Life In The Fast Lane

Why, when you're waiting for a lift (having already pressed the button), does someone always arrive after you insist on re-pressing the button?

Everyone knows that pressing the elevator button more than once in futile, including those who do it. Eventhough youve clearly pressed the button once, with the button illuminated, indicator light displayes lift's progress, someone arriving after you doesn't seem to trust you.

In all likelihood, the tiny plastic boxes attached to poles at busy intersection corners, the ones with buttons in the center and signs that read ‘Press Button and Wait for Light to Turn Green’ despite the conspicuous absence of wires connecting the box to anything controllable, to me, are dummy buttons.The button, more importantly the sign accomplishes 2 things:

• by pausing to consider the instructions, we are given time to control our suicidal, traffic-hopping impulses, and
• we are given the illusion of control where we are liable to press the button and wait for the light.

Where we had previously intended to seize control by defying the 'Don't Walk' warning and dashing into the road, we now believe that true control is at our finger tips. Even if we suspect the button is a dummy, we will probably stick around to prove ourselves right.

The list doesn't end there. There are people who honk their horns in a traffic jam as if by doing so will speed up the traffic, or refeshing the email inbox if you got no mail, and to some extend, even sending a 'test' mail to one self.

I think that part of this behaviour comes from good old fashion self reliance and to be in control, but all the same, what do you think?

Check it Out

Check out my other site at life-asweknowit.blogspot.com

It's The Weekend!! Pt 2

If you have money to spend, Geylang is the place to be during this time of the year. It is THE place to be.

Lots of things are up for sale for the festive season. Cushion covers, table mats, floor mats, curtains, lightings, vases, flowers both real and fakes, frames, baju melayu (traditional malay clothing), shoes, slippers, and so on and so forth.. Too many things, too little money.

Don't go there if you don't feel like spending because just watching people spend makes you do the same. I myself bought 2 pieces of carpets (among other things) and ended up giving 1 to my in laws because there is no place to put it in my house.

Just for the fun of it, you should go there. That is where the holiday mood will start to build in you. All sort of people of different races may it be malay, chinese or indian are they to get the best bargains. Of course you have to bare the crowd, but you wouldn't have it any other way. It is the festive season after all.

So to all my family and friends back home, I wish you all 'Selamat Hari Raya'. Its a shame I can't be there with you all this year.

It's The Weekend!! (well WAS the weekend..)

It's been a busy weekend for me. I haven't got any time at all with my blog.

I wouldn't have thought that blogging would be this addictive. Maybe it's just the beginning, but I'm finding myself writing details of things I did during the day for my blog. By the end of the day I threw it away because it was nothing but crap. Hehe..

I mentioned that it has been a busy weekend for me. I rented a car to go shopping for the upcoming festive season, Hari Raya Aidilfitri. The car didn't cost me too much ($70 per day) but buying fuel did dig a hole in my pocket. It cost around $1.50 per gallon compared to back home in Brunei's $0.53, and when you rent a car, you're almost positive to be using it every chance you got. I mean you're paying for the car right?

On top of paying for gas, I'm also paying for parking tickets, ERPs (something like road tax) and of course, my shopping.











I went with friends (Brunei friend whose also working here) to this new shopping complex, Vivo City, which just opened during the weekend. Its BIG!! Its HUMONGOUS!! From the outside you can see its beautifully build structures with water fountains just in front of the main entrance. Inside its very spacious halls were easily filled with shoppers.

You can say it was ahead of its time, which it practically was, because there is still alot of shops yet to be opened. HAHA!!


--end of part one. More to come tomorrow--

uh-oh...

I've spent too much time on my post yesterday so I'm gonna have a break today. Anyways nothing out of the norm happened today.. except that I'VE WON THE BIGGEST JACKPOT IN SINGAPORE!!!! Woohoo!!!

Nolah. Nothing happened... heehee...

hee...

iPhone Is Out!!

It's finally out!! The new, long awaited iPhone from Apple is out! There has been rumours about it the last few months or even years but Apple being Apple has always been tight-lipped about all its new product and there has never been any real reviews about it until its out.

I have been able to get my hands on the new iPhone (being a gadget freak myself) so here is what you will be expecting before you get your hands on it and try it out for yourself.


At first sight, the iPhone reminds me of older generation iPod, although the camera at the top is more like the built in iSight camera you find on the newer notebooks from Apple.

It's a bit bulkier then the phones you find today but since this is the first attempt from Apple, let's give them a break. The keypad is hidden at the bottom and when you compare it with the Sony Ericsson S700i, you can see that iPhone is slightly smaller then S700i.

iPhone is bigger then the s700i but with the keypad showing, its actually smaller.

All the normal features you expect to find in a mobile phone is available on the iPhone plus the ever wonderful music program iTunes. It has a built in memory of 20gb only but expect more with the second generation iPhone.

Wifi is also available, so as not to be overtaken by Microsoft's iPod killer 'Zune' but be aware that the battery life will be greatly reduced if you are using it over a period of over 10 minutes. Again, we have to remember that this is Apple's first try.

It offers a 5 mega pixel camera which you can undoubtly plug into your Macs and sync with iPhotos, 1 meg only for 3g video calls. It has numerous onboard camera settings and Picture Blogging functions which you can on its clear and sharp QVGA screen. It doesn't have a lens cover so it will be prone to scratches and also no optical zoom for the camera.

Here are some more photos of the iPhone.


<-- comparing it with iPod Nano and O2 Atom.

Messaging screenshot -->

<-- backside ot the iPhone.

Contact screenshot -->

This I will say is a must-have for Mac lovers. It will sync to your Mac without the need of third party application. The price however is a bit on the expensive side due to the big memory capacity, somewhere around S$998 with GST but you can't put a price tag on the WOW Factor.

So what are you waiting for? Contact your Mac authorised dealer today.

Note: Photos are taken from a 1 mega pixel camera so looks can be decieving. You have to have it in your hand before you make your judgement.

One Liner Pt 2

If a car can travel at the speed of light, would the headlights work?

Sundays Ain't No Funday

Yesterday was not a good day for me. I shouldn't have gotten out of bed... but I did. I was so upset that I told myself to forget about it and I did. Which was why I failed to mentioned about it on yesterday's post.

There is a place in Singapore which is like a warehouse where you can store anything you like. They rent out a room, you get your own padlock and WALLA!! you have yourself a storage room. It's not cheap but if you stay in Singapore, houses are small and space is limited.

Anyways, I've booked a room 3 weeks ago for my in-laws personal items and also movers to (you guessed it!!) move the stuff there.

Yesterday was the day when things was suppose to happen. The scenario.. My in-laws at the starting point, me at the other end.

First thing that went wrong was the movers price went up to an extra $150 because there were too many things to carry. I manage to lower it down to $100 but it was still a blow. Then when I got to the warehouse, nobody was there to meet us. It didn't look too bad then because we were given the code number to get into. That didn't work. Called the manager's hand phone number, can't get through.

If you thought things couldn't get any worse, you are so wrong. The movers was already on their way here. I have no choice but to tell the movers to carry the items back to the starting point.. and because they had already carried them to the truck, I was charged the full amount. Damn Murphy. Half the day gone just like that.

I settled everything today. It turned out that the manager was relieved from his duties and he had forgotten to mention about me to the new manager. My movers fee was compensated and everything was in the storage room.

So everything is fine... now if I can only get back my 12 hour of misery...

So Hungry!!!

Its 3 in the afternoon. I'm queueing up to buy food for the breaking of fast for this evening. (I actually wrote this down, funny enough, with a pen and notebook).

Once a year for a month, during the fasting season, keen money makers set up small stalls in certain places all over Singapore. It usually opens just after 12 midday and closes around 7 at night. The one I'm at now is at Jurong West.

They're quite a few choices of food here, nasi lemak, nasi ayam, variety of 'kuehs' and drinks.. all those that you can bring home to look at til 7pm, when you break your fast.

Heheh.. Goodah?

Queues are not usually long where your turn would be around 5-10 minutes, but this particular line is very, very long.

You gotto be kidding right? Can you see the lady in black on the right side of the left photo? I am 4 persons behind her. All this for food. Hehe.. and you only do this when you're hungry.

Someone told me that this line takes you to the ever popular food called 'Nasi Ambeng'. I don't really know what it is but it must be good, has to be good.. or else why would people line up and wait? Well, we shall soon see.

An old man just passed me and stopped to talk to the person behind me. I overheard him saying that he came here to start queueing at 1 (yes, there was already a line at 1) only to be served at a quarter past 2. It must be true because 25 minutes has passed and I barely took 6 steps.

So here I am under the scorching sun, hungry and thirsty, waiting for my time to come until around the 40 minute mark, the lady from the counter came up and said that there might not be enough anymore. Damn... People didn't start dispersing, they just stayed in line, hoping to get lucky. Me? I was deciding whether to carry on or not, there was around 15 more in front of me. I didn't want to waste 40 minutes of my life for nothing so I'm still in line.

However it was not to be. 5 minutes later, everything was gone. So I don't know how good it is and I cant tell you till I try it.







This was what I was queueing for.. Maybe next time.. if I can guarantee I won't waste another 40 minutes of my miserable life.