Category: Snippet of My Life

I often wonder: What is your morning ritual at work like?  I once followed the blog sites of a paramedic and a restaurant server and what excitingly interesting lives they have!  Office life doesn’t make great movie story.  If I have to think of one, I think of “Being John Malkovich”.  I really can’t think of any other.

Every morning I spend a quarter of an hour or so taking out my laptop and my personal stuffs from my locker, heading to the desk I have booked one week ago, and waiting for Windows to boot up.  Windows!  What would this world be had there be no Windows?  A more productive world, I reckon.  A less frustrating world, I reckon.

I wonder who came up with this hot desking idea in an office whereby most of us are stationed in Singapore.  So we take turn in bumping each other out as we book our seats one week in advance.  I need a little notebook to keep track of the desk numbers, against the calendar days.  I embrace hot desking system.  But playing musical chair at work is just silly.

So every morning I spend another quarter of an hour waiting for the office applications to load up, clicking through the desk booking system that somewhat looks like the picture on top of this post (pardon my artistic touch), and think: Hmmm … where shall I sit 7 days from now?

And I open up the image of the office floor plan, try to recall which are the seats not to book.  At times, I either get a friendly email from the secretary if I accidentally book her boss’s seat or on the day itself, get reassigned to another.  Some areas are unofficially reserved for team clusters that tend to be more territorial.  We even have a term for those – ‘land mines’.  On top of that, I do have my personal preferences like not wanting to face the toilet door or the meeting rooms.  Everybody does online desk booking 7 days in advance.  I wonder how much time we spend everyday just to get a seat to work.

Something is not right but no one is doing anything.  Similar to how we accept a trash operating system for a decade and more.

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Last week I have converted my car into mobile Wi-fi hotspot.  Thanks to my N97.  So if you are to ride with me, you have free Wi-fi access on the road.  Today’s lunch, I have converted myself into a walking Wi-fi hotspot.  I really want the Internet Radio bad.  So bad that it has to be done at all cost.  I want to listen to Internet Radio in the car, at work, and on the road – like I was used to with my old N96.  Because I have 30Gb mobile data quota to burn every month.  Because I am learning Spanish.  And more importantly, because I like to listen to things that are not what everybody around me is listening to.

So I walked around the blocks, this lunch time.  Deep inside my trousers’ left pocket, my N97 was running hot as a Wi-fi hotspot converting 3.5G mobile signal into a wireless network.  Deep inside my right pocket, my N96 was running hot as a Wi-fi receiver, broadcasting the radio transmission to my earphones all the way from Spain using the Internet connection provided by my N97 inside my left pocket.  And as I was walking on the street, this lunch time, I couldn’t help but to visualize the amount of radiation and invisible action that happened from my left trousers pocket to the right, and in between …

I sincerely hope that my genetic replicating devices are OK, amidst the heat and the radiation.  If Nokia is reading this, please hurry up with the development of the Internet Radio for your newer phones.  What’s taking you so long, I wonder. 

*     *     *     *     *

Ever since I have moved to a different office location, so far away from my friends in town, ever since my team has reduced into a one-man-show, ever since Cynthia has left Singapore for a business trip, if not for the occasion phone calls I have during the working hours, I could theoretically not to speak more than 10 words a day (still need to order food).  It doesn’t take too long to eat when you are alone.  So these days, I have plenty of time to read during lunch.  And because I don’t talk much, I have plenty of time to think.

My life today reminds me of my business trip to Paris long time ago.  Between Friday’s have-a-good-weekend to Monday’s how-was-your-weekend, I hardly had a conversation with anyone over the weekend.  Now, I don’t even have someone to have-a-good-weekend and how-was-your-weekend with at work.

Strange, in a melancholic way.

Fortunately, Cynthia is coming home this Sunday.  What would my life be like if I was still single?  I wonder.

It is as though our tiny little island has been engulfed by a thick blanket of sleepiness, most I talk to are feeling kind of tired, myself included.  Maybe recession has taken a toll on our energy level, maybe Good Friday is so close yet so far.

“I’m paid as a writer,” all of a sudden I said to Cynthia this morning.  Last night, my very good old friend from Hong Kong suggested that I shall write a book.  Gosh!  And I was toying with the fantasy of making a living out of writing for the entire evening.  Then this morning it hits me, I am paid as a writer.  In the day time, I write business papers, I write business emails, I write business minutes, and if someone was to sell me a $1,000 titanium stylish business keyboard, I would buy one.  I can’t make a living without a keyboard.  And throw in a titanium stylish business mouse too, please.

Beautiful sun, this lunch time.  One lovely colleague – my good friend – invited me to join her.  So I did.  So I followed.  Asia Civilizations Museum we went.  “Why are we going there for lunch?” I asked.  She said there was a corporate talk on strategy.  Haven’t I told you?

Zzzz.

I nearly did, fall asleep, with my empty stomach.  Then came the punch line: It is when companies stray away from the strategy they meet failure.  If you chew onto this piece of wisdom, it makes sense.

Biodegradable plates, cups, and utensils using corn and yam?!  Who would have thought?  After the talk, food was served, and I marveled at the dull brown plate that I was holding.  I took a sniff, it didn’t smell like corn nor yam.  I chewed onto it, it felt like plastic.  Amazing.

The last time Coffee Bean increased the price of the muffins, I stopped ordering them.  This week, I realized that they have changed the menu and increased the price of the coffee.  Fine.  No more Coffee Bean coffee for me then.  I am very price sensitive.  When electricity price went up, I started the habit of powering down all appliances from the mains.  When transport price went up, I started the habit of walking instead of taking a train within the city radius.  When petrol price went up, I …

OK, I still drive.

These days I am curious on the number of days in advance notice you need to give to your boss when you want to take leave.  Back in my days of being a consultant, applying for leave was just a text message away.  I mean, life can be spontaneous right?  If I suddenly want to take leave and drive to Malacca for a dinner, on my birthday, I should be able to, right?  So I turned to my friend in a Spanish Class, asked just that.  He told me that in his shipping business, his leave is planned in a quarterly basis.  OK.  No working in the shipping business for me.

One evening, I had an interesting conversation with Cynthia, on why some people can have relatively good bosses throughout their career while some are quite the opposite.  She pondered for a moment and replied, “Maybe there is something God want that someone to learn [from the tough bosses] but he or she is still not getting it yet?”

If you chew onto this piece of wisdom, it too makes sense.

PS. I seldom write a back-to-back entry on the same series.  But I thought this and my previous one bring out the contrast between my work area and my sister’s.  And the photograph was taken using my Nokia N96 a while ago.

This morning, I entered the lift, a limping man was in front of me; I was wondering if that is permanent.  This morning, I sat down at my work desk, greeted by a leave request that was pending for my approval.  My colleague in his late fifties came by, told me that his brother-in-law passed away last Sunday.  And he needed time off, it’s an emergency.  Certainly, everything OK?  It was a peaceful death, in a sleep, he told me.  One topic led to another, and he shared with me some of the last moments of his loved ones, in the past.  His eyes went moist.  It is always the last moments of everything that we are holding dear to, aren’t we?  Life is fragile, he said.  If we want to say that something to that someone [such as I love you], do so today, I concluded.

One ex-colleague of Cynthia has recently passed away, in his sleep.  Last weekend, she showed me his Facebook page, heartfelt messages pouring in from all corners of the world.  How Internet has changed the way we interact.  Years ago, one World of Warcraft online gamer passed away.  Her guild organized an online funeral, within the game.  Many players turned up, to mourn.  Another opposing fraction too turned up, crashed the funeral, and mass slaughtered the mourners, within the online game.  Some cried for compassion; some said it’s a game.  Some people are just, not nice.  Like that driver who tailgated me, on the highway, high-beamed me while I was at my speed limit, overtaking.  Having cars on my left I had nowhere to go.  I am not going to pick up a speeding ticket just because someone is inches away from my back.  No sir.

This morning, I rethought my priorities in life.  I seldom see my little sister, though we are now living in the same country.  So I picked up my phone, called if she was available for lunch.  I envy her work location (see photo above).  Such serenity, away from the city center.  It was a lovely drive, bright and sunny.  What do brothers and sisters usually talk about?  I don’t know.  I need more practice.  Of course we talked about her honeymoon at New Zealand and my upcoming trip to Spain; and we talked about our parents in Hong Kong.  Yes, they miss us a lot.  My mom would call my sister out-of-nowhere just for a chat.  Then she would immediately call me.  And my mind would wander off halfway through our conversation.  Some movies are thought provoking.  In “Gran Torino”, Clint Eastwood called his son out-of-nowhere, and his son was too busy to talk.  OK, that hits me.  It is time to reprioritize.  My mom told my sister that half a month feels like half a year in Hong Kong.

On my way back, the sky was dark.  A sudden downpour and I thought of the Formula One match during the weekend.  My head was stuffed, still is, and I missed the highway exit.  Life is fragile, time to reprioritize, say what’s in my heart out, today.  I was drenched in rain, even with my golf umbrella, as I walked from the car park to my office.

This afternoon, I returned to my office building, after a lovely lunch with my little sister.  In front of me, the same limping man, walking towards me. And I wondered, is that permanent?

I jumped out of my bed in the middle of the night, thought I saw lava flowing out from my attached bathroom, with the door left ajar.  My logical mind kicked into action.  The first thing I did was to save my phone that was lying on the floor connected to a charger near to the bathroom door.  I switched on the bathroom light, took my beloved Nokia N96 as far away from the lava as possible, and put it right next to my pillow.  Snuggled underneath my blanket with my half-opened sleepy eyes staring at the bathroom door, minutes had passed.  Reality hit me.  No, there was no lava.  I switched off the light and went back to sleep.

Work stress, economic climate, The Economist that generates more questions than answers, or maybe it was the aftereffect of my frequent visit to the World of Warcraft, my head is stuffed with dreams these days.

Workload is the same.  People are asked to go.  Departments are dismantled.  It’s cost cutting time.  I wonder who is more stressed: the asked-to-go or the left-behind.

For the past decades, time after time, I tried to read The Economist.  The drawings entice me; the article titles entice me; but I could not get pass the first paragraph of any article.  Money wasted.  Decades have passed.  I am none the wiser.  Picked up a recent issue while Cynthia was buying a loft of bread at a convenience store.  Paid twelve bucks.  And I have read almost all the articles within a week.

Oh my.  I actually enjoy reading The Economist!  What an exhilarating revelation.  I said to Cynthia: if I can read 6 issues, continuously, I may consider subscribing to the magazine for a year.

Here are some numbers that you probably won’t get from The Economist.  PC Gamer, I read mostly all the contents including the advertisements every month.  Today, there are 11 million online gamers subscribed to the online game World of Warcraft.  Each month, Blizzard Entertainment receives USD 165,000,000 from the subscribers worldwide, myself included.  That is close to USD 2 billion a year.  The total running cost is USD 200 million for the past 4 years.  Each yearly game expansion translates to one time revenue of USD 400 million from the community within days if not hours.  I am not going into the amount of money some subscribers pay to transfer the characters from one server to another, rename and change the genders of their characters, to pay for the merchandise, and etc.

Economic downturns means more people not having a job, means more work loaded onto my plate, means more people have time to play online games.  USD 15 a month doesn’t seem excessive for a dude who needs to put his talents somewhere (OK, private joke for the WoW community).

If I could choose a time to be born, I wouldn’t have picked this era of capitalism, of consumerism.  On one hand, mother Earth cannot sustain the way and the pace we consume resources.  On the other hand, we ask our people not to stop consuming in order to keep the economy going.  Our progression depends upon how effective and efficient and extensive we consume resources.  But for what purpose?  No one is interested in the true cost [determined by our predecessors] until we hit the problem (think satellite debris up in the sky).  We put our best brains together, created a risk management framework (Basel II), and now we ponder: maybe 20% capital adequacy is more resilient to the financial downturn.  We create a manmade economy and load our future generations with tons of debt.  OK, I quit.  Thank you Mother Earth for having me around.  I am moving to Planet Mars to start anew.

I am literally the last man standing in my Spanish class.  All the girls proceed to the next level.  The guys have other plans.  It appears that the girls are doing much better in languages.  I wonder why.  Must be in our DNA.

Following AIG episode, I texted my Prudential insurance agent this morning.  Do I want to know Prudential’s exposure to AIG, Lehman, and Merrill Lynch stocks?  Certainly.  Where is the promised market update?  I have no clue.  Chances are they are scrambling to measure the exact losses like the rest of the financial institutions right now, as in now.

You would have thought with the Basel II Accord’s three pillars concept implemented in some forms or another across the financial industry, the risks are well managed, the system is more resilience to shocks.  Yet, right before our eyes, we see the collapse of the giants like dominoes.  Do practitioners have what it takes to deal with the complexity of the exotic products and the financial structures?  Do they have the agility to deal with shocks – scenarios that should have been tested regularly?  Are risks thoroughly understood and monitored from the front to the back office or are the front line people too absorbed in carrying on with their daily jobs and making money?  I often have my doubt.  Time for Basel III.

Besides being a coffee boy and a note taker, nowadays I have a list to administrate.  My new neighbor constantly on a conference call, and so are some others around me.  In this office with so much surround sound, with so many people making a living by talking, I feel as though I work in a call center.  Thank God I have my Nokia phone and my MP3 collection.

No doubt this list must have a certain level of importance since I need to deal with some rather senior people from different geographies, I literally doze off for a couple of seconds every time I scroll up and down this list.  I certainly haven’t heard of countries like Kazakhstan or Qatar until now.  But look, a list is a list and it still makes me fall asleep.  My vision would go blur (much like the picture above), I would doze off for a few seconds (no kidding), wake up, do the thing I need to do, and doze off again while scrolling up or down.

People in my industry are in panic mode (the closer you are to the trading portfolios, the more intense the panic is I suppose) worrying that jobs may be lost.  I have seen the up and down cycles and I have switched in and out of different jobs and industries throughout these cycles.  The only constant is change.  Wrong!  The only constant is that whatever we are holding onto, whatever we think we own, are not permanent.  All can be taken away in a snap.

A job is a job and I am concerned about my savings more.  Time to take out my cash, buy some gold bars, and hide them underneath my bed.

“Have you eaten?”

That’s how the cleaning lady in my office and I often start our conversation.  It’s not “How are you” but “Have you eaten”.  As though in the eyes of the older (Chinese?) generation, if one is well-fed, one is “I’m fine, thank you”.  Strange, isn’t?  This late morning, we got further.  Leveraging on my close to non-existence Mandarin and a pathetic meagre level of understanding in Hokkien, the cleaning lady asked me if I have eaten.  I was puzzled, looked at my watch, and she laughed, “It’s too early for you.  I have my lunch at eleven.”

I guess lunch hour would be the best time for her to work, while most of us are away.

When I lived in Paris with my uncle who has survived the Vietnam war, he always reminded me how precious food is, how hungry he was during the war, and after the war.  Perhaps those who have lived through tough time tend to equate well-fed with “How are you and I am fine, thank you”.

On the same day, I bumped into the man who services our drink vending machine.  It is quite a repetitive job I think: clean up the interior compartments, fill up the powder, and fill up the paper cups.  We came out from the same lift and I tried to overtake him and his trolley but he reached the machine before I did.

“Hi… do you mind if I grab a cup of coffee first?  I really need it,” I pleaded nicely.  He smiled and said, “Go ahead.”  While the drink was made, I had a quick chat with him and learned that he drops by our office twice a week.  And he services 23 vending machines a day, throughout the island.

Did you know that the Subway outlet at China Square has moved to Far East Square?  I miss the lady who was used to work at the previous location.  Since I order the same thing every time, she remembered my preference, and we used to talk about everything under the sun including her driving trips to Malaysia.  Where is she now?  I don’t know.  At the new Subway outlet, there is this old man at the counter.  He is the boss, a very friendly boss.  During my visits, we would chat and chat while his rather inexperience staff made my sandwich.  So I asked: why do you need to be around?  He answered: Ah, I have to be around till these staff of mine know what to do.  Before I left the counter, he said in all sincerity – as always – “thank you for choosing Subway”.  I like his attitude.

The guys in Fuwell – my favorite computer shop in Sim Lim Square – are nice people too.  My friend Sing Chyun recommended Fuwell to me donkey years ago and he loves their “one-for-one exchange within thirty days” policy.  In fact, this time when I had to lug my heavy brand new computer for a diagnosis, that triggered a piece of memory; years ago, I had to do the exact same thing.  Lucky for me, this time my problem was easily replicable.  In less than a minute, this muscular technician named William from Philippines removed all the components and handed me the defective motherboard.  I ran back to the main shop and got myself a new one.  Within 2 minutes and 45 seconds, he put it all back.  And it worked.  Wonderful!  I can understand why Fuwell employs such a muscular man as a technician; these machines are darn heavy to move around.  God knows how many he has to handle a day.

Ever since my friend Alex Ang recommended where I shall get my guitar cables, I have been visiting the Sim Lim Tower whenever I need some (the 2 photos in this blog entry were taken in around that area).  There is an old man siting outside the shop Electronics Enterprise making cables day in day out.  God knows why he likes to dye his hair gold, but he is (also) a very nice guy.  I left my order to him, paid the invoice, and I headed out for lunch.  When I returned, we talked about food while he was finishing up with my order.  I told him that I love fish soup and the famous one at Berseh Food Centre has closed down.  He told me that there is another famous one near by that are always very crowded (again, I didn’t quite get the Mandarin he said).  He continued: if you want to do takeaway, you have to bring your own container and help yourself!

The last character in this blog entry is a girl scout.  One morning, during a weekend, a door bell woke me up from my beauty sleep.  Time to pay the newspaper agent again?  I was in my PJ and I saw a little girl at my doorstep, with an uniform.  Uh-oh.  She asked in all earnestness: are there works for me to do?  I wish I had read a SOP Manual on “What to Do When a Girl Scout Shows up at Your Doorstep”.  I couldn’t think of any good responses so I said: Sorry, not at the moment (I was really sleepy).  She looked disappointed, started to turn away, and then came back and asked: would you like to donate?

OK, that I could do.

So, have you eaten?  I just had my Subway meal and feel darn full.  Oops, there are still cookies in the refrigerator.

Apart from the time we eat and pee, poo and sleep, we spend much time communicating with one another, misunderstanding each other.  It is staggering how many different ways one finite thought in our heads can be altered before it reaches its intended destination, or worse, unintended destinations.  That gets me thinking: is it that hard to, communicate?  Shouldn’t it be as simple as plus and minus, multiply and divide?

One evening, a friend and I visited a pub and she ordered a JD and a diet Coke.  I had no idea what a “JD” was and thought that it must be some sort of fanciful bottled beer or cocktail (I had a pint of diet Coke that night, don’t laugh!).  We drank and chatted, chatted and drank, staring at her half finished glass of diet Coke, just when I was about to ask if her “JD” was coming at all, something struck my mind.

Jack Daniel’s.

How would I know?  It was the first time I heard someone called it a “JD”.   How about a “CR” – my favorite whisky before I have become a teetotaller since January this year (Chivas Regal that is).

Second round, and my friend wanted something stronger.  A different waitress came to our table and my friend said, “JD and diet Coke … make it …”

There was a confused look in our waitress’s face and her reply didn’t sound too English to me.  So my friend repeated slowly, “I want a diet Coke … and Jack Daniel’s … and …”

The waitress still didn’t get it.  I chipped in and said very slowly, “Diet Coke, yes?”.  The young waitress nodded.  “Jack Daniel’s, yes?” my friend followed.  The same look of confusion and her eyes dashed between my friend and I as we took turn to explain JD in a million different ways.  Finally, we managed to get the message of “whisky” across and just before the poor young waitress left our table with a sigh of relief, my friend gently pulled her arm and said, “Make it a double please”.

We burst in laughter in unison.  But what was so comical?  We laughed because of our own helplessness, more than anything else.  Definitely not at the obvious fact that the waitress wouldn’t understand what a “double” was.  A single JD and diet Coke arrived within seconds (got to appraise the waitress’s efficiency in order delivery).  My friend took a gulp and asked another waitress to give her another shot of JD, in the same glass.

Language barrier and unfamiliar synonyms aside, I have this bad habit of wordplay.  At times when I am late for an appointment that I happen to take a train, I would blame the tunnel jam.  Of course, taking an underground train is by far the most reliable mode of transport in our city and almost instantaneously, every friend of mine know that I am joking and we just laugh about it.

Recently, I like to use the term lift jam (like traffic jam, like tunnel jam) to describe the excruciating lift ride from where my office’s floor is (37th) to the ground floor and vice versa.  Stopping almost at every floor, I can listen to a complete music track, read a few pages of today’s newspapers inside this 5 by 5-feet confinement.  So, at times when I am late, I would apologize and blame the lift jam.  One time, when the same friend whom I had a drink with received my lift jam text message, her immediate response was, “Are you OK?  Shall I call someone for help?”

Uh oh.

Since then, I stopped using the term lift jam.  Same lobby, same lateness, I always enjoy meeting this friend of mine who also happens to work in the same building as my JD friend.  She is like my syringe of liquid motivation, my little boost of self-worth on demand, and her everlasting energizer-bunny-like enthusiasm was just what I needed when my boss pulled me into an empty meeting room one morning and said, “By the way, I think you are a little bit soft”.

Those who have the un-privilege of working with me, lived under my constant hands of a tyrant – a Mr-oh-no-the-man-is-in-town-let’s-take-cover by day – you must have difficulty to reconcile the word “soft” and I.

But the fact is, empathy can be a curse.  People do change.  I can go, soft.

“You have got to be firm.  You have got to do it like a man.  You have got to … ” my friend paused and I found myself repeating every word she said with the same zest.  She continued, “… practice in front of a mirror and say: Look honey, this is NOT what I want”.  I attempted to copy the tone.  My friend frowned, shook her head, and said, “You have got to say it this way: Look honey …”

I tried again and she said better.  I tried harder to imitate and she said much better.  I pictured a mirror in front of me when delivering the same line and my friend screamed, “This is it!”

This is it!  I am so going to look-honey my colleagues.  I am going to picture a mirror in front of me, say the silence words of “look honey” and deliver the tough messages.  I am going to look-honey you, you, and you!

In fact, my look-honey worked so well in the office that I got a bit scared.  I got people around me a bit scared.  The next day, I met the same friend for lunch and I repeated the exact episodes on how I look-honey’ed my colleagues to her.

“[Look honey,] You.  Should.  Know.  About.  This!” I said.

My friend got scared, for real.

I felt really bad of my recent transformation.  Then one night, I read my friend’s blog on how she dealt with a less than enthusiastic worker when she was the manager-on-duty.  Somewhere in a hotel or service apartment in Vietnam.  With her permission to reproduce the exact words, here was what she wrote:

So I told her “Honey, if you want to work in a coffee joint at Raffles Place, you gotta work faster than this.”

OK.  Perhaps this is how it should be done.  Look-honey’ing people is the way to go.  Especially when …

Outside a meeting room, one colleague of mine said casually, “I think I am falling sick again.”  So I casually asked, “Why?”  He laughed with a hint of a perceived sarcasm and replied, “How the f**k do I know?”

Zomg!

Perhaps he dislike me; perhaps he thinks that I dislike him; perhaps he thought it was funny.

1145 is a magic number.  1145 is like being thirties for the single women (sorry, just an example).  If I can’t find a lunch partner by 11:45am, most likely I will be eating alone, which is not a bad idea at times.  But if I can catch up with some dear friends of mine, why not?

Early one morning, one old friend of mine sent me a text message for a lunch invite.  Too bad, I had something on and he asked if I would be available the next day.  After some exchange of text messages, I ended the conversation with, “Tomorrow it is then”.

Apparently, on the next day, I realized that my friend didn’t understand what I meant by “tomorrow it is then”.

Totally baffled, I sent the following message to some of my close friends whom I am quite sure that they won’t laugh at me as I genuinely wanted to do some reality check.

Quick question: if you ask me out for lunch but I can’t make it today.  You suggested tomorrow and I said, “Tomorrow it is then”.  What does that reply mean to you?

All of them got what I said and most thought that it was a test of some sort.  And I got to love my sister.  She thought it was a creative way for me to ask her out for lunch and she gently reminded me that she works at the other end of the island.

I so love my sister.  She replied, “Yes” and I was baffled.

Apart from the time we listen to our mp3 players and watch TV, running on the treadmills and writing blogs, we find ways to communicate with one another.  It is staggering how often miscommunication occurs.  This gets me thinking: is this an inherit problem of our genetic makeup or we have not been taught the right way on how to communicate yet (the “De Bono Code Book” is still far from the goal I think)?  Or perhaps miscommunication is simply part and puzzle of how we are meant to communicate?

Wait.  It’s part and parcel …

I swear things are getting more expensive in Singapore.  Just couldn’t pinpoint the exact figure as I am lousy in numbers until one morning, I was devastated to see my beloved muffin at Coffee Bean is now selling at S$3.50, up from S$2.70.  That is a 30% hike over the weekend.  That’s it, no more muffin breakfast for the poor me.  The staff looked at me in sympathy and sighed, “Only salary doesn’t go up”.  I agreed.
 
So I shall go budget.  Cynthia went budget for a totally different reason (last minute flight booking).  I enjoy sending Cynthia off to the airport in the morning.  A break from the routine travel on the CTE and a chance to see the Singapore Flyer up close and personal, I love the Daytona highway ride in around that area too.  We have not been to the Budget Terminal before and joked that we may be able to drive up to where the plane parked.  Nothing like that of course.  The Budget Terminal, to me, looks pretty much like the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal from the outside.
 
Today was the first time I visited the Budget Terminal.  Today was also the first time I played Sudoku!  I have always been tempted to try it out.  The rules are actually a lot simpler than I thought.  Sudoku is pretty much like my favorite Minesweeper game – either a direct solve for a cell or a solution by elimination.  It is therapeutic and while I was playing it on Today (the free newspaper), I was more fascinated in how I can create a Sudoku puzzle and how I can write a program to solve a Sudoku puzzle using artificial intelligence.  Who knows?  Granted that many may have done that, I may actually do that myself.
 
Besides Sudoku, in today’s Today forum, there was an official government response on a complaint made against motorists who leave the engines on while idling on the roadside: call 1-800-CALL-NEA.  All we need to do is to provide NEA with the date, time, location, vehicle registration number, and the brief description and NEA will take action from there.  I have no qualm over that because many times while I was jogging on the street, I see motorists taking naps inside their air-conditioned vehicles with their engines on.  Singapore is an unique country whereby citizens and residents are mobilized from catching irresponsible motorists to the participation of the manhunt activity.  Imagine one day we could call 1-800-CALL-CWO (corrective work order) for the spotting of litterbugs.  Or another 1-800 number to call CASE for a muffin hike not unlike the one at Coffee Bean.

In the middle of Raffle Place, where my office is, I often see up to three IPO counters ‘competing’ for attention.  9 out of 10 counters will have a pair of attractive young girls … distributing booklets.  Part of the advertising strategy perhaps?  One of my friends agreed, “Ain’t no pretty girls, ain’t no IPO”.

Talking about IPO, Benny emailed me this morning and said, “I feel for you bro”.  You feel for me how what who where?!  He was referring to my HWT share that continues to head south.  The price was so stagnant that I gave up staring at the same figure day after day.  Is there such a thing as: too late to sell?  Oh well …

So I lost S$600 on paper.  And I needed a retail therapy.  I bought tons of rare CDs from HMV with one that costs as much as S$52.95. 

Things are getting more expensive in Singapore, I swear.