Jakesa's Blog From Singapore

NEW

jakesa — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Our group has started a new medical chain.

We started with 2 clinics, namely at Ang Mo Kio and Novena. Both just commenced operation within this last week.

Novena branch.

AMK branch.

RANDOM BABBLINGS

jakesa — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:13:00 +0000

Picture of 陈建彬 ‘s recent advert on Straits Times. He was reported on the front page of local newspapers a while ago about his divorce with his wife and having a new girlfriend who was very much younger than him. And he was accused of “Old Cow Eats Young Grass”. He had to hold a press conference to explain himself and everything sounded so solemn. Now this 老牛吃嫩草 has become his ‘trade mark’ and makes money for him…. Ironical.

Wonder whether the same will happen to Jack Neo in the not too far future?

Picture from Learning Lab notice board. Summary of best results from their students and cut-off points from the more popular schools. Seems like many of the top Singapore students are already attending LL…

Came across this bread shop around Hong Lim Complex. There was quite a lot of people buying from the shop. Selling very simple freshly-baked bread. So decided to give it a try.

Rather good. The bread was very soft and nice since it was freshly baked. The raisins were juicy and sweet. And the filling tasted like that of the very famous pork-floss bun from Bread Talk when it was first launched.

Saw this feature in the Straits Times a few weeks ago. And I also saw a documentary on a Korean programme. It is about robotic surgery – which will really get more and more common in future. It is a natural extension to minimally-invasive surgery like laporoscopic surgery.

Looking at the picture above alone, you’d not guessed that it was a surgeon operating on a patient. It is almost exactly like playing on the PS3 or Xbox. I think the younger doctors will be very conversant with this and the older doctors will definitely be facing a lot of problems having to learn a new skill and mastering a new ‘gaming’ technique.

ASUS UL30A

jakesa — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:27:00 +0000

Collected the free gift from StarHub a while ago. Quite satisfied with it so far. Very thin and light. The CULV (Consumer Ultra Light Voltage) processor performed to expectations so far. No real complaints from me. Decently fast and uses up less power compared to full-fledged notebooks. It is supposedly much better than the Intel Atom processors used on most Netbooks but does not do well in the consumer market because of its high and therefore not-worth-it cost.

The shiny surface attracts lots and lots of finger-prints!!! Including the mouse touch-pad that is incorporated onto the wrist rest area. One major disappointment about the set is that the feedback from the mouse touch-pad is not sensitive enough. It makes finger touch movements sometimes unpredictable.

The notebook from both side-views. Very thin.

BIRTH

jakesa — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:18:00 +0000

The swordtail above is FAT… with a big tummy. It is heavily pregnant.. no wonders.

The swordtails in our mini-pond have been successfully reproducing and replacing with new generations themselves. And they feed mainly on algae… since the owner (right, me!) is lazy to feed them.

This time, I fished out one of them which looked like delivery was imminent. Swordtails and guppies are apparently the only types of fished that give birth to their young alive (from the boys’ Science lessons). I placed this mother fish in a small aquarium to see the babies.

As expected, the next day the dozens of baby fished were born! I estimated there were about 24 of them, with about 4-5 of them already dead.

The mother fish… right after delivering the 2 dozens of babies… looking perfectly slim and slender again. You’d not have guessed that it has just given birth.

Sam and Ken were quite excited about this.

Mothers with babies.

BALL OF FIRE

jakesa — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Sam has taken an interest in football and sports. Now he is challenging me in PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) on PS3. He has a real football, 2 rubber balls and a basketball at home. He supports ManU and the cocky Christiano Ronaldo.

Bought a softtoy ball from IKEA for him… maybe to replace his ‘Teddy’.

We have this beautiful ‘planets’ light in our master bedroom. And yes… so you noticed. 1 of the ‘planets’ is left with only the bulb. Sam was kicking around in the bedroom (with me…) and he ballooned his shot and the ‘planet’ dropped down from universe… And the mother was on fire! Blasted Sam and me of course.

jakesa — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:58:00 +0000

Last Sunday, Ken and Sam tagged along when Jack went for his swimming lesson at Orientus Resort pool.

Both Ken and Sam have obtained the Silver medal for Survival Swimming. And they are taking a break from lessons for the moment.

“Go, Jack, go!

Jack training hard with the ‘army-sergeant’ coach. Finally showing some good discipline.

“Survival training” – on the life-saving float…

"DESSERTS"

jakesa — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 07:01:00 +0000

I am usually a ‘homely’ person, very unadventurous with food and new places. Once I get used to a new place, I’ll usually keep frequenting it. Boring, right?

This is one of the few occasions that I suggested to wife that we try a new place to eat. Saw the recommendation on TV food show 好吃王。The place is called 糖水, translated to desserts in Cantonese. It is located at 54 Zion Road.

The opening hours are rather unusual – 12noon to 6am. When we were there at 11.55am, we were the first customers. And until we finished, there was only another 2 very noisy son/mother customers.

Wife said, “I know you take all these pictures and you’re going to blog about it right? Then people may think that you are so nice… bring me out to eat at different different places…which is not true at all…”8)

Ice tea served in jug container.

Fruits-on-toast that we tried – a bit unusual.

Kim chi noodles that I ate – a bit too sour.

Fried noodles that wife ate – a bit too salty.

The dessert ‘Black Sesame paste’ – a bit ‘burnt-smell’ and a bit too sweet.

BEST FRIEND

jakesa — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:41:00 +0000

Best friend Thai Lian and Wee Yang came over our place last Monday for dinner. Every year on 22nd March Thai Lian will remember my birthday and had a gift for me. We were in the same class every year since Sec 1 way back in 1980. We sat next to each other on the 1st day of school. The rest is history…

This year he bought me a leather belt gift set and a kangaroo-skin wallet. Embarrassingly, the leather belt was too short for my bulging waistline. Had to call him to take back and try to exchange….

Family photo shot.

COE

jakesa — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 03:13:00 +0000

Was at BMW agent last week enquiring about the BMW X1. The car will be launched in July this year. Booking was however open now at the price of $138,800 and early birds enjoyed a $5000 discount. A $10,000 booking deposit fully refundable (if any change of mind later) was required out-front. The car was not available for viewing and I was contemplating bringing wife back later this week to choose the colour and confirm the booking (since her birthday was 26th March).

This week the COE results for this month shot up. And with the expected ‘cut’ in COE quota predicted in the later part of the year, the COE price is not expected to drop anytime soon.

Called up the agent to check… now the X1 price has increased to $152,800. Looks like the Mazda 5 will be staying with us for many many more months to come… What unlucky timing and poor judgement from me!

News from LTA below >>>

COE Open Bidding

MARCH 2010 2nd Open Bidding Exercise has ended on 24/03/2010 16:00 hrs

Results for MARCH 2010 2nd Open Bidding Exercise

Category		Quota	QP($)	PQP($)
A)	CAR (1600CC & BELOW) & TAXI	1,146	28,389	21,421
B)	CAR (ABOVE 1600CC)	711	36,089	25,190
C)	GOODS VEHICLE & BUS	168	32,890	23,979
D)	MOTORCYCLE	371	1,200	993
E)	OPEN	584	42,001

QP: Quota Premium
PQP: Prevailing Quota Premium

Category		Received	Successful	Unsuccessful	Unused
A)	CAR (1600CC & BELOW) & TAXI	2,183	1,137	1,046	9
B)	CAR (ABOVE 1600CC)	1,207	699	508	12
C)	GOODS VEHICLE & BUS	341	141	200	27
D)	MOTORCYCLE	495	368	127	3
E)	OPEN	1,507	554	953	30

MEET THE TEACHER

jakesa — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:07:00 +0000

Today was Rosyth School’s meet-the-teacher session for P4′s Sam. Usually it was the mother who would meet the teacher, but this time Sam insisted that it had to be me. Eventually we found out that the students had to prepare a sort of thank-you ‘certificate’ for their parents and Sam had prepared one for his father, ME! So it was to be a surprise for me. Unfortunately, after meeting the teacher we couldn’t find the specially laminated ‘certificate’. It could be misplaced or wrongly taken back by other parents.

Otherwise, nothing surprising about the meeting. “Sam is very smart… blah blah… but tends to be careless. And personal responsibility could be improved… He should be GEP calibre, surprised and disappointed that he didn’t get in… blah blah…. He is among the top few students in our class and should have no problem getting into RI…”

Brought along camera to take a pic of the ‘cert’ and since couldn’t find it, I took photos around Rosyth School instead.