old luxe

old luxury cars

Saw it around the neighbourhood. Working neighbourhood that is... luxury of yesteryears. Cool eh?

i feel so fat

oh wait.... i am fat. no change in that. oh well..

been eating and eating these few days. birthdays. lunches. gatherings. non-stop.

more to come. belated birthdays. 2 at least.

fat and broke.

ate this noodle #2 from a shop at Square 2 called "Mee & You", it's yums but very very filling...

of angel hair and moscato

Thought I'd cook myself dinner tonight. So I did. But first, had to go grocery shopping as most of the stuffs in the house had expired... Yeap, that's how long I didn't cook! (instant noodles not counted)

Bought pasta sauce earlier, so that was sitting in the fridge. Just needed pasta (angel hair), garlic sausages (NTUC housebrand), and sliced button mushrooms. Got a bottle of moscato too. Long Flat had a discount like a dollar, so thought it'd be nice to have some wine with pasta. Hahaa.

First time cooking angel hair, and it was a piece of cake. Cooks in less than 2 minutes too. Cool! Used 2 pieces of sausages and some mushrooms. Toasted them a bit in the toaster. The sauce was tricky. There was too little liquid in the beginning, hence the bottom of the steel pot got fried! Simmered the pasta with the sauce and tossed them around abit to get the pasta warmed up again ('coz I doused it with ice while waiting for the sauce to cook).

End result looked like this.

messy looking angel hair pasta with sausages, mushroom in tomato sauce

yummy garlic sausages and mushrooms

with cheese

Dinner was filling! Was greedy. Pasta was just right, but had too much sausages... 2 pieces! Paired that with a nice chilled sweet wine. Yums.

moscato i like

passed my exam!

Hahaha, yesterday was one nerve wrecking experience. Took an exam (MCQ) that lasted 4 hours. First time in my life, having to sit down on a chair answering questions for almost 4 hours! Amazing!

Even during uni days, I think most of the papers lasted like, 2.5 hours? Max. prob 3 hours. Yesterday's 4 hours is ultimate! The exam was scheduled to start at 1pm, so I went there earlier like 1230pm to register. Little did I expect to be ushered into the test center immediately after the registration. Hey, I haven't even pee yet!

So there I was, in the room with some other people, staring at the computer. The rest of the peeps were staring into their own screen. For this online test, there is this button called 'Mark' that can be clicked to indicate that this question need a revisit. So, after going through all the 200 questions, I had 'Mark'ed more than half of it! *Gasp!*

So with 1 hour remaining, I started to review from question #1 again. The main objective was to reduce the number of uncertainties in batches of 10. For example, question 1-10, from a total of say 5 'mark'ed questions (uncertain), went through it again and reduce to say 1 or 2. So pored through all the questions again, and made the necessary changes. At the last half hour, my bladder was complaining but had no choice but to preservere on! Still had 50 more questions to review during that last half hour!

With just 5 minutes of time left, I decided to click on the 'End Exam' button. The next 3 minutes or so, was quite torturous. That's because the result is to be made known upon submission.... I was staring at the blank screen and thought to myself, "Please please let me pass! I don't want to repeat the exam again! I want my money back!" Hahaa, because this course/test is under CITREP, so if pass on first attempt, then should be able to qualify for some reimbursement.

After seeing the blank page for that few minutes, when I thought the result was going to be displayed, I got a survey screen instead. Hahaa, had to fill up a survey on the exam taking experience for customer service and test center facilities feedback. Never mind. Done with that and clicked on 'End' button and finally, it showed "PASS". Phew....

WoohOOoo! Done.

next gen

It's a mixed feeling. Looking at Toby, and seeing a replica that's exactly of my cousin Ivan when he was at that young age.

When we were much younger, a trip to Singapore, was what a trip to say.. Hong Kong, is like. It was a much anticipated event. Haw Par Villa, Telok Blangah, A&W, Mercedes Benz, orange Mirinda bottled drink... those were the memories of our yesteryears. Ivan, who's the same age as me, is my Singaporean cousin. My brother likes to be the gang leader so they the boys will be off monkeying around, while I'd be quietly nearby. Still remember there's a picture of poses of us pretending to the Monkey King and on our journey to the west. Probably too much Haw Par Villa at that time!

Ivan went on overseas to study, then came back to serve his bond in Singapore before venturing out to Australia. Now he's back in SG for good, with his wife and two kids. Sophie looks more like the mom, while Toby, looks like Ivan. Hahaa!

Yesterday had a fun time with the kids when we went out for dinner with the family. Curious tots. Fascinated by almost anything and everything that they see. Were we as curious when we were at that age then? Hahaaa.

How time has flown. Thirty odd years had passed.

moon light

moon, as seen from north-west area

nuclear

What does the layman know about nuclear power generation? Here's a wiki link to get a clearer picture. To derive nuclear energy, the nuclear fuel needs to be 'consumed' by fission or fusion to get nuclear energy. Fuel rods are the physical object of this nuclear fuel mixed with structural, neutron reflecting materials. Here's a link to explain what is nuclear fission. In short, it is a chain reaction where nucleus of atoms are split into smaller parts. Imagine 1 object knocks into another object and splits into 2, and the new 2 knocks into another 2 to produce 4 objects, and so on and so forth. In a nuclear plant, this chain reaction is at a controlled rate, while in a nuclear weapon, it is uncontrolled.

The most common fissile nuclear fuels are Uranium 235 (²³⁵U) and Plutonium 239 (²³⁹Pu). From the newspaper, we have read that fuel rods need to be kept cooled to prevent its uranium from heating up. When it is heated up, it emits radiation. Here is a link to Today's that describes the hazards of these elements. Note that Plutonium and Uranium are heavy elements that are not easily dispersed in air. It was stated that the other by products of nuclear power generation (radioactive cessasium and iodine) pose a higher danger  as these are more prone to be spread. These substances have half-life.

Half-life is how long the substance takes to decay or decrease by half. Take a look at the higher danger elements such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days while Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years. The not so easily dispersed elements Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 25,000 years, and Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years.

donate

I think most major banks enabled their users to be able to donate to Singapore Red Cross in aid of Japan's Disaster Relief fund, through the internet banking bill payment option. This allows internet banking users an easy option to donate.

Tried UOB's one, and the message that informs user about this 'newly' added option was found towards the bottom of the welcome page (after logging in to IB). Then use the Quickpay option to select the correct payee.

Have you donated?

let's help

Here's an article on what the technology giants are doing to allow greater access in enabling aid to Japan's Quake Relief Fund.

Here's something closer to home. It's heartening to know that Singapore Red Cross is working towards getting the banks to allow donation via the ATMs and IBs. For now, donations can be done via www.groupon.sg website, through Mercy Relief, through cheque as well as SMS to Singapore Red Cross.

From news reports, pressing problems in Japan's aftermath, include dwindling supply of food, water and fuel. Let's hope that neighbouring countries can send some supplies over first (ie. government initiated effort) while the monetary donations from citizens can steadily come in to purchase more necessities or used in the best manner for the quake survivors.

devastating

Pictures and news of Japan's double disasters of earthquake and tsunami is heartbreaking. Condolences to the nation. The disasters struck on 11 March 2011.

State of emergency has been declared at its nuclear plant at Fukushima which is just 160 miles (approx. 256 km) north of Tokyo. According to reports, the cooling system at the nuclear plant was disabled due to electrical outage from the tsunami. Cooling is important to remove any residual heat from the reactors. The wiki page on the Fukushima nuclear plant has the updates. Updates: Report has confirmed that the plant has exploded. Read here.

Transportation such as rail and flights are affected. Electricity disrupted. Can't imagine the actual extent of damages.

Looking at the news, felt a sense of deja-vu. Similar feelings when news of tsunami struck closer to our neighbouring countries during boxing day 26 Dec 2004.

Countries have pledged their readiness to aid Japan, even New Zealand, whom is still dealing with the after-effects of a quake in their own country earlier. Financial markets will inadvertently be affected, but more importantly, the effort to estimate damage, minimize losses and to rebuild a nation has just begun... 

Hope all nations will come together and work towards this common humanitarian goal, of rebuilding lives.

Here's the link to Google's person finder.

world of buying and selling, and then some...

After deliberating for ages, finally bought the first 2 lots of stocks. First attempt on Monday was not successful, because bid was too low (just like 5 cents difference from sell price). Yesterday, it got through like super duper fast. But that's because the bid was on par with sell price. At closing, it went down 10 cents. Hmm...

Nowadays I do see a lot of those pop-up stalls appearing in the mall to allow people to open their trading accounts. I'm using POEMS. The appeal of stock trading to the masses, in my opinion, is just like gambling. I'm sure there are people who do not really care whether the counter that they are buying is in which industry or whether there is growth etc etc. In theory, for counters with a lot of movement (aka, somewhat equal buying and selling), let's say a person enters the market and buys at price A (which say, is on par with current sell price). Then when price A rises to A+B, then that person will do a sell. If there's another person who has the same mentality as this person, then that person will buy-in and hope to sell at  B+C price. Momentum buying, they say. Others call it, the Greater Fool Theory.

Investing is pretty much related to psychology, the experts had warned. And yes, it wreaks havoc on your emotions as well. Some fundamentals are required. As a newbie, I was quite intimidated by the complexity of the  trading tools. Then, comes decision to make the 'right' pickings. This can be done via publicly available information about the company, forecast etc. Then comes to target setting. How much I want to make? 10 percent? 20 percent? But humans are bound to be greedy, and this target could well turn out as a moving one. Which, may not be good for mental health in the long run. I can imagine if I set a target of say, 10 percent, and when it hits, and if I decided not to sell because greedy and thinks it may rise further. But if the price drops 20 percent right after that decision and remain stagnant of x amount of time, then who is to blame but self?

Let's see what is achievable in this year. Hope to see some positive results from the increased effort in managing own finances.