Standard Chartered Marathon 2008

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Event Information

Date: Sunday, 7 December 2008
Start Point: Esplanade Drive, The Esplanade Bridge
End Point: St Andrew’s Road, The Padang
Website: www.singaporemarathon.com
Enquiries: + 65 6248 6033

Race Divisions

Individual Categories
Start Time
Marathon (42.195km)
Half Marathon (21.1km)
10km - Men
10km - Women
Wheelchair Race (10km)
5.30 am
6.30 am
7.30 am
8.15 am
8.45 am



Route Map, click to enlarge

Race Entry Pack Collection

The Race Entry Pack Collection will be held on:

Date: 4, 5 and 6 Dec 2008
Time:

12pm to 8pm (4 – 5 Dec 2008)
10am to 5pm (6 Dec 2008)

Venue: Singapore Expo Convention and
Exhibition Centre, Hall 5

Runners are reminded to bring their Race Confirmation Slip, together with the Identity Card/ Photo ID, to collect the Race Entry Pack. If you have misplaced the Race Confirmation Slip, you can go to the event website at www.singaporemarathon.com/en/regs/reprint.asp to print out your Race Confirmation Slip.

If you are unable to collect your Race Entry Pack, you may appoint your relatives, friends, or representatives in Singapore to collect your Race Entry Pack on your behalf with a Letter of Authorization. Note that your relative, friend or representative in Singapore is required to produce his/her Identity Card/ Photo ID, along with your Letter of Authorization and photocopy of your NRIC/Photo ID upon request from the counter staff.

Each appointed relative, friend or representative can collect up to a maximum of six (6) race entry packs including his own race entry pack if he is a registered runner.

Please note that no changes in t-shirt sizes and race category will be entertained during the Race Entry Pack collection.

The service for runners to update their particulars will end on 29 October 2008. Request thereafter will not be acceded.

Anyone want to collect the race pack together on Thursday/Friday?

 

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Imperial Treasure Restaurant

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Imperial Treasure Restaurant at Taka


Bella


Bella's boyfriend


Left: Fried Rice with Salted Fish and Chicken
Right: Dunno what vege


Left: Seasoned Beans
Right: Ever popular chilli padi in the Yeo's family


Left: Black Pepper Pork
Right: Pork Ribs


Left: Salted Duck Meat
Right: La Mian


This was how I wore throughout the night

 

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SITEX 2008 Price List

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Refer to the URL above for the pricelists of various vendors at IT Show. Note, it will be updated continuously even down to the last dying hours at Sitex. :)

 

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Obama says Wall Street executives should not get bonuses

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WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has chastised US auto executives for being "tone deaf" for flying on corporate jets to Washington to beg for bailout money, and said he believed bank executives should forgo their end-of-year bonuses.

In the advanced excerpt of an interview to be broadcast Wednesday and released by ABC News late Tuesday, the president elect focused on responsibility.

Bank executives forgoing bonuses is "an example of taking responsibility," Obama said.

"If you are already worth tens of millions of dollars, and you are having to lay off workers, the least you can do is say, 'I'm willing to make some sacrifice as well', because I recognize that there are people who are a lot less well off, who are going through some pretty tough times ," Obama told ABC News.

As for the incident in which the heads of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors flew their private jets to Washington last week to ask Congress for bailout money, Obama said: "I thought maybe they're a little tone deaf to what's happening in America right now."

He described it as "a chronic problem, not just for the auto industry ... (but) for the captains of industry generally.

"When people are pulling down hundred million dollar bonuses on Wall Street, and taking enormous risks with other people's money, that indicates a sense that you don't have any perspective on what's happening to ordinary Americans," Obama said.

And when the "auto makers are getting paid far more than their counterparts at Toyota, or at Honda, and yet they're losing money a lot faster than Japanese auto makers are, that tells me that they're not seeing what's going on out there."

Obama said he hoped his presidency will help "usher in ... a return to an ethic of responsibility. That if you're placed in a position of power, then you've got responsibilities to your workers. You've got a responsibility to your community. Your shareholders."

He added: "And that's true ... for members of Congress, that's true for the president, that's true for cabinet members, that's true for parents.

"I want all of us to start thinking a little bit more, not just about what's good for me, but let's start thinking about what's good for our children, what's good for our country. The more we do that, the better off we're going to be," he said.

Source.

Mr Obama might prove to be a really really good and down-to-earth US President we have seen in recent years.

 

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Google Street Map

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This is way too cool! While some countries have law prohibiting the unconsented filming of an individual on property for the purpose of public display, I am not sure if Singapore do have this type of law as well. Any lawyers here?

As told by my friend (forgot who.. shit..i have short-term memory), he spotted a google vehicle on the street of Singapore with a 360 degrees camera mounted on top. Well, if you have spotted one, perhaps one of the things you can do are...

1) Say hi to the camera
2) Cover your face if you do not want your face to be on public domain (while Google mentioned that they have did a face blurring for those affected, some web sites have shown that it has not been implemented with precision.)
3) Snap back at the camera
4) Take a photo with the google crew if you can or even with the google vehicle itself!
5) Come back here and tell me :)

 

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Up to 19% pay cut for top officials; lower year-end bonus

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SINGAPORE: The Civil Service will cut the pay of ministers and senior officials by up to 19 per cent next year in view of the slowdown in the global economy and in Singapore, says the Public Service Division.

In addition, civil servants will receive a total variable payment this year which is one month less than last year.

The year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) will be reduced to 0.5 month, from one month last year. There will be no special Growth Bonus this year, unlike in 2007 when a special Growth Bonus of 0.5 month was paid. Civil servants will still receive the 13th month payment or Annual Wage Supplement of one month.

As such, the total AVC and 13th month payment for civil servants in 2008 is two months plus S$100 to S$300. This is one month less than the total paid out in 2007 - which was three months plus S$220 including the Growth Bonus.

The government has also decided to defer the third phase of pay adjustments for Administrative Officers, political, judicial and statutory appointment holders which were due in January 2009. This group of officers will see a pay drop of up to 19 per cent in 2009 because of salary components which are linked to Singapore's economic growth.

The January 2009 salary adjustment would have been the third of three salary
adjustments, following two earlier rounds in April 2007 and January 2008. In view of the clouded economic outlook and the likelihood that salaries will be lower next year, the government has decided to defer the January 2009 salary adjustment.

Salaries for Administrative Officers, political, judicial and statutory appointment holders will fall in 2009 because a significant percentage of their annual salaries (close to 25 per cent of the annual salary in 2008) comprises variable payments linked to the GDP growth of Singapore. With a weak economy, these components will automatically fall.

This group of civil servants will see a drop of between 11-19 per cent in their annual pay, bringing their salaries below the levels in April 2007.

Specifically, in 2009, there will be a 19 per cent fall in the annual salary of the President to S$3.14m and the Prime Minister to S$3.04m.

The Ministerial Grade (MR4) salary will fall by 18 per cent to $1.57m, and salaries at the entry Superscale grade (SR9) will fall by 12 per cent to S$353,000.

The allowance for Members of Parliament will fall by 16 per cent to S$190,000.

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) says that the half-month year-end civil service bonus is in line with the deepening global crisis and slower economic growth that Singapore is facing.

NTUC Deputy Secretary General Halimah Yacob said the labour movement is still grateful for the payout, which will help civil servants cope with year-end expenses, especially the lower wage groups who are most affected by the higher cost of living.

She added that the feedback from unions has been positive, as they too are poised for tougher times ahead.

Source.

So, thats how much our President and Prime Minister is earning huh?

 

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Jogging with Bella!

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Went for a late night jog with Bella on Friday. She reached my house at 6pm after work and we had dinner shortly after because we have intended to go jogging at around 10pm.


Left: Fried silver fish with onion and garlic
Right: Bella's special rice, with "He Bee Hiam" and some Jap mixtures


Fried Season Bean and Cabbage


Left: Bella's running shoe
Right: Bella's cute socks


Ready for the run

 

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Story from a Singaporean being laid off on Wall Street

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A very wise manager of mine once said to me, “There will always be those who should not have been let go, but were, and those who should be let go, but weren’t.” I didn’t realise then that one day I would have to draw strength from his words.

In 2004, I came to the USA from Singapore for college, and like many others from Asia, I was extremely excited at the prospect of being in the epicentre of global finance. Being female, the only child of doting parents from a traditional middle-class Chinese family, I wanted to prove to my mum and dad that I could stick it out on my own.

I am extremely grateful to my parents for being supportive and for standing up to my extended family for the choice I made to spend a handsome sum to study abroad. My parents believed in my potential and it strengthened my resolve to provide a blissful retirement for them. To save on tuition fees, I crammed in more classes and graduated in three years.

After snagging an internship and then a job offer at a Wall Street investment bank, hopes were high that my career was set and that I had achieved my goal. I would work 15-hour days, was frequently the last to leave, and was usually in the office at weekends: all part of my rite of passage as the only analyst in my team.

However long the hours might have been, the silver lining was always that I was young, starting my career in New York, and was basically being paid to learn among experienced bankers. I was living comfortably and was able to send a good portion of my pay back to my parents.

Unfortunately, when the markets turned sour earlier this year, and US banks went bust or merged, my whole team was basically let go.

News of my layoff was unexpected – I even got lost on my way to human resources to collect my documents. I felt a whirl of problems overwhelming me. Rent? Visa? Parents? My mental maths told me that my savings could last until my lease expired next July, but my visa would only last till January.

In the past, my dad had mentioned retiring next year, but recently he had told me he would like to work for another few years. Maybe he saw this coming. It absolutely wrenched me that there might be the slightest possibility that he had changed his mind because he was concerned about finances, about me.

As much as my American colleagues tried to console me that the whole banking industry is in trouble, I hesitated to share my deeper concerns, due to cultural and socio-economic differences. I wasn’t even sure if I could confide in my Asian peers, many of whom came from much cushier backgrounds.

It has been about two weeks since I began my job search, and I have had two interviews. While I am open to international relocation, I am still focusing my search on the States, for a few reasons: 1) my lease expires in July 2009 and it will be hard to find a replacement tenant; 2) moving back to Singapore would likely be a one-way ticket if I do not pursue an MBA; 3) jobs in the finance industry in Asia are also in decline and banks there have been cutting staff; 4) I am still hopeful to be able to work on a variety of transactions, involving sophisticated investors, which are often harder to come by in Asia. However, in this economic climate, my job search is on a global basis and I will relocate in accordance to need.

However, in the grand scheme of life, my problems are still nothing compared to those of people with children and mortgages. Despite my anguish, there is still a lot to be thankful for. A silver lining, that’s what we could all hope for.

Source.

 

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Recession

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I am always of the opinion that one of the habits that a middle income earner needs to possess in order to rise to the high income earner is frugal. Simply because we all know that earning is harder than saving. In other words, saving is easier than earning (duh). However, not many people know about this simple logic; hence they went all over to earn every cents out of his employer where it would be much simpler to cut down your expenses.

Cutting down on your expenses by preparing your meals at home essentially enable a person to save at least 10 bucks per meal instead of eating out. Note, when we say eating out, most of the time we meant eating at restaurant or cafe, not kopitiam! Don't ever underestimate these few bucks that you saved because legend has it that all the small things in the world will eventually be combined or accumulated to become one big thing a.k.a "Ji Shao Cheng Duo". Of course, one needs to take into account the economics of scale of preparing the meal. You would be better off eating at downstairs kopitiam rather than preparing your own meal at home (one serving I mean).

After taking into account the above, the work of a PhD's thesis, I will occasionally prepare Monday lunch for Bella, my sister and her colleague on a hardworking Sunday afternoon. Of course its not those extravagance meal; rather just some simple pasta or fried rice.


Packet containers


Ingredients, nothing fancy; all got from my backyard

Ham within egg/egg with ham. One of the magical combination of food in Chinese's cookery



Simple yet delicious, delicious yet cheap, cheap yet expensive

I did some calculation, the price of each set is produced at the quantity where marginal revenue equals marginal cost; effectively I am a monopoly and this is the quantity where my profit is maxed. Just some bullshit, pardon me. The cost of each set is roughly the total cost of (4 eggs/3) + (half can of luncheon meat/3) + (2 cups of rice/3) + (one grab of silver fish/3) + (4 otak/3). Do let me know if you managed to calculate it, I will email you 1 complimentary set out of goodwill (I have to amortized it because of this!).

Now, after so much crab crap, what has the topic got to do with the content? Think hard.

It actually has nothing to do with the content written as I thought by putting that topic, I am able to attract more traffic from google's search engine. bauahhaha

 

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Lerky Thai

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Went to Marina Square last Wednesday for family dinner at Lerky Thai. Not very fantastic food for its price. I think we would be better off eating at Lucky Plaza's chicken rice.




Right: Thai's famous pandan leaf chicken


Right: My favorite kang kong


Left: Green curry chicken
Right: Tom Yam Soup


Left: Inside Lerky Thai
Right: Bella's new heel.



Left: Does that looks real? Its actually 2D heh
Right: How come one of the topless 5 is so small? argh


 

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1000mAh External Backup Battery Charger for Apple iPhone

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Just added the below product to my blogshop.

Anyone interested in any product can let me know. Will give special offer to my readers. :)



The rechargeable Apple iPhone 3G Battery Charger for iPhone has the power you need to keep the conversations and music going. Power and charge your iPhone on-the-go, and enjoy an extended playtime of music and talk.

Description:

  • This high quality Apple iPhone Battery allows you to keep your iPod or iPhone running when its low on energy.
  • Indicator light lets you know that your iPod or iPhone are being charged.
  • This Apple iPhone 3G Charger act as an extra battery or power station for Apple iPhone / iPod series.
  • Charge the Apple iPhone Battery with your data cable and the power will be stored in the power station. Then simply plug the power station to your iPhone / iPod for charging at any where you go.
  • Compatible with Apple iPhone 2G, Apple iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iPod Nano 3G.
  • This is a non-OEM generic product.

Specification:

  • Battery type: lithium-ion battery
  • Capacity: 1000mAh
  • Rated input: 5V 800mAh
  • Rated output: 5V 500mAh
  • Dimension: 6.1(L) x 5.2(W) x 1.2(H)cm
  • Weight: 63g

Package Contains:

  • 1 x Apple iPhone 3G Battery
Normal Price: SGD$35
Pre-Opening Price: SGD$32
Special: Free delivery
Diversifying Ruined Special: $25

 

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Mobile morons (The Straits Times, 16 Nov 2008, Page 33)

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Ever since the emergence of mobile phone, its technology has leaped by bound. Many has argued that this phenomenal has brought about a moral hazard by the users of mobile phone. Till now, the issue is still at large and does not looks like it will end any soon by any factor.

How then, will this hazard be gone form our life? Through the education of school/government? Through another technology break-through that will somehow and someway curb it? Your guess is as good as mine. Read more.
Mobile morons
Mark Featherstone
The Straits Times
16 Nov 2008

We have become cellphone slaves, mobile morons and iPhone iDiots. No matter how intelligent, how schooled, how full of common sense we are, we are incapable of judging when it is appropriate to accept a call on our cellphones. The topic of cellphones...read more...

 

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