There's been a public outcry on the recent clampdown on speeding motorists by traffic police. Tired of being called "sneaky" and tired of all the hue & cry in The Straits Times forum pages, the traffic police decided to ease up on the surprise elements of their checks by listing on their website the roads where officers, armed with laser speed cameras, will be deploy.

heh heh.. I can imagine the replies to appeal letters.. "We regret to inform you that our department is unable to consider your appeal. You have been forewarned and it is your responsibility to take the necessary action(s) to prevent such occurrences...."

But I really don't understand what's the rationale for yielding. If the purpose of the speed traps is to catch the speedsters, then listing the roads will only alert them. If the purpose is to slow the traffic down at those stretches where speeding is highly dangerous, then why not put permanent speed cameras. The police officers could be better deployed on other works. Personally I think it's even more dangerous to have officers hanging around. Inexperience drives may over-react upon seeing officers. What if one brakes suddenly and causes a chain-bumper-to-bumper collisions?

Actually, I have no complaint against the clampdown. All I ask is for reasonable speed limits to be set according to the general traffic conditions and locations of the roads. I was told that speed limits for roads, by default, is 50kph. 50kph is way too low for most roads. Of course for some areas such as small lanes in residential zones, carparks, anything more than 30kph will be too high. And I wish they would increase the speed limit of 80kph on expressways too. 90~100 kph will be about right.

The traffic police "will consider reviewing the speed limits of roads which motorists say are 'too slow' on a monthly, instead of quarterly, basis." I hope they do more than considering. Imagine being caught for speeding when I'm travelling 55kph!

Saw this hilarious blog. The Brand New Morning Show on Channelnewsasia. I've watched CNA's morning show in the past but stopped since school started this year. Have to rush the kids to school, so no more time for TV in the mornings. Btw, for the sensitive souls, beware of heavy use of vulgarities. For the rest who watches CNA, it's side-splitting.

Gu thinks he was caught by traffic police last evening. He's also convinced that the traffic police had read his blog and is punishing him for his impertinence.

I managed to enter some Chinese characters last night after installing Asian language thingy in XP. I could see the characters appearing beautifully in the preview when composing the blog. But they came out as garbage (see last night's entry). Will have to sort that out later.

Btw, the results of the TOTO draw were annouced last night. There were a total 8 winners sharing the S$10 million jackpot prize. We have 8 instant millionares last night. Congratulations!

p.s. Finally I figured out why the Chinese Characters didnt show.

Every year Singapore Pools' will have a TOTO draw with hugh prize money to usher in the new lunar year. It's that time again. The prize is a whopping S$10,000,000.00!

$10 million! That's a lot of money. It explains the long, snaking queues you see at all the outlets across the whole island. Just $1 will buy you a hope. $1 will bring you a step closer to that dream prize.

Me? Nah... I can't be bothered. I don't have the time nor the patience to spend hours on queues. I don't need to be a Math genius to know the odds. Chances of winning is like 0.0000055. I'm not that lucky. And besides, I have no idea how to buy TOTO. heehee

Was explaining to Gu just now (who has no experience in HTML etc.) how to add links in his blog. After that I decided to surf for calender scripts and I found a simple and easy to use one at phil ringnalda dot com .

Now everything I want on my blog is done up. Perhaps later I'll add a booklist. I have the habit of doing some light-reading every night before I sleep. Currently I'm re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in anticipation of the launch of 6th installment of the HP series, The Half-Blood Prince. Need to refresh my memory.

I wonder who's the Half-Blood Prince? J.K. Rowling has already confirmed it's neither Harry or Voldemort. Can't be Malfoy. He's pure-blood. Can't be Neville too. He's also a pure-blood. There's Dean. But his role has been quite small so far. And it seems unlikely that he will suddenly get thrown into the limelight. I have a feeling it's Hagrid since his dad is a muggle and his mom a gaint.

Anyway, too lazy to surf for discussions on this (and I'm sure there's a lot of those out there too!), I'll just wait and see. Hmm... I wonder when the book will be released.

Singapore fell to the Japanese invasion on this day, sixty-three years ago. I guess it's no coincidence that today is marked as Total Defense Day in Singapore. Most schools carried out Civil Defense drills today.

My mom told me about the war. She was very young, about 4 years old, and was still staying in Malaysia, Pontian. But the war left such great impression on her, even at that age. She was 7 when the Japanese finally surrenderred in 1945. There was much elation till someone in her kampong fired off gun shots in celebration. The whole lot of them took cover, thinking that the Japanese came back again. Those were really tough times. Many innocents were killed. Many brave men & women died.

There's no point in cursing at the Japanese. It's already in the past. Not forgotten, perhaps. But just let it rest....

Here are some photos of Singapore's Cityscape. I was at The Equinox of Swissotel The Stamford with some friends for tea. I had my camera with me and took a couple of pictures.

The view from up there is awesome.

Here is a shot of the Esplanade Theatre. No matter which way I turn, it still looks like a housefly with those round compound eyes.

Night scene in Singapore is pretty nice. This was taken from Sheares Bridge. I used a 200mm to zoom into the portion of the Fullerton Hotel with the Merlion sitting proudly in the foreground. Couldn't go any nearer. Should have brought along the 400mm lens.

I'm rather tired of the black background. Too stark and monotonous. Decided to go for a light airy look for the site instead. I'm still trying to sort out the CSS thingy, having just read a chapter on it last night. The fonts are still a bit messy.. too small I think and I'll need to darken the color a little too. So bear with me for the time being while I tidy up.

Do you like the flower I use as the backdrop? Those are Cala Lilies, one of my favorite flowers besides tulips. Too bad they are not commonly available in Singapore and pre-order is required. I bought a bouquet sometime back and took many shots of it. I'm so busy lately that I haven't picked up my EOS20D for a very loooong time. Anyway, I intent to go back to photography once my workload lightens up a bit in early March. So expect to see more photos soon.

I enjoyed the gatherings over the two days of the Chinese New Year hols. CNY is about the only time when we meet & catch up with relatives. And not to mention the scrumptious meals prepared by our cousins! I feel so pai-sei every year when we are invited for the dinners. I can't cook so I won't be able to return the invitations *sigh* The only thing I can prepare (and it's pretty good too!) is Sheperd's pie.

Was so busy that I didn't have time to post earlier.

Well! The 2 main days of celebration is about over. I'll have to be back at the office tomorrow. Ate & drank so much over the last 2 days and I made the grave mistake of weighing myself. Guess what? I gained 4kg! Sh*t! Will have to exercise over the next couple of weeks to lose all that weight!

The entire Chinese New Year celebration is actually 15 days. And I'll be meeting a few more old friends over this weekend. That means more food & drinks. Don't know whether to be glad or sad! hahaha

Less than 48 hours to Chinese New Year and the house is still in a mess. Tonight's my last chance to get it cleaned up.

Every year it's the same. My husband will ask why bother since we're the ones doing the visiting. Well, I don't care. I'm not about to start a new lunar new year with a messy house. I'm not a good house-keeper. Kind of lazy in fact, but I draw a line at some point.

I'm wondering whether to close the office tomorrow. Most offices/sites will be closed. The Chinese New Year holidays are on 9 & 10 Feb (Wed - Thurs), that leaves me trying to decide whether to close the office on Friday & Sat too. I would love to. But we got this major project to work on.

*sigh* The office staff is probably going to hate me.

I've been thinking of getting a MP3 player for a long while. I was trying to decide between Apple's iPod and Creative's Zen Micro. Zen Micro has a FM radio which is about the only plus point for consideration.

So I went to a local shop to look at both players. I can tell you, man. The moment I touched the iPod I didn't want to put it down. I really love the sleek and uncluttered look of iPod. In comparison, the Zen Micro feels rather plasticky.

I decided to get the U2 Edition instead of the white one. The Cool-Factor is a perfect 10! I just got it charged and I can't wait to get home to transfer all my songs to it. I'm using iTunes and that, IMHO, is the best music software. Its database recognises all my Japanese & Canto albums and iTunes is able to display the song titles in the correct Japanese and Chinese characters, instead of little square boxes.

Of course I'll have to forgo the FM function. But with 5000 songs at my finger tips, I guess I could do without it. The irony is that, just this morning, the Morning Express boys were discussing whether we support/buy local brand names & products. I do! I've nothing against getting local products. But in this case, sorry Mr. Sim Wong Hoo, the iPod is simply irresistable!

During the weekdays my kids, Bryan & Rachel, will be at my mom's place after school. The family immediately below my mom's unit has a boy, who happened to be called Bryan too. Our boy is younger, so we called him Little Bryan, and we call the other boy Big Bryan (duh...)

The two Bryans have been playing together since they were toddlers and they had a real noisy way of passing messages - through the windows at the top of their voices. That was before they learnt to use the phones. And now even with the phones, from time to time, they'll revert to the old way of shouting from the windows.

I wasn't at my mom's place. My sister-in-law told me about it.

Last Saturday, both boys agreed to meet online at a game called Runescape. Little Bryan didn't see Big Bryan in the game so he tried to call him on the phone. But his line was engaged all the while. Little Bryan gave up and went to the window to shout for Big Bryan. He told Big Bryan that his phone line was engaged.

My mom, who was nearby, jokingly said perhaps they haven't been paying their phone bills. And guess what? Little Bryan dutifully repeated that through the window at the top of his voice. I think at least 4 other families heard that. It was hilarious! I'm sure my mom must have been so embarrassed!