It's been a long time ....

It has been a long time since I posted something.  So many things have happened.  I thought I should start writing again.  Let's see how much of this writing I can keep up with.  It will be my usual observations of the activities going on around me, whether in Singapore or in Malaysia or wherever we have traveled to.

The Heat is On!

It has been boiling hot for a few days.

These are some of the creative ways that we have to beat the heat when we sleep:

Bathe with mint shampoo and mint shower gel;
Sleep with 2 fans blowing away;
Slap on 4711 ice Eau de Cologne to keep cool.

We will not succumb to sleeping with air-conditioning!

Uncle SC

I received sad news that Uncle SC passed away today.  I guess I was expecting it because he had been unwell for some time.  Over the years, he had Parkinson's Disease - without the shakes!  Then he slowly lost his ability to speak and he was using some kind of voice box.  Very strange sounds came from his throat to some box he wore around his waist.  It took a while to decipher what he was saying.

Uncle SC will be missed for his love of good food, chocolate ice-cream, great sense of humour, wry observations and great writing skills who taught me how to love a good book to read and to look at life with a sense of humour!

Grumpy Sister

Ever since we moved in October, my sister has been a really grumpy person.  Please don't let your grumpy mood to affect the dogs and cats at home.  It isn't good for their psychology to have a person in the house who scolds them when they greet you when you get home.  How would you feel if you went to greet someone and they showed you a grump face? 

If you are having a bad day at work, too bad! The dogs didn't create the bad day for you, neither did the cats.  Blame it on the other people at work who affect your mood .... don't blame us! 

Pictorial of Sewer Works II

The steam coming out from the other end in our back yard!

They were steaming something in the hole - the other end is in the picture above

Orange caterpillar tube to air dry the sewer that they cleaned

Pictorial of sewage works

They start the day when they come to the house and lay out their tarp sheets and all other protective stuff on the floor.  This is when they come ...

These guys also lay out the cones, disaster area tape and a DANGER SIGN!

Sewage works

We have moved and now we cannot set up our kitchen.  Sigh!

The Public Works Department have decided that they need to change the sewers beneath our new home.  Since last week (when we moved), I've had all these sewage engineers arounds the house coming in to open the man hole and do strange things.  They have dragged hoses in from the drain, dumped the end of the hose into the man hole, put a CCTV camera into the man hole, checked the condition of the man hold and heaven knows what else they are going to do.

I have just had 10 men in my kitchen checking out the man hole - covered it with tarpauline and canvas sheets, moved my boxes (still unpacked) and tell me: Madam, don't worry - there will be gas smell.

I have spent the time holed up in the office room with the internet and air-conditioning on.  The dogs are very happy that I am home and they get to spend time in the air-conditioned room sleeping away.

I have no idea how long more this madness will last, but it had better end soon - I am getting cabin fever from being at home!

Moving House

We moved on 10 October 2009.  It has been a hectic 2 weeks since we signed the lease on the place.  We started packing and throwing stuff out.  The recycling people didn't come to collect what was due to them, so all that stuff ended being chucked out.

Our new home is a single storey intermediate terraced house in Seletar Hills Estate.  It is totally unrenovated other that the improvements put in some um-um years ago by the owners.  There are three bedrooms, a large living room (formerly the driveway), a large dining room (formerly the living/dining room), a large kitchen at the back (formerly the back yard or garden), a bathroom and ONE TOILET (!!) - yes, we are going to manage on ONE TOILET!!

The ceilings in the dining room and centre bedroom are lovely high ones that let in light and circulate the air.  However, the light does really shine in and create a glare in the afternoon - we are thinking of how we can cut the glare without cutting off the ventilation.

The front bedroom has a new air-conditioner so it is going to be our office.  So far, two desks have gone in there together with a bookcase and a sofa - we still have to set up the room.  I managed to hang some curtains in there to cut the glare and provide some privacy from the prying eyes of the kaypoh neighbours.

Sister takes the centre room with the high ceiling because she said that she does not want to sleep with air-conditioning.  The light in there is really dim (hopeless bulb and lampshade) so I am getting a handyman friend to come change the light and the bulb.  The ceiling is so high that we cannot get to the bulb without a tall latter.  I'm not hot about heights, so we will wait for Stanley to come to the rescue.

Our bedroom is at the back with very little natural light because the owners have extended the kitchen by 10 feet into the backyard.  There is a back wall and door that cut off a lot of light and natural ventilation.  There is an aircondioner in there so we've been sleeping with that.  The doggies are happy  - they enjoy the airconditioned cool air and get to jump into bed with us without being shoved off when we complain that they are heating up the bed!!

There are sewage upgrading works going on in the estate, so we can't set up the kitchen till they do that.  In the meantime, our meals are taken in the corner coffee shop till we can figure out what to do. 

We are still muddling around, but I am sure my future postings will have more on the surroundings.  Check in some time!

Saturday

Saturday 26 September was a busy day for us - we were running around till we were really tired.  We started in the morning by decided that we should go for our annual vehicle inspection.  We also had to fill up with our bio diesel as our low fuel indicator had come on.  Then HH decided to he wanted to see a house and we also had a wedding to attend in the evening.

We headed off to do the vehicle inspection and I am pleased to say that Goo passed the whole test with a rating of 29 for the carbon emission test.  Last year, we had 13.5 but that low number was because the Goo had gone for its' regular 10,000 mark servicing and the wonderful people at Renault has cleaned out the engine.  This year, we just merrily drove up and they started the test, stressing our already low fuel by gunning the engine to test the carbon emission - SIGH!

We passed the test with no problems - so whoever out there tells us that Renault vehicles are not road worthy or reliable, please keep your comments to yourself.  Our Goo is agent maintained (engine, servicing and washing/cleaning), serviced on a regular basis (every 10,000km as required) and are owner drivers who take care not to stress the vehicle unnecessarily.  I believe that our Goo will drive in excess of 500,000 km before we have to retire it.

Then we went off to pump our bio diesel before the centre closed.  Those people at the test centre really stressed our fuel by revving the engine till we topped up 50 litres of bio diesel.  Our tank has a capacity of 52 litres so it was cutting it a little fine.

We then headed off to our usual Saturday haunt for laksa yong tau fu - if you ever visit us in Singapore, we will take you there to eat.  It's a lovely corner coffee shop that has not changed in the last 30 years or so.  There are those old fashioned stone tables - now topped to stainless steel covers - with beer umbrellas providing shelter from the heat.  Alas the stone chairs or stools are all gone - most probably from use.  We have been eating there for the past 10 years and it hasn't changed - except for a couple of replacement beer umbrellas.

HH then said we had an appointment to look at a house in Seletar Hills, so we headed off in that area to look at this intermediate single storey terraced house.  We signed the lease and that is another posting for another day. 

We then headed off to Toa Payoh to visit the cobbler - to collect my stuff and to repair a couple of pairs of shoes.  It was a long wait at Toa Payoh - I re-heeled and re-soled 2 pairs of shoes,  and collected 1 handbag sent for cleaning, 1 pair of shoes sent for cleaning, 1 handbag sent for dyeing and another pair of white shoes dyed to navy blue - I spent $250 of all that but I was really happy with the money spent.

We went home to rest for all of 30 minutes before we had to start getting dressed to attend a wedding.  We were  truly tired after that hectic day of running around in the blistering heat.  We got home from the wedding around midnight totally exhausted!

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Bread Machine

 

Sometime ago, we bought a bread making machine from Carrefour under their own label called BLUESKY.  We had previously bought a 4 place setting tabletop dishwasher that worked wonderfully so we thought nothing of buying a bread making machine from them.

Today is a public holiday.  We were home in the afternoon when I decided that I should take that bread maker out of the cupboard and make ourselves some fresh bread from a package by Prima Flour - focaccia to be precise. 

Took out the machine and went - oh no!  I had lost the instruction book.  So I started to hunt down some instructions from the internet on how to start without a book.  I had to find out the maximum capacity for the bread pan.  After measuring water and it showed a 12 cup volume, I proceeded to add the proportion of water and olive oil and the bread mix and yeast to the pan.  I was so excited - in 3 hours we would have some fresh bread to munch on!!

The only thing that would have triggered this blackout would have been a new piece of equipment - the bread maker.  HH the resident engineer switched off the darned thing, started the mains and then I started the bread maker - PLOOP!  INSTANT DARKNESS AND STILLNESS IN THE APARTMENT FROM NO POWER!! We switched to another power point - same reaction.  We sighed, looked at each other and decided to head down to Carrefour to get our exchange or refund or whatever.

 

We drove to Carrefour at Suntec City and went to the Information Counter and queued.  When I got to the head of the line, I told the lady there my story of woe - how I was making bread and it just died on me.  I even showed them my bread maker with the focaccia mix in the pan, still warm from proofing and waiting to be baked.  The ladies behind the counter were truly amazed.  They then started looking for the bar code (because there weren't anymore in stock) and the price to arrange for a refund in vouchers.  I had forgotten how much I had paid for the bread maker and when I had bought it and whether I paid by credit card or by cash.  I didn't have the receipt for the item either!!

Anyway whilst they were hunting around for the information, HH and I went to Hans (the Hainanese cafe) to eat our dinner - that is worthy of another blog! - for dinner .

We went back to the counter after dinner and the customer service lady said that they would give me back vouchers equivalent to the price of the machine ($99.90) and could I let her have 10 cents so that she could give me $100 vouchers as a refund. HH and I took the vouchers and proceeded upstairs to look for a replacement bread maker.  There weren't any in stock so we bought an induction cooker for $39.90 from Home (another Carrefour brand) - the regular price being $99.90.  So we now get a test induction cooker at a reasonable price before we make the switch away from gas and hopefully cleaner cooking.

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What's so good about buying from Carrefour???  Well, they have a one-to-one exchange for faulty appliances within one year of purchase with no questions asked. That's what I call good service with no hassle!
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That Washing Machine

Our new washing machine is a real wonder - it washes 8kg so we do less laundry per week so we use less electricity and water.  It also has a timer where we can set it to start at a certain time.  HH was trying to figure out to start it in the afternoon to harness the "heated" water from the sun, then the water heater in the machine does not have to work so hard.  Hmm ...

We haven't tried the dryer function yet because it spins at 1400 rpm so most of the stuff comes our nearly dry.  I think it can go straight to the ironing board, but I am too lazy to do any ironing these days.

OK, it was money well spent even though we went broke just to buy it!

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New Washing Machine

 

This is our new washing machine that is also a dryer.  Two weekends ago, the old washing machine just died on us - we think the motor finally burned out after 7 years.  HH and I contemplated repairing the motor, but figured it was just too much trouble and decided to buy a new one.  Our old machine was a narrow top load Elba machine that had a front load movement and washed only 5 kg of laundry with a max spin speed of 600 rpm.  This new thing is from LG, washes 8 kg and dries 4 kg and has a maximum spin speed of 1400 rpm, so our laundry comes out drier but needs to be hung out to dry.  Sometimes, we also need a dryer, so we decided to get a 2in1 machine.

We could not make up our minds on what we wanted - we spotted an advertisement by Courts for a Sanyo machine that was within our budget that was tilted so we thought we could fit that into the downstairs bathroom that was the designated laundry area.  We could not fit anything in there other than the old Elba or similar type of machine with a footprint of 40cmx60cm. 

I like the front load type of movement or ferris wheel machines as I think they wash cleaner than those top load machines.  We were limiting our choices when we went hunting.  We could look at Bosch, Panasonic,  Whirlpool, Brant, LG and Samsung in front loaders.  The awful part was that their space requirement was 60x60cm. 

The new machines on the market are totally amazing - there's air wash, silver nano wash, ion wash and we were scratching our heads on what to buy.   After walking around Best Denki and Harvey Norman, we settled on this LG that seemed relatively simple compared to those high flying machines - just wash and dry!

Poor HH had to re-arrange the whole kitchen just to fit this new machine in our home.  The cooker was moved, the free standing shelf was moved, the cupboards moved - the only thing that stayed in place was the kitchen sink!!  I couldn't too much to help him because I wasn't feeling well and spent most of Sunday in bed whilst he set himself to rr-arranging the kitchen.

The machine was delivered yesterday and since then, we have been catching up with our laundry.  The good thing is that we can wash more - the bad thing?  We are running out of space to hang the enlarged load :p

Kacang Botol Salad

I had this hankering to eat kacang botol - I saw it in the supermarket but didn't do anything about it and dreamed of it for 2 nights before I headed out to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients.  I made my nyonya kacang botol salad of lime juice, bunga kantan, shallots, serai, chili shrimp floss, sambal blacan, sugar and kacang botol, merrily tossed around into a yummy salad.

Evidence of my greed is shown to all!  *burp*

Hungry Ghost Month

Today marks the first day of the Hungry Ghost Month where the ghouls roam the earth when they are set free from hell to create trouble - that's what I was told by some old wives years ago.

So fast forward to today and this posting - it is the start of one month of burning hell for me. The people who observe the rituals of the Hungry Ghost Month will be burning all sorts of stuff for the ghouls - usually paper money as far as I know - and also leaving food around. The area around our home will be littered with ash from the burnt offerings, there will be joss sticks stuck along the pavements, and the grass would have been damaged by these inconsiderate people.

Years ago, before the recessions started - we would find these giant joss sticks in the industrial estate waiting to be burnt. What a waste of money!

I don't have a problem with the burning if the people did it sensibly - burn in the bins provided; have fire fighting equipment should there be a disaster; place joss sticks in central zone or in one area instead of a long line scattered all over; and generally clean up after themselves.

These people leave a mess for the cleaners to deal with in the morning - just because they pay conservancy charges does not mean that they have to be inconsiderate!

Many years ago, I could see about 20 small fired within my line of sight around our estate. I called the fire brigade because it seemed like a fire hazard. The fire brigade came and DID NOTHING!!

So to those who must do something for hungry ghosts, please be considerate to those around you. Thank you!

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Rude People at the Supermarket

This evening, I went to NTUC to pick up some groceries. When I had finished, I headed off to the cashier to pay for my stuff. There was this guy in front of me and some stuff on the conveyor. The guy said that those 4 items didn't belong to him so I proceeded to put my stuff on the conveyor.
Suddenly this woman rushes up to me and says that she was ahead of me in the line and those items belonged to her. She wanted to cut my queue.
I think these people are just so bloody idiotic - just think that they can leave their stuff around, then say that they were in line.
I think the cashier was also idiotic - she asked if I minded. Of course I mind and I told her her, but she proceeded to check out that woman's stuff.
What an ass!

Green efforts

We are still on the bio diesel track - we found this place somewhere along Yio Chu Kang Road that opens till 8 pm every day so we are not so stuck for fuel by having to get out during regular office hours. To make things better, the price of the bio diesel is only 87 cents compared to $1 for the other pumps. However, it has been closed the past couple of times we went there - then on the website it says that it will re-open in September. We will be back there when it reopens because of the convenient hours.
So far, we have not experienced any "bad" things with the recycled cooking oil. We don't really feel any loss of power when we drive. No shuddering or strange noises - just smooth driving all along.
We seem to be achieving our optimum consumption of 600km per full tank of fuel - something we had achieved sometime back.
Of course the best consumption we had was 850km for a full tank of diesel when we drove at a consistent speed on the North-South Highway from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and back. That was years ago we haven't had such good consumption since 2004.
We will know if there is any damage to our engine when we go for our 250,000km service. We had agreed that we will try bio diesel for 10,000 km.
So far, so good and I think we will continue.

Goo speedometer problems

We had some problems with our Goo speedometer - it stopped working!
We were not able to know our speed, so even if we were speeding the needle stayed down. Of course with the needle down, we could not check our mileage either. Not being able to check all these "indicators" meant that we would be off schedule with our Goo servicing. I am very pleased to let you know that the Goo is the oldest agent maintained vehicle still going back to Renault for servicing. They handle everything for me.
So I drove back to the workshop and they changed the speedometer part and we were back on track to check out our mileage and consumption.
Thanks very much to Renault's wonderful vehicle workshop for doing a great job of keeping our Goo in working condition.

Sheares Ng

This guy is to be written off because he is too cowardly to respond to me. However, he is very diplomatic and has no guts to offend his ex-boss so he will do what he can to get onto Boss' good side despite what he has done to me.
My email is up and running.
I certainly won't be recommending him to anyone for any web hosting services of any sort.
There is only one thing to be said - the Heavens have eyes to see.
All will be revealed in time to come!

Being Pissed!

This blog is for me to rant and rave in cyberspace about things that piss me - so here I go ...

For some time I've had my web hosting and email hosting with a company named D'fine Solutions Pte Ltd, run by a guy named Sheares Ng Wee Leng. Sheares used to work for a friend and I was told that he's OK to support for business so I merrily moved it over without nary a thought.

I did have some problems with the service sometimes - could not receive emails and sometimes got flooded by spam, but it wasn't anything that was unmanageable or unacceptable. Yeah, I received porn too, but a murmer to Sheares about the awful porn was resolved. Honestly, I am not hot about receiving emails about improving my performance in bed, how to satisfy my woman and be a hunk or invites to chat on porn lines or how to buy prescription drugs online. Not exactly my cup of tea!

Then last year in 2008, Sheares spent a lot of time in Taiwan and the service standards went to the longkang - literally down the drain. HH spoke with Sheares about it and the excuse was always the Microsoft Outlook problem. We were having problems receiving emails - not problems sending them, so what Microsoft Outlook problem? Then it would be a case of nothing in and nothing out. Not garbage in and garbage out (GIGO) that I learnt in computer programing classes years ago!

But we have other email address with other hosts and those were not a problem so ... the problem had to be with the service.

In June 2009, HH and I took a decision that we should take our web and email hosting out to another service provider because the cost was cheaper. In these difficult times, we have to watch our pennies. We would get about the same service for about half (!) the price - YES NEARLY HALF PRICE. Not much to consider right? The price is right, the service is OK so we should switch.

HH gave Sheares notice of our intention to switch verbally. OK, that could have been a mistake but we all sit in the same office space and work together on some projects, so what's so difficult. Then about 3 weeks ago, absolute silence from Sheares. He didn't come to the office, no response to emails, sms or skype messages - ABSOLUTE SILENCE!!!

We asked for the password for the domain transfer and again SILENCE! Absolutely frustrating. We even asked Sheares to renew the domain, but he never responded. It's not as if we aren't going to pay him. He never raised an invoice for anything until suddenly in June 2009, he threw out 2 invoices. One for last year's service and another for this year's or the renewal. I paid the invoice for last year (2008) that was raised in 2009. When he asked about the renewal, I said that HH had spoken to him about it and that we were moving it out.

Wah - such rudeness and a sulky face. Then Sheares went MISSING IN ACTION. No response to any form of decent communication. This morning I tried to call Sheares - he kept switching me off till I was so pissed that I posted a nasty message on his Facebook wall. After I sent him a Skype mesage, he said that he does not do domain renewals. What sort of half baked service does he provide - you can check out his website http://www.dfine-solutions.com/ and it does show that he does do renewals!!

He got slammed again on his bad service and I threatened him with legal action for damages for lost emails. Then finally at around 4 pm today, he sent an email to HH, presumably from his Technical Support that domain renewals can be done from his website.

Some time back, Sheares told HH that if our clients do not take up his web services after we have done the software development and web design for them, he will not be supporting them. So in the first year, we can place the service with Sheares - but when he messes up then the client gets really angry and moves their service out? Sheares will not handle the work and their websites will all crash!! This is bad service!!

Hey, if this is how he treats customers - how could he ask me to bundle my corporate secretarial services with his hosting services?? I would end up fielding questions from my irate clients when they cannot receive their emails or their websites are down.

Sigh, I am tired of this nonsense. I will now take my business to unknown entities where I can shout at them for service lapses. This is how I can yell at Singtel for crappy telephone service standards and tell them that their CEO does not deserve her S$7million salary. :p

Please do not go to a company called D'Fine Solutions for your web or email hosting - you will be stone walled by the person who cannot grow a business because he will remain a one man show.

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More recycling efforts

I still have this recycle bug in me! Last week, on 4th July (Happy Independance Day USA!), we started pumping BIODIESEL into our Goo. I had been reading articles about biodiesel but often wondered where to find the stuff in Singapore. Finally we struck "green" gold, so to speak. There was an article on biodiesel and where to find the stuff.

We were 1/4 tank down on in our fuel and did the slow transfer over - like we do for dog food for our doggies. We topped up with 21 litres of biodiesel and merrily went on our way feeling really smug with ourselves.

That night, V and I went to the supermarket to get our groceries. On the way back, I kept on insisting that I smelt food in the Goo. I was asking - what food did you buy? Do we have food in the back? NO COOKED FOOD IN THE BACK OF THE GOO!!!

Whilst I was reading up on biodiesel, the source of the stuff etc, I did read that biodiesel was made from recycled cooking oil. Ah - that was the source of my cooked food smell at the back of the Goo - fried chicken, french fries, yew char kuay, vadai and whatever else that is fried food!! Maybe we are getting biodiesel from cooking oil from Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonalds and all the shops that deep fry stuff so I am getting strange aromas all around me.

So far, we have not experienced any loss of performance or any strange sounds of any sort in our Goo. We cannot tell you any the mileage or consumption so far because we had a problem with the speedometer in the Goo. Sigh! So much for my green efforts so far, but we are going to keep going at it!

Looks like we are set to continue with biodiesel since it seems to be cheaper than the regular stuff and it is a green option.

For more information of biodiesel and how to convert, go to http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/faqs/ and you can see that we are trying to go GREEN!

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