Today

The Little Princes

Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Boat Trip

A friend of mine called me last week, and apparently he has just recently become one of the 5 co-owners of a 30 foot sport cruiser (think its a Sea Ray Sundancer 290). So yesterday, we went out for a boat trip which we have not done in ages.

The boat was parked at ONE° 15 Marina Club next to Sentosa Cove. When we arrived at about 2pm, it was drizzling and the sky was quite gloomy. Nonetheless, we set off for a quick tour to St John's and Sisters Islands.

After that, we anchored at a small cove in Lazarus Island for our mini beach BBQ. The weather was much better after we went on shore. The rain stopped, no hot sun, very cooling, nice.

We packed up and left Lazarus at about 6pm back to the marina. Dinner was at Keppel Club. All in all, a tiring and enjoyable day!

Photos are available HERE.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Smuggled Cigarettes in Woodlands

The situation of peddling of illegal smuggled cigarettes along Woodlands Road is going from bad to worse. Just last week, we observed that there was almost 20 people (most of them illegal immigrants) selling cartons of cigarettes along the road. The were just standing there waving down traffic with outstretched arms holding cartons of illegal smuggled cigarettes!

The unfortunate thing is, this has been going on for many months now and I don't see the authorities cracking down. Yes, they have made some arrests but these illegals bounce back, stronger every time. I think the reason is that there are still customers who are willing to take a risk by buying from them. Stem the demand and the supply should stop I say. Put some discreet CCTVs in those areas and fine those people who buy from them.

Here are some tips for the Authorities should they be reading this. The following is a map which shows the where these illegals set up "shop":

Woodlands Illegal Cigarette Problem

Saturday, June 02, 2007

DSL Speed Test

SingNet seems to be pretty generous with bandwidth as they sent me a mailer saying that they have upgraded my surfing speed from 1.5Mbps (mine is a 1.5Mbps plan) to 3Mbps for FREE after 31 May 2007. So to verify, I've conducted a speed test and here are the results.

This is tested with a Singapore server of course but the results seem to be pretty reasonable:



Download speeds from anywhere else in the world is still sucky, all less than 1Mbps.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Half-Naked Man and Scary Maid

It's been about 2 weeks since our new neighbours moved in to the unit on our right which has been empty for some time. This is the third family in that unit. They are a family with 2 kids and a maid.

The yard of this unit is direcly facing ours so we can see each other in the yard. They can also see us when we are in our kitchen if they are in their yard.

Other than the maid incident in my previous entry, there are some other observations that is somewhat freaking us out.

1. The father is ALWAYS semi naked (i.e. topless) in the house.
2. The maid is kinda freaky, many times she will "suddenly" appear in their yard and seem to be staring at us.
3. The father, mother and maid seems to spend a lot of time in the yard area, compared to the previous 2 families which were there before. Whenever we are in the kitchen, someone is sure to be there on the other side.

To safeguard our privacy, we went to IKEA Megastore today to buy some new blinds. I got some new silver venetian blinds to replace the roman blinds in the study room, and some cheap "anti-social" :-) wicker blinds for the yard.

The study room looks much better now. It's got kind of a corporate look at night when the blinds are open to reveal the full height windows with the HDB/Condo "skyscrapers" outside.

As for the yard, the cheapo $5 wicker blinds totally CMI. They are basically almost see through type. What we have decided to do is to go to the DIY store tomorrow to buy some frosted window film to stick on the window glass in the yard. Think that would work better without being too conspicuous about preserving our privacy.

Free wicker blinds, any takers?