Re-Discovering Singapore

Well what a fucking rude China woman manning this popiah counter at the Longhouse!She will not sell one roll and put it very bitchily too! The fucking bitch! I gave her the cold hard stare and she has a fucking bitchy daughter too!

Oh yes! Add politicians to my list of bumpers! I bumped into quite a few and yes professionals like architects, etc.

Yes I am beginning to speak with Chui Hong, my ex-JC matie.She is now a home-maker, lives near me, has a son and been away from Singapore for a long time. We chatted about our former JC life and I wondered aloud what happened to some of the JC tutors and lecturers, though I had seen the canoe teacher and some canoeist dudes.

I guess I didnt really enjoy canoeing in JC because it was so regimented and we were probably gearing up for some competition or something. But I had relished the leisurely , exercisy excursions at the East Coast, canoeing my heart out at sea, enjoying the breeze, sun, sand , sea and yet getting a good workout.

It is the same with the runs now at the reserve, leisurely, within my means, so unlike the blind ragy annual X-country we do in school! I have observed how some schools do their X-country and it is always getting ready at the starting line, a flag-off (sound of a horn or something) and the kids just charge ahead. Reminds me of the raging bull at a Spanish event who jumped up onto the grandstand and stampeded some of the audience! Pure blind rage! Unseeing and unthinking. They certainly miss out a chance on observing and learning about nature.

It is the same with people dispensing ill advice on exercise frequency and so on. I mean I listen to my body more than anything else. It is true that in the beginning I ran and gym almost everyday because I want to condition myself and I felt up to it. Now that I lost 5kg and feel fitter and better, I can ease off and reschedule.When I am tired, I just dont exercise.

I would rather you tell me how I can make more money so I can own my next place, plan for retirement, have money to spend in my old age and now, how I can adopt a son and an introduction to a good boy or man! In short, give me the solution to my financial enrichment and enhancement and love and family life? No point harping on stuff of yore! After all this is what we are built on, right?

This place has a few units in the valley part having basement units. Imagine my surprise when I look in and notice the houses go down! Some of the residents living in my part of the estate are blue-collared as evidenced by the trucks they drive besides the cars they own.

My financial portfolio is keeping me on life's edge. Just as I move away from one counter, its price rises enough ticks to earn me some good profit. In fact if not for the brokerage bumble, I would have made $10K on just this one bid and which was my very first. Fuck you and I do need the money for all the things I wanna do! There is also a deadline after which I cant be on the roll anymore! KNNCCB!

I am not owning the house I stay in and it is a fabulous place really. I dream of the stuff I would do to it. Full length ceiling to floor glass windows and doors. No shingled roofs but a roofed garden with a fish pond, sauna , jacuzzi and attic. A contemporary and modern look. Looking like a loft. An extension of the whole place, vertically 3 1/2 floors and horizontally. Off with the rectangular stairway which eats into the space, to be replaced by a spiral one. This will open up the living and dining areas. An open concept kitchen and bathroom with space for barbecue, al-fresco dining and laundry.

By the way my bedroom is now a kitchenette where I store my food such as bread, milo, powdered milk, oranges and apples. I should be doing this in the fridge but it is such a dreadful dwarf ( about 1.5 m or so) and it is dirty and slimy, always bloodied and filled.The whole kitchen is splattered with paint, hair (yes MR PSYCHO does his haircuts here), grime and spall. YUCKS! And yes I just squashed two, what I suspect to be body lices! DOUBLE YUCKS! Either the mattress is harbouring them or the whole place is swarming with them! CB YUCKS!

In a way, I am re-discovering Singapore. Places I have never visited and the bus rides are an eye-opener. I also have to plan for trips which can interconnect one to another. Sometimes, it is bus2bus2bus or bus2mrt2bus. It is great fun! I get to observe an amazing variety in which some places operate.

Oh yes and these places brought me in contact with people who tell me things I never heard of. Like this dude who juzt finished Os and can't seem to get any financial assitance to further his studies (he doesn't qualify for bursaries and scholarships). And yes my alma mater has a mad woman who pinches boys' nipples if they misbehave (I have spoken with this woman before and I don't like her one bit - she thinks I am arrogant when she looks far far worse and discriminatory - she only likes the academically-better students - according to people who told me). YUCKS! MOE allows this? The school allows this? I would have given her the sack long time ago.

As I sit in here at a LAN shop with all the DOTA kings dotaing away, I am turning on my radio playing pop music at full blast! AND I AM ENJOYINMG EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Right more blogs maybe soon?

Brick-bats And More Bugaboos

Did I mention this rocker musician (at least he was dressed the part) who sat next to me on a Saturday morning in a LAN shop? He smelt fragrant, oozing with such animalistic sex appeal, I was tempted to caress the fine matt of hair on his navel, working my fingers all the way up and down his body, whenever he stretches himself exposing his belly in a-size-too-small tight-fitting tees, rumping down on his LAN (pardon the sexism) chair. On top of all that, he speaks well and he is able to articulate his thoughts and feelings. The SNAG man!

The other rocker next to him had me tingling somewhere in between my groins whenever he shouts the "LJ" expletive while LANNING! It was such a sexy, sex-charged and vulgar word all at the same time! Another swell dude was equally charming, suave and communicative. He seems to be the dude the others hung around or look up to. I really want to know these chaps especially you two!

I have a deaf and mute gay dude on my contactlist. I would like to meet with him one day. But being such a loner (not by choice I guess, I am as gregarious as the next pink dolphin but most people are in their own cliques, their own world, and we do fear rejection, don't we when we initiate the first move and in a crowd like that how are we ever gonna start something?) myself and deprived of good communication for so long, I am communication-starved at home and outside. I really need people whom I can share my thoughts, feelings and experiences on a verbal basis - in the English language. I don't want to live in a world of silence anymore. That is why I blog!

Yes and I am not working not by choice but by circumstance. I mean if I ain't cut out to be a security guard, a taxi-driver or a cleaner (three jobs that are still open to Singaporeans while IT and other "professions" are for the rest) , I just ain't. My true calling lies in education. Not that many of the leaders in educational institutions see their roles as "education of the heart, mind and soul" but rather as solely political or economic appointments. Sad straying off the path of the true meaning of education, I would say and they do get rewarded for "efficiency" and "long and meritorious service" (whatever those terms mean).

The reserve continues to be a source of discoveries of new animal species (at least to me as I have not seen them before). Some time ago, a colourful white, red and black bronzeback (I think it is this) was strewn across between two planks in the boardwalk, making it look like a hooker. I reckoned no right-thinking man (maybe MR PSYHCO?) would take a hooker to the reserve and leave it on the boardwalk and suspected it to be a snake instead. I plucked off a twig and jabbed at it. I wasn't disappointed. MR BRONZEBACK reared its small head with its flickering tongue and slithered away. I have even spotted a lone purple heron wading on shallow waters. It is purple on nearsight and in stills but in flight and further away, it could have been a grey heron. And in the early morning darkness, leafbirds , green with a black face mask, fly low among the shrubbery as if to lead the way for me.

All my time in the reserve I have never seen a flying lemur but the national newspapers actually reported a case of poachers shooting down a mother lemur leaving dear junior helpless. How did this happen when I didn't even get to see one?

I refuse to switch vocation. I have been advised to do something else like sell insurance policies or real estate. I will stick to my guns. Education it is and education it will be. I don't even envisage special education as I am not equipped (though I am sure training is provided). I think I have enough problems of my own and I can't give of my best to these kids who certainly need more attention. I don't mind students in the NA or NT or ITE streams. It will be more rewarding if students are more intellectually up to task.

Even these high brows have problems too, don't they? They need attention all the more. But it is easier to reach out and they can better reason and think through issues. That is why younger children isn't who I would want to teach either, especially in our highly formalised education environment with the stress on exams and grades. They also need more behavioural control and management. As I mentioned before, at their age it should be exploration, discovery and fun learning in an informal way.

Bumping into my ex-student Casper illustrates this point very well. He was just a scrawny primary three kid with a squeaky voice, mischievous , hyperactive and harping on topics any 9 year-old would when I first tutored him. He is about fifteen now, still scrawny, but his voice has matured and his language ability, conversational topics and thoughts are different too. I feel I can communicate with him on a different and higher plane now. I text him to fix a day to meet alone.

I may have bumped into another ex-student of mine at the pool (you guess what kinda pool I mean) and he must be like out of secondary school and into poly, ITE or JC?

In fact I have been bumping into many people. My ex-FT in secondary school (sorry I was in no mood to talk that day), Mediacorp stars (one whom had muscled, chiselled, macho-looking twins as his escort at the pool or were they his friends?), academicians, businesspeople, people from my past life (eg: classmates, schoolmates, oooo one girl from my ex-jc is living near me) and yes, my sister just this morning.

So please people, don't tell me what I should or should not be doing. It is my life and I know what is best for me and what would be most meaningful and satisfying.

I know many people would draw parallels between my experience as a tenant now and formerly as a landlord. They would think the role reversal would be a lesson to teach or learn from . I am so sorry they cannot be any wronger. The contexts in which each operated in were entirely different.

First, my former house was a one-level and compact 4 roomer. At the entrance the control switch for the lights are just there. The places I have lived in were and are now an executive apartment with a long corridor leading to the bedrooms and a duplex terrace house. The lockset to the bedrooms in my current abode is a door handle and a keyhole. If the landlord doesn't want me to have lock and key, I have to change the entire lockset. It is not like my 4-roomer which is only a keyhole and a key to lock/unlock it. I only need to make a key, not an entire lockset.

At my former place, the common bath was exclusively for the sole use of one tenant. At the executive apartment, three of us (possibly even more) were clamouring for just one bath. So if someone is bathing in there, and I am on high-tide, I can't possibly breathe in and hold my bladder. I have to pee somewhere, certainly not in my pants, but perhaps over at the kitchen sink? So if MR BOSSY tells me to call him if I need the bath, can't he at least take his mobile with him inside and I will call as he wants me to ?

I wanted to, at one juncture, to go to MR PSYHCO for a haircut at a whopping $14. Now, seeing how things have turned out, I have decided to withdraw this intended support and have my hair cut at the Malay barber instead for $9.

If the brokerage's online trading system is not as buggy as I think it is and as they claim it isn't, then tell me why on one fine day, I see only a partial contracted list of stocks? What utter fandangle! If they can't check on my bank statement then why when I call in on the bank's hotline, I get transferred to the same person whom I liaise with at the brokerage? A double coincidence or some chuckleheady multi-tasking, cross-over the line thingy?

I had the misfortune to lock up my SIM card and as I don't have a fixed line anymore, I fished into my wallet and was grateful I still have the left-over magnetic-strip telephone cards valued at $3 and $5 respectively. One was depleted in value till the last tens of cents while another was almost full. Now the public phones are operated by SINGTEL but I am on STARHUB. I have to pay $0.60 for a 100 directory assitance call (the 1633 number cannot be dialled and had to have a few more digits placed in front) and when I inserted a dollar coin to make this call, it swallowed it up hook, line and sinker when the call ended even though I still have at least $0.70 credit because it doesnt refund unused portion of the value.

Next was choosing the red or silver phones as the magnetic strips are being phased out and phone chipcards are in. I couldn't use the magnetic strips at the red phones and had to hunt down a silver one. It was a hell of a morning I tell you.

Now I have my mobile phone and SIM card all securely locked up with a password. It is mind-blowing the copious amounts of passwords , PINs , user identities and account numbers I have to remember just to log in online for my various purposes.

While fishing into my wallet, I also scooped out a Seng City Trading photocopy card which was the technology then to use at all public libraries for photo-copying services. But now it is the cashcard. The first person to answer to my call as to what I should do with this technologically outdated dinosaur wasn't helpful. A second call (and this was connected to the Big Boss directly) and I was told I could trade in my card for a deposit refund and whatever value is left with a school. I chose SJI as I wanted to peek at the cuties there ( of course there were CJC and AJC named as well)

The same thing happened when I closed a bank account with several dollars credit due me. They didn't tell me this over the counter and to put it in the bank's frontliner's reply "the bank can't refund you this now as it should have been transacted OTC and thus it will absorb this for you". Absorb my bloody foot. They agreed to send a check and I got my several dollars worth, this after the 24% or 17.5% interest per annum they have been blood-sucking off my account.

I watched "Dorm" and "Date Movie" recently. "Dorm" wasn't exactly a horror flick but more a sentimental and moving story of two boys locked in together in different realms of the physical and spiritual world. One may say it smacks of gayism and love between two dudes. One boy had to help the other unleash himself from the real world to be back in his spiritual one. "Date Movie" was hilarious as it was in the ilk of its writers from "Scary Movie" (the 4th version is gonna be launched soon). It spoofed "Meet The Fokkers" and about everything else.

Now how does one get rich in Singapore? I think I have the answer. In fact the answer seems to be just right under my nose, literally. But I just have to keep my fingers crossed for things to roll and at the right time, BAM, I put my money where it is worth.

Are you guys with me now?

Bric-A-Brac, Bugaboo, Cock-Up And Wishlist

This estate where I am must be a senior citizens' corner. I haven't exactly seen any young and virile man or boy about the place yet. All around me I see sages. In fact, the first couple of days I moved in, there was a funeral wake for someone whose "in memoriam" pic was in monochrome.

The telegraphic poles with overhanging cables must attest further to the age of the place. All the Malay street names have "lembah" (valleys) and ridges in them which shows how this place must once be a hill-top or kampung or some part of the reserve. The residents must also be villagers once, judging from their speeches, mannerism and behaviour.

It is also quirky that each estate may be all terrace or semi-detached properties. Some would be new and spanking while others old and run-down.

Over at the LAN shops, and the reason I don't call them Internet cafes is because I don't see any real cafe here, depending on whether we are following Britain, American, European or South African convention of what constitutes a cafe, there are all these cute dudes. Many caught my eye with not only their good looks , good bods but their communication skills. This is something lacking in our Asian heritage somehow. I crave for love, good sex, good communication and good relationship. And being open about it.

Casper, you are gonna be my conduit to these dudes.

And yes "BrokeBack Mountain" certainly has its setting and theme cut out for it, all the hot action taking place in a dude ranch, if you know what this connotes.

Yes the Cathay Cineplex (and not The Cathay) now has a brand new level opened on its ninth floor. It has all these private chambers, one being a see-through tube all the way from one end to the other, with glass portholes as windows. You can use them for private functions, snuggling up to your loved one watching DVDs or gaming and even for studies. Yeah, I spied a young couple in cosy snuggery all right.

One and half months after I started an investment portfolio, I realised many things are still unsettled. It is only like today that I got a first glimpse of my portfolio online and even then, some aren't even there. It had been a mind-boggling experience to see how our much touted efficiency goes down the drain like this. Worse, some aren't performing and I am currently sitting on a long position. Yes, I even short sold once, unwittingly, thanks to the system's bugs but which the brokerage claims otherwise. If I saw two lines mean I saw two lines and not three.

To think that I actually made the effort to call, prior to the CNY festivities, to effect all changes, closure and so on but all these came to nought when the financial institutions didn't even take note of my instructions and everything just went on without the slightest change. What humongous cock-ups!

And other than being a flambeau, my mobile now takes orders from my voice-command to dial a number. I have decided to put the mail company on this. The woman in charge is Yvonne. Gosh. She does community service (doesn't seem like her, think it is more a lame excuse) on Wednesdays and so it shuts down at 4pm. At other times, I may even have to shuffle my time to suit her irregular hours . This mobile is such an exciting one, I learn new stuff every time about what it can do for me.

Tell me why my wishlist cannot be fulfilled. All I want is to live somewhere near the water's edge like where I am now with a loved one and perhaps a "son"? And to have enough for old age, my loved ones and for my family members. And a car? And to run a school? Is this so wrong or unattainable?

Knick Knacks

Let me correct several things I wrote previously. One, the bathroom scrub was only thigh-high. Two, the gravel at the reserve is reflective but where it is canopied or soiled, it isn't anymore.

There is this man who walks five of his dogs, one dog a day. The Jack Russell doesn't look it as it has grown pudgy. Just this morning I discovered he actually lives literally at the water's edge, in a house filled with dogs and cats. One morning the entire international schools community was out for their X-country run. There were the French, the Australians and the Canadians. As usual, the boy canoeists were the cutie hunks running and working out near the canoe sheds. But it was see-no-touch. What is the point?

My new mobile has proved to be a handy little gadget. It is not only a portable radio but a torchlight in my moments of darkness. Once I hung out with a dude till late in the night and by the time I finished my dilly-dally, it had turned pitch black. I made my way alone in the dark forest with my mobile's beacon showing the way. It is also my appointment scheduler.

Living life with the janitor isn't easy. It kinda reminds me of my life in the "Dark Ages" living out part of my existence with my mom and brother. Now bro isn't exactly the very reasonable sort. I can't blame him either. With the kind of strict upbringing he had, with Mom especially. He was a gangsta. He got picked on by the discipline master, someone whom I don't particularly fancy very much too in my school days (yes we were from the same school) . Nor can I articulate all my feelings or thoughts to my mother in Teochew. She can speak and understand some English but her vocabulary range is limited.

I can imagine all those good kids hanging out the whole time because of all the communication and/or problems they face at home with their parents and siblings. All the naggards, control freaks, unreasonable bums and illogical farts. I did that once before in my life and it seems I am doing it now.

It does strike me that gays aren't very into relationships. Even at cruising spots, it was more hormonally charged quick sex drive thingy, voyeurism and exhibitionism. Hardly any stop and chat to introduce oneself to one another or to strike up a friendship. I have told myself that I will try to do that once the opportunity avails itself.

Well it isn't only at cruising spots. Everywhere you meet people, they are in their own cliques and in their own world. They hardly acknowledge others' presence or stop to chat. So I am not anti-social. They are. And probably they have problems initiating a relationship. They are the problem dudes. Not moi. But it could also be because of down-time that we sometimes don't feel like chatting. Time alone, bad hair day, feeling fucked up, etc. Remember it is worse for gays. We have to second guess who is and who isn't.

I am dying for the day I get myself a boyfriend. I wanna watch the laser displays at Sentosa with him. I am gonna cuddle up to him. I am gonna french him long and deep in the mouth. I am gonna hold his hands. I am gonna have sex with him in exotic places. All these in full view of the public except the last. Dare me! Girls, I am so jealous of all the smooching and stuff you couples do, I am gonna wreak my revenge. See how you feel if I do the same, except this is now a GUY!

Surfing at LAN shops has opened up my eyes to the kids who hang out at such places. The different styles practised at the shops are also varied. This has meant great inconvenience too. Some have this but not that. In a day, I may be surfing at the public library one part of the time and at a LAN shop another part of the time.

Guess what! I met one of my students today! His name is Casper. There are many unresolved issues I want to iron out with him. I remember him as the kid who has this Mom who asks "standard" questions about his son and I have to, like all others do, answer back in "standard" mode. I really regretted not standing up for this kid and saying the things I should have said instead. There were many things I regretted doing and not doing. Just going with the flow of life's convention, I had to do it or not do it . I told myself I will not do this anymore.

Which was the reason why I rejected the offer to teach at a tuition centre. First, it was a paltry $25 an hour which barely covers my transport and food. Second, it had no school materials. It isn't exactly a new start-up, existing as it is for several years now. In fact I had attended one interview eons ago and rejected the offer for the same reasons. It wants moi to go buy materials and reimburse me for the effort. I don't think I am very keen on such an arrangement. In fact I am not keen on teaching at any private commercial schools, if only to pass the time and earn a small keep.

I am really not sure how my life is heading. But I do know I have those dreams which I can't seem to launch. I am not getting any younger and this is a real pain for me to ever start something at an old age. The hate returns of all those who have denied me this. FUCK YOU!

The Janitor, The Immutables, Relationships, Security, Privacy And Bugbears

In the beginning, as part of my "interaction with people" and not to be seen as "anti-social", I tried striking up conversations with The Janitor. After a while and spending a good part of the day conversing, I begin to see a pattern emerge. It was about digging deep into my personals, being evasive about himself, trying to raise the rent and rattling a list of "dos and donts" in the house. He was nit-picky , womanish , a real blimp and wimp. That is when I put my foot down, cut off all communication and watch him rot into his own lonely self, moping about the house.

There are three immutables in life. These are stuff I am dead serious about. Number 1, money. I don't use money as a form of extortion, intimidation or withholding tactic. Money is someone's bread and butter. Pay a person on time and do not delay this. Number 2, love and relationships. I do not trifle with someone's affection or love. When I am settled with someone, I do not seek another. Number 3, work. I put my heart and soul into my work and I do not stint on effort, time or hard work.

I am working at my relationships with fellow gays. It isn't easy trying to meet with people , holding a conversation or maintaining contact. I meet them over a meal, drink or outing. You will be surprised most aren't very into "relationships" either, as can be seen from the relunctance, the pre-occupation with work or school (I know some aren't but pretend to be) and so on. I say despite all the busyness, time must be carved out for friends, not only when you are free and think it expedient.

Not that I totally agree with all that they practise. I may be gay but there are pretty a lot I can't identify with them. Like how aromatherapy, branded goods, toiletries, fashion clothes, beauty, looks and bods all seem to be major thingies in their lives.

Singapore is on the verge of implementing "privacy" laws. This is long overdue. I mean anyone, from your employer to your landlord, has your personal particulars while we don't have theirs. Doesn't seem like a fair deal. If we ask me which of the two I pick to be less secure, printed or broadcast, I choose printed. A print is always lying about and its trail more easily sniffed out in hardcopy. Broadcast, on the other hand, compromises only when data is shared or hacked into.

I am sure we have dreadful encounters with all kinds of unnecessary, inane and absolute inconveniences. Take for example this brokerage which wants me to fax out a portfolio statement they generated in the first place. Or how some community club are still wooding the newspapers between two strip planks, the margin of which eats into the words and incapable of holding a Saturday bumper-thick edition. Even the daily free newsheets or classifieds are not inserted so you read in dribs and drabs. Can they sacrifice the 80 cents or 85 cents worth or is this too much to bear? On the other hand, a regional library actually stocked tonnes of copies of "The Sunday Times" on its little news-stand.

Oh well, I am sitting here in a spanking ritzy LAN outlet on the 9th floor of the Cathay Cineplex and time is running out. I have exactly 5 minutes more before this thing shuts down. More on bugbears in the next blog.

He Is One Fucking Sissy Old Fart (Change Your Sex)

I really like this place I live in now, if only for the spacey room I have, its central and convenient location and the nature reserve in its backyard. Unfortunately, the more I speak with its owner/landlord/janitor (whoever he is), the more convinced I am he is weirder than Boo Radley is in "To Kill A Mockingbird". He must be the most unreasonable, unthinking and illogical old fart living this side of planet Earth.

First, the place is 40 years old (taking the Catholic church in the vicinity as the benchmark which has been around since 1966) and the kitchen is fucking dirty, old and run-down. And this bald-pated, thyroidic, manic-depressive, has-been hair dresser and professional make-up artist for celebrities, wants no foot-print. Holy Toledo! He even does milk baths.......Milk baths? Whose hairy legs is he trying to pull?

Please Mr Baldy, you keep it clean and we will too. Because of that, I now own a pair of flip-flops in the kitchen and another pair of patented CROCS Beach footwear for the hall, dining and the bedroom upstairs. Two pairs in one house! Imagine slipping on a different pair everytime I walk to a different part of the house! Is this sane? Is this normal? Is this human?

He wants my clothes hung out in the open and if it rains, is he going to take them in for me when I am not around? A duplicate defective key and he accuses me of not locking up the main door after I leave home? Not a word of apology even. So what if it is the key-maker's fault? Shouldn't he have checked first before slinging the first shot of accusation?

All the second-hand furniture and he wants me to maintain them in tip-top condition? My brand new red pouch went missing. A mysterious "SPA" word scrawled across my packing carton. My socket panel goes bust. A dent on the surface of the table. All these cannot be the work of the "Ghost" but the work of man - aka MR PSYCHO SICKO BALDY.

He insists on doing up the water taps and latches in the house. He isn't a licensed plumber or keysmith/locksmith, so do you expect the workmanship to be superb? What do we have? Leaky taps and a latch off its hinge.

The rent I pay goes to pay for his clubbing dates till the wee hours of the morning (at his age, I seriously think he should take a second look at himself and his life) , his fag smoking and his acquisition of branded goods. Holy Bald Eagle! Gays do think that aromatherapy is relaxing. I say bullcrap! Exercise , sports and sex do the trick much much better! Now I just don't feel my money's worth paying for his expensive habits.

His soles are as black as coal which testify to the absolute dirt lying among the place. He uses the upstairs bathroom and leaves his filthy footprints which I have to clean up after him. He snores like a pig and sleeps on the floor in the hall, like he were some watchdog (janitor).

The bathroom scrub he has for cleaning up the bath is only waist high. Anyone who has learned first order lever machines knows that the longer the lever is, the less effort it is. A famous philosopher remarked that with this, he could actually move the world. It id really a tedious task but as I am back at running and gymming, I am ok with it still. In fact it provides me with a bout of fresh and challenging exercise fo rmy back and muscles.

On my morning sojourns out for my runs, I notice the throngs of maids up and about, going about their daily chores. I pray they are given the right implements to do their work as I see them using an assorted variety of brooms and rakes (which look suspiciously to be not working very well like the old sapu-lily which must be back-breaking to say the least) to sweep up the dried leaves, wash the cars (usually hosing it down and even in between the tyre rims) and clean the house. I am sure some must be suffering the same fate as me.

Wait! This last one is a BIGGIE. Mr Psycho wants the upstairs corridor lights out! This is like asking the President of the United States to make a public speech naked and then have Monica Lewinsky suck his dick under the rostrum. I mean I can't see in the pitch blackness at dawn when I walk down the stairs! So naturally I switch them on! What does he expect me to do? Run up again to switch it off and then turn it on again when I descend? He wants a circus bozo to entertain him or he needs psychiatric help?

A more viable option would be for him to install another controlling switch down the stairways so I could turn it off below and not run up again! This is absolute madness!

Mr Psycho Sicko Baldy! I hope you have bluetooth technology in your house so you can read all my text messages and blogs! This way, you can see for yourself how sick you are in your mind, body and soul! I hope you burn in hell like the rest of them!

Budget Surprises, My New Place And The Reserve

The Budget was generous to say the least. A quick count shows that I will probably be getting quite a fair share of the economic surplus hand-out. I just hope that this is as real as it gets and there will be no "leak" somewhere else in the economic loop.

I am actually no better now than our foreign guest workers. I mean I am bedding on an old mattress, hanging up my clothes silhouetted against the glass louvres and eating out of a beggar's bowl. The place is spacey for sure and it has two decks. It is also peaceful and quiet, up until the landlord decides to play his karaoke music.

I am still waiting for the wardrobe as promised though this has been a fortnight already. All my barang barang are still upacked in cartons and travel bags. My bedroom is not under lock and key too. In fact the whole front gate to the house is missing.

This place is at least a generation old in its original condition. It has lots of good potential for renewal and upgrading of course. It is quite clean. However I do not step into the kitchen as this is messy and chaotic where I can hardly put down a bowl or jug on a proper and uncluttered structure.

Transport takes me to most places I frequent but there are far flung places like the airport in the east or the eastern side in general that need me switching buses and spending more than a hour and a half travelling. All this is time and money. The bus-stations along the way too may see different buses plying its routes. I mean all it takes is one side-road where a bus turns in from onto the main road and voila, you have a new bus service at this station but not the previous one before the turn.

Kudos to the online solution provided by our bus company in scenarios where I have to know where and what services I have to switch to so as to reach my destination when a single bus service cannot do the job.

The holding address where my mail is routed has office hours of between 9am-12pm and then 2.30pm -4.30pm, a total of five hours in a day. I can miss a boat by a mere 5-10 minutes delay if I don't hurry or stride along as fast. Therefore I am training up my stamina and leg power by running in the woods.

But running on gravel and rocks do see me spraining my foot here and there when I step on an uneven keel. I am picking up speed and momentum though. My left foot isn't what it used to be and I am not sure if this has something to do with the unequal size or length or some previous injury or my feet condition.

As I am without information either online or in printed form, I have to travel out to get this information for my financial investment needs. It is frustrating to wait in line especially since time is a factor in making or losing money. The delay caused by the people at the brokerage had seen to this. I mean I travelled out to this place no less than three times.

Noise, happenings and disruptions in the surrounds can make you irritable or make you make mistakes when you need to key in an order entry. This is unlike my own private space at home where I can make cool, calculated and thinking decisions. It is the nature of the work I guess which strictly needs a quiet environment.

This also takes up my full-time attention and energy, commuting, reading and analysing. I am still trying for a part-time teaching job and more scanning through the classifieds (not the recruitment pages) and then emailing out my resumes. The computers can be down, or I can't log in or they are being occupied by gamers or users.

The public ones have blurred screens sometimes and headphones have one side working only. The strangest thing is, with guys around you gaming, they don't care two hoots about what you are doing or surfing. This is one swell thing about guys when compared to girls. They mind their own business when rightly so.

It is also frustrating as I mentioned earlier that I can't access a local gay dating site deemed sexed up at public libraries while with a gay porn site I could. Which leads me to why "BrokeBack Mountain" is rated R21 when it has no full frontal nudity of the guys while Mrs Henderson can score a M18 with her clothes off. What a shitass logic!

My morning sojourns of runs in the woods happen at the crack of dawn. The gravel-laid trail is surprisingly reflective and serves as a beacon of light in the dark. Even the monitor lizard is reflective. The one trail that makes it easier to cut into the reserve from my street is really a blessing. Another unfortunately is fenced up although I could see the street sign of my residence in the distance but I can't make a beeline for it.

More observations in the coming days, if I am not too busy or if I find blogging at LAN-shops or public libraries too expensive.

The Big PunchUp, My Investment Portfolio And My New Living Quarters

I confess. The third reason why I moved away from the old place was because I got into a scuffle with the "straight" dude. I can't believe I did but I did. I guess it was all the tension and stress and hate building up in me. Having to shift away, holed up in alien places with equally alien people, no stability, no security, not being able to do the things I always do in private, far away from the public glare.

Take for example the public places I have to visit now for my surfing time. One, it is a third more expensive. Two, there are too many distractions since the people who LAN are gamers. Vulgarities are hurled as banally as a smoker smokes. It isn't as if these are real thugs (a few may be) but it is as if the expletives are as natural as shitting is.

"I Not Stupid 2" actually did capture this peculiar species. Not that they are that strange. Most had gone astray for one reason or another. Some gangsta are gays. The grandma in the movie put the message across well about law enforcement or for that matter for anything. "When it isnt necessary, the law enforces but when it is, it doesn't". The stiff-necked principal in the movie did show up how inflexible the system can be, ossified by policies.

If I hadn't mentioned it, I also watched our local animation production "Zodiac" over the CNY period. Wholesome theme as it touted itself to be. But it fell so short of real life animation and graphics, the movie crawled along on a predictable plot.

I couldn't concentrate as much on my work too in full public view what with giggling or chatter-box school girls, screaming kids or like today, a couple chose to share their butts on one armchair and yakked away. How can anyone ever do serious work here? Perhaps the 11pm curfew could be extended to shooing courting couples away from quiet places.

The only consolation is the place I am living in. It is a nice, quiet place tucked deep in the reserve and away from the thoroughfares, edging the waters. I could do my morning runs in the great outdoors and yet get all my regular fixes at a nearby mall and at shophouses. Transport isn't too bad but the one I hitched on to town was in really bad shape, a virtual heater at the backseats.

Best of all, I am reunited with all those gorgeous hunks kayaking their strong butts and musculated torsos and limbs down the reserve's waters.

I could commiserate with the landlord over tenants he had letted the place to. He had a fair share of the problems I faced too. He is a nice and understanding person whom I can speak with. But I need a boyfriend, someone to cuddle up to on the mattress when I need an emotional blanket. And I am horny as hell after all that physical exercise in the morning.

I am running all over the place, trying to put together my investment portfolio and to collect tonnes of mail. Once again, it is sifting through a maze of information and some personal bankers aren't too helpful either, especially in the product knowledge department.

One thought she could get away with it with just plain good old service but she forgets that the information is just as important to make well-informed investment decisions. Anyway, she acts too cute and appears to me to be totally unnatural and plastic.

I don't mind different or supplementary information personal bankers hand out but when they are conflicting, that gets me really mad. I have to check and do my own little research.

The worst let-down was having a troupe of chattering women not updating my new mailing address correctly with the consequence that I was delayed for more than ten days and watched two blue-chips soar in price and not able do a thing about it.

More things coming up soon in my next blog.

Updates And Not Blogging As Fully

I am not blogging as much here now, primarily because it is so expensive to surf and blog at public cafes.

Rest assured, many things have happened in my life. I have moved twice so far and I thought I have met someone special. But as things are, it did not come to pass. I can only cross my fingers and I am busy putting together my investment portfolio.

When I have time, I will blog fully again. Right now, moi is holed up in an almost perfect environ. A little of country and city living, right at the edge of the water and of nature. The place is named "a gem of a park or garden" which in many ways it is. My first taste of living on landed property and I am beginning to love it. Each estate has stairways connected to another which isn't shown on any map.

Here are some updates of the past few weeks. My CNY's eve was spent at McDonalds. I observed the foreign maids, the foreign community and our other ethnic groups coming in to dine or take away. There were even pockets of locals who walked in for food. So I don't think the reunion dinner is such a sacred event after all.

I watched a couple of movies. "I Not Stupid 2" was so superbly made, its theme, scenes and storyline strike at our very emotional chord concerning education. It shows up how education fucks people up the wrong way sometimes and how families influence one's orientation.

"BrokeBack Mountain" wasn't what I was really hoping for. Of course it had very good content but I took issue at what it depicts gay love to be. A top and a bottom. With anal intercourse a necessary pre-requisite to consummate it. Gay love should just be what it should be. Concern, love, care and sex in whatever form the couple finds suitable. No wonder all the sluts are asking for a fuck.

This story reinforces the idea that gays will get married and they then have to find sex with each other on the side, with fatal consequences in this case. A broken marriage for one party and death for the other. The film points out the tragic end gays will meet if they should hang around married or straight guys preparing for marriage. They apparently can't be like a real hetero couple living together. This is what a civil union would have conferred.

Anyway I watched this late in the night on Valentine's Day in busy Orchard Road. The really young crowd thronging the whole place was staggering. After beating my way through the herd, I was equally astounded by the kind of audience streaming in to watch the movie. Not only PLUs but a gathering of gals and guys too. I was, by the way, at an extreme corner of the screening, huddled in my plush seat.

If you are beginning to wonder what on earth I am doing on Valentine's Day watching this movie, well I was bored, had no Valentine's date and had a huge misunderstanding with my gay housemate. I shuffled home past the stroke of midnight.

The rift really began when I learned there was a lady agent handling the whole place. As I wasn't any signatory to the lease agreement (an agreement between the main tenant and her) and was being subletted a place, I wasn't about to deal with her, unimpressed as I already am if you care to recall with agents in general and in particular. But she kept imposing her presence upon me, despite me having furnished her my particulars.

The next bone of contention was a sudden turnaround in the profile of the tenant who is supposed to move in. A straight guy with his girlfriend and a fellow colleague of the gay main tenant. That wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be a PLU.

It was also the way he and some of the others put it. That we have to be "accepted" by the straight community and so, invite them to live among us, to humour them, to be like one of them, etc . For me, work and home life draws a distinct line. Living under the same roof with a straight and his gal turns me off and I am not exactly in the mood to cross this line. Work life is fine but not home life. If I have sex with my boyfriend, this is sacrosanct, away from his prying (or "accepting") eyes.

My blogging time is up. I really have to go.

February The 17th - Back To Moi Roots

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.