Received an invitation for the German Expo that was held over the weekend at Suntec City Convention Hall. Not a VERY crowded event but it was one I had to attend - for WORK!
Yep! Found out at the last minute that I had to 'make' an appearance there. So, I turned up in my shirt, tie and suite. WTF!!! A suit! How long's it been since I last worn one!?!
Luckily, there were a few guys who were not in suits and so, I decided to join them! Dress easy! Ha! The Marcoms Dept.'s gonna get me for this!
The exhibition was pretty quiet on the first day. It was the official opening and as it was more for trade visitors, there was not as big a crowd as that at the IT shows. There was nothing you could really buy at all!
The Mercedes-Benz Bionic Car at the Daimler Chrysler Booth was probably the one and only thing that caught any real attention! Heh! That's right! For those hoping to see race queens dressed in sexy outfits, young chicks, anything in the likes of those, can well forget about it. Nothing. Zilch!
Though impressive it looked, it still feels way too boxy and 'mis-designed' for my liking. But at least it was worth a look!
Now I am splitting my sides! Hahahahaha! Also, it seems like you can keep submitting in different photos until you get your desired results... heheheheh!
On Sunday, the Prime Minister visited Fernvale. As can be expected, the majority of the residents see it as a pre-election 'walk' - although the event was officially the launch of some Mosquito Eradication exercise.
His presence was definitely GREATLY appreciated by the Fernvale residents as it brought about a good handful of improvements. A week before the event, the landscape contractor for the estate started (finally) replacing dried plants with new ones, making sure that trees are pruned, dead grass patches were replaced and 'beautified' with rocky slabs, etc.
The estate cleaning contractor also got into the act. The cleaners seem to be put on a double-shift schedule - with more sweeping, washing and cleaning of the lifts and vicinity. Ha, they even painted some of the walls and pipes!
I would say most of the involved parties did a great job except maybe the organizing committee. To many of the residents (myself included), they were not organized in their way of allocating the event tickets. You see, each family was supposedly issued with 2 tickets which consisted of a lucky draw coupon, a food redemption coupon, as well as a goodie bag redemption coupon. By the second day of issue, those who went to collect their tickets were told that it has been given out. WTF! We were told to come back on the third and final night for collection at the given time (1930hrs-2130hrs).
On the last collection day, it turns out that they started giving out the tickets at around 1800hrs. Bloody hell! If I had not happened to pass by the area, I would have missed the ticket issue completely! But that's not the interesting part.
When collecting the tickets, I requested for 4 tickets - one each for Valerie, Lucas, Janet and myself. The man in charge shot me a look I didn't like and said bluntly, "Each unit only allowed 2 tickets!"
Ok, I get the rules and I can play by them, but what happened yesterday really pissed me off completely. I saw with my own eyes, families of 6-8 people holding event tickets EACH!! Fuck the bloody '2 tickets per unit' quota! How did these people get theirs then? There was angry chatter amongst the 'aunties' and 'uncles' when some of them saw the group(s) with stacks of tickets. I nearly couldn't control myself from joining in the discussion! Ha!
Anyway, after a short speech, the PM went for a short 'tour' of the event location. Walking from the stage to the open void deck beside the carpark and round back to the stage area again before bailing out. Short and sweet. All this while, he was followed by a group of at least 20 people, most of whom are probably grassroots leaders and volunteers.
Lucas and Valerie succeeded, after repeated attempts at squeezing through the crowd and body guards, to shake the hand of the PM. They were (especially Lucas) extremely pleased with that! Hee hee! How I wished I had brought my camera along! Sucks!
Seen at Carrefour Singapore
Went to Carrefour on Friday and noticed that (ok, I'm suah ku) they are using digital price indicators nowadays leh! Interesting, but, I noticed some kids pressing hard at the displays and laughing and one of them said to the others...
"Hey, press like dat, the black water will go all over the screen one!"
Good luck on maintenance, Carrefour! Blogger keeps 'chomping' my blog template! Shit! Luckily I have backups of it... hmm, so if you come to my blog and it looks funny, blame blogger.com!
Last Saturday, we went 'island-hopping'. We visited Kusu and St John's Islands - spending only about 15 minutes on the latter. We started off from Sentosa island where the boat rides to Kusu and St John's islands starts.
The old rides from Clifford Pier are now history. All the Southern Islands tours are operated by Sentosa now, and it is definitely not cheap at all!
At St John's Island
Here's a simple breakdown.
Entrance to Sentosa Vehicle: SGD10.00 Passengers: SGD2.00/pax
Boat Ride to Kusu/St John's Islands Adult: SGD11.00/pax Children (3-12 years old): SGD8.00/pax
We had 9 adults and 2 children above 3 years of age. Therefore, just to get to Kusu Island, we spent;
SGD10.00 + (SGD2.00 x 11) + (SGD11.00 x 9) + (SGD8.00 x 2) = SGD147.00 (Vehicle + Entrance to Sentosa + Adult Boat Ride + Children Boat Ride)
From Left: Our Ride, Kusu Jetty.
Anyway, after a bumpy ride, we finally reached Kusu Island! Heheh!
From Left: Lucas acting cool, View between the tree trunks, Big spider.
There are many insects on the island - most of which are a big bother to you if you stand still. Ha! The ants bite, the mosquitoes bite, the spiders... do they bite?? No fucking idea, but they are huge!
From Left: Reading newspapers, Flying kites.
Above: More kite flying at the beach.
We spent quite a bit of time at the beach as it is VERY quiet. We had the whole beach to ourselves! Great! Kekeke! At first, we tried catching the little fishes around the shoreline. Wah, got crabs, little fishes (don't know which), sting ray and lion fish leh!
After showering, we decided to go kite-flying. Finally put Jenny's kites to good use! Hahah!
And yah, we had A LOT of fun kite-flying by the beach!
Surfing by: Jaren Goh's site. This is where he shows his collection of personal works, as well as the Sony Ericsson concept phone (Black Diamond) I mentioned above.
Friday today and I am on half day leave! Finally a chance to clear the balance of my annual leave from last year - but I will have to miss the company's TGIF function to be held at Brewerkz this evening... haiz! Well, I am going to go home, finish some housework and if possible, squeeze in some time for Maple Story.
Nephy's flying off to Korea tonight for work assignment (2 months min.), and the family will be sending him off at the airport this evening. Hope he can find some cherry blossoms and get them on his new DVD-camcorder for us to see!
Within a span of only about 2 years, the 'population' on the floor I'm staying at has increased by a staggering 4 headcounts! That's 4 babies added to the count. Wow! We had a total of 20 people on the 14th floor and now, it's 20% more - and we (Ahem! 'WE' as in the people staying on 14th floor, not 'me & family') have one more coming in the last quarter of 2006!
So if you want to have kids, or have been trying to have kids, do come and stay in Fernvale!
I'm back playing Blogshares, which I had started last year but quit halfway - due to lack of 'funds'... Haha! The greenhorn in me actually played till I was having a 'Cash' Balance of only B$30.00+ (B$=Blogshares dollars)!!! Duh!
Now, I am back with a nice figure of cash balance which I managed to accumulate through a couple of blog-stock market buys and sells. Heehee! My cash balance now stands at a healthier level - B$99,983,201.58!! Geez! I wish this was in real cash! Ha!
The road back to cash-stability was not easy. I had to make use of a couple of my friends' blogs to stage the comeback (these include amie, aerial-aces, cockroach, etc), and then a break came when I joined a 'mission' and earned B$100,000,000.00 from it! Opportunist is at work!
Ok, ok! I know the weekend's here and my brain's screwy and intoxicated right now... so, enjoy your weekend folks!
I have been travelling by bus and MRT since way back in school days. So, do not point the finger at me and accuse me of being a 'rich ass, spoiled brat' who just couldn't get used to public transport!
To be fair, I have to mention that I have had my share of public transport nightmares (buses, MRTs and taxis). So, those who still insist on thinking so, go, FUCK OFF!
There. Now that I have that settled, let's get down to business! :)
As I have said, I take the bus to work every day - Bus number 854 to be exact. Now, this is not a comparison of the bus qualities between bus companies, but rather, I hope to highlight the situation on the bus that I take every day.
I am usually happier whenever I see the long 'Bendy' bus coming to the bus stop. Partly because this means there are more seats and standing space available (it gets really tough to get on the bus during peak hours), and mostly because these buses are generally 'cleaner' as they are newer if you compare them with the others in the fleet.
Why am I so afraid of the other buses? Well, one reason is that the air is usually quite stale on many of the older ones. I do not know if it is a problem with the filters, or the seat cushions/paddings (these look as if they have not been cleaned for the last 5 years!), but something does make the air smell stale and musky. As I have a sensitive nose, this usually results in me getting sneezes and runny nose by the end of my trip. *sulk*
I mentioned the cushions on the seats earlier... if you were to take a look at them, you will see that most of them have a greyish taint. If you ran your palm over them, you will feel that the surfaces actually feel a little waxy (probably from the layers of dirt and grime on them). Heehee! Ok, I will stop describing them before people start accusing me of being a cleaniness freak - again! Duh! Nabei! I only say what every one feels but don't put into words what!
To make things worse, I noticed that recently, the air-conditioning systems on a few of the 854s are not functioning properly. They are either too weak (ok, this might be because the driver bus captain had turned it down, but FOR FUCK??? Why?), or the blowers are dripping water! If the weather was cold, I would understand if the temperature was turned up a little, but on a sunny day with a full load of sweaty passengers?!?! The air-conditioning was almost non-existent!!! As for the dripping blowers, they make the already packed buses worse as the seats right underneath them will be empty. Who would want to get off the bus with a wet spot on his crotch or chest right?
Now, I have saved this as my last point for this post. I personally feel that the driving skill of the bus captains for bus number 854 suck - BIG TIME!! Serious! They like to step on the brakes as if the brake pads owed them a fortune and they accelerate in short bursts that seem aimed at making you throw up!! A favourite thing that most of them do is to accelerate just before the bus stop and suddenly (VERY SUDDENLY) apply the brakes and turn abruptly into the bus bay. Wah, skillful siah! KNN! Old folks and children can not take such joy rides you know!?!?
A couple of stuff on my mind this beginning of the month, so I guess I better get my act together and start on them.
Let's see...
Change Web Host Clubsnap's (CS) web hosting service had been good. However, at SGD65.00, I could have gotten a better deal (by comparison) with another host.
With CS, I was given a second level URL (http://petaflopz.clubsnap.org/), but with the other, I have my own domain (included in the price of SGD60.00). That's tempting indeed but I do not know about how reliable it is. But, at a cheaper rate, I guess I can't complain much can I? Hmm, now what domain name should I register?
Plan for the June holidays OK. Unofficially, the trip to Taman Negara with KH + family has been cancelled. KH feels that his kids might not be ready for that trip yet.
We might still proceed with the trip - sans KH + family, so I better get checking on those rates!
Progress Package Make sure that Janet has what is needed to receive the 'gifts' from the gahmen. I guess there is nothing required, but, just in case. Heehee! Kiasu, I know!
So much to do, so little time, so little strength to carry out. Must PERSIST!!! Haha! Whatever!
Oh! I tried translating this blog last night using Google's translator tools service. It was nifty and worked enough to get you through the general idea of the posts - until I came to my Strawberry Jam post.
moe at 3/30/2006 02:17:00 PM
