PC Show 2007

Its the PC show 2007 held in Suntec City from 31 May - 3 Jun. I went with my parent and Irene at 12pm and we got into a huge jam queuing into the carpark. I had to detour to Marina Square and park my car there where we made our way on foot to Suntec. It was damn packed, walking was a real chore and it really disturbed the shopping mood.

That are so many things in my mind that I want to buy, like LCD monitor, antivirus, PSP games and SLR camera. Are they necessity or wishlist? I got to control my spending needs!

Vesak Day

Vesak or Buddha Day offers Buddhists an opportunity to reflect on the life and teachings of the Buddha. It highlights the potential for inner peace and happiness that lies within us all. Vesak Day is an important Buddhist festival, commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. The event takes place on the full moon of the lunar month Vesakha, which falls between April and May on the Gregorian calendar. Primarily a Theravada Buddhist holiday, Vesak Day is celebrated most energetically in Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Laos and by Buddhists in some Western countries. Vesak Day is usually a public holiday in these Southeast Asian countries.

The Vesak holiday is celebrated in different ways around the world. In Singapore the day usually starts with monks chanting Sutras. This is followed by the ceremonial release of small animals or caged birds. This is considered an act of generosity, symbolic of generating good karma. The act also symbolises the Buddha's compassion for all things.

GSS 2007

Today is the 3rd day for the Great Singapore Sale 2007. I am not sure how many people are going to cry when their credit card bills arrive to their door step. This sale gimmick thing is going kill a lot of poor guys out there. So beware of your woman's spending!

We spend the whole day from Paragon, to Centerpoint and to Marina Square. We stopped at Centerpoint's Hagen Dazz for some energy perk. This is called 'Flower Blossom' and it comes with 6 flavors of your choice on a waffle dish. That cost me $20!

JR and YQ at my House

Another weekend with my niece and nephew. JQ went to take a photo shot for her new passport as the family plan to visit Genting Highlands. But she happen to be in pretty foul mood and was very un-cooperative. When I tried to carry her, she refused and forced herself onto the floor motionless. That's why I took the artistic shot of her lying down.

Waterspout in Singapore

A waterspout has been sighted in Singapore at about 2:40pm today (May 25) and more than 300 SMS, MMS and email alerts have so far been received from Singaporeans in southern and eastern parts of the island.

STOMP contacted the NEA and this is their reply:

"A waterspout was observed in the waters off Marine Parade today.

In waters off Singapore, one or two sightings of waterspout are usually made in an average year. The last waterspout was observed last August.

Waterspout is a small weather phenomenon usually observed under cumuliform clouds during intense weather conditions associated with thunderstorms. Due to the lower pressure conditions under the clouds in such conditions, one or maybe two columns of water can be sucked towards the base of the clouds giving the traditional picture of a funnel(s), and as such waterspouts are sometimes also called funnel clouds.

In waters off Singapore, waterspouts have short life cycle of few to tens of minutes. Speed of movement of the waterspout over water ranges from a few to up to 15 knots.Waterspouts are known to dissipate rapidly near the coast and are not expected to cause other danger to lives and property on land besides the usual dangers associated with thunderstorms.

Waterspouts usually occur in water in the tropics."

Night out at St James Power Station

Lousy place, I am not going there again. Few bad things to point out: 1) Super-crowded, 2) Small room space for each theme room, 3) Expensive liquor, 4) No toilets in the theme room, 5) Re-entry is the least priority to enter.

My 26" Panasonic LCD TV

I got my own LCD TV in the room! Yep, a cool 26" Panasonic LCD with superb pixel quality. Goodbye to my huge and eye-sore 26" CRT TV. Hmm, so what will be my next project? Hi-Fi system or 19" LCD monitor?

Anyway, now we have 6 TVs at home! Sounds super rich huh? Gotta find a way to dispose them else we are going to install some of them in our toilets!

Spider-Man 3

Irene and I went to Ang Mo Kio's Jubile to catch the show Spiderman 3. I was pretty impressed with the storyline for the last two spiderman movies. It has this combination of love and heroic stuff that entangles between each other. Example, Peter (spiderman) chose to reject Mary Jane's (MJ) love as he knows that he will put her in danger due to his responsibility. I won't forget the scene how he rejected MJ and said "I will always be your friend, I will always be there to protect you."

And the all-time favourite phrase commonly used in Subaru forum, "With great Power, comes great Responsibility". 'applause'

For this latest movie, the phrase for the day is "In life, everyone has a choice"

The Story
In Spiderman 3, Peter Parker has finally managed to strike a balance between his devotion to MJ and his duties as a superhero. But there is a storm brewing on the horizon. When his suit suddenly changes, turning jet-black and enhancing his powers, it transforms Peter as well, bringing out the dark, vengeful side of his personality that he is struggling to control. Under the influence of the suit, Peter becomes confident and starts to neglect the people who care about him most. Forced to choose between the seductive power of the suit and the compassionate hero he used to be. Peter must overcome his personal demons as two of the most feared villains yet, Sandman and Venom, gather unparalleled power and a thirst for retribution to threaten Peter and everyone he loves.

Mother's Day Celebration

Mother's Day is suppose to be last Sunday but most of us were not able to make it. So we postponed it till today where the whole family went out for lunch at Paris International located in Nee Ann City. There were Mum & Dad, Irene & I and my sister's family excluding her mother-in-law. This has been always my Mum's favorite restaurant as she frequent comment "Heng3 Duo1 Dong1 Xi1 Chi1". Yah sure.

Weekend lunch cost about $27.90 +++ per person and that is consider cheaper than the dinner priced at $31.90!. We had lots of 'Shishamo' (a.k.a. pregnant fish) to cover up the losses. Same goes to the salmon sashimi where mum, Irene & I 'chiong' as much as possible.

YQ is becoming a splitting image of my sister and she can be very adorable. However she is still much intact to the maid with her crying for 'za za' whenever I want to carry her. I strongly believe any maids will love her as she don't throw temper on them and will always stick to them in any situation except when there are toys of course.

After the meal, we went to shop at Best Denki as my sister wanted to buy a 32" LCD for her daughter because the 20" is too small for her to watch the cartoons while sitting on the bed. How fortunate to be her daughter. That Panasonic LCD was on promotional price as this model is obsoleting so they are selling at a good deal for $1299 as the usual price was $1699. On top of that, 5 years of warranty was provided for the LCD and they are also giving away $400 NTUC vouchers. What a steal!

As I was wondering if I should also get the same deal, my Dad and Irene both were trying to convince me to get one too. Dad even offered to pay me $400 for the vouchers so that he can give it to Mum. That means I only pay $899 for the 32" LCD? But 32" is too big for my room, so I offered Dad in exchange for his 26" LCD that he bought yesterday at Audio House. Actually the 26" is newer model and better quality but Dad is more interested with a bigger size one so that he does not need to strain his eyes when watching the LCD. So with that I took up their offer and bought the 32" LCD to exchange with Dad's 26" LCD.

My Subaru is Back

After Frankie's wedding, I went to the carpark to collect my Toyota car. I realized that I left the headlights on for the last 3 hours. Oh my god, the car couldn't start as the battery was pretty dead. I was becoming panicky and my thoughts were running fast with possible options. I called Raymond to check if he has cables to jump start my car. Unfortunately he doesn't have it, but he offered to help me push the car in order to crank the engine with some motion. Luckily with his help we managed to start the engine and I quickly drove to the workshop to return this car and collect back my Subaru.

Happily I collected my car with a brand new bumper, new reverse sensor (spoil before the accident), new car plate, new letterings (SUBARU) and a Super Sprint exhaust! I paid them $500 for the exhaust and that included the installation and inspection. What a fantastic deal.

It felt good to be able to drive back my car again, nothing can beat the handling of a Subaru. The sound of the exhaust is low humming and grows louder when I start revving. I am another step closer to the looks and sound of a WRX.

Frankie's ROM Solemnization

Today is Frankie's ROM solemnization at Raffles Town Club. Together with me were Hew, Mark, Kelvin, Raymond, Wan and Delwin. It was a small event and Frankie only invited close friends and relatives to this important day of his. There were only 6 tables and weren't fully occupied. The food was not bad as they were serving brunch.

Some of us were discussing about why he got married so early? I tried explain what I was told by Frankie. There is a unit beside his parent house for sale, and he wishes to get that house. So he proposed to his girlfriend that he dated for less than 6 months in order to purchase the unit. Hmm.. how many ladies out there will accept such an proposal?

Anyway we send our best wishes to Frankie and his wife, Audrey, hoping they will live happily ever.

Goodbye YP

Tomorrow will be YP's last day with us. We went to Toa Payoh's Sizzler for lunch, treating it as our last get-together meal. It has been a long time since all of us from FOL had our meal together. I really miss those good old days where we work together to resolve the daily issues.

So long YP!

My Spare Car

This morning went to collect my 'temporary' ride from the workshop as I sent in my car for servicing. Finally, I have enough my road users staring at my car's bump. It was an awkward feeling and somehow I felt pretty disgraced too. Anyway, driving this antique car is much better than the damaged one. I have to endure for another few days before my ride will be ready for collection on coming Friday or Saturday.

I am going to reconsider visiting this workshop again. The last time I was a Nissan Sunny as car courtesy which was pretty new then. But this workshop have given me this antique Toyota car that perhaps is coming to 20 years old. It is tiring to drive a manual car!

MacRitchie Reservoir

This morning, Irene and I visited MacRitichie Reservoir for our weekly exercise. My GPS handphone brought me to this place without a breeze. Weather was cloudy so most of the people were leaving, when we just arrived. After an hour of walk, the sky starts to drizzle so we had to rush back to the car before the downpour.

We went to Ang Mo Kio for our favourite Bak KuTeh, situated in the wet market.

Selling UMD

Just sold my PSP UMD - Metal Gear Solid to a forum guy at $35. What a loss, remember I bought it at $62 leh.

Wedding Planning

We are waiting for Irene's 'uncle' to return from his China trip and will engage him to help to identify an auspicious date to tie the knots. For the past few weeks, we went shopping around for the wedding bands and visiting bridal shops. Just to get some ideas what the price is like and gather some info on the latest trend.

I predict that I am going to spend a big bomb on this wedding, the thought of it makes my heart ache. This is going to wipe out my savings, especially if I am the only one paying for everything. Where is Justice?

Some links to Wedding stuff

Singapore Brides Forum

J&M Design & Photography

Z Wedding

Mum's Mother Day Flowers

Picked up Irene from airport at 9.30pm and we went to East Coast Food Center for supper. We ordered from our favourite stall for Satay and Chicken wings.

Mum received her flowers where Irene helped to book and arranged for the delivery to my house. Mum personally received from the delivery man and was delighted to have the flowers. It has been a long while since I seen my Mum being so happy.

Good News to my Car

HaHaHa.........

The workshop called me today and was told that they are placing order to replace my parts. If nothing goes wrong, they will receive them on next Monday. "Huh? Another week?", "Yep, Mr. Lee, the parts are no longer in stock and need to book overseas."

So they decided to give car courtesy to me for the whole of next week as they need time to settle my car repair. I was quite surprised that they need one whole week whereas my previous repair took only about 3 days, where the damage was pretty then. "If you want we can do it within a day, do you want that?", "No, no, of course not, take your time." I rather not rush them in their job.

I managed to persuade him to allow me to upgrade my exhaust to the Supersprint model with $500 topup from my own pocket. What a steal, it normally cost about $900 for that exhaust. I saved $400. I also managed to sweet-talk him to give a wheel alignment service out of courtesy. Muhaha...

Sake Sushi

We went to Sake Sushi next door for dinner with JR. It has been a while since we last had Jap food. The meal cost me $52 for 4 adults and 1 kid.

When returned home, I helped JR with his 'Lego' toys.

Irene's N6233

Irene just received her 'free' handset from her company, and its a Nokia N6233 Music Edition. It comes with a music stand where one can enjoy music with surround sound system.

My Car

Finally, I got some updates for my car accident. I paid $5.25 to LTA to check on the driver's insurance policy and managed to see that he is covered under AXA company. I called up AXA to check the validity on his insurance and was told that it was re-instated by the customer service officer. Happily, I called up my workshop and they also told me the same thing which they just found out two hours ago. Damn it, waste my money and effort. Anyway, they are submitting the claim to the driver's insurance company and will come back to me latest by next Monday. I hope to hear good news then.

Only For the Rich and Lost

I caught this title while I was glancing the Digital Life section of The Straits Times last night. It does hit the jackpot in my heart.

Despite being expensive and bulky, it has all the features that I wants, GPS, 5 mega pixel Camera, media player, WiFi and Radio function. Its like what was mentioned in the papers as 'a mini-computer in your hands'. The best part of the article is the last words from the author "Though computers have shrunk to the size of smart phones, I prefer my PDA phone. The N95 has features only user at the bleeding edge of gadget technology would appreciate and pay for it."

May Day

Today is the day that all the working force celebrate labour day. Hey, that means me, working people, white collar worker. This is an International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada, and South Africa.

Anyway, we brought JR and YQ out for lunch at Geylang where we had 'tim sum'. Then we visited Suntec's Tosy 'R' Us and bought some toys for them.