Since Feburary I've seen buses and cabs on the roads, painted to look like cows in shades of pink, blue, green or yellow. Some even had tails attached to the back of the vehicles. The tagline said "Moove is more". And every time I see it, I would go "More what?" My hubby figured it's probably advertisement for a new brand of milk.

Soon after that, cardboard cows dotted some of the empty fields along the roads and expressways. It was quite amusing and actually did brighten up the otherwise dull, vacant areas.


Still we didn't know what the advertisers were trying to sell.

I finally found out today, after 4 months, that it's an advertisement for public transport. That is after they added a 2nd tagline. "Bus, taxi, rail..... ComfortDelgro".

Moove as in MOoVE.

.. sheesh.....

erm... more what?

I never had much problems with e-filing in previous years. But this year, I got confused after reading the Guidebook published by IRAS (Inland Revenue Authority of Sinagpore).

For one thing, combined assessment is no longer available for married couples. I'm required to declare my income and claim for my own deductions and be assessed separately from my hubby. I used to do my income separate from my husband a long time back. It was IRAS who highly encouraged married couples to do a combined declaration. And we, being the good citizens, complied. Now they insisted we must do separately. I wish they would make up their minds.

I managed to file mine online this morning. I had a problem with an entry and tried calling IRAS hotline for help. I couldn't find the phone number on the Guidebook (duh...) but I got it on their website.

As usual, I didn't get a chance to talk. I spent about 5 minutes sieving through the pre-recorded menus. Finally when I entered my identification no., the recorded message instructed me to call a different phone number. O.k. I did that and spent another 5 minutes going through another set of menus. I finally got a "Please hold for an officer to assist you."

I waited patiently (I'm in a real good mood today!) listening to the music and the occasional "Sorry. Our officers are busy at the moment. Please hold." After 5 minutes, the voice said "Sorry. Our officers are busy at the moment. Please leave a message and our officers will get back to you later..... blah.. blah... blah.. Please speak at the sound of the beep."

I heard the beep and was about to speak when "Sorry. Our mailbox is full. We are unable to accept new messages. Please try again later."

*sigh* I should have known better.

Cancel IRAS subscription! How I wish I could do that!

Official Tax Day is 15th April. It's already 21st April and I've yet to file my income tax. No worries. The nice people at IRAS, responding to our complaints about slow servers, bad connections, etc. etc. etc., have extended the filing deadline till 30 April 2005 for e-filers. So I have 9 more days to go.

p.s. Someone mentioned that the above Peanuts strip is illegally altered. Is that true?

And all the while I thought the Government was debating whether or not to have a casino. Finally, our Government dropped the bomb-shell this afternoon.

We are not just having one casino but Two! This is going to be the talking point for the next few weeks man! heh heh heh

My friends and I were discussing where would be the casino be built. Some of us said Marina and others said Sentosa. Since our island is so small, there isn't that many choices. Well. Both our guesses are correct. We'll be having one at each place.

According to the news, it'll be some sort of integrated resort developments. Quoting from our Prime Minister, "We are not aiming to become like Las Vegas or Macau, where gambling is the main industry. We will not allow casinos to sport garish displays on the facades and have jackpot machines everywhere from the lobby to the toilets. An integrated resort will be as decent and wholesome as ......"

Hmmm.. a wholesome casino. Will have to wait till 2009 to see what exactly that means.

Thanks to Texas Biscuit I got to see this really cool commercial for the Adidas even before it was screened on our TV. The original one has such a wonderful, gradual build up with the guy lighting up his world as he steps into the unknown.

Well. I happened to catch it last night on Channel 5. Guess what? MediaCorpseCorp tore the whole thing apart and gave us little crumps here and there. The entire dreamy, surreal effect was totally destroyed!

I cringed at some of the locally-made commercials. O.k., to be fair, we got some real nice ones too! Like er.. erm... I can't really recall any at the moment. But I'm sure there were some nice really ones (I think).

What I can't stand is. Along comes a fabulous spot and they have to wreck it. Why?

Oh. And I like that song by Karen O so much I put it on my radioblog. You could download it here too.

I'm getting a new car! A 2005 Honda CR-V! It's going to be Ruby-red with black trimmings (is that the correct term?)

Been driving my hubby's Citroen Xsara ever since I got my license in 2003. I need a car for my work because of site inspections etc. whereas my hubby's more desk-bound. We thought it's time to change the car and since I'll be using it more often, I get to decide on what I want.

The process of car-onwership in Singapore is kind of difficult to understand. My hubby tried to explain but I get brain-freeze every time I hear those acronyms ...VQS, COE, OMV, NCB .... WTF? Here's an explanation. You can read it if you like. I couldn't even get pass the first paragraph.

Anyway, back to the car. My hubby and I spent last Sunday visiting car showrooms. I am We are keen to get a SUV (see? another acronym). It was down to Nissan X-Trail, Subaru Forrester and Honda CR-V. I like the spaciousness of X-Trail, the size of Forrester and the looks & feel of CR-V. Oh well. Can't have the best of everything. We tested the X-Trail and CR-V over the last two days again and finally decided on CR-V.

I'm so used to manual-transmission car (I dare say I'm one of the few woman here driving a manual car) that I find driving an auto a bit strange. During test-driving, my left leg would automatically reach for the clutch and my left arm for the gear-stick.

We should be getting the car sometime next month. Can't wait to get behind the wheels!

Quite moody today because of a toothache. Been to the dentist and he said I've an infected tooth and suggested a root canal treatment. From what he described, it seemed a painful process, not to mention expensive too. I need to go for 2 appointments for the root canal treatment. After that may have to do a dental post to secure the tooth. And then after that I need a dental crown to protect the weakened tooth. That's another 2 additional visits.

My gum was so painful that I almost arranged an appointment for the treatment. What stopped me was when the nurse at the counter said the successful rate was about 60%.

Whoa! Hang on... I'm not going to spend S$1.5K and be told the pain may return! Got to find out more before I make my decision.

Stupid toothache.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. But, as a result, all the old comments left by visitors have gone missing... Oh dear.

Today I pounced on my little master to get at his sandwiches. Mother laughed when she saw me. She took away the ham sandwich and gave me a plate of fish instead.

Tried to hide from litte missy. She wanted to bathe me. Not that I mind. But it was raining and I hate to catch a cold...

=^^= Timmy

I've been getting calls from hotels, credit card companies, banks etc. offering FREE services (yeah.. right. ). All I have to do is pay a 'nominal' fee and I'll get free hotel stay vouchers, free dinning vouchers, free this, free that...

And there were calls telling me I won some stuffs and I would need to attend a small seminar to claim the prize. In the first place, I rarely participate in lucky draws. I don't believe in free-lunches. And chances are these are probably scams trying to draw me into some MLM schemes.

When I told them "Thank you very much but I'm not interested." they'll go "Why not? It's free you know?" It's so damn annoying! I'm not the sort that 贪小便宜。 So I hate it when they use the word "FREE".

Stop flinging the four letter word at me! I'M NOT INTERESTED!