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Sunday, November 23, 2008
A Bit of This & A Bit of That
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.
Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday Blues
 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. Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Time
1 more week to my birthday... (i'm still young at heart!!) 1 1/2 weeks to Canon Digital Photomarathon.. 2 1/2 weeks to Deepavali.. 3 1/2 weeks to Bryan's b-day.. 4 weeks to my sis's b-day.. dry period for 6 weeks! no holiday at all!?! Gotta plan something then.. hmmm.. 10 weeks to Hokkaido trip.. (yea!!) 11 weeks to Christmas.. Exactly 12 weeks to end of 2008.. Time flies Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Still waiting for $ingtel
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. "You mean you have the document?" "Yes!" "Could you fax to me?" "I wanted to this morning! Your staff said not necessary!" "Oh. Erm.. can you fax to me now?" *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! Labels: Ramblings, Tech
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Why should I even be surprised
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! Labels: Ramblings, Tech
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Odds & Ends
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! Labels: Family, Ice-cream, Ramblings, Tech, Work
Friday, August 15, 2008
2:32 am
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!
Labels: Ramblings, Work
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Stressed
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* Labels: Health, Ramblings, Work
Monday, August 11, 2008
3 Little New Ones
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
Labels: Ramblings
Monday, August 04, 2008
Weekend
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?
I won't hesitate no more... no more.. it cannot wait.. I'm yours Labels: Music, Ramblings, Work
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Mental Breakdown
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 Hi , the existing shaft they r used 80 tone mobile crane also difficult to drill and now they r using 55 tnes and the vibro already 5 tones . The sheetpile 18 m cut into 12 @ 6 m r they afraid too free nothing to do then cut and join it . For yr info and record.
Hi , i just talk to chris Keith did not pick up my photo , so i hv to talk u . Chris say the blance of the sheetpile also use 12 m then join later , i say no u hv drill stagger because this is an jacking shaft , the existing shaft at a time went up to 1200 tones, don’t play play . i told him i inform u for your discesion. This morning QP MR H0 did said that the sheetpile can not take long time then come and join it would bond by soil.
Finally now from 18 nos to 22 nos they only provide 2 nos of 6m instage of 3 wec staff no body on site to supervise so i hv to talk to indian chip good carry on like this and mark the length and nos on to sheetpile. But they r not do the join imediate , For yr info. Slightly improve.
In the end i called the contractor's project engineer. I literally begged him to please keep to the details shown in my drawings else i'll be bugged to death by my own staff. 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..
Labels: Ramblings, Work
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
ERPed
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!
   Labels: Ramblings
Monday, June 30, 2008
Midlife Crisis Anyone?
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... Individuals experiencing a mid-life crisis have some of these feelings: - 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 They exhibit some of these behaviors:
- abuse of alcohol
- conspicuous consumption , acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as clothing, sports cars, jewellery, gadgets, tattoos, motorbikes, etc.
- depression
- paying special attention to physical appearance Other than "paying special attention to physical appearance" part, I have none of the rest of the symptoms. Guess I'm safe! heehee But seriously, there are definite signs of aging. My eyes weren't as good... I need to hold the newspaper farther away in order to read the print. My metabolic rate dropped.. I'm putting on weight even though there's no change in my daily activities. But other than that, I feel good! I have a wonderful husband and 2 great kids. I have a lot of good friends. I am comfortable with my job. Of course there are ups and downs but I am better at solving problems and managing my life. I am at peace with myself. I don't feel the need to prove myself to anyone. I am more confident. And I actually feel younger than my chronological age. Just realise my last paragraph is full of "I". But then "I" is the keyword here. Witness the power of the ego. I found the time for me. So guess I'm not ready for midlife crisis yet.. Check back in another.... 10 years? Labels: Health, Ramblings
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Repairs
 My car broke down on Tuesday evening.. at peak hour... and it was just serviced last Friday!!! wtf! I was hopping mad. 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. Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
HP Un-service?
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.. Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Up Up and Away #2
Cable just annouced they will increase their rates come September. Wonder which vendor/service provider will be next. Bus? Taxi? MRT? telecom? *sigh* Labels: Ramblings
Monday, June 11, 2007
Up Up and Away!
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! Labels: Ramblings
Friday, June 08, 2007
Week #24
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? Labels: Ramblings
Friday, May 11, 2007
Oh Shit!
Today was one of those days. I had meetings after meetings, couldn't get any proper work done and to end it off, I ran over the foot of my client with my car. I wanted to send her to a hospital for X-ray, just in case. But she didn't think it was necessary. It was painful for sure, but she didn't think anything was broken. Hopefully she's ok. Will check on her tomorrow. *sigh* Labels: Ramblings, Work
Monday, April 30, 2007
Lesson Learnt... Too Late
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. Labels: Ramblings, Work
Saturday, April 28, 2007
AppleTV
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.
Labels: Ramblings, Tech
Thursday, April 26, 2007
0.7%
 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. Labels: Ramblings, TV/Movies
Monday, April 23, 2007
Music Censorship
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. Labels: Music, Ramblings
Sunday, April 22, 2007
One of Those Arrrrggggh Moments
 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.... Labels: Ramblings, Tech
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tax Blues
 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. Labels: Ramblings
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Bak Kut Teh
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!
Labels: Cooking, Humor, Ramblings
Friday, March 16, 2007
Need a Break..
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 sudden, many developers started increasing their private properties prices. And many people, afraid that the prices will escalate further, went into some sort of panic buying and ended up pushing up the prices even more. And developers who wanted to take advantage of this, started launching more residential projects.
Anyway, I'm in the geotechnical engineering line and am involved in many temporary excavation projects. So naturally projects started coming in fast and furious. I was caught off guard when my engineer suddenly resigned. My draftsman suffered some form of depression. Not from work but he felt lonely being in a foreign country with his wife and kids back in Philippines. He too, decided to quit. My younger engineer who hasn't been back to China for the last 4 years, wanted to fly home to visit his parents during the Chinese New Year period.
So all of a sudden, I had 6 brand new projects but no one to help me. I had to attend the meetings, do the analysis, prepare the drawings, conduct presentations to clients/authorities for all the 6 projects within 3 months. These are on top of my on-going projects. I almost died from lack of sleep and exhaustion.
I managed to push out most of it. Hopefully things will slow down a bit. need.to.catch.my.breathe.
*sigh*
Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, March 04, 2007
New Colors
My cat, Ebbi, loves my computer... the CRT monitor actually. It was warm and wide enough for her to curl up on. I replaced it with a LCD screen so now she's sleeping on my laptop instead. Sometimes, she wouldn't wait and would walk right up to my powerbook and planted her furry butt on my keyboard while I was still typing! Yesterday I had to leave my powerbook to run a video conversion software. I sort of lowered the cover so that Ebbi wouldn't be able to walk across the keyboard. And guess what happened when I got back? Yes, there she was, resting comfortably on the keyboard. Not only did she manage to lift up the cover, she renamed my hard-disk to "zzzzzzz", took 4 screen shots, and switched my screen color to negative. Black became white, white became black, green became pink and blue became hues of yellow and orange. It took me a while to figure how to switch the color back. Ctrl-Option-Command-8.. amazing how she has triggered a complex command like that accidentally. Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Shopping Cart 2
Just came back from dinner at United Square. Guess what we saw another abandoned shopping cart in the car park. My kids couldn't wait to get the cart back to the supermarket. We had a bet how much would we find in the coin slot. And this time it was a 1-dollar coin. This is turning into a little game for us! Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Shopping Cart
We were at United Square for dinner and saw a shopping cart in the car-park. My kids noticed that the coin-slot was closed, meaning a 1-dollar coin was in there still. They asked if they could push the cart back to the supermarket and keep the dollar. I said yes since the cart was obviously abandoned by someone who probably felt it was a hassle to return the cart to get back the dollar. We took the lift, got down to the basement where the supermarket was. At the cart-bay, my boy pushed the key into the catch to release coin-slot. And guess what we found! In the coin-slot was a 20 cent coin instead of a one-dollar coin. WTF! The guy (or gal) who could afford a car could not even spare a dollar for the use of the shopping cart! Well we had a good laugh... and we kept the 20 cent. heehee. Labels: Ramblings
Monday, January 15, 2007
Wet Wet Wet
It's raining again... The weather is crazy. It rained very heavily the week before Christmas, causing flooding in the low-lying areas, fallen trees and even led to some slope failures. According to the meteorological services, the rain on 18 Dec 2006 was the highest record in last 75 years. It sort of dried up a bit during Christmas and New Year and I thought the worst was over. I was wrong. It started raining again on Tuesday and didn't stop till Friday. There was no reports of flood this time. But there was a massive landslide somewhere in Hillview. And more fallen trees. Stupid rain. I can't get my laundry done at all. We hang our wet laundry at all imaginable places. Without the sun, all our clothes have got this horrid, damp smell. The basement room was so humid that I've got mould growing on our shoes and leather bags. I even got mould on the doors. Think I should be able to grow mushrooms soon. But we ought to be thankful. Our problems weren't so bad. I met up some of our neighbours on Monday and it seemed a number of them has got leaks in their houses. Anyway I just bought another dehumidifier from Best Denki. Cost me $770. Bloody expensive. Stupid rain. Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
A New Year
Haven't been posting for a while. Lazy. Why else? New Year New Resolutions. I don't think I make any last year. But this year I want to start on a healthier life-style. Hopefully I'll be able to influence my kids to follow me. I've already joined California Fitness Club last month and I've been going qute regularly. About 3 times a week. I even signed up a personal trainer 'cos I'm not familiar with the gym equipment. I want to learn to use the machines properly. I am serious about getting myself in shape! Gu said California Fitness is a gay pick-up joint. Yet to meet one. Last year has been quite hectic. But generally everything went fairly smoothly. Whatever problems I faced at the beginning of the year were more or less resolved. So I had a peaceful Christmas and New Year weekends. The long weekends were great. Gu and the gang came over on Christmas eve. It's been kind of a traditional thing for us since we first met in 1997. This Last (since it's already 2007) Christmas, I decided to roast my own turkey. Couldn't find fresh turkey so bought a frozen one. Took 4 days to defrost that frozen chunk of bird. I marinated it oriental-style using five spice powder, soy sauce, sesame seed oil and basil. The turkey turned out pretty good for a first attempt... juicy and tender. I made fresh cranberry sauce, cranberry relish, roasted spicy pumpkin soup, shepherd's pies, apple pie. My friends brought dishes too so we had plenty to eat. The rest of the week was relatively peaceful. Just the way I want to end the year. Happy New Year! Labels: Ramblings
Friday, October 13, 2006
October Friday 13th
Just realised that it's Friday 13th, October today. The so-called unluckiest of unlucky days! I suddenly became curious about the origins of this Friday 13th day being unlucky and I did a search with Google. Here's what I found, 1. Hundreds of Knights Templars was arrested and tortured into admitting heresay on October 13, 1307. 2. Dossey, also a folklore historian and author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun, said fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day. 3. There is also a biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper. 4. According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. In exceeding 12 by 1, Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy." And get this... the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia. This is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia which is a phobia of the number thirteen. Paraskavedekatriaphobia... well if I'm going for a spelling bee contest, I'll definitely develop a phobia. That word is unpronounceable! Labels: Ramblings
Friday, September 29, 2006
Lost
I was hopelessly lost somewhere in Geylang yesterday. Was supposed to meet a few friends for lunch at Paramount Hotel at 11.45am. I finished my meeting in Pandan area at 11.30am. If I took the AYE towards ECP, I would have reached there on time. I was talking to Gu, as usual when I'm on the expressway, on the cell phone. I was too engrossed and missed the ECP exit. That's my first mistake. I took next exit at Merchant Road and thought I could cut through town and re-enter ECP. I was somewhere in town and then I thought why should I go onto ECP again. I could go by Mountbatten Road instead. This was my second mistake. So I drove down Eu Tong Seng Street towards Victoria Street. I was supposed to turn onto a side road at the Sims Ave to go onto Mountbatten Road. But I realised I missed that turning after I passed it. Damn the road signs! Can't LTA put the road signs way ahead of turnings? Anyway I missed that turning and went much further down. I was trying to decide whether to do a U-turn back onto Geylang Road or to carry on. But as the traffic was rather heavy I decided to go down Sims Ave and turn off at Tanjong Katong instead. That was another bad mistake. I was caught in a traffic jam. And would you believe it? I missed that Tanjong Katong turning too! WTF! This time I was distracted by a phone call. It was already 12.10pm and I was still nowhere near my destination. And the traffic was unbelievably bad. The road diversions didn't help at all. And after driving another 10mins, I had no idea where I was. Well, I tried to stop at the roadside to check the road directory to get my bearings. I never really like this latest edition, and I almost want to toss that %#@! book out of the window. I already had my hazard lights. But this stupid taxi came up behind me and started honking. Had no choice but to move off. Anyway I managed to get my destination at 12.45pm. So a would-have-been-15 min drive took me 1 hour. Most embarrassing. Moral of the story? Turn off my phone when I'm on the road. Labels: Ramblings
Friday, September 15, 2006
13th Week at New Home
Have more or less gotten used to the new place.
We had relatives and close friends over for house-warming dinners in August. And it took us 4 weekends to cover all the immediate relatives and friends. So we've made full use of the bbq pit we bought. Even experimented with bbq recipes downloaded from allrecipes.com for variety. Luckily those first attempts turned out quite well.
Neighbours are generally quite friendly, you know, the usual exchange of smiles, hellos and how-do-you-dos when we run into one another. The locals tend to be a bit more reserved and will not make the first move to say hi. The expats are more ready with smiles. I've met most of our neighbours, usually at the swimming pool... so I often see them in semi-naked conditions.. heehee Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The hunter hunts no more
 When Gu told me Steve Irwin got stung by a stingray, my immediate reaction was "stingray can sting people one meh? " Forgive my Singlish, but I was shocked! Apparently Steve was swimming in shallow waters on the Great Barrier Reef filming a documentary segment for his daughter's upcoming TV show. He was directly over a bull stingray when the stingray's barb came up, pierced his chest and punctured his heart. It was really a freak accident. I've seen live stingrays before and always thought those to be rather passive sea creatures. It's common to find stingrays in local food stalls. In fact I just had grilled stingray at Newton Food Centre 2 days ago! Poor Steve. What a horrible way to die. He's always so enthusiatic and larger than life on screen. I guess I never give much thought about it. But all of them naturalists put themselves in much risks to bring us all those documentaries, don't they? Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Happy Hatch-Day, Richard Gere!
If I'm not wrong, it's Richard Gere's birthday today. Remember his Visa commercial? The one with the hundreds of birds? ...beautiful scenery.. nice plot-line.. but a bit weird.. marketplace excepts visa card? hmm... Anyway have you wondered what that single generous gesture of the handsome tourist did to the city? Mr. Brown has the answer. (An old podcast but very enjoyable nonetheless!) Labels: Ramblings
Friday, August 11, 2006
羲 Xi
Gu created a blog for Ian, my godson. Finally I see my almost-computer-illiterate-buddy putting up a really good effort in setting up the blog. Can't wait to see more pictures. Ian's Chinese name is a terror to write! 洪承羲 goodness! that last character alone has 18 strokes! I have not been updating my ipod recently. Last night I downloaded about 10 of Mr. Brown Show podcasts. Had a really good laugh, especially the ones about the ERP, Banned Names and Well-behaved Taxi Drivers. Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Week #31
Stayed up till 1 am this morning to organise all the stuffs in our store-room and the basement bedroom. One thing about me...once I start packing, I will not stop till I done... which is why sometimes I don't want to start in the first place.
 Bought a barbecue gas grill last weekend. It's got features like 3-gas burners, a built-in thermometer, electric ignition, adjustable heat controls and it uses lava stones. Well.. again it's one of those impulse buys. Come to think of it... the grill is nothing but a outdoor gas-stove. We went to this bbq mart on Sunday, thinking of buying a simple, humble bbq pit that uses charcoal. But were talked into getting this model ...err.. I can't even remember what brand it is (told you it was an impulse buy). That sales lady is good! Anyway delivery is this evening and we'll take our cooking outdoor this Saturday.
All that grilled stuffs will not be good for me.. for my weight. I met a couple of old friends yesterday at Rocher beancurd stall. They both said I've put on quite a bit of weight. My bathroom scale has been telling me that too. Hubs said I shouldn't be skipping meals or doing crash diets because of the yo-yo effect. What yo-yo effect? Yo-yo goes up and down, up and down. My weight is more like superman.. Up up and away!! I got to do something about it before it really runs away. Hubs is helping me set up the indoor-trainer for my very-under-used-road-bike tonight. Guess I better start exercising again. Wish me luck!
Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Ghost Month
The Festival of the Hungry Ghost has started. This falls on the 7th lunar month. It is believe that during this month, the gates of hell are thrown open and the ghosts are free to roam the earth. Food, prayers, incense and 'hell money' are offered to appease these roaming spirits. Performances of Chinese street operas or wayang are held at night to provide "entertainment" for the spirits. At the end of the month, the ghosts will return to hell. So the 7th month is almost like the "Spring Break" equivalent for the ghosts. This year is rather unusual because there is a leap 7th lunar month meaning there is a double set of 7th month. Generally events such as weddings, business opening ceremonies, moving house, house renovations etc. will not be carried out during this month. It's considered bad luck. So I'm not sure whether the same will be observed for the second month 'cos this could mean a serious drop in business for many. Yesterday was the first day of the Hungry Ghost Festival and already the walkways and void decks are littered with piles of burnt offerings. Smoke gets in my eyes everywhere I go. Think the air pollution index will be up this month. Labels: Ramblings
Friday, July 21, 2006
I'm Young at Heart!
Well. How else should I decsribe myself since I'm officially middle-age when I received my ElderShield insurance letter today? Now I need to decide whether to stay with the automatic insurance scheme or to opt out. This is one of those Silence-means-Consent letters that I really dislike. (How about me sending you a letter telling you that I want your money and if I don't receive any disagreement from you in writing, I'll go ahead and empty your bank account?) Premium is about $191 per year, to be deducted automatically from my CPF account starting from age 40 till 65. (now you know my age...*sniff*) I'm supposed to get a payout of $300 per month subject to a maximum of 60 months when I become "disabled". And by "disabled", it means I'm unable to perform at least 3 of the activities of daily living even with the aid of special equipment and always to require physical assistance of another person throughout the entire activity. Hmm.. let's see... definition of Activities of Daily Living (ADL.. I hate acroymns!) .. washing, dressing, feeding, toileting, mobility and transferring. Whoa. At least 3 of these? Have to be almost an invalid before I could get the money! Total premium I'll be paying is S$4750 over the 25 years. Maximum amount I can get is $18,000. But I'll only receive the payout only if I become invalid. There's no surrender value. And I won't get my $4750 back should I stay healthy. In other words, it'll only benefit me if I become "disable" and then miraculously "recover" 5 years later because I won't get a single cent after that. $300 is too small a sum considering the fact that I'll be seriously dependent on others. With the high costs of living and medical here, I doubt the additional $300 is going to have much impact. And 60 month is too short a period too. So if I become "disabled" when I'm 65, I'll only receive money till I'm 70. But the average life-span is 75 years. Not to mention that woman's life-span is about 4 years longer than man! Nah. I'll opt out. Perhaps I'll get myself one more insurance policy for my retirement. Now that I'm 40, old-age seemed so much closer. Where did all the time go? Scary. Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Week #26
We are still trying to get used to the new house.. it doesn't feel like home yet. Our cat, Ebbi, has been hiding in the basement for the past week. And today she finally came up to the living room and started exploring the place. She was still quite wary and a slight noise would send her dashing back to the basement. It would be a good 5 minutes before she dare to come out from under the sofa again. Poor thing. Looks like we managed to solve the ants problem. Haven't seen major ant-activity for the last few days. I just set up the printer for wireless LAN. It's a Canon MP800R we bought during the recent IT fair. Now everyone can print anything from anywhere in the house. What I like about it was that we could use it as a copier or scanner without having to turn on the pc. Was going through the various functions and found that it came with adaptors for scanning films and direct printing onto CDs too. Cool! Spoke to Gu earlier. The poor chap had a cyst-scare. He did the CT scan and cystoscopy. And boy did he suffer! From what he described the cystoscopy thing was a really painful experience. Luckily the cyst in his kidney was benign. He had kidney stones.. but not too serious. Merc was also sent to the hospital recently because of kidney stones. Guess I better make sure I drink enough water everyday. Heard that Glenn Ong is leaving Class95. I hope not! The morning shows will not be the same without him! Labels: Ramblings
Friday, May 19, 2006
Wind of Change
Just about everyone is changing the looks of their blogs... darth, texas biscuit, aome... actually I'm rather tired of mine too. Guess it's about time for a make-over too. The works on our new home is on-going. Got a carpenter to help with some cabinets. The kids have just finished their exams and we will start packing this weekend. We are planning to move during the June school holidays... not too far off.. really looking forward to it! We spent the last weekend cleaning and painting the roof terrace. Got a feeling that the roof terrace will be my fav part of the house. There is always a nice breeze in the evening and the view is beautiful. Will try to post some photos over the next few days. Saw this personality test at dyeann's, The Picto-Personality Test
You are a person who lives in the moment and is passionate about whatever and whoever you love.
When alone, you appreciate being able to do nothing if you want to, and setting your own pace for things.
You are adventurous, always up to do the most extreme things. You have a certain recklessness that makes people very attracted to you.
In the future you will have a good family life and lots of friends.
| | Take this Test at QuizGalaxy.com |
I love it when I read nice things about me! Labels: Ramblings
Monday, April 03, 2006
Week #14
 Celebrated my god-son's 1st birthday on Saturday. Can't believe how time flies. He's so cute! And his dad deliberately smeared the cake on his nose & lips. I'll keep this How-my-dad-humiliated-me-when-I-was-a-kid-photo for Ian. heh heh. At work, dust has settled a little and things are looking up. Out of the 3 projects having problems, two were almost resolved with minimal impact on my company. The last one is a little tricky. So keeping my fingers-crossed. My boss hasn't fully recovered yet. He's going for weekly check-ups and on his last visit, his doctor told him there was some improvement. At least he's alot cheerful now.
At home, we are still looking around for furnitures and stuffs for the new house. Many weekends were spent at furniture warehouse sales, lighting shops, browsing through home-decor books etc. We plan to move in around June, after the kids' examinations. Anyway, there are still some defects in the floorings and the contractor is working on those now. I can't believe the contractor! I complained about one of the wardrobe doors because it wouldn't close properly. The worker took the whole door off its hinges and when he returned it a week later, there was a lot of bad scratches on it and it still couldn't close properly. I'm making a (defects) list and checking it twice! Our present home is in a real mess now. Pretty hard to get the kids to clean their rooms.. their replies "Whatever for? We're moving soon." And I'm not exactly a good role model here either. The pile of clothes on the sofa is getting higher and I haven't gotten around to fold them. But I'm busy with work! (excuses, excuses.. heh heh..luckily my own mom isn't around here to nag me!) Between work and home, I haven't been able to find time to exercise. I haven't gone for the aerobics class in months and my last brisk walking was in January! Haven't put on weight though. That's because I was so busy in office that I usually skip lunch. I'm also starting on a night course this week - Erosion Control Measures. Not that I'm so studious! No way! But there is a new Building Authority requirement where only those who have completed the course are allowed to endorse on drawings pertaining to erosion control matters. Since all my projects involve excavations and require some form of erosion control, I don't have a choice. The first lesson starts tomorrow night, from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. And of all days, tomorrow at 10.00pm is the premiere of CSI:NY Season 2. Hopefully the class ends on time. I might just make it home in time for the premiere. Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Chap Goh Meh
Literally translated ... 15th Night... of the Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is celebrated over a period of 15 days. Well tonight is the last night of the celebrations, last round of dinners, fireworks, last chance to collect red packets. And in the past, the 15th night was sort of a Chinese version of "Valentine's Day". My mom told me that in the past, young maidens would dress up on this night and there would be young admirers hanging around hoping to get the attention of the pretty girls. The young maidens would throw tangerines into the river. Apparently they would attract good husbands by doing so. Perhaps that was how she met my father! hee hee..  No New Year feast would be complete without Yu-Sheng. I had 5 rounds of Lo-Hei Yu-Sheng (撈起魚生）this year. My husband isn't too fond of it, saying it's all commercialism. But I really enjoy the ritual of having Yu-Sheng during Chinese New Year. Why not since it symbolizes good luck? It's basically a colorful salad with raw fish, crackers and peanut, topped with a honey and plum sauce. The various ingredients have associated auspicious sayings. And you are supposed to recite them as you place the ingredients onto the plate. There are variations but essentially, the dish consists of 1. A bowl of cooking oil (万事如意 May all things happen according to your wishes) 2. A bowl of plum sauce (金玉滿堂 May all your hallways be filled with gold and jade) 3. Five spices powder (鴻運當頭 May good luck be ahead of you) 4. Lime juice (大吉大利 Best of luck & prosperity) 5. Salmon fish (年年有餘 May you receive good tidings in abundance year after year) 6. Shredded turnip & carrot (風生水起 May your fortune rise with the wind & tide) 7. Golden brown flour chips (遍地黃金 May the ground your tread on be covered with gold) As you are about to start the tossing you'll have to say May all see their fortune rise higher with each toss! So you can imagine the gorgeous mess we make. Everyone, armed with a pair of chopsticks, will dig into the large dish and try to out do another, tossing the salad as high as he can! The higher you toss, the better the fortune for the coming year. You simply can't resist it! 大家一起撈吧！越撈越高！ Labels: Ramblings
Saturday, January 28, 2006
新年快樂！
 Just came back from our reunion dinner at my parents' place. As usual we had steamboat. I was so busy with that problem at NUS that I didn't have time to do any proper spring cleaning. But since the Chinese New Year is a very special occasion for us, I couldn't leave our house in a mess. So last night I slept at about 10.00pm, woke up this morning at 3.30am and started cleaning the house. It's amazing how much rubbish could accumulate in just one year. Anyway, since we are moving soon, I took this opportunity to throw away some of the useless, old stuffs. I packed the wardrobe (nope! no hidden world in there..), scrubbed the kitchen, toilets...Hubby and the kids helped too. So finally we managed to make our home presentable for receiving the New Year. Too tired to bring the kids to Singapore River for the carnival. There's going to be a fireworks display at mid-night. Anyway I think the kids prefer to stay at home. Recently they were crazy over some on-line games, Maple Story, i think. And since tomorrow is a holiday, I allowed them to stay up a bit later. They're at the pc now. Not too sure when they intent to sleep. For me? I'm so dead tired. *YAWN* I can barely keep my eyes open. So here's wishing Chinese all over the world a very happy Lunar New Year! Since this is the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Dog, 我祝大家 心想事成，狗年"旺旺"！ Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Bang Bang
My year 2005 ended with a bang and I started 2006 with another. It had been raining continuously from early December and so many of my projects encountered problems. Not only progress was badly affected but a number of my temporary retaining walls showed signs of movements. On 11 Jan at 7.10am, a terraced slope in NUS outside the Business School building came sliding down, destroying the landscape and a stretch of drain at the base of the slope. An underground sewer line was also damaged. It looked rather bad. I walked along a section of the slope and checked the exposed soils. Just as expected... the earth was totally soaked from the rain. Since the Business School is sitting at the top of the slope just a couple of metres away from the edge of the failure, NUS's Office Estate Dept otherwise known as OED ( I can't stand acronyms!) is worried that the building might be affected. A Crisis Management Centre was immediately set up at OED to monitor the situation and put in place some slope stabilising procedures. How did I get involved? Too tired to explain now. (I've been going back and forth NUS everyday, including Sunday.) Perhaps tomorrow. I'll return with some pictures. Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Into year 2006
Year 2005 ended with a bang for me. One of the temporary retaining walls I designed moved quite a bit during excavation. And it happened on 30 Dec, 2 days to the New Year! Needless to say I had to be at the site on New Year's Eve. I suspect the wall penetration wasn't deep enough. Anyway after the recent collapse cases (not mine! someone else's), any kind of wall movements, big or small, will send clients into hysterics. So my clients got very worried and emails were shooting all over, demanding for explanations & rectifications. Since it was my job, I have to deal with them. Oh well. Let's talk about something more pleasant. Guess what? I bought the 5th gen ipod! The ipod that plays video!  Got mine just before Christmas and I love it! My U2 ipod was solely for music. But with this new ipod, I'm carrying around my family photos, videos I've yet to watch and lyrics to all my fav songs. (There's this nice little widget, Singtune, that will search for the lyrics to the songs I'm playing, stores them into itunes and then into the ipod when I plug it to my computer.) Music is great, of course. And I was really impressed with the video quality. I've plugged it to the TV. Quality is good but I did notice some banding in the darker areas. Battery life is alright. I was able to get about 2.5~3 hours of video. I read somewhere I should get longer hours by using a lower bitrate for the videos. My U2 ipod is still sitting in my drawer. Thought of selling it but doubt I'm able to get a good price for it. I might just give it to my kids. In fact my daughter is eyeing my old ipod. Labels: Ramblings
Friday, December 30, 2005
Gonna drink less beer,
And start all over again.
Gonna read more books,
Gonna keep up with the news,
Gonna learn how to cook,
And spend less money on shoes.
Pay my bills on time,
File my mail away, everyday,
Only drink the finest wine,
And call my Gran every Sunday.
Resolutions,
Well Baby they come and go.
Will I do any of these things?
The answer's probably ..... noWell! It's that time of the year again. Resolutions! Let's see..... 1. I'm a procrastinator... that gotta be changed.. 2. I'm spending way too much.. gotta save up.. 3. I'll learn how to cook 4. I'll pay my bills on time.. too much incurred for late charges 5. I'll file my mails away, everyday.. I lost my bills so often which was why I didn't pay my bills on time.. hahaha... Yup! Jamie Cullum sang that song for me! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
Drink & be Merry!!! just don't drive after that!
Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, December 18, 2005
What will they think of next?
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
What a week!!
Never thought I could get any busier. My boss is now in Canada for a 4 week vacation. And I thought I could, you know, take it easy for these couple of weeks. BUT!! I had to take over his projects. So I'm handling something like 18 projects at one time. And my temporary assistant engineer, who was supposed to join us full time this month, had to delay it till next June. He's currently doing his PhD in NTU. He was targetting to submit his thesis by this month but his supervisor made him extend his course for another 6 months! Now I'm in trouble! I'm short of manpower! On top of that, my daughter didn't do very well in class and I had to send her to some Maths/English enrichment classes everyday! I had to drop her off at school in the morning, pick her up after class at noon, drop her off at my mom's place and then rush back to office. Luckily this is her last week. No time for lunch. No time to blog. No time to watch my CSIs. ARRRGGHHHH!!!! (A good thing comes out of this though.. i'm losing weight because of stress!! *LOL*) Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Moove is More?
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? Labels: Photography, Ramblings
Friday, February 18, 2005
#@!%
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. Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, February 17, 2005
TOTO Hongbao Draw 2005
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 Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Remembering 15 February 1942
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.... Labels: Ramblings
Monday, February 14, 2005
Gambling during CNY
We met up with some old friends last Saturday. And as part of our "tradition" (actually more like theirs), we'll have a friendly gambling session. Gu has been asking me, for many years, to learn mahjong. But I have no interest what so ever. So I never join in any of their mahjong sessions. Anyway last Saturday, they decided to play card games instead. I obliged, since it was Chinese New Year after all. So I grabbed a bunch of coins and joined in. Well, I'm just as sotong when it comes to cards. They even have to teach me how to play Black Jack. Heard of it but never played before. In short I lost all the coins I have. My daughter who was watching me, asked me whether my friends would return me the money. I told her the money was gone. She wasn't too happy about that, so I took the opportunity to explain to her about gambling and why I wasn't in favor of it.
During the CNY dinner gathering last Wednesday, the topic of gambling and casino was also brought up. Cousin Neo asked each of us whether the proposal of building casino in Singapore will go ahead. Most of us said yes. I, too, think that there is a 90% chance that the idea would be pushed through. But I really hope I'm wrong. So we'll wait and see, and talk about it one year later when we have our annual gathering again.
Labels: Ramblings
Friday, February 11, 2005
How'd You Like the New Look?
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. Labels: Ramblings
HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!
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 Labels: Ramblings
Monday, February 07, 2005
Spring Cleaning
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. Labels: Ramblings
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Is this how u train a dog?
Never own a dog. Just cats, birds & fishes so far.
Saw a chap at the void deck training his dog in the afternoon. He had the dog, a Jack Russell, on a leash. He took a few steps with the dog beside him. The moment he stopped, he ordered it to do the same. If the dog didn't stop, the chap would pull its leash real hard. So a couple of times the poor thing was like hanging by his collar, with his front legs barely touching the ground. A real mean thing to do to a dog.
Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Sometimes I wonder
Is all this worth it...
I'm so busy. I stopped all free-lancing video & photo projects, deciding to concentrate on my career in the construction industry & family. But even then, I still have so little time to myself.
Take for example today (actually yesterday since it's past 12midnite), I woke up at 5.30am, sent both kids to work, dropped Fang off too, and then drove back to office. I reached office at 7.35am and worked till 8.00pm. After that I rushed off to pick up the kids from my mom's place. Grabbed a quick bite while waiting for the kids to pack their stuffs. Reached home at 9.00pm. Got the kids to bed by 9.45pm. Showered, checked emails, and started working on a report again at 11pm till 1.45am. And I'll have to wake up again at 5.30am. Even with the long hours I put in, I can't seem to clear my workload! HELP!!!
The weird part is I didn't go look for the projects, they just come. And it's so hard to turn them down. *Sigh* I don't know whether to be glad or not. Perhaps I should look into outsourcing some of the work. Either that or hire more staff. I think I need a course in time management too.
But luckily I'm not the sort to get stressed up easily. I guess listening to music while working helps. The phone calls from the kids during office hours cheer me up too. Thank God for the kids!
Labels: Ramblings, Work
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Short Trip to Kuala Lumpur
Had to make a short trip to KL yesterday for a meeting. I woke up real early, at about 5.30am, planning to catch the early shuttle flight to KL. My husband, Fang, was to fetch the kids to school. Bryan woke up fine but Rachel threw a bit of tantrum. She's still not used to waking up so early. Can't blame her. Poor thing.
So I stayed to help Fang to get the kids ready for school. By the time I was done, I knew I missed the 1st flight. It was about 6.40am when I reached Changi airport. Found out I missed the 2nd flight too. The next flight was 8.30am. So I got my boarding pass, went through the immigration, took my breakfast at Coffee Bean and then walked around the shopping area in the terminal. I love airports! Everyone is busy yet relaxed, if you know what I mean.
I had window seat and spent most of my time looking out the window at the land below. It was a beautiful day for flying. Cute fluffy clouds floating weightless over the green land below. Nice!
The total travel time, flight plus KL Express to KL Central, took about 2 hours. And at KL Central, I met a fellow lady engineer who drove me to their site office. After that it was all about work. I did promise myself to visit KL with my family in the near future. I've yet to visit KLCC, the famous twin tower in KL.
I finished my meeting and site visits by about 3.30pm. After that they dropped me off at KL Central again, and there I took the express back to KLIA (KL International Airport). Again it was waiting time. Luckily I had my PDA which doubled as a MP3 player. So I was wired for sound. (It'll have to do until my iPod arrives.) There was a large crowd waiting for the shuttle flight. Never knew there were so many commuters. Luckily I managed to get on the 6.50pm flight and arrived back to Singapore at about 8pm. Took my dinner at the airport. By the time I reached home, it was past 9.30pm. One thing I noticed while queueing at the boarding gate . The metal detector at our airport is very sensitive. Out of 10 people going through it, 8 triggered off the alarm. Me included. I was wearing my old Timberland boots with metal lace-rings (?). This pair of boots always give me problems at airports' metal detectors. But it's really comfortable so I always ended up wearing it. KLIA's metal detector didn't go off though.
Anyway, it was a tiring day. A nice break from office.. even though it was still work.
Btw.. found out in today's papers that the Morning Express split-up was a frank. They will be off for a week and the team will be back on again next Monday. Hmm.. kind of a stupid thing to do. I mean, what if some of the listeners get turned off and decided to boycott them. Sometimes these 3 jokers get too carried away. Labels: Ramblings, Work
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Changes
I have become so accustomed to the schedule of programs on Class95. The first thing I do when I get into my car is to turn on the radio. It's Morning Express on my way to work and Cartunes on my way back.
 I love the fun and wacky DJs of the Morning Express - Flying Dutchman, Glen & Rod - I can't even count the number of times I laughed out loud while driving. It's my morning fix, other than my black coffee.
 Mark Richmond takes the Cartunes. I will send out a song request via SMS before I drive off and wait for it to be played while on the road. Songs are great since these are requests by listeners. And Mark is ever the gentleman and will call me back when the songs I chose are not available.
But these will be changed. Mark has gone into management (Congrads! But does that mean I'll never hear your voice again?). MX will be taken off the air and this is its last week of broadcasting. I'm not opposed to change. For Class95 it's usually to something better, so that's good. But there's comfort in repetitions. You know what I mean, having something (someone) being there all the time. Oh well. The moral of the story (there's always one) - Never take things for granted. FD, Glen, Rod & Mark. Love you guys! Wishing you all the best wherever you're assigned to! Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Saturday, January 01, 2005
A Subdued Welcome for the Year 2005
Many local event organisers have scaled back the celebrations for ushering in 2005, as a mark of respect to the tsunami victims. MediaCorp TV has also decided not to telecast the countdown party in Sentosa. Others such as the Downtown East party, will be turned into a fund raising events instead. It's the only right thing to do I guess.
Every year I will spend the last 30 minutes reflecting on the year that's about to end. Well. It's that time of the year again.
This has been quite a year. In Singapore, the top news that came to mind immediately are the high profile construction accidents of the Nicoll Highway collapse and the industrial accident at Fusionpolis, outbreak of bird-flu leading to a severe shortage of eggs and poultry, death of Huang Na, and of course the killer waves on 26 Dec 2004. But not all are bad news. The economy has improved somewhat (at least that's what the news said. But I sure don't feel it). PM Goh Chok Tong stepped down with Lee Hsien Loong replacing him as the new Prime Minister.
There's a reform in the education system. There's also the Singapore Idol fever. It's a bittersweet year.
On a more personal front. Well. I got my weblog set up and was even chosen as Blog of the Week within 3 months after I got it up. Work wise has been quite all right. Despite my never-ending complaints about the construction industry, work pace has picked up a bit. And recently I managed to clinch a few large projects. So workwise, the prospect for 2005 looks pretty promising.
Family... all are healthy and happy. A new addition to our family... a male kitten. I wasn't in the mood to write about it because of the recent tragedy. We picked up the stray kitten last week. It's a Tonkinese (I'm guessing from the colors of his coat) and has such pretty blue eyes. It's very frisky. Ebbi wasn't too receptive initially and kept hissing at the poor kitten. But recently she seemed to have gotten used to him. Will try to post some pics at a later.
Resolutions? I usually don't make any. That way I won't feel guilty if I can't adhere to them. I do have 1 for this year which is "Do not put off till tomorrow what you can do today." Mine has always been the reverse.
Hey! It's 12 already. So here's wishing all a better year ahead. Do not look back but step forward instead. Labels: Ramblings
Friday, December 31, 2004
Tsunami Video Footages
Been following the news on the tsunami. The death toll is staggering, exceeding the predicted figure of 100,000. It now stands at 119,000. The latest I've checked from the various news channels is this,
Indonesia - 79,940
Sri Lanka - 24,673
India - 12,230
Malaysia - 64
Maldives - 67
Myanmar - 36
Thailand - 1,975
East Africa - 136 Many more were still missing and feared dead. Many coastal villages were totally wiped out. Watching the aerial video images, it is hard to believe that villages actually once stood at those places. This is Nature at it ruthless best.
I found a few video clips of the tsunami disaster and took the liberty of putting them on my site. You could see from many of the footages people were just hanging around, waiting, awed by the approaching waves. They did not realise the danger they were in. Who could? No one expected it. No warning was given. This was something you see in movies, not in real life.
Phuket
Patong Beach
Penang Beach
Sri Lanka #1
Sri Lanka #2 Koh Lanta
I feel so sorry for the people who have lost their families, their homes, their hopes. I pray that the rescue aids and relief teams will reach them in time to help them through this disaster.
Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Everything else seemed so insignificant..
after what I've seen on the news. Death toll went up by thousands each time I checked. First it was 10,000 dead, then 12,000, 16,000 and now 23,000. It was really heartbreaking watching the scenes of parents hugging and crying over their dead children. One man was painstakingly wiping dirt off the face of his dead relative, weeping silently as he was doing it. My heart aches for him and for those who are suffering.
So it makes me really mad when news reporters interviewing happily smiling families saying how lucky they were to have avoided the disaster areas. Don't you guys have any compassion at all? One family was even worried about getting their refund from the tour agency, having already paid $8000 for the trip to Phuket.
Come on! People are in pain. And all you 'lucky ones' care about is your stinking refunds?
Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, December 26, 2004
What a way to end a year...
Christmas passed quite uneventfully despite all the warnings of impending terrorists attacks. And just as I thought we are going to have a nice and relatively peaceful end to year 2004, the news of tsunami waves hitting Asia killing more than 12,000 people came in.
An earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter Scale occurred somewhere in the Indian Ocean on 26 December early morning. It sent tidal waves across the ocean to as far as Indua, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand. Indonesia's northern Sumatra was the worst hit as it bore the full brunt of the quake aftermat. Coastal villages were swarmed under with more than 4000 people reported dead. Death toll is expected to rise. The aftershocks measured as high as 6.5 too.
The only reason why Singapore was spared was because we were on the other side of Indonesia. I dare not even imagine what would happen to us if a tsunami wave were to hit our island.
My prayers and thoughts are to those affected by the disaster.
Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, December 23, 2004
T'was Eve of Christmas Eve...
Tried 2 new things today. Ice-skating & golf.
Went to Fuji Ice Palace at Jurong Entertainment Centre (Opp. Jurong East MRT Station) in the afternoon. I thought with my limited experience with inline-blading, ice-skating shouldn't be that much of a problem. Boy! Was I wrong! The feeling was totally different. I had to cling onto the railing most of the time. I was afraid I might fall and like I said before, my bones would probably disintegrate on impact with the ground, or in this case, ice. (The scene in Tom & Jerry cartoon whereby Tom shattered into tiny pieces kept intruding my mind.) Bryan & Rachel didn't feel too comfortable too.
At about 7pm, my hubby and I went to Orchid Country Club's driving range to have a beginner's crash course on golf. We had about 30 minutes of basic theory stuff and 1 1/2 hours of hands-on. It was fun whacking the balls. I just imagined that the balls were the heads of those people I couldn't stand. BAM! See how they fly! hahahaha.... But seriously, I think I might take up proper golf lessons. Again, I don't know if I could find the time.
Finally completed our Christmas shopping last night. Spent a hefty sum this year and it took me 2 hours to wrap the presents just now. I ran out of wrapping paper, so will have to continue tomorrow. The presents are all under the Christmas tree. The kids are going to be real happy tomorrow night.
Oh boy... I think I'm going to suffer tomorrow. My arms are aching right now from all that golf-swinging and presents-wrapping. My waist is feeling kind of strained too. Think I better go look for my deep-heat rub.
Well people, I doubt if I have the time to post tomorrow. So here's wishing all of you
 A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! Labels: Health, Ramblings
Monday, December 13, 2004
Over the weekend..
I woke up early last Saturday and headed down to East Coast Park for some inline-skating. Did over 1 1/2hr of blading. Good workout for me. I had to visit a construction site after that. I created a slight commotion amongst the workers when I arrived in shorts & training tops. Had to rush to the washroom a quick chance of clothes. heh heh.. My hubby was somewhere around ECP in the morning too, on his racer. Will start my cycling training soon and hopefully I'll be able to join him on the roads early next year. I definitelty can't keep up with him right now. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm definitely not a sports kind of person. So why all that interests in skating and cycling all of a sudden? Well. I've been gradually putting on weight. I had no less than 4 people telling me that. I was even asked whether I was expecting. That does it!! My hubby has lost quite a bit of weight since he started cycling, about 5~7kg, I think. His health has improved too. He hardly get sick nowadays. Bryan is following my laid-back lifestyle and is also putting on quite a bit of weight. I have to set a good example for the kids. I don't really like to exercise but I dislike taking pills too! Not to mention the risks involved with slimming pills! (Remember Andrea De Cruz's liver failure?) So I guess I don't have much of a choice. Anyway inline skating is rather fun. I went through the basic inline skating lessons with Skateline at ECP Carpark F1. No time to take up the more advance techniques. So right now I only know how to execute a heel-brake. Doesn't look too cool, man! Will see if I can get someone to show me the T-stop. Now that's the nice one! I'm currently staying off the steeper slopes. Don't wanna fall. At my age, my bones will probably disintegrate upon impact with the ground. Labels: Ramblings
Monday, December 06, 2004
Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Had a nice leisurely family cycling trip to Pasir Ris Park in the afternoon. Nice sunny, windy afternoon. Lots of people it being a weekend. As usual, not many users kept to their respective tracks. You have people walking on bicycle tracks and cyclists riding on the footpaths. We stopped at the playground for a short while. The kids like it there. It's not too bad. Lots of slides, swings, rope pyramids and whatyoumacallit.
Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Random Thoughts
Mood : There was a couple of stray cats near my block. One is a young tom cat with a broken tail, and the other is a too-old-t0-be-kitten-but-too-young-to-be-cat female. They are always going around together. That's really cute because cats tend to be more of a loner. Both are really under-nourished. So from time to time, my hubby and I would feed them. They probably have been through a rough time 'cos they are very wary of strangers. I saw the tom this morning but haven't seen the kitten for a while. Hope she's alright. Ebbi is fairly tolerant of us stroking stray cats. She'll just sniff our hands and she's ok. I had a cat long time back that wouldn't allow me to pat her after I stroke other cats, not until I washed my hand. I finished watching the entire 2nd Season Starsky & Hutch set. Love it man! But I was a bit disappointed with the DVD set itself. I had the feeling that the DVD set was hastily put together in order to meet some deadline. First of all the episodes were not in the order which they were first aired. The featurettes included were pathetic, consisting only of previews of the Starsky & Hucth movie DVD and other DVDs. The set of original promotions for the episodes, read by Paul Michael Glaser was included but that was so minimal! I thought at least well, include some of the recent interviews of Paul Michael Glaser, David Soul, Bernie Hamilton and Antonio Fargas. Much as I look forward to getting the 3rd season, I rather they take a bit of time to come out with something better. I enjoyed the series very much. I read somewhere it should be out in March 2005. Watching S & H is a trip down memory lane for me. Spent Sunday cycling at East Coast Park with my family. We recently bought a bicycle rack for the car and we transported 4 bicycles all the way there. It's a good thing we stay fairly close to ECP. Pasir Ris Park is nearer. But somehow all of us prefer ECP. We got caught in the rain again last Sunday. I think generally our health has improved. None of us got sick (touch wood!). Been talking about going blading. But still couldn't manage to fit that into my schedule. I prefer to blade by myself and not with the kids. They couldn't go long distance and I need to do long distances in order for me to really benefit. Weekday mornings are out because we need to send the kids to school or my mom's place. After that it's time to go to work. Evenings are out because by the time we finish dinner, cleaning etc., it's rather late. And I don't fancy blading late at night. Too dangerous. That leaves me with only the early mornings of weekend. Still trying to figure out the arrangement. Perhaps I could switch to cycling instead. My hubby is a regular cyclist and owns a really nice racer. Maybe I should join him. Labels: Ramblings
Friday, November 26, 2004
TGIF
Mood : Busy, busy, busy. I should have stayed an employee rather than go into partnership with my boss. He wants to slow down hence the daily operations etc are left to me. I'm a worker. Still learning how to be a boss myself. Don't exactly know how to delegate work and get my staff to work for me. Will have to rectify that soon or else I'll drop dead! I've finished watching the entire 1st season of Starsky & Hutch. Bought the 2nd seson set on Wednesday. Yet to start on it. Read somewhere that the 3rd season will be released some time in March 2005. I think I'll create a separate Starsky & Hutch Appreciation site. Else the whole of this blog will be full of S & H. Was contacted by a local advertising company. They are interested in buying some of my photos. Cool! (oops... better get back to work. Break time over!) Labels: Ramblings, Work
Monday, November 22, 2004
Weird Behavior in Car parks
mood : 
Maybe it's just me (but then again, my hubby said the same thing!). Our carparks get pretty crowded during the weekends, especially at shopping malls. Sometimes, we have to wait near the lifts for people leaving the malls, try to anticipate where they parked their cars and then "intercept" them.
This is where I notice a rather infuriating behavior. These people who are getting into their cars knew we are waiting for them to leave. But more often than not, you will see them taking their own sweet time to load their stuffs, get into the cars, adjust their seats (as if they've grown longer after a day's shopping), or worst you will see the drivers making phone calls on their mobiles. They just simply refuse to budge! They are so reluctant to give up their parking lots even though they longer need them. So it's like a test of patience to see who gives up first. And you can bet that he'll drive away the moment you move off to look for other places to park!
I came across another 2 behaviors, The driver waved to me indicating he's not leaving yet. I drove past. And hey! I saw him driving away 10 secs after I passed him! The driver stayed very quietly in the car. No headlights nothing. I didn't notice that the car was about to leave as there was no sign of it. And the moment I passed him, he drove off. And I had to reverse or make a U-turn to get back to the parking lot.
Very weird.
Labels: Ramblings
Friday, November 19, 2004
Huang Na again...
Now it's her parents in the limelight. It is a Chinese custom for relatives & friends to contribute money to help with the funeral expenses. We call this "white-gold", literally translated from Chinese. In Huang Na's case, because of the high pubilicity of her tragic death, many Sinagporeans and even people from neighbouring countries came to her funeral. And many made monetary contributions. It was rumored that the total sum collected is in the region of S$200K.
Recently, a local talking-point show, brought up an issue. At the initial part of the funeral, the parents indicated that they would donate some of the money to charity because they were not hard-up for the money. Now, after the funeral rites were over, Huang Na's parents have kept a fairly low profile. The show asked why didn't her parents disclose the amount collected. The show mentioned that since the public was so immensely involved, shouldn't the public know how much was the total collection?
This led to a very hot debate on whether Huang Na's parents should disclose the total amount of money collected. Many felt that there was no need for secrecy, and that the public has a right to know. Others felt that this was a private matter and there's no obligation on their part to disclose anything. The show was a live-telecast and they tried to call her parents over phone for clarification. They didn't take the calls and that gave rise to speculations and gossips, and even demands that they come forward to explain themselves.
Now. My take is this,
a. Why all that interest in the money? So what if the money is a lot? You mean you want them to share with you?
b. All that money has been given voluntarily. Some donated $4ooo, others $5o or even $4. Her parents had never once asked for money. It seemed so ungracious to contribute and then turn around and question them on how they intent to spend that money. Why do you want to know? Are you saying that you want the money back if you are not satisfied with their "proposed" plans? Come on!!!
c. They are still mouning the death of their daughter. You think this is a get-rich-quick-money-making-scam? Why should they be obliged to explain themselves?
d. The couple claimed they would donate to charity. But in what manner/how and when, is really up to them. Even if eventually they never donate, all you can say is that they never honour their words. But that doesn't mean they should be treated like criminals.
Really!! I'm very disappointed at the turn of events. Although I didn't exactly like the attitude of the step-father and some of the things he said in the papers. But I do sympathise with them now. They don't need this unhealthy pubilicity at this. They sent their daughter from China all the way here, hoping to get a good education and perhaps a brighter future. Yet she was brutally murdered. And people seemed to have forgotten that and were now thinking enviously that her parents have "made" a bundle. For goodness sake, leave them alone!
Labels: Ramblings
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Early Christmas Party
Mood : This Friday is Rachel's last day at KKMC kindergarten. There'll be a Christmas party. 19 November!! That has to be the earliest Christmas party. I guess the teachers are too fond of the kids to call it a farewell party.
My little girl is growing up. She'll be in Primary 1 next year. We went to her school last Saturday for an orientation. One wonderful annoucement was that there'll be no examinations for P1 next year. Instead the kids will be assessed and guided along the way. Not too sure whether is this a nation-wide approach or just for her school.
I don't mind examinations. What I can't stand is the streaming, classifying and grouping. Of course there's that good old explanation that the students are grouped so that they could learn and progress in a pace that's appropriate to their learning ability. But to me, that's the source of the problems. Parents will not want their kids to be branded "slow", teachers and principals will not want their school to have too many "slow" learners. In the end the poor kids suffer. Too many topics are being included into the syllabus with inadequate in-depth coverage. Everybody is so concerned about Band 1, 2 or 3 and not "what have you learned this year?".
Oh well. There's supposed to be a re-vamp for next year's education system. Let's wait and see if things improve.
Hmm... was talking about Christmas party and ended up complaining about education. I digress. Sign of old age. Hahahah...
Labels: Ramblings
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Tired...
mood :  I'm soooooo tired. But I've brought home some work. My handphone rang non-stop today and I had site inspections and meetings. I just didn't have time to do proper work. I haven't even prepared last month's invoices! Everybody's so worried about deadlines. Instead of letting me get on with my work, I had to attend clients' meetings to explain how I could meet the deadlines. This is crazy. I ended up brining my work home instead. But I need to spend "quality" time with my family so I can only start after the kids have gone to bed. Well at least my son's exams are finally over today. So one thing less to worry about. But Bryan wanted a birthday party this coming Sunday and wanted to invite his classmates. I had to set a limit on the number of kids. Last year I had 17 boys kids tearing around the house. I almost went crazy. This year I told him no more than 7. Why 7? Because that's my fav number! So the next few nights will have to be spent making the house more presentable. I have been neglecting the housework. Too busy. Too tired. Too lazy. Will have to think of some games for the kids too. Maybe I could borrow a X-box from Jeff or Gu. That should keep the boys occupied. The Mediacorp Radio's Subaru Impreza WRX challenge ended yesterday. Contestants were required to place a hand on the car for as long as they could and the last person standing would get the car! This was the 3rd year such an event was held. It was really gruelling because contestants were allowed only 5 mins break in every 6 or 7 hours. So for that short 5 minutes, they had to eat, drink, visit toilets, get massage etc. The worst was sleep deprivation. They would be disqualified once they lift their hands off the car. The contest started last Saturday and the weather since was terrible. It was very hot in the mornings with heavy down-pours in the afternoons and nights. So it was really surprising the final 2 persons standing included a girl! The guy won because the girl gave up finally after 74 hours 58 mins. His winning time, 74 hours 59 mins. Last year's winning time was 63 hours. Amazing! I wouldn't even try it. I don't think our body was meant to be punished that way. No telling what long-term effects there might be. I wonder why the radio hailed the two as heros. I always associate heroism with courage or nobility of character. The fact that they could stand 74 hours 59mins is, of course, an astounding feat. But heros? Nah.
Labels: Ramblings, Work
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Huang Na
It's really sad. She was only 8 year old. She had a life ahead of her. And it's been cruelly taken from her. A badly decomposed body of a little girl was found, naked, sealed in a cardboard box, dumped 30m from the road into the forested area at Telok Blangah Hill. Forensic is trying to confirm the identity of the girl. But it's believed to be Huang Na.
I just can't imagine. How could anyone do such a cruel thing to a young innocent girl?
So far all fingers pointed at Took Leng How, a Malaysian, who worked at the same Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre as Huang Na's mom. Mdm Huang had gone back to China for a short trip, leaving Huang Na in the care of her friend. The girl went missing on 10 Oct and was last seen talking to Took. The police interviewed Took twice and then suddenly Took himself disappeared too.
The media, basically went crazy, digging out all sorts of gossips about Took, Madam Huang etc. The newspapers splashed photographs of a sweet, smiling little girl on their front pages. It caught the attention of the whole nation. And many pitched in to help in all possible manners, offering rewards, printing and distributing flyers, etc., to search for Huang Na. It's heartening to see fellow-Singaporeans coming together to search for a total stranger. I only wish there was a happy ending.
Took had ran off to Malaysia. He finally surrendered himself last Saturday and was brought back to Singapore. 12 hours later the police were led (presumably by Took) to Telok Blangah Hill. He claimed he was innocent. So far no other information has been released by the police except that Took is charged for murder. It'll be death sentence for him if found guilty.
But it won't bring back little Huang Na. Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Post Photo-marathon Blues
I'm blue all right. Yesterday was the photo-marathon. The themes were "My World", "Island Life" and "Singapore Idol" given out at 4-hourly intervals. My performance was a total dismal. I was unable to come up with any good ideas for the themes. Should have slept earlier the night before.Leon, Gu and I joined forces. We went in Gu's car from Ang Mo Kio to Jurong to Orchard to Sentosa to Little India to Geylang and Hougang over the 12 hour span. A real island-wide chase. This was as close to Amazing Race as you can get! On hindside, perhaps we should not have spent so much time on the road.Some of the photos submitted by the participants were interesting. Although the winning entries were generally well-taken, I couldn't see the relevance of some of them to the themes. In fact I thought some of the "Merit" shots were actually better than the categories' "Winner" shots. Oh well, photography is really very subjective and I'm not the judge. This year's judge(s) seemed to have preference for shots with people in it. And I really suck at Street Photography. I believe this is the first time I actually approached so many strangers to ask to shoot them. It was quite an experience for me.These were what I submitted. Pretty lame, especially the 2nd and 3rd themes' entries. I took these during the competition and I kind of like them. We were only allowed to submit 1 photo per theme. Will have a go at the competition again next year! Labels: Photography, Ramblings
Monday, August 16, 2004
Photography
Most of my friends know I’m moonlighting as a wedding/events videographer. What started out as a hobby has turned into a little side-income for me. But my real interest is still in photography. Videography, well, helps finance my photography hobby. Equipment, films, processing costs, servicing, photography books etc are not exactly cheap.
Oh yes. I’m still using films. I use both film and digital. I can never understand why there are always flame-wars in photography forums about digital and film photography. Each system has its advantages and limitations. Even more ridiculous are die-hard fans of brand names. I'm a Canon-user but I don't criticise Nikon etc. Ultimately it's the person behind the camera that creates the photo. Cameras are tools. In my case, I always carry a compact digital P&S camera when I'm out with family and friends. For more serious works such as wedding shoots, I’ll use either my DSLR or film SLR, depending on the clients. And for personal works nothing beats film. Well, at least not yet. I haven’t bought any color negative films for the last few years. The digital P&S is enough to satisfy the occasional snap-shots. The only films I buy now are b&w, IR or and slide films.
I’m in my office typing this. And now I feel like leaving to shoot something (sounds dangerous). I've been so busy with work lately that I've not touched my cameras for the last few months. I bought a 2nd hand Hassy XPan and a 2nd hand Mamiya 645 few months back but I haven't been using them.
*sigh* I'm feeling kind of restless lately. Perhaps it's time to pick up my camera again. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a photographic memory. Its just that I forgot to load the film....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Still no sign of Ebbi. 10 days now. Labels: Photography, Ramblings
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Sianz...
No mood to work at all. I ordered 2 sets of PC for the office and they arrived yesterday. So I spent my time installing the softwares and configuring the PCs instead.
Ebbi has been gone for 5 days now. I placed some food outside our door in case she comes home. But I think some other neighbourhood cat has been eating the food.
I have called the SPCA to check if someone brought her in. But no news so far. I've got a feeling I will never see her again. That's how I lost Sandy too. Sandy fell out the window once, we immediately rushed downs and got her back. One day she went missing. We thought she probably fallen out the window again. We never found her since and that was about 5 years ago. Now the same thing happened again. *sigh*
Once upon a time I had 3 cats and now there is none.......... Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Acronyms Overload!
I wonder if this is perculiar only to Singapore. We have acronyms for almost anything! Mostly TLAs.
1. The moment we step out of the house, we'll see SBS, MRT, TIBS.
2. Don't like public transport? Get a COE and buy a car.
3. Be familiar with GIA's IDAC in case there's an accident. You'll probably need AAS's help too!
4. Once you're on the roads, you'll travel on PIE, ECP, TPE, AYE, SLE, KJE, BKE.
5. Problems with roads? Complain to LTA.
6. But usually congestions are due to PUB, SCV, TAS digging up the roads, NPB trimming trees or or HDB carrying out their IUP or MUP.
7. When you're going into town, you've got to watch out for ERP in CBD and make sure cash card is in the IU.
8. You need money? Draw from ATMs of POSB, DBS, UOB, OCBC, OUB, HSBC. Don't like cash? You could NETS it.
9. If you are seriously ill, go to the A&E of either SGH, TTSH, NUH, AMKH or AH. If not, go to your GP.
10. Make sure you top up your CPF so that you can get NSS and ERS.
11. Get proper education from JC, ITE, SP, NP, NYP, TP, NUS or NTU.
12. Don't litter or you may be isssued CWO.
13. PCK is best in Singapore and some say JB!
Too lazy to go on... you get my point.
ps FYI, there's a Netherlands' website with the most comprehensive Singapore acronyms I've ever seen. I don't even know half of them!
BTW pay attention to the heading written in Dutch! It's hilarious! Labels: Ramblings
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Age must be catching up...
as it's taking me a longer time to understand this CSS thingy. It would have been a breeze for me a few years back. Of course, I'm doing it the hard way, slogging through articles, learning by trial-&-error. I wonder if there's a parttime class somewhere teaching this.
Was woken up real early this Sunday morning, at 5.30am!! My hubby woke up at 4am (??) and watched Jonny English. And his laughter woke the 2 kids up. And all of them decided to wake me up too! Anyway, since we were all up, we drove to East Coast Park to have breakfast and some inline skating. Healthy life-style huh.
Surprisingly the carparks were quite filled up. There were many early-risers doing their morning exercise. We tried to catch the sunrise, but it was too cloudy.
 Labels: Ramblings
Friday, July 30, 2004
This is it!
Ok. I managed to sort out most of the stuffs. Tried to customise the look of my blog. But was too tired. Had a long day. Luckily it's almost weekend.
Dr. S returned from Canada after an absence of almost 4 months. It's not easy working for him. He's really demanding when it comes to work. I'm almost drowning in my workload and he thinks I'm not efficient. Oh well. No point in arguing with him.
Looking forward to the weekend. I haven't done 'serious' blading for a while. Went with my kids last Sunday. But I spent more time gearing up the kids than blading. Anyway I'll have to start soon 'cos I think I'm putting on weight. I'm still a novice. Really envy those speed-skaters zooming pass me along the tracks at East Coast Park. One of these days.....
I'm thinking of picking up Tai-Chi too. Actually there's a lot of things I wanna do. I just couldn't find the time. Labels: Ramblings
Thursday, July 29, 2004
My 3rd Attempt to Fix the Achive Problem
I think I've got it. But just to be sure
Labels: Ramblings
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