Rui En's Second Album

I am excited to hear that Rui En, the Singapore actress is going to be releasing her second album soon. Her first album was Rui En Vol 1 and it was released back in 2002. I had enjoyed watching her act in the local mediacorp's drama recently too. It ended just recently.

According to reports, the songs in her new album are solely her works, her thoughts that she had penned down. An English educated background she certainly shows a lot of challenge and zest in writing Mandarin songs. I can't wait for the release, which will be soon.

Lavrenti Lopes

Watch out for Lavrenti Lopes, a young good looking actor who hails from Mumbai, India but is now looks set to be a heart-throb in the states. He is currently based in New York after graduating from the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute in New York. With many ads under his belt (Zip Car, Axe Deodorants and Microsoft), you will next see him in SubHysteria, a new Hollywood film that will be released in April 2009. Read about him in this Official Site.

Hollywood certainly has a good mix of cosmopolitan actors from Asia. Having someone from India is going to be a dream come true.

Woodlands Checkpoint sees more traffic

Woodlands checkpoint was designed to handle 35.2 million vehicles a year. And with the integrated resorts and events, such as the APEC 2009 and 2010 Youth Olympics, the volume of traffic looks like it is increasing even more. Last year alone, 38.7 million vehicles passed through the Woodlands checkpoint.

To allow a smoother drive and ease congestion, ICA has decided to add more counters and secondary check lanes to allow faster clearance during peak periods. The old checkpoint will be used to clear departing cargo vehicles. New clearance facilities for motocyclists will also be added. All these will come in phases. Motorchycle lanes will have 70 checkpoints from 50. Extra staff and security will also be needed for these additional counters.

Work in Home Team of Singapore

If you are keen to work with the Home Team, then there are about 1,000 jobs awaiting. These jobs are available in the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), Police, Civil Defence, the Prisons Service and the Central Narcotics Bureau.

The largest number of vacancies are available int he Police Force, followed by ICA. There will be a coordinated Home Team recruitment event organized by the ministry next month. Keep a look out for it.

Help the Children

We remind ourselves about the spirit of Christmas and about giving and sharing. With the high cost of living, we also learn to be prudent and save for a rainy day. However, this Christmas, perhaps we should take a look at the deplorable living conditions in a landfill in Payatas, in Phillippines. For more than 35 years, the plight of those in poverty struggle to survive by climbing on the high hills of garbage, hoping to find some material to sell for a living. What is even more heartbreaking is that some of them are children as young as four years old.

The children depends on your donation to survive. Let's all work together to make their life a little warmer this Christmas. Here is a press release about Christmas For Payatas, a charity drive organized by ToteDaddy.com and Lighthouse Center for Children Foundation.

Press Release:

The landfill in Payatas, The Philippines, is notoriously known the world over as Smokey Mountain. For over 35 years, the smoking dump site has grown to become a stark and heart-tugging reminder of the desperate onditions of humanity.

On a daily basis, children pick through newly arrived garbage to collect material to sell. The earnings made by one child are not enough to even buy food for the day. Hence, entire families are forced to climb the mountain each day, hoping to earn enough to feed everyone. Children as young as four years old are forced to work in this daily struggle for survival.

In response to the plight of these children, Totedaddy.com is working with Lighthouse Center For Children Foundation to bring a little cheer to the children this Christmas.

Totedaddy.com has kicked off with a cash sponsorship of USD 10,000 to enable the children to celebrate Christmas. FusionExcel International has also pitched in a USD 5,000 in cash sponsorship. The money raised will help fund the projects already in place, and help fund additional projects aimed at providing better housing, and a means of livelihood for the Payatas community.

It is hoped that by creating better awareness to the plight of these children, more support can be garnered towards their betterment. Together we can bury poverty!

PSLE Singapore 2008 results

The result for PSLE is out after months of anguish! PSLE is known as the Primary School Leaving Examination that every Primary 6 students will sit for at the end of the primary school. Their result will determine where they go for the Secondary school.

So this year the top Primary school that produced most of the top student is Nanyang Primary School. Wow, that school has been among top school listing for many years. This PSLE, they manage to produce 4 top students in the country's 15 top student, including the highest scorer.
I'm sure the parents and family members of Wee Yen Jean is very proud for her achievement!

Congratulations Wee Yen Jean!

According to news reports, Yen Jean also beat all primary six students in this year’s PSLE with a top score of 287 points.

2009 Year of the Ox Almanac Coins

If you are a coin collector, don't forget to place orders for the 2009 Year of the Ox Almanac Coins set that will be issued on January 3. However orders will have to be placed by December 23 to get your coin collection.

It is part of the series that has been designed by Xu Yunfei, who is a designer from the the Shanghai Mint. There is also a contest for the biggest Ox family. Do you have one to show? That means in your family, do you have any members or MANY members who are born in the year of the OX? If you have, hurry up and register for this contest. You might win the contest!

NOL will cut 1,000 Jobs

Another shocking news that will set off more grim outlook for Singapore's employment sector. I have just read the news online that Neptune Orient Lines is next on the list to be axing employees to stay afloat in this gloomy economy turmoil. NOL is the the world's seventh largest container carrier. About 9% of the workforce will be shed as it battles to weather the economy slowdown that is spread globally.

Even with the decision, analysts thinks that it will still be difficult to keep NOL in the black and is expected to lose $100 million in 2009 and $115 million in 2010. So far this year, NOL shares have fallen 74.4 percent.

Singapore's unemployment sector doesn't look too good.

Part Time Work is Competitive in Singapore, Now.

Singaporeans looking for part time jobs will soon find it more competitive during this holidays because of the bleak global economy. The reason is because many of them are not made up of students having their school holidays but also made up of those adults in the 40s and 50s who may be getting part time jobs to cover additional expenses, 30s who may have just retrenched and while waiting for jobs opt for part time jobs as well as those who are fresh grads.

In general, business owners are also hiring less workers as their business have seen a drop lately, due to the recent weak economy. So for those who are applying for part time jobs, they have to be contented with lower paying jobs or be in competition with workers with more experience.

Asia Youth Games 2009

Prior to hosting the Youth Olympic Games in 2010, Singapore will play host to the inaugural Asian Youth Games in 2009. The logo for the event had also been launched. Asia's Youth, Our Future is the slogan for this. There will be 9 sports in this events for athletes between 14 to 17 years of age. It will be staged from June 29 - July 7. About 1,000 young athletes will be taking part in this event.

It will be a good time for Singapore to promote it's tourism industry as there will be thousands of visitors from the region and global. Hopefully it will boost up the Singapore's economy and create some new jobs as well.

Singapore is in it's technical recession in the last quarter. The recent axing of about 900 jobs from the local bank also create worries among the people.

White Tigers in Singapore Mauled Worker

First time in history, Singapore Zoo's white tigers mauled at a Zoo contract worker in the enclosure. The contract worker, who works in the chimpanzee area had apparently jumped into the moat after behaving strangely before the incident. Once in the moat, he had also been shouting at the tigers and using the broom to intimidate the tigers. 2 of the tigers than pounced on him, and dragging him into a passageway as the crowd shouted and throw things to distract the tiger from attacking it's victim. The worker put a bucket on his head and curled up in a foetal position and was bitten behind the head.

Zoo onlookers who were there when the incident happened had first hand experience and some had pictures taken. Zoo keepers had also tried to distract the tigers but apparently their method was futile.

Singapore's Casino Delayed?

I've just read that Las Vegas Sands Corp needs to raise new capital now. The billionaire, Sheldon Adelson who runs the international casino empire just got his companies shares plummeted. If he doesn't raise some capital, some of his development projects may have to be suspended. I wondered if that will affect the development of Singapore's Marina Bay Sands Casino. If it is being suspended, hopefully it will not be taking too long as it will be an eyesore with all the constructions in around that area.

DBS, one of the many banks that were formed for the funding of this development project however had reported that there were no signs of any default on the loans so far and had not shown any indication of suspension of project.

Man in Women's Clothes Tries to Rob UOB

Arousing suspicion should be the last thing when attempting a robbery in a bank. With securities, cameras and careful bank tellers around, a robber made a mistake by donning on gear meant for a women. With this feminine dressing, it had been a cause of alarm and suspicious for the security when this man walked into a bank in Singapore. He gave a teller a slip of paper and subsequently faced the security guard and gave him a warning not to be heroic.

Within seconds, the security guard pinned the suspiscous man down with the help of other bank employees. So the robber's attempts were foiled from the moment he stepped into this bank. Perhaps his suspiscious attitude too alerted the security and employees.

Lehman Bros and Singapore Investors

Investors who bought Minibonds linked to Lehman Bros are seeing some compensation, finally by Hong Leong Finance. However, those compensated are those who are aged 62 and above and those who only have primary school education.

Not sure how it is turning out yet for the other banks and those who don't fall in this category of investors. Some banks hold dialogue session with their investors and requires them to fill in forms, attend interviews too.

Egg Donors Compensation

Compensate women for those who donate their eggs for research? Yes, that was the recent news after Singapore's Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced recently too to amend a law about allowing living organ donors be compensated. With this, the Bioethics Advisory Committee suggests that these women should be fairly compensated.

When a woman decides to donate her egg for research, should she be compensated, do you think? Do you think that it might become an inducement that it becomes inethical?

I suppose a small sum is alright. Perhaps she should be compensated in many other forms, such as free medical consultation for life, subsidised payment for medicine or something in that line? Perhaps if she is being compensated in terms of money, it should not be too big a sum and being paid out in a certain time frame like a sum once every year? Just my two cents' worth.

Distance Based ERP?

In concrete Singapore, motorists are charged for using roads leading to congested areas. Gantry points call the Electronic Road Pricing is widely used and charged at different rates to deter motorists coming into the restricted district by taking other routes and paying a reduced rate for the lesser used gantries.

But recently many Singaporeans have insisted that these gantries do not work and instead had created more jams as motorists reaching the gantry slow down and reaching a bottle neck instead.

The latest news about Singapore's ERP is now being considered to charge motorists based on distance, using a GPS technology. Wonder how it will turn out as this is still being worked on by LTA (Land Transport Authority) and being tested for the past couple of years.

Hopefully a fair enough system is borned.

Pretty and Cheap Glasses

If you have been wrecking your brains like I did about budget and saving cost, then this website selling eyeglasses should be the first thing that comes to mind if you are in need of getting a pair of prescription glasses. The first thing that one should understand is that prescription eyeglass do not need to be costing the earth. This website that I mentioned, is none other than Zenni Optical. What is amazing about this online site is that the eyeglasses on sale here are as low as $8.00 a pair. I've been to retail shops whereby a simple no frill eyeglasses with prescription already cost about $60.

How did Zenni Optical managed to offer it's customers such a price. For one thing, there are no large figures to be paid for advertising on media like television, newspapers or magazines which can costs tens of thousands. The other thing is that because Zenni Optical's frames are owned manufactured by Zenni Optical themselves and sold direct to the customers via online, there are no additional commissions nor extra costs involved.

If you don't believe me, try browzing on their website and you'll be surprised that they not only have simple no frills frames but they do have very unique and trendy looking ones as well. Furthermore besides glasses, you can even get swimming goggles with prescriptions which generally costs more in retail. So, what are you waiting for? You can order your eyeglasses online and not have to feel the pinch for once. I'm going to order my second pair of sunglasses from the wide variety they have.

This one with the pretty posie design is really awesome!

Oil Prices Coming Down At Last

Remember when oil prices reached a record high of 147 dollars and above in July recently? It affected many motorists and especially those who depended on transportation to travel, deliver goods and ferry passengers. School buses increased fares, public fares went up and even the taxis charge extra 30cents for fuel surcharge. Travelling was especially expensive as fuel charges or tax were high though there were budget flights.

Many people refrain from going out as often to keep their petrol bills low. In the past month, world oil prices had been coming down and it was really something to be celebrated for. I could get a little more than 3/4 tank of petrol at S$50 compared with half tank or less in July!

Yippeee!

Something to Cheer About?

Just a little while ago, the results for the U.S. president election had finally come to an end in victory for Barrack Obama. He has won and is set to become the next U.S. president. And with his win, Asian shares hit a 3-week high. A new administration headed by Obama will take place from January, will be facing the world's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.