Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Rice crisis

The news of rice hog the limelight for past 1 or 2 months. We have seen the rice price escalated, especially in Singapore, who import all the rice. Malaysia wise, seems like the impact is not so great.

Different parties have their own side story to offer. Some said the food production has been able to keep up with demand. Some said because of the bio-fuel frenzy. Some claimed that the supply should be enough, it is only kiasuism.

What ever it is, we are glad to see that Thailand is releasing more rice to calm the situation. Malaysia vowed to open more land in Sarawak to improve the rice production and other countries thinking of rising food production. Late is better than never. So, after sometime, when the situation stablised, we shall see a more reasonable price.

However, if you remember the usual inflation story. Once the price gone up, it would never come down again. Expect a little increase and fasten your belt.

Happy labour day

1st May is here again. Wish you a happy labour day. You deserve a rest. Everyone need a rest.

I felt I have been working too hard. But, there is no way I can escape from this, while the project is on going. So, one has to take some time off to rest and chill out.

Monday, 28 April 2008

Test drive on SBS Transit Iris service

Continue from my Bak chor mee adventure. After I finished my mee, I went to the bus stop to wait for 168. The road is wide, cars are many and night was dark. I just suddenly wanted to try the Iris service, which would tell you the next bus arrival time.

I turn on the GPRS and connect to Iris website. Keyed in the bus stop number(found on the bus route plate) and choose submit. It asked me to select the service. Ok, choose the service 168. Voila, it told me next bus arrival time is 5min. Ok fine, let me start counting.

True enough and surprisingly, the bus did arrive after 5 minutes plus. Quite impressive huh... Next time, if you are so frustrated with the late coming bus, you might want to try the service out!

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Back for 85 Bak chor mee

It has been a very long time indeed, since I last had the Blk 85 Feng Shan Centre Bak chor mee. The idea just pop up out of no where, since I am going to office and the place is nearby. Indeed, the bus fare was just 60 cents plus.

I think it would have been at least two years already. But the queue and the taste remain unchanged. Frankly, it is different from your usual Bak chor mee and it tastes better. Because today is weekend, I waited 30min and finished it within 8min time. The mee is Q enough and the bak chor and meatball are just as nice.

I watched the drink stall sell the sugar cane juice. The business is very hot. I think nights like this, they must be making a lot. The guy just keep squeezing the juice and another two deliver the order. It is pure hard work, but at least, it won't be so stressful like working in the office.

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Bullet train plan from KL to Singapore is scrapped

It is an unfortunate news that the bullet train plan from KL to Singapore has been scrapped as the Malaysia government said the cost is too high.

In the original plan, the train would shorten the travel time to just 90 minutes from 5 hours. Just imagine how the train can change live? All the impossible would become possible. Although now the dream is dashed.

I dreamed to take early train to KL, just in time to join friend for breakfast. Have two days of good time in KL and come back to Singapore on Sunday night, in time to sleep early.

But, frankly, those who is familiar with Malaysia style won't find it too surprised. Since we have encountered it numerous time before. Talk is easier than do.

EC house is now $12

EC house is famous for the $10 for 10min hair cut slogan. As the global inflation taking its toll, the slogan has to be changed now. Yeah, it is $12 now! for a hair cut.

But are we going to have $12 for 12min slogan? Most probably not, because the longer time they take, the less money they would earn. Either you switch to some cheaper alternative or you just have to bear with it.

At the same time, they also renovated the shop and change the colour scheme to some orange combination. Maybe that's the strategy to let consumer forget it used to be $10!

Friday, 18 April 2008

The tattoo girl

I saw one tattoo girl in the shopping mall during lunch time. The tattoo is on the right shoulder, under the clothe, but quite visible. Nowadays, I notice quite a number of them having tattoo and show off to the public.

What exactly drives them to have that tattoo? Do they think it is cool or they are trying to express something. I always think it is a sign of rebellion. What do you think?

Sunday, 13 April 2008

A busy weekend with plenty of action

Yesterday and today were rather busy days for me. Especially Sat. These were what I have gone through.

Sat morning

Went to Sim Lim square with a friend to look at laptop, because she intend to get one. The budget is 2000 only, and we were spoilt for choice. Nowadays, with that kind of budget, you can get quite a good bargain already. Imagine a 12 inch notebook selling at only 1800. That's quite unheard of, two years ago. We didn't reach any conclusion, she needs to decide whether to trade off screen size against style. We, people, like to have cheap and fresh. But, usually we cannot get it. We have to take certain compromise.

Sat afternoon

Went to Tiong Bahru market for another food hunt trip. 3 other colleagues flied aeroplane and left only 3 of us to proceed. The Tiong Bahru pau and Shui kueh, needless to say are as good as usual. Only the other two didn't appreciate the Shui kueh taste. That is understood, sometime food forms a part of our memory. When we eat certain food, it bring back the old memory that we had. As a result, we are emotionally attached to the food.

I tried the Lor Mee with shark meat. Well, pretty ok only. I find it with too much pepper. Somehow it is spicy when I bite into the fried shark meat.

Sat evening

Join a group of friends at Pasir Ris, a friend's house, after the downtown east and Aloha. Just realised that it was quite sometime ago since I last went to downtown east, the place changed a lot. The place is quiet and good for living, I said everyday you feel like holidaying in chalet, but not good for people working in Tuas.

Sun afternoon

Went to Bukit Panjang, another friend's house to take a look at his new born baby. Every new born brings joy and happiness into the family and we learn to take on advanced role. It was a pretty fast journey for him. From getting married to a baby, everything is like happen so fast. Surprisingly, many of my friends life have changed, but mine is still pretty much the same.

Monday, 7 April 2008

The rice led inflation

It is getting real now, very real. We have been suffering from the inflation since last year. But, this has been getting a little bit out of hand now.

Here is the sequence if I recall correctly

1. High mid end property speculation. Suddenly the property market is so hot, everybody wants to get a piece of it. Of course the HDB rent also went up. More foreign influx contributed by the red hot economy. But I don't really think my salary increment is so significant or I got so much bonus that this is worthwhile.

2. Oil price and transport cost. This is hardly surprising as we witness the big surge of oil price. The transport cost went up significantly and unknowingly all goods price also quietly goes up.

3. Food prices increased. We have flour, corn, soya, what ever things that you could eat all went up. If you go one round in the hawker centre, you could notice many prices change.

Up to this point, I am already worried. Because I don't think my salary could catch up so fast with all these prices. Then, the KO hit comes, the price of rice also going up!

Actually, it is not difficult to predict the day may come where everything goes up. But, of course, we pray that it never comes. In very simple economics, demand outstrip supply. Where does the extra demand comes from?

1. Extra population and the getting rich Asia generation. They consume more goods.
2. More investment fund or hedge fund are getting into the commodity business. I would think they are the main culprit who push up the price so significantly.

There are two parts to this demand = (1)real demand + (2)speculation.

Where does the supply goes?

1. As the developing country advances, more farm land converted to industrialised land
2. The crazy oil price causing crazy people to turn food crop into bio fuel

I feel we can still walk without oil, but we cannot survive without food.

What do you say? More points to add to this demand + supply equation?

Wednesday, 2 April 2008

First impression of Firefox 3 beta 4

If you have not heard of firefox till now, you probably not reading news. Now the firefox version 3 is in the beta stage, beta 4 in fact. I downloaded a copy to try. Because the main improvement is on the AJAX rendering speed. Since many of the website is on web 2.0 design concept, having an improved javascript engine would definitely help.

So, I install and test run. Once installed, it can recognise your existing profile immediately and there is limited things you need to do. Overall, the user interface still remain pretty much the same. Except they have made some refinement, I cannot say it is improvement, because I don't think it has been improved in a great way. Most of the button and functionality still remain the same. The notable feature now is the smart bookmark which would keep track of your most frequent visited site and the smart address bar that could match any url that you would like to visit. For example, you type yahoo into the address bar. Your yahoo mail address would most likely be shown in the drop down list.

But the big negative of this beta version is the frequent crash. I used it about maybe 10 times, it crashed 3-4 times. There are still more work to be done and I have switched back to the stable version 2. I guess we have to wait for some more time for the final version 3. Eagerly awaiting the new release.

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