February 17th is a big day for me. One, my library book is due. Two, it is Budget Day. Three, it is just a day after the release of the R21 gay film, a story of two male cowboy lovers. Now that the soothsayers have announced that Bill Gates and the World Wide Web are synonymous with the Book of Revelations' revelations of the 666 evildom, I am convinced it will come true.
Another commentator on the GRC and this is none other than a senior journalist himself whom I had cited in an earlier blog. The question is if the GRC was drawn up primarily for ethnic integration or was it more for enlargement of a political powerhouse, pun intended.
Anyway, a parallel was drawn between the GRC and SAP schools, which I thought could be read either way. Ethnic integration or disintegration given how SAP schools are overwhelmingly of one racial composition.
In fact, come to think of it, the journalist who argued against subsidies must be like argueing against herself, having been a beneficiary of subsidies in the form of the scholarship/fellowship she got.
The fast-ass major who withdrew from the computer deal was striding into the public library one evening in his air-forcy blue uniform displaying his rank ampulet just as I was leaving. How could he then tell me he was away on assignment for 2 months? This is bullshit. It was just a day or two before when I rang him up and the next day he has been "assigned".
The last blog on my window shopping spree kept me abreast of technology. This really bolstered my arguement that the centre of thinking and innovation would still rest with the Western world. Bluetooth is after all, named after Harald Bluetooth, a Denmark Viking King who united the nation. The Swedes were the brains behind the research into wireless technology.
My window shopping in my earlier blog brought me face to face with the same retailer who stocked up on apparently impractical computer gadgets. Remember the optical wireless mouse with just a short 50 cm wire? I am glad the wired optical mouse now is at least 3m in length and is retractable. The optical wireless ones are all the rave now. I am equally relieved I had sold off my film camera which in today's context would have been a dinosaur, what with digital cameras bundled in with mobile phones in most telephony subscription packages.
It is frustrating to surf or blog at a cybercafe in a public institution. Many of the "objectionable" (or at least that is what the authorities deem them to be) sites are denied access and I am not talking about porn sites here which one fav link of mine funnily got through. Chat channels and the universal MSN Messenger are out of bounds. What the fuck! We allow "Crazy Horse" and a slew of "objectionable" reading materials like FHM or Cosmopolitan but we want to preserve public morals by cutting off legitimate communication?
The speed here must be 512Kbps for I have never seen my Maxonline 2000 throw up web sites in frames, one at a time. Neither has my blog written here been transferred at a slower pace than a snail crawling along at its Olympic best. The mouse pad is placed at the remotest edge of the table with so little space to move the mouse, I might as well masturbate myself in a coffin.
I am also easily distracted by all the goings-on in an open environment. My creative juices can't flow as well. It is like I have a huge erection when I see Tarzan in his cute, undersized loin cloth but yet I can't ejaculate.
But I did remember bumping into this cute SJI boy who spoke with such clarity, truthfulness and conviction, I felt something down in my heart pining for him at one telling moment. The library users (more like gals and guys in their school uniforms) were, when he analogised, more social club members than true knowledge gatherers or readers.
I text him about perhaps joining his City Harvest church cell group which I would possibly visit in the weeks ahead after the Chinese New Year.
Yes it is reunion time today but I am cooped up in the library, relishing the quietitude and cool air-conditioning, listening in on my WALKMAN or to the MSN Radio channels on the Net. The WALKMAN, if you must know, was a audio cassette tape and FM radio player at one time before they invented the portable DISCMAN, its CD player subsitute.I remember owning one, strapped to my belt or trousers' pockets, replete with headphone gear-up a long time ago when
it was all the rage.
I would rather be here than to face an empty home, stripped of its furniture, furnishings and fittings. It is just me, my bedding and my bare essentials for shitting, drinking, brushing, washing, cleaning and sleeping. I could actually hear the echoes of reverberation whenever I speak through my mobile phone.
I was all packed and with very kind permission from my future lessor, shuffled most of my thingtummies to my new small room. I had a huge travel bag stuffed with my clothes crossed over one shoulder, a haversack strapped to my back, pulling a trolley bag with one hand while carrying a laundry basket in another. This would be a surreal mountain climbing expedition except that in this case, I wasn't scaling Mount Everest but Mount HDB block, all the way to the 21st storey. And the oxygen tank was no laundry basket either.
Curiously this place I am moving to was my birthplace . I remember this same road name which was typewritten on my birth certificate, a yellowed, red-lined and fonted, dog-eared document at one time before I replaced it with a laminated extract.
Back to my roots? Well I had a sumptuous Japanese lundin of Teriyaki salmon. That would be my reunion dinner for tonight, a reunion with my soul, spirit and intellect. What about you? have you had yours yet........or ever?
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Window Shopping
It was a complete let-down in some cases. A major in our air force, no less. He rescinded on our deal to buy up my Intel III and I had to scramble for a customer in two days. Another ass bitch from India, who is of Roman Catholic faith, similarly did the same, claiming miscommunication of the price she thought she was buying into.
Look Bitch! I wrote it down for you in very clear numeric terms. If you can't tell the difference between $490 for a high-end PhotoSmart printer from $70 for a cable modem, you can't possibly be the only computerised rubber stamp maker in town! You should be selling rags for your trade instead.
One didn't want to cart away a piece of equipment as we agreed upon before. He had me screaming into his ears before he finally did.
I have met enough of all these Roman Catholic devotees going round, seemingly pious but who turn into were-wolves when matters of money are concerned. These are the hypocrites of the faith who give the religion a bad name. Even me, as a non-practising RC anymore, do not do so. I rather profess agnosticism.
A quick lunch at a food-court turned into window shopping at a reputed retailer. Brands like Elysee do not seem to be around on the shelves anymore. I laugh at "cordless" vacuum and electric jugs. The charging time and purported portablility didn't seem congruous.
My old window air-conditioning unit had a fan option which the new multi-split systems do not. To think I actually washed down tonnes in my 5kg load washer. And a dryer can only dry at half the load? Fridges defy convention when it is a freezer on one side and a cooler on the other for a 2-door side-by-side refrigerator. It used to be top and bottom stacking.
The fine dining and sofa set were exquisitely crafted but expensive. The designs for the wardrobe were functional, practical and useful. When I did a quick estimation, it would cost me at least a cool $20K just for furnishings and appliances alone, going by today's prices.
Some charity organisations are now removal and disposal companies as well. It is a marvellous idea that I pay them to dipose my stuff and they in turn re-use my good furniture. Call it double profit. I am down to my last three items to offload and I pray if anyone would please take them.
Here is the list: (1) A Royal Mail toy truck (2) HP Photosmart 8450 printer (3) Motorola Surfboard cable modem for Internet and Cable TV (4) Maxonline 2000 ownership transfer.
Please give me a call or leave a comment for me to contact you so I can rid myself of these.
Look Bitch! I wrote it down for you in very clear numeric terms. If you can't tell the difference between $490 for a high-end PhotoSmart printer from $70 for a cable modem, you can't possibly be the only computerised rubber stamp maker in town! You should be selling rags for your trade instead.
One didn't want to cart away a piece of equipment as we agreed upon before. He had me screaming into his ears before he finally did.
I have met enough of all these Roman Catholic devotees going round, seemingly pious but who turn into were-wolves when matters of money are concerned. These are the hypocrites of the faith who give the religion a bad name. Even me, as a non-practising RC anymore, do not do so. I rather profess agnosticism.
A quick lunch at a food-court turned into window shopping at a reputed retailer. Brands like Elysee do not seem to be around on the shelves anymore. I laugh at "cordless" vacuum and electric jugs. The charging time and purported portablility didn't seem congruous.
My old window air-conditioning unit had a fan option which the new multi-split systems do not. To think I actually washed down tonnes in my 5kg load washer. And a dryer can only dry at half the load? Fridges defy convention when it is a freezer on one side and a cooler on the other for a 2-door side-by-side refrigerator. It used to be top and bottom stacking.
The fine dining and sofa set were exquisitely crafted but expensive. The designs for the wardrobe were functional, practical and useful. When I did a quick estimation, it would cost me at least a cool $20K just for furnishings and appliances alone, going by today's prices.
Some charity organisations are now removal and disposal companies as well. It is a marvellous idea that I pay them to dipose my stuff and they in turn re-use my good furniture. Call it double profit. I am down to my last three items to offload and I pray if anyone would please take them.
Here is the list: (1) A Royal Mail toy truck (2) HP Photosmart 8450 printer (3) Motorola Surfboard cable modem for Internet and Cable TV (4) Maxonline 2000 ownership transfer.
Please give me a call or leave a comment for me to contact you so I can rid myself of these.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Moving Away And The GE Issues
Discovery of discoveries. The "Thieves Market" of old is very much alive and well in this part of town. You can almost sense a thriving market here with second-hand goods poised for the export markets of the Third World. It is a hassle just haggling with these petty traders. After a brisk walk-around and much coaxing, I was only successful at the last shop.
I stole another look at prime places in the east and told myself these are the ideal and idyllic places to live, work and play. The beach is just round the corner. So is the town library and a shopping mall. It is quiet in some scenic places yet teeming in others. When will I get a chance to live here?
Cruising along the highway, it was a breathtaking panaromic view of the Kallang Basin and the apartments along its green turfs and sandy beaches. This will be the epitome of living life to the hilt. Moreover, the whole area has been slated for the future development of the IR, the Marina barrage, aboreta and a host of other water activities.
I finally got my Sony Ericsson W550i. This would be the mother of all cellphones I ever had in my entire life, after the Nokia 3100. When I compare it to the Nokia N70, its dazzling kaleidoscopic graphical screen and animation leaps off its video-quality screen. It is almost a mini-pc, video , audio and telecommunication tool all rolled into one. Best of all, I got it dirt cheap what with a $50 voucher and trade-in thrown in.
When I read the ST, I know instinctively who the pro-establishment writers are. No doubt, they are the ones who had benefited from a scholarship of sorts from the government or in some other ways. I remember this same writer who painted an almost glowing testimonial of an incoming parliamentarian. Now she serves as the government's mouthpiece, arguing against subsidies.
Which of course, coincides with the establishment's recent attacks on the opposition party's manifesto. As I mentioned before in an earlier blog, I am not too sure how much of an "unspecified" subsidy there is, particularly in the housing arena, and if there is any subsidy at all. But equating handing out subsidies to the rich subsidising the middle-income populace is like saying durians are only for natives.
If this is the line of argument, and while I agree that people living in HDB flats driving "brand new", luxurious and expensive cars are undeserving, what about lavishing on government buildings (administration headquarters and schools ), public and international functions and top civil servants which are also at taxpayers' expense.
I agree with a fellow blogger that the elected presidency is a non-issue as manifested in the recent saga of only one contender, who was ousted anyway. The GRCs and elected presidency cannot be pillars if as far as I can remember, I only voted twice when I came of age, once at the GE of my constituency in the mid-late 80s and another during the "elected" presidency of Ong Teng Cheong in 1991.
Thereafter, my ward was subsumed within the Marine Parade GRC as it was deemed anti-PAP, the party having lost a vast majority and at another ward I moved into, it was a perpetual walk-over. When will I ever exercise my voting right again in a republic democracy ?Hopefully this GE will? Though I am "moving away" , I have been decidedly anchored to my old hometown as the cut-off date was the 1st of January 2006.
Ethnic integration, from a social point of view, is certainly important. But, economically speaking, with the racial quota in place, an ethnic minor would be in a bind when trying to buy or sell his place in the queue. That would be an economical cost weighed against a social good.
As for the MHA's statement on the "fine balance" they seek in the white-elephant controversy and the sexual molestation during the pre-Xmas revelry, it isn't anything about aligning two extremes but more of a common sensical approach.
First, the groping of female revellers is tantamount to a sexual assault, though of the less serious kind. If the women had better sense to dress more appropriately and had sufficient shield among their other male and female companions, this may not have taken place. The police should act.
Which by the way, I have a cautionary to all the women out there, young or old. If you dress scantily to seduce one and all, someone's else boyfriend or husband, couldn't someone else do the same with yours truly too? So there, women. You did it again!
Contrast this with an innocent wear of the white-elephant tees as a protest against the non-opening of the Buangkok MRT and you would have noticed how this did not harm anyone in anyway, physically, emotionally or whatsoever. But the police came down hard on this .
How even-handed and justifiable is the course of action taken? Not very well applied, I would say, common-sensically and in proportion to the gravity of the situation.
I have never done so much co-ordination work before. I had a splitting headache and backache the last couple of days and weeks. It worsened as the tasks were never ending because goods were not sold . I am pretty glad I got my internet subscription and its cable modem out of the way. This is singularly the biggest ticket item ever.
The worst part of the moving away thingy is the interwoven mesh of electronic bank auto-payments tied with the billing cycle and the corresponding vendors. I have to ensure no more bank deductions are effected, informing both bank and billing rganisations. I have also resolved to hold better reins over finances and eliminate possible wrong deductions through online-payment instead. This is the biggest headache.
So much for a day's worth of thoughts. I will probably have more in the days and weeks to come. Till I am no longer here, that is.
I stole another look at prime places in the east and told myself these are the ideal and idyllic places to live, work and play. The beach is just round the corner. So is the town library and a shopping mall. It is quiet in some scenic places yet teeming in others. When will I get a chance to live here?
Cruising along the highway, it was a breathtaking panaromic view of the Kallang Basin and the apartments along its green turfs and sandy beaches. This will be the epitome of living life to the hilt. Moreover, the whole area has been slated for the future development of the IR, the Marina barrage, aboreta and a host of other water activities.
I finally got my Sony Ericsson W550i. This would be the mother of all cellphones I ever had in my entire life, after the Nokia 3100. When I compare it to the Nokia N70, its dazzling kaleidoscopic graphical screen and animation leaps off its video-quality screen. It is almost a mini-pc, video , audio and telecommunication tool all rolled into one. Best of all, I got it dirt cheap what with a $50 voucher and trade-in thrown in.
When I read the ST, I know instinctively who the pro-establishment writers are. No doubt, they are the ones who had benefited from a scholarship of sorts from the government or in some other ways. I remember this same writer who painted an almost glowing testimonial of an incoming parliamentarian. Now she serves as the government's mouthpiece, arguing against subsidies.
Which of course, coincides with the establishment's recent attacks on the opposition party's manifesto. As I mentioned before in an earlier blog, I am not too sure how much of an "unspecified" subsidy there is, particularly in the housing arena, and if there is any subsidy at all. But equating handing out subsidies to the rich subsidising the middle-income populace is like saying durians are only for natives.
If this is the line of argument, and while I agree that people living in HDB flats driving "brand new", luxurious and expensive cars are undeserving, what about lavishing on government buildings (administration headquarters and schools ), public and international functions and top civil servants which are also at taxpayers' expense.
I agree with a fellow blogger that the elected presidency is a non-issue as manifested in the recent saga of only one contender, who was ousted anyway. The GRCs and elected presidency cannot be pillars if as far as I can remember, I only voted twice when I came of age, once at the GE of my constituency in the mid-late 80s and another during the "elected" presidency of Ong Teng Cheong in 1991.
Thereafter, my ward was subsumed within the Marine Parade GRC as it was deemed anti-PAP, the party having lost a vast majority and at another ward I moved into, it was a perpetual walk-over. When will I ever exercise my voting right again in a republic democracy ?Hopefully this GE will? Though I am "moving away" , I have been decidedly anchored to my old hometown as the cut-off date was the 1st of January 2006.
Ethnic integration, from a social point of view, is certainly important. But, economically speaking, with the racial quota in place, an ethnic minor would be in a bind when trying to buy or sell his place in the queue. That would be an economical cost weighed against a social good.
As for the MHA's statement on the "fine balance" they seek in the white-elephant controversy and the sexual molestation during the pre-Xmas revelry, it isn't anything about aligning two extremes but more of a common sensical approach.
First, the groping of female revellers is tantamount to a sexual assault, though of the less serious kind. If the women had better sense to dress more appropriately and had sufficient shield among their other male and female companions, this may not have taken place. The police should act.
Which by the way, I have a cautionary to all the women out there, young or old. If you dress scantily to seduce one and all, someone's else boyfriend or husband, couldn't someone else do the same with yours truly too? So there, women. You did it again!
Contrast this with an innocent wear of the white-elephant tees as a protest against the non-opening of the Buangkok MRT and you would have noticed how this did not harm anyone in anyway, physically, emotionally or whatsoever. But the police came down hard on this .
How even-handed and justifiable is the course of action taken? Not very well applied, I would say, common-sensically and in proportion to the gravity of the situation.
I have never done so much co-ordination work before. I had a splitting headache and backache the last couple of days and weeks. It worsened as the tasks were never ending because goods were not sold . I am pretty glad I got my internet subscription and its cable modem out of the way. This is singularly the biggest ticket item ever.
The worst part of the moving away thingy is the interwoven mesh of electronic bank auto-payments tied with the billing cycle and the corresponding vendors. I have to ensure no more bank deductions are effected, informing both bank and billing rganisations. I have also resolved to hold better reins over finances and eliminate possible wrong deductions through online-payment instead. This is the biggest headache.
So much for a day's worth of thoughts. I will probably have more in the days and weeks to come. Till I am no longer here, that is.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Making Sense Of Technology And Changes
The stuff technology is made of. I don't think the frontliners manning the technological portals even begin to know what they are handling or spewing.
They can't explain optical, infrared and bluetooth technology. All of which are wireless anyway. So stop pulling the wool over my eyes, telling me bluetooth technology is a 10m range remote control, while it is true this is the commonest. This is a Class II power range and there is a Class I with a 100 metre sweep. Wireless optical isn't radio signals.
The ad touting the IAD as an integrated device for portable international phone calls with apparently unlimited overseas calls is phrased so incorrectly . A check reveals that it means only unlimited overseas call back home. It can also make calls nationally at someone's else home if the technical helpdesk is anything to go by, moi having called and listened to various versions.
Having undergone the ordeal of thrashing paper, it was hilarious to learn that I can't actually suppress my hardcopy bills to be sent to moi for my internet subscription or my bank account. This only adds to waste and most inanely, I could view them online. So why send moi a monthly fixed recurring bill in the case of my internet services?
It also makes me wonder why the IAD isn't a device for portable Internet instead, at the subscriber's expense and time. In fact, what is the use of the digital home? Why don't they even make it an even more integrated device by making it one with the IAD?
Because if the IAD technically plugs into any broadband, be it ADSN or a cable modem, it will plug into the digital home too. So what is its use if not for unlimited overseas calls as it claimed?
Being on the old technology, I have a modem and if I want to go wireless, I need a router. Now they have a all-in-one which is terrific. It saves on cluttering my floor space , littered as it is with cables, plugs, telephone jacks and adapters.
I am utterly disappointed with Popular. It used to have a rebate of a dollar every year for loyal membership dropping from a high of $10 to a low of $5.00 which plateaus at this level thereafter. When I tried renewing my membership, they told me it has been scrapped and I now have to start all over again at $10 flat every year minus the rebate. This is a betrayal. I would not have gone on the scheme if I knew.
It was the same too with ATM withdrawals where the former Big Four banks used to be linked and accepted each other's card for cash dispensing. Now to monopolise the market, national banks have gone solo but with an abundance of machines while the rest have colluded in smaller cliques of two or more, sparsely spread out. "Competition" has never been fairer.
Let me elaborate a little more on the tender system. If you want to buy, you want to buy at the lowest price (which somehow connotes cheap quality , slip-shod and unlasting) but you want to sell to the highest bidder (which smacks of avaricious profiteering without regards to the small time trader). Perhaps somewhere inbetween could be more equitable.
The ST had several very excellent writers with articles on the EU, Asean, regionalism , colonialism and dissent in Singapore . Kudos to these think-tanks who have given historical, new and interesting perspectives. Not forgetting most of the humour columnists and some other writers whom I may have forgotten to mention.
The yellow breasted olive sunbird is back. I haven't seen it for some time now. The last I saw it nmust have been ages. It came right back, twittering and perched on the ledge. I am not sure what news it brings me this time. My home garden has seen visitors of the second kind, ranging from potter wasp, honey bees and mynahs who peck at my foliage for building materials. It has been an attraction for the animalia.
Right, I look forward to the days ahead where I am going to detoxify myself of all the toxins coursing through my blood veins, in part due to encounters of the first kind. Will blog again sometime soon.
They can't explain optical, infrared and bluetooth technology. All of which are wireless anyway. So stop pulling the wool over my eyes, telling me bluetooth technology is a 10m range remote control, while it is true this is the commonest. This is a Class II power range and there is a Class I with a 100 metre sweep. Wireless optical isn't radio signals.
The ad touting the IAD as an integrated device for portable international phone calls with apparently unlimited overseas calls is phrased so incorrectly . A check reveals that it means only unlimited overseas call back home. It can also make calls nationally at someone's else home if the technical helpdesk is anything to go by, moi having called and listened to various versions.
Having undergone the ordeal of thrashing paper, it was hilarious to learn that I can't actually suppress my hardcopy bills to be sent to moi for my internet subscription or my bank account. This only adds to waste and most inanely, I could view them online. So why send moi a monthly fixed recurring bill in the case of my internet services?
It also makes me wonder why the IAD isn't a device for portable Internet instead, at the subscriber's expense and time. In fact, what is the use of the digital home? Why don't they even make it an even more integrated device by making it one with the IAD?
Because if the IAD technically plugs into any broadband, be it ADSN or a cable modem, it will plug into the digital home too. So what is its use if not for unlimited overseas calls as it claimed?
Being on the old technology, I have a modem and if I want to go wireless, I need a router. Now they have a all-in-one which is terrific. It saves on cluttering my floor space , littered as it is with cables, plugs, telephone jacks and adapters.
I am utterly disappointed with Popular. It used to have a rebate of a dollar every year for loyal membership dropping from a high of $10 to a low of $5.00 which plateaus at this level thereafter. When I tried renewing my membership, they told me it has been scrapped and I now have to start all over again at $10 flat every year minus the rebate. This is a betrayal. I would not have gone on the scheme if I knew.
It was the same too with ATM withdrawals where the former Big Four banks used to be linked and accepted each other's card for cash dispensing. Now to monopolise the market, national banks have gone solo but with an abundance of machines while the rest have colluded in smaller cliques of two or more, sparsely spread out. "Competition" has never been fairer.
Let me elaborate a little more on the tender system. If you want to buy, you want to buy at the lowest price (which somehow connotes cheap quality , slip-shod and unlasting) but you want to sell to the highest bidder (which smacks of avaricious profiteering without regards to the small time trader). Perhaps somewhere inbetween could be more equitable.
The ST had several very excellent writers with articles on the EU, Asean, regionalism , colonialism and dissent in Singapore . Kudos to these think-tanks who have given historical, new and interesting perspectives. Not forgetting most of the humour columnists and some other writers whom I may have forgotten to mention.
The yellow breasted olive sunbird is back. I haven't seen it for some time now. The last I saw it nmust have been ages. It came right back, twittering and perched on the ledge. I am not sure what news it brings me this time. My home garden has seen visitors of the second kind, ranging from potter wasp, honey bees and mynahs who peck at my foliage for building materials. It has been an attraction for the animalia.
Right, I look forward to the days ahead where I am going to detoxify myself of all the toxins coursing through my blood veins, in part due to encounters of the first kind. Will blog again sometime soon.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Moving Right Along
I woke up this morning with a stabbing pain yet again, the second time since I thought I have recovered fully from the spinal-lumbar compression/fracture. Sleeping on the mattress on the floor must have aggravated it which I did not experience previously while lying on my divan.
To charges that I wake up early, yes I do and blame this on my circadian clock. I have been known to wake up for early morning jogs so that I am over and done with my exercise for the day and to be able to focus on my thoughts with no human or vehicular distraction. So please Mr Old Fart, do not make me the oddball with this quirk I have.
Hey and I am being American here, what with comforter rather than a quilt for bedding terminology. An earlier blog using the term barrister was perhaps misguided though Mr Oath-Swearer's calling card proclaimed him to be. He would have been a solicitor, I think but perhaps he is an attorney or lawyer, a mongrel.
I wouldn't have known from the voice. Neither would I with a photo publication of him. But yes. In person, he is the Tan Soon Chuan I knew in my lower secondary class. I remember him as a loud and mischievous dude in class and a soldier in No 4 army fatigue. Sorry Soon Chuan (or is it Jeffrey now...I didn't know you had a Christian name), I must have been so caught up in Daryl Ho's blog about his snow-skis in Japan that when you mentioned the word 'ski', water-ski did not register.
I am counting on you as a fellow Gabrielite to look after my financial interest, dude. And he is active in our Old Boys' Association (or alumni). For what, I am not sure. I did ask and question. To me, the principal he is working for wasn't even our principal then. If most teachers are new and not the ones who taught us and even the locale is no longer in its old place, what memories can it hold for us to work for it? Unless you have a kid there.
When I think about it, where I am moving, precinctly speaking, is no different from my current one. It has a similar layout with a sports hall, swimming complex and stadium neck-to-neck, along one another. Yes. Young people. I love seeing them. They revitalise me. The feel of the whole place is different, maybe because I have been stuck too long at my old place holed up.
It is time I move in with "people" and "interact", rather than isolate and hibernate. My new flatmate looks swell and I can "communicate" with him on a particularly good level. Much like I can connect with Uncle Benjamin. Ha. Being an uncle myself, it is hard to believe I am actually calling some of my contemporaries the same. Hee.
The new place has everything going for it. I have never seen such a "huge" kopitiam sprawled over such "huge" grounds. There are two shopping malls and the MRT and bus interchange is just next door. I went round looking for shops I need my regular fixes such as haircuts, food, banking and groceries. I even found a "satay" stall but it doesn't taste as great though.
I have decided I will go computerless and surf at the community library. Not a wise choice to buy a notebook now with Window Vista coming up soon. As usual it was sifting through connectivity and wireless issues, comparisons of price plans and throw-ins and top-ups for both the notebook and mobile. My new cell phone will have to wait till I finish my 2-year contract. It is now a decidedly Sony Ericsson W550i which looks like a girl's rave somehow. The white elephant saga looms large and I am constantly reminded of this.
It is amazing how we can now flip, twist, swivel and slide our mobile's clamshell. I am looking at the Samsung SGH-X700 and SGH-D600 and the Nokia 6111 but each has its drawbacks.
Having seen a couple of places, the new place I am moving to is the most convenient. I have to balance between work and home life. I could have chosen the other place in the East, near the sea and an ideal place for work too. Work as in home-bound work and not with visiting customers. I have to think carefully if I want to live and work in full view of a visiting public.
And not that I think we are ready for a liberal arts education. Having dealt with parents, it will be an uphill task convincing them the merits of one versus a tutorial or technical degree sort. Parents of all manners of life want to have a say in education when some know nothing of what a real education is, apart from the exam practice, grill and grades we have ingrained into our culture. Try selling ice to eskimos!
I did meet a girl whom I mentioned to be the ass-bitch who rummaged through my stuff while I was teaching at AIT Academy, on instructions from M/s Wicked Stepmother. She is actually working at the reception counter. This is double coincidence or is it?
I know I am being watched from every quarter. Not sure why but I know I am on someone's radar screen for some reasons. Every single person I meet or talk to strike me as strangely muttering the thoughts I have or have blogged. My only word on all this is : Lay off and leave me alone. You are no better than thou and we are all just equal on that term. I am just trying to live life as you are, so do not throw a stone at someone else when you live in a glass-house yourself.
Thinking back to my trash days, I have lost quite a bit on stuff like some of the recyclables (in all at least 10 bags), my vintage and prized Rado of Switzerland timepiece, my tablet chairs and whiteboard, lightings, gold jewellery, etc. There are things I now know which have recyclable value and I will be setting them aside for future recycling. I have become a regular garung guni guy myself.
When I was in school, I use to write on both sides of a paper, first in pencil, then blue ink and finally in red as part of my personal recycling program.
I have come to understand the true meaning of "Dust thou art, so shalt dust you return" (which is a much shorter version succinctly put than the usual translation, albeit in archaic English).
Dust is a fine powder of pollen , earth and sand carried in the air by wind, for those scientifically-inclined enquiring minds. Living on a high floor and next to infrastructural projects could have worsened the dust attack.
We certainly can live with less. Therefore I am not wrong to choose a zen-minimalist design for my next house. In fact, when we sit down and reflect, we only use a fraction of the stuff in our house. In the kitchen for instance, I am only using the electric kettle, the airport, the juicer, the fridge and washer most frequently.
Weighing my options for the future has thrown up more possibilities other than migration. Like getting a new and bigger house with tenancy option. But I think I am the sort who would be comfortable jet-setting in different parts pf the world, living and working, more like meeting dignataries, businesspeople and socialites of the First World.
Technology has come a long way and walkie-talkies are no longer the big, bulky, unwieldy and poorly receptive gadgets they once were but sleek, almost mobile phone-like, with messaging functions even. Come to think of it, even the mobile phone of old was as huge as a walkie-talkie back then. And yes, we had pagers too though it was purely a numeric text for a callback. So now the mobile is a 3-in-1 hybrid.
The thoughts in my head are swirling up a storm. More blogs coming up.
To charges that I wake up early, yes I do and blame this on my circadian clock. I have been known to wake up for early morning jogs so that I am over and done with my exercise for the day and to be able to focus on my thoughts with no human or vehicular distraction. So please Mr Old Fart, do not make me the oddball with this quirk I have.
Hey and I am being American here, what with comforter rather than a quilt for bedding terminology. An earlier blog using the term barrister was perhaps misguided though Mr Oath-Swearer's calling card proclaimed him to be. He would have been a solicitor, I think but perhaps he is an attorney or lawyer, a mongrel.
I wouldn't have known from the voice. Neither would I with a photo publication of him. But yes. In person, he is the Tan Soon Chuan I knew in my lower secondary class. I remember him as a loud and mischievous dude in class and a soldier in No 4 army fatigue. Sorry Soon Chuan (or is it Jeffrey now...I didn't know you had a Christian name), I must have been so caught up in Daryl Ho's blog about his snow-skis in Japan that when you mentioned the word 'ski', water-ski did not register.
I am counting on you as a fellow Gabrielite to look after my financial interest, dude. And he is active in our Old Boys' Association (or alumni). For what, I am not sure. I did ask and question. To me, the principal he is working for wasn't even our principal then. If most teachers are new and not the ones who taught us and even the locale is no longer in its old place, what memories can it hold for us to work for it? Unless you have a kid there.
When I think about it, where I am moving, precinctly speaking, is no different from my current one. It has a similar layout with a sports hall, swimming complex and stadium neck-to-neck, along one another. Yes. Young people. I love seeing them. They revitalise me. The feel of the whole place is different, maybe because I have been stuck too long at my old place holed up.
It is time I move in with "people" and "interact", rather than isolate and hibernate. My new flatmate looks swell and I can "communicate" with him on a particularly good level. Much like I can connect with Uncle Benjamin. Ha. Being an uncle myself, it is hard to believe I am actually calling some of my contemporaries the same. Hee.
The new place has everything going for it. I have never seen such a "huge" kopitiam sprawled over such "huge" grounds. There are two shopping malls and the MRT and bus interchange is just next door. I went round looking for shops I need my regular fixes such as haircuts, food, banking and groceries. I even found a "satay" stall but it doesn't taste as great though.
I have decided I will go computerless and surf at the community library. Not a wise choice to buy a notebook now with Window Vista coming up soon. As usual it was sifting through connectivity and wireless issues, comparisons of price plans and throw-ins and top-ups for both the notebook and mobile. My new cell phone will have to wait till I finish my 2-year contract. It is now a decidedly Sony Ericsson W550i which looks like a girl's rave somehow. The white elephant saga looms large and I am constantly reminded of this.
It is amazing how we can now flip, twist, swivel and slide our mobile's clamshell. I am looking at the Samsung SGH-X700 and SGH-D600 and the Nokia 6111 but each has its drawbacks.
Having seen a couple of places, the new place I am moving to is the most convenient. I have to balance between work and home life. I could have chosen the other place in the East, near the sea and an ideal place for work too. Work as in home-bound work and not with visiting customers. I have to think carefully if I want to live and work in full view of a visiting public.
And not that I think we are ready for a liberal arts education. Having dealt with parents, it will be an uphill task convincing them the merits of one versus a tutorial or technical degree sort. Parents of all manners of life want to have a say in education when some know nothing of what a real education is, apart from the exam practice, grill and grades we have ingrained into our culture. Try selling ice to eskimos!
I did meet a girl whom I mentioned to be the ass-bitch who rummaged through my stuff while I was teaching at AIT Academy, on instructions from M/s Wicked Stepmother. She is actually working at the reception counter. This is double coincidence or is it?
I know I am being watched from every quarter. Not sure why but I know I am on someone's radar screen for some reasons. Every single person I meet or talk to strike me as strangely muttering the thoughts I have or have blogged. My only word on all this is : Lay off and leave me alone. You are no better than thou and we are all just equal on that term. I am just trying to live life as you are, so do not throw a stone at someone else when you live in a glass-house yourself.
Thinking back to my trash days, I have lost quite a bit on stuff like some of the recyclables (in all at least 10 bags), my vintage and prized Rado of Switzerland timepiece, my tablet chairs and whiteboard, lightings, gold jewellery, etc. There are things I now know which have recyclable value and I will be setting them aside for future recycling. I have become a regular garung guni guy myself.
When I was in school, I use to write on both sides of a paper, first in pencil, then blue ink and finally in red as part of my personal recycling program.
I have come to understand the true meaning of "Dust thou art, so shalt dust you return" (which is a much shorter version succinctly put than the usual translation, albeit in archaic English).
Dust is a fine powder of pollen , earth and sand carried in the air by wind, for those scientifically-inclined enquiring minds. Living on a high floor and next to infrastructural projects could have worsened the dust attack.
We certainly can live with less. Therefore I am not wrong to choose a zen-minimalist design for my next house. In fact, when we sit down and reflect, we only use a fraction of the stuff in our house. In the kitchen for instance, I am only using the electric kettle, the airport, the juicer, the fridge and washer most frequently.
Weighing my options for the future has thrown up more possibilities other than migration. Like getting a new and bigger house with tenancy option. But I think I am the sort who would be comfortable jet-setting in different parts pf the world, living and working, more like meeting dignataries, businesspeople and socialites of the First World.
Technology has come a long way and walkie-talkies are no longer the big, bulky, unwieldy and poorly receptive gadgets they once were but sleek, almost mobile phone-like, with messaging functions even. Come to think of it, even the mobile phone of old was as huge as a walkie-talkie back then. And yes, we had pagers too though it was purely a numeric text for a callback. So now the mobile is a 3-in-1 hybrid.
The thoughts in my head are swirling up a storm. More blogs coming up.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Pro-state And Pro-citizenship
The moment my house is stripped down, I could begin to appreciate its spaciousness when I compare it to the teeny weeny rooms I have visited. Not only is greenery and water important but also space if you want to live as any decent human being would. Neither in squalor nor crammyness.
Once again it is sorting out information galore. Can you blame moi if the ISPs have actually split territories and price plans among themselves in the spirit of "competition". I mean Singnet has a doubling in price after a base $20 subscription which only StarHub can fill in as an intermediary. Hotspots are equally divided. Thus moi has to analyse where I frequent most to decide which ISP is spot on.
My spring cleaning has taught me this painful lesson of being stuck with white elephants which are really the result of bad sales information anyway. Or stuff that can onlybe bought in a set or in twin packs.
Economics work in such wondrous ways, any Adam Smith's protege would be deemed economically unsavvy if he does not weigh the economic benefits of every little enterprise he undertakes. Right down from the apples he buys off the cart on the supermarket to the economic worth of his rubbish (pun intended).
Which, by the way, reminds me of how bad the fruits look on our supermarket displays nowadays. We have oranges all the way from China and South Africa. Apples from New Zealand, America and China. I haven't see good-looking and nice-tasting fruits for a really long time now.
We would be anti-state and anti-establishment too , wouldn't we, if state or company policies are anti-citizens or anti-people. Policies have to be seen as an approximate fair deal if people are to be able to accept them. Otherwise, people would rebel and try to beat the system every way they can.
I think I speak for all the John Does living on the backstreets that all the hoi polloi wants is just a little space to breathe and pursue the things he wants to do with a reasonable income without the state or anybody constantly boring down on him with a deluge of rules and regulations (most of which are irrational and silly in many ways, seemingly to exact tolls especially in the world of commerce). He can't just live day to day when retirement looms large where age and health may not permit useful occupation anymore.
All state policies impact every sphere of our lives, from the homes we live in to the education we get. Remember my blog on power ranking of the various ministries and you can determine which has a BIG BANG in our lives.
We did not exactly ask for statehood in the first place. The natives would have gone on with their lives the way they did if the Europeans did not swing by and tried imposing their will on their culture. Asia would have gone on as before if the colonialists didn't enforce the same.
What I am trying to say then is that the least a state could do then is to make living bearable, fair and a level field. More rational, sensible and wise. Not impose a slew of unwarranted restrictions, inflict unnecessary pain and sufferings, wring every cent out of us and induce complications every single step of the way .
Everything is money. I do not wish to sound money-centric but that is the way it is here. Removing clutter and garbage from my home was already a case in point. I actually have to pay for trash removed if not for the fact that I decided there and then to resell this to the recycling companies much like the schools do.
When you reflect on how the print is recycle for re-print, it makes you think how you are actually paying for that same daily read over and over again with this recycling business while it costs the producer only once and a fraction more each time.
All the new products are unnecessary when the used ones are actually still usable even after prolonged use but for the sake of turbo-charging the economy and generating consumerism and demand, new products keep cropping up, some with cosmetic changes.
To the arbiter for the realtor as to why I would engage the professional services of a rogue agent, I wouldn't have known until I do. We were only chatting over the phone before she came by one evening, made me sign an exclusive and I couldn't have backed out then, could I? And I don't think the selling price was the only selling process but all the after-sales service as well. This reflects on the sad state of her, her company and the industry.
Let me explain that I do not deny the revenue stream the "orphanage" wants to generate for itself so as to be self-sustainable. But speaking for myself, I can't be "volunteering" when I am not exactly having an income myself and just living by. Making me a paid volunteer sounds more equitable, like the doyen in NKF who works from 9am till 9pm in NKF and who apparently has a big say in everything that is run in the organisation.
The big difference between an entrepreneur in public service and private employ is that the public one toys with money not his own and he can have all the time and luxury to sit and wait out the returns on his investment. He does draw a wage every month, doesn't he? As a private entrepreneur, I can't. Every day, I sit still, I am doomed but I can't give up yet as my business practice is for 3 years and I have to see it through its tenure to justify its life-span. I can't be multi-tasking too much which M/s Mee Pok actually was, now that I think of it, frying kway teow and cooking up mee pok.
All this tender-driven thingy is ridiculous with a starting price of $3000 which is tantamount to a person's monthly wages. I can understand huge projects to the tune of hundreds of thousands and millions. But to put a measly $3000 on the block? The bar should be raised to $10 000. Why don't we put the government on the tender block as well and let the job go to the lowest bidder in the spirit of competition and hiving off? Let us see who can do the job better and at less cost.
In case you don't know, the tender runs on both a highest and lowest bid system, calculated only to benefit you-know-who.
A retired cabby puts it correctly when he laments that at age 60, people begin to think that he can just volunteer his time and service to charitable organisations. In all likelihood, he will appreciate even a token for his effort which will see him through a meal or a transport during this period of unemployment. Not that many here have sufficient savings to see them through their twilight years. Everyone seems to think they can only "volunteer".
Another cabby remarked that as parents they should just do their best for their kids and then leave them be to venture into the unknown. After all, he reasons, kids once coupled, fly the coop and leave their parents be anyway.
I agree to a certain extent. Which leads me to the question of kinship and blood-ties. What is the use of this if it came to end like what Mr Cabby said? When you think about it all, the person you marry wasn't a blood-relation either till you two coupled and had kids, which are.
In the world of the mammals, the parents actually would fend for their young, equip and teach them the ropes of looking for food and survival whilst their off-springs watch and learn. They do seem more bonded and nurturing while we as homo-sapiens, do not seem to bond as much, in most cases leaving kids in the hands of total strangers?
Running on open roads would have moi peeling my eyes out for human and vehicular traffic during peak hours. Thus I cannot concentrate on my thoughts. Running within a confined area would take away the vehicular hazard but the human traffic could serve to be as bad a distraction unless the running is done in the dead of night. That would be my reply to a simplistic suggestion of being able to run anywhere and everywhere.
Sending an old folk to a nursing home may not be an infilial act if the level of medical care has gotten to the point where medically qualified staff have to be on the watch 24 hours. A maid, you or me can't.
I will repeat myself again. Everyone is living in their own world here, with their little emotional baggages of personal history. I may have enough of my own, try as hard as I do to start afresh everytime I meet someone new. That is the reason why I refuse to extend my circle where it probably leads me to another concentric of someone's baggage.
Working in all the places I did and meeting with people, this is the everlasting imprint I always get. Caught up in bad experiences, they seem to make me fit into the mould of their past which I am not. It is disconcerting to have to deal with this everyday. I know one when I encounter it.
With dual income families, I think kids suffer the most, left alone, with a maid or in some full-day program in an after-care commercial school. Women go to work for a variety of reasons: fulfilment, financial need and financial independence.
For the third reason, it sometimes beats me why they got married in the first place if they could not trust and depend on their partner to be the breadwinner of the house. A ST writer wrote about this at length and very profoundly. There were issues of joint-account and so on. What a mystery, marrying someone and not trusting them after all.
I can understand that things can change and if there were ever a third party, guess what, it is most likely a woman again! So there, women! You people have just done yourselves in, among your very own gender.
To a woman's asinide remarks as to why I shouldn't just get married and be done with, life isn't a bed of roses like with her prescription. It is exactly with people like her that I have a problem with and even if she were the last woman on planet earth, I would have retreated into my own oyster shell and shun her to death. I would rather be a "masturbation expert" (to borrow a phrase from a PHD enabled "teacher" in a school) than to live my life out with a hag.
Kids are fortunately the most blessed in this respect. But once they step into schools, society and the workforce, it is a nuclear contamination as contagious as Chernobyl. Sigh. They pick up and learn to ape all the ways of the stinking world.
Incidentally I hope parents will be more consistent with their parenting. If you allow your kid out without a curfew, don't lock up the front door refusing him entry when he comes back. This is totally inconsistent. It is like you send your maid out to run an errand and then later scold her for going out upon her return. Get the picture?
We are not really communicating anymore. We are hearing past one another because of all the dissonance, cacophany and stresses of life. Therefore miscommunication ensues , trouble starts and wars follow.
I am going to recuperate from all the bad vibes I have been getting lately. See you around .
Once again it is sorting out information galore. Can you blame moi if the ISPs have actually split territories and price plans among themselves in the spirit of "competition". I mean Singnet has a doubling in price after a base $20 subscription which only StarHub can fill in as an intermediary. Hotspots are equally divided. Thus moi has to analyse where I frequent most to decide which ISP is spot on.
My spring cleaning has taught me this painful lesson of being stuck with white elephants which are really the result of bad sales information anyway. Or stuff that can onlybe bought in a set or in twin packs.
Economics work in such wondrous ways, any Adam Smith's protege would be deemed economically unsavvy if he does not weigh the economic benefits of every little enterprise he undertakes. Right down from the apples he buys off the cart on the supermarket to the economic worth of his rubbish (pun intended).
Which, by the way, reminds me of how bad the fruits look on our supermarket displays nowadays. We have oranges all the way from China and South Africa. Apples from New Zealand, America and China. I haven't see good-looking and nice-tasting fruits for a really long time now.
We would be anti-state and anti-establishment too , wouldn't we, if state or company policies are anti-citizens or anti-people. Policies have to be seen as an approximate fair deal if people are to be able to accept them. Otherwise, people would rebel and try to beat the system every way they can.
I think I speak for all the John Does living on the backstreets that all the hoi polloi wants is just a little space to breathe and pursue the things he wants to do with a reasonable income without the state or anybody constantly boring down on him with a deluge of rules and regulations (most of which are irrational and silly in many ways, seemingly to exact tolls especially in the world of commerce). He can't just live day to day when retirement looms large where age and health may not permit useful occupation anymore.
All state policies impact every sphere of our lives, from the homes we live in to the education we get. Remember my blog on power ranking of the various ministries and you can determine which has a BIG BANG in our lives.
We did not exactly ask for statehood in the first place. The natives would have gone on with their lives the way they did if the Europeans did not swing by and tried imposing their will on their culture. Asia would have gone on as before if the colonialists didn't enforce the same.
What I am trying to say then is that the least a state could do then is to make living bearable, fair and a level field. More rational, sensible and wise. Not impose a slew of unwarranted restrictions, inflict unnecessary pain and sufferings, wring every cent out of us and induce complications every single step of the way .
Everything is money. I do not wish to sound money-centric but that is the way it is here. Removing clutter and garbage from my home was already a case in point. I actually have to pay for trash removed if not for the fact that I decided there and then to resell this to the recycling companies much like the schools do.
When you reflect on how the print is recycle for re-print, it makes you think how you are actually paying for that same daily read over and over again with this recycling business while it costs the producer only once and a fraction more each time.
All the new products are unnecessary when the used ones are actually still usable even after prolonged use but for the sake of turbo-charging the economy and generating consumerism and demand, new products keep cropping up, some with cosmetic changes.
To the arbiter for the realtor as to why I would engage the professional services of a rogue agent, I wouldn't have known until I do. We were only chatting over the phone before she came by one evening, made me sign an exclusive and I couldn't have backed out then, could I? And I don't think the selling price was the only selling process but all the after-sales service as well. This reflects on the sad state of her, her company and the industry.
Let me explain that I do not deny the revenue stream the "orphanage" wants to generate for itself so as to be self-sustainable. But speaking for myself, I can't be "volunteering" when I am not exactly having an income myself and just living by. Making me a paid volunteer sounds more equitable, like the doyen in NKF who works from 9am till 9pm in NKF and who apparently has a big say in everything that is run in the organisation.
The big difference between an entrepreneur in public service and private employ is that the public one toys with money not his own and he can have all the time and luxury to sit and wait out the returns on his investment. He does draw a wage every month, doesn't he? As a private entrepreneur, I can't. Every day, I sit still, I am doomed but I can't give up yet as my business practice is for 3 years and I have to see it through its tenure to justify its life-span. I can't be multi-tasking too much which M/s Mee Pok actually was, now that I think of it, frying kway teow and cooking up mee pok.
All this tender-driven thingy is ridiculous with a starting price of $3000 which is tantamount to a person's monthly wages. I can understand huge projects to the tune of hundreds of thousands and millions. But to put a measly $3000 on the block? The bar should be raised to $10 000. Why don't we put the government on the tender block as well and let the job go to the lowest bidder in the spirit of competition and hiving off? Let us see who can do the job better and at less cost.
In case you don't know, the tender runs on both a highest and lowest bid system, calculated only to benefit you-know-who.
A retired cabby puts it correctly when he laments that at age 60, people begin to think that he can just volunteer his time and service to charitable organisations. In all likelihood, he will appreciate even a token for his effort which will see him through a meal or a transport during this period of unemployment. Not that many here have sufficient savings to see them through their twilight years. Everyone seems to think they can only "volunteer".
Another cabby remarked that as parents they should just do their best for their kids and then leave them be to venture into the unknown. After all, he reasons, kids once coupled, fly the coop and leave their parents be anyway.
I agree to a certain extent. Which leads me to the question of kinship and blood-ties. What is the use of this if it came to end like what Mr Cabby said? When you think about it all, the person you marry wasn't a blood-relation either till you two coupled and had kids, which are.
In the world of the mammals, the parents actually would fend for their young, equip and teach them the ropes of looking for food and survival whilst their off-springs watch and learn. They do seem more bonded and nurturing while we as homo-sapiens, do not seem to bond as much, in most cases leaving kids in the hands of total strangers?
Running on open roads would have moi peeling my eyes out for human and vehicular traffic during peak hours. Thus I cannot concentrate on my thoughts. Running within a confined area would take away the vehicular hazard but the human traffic could serve to be as bad a distraction unless the running is done in the dead of night. That would be my reply to a simplistic suggestion of being able to run anywhere and everywhere.
Sending an old folk to a nursing home may not be an infilial act if the level of medical care has gotten to the point where medically qualified staff have to be on the watch 24 hours. A maid, you or me can't.
I will repeat myself again. Everyone is living in their own world here, with their little emotional baggages of personal history. I may have enough of my own, try as hard as I do to start afresh everytime I meet someone new. That is the reason why I refuse to extend my circle where it probably leads me to another concentric of someone's baggage.
Working in all the places I did and meeting with people, this is the everlasting imprint I always get. Caught up in bad experiences, they seem to make me fit into the mould of their past which I am not. It is disconcerting to have to deal with this everyday. I know one when I encounter it.
With dual income families, I think kids suffer the most, left alone, with a maid or in some full-day program in an after-care commercial school. Women go to work for a variety of reasons: fulfilment, financial need and financial independence.
For the third reason, it sometimes beats me why they got married in the first place if they could not trust and depend on their partner to be the breadwinner of the house. A ST writer wrote about this at length and very profoundly. There were issues of joint-account and so on. What a mystery, marrying someone and not trusting them after all.
I can understand that things can change and if there were ever a third party, guess what, it is most likely a woman again! So there, women! You people have just done yourselves in, among your very own gender.
To a woman's asinide remarks as to why I shouldn't just get married and be done with, life isn't a bed of roses like with her prescription. It is exactly with people like her that I have a problem with and even if she were the last woman on planet earth, I would have retreated into my own oyster shell and shun her to death. I would rather be a "masturbation expert" (to borrow a phrase from a PHD enabled "teacher" in a school) than to live my life out with a hag.
Kids are fortunately the most blessed in this respect. But once they step into schools, society and the workforce, it is a nuclear contamination as contagious as Chernobyl. Sigh. They pick up and learn to ape all the ways of the stinking world.
Incidentally I hope parents will be more consistent with their parenting. If you allow your kid out without a curfew, don't lock up the front door refusing him entry when he comes back. This is totally inconsistent. It is like you send your maid out to run an errand and then later scold her for going out upon her return. Get the picture?
We are not really communicating anymore. We are hearing past one another because of all the dissonance, cacophany and stresses of life. Therefore miscommunication ensues , trouble starts and wars follow.
I am going to recuperate from all the bad vibes I have been getting lately. See you around .
Monday, January 09, 2006
I Am Blogging My Arse Off Now
I read with mouth agape at some of the personal financial advisory columns in the press. It is a huge surprise that legal eagles could dispense what I deem to be half-baked legal information.
For instance, it is perspacious that a will does not supersede any policy stipulation with regards to a transfer of ownership of a HDB flat upon death in the case of a joint-tenancy. Thus it is in the best interest of all parties concerned to consider tenancy-in-common as a viable alternative if a will is to specify the owner's real wishes and intentions. Somehow, this is been neglected in the coulmn's discussion.
The same goes for monies in our CPF. A nomination would do the trick and there is no need for nominees to be blood-related as is the case of your flat.
I spoke too soon about how women had yet to intrude into the male restrooms as the last bastion of male preserve. The charwomen had seen to that! On occasions I even witnessed an old hag coming in to spruce up her hair in the mirror or a daddy bringing in her little girl to pee!
Seriously I think our language ability is not even anywhere between Queen's English and Beijing Chinese. We are neither pedigree English nor pedigree Chinese. We would best be described as a mongrel.
Speaking with a rags-and-bones dude beats speaking with an educator anytime. I learnt more than I ever did with a bitch-ass in a school. It is a wonder they never teach the purity of gold such as a 22K or 24K worth but impractical and nonsensical topics like "Calculus". Can you blame the kids, the enterprising ones, who just slack off and snooze!
If I am ever fiery, I am only fiery at matters of indignance and injustice like what the NLB did or the way the property agent conducted herself. As I mentioned, it is a culture of guilty until proven innocent. People think the worst of you. Thus they come up with all sorts of policies like my Valentine's Day analogy.
I would have been a radiographer if it hadn't been for the interview panel who had a barrage of irrelevant questions, as if it was some tribunal of sorts. Excuse moi. Am I here for a scholarship or are you putting moi on trial for a war crime?
I had a bad haircut. It was cheap and I thought I won't be around anymore in this part of town. But I live to regret to see the after-effects for at least a month or so and CNY is drawing nearer.
To make up for that, I had interesting snatches of conversation with the regulars at the hair-dressers. For one, we agreed the whole working culture here is one big SHIT. The working conditions, hours, relations and set up. It isn't the hard work which will kill you but the whole nonsense we have to put up with. And might I add, women problems. Men, bad as they are, are bad enough.
I don't think starting a commercial school in the lines of so many others here is an option for me. I will hate it very much. I don't think we are even ready for the kind of school I am envisioning here, technologically advanced that we are.
I am not sure if there is "education" here. It is more crowd control, administrative bucreaucy and exam practice. The real business of education hasn't even begun here. Education of the heart, mind and soul.
I met up with a former civil servant turned barrister. It is amazing he did this , given his calibre. I suppose there is money to be had from a simple oath-taking declaration.
I remember a divorcee who sends her young daughter for my tutorial. She almost always insists on sending her over early, a habit I dissuade vigorously. Her first impression struck me as ex-parmour filled with hatred against her ex-husband, a Japanese. She even audaciously suggests that I could pull her daughter's panties down and whack her rumps if she should misbehave. What a fucking, filthy woman! From thence forth, I have been extra wary of divorcees and widows.
I am glad I am no longer helping out at the orphanage. It had taken to admitting paying children for its school-care programs while here I am, volunteering my services to tutor the underprivileged. Whilst I can take all whoever you assign to me, I draw a line at especially difficult girls. And it isn't exactly that I can agree with the way it is run by the administrators, mostly a bevy of women.
I am almost up to the neck with issues of subsidies in our healthcare and home-owning policies. My question now is prove that there is a subsidy in the first place. How do we know the service or good is worth the amount you say it is? I could have gotten a piece of candy at $0.30, put it out on the market for $0.50 and declared most voraciously that it has a subsidy of $0.20 which otherwise would have cost you $0.70. So much for the "subsidy".
Another argument flared between myself and the property agent who brokered my sale. She was insisting on the "pavillions" at our national parks being called "shacks". The two have very different imageries. A shack would be a building with roofs and walls while a pavillion would be just a shelter. For sure, the boat people by our seas live in shacks but not the picnickers.
An article rages on about "Stay-At-Home-Dads". There were questions of emasculation, metrosexuality and dignity. I think we have sorely missed the point here. Let us separate the two. SAHD in no way implies emasculation or metrosexuality. It is an employment choice, usually no different working in an office or at home, given the telecommuting capabilities of today.
Besides SAHDs save on transport, traffice snarls, office rental and unproductive politics at the workplace (sometimes perpetrated by women). Emasculation and metrosexuality kick in when the guys are oppressed at work by women superiors whose goals can usually be so different, as a result of gender differences. Men taking orders from their women bosses, orders which are as unwise as any dumbo men can make.
Guys take after women in their mannerisms, behaviour and talk (bitching, carrying her handbag, toying with her clothes, make-up , dressing up , overtly narcissitic and preoccupied with his looks) . Now that is metrosexuality.
Housework isn't. Cooking, cleaning and washing. Neither is grocery shopping or minding the kids. The home is a private sphere between a couple who has equal shared responsibilities.
I had my say. Let the debate rage on.
For instance, it is perspacious that a will does not supersede any policy stipulation with regards to a transfer of ownership of a HDB flat upon death in the case of a joint-tenancy. Thus it is in the best interest of all parties concerned to consider tenancy-in-common as a viable alternative if a will is to specify the owner's real wishes and intentions. Somehow, this is been neglected in the coulmn's discussion.
The same goes for monies in our CPF. A nomination would do the trick and there is no need for nominees to be blood-related as is the case of your flat.
I spoke too soon about how women had yet to intrude into the male restrooms as the last bastion of male preserve. The charwomen had seen to that! On occasions I even witnessed an old hag coming in to spruce up her hair in the mirror or a daddy bringing in her little girl to pee!
Seriously I think our language ability is not even anywhere between Queen's English and Beijing Chinese. We are neither pedigree English nor pedigree Chinese. We would best be described as a mongrel.
Speaking with a rags-and-bones dude beats speaking with an educator anytime. I learnt more than I ever did with a bitch-ass in a school. It is a wonder they never teach the purity of gold such as a 22K or 24K worth but impractical and nonsensical topics like "Calculus". Can you blame the kids, the enterprising ones, who just slack off and snooze!
If I am ever fiery, I am only fiery at matters of indignance and injustice like what the NLB did or the way the property agent conducted herself. As I mentioned, it is a culture of guilty until proven innocent. People think the worst of you. Thus they come up with all sorts of policies like my Valentine's Day analogy.
I would have been a radiographer if it hadn't been for the interview panel who had a barrage of irrelevant questions, as if it was some tribunal of sorts. Excuse moi. Am I here for a scholarship or are you putting moi on trial for a war crime?
I had a bad haircut. It was cheap and I thought I won't be around anymore in this part of town. But I live to regret to see the after-effects for at least a month or so and CNY is drawing nearer.
To make up for that, I had interesting snatches of conversation with the regulars at the hair-dressers. For one, we agreed the whole working culture here is one big SHIT. The working conditions, hours, relations and set up. It isn't the hard work which will kill you but the whole nonsense we have to put up with. And might I add, women problems. Men, bad as they are, are bad enough.
I don't think starting a commercial school in the lines of so many others here is an option for me. I will hate it very much. I don't think we are even ready for the kind of school I am envisioning here, technologically advanced that we are.
I am not sure if there is "education" here. It is more crowd control, administrative bucreaucy and exam practice. The real business of education hasn't even begun here. Education of the heart, mind and soul.
I met up with a former civil servant turned barrister. It is amazing he did this , given his calibre. I suppose there is money to be had from a simple oath-taking declaration.
I remember a divorcee who sends her young daughter for my tutorial. She almost always insists on sending her over early, a habit I dissuade vigorously. Her first impression struck me as ex-parmour filled with hatred against her ex-husband, a Japanese. She even audaciously suggests that I could pull her daughter's panties down and whack her rumps if she should misbehave. What a fucking, filthy woman! From thence forth, I have been extra wary of divorcees and widows.
I am glad I am no longer helping out at the orphanage. It had taken to admitting paying children for its school-care programs while here I am, volunteering my services to tutor the underprivileged. Whilst I can take all whoever you assign to me, I draw a line at especially difficult girls. And it isn't exactly that I can agree with the way it is run by the administrators, mostly a bevy of women.
I am almost up to the neck with issues of subsidies in our healthcare and home-owning policies. My question now is prove that there is a subsidy in the first place. How do we know the service or good is worth the amount you say it is? I could have gotten a piece of candy at $0.30, put it out on the market for $0.50 and declared most voraciously that it has a subsidy of $0.20 which otherwise would have cost you $0.70. So much for the "subsidy".
Another argument flared between myself and the property agent who brokered my sale. She was insisting on the "pavillions" at our national parks being called "shacks". The two have very different imageries. A shack would be a building with roofs and walls while a pavillion would be just a shelter. For sure, the boat people by our seas live in shacks but not the picnickers.
An article rages on about "Stay-At-Home-Dads". There were questions of emasculation, metrosexuality and dignity. I think we have sorely missed the point here. Let us separate the two. SAHD in no way implies emasculation or metrosexuality. It is an employment choice, usually no different working in an office or at home, given the telecommuting capabilities of today.
Besides SAHDs save on transport, traffice snarls, office rental and unproductive politics at the workplace (sometimes perpetrated by women). Emasculation and metrosexuality kick in when the guys are oppressed at work by women superiors whose goals can usually be so different, as a result of gender differences. Men taking orders from their women bosses, orders which are as unwise as any dumbo men can make.
Guys take after women in their mannerisms, behaviour and talk (bitching, carrying her handbag, toying with her clothes, make-up , dressing up , overtly narcissitic and preoccupied with his looks) . Now that is metrosexuality.
Housework isn't. Cooking, cleaning and washing. Neither is grocery shopping or minding the kids. The home is a private sphere between a couple who has equal shared responsibilities.
I had my say. Let the debate rage on.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Down Memory Lane
Something happened here. First I heard a loud boom. Thought nothing of it. Next, the wailing sirens and flashing lights followed and before I know, a huge retinue of police motorcade and ambulatory vehicles parked themselves outside the HDB Hub and the area was sealed off. Something must have happened here but I don't know what it is. It had been raining the whole morning. I will have to wait for the newsflash.
But wait. Is this the surprise civil defence emergency exercise that I am reading now on the online Straits Times? Think so.
I was reminded of a fight that broke out at Kinokuniya in Takashimaya. Having seen Jacelyn Tay earlier, I thought it was a film-out. But it wasn't. A guy with a motorcycle helmet was punching the living daylights out of a tall Chinese dude, with him lying flat down on the floor with his spectacles astrewn. I learnt later how he had tried voyeurism up the skirts of the lady companion of Mr Motorcycle Helmet with a mirror or camera.
But I thought the woman was wearing pants whom any self-respecting woman pillion rider would. Imagine a Marilyn Munroe with skirts swirling as she sits tight amidst the wind drafts and turbulence whirling around her. Women! They are such trouble!
I made a wrong turning yesterday. I had intended to shop for my loaf and just head straight back home afterwards. Instead I found myself treading back to my old living place in Lorong 1, Toa Payoh and spending considerable time eating out and chatting with people I knew in my childhood days.
It was nostalgic and insightful as I found out more about what was happening in their lives. About how some old shopkeepers had tenanted out their premises, how some are still standing, how their kids had flown the coop and not keen to take over the businesses, how some had found it difficult to cope with dwindling trade while keeping up with rising rents and costs. In no small part attributed to the siting away of the car-parking lot where customers once used to park in front of the shop and just walk in to browse and buy.
It was about development and its impact on people and their livelihood. The relentless drive of the economy and unfettered market competition, oblivious to the sufferings of the ordinary folks.
M/s Mee Pok used to dish out fried kway teow and mee pok when I was living in the estate. She could no longer pay the stall rent when a "tender-driven" operator took hold of the entire coffee-shop and raised rents. She is considering selling food in a school canteen and now helping out in the kopi-tiam as a charwoman. Her younger brother had died from an electrical shock accident at home.
In keeping with the times I suppose, she even had a facial overhaul. Sigh. How our beauty culture has affected us all. The women to look svelte and young. The men to look young and muscled.
Another shopkeeper, who moved in after we had left the town in 1985, was such a learned old woman in HDB flats' prices and goings-on, I am awe-stricken by her wise counsel and knowledge. In all, this part of Toa Payoh, has people respecting one another, knowing everyone, engaging in friendly banter and conversation. So unlike the mean-spirited, cold and unfriendly Toa Payoh precinct where I live now. These are the rental, one, two and three-roomers.
I lambasted a potential landlord yesterday. He was some young Indonesian Chinese who the moment he learned of my age, turned down a viewing of the premises. I texted him, telling him how his education must have been wasted on an ageist like him and how his homeland is a corrupt Third World. He would have been hauled to court if this had been America, much like Bata or the rogue realtor would have been if I had my way.
This incident had me recalling the hordes of rich and wealthy Indonesian Chinese who throng the private hospitals in the hey-days when I was doing my rounds in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. They were loud, aloof, aloft and flashy.
Another thought I was selling my body and wanted to view me first, asked for my vital statistics and had a litany of no-nos. But it was asking me for my body built that took the cheesecake. I am renting a room not whoring, thank you very much. Told you how the narcissitic wimps are here in our country.
Let me explain a bit about the domestic monopoly part I espoused yesterday in my blog. I mean if you are the sole provider managing an energy market which everyone has to have anyway, it is no big deal. So too if you are the only local bank with a proliferation of ATMs spread out geographically. Guess who would turn to you if only for the convenience!
I was doing some checks and I am convinced we are charging First World prices here while paying Third World wages. A Sony Ericsson W550i is retailing for something like S$578 (assumedly including the VAT) in UK, a good $20 cheaper. I know for a fact that food is expensive in Japan. A piece of hash-brown cutlet costs 120 yen and a decent meal starts anything like 900 or 1200 yen. Something much lesser would be 400 yen.
Right, enough for one morning. I have more at the back of my mind for sure but as I mentioned before, I cannot even begin to blog all my thoughts, the events and happenings in my life and the people I met. I can only blog some, probably just a fraction.
You have a good day now ok.
But wait. Is this the surprise civil defence emergency exercise that I am reading now on the online Straits Times? Think so.
I was reminded of a fight that broke out at Kinokuniya in Takashimaya. Having seen Jacelyn Tay earlier, I thought it was a film-out. But it wasn't. A guy with a motorcycle helmet was punching the living daylights out of a tall Chinese dude, with him lying flat down on the floor with his spectacles astrewn. I learnt later how he had tried voyeurism up the skirts of the lady companion of Mr Motorcycle Helmet with a mirror or camera.
But I thought the woman was wearing pants whom any self-respecting woman pillion rider would. Imagine a Marilyn Munroe with skirts swirling as she sits tight amidst the wind drafts and turbulence whirling around her. Women! They are such trouble!
I made a wrong turning yesterday. I had intended to shop for my loaf and just head straight back home afterwards. Instead I found myself treading back to my old living place in Lorong 1, Toa Payoh and spending considerable time eating out and chatting with people I knew in my childhood days.
It was nostalgic and insightful as I found out more about what was happening in their lives. About how some old shopkeepers had tenanted out their premises, how some are still standing, how their kids had flown the coop and not keen to take over the businesses, how some had found it difficult to cope with dwindling trade while keeping up with rising rents and costs. In no small part attributed to the siting away of the car-parking lot where customers once used to park in front of the shop and just walk in to browse and buy.
It was about development and its impact on people and their livelihood. The relentless drive of the economy and unfettered market competition, oblivious to the sufferings of the ordinary folks.
M/s Mee Pok used to dish out fried kway teow and mee pok when I was living in the estate. She could no longer pay the stall rent when a "tender-driven" operator took hold of the entire coffee-shop and raised rents. She is considering selling food in a school canteen and now helping out in the kopi-tiam as a charwoman. Her younger brother had died from an electrical shock accident at home.
In keeping with the times I suppose, she even had a facial overhaul. Sigh. How our beauty culture has affected us all. The women to look svelte and young. The men to look young and muscled.
Another shopkeeper, who moved in after we had left the town in 1985, was such a learned old woman in HDB flats' prices and goings-on, I am awe-stricken by her wise counsel and knowledge. In all, this part of Toa Payoh, has people respecting one another, knowing everyone, engaging in friendly banter and conversation. So unlike the mean-spirited, cold and unfriendly Toa Payoh precinct where I live now. These are the rental, one, two and three-roomers.
I lambasted a potential landlord yesterday. He was some young Indonesian Chinese who the moment he learned of my age, turned down a viewing of the premises. I texted him, telling him how his education must have been wasted on an ageist like him and how his homeland is a corrupt Third World. He would have been hauled to court if this had been America, much like Bata or the rogue realtor would have been if I had my way.
This incident had me recalling the hordes of rich and wealthy Indonesian Chinese who throng the private hospitals in the hey-days when I was doing my rounds in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. They were loud, aloof, aloft and flashy.
Another thought I was selling my body and wanted to view me first, asked for my vital statistics and had a litany of no-nos. But it was asking me for my body built that took the cheesecake. I am renting a room not whoring, thank you very much. Told you how the narcissitic wimps are here in our country.
Let me explain a bit about the domestic monopoly part I espoused yesterday in my blog. I mean if you are the sole provider managing an energy market which everyone has to have anyway, it is no big deal. So too if you are the only local bank with a proliferation of ATMs spread out geographically. Guess who would turn to you if only for the convenience!
I was doing some checks and I am convinced we are charging First World prices here while paying Third World wages. A Sony Ericsson W550i is retailing for something like S$578 (assumedly including the VAT) in UK, a good $20 cheaper. I know for a fact that food is expensive in Japan. A piece of hash-brown cutlet costs 120 yen and a decent meal starts anything like 900 or 1200 yen. Something much lesser would be 400 yen.
Right, enough for one morning. I have more at the back of my mind for sure but as I mentioned before, I cannot even begin to blog all my thoughts, the events and happenings in my life and the people I met. I can only blog some, probably just a fraction.
You have a good day now ok.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
New Year Power Pack
Happy 2006! The New Year is here and it is seven days running. I am packed and all ready to go. Where, I am not sure. I will just go along on my intuition and see where it all leads me.
20 years (10 from my past, 10 from my current) of my existence has certainly had me accumulating quite a bit of barang barang. Stuff I didn't imagine myself owning. Those old photographs dug up were nostalgic. And all that dust. Where do they come from?
As I do intend to travel light, wherever it is I am going, it is auction time. Sell I did for all my valuables and not so valuable. All this has taught me lessons I will never forget . Lessons like how some industries work (like the rag-and-bone and recycling trades), pricing and valuation mechanisms, where to get the best value for your goods, the invisible but thriving secondary market and bargaining for the best prices.
The next time you think you are buying something brand new like a photo-copier cartridge, think again. It could be recycled material packaged in an aluminium foil.
We are churning out waste faster than we can safely dispose of them. And it is not our fault really. Updates in models and technology have all contributed to the problem. It amazes me how paper waste in particular is being generated everyday. The printouts, receipts, bills and documents. Coming back home from my resale appointment alone saw me carting off no less than 10 pieces of trash paper.
Above all, it has taught me too that I should buy something and consider its resale value immediately thereafter. I will also not keep goods which are no longer working. Nor should I keep spares. There were bad buying decisions and wrong fits . All those free gifts and twin packs have made my spring cleaning so much tougher too.
It pains me to see the avaricious trader fattening himself on wealth, feeding off poor proletariats like meself. This is a cold, greedy and heartless place as far as I can see. A Canadian couple came calling for bargain sales and I am impressed with the wife. She is one smart lady and her husband is one lucky chap to have gotten her. If more women cold be like that and serve to be good and wise counsel to their other halves, the world would be a better place.
My house is stripped down to its barest. I am sleeping on the floor on a single mattress. It was like when I first moved in where I nestled down on a comforter laid out on the floor. But this has aggravated my back and I wake up, painfully aching. Not to mention the 37 or more trashbags, each weighing the size of a woman, which must have worked my lower back to its death.
The appointment for a resale transaction left me in a foul mood. The resale levy if I choose to buy another flat directly from the housing authorities was a hefty 25% with 5% compound interest. 5% compounded? Even fixed deposit or savings interest rates is at an all time low of 1% or so. And compounding it only compounds the situation. This is analagous to buying a bouquet of roses on Valentine's day and 10 days later, telling your recipient he has to pay for it with compound interest at 5%.
So a prized bouquet costing S$10 would be with compounded 5% interest after 10 days works out to easily $16.00 or more. This is in a matter of days, mind you.
I was told it is a penalty. Penalty for what? What did I do wrong? It isn't as if I am buying a house like I do stocks on the equities market for capital trading and gain. If I did, I would have sold off days, weeks, months or years earlier. Not wait the decade I had.
People buy houses to live in and if it should appreciate, good. We sell only if circumstances force us to. Financial , personal or otherwise. Like a retrenchment, a financial downturn , a move to start a business or migration. Or a death or a need for smaller or bigger premises.
Furthermore, the time bar imposed on occupational requirements before selling off, ranging from a year to 7 years, which in my case is a MOP of 5 years, is penalty enough. This is a double whammy if anything.
With a surplus of 9000 units (most already 5 years old) and more new ones being built for the 5 room or bigger categories, I can't see what the housing authority has to lose, opportunity costs being the taxes and mortgages they could have collected, to sell them off at 30-50% discounted prices to needy residents like myself rather than letting them stand empty. Wake up HDB!
A call to a property firm had its receptionist making up all kinds of lame excuses for its directors being away at meetings. This is crap. It is akin to the public sector where the top management is never accessible as they are all busy at meetings throughout their working lives. Baloney!
Speaking of which if you are a CEO of a domestic monopoly, please do not blow your horns like you are some international bigshot. Even moi can do the job. All I need is to think up creative ideas to wring money out of my consumers who have no where to go anyway. I don't think we are any different from developing countries in borrowing from IMF or the World Bank or ADB.
I am so tired with the all co-ordination work tying up with different organisations, I am zombified at the end of each day. Losing a pawn ticket and having to make a statutory declaration is hassling enough without a bitch of a Commissioner of Oaths boring down on your nerves with her ever-changing time schedules. She got my swear words into her cheebye face.
What a disappointment "A Chinese Tall Story" was! Simpy trash and I will never watch a Chinese movie again ever in my whole entire life.
Ok, my first blog of the year and I hope you find my first-hand experience revealing and invaluable so you can learn and react when you are next faced with the same set of circumstances.
20 years (10 from my past, 10 from my current) of my existence has certainly had me accumulating quite a bit of barang barang. Stuff I didn't imagine myself owning. Those old photographs dug up were nostalgic. And all that dust. Where do they come from?
As I do intend to travel light, wherever it is I am going, it is auction time. Sell I did for all my valuables and not so valuable. All this has taught me lessons I will never forget . Lessons like how some industries work (like the rag-and-bone and recycling trades), pricing and valuation mechanisms, where to get the best value for your goods, the invisible but thriving secondary market and bargaining for the best prices.
The next time you think you are buying something brand new like a photo-copier cartridge, think again. It could be recycled material packaged in an aluminium foil.
We are churning out waste faster than we can safely dispose of them. And it is not our fault really. Updates in models and technology have all contributed to the problem. It amazes me how paper waste in particular is being generated everyday. The printouts, receipts, bills and documents. Coming back home from my resale appointment alone saw me carting off no less than 10 pieces of trash paper.
Above all, it has taught me too that I should buy something and consider its resale value immediately thereafter. I will also not keep goods which are no longer working. Nor should I keep spares. There were bad buying decisions and wrong fits . All those free gifts and twin packs have made my spring cleaning so much tougher too.
It pains me to see the avaricious trader fattening himself on wealth, feeding off poor proletariats like meself. This is a cold, greedy and heartless place as far as I can see. A Canadian couple came calling for bargain sales and I am impressed with the wife. She is one smart lady and her husband is one lucky chap to have gotten her. If more women cold be like that and serve to be good and wise counsel to their other halves, the world would be a better place.
My house is stripped down to its barest. I am sleeping on the floor on a single mattress. It was like when I first moved in where I nestled down on a comforter laid out on the floor. But this has aggravated my back and I wake up, painfully aching. Not to mention the 37 or more trashbags, each weighing the size of a woman, which must have worked my lower back to its death.
The appointment for a resale transaction left me in a foul mood. The resale levy if I choose to buy another flat directly from the housing authorities was a hefty 25% with 5% compound interest. 5% compounded? Even fixed deposit or savings interest rates is at an all time low of 1% or so. And compounding it only compounds the situation. This is analagous to buying a bouquet of roses on Valentine's day and 10 days later, telling your recipient he has to pay for it with compound interest at 5%.
So a prized bouquet costing S$10 would be with compounded 5% interest after 10 days works out to easily $16.00 or more. This is in a matter of days, mind you.
I was told it is a penalty. Penalty for what? What did I do wrong? It isn't as if I am buying a house like I do stocks on the equities market for capital trading and gain. If I did, I would have sold off days, weeks, months or years earlier. Not wait the decade I had.
People buy houses to live in and if it should appreciate, good. We sell only if circumstances force us to. Financial , personal or otherwise. Like a retrenchment, a financial downturn , a move to start a business or migration. Or a death or a need for smaller or bigger premises.
Furthermore, the time bar imposed on occupational requirements before selling off, ranging from a year to 7 years, which in my case is a MOP of 5 years, is penalty enough. This is a double whammy if anything.
With a surplus of 9000 units (most already 5 years old) and more new ones being built for the 5 room or bigger categories, I can't see what the housing authority has to lose, opportunity costs being the taxes and mortgages they could have collected, to sell them off at 30-50% discounted prices to needy residents like myself rather than letting them stand empty. Wake up HDB!
A call to a property firm had its receptionist making up all kinds of lame excuses for its directors being away at meetings. This is crap. It is akin to the public sector where the top management is never accessible as they are all busy at meetings throughout their working lives. Baloney!
Speaking of which if you are a CEO of a domestic monopoly, please do not blow your horns like you are some international bigshot. Even moi can do the job. All I need is to think up creative ideas to wring money out of my consumers who have no where to go anyway. I don't think we are any different from developing countries in borrowing from IMF or the World Bank or ADB.
I am so tired with the all co-ordination work tying up with different organisations, I am zombified at the end of each day. Losing a pawn ticket and having to make a statutory declaration is hassling enough without a bitch of a Commissioner of Oaths boring down on your nerves with her ever-changing time schedules. She got my swear words into her cheebye face.
What a disappointment "A Chinese Tall Story" was! Simpy trash and I will never watch a Chinese movie again ever in my whole entire life.
Ok, my first blog of the year and I hope you find my first-hand experience revealing and invaluable so you can learn and react when you are next faced with the same set of circumstances.
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