I've been so freakin busy since the last entry. So busy until I didn't even watch my Season 4 Supernatural. It's already episode 10 and I just finished watching episode 4 to 6 last night. 3 episodes back to back... heaven!! And I still have my CSI, CSI NY, CSI Miami, Heroes... I'm way way behind..
Plenty of things happened in between. But first thing first.
I found my lost car key!! I was at AoR 2 days after I lost the car key to pass Fandy some durian ice cream.. and thought I'd give the Lost & Found at United Square a try. Well! Some good lady found it in the carpark and left it at Lost & Found. That saved me $300 bucks. It would have cost that much to get the keys re-coded. And of course Fandy claimed credit for it. Said bringing him ice cream would bring good fortune to me! hahah
Gabriel & Celeste finally got married on 11 Nov. For some reasons, Gabriel did not make any annoucement during the bbq. And he told me about the coming wedding during one of our breakfasts together. I offered to be their official photographer for their ROM. That was when I found out they were only going to have a small wedding dinner for immediate family members.
Oh no! I would not have that. We've known each other for 22 years. 22 years of friendship!! I wasn't going to miss out on his wedding. The rest of the gang too. I told Gabriel I would organise something.
I decided to have the wedding gathering at Vino Vino where Luth and Akie performs. I got Luth and Akie to come in earlier too. I suggested to Gabriel to sing a song for Celeste. He agreed but chose a Mandarin song cos Celeste's into Chinese songs. That became a bit of a challenge for Gabriel. Told Luth & Akie about the Chinese song thing and they had no problem with that. So I downloaded the song for Akie and he figured out the chords quite quickly. He's good! We even had a quick rehearsal a day before the dinner. I arranged for Sam to bring the cake and I would bring the flowers.
So at Vino Vino that night... it was good food, good wine, good music and together with good friends. We had a whale of a time! I highly recommend the place. But call ahead to make sure the boys are performing.

Then came the stressful part... my drums examination on 20 Nov. 20 Nov seemed so far off when I told Rafi in March I would take the Grade 2 exam. And in a blink.. it's here! I wasn't really prepared. So I was rather apprehensive. Especially when I had so much problems with the Ear Tests segment during the practice sessions with Rafi. And I was still having a bit of problem with the 3rd song I chosen for the exam. Well. It was over! Phew! Murphy's Law was in play that day.. those I thought I was ok I fumbled... those I thought I would fumble..I did ok. The tester, from UK, was very friendly and quickly put me at ease when I botched up. That helped cos I was able to continue. I think I did ok. Oh well. Hopefully I didn't get too many points deducted for those mistakes I made.
So what's next? HOKKIADO!!! We are leaving on 15 Dec and will be back 2 days before Christmas. So I have to plan my Christmas dinner gathering before we leave for the trip.

Here's something to help to chase away those Tuesday blues.. we had a long weekend becos of Deepavali Holiday. But like what Leon said.. "long weekend" is actually an oxymoron... it's never long enough.

A group of us had a bbq gathering on Sunday night at our place. Been a while since we met up. And since Monday was a public holiday, I sent out text messages on Friday night to meet. Abit short notice but most could make it. Yay!

But a series of weird events happened to me on Sunday.

I woke up early as usual. Checked my supplies and realised I was short on sone ingredients for the ice cream. So I went to buy the ingredients at about 9am. Reached home at 10.30 and started on the ice cream. As I was measuring out the ingredients, I noticed that the readings on the scale wouldn't stabilise. I thought it might be the batteries so I replaced them. And then the measuring scale wouldn't turn on! I saw water droplets in the display panel so I guess water must have gotten in. I tried to dry it with a hair-blower but all I could get was flickering on the display.

I didn't have another scale and my neighbour is at church. So no choice I had to rush out to buy another scale. The store had run out of the cheaper model. So I had to spend $45 on the more expensive one. Got home only to realise it runs on 9V battery! Argh!

It was already close to 11.30am so I got the kids to come with me to the supermarket. Might as well have lunch too. We got everything we need (I double checked this time) and loaded everything into the car. I went back to return the trolley and when I got back to the car, I COULDN'T FIND MY CAR KEY!!

I definitely had my car key with me cos I unlocked the boot. I searched the car boot. Couldn't find it. Re-traced my steps to the trolley bay. Nope!

In the end I had to call my hubs for the spare key.

By the time we reached home it was close to 2pm. Had to change my ice cream menu a bit so that I could finish them in time for the bbq.

This was one of those days!

And I still haven't found the car key yet.

to reply. I called Singtel up to tell them that I have the receipt to show that I did sign up for the BBoM 1000 VAS plan. It was clearly printed there on the piece of paper! I offered to fax it to the lady I spoke to. But she said no need, they should have the record on their side.

Well.. obviously not. else I wouldn't be fuming over the bill I got! duh!

She said they'd check and call me back.

My guess is Singtel has hired a bunch of temp staff for the great iPhone launch over that 22 Aug weekend. The girl who attended to me is quite young and I noticed, wasn't too familiar with the BBoM plans available. Chances were she did not enter the info correctly into the system. I won't blame her. I blame Singtel for not training their staff adequately.

I can't imagine anyone buying an iPhone without signing on a BBoM plan. But the many aunties, uncles & the non-technically-inclined might not be aware that iPhone data usage is forever running. If it doesn't detect WiFi, the BBoM kicks in. If they have a voice plan without any BBoM plan, it becomes Pay-on-Demand, so a 300MB data transfer is gonna cost S$1,200.00!

Back to my situation, I got a call from another lady in the afternoon. She asked me whether I signed up for the BBoM plan over the internet. And for the 3rd time, I told her no... I signed up at the same time I collected my iPhone, at Comcentre, which is where the HQ of $ingtel is!!

She sounded very formal and then went on to say they would refer my case to their whatever department to investigate and will inform me of the outcome and their decision in due course.

I was rather perplexed and asked her why do I even have to wait since I have the printed receipt to show that I did in fact sign up for the plan. I'm not interested who or what went wrong in their computer system whatsoever! They can go do their internal investigation. It's none of my concern. Just waive my bill!

It was then when she sound surprised.

*sigh*

I did a search on the internet too see how widespread the billing problem is. Guess what? Optus, a subsidiary of $ingtel in Australia, got the same excessive data charge complaints too!

that our own dear Singtel screwed up the bills again & again. I don't even want to bring up past grievances. Too long to write..

Just this latest one about my bill after I started using iPhone.

After checking with Anthony, I decided to sign up Broadband on Mobile 1000 as a Value-Added-Service. It's about another S$23 per month which has a 50GB quota. And I'll have peace of mind too since I won't have to monitor my usage. 50GB is much more than what I need since I'm not a very heavy "on-the-move" user and I have WiFi at home & at work.
But I remember there was that Singtel Mobile Broadband dispute in local news last November. A Mr. Zhou YL was asked to pay S$12,000.00 for 3GB excess data usage, which amount was later reduced to S$6000.00 after discount. Subsequently, Singtel introduced a plan to cap to S$299.00 for excess usage.
So I was still rather apprehensive and have been monitoring the data usage of my new toy. As of yesterday, which is about 20 days of usage, my network data transfer is about 11.8MB sent and 352MB received. No sweat! Well within the 50GB quota.
BUT yesterday I received my Singtel bill. It listed,

Broadband on Mobile Data Usage 26 Aug to 08 Sep 08 - 279540kB - S$1255.07
!!!

Becos of the cap, a S$956.07 was discounted. But I still need to pay S$299.00!!! WTF!!!

I called Singtel hotline immediately. Well the hotline must be really hot cos I was on hold for 20 mins and still didn't get to speak with any Singtel staff. I had to rush for a meeting so my colleague helped. She called me later saying that Singtel has no record that I sign up for the Mobile 1000 plan. WTF!!!!
Luckily I didn't throw away my receipt. I have it here! It says 1st month FREE too since there was a promotion. Grrrrhhh... I'm not alone.. quite a number of complaints at HardwareZone.

A warning to all Singtel iPhone Users,
Keep your receipts! You'll need it!

Finally things quiet down somewhat at the office. Managed to clear some of the backlogs. Was able to take a few hours off last Friday to watch WALL.E with my family. Re-started my gym schedule. I even have the luxury of time to have breakfasts with Gabriel after my gym sessions. Wat a relief!

Saturday, as usual, spent almost the whole day at United Sq. Had a jamming session with Firuz and 2 boys. But there no singer and no 1st guitar playing, so I had some difficulty. Keep losing my count after a while. heehee.. sorry lah.. still green lah! Drum exam is in November. That's less than 2 months. So I better start practising for it.

Had dinner at Youtei Sushi Restuarant. The one at United Sq. closed down and the staff was reassigned to the outlets at Marina Sq and Forum Galleria. Rachel & I were such regulars at the old United Sq outlet that we became friends with the waitresses and managers. So it was not just dinner but also to visit them too.

And after dinner, I went to Vino Vino to meet D. She & Akie bought me a bag. So sweet of them! Had a nice time chatting with D. Akie wasn't feeling too good, might have caught a chill. According to him carrying a brolly wouldn't look cool. Luth didn't look too well either.  Said he slept only 3 hours the night before.  But they still had to continue entertaining the patrons. Poor chaps.  Noticed Rafi, Zul and Ros yawning away earlier on too.  This was their 1st week of fasting so i guess they're still adjusting to it.

On Sunday I made orange sorbet. It was quite easy .. 300ml of freshly hand-squeezed orange juice, 30~40g of sugar depending on sweetness of the orange, 15g of Granfruttosa, and 1 tbsp orange zest. That's it! Simple yet delightful! I could use a juicer for the orange but I choose to hand-squeeze them cos the fibrous part will leave a bit of bitterness.  Rachel, the family fussbudget, loved it.

I was quite tired the rest of Sunday since I slept at 2 am. But I still had 3 baby showers to attend. Gu's, Anthony's and Leon's. Jeff passed me a gift for Leon and I almost gave it to Anthony by mistake.  I saw Anthony's iPhone.  He 'jailbroke' it and it looked totally cool!  I'm so tempted to try it myself.  Gotten the websites from him.  But I'm waiting for the release of iPhone 2.1.  Supposed to be today together with iTunes 8.  Let's see what improvements have been made.. and then I'll jailbreak my iPhone too!

Ought to be in dreamland... BUT!! still working...  *sigh*  

Yesterday wasn't so bad.. managed to clear some work.  I was really moody on Wednesday.  So stressed that I sent out 3 distress SMSs.  Something I don't usually do.  All responded immediately.   So nice to have great friends!  Boon and Syafiq responded with words of encouragement.   The best was Fen. He called offering help with some of calculations and drawings. Many thanks, pal!   I owe you one!

The main source of my distress is this PhD engineer from a well-known contractor from a 'sparkling' country in Asia.  Bloody slave-driver from hell.  For God's sake, this is only a fucking tender we're working on.  But the details he asked for were as though they were awarded the job.  His mannerism was what irked me.  Kept comparing my work with another big-time MNC 's work.  Bloody condescending and sarcastic.  Told him I'm already doing my best with the manpower I've got.  If he's not happy with that he could get someone else. 

Anyway this isn't my the first unpleasant encounter with engineers from this country.  Those guys are MCP!  This time and age!  WTF!  

Feeling kinda burnt out for the last few days. While having my breakfast coffee this morning I started listing out the projects I'm currently working on.

17!

No wonder I'm feeling so stressed up. I've got so many people behind my back chasng for reports. Phone's been ringing non-stop too. Everybody's asking for theirs to be given priority. wtf! Maybe I ought to tell them whoever brings the check first will have theirs attended to first.

Shit! never felt so tired. and this bladdy headache just refused to go away.

yup.. today is one of those 'down' days.

Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Although.. I doubt so. Already have 4 meetings lined up. Was hoping to go to the gym tomorrow morning. looks like I'll have to miss it again *sigh*

Such wonderful news! 3 babies safely delivered within the last 4 days!   Congratulations to Anthony & Jolene, Gu & Charrell, Leon & Lynn and the arrival of their 2nd kid.  

Anthony, Gu, Charrell, Leon & Lynn are friends from IRC daz back in 1996.  Gosh! 12 years already.  Who says you can't form true friendship on the internet?   There's also Jeff & Elaine, Edwin, Jamieson and Desmond.  Other than the latter 3 whom had been sort of out-of-touch lately, the rest of us meet up regularly.  Two weeks back, we even had a pre-delivery celebration at Gu's house!  

My nickname was Meow (could tell I'm a cat-lover..) and since I was the oldest among the group, they called me Mommy Meow.  Back in 1996~97,  Hubs was overseas fairly often, Bryan stayed over at my mom's on weekdays and Rachel wasn't born yet.  So I was quite free weekdays. We would IRC late into the nights, have on-line games, meet up in the middle of the nights for coffee or go pubbing.   And for weekend outings, I would bring Bryan along.  The gang literally watched Bryan, and Rachel, grow up.  In a way I watched the gang grew too, from carefree youngsters into mature, responsible parents.  I'm so proud of everyone of them!   wah.. macam like I really their mom!  hahaha  

I've told my friends about AoR, and two of them decided to visit last Saturday. Sophia is interested in guitar and thinking of signing Saffron up for drums. Tang is interested in drums but his son wasn't sure yet. His son played a few instruments, so far no formal training. He's more interested in music arrangement. Too bad AoR is currently not offering that.

T & his son stuck around to watch how the lesson was conducted. Which was basically, standing outside my window, watching me for the entire 1/2 hr lesson... made me so conscious of myself.

Rafi said they (Goodfellas/Soulfellas) would be performing at Esplanade over the weekend at 8.30pm. I guess must be at the new Esplanade Outdoor Theatre. No wonder Esplanade was rushing for us to complete the works there... probably have performances lined up for the NDP celebrations. But I had to miss it. There was a NDP preview that night. No way I was going anywhere near Marina area. And I couldn't go on Sunday too since the next day was a school day. Oh well. Another time perhaps.

Had lunch with the Tangs and then I went Scotts Square for site inspection. No place to park on site and had to park at Hyatt Hotel. So imagine me walking through the posh hotel lobby and down Scotts Road in my construction boots & helmet. New fashion statement at Orchard! heheh

I was back at AoR for guitar lesson at 6. I still can't figure how to grip the guitar and spent the next 30 mins contorting my fingers. Akie made it looked so effortless. But how? Can't stand it. I got to do it somehow.

After a quick dinner, I went over to the expressway site. Need to witness backfilling sequence since my Mr. CoW was on medical leave. Left site around 9.30pm and headed down to Cathay Ben & Jerry's to watch Luth & Akie. That area around Cathay was teeming with young people. In fact there was still a queue trying to get into Cathay's carpark. Parked at Plaza Sg. Just a short walk.

As usual, very young crowd at Ben & Jerry's. Ordered an double Espresso instead of ice-cream. Watching my weight. But next time I would get a Double Expresso Double. Their double was so tiny.

Luth & Akie..as usual, very entertaining. One of the songs they played was Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, my JM fav. So guess what song I'm humming now?

Going to have one very soon..

That silly 'o man is driving me up the wall. He called me like 10 times today harping on the same issue.. that the contractor was not using the correct equipment, that they were not installing the sheetpiles according to our design and that he suspected contractor was trying to cheat. And after listening to his tirades I have to suffer his SMSs... samples

The problem is I can't fire the silly 'o man because he's doing what I've hired him to do, which is to keep a close watch on the contractor's work. That and there's a severe shortage of supervisors now. But his half-hourly, long-winded reporting with all that drama is giving me a headache.

My boss is not helping much either. He was very keen on a Marine Coastal Expressway tender and pulled 3 of my staff to work on it. That put a severe strain on my workload. I have about 8 clients chasing me for reports. All are urgent and now I don't know how to deliver.

Now where did i put my Panadol..

I knew LTA has increased the number of ERP gantries and adjusted the timing of ERP operations. But I definitely wasn't expecting this.

Earlier this evening I called Hubs to tell him I would pick him up from work. I went by Bencoolen Road thinking the ERP gantry near Sim Lim Square would be turned off by 7pm. So I was a bit taken by surprise when I found the gantry still in operation. I thought, ok, so be it. I drove on.  But somewhere after the Boat Quay stretch I saw another gantry!  This time I was definitely surprised, shocked even.  There was no escape for me coz I was smacked right in the middle of the road and couldn't turn off anywhere.  That trip to pick up my hubby from work cost $4 extra of ERP charges.

I was so annoyed.  Hubs wanted to go somewhere else for dinner. I advised him against it. Better not drive until after 8pm when the gantries were turned off.  Who knows where's the next ERP gantry?  True enough, we realised later after dinner that we would have encountered another gantry had we gone home by our usual way!  wtf!

I'm already into my 40s... that dreadful stage of onset of the clockwork, universal, midlife crisis when fortysomething individuals suddenly shed spouses and act like adolescents. hmmm...

I googled to check whether I'm exhibiting any of the characteristics of a person going though midlife crisis. Let's see...

- search of an undefined dream or goal
- a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
- desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
- need to spend more time alone or with certain peers

Luckily the car stalled at the traffic light just as I was about to turn onto Jalan Besar. If I were on Jalan Besar, I'll be honked, stared & cursed to death man. It was 6.30pm.. bladdy heavy traffic along Jalan Besar.

A kind soul helped me move the car to the side of the road. Wasted an hour waiting for the tow-guy.

Called Syafiq to cancel my gym appointment. The irony was on Sunday he cancelled mine for the same reason & I was laughing at him about it.. there is such a thing as retribution..

Repair costs -- $475

This morning also received a call from ACER about my laptop. Said motherboard gone case. To replace + labour -- $810. He told me it's not really worth it to repair since the laptop is already almost 4 yr old. I agree too. Anyway there is a PC fair coming in June. Will get a new laptop then.

I saw this letter of complaint in ST Forum. My experience with HP was quite amusing (I was in fairly good mood that day).

I bought a Slimline Desktop for home use and it came pre-loaded with Windows Vista. After a few weeks I was pretty fed-up with Vista. The Slimline is a Duo-core but it's running slower than my single-core PC with WinXP! And I couldn't stand all the fanciful dialog boxes that keep popping up. I called HP Service and this was our conversation.

CC : Hi. I bought a HP desktop recently and it came with Vista. If I send it to your service centre would you be able to change the OS to XP?

HP Tech : Sorry M'am. We don't support down-grading.

CC : Oh. So you mean you support upgrading.

HP Tech : Er.. actually we also don't support upgrading.

CC : ok.. Let's say if I'll install my own XP will I be able to get the drivers off your website?

HP Tech : You'll have to download from the internet.

CC: Yeah.. I know... But what I'm asking is, since the parts are installed by you guys, surely you'll have all the drivers right? So will I be able to get them from HP's website?

HP Tech : Er... you'll have to download from the internet.

CC : So in other words, your website doesn't have the drivers?

HP Tech : Er... you'll have to check the internet.

heh heh..

No. Not talking about my weight this time.

I'm talking about prices. Prices of Everything!

GST is going from 5% to 7% in less than a month's time. Already our expenditure is going to go up. And then, out of the blue, NETS decided to raise their adminstrative fees imposed on retailers from the current 0.35~0.55% of purchases to 1.5~1.8%. NETS has become equivalent to cash in our society and everyone who has a bank account has a ATM card for that cashless NETS transaction. And now NETS is going to charge the retailers a higher admin fee for every transaction using the NETS card. Of course, NETS assured us that the merchants have been informed not to pass on any transaction fee to cosumers and that we could complain to NETS should we encounter any instance of merchant charging us a fee for the use of NETS.

Yeah. Right.

And pray tell, what's stopping merchants from increasing their prices now? (Which is what's happening already!) If I'm a retailer, I'll increase my prices now, citing higher operation costs etc and then claim that I'm not passing on any transaction fee to my customers!

Every evening when I turn on the news. It's always about someone raising their prices of this and that. Even the humble postage stamp is going to cost more now.

Profiteering is definitely in the air! The price of milk went up recently. Coffee shops started increasing their prices on coffee and tea. But I only take my coffee black. Yet kopi-O's price also increase. WTF! Looks like we all have to push back our retirement age!

To update,

1. My client's foot is ok. She went to the hospital the next day for an X-ray. No broken bones. I offered to reimberse her the medical fees but she refused to accept. Got to be careful :P

2. The birds were gone already, leaving behind an empty nest. I was hoping to see the chick learn to fly. So disappointed.

3. I signed up for drum lessons. My 1st lesson's tomorrow. Really looking forward to it. I had the feeling that the receptionist was very amused when I told her I want to take up drum lessons. I'll show her! Aunty also can be drummer one ok!

4. A tile came off the wall in our airwell. This is the 3rd tile that dropped off. It crashed from 2nd floor into the basement, destroying part of our potted plant on its way down. Really painful to see the lovely plant damaged. And it's also dangerous for us to go into the airwell. Who knows when another tile will fall off. I'm going kick the contractor's ass for this.

5. US TV season ended. So for the next few months I'll have to make do with reruns. I haven't decided whether or not to watch Pirates of the Carribean on the big screen. I definitely aren't going to spend $9 per person to watch shows like Shrek or Fantastic 4. Will wait for the DVDs instead. Have just seen the trailer for Harry Potter's Order of the Phoenix. Looks good. Looking forward to the last installation of Harry Potter too. Will be out in July I think.

6. In another few days will be our 1st anniversary at this current home. Some of the units have changed hands already. The unit next to ours is finally sold and the new owners will be moving in very soon. Have met them. Very friendly people. Not sure where they're from. US perhaps?

I read about this girl in the papers. May. She was young, only 29 I think. I'm not sure whether the autopsy has been completed. But her family & friends believed she died from over-work.

She was thrilled when she landed a job as a admin executive/manager. But what May did not count on was how demanding the job was. It was common for her to wake up at 3.30am and start work at 4.30am in the mornings. She worked long hours even on weekends. In her last blog entry, she complained of stress and failing health. But she decided to hang on because she was a contract staff and she would need to compensate the company should she quit then. All she hoped was to endure for 1 more month.

The irony was that in the same entry she mentioned a contract staff in another company died of a heart attack. She went on to say she didn't want to end up dead for the sake of money. 2 days later she collapsed after working at her laptop for 8 hours non-stop. Doctors suspected that she might have died of Deep Vein Thrombosis due to long hours of inactivity. It is really sad.

Her boss attended her wake and denied he had given the girl too much work.

This particular piece of news caught my attention because I too have been complaining lately of stress and heavy workload. But I have been mindful not to over-stretch myself. I find outlets... I listen to music, chat with friends over the phone, I find time to go to gym plus I am lucky to have my wonderful kids to distract me.

Whatever it is, please listen to your body. No amount of money is worth dying for.

TV not fixed yet. *sigh*

Anyway I finally unboxed the Apple TV last night. First thing I noticed. No cable. I don't think a HDMI cable or component cable is that expensive. Could have just thrown either one in. And I was sure I asked the sales guy at the Apple retail store and he said cables included. Could have saved me a trip. Now I got to go Sim Lim to get a cable. Maybe I should check the internet and see what else I need to get. Not going to keep running to the store.

Episode 18 of Heroes ended with a cliffhanger... Mohinder was pinned to the ceiling.. Peter up against the wall with Sylar slicing his skull open.

I waited 7 weeks and then I got this weird fighting scene that left me scratching me head.

WTF is Peter doing with his back tuned towards Sylar! Back towards the enemy? That seemed too complacent to me. Sylar took his time rising the glass shards with his telekinesis power (which btw is a pretty cool scene). Surely Peter could see that and the very least he could do is DUCK! Come on, Peter! You could absorb the other person's power, at least you could have deflected some of the glass and then perhaps missed 1 "fatal" piece.

If I were the director/script-writer, I would have done the scene differently. First, I would have Peter knocked about a bit more by Sylar (hey! If I going to make people wait for 7 weeks, I better give them more blood! heehee). Then Peter does his invisible thing. Sylar can't see Peter but brings up the shards of glass and shoots them with great force in all directions. Some of the glass pieces got stop in mid-air as Peter too uses the telekinetic power he asborbed from Sylar. Sylar sees it, knows exactly where Peter is standing. He raises a large piece of glass (or knife, whatever) from behind where Peter is "standing" and fires away. Peter is hit and becomes visible again. That way Peter will still be shot from the back and yet FACING Sylar!!!!

And the other issue I have with this episode is ... Why didn't Mohinder kill Sylar when he had the chance to ??!! We all know that was his intention. He tried to shoot Sylar in episode 18 but failed. And then he, even though injured, somehow managed to master enough strength to knock Sylar out with the map (??!!). and then he took his time to check on Peter, and then bring Peter back home to his mom? What happened to "what I'm doing is revenge. Now I can fullfill my duty as a son."? Arrgh!

Ok. Now that I got these two out of my system I can look forward to episode 20.

I never really pay attention to censorship. Especially nowadays when there are ways & means to get the uncensored versions if you really want to. I understand that certain subjects or lyrics may be offensive or taboo to certain groups of people hence why the films or music have to be censored or even banned. But personally I think no one's forcing anyone to listen to their songs or watch their movies. If they offend you then just don't listen. Go ahead, do a self-censorship.

On the local scene, our censorship board is very efficient. Austin Powers 2 had it's title changed from "The Spy Who Shagged Me" to "The Spy Who Shioked Me". I had such a good laugh because "Shiok" means good or nice in Singlish (Singapore's own style of English mixed with Malay and Chinese dialects.) Singapore's board of film censors said the use of the word "shagged" was "crude and offensive".

I thought our censorship board only issues total ban. But recently I found out that a single offensive word could be blanked or masked off leaving the rest of the song intact.

For example, the song Glamorous by Fergie. When I first heard it over the radio I couldn't figure what was the sentence.. "If you ain't got no money get your broke o home." This sentence was repeated quite a number of times. I was wondering what on earh is a broke-O until I saw the MTV online. The line was supposed to be "If you ain't got no money get your broke ass home. " Heh heh.

My kids like James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". Not too long ago we bought the DVD for them They came running to me and told me James Blunt said the naughty word. I couldn't recall there being any profanity in the song. They were so excited and couldn't wait to re-play that part for me. "She could see in my eyes that I was fucking high." Oops. The version I heard on the radio went "flying high". Ok. So there's a clean verion. Now I know.

I bought the AppleTV on Tuesday. I couldn't wait to try it out but my hubby went on a business trip and took my powerbook along. No worries, I still have my old eMac to test on.

I connected my video hard disk to the eMac but somehow the eMac couldn't detect the hard disk. Not sure why. My eMac is still running on ver 10.2 so that might be the problem.

Nevermind I could still run iTunes to see if the appleTV works. But the iTunes in the eMac was ver 6 which didn't have the AppleTV option. I tried to download the newer iTunes but the latest version was for OS 10.3.9 or later so it wouldn't run on my 10.2 OS. Shit! Called Ghost the next day to get a copy of OSX 10.4.

I could test the AppleTv using my notebook. But I didn't have MacDrive so my notebook couldn't read my Mac-formatted hard disk.

But Ghost was busy and couldn't pass me the copy till weekend. *Sigh* No choice but to wait till Saturday when my hubby comes home with my powerbook. Saturday came and I reclaimed my powerbook. But Saturday was a real busy day so I thought I would leave it till Sunday.

Guess what happened on Sunday?

My TV broke down! WTF! The TV is only 10 month old! If this isn't worthy of a Arrgghh moment, I don't know what else is. 6 days after I bought the AppleTV, it's still in the shrink-wrap box. Now gotta hunt for the warranty card to get the TV fix first....

Here's something for you to chase away those income tax blues.

Just e-filed mine this morning. When it comes to tax matters, my motto is "do not do today what you can put forth till tomorrow" . I would probably have pushed it till the very last minute if I had not seen the newspapers. It said about 40% of the tax payers have not filed yet. So I better not risk it. Their server would not be able to handle a few hundred thousands users all logging in at the same time.

Surprisingly it was a breeze logging in this morning. Guess most people were still in bed. Did mine in less than 15 minutes. Unlike last year when I had so much problem. Took a while for me to figure out what was my password. Can't be helped. This is one password that I use only once a year.

This is one of the must-eat dishes for visitors to Singapore. Bak-Kut-Teh is basically spicy pork ribs soup. Even Thaksin Shinawatra (He made an unofficial visit here in January not long after he was ousted) came all the way here to eat at the bak-kuh-teh stall in Rangoon Road.

My brother bought a box of Teochew-style bak-kuh-teh spice. It claimed to be the authentic Singapore bak-kuh-teh and I'm sure it is. Why? Because the cooking instruction was written in Singlish!

I've tried it already. It's quite good! I love mine to have lots of garlic and pepper. Besides pork ribs, I also added mushrooms. Shiok man!

very badly... feeling kind of burnt out lately. Not surprising considering the number of late nights working on my projects. I hardly get sick but just these couple of months I lost my voice twice.

Construction industry is experiencing a boom right now. Recently two large Integrated Resorts projects were awarded. And many residential properties in the vicinity of these IR projects suddenly see a huge jump in the property prices. And all of a s