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Showing posts from February, 2014

Suddenly Feel So Fucking Fed Up

February 28, 2014

So many things ran through my head just now, if you have been following my blog these few days, you would know I'm currently looking to buy a resale flat with my wife i.e. move out of my parents house. So the first instance my mother knows about it, first thing she said to me was even if I move out, I still have to continue to give her some allowance, I kept quiet, my father was right behind her, he just smiled a little and waved his hand downwards, as if telling me not to mind my mother. To be honest, I don't mind giving both of them allowance if it is within my limits, regardless of whether I am staying with them or not, which children don't want their parents to be able to live comfortably? But I just find it very unfair, look at my sister, when she was staying with my parents i.e. her, her husband and two young children, also to mention me, my wife, my father and mother, total of 8 person squeezing in a 3-room HDB flat, that time she only gave my mom $350 per month, I...

Friend's Property Agent Friend Called me!

February 28, 2014

I thought he was never going to call, he gave the impression like he doesn't care, I thought as with all the agents that we approached, they don't seem to care because our budget is low, that I can understand, maximum I can pay is $270K, 1% of that is $2,700, I think they will probably only get half of that which is $1,350, but what to do, that's as much as I can afford without stretching my neck. So today he surprised me by messaging to say that he will bring us to a few units in Commonwealth, very nice of him, I only told him I'm interested in one unit but he got a few for us, good, hope we can find one that we like, one that is better and cheaper than the one in Jalan Kukoh, but seriously, I still like the one in Jalan Kukoh. But I think it was because I spoke with my friend, this morning I met him and told him about his property friend, I think maybe he messaged him or something, after a while, his agent friend dropped me that message, I think without recommendati...

Got My HLE Letter!

February 27, 2014

This time HDB made me happy, I thought they are going to take 2-3 weeks, but guess what, I got it 3 days after submission! I submitted on the 24 Feb, and I only submitted all required documents on 25 Feb and today 27 Feb I got the letter, but strangely they didn't sms me, I happened to know that it was approved when I logged in to HDB website. They can loan me up to $230,100, more than what I need because I have about $75K in OA, and there's also a $15K housing grant so total I have $90K and I'm looking for a unit which is around $250K, max is $265K valuation and $5K cash, total $270K so I don't have to top up any cash every month. I would say $250K to $270K is within our comfortable zone, any more than that is overstretching. Now I am eyeing a few units at Commonwealth and Tanglin Halt, but I still like the Jalan Kukoh unit, basically the districts that I am looking for is Queenstown, Central and Bukit Merah, best is those which have completed MUP and comes with an...

Lower Back Pain! But Getting Better Now

February 27, 2014

This morning I woke up and the pain is still there, wow, can't even get up and my wife had to give me a good push so I could sit on the bed. I was even having difficulty using the toilet, mine is the squat toilet so I really struggled, squatting down hurts, standing up hurts too, I even had to pause for a good few minutes after standing up because my lower back was sore after the squatting, both my legs almost felt numb, as if there was electricity running through them. Then no choice, dropped my boss an sms, told him I will go see a doctor. So after seeing the doctor, the pain is still there, he didn't really do anything except gave me some painkillers, medical certificate and that's it, well that's the thing about lower back pain, you just have to wait for the pain to go away, best way is still prevention. I think it all started last Saturday when I was doing sit ups on a bench with no cushion, after that my lower back felt sore, then yesterday after doing some chin...

My Back Hurts!

February 26, 2014

Today after I reached home, I attempted to do some chin ups, and then squatted down for a while, when I stood up, my lower back suddenly hurts so much that I can barely walk, even felt a bit giddy, sigh, last time when I was a teenager, one nice uncle told me to be careful with my back but I didn't listen, I was young and full of energy, almost felt invincible, never take care of my back. So when I entered the army, unfortunately I got posted to some physically demanding unit, have to carry lots of weight, that sure contributed to my back problems, in fact several of my platoon mates also have back problems. Anyway, to young people out there, please take care of your back, when you carry load, always squat down and keep your back straight, don't bend your back and carry load, as time goes by your back will hurt, last time I thought older people are always full of shit, now I know that's not true, they have experienced it and when they are willing to share, even though whe...

Finally Submitted My HLE Application

February 25, 2014

Today I submitted everything, now we just have to wait for the results, according to HDB, we have to wait about 2 to 3 weeks. By the way, this Saturday we are going for viewing again, hope it's better than the Jalan Kukoh flat and cheaper, but I still like Jalan Kukoh because it is only about 5 to 10 minutes walk to my office and Chinatown, there's even a Sheng Siong about 5 mins walk away. My wife say she don't like it because it's too quiet there, for me I don't care, most important is location because I believe no matter how cheap the flat is, how well you renovate, at the end of the day you still have to work, imagine feeling that going to work and going home from work is a chore, that's how I feel now.

My Wife Cannot Apply for SingPass (Update)

February 24, 2014

My previous post here . So today I called HDB resale hotline and a nice officer told me exactly what to do since my wife cannot apply for SingPass to do the electronic signature. He said I need to go back to my HLE application screen and then while at step 2, uncheck a box, he said there is only one box there to uncheck, can refer to the following screen: Uncheck The Box at Step 2 Yes, just need to uncheck the box where it says " I understand that if I am using a public or shared computer for this application, I should protect my personal data and remove my documents from the local drive of this computer after I have completed my application. " Yeah, I know it doesn't make sense but it works. So after I uncheck that box, I proceed as per normal, make sure all information is still correct and then submit, finally this time it allow me to go through without any electronic signature requirement for my wife, most important thing is it shows the option to print o...

View 2-Room Resale Flat at Jalan Kukoh

February 23, 2014

Today the agent called me and arranged a viewing, just nice me and wife was heading to Chinatown to eat the famous An Ji Fish Head, so we headed there afterwards. By the way we ordered the sweet and sour fish head and some fried chicken wings, really good, the fish head was very fresh, the chicken wings very crispy and fragrant, the meal costed $21, satisfied. Once we reached there, we noticed that the void deck area was very quiet, maybe because today is a Sunday? Anyway, we waited a while and the agent arrived, nice fella, he brought us up to level 4, there was an open space playground, it's on top of a multi-storey carpark linked to the block. Then he brought along another potential buyer, a single lady, so we went up to view the flat. The flat has been upgraded in year 2000, HDB added another room behind the kitchen, just a small space, I estimate it's about 6 to 6.25sqm, large enough to fit in one king size bed but there's not much walking space. There's one ro...

My Blog Finally Attracted an Idiot

February 23, 2014

Look at this idiot, come to my blog and post these stupid comments, I'm sure it's from the same person as the timing is very close. Stupid Comments from a Stupid Person I replied to one of the comments and after that I realized that he/she posted to another 3 of my posts, and obviously this person is trolling, so I might as well summarize my response in one single blog post so here goes: Hey idiot, go fuck yourself. Done, that's how you deal with idiots.

A Few Thoughts After My In-Camp Training

February 21, 2014

After going back for so many in-camp trainings, I noticed that things have improved a lot, nowadays we in-pro and out-pro very quickly unlike in the past we can take more than an hour for each process, super waste of time, they even make us sign in and out so everybody had to queue up, now we just have to let them scan our id card and that's it. The cookhouse food have also improved a lot, used to be managed by Singapore Food industries, their food really sucks, now it's managed by SATS, I can see the standard seems to have improved a bit but there's still room for improvement, well, when you mass cook, the quality will always be substandard, but I heard one meal is $6.50, it's not cheap so I expect the quality to be higher. The emart have also improved, more and better items available, problem is they don't have air-con, mindef only gave them a small space, don't even want to provide air-conditioning, heard from the cashier the space is rented from mindef s...

My Wife Cannot Apply for SingPass

February 21, 2014

I was trying to apply for HDB Loan Eligibility(HLE) letter online and got stuck at step 6 where they need my wife to login with her SingPass for the electronic signature, she doesn't have one so I went to the SingPass website to apply but I don't see her in any of the eligible groups , see following: The following groups are eligible to apply for SingPass: Singapore Citizen and Permanent Resident Employment Pass and Personalised Employment Pass holders EntrePass holders S-Pass holders Dependant Pass holders (of EP, PEP, EntrePass and S-Pass holders) Selected Work Permit Holders* By the way she is holding onto LTVP+, and I gave it a try anyway but still cannot, LTVP+ Holder Cannot Apply SingPass? Very strange, dependant pass holders are eligible whereas LTVP+ holders are not? If LTVP+ cannot then I think LTVP also cannot. Sigh, don't understand, just dropped them an email to ask them what to do next, some government policies are really mind boggling, they ...

Got My First Marksman

February 20, 2014

Today we went for our SAR21 firing exercise, surprisingly my team managed to achieve marksman, actually the marksman rate for our unit was very high, heard it was 99% or 100%, nowadays for NSmen it's based on team performance and not individual performance so if one guy cannot shoot well, the good shooters can help to offset the lost points, as for my team, most of us only missed around 3-4 shots so it's free $200 for each of us, totally unexpected, I never got marksman before, don't even talk about $200. Anyway tomorrow is our last day and we say bye bye to each other.

Damn Hot Afternoon

February 16, 2014

Just came back from Sheng Siong, had some laksa, dumpling noodle and rojak, ordered too much, anyway the afternoon is really hot, the sun is burning my skin, the air is so dry, wonder how long has it been since the last rainfall. And damn lucky we don't have field training for next week, or else somebody is going to suffer from heat injury, it's 31 degrees but I feel that it is way hotter than that, I think the world's climate is getting hotter, the weather nowadays is a bit strange, wonder if we will have snow one day.

Went Back for ICT Today

February 14, 2014

Today is my first day of in-camp training, as usual, in-process, briefing, slack, have lunch, slack again, briefing and book out, the slack part is really tiring, kind of funny when having nothing to do is also kind of challenging. But the good part is that this in-camp is going to be super slack because there is no field training so yay, no need to feed mosquitoes and sleep on stones, and according to the briefing, we will have IPPT, 4KM march, rifle training and that's about it, and on the last day we will have a movie session and then say bye bye to everyone.

Burnt Smell in the Air Today

February 13, 2014

Today when I stepped off the train after work, first smell that came to my nose was a burnt smell, barbeque smell, reminds me of last year when the haze was the worst ever, did Indonesia start burning things again? I think it could also be due to the recent dry spell, it hasn't been raining for quite a while the weather is hot and dry, even the grass patches at my work place are all dead, green patch become light brown. Speaking of barbeque, a few of my colleagues fell ill, I think they ate too much Bak Kwa and did not drink enough water, that's why I try to avoid Bak Kwa, expensive and bad for health, like paying money to make yourself ill, 1KG can sell $50, I was thinking which idiot will buy but during Chinese New Year everyone doesn't seem to mind paying for it, people don't even mind queuing hours for it, actually why not eat after Chinese New Year, it's now selling for $40 per KG, still expensive though, $40 for one KG of meat, might as well go order a few ...

Fix for Screen Tearing in Windows 7

February 12, 2014

I have encountered this problem many times and it usually happens when I click or scroll things too fast and my screen can't seem to refresh fast enough, I thought there was no fix for it until I searched yesterday, the solution is actually very simple, just use any of the Aero Themes and that's it! According to the source , Aero seems to have features in place to prevent screen tearing (double buffering and vertical sync?) and once I switched it on, indeed the screen tearing is gone.

Singapore Pools $10M Hong Bao Draw on 14 Feb

February 11, 2014

Today I bought $5 quick pick, sigh, wonder if I can win, at least a few hundred dollars also not bad, I keep thinking what would happen if I win $10M, I think the chances of solo win is very low, chances of me winning is even lower, some people buy $50, $100, wonder how they can spend like that, surely their chances of winning is higher than mine because they have more sets of numbers, but who knows, lady luck might favour me. If I really win a big sum, first thing I would do is to carry on with my life and slowly think about it, no need to rush into anything, but I think I will go get my driving license and buy a second hand car, and probably invest the rest, maybe tell my wife to buy more land in her hometown. So don't forget to buy, buy have chance to win, even $1 also have chance, never buy 0% chance.

Starhub Upgraded Their Website's User Interface (Finally)

February 10, 2014

The UI looks so much cleaner and modern now, fonts are bigger and key items are obvious enough, the old UI was terrible, too many things too little space kind of feeling. So other than checking out their main page, I also logged in to rewards, same thing, UI upgraded and I noticed that they merged my rewards points (mobile merged with internet/cable), now I don't know whether they calculate wrong or I calculate wrong, I seem to have 114 points extra, I checked my bills for the past 3 months twice, still the same, they gave bonus points because they upgraded their website or something? Anyway, I also noticed that they now offer more rewards to choose from, shows that they heard my last complain and acted on it, good, their rewards variety used to really suck, very limited even though they had several pages, most were this plan, that plan, too many repetitions but doing the same thing, at least now they removed all that junk and replaced with a Bill Rebate redemption with multiple ...

Today I went to the polyclinic with my wife, she wanted to check her INR level, so we went there, took a number and waited, finally our turn, we went to the laboratory registration counter, the lady asked if we would see the doctor, I said no because my wife don't need a prescription, she still have a lot of her Warfarin from her Thai doctor, then she told me the doctor would want to know her INR reading, but I insisted on not seeing because if we see, we will need to pay the consultation fees, which is $41.70 for non-resident, then another more senior lady cut in our conversation and highlighted that the procedure is such that if we don't see the doctor, we cannot proceed with the INR test, I was surprised, how come there is such a procedure, can't they be more flexible and look at it from my perspective? Not that I don't have the money to pay but it's just that I find it pointless to pay, all my wife needs is to have her blood test done, that's it, we don'...

Our First Experience at Sushi Express Singapore

February 07, 2014

So yesterday I said we will go try the new sushi outlet at Tampines One, they are really selling everything at $1.50, very cheap compared to Sakae Sushi, and it was almost full house but lucky today is a weekday so there were still some seats left, but is it better than Sakae? I think in terms of freshness, no comments as both are equally fresh, but in terms of variety, seems like Sakae wins hands down, my wife said she likes Sakae more. Oh another thing, the green tea, Sakae's tasted much better, it has a nutty flavour which me and my wife liked very much, my wife even bought a box of their green tea, as for Sushi Express, their green tea tasted like those supermarket green tea, even tasted a bit sour, don't like it that much. So conclusion is, we still like Sakae more ;) I noticed something about their billing, this is my bill: 18 Sushi $27.00 2 Boxes of Oolong Tea $3.00 (my wife picked it up at the counter) 10% Service Charge $2.70 7% GST $2.29 So the service char...

Alan Ramos Psychology Graduate Working at IDA

February 06, 2014

Recently I keep seeing news about this guy, he is said to be a psychology graduate from Harvard who was employed at IDA when he was 22 years old, now he is 26 years old and being charged with underage sex. Netizens were asking how a psychology grad managed to land himself a job at IDA, I thought maybe he was doing something non-IT related, then I checked out his LinkedIn profile , it seems like I was wrong because under his Skills & Endorsements, I see Software Project Management, Software Development, Web Services and etc, those are definitely IT stuff, I'm in the industry so I know. So back to the question, so how did a non-IT graduate get an IT job? Actually it's not unusual, I read in a book where this web developer is a graduate in marine life or biology, and among my colleagues, I have a physics graduate who is a Java (it's a programming language) technical team lead, a civil engineering graduate who is a software developer, an engineering graduate who is also a...

Tomorrow Clear Off-in-lieu!

February 06, 2014

The second day of Chinese New Year fell on a Saturday so my company gave me an off-in-lieu because I am on a 5 days work week. So tomorrow I will bring my wife to the polyclinic to check her blood, and then go find something good to eat, maybe we'll try the legendary $1.50 sushi at Tampines One, my colleague told me it's good and I heard there is always a long queue, even crazy long when they just opened and they were selling their sushi for only $1. At $1.50, I wonder how they make money, my colleague also mentioned that the serving is big, are they making a loss to get the customers first? Maybe, so I'm sure they will eventually raise the price.

The Guy with a $15,000 Rolex Watch

February 05, 2014

As usual, after work, take the train, find a comfortable spot and lean back, then came this very tall guy who stood beside me, he was even taller than me, I'm about 1.81 meters, this guy was at least 1.9 meters, he was talking on the phone, then he said something about his Rolex watch with a market price of $15,000, then he said if he sold it, he would be able to get over his current financial difficulty, he said the watch was of sentimental value so he had no plan to sell it. That made sense, my grandmother left me a jade-studded gold ring bought more than a decade ago, not very sure how much she paid for it, also not sure how much it's worth now, and if I were to sink into financial difficulty, I don't think I would ever sell it, probably not even pawn it unless there is absolutely no other way. Actually she bought similar rings for all her sons and grandsons, not sure what she bought for the females, I think it was some jade bracelet because my mom got one or two from ...

So Many People Queuing at ATM?

February 04, 2014

Today when I was on my way home, I noticed that there was a long queue at the update bank book machines at POSB, Citibank and DBS, wonder what happened, suddenly so many people using those machines. So I quickly head home to check my bank balance, nothing is missing, also can't find any relevant news online, or is it simply because after Chinese New Year everybody suddenly feel like updating their bank book at the same time? Weird.

Even Foreign Spouses of Singaporeans are Under Attack

February 03, 2014

Today while browsing Gilbert Goh 's Facebook page, I came across some comments that made me both angry and sad, see the following image. In case you don't know who Gilbert Goh is, he runs a support site for Singaporeans at transitioning.org . Just to clarify, the comments were not posted by Gilbert, it was posted by people who visited his Facebook page, hope I didn't mislead anyone! Sigh Foreign spouse will bring along their whole village into Singapore? What? There is no way to justify that without sounding ridiculous, really. Now let's look at some facts, for LTVP holders, they are not even allowed to bring any of their family member here, even if the foreign spouse attains PR status, at most they can bring in only their parents or children under LTVP, and they will need to be sponsored by the foreign spouse, but I read on some forum that there is a special case where the Singaporean husband was allowed to be the sponsor but that was only on a case-by-case ba...

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