park bench theories “You can’t come by like an angel into my life and then fly away” Stalker proof My blog should be stalker proof now. Stop googling my full name you stalker. And please own up. SNAGs vs MCPs Sensitive New Age Guy - “Instead, we view a SNAG as a guy who, while maintaining his boyishness, still stays in touch with his sensitive side and is not ashamed to show it. He believes in equality of the sexes, treats us girls nicely and shows us the respect we deserve.” Source Male Chauvinist Pig - “A male who acts superior to and aggressively toward women.” Source During my summer break, Jon and I had been debating over this issue. SNAGs vs MCPs. Which type of guy will score the most chicks? Or at least attract the most chicks. After countless cups of teh and prata, we finally came to the conclusion that at the end of the day, primal instincts will kick in. If the guy is not dominant in a relationship, chances are that The girl will cheat on him The girl will leave him The girl is a settler (Read this article for more information about “reachers” and “settlers” in relationships) I was a bit skeptical about this initially. After all, there has been so much propaganda about SNAGs being the chick magnet in magazines like Men’s Health. But after reviewing all the couples/ex-couples that I know of, I realised that the SNAG theory was bullshit. Girls cling on to their MCP boyfriends like there’s no tomorrow while those SNAG boyfriends that I know of eventually get owned and dumped by their girlfriends. Its time to release the MCP in me. WE HAVE ALL BEEN CONNED. TO HELL WITH THE MCP THEORY. beerisgood Beer is my best friend in this summer heat. Now I know why the Aussies can’t live without their beer. Back to Perth Greetings from Perth. The weather is suprisingly cool today, but I can prepare to melt when it hits the high 30s next week. Please don’t let me experience any 40+ degrees weather. Once is enough. But I was heartbroken when I saw my car this afternoon. Covered in one thick layer of sand, it look like it just completed the Dakar Rally. And to make things worse, my uncle left a gap at the window to allow the hot air to escape. But all the dust went in and the interior of my car is covered in dust too. Hur hur. The air con smells funny, my clutch seems harder (That’s what she said) and I can’t pump a full tank of petrol now. The petrol nozzle’s trigger automatically goes off even though my tank is only half full. My tires were also severely under-inflated, thank God my uncle reminded me to check my tires at the petrol kiosk. My radio also refuses to work now. The only plus point is that both my front sprinklers are working now. Only one side was working when I left, but by some miracle both sides are working now. BUT, my rear sprinkler isn’t working. FML. With a broken heart and only 2 hours+ of sleep last night and only 1 hour of eye shut on the plane I dragged myself to my new home to spring clean. I think I did a pretty good job. HAHA. I’m kinda excited to head to ikea on monday and get my own furniture. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day too. I have to pick 3 friends from the airport tomorrow with the first one arriving at 6am. O_o Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:28:39 +0000 In less than 6 hours, I’ll be leaving on a jetplane. I can’t believe that its been 3 months since my summer break started. School commences on monday for me and I’ve to admit that I’m far from ready. All that bumming has once again made me lazy and fat like how I used to be. I also need to get my body clock back to normal before the 2nd week of school. I’m having the pre-flight jitters but somehow, this feels different from my jitters 1 year ago. Circumstances have changed, people have changed. That includes me. I have no idea whether things have changed for the better or gotten worse. Wear Sunscreen Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen. post exams Exams are long over and I’ve nothing to do for the next 14 days before I head back to Singapore. My friends have all went back and its kind of lonely without them around. I would be lying if I said that I don’t have time to blog, cause I have plenty of time now. But somehow, my creative juices have run dry and I can’t seem to find any inspiration to blog anymore. I’ve already runned out of words to type at this point of time. Till the next time my creative juices start flowing again. Category: HDB News Resale HDB prices increased by 38 percent; 40 percent of buyers PR Prices of resale HDB flats have shot up 38% over the past three-and-a-half years according to Eugene Lim, associate director, ERA Asia-Pacific. But what’s shocking is that 40% of buyers are made up of Permanent Residents according to recent ERA’s resale transactions. “The government’s target population of 6.5 million is steadily increasing the pool of PRs; and they have to buy their HDB homes from the resale market as they do not qualify to buy new flats directly from HDB. ERA’s resale transactions show that PR buyers make up some 40 per cent compared to 20 per cent three years ago.” - Eugene Lim, assosiate director, ERA Asia-Pacific. It is widely known that prices have risen over the past few years and that we had a large influx of new residents. But when you see these such statistics side by side, it begs to question why weren’t countermeasures put into place earlier considering this happened over a sustained period of three-and-a-half years? Another statistic we found interesting in the report was how 86% of ERA’s HDB recent resale transactions were concluded with Cash-Over-Valuation (COV). This number seems to come into conflict with what Mr Mah Bow Tan said recently about a third of HDB resale transactions done at or below valuation. We would appreciate your comments here. The report by Eugene Lim, associate director, ERA Asia-Pacific can be found here via The Business Times. Link Another incentive for me to not go back. New sem, New life What a way to start the semester. 4 modules, let’s call them module A, B, C and D. Module A - Legislation, constitution, law of tort, simi lan!? Module B - Lecturer is as monotone as me, and suprise suprise, she is my tutor too! Module C - Lecturer speaks Singlish. Yes Singlish as bad as mine. And the tutor’s accent is as thick as his moustache, so thick that everyone just gives him a blank look as he asks questions. No point asking him to repeat, the accent gets thicker as he replay. *What happened today in module C’s tutorial* Tutor: Vhaat ish the annseeer fuur questiun 8? Me: It can be direct or indirect, depending on whether the cost object is the department or the output of the department. Tutor: Noooo, tat’s noo riight. Dit acheerrly deepends ivf tee coss objekt is dee outpoot of dee deepartment or dee departmient itself. Me: Wtf, isn’t that what I just said? Module D - A direct translation for the lecturer’s name from Han Yu Pin Yin would be goldfish. Yes, goldfish. So you can figure out what her name is. The tiongs are invading the world. Help. On the brighter side, my tutor for this module is younger than me and is absolute eye candy. Looks like Miss Christine Lai is facing competition in my Hall of Hottest Teachers. And I tested Jin’s Skyline today. 3 words to describe it. Sex on wheels! Think my parents will slaughter me if I change to that car. michael jackson > swine flu For the first time in my life, I’m praying hard that I DON’T get the job. Seriously. And it seems like Michael Jackson’s death is more important than the swine flu epidemic. It is this hard to find information on the swine flu epidemic on the news here. Suddenly, I feel that Khaw Boon Wan is fucking efficient. Hur hur hur. don’t complain ok? With his trademark grin, he added: ‘When you ask Singaporean residents for feedback, they will complain that they have to wait more than 15 minutes for the bus. But when you ask new immigrants, they are happy that the bus comes in under 30 minutes.’ Straits Times Don’t complain ok? I wait 1 hour for a bus here also never complain. exam fever Sorry for the long hiatus. I’ve finally settled down in our own pretty little apartment located in an ancient building with ancient facilities. And I have no choice but to use the very sexpensive wireless broadband as there is no phone line at my place. What can I do with 6gb worth of bandwidth per month? I’m in the midst of my exams now. 2 papers down, 2 more to go. The first 2 papers were fine, but the last 2 are going to be tough as I have a bloody lazy lecturer and tutor who doesn’t bother to upload my tutorial and assignment marks online, gives half fucked lectures and telling us to “You can just read through this part on your own” for like 40% of the notes. So tell me, how am I supposed to study. And while all my friends are happily going back to Singapore and eating all the Hokkien Mee and Chicken Rice, I’ll be stuck here working my ass off to earn extra income. Hurray! absentee I would like to apologise for my lack of updates. The past 3 weeks have been really busy for me. Rushing my assignments, being a tour guide and finally being able to meet my love and spend quality time with her. Final exams are looming around the corner, with just 2 weeks to go, I’m not exactly confident after being so busy for the past few weeks. Negative things aside, I’ve finally found an apartment to rent. But the crappy part is that I’ll shift in 4 days before my exams and on my girlfriend’s birthday. Anyway, I’ve finally learnt how to change a flat tyre. Well, my driving instructor did teach me how change one, but he taught me everything within 1 minute, so ya. You get the point. I know that there is a spare tyre in my car boot, but I swear that I didn’t know about all the tools for changing tyres hidden in secret compartments of my boot. Thank God that I found out about my flat tyre as soon as I drove out of the garage and I had a hero who taught me how to change the tyres. Ok, he did 80% of the work, I only did the finishing part. But after changing to the spare tyre, there was something very wrong with my car. My steering wheel would wobble left and right whenever I was travelling on a straight road. I thought that the spare tyre was under inflated so I headed to the petrol kiosk to inflate my tyres but some weird error message pops up whenever I try to inflate it. Stuck with a wobbly steering wheel on a Saturday evening with no tyre shops opened, I drove like a tortise for the next one and a half days and avoided the freeways like the plague. Monday finally arrived and I sent my punctured tyre to the tyre shop for them to mend up it the hole. After the mending was done, I requested the mechanic to replace the spare tyre with the original tyre and I told him about the wobbly steering wheel problem. After 5 minutes, he brought me to my vehicle and said: “Mate, you fitted your nut in the wrong waay. It should be screwed in from the opposite side, that’s why your steering wheel is so wobbly. The tyre might just fly out anytime.” I was like WTFBBQ. Damn embarassing lah! Not my fault ok its my first time changing a tyre. P.S it was a bloody nail that caused my flat tyre you are not warren buffett You are not Warren Buffett. Smart can already, don’t act smart. Leave the trading to the pros. kthxbye the best things in life the best things in life aren’t things 2 more days =) of vin diesel and tutors Finally, the mid year exams are over. Yes, my mid year exams stretched over a shitty period of 1 month with a paper per week. The last paper was far from ideal though, the question spotting technique which I’ve been practising religously for the first 3 papers failed big time and my gut feeling tells me that I’m not going to do well for the last paper. Although this has no relation to the exams, I seriously think that my tutor for microecons looks like Vin Diesel with a little bit more hair. He is big enough to give me a choke slam if I don’t complete my tutorials or fail my exams, which is why I’m a bit worried about my the last paper that I took. After 1 day of nua-ing plus a tiring car wash session, its time for me to start working on my assignments tomorrow before the deadlines come creeping up on me. P.S 2 out of 4 of my tutors here are 4th/5th year students here world crass transport I’ve been trying to be enviromentally friendly and taking the bus to school instead of driving. At the same time, I’m saving precious money too. But the incidents over the past week have pushed me to the verge on giving up on public transport. I’m currently staying at a suburb 13km south east of the city and my school is on the other side of the river. So what I do daily is that I’ll catch a bus to the city and hop on to another bus that brings me to school and vice versa when I’m coming home. So last Monday, I finished school at 6pm due to my mid year exam instead of the usual 4pm. And yes, 6pm is considered off peak hour here so the buses take really long to come. I was walking to the bus stop when I saw the bus leaving. I tried running after it but it left before I could reach the bus stop. I checked the schedule and realised that the next bus would come 25 minutes later. !@#$%^&* So I waited patiently for the next bus and arrived at the bus interchange at 7pm. I walked to the bus berth that leads to my place and found out that the next bus, which is the LAST bus will only arrive at 7.45pm Cursing and swearing, I decided to take train back and ask my uncle to pick me up at the train station. Next train, coming in 9 minutes. I was fine with that, but when it reached the 7 minute mark, this stupid voice on the loudspeaker spoilt my day by saying that the train has broken down and there’ll be some delays. After 15 minutes, the train finally came but it didn’t even stop at our station! @#$%^&$% Wah, damn angry! The next train finally came 7 minutes later. And as for today’s incident, it wasn’t as bad, but it still spoiled my day. I was feeling hungry after school and decided to pop by Mac at the city to grab a quick bite. There are 2 bus interchanges in the city here, esplanade and wellington. Normally, I would drop at the esplanade and catch a bus home but I decided to drop at wellington today to get my meal. When the 1st bus came at school, it read, esplanade. So I thought that the service will terminate at esplanade, so I took the but behind it. When we reached the esplanade, the bus driver stunned me by saying that this service will terminate here. So I alighted and saw the 1st bus that I skipped, and it was actually heading towards wellington. #$%^$% Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch it in time. Waited for the next bus, stopped at the city and proceeded to Mac to buy my meal. Took the bus back home, and guess what? The bus broke down halfway. Fwah, damn dulan. And it didn’t break down at the bus stop, so I had to walk a distance to the next bus stop to catch the next bus. I think I shall drive to school everyday now. Grrrrrrr…. exam blues And yes. Time flies. I’m already in the midst of my mid year exams. 1 paper down and 3 more to go. I have 1 paper coming up on Monday and I seem to have lost all motivation to study for it. And let me share with you guys the ultimate brunch that I had today. Fish bee hoon + Beef hor fun gravy + Beef satay + Roast duck This is what happens when you are on  tight budget and yet your simply too lazy to whip up a plate of instant noodles. Scavenging the fridge for left overs and dumping everything into the microwave oven. I seriously think that I have an extremely high chance of getting cancer now. I boil my hot water and cook my scrambled eggs in the microwave when I’m in a rush in the morning. Crappy meals aside, I think that the bubble tea here has some secret addictives added to it. I can’t seem to stop craving for it even though it costs $4 a cup. Yes, even beer is cheaper than that. When you’re so lonely lying in bed Night’s closed it’s eyes but you can’t rest your head Everyone’s sleeping all through the house You wish you could dream but forgot to somehow Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:43:57 +0000 Just 36 more days left the worst way to die A SINGAPOREAN died of heart failure after his penis became stuck in a soft drink bottle, reported Sin Chew Daily and China Press. The incident happened when the 77-year-old man used the bottle to masturbate. China Press reported that the senior citizen got his private part into the bottle and only sought help after his penis could not be dislodged from the bottle despite trying various ways such as applying soap water. Doctors tried to alleviate the man’s suffering by cutting the bottle below the neck but to no avail because by that time, the skin around the penis had started to become inflamed, causing him to be unable to urinate. His misadventure later led to other medical complications causing his death. The Star week 6 Its week number 6 in Perth and I think I have no life. Here’s a breakdown of my daily schedule if I have school. Wake up. Go to school. Come home. Sleep. Have dinner. Study. Webcam. Sleep. And on Fridays and weekends, this is my schedule. Wake up. Cook brunch. Do the laundry and a bit of housekeeping. Study. Sleep. Eat dinner. Study. Webcam. Sleep. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Yes, I’ve been studying daily but not for long sessions though. My attention span is that limited. I don’t know if I’m studying smart or studying hard. I’m screwed if its the latter. Mid year exams are just around the corner. I’ll get a part time job once I’m settled down and confident with my school work. But on a plus point, I’ve been spending really little money. As in very little compared to my lifestyle back in Stinkie. Breakfast and lunch = Sandwich. Really nothing much for me to spend on except on transportation costs and that occasional cup of bubble tea. And my car’s fuel consumption rocks. Doesn’t burn a hole in my pocket. P.S My friend just tempted me by telling that he’s going to fly back to SG over the weekend. Makes me feel like booking a flight on Tiger Airways and flying home too. Can I have some Hokkien Mee and Oyster Omelette please? Edit: I don’t watch television in Sg but I hate watching the television here. Everytime the advertisements starts, I feel like choke slamming the TV. The ads on radio suck so much that I can’t bear to listen to them and burned some CDs to save my ears from the audio torture. Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:54:26 +0000 I know that its been some time since I last updated. Time flies really fast here even though I don’t have much to do. Anyway, I’m already at the end of my 2nd week of school. Still trying to adapt to the schooling life, something that I’ve not done for the past 3 years. My brain is already rusty from all the mindless work that I’ve done. Even though the schooling hours are short here, I hardly have any time to study and that’s not a good sign. The lecturers here assumes that everyone in the lecture hall has a background in accounting and economics and jumps straight into the details, often leaving me clueless at what the jargons mean. So this means that I have to be extra hardworking and read through the lecture notes before hand and google any word that I don’t understand. Academic matters aside, I’ve finally fufilled my childhood dream. Ever since I was young, I always wanted to get a 3 door Civic or Colt. I know its damn beng, but who cares. I still love hot hatches. Presenting the Mirage, an equivalent of a Colt here in Aussie. And I got a $90 summon on my 2nd day of driving to school. Wow. 2nd update I’ve been too lazy to update. Everything is pretty much settled here, will be putting up at my uncle’s place for the time being and bear with the long trip to school for now. Timetable didn’t turn out as well as I wanted it to, but I’m not complaining. With the number of hours that I’m clocking each week, I seem more like a part time student. School officially starts next Monday, orientation was  a bitch. listening to lecturers going on and on over the same facts over and over again. Shall post up more pictures when I’m free. And did I mention that my school is really beautiful. Looks like a scene off Harry Potter, will probably take some shots around school when I have the time. greetings from perth  Greetings from the uber sunny city of Perth! Still in the midst of settling my admin stuff. Will blog more when I have the time. What keeps me going on off i go And the time has come. 6 hours time, I’ll be on an airplane leaving this sunny island. Well, I can’t say that I’m not nervous, but at the same time, I’m really excited to be able to embark on this once in a lifetime experience to study overseas. The past few weeks have been really hectic. Though I’ve already stopped working, all that CNY visiting and shopping for my aussie stuff has already burned most of my time. But the past few days was a huge bash for me, with my dearest organising a surprise party at my own swimming pool without me knowing about it. I’m really touched by the effort that was put into organising party and the attendance. the well wishes my baby sticking the event sticker on every single utensil the guys the ladies and the obar session Love you guys man. i am a lesser mortal =( Just in case you didn’t read about the Tan Yong Soon saga, its about this top civil servant who bragged about spending SGD$46,500 to take up a 5 week baking course with his family on the national newspaper. Not really an appropriate time to boast about such stuff during such a bad economic crisis, where people are slogging their guts out just to provide 3 meals each day for their family. Just as I thought this saga was dying down, I read about this shocking comment made by our beloved MP Charles Chong on the Today newspaper. Agreeing that the rebuke in Parliament was “harsh”, MP Charles Chong noted that in the article, Mr Tan did not “brag” about how expensive the trip was. “Maybe it made lesser mortals envious and they thought maybe he was a little bit boastful,” he said. “Would people have taken offence if his wife (a senior investment counsellor at a bank) had paid for everything?” Now I’m called a lesser mortal. Thanks for the compliment! Ok la, its not your fault, it was an honest mistake. What to do? It has already happened. Maybe its our fault for being to complacent. My dear scholars, where is your EQ. 2 years To the little cow who roars, Even though you love to irritate me so much and complain about every little thing that I do, I still love you more than I did 2 years ago. Happy 2 years anniversary! 730 days have passed and many more to go. zhang zi yi The luckiest guy on earth award goes to Aviv Nevo, Zhang Ziyi’s boyfriend. While she tans topless, he is busy munching on her hot ass. Don’t say I never share. (Warning: NSFW) at last Finally, a long break for me. 6 months have flown by and I have another 2 working days left with my current company. Its funny how I’m starting to miss the Army, where I can take such long breaks on a regular basis. Back then, I pretty much had the time to do anything I want, holidays, jogging, gym-ing, photoshoots, late night kopi chats and gambling sessions. Now, I’m burned out even before the clock strikes 6 everyday. Whenever I’m out late at night, I’ll have to think twice about it as I have to wake up early the next day. As a result, my waistline has suffered. Its  been months since I last headed to the gym or for a jog. But I shall take advantage of the next 1 month or so to start working out and get back into shape before I fly off. On a side note, I’ve been a trigger happy person during the festive seasons, having quite a few shoot out sessions with my cameras. Something I’ve not done since getting my DSLR and my Holga. Films have not been developed, but here are a couple of shots that I took. HDR shots of an apartment the grass is greener on the other side shadow trail at marina barrage stars and dust