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Collected My Passport Today at ICA via iCollect

Recently I submitted a passport renewal because it is going to expire soon, they deducted $70 from my bank account after I dropped it into the collection box at ICA building. A few days later, I checked online and found that it is ready for collection, I choose the iCollect mode, I think it is a new self-collect service and I set the collection date as today. So I went to ICA level 1 eLobby, the iCollect section is very obvious, it's like a spaceship with two counters, quite futuristic looking. I went to the counter, there's nobody there, well, it's self-collect, so anyway I touched the screen to start the procedure, there were videos for each step telling me what to do, scan my NRIC, scan my thumbprint, scan my old passport, scan my face (facial verification), all done by myself, then it dispensed my new passport, it's like a vending machine! The whole process probably took less than 3 minutes, I think it's very efficient, impressive.

Had a Bad Dream Last Weekend

Can't remember whether it was Friday or Saturday night, the dream was quite vivid and I still remember it now, it's strange because I never remember a dream for long after I wake up, I will probably forget everything within one or two hours. In the dream, somehow my father passed away, I can't recall the cause of death but I saw my mother's face clearly, she looked a bit sad, she didn't talk, she was staring at something on my left side, and I was looking at her the whole time. Then I saw my father's face, he was lying down, his eyes were closed, lying on something peacefully. That's about it. I think I remember it because it has something to do with my family, my dreams were usually stupid things like jumping up a building, and then down a building, or I'm running with someone or something chasing me, can't remember clearly but it was always the stupid crap, I rarely have good dreams, oh there's one where I dreamt that I strike it rich, and

More Than 500 Staff Retrenched at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Source Mainly they are shifting their hard disk manufacturing operations to Thailand, obviously because labour costs there are so much cheaper. I think they can easily hire a staff from 6000 to 7000 Bahts a month, which is around $230+ Singapore dollars. Actually most companies have shifted some or most of their operations to emerging markets like China, Philippines and Thailand, of these 3, Philippines staff costs are the highest since they are a English speaking country, Thailand and China are the cheapest. This has nothing to do with our economy, it's just because operating costs in Thailand are lower, and the company is taking that opportunity to maximize their profit, that's all. For those who were retrenched, I wish them the best, I hope the relevant ministry and union will do their best to assist these people. Also to highlight that people working in the production line usually have a low monthly basic salary of between $1100 to $1600, and in order for them to e

3 Young Girls Crush Puppy to Death!

Source Video (contains graphic content, DO NOT let children watch it!) Today I chanced upon this article about 3 girls stomping a puppy to death, I saw the video and was totally disgusted by their actions, it's shocking, why would they do that, it's so inhumane, I felt so angry at them, I watched the video without any sound because I was in office, but I think with the sound the effect would be far worse. I cannot imagine the kind of pain the puppy was in, I also cannot imagine what went on in the minds of those 3 girls, are they crazy or what. The video just keeps replaying in my head after I watched it, it's so traumatic. As I read on, it's some sort of a crush fetish video, the girls are paid for performing the act, I cannot believe they were still smiling while committing the slaying of an innocent animal, I hope the authorities arrest these people and serve them a stiff sentence, this must be the tip of an iceberg since it's a paid act, some evil syndicat

Chuck Norris Christmas Split

Chuck Norris...

3 Ways to Clean Aircon

1. General servicing This is the cheapest but most ineffective way. One fancoil costs between $35-$50, the servicing company will usually give some discount if you clean more units. The problem with this method is the technician will simply remove the outermost cover and filter and use a vacuum cleaner to try to suck out the dirt, but it's really very ineffective, I would say they can only clean out at the most 5% of the dirt in your unit, or worse, not even 1%. If you don't believe me, after they clean it, you try opening up the unit and see for yourself, it will still be full of dirt and mold, and if you put your nose close to the area where the air comes out, you will smell something like dirty socks. And the worst part is aircon servicing companies will usually suggest you to at least do this cleaning once every 3 months, just imagine how much money you will be wasting, you might as well open it up and vacuum by yourself, it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to clean

My Wife Renewed Her Passport at Singapore Thai Embassy

She took taxi back and fro (damn expensive, $23 to and $25 back!), the process seems to be very straightforward, print out one form, fill it up, bring along Thai ID card, passport, long term pass with a photocopy each and $58, submit and wait for 2-4 weeks (according to the official there). Their operating hours is a bit strange though, can only submit application from 9.15am to 11.30am, collection is only from 2.00pm to 3.00pm. For more details you can check out this link . So if you are planning to travel, please remember to renew your passport before booking any air ticket!

Someone Tried to Log In to My Battle.net Account

I just received an email from Blizzard saying that my account was locked due to a change in access pattern, I think somebody tried to log in to my account from another country, anyway I haven't been playing Diablo 3 for quite a while, even if somebody manage to log in, that thief will be shocked to see there's actually nothing much to steal haha, just 2 or 3 million gold, some shitty items and that's about it. Anyway Diablo 3 gold price is super deflated, 50 million gold can only sell for $1.65 USD, I'll probably take 2 months to farm that amount if I spend 8 hours farming every day, that's so not worth it and not fun. The game is so dead, I have no idea why anyone would buy its expansion, just a new class, new act, some new monsters, ultimately it'll be back to mindless farming, anyway I already earned back the $90 SGD I spent on buying this game, so it doesn't matter whether it sucks or not.

Did Some Christmas Shopping Today

Went to Tampines Mall and Century Square, bought myself a leather belt for $19 (originally $59), 2 short sleeve shirts for $37.80 (at 20% discount) and a very durable looking shoes for $49 (also 20% discount), quite a good deal. The guy selling shoes kept recommending me those $99-$100+ shoes but I told him I'm looking for durability since my shoes keep holing at the bottom, I'm a rough guy who can't walk slowly and gently so I need something strong enough to withstand the friction from my quick pace, or at least capable of lasting for more than 3 months, my shoes usually last maximum 3 months, by 2 months one hole will start to appear below the big toe area, 3 months onwards it will open mouth, those who experienced it will know what I'm saying. My wife got herself a new bag for $69, original price I think was $89 or $99. We also had a meal at Bali Thai, the food was alright but serving was small, my wife had steamed rice with beef fried with basil leaves and chi

My Wife Got Her LTVP+

The whole process is exactly the same as LTVP, only difference is when completing formalities, they will say whether it's 1 year or 3 years, it's that simple. Well, 3 years is good, no need to keep renewing every year, can save some money. Oh and the card also looks exactly like LTVP, only difference is there is the word PLUS behind. Next is PR, still waiting for the update, hope they approve it so I can apply BTO, sigh.

STI Opened at 308X

Today was like a roller coaster ride, opened high and then closed low at 3070.23, not that low though, at least it's still 8.45 points higher than yesterday's 3061.78, so what will happen tomorrow? Let me guess, so far the tapering issue has been finalized, the Federal Reserve have already announced the cut back by $10 billion in January 2014, markets are very fragile, they tremble at the sign of any uncertainty, the announcement should give some needed assurance to investors, furthermore, interest rate would also remain the same, so the impact to the markets is minimized, but ultimately, it's still up to investors to decide whether they should invest in Singapore stocks, can only wait and see.

My Aircon is Not Noisy Anymore!

So yesterday I did some cleaning of my own, and it worked damn well! To my surprise the noise is gone, no more stupid clicking noise in the middle of the night, I really had a peaceful night of rest, damn shiok, woke up this morning feeling refreshed like never before, almost don't feel like leaving my bed, I also felt that the air is cooler than before. Now that I think of it, the noise could have come from poorly positioned fancoil unit, I really don't think the cleaning did the job, more like the adjustment and making sure everything is set tightly in place, I think that helped to minimize the vibration significantly and hence removing the noise completely, I don't know, that probably also helped to make it cooler, I guess?

Now I Know How to Clean My Aircon

These few days the fancoil unit in my room was very noisy at night, there was a clicking sound and it was very obvious in the middle of the night, today I was so fed up that I unscrewed and opened up the damn thing, found that it's not that difficult to open, just 2 screws and pull out the casing from the top. It was damn dirty, especially the bladed part, so much dust was and is still stuck in there, there's no way tissue or vacuum cleaner is going to do the job, unless it is a powerful vacuum cleaner, those strong enough to even suck in water, I can only try to wipe off and vacuum as much as possible, and finally, I still remember how to put it all back, now I have switched it on, I hope whatever that I did will get rid of the noise. Anyway, for those of you wondering what those aircon cleaning guys do, for normal cleaning, what they do is bring along a vacuum cleaner and vacuum off the dust, that's it, I paid $80 to clean two units, and they didn't do a good job,

Bought Some Stocks Today

Today I managed to convince myself that STI is now at its lowest period, and it's time to stock up on some cheap bargains, it's like buying Christmas presents for myself ;) But of course I didn't just convince myself without reading up, the US Federal Reserve will either continue their bond-buying program or reduce a bit, what I read is from $85 billion a month to $75 billion a month, $10 billion difference, actually it's just a fraction of their GDP, their GDP growth far exceeded $10 billion a month, I don't think it will have a huge impact, they can't keep printing money forever, they got to at least slow down their pace since their economy is improving, this tapering will come sooner or later, might as well come bit by bit, that's why they called it "tapering", it's meant to be gentle to everyone. If you are wondering about the meeting, it starts tomorrow, can refer here , and it lasts until 18 Dec . Anyway, I bought 2 more lots of She

Venture (V03) Closed at $7.75

As mentioned in earlier post on 06 Dec , when it drops to $7.50, it always have the tendency to go up again, I have seen this pattern a few times in recent months, today it actually closed at $7.75, unfortunately my cash was limited and Venture is one expensive counter so I didn't buy it, almost $200 easy money, that's why investing is also about having a deeper pocket, more cash means more bullets to expend, small-timers like me can only suck it up. The other good thing about Venture is they pay a good amount of dividend, even at $7.75, the last payout also yielded 6.451%, better than the likes of SingTel and Starhub, but of course don't buy just for the dividend, buy if you believe in their business.

Inflation Kicking In

KFC 3 pieces chicken meal is now $9.50, it was $8.80 or $8.95 about 2 weeks ago, western food chicken chop used to be $5, now $5.50, tailor-made pants used to be $88 for 3, now $130 for 2, things just keep getting expensive, the increment that I got for this year is just nice to cover the inflation; my increment was about 5%. I think one good way to fight inflation is to try and save money whenever possible, spend only on necessities, save now for the future, some people might say I'm not going to bring all the money into my grave but I can always leave it to my loved ones.

Potential Promotion Coming

Today my boss sent me an email and cc his boss, it was regarding a new project tender and he put me up for the team lead position, I was quite shocked because I'm supposed to do a tender presentation but I have no idea how that goes about, the other thing was that he is pushing me as team lead, wow, I don't know if I can take more responsibilities, but if my company increases my salary for that then I think it is still ok, who doesn't want more salary, but if they are going to give me more things to do without any pay increment, then it really sucks, then again, I still have to take it, I still like this job so far.

STI Index at 3 Month Lowest

I think it's scheduled for a rebound, obviously, but the question is when? At current prices, a lot of stocks are very attractive, especially REITs, look at Sabana, its yield is 8.7%, even my CDL HTrust has broken the 7% mark. Also my Sheng Siong is now back to 5% yield. I'm thinking of buying 2 more lots of Sheng Siong and 4 more lots of CDL HTrust, damn glad I didn't do so earlier this week because the prices have been going down, wonder what will happen tomorrow, there seems to be a sign of recovery at the end of today but it went down again, I think tomorrow will either stay flat or continue to plunge. I'm also looking at SPH, today it closed at $3.96, anything below $4 is attractive to me because it has the potential to reach $4.20+, and the dividend is good at more than 6%. Sigh, I only have about $8000, or maybe $8200 max, limited cash, limited choice.

DBS Vickers CPF Investment Account Interest (Update)

In my last post , I mentioned that the monthly interest for the account was 0.0008%, which is wrong, I noticed that sometimes I get slightly more, then today I took a closer look at my investment account statement and found that they actually stated that the interest rate is 0.05% per annum, which comes to about 0.00416% per month, I think that made sense, I didn't verify though, it's like pieces here and there and would probably give me a headache doing so, anyway good to know they pay more!

44 Years Since the Last Riot in Singapore

It's all over the news, riot in Singapore, wow, in Singapore, I bet everyone thought this will never ever happen (again) on this tiny dot, I did and it happened while I was at home watching The Fellowship of the Ring . So when was the last riot, according to this Wikipedia page , the last one was in 1969, and some people decided to break our decades of peace. They even set fire to a couple of vehicles, including a police car and an ambulance, but why the heck would they burn an ambulance? They must be out of their minds, well somehow I'm right, because according to news reports, the rioters were drunk and throwing beer bottles. But the thing is, I don't really care what started the riot, what shocked me was that these people actually had the guts to do something like that here in Singapore, this is Singapore. Drunk or not, we have drunk people everyday but we don't see riots everyday, those who started the riot must be severely punished by handing them the maximum pun

This December is a Month of Sudden Rains and Cold Nights

I noticed that the rain nowadays comes so suddenly, last week me and my wife walked into the lift at our housing estate, the sky was clear with sunshine, and it was barely one minute after we reached our level, then it started to rain heavily. Today we went for lunch, the sky looks clear, a bit dark but I didn't think it was going to rain because it rained last night, when we finished our lunch, it suddenly rained heavily, luckily we dined near where we live because we didn't bring an umbrella. And the weather is getting colder, I haven't had a flu for a long time but yesterday it got me, but I think I'm recovering very fast, the flu is mostly gone now, I think because I work out quite often, good to have a strong body to withstand this kind of unpredictable weather. The water that comes out of our tap is also cold, especially during shower, the water is chilling.

Complain Complain Complain

Sometimes I feel that the people here are not very nice, I feel that people here are always in a rush, so much so that they forget to be nice to people, for example, people always like to cut into my path, I know it's very obvious I'm walking this way, but some people will deliberately quicken their footsteps just to cut across, I usually just give way to them, I think out of 10 times, only 1 or 2 times people gave way to me. I'm also always in a rush, rush to work, rush home, rush everywhere, but I don't cut people's path because I know it's really annoying. Some extreme cases are when some people totally don't want to give way, they will even go as far as to walk with a "bump into me if you dare" kind of style, of course I don't bump into them, I avoid them, what's the point of them trying so hard to gain that ego point, don't understand. And also when walking on a narrow path, obviously at most two or three person can walk side b

What Stocks to Buy Now?

On 04 Dec, SGX suddenly plunged, most of the counters that I am following become cheaper, thinking of buying Sheng Siong and CDL HTrust to average down, planning to buy 2 lots of Sheng Siong, and maybe 4 lots of CDL Htrust. Next Tuesday I will have $6919.72, I top up another $1600 then should be enough. There are also other stocks that I would buy if I have more money, like KepLand, Cache, Lippo Malls, Sabana, Venture, M1, all these should rebound later on, if I'm not wrong, have been monitoring their pattern a while now, especially M1 and Venture, once M1 hits $3.2 and below, it will always go back to $3.2-$3.3x, as for Venture, $7.50 seems to be their main support now, once it hits that price, it will always go up. By the way, today M1 closed at $3.20 and Venture at $7.52.

My Thoughts on the Recent Protests in Thailand

As we all know already, it's Suthep versus Yingluck, so I asked my wife who she likes more, she says red shirts support Yingluck, her step-father even went all the way from Udon Thani to Bangkok to show his support, even though he was there only for 2 days. She also said the red shirts are there to make sure Yingluck don't lose. Then I remember that Yingluck and her Pheu Thai Party was put to power by the 2011 General Election , she won by 4,310,428 votes, the people voted for her, basically she won fair and square in a democratic manner, but now Suthep is trying to bring her down by getting people to storm into government offices, start violent protests, that's not democracy. The question now is, what kind of political standard is Thailand trying to achieve?

Sold Cambridge Industrial Trust at S$0.695

Recently SGX is on a downtrend, hardly going up, 3200 seems to be very far away, not sure if there will be a Christmas Rally, so today I sold my Cambridge for a small profit of S$222.10 (inclusive of S$125.10 dividend), and right after I sold, Cambridge moved down to 0.690/0.695, lucky I sold early? Last few weeks the price was sort of stuck at 0.695/0.700, haha, everytime I do something the price will move, strange. So anyway my next step is to probably to buy more of CDL HTrust and Sheng Siong since they are so cheap now, CDL HTrust closed at 1.580 and Sheng Siong closed at 0.595, what a sudden plunge, but it's a good chance for me to average down, but not sure if I can get my money in time to buy in, the sales proceed will only be available on next Tuesday, see how.

This Litterbug at My Neighbourhood

I used to be a litterbug when I was much younger, I would throw stuff on the ground when no one is looking, I even threw water bombs from the 7th floor, but eventually I grew out of it when I realized that somebody is going to clean it up. All the rubbish and the mess don't just magically disappear when I wake up the next morning, some cleaners start cleaning as early as 4am in the morning, when everyone else is sleeping, wonder how many people are aware of that. And cleaning is not an easy job, nobody really say it out loud but I'm sure at some point in your life, you have looked down on cleaners because their salary is pathetic, don't need any education, anyone can do, very easy, but it's not easy when it's your job, but it's always easy to stand at the corner and judge. Now back to the main reason why I started this post, just now I went to the supermarket with my wife, there was this young lad chatting with his girlfriend, he took out a stick of cigarett

So Many Balance Flats in Nov 2013 BTO

I checked out the recent Nov BTO launch and saw that there are 3974 flats available under the Sale of Balance Flats scheme, wondering how come there are so many flats leftover, I thought BTO is always over-subscribed, 100 to 1 or 200 to 1 that kind of ratio, so if you ask me, I think there shouldn't be anything left, so this is very strange. So maybe some people ended up not getting the flat due to a multitude of reasons, marry then divorce, engage but not marry, book already don't like, book already cannot get loan, surely there wasn't 3974 of such cases right, even if that was accumulated since a few launches, the number is also very high if you compare to the number of flats for each BTO launch.

Planning a Trip to Thailand Next Year April for Songkran

Still thinking of how much to set aside for this coming trip, for our last 11 days trip this year April, we spent a grand total of $4350.06, so let's see how much to budget for this time, by the way we are planning for 8 days because 11 is a bit too much. Air tickets to and fro $350 per person for 4 people, total $1400 for me, my wife and my parents. This time we are taking plane to Bangkok and then to Udon Thani, no more taking bus, the bus ride is too long, 8-10 hours, damn tiring for my parents and wife, I'm actually okay with it though. Give sinsod installment and mother-in-law insurance 40,000 THB, $1700 Singapore dollars should be a safe number. So $5000 - $1400 - $1700 and I'm left with $1900, that means we will have $237.50 to spend per day, which is more than 5000 THB per day, I think for our trip we spent less than that, I think around $200-$210 per day if we exclude the bus fare, so in the end we gave the leftover cash to my mother-in-law for the sinsod,

LTVP Approval Took Less Than 3 Weeks

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I submitted my wife's LTVP renewal on 10 Nov 2013, today 29 Nov 2013, she received the In-Principle Approval, nowadays ICA is really efficient, the first few times it took 4-6 weeks. Now I'm wondering whether she's getting the normal LTVP or the LTVP+, they didn't indicate anywhere, only show Type: Long Term Visit Pass (Renewal), but whatever, still can't buy BTO even if she gets LTVP+, perhaps the only benefit is lower consultation and medication charges when she visits polyclinic to get her Warfarin, and I'm not going to let her see the doctor here if she is pregnant again, even with subsidy, the healthcare charges here is ridiculous, might as well fly her to Thailand, it's way cheaper there. Update: I just remembered one of my visitors mentioned that the time when we will know whether we are getting LTVP or LTVP+ is during the completion of formalities, can refer to following: Link to the post with following comment Contributed by richelle

Panzar is Now Available on Steam

Steam This game looks really nice, it's free to play, going to try!

Looking Forward to Year End Bonus Next Month

I wonder how much I can get, last year I got 1 month which is normal, after that I remember reading somewhere that the amount is not fixed, and better performing employees will have a chance at a higher payout. Looking back, my performance is considered decent for this year, I hope I can get more, maybe 1.1 or 1.2 months is also not bad, even 1.05 months is better than 1, anyway I'm trying to save up more money for next year's Thailand trip to my wife's hometown, most probably my parents will want to go too, and confirm I'll be paying so yeah, more is better.

Dishonest Wonton Mee Seller

I don't really mind bad attitude because I know they were very busy, I mean from the looks of the woman taking orders, it was very obvious, she even yelled at me to quickly place my order, okay, so I quickly ordered two Wonton Mee, gave her my table number and went back to my seat. It took quite a while but finally the noodles were sent to us, but I wasn't sure how much it all costed so I thought maybe it would be $3.50 per plate, so I gave her 4 pieces of $2 notes, she took it without saying anything and left, I thought she would return to give me my change. After a while I still don't see her coming back, so I went to the stall, then I realized that one Wonton Mee costs only $3, it was clearly written on a small board, so I asked that same woman about it, she showed an indifferent look, grabbed a $2 note and handed it to me without saying anything, I expected at least a "sorry". And clearly she was aware that she collected extra, if I didn't go to her, s

SMRT Going to Increase Fares

Source As " predicted " (it's obvious to everyone anyway), SMRT is going to increase fares to bring in more profit, that's very much expected since they will be increasing bus drivers' salary and that means more "operating expenses". This year seems to be a bad year for them, Jan-Mar, they made a loss of $12.049 million, Apr-Jun, profit was $16.328 million, but down 55.2% from same period in 2012, Jul-Sep, profit was $14.304 million, down 57.1% from same period in 2012, for their coming Oct-Dec report, I think should also be "no eyes see". From a social point of view, increasing bus drivers' salary is a good thing, you increase their spending power which will also improve their quality of life, but from a financial perspective, this is not good for the company which is already struggling with incredibly high "operating expenses". But then again, to provide better services, spending more on staffing is necessary, this also help

Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Live Test 6)

Van Damme. Split. Epic.

Fellow NSman Suffered Cardiac Arrest after IPPT Run

Source Hope he is okay, also hope he passed, and no point giving his life away for a stupid IPPT. I think this kind of incident happened quite a few times already, if I remember correctly, seems like every one of them did not have existing or prior medical condition, their heart suddenly stopped working. I also came across the following article saying that signs of such attacks will come weeks before. Signs of 'sudden' cardiac death may come weeks before These few days I feel my left chest cramping a bit, is this a sign? Actually this is not the first time I have this issue, it is because I exercise lesser nowadays, so once I start working out often, the cramping will go away, I do make sure I go for a 3KM run every Saturday without fail, even so, every time I read this kind of news it still scares me a bit, I should really start working out now, since my wife came back, been slacking too much, eating too much good food. Everyone take care, holiday season soon.

Documentary About the Struggles of Degree Graduates in China

These people are well educated and yet they have so much difficulty finding work in their homeland, I wonder how they will survive, even if they can find work, the salary is so low that it hardly compensates their living expenses. I think graduates in Singapore are still much more fortunate, most can find work within 6 months after graduation, and our salary is more than enough for most people as most of us can choose to live with parents, but for these Chinese graduates, they have to travel to the city to find work and rent a place, not easy with such a low salary.

How to Tell Which Stocks Can Be Bought with CPF?

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In order to invest in stocks with your CPF, you need a CPF Investment Account, but not all stocks can be bought with this account, only those which are CPF approved i.e. those which falls under the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS). So which ones? Go to sgx.com , move your mouse to Company Disclosure and click on Stock / Indices List. SGX.com Stock / Indices List So for example you are looking for Lippo Malls, then just click L at the Alphabetical CPF, and there you go, Y means you can invest with CPF, N means you can't. List of CPFIS stocks

Starhub Annual Handset Upgrade

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Today went to re-contract my wife's mobile line using the annual handset upgrade offer extended to Starhub Hub Club members, and got this cool looking Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 for S$129 with the Power Value 100 plan. Front View Back View We were looking at S4 and the likes but it is too expensive, this is like a cheaper version of the S4, not bad though, very nice screen.

Some People are Overly Worried about Brokerage Fees

The first time when I bought my first stock, I was also thinking too much about the fees, worried it might eat into my profits or cause me to lose more money, after a while, I realized that the charges can be negligible. Every of my buy or sell trades so far costed me around $20 to $30+, and lucky for me, I mostly see profit, and the earning more than makes up for the cost, I think I am doing okay so far, overall I haven't lost any money, yet. What I'm saying is, stock pick and going in at the right time is far more important than that $20 to $30, but of course it doesn't hurt to find a cheaper broker. I know Standard Chartered Bank offers lower charges because they do not have a minimum commission, but well, I won't worry about that. Recently read about a guy who have been losing money in stocks, he said he mainly buy because others are buying, sell because others are selling, no wonder he is losing money, following the crowd is a big mistake, if you follow the rig

Bought 7 Lots of Cache at S$1.16

Previously bought 12 lots with CPF at S$1.165, today bought another 7 lots at S$1.16, wonder why it went down, just a while back, after they gave out the dividends, it shot up to S$1.20, maybe some people were shorting it? Don't know, but this stock looks promising to me, high dividend yield at 7%+, mainly local industrial parks with one other chemical warehouse in China. If the price don't go too high enough to tempt me into selling it, I might just hold on to it for a while.

Created a New Blogsite to Provide Free IT Advise

In my years of being in the IT line, I have seen many non-tech savvy people, from clerks to directors, nurses to doctors, teachers to principals, they may be really good in their domain, but once they are outside of their comfort zone, technology can be quite intimidating to them. Actually technology doesn't have to be so scary if there is someone who is willing to answer whatever questions these people may have, and technology is meant to assist, not to hinder. And knowledge should be free whenever possible. So I created a simple site where these people can ask whatever they have in their mind, I hope my little knowledge and experience can help some people. You can click the following link to get there. IT Advise Singapore

Some People are Revealing too Much on Facebook

I have come across some Facebook profiles where people display a lot of their personal information such contact number, email and residential addresses, working place, job position and etc etc, personally I think unless if you are a public figure, I think it's quite okay to reveal your work place and job position, anything else may be too much. For someone like me who is just another ordinary Singaporean, I feel that it's better to keep those information to myself, unless some long lost friend needs to contact me, they can always drop me a message, but I really feel like deleting my Facebook account since I hardly use it, I really don't find it fun at all and I have no idea why so many people can get stuck on it at work, on the train, while eating, during gathering, anywhere, anytime, even while walking! It's ridiculous. Anyway back to the topic, what I'm saying is people should try to reduce their "internet footprints", don't leave personally iden

LTVP/PR - Particulars of Applicant's Parents and Children by The Present Marriage

When you are filling up the form for LTVP or PR application, you will see this section, I always thought because it says "by the present marriage", it means since my wife is married to me, so her parents by the present marriage should be my parents, boy was I wrong, the correct reference should be my wife's parents, not my parents! I confirmed this when I submitted my wife's PR application last month, the officer who attended to us told me very clearly that I should fill in the details of my wife's biological parents, not my parents, and I realized I have been filling in the wrong info all along! Actually when we tried to apply PR for the first time, the officer did tell me that it was wrong, but I asked since that section was referring to my wife's parents, then why put "by the present marriage" behind, I don't remember getting an answer from her and she accepted the application anyway, I hope they didn't reject the PR application because

Singapore to Block Ashley Madison

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What's Up with the Hijab?

Today while surfing the net, I saw a lot of articles on Hijab, I don't quite understand the story, I didn't even know what Hijab was until I Googled it. So how did the whole saga start? How come our government suddenly took interest in this? I thought Muslim women have been wearing the Hijab for a long time? What's going on? Government don't allow them to wear anymore? Curious, there's just too many articles on it for me to ignore, I wonder what's going on.

SMRT Bus Captains Can Earn Up to S$3500 a Month

Source I think S$3500 a month is more for experienced drivers, for new drivers probably will be lower because the new salary scheme is a progressive model, something like grading, higher grading higher salary, and of course higher grading means more experienced, and I think new drivers will surely start at the bottom of the hierarchy, so I don't think S$3500 a month applies to every of their drivers, furthermore, this amount is inclusive of overtime pay, allowance and incentives, which technically makes it even more unlikely for every driver to earn that amount. Of course I think it's a good thing for Singaporean bus captains to be able to bring home more money, it will also help to retain and attract more local drivers, with higher salary and a progressive career model, I think it's appealing even to younger people, so overall the idea sounds good. But I'm wondering where will all the money come from? I'm sure we will be expecting a fare hike announcement in th

On Standby Thanks to Anonymous

Today my boss informed me that I will be on standby in case Anonymous decides to do something funny, great, now I have to be on mobile phone standby, anything happens I may be activated to go check our server stuff, damn, why me, there's like two other guys who can do it too and these days I'm quite busy with a new system implementation and production support for another system, I sure hope nothing spectacular happen, or even if something does happen, better not be our system! I find it quite amusing that one video can cause everyone to be on high alert, we don't even know whether the video is real or prank, but better to be safe than sorry I know. The person or group who produced it sure have a lot of guts to issue a threat to our government, I think here in Singapore, we have incredibly strict laws, this kind of threat will be taken very seriously, see even our PM is getting serious , "Our IT (information technology) network, the Internet, our communications hav

Woohoo! Tomorrow No Need to Work!

Last Saturday was Deepavali, for people like me working on a 5 days week, we get one day off in lieu, so I choose to clear it tomorrow. I'm still thinking of where I should bring my wife, should I bring her to eat BBQ at Chinatown or bring her to eat chicken rice and then go to Sheng Siong, hmm... And these few days, it's all about the Anonymous threat , our company has ramped up cyber security, updating patches, installing new security solutions, getting people on standby, lucky I'm not in the IT security line, I'm just someone who implements business solutions, security is none of my business, we leave it to our security team. And now I know why they choose 5th November, it was the day when Guy Fawkes was arrested for the Gunpowder Plot , and the Guy Fawkes Mask is the mask used by Anonymous in their videos. I wonder what they will do in Singapore, I sure hope they don't cause too much damage, just do their usual deface thing and that's it, if they hurt

New Zinger Burgers from KFC

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Tried the new Cheezy Zinger today, I bought the Ultimate Zinger Box at S$7.70, the service staff gave me a big piece of spicy chicken thigh, shiok! The burger itself is very simple, as the name suggests, just imagine eating Zinger with a slice of cheese, it's that simple, but not bad la. I think they forgot to put the cheese sauce for me, don't remember seeing the yellow cheese sauce, now then I realize! New Zingers I don't think I would try the Asam Pedas though, sounds like the sweet and sour type, don't really like sour stuff.

Time for Air Con Servicing Again

My father says the compressor unit is getting noisy, I also find that my fancoil unit is getting noisy, according to my mom, the last cleaning was done on 03 Jul, it is about 4 months now, Gain City service guys recommend to clean every few months if not it will be noisy. Was thinking of trying those smaller cleaning companies but heard that my sister had a bad experience, I'm not sure which company but they broke her air con cover, don't know what cover, in the end that company had to pay for it since they broke it. I think I'll stick to Gain City, cleaning-wise, I think they did a pretty good job so far, I'm not adventurous enough to try the service of another company. Their pricing went up a bit, now it's S$80 for 2 fancoil units. If you are interested, you can check out their rates here .

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