peak hours, lorries and tracks will park on the road side of Pioneer Road North to load their goods and all other cars and buses will know to avoid that lane totally.

Private buses and vans will park on Boon Lay Way while waiting for the time to pick up their passengers and the students of Jurong West Secondary School know not to bother reporting to the school about suspicious vehicles parked outside the school.

The slope leading to the entrance of the multi-storey carpark next to Pioneer Mall is constantly lined with lorries and vans unloading goods, and even more cars while their drivers have a burger at MacDonald's.

Jurong Point itself is surrounded by illegal parking all year round and all day. On Saturday mornings, lorries park themselves right before the entrance to the carpark to do their unloading. The loading bay may be empty, but apparently too far from the stores. They must be concerned that their trolleys may not make it to the stores. And anyway it is not as if these lorries are totally blocking the the cars from the carpark and buses from the bus interchange. There is still another lane.

And here comes the cream of the crop. In the illegal parking heaven of Jurong, you can park your car along the road outside all kopitiams and have your meal in peace! Nope, the kopitiams in Jurong do not have some high tech super efficient officers alarm system. In fact, these kopitiams do not even have a lookout. The reason is simply because in Jurong, there is no such thing as parking violation officer.

When traffic police used to rule, you don't see one in Jurong. When the traffic police decided they have too much on their plates and shifted the responsibility of curbing illegal parking to LTA, you still don't see a parking violation officer in Jurong. Because in Jurong, parking violation officers are like ailens. You know they exist somewhere but you will never see them.

What have they done to deserve the 2.5 months bonus?

2010-12-02T09:14:00.018+08:00

It is a no brainer that the best job in Singapore is to be at management level of a statboard, where your daily job is to channel jobs from the big guys on top of you to the poor guys below you, then send political emails to channel the jobs your poor guys could not cope with to the other departments' poor guys, also attend meetings to present PowerPoint slides that your poor guys have created, and for the rest of the day you can just la kopi and relac one corner.

Oh don't you worry about getting too little pay for your little effort. As long as you've got the right papers, you can expect an offensively huge pay check, even more if you are a scholar, and regardless of job experience. And when the rest of the world is still struggling with economy recovery, you'll still get a generous 2.5 months bonus! Still not enough? Try siphoning some rewards for yourself from the countless contracts for external vendors. As long as you are discreet enough, nobody will notice your Lamborghini. Well, at least for quite a few years. So now who says that the best job in the world is in Australia?

Right at this point, some of you might be accusing me of stereotyping, especially when I do not work in a statboard. Yap, despite my papers and experience, all my applications to all the various statboards only ended up in shredders. Hey, I was so eager that I've even sent resume to the allegedly more boring statboards like NLB and NPB for junior positions that are held by my subordinates! Some said I must have been rejected because I was asking for the same pay as a freshly graduated scholar, which is probably too much to ask for since all I've got is more than 10 years of experience and a normal honors degree from a normal UK university. With such resume, I could only work for MNCs listed on NASDAQ.

So instead, I'll tell you real stories of some statboard managers, painfully obtained by the countless nights of grumble calls I get from my unfortunate friends who have to work under these bosses. Wonder what did they do wrong in their past lives to deserve such bad karmas.

He is the one who asks his next-in-line to do his own tasks and reports, and when the next-in-line said she have no idea how to do his job, he says "If you don't know, I lagi don't know! Can you go find out?"

He is the one who organise one-to-one interviews with the whole office to find out how critical it is for them to have a particular stationary that costs SGD12 each before signing on the procurement request.

She is the one who bought Hello Kitty pink flowery guestbook for the guests attending an industry seminar organised by her department. No, those guests are not pre-school teachers but managers from various SMEs and GLCs.

He is the one who goes into panic mood whenever there is a quarterly meeting with higher management and always ensure that his next-in-line attends the meeting with him, and when questions are asked in the meeting, he stares at his next-in-line and waits for the answers.

He is the one who traveled to China to cut a deal with the potential partner, but after days of meetings, refused to sign on the dotted line because he needed to check with his boss back home. And of course in the end someone else from a private company got the deal.

She is the one who takes annual leaves on days when there are deadlines to be met and important meetings to attend.

She is the one who was expecting an overseas VIP who was critical for a partnership deal, and she asked her PA to email their address to this CEO instead of asking someone to receive him.

He is the one who nervously had a talk with his subordinate who closed 4 deals for the financial year when the sales target was actually 2. His subordinate was advised to slow down.

There are so many more examples yet to be cited and in order to relate them all, I would need to start a new blog for this specific topic altogether. Seriously, I hope the 2.5 months bonus is enough to compensate the mental torture that my statboard friends have to go through.

Yui Live - Goodbye Days

2010-12-01T08:49:00.000+08:00

Who gave these architects the license to build?

2010-11-29T08:59:00.005+08:00

Oh yes, we have heard how the four-hundred-thousand-dollars-an-unit Pinnacle and the Helix Bridge linking to the super luxurious Marina Bay Sands have won some International architectural design awards. We have also seen how we built the magnificent and expensive ION with huge LCD screens and pretend to be Shibuya. But are we really that good in building stuffs?

Because I've noticed that our architects seem to be always aiming for the big picture but missing all the small details. Like how they built the contemporary and futuristic looking bus stops with benches that are not designed for sitting.

Or when a neighbourhood mall was launched near my place, the residents discovered one escalator going up, but none coming down. Perhaps the architect felt that was the perfect way to ensure that the residents spend more time shopping in the mall. Eventually, one or two months later, probably after some complaint letters and phone calls, the downwards escalator was built.

Some may say "Aiyah, they must have used some kuching kurap architect lah! Neighbourhood mall only mah!". Then is the Singapore Expo a huge enough project?

Recently I visited the Singapore Expo for some exhibitions and thanks to the rainy season now, I finally get to see one unique design hidden in the Expo. Do you know that the roofs outside the halls have holes? I'm referring to those roofs that extend out of the main building to provide shelter for the food court and other eating places. On a sunny day, they protect you from too much sunlight when you dine alfresco. And on a rainy day, they provide a spectacular water-fall in rain forest visual effect and the eating places can call it a day or provide rain coats for their customers.

The other sight that is more spectacular than rain drops falling on tables and chairs will be the toilet queues. While there are up to ten conference halls capable of accommodating thousands if not hundreds of visitors, the architect felt confident that not all conference halls will have an event at the same time, and not all visitors will need to go at the same time. Which is why there are only three cubicles in each of the washroom next to a conference hall.

We are grooming mafias and pedophilias

2010-11-19T13:52:00.007+08:00

Downtown East, Bukit Panjang, Ang Mo Kio. Nope, these are not the estates where so-called affordable BTO flats are going on sale now. Your new home is still going to be in some ulu places like Punggol and Woodlands. Those are the places where you might see more policemen who miss their computers and naps in the police posts, where hardware shops might call 999 while packing your chopper, where teenagers might be hiding parangs instead of iPads in their big school bags. These are the teenage gangs war zone.

Apparently before the gahmen split the land for the election, the teenage gangs decided to that it is in their best interest to split their own jurisdiction first. Just in case they end up with a MP that their bosses don't like. I can imagine their bosses' speech to be like...

Gang big boss: Brothers! All these years we've had a good time hanging around Jurong. But this place is no longer the same! Last time the whole park is ours one, but nowadays here got too many Banglah sleeping and China people making out liao! We need to move on and progress! We need to expand our territory! To Downtown East, Bukit Panjang or Ang Mo Kio also can!

While the Secondary School/Poly/ITE teenage gangsters are stealing the headlines, that doesn't mean our scholars are just going to sit down there and watch their not-as-good countrymen grab all the attention. And because they are scholars, they are supposed to be more intelligent (they have to be right? After all the money that are spent on them!). Merely one scholar is adequate to snatch back all the limelight from the gangs of teenagers. Enters Jonathan Wong, a MOE scholar studying at the University of York in Britain.

So how did Jonathan become famous overnight and give the Home Team a break from getting blamed by Singaporeans for MIA when parangs and choppers fly in the air? Break a million dollars bond? Nah, too common. Such trivial news are only found in free newspapers distributed at MRT stations. Walk around Holland Village naked with a boyfriend? Nah, somebody had been there and done that. And anyway that will only put him on the evening newspapers next to the 4D results. Jonathan did better than that. This MOE scholar who could have a straight petals-filled path to the principal office of a top elite school was caught with the possession of 50 videos of hardcore child pornography.

Now this has really triggered the rage and panic buttons on most if not all Singaporeans. What is wrong with the young Singaporeans? The stupid ones join teenage gangs and go to courtroom to support their brothers who have just killed someone, the smart ones are busy downloading child porno, and the others are obese.

Is this happening due to our education system where Maths and Science are more important than Moral Education? Is it because their parents are too busy working than to teach them the right from wrong? Or is this the side effect of the great divide of rich vs poor or elites vs normal streams?

Whichever reason it is, it is clear that our young Singaporeans are out of control. Maybe someone of higher power should go tell them not to waste their life this way. Even if they do not know what are they defending anymore, they should not play with life. If they want to, do it on PS3 or XBox.

Oh just get rid of these annual fees, for goodness sake!

2010-11-12T09:43:00.004+08:00

Seriously, I really don't understand the point of doing this. For the banks to charge us annual subscription fees for our credit cards.

Firstly, you bank people bug us from your roadshows in shopping centers and from your out-of-place booths in PC shows. Or call us up during our meetings and lunch dates. Or sms us at 8am on a weekend morning or 11pm on a weekday night. Offering us your credit cards for free without subscription fees and free gifts that can only be collected during our office hours.

When we finally succumb and added yet another credit card in our wallets, we have to be extremely vigilant to ensure that we pay at least the minimum amount in every month's bill. Else we will have to pay a late payment charge of $50 plus interest if we forgot to pay the $10 bill.

And because we greedy people took up the credit card to get you people off our backs, when the free subscription finally expires when we are not keeping track, you happily sneak in the hefty subscription fee in our monthly bill.

I understand that there is no free lunch in this world. At least not in this country. Since your credit card has provided us with the convenience in shopping more and eating more, we should be bowing gratefully and sending our offering to you promptly. But the fact is, your credit card can be free! So why not?

If we bother to scrutinise the long list of items in our bill, we can find the annual fee (and GST on the annual fee!) hidden somewhere. Then if we bother, we can spend one morning calling up the hotline, listen to music and complex instructions on what the numbers 0 to 9 stands for, then hang on for the next operator who is free because our calls matter to you. And when your operator finally answers the call, she will check up our account and (1) if we have been actively using the credit card, she will waive the annual fee because we have been loyal, (2) if we have not used the credit card even once, she will waive the annual fee so that we can try using the card for the year. So what is the point here? Why can't you just get rid of that stupid annual fee so that we can all go for tea-break instead of talking to your phone operators and jam up the hotline?

Oh yes, I know that we can use our points to redeem another year of subscription. But I have just used the few thousands points that I have accumulated by spending a few thousands dollars on a pair of movie tickets.

Mata not enough?

2010-11-11T08:58:00.006+08:00

When I was driving on the expressway this evening, I was pondering. Did I miss the news that Singapore is changing to left hand driving? Or have the cunning car manufacturers grown tired of building mini-buses and putting on a "MPV" label so that they can sell them at car price, so now they are building van-looking cars?

Because I saw three vans cruising on the right most lane on the expressway. One even went all the way to overtake a taxi, and judging from my speedo showing 90km/h, he was easily going at 100km/h. The last that I heard, the speed limit for vans is still at 60km/h. But I suppose we can't really blame these drivers for ignoring the limit when their vans have the necessary power to go beyond 60km/h. Especially when nobody is watching. Seriously, when was the last time that you see a traffic police?

During a car accident? Not necessary. If nobody is badly hurt or dying, the traffic police will not be there. As a rule of thumb, if the ambulance is not there, the traffic police will not be there. At places where people park like their grandfathers bought the road? Nope. It is no longer the responsibility of the traffic police to book illegal parking as this job has been handed over to the LTA. Which means you can now park your car on the double zig-zag yellow lines in front of a traffic police and all he can do is call LTA. Which means you can still park there for the next 2 hours and run your errands.

So what are all the traffic police doing then? Even YOG is way over and they don't have to go around the island fining drivers $130 anymore. So what is keeping them so busy that they don't have the time to catch taxis/vans/buses/lorries/long vehicles speeding at 120km/h on the expressways? I don't suppose traffic police are involved in NDP rehearsals?

In fact, even the patrol officers are not patrolling on the streets anymore. These days, in order to see a man in blue, you have to either wait for the next NDP or career fair, or visit a neighbourhood police post near you. Actually I can't really remember how a policeman uniform looks like anymore. For all I know, they could have reverted back to wearing shorts, especially with all the flood warnings these days.

Some people on the street are now blaming the police for not watching the streets, and thus leading to case after case of parangs gang fights. Oh yes, gang fight are back in fashion again, just like floods and prostitutes. These days you have to be careful about staring at the wrong person, especially when in Downtown East and Bukit Panjang. If not, the next thing you know, a gang of young men will run after you with their parangs, shouting some number codes on the way.

I really find it amazing that these people can just bring a parang along wherever they go. I mean, isn't that kind of heavy? And how do you hide it and not attract attention? Everybody knows that if you are holding a roll of newspapers, there must be a parang in it. We are trained this way by all the Hong Kong gangster movies. So how does one big group of young men carry their portable parangs up the MRT train or bus without someone calling the cops? Ahh. Now I know why all those vans were in a hurry.

So where are the policemen again? Well, I know. They are busy parking cars with fake bombs and smoke to test the public's vigilance against terrorism. But judging from how the fake bomb was planted, with smoke, wires peeking out from the car door, LPG cylinders wired to a device visible on the passenger seat, and ticking sounds that could be heard from the car, I suggest that they watch some of the CSI and Criminal Minds to find out how fake car bombs should look like. Because if I were one of the passerbies, I would have expected a bear to jump out of the car.

千里之外改版之做工到死 Work Till You Die

2010-11-03T08:25:00.002+08:00

注意：由于唱的人五音不全，从不去K，这首改版《千里之外》超级难听。听的人轻则头晕目眩，重则上吐下泻，如有不适请尽快就医。唱的人在这里表达万分歉意。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_xx7sOCPuo

千里之外改版之做工到死 Work Till You Die

本来六十二后来六十五现在六十八
我问了老板是不是可以留到六十八
老板笑一笑拍我肩膀问我在说笑吧
别说六十八就算四十八也给我滚吧

梦醒来那天已到来公司门大开
那薄如蝉翼的未来经不起谁来拆

我送你离开千里之外加一声bye bye
这把年纪或许应该找些别的来做
我送你离开天涯之外去快餐try try
food court收盘洗洗厕所用一生去工作

本来六十二后来六十五现在六十八
什么叫退休什么享清福我会看到吗？
现在没有leave 也没有money 只能去Sabah
到了六十八膝盖没办法长城无法爬

梦醒来那天已到来公司门大开
那薄如蝉翼的未来经不起谁来拆

我做清洁工赚那几百还不够还债
CPF里几十万块可是拿不出来
我没六十八不能退休不可以问why
food court收盘洗洗厕所用一生

我送你离开千里之外加一声bye bye
这把年纪或许应该找些别的来做
我送你离开天涯之外去快餐try try
food court收盘洗洗厕所用一生去工作

Are you the one who's not working good better best?

2010-11-02T08:55:00.008+08:00

One minister said that Singaporeans are not doing exceptionally well in their job. In fact, he feels that Singaporeans are only doing 75% of their best effort. Not 90%, not 60%, but a precise 75%. I wonder how he gets 75%. Guts feelings? But he is not a race driver leh. Sixth sense? But he is not psychic leh. Then it must be from some statistic calculation from some complicated surveys that involve only some specific clusters of the population. But if a surveyor asks you how hard you work, will you say "I only put in my 75% best lah, rest of the time I relac one corner one!"?

But most importantly, are we Singaporeans really only working at our 75% best? Not my colleagues and me who work in a MNC when we even volunteer to attend night conference calls just to ensure that our projects can be launched successfully. Not my friends working in SMEs who have to multitask on their multiroles to ensure that their small companies survive. So who are those Singaporeans who are only doing their 75% best?

Mr Minister must be referring to some of the waiters and waitresses at some small restaurants who don't serve their customers fast enough and when they do they serve the wrong order. But wait. Mr Minister won't be dining at these cheapo places. I'm sure he receives 110% best service at those five-star Michelin-rated restaurants.

Or Mr Minister must be referring to the nurses in polyclinics who make their patients wait 75% of the day or till they drop dead, whichever that comes first. But wait. When Mr Minister is sick, he won't be queuing at these polyclinics. I'm sure at one call, his house doctor will rush to his house to check on his pulse.

Mr Minister will also be too busy to go on factories visit to check on the operators. He also won't be able to tell how people work in SMEs because he won't know where to find them. So how does he know that Singaporeans are happy with 75% best and do not have the urge to want to go much further and to be exceptional?

People tend to relate to things they see or hear in their natural environment. So if Mr Minister feels that way, he must be surrounded by such colleagues or subordinates in the place that he works in. Now it makes sense. Because Mr Minister works in a statboard.

Actually I get it now. He must be referring to those people who thought that the train graffiti was some kind of advertisements. Or those people who failed to do anything about flooding in Singapore until Orchard Road flooded N times. Or those people who failed to check that the real YOG certificates have real signatures. The only argument is that they were also not doing their 75% best. They were doing their 25% best.

Utada Hikaru - Goodbye Happiness

2010-11-01T07:52:00.000+08:00

Oh why are u leaving? So this is goodbye? :(

Ganbatte~~

No sponsor? No support for the Singapore teams getting lost and losing weight

2010-10-28T08:35:00.008+08:00

The Amazing Race Asia is showing tonight, and I just can't wait to see the teams struggle with unbelievable tasks in even more unbelievable countries. And most importantly, I must remember to record the show for my cousin because he has not subscribed to the cable TV. Yap, The Amazing Race show is shown on our free-to-air TV, but not the Asia version. Perhaps because we have always been told that we aim to be a global city, but never an Asian city. Oh, and also perhaps Mediacorp didn't get a sponsor.

You see, because the free-to-air Mediacorp is supposed to be not making too much money out of the people, so all TV programs have to be sponsored. Even those low cost drama series produced by themselves. And since no company has offered to sponsor The Amazing Race Asia, sorry fellow countrymen, you can't cheer for the Singapore team for free.

When Claire and Michelle were sabotaged by those two stupid Indian women, it were the Starhub TV AXN Channel Subscribers who held their breath and hoped that they did not get eliminated. Hell, when Collin and Adrian won The Amazing Race Asia season 2, only the Starhub TV AXN Channel Subscribers could cheer for them!

Same for The Biggest Loser Asia. With as many as 4 Singaporeans trying to get healthy in this season, only the Starhub TV Diva Channel Subscribers are there to support them. Mediacorp may argue that they have already given us our very own Lose To Win (of course sponsored by the HPB!) so we don't need to watch The Biggest Loser Asia. Right. Michelle Chia and Gurmit Singh can definitely give better fitness advices than professional trainers Dave Nuku and Kristy Curtis.

Now I know why is it that I can see the season 1 Filipinos showing off their flag proudly wherever they go, but not the season 2 Singaporeans. Because they know no Singaporean is going to see the flag anyway! Oh, except for the Starhub TV Diva Channel Subscribers.

You know what, I think the Starhub TV AXN Channel Subscribers and Starhub TV Diva Channel Subscribers deserved a National Award for cheering the Singapore teams getting lost in Sri Lanka or losing weight in Kuala Lumpur, when other Singaporeans are not there for them. And our subscriptions are not cheap.

It's up up and away for the ERP charges!

2010-10-26T08:40:00.004+08:00

I always believe that our public transport system is designed by people who drive and the ERP system is designed by people who drive Audis and BMWs. That is why our public transport system does not work and the ERP system is sucking us dry. "Oh come on, it's just $4! The Pain de Campagne that I take for breakfast cost more than that!". Oh yes. If the people pricing the ERP system get another pay raise, we can anticipate a $10 ERP charge.

Of course the gahmen is constantly trying to convince the people that the purpose of the ERP system is to lessen the congestion on our roads and not to earn money. Just like how the $100 levy for locals is meant to discourage them from getting into the casinos. All for the good of the people.

But in the very first place, does increasing the ERP charges work in releasing congestion? Perhaps we should first look at why are the roads congested during peak hours. Er... because everybody is on the road at the same time? But why? Because all offices and schools start at the same time! DUH! So will increasing the ERP charges lessen the congestion any way?

If increasing the ERP charges will indeed deter people from using the roads during the peak hours, does that mean we should change our life style so that we don't inconsiderately congest the roads at the same time everyday? So we should send our kids to school early so that they can squat outside locked school gates at 5am? And we should stagger our working hours to start work at 11am/2pm/3pm and go home at 8pm/9pm/10pm?

According to those people living in their little cubicles in LTA, the ERP rates are raised when speeds on a particular road fall below the optimal range, and are lowered when they fall back within optimal range. According to me, I think they should put on their sunblock lotions and take a field trip to these speeds-below-optimal-range roads.

See that whole lane occupied by roadwork for the last decade? See the other two left lanes occupied by heavy vehicles? See that left over lane occupied by slow moving aunties/uncles/P-plates?

Seriously, the gahmen has to stop thinking that money solves everything. COEs do not stop people from having cars because our public transport system cannot make it. ERP charges do not stop people from using the only roads to take them to their kids' schools and to work.

But increasing night parking charges at over 1,300 carparks from $2 to $4 does work to solve the overnight parking crunch. Because I can imagine people starting to call up their parents, "Ma, we won't be coming over for dinner anymore. Parking too expensive lah. So you take a bus over to my place, can?"

My insurance agent is too hardworking

2010-10-21T08:44:00.005+08:00

My new insurance agent has been so getting on my nerves. My previous favourite agent, who will ignore me for 364 days in a year except for one when she will call to ask whether I want a free desktop calender, has left and thus the insurance company has assigned me this new agent. We met up to do the transfer documents and she looked like a nice and understanding aunty to me. But I didn't know then that "persistent" is a more suitable adjective to describe her.

I should have known. When we were going through my financial profile, she tried very hard to find any extra hard cash or CPF money lying around. She wanted to know exactly how much I am paying for my house loan, car loan and whatever installments for my latest gadgets. When she realised that I am cash poor, she turned to my CPF money, but I disappointed her that there is a financial adviser guy managing the investment of my CPF money.

"But you should not put all your eggs into one basket, you know?"
"But we're investing in different funds of different natures and he has been growing money for me."
"But how can you trust all your CPF money to him?"

Right. I should not trust all my CPF money to a guy who I have known for five years and has been making profit for me all these while. I should trust you who I've known for only one hour.

The day after we met, I immediately regretted leaving her with my business card. She called me at 10am in the morning at my office phone and asked whether I could introduce my HR Manager to her, so that she could sell her company's medical insurance to the whole company. I gave her the email address of our Global HR Manager somewhere in US. "Oh... so your HR department is not in Singapore?". Aunty, of course I've got a local HR Manager, but what makes you think that I'm willing to embarrass myself for your sake? What makes you think that someone at the lower end of the food chain like me can convince my HR Manager to terminate our current medical insurance deal with an established International insurance company and start a new contract with a little agent like you?

Then she had another idea. She wanted me to introduce my colleagues to her. Well that was more reasonable. I told her to hand me some of her business cards when we meet up next time so that I could distribute them. But whether the cards end up in their wallets or the rubbish bin is out of my control.

Eventually I also realised that I'll definitely receive a call from her whenever the insurance company launches a new policy.

"Hey, we've got this new Smart Lady rider which is very good for you! It pays out a lump sum upon diagnosis of major female illnesses and even covers treatment expenses for a variety of female related procedures! You can even get free female medical checkup every two years!"

Great. So after having bought all sorts of critical illness riders that promise to cover almost all sorts of critical illness known to mankind and unknown to me, now the insurance company is telling me that they've actually missed out on some critical illness that only affect women, and I need to get another rider? What's next? White Collar Workers Critical Illness Rider that insures me against illness caused by too much computer usage? Singapore Drivers Critical Illness Rider that insures me against stupid drivers on the road? Movie Goers Critical Illness Rider that insures me against watching too much 3D movies and spoiling my eyesight?

A couple of weeks later, she called again because the company has launched another new rider that offers financial support right from the early stages of critical illnesses. I'm pretty sure the insurance company will soon launch another Last Stage Crisis Cover that offers financial support right at the last stage of critical illnesses to cover a luxurious last travel trip to Europe and a luxurious last meal of Wagyu steak at the Morton’s made by the chief chef.

Anyway, to save her from all the calling and me from coming up with all the excuses to not meet up with her, I suggested to her that she could email me in future because I can be easily reached by email and I check it everyday. What I forgot to mention is that it'll also be easier for me to mark her emails as spam.

Dear Insurance Aunty, I know that you're just trying to make a living, but I'm not your new whale. I'm just a poor ikan bili.

It's the "Haze gets in your eyes" time again

2010-10-20T08:34:00.003+08:00

Imagine this. You're staying in a landed property with a beautiful house. As a successful businessman, you furnish your house with all the latest and fanciest. Some guys have a playroom for their kids? You made a bigger one and filled it with all the latest and expensive toys, regardless whether your kids play them. Some guys have a little poker card room for socialising? You made space for two.

You run your family meticulously and you pride yourself in keeping your house sparkling clean. You deduct your kids' pocket money if they throw rubbish around the house, and you employ maids to clean up if they do.

However your authority only stops at your house's gate. The neighbourhood bully is staying just next to you. They have a big house and lots of kids and relatives. You know they are into some murky business, but you dare not poke. When people ask about your relationship with your neighbour, you just smile and say you are friends. You even lent him a huge sum of money when he got into financial trouble during the last crisis in 1997. When he didn't bother to pay back, you don't dare to ask.

You figured out that you will have a better life by staying clear of that family's path and mind your own business. But once every year or two during the school vacation, the bully's kids will invite their friends over for BBQs in their big garden. Because they have the biggest garden in the neighbourhood, they have lots of BBQ pits in their big garden. During these times, the bully's kids will party non-stop and BBQ endlessly, lighting up pit after pit. As a result, it gets so smokey that even their house is hardly visible among all the smoke, and when the direction of the wind changes, you have a share of the smoke as well.

All these smoke from the bully is affecting your family. You have to warn your grandma who has asthma about going out to the garden, and you have to stop your kids from playing outdoor sports. You are living in an air of choking BBQ smoke and it is driving you crazy. Each time, you tried to talk to the bully about the smoke, all he said is "Oh, I already told them not to light up so many BBQ pits, but you know kids will be kids right? I can't control so many of them 24/7 right? There's not much that I can do! I'm sure you can understand right? Hahaha!"

When the other neighbour come over to play Monopoly, you'll try to get him to talk to the bully too.

"You're also affected by the smoke right?"
"Yah! Alamak! The wind is blowing the smoke all over the place! Everyone around the area kena lah!"
"Then you still allow your kids to run around outside?"
"Ah doi! Brudder, they old enough to take care of themselves lah! Actually sometimes you too protective over your kids already lah!"
"But still, don't you think we should go talk to him again?"
"Can also lah! Wait I see when I free, okay? Hey you want to exchange that piece of land with my railway station?"

This neighbour does work with you to advise the bully at times, but you two know very well that the most that the bully does in return is to put out one or two pits, but his kids will light them all up again some time later. But hey, what can you do? Just suck it all up and wish for the the smoke to go away soon lor!

How many more?

2010-10-19T13:31:00.003+08:00

The other side of Your Singapore that foreign visitors didn't get to see.

Spread the video for good social cause.

More details coming from Alvinology.

The name of your website has been trademarked by the big boys!

2010-10-18T09:39:00.010+08:00

Recently Apple has been awarded the trademark for "There's an app for that." Which means that moving forward, Android have to use other taglines when promoting their applications like "This one also got app."

Back home, big investment firm Temasek Holdings has advised little website Temasek Review to change their website name. While the website adopted the name in July last year, Temasek Holdings have registered Temasek Review as a trademark for their annual performance report started since 2004, but only last November.

Some might be quick to think that it is reasonable for Temasek Review to change their website name since Temasek Holdings has been awarded trademark. But hang on. The website was established in July, but the trademark was only registered in November. Can someone trademark something that someone else has already been using it? Which means that if I decided to start up a Hainanese Chicken Rice stall and I were to register "Hainanese Chicken Rice" as my stall's trademark, all the other Hainanese Chicken Rice stalls in Singapore have to rename their dishes to something else like "Cantonese Chicken Rice"? How cool is that!

But why is Temasek Holdings registering a trademark that is used only for their annual performance report which is read only by their investors and themselves? Because they own the word "Temasek"? But the word "Temasek" simply refers to the ancient Singapore, so it has the same meaning as... Singapore! So I don't suppose they can actually own "Temasek" right?

We are from a country which renames Marina Bay as Marina Bay and a budget terminal as Budget Terminal. That's why our petrol company is named Singapore Petroleum Company, our shopping center is named Plaza Singapura and we have a Singapore Polytechnic and a Temasek Polytechnic. With our country names so widely and loosely used, does it even makes sense to let one company owns it?

And if Temasek Holdings has managed to get the editors of Temasek Review website to change their site name, are they going to trademark "Temasek" totally so that no other website can ever be remotely briefly associated with them? If yes, then we've got a problem.

Temasek Polytechnic will need to be renamed to That Third One After SP And NP Polytechnic. Temasek Secondary School will be Upper East Coast Road Secondary School. Temasek Club will be SAF Officers Only Club, and Temasek Tower might have to be renamed as Opposite MAS Tower.

My guess is that little Temasek Review will give in to the big Temasek Holdings and rename themselves and re-register another domain. Maybe NotTemasekReview.com. And I don't think that will affect their readership much. Like the loyal customers to a good Hainanese Chicken Rice stall, no matter how the stall has shifted and renamed, they'll be lost and found and their customers will follow.

Meanwhile, I'm more worried about receiving a letter from NEA that I can't name my blog "Today's Mostly Cloudy" anymore because they've registered "Today is Mostly Cloudy" for their weather forecast report.

The five taxi uncles you meet on earth (in Singapore actually)

2010-10-17T12:04:00.001+08:00

While there have been more taxi companies and clearly more taxis on the road, getting one when you need it is another story. And when you do finally get one, the ride itself is yet another story.

This time, I'm not going to talk about the street full of On Call taxis because I've already done that previously. I'm also not going to complain about the list of surcharges that is longer than a Secondary school student's school reopening shopping list, nor will I analyse the mystery of the disappearing taxis at 11:30pm.

I'm just going to share with you a story of the five taxi uncles that I've met in the past months.

I met Taxi Uncle #1 when I was driving on the expressway. It was a warm or cool night (I won't know because I had the air-con in my car), and I was just cruising with the flow of traffic on lane 1 (rightmost lane for those who don't drive). Taxi Uncle #1 in a vacant taxi picked up his speed from behind me and started to tailgate me real close. The lane on my left was rather busy so it was not really possible for me to change lane, and so I accelerated to 110km/h (shhhhh...). However that didn't satisfy Taxi Uncle #1 and he continued to tailgate me.

Eventually, he found some gap on the left and sped up, filtering all the way to the leftmost lane. Just when I thought he was exiting, he filtered all the way back to the rightmost lane again and ended up right in front of me. I anticipated the usual hard brake sabotage coming my way so I filtered to the left lane to avoid trouble. Surprisingly, just after I filtered to the left, he swiftly filtered all the way to the leftmost lane again and... exited. Huh? So the sheer dangerous speeding stunt was just an attempt to spite me? Like that also happy?

Another day, I needed to rush to the airport to catch a plane and so I dialed a cab. Despite the automated robotic voice promising the taxi will arrive in three to five minutes, Taxi Uncle #2 was nowhere in sight after I waited ten minutes below my flat. Finally I sighted him driving in, but he drove right pass my flat and went all the way to the other side of anther flat! I desperately dragged my luggage towards his location and shouted and waved my hands frantically every now and then but he didn't see me at all. Finally, he called my handphone and realised that he went to the wrong flat. After I got into the taxi and after he apologised for being late and lost, he asked if there was any toilet nearby because he needed to go! Are you kidding me?!?

Last week when a foreign friend and I took a taxi from Marina Bay Sands to Ang Mo Kio (I didn't drive because I couldn't talk myself into paying the $8/hr parking fee), we met the extremely rude Taxi Uncle #3. After we exited the expressway to Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, I told Taxi Uncle #3 that we wished to go to block 232.

"Where is it?", he asked
"Er... I don't know.", I replied.

Taxi Uncle #3 then followed with a very loud "TSK" and started pressing his GPS fast and furious. Luckily his GPS gave in to his torture and disclosed the location of block 232. When we were paying, my friend asked if he could pay using his credit card.

"No! Cash only!"

To avoid making Taxi Uncle #3 even more unhappy, my friend paid in cash obediently and I held back asking Taxi Uncle #3 whether the credit card machine in his taxi was for display only.

We met Taxi Uncle #4 immediately on the ride back to my friend's hotel. We took just about fifteen minutes to get from Ang Mo Kio to Marina Bay. Throughout the whole journey, he drove like Vin Diesel in his modified Chevrolet Chevelle SS and "Warning: Drive Carefully!" kept popping up on his GPS screen. Whenever I managed to take a peep at his speedo while rolling over, it was showing me 120km/h. Fortunately for both my friend and me, we managed to hold our dinner in our stomachs.

Last but not least, I met Taxi Uncle #5 when I was back from an overseas trip and took his taxi at the airport. And this was how the conversation went after I told him my destination...

"Go by which way? PIE or ECP?"
"Er... any way with less traffic lor."
"Now peak hours, everywhere also traffic jam one."
"Er... then the shorter way bah."
"Both about the same lah!"
"Then whichever way that is easier lah!" (I didn't know what I meant by "easier". Must be the jet lag.)
"It's about the same lah..."

I then had such a bad headache after a sleepless flight and having to decide which expressway that I almost told him that I would pay him to decide for me.

To Kill a Mocking Bear

2010-10-15T08:34:00.007+08:00

Advertising in Singapore has always been boring. It's always the roadshows, sale events and Zoe Tay (Fann Wong if it is abalone). So these days the young Marketing Managers try to come up with something creative, like where's-the-point flash mobs and vandalising postboxes. Recently, they decided to use the bear and received more publicity than they have imagined.

This marketing stunt could have worked for Phillips. Bear vs Shaver. To imagine a bear without fur might be a bit too gross, but at least it was a creative thought. The only problem was the venue. If this "bear" have emerged in the middle of Raffles Place on a sunny afternoon, that crowd who is already used to all sorts of pointless marketing flash mobs would immediately know that the bear is just another marketing stunt. But "it" has to appear at some Ulu Pandan place. In the middle of the night.

So the typical Singaporean who saw the "bear" immediately proceeded with the Kaypoh-Singaporean SOP. Take picture > call Wanbao hotline > Stomp it > put on Facebook > announce on Twitter. The next thing you know, all the task forces from zoo, nature group and police stomped into Ulu Pandan to begin a bear hunt.

I'll imagine that when they finally found the "bear", these were the three words they said:
"A doi?"
"Apa Ini?!?"
"Alamak!!!!!"

Anyway when I read the bear-on-loose news on Twitter, I was skeptical. I know it's common to have monkeys, pythons and monitor lizards running away from their homes in the forest to have a holiday in the housing estates. But bear? Some more a sun bear? Look, we've got no salmon in our long-gangs and no beehive on our Angsana trees, so it is basically impossible for a bear to survive in a Singapore forest!

Unless the bear has swam all the way from Malaysia to Singapore. Which might then be reasonable, since Mas Selamat can swim the same distance using a floating device.

And there is no way that the bear has escaped from the zoo. Even for a bear, it is still too far to walk from Mandai to Ulu Pandan. Unless it took the MRT. Oh wait! It is possible for a bear to take the MRT train without causing any commotion! The SMRT staff will treat any abnormality to be a Marketing stunt by default. Vandalism on train? Must be advertising. Bollywood dancing in the train? Must be advertising. Man jumping onto the track? Must be advertising. Oh wait. He seems to be bleeding profusely. He looks dead. Oh... it's not advertising.

But still, why Ulu Pandan? Hmm... maybe it was not the actual venue. Maybe the guy in bear costume was on his way to work.

No tourist? Blame it on those ATAS hotels

2010-10-14T08:53:00.006+08:00

We are constantly promoting Singapore to the world. From one Grand Prix to two casinos, no matter how big and expensive the project, STB will squeeze anything and everything into the little red dot for the sake of more tourists. However I'm not sure if they are looking at the number of visitors revisiting Singapore.

I've never seen any statistics on the number of returning visitors, but at least all my foreign friends who have visited Singapore once are definitely not keen in coming back for the second time. Well, excluding those that have to come for business. And the common reason? They felt being ripped off by the Singapore hotels.

One friend from Hong Kong visited during the first F1 Grand Prix and while he felt that the ticket was expensive, it was still acceptable because it was the first night race experience. What was not acceptable was having to pay through his nose to stay in some budget hotel in some dodgy place. This year, he chased after the race in Japan.

One friend from France came for a short break and paid five hundreds over dollars for a room in a five-star hotel along Scotts Road. All thanks to the hotel's minibar, she did not dare to drink another can of soft drink in Singapore during the whole trip. That one and only can of Coke she drank from the minibar cost her a painful and memorable five dollars.

One colleague from Canada was here on business last quarter. The first time that he stayed at this five-star hotel near Marina Bay, he paid forty over dollars for a plate of Hainanese Chicken Rice, only to find out during lunch that we paid the same price for one whole chicken, some side dishes and a plate of rice for all eight of us. And this Lost-and-Found stall's chicken rice tasted better.

The same Canadian colleague was here again on business recently. This time, he stayed at the same five-star hotel with its name started with "C", and having learned his lesson that the hotel's very presentable chicken rice was a total rip-off, he ordered Fish and Chips. It cost him fifty over dollars. And no, that fish was not an endangered Queensland grouper.

Seriously, STB, besides spending so much money renovating Your Orchard Road, getting rid of maids picnics and replacing them with butterflies, and spending so much effort coming up with yet another catchy tag line for Your campaign, you should go have a talk with Your five-star hotels and tell them that nobody is visiting Your Singapore because Your hotels are too damn expensive!

How do you lose something as huge as a time capsule?

2010-10-12T08:44:00.007+08:00

Can someone tell me where do I apply to be a construction worker? Yes, you didn't hear me wrong. I want to work alongside the Bangladesh workers under the hot sun and freak storms. But I only want to work at the National Stadium. Why? Because I wish it'll be a patriotic Singaporean like me who discovers the long lost time capsule and not some foreign workers who thought they struck gold, or a metal casing. Oh, and partly because there is a $50,000 reward.

Yap, the gahmen is offering a huge $50,000 reward to get someone to help find something they lost. But don't rush to your nearby Home-Fix store to get a shovel yet. According to a director involved in the project, the $50,000 bounty is part of the contract agreement with Beng Soon Machinery Services, the sub-contractor taking part in the demolition. Ah... that's why not much people has heard about this $50,000 reward! Because just like other good stuff in Singapore, this reward is only reserved for the foreigners.

But in the very first place, how did we lose the time capsule? A six-year old will know that after he hide his precious gaming cards in the playground for his friends to search for, he draw a very rough map of the playground and mark a big X so that he can locate it later if his stupid friends fail to find it in the treasure hunt game. And our meticulous gahmen, who makes sure you sign a book of agreement as thick as a dictionary before you can purchase a HDB flat, failed to keep documentation of where the time capsule was buried? Yes, it was long long time ago in 1970 when the time capsule was buried. But the ball-point pen was invented in 1938.

And is it the best use of taxpayers' money to give away a $50,000 reward? Why can't they purchase one of those sci-fic looking dead-body detector that all the actors and actresses in CSI Las Vegas, CSI New York and CSI Miami have used? I'm sure that thing won't cost as much as $50,000.

Actually there might still be a cheaper way. Can't we ask the sub-contractor to get more Bangladesh workers to work OT and dig out the whole place and turn every rock to find that time capsule? Judging from how much those Bangladesh workers are paid, I'm sure even getting one to dig at every 1 meter square won't cost us $50,000.

Too many selfish bastards, too little space

2010-10-11T08:41:00.007+08:00

There is always some International survey going on to analyse people around the world. Like which country has the most billionaires, divorced people, old people, happy people or unhappy people. Surprisingly Singapore never turn up first on the "Country with highest number of unhappy people" though gahmen always complain that we complain too much. Anyway, Singapore is never number one in any of these surveys. We lost to Japan and Finland to be the cleanest, we lost to Hong Kong and Switzerland to have the most expensive homes, we even lost to Cambodia and China for ignoring human rights. But guess what? I think I might have found one category which we can win these big guys. We can be the country with the highest number of selfish bastards.

No, I'm not talking about those selfish bastards who climb over people and volunteers below his feet to build a perfect portfolio for his political career even if he has to overspend three times the budget. This is not a political blog and I don't think I'll like the taste of those free kopis at ISD.

I'm also not talking about those selfish bastards who pretend to run a public service but refuse to increase the frequency of that very public transport because earning more money and showing a perfect report to her shareholders is more important. There are more than enough blogs cursing and swearing at her and I don't take the public transport so often anyway.

I'm talking about those selfish bastards who lurk around where you stay, study and work. Those selfish bastards that you meet everyday, whether you like it or not.

He is the one who knows that it is an offense to smoke in the lift, but he'll still light it up anyway on the way down, so that he can start smoking the moment he steps out of the lift. Apparently even a few minutes matter on his race towards the destination of lung cancer.

He is the one who knows that it is an offense to litter, but since he didn't ask for those real estate and other leaflets in his letterbox, he thinks he can't be blamed for throwing them on the floor. Even if the rubbish bin is only 2m away.

He is the young one who feels that Rihanna or Jay Chow has to be listened while sitting and some standing is a good form of exercise for the old man or pregnant lady in front of him.

He is the one who thought that he can buy a shopping trolley for a dollar and he can bring it all the way from the supermarket to his house. And when he is done, he is generous enough to give it away by abandoning it on some open field.

He is the one who feels that parking his motorbike in a proper carpark is too expensive and too troublesome, and the pavement looks like a better parking space, even if it means blocking the way for the pedestrians, who are the real users.

He is the one who parks his car at the multi-storey carpark washing bay on weekdays to save parking fee, and on Sundays to save walking up the multi-storey carpark, even if he needs to occupy one out of the two lots for people who really need to wash their cars.

He is the one who parks his lorry/van/pick-up right outside the carpark entrance to unload the goods, instead of going into the loading bay, for the sake of his own convenience even if it means blocking the whole world who are trying to get into the carpark to do some real parking.

She is the one who thinks that filming her fellow schoolmates making out in the toilet and loading that video on Youtube is fun, even if it means destroying the future and life of two human beings.

And the selfish bastard of all selfish bastards is the one who stuck his chewing gum all over the place and thereby causing it to be totally banned in Singapore.

Actually you know what? While we're at importing more foreign talents and untalented into the country, can we send away one selfish bastard for every ten foreign talent/untalented that we bring in? No, tempted as I am to suggest, we can't do a one-to-one exchange. We'll run out of Singaporeans.

The Rich, the Poor and the Corrupted

2010-10-07T09:13:00.008+08:00

It seems like after 2 senior officers were found cheating the SLA of $12 million dollars, 2 more men have been hauled to court for their alleged involvement. This shouldn't come as a surprise.

I mean, while corruption is nothing new in Singapore, the usual gifts were just a few hundreds to a couple of thousands, and some will settle for just sexual favors. It'll definitely take more cooks to pull off such a big case of $12 million dollars fraud. In fact, 4 men might still be a stretch.

Some may wonder, is it worth it? The most senior of the four, Koh Seah Wee was already a deputy director with SLA's Technology and Infrastructure Department, holding on to a golden rice bowl with super high pay till he retires, so why the corruption? Because he wants to be the Rich and be able to play with a Lamborghini, some Mercedes Benz cars, a property at Axis@Siglap and some unit trusts.

Everybody thought that in Singapore, there are 3 classes. The Poor, the Middle-class and the Rich. Unknown to most, there are actually 2 now. The Middle-class species is already extinct long long time ago. Some of them have evolved into the Rich, but majority of them have become the Poor.

It was purely environmental factors that have driven the Middle-class down the route of extinction and becoming the Poor. Loss of jobs due to companies restructuring/employing foreign talents, ever increasing daily expenses like education for the kids, expensive public and private flats and high house loans, car loans and ERP charges.

So we can't really blame the 4 men in SLA. They're merely going down the course of nature, trying to evolve into the Rich, in a shorter time. Something that I've secretly wanted to do since I was a kid.

I remember watching a Hong Kong film of how a poor police inspector becomes real rich simply by being corrupted, starring Andy Lau and based on a real story. It really inspired the young me and I immediately rewrote my composition "What do I want to be when I grow up", changing from astronaut to policeman.

But when I finally grew up and graduated, I didn't join the Home Team. Because I then realised that becoming a policeman means sitting in a little neighbourhood police post and doing paperworks of children or dogs running away from home. There is just not enough big mafias and Yakuzas in Singapore to earn corruption money from.

However I was not smart enough to foresee that in the new Singapore, every outsource opportunity is a corruption waiting to be discovered.

Well, I blame it on Singapore's film industry! Why didn't any film maker thought of making the film "Corruption Not Enough" about the hero working in a statboard, or some charity organisation or some religious hospital? We don't even have to pay Andy Lau big bucks to be the leading male because we can use Jet Li who is Singaporean now!

Let's just make the taxi booking charge mandatory

2010-10-06T09:04:00.002+08:00

45 minutes. That was how long I've waited for a taxi at the Harbourfront taxi stand during a weekend. I went to Batam for a short trip and unfortunately unlike Batman, I was unable to remote control my car to pick me up at Harbourfront. And dragging my luggage up a crowded weekend evening bus or MRT did not really sound appealing to me.

There were taxis coming into the taxi stand alright, countless supply in fact. But the queue was not exactly moving as quickly. Because out of every 10 taxis driving into the taxi stand, almost 8 of them were on call. In fact, most of the time when the queue moved, it was because someone had given up and paid the additional $2.50 booking charge.

The Ang Mor behind me asked his Singaporean-sounding friend why weren't those On Call taxis picking up any passenger from the queue, and she replied with how the dial-a-cab system works. Then he asked a more difficult question. What about those taxis that are not on call? Where are they?

Of course the Ang Mor's friend replied with some touristically-correct answer like how it was weekend and some were in the city/IRs/airport/changing shift etc. And of course we the locals know the real answer. The rest of the taxis that were not on call were stopped somewhere near some kopitiams waiting to be on call.

Hey, an additional $2.50 to the $20-30 taxi fare is like a 10% increase in income, you know? If you were a taxi driver will you prefer to drive to a taxi stand to look for customer or sit in your taxi and read wanbao while waiting for your customer to call you and pay you 10% extra?

My kindhearted and understanding friend was saying how it is not the taxi drivers' fault, because when there is supply only when there is demand, and there are just too many impatient Singaporeans who prefer to call than wait for taxis.

Alright then. Since most people don't mind the additional $2.50, why don't we just make the taxi booking charge mandatory, make it part of long list of surcharges like ERP surcharge, city surcharge, public holiday surcharge, peak hours surcharge, IR surcharge, airport surcharge, and all others who-ask-you-to-take-a-cab surcharges! Then there will be no more vacant taxis roaming the roads and all taxis have to be called. Taxi drivers can spend more time at kopitiams and we can spend less time of our life waiting.

As for the taxi stands around the country that are then useless, LTA can convert them into Taxis Viewing Cafes, for people with time to spare to watch On Call taxis go by, just like how the French watch people walk pass while sipping their lattes in alfresco cafes. All LTA have to do is to enclose the taxi stands, put in some air-con, pipe in some jazz music, install a little counter with coffee machines and we are good to go.

But is there a market? Of course there will be! Why will someone want to watch On Call taxis roaming pass? Well, I've just done that for 45 minutes.

Why are there so many cock ups in the YOG?

2010-10-04T09:14:00.006+08:00

It is really amazing that even after the YOG is over and out, new screw-ups continue to surface on the newspapers. My foreign friends could not understand how can a country which is so well-known for its efficiency and effectiveness and most importantly, productivity, gets so screwed-up in such a large scale international event. But we the locals? Oh, we knew there'll be some cock ups here and there for sure, even before the game started. Why? Because it is run by the statboards.

In a typical statboard, decisions are made and orders are given top-down, and what's left for the last in the food-chain will just be actions. This should work well if the orders are precise and logical, but unfortunately there are always smart alecks somewhere in the middle to mess things up.

It's kinda like, the guy at the top envisioned a cup of espresso, then somewhere along the way, one guy in the middle management thinks some hazelnut syrup will add some flavor, then another guy likes some cocoa powder, another guy adds some rum, another guy adds in some milk, and by the time the order reaches the ground, 10 kinds of syrup and 20 kinds of topping have been added to it. To make matter worse, now this last guy on the ground has to brew and deliver this cup of messed-up coffee ASAP/EOD/NOW!

So there you have, prisoner food and food poisoning for the volunteers, sold-out empty stadiums, wrong spelling on souvenir pins, bogus signatures on certificates, F1 tickets sent to volunteers one day after the race... all simple jobs but all went wrong. Heads are definitely going to roll (or have rolled by now), but whose?

The caterers shouldn't have provided the prisoner food and attempted to poison the volunteers, but did someone paid them too little for the catering? And did someone tell them to deliver the food earlier, so early that they turned back under the hot sun?

The printer shouldn't have printed the sample signatures on the certificates, but did someone review the certificates before accepting the print-outs? Did someone tell someone to use sample signatures when designing the certificates and then someone forgot to tell someone that those signatures are bogus?

Dispatch shouldn't send out the F1 tickets so yesterday, but exactly when did someone tell them to purchase and send out the tickets?

My friend is always complaining about how his boss, a top scholar who dived right into the statboard right after she graduated, is always making over-optimistic and unrealistic decisions that have to be corrected by her team who have actually done real work before entering the statboard. But because she is the boss, she has the right to refuse to listen to her team. And when that happens? My friend said,"Oh, then we just do whatever she said lor, and then when it cocks up and people ask, we just say she said one lor!".

And that, is the answer to why there are so many cock ups in the YOG.

Utada Hikaru - Final Distance

2010-10-01T20:01:00.000+08:00

Ohh... white peacock? That's a first...

Who takes Chicken Briyani Rice for supper?!?

2010-10-01T17:43:00.009+08:00

I've just flown from Singapore to India recently on Singapore Airline's Cinderella-step-sister SilkAir. Though it was a 4.5hrs flight and there was no personal entertainment system (that little LCD TV behind someone's headrest), I survived with a book and a media player.

There was one meal provided too, though not a sensible one. It was a midnight flight and we were offered the choice of vegetarian or chicken. Both done in Indian style. Hello? The last time I checked, in my culture, the only Indian food we take for supper is Roti Prata! Why will I want to eat some very spicy Indian rice in the middle of the night?

Maybe the CEO of SilkAir should go check out kopitiams and 7-elevens in the middle of the night to find out the perfect supper. I'm sure most people, like me, will happily opt for a cup of Nissin instant noodles or hot Milo, which is at the same time cheaper than the fancy spicy Chicken Briyani Rice. Mr CEO, this is a win-win way to make your customers happy and cut cost at the same time!

Also, I can understand the need to provide Indian vegetarian to the majority of their customers who are Indians and probably vegetarian as well, but do I really have to start my Indian feast before I reach India? I mean, can't we have a India-Singapore leg serving Chicken Briyani Rice, but the Singapore-India leg serving Hainanese Chicken Rice? Fair right?

To be fair, perhaps the total of me added up with the rest of the Ang Mors/Chinese/Japanese/Koreans on the flight might actually turn out to be a very small minority on the flight. So in that case, why don't we have the Special Meal option for flights out to India?

Like, on flights to other places, customers could choose Muslim or Vegetarian or any other Special Meal to be served, while the default is Western. So on a flight to India, can we have the Special Meal option of Western or Chinese, while the default is Indian Vegetarian? Fair right?

This post has been rated Satirical Comedy

2010-09-24T10:02:00.008+08:00

It seems like the Hossen Leong Show that I'm looking forward to watching soon has been rated as "Satirical Comedy (Recommended for audiences 16 years and over)" by MDA. Thank god for MDA! If they didn't inform me, I'll never guess that I'm going to be watching a satirical comedy! I thought I was going to watch a cooking show!

So why is the show not safe for audiences below 16? Too satirical for these young kids to handle? But Miyaki said he has already taken out the bit about PM's pink wardrobe, so that our kids won't go home haunted with the image of our PM dressed in pink in front of a pink background and loose sleep, so why is it still too satirical? Perhaps there are still other content that are too much for our kids. I mean, what if Hossen is going to make satirical remarks about the YOG screw-ups, Freak flood screw-ups, or worse, public transport screw-ups! Yah, I also think it's too much for them to understand.

Anyway, I think MDA shouldn't be worried too much about under-16 kids watching the show even without the rating. After all, it is an art performance, so it is not going to be cheap. I can't imagine why a Sec 3 guy will date his Sec 2 girlfriend to watch the show that will cost him more than seventy dollars for a cheapest pair of tickets, instead of a normal pair of movie tickets costing less than twenty dollars. Seriously? They'll choose the Hossen Leong Show over other shows like... Resident Evil Afterlife?

While rating an art performance is not hurting me as I'm way over 16, taking so-called sensitive content out of it does. It is a known fact that producers themselves remove some content from their scripts (so that the show can go on), and the choppers at MDA remove even more. But hey, I'm still paying 100% of the ticket price! In fact, adding in GST and booking fees etc, it's even more than 100%, and yet they're going to show me 80-90% of the performance? It's like after paying for an expensive sure-eat Cat-Mountain-King durian, you open it up and throw away some fruits to the dogs!

Perhaps in future, art performances in Singapore can be charged according to how much content has been censored? Maybe like a $10 discount per 10mins cut? Then it's more fair to the viewers right?

So now, what is the feedback email address of SISTIC...

More traffic lights please, we're Singaporeans!

2010-09-23T08:39:00.003+08:00

When driving to work this morning, I've noticed that between traffic light A and traffic light B which are about 200m apart, a new traffic light is under construction. Yes, for some elite reasons, the higher power at LTA has decided that 200m is too far and having one traffic light every 100m is definitely more appropriate and vehicle-friendly.

Another reason for this new traffic light could be due to its location. It is built right outside a primary school. This could make sense. I can totally understand how tiring and frustrating it is to walk up to 100m to the nearest traffic light just to cross the road, especially with a super heavy school bag on the back and a yelling restless kid holding your hand. Of course I'm talking about the maids.

I'm so sure that this new traffic light is the result of letters from concerned parents to the LTA, fearing that their kids are jaywalking the road dangerously. Never underestimate the power of parents. Even if they might have never fetched their kids from school before, their sixth-sense-of-a-parent will tell them their kids have not been using the traffic light 100m away.

So as a responsive and responsible statboard that cares for the people, the honorable LTA builds a new traffic light. Kind of reminds me of the incident when there were some residents at some estate complaining about some old uncles and aunties gambling at the stone tables at the void deck, and the authority responded by removing the stone chairs from the stone tables.

Anyway, I suppose the manual car owners should be receiving the gift of this new traffic light happily. Now they can drive their cars like auto cars without the hassle of constantly changing gears.

First gear, accelerate, brake, first gear, accelerate, brake, first gear...

Love your ride! Love the Singlish!

2010-09-21T13:44:00.002+08:00

Delighted that LTA has invited the Dimsum Dollies to sing a song about being a considerate public transport passenger. Love their good voices, love their cheerfulness, and most importantly, love their Singlish! "Move inside, can?"

With election suspected to be around the corner, luckily no smart elite suggest some horrific MPs/Ministers to do the song, like...

Also very luckily, the LTA or PTC didn't decide to be too creative and ask their senior management to sing and dance, like...

So, heng heng we've finally got a nice public transport song! Screw Speak Good English Movement lah!

Pokemon gone way wrong

2010-09-21T13:22:00.003+08:00

Just when we thought the US English translation of the Pokemon anime is most disgusting.

Blasphemy to Pokemon. Totally.

Mehly anticipates more fireworks in next year's NDP

2010-09-08T09:27:00.003+08:00

Singapore has collected some S$29.9 billion in taxes in the last financial year, which is 0.2% more than FY 2008/2009, all thanks to the buoyant property market. Oh, and more tax has been collected from individuals as well while less was collected from Corporates.

So what does it mean to the man on the street? How's the government going to make use of these money? For one, I do hope these money can be used to offset the cost of improving our public transport, and the expected fare increase next year will not be too much for us to handle!

But one thing for sure, I know there'll be more fireworks in next year's NDP!

Mehly will volunteer for NS to get her $9000!

2010-09-02T09:38:00.002+08:00

Suddenly, Singapore has recognised the contribution done by Singaporean NSman, and so is giving each of them a monetary award of between S$9,000 and S$10,500. But this will only benefit full time and operationally-ready NSmen in service from August 29, so if you ORD on August 28, and though you still have to return to camp for reservist training and report for IPPT every year, sorry bro, count your bad luck!

Of course, if the gahmen can't trust the 65-years olds with their own CPF money, how can they trust 18-years old young chaps with $9,000? So for your own good, this money will be given to you in 3 installments and even part of it is going to be put into your CPF account, so that you can take it out when you're... 65-years old.

Mehly reminds Nyo that It's the "Forget your Singlish, speak English NOW" movement again

2010-09-01T08:42:00.004+08:00

Yap, it's that time of the year again. The "Speak Good English Movement" time. The 10-years old campaign that is as successful as the campaign that urges you to speak good Mandarin.

To show our support for the campaign, please remember to order "coffee with evaporated mile and less sugar", and not "kopi-C siu dai", and when the Taxi Uncle ask "Go where?", remember to reply "It'll be great if you could take me to Orchard Road"!

Get it Right, man!

Mehly auditions for the Singapore Spirit mascot

2010-08-31T09:25:00.004+08:00

So now we now there is such a thing called the Singapore Spirit. It is said to be anchored on "deeper things which we share" like multiracialism, meritocracy and respect for every talent, about shared loyalty and commitment to Singapore, shared responsibility for one another and pride in what Singapore has built together, shared memories, shared dreams, shared aspirations, the determination that makes us press on in the face of tough times, the trust that keeps us together when forces try to pull us apart, the competence, quiet pride and discipline that makes sure that things go right.

Okay, we really need a chim mascot to spread this chim Singapore Spirit.

Nyo and Mehly after YOG

2010-08-30T13:50:00.001+08:00

Are these two poor things only good for a couple of months?

What if the trains are still crowded one year later?

Visit the Masjid Sultan Mosque this Hari Raya Puasa

2010-08-30T09:39:00.003+08:00

Long long time ago, Sultan Hussein Shah signed the Treaty to hand Singapore over to the East India Company. In return, he was given a sum of $3,000 by the Company to build a mosque. With additional financial help from local Muslims, the Masjid Sultan Mosque was built. While the Masjid Sultan Mosque we see at Kampong Glam has been rebuilt, it is still one of the oldest mosque in Singapore.

With Hari Raya Puasa just around the corner, it is a good idea to tour around Kampong Glam and give the mosque a visit. All you need to do is to take off your shoes, put down any prejudice, and a guide will introduce you to the mosque and let you learn a little about Muslims.

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts

2010-08-28T12:51:00.005+08:00

"An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country." -- George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925

NSman grilled over blog (ST.com)
An NSman with the Singapore Police Force has been called up for questioning by his reservist unit over comments he made on his blog on the handcuffing of a photojournalist in July. Mr Abdillah Zamzuri, 26, disagreed with how the police handled the cuffing of Lianhe Wanbao photojournalist Shafie Goh, which took place during a flash flood on July 16. He also said that the officer 'acted stupidly' and that they should be sued.

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" -- Walter Scott (1771-1832), a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe

'I didn't lose sleep' (ST.com)
Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday that negative online comments about the Youth Olympic Games did not affect him - a day after news broke that a 27-year-old man had been arrested for posting comments on Facebook that the police said 'incited violence'.

'Even the newspaper report, I didn't even know about it until I read about it in the papers,' said Dr Balakrishnan, who addressed reporters at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel during a round-up session on the Games.

'It shows that I almost didn't care. I had more important things to do, I had good feedback and good suggestions from so many people, and I focused on that.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self." -- Cyril Connolly, an English author, editor and critic

Everybody hates Bloggers (Xiaxue)
I was already pissed off when it first exploded, but I believed that after Lady Iron Chef clarified himself, everything will be resolved. In short, I believed that Singaporeans are smart, logical, and rational as a whole. Who am I kidding? They are not.

"There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession." -- Daniel Webster (1782-1852), United States Senator and Secretary of State

Embassy to help in probe (ST.com)
In the early hours of Thursday morning, a car bearing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) diplomatic plates and the North Korean flag hit a parked car along Geylang Lorong 21.

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." -- Joseph Conrad, Polish-born English writer

8 HK tourists killed in hijack (ST.com)
The Philippines security forces stormed a bus packed with Hong Kong tourists to end a dramatic hostage crisis that unfolded live on global television, leaving eight people and the gunman dead.

Ah Fook the food blogger vs the restaurant

2010-08-26T09:04:00.009+08:00

(Picture in courtesy of Pet Society)

Since Ah Fook was still jobless, he decided to be a food blogger and blog for a living... well, okay, at least blog for food. The lucky guy received an invitation from an up-class restaurant for food tasting, so he turned up for free meal.

AH FOOK: Hi, I'm here for the food tasting.

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Food tasting?

AH FOOK: Yah, I was invited by your restaurant for food tasting. I'm a food blogger.

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Oh... okay. Just to let you know, you have to pay for the food. We'll give you a discount voucher that you can use on your next visit though. A $10 voucher with a minimum spending of $200.

AH FOOK: Oh... okay... so... I get to choose what food I want to eat right?

RESTAURANT MANAGER: No. We'll decide what you can eat.

AH FOOK: Even when I'm paying?

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Yes. Because we choose which are the dishes you should review on, so we'll decide which dishes you eat.

AH FOOK: Oh... okay lor...

RESTAURANT MANAGER: So your order will be the Creamy Lobster and Scallop bisque, Cavier on Turkish Bread, Wagyu steak topped with Truffle and lastly a Yubari Melon Sorbet.

AH FOOK: Er... these are the most expensive dishes on the menu leh...

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Yes, these are the best of our chef recommendations and are all done with the best ingredients from all around the world, so they're expected to be expensive. Okay, tell you what, just for you, we'll give you a 5 percent discount, so your bill should not be over $300. Ah, one more thing. Please send us your post for review before you post it on the Internet.

AH FOOK: What?! You want to review my post before I post it?!

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Of course! We need to ensure that you don't write anything bad about our restaurant and the food!

AH FOOK: But I have to be as objective as I can be when food blogging! I need to be honest! How are my readers going to ever believe me again if they find me lying that a horrible dish taste fantastic just because the restaurant pays for it... okay, partially pays for it?

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Hey look! Our restaurant could have just paid for advertisements on magazines and what not, we don't really have to get a food blogger to advertise for us you know? We're just trying to be kind and give you people a chance to eat good food and do some writing, so don't push your luck and be grateful!

AH FOOK: WTH! That's it! I'm not going to blog about your restaurant! No wait! I'm going to blog about your restaurant, but not about the food, about your see-bloggers-no-up attitude!

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Tsk... tsk... tsk... some governing body should really set some regulations to control you food bloggers!

What's happening: Everybody hates Bloggers (Note: Source is coming from a popular blog this time round instead of the usual newspaper blogs because my readers deserve to know what is ACTUALLY happening.)

The Old Tanjong Pagar Train Station

2010-08-23T23:41:00.007+08:00

The Prime Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore have agreed that the Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) station currently in operation at Tanjong Pagar will be relocated to the Woodlands train checkpoint by 1st July next year.

Which means that the old train station is going to be torn down. While this could just turn out like our own National Stadium, which was planned to be torn down like... yesterday, I reckoned in order to play safe, I better take some of the old Tanjong Pagar train station with me before it is too late. Because one thing for sure, our country's way of preserving old buildings is to paint it with bright and colorful CMY-K, or convert it to another legalised gambling den.

Old school fence in an old train station

Changing route the manual way

Birds waiting for the next train?

Lives in an old train station

Crossroad on a railway track?

What's in a railway track?

Even the local grad can't help taking photo of the old railway track

Have a kopi, watch the train comes and go... that's relac life

Trolleys waiting to serve

When is the train coming again?

Eight-points flower design on arch doors. Very typical and traditional Malay design.

Kind of too quiet for a train station