wild wild west

Yeehaw! Giddiup Giddiup~


Mary Poppins




Mary Poppins was located outside of Raffles City, near the taxi stand. And over at Bugis Junction, there's Bronco Billy located at the atrium.



Bronco Billy




They're supposed to be rotating the locations sometime in May, so catch them if you can. Yeehaw!

europe debt crisis

Europe debt crisis spreads to Portugal. Read here. It has impacted not only the major European stock markets (by more than 2.5 percent) but also the US Dow Jones.

One wonders, how can a country, plunge so deep in debt? Standards & Poor has revised Greek bond status to 'junk'! About S&P.

Greece has a deficit of 300 billion, and with bailout of 45 billion, how can it cover the deficit? What's Greece's main money generating industry? Here's an understanding of Greece economy according to wiki. It listed Greece main economy as tourism, shipping, industrial products, food and tobacco processing, textiles, chemicals, metal products, mining and petroleum. Sounds like it has lots of avenue for income. So how was it able to plunge so deep in debt with so many pair of eyes watching?

Seems like financials are a funny thing. The more downtrodden you are, the more your investors punishes you. Apparently, metals prices went up shortly after the news of the potential spread of the European crisis.

Not sure how, but seems like the world need to restructure itself to clear debts...

lightings

nice?

family dinner

Was at aunt's place for dinner, but unfortunately she couldn't join us as she has line dance jamming session.


dining table - food is not yet served


dining table - full, platefuls of goodies!


corriander.. love it or hate it (I still eat it since it's part of the decor for the dishes, but it smells like flying ants!)


oyster sauce chicken


close-up - yea, just the mid-joints


tofu


close-up of tofus


prawns in sweet sauce


close-up of prawns


My cousin Alvin and his gf, Jos, joined us for dinner as well. After eating, we realized that there were 6 dishes for the 6 of us. Which meant, each one of us, needed to polished off one entire dish of something, say that entire plate of chicken wings! Wow... sis, you really needa cut down on the amount cooked! Haha!

But I must say, if my sis decides to go into the F&B industry, I'd be her first supporter!

shokudo

First time trying Japanese Marche, Shokudo @ Raffles City Shopping Centre (City Hall). Was there quite early at 630pm as it's Friday! So early, hence no queue. But actually, if have queue also never mind 'coz my mom, sis and brother were all seated inside, haha!

Same as Marche, take the shokudo card and have the value of the things that you have bought stored into it, so that it can be calculated at the cashier. Lose it, you'll lose $100!


ham and cheese okonomiyaki


oden (japanese yong tau foo!)


yakitori - scallops


yakitori - the rest of the stuffs - salmon, bacon quail, pork asparagus (mom ate one hence left 3 on the stick!) and rice


aburi sushi (actually the pieces are super duper tiny!)


close up on the prawn - who ate this? probably bro or sis


green tea ice cream + red bean crepes (sweet~)


My brother ordered most of the stuffs ('coz he's been there before), while I chose the aburi sushi and the dessert. The okonomiyaki was nice while it was still hot. Not too saltish. The oden has the toughest daikon.. and I thought it was a free item that comes with the soup, apparently not! My brother ordered 2 daikon that turned out to be super hard (probably haven't been cooking for long enough...)

Yakitori's was ok. I liked the scallop, but the rest was not quite memorable...grilled rice can skip. Shin Kushiya does the yakitoris better! Aburi sushi was quite cute, but oh so tiny!

Dessert was nice, but my bro thought it was a little too sweet.

sunrise

It was a little foggy this morning, and thought that the colour was just beautiful. Can't resist taking some shots :P



@7.19am iso-80, exposure 1/80 sec



Moved the camera left and voila! The sun!


@7.20am iso-80, exposure 1/400 sec

volcanic ash cloud

When the first news of volcano eruption in Iceland under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, it was a very interesting piece of news... I've never heard of any volcanic activities in Iceland... For people who are born after 1975, have you heard of volcanoes in Iceland?

However, according to information from internet, it did erupt more than 1 time. In 1783 and in 1973. According to the record, when Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in 1873, the eruption continued for 14 months!

Though experts do not foresee the ban on flights for that long, but the current situation is quite a dilemma. For now, the European airlines have begun test flights through the volcanic ash in order for the bid to reopen the airspace. Read the report here. Currently airlines are suffering massive losses due to the closure of the airspace. Of course businesses and individuals are not spared since air travel has become so ingrained in our modern lives. But I think the question remains... should governments lift the travel ban if test flights are successful? Can they be responsible should anything happens after that? Moral dilemma?

Weighing between the dollar cost and human lives cost... which one do you choose?

Information on volcanic ash. The consequences of flying through volcanic ash as recorded for the British Airways Flight 9 incident.

Update from Reuters about Eyjafjallajokull volcano ash, read here.

night fall...

Life in Singapore.. night fall...

weekend breakfast

"You've never been to The Rail Mall??" My ex-housemate, Desmond exclaimed. Yea lor.. never been, cannot ah? So off we drove, headed there for b'fast. Passed by countless of times before, but it's quite inaccessible for people who takes public transport (me!), so no business there lor.. Unlike Desmond, who's now into the insurance business, so we'll be having a discussion over breakfast.


rail mall exterior in bright green


What's for breakfast there? Desmond say prata stall.. I thought like Jalan Kayu prata that kind.. but it turned out to be Mei-Ah. Similar to Ya Kun but with prata, nasi lemak etc.. probably more Toast Box kind!


The queue on a Saturday... was long... had to wait like 20 mins just to order.. wow. And inside the place, has flies flying around the tables.. eek!


super big cup of teh tarik (no bubbles still teh tarik?! I think its just normal tea leh...)


egg prata, with nice curry


So Desmond is now with AXA and he shared about their products. Currently, I have the Alpha 24 which is an endowment fund kind of policy. I don't think I can take in anymore new policy... already packed to the brim!


Anyway, thank you for the breakfast!

panasonic lumix dmc-gf1

Was researching about f1.7 (20mm) lens, and came across this site by Craig Mod. He takes good pictures using GF1, and that in turn, made GF1 attractive to have...



red looks so sexy!

Read about its features here.

Summary of advantages and disadvantages of GF1, read here.

The major disadvantages:
1. No image stabilizer on body nor 20mm lens
2. High ISO noise (anything above 400)


Harvey Norman is retailing it at SGD$1499, but can get at SGD$1449 and extended warranty is I can't remember exactly how much but between $250 to $300 for 1+4 years warranty. More expensive than my current laptop! And just with a single 20mm lens.. and with those disadvantages.. mmmm... must think think first!

Recent discovery.. just found out that Cathay Photo is selling this for $1380. But the red colored model left 2 units only.. apparently, Panasonic ran out of this color!

nightshots

Bored to bits.. so went out to take in the night scenaries + practise taking some night photos using my compact camera. Shaky hands is a bane to nightshots! Most of the settings was like 1 sec exposure and @ ISO 200-400.



@7.24pm


@7.27pm


@7.29pm






slightly over-exposed with 1 sec exposure n ISO 400




building next to Merchant Court Swissotel (hmm... is this the hotel? hahaha)


another building



see the ledge.. that's where i placed the camera to take one of the shots above.. picture #5





Actually, the main idea is to go and take a look at the man-made sakura trees. But quite dissappointing.. there were only like what.. 4 trees?! I thought it would be like one whole stretch.. ha ha ha...


man-made sakura trees


closer inspection...



macro mode


How? Can pass or not?

freakin hot!

This month is a joyous month for sellers of products like shampoo, shower cream, ice-cream, ice cold water.. ice everything! I have no doubt pretty soon, we will be using twice the amount of those stuffs. What's with going full blast on for air-cond, 24 hours spinning of the fan... High electric and water bills all included. No joke.

Outdoors are so humid and stuffy! (ya ya, full of complaints right? spoilt brats!) I think I will hide in shopping complexes till like 9pm everyday.. otherwise, go home I'll be bathing twice at night!

Anyone checked the temperature? Isit like 32 celcius? 32 only ah? How come it feels like 35?!

unrest in Thailand

Situation is getting more and more out of hands, with bloody clashes that left 19 people dead. Read news report here. A nation that once prided itself for its gentle and friendly people, now rears its ugly side in the latest polical unrest...

They say it is in the name of democracy but in reality, the damage done is tangible. Thai tourism and other businesses suffer an estimated lost of about SGD$500 million dollars (as reported in today's NST). Now lives are lost...

What is to become of a nation that has the economic potential to be the star of the East, but now straddled with its political burden?

American Idol Season 9

The contestants in this season seemed interesting and they do have loads of talent! The current Top 9 are: Crystal Bowersox, Siobhan Magnus, Katie Stevens, Casey James, Aaron Kelly, Andrew Garcia, Michael Lynche, Lee Dewyze and Tim Urban.

Haha, I think one of my ex-colleague, Nizam, has similar looks with Aaron!






Haha, got similarity?



Anyway, Aaron is young.. like 17 years old. Though he sings ok at times but I think the other contestants are just so much stronger. Casey James (Goldilocks!) seemed to be the judges (and perhaps crowd) favourite for male contestants.

I liked the segment from last week where the other contestants describe one another and I guess they're pretty spot-on! Casey's most outstanding visual is his hair, height and overall good looks. It helps that he plays the guitar well and has a good voice ;)


Casey James, looking good and as Andrew Garcia once said, "With lights shining at the back of his golden locks, he looks like an angel" I thought that was wickedly funny!

However, early judges favourite Andrew Garcia seemed to be losing his momentum. Last week he sang with his back to the judges as he took the small area behind the judges to sing to the crowd. A case of giving back to his fans out there maybe but I did think it was a tad impolite to sing with your back to the judges? Hey, perhaps I'm Asian and its a values thingie I guess...


Andrew singing "Straight Up" that made the judges sit up and take notice of him during audition round


Andrew Top 9 Performance


Tim Urban could belong to Zac Efron kind of category but maybe it's too early, but I think out of the male contestants, Tim, Big Mike, Aaron and Lee Dewyze could be the next to be out... Some could be out not due to their vocals but simply lack of votes.

As of now, the remaining girls could produce the next American Idol.. who will be the next Kelly Clarkson with eight top 10 pop singles in the US and worldwide album sales over 22 million?


Crystal Bowersox is consistent in all her performances. Strong vocals and has a style of her own, which is remisniscent of the hippy era. She makes it look so effortlessly, her singing. Haha! Katie Stevens and Tim Urban makes a cute couple :P It is easy to write off Katie but her Top 9 performance was good!


Katie singing "Let It Be"


But I like Siobhan Magnus. The same way I liked Adam Lambert! Loud personality (but then she looked kinda sweet also.. so that's a contradiction to the nose ring and tattoos!) and even louder voice! Muahahahaha! But it is sure pressurizing to have that kind of expectation stuck onto you. It's like everytime I watch her perform, I kinda expect that she would belt out her high scream or something like that.. everytime. Although judges always say they would like to see different sides of the contestants but from the comments, it would sound as though subconsciously we expect that louder side of her to shine through as well. So, she's got to find a way to work her signature into all her performances as well as make it different for the listeners and viewers.


Siobhan singing "Paint It Black"




Official website for Idol contestants, click here.

credit card

In today's world, using the plastic to pay for purchases is the norm. And just what does this 'credit' card do? Simply put, the credit card company is paying on our instruction to the seller and thus, the buyer (us) the consumer will be indebted to the card company. Akin to borrowing money to pay for something first.

When the credit card bill comes, we (consumer) has n number of days of 'free' period to repay this debt, after which an interest fee will be charged on the remaining balance. If the consumer has a habit of just paying the minimum sum and rolling over the balance, the final sum owed will now likely be more than the original sum owed. For example, if the sum owed is $1K, and the user just makes the min. payment of $50 per month and assuming interest rate of 24%, it will likely take 4 years and 7 months just to pay off this amount plus the user would've to pay an interest of about $470 extra! That is like almost 50% extra from original sum owed! There are free online calculators to help estimate/gauge the time taken to pay-off the credit card debt, or to estimate how long it'll take to be debt free assuming no further spending. Click here for one example of such tool.

As illustrated with just a small sum owed, imagine if the sum owed is now $5K, $10K or more. This scenario is extremely possible as one user may or usually has more than 1 card. And if 1 card allows you to draw up to 2 times salary (if salary is $2.5K, each card can net you $5K, and with 3 cards the user may end up with $15K debt if all cards are maxed out). Using $10K and min. payment of $300, the user will now have to pay for 25 years and the interest chalked up, is more than the original sum owed ($17K in interest alone)! Wow! Hence, not surprisingly, some of us may fall deeper and deeper into debts due to failure in managing the debt in the first place. It's a scary spiral downwards!

Here's a recent report on the debt that card users in Singapore have chalked up. Quote from the report "A mind boggling $3.68 billion debt.."

What to do, when we find we can no longer cope with the repayment (hopefully one will seek help even before this stage!)? There's Credit Counselling Singapore to help.

For most problems, systematic actions need to be taken in order to achieve a different outcome. Hence, if on our own we may not be as resourceful or resillient to know what to do, so it will be important to speak to the experts who are on hand to assist. The first step to be taken, is to acknowledge and be aware that this is not the end of the world and there are things that can be done to make the situation better.

what have we become?

Headline of "US helicopter crew shot Iraqi civilians". Read here.

Example of how cold-blooded one can become... It is as if, taking another person's life is just like a computer game... Are we too wired for our own good? So much so that we may have just become so desensitized, so detached from reality?

flowering trees~

picture taken from bus stop


close-up view of flowers on tree top


Singapore is a bloom with flowering trees. It's a beautiful sight!

circle line

Good to know that come 17th April, 9 more stations are expected to be open for Circle Line.

Read more here.

conger eel porridge

Simple dish.

Ingredients:
1. Conger eel
2. Ikan bilis (anchovies) cube
3. Rice
4. Salt & Pepper
5. Spring onion



raw ingredients


Wash the fish, season abit with salt and pepper. Wash rice. Cook rice with 2 bowls of water, add half an ikan bilis cube.


trusty pot, where all the action happens


When porridge is about ready, put in fish and simmer for 5 mins, and turn off heat. Serve 15 mins later and garnish with spring onions.








The porridge tasted fine, but the fish has lots of bones!

is it berry good?

I've heard many who raved about Blackberry and seems like that's the other 'in' thing to have besides the iPhone. Had a conversation with a colleague yesterday and he mentioned about how crazy everyone in Indonesia is about Blackberries.. Myself, I've also seen the newspaper and tv advert in Malaysia where Blackberry ties up with the telco and targetting youths (with youth/students plan etc). Here's an article.

However, before jumping in and rushing out there to get the product, it's good to understand what is the device all about. Here's a review from CNET.



tv/video review from cnet asia


Of course, then the next consideration would be the pricing and affordability. Currently, Bold 9700 is retailling for $448 from the 3 major telcos in SG and that is with the assumption of 2 year contract, plus we're not talking about any high-end deals here! Most starts off from $26-$39 for the basics and VAS services adds on to the charges... So monthly subscription could be around $40-$50 plus minus with caller-number display and idd thrown in.

People say if you use Blackberry Messenger then there's no nid for sms'es if your friends are already on Blackberry as BB messenger is free. Heh, that's probably true for Indonesians as their youths seemed to have embrace blackberry. Not sure abt SG, but if you can gather enuf friends to go on the berry same path, then that'll be true!

so that's how it is...

April Fools' day is more like a bad luck day... hah... it's good that I was dateless.. otherwise, would've to cancel... 'coz some problems cropped up at work...

Ok, warning first... below are all rants.. hey, I had to output it somewhere.. so this is how I chose to do it. Skip if you wish but it's quite entertaining writings, if you ask me :P

So as if problems at work wasn't enough, calling for a cab on a public holiday's eve is like a nightmare...after 10 mins of hearing the music, finally got the operator and she has to put me on hold for another good 5 mins before coming back with the cab num. But the cake on the icing gotta be this... waited for 15 mins, and still no sign of the cab, called operator and had to wait 5 mins just to get the operator to answer and another 2 mins for her to call the cab only to come back to say that there was no such booking. wth! So i said, can't you just go and get me one now? So I was put on hold again for another 5 mins... before she finally said, "I will call you back because haven't gotten any taxi reply yet" -_-''' She could've said that in the very beginning before putting me on hold.. i wasted 30 mins out of my 100 mins subscription... per month. *sob* *sob* As if that wasn't enough... I was in the midst of gastric pain 'coz i only got to eat past 9pm... triple *sob*

So when the operator finally called back after another 5 mins wait (my mobile battery was like very low..like gonna die soon kind) and confirmed the cab number, I said, "Are you sure you had KEYED the number into the system? Because I wouldn't want to WAIT for another 10 mins and still no cab is coming!" <--- can you sense the desperation in this?

Taxi finally came, and I sat inside, feeling a little agitated. So I commented to the driver that SMRT had lousy operators. I described the situation and taxi uncle agreed that indeed their operators are really s l o w. So he related HIS experience with the operators and the management of SMRT. Whoa, I don't want to hear your stories.. I just needed someone to acknowledge that I had a bad experience but noooooo, he just had to go on and on about how BAD his experience was and so, mine was like.. trivial stuffs... Sigh.. oki doki, got it.. EVERYONE wants to be HEARD but no one wants to empathize.. cool

Ended up, I listened to his stories, said my ahems, orh.. oic.. and I suppose I was a good listener and conversationalist (giving myself a pat on my back), so he felt pretty good after that and was in a good mood and wished me happy holidays and to take care when I alighted. Of course by then, I had cooled down and was no longer angry 'coz I realised, even if I am angry, what's the use? The world is not gonna change...

But seriously, SMRT should look into their processes and IT system. Here is what I observed:

1. Operator sounds like she was taking multiple calls at the same time. (how can I tell? To be explained below)

2. Operator tells you the cab number.. verbally. This is room for error as operator may tell the wrong number to the wrong caller. How I know? Because when the operator confirmed the cab number with me, she said, "You are Mr..?" and I had to tell her my name and location again. This is very big clue coz if her computer screen is already showing my phone number and location then this mistake will not happen.

3. When I called the SMRT booking line for the second time, it was able to state the last booking pickup point but not the booking number. This means some data was stored in the computer system. But when the operator picks up the call, she had to ask for the cab number again (??) Seriously, the system should store the cab number lo.. otherwise how they trace? No tracking one ha? Anyway, the operator had to make me wait for some mins before coming back to say the system did not store the cab number for my booking. Seriously, if the computer show no number, just tell the customer that prev operator (although I got the same one.. ) made mistake, say sorry and offer to call another cab la. Why must waste people's time? Common sense mah..


But I suppose, they had to keep the cost low.. so probably the operators are overworked, and just a bare minimum system to keep the business going. Eh.. sounds familiar!! Ha... ha.... ha....


I hoped your day fared a little better than mine!

Happy April Fools' Day

Can't fathom the reason on how a day where pranks are played became such as well-known event worldwide...

Anyways, apparently the date for April Fool could've fallen on 2nd May instead as the earliest documented mention of a prank day can be found in Canterbury Tales (1392). Read more from wiki. Well, May Fools' Day doesn't have the same twang nor vibe as April Fools! Haha! (and probably because May's babies are not so easily fooled.. muahahahha!) Just kidding.. all babies born in any month are just as precious :)

For me, April Fool is also associated with the date Leslie Cheung (famous HK singer/actor) committed suicide via leaping off from a 24th storey building. Indeed, that news on April Fools' day way back in year 2003 when I first heard it, I thought it was a joke...Shocking. Grew up listening to him, Alam Tam and Anita Mui. It was a pity, but rest in peace Leslie...

On a lighter note, watch your steps and watch your back. Be cautious and have fun! Probably we'll all learn a lesson or two from this date and be less guillible~