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A funny reminder for the inconsiderate people out there. Still, I believe some will not listen...

Dedicated to Angie

Temasak Holding Sells Merril Lynch Shares

I seldom rants about the Singapore government these day. It doesn't mean that I am afraid of getting arrested. Just that I have grow tired of their nonsense and have totally given up on them. That is until I saw this on the web today. My first reaction is "WTF! We told you so, didn’t we?" Well done, Temasek Holding. Just like that, $1.48 billions gone. Billions leh, not millions... And selling the shares 6 months buying them is not my idea of the supposed "long term" investment the government proclaims at that time. So whose fault is it now? Will we get to see a certain PM's wife head roll for this? I doubt so...

Edited: Ok, my mistake on this one. The news have affected my judgment. Level 13 Financial claims that there are doubts about the truth in this news.

"Before you come to the conclusion that Temasek has made a lousy investment decision which has resulted in losses, it seems like nobody can verify on the accuracy of this news. According to the Mutual Fund Facts website, they have sold off 50% of their stake. That means at the start, Temasek should own about 174 million shares. However, I am inclined to think that this piece of news is untrue. The numbers simply do not add up. I did a simple search online and found the following:

On 3rd Jan 2008, in a 13G filing on Merrill Lynch, Temasek Holdings disclosed that they hold a 9.4% stake, or 91,666,666 shares, in the investment bank. In December, Merrill, hit with massive write-downs due to the submprime debacle, said they would raise up to $6.2 billion in a deal with Temasek Holdings and Davis Selected Advisors. Under the plan, Temasek Holdings was to invest $4.4 billion in Merrill Lynch common stock, with an option to purchase an additional $600 million of Merrill Lynch common stock by March 28, 2008. Under the deal, Temasek's ownership position will at all times be less than 10% of Merrill Lynch's outstanding shares. Temasek made the initial investment of $4.4 billion at $48 per share (91,666,666 shares). Temasek has an option to buy an additional 12,500,000 shares, also at $48.

Currently, Merrill Lynch's share price is hovering at around US$34. So assuming Temasek exercises the option to increase its stake, the extra $600 million will net another 19 million shares. Taking into consideration that Temasek has bought an additional 12.5 million shares at US$48, the total amount of shares it is holding should be in the region of 123.5 million (92+19+12.5).

How did Mutual Fund Facts website get 174 million??????? Never take news report at face value. Always double check."

The State of Our Society

Sometimes I am totally disgrace by the behavior of my fellow countrymen. Took the train home the other night. The train is quite crowded and most of the seats are taken. But then I notice there is an empty seat among the crowd. There are 2 persons standing in front of the seat but they dun seem to be interested in it. So I walk up to the seat and realize that there are a few drops of dirty water on it. Other than that, the seat and its surrounding area look perfectly fine. At that point of time, my first thoughts are Singaporeans are so selfish and lazy. Just because this seat is a bit dirty, people rather stand than bother to clean it. So I took out a tissue to wipe away the water, keep the dirty tissue in my bag and sit down. All these while, everyone on the train is looking at what I am doing with curiosity. I dun understand what is the big deal in this? Everyone only knows how to complain when they see something they dun like or things are inconvenient to them. But do they do anything about it? This entire episode reminds me of The Stone in the Road story. All this is how our society is becoming; A bunch of whining, lazy and selfish people who thought only of themselves, expecting everything to be prepared swee-swee for them.

Electronics Nightmare Part II

Shit... my bad luck with computers continues. My home computer got some funny behavior last nite. The desktop keeps flashing on and off. Turns out that it kenna virus. Wah liao, first time my home computer kenna virus. A super virus some more that ordinary anti-virus won't able to detect, let alone clean it. Have to download a special program to do it. Hope it will fix the problem. I don't want to reformat my hard disk again so soon...

Electronics Nightmare

Damn sway these days with electronics stuff. It started with my hand phone by freezing up for no reason. The only way to resolve this is to remove the battery, but after a while it will hang again. I realize the hang issue is due to the memory card. Every time the hand phone tries to access some files on the memory card will cause it to hang. So my hand phone now does not have a memory card to store my music and photos.

Next up is my home PC. The bugger all of the sudden decide to reset itself occasionally. It became so irritating that I have to reformat and reinstall the entire Windows. In the end, the problem still persists but not as often.

And just when you thought it is safe, the office PC got corrupt when I used it to test on my project. The performance slows down till it a Pentium 3 also work faster than it. So I have no choice but to reformat (again...) the PC. As if the nightmare is not over yet, my damn IT admin call up and say I can't reformat my PC and sign to the company network like this. Did something to the PC and remove my administrator rights. Now I can't install new software, move/delete files as I like and even backup my hard disk without invoking the administrator rights needed dialog box! How the hell am I supposed to work with so much restriction? Stupid IT people. I am thinking of reformatting the PC again without letting them know about it. I swear if I get the chance to reinstall my PC ever again, I won't let the IT people anywhere near it.

Updated: Manage to get the IT people to enable a local admin account on my office PC. Now I can activate the recovery software to reformat/reinstall everything. *evil grin*

Monday Blues

Sigh... It's another start of the new week again. The weekend came and left so fast, as if it didn't happen at all. More feature requests from our customer to implement into their project. Have to continue installing software into my office PC as I somehow corrupt the system last week and have to reformat the hard disk. My colleague's wedding coming up this Saturday and I have to attend (Argh... red bomb!). So many things on my mind now. To make matter worse, stupid damn itch bother me so much last night that I did not have a good night sleep. Sigh... Monday only and I am so lethargic already. Yawn...

Duck Tours

Redeem my OCBC credit card points for 2 adult Duck Tours the other day and gave Angie a surprise by bringing her there today. As our trip starts at 3pm, we went for lunch at Hotpot Culture. We had porridge buffet and one hotpot set. The porridge buffet is not bad with a wide variety of dishes to select. Price wise, it was quite reasonable and a nice place for gatherings

After our lunch, we shop around Marina Square to digest our lunch before heading for the duck tour gathering area. The tour is quite fun but due to the National Day Parade rehearsal in the evening, the boat trip part is changed and we are not allowed to enter the Marina Bay area, which is a disappointment for us. The trip is an eye-opener as we get to know more about Singapore heritage, learning something new about our country's history. The trip is quite entertaining for us, but an hour pass by quickly

After we got of the tour, we actually wanted to catch a movie. Sadly, Angie is a bit tired and afraid that she may fall asleep in the cinema, so we skip the idea. We wonder around Suntec before ending up having steamboat buffet (Again??!!) at the Suntec Convention Hall there. (Having steamboat is Angie's idea, she is a steamboat junkie :P)

Upcoming Games Seen @ E3

Well, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), the annual trade show where the computer and video games industry show off their latest and hottest games is here again. Here are some that caught my eye.

Fatal Frame 4
Yes, the grandmaster of horror games is back for the 4th time. FEAR and Doom3 (I completed both, play most of the time at night) is nothing compared to this. Man, I once play the Fatal Frame 1 at my friend place on the PS2 IN THE DAY. I tell you, I quit after playing for 15 mins. The music and the eeriness really gets into you. In addition, the force feedback vibration on the game pad whenever a ghost is about to appear will multiply the fear. When you want horror, no one does it better than the Japanese.



Gears of War 2
"I have a rendezvous with death, and I shall not fail that rendezvous."
Been waiting for the sequel of this game ever since I completed the first one on the PC, and it doesn't disappoint. Only letdown is it will be release on Xbox360 first. When it will be release on the PC (or will it?) is unknown. :(



Dead Space
Big space ship floating in space with unknown horrors lurking in it. Reminds me of Alien/Event Horizon. *tremble*


Other worthy mention: Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3

No idea what 4D number to buy this weekend?

Visit Huat.sg

More Accidents Thanks to ERP

"The most dreadful thing a driver can see on a Singapore road these days is not an accident." - Traxtoratore

For the past few months, the number of accident along the CTE especially near Braddel Road exit there (Read: ERP Gantry) has increased. Most of the reason being that drivers emergency brake their vehicle to insert their cash card into their In-Vehicle Unit (IU) when they realize as they approached the ERP gantry that it is in operation. I don't understand the mentality of these people. They rather risk their life, the lives of others as well as damages to their vehicle just to save on the fine ($8 IIRC) when passing thru the gantry with no cash card in the IU. The cost of damages in case of a pile up is much more than the fine. To these people, their lives are cheaper than the fine. The most frustrating thing is most of the thing, the culprit who jams his brake to insert cash card will get away with it. It's the ones behind that kenna all the collisions. Some still can insist that it is not their fault. These people really need to be cane for their actions since deducting points and fines will not deter them.

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Kallang Roar

Saw a Milo ad at the bus stop promoting the Kallang Roar. I thought to myself, what Kallang Roar? The Kallang stadium is going to be demolished and even if it is still there, Singaporeans are no longer interested in the national football team. I still remember my secondary school days when I follow the national team (not the actual national team since there are 3 foreigners in it, but the rest of the team is more or less the national team members) matches in the Malaysia Cup. The entire nation follows the team exploits, how we wept when we lost to Kedah in 1990 and how we rejoice when we won the League and Cup Double in 1994. Even now, I still remember the names of every player in the first team. What about the team now? I hardly recognize any player in the team. Like the Singapore society and our table tennis team, the current national team is slowly filled with foreign talents, neutralize as Singaporeans. Even though the current team did win major titles like the regional Asean Championship, it did not garner the same amount of support as the 1994 team. The team no longer has the same Lions spirit and respect as the 90s team. With the lack of interest and excitement in the S-League, Singaporeans starts to move away from supporting local football and the Kallang Roar, once feared in South East Asian, has becomes nothing more than a kitten meow nowadays.

The 1994 Singapore Team
David Lim - GK
Kadir Yahaya - LB
Borhan Abu Sama - RB
Lim Tong Hai - CB (Who can forget his 2 famous own goals)
Jang Jung - CB

Malek Awab - CM
Nazri Nasir - CM
Lee Man Hon - LM
Sundramorthy - Winger (Our Ryan Giggs?)

Fandi Ahmad - S (This one cannot miss)
Abbas Saad - Fwd (Singapore's Cantona)

Subs
Steven Tan (Singapore's Ole Gunnar Solskjær)
Saswadimata Dasuki
Rafi Ali
V Selveraj

Problems at Man Utd...

Wah liao, it seems like wining the EPL and European Cup double is putting a curse on Manchester United. Firstly, Ronaldo is hitting at wanting to leave to join Real Madrid (no thanks to Real dirty tactics in using the media to tempt the player). Now, our assistant manager, Carlos Queiroz has left the club to manage the Portugal National Team. IMO, losing Carlos is a big blow to Man Utd. He is the man who masterminds the tactics and the contact for bringing in Nani and Anderson last year. With him gone, I worried will we able to retain both our titles especially with the fate of Ronaldo still undecided. Let's hope Sir Alex will bring in a capable replacement, no Brian McClair please...

An ex-GES colleague of mine went back to GES. It then strike me that I have been in Venture for more than 1 year. Surprisingly is that it's my first job since leaving GES that I have stay for more than a year. For reasons beyond my control, the positions I took up are all shortlived.

After leaving GES, I join Flextronics and they closed down my department after 6 months. Motorola steps in and took in most of the retracted Flextronics staff. Thought my career will be laid out in Moto and turns out that the work they do there are really not suitable for me. After 11 months there, I jump ship when an ex-colleague of mine persuaded me to join him at Intrinsyc.

Thought I made a step up, good pay, good working hours and wonderful colleagues but good times dun last long. 3 months later, Intrinsyc decided to close down the Singapore office and move to Taipei. As I dun want to move to another country, I end up at Venture.

Flowers For My Baby

Bought a bouquet of flowers for Angie today. Thought to myself, it's been some time since I bought flowers for her plus she is a bit down lately. So I thought I give her a surprise and cheer her up.

Empty Promises

So the leaders of the group of 8 major powers have agreed on reducing the global carbon emissions by half by 2050. But read closely and you will realize another round of empty promises and as an environmentalist puts it "flowery words". What the leaders promise is that they "share a vision", as in they agreed something have to be done, but doing it is another matter. Furthermore, look at the date. 2050. At the rate we are destroying our environment; I dun even think we can reach 2030 let alone 2050. All these NATO (No Action Talk Only) is just to make them look good. Being green is the in-style statement now; people just want to be "IN". Whether they really help in saving our environment is another matter.

Seats or Sleepy Armpits?

One thing I like my current workplace is that it is not in the town area. Thank god I dun have to squeeze like a sardine every morning smelling other's armpits to work. For all their claims being world class, our public transport especially the SMRT is no where near that. Today SBS Bus service introduce a new peak-hour bus service that runs along the southbound section of the North-South-East-West MRT line. Their reasons is that it will help to ease the train passenger load. I dunno which idiot came out with this idea, but what makes you think it will achieve that. Even though the cost of the ride is same as an MRT ride, the entire ride take, read this, AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES!!!! So in order to avoid squeezing with the crowd n have a seat of my own, I have to wake up earlier to catch the bus so that I won't be late for work plus risk getting a splitting headache from the long bus ride? Are they mad? Given a choice, I would rather sleep later and take my chances with the sleepy armpits...

And Here We Go!

Wow, it's been more than 3 months since I last updated my blog. Some people must be wondering what happen to me after my HK trip? (as if a lot of people read my blog :P) Well, I got lazy, dun have the mood nor drive to do anything. Put off a lot of things that I wanted to do. Then I started thinking, tell myself not to be like this. Just need to take the first step. Now finally I have taken my first step, hope it gave me the momentum to continue moving forward. C'est Parti!

Family Shanghai / Jiangnan Trip

Together with my uncle and my family, we went for a 8 days Shanghai / Jiangnan trip from 8th - 15th June. Too many things happen to even write them here. Just show some photos taken while we are there

Damn, realize my favorite map search website www.can.com.sg has changed. Oh well, time to find another, their bus stops data also din update at all after repeat complaining. Nope, I never like StreetDirectory.com. Found one in Singapore Land Authority (SLA) Map Service