Quote of the day

From TOC article, comment #17

Kuan Yin is the goddess of Mercy;

Kuan Yew is the god of No-Mercy.

Constructing Obama with CNT

More Obamamania.

How do you celebrate Obama becoming President? By researching on him, I mean by constructing carbon nanotube (CNT) images of him. John Hart, Sameh Tawfick, Michael De Volder, and Will Walker used 150 million CNT to construct each image of our dear Mr President. For those who are not in the field of science & technology, CNT are one of the most 'In' material now. They are another allotrope of carbon other than the diamond and graphite people commonly knows. Discovered fairly recently, they can be used in fields of energy, medicine, electronics, communications etc, anything from making solar cells to constructing a nanowire that will be strong enough to bring you to the moon via an elevator. 

Before all that becomes reality, these people decide to have some fun with CNT at the same time. Looks like we have a new commercial application of CNT: to draw potraits. The only problem is equipping and being trained with a microscope at home. 

The government gives John Thain $1.2 million to renovate his office and $30 PA increase to the needy

Remember that Temasek Holdings acquired a stake in Merril Lynch? The same Merril Lynch that merged with Bank of America and causing lots of trouble to America's biggest bank. You know what Merril Lynch do with the money?

This guy, John 'Super' Thain, is was the CEO of Merril Lynch when our Singapore money was poured into his firm. He has now quit his new job with BOA. The main reason was that he gave out an earlier-than-usual bonus to his Merril cronies employees just three days before the merger took place. Wonderful. His last great heroic act as CEO. This is despite the losses made by Merril Lynch and BOA that caused BOA to ask the government for help. 

So what happened to the money our government gave Merril Lynch? To renovate John Thain's office first of all. Nothing beats having a great office to give good 1st time impressions to all visitors. Look at what he spent on his office. 

He spent $800,000 to hire famed celebrity designer Michael Smith, who is currently redesigning the White House for the Obama family for just $100,000.

• $87,000 for an area rug in Thain's conference room
• $44,000 for another area rug
• $25,000 for a "mahogany pedestal table" 
• $68,000 for a "19th Century Credenza" 
• $15,000 for a sofa
• $28,000 for four pairs of curtains
• $87,000 for a pair of guest chairs
• $18,000 for a "George IV Desk"
• $2,700 for six wall sconces
• $37,000 for six chairs in his private dining room
• $5,000 for a mirror in his private dining room
• $13,000 for a chandelier in the private dining room
• $11,000 for fabric for a "Roman Shade"
• $16,000 for a "custom coffee table"
• $35,000 for a "commode on legs" aka toilet?     
• $24,000 for "Regency Chairs"
• $5,000 for 40 yards of fabric for wall panels
• $1,400 for a parchment waste can aka dustbin?

I guessed Temasek Holdings was 'wowed' by his office when they decide to feed him money for bonuses. Make that a BIG WOW

Looking at all the moneys he spent, you know what? I should have become an interior designer. 

 

This is a commode? Good to eat as you shit, I suppose. 

Happy Year of the Ox!

I wish all readers and chicken lovers a wonderful year of the Ox. May everyone get wealthier and healthier. And enjoy the long weekend as well. No holidays for me this year. *Depression* Mummy Wings always asked whether I will be back for CNY. Always have to tell her no, but she keeps asking, like the answer will change if she asked often enough. Air tickets are still not that cheap even though demand has dropped heavily. Sorry Mum. And Grandma too. Haven't seen her in a while. This year's reunion lunch and dinner will be held together with me, myself and my wings. I hope it will be the first and last time such a loser thing will happen. 

I hope the Ox will usher in a good year for everyone if thats even possible. I gaze at my crystal ball and it tells me that there is nothing to look foward to after CNY. The economy is gonna get slaughtered. If it gets too bad, I will just have to stop reading newspapers and blogs and live in my sanctuary here. Yep, without looking at online news and blogs, I will be pretty clueless what is going on around the world. Can't understand what everyone is talking about here not listen to the radio or watch the TV. Such a cut-off from reality is pretty good seeing how bad things are. 

If there is one good thing that has to come out from this year, I hope it will be believing in honesty and hard work, just like the Ox. The bull is always seen as a hardworking animal, no shortcuts, no play cheats. If everyone lives to their conscience, the world will be a much better place aint it. Saying that, I am not very hardworking and honest myself. So this perfect scenario will most likely occur in my dreams only. So what good thing can come out this year? It has already happened. Bush is gone and Sarah Palin is not one sudden heart attack from becoming President of the States. Luckily its not the year of the Pig or she might have become the president.

Sg Budget 2009: Like that enough meh?

Today I strike at work, put on my headphones and listen to budget while watching Tharman's shining head. At first glance listen, not so bad.. 20.5 billion dollars lei, Tharman call it a Resilience Package. But the cabinet is full of greater mortals worthy of a million dollar annual wage each lei. So why they never come out with a Prosperity Package instead. Even MacDonald also try to give prosperity every year lor.

Granted, the world economy is doing badly and Singapore being heavily trade dependent is very badly hit. But its the cabinet's direction in the first place that led Singapore to being a global city attracting all the MNCs, neglecting to help local SMEs in the process. Now everyone not doing well liao how? Since our PM is the most expensive PM in the world, he surely have some extraordinary measures to help us, help the lesser mortals. If he cannot think of any, still got his lao peh and ah Goh to help him think. People say 三个臭皮匠,顶个诸葛亮. Now we have three immortals here, surely they can come out with policy that can save the country, save the world. So the budget proposed good or not? Is it extraordinary?

In my opinion, they really focus on saving companies in this budget. Thats why its only called Resilience budget, not a prosperity one. Let's take a look at the 2 measures which touch our national reserves first.

Job Credit Scheme
Each employer will get a 12% cash grant of the first $2,500 of employee's salary. Sounds good since the employer can save $300 a month for each worker.

But this only applies to employees with CPF. How about contract workers many of which have no CPF? How about the self-employed, not those very rich types like the guy who opens a Mama shop below your HDB block? Or the commission-based workers, which to my understanding, many are considered self-employed.

If I open my own bbq chicken wings stall, I see no incentive to hire Singaporeans. I think hire 2 ah tiongs to man the stall still cheaper. The job credit scheme only saves about 10% for employers. If employer not steady, they sack people can save 100%. Thats even better.

Special Risk Sharing Incentive (RSI)

This measure allows banks to share risk with the government when giving loans. Right now, liquidity is tight so its much more difficult to borrow money from banks. With this incentive, banks are more willing to finance loans.

I am not very good with my Economics. But this isn't really spending or is it? The government helps to share the loans only. Does that mean the monies will eventually return to the government and with added interest some more? I don't know lei. Someone please enlighten me. Now demand of goods and services low. Hearing that 300 000 people may lose their jobs make me think that Singapore is sinking. And if they are all gone, we will have even lesser demand for goods and services. And then we can increase the unemployment figures to half a million. A very beautiful vicious cycle. So I really hope this RSI can stimulate businesses and keep employment.

So businesses get lots of helps. How about households and individuals? There was very little to offer in terms of boosting domestic spending. Firstly, there are no GST cuts. But luckily GST also never increase. Although I wont mind GST increasing to 8.5% if public transport becomes free. Low income workers have increases to their WIS (Workfare Income Supplement). People who becomes unemployed have more things to choose from SPUR (Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience) or get a job in the civil service which needs more people in healthcare, education and homeland security. People desperately in need of assistance gets an increase of $30 to their Public Assistance (PA) allowance. Not bad, still can buy 2 dozen chicken wings to eat. And how about the supposedly 8% of households that have HDB loan arrears of 3 months or more. Do they get any help? Hardly. Are we going to have our very own Mortage Crisis drama in Singapore?

How about the middle-income folk? People like me? What do we have? For starters, we have another giveout of GST credits coming this March. Ermm.. thats about it. No main course or desserts. Oh, there is still 20% reduction in Personal Income Tax. But more than half the population don't earn enough to pay income tax in the first place. This reduction in income tax will only benefit the rich more since the poor don't get anything out of it. So the very poor people get $30 more a month, the not so poor people gets nothing and the very rich people gets a lot more tax rebate back. What bullshit is this? Is it because our Gini coefficient shrank for the first time in a decade that we need to widen the gap again? And I thought this was a budget that will help low and middle-income Singaporeans to tide over the recession.

Of course there are still many measures in the budget. I won't want to go into them since their impact cannot be felt directly. I think many people (or is it just me?) will feel that somehow they are excluded from each and every scheme the Government introduced in this budget. At a time when many Singaporeans are already struggling during the golden period proclaimed by GodLee, I shudder at the thought of how our people, our citizenry, will handle this worst crisis since the Great Depression. (Some people may argue that this is not as bad as 1982 yet)

With this disappointing budget, our only hope is for our trade partners to revive their economies again. I wonder when was the last time so much expectations lies on the shoulders of one man? The same man that GodLee says is 'a flash in the pan'. If you had heard Obama's inauguration speech, it was electrifying. It was captivating. It made everyone think that he can save America, save the world. It made everyone think that he is Superman. He started with such a clean slate that it made everyone think that the American Dream is still possible. Barack did it, so can I. It made me think that I can pursue the American Dream too. I once had a Singapore Dream. It was a long time ago. That dream was dead and dusted when I see how absolute power has changed the workings of our government. That dream was dead and dusted when GodLee forgot he was once an Obama. That dream was dead and dusted when GodLee forgot that the government exists to serve the people and not the other way round. Now I just dream of eating the best bbq chicken wings in town.

Obama cannot and must not be allowed to fail. He is Superman. He is here to save the world.

The secret is out. The old man is an immortal.

Following the Tan Yong Soon farcical, the government surprised me by actually making a response to it. For those who did not follow the story, Tan Yong Soon is the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Environment & Water Resources. There is a big hoo-hah (I am not sure how big it is outside the socio-political blogs though) over him spending close to S$ 50k for him, his senior investment counsellor wife and his Brown University going son, the three of them, went to France to learn cooking French cuisine. 

Well, there wasn't much I thought of it although it is wierd that a senior civil servant actually posted a personal article on the Straits Times talking about his trip. There are lots of rich people out there in Singapore, and everyone knows that senior civil servants are well paid. They should spend the money as they deem fit. If a civil servant can discharge his duties responsibiliy, I don't care if he or she blows all his/her money on buying Toto or going Batam. Buy all the chicken wings in Singapore for all I care. Do invite me though. 

Whether Tan Yong Soon is a good civil servant is a story for another day. But he was quoted as saying: "Taking five weeks leave from work is not as difficult as one thinks. Most times when you are at the top, you think you are indispensable. But if you are a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible." This guy should learn some humility first. But its not a big deal since its hard to judge a character from what is written on Shitty Times. 

Incur my wrath comes Charles Chong. 

From Today article, 

Agreeing that the rebuke in Parliament was “harsh”, MP Charles Chong noted that in the article, Mr Tan did not “brag” about how expensive the trip was. “Maybe it made lesser mortals envious and they thought maybe he was a little bit boastful,” he said. “Would people have taken offence if his wife (a senior investment counsellor at a bank) had paid for everything?”

There you have it. The truth is out. We are lesser mortals governed by greater mortals and immortals. There are also probably some shinigami out there capturing souls of the not-so-powerful mortals (You must eat more chicken to have a more powerful soul, bbqchickenwings says). Now you know why our government imperial court is so unreceptive and out of touch and seems to be living in their own world, because they ARE. One day in heaven = Ten years in the human world. By the time they do anything of note, months would have passed even if they are very efficient. 

 Charles Chong, the Greater Mortal

 The Immortal aka GodLee

And anyone wonders why the old man is not dead yet? He has managed to do what 秦始皇, the first Emperor of China, has failed. Emperor Qin desperately sought for the immortal elixir in his bid to live happily ever after. He made the Terra Cotta army so that the soldiers who cannot consume this elixir to accompany him forever. Some smart ass then decided to give Emperor Qin mercury pills, masked as the elixirs, to consume. And hence we said bye bye to the Emperor. 

Now in Singapore, having invested lots of money into biomedical research, we have found immortality. This was supposed to be a highly guarded secret (shhhh) as the pills and manufacture methods are still patent pending. But our dear Charles spilled the pills (pun not intended). In fact, there are pills of different grades. Only the super expensive ones can grant you immortality and they are available only for every PM who's surname is Lee. Only two such pills have been succesfully manufactured so far. Fret not, there are other pills though which are easier to manufacture. They cost peanuts and allow you to become a Greater Mortal. Or you can continue overeating chicken wings costing $1 per piece like bbqchickenwings, start thinking that you are a chicken wing and remain as a lesser mortal. 

To read more about the Singapore mortal caste system, see here. Courtesy of Wayang Party Club. I just love their picture of the Eight Immortals.  

Google Chrome seems good but..

As part of my 2009 revolutions, I have started trying out Google Chrome. Having been a Firefox fan, I have resisted the idea of trying a new browser, especially when it is still only in a beta stage. But things do change, just like I suddenly deciding to start blogging again. So after two days of using Chrome, here are my thoughts on this new browser. 

Good things about Chrome

• It's much faster than Mozilla, especially when many tabs are open. This is especially evident on my Vista com with only 1 Gb RAM. I spend less time rotting away waiting for the browser to respond.
• One action too many won't cause the whole application to crash. It is perhaps the best thing about Chrome. One faulty site won't result in the shutdown of the whole program, you just have to close the problematic tab and browse the others as per normal. 
• The website that you are viewing covers almost the whole screen. It makes browsing much more neater and perhaps a bit more enjoyable. 

Bad things about Chrome

• No add-ons. So there is no equivalent of a Reminder-fox or a Download-them-all for me. But it is forgivable and I am sure with their innovative team, this feature will definitely be there in the full version. 
• And the worst thing about Chrome. There is no support for RSS feeds. Urghh. It's funny Google didn't realise its one of the more important things that a browser should have. Thats why I love Firefox, And even more wierd considering that they do display RSS feeds via Google Reader. Until this issue is fixed, Chrome has no chance of being the sole browser that I use. 

Someone please add RSS into Chrome. But not this way.

Word Challenge Agony

bbqchickenwings started playing word challenge upon my sister's invitation. Word Challenge is a fun, competitive and intelligent game according to my sis. One needs to possess excellent vocabulary in order to score high marks.. Actually its bullshit, its more a case of fastest fingers, the faster you type, the easier it will be to score high marks. I had a friendly competition with my sister to challenge who can get a higher score. But then she got busy, neglected the challenge and now I can only challenge with my other peers (you can see the high scores of your fellow friends who play the game). And being a perfectionist, bbqchickenwings needs to challenge the best, the arch-nemesis here being QX who has a score of 103 thousand + i thought. 

After working hard over several days and weeks, bbqchickenwings thought he has done it! He has broken the 100 k barrier. Look at this!

With a score of 160 004, bbqchickenwings is supposed to have beaten QX who only has 103 896. What happened?

QX's score is wrong on the scoreboard. It is not 103896 but 1038961. His score had too many digits and couldnt fit into the all-time high score table. bbqchickenwings became devastated. After trying so hard, he does not even have 20% the score of QX. "Too bad, just go eat some chicken wings, dude" I can almost hear QX purring this to me over and over again. This is why bbqchickenwings can never be a pro gamer. Sucks big time. 

A New Dawn

bbqchickenwings has decided to start writing again. Actually, bbqchickenwings used to write on another blog, but then stopped writing for some reason. bbqchickenwings wondered for a few months what the reason was, and decided that it was probably due to the following.

• His boss, i.e. the man he get money to buy his chicken and grill from has found out and taken an interest to the blog. now bbqchickenwings cannot say bad things about the boss or the work he is doing. In short, bbqchickenwings does not feel like having complete freedom when writing.

• He used to blog without an anonym. bbqchickenwings prefers to hide under a cloak and pokes his head out while lying on the bed to blog instead, and of course, with the fragrance of chicken wings slithering by. bbqchickenwings thinks that he can start blogging irresponsibily too.
  

So what made bbqchickenwings start writing again?

• As bbqchickenwings gets older, he finds that he is losing bits and pieces of his thoughts and memory. This blog will hopefully serve to remind bbqchickenwings of all his ramblings and foolishness of the past, if he is not having a 三分钟热度 attitude to the blog.
  

• bbqchickenwings once learnt from someone not so famous that there are three types of learn style: seeing learners, hearing learners and touch/experience learners. Learning by seeing only stimulates bbqchickenwings' short term memories. He cant remember anything beyond a month. He has been well trained to throw away all information after an exam. bbqchickenwings does not learn well by hearing, that is why he does not know what music is all about and always fall asleep during lectures. Thus the optimal method of learning is by doing it, using kinesthetics to help him learn how to grill the optimal chicken wings. Writing also helps, thats why bbqchickenwings wants to write. 

• This is one of bbqchickenwings' new year resolution. He has started to appreciate the art of writing only recently. Last time especially during secondary sch and JC, bbqchickenwings is always a bordeline case for English and GP. Writing during Economics exams is especially a struggle. bbqchickenwings always seems to write slower than others and can never complete the 4 questions for the essay section. A big waste considering he knows how to answer some of the questions but just do not have the time to finish. Thus even though he is more interested in doing a business course, he chose an engineering one instead as he thinks he can score better. As he starts getting older, he finds writing more interesting than solving equations. By writing typing more and more (typing makes editing so much easier), bbqchickenwings thinks he can improve his writings, become a more learned man and become a celebrity. 

• bbqchickenwings is lonely has too much energy. He is stopping his cardiovascular exercises until the weather permits him to go outdoors in singlets and shorts and get lyophilized in 5 seconds. By channeling some of his chi here, he hopes that he can sleep better and wake up the next day feeling smarter. 

What is bbqchickenwings going to write about?

bbqchickenwings was thinking how often he should write his blog. Then he realised that it is quite silly to set a schedule for it. This is a blog. This is bbqchickenwings' blog. He alone will decide with his council of advisers how frequently he updates his blog. He alone will decide what to write when the mood comes. This is why a blog can be so special and make bbqchickenwings start writing again. It has complete freedom. 

And thus, bbqchickenwings thinks that it is silly that a group of bloggers are forming an association to 'promote, protect as well as educates its members'. Blogging is unique. Anyone can blog about any topic that he or she wants, and anyone can choose to read or not read someone's blog. It should be free from authority (it is registered with MHA), guidelines and rules. Getting everyone to come together under one banner? To each his own. bbqchickenwings prefers remaining in his virtual world thinking about his yummy food. If bbqchickenwings wants to meet bloggers, it will probably be just a chicken wings makan session. No need any association one. But if someone is setting up a Chicken Wings association, hmmm hmmm, maybe bbqchickenwings will sign up as a member after all. But do note the difference, bbqchickenwings will be signing up as a chicken lover and not as a blogger. If only East Coast has some nice chicken wings.