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STI Index Closed at 3251

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.
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STI Index Closed at 3193

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
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Still Having Diarrhea

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
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Fail IPPT and Fall Sick

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...
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IRAS Tax Relief

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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
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Brokerage Fees: DBS Vickers VS Standard Chartered Bank

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
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Actually IPPT is Good and Easy Money

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
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USD132994.97 Adsense Cheque!

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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 .
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Amazing Girl from France with a Solid Voice

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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.
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Training for IPPT

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
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US Will Not Deploy Ground Troops to Syria

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
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Maybe NTUC Income Can Do Its Part to Recognize NS Contribution

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
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Pale Moon VS Waterfox

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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
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Long-Term Visit Pass - Plus (LTVP-PLUS)

http://www.ica.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=12665 Good news for those of us who cannot get PR for our beloved spouse, because the Singapore government has come up with a enhanced long-term visit pass called LTVP-PLUS or LTVP+. I'll sum up the key points in the FAQ provided by ICA so you don't have to go through one big page. Do let me know if I missed out anything or correction is required by dropping a comment. GENERAL LTVP+ will be in effect from 01 Apr 2012. LTVP+ holders will enjoy extended duration of residency, public healthcare subsidies and easier access to employment. No separate application required for LTVP+; an application for LTVP will automatically include your spouse for LTVP+, if eligible. LTVP applications submitted from 01 Feb 2012 will automatically be considered for LTVP+. The first approved LTVP+ will grant 3 years residency and subsequent renewal will be 5 years. Current holders of LTVP will be considered for LTVP+ on next renewal. If holde
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How to Marry a Thai in Singapore

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You should refer to here -  https://www.rom.gov.sg/reg_info/rom_marriage.asp Please spend some time to go through and understand the information on that section (legal provision, other information, filing of notice, solemnization and etc), if your still not sure, feel free to drop a comment here or you can use their FAQ . The ROM website did a really good job of putting together the information that you need in a well-organized manner. I've done it once and I think the guide is very easy to follow. The only hiccup I've had with my marriage is during the  Appointment for verification & Statutory Declaration where both of us were required to read out a wall of text and my wife had difficulty getting past the first few lines and the counter guy got fed up and told my wife to stop. Definitely my oversight as I didn't arrange for an interpreter beforehand but luckily, there was a licensed interpreter at the scene and we managed to get her to do the interpretation fo
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Commission Calculator for DBS Vickers SG Stocks

Made this little tool to help me calculate the costs of buying or selling a stock, just enter number of shares and price and it will show both buy and sell costs at the same time. Can even choose by cash upfront, online or phone and it will calculate using respective rates. Cash Upfront ONLINE By Phone Shares: Price: Value: Commission: Clearing Fee:
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