The Times Are Improvin'

Blogging for the first time on my new BB. I may not be able to log into FB but can blog mai hiam buay pai liao.

Just got out of office realizing that I was last to leave! Had to lock up the place :(  You know its a Monday when the office empties before its even dark.

Walked through the Far East Square row of pubs and instantly you get a good indication of how good times are. When even on a Monday evening there're so many people out drinking, then it surely means that things are picking up in the financial industry - normally the leading indicator of sentiment ahead. Heck one year ago the whole row was a ghost town on Monday evenings, only filling up on Fridays. Now its bustling no matter what day it is (ok, maybe except Sundays).

We even have a Dry Bulk Index to call our own. Its the small column of space between NTUC Building and One Raffles Quay where you can see the ships docked along the shores of Singapore. So the bad times were when up to 16 cargo ships and tankers could be counted within that column whereas right now we're looking at an average of only 8 or 9 of them parked there.

Better yet,changing jobs is the new black! Who isn't looking for greener pastures right now (me?)? Headhunters are doing great business once again and everyone is again complaining that they arn't paid enough.

Stock market's been up 6 days in a row. Property prices are setting new records. Even HDBs are shooting at 1mio. COEs prices are pricing everyone out of car ownership.

So you see? The good times are coming back. Of course, this is the financial industry. Meaning if you're not in it, you'd only see the effects between 3 to 6 months from now, depending on where you're at.

Elections must be coming.

Mission Hills & 九龙山 Pix Are Up!

Pictures are on FB together with the HK office pix!

Too lazy to post them twice hehe.

And I'm damn sad that Man U just lost to Chelsea 1-2. Haiz. We need Chelsea to drop points somewhere now. Nice of Macheda to score though.

Next weekend going to Bintan Lagoon.

Gotta drink less alcohol from here on man.

Back From HK Office And Mission Hills

Came back yesterday.

Damn tired.

Think will try to post some photos if I can.

Back to work today and am now completely drained.

Remembrance

Had finished an earlier blog awhile ago. Then stumbled on my blog history. I realise that I've been actively blogging for 6+ years already, since 2004. What a long time its been. Reading my life as things panned out coupled with my thoughts left me feeling very nostalgic. I used to blog so much more often and my writings were so much more detailed and specific. I think these days I write with alot of blandness and factual spew. I have to change that, because writing about feelings make my blog entries more emotional and attuned to the actual state of myself during the time of writing.

I think thats why alot of us blog. Not for fame and publiity, not for money. But to help us remember. Those of you who know me know how forgetful I am. And blogging helps me remember. One day, I'll probably really suffer from amnesia and will never remember things as often as I would like to. And this blog will come in handy.

In this day and age of Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, a blog offers something that none of them do, achiving the details (more than 140 words) of our sentiments thoughts and emotions in a structured, readable format that can be readily accessed anytime.

One day we will see collations of blog entries published into books. And one day maybe my life will make it to print too :P

Go start a blog today (and gimme your blog addy :) hehe).

Singapore National Cheerleading Competition 2010

After a heavy nasi lemak breakfast at Changi Village yesterday morning, we were on our way down to Fort Canning for the couple picnic event organized by Marriage Central. But we happened to be early so the wifey wanted to go to the Expo to check out the Cheerios Baby Fair because there were cheap diapers (so early?!).

Anyway,the Expo was bustling with people because there were alot of fairs going on, so we slowly checked out each fair one by one. Then stumbled into Hall 2 where the Singapore National Cheerleading Championships were going on. So we decided to sit in and watch it for awhile because admission was free to the public.

Who would've thought we'd stay for the entire event! We wanted to watch the open category perform probably because the standard was pretty good and NTU had two teams participating too! Cheerleading has come such a long way since I watched the movie 'Bring It On' during my freshman year when we also had those silly inter-hall chearleading competitions. Haha.

There were a few really good teams, like the Ulu Pandan (wtf?) Wildcards, Magnum Force and the NTU teams. The NUS team deserves a mention only because they were so bad that even particpants from the Senior High (younger) category were better than them.

Still it was a pretty fun event and we ended up skipping the Fort Canning event that we had wanted to go. At the end of the final team's performance, we were all ready to slip off but lo' and behold, the organizers brought in a Japanese Exhibition team to perform and my God, they were amazing! Totally brought the whole house down. It was an all-girl team and they had more flips and cartwheels than any competing team. And more spectacular yet, they had more people standing on shoulders than anyone could imagine! The girls were so strong (yet small)! Simply fantastic. I guess suffice to say the 1,000 strong crowd saved their noisiest cheering for them japs. Their standard is way beyond an SG team this year.

I guess the event was really fun and it made me feel oh-so young once more. But it could've done ith more publicity. I'm quite sure alot more people would've turned up if they knew about it. You could see from the members of public streaming in out of curiousity to watch the event.

Oh and we didn't stay for the results but I think the Ulu Pandan Wildcards won it. We just couldn't stomach sitting through a Vivian Balakrishnan speech :P Anyone knows the results?

Fun!

Today At Borneo Motors

Was on leave today.

Brought my little red Altis for its 40,000km mega checkup. This is the first major checkup since I bought it in 2007. She was driving pretty well all this while so I didn't expect anything major to turn up. Even the Borneo Motors guy who inspected the car said it was still in good condition and even the tyres (which I thought were in need of changing), he thought were new. Ha!

Anyway turns out that the front two suspension brake pads (or something like that) were apparently leaking and could end up tearing up my front tyres or something so they had to change it. Sigh.

The standard servicing cost me $368. The suspension parts cost me another $560 altogether. So heart pain. Sad.

But then the wifey and I had 4hrs of super bonding time since we were stuck in Marsiling with no wheels. Haha. We were almost rotting in the waiting lounge haha. Was fun though. Bloody ulu-papaya place with an old-school HDB wet market in the middle of industrial nowhere.

Oh and the wifey went for checkup today and all is good!

*thumbs up!*

There Are Places I Remember

Peace.

:)

So Hot In March

Along with February being recorded as the hottest month in Singapore history, March will probably come close. We're tracking temperatures of 33 degrees and above, even at night! Some nights I even have to roll R2D2 out to the living room to prevent me from sticky to the sofa, haha. Lunchtime at work we also try not to walk too far for lunch anymore because we'll break into sweat alot faster. And of course my Saturday games at Temasek Poly are killer especially in the searing afternoon sun. Today I'm totally burnt from the neck upwards. Totally hurts. And to think I wore a tshirt to play somemore :(

Man U beat Wolves 0-1 last night. We got lucky thanks to a Scholesy goal but it does not bode well that Rooney is injured. Guess we knew this was gonna happen with him playing so much, but still we'd still like to have him back asap. The team's just quite different without him this season. And we're playing Milan in the return leg next week. Hopefully Pato is still out.

Upgraded Blog

Doesn't look like much has changed, but everything inside has been updated liao :)

Glad Chelsea lost last night. Hope we win the League Cup tonight.

Gotta think of some way to exercise today.

The Compulsive Gambler That I Am

Even can get caught watching the $10 million dollar Toto draw live at the Singapore Pools HQ at Selegie. It was such a sea of aunties and uncles over there. We probably stood out as the compulsive younglings. Haha.

Can see that in today's TODAY paper. Eugene's on my left.

Sadly I didn't win a cent though.

Sigh.

Oh, and think I'm falling sick. Crap.