Goodbye

The inevitable is going to happen tomorrow... I've got a $100 voucher from M1 against my next cellphone which expires very soon, so I'll have to give up my trusty phone of 2+ years in favor of a N73.... unlike my previous 2 Nokia phones, this one has been a darling... no pain, no fuss and no wonky alarm clock which refuses to ring on occasion...

Will be really sad to see her go...

Win already...

Was at drinks last night with the boss and teammates, and one of them mentioned that in Japan, some girls still "warm" their guys' watches in the morning by wearing it themselves first, so that the guy will not feel the cold of the metal.. champion!

And there I thought the "height of luxury" was having a bed mate who would allow you to press ure cold soles against his / her calves...

Annual Camping Trip

3 weeks to go before reservist! I had a look at the training program a few weeks ago, and couldn't resist a giggle... the training programs are really looking more and more like school camps than army training... counted only 1 or 2 nights out in the field, and only 4 days of "real" training out of the 11 days in all...

Which makes it really easy to pack for the "army" part of things... basically what you see here, plus 3 sets of uniform, 2 sets of PT-attire to walk around in, 4 pairs of socks, 1 pair of running shoes and 1 pair of boots!

Gonna have to find things to do to kill all that extra time.. heh... maybe I should start mugging for the GMAT, since the textbooks should arrive by next week... and I resolve to spend as little as possible whilst in camp, and direct all that extra money towards a holiday at the end of the year instead...

Just realised that my helmet, netting, dogtags, field mess-cup (never drank out of it before though), webbing (a.k.a. bra) and full-pack have been with me since the first say of NS... 18 January 1995... on the other hand, I've been through countless L-torches, mosquito repellent sprays and coils, range cards, packs of talcum powder and arc-of-fire sticks...

My buddy better be going for the reservist training as well... I've been carrying the damned signal set alone for the past 2 reservists, whilst he's variously been "killed in action" and ill... slacker...

Michael J Fox

I was just watching Boston Legal, where Micheal J. Fox made guest appearances in 3 or 4 episodes.... it's amazing how some people like him remain so boyish and charming even when they are 45 years old!

I don't know about you, but I was a big fan of his - all the Back to the Futures, Spin City, Family Ties... man!

Die bastards die!

Remember Thursday was moving day? I left my notebook bag at my cubicle, and when I was back, I quickly packed to leave the office.. Just realised an hour ago that my iPod's missing! There have never been cases of stuff being stolen from the office, so it's almost certainly the %$^ing movers!

Move

Today is the last day at the current office... We're not working tomorrow whilst the movers shift all our stuff to the new office, and we start at the new place (nearer Tanjong Pagar) on Monday.. I'll soon lose the corner window cubicle, and the relative privacy from not having to sit with most of my team-mates, but I guess I'm at a stage where I can just go "aw shucks" at most of the not-worth-sweating-it things...

Silly thing is that I had a huge kopi-o peng at lunch today, and when I got home at 2+pm after finishing packing, I just couldn't take that nap I was so looking forward to... dang...

Planning to meet VP for a nice lazy brunch / lunch tomorrow... yay!

Anyways, see here for a nice touching post....

Update

Now I know why some people can't access my blog from work... cos it's got the word "whore" in it... so no choice... blog's now re-branded to "The Bore with More" until I can think of a better word that rhymes with "more"...

See if you can access the blog now!

Booble Earth

Apparently someone caught a topless sunbather on Google Earth... For all you know, it's a he.. haha...

Question of the Day

Why is it that men forget to zip their fly, but women don't?

The only conceivable anatomical explanation is that we don't (necessarily) have to unbutton when we pee, but even that doesn't explain why / how we forget...

Snail mail

Either I was always mistaken as to costs of posting things overseas, or the prices of posting things have gone up dramatically!

There is this one book, called How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is not as devious as it sounds, and which is the only book I've bought more than 3 copies of. The first one I bought, I kept for myself, but can't find anywhere at home. The second one went to JL, the third to YJ, and I got another copy some weeks ago for LW, who is the friend I stayed with when I went to Sydney a couple of months ago.

LW is a sec sch classmate (which makes him 30 this year), but hasn't stepped into the working world cos he's pursuing a PhD... this makes him feel a little inadequate w.r.t. dealing with people, though he has no reason to be! The one think I've told everyone about this book is that it's nothing radical, but surfaces the things you very subconsciously know or have seen before... You know, I say the most wonderful things about my boss, and I tell everyone that as I read the book, I was going "yah... that's what K does!"

But again I digress... Anyways, so I got the book for LW, and even had to go and google the postcode for the part of Sydney he stays in (2031).... I went to the post office after work today, and was shocked to hear that it would cost S$5.50 to send a fairly thin paperback to Australia!

Now that's just crazy! I remember during my time YT and I sent a freaking heavy metal bookstand (you know the slanting kind to let you rest a book again so that it's easier to read off) to CS all in way in Dalhousie University in ulu Nova Scotia for all of S$12....

Of course, during my time a roti prata kosong was 40 cents too...

Red and yellow, black and green...

Decisions Decisions

First, the good news:

Got 8 lots of this IPO share called Plastoform this week.. IPO price was 23 cents, and it started trading on the day I started my Excel training, so I didn't have much time to watch it.. dumped it within an hour at 31 cents, i.e. $610 net profits! w00t!

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The not-so-good news:

2 pretty good-looking IPOs, Sino Techfibre and China Bearing, are both closing their applications this coming Wednesday, but I don't have enough money to whack big big on both at the same time... surely they could have used some initiative and check with each other before launching and close the applications on the same day?

All they need to do is for 1 party to shift it forward 1 day, the other to shift it back 1 day, and ta-dah, 2 days in between for the commoners like me to have greater chances at both applications... and in the process, they would have increased their subscription ratios and look better!

Vista

Have been on advanced Microsoft Excel training the past 2 days... some of the stuff is over my head! As in, I can understand as the trainer is teaching it, but forgot within 2 hours... now I know how my parents feel when my brother or I try to teach them how to use sms, an internet browser, etc. ooops... heh...

The other funny thing was I stepped into the wrong classroom yesterday morning... distinctly thought I saw that mine was classroom 9, and when I walked it, there was a really bored looking caucasian guy sitting at the trainer's desk, and a bunch of people I've never met... I turn on the computer, and whoa, it's loaded with Windows Vista! So I messed around with it for about 10 minutes, until I start wondering how come my colleagues aren't here yet (mostly finance people, so they are hardly late!)... walked out to check, and realise I was in the wrong room..

But now I have officially used Windows Vista! Nothing terribly radical leh...

Hee hee

Stolen from another blogger whom, if I recall correctly, prefers not to be linked... Somehow I really like this pic... had me in a fit of giggles!

van Godge

Got a call from someone from ABN AMRO today... was going to refrain from mentioning the bank, but the joke would be totally lost without it...

Anyways, he called to offer me free membership in van Godge Priority / Preferred (?) banking... as you can imagine, I burst out laughing both at the idea of (i) this poor guy being given this assignment and totally not knowing who van Gogh was and thus was puzzled how the bloody hell to pronounce the word, and (ii) of all people, why me, the relative churchmouse compared to my fat-cat lawyer brethren for something which requires a 200k investment / deposit...

Back to regular programing

After a few days back in the office, I couldn't stand the sight of the photo of the boss on my desk anymore :D

Changed it back to this, which as I said has been on the desk of every job I've ever had... well, that's like, err.. 3 jobs.. pretty chicks!

Xiang Sheng

During my HK trip last week, I had to make a day trip together with my salesperson to Taipei for a negotiation session. It was funny enough listening to me trying to negotiate and explain with the counterparty in mandarin, but today's session was even funnier...

My colleague and I had to come with new language to cover off the portions where we are making counter-proposals, or have agreed to the counterparty's comments; our efforts at thinking of the right words to use must have been so bad that my boss, who works out of the HK office, and who could overhear everything my colleague and I were "discussing" over the speakphone, said later on that he was a little concerned at the prospect of us monkeys botching the amendments... :D

Power

Was pestering my KL colleague to buy for me the teabags of the Klang Bak Kut Teh that she kept raving about.. finally got them a few weeks ago, but I've still not had the chance to try them yet!

But it looks power right?! The bags are made of real cloth... and the chinese characters, as a friend would say, look Fierce! Too bad the 31/12/07 (which presumably is the date of expiry) take away part of the fierceness... heh...

The Things that make one happy

Left the office slightly late-ish today... As I was walking, I saw a familiar face on the opposite side of the road, and she saw me too... we were waving like silly idiots for 5 seconds, and then tried to make gestures to each other, but obviously didn't understand what each other were trying to "say"...

Finally, we gave up, waved again, and went our own separate ways, not knowing what the other person said, but I know I was quite a lot happier, cos I was whilstling Jewel's 2 Become 1 to myself on the way to the train station...

The Best Boss in the World

Well... in my eyes at least...

I've talked about how great my boss is quite a few times... it's one of those things I've really learnt not to take for granted... I can complain about my pay and some other aspects about my job, but truth be said, I think working for him rather than the average Asia boss justifies by itself a discount in my pay... heh...

It helps that I do think he likes me most, and we've worked together the most compared to the rest of my team, but it's not disputed that just about everyone in the company who's met him adores him...

Anyways, he was due to be down in Singapore for a management meeting whilst I was in Seoul for training, and so he said he was going to use my desk temporarily... We were definitely not going to pass on the opportunity to totally play a prank on him! In a stroke of genius, WG and I decided to find a photo of him, so that I could replace the 4-year old photo of me, PR, JL, YT and YB back in The Firm (it's the photo I've had on my desk every single job I've been in) with one of him... see below!

To spice it up, I penned the following at the bottom border....

It was meant to be funny more than anything else, but I was told that he was really touched... awww... Helllooo stock options! :D

Tight cashflow

For the first time in many years, I've got only SGD1100+ in my bank account, after applying for the Chemoil IPO... dunno if I've got any biggish credit card bills due to be deducted over the next few days.. might have to call Citibank Ready Credit!

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On a happier note, when I met with my favourite guy blogger, Mr. Little Cart Noodles, last Wednesday when I was in Hong Kong, we were swapping our stock hits, misses, and most of all, the "damn I should have bought it but had no cajones" stories... within a matter of 3 trading days, at least a few of our discussions came into play again! STE for him, FJ Benjamin for me (12% gain in 3 trading days! But I had no balls) and I believe Raffles Holdings will open at 75 or 75.5 cents at 11am this morning (risk-free 11% gain over 5 months)

In case anyone looks at IPOs here, Chemoil IPO closes today at 12pm. And there is a China water(?) treatment IPO which closes on Wed at 12pm as well...