Happy Birthday to me..

Oh shit, I'm 21! Seriously. And ya counting down 9 months to ORD. Cannot tahan already!!

Life is so fragile..

I have this close neighbour who been married for 9 years. They been with us since we moved to our new flat. Both were young and wanted to have a child badly. He was a regular in Navy, while she was an office lady. They were happily married but without children, so finally some time back in Dec 2005, they adopted a baby girl.

Both young parent were happy ever since the entrance of their new daughter in their lives. I could felt their love for her. Since she was born till her first steps, they kept a huge collection of albums of her and even pasted them on their living room. She's quite adorable. As much as they would love to look after her at home. Work doesn't. Her dad had to travel overseas while her mum was busy working. So they left the daughter under my mum's care. It's been almost 1 1/2 years since I saw her grown up. Such a lively and adorable kid whose favourite shows are Barney & Friends and Spongebob.

We taught her some malay words and she caught up fast. Everything was going fine until one day, when I came back home from camp. Her mum had a heart to heart talk with my mum. She broke down. All she wanted to have is a complete family and a happy life, hoping to provide happiness for her daughter. But tragic news came about, she had brain tumor. All these while she works so hard, climbing the corporate ladder, trying for a child and now this happens. I felt lost after hearing this news from my mum.

Isn't life fragile? You never know what going to happen next. I pray hard for her to get well, hopefully able to see her daughter grown up well and get through this.

Earning Report #1

I have been in this online advertising for almost 3 years. Be it in online advertising, affiliate marketing or in the autosurf industry. There were times when I had lost few hundred bucks in autosurf.

It was way back in 2003-2004. Big names like Studiotraffic and 12dailypro promised you a higher returns in few days compared to those in the bank. You gained some, you lose some. Risk is always there. I was lucky that I could get out of this ponzi scam early, so I managed to focus on other source of income.

Since that incident, started few sites with the addition of google adsense but earning wasn’t that great. I took 8 long months to withdraw a pathetic SGD$200 check. Soon, with a lot of reading up, I managed to achieve a $5-$10 per day with only 1 site! It’s better to have a quality site rather than quantity. I’m not boasting these earnings below but it took me longer than I expected.

Rather than focusing onto 1 income, I started to diversify with different ad network and everything started to come in place. The next time you start adsense with $0.01 per day, don’t give up. Build up your traffic network and interesting articles to get it started.

Skilled Barista? Probably not..

I’ve been working in Coffeebean and Tea Leaf for 2 years and it’s has been an amazing working experience during my poly days. Sadly I have to leave a bunch of fun people to serve the country. Looking back it has been almost 1 year since I left that job. And 1 more year to ORD!

A friend once asked me “Why am I still working there when the pay is so little ($4 per hr). Well, I told him these:-
1) I enjoy working with the great bunch of people and it doesn’t feel like working.

2) I get to try all the food and beverages in Coffeebean which of course not many of you could do that (it’s kinda expensive)

3) Many drama shootings / live radio show were held there and you get to see alot of artistes droppying by for a cup of coffee.

4) Pretty girls and lots of pretty girls (especially ang-mohs.. haha)

5) The regular customers are pretty nice. One of them who always came on Sunday for salmon scramble with cuppa tea, S-league CEO, Mr Winston Lee.

and lastly managed to represent the outlet for Barista Olympic 2005. But due to internship and lack of practices, I didn’t managed to get through the 2nd round. But hey, I could make a really good cappucino! Just didn’t managed to learn some latte art. Anyone could teach me for free? Haha.

Here some pictures from the competition.. those old days..

No money.. No honey..

With the effect of 1st July, the GST known better as “Gahmen Service Tax” is going to take a toll to those lower income. Plus NETs is increasing the charges to between 0.55% and 1.8% And the best part of it is, some shops are going to pass the charges to their consumers.

NETS is reported to be increasing its transaction fee of between 0.30 to 0.55 per cent to up to 1.8 per cent from July 2007 to September 2007, an increase of three to four-fold.

CASE is concerned about the impact of such a move as NETS has a leading share of low-cost cashless transactions. A sharp rise in NETS fee can also go against the government’s drive towards a cashless society, as small retailers which have no other debit facilities may prefer to accept cash from consumers rather than NETS after its fee increase.

But since CASE already stated that they are not supposed to pass the charges to the consumers, they could probably increase the price of their goods as an alternative. So cheers for increase in GST and price. Right.



Personally for me, I’m a NETs kind of person. I don’t carry cash around whenever I do my payments, be it at ESSO, AXS machine, bills and so on. So the next time it really takes effect, every payday, I’m gonna withdraw my money and start using cash. *rants*

Apek.. catch up with that bus. Quick!

Gotten my 2B, then 2A now I’m taking Class 3 finally at Bukit Batok Driving Centre. Talking about BBDC, I still remember the incident which happen 3 years back where I almost lost my wallet in a bus.

I was on my way to BBDC via 187, sitting in the middle of the bendy bus (the black railing, if you know what I mean) as the bus was crowded. Upon reaching BBDC, I quickly rush out of the door (I even forgot to scan!) as I was very excited to enrol myself for Class 2B. But that excitement lasted for a while. I checked my back pocket to look for my wallet and realized that I’ve have dropped it on that bus!

In a panicky state, I release the athlete in me and ran as fast as Asafa Powell but the bus was too fast too furious for me to catch up. I realised that the next stop was gonna be in Chua Chu Kang. I tried to hail for a taxi but there’s nowhere to be found. No taxis gonna stop and being a smartass, I dialled ‘999′! What on earth am I thinking?!

“Hello, police.. I lost my wallet in the bus 187 on the way to bbdc”

“Hi, you can report your missing wallet in your nearest neighbourhood police post.”

“Oh.. ok thanks” *hung ups*

I was like WTF! C’mon, who doesn’t know that? Luckily there was this kind “apek” driving a comfort taxi willingly to stop and take in a passenger.

“Uncle! follow that bus quick! I lost my wallet in there.”

“Ok ok.. which bus?”

“That yellow bus.. faster leh..”

That “apek” tried to his best to catch that bus but ended up catching up with the WRONG bus! He was supposed to catch up with the bus 187 and instead he followed 188. You couldn’t blame me, I couldn’t think properly that very day. We ended up circling Chua Chu Kang and making a U-turn, heading to Bukit Panjang. I was in deep shit.

“Apek” sped and managed to drive into BKE in no time. Then I told the “apek” this..

“Apek.. if cannot catch up how? I no money pay you leh”

“Ah?! *shocks* Nevermind, we go chase the bus first”

After searching few buses on the BKE, I finally spotted the 187 bendy bus.

“Apek.. kin go Marsiling MRT, I think the bus will stop there.”

We stopped at Marsiling MRT waiting for that bus to arrive. It finally stopped. Nobody is alighting that bus and I had to knock the door to attract the bus driver attention. He opened the door and told him about my situation. He held the bus for 5 mins while I quick searched for my missing wallet. Everybody was looking at me and I was already “paiseh”

I found the wallet at the back of the railing and without looking back, I thanked the driver and get back into the taxi and went back to BBDC. “Apek” was happy with his $14 after giving me a $2 discount and I got my precious wallet. All that adventure just to find that damn wallet. Worth it or not? You tell me.