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Oh it’s the time of the year where we all sit down and think of what has happened during the past year. I guess it has been okay for me. Sure, I had to change job because one of my former company’s directors stole a lot of money and fled to China and the company had to shut down. But other than that, it has been no much problems for me.

However, I have one serious complain about the general economic situation in Singapore – the rising cost of living. I don’t mean a little inflation here and there, but massive increases overall. Just look at our bus and train fares, the prices of tickets have increased by around 10-20%. No kidding! How about taking taxis? Yes, the prices for cabs have also increased and is set to be increased yet again. How about food? Well, officially bread prices have increased by 20%. Officially means that the prices are controlled by some baker’s association. I am sure that you will see some bakeries increasing by more than 20%, those greedy bastards. How about food and groceries? Of course the prices for food and groceries have increased. No longer are vegetables considered cheap alternatives, they are now costly! Even made in China products are now very expensive. Expensive in Singapore of course, but not in other countries. How about shop rentals? Yes, that has increased as well, so this result in the same old vicious cycle of price increases. And let’s not forget about the recent GST increase, which was supposed to “help the poor”.

Well, everyone blames someone else for the price increase. Bus companies blame the raising fuel prices. Taxi too. Food prices, they blame the weather. But if you look at Malaysia and our neighbouring countries, you don’t see any price increases there. Weird right? Weather changes is supposed to be global and should affect everyone. And you know what is the weirdest thing, we get our food sources from Malaysia and Indonesia! And the easiest is to blame on the high cost of rental. There is no denying that one, but those rentals are actually controlled and manipulated by the government. I guess when you increase prices is it best not push the blame to someone else, than to admit that you are greedy.

For me, I guess it’s still okay. I don’t mean I earn a lot, just that I am single and without much commitment. However, there are others who are not so lucky. In fact, I believe that a lot of people are affected. Their salaries are already so low, yet everywhere they go, they see price increases. How about those who have a lot of commitments like family, elders and children? Those too are seriously affected by this artifical inflation. Well, that’s life in Singapore, just have to accept it or the alternative is to vote wisely which most Singaporeans cannot do.

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For the poor Singaporeans who takes the public bus to work everyday. You can find the explanation here.  I have quoted a portion of it here.

Why does the Bus Captain drive so slowly?
We hope commuters can appreciate that traffic conditions on the road can vary. Our schedules, however, can only be planned to meet what is usually the expected traffic condition at the various times of the day. There will be times when the traffic conditions are unusually clear or congested and this often results in buses being too early or late.When traffic conditions are especially clear, our Bus Captains are required to regulate speed if they notice that they are ahead of schedule. This ensures that the Bus Captains keep the arrival times at the bus stops as close to the planned schedule as possible to avoid any disruption like bus bunching.

So now all of you understand why the buses are so slow? It is because of unexpected clear traffic in Singapore, a country the size of a dot and with more than 4 million people squeezed in it. Yes, nearly every non-elite lives in an high rise pigeon hole, but seriously, what do we mere mortals know? You can get unusually clear traffic in Singapore everyday. In fact, you can get unusually clear traffic even if there are probably tens of thousands of vehicles on the road everyday. And it also happens at the peak hours with “unusually” low traffic as well. Although I myself never faced such things in Singapore, everything is possible. We don’t know everything. So we have to forgive the bus drivers for driving slow and their thoughtfulness in preventing “disruptions” like “bus bunching“. Yup, we sure don’t want that to happen in Singapore, a very efficient first world society. What would foreigners think when they see such things happening on our roads? Two buses plying the same route arriving at the same time?! That would be shameful to our government and to Singapore on the whole. It would be much better to let foreigners see crowded public buses full of people in the morning “rush” hour take their own sweet time to travel their route right?

I am sure that the SBS is ensuring everything will be running smooth for Singapore communters. You see, SBS has Singaporeans in the hearts. They plan all their bus schedules to ensure that Singaporeans will able to meet together in the buses. I mean, Singaporeans are always so busy, rushing here and there trying very hard to make a living, they seldom meet and enjoy each other’s company. So SBS has planned it such a way to ensure that you will always meet a lot of people on your way to work or school. The more people you meet, the better he chances of you meeting someone you know. And even if you don’t know anyone, you could start a conversation with a stranger in the packed sardine can bus. The idea of “misery loves company” is the motto of SBS. I for one certainly look forward to more great years ahead with SBS. They are the greatest! Go ahead and increase the salaries of the big bosses and directors there. They really deserve it.

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Hello guys, I am back here again to introduce to you yet another useful stuff. It’s called the library. You know what a library is? Well for the less adventurous, it’s sort of a bookstore where you can find all sorts of books, magazines, media and stuff. However, you can use it for free. yes, you heard me right, you are borrow the books and magazine in the library for free! It’s just like the Internet, just that it is free and has less spam and hardly any porn. All you have to do is to register as a member (usually it’s free) and start borrowing books home to read. It’s that simple. However, note that some reference materials cannot be borrowed home, it’s for reference only.

If you are living in Singapore, you can find libraries in most of the regional centres. For example, I am staying somewhere in Ang Mo Kio, so the nearest Library is at Ang Mo Kio Central. Just a 10 minutes bus ride from my house. Of course the bus ride is expensive, but it just takes too long to walk. And in Singapore, if you walk under the blistering heat, you are asking for a heat stroke. As you guys know, I am a bookworm, so I spend a lot of my time at the library, like once per month. The rest of my time is spent online, trying to find ways to prevent hunger and poverty around the world. Well, someone got to do it, might as well be me right?

You can all sort of information in the library as well. I usually go there to look for books on body building because I am planning to be a body builder. If you are looking for old newspaper articles, you should be able to find it in the library. Although not all regional libraries have the complete range of information, you should be able to get partial information. And if you are looking for movies/documentaries/cd-roms, some libraries do keep a lot of variety. A lot of students did their school projects right there in the library. Often you will find students huddle together trying to piece together information for their projects.  When I was a student, I used to go to the library to study. But during the exam periods, the library will be packed with hordes of students. So if they make too much noise, do everyone a favour, go over and smack them in the head, hard.

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I find that Singapore is a very weird country. We are a country which is very dependent on the public transport which carries the majority of Singaporeans to work, school or everywhere. The cost of owning a car in Singapore is high, too high for most people to afford. You know, we have this thing called COE – Certificate of Entitlement. It supposedly allows you to own cars in Singapore. And it can cost like S$15,000 for just a piece of paper. It’s purpose is to reduce the number of vehicles in Singapore by making it more expensive. And they have this called ERP – Electronic Road Pricing. You pay as your car enters one of these gantries on certain “congested” roads. Although it is designed with greed in mind, I think it’s a good idea, Singapore is way too small to have so many cars.

But since not many people can afford cars, it make sense that there should be another medium of transport for Singaporeans. And it should be affordable to all. Yet, in Singapore, public transport is not subsided by the government. The ERP charges and the COE is not used to subsidy the public transport like buses and MRT (Mass Rapid Transport). I am surprised that the government takes money from car owners in the excuse of reducing car traffic yet don’t even use those money to help pay for public transport. And if you think that the public transport in Singapore is already cheap, think again. I can spend everyday around S$5 for transport alone. Worse for people travelling long distances. When I travel to my reservist camp, it cost more than S$8 for a 2-way trip. And since most people have no choice, Singapore’s public tranport is overcrowded. In the mornings, you can see trains and buses packed to the brim with people squashed like sardines. In fact, you don’t need to wait till morning, it’s packed even at non-peak hours. And I need to say, the public transport is slow. It would take you 1 hour to travel from Ang Mo Kio to Bedok in a public bus, if you are lucky. I think the bus service would like to squeeze as much passengers they can into a bus per trip so as to maximize profits.

And now, our great bus service – SBS has come up with a brilliant idea to help those people who hate crowds and have tons of cash to burn. They call it “Premium” service. Which means that you pay more for a “faster” bus and since it is way more expensive, it will be less crowded but no guarantees. Also it is supposed to be more comfortable. So guess what, it means that you pay more for something which they should have provided in the first place. Although they call it “premium”. The great minds (whom never took a public bus in their life) at the top of the company SBS believes that a normal bus service should be crowded, slow and uncomfortable. They are asking commuters to pay up to S$5 per trip to prevent all that.

Oh, if you don’t know, Singapore’s bus service is a profitable business. No, it’s not really owned by the government. But it’s a “private” entity with stocks and shares and shareholders. But it’s sort of a monopoly so you know how that will end up to be. You would think that the Singapore government will be shocked and pissed off with the behaviour of these businesses but they are not. But it is no surprise to us Singaporeans.

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I have been trying for weeks now to get a real cast-iron grill pan but I don’t seem to be able to find it. It looks like using grill pans is not very popular in Singapore. Nope, not that crappy little edged pans but a real cast-iron grill pan. Those types with real ridged grills in them. The reason why I am choosing grill pans is that it is more healthy way to cook stuff. Oil and fats and whatever juice will flow off the ridges to the bottom of the pan and not into the food. And it also leaves a very nice charred mark on the food. I am actually looking for non-stick grill pan which can handle a lot of heat. The first one I bought is now warped after a few grills. That’s Singapore quality for you. Sure, it looks good and modern in the beginning, now it looks lopsided. Note that I maintain the grill pan very well, I don’t pour cold water on the hot pan. I let it cool down and clean with slightly warm soapy water and it still warps. My friend told me it’s because the metal is too thin for high heat grilling. My grill pan is actually aluminum and not cast iron. Heat heat grilling is needed for cookings thick steaks and making nice charred marks on the steaks.

I mainly use the grill pan to cook steaks. Beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fish and vegetables can all be grilled on the grill pan. If you like, you can also grill burgers with the grill pan, but you should always use a cover when grilling burgers. Why? Because burgers tend to get dry easily, and using a cover stops moisture from escaping and keeps the heat in. And yes, those charred marks look great as well. Heck, for your burger, every ingredient can be grilled on the grill pan. Put your buns, tomatoes, onions and patties on the grill pan and let them cook. Oh, you can’t grill lectuce though. It would simply burn away.

And I love grilling. Don’t you just love it when you put your steaks in and the sizzling sound comes in! That’s the sear! And I love the smell of a well-cooked grilled meal. Just think of the rubs, marinades, baste, sauce and the lovely juicy steaks that come out of your grill pan……wow! I am feeling hungry already.

Anyway, I tried many shops and departmental stores in Singapore. I even tried those specialized for cooking and kitchens. But no one sells a real cast-iron grill pan. Yes, they have a lot of grill pans, but most are poorly designed with poor quality finishing which will ultimately warp in no time. Someone tell me where you can find a good grill pan!

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Yup, it looks like it is the raining season again down here in Singapore. It rained the entire day on Monday and Wednesday. And today, which is Thursday, it looks gloomy and it has already started drizzling. It’s going to be yet another wet day I gather. It seemed to me that the rainy season came earlier this year, usually it is from November to December or January but this year, it started in September. Oh well, we just have to make full use of it. And the weather in our region is always so unpredictable. So, the next week we could get hot weather again. But the overall weather pattern should be rainy, I suppose.

One thing great about raining in Singapore, you won’t get the oppressive heat! Although you need umbrellas or raincoats, you won’t be sweating like a pig everytime you leave an air-conditioned place. Singapore is always so hot and stuffy, a little rain would help a lot. It’s just too bad that instead of rain, we get gales. And it’s so strong that umbrellas are useless. You seen rain moving towards you horizontally before? Yes, that’s what we get sometimes. The shelthers we have in Singapore are not enough even block the rain! And we get flash floods in the low lying areas. The worse effected are those shop-houses built a while back which offers no protection against such flash floods.

For me, I think it’s time we celebrate the cooler weather by staying indoors where it is more cozy. Why leave the house and get wet when you can stay at home and chat on the Internet, right? Or you can just surf the web like I do. Almost everyday. You should also think again on the plans to go to the beach at the weekends. I would suggest you to cancel it and try for somewhere indoors. The best thing for Singaporeans is to go shopping in the shopping malls, that’s what Singapore is famous for anyway right? Just don’t forget to bring your umbrellas or raincoats. You won’t want to be caught in the rain, you will bound to get sick.

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Hello guys, I am in my whining mode again. And yes, it’s my Internet access. The problem was my web surfing. FTP, emails and others seemed to be normal. But there surfing speeds I was getting down here was rather pathetic! I believe it had to do with my ISP’s super lousy proxy server. When I browse to a page, it will take like several seconds before it loads. Sometimes it will just time out. It’s so damn frustrating, especially when you urgently need to look for information on the Internet. Maybe I am too spolit with high speed Internet connections!

I phoned my ISP to complain about the slow surfing speed and guess what did they tell me? Well, the tech guy told me that it could be my PC is slow and cannot handle the “fast” speeds. Okay, perhaps, but I had tried with my laptop and it is just as sluggish. The helpdesk guy then told me that it could be because I have 2 PCs connected to the Internet and thus the bandwidth is shared between both of my PCs. But then it still happens when I switch off one. The helpdesk guy then told me that it is most likely I have been using the bandwidth too much and the “Quality Department” had throttled down my speed to maintain performance for the rest of their customers. I then asked him whether they have such a policy and why wasn’t I told about it and whether I should be refunded. The helpdesk guy then went silent. I really hate defensive helpdesk support. They tend to place the blame on the customer rather than check whether their Internet connection is okay. And I am the kind of person who seldom raise my voice and get angry with anyone. Yes, I know that there are some customers do demand a lot of things, but I am certain I am not that kind. I am just asking whether is there any problem with their proxy server. But alas I have no luck with this one. So finally I gave up and hang up (I have been talking to that guy for over 25 minutes trying my best to explain everything!) .

The next time I called, another helpdesk person answered. After explaining the problem to him, he agreed that it is most likely something wrong with their DNS or their proxy server. He promised to look into it and said that he would call back. Lo and behold, in less than 15 minutes, my surfing speed went back to normal. However, I didn’t get all call from the helpdesk. But at least, I got my problem solved. Sometimes, it really depends on your luck. If you get a responsible helpdesk person who gives feedback to their technical staff, then everything can be solved in a pretty short amount of time. If you get those who thinks that every customer is wrong and refuses to even bother to check, then you are in for a long haul with them. A really long haul and a big time waster.

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I had always said that Singapore’s biggest public bus service, SBS has probably the worst bus standard I have ever seen and today, they just topped it again. I took a bus from my home to my workplace and it took like a hour to reach there. I have never seen any bus driving so god damn slow before. The bus driver was driving along the road like 10km/hr or sometimes even less. The roads today was pretty clear but nevertheless the bus driver was probably afraid that driving a little faster will result in road accidents.

Well, what can I say? A lot of the passengers in the bus was just as pissed as I am. I mean we are all rushing to work and this bus driver was cruising along taking his own sweet time. There was one guy who was swearing at the driver when he got off the bus, but the bus driver didn’t even care. I am not surprised that they are a lot of cases involving assaults on bus drivers. Hey, Singapore is a fast paced economy but the bus service seemed to be working in the previous century. But in all seriousness, I don’t think the problem lies with the drivers but mainly with the management. An empty bus makes no money, but a full (and overcrowded) one does. So in order to maximize their profits, the bosses at SBS think that a single bus trip should be packed to the maximum and thus, they are forcing bus drivers to drive slowly so as to pick up more passengers.

The bus services in Singapore are dominated by two companies – SBS and TIBS. Although they are supposed to be competitors, they are actually working hand in hand. Nope, not hand in hand improving our country’s public transport but hand in hand, trying to squeeze as much money from Singaporeans as possible. And recently the just launched a service which provides “premium” transport to the city area. The charges are more than double than normal. But sadly, these services should already have been provided by our public transport. It is not a “premium” service. Just normal regular service. I mean, there are no other public bus service in Singapore anyway. It’s their responsiblity to provide that service in the first place.

Before SBS was privatized, their service was way better. I remembered the time when bus was on time, cheap and reasonably fast. Now, it’s just so expensive, slow, frequently over-crowded and seldom on time. And some of the bus are in rather poor condition. Leaking, air-conditioning spolit, broken hand guards and railings, dirty seats and yucky windows that have never been cleaned. Sitting on a public bus is like sitting next to a rubbish dump. Service has not improved at all. Again, I have to say, I have no problems with people making money, but they have to do it ethically.

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For all you Chinese guys and gals, you know what that means right? Yes, you get to eat tons and tons of mooncakes till you drop dead from exhaustion or get choked with too much lotus paste in your mouth. It is kind of sad to realize that nobody knows what is the Mooncake Festival all about. I guess everyone thinks that the Mooncake Festival is a festival where everyone just eats mooncakes. But that’s not the real story about the Mooncake festival. It’s actually called the Mid-Autumn Festival (some even called it the Lantern Festival because kids go around with lanterns and get burnt by candles). It is the Festival celebrating the end of mid-summer harvest(where in the past, farmers are the prominent livelihood of the people) and is meant to bring together the family (just like the Lunar New Year). And it is usually that time of the year where the moon is the brightest and hence the people look at the brightly lit moon and say “Cool, let’s make a cake that looks like the moon”. Of course, the people back then didn’t know that the moon was spherical so that made it into a disc like pastry. Okay, so now you guys know the truth about it. Does it make eating mooncakes more meaningful? No? Well…..

If you ask me why they use Lotus Paste, I have no idea. Probably it was cheap, widely available in China at that time and it is sweet. You see, life is sometimes as simple as that. Taking something cheap and easily available and then making it (with superb marketing) super expensive and laughing all the way to the bank (or to the metal box hidden under the bed).

Anyway, what I am more interested is to find out which stores/shops sells the best mooncakes. I know that the hotels and big bakeries are selling high end mooncakes like those with flaky skin, yam paste mooncakes (which I like very much), durian mooncakes, snowskin mooncakes, crispy mooncakes (yes, it’s available in Singapore), ice-cream mooncakes (also my favouritet as well), chocolate truffles mooncakes, cheese and raisins mooncakes, cempedak (taste a bit like jackfruit) mooncakes and more. The variety of mooncakes available is just staggering. Sometimes I get so spolit by the choices available that I just buy the original, saving me the headache of choosing.

And some of these mooncakes can be rather expensive, especially if you purchased from the hotels or restaurants. Those by Haagen Dazs, Goodwood Park Hotel and Raffles Hotel can set you back 50-60 for just 4 medium sized pieces. Some of those with egg yokes are even more expensive. I wonder what is so expensive with salted yorks? They are selling those 3 for S$1 at the market!

If you like mooncakes, have you wondered why you can’t find any when it’s not the Mooncake Festival? Why can’t I have mooncakes on normal days, why do I need to wait till it is the Mooncake Festival to eat mooncakes? Come on, tell me why? During the mooncake festival, everyone jacks up the prices till it becomes like some sort of 100 caret diamond gold “bun”. And traditional mooncakes are basically just lotus paste with covered with brown coloured pastry. You can find those in many stores in Singapore. Just that those they are selling are not cakes, more like buns. Those are cheap too. Have you wondered why changing it from bun to cake, the price goes up like 10 times? It doesn’t make sense right? My god, what are these business people doing?

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