Stupid Genius

- Making mistakes is our rights, learning from them is our responsibilty.

- "I have no choice" is another way of saying "I've have chosen the easier option"

- Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration - Thomas A Edison

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Location: Singapore

Email: tym1976@yahoo.com

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Monday, April 30, 2007

Ask, and you shall get it

If you don't know how to play mahjong, you can skip this article.

I was playing mahjong with Samwin Clive, Wanda and Fun. 1 particular round was quite interesting. I shall relate this in Mandarin as it's easier to explain the terms in Mandarin.

我是 Wanda 的下家。 有一局,她丢了一万,而那时我只有意张二万。很巧的,她丢了一万后,我马上就模到一只三万。之后,当她在模牌时,我开玩笑的说:"你刚才丢的一万丢得太早了。你能不能模多一张一万再丢给我?"

她笑着说;"好啊"。然后,她就真的模到一万。因为一万是她不要的牌,而且她大概也不太相信我吧,她就真的把一万给丢出来。那我就吃了那一万。之后,我也胡了那把。:P

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Hit and run

I went out for lunch with a friend just now. As he drives, he come pick me up at my place and we go to Bukit Timah for lunch. He parked at Courts, which is free parking for their shoppers. Anyway, we parked there, and went to the restaurants nearby for lunch. :P

After lunch, we did go inside Courts to take a look at things for a short while before going home. As my friend attempts to get out of the parking lot, I saw that he is driving dangerously to the car in front. I tried to warn him, but he bumps into the car soon after that. And he blame me for not warning him. When I say that I did, he say that I say it too softly. I should have shouted. But well, things is happening too fast for my to react properly... And he say that he asked me if the left side is ok, and I kept quiet. Well, I never heard him. Maybe that's why I kept quiet... Grr.

And the best part? When he knew that he bumps into the other car, he quickly drives away before inspecting his car.

And sometime back, I went with this friend and a group of friends to a resort. I brought whiskey and we drank with the owner. He was nice to provide us with free Coke to go with the whiskey. We didn't finish the Coke. Left 1 can. The next morning, my female friend bring that can of Coke to another owner(the owner who gave us the Coke is drunk and asleep) and asked to exchange for a chilled can. This friend who drives say to me that the girl buay swee. People give free can, and if we cannot finish, we should return. Not nice to bring back and ask for exchange. Talk about double standards. But then, the cost of Coke and cost of repairing a scratched car is very very different...

Note: This friend is my good friend and I am not trying to make fun of/reproach/ridicule him, though I do indeed find this incident amusing, and hence decided to record it down.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Should the salary of Singapore ministers be increased?

Much has been said about the debate on increasing the Singapore ministers' salary. Like this article. I thought I shall throw in my 2 cents worth as well.

There are a few reasons for increasing the ministers' salary. The minister's work is similar to the top CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CXOs, so their pay should be similar to them. Having their pay similar to the top earners out there will attract the top talents into public service as ministers. Having high salary will also prevent corruption. If they are already earning so much, they are less likely to be tempted in taking bribes. They have also not had an increase in pay for a long time.

I am agreeable with having the ministers' pay being competitive with the private sector. After all, we really want the top talent into government. But I am against having them taking salary that is the equal or even more than their private sector counterpart. As what Mr Siew said, being in a member of parliament is a honour. One need to feel a certain sense of ownership and pride in being a member of parliament. Being willing to take a certain amount of sacrifice will show a certain commitment to serving the public. Of course, the amount of sacrifice have to be reasonable. Or else only the incapable or the corrupted will be willing to take up office.

Another issue I have with linking the ministers' pay to the top earners in the private sector is that the top earners in the private sector faces more risks in their jobs. Their pay fluctuates more. A CEO can be sacked in a shorter time than the ministers. When a top earner is not a top earner anymore, being replaced by another top earner, the minister still have their pay tied to the new top earner.

It was also argued that the top earner's salary improves when the when the ministers did a good job in improving the economy. The problem with this argument is that this may result in the scenario where the ministers only strive to improve the income of the top earners, neglecting those in the lower income bracket, driving the difference between the rich and the poor wider. I am no communist. I don't believe in equal pay for all. Only when there is a difference between the rich and the poor will the poor strive to be rich and the rich strive to remain rich. I remember our dear MM Lee once said equal opportunity is more important. However, if the difference become too big, it become more unachievable for the poor to cross the gap. Where is the equal opportunity in that? We don't want the situation where only the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer. The poor man did not vote in the government to only make the rich men richer. I am not saying the current government is like that. But having this policy runs the risks of future government becoming like that.

The ministers had not had a pay increase in a long time. But as far as I remember, I did not follow news very closely so I may be wrong, the ministers had not any pay cut either. In bad economic times, where a lot of Singaporeans were retrenched or had massive pay cuts, the government declared that they'll freeze their pay like it's a very big deal. I wonder how much the top earners are earning at that time.

Even though economy good now, there are still a lot of very poor families. When they just refused to offer $110 to 3000 households that do not have the capacity to work, they want to increase their salary? Talk of bad timing. Read more here

On top of that, we are going to have a increase of 2% for our GST coming up. Did we just pay more tax so that they can have their payrise? They sure did not list that as 1 of the reasons for it. I think they mentioned something about better able to help the poor as 1 of the reasons.

Keeping the ministers' salary competitive is a good idea. However the best of intentions, if executed badly, can leave a very sour taste to other people. I just hope the relevant people reviewed the whole system properly before implementing. Of course, it could also be that my arguments were flawed because I may not have the full picture. I can only make judgment on what I know.

Public Assistance Scheme

Recently, my friend show me this article. It's about Dr Lily Neo trying to increase the assistance given to certain group of poor people in Singapore. I agree that we don't want to be a welfare state. We want able people to try as hard as possible to support themselves and their family. We also want people to support their own family and not rely on the government to do it.

So I was quite glad to hear of this Public Assistance scheme. It has a stringent selection criteria. There are only about 3,000 households are on it. Only Singapore citizens who are unable to work owing to old age, illness or unfavourable family circumstances; AND have no means of subsistence and no family members to depend on, are eligible. This is all reasonable requirements. However, for a single-adult household, only $290 per month is given to them. $100 will go to rental, power supply and S&C, leaving them with only $6 a day to live on. Tell me if that is enough for subsistence living. Many of them are skipping 1 meal to get by.

When Dr Lily Neo asked that more be given to them, she proposed $400 as a more reasonable figure, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said that the current amount is enough. He say that for a household of 3, they already give an amount that exceeds $900. "At that level, you are getting dangerously close to the earnings of a low-wage worker" He said. I don't have the figures to make the calculations, but $900 looks like a reasonable amount to me. Bear in mind that it's for a 3-person household who do not have the capacity to earn money. So what about the $290 given to the single-adult households?

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan also mention a lot of times that the selection criteria has to be stringent so that we can give more. We agree with that. But I thought Dr Lily Neo is asking for more to be given to them and not ask for a relaxation of the selection criteria? The selection criteria is now stringent, but why aren't more given?

After refusing to pay a $110 increase to those poor people, they started arguing for a increase in their salary.

Migration complete

The old entries from the other blog are now all inserted back here. Thank you for your patience.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Migration

For the month of August 2005, I migrated my blog to another server. It turned out that the server died and never came up again. I've out about 30 entries there and I am going to migrate those back in. Those of you who subscribed to my feed, you may receive a lot of entries that seems familiar. Please bear with it. It's only about 30 entries. :P

Senior Management Blog

Monday, April 23, 2007

Il Mare and The Lakehouse

Il Mare
I've just finished watching Il Mare yesterday. And I've watched The Lake House some time back.

The Lake House
For those who don't know, Il Mare, which is "sea" in Italian, is a Korean movie made in year 2000 starring Jun Ji-Hyun as Eun-joo, a cartoon voice actress, and Lee Jung-Jae as Sung-hyun, a construction worker cum Architecture student. The Korean title is actually SIWORAE, which means "時越愛" or "Time Transcending Love". And The Lake House is a year 2006 remake of Il Mare starring Sandra Bullock as Kate Foster, a doctor, and Keanu Reeves as Alex Wyler, an architect. It's about a lady who has recently moved out of a house, leaving a letter in the mailbox for the next tenant to tell him to forward her mails to her new address. Strangely, the letter goes back in time to 2 years before, to the previous tenant instead. Slowly they fell in love with each other.

Personally, I think both movies are great, with Il Mare slightly tipping the scale due to Jun Ji-Hyun. Il Mare focused more on the 2 lead characters with Eun-joo living in year 1999 and Sung-hyun living in year 1997. While The Lake House tried to develop more of the supporting people, with Kate living in year 2006 and Alex living in year 2004. The ending is slightly different. I don't really like both ending.

Spoiler ahead

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Congrats to Mabel and Chee for you ROM

Mabel's ROM
Congrats to Mabel and Chee and may both of you live to a ripe old age happily and with lotsa cute and filial children!

Sentosa Beac Resort
They had the ceremony at a cafe on Sentosa. It was a nice place. There's a hotel to the back of the cafe where they booked a room. The hotel is quite nice as well with a beautiful pool inside.

Seaview
The sea view is ok. The beach looks nice until you look far and see a lot of ships near the horizon.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Heavy stuff (Solved I hope)

I saw this sms on my phone when I wake up this morning.

This is whiner, alice's boyfriend. Got a msg for you. You have come in btw me and alice. Happens many times liao. be it today, the kelong trip n upcoming bangkok trip.
I personally think tat you are not sensitive enough, can accept u n her as friends but nt close friends.
You can call me at XXXXXXXX to clarify, since you like to always go out with her.


Wow. This is so childish. Other than the name change and phone number, the above message is accurate to the last spelling and capitalization. Anyway, since most of you people reading this knows me personally, it's not too hard to guess who the involved personals are.

I was looking for dinner kaki last evening when I saw Alice online and asked her. So we met somewhere in town, a food court for dinner. Towards the end of the dinner, Whiner called and say he's at neighbourhood and want to meet up with her. I don't understand why he do this. If he's so concerned about me meeting her, he should come and join us and not go wait at her place.

This reminds me of another incident some time back. I was having dinner with Alice and midway thru, he called her and say that he's waiting for her inside the mrt station and wants her to go meet him immediately. This is so stupid. What's so difficult about coming out of the mrt, come to join us and wait for her to finish her meal then go on with their plans? Luckily we were finishing.

I replied to him something like if something were to happen btwn me and Alice, it would have happened ages ago. It never happen and nevel will. I am not interested in her as a gf at all and that he has nothing to fear from me. And that the kelong trip he mentioned, we went in a group of 9 and for the Bangkok trip, it's a group of 6. He's welcomed to join us. He only need to buy an air ticket and we have not book the hotels yet and it's easy to add him in.

I don't know what he mean by ok with us being friends and not close friends. Since they had been together, which is more than 1 year, I've only go out with her alone less than 5 times. And they are all short after work dinner. And it's when he's not available for her. Does that count as close friends? Then is it we can only talk to each other via msn??

I don't know. It seems so absurb to receive this kind of message. Am I not being sensitive enough or he's just a low-self-esteem-jerk?

Course of Action
I told her that I think her bf not happy with us meeting. I say that already 2 times that she has to leave early while having dinner with me cos of him. Must be he not happy. She better assure him properly else next time she may have alotta problems. I don't mind she has to leave early, but if he start doing that to other friends how? Sooner or later no more friends.

I've no plan to say about the sms yet cos I don't know if she would be angry and then quarrel with the whiner. Then the whiner would accuse me of trying to break them up. Haha! Actually I am not too worried about what the whiner is going to accuse me of. I don't know him well anyway. I just don't want to my friend to do handle the situation in a calm way. Quarrel is always not a good way to solve problems.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Ah Toot or Zhicong?

I've been following the story of 大头芬 recently. I thought it's quite nice. Peifen wrote well I think. The story progresses very well.

After reading this episode, a lot of fans were concerned if Zhicong is the mystery man. Most people, it seems, prefer Ah Toot to be the mystery man. I prefer Zhicong. This can spice up the story more.

Peifen asked for fans to vote their choice on who should be the mystery man. Too bad she did not set up any poll. We have to cast our votes by posting a comment. Maybe she'll try those polling sites like dPolls next time.

Hi tym and norahs

Just adopted tym. Haha!

Saw him? He's on the left, right at the top.

Saw the adoption center from Peifen, and thought I be bo liao and got 1 larbit. In my favourite red color. :P

You can play with him by clicking clicking on him. You can also feed him a carrot under "more".

Update
Adopted norahs the orr gwee as well. Whenever you visit this page, either 1 of them will be on top to welcome you. However, if you want to see the other, just click on their respective name on top.

Personally, I thought norahs more fun. Her eyes will follow your mouse around her tank. You can also nudge her around her rock, make her get into the water, back up the water and into her shell. Under "more", you can feed her a worm when she's underwater.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

New high score

Flash Element TD high score
I've just gotten a high score for this. It's the 1st time I crossed the 200,000 mark. Still a long way from the overall high score but at least it's withing 100,000 now. :P

My post birthday celebration with Bel, Cindy and Co

Since Bel's birthday is 2 weeks after mine, we decided to celebrate them together on the week in between the 2 birthdays.

I had a soccer session with Thierry and friends in the morning. After that I went to Bel's place to wash up and wait for the rest.

Dinner
We had dinner at a restaurant somewhere in Ang Mo Kio that Bel wanted to eat at. We walked 20 minutes to the place. We made a reservation for 7pm. They gave our table to another group at 5+pm. We reached there at 7:05pm. The other group had not finished. There were other empty tables. They gave those tables to other group that arrived and insists that we have to wait for that group to finish eating. We left and ate at another nearby table. All the walk for nothing. After dinner, nobody felt like the 30 minutes walk back to Bel's place and we split into 3 cabs.

Celebration

Friday, April 13, 2007

My post birthday celebration with Sharon and Thierry

At Pitstop
We first went to Pitstop for some game. It's been sometime since we last go there. It's full house when we arrived, but we managed to get a place. However, midway thru our game, we were asked to leave as another group who had made reservations earlier had arrived. But by the time we were ready to leave, they left. So we carry on. We had our dinner there and played Cartagena 2 times. I lost both games.

At TCC
After that we went to TCC for some desserts.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Kelong again

Hot Boys Kelong

Last year, I went to Hoy Boys Kelong with Jerry and Co for a short stay. This year I thought of going to another 1. Unfortunately, the others are quite expensive, and the only other cheaper option need us to commit 12 person. I've only got 9. So I chosed Hot Boys again in the end.

The trip starts with plenty of cock ups. I am such a lousy organiser. It starts with me setting the wrong date for my alarm. We were supposed to meet at Jurong East MRT at 6:30am. We are supposed to take the van to Kranji MRT to meet up with the rest at 6:45am. Sharon actually sms me at 6am to ask me if I woke up. I didn't hear it of course. When she called me at 6:30am to ask me where am I and the license plate of our transport, that's when I woke up. I quickly wash up and took my stuff and set off.

Knowing I am late, I tried to flag for a cab. But there's no cab in sight. so I sms to Sharon and told her to take the transport to Kranji MRT to meet the rest first. I'll meet them there. Luckily I did that. Sharon was quite angry at my lateness and wanted to go home if I did not show up within 5 minutes.

The 2nd cock up is Floria got the wrong time and thought she's supposed to be at Kranji MRT at 6:30am. She and Raymond reached there at 6am for breakfast.

We were originally supposed to go to the kelong on the 7th and come back on the 8th. But Sharon says that since the 6th is Good Friday, we should go on the 6th and come back on the 7th, so that we can have a rest on Sunday. I asked the rest for their opinion, and when they are alright with it, I changed the date to 6th. Somehow, Daniel didn't get the message and thought we are going on the 7th. Luckily Sharon called him. He quickly cancelled his appointments for the day and rushed to Kranji MRT to meet us.

The 4th cock up is that I forgot my passport!! Luckily my dad is home, and I have to trouble him to bring me my passport.

ferry ride
All these cockups causes us to reach the custom pretty late. And by the time we clear the custom, it's about 10am, we reach the jetty at almost 12pm, and we reach the kelong at 1pm. The above picture is missing Floria and Raymond as they chosed to sit on the bottom level of the ferry while we took the 2nd level.

dinner
It's lunch immediately when we arrive. I realise they had added more beds to the kelong. It causes the kelong to look crowded. It was already not very big to begin with although of the 4 kelongs in the area, they are the 2nd biggest. I also later found out that they had full house for the day at 140+ guests. All 4 kelongs had full house that day.

Resorts
After lunch, we have a short mahjong session. I lost $1. Then it's island hopping. There used to be a nice resort on the island. The above pic is what I took last year. This year, the grass is nowhere as green. The houses were also quite run down.

Beach
The worst is the beach. It's full of litter. It's impossible to play beach soccer this time. At least the sea is still nice. The waves are quite strong and I had a fun time playing with the waves.

Kelong trip
After the island hopping is another mahjong session. I was winning nicely when we broke for dinner. When we resume after dinner, I started losing. In the end, I managed to win $2. KTV started while we were playing mahjong. After mahjong, I wanted to sing, but time's up and another group had the KTV room booked.

fishing
Raymond, Floria and Daniel tried their hand at fishing. Raymond say there's more fishes in this kelong than the last 1 that he went to. He bought small hooks for smaller fishes, and Daniel got bigger hooks.

Andy
1 of the operators of the kelong, Andy, was showing us how to fish. He caught 3 big fishes with Daniel's rod in 10 minutes. Raymond was so impressed that he brought the bigger hooks as well. But he is not able to catch any fishes with it. :P

I had ordered seafood BBQ supper for everyone. Cost me RM$25 per head. This time there's a nice cock up. They ordered food for 29 though we are the only ones to order BBQ for that night. I think the other 20 ordered BBQ for the next night. Anyway, there's so much food. We had some Chivas and Macallan as well. Andy generously provided us with free coke for the night. We actually brought 2 bottles of coke, but we finished it. I wanted to take Macallan on the rocks, but they don't have edible ice. so I had to make do with chilled coke.

The next morning, I woke up early and tried fishing. I couldn't catch any as well. But when I look around, I realise the other experts didn't catch any as well. So I guess, the fishes were smarter at this time so I gave up. Played some mahjong and lost $4. So in total, I lost $3 for the mahjong sessions. After that, Ming offered us the use of the KTV. I managed to sing a couple of songs this time and it's back home.

We took a ferry back to the jetty where we have a jet waiting to bring us back.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Dinner with Crystal and Clarice

Crystal and Clarice

Crystal came back during this long weekend to celebrate her dad's birthday. She managed to find some time to meet up with us. After living in Hong Kong for so long, she wanted to eat Singapore food. We thought Makan Sutra at Esplanade should be a good choice.

I have a company event before that. There's a lucky draw at the end. There's 100 prizes to be won, and slightly more than 300 of us are eligible. My department, 7 of us are available, and 4 of us won a prize. I won nothing. :( And when the draw ends, it was 8pm. I am late, and I win nothing. Grr.

Anyway, it's good to meet up with Crystal and catch up on our lives. After dinner, she treat me to chocolate fondue at Haagen Daz. Yummy.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Like that oso can

StupidGenius: actually go back rt is not bad.

tanyokemeng@yahoo.com.sg: u must be crazy, y??

StupidGenius: for us, employed pp, we get to leave work early
StupidGenius: for us, lazy pp, we r forced to train, which is gd for fitness
StupidGenius: and lastly, u get to network wif the other rt personels.

tanyokemeng: why dun u train yrself like jog at least once a week

StupidGenius: look at this, if u ownself train, u wake up early go jog. or u after work go jog. now u get to leave work early go jog. same.

tanyokemeng: i take it i am doing for own health, tat can be a big motivation

StupidGenius: actually the networking part is quite gd. for u, u can make sales even. tat time, got some1 offer to buy me a pair of saf running shoes cos he nvr use his credits anyway, and i finished mine.

tanyokemeng: u win
tanyokemeng: i am taking my ippt later. sian

StupidGenius: gd luck then.

tanyokemeng: thx man, hope to clear it get it off my mind, quite a hassle for us working people

StupidGenius: for u ya. cos ur pay is directly proportionate to the hours u work.
StupidGenius: for employed pp like me, i dun find it much of a hassle.
StupidGenius: and we are paid $10+ for each session. so 8 sessions is the almost like pass with incentive liao.

tanyokemeng: still siong leh

StupidGenius: no wat. if we dun go for rt, we go for ownself training. siongness is same.

tanyokemeng: oursself train the pace is more self-determined. slowly push ourself bit by bit

StupidGenius: u ownself train, pass, get money.
u no train, fail, forced to train, get money.

tanyokemeng: hahaha

StupidGenius: and best is tat, when forced to train, u take the test and pass. so cleared for tat yr as well.
StupidGenius: so u train 1 time, and clear for 2 yrs.

tanyokemeng: huh? wat 2 years?

StupidGenius: yr 1: no train. fail.
yr 2: rt, pass.

so in in 2 yrs, u train 1 time, but clear for both.

tanyokemeng: wah liew like tat one ah

StupidGenius: provided u pass during the rt.