MTGS

Damn lucky person, I bet this person must have fainted when he/she saw the result, sigh, why not me, I don't mind sharing with a few other people, even getting a S$600,000 is not bad you know. First thing I would do if I win such a big amount of money is to invest at least 90% into high yield stocks, the other 10% I would pay finish my wife's sinsod, probably also give her some money so she can buy a car in Thailand for her mom, then give some ang bao to my parents, go for a short holiday, and I'll definitely keep my job, well, I think that's enough dreaming for now. S$3.4 Million Single Winner

SHARK SAVERS Singapore I have tried shark's fin soup before, it was tasty, but I know actually it's the broth that's tasty, the fin itself is tasteless, smells fishy, it's like jelly without sugar, I think a chicken soup would taste much better. I'm okay with people fishing and cooking but the way they waste a shark is terrible, they cut off their fins and then toss them back into the ocean, leaving them to die in the wild. I think we should put a stop to this, people should stop fishing sharks just for their fins, it's like killing rhinos just for their horns, elephants just for their tusks, so if they are not going to make full use of the animal, they should leave them alone. The last time I ate shark's fin was at my best friend's wedding dinner a few months back, I think I will never purchase shark's fin, actually I never purchase shark's fin, I only ate it during wedding dinner, which is a once in a blue moon thing, and only during Chines...

Her flight is confirmed and will approximately land at 7.51PM, really looking forward to seeing her, even though I don't actually say I want to see her but I really do, I don't know about other guys but I'm the don't-talk-much type, I don't go saying I love you, I miss you, I want to see you soon, it's too mushy, that's for the dating phase, after marriage, it feels kind of redundant, most important thing is I treat her well, action speaks louder than words you know. I wonder what she looks like now, probably looks darker because north Thailand is a very hot place, maybe she will look slimmer, she told me she is 61KG, used to be 64 or 65 when she was pregnant. I'll bring her to our favourite chicken rice place tomorrow, I know she must be craving for it, and also to Sheng Siong, she loves that place.

My IPPT started at around 4.15PM today, I only ate 2 sticks of Kit Kat since I woke up so as to prevent myself from feeling lethargic; I always feel sleepy after eating a full meal. I also drank plenty of water to ensure my urine was white, which is a sign of proper hydration, I also drank one small bottle of 100PLUS, and luckily the weather was cooling, there was a drizzle when the run started, so it seems like everything was set for my pass. Here's my score, by the way I'm CAT Y1: Sit Up: 37 reps = 5 pts Broad Jump: 216CM = 3 pts Chin Up: 8 reps = 4 pts Shuttle Run: 10.1 seconds = 5 pts 2.4KM Run: 12:33 minutes = 2 pts Total: 19 pts Result: PASS Award: INCENTIVE I in-pro at 3.51PM, out-pro at 4.53PM, the whole session took about an hour, so S$100 for one hour of my time, damn good money , and if I can run 12:20 and below for my 2.4KM, I would be eligible for Silver award which is S$200, maybe I should go try again since I was actually quite close, I actually hav...

Source Today they gave free burgers for the first 1000 NSmen, the rest get to buy at half price, not bad, even a fast food restaurant knows to appreciate what we've done, the burger is not a big deal but it touches my heart, I really hope more people would give a damn about National Service. During my time, being in the Army means nothing, our salary makes our sacrifice look really stupid, I know we should have no complain serving our country but the salary is really pathetic, how can a soldier be paid less than a domestic helper? And then we get some CPF top-up, slightly more GST rebate, all of it doesn't really make up for our 2 or 2.5 years, it never will. Anyway, no point mulling excessively over it, if you got to serve, you got to serve, but it means a lot when people show that they appreciate our contribution.

Source First of all, either the father or mother must be a Singaporean. Next you need to know the type of Singaporean the father or mother is. Singapore citizen by Birth - born and raised in Singapore. Singapore citizen by Registration - converted from PR to citizenship. Singapore citizen by Descent - born outside of Singapore and acquired Singapore citizenship. If the Singaporean is father, he must have a lawful marriage before the child is born no matter what type of Singaporean he is. If the Singaporean is father and he was a PR converted to Singaporean, the child must not acquire citizenship of the country he/she was born in. If the Singaporean is mother and she was born in Singapore, the child must be born on or after 15 May 2004. If the Singaporean is mother and she was a PR converted to Singaporean, the child must be born on or after 15 May 2004 AND the child must not acquire citizenship of the country he/she was born in. If the Singaporean is father OR mother...

Recently I learned that I can do that so today I tried doing it to my stocks page , looks more tidy now, if you want to know how to do it, it's very easy, just follow the instructions here . The best thing about this is you can set it to auto-publish, so whenever you update the spreadsheet, it will automatically publish to wherever you put the embed code, so you only need to update one place and that's your Google document. Now that opens up more possibilities, I was thinking of how to put tables into Blogger, now with Google docs, I can do that easily, and I think it's very easy to manage since I can name each file.

Last Friday I sold my 5 lots at S$5.14 and thought I got away with a decent deal and was happy with a small profit, today it went up to S$5.28, what the fish, how come everytime I sell something the price will go up, last time when I sold Singtel, it shoot up, then when I sold Olam, it shoot up too, then SingPost, it also shoot up, all right after I sell, if any of you want to know what stock will shoot up, come find me, ask me what I'm going to sell next, you may just get lucky. I also searched around for news on why the heck would Semb Corp rally but I can't find anything relevant, nobody seems to be talking about it but the price just goes up anyway, crap. Now I'm thinking of dumping my Sheng Siong and CDL Htrust, and pool all my money into buying Sabana, the yield looks very attractive, or maybe I'll buy Venture Corp, or maybe I'll just sell everything and wait for the next downtrend, which could be near, I don't know.

Source Quite an extreme move, it's a Singaporean-first policy though, I think our government must have almost run out of moves to actually allow this ruling, seems like they would rather piss off companies than to piss off Singaporeans, this would surely get them more votes. In practice, I don't think this would work, reason is simple, based on this new ruling, companies would need to post on WDA job bank for 14 days showing that they tried to hire Singaporeans, so when Singaporeans apply, they probably won't get the interview, even if they managed to get it, they won't pass the interview, our government can only do that much and ultimately whether to hire or not is still up to the company. You can't force them to hire Singaporeans, they can come up with all sorts of excuse if they really don't want to. Actually for companies, foreigners are easier to manage, they come here on a work pass, they can't just quit and find another job like a Singaporean can,...

IMDB V/H/S I was running out of horror movies to watch and then I found this, don't be fooled by the simple poster and title, it's made up of a few horror masterpieces taken from a point-of-view camera perspective, starting of each story is a bit slow but they all turned out to be more than what I expected. I have very high requirements for a horror movie, not many can impress me, few can make me watch the whole thing without turning it off. I especially like the first story, that big-eyed cute looking girl, what a terror she turned out to be... You got to watch this if you haven't. Oh, there's a part two, I'm going to get it. And erm, it's not suitable for kids as there are sex scenes, nudity, extreme violence and plenty of gore, adults only.

That day I was talking about missing out a spouse and parent relief , so after a nice lady at IRAS helped me to make the claim for only spouse relief as I have requested, I received a cheque for the refund on last Friday, I cashed in on Saturday and it will be cleared tomorrow and I can now see the amount added to my ledger balance. The whole process was very fast, from my first email on 11 Sep to receiving the cheque on 20 Sep, and actually I only confirmed to claim for spouse relief on 13 Sep because initially the lady was asking if anybody else was claiming the parent relief, I said I'm not sure and had to confirm with my mom, after that I found out that my brother-in-law was already claiming it. Anyway, from 13 Sep to 20 Sep, it only took them about a week to send me the cheque, they are very efficient, service-wise, they are on a totally different level than any government agencies that I have come across, thumbs up!

I sold 1 lot via cash and 4 lots via cpf, let's look at my profit and loss. 1 lot via Cash On 27 Mar 2013, I bought 1 lot at S$5.15, including charges the final cost price is S$5171.88. On 14 May 2013, I collected a S$150 dividend. On 20 Sep 2013, I sold at S$5.14, final proceeds after charges is S$5110.63. Profit/Loss = 5110.63 + 150 - 5171.88 = S$88.75 Return % =  88.75 / 5171.88 * 100 = 1.716% Duration = 177 days 4 lots via CPF On 24 Apr 2013, I bought 4 lots at S$4.97, the cost price is 19949.68 + 10.70 + 0.54 = S$19960.92. On 14 May 2013, I collected a S$600 dividend. On 05 Jul 2013, I received a quarterly charge of S$5.35, so total cost price is 19960.92 + 5.35 = S$19966.27. On 20 Sep 2013, I sold at S$5.14, final proceeds after charges is 20487.96 - 10.70 - 0.54 = .S$20476.72 Profit/Loss = 20476.72 + 600 - 19966.27 = S$1110.45 Return % = 1110.45 / 19966.27 * 100 = 5.561% Duration = 149 days Total returns for cash and cpf Total cost = 5171.88...

Last month I was charged S$4.50 before GST for this KaraOK! Day Pass, I called Starhub and it ended up as if me or my family member accidentally subscribed for it, ok, I followed their advise and put on a Purchase Lock to prevent such accident in future, and the guy waived the charge for me saying they can only do it one time. I don't watch the cable TV, only my parents watch it, I checked with them and they said they are sure they didn't press anything funny, they are well aware that for things that need payment, there will be a price tag on the screen so they won't go and press it. Today I received my bill and they did waive the charge for me, but to my surprise, they charged me for the same thing again, what the heck, so I called them, I told them I have the Purchase Lock enabled so how can anyone purchase anything, the guy put me on hold and came back after a while, this time he told me I also need to put a Parental Lock to block the KaraOK! channel 888, and he said h...

4th gain in a row since Monday, what a ride, my SembCorp Industries closed at S$5.13, I thought it would never go above S$5.10 so that was a big surprise, and I just read the news and found that the US Federal Reserve decided to continue their bond-buying program, stock markets over the world gained due to the news, I was still thinking of what might happen tomorrow, now I'm quite sure tomorrow STI will continue to rise, I think we don't need to wait till October for it to cross 3300, it might just happen tomorrow, no wonder STI is suddenly so bullish, it's double good news, confirmed no attack on Syria plus maintain bond-buying means investors have more confidence. Now the question is how long will the rally last, but there's no point to take profit now since it's obviously an uptrend now, people will be battling to get their money inside the markets before prices get too high, I think I can wait until SembCorp reaches S$5.20 before I sell.

Thanks to the US-Russian deal on Syrian chemical weapons control, there's no way Syria will say no when it was suggested by the Russian president. So I guess that's it to the whole chemical attack thing, but those innocent people who died from it, how should their families be compensated, they can't just say surrender the weapons and end of story, but if that's how it's going to be, then it is really shitty, the Russians and Iran should punish Syria for it in some way, just to make everybody happy. So if the allied forces are not going to attack Syria, I wonder what the rebels are going to do next, I think they will be very pissed off since the fight will just continue as per normal, which nobody knows when it will end, after all they've been fighting since 2011, doesn't look like any side is going to win anytime soon, more lives will be lost, more deals will be made, war is a good time for weapons supplier to make money, in the end, it's all about pro...

I started to have fever and diarrhea since the early hours of 15 Sep. On 14 Sep morning, I ate one piece of Tau Sar Piah and drank a cup of coffee and some water before my IPPT at 4PM. After the IPPT, I ate one packet of Hor Fun, I think that's the culprit, I bought at that shop many times and it was okay, very unlucky, I wonder what extra ingredients they dropped inside, and I must have went to the toilet at least 30 times since 15 Sep, my legs feel wobbly, head giddy, and when I went to see the doctor again just now, he told me to show my tongue, he looked a bit shocked and told me to drink plenty of water, and when I went home, I looked in the mirror and saw my tongue looking horribly white, obviously I am very dehydrated. At least the fever is gone now, but the diarrhea keeps coming back, the doctor gave me a stronger combination of medication, I hope this works because I don't want to be missing from work for the 3rd day. And just to be fair, I kept recapping the thing...

I got 14:03 for my 2.4KM run, at the 4th round I gave up, the sun too glaring, body too heavy, sigh, if only I pushed on I might just get 12:20 so I can get silver, or 13:00 isn't too bad for an incentive pass. The worse thing is after my IPPT, I don't know what I ate and I have diarrhea and fever, didn't go to work today, feel so drained, and didn't have a complete meal since yesterday. And one weird thing, this morning at around 5.50am, I heard someone fiddling with our door lock, I thought maybe I was sick and hearing things, then I went to take a look, I can see an old lady outside, she was playing with the lock, after observing her for a while through the door eye, I decided to go back to sleep, I was too tired to confront her. At around 7am+, I heard my dad asking the old lady why she was fiddling with our lock, after that she left. Sigh, what a lousy weekend...

For a long time, paying income tax doesn't apply to me because I was earning too little for them to tax, it was only in 2011 that I started to earn enough to be required to pay in cash. On Wednesday, while looking through my tax forms, I saw the NSman Self Relief and Earned Income Relief which reduced my taxable amount by a total of S$4000. So I looked them up on IRAS website and found that I was actually eligible for two other claims. You can check out the full list of reliefs here . Spouse Relief I am eligible for this one because my wife is not working, so I can claim S$2000 for this. I have never made the claim, but luckily when I checked with IRAS via email, seems like it is possible to claim retrospectively, I was married in 2010 so I can start claiming from there. Parent Relief I can claim S$7000 for this on my mother because she is not working, but my brother-in-law has made the claim and there can only be one claimant, when I checked with him, he told me he can w...

So which one is cheaper? Most people say SCB is cheaper, this makes me curious, now let's see... DBS Vickers The cheapest method of buying or selling is by using their Cash Upfront account, but note that if you wish to sell using this account, you need to sell within T+3, or else you will need to pay the normal rates . Commission: 0.18%, minimum $18 CDP Clearing Fee: 0.04% SGX Trading Fee: 0.0075% GST: 7% Standard Chartered Bank We are looking at their Personal Banking Brokerage Fees , but if you can get their Priority Banking account, it will be slightly cheaper, but I think the requirements is a bit steep, so let's just look at the one which is available to almost everyone. Commission: 0.20%, no minimum CDP Clearing Fee: 0.04% SGX Trading Fee: they don't have this charge GST: 7% Scenario 1 - S$5000 So let's say you are buying 5 lots of Stock A, and each share costs S$1.00, so the cost value before charges is S$5000. If you buy using DBS Vicker...

I've been telling my friends it's good and easy money and it's worth it to keep fit and go try and clear it, get a silver and bam, S$200, even an incentive isn't too bad at S$100. The whole session probably takes less than 3 hours, if I include the travel time, probably no more than 4 hours, it's easy money, of course provided I can pass. Let's say the whole thing takes 4 hours, and if I get a silver, that's like S$50 per hour, I don't even earn that kind of rate with my current job, even for an incentive pass, that's S$25 per hour, still higher than my job. But the problem is, I can only get the money once a year, well, better than nothing, can't run away from it anyway. And let's not just talk about the money, keeping fit is for our own good, you feel lighter, you breathe easier, you feel faster, you probably might just live longer and be able to spend more time with your loved ones, so why not. Training for IPPT is also not very diff...

The cheque was dated 27 Sep 2005, so I guess this happened a long time ago and I only know about this today, haha, I'm so outdated. Fat Adsense Cheque! Based on the exchange rate for today, 1USD=1.27SGD, so 132994.97USD=168783.92SGD, wow, that's a lot of money, but I'm not sure whether it's for a month's payment or several months, I don't know, but it's still epic, that's like more than 3 years of my salary. Salute. Update: Previously the image disappeared so somehow this post gave a wrong impression that I managed to earn so much with Adsense, pardon the misunderstanding, I did not make that kind of money, the cheque was posted by the blogger at ShoeMoney .

Her name is Marina Dalmas and isn't she awesome? Beautiful and she's got a really powerful voice, that's the power of youth.

Since my wife went back to Thailand, I've been working out regularly, after work, during weekends, resting only one day a week and I've improved a lot, but my weight seems to be the same even though I work out quite hard. My weekday routine 4 sets of 30 pushups. 4 sets of chinups and pullups (2 sets each), 10 on the first go, 6 for the rest. 2 sets of 15 squats. 2 sets of 10 bicep curls with a 10KG weight (including the bar). Some jumping jacks if I have some energy left. My weekend routine 2.4KM run, no timing though but I think I run quite fast because at the end of the run, I always feel shagged out. From the looks of it, I might just be able to get a silver for my IPPT, or at least an incentive pass, which is not too bad. Previously I was struggling to do 6 chinups, now I can easily do 7 or 8, if I push, I can hit 10. As for my 2.4 run, previously I was struggling to complete 1KM, now at least I can complete the whole 2.4 without stopping. And the squats a...

Source Seems like US lawmakers have imposed a 90 days deadline for any military action in Syria, and also the US is not allowed to send in any ground troops, so I guess they will probably carry out airstrikes and supply the rebels with more weapons, which is good because it will be much less costly than if they go in and get stuck down there like in Iraq and Afghanistan, they already spent more than a trillion dollars in those wars, and it really hit hard on their economy, and other economies. But I'm still not very sure who started using gas attacks, was it the Syrian government or the rebels, they were pointing fingers at each other, both parties are equally suspicious, whoever found guilty will lose the civil war, reason is simple, the guilty party will definitely face the wrath of the world, even the Iran and Russian presidents who are supporters of the Syrian government says that as long as there is concrete proof that Assad ordered the gas attack, they will have no object...

Last week when I was looking through my insurance payments, suddenly this idea came to my mind, actually NTUC Income can give discounts on premiums for those who get incentive pass and above for their IPPT, almost every NS personnel have to go through it, and usually fitter people are healthier so they should have lower chances of making a claim. Another good point is it offers another source of motivation, the idea of keeping fit for cheaper insurance doesn't sound too bad, in the end it's a choice, for people who don't wish to keep fit, fine, pay the normal rates, as for people who try to keep fit, get some discounts. Maybe they can start with this: Incentive Pass = $5 discount per month. Silver = $10 discount per month. Gold = $15 discount per month. In one year, that can add up to a significant amount, and also it can attract more people to get themselves insured since it can be cheaper. Finally, it shows that NTUC Income cares, and I think they should really l...

I've been using Waterfox for a while, it doesn't freeze up like Chrome and Opera, it doesn't have screen tearing problem like in Firefox, and it's certainly fast but the problem is that it's not smooth. Anyone who has used Chrome or Opera will know what smooth means, scrolling, opening new tab, loading page, maintaining multiple tabs and etc, Chrome and Opera does it very elegantly, Waterfox just have this "mini-freeze" problem, for example when opening a new tab, there will be a slight delay, and also sometimes it will show "not responding", oh another problem, flash player seems to crash quite often, and that's very annoying. All the mentioned problems forced me to look for an alternative and luckily I managed to find one, the answer is Pale Moon. I'm now using the 64-bit version and it is awesome, the smoothness can rival that of Chrome and Opera, the speed can rival that of Waterfox and the best part, I can get to customize the posi...

So everytime you book a plane ticket online, they will tell you to print out the itinerary and the purpose seems to be for checking in at the airport, but how many times did the staff at the check-in counter actually check your printed itinerary? For me, none, whenever I go to the counter, I always hand over both my passport and the itinerary and the counter staff usually take only my passport, they don't even look at the paper. For cases where they took my itinerary, they didn't really look at it, all they did was put the paper one side and check only my passport. Then what is the point of printing it out? I feel that it's a waste of paper and ink, so this time round, I decided not to print it. My wife is now in Thailand, yesterday I bought ticket for her to return to Singapore, I told her not to print out the itinerary, all I did was send her flight details to her via sms, something like this: Booking: ABCDEF Flight: FD1234 (28 Sep) Udon Thani 1240 to Don Mueang 1...