New Anti - Drug Ambassador ? What a flaming Joke !

Today I was really amused to read in the local newspapers, that one of Singapore's ex top DJs a Ms Tenasher Long was imprisoned for drug consumption.She also jumped bail and fled the country with her ex-boyfriend.

There is nothing funny about being jailed, but the fact that her mother so early trumpeted that she hopes her daughter can be an anti-drug ambassador for the young adults 'out there'. 

On the same page, you have the said ex-DJ in a low cut black dress showing her assets and her dyed hair. This is sending all mixed signals to the young and vulnerable who go out and party and be entertained by these celebrities. Singapore's laws are strict but not overly so. Drink but not in excess. Party but don't drink and drive. Drugs - No no. How much more simple can these things be ? Apparently not so simple for morons like her. 

You want to push the boundaries ? Fine. Pay the price. Shut up and Crawl your way back. 

Wow, in my opinion, her mother should just shut up, let the girl serve her time and after her period of incarceration, then perhaps humbly state her story. Her association with another ex-hubby of English origin of another Singapore so-called celebrity who was into drugs did not raise any red flags with her ? I think she does not make good judgement calls on her men whom she chooses to have relationships with. The guy is obviously a bad influence and our young people especially ladies should always look at the inner person. Our ladies seem to be taken by the young white men by their good looks and charm but tend to neglect the thing called 'character'. Stupid call by some girls. I won't call them Sarong Party Girls but can you be a little more quality conscious and have higher standards please ??? 

A lot of times their decisions have been the result of the influence of mass media such as Hollywood movies,with the white guy being the hero in 80 - 90% of the shows.  

Singaporean guys are basically good folk, square, not too cool but good folk. Check them out and give our local boys a chance. 

Give up on the Pinkerton Syndrome.  You might be so much happier for it. 

Hard Push to Run 5 km in 32 mins 19 seconds

Time is in short supply as I reduce my running to quality runs. But I was desperate to try the Kayanos 25 as I had just bought them a few days ago. So today, 31st March 2019, I skipped ('pontang' in local slang) my karate class which normally runs from 6 pm to 7.30 pm to run 5 km at 7.02 pm and boy I was eager to see how the shoes held up.

I took off at a quick pace (by my standards anyway) to reach the edge of the forest at about 3 minutes, I then went on to do 10 pretty fast laps inside the forest and headed up back towards the start of the forest trail (I actually have all these recorded in my Polar M 430 so for privacy purposes cant post it here).

On to Goldhill Avenue and then onto Mount Rosie Terrace, at the end of that road onto Mount Rosie and head all the way down to Whitley Road, past the Tanglin CC. I thought about giving the signboard a tremendous 'whack' to show my determination but decided against it so as to conserve energy. 

The run along Whitley road was mainly under some structure (the authorities are building roofing structures over the pedestrian walkways to minimise the pedestrians from getting wet !  Unbelievable but True !) and finally I was on Bukit Timah road and heading back to Goldhill Avenue.

Bam ! I froze the stopwatch at 32 mins 19 seconds ; I was literally out of breath and had hit my maximum heart rate of 172 beats / minute and the maximum km speed was 5.59 minutes per kilometre.

The avearge speed was 6.47 min per km which in my opinion is pretty good for a 56 year old runner ! 

Carpe Diem !  

Selfie taken at Hong Kong Park July 2018

  

My first trip Down Under in nearly 2 years

Chinese seafood by the Rocks, Sydney May 2017

This coming week I will be making a business trip to Australia, for the first time since May 2017, and as I prepare mentally for the things I will be going to say, I am also mindful that I need to re-connect with some relatives of mine who are based there. As I approach my young old age (I guess that would be 60 years of age), I wish that I had the experiences and what I know now when I was 35 - some 21 years ago. 

Beautiful Day with a Cruise Ship in the Harbour 

The energy levels I have now are possibly about two thirds of what I had when I was in  my 30s. However, with age comes a wisdom and I can see things with a lot more clarity now as well as make better decisions which will lead me to the most optimal result. This period can be viewed as the 'purple patch' or when things are moving well for me now. 

Outside Sydney Opera House May 2017 

What do I hope to achieve from this trip ? 

a) Cementing the business relationship and providing an enhanced support line to my customer who so bravely committed to buying from my company after meeting with me just a couple of times in 2017. 

b) Establishing a 'beach head' of agencies or representatives in Australia and New Zealand for my company to then promote the range of Athletic Chambers. Sports in Australia and NZ is the be all and end all for many people. Hence, with the sports industry a booming business Down Under, I hope to provide the sports clubs, Universities with Sports Science facilities etc a way for them to enhance their research. In short, a platform for the scientists to do research with the combined temperature and humidity environment and for them to take samples from the athletes and qualitatively measure their blood for research for rehabilitation and recovery.

With Dr Brad Clark outside UCRISE May 2017

  

Tips to Keeping Goldfish Outdoors

I have reached the number of Goldfish I want to keep in my outdoor feature this week. I have finally amassed (OK slowly collected) 8 teenage goldfish. There are 6 Fantails and 2 Dragonhead goldfishes now swimming happily in the water feature outside my house.  

I took a whole 2 months to add them up as putting too many at once will introduce new bacteria as well as possible diseases to the stock, so I started with 2 on the 27 January 2019 and added 2 more just after the Chinese New Year, another 2 around 23 March and 2 on 29th March. 

The key "No Nos" to keeping goldfish I have painstaking (and painfully watching them die sudden deaths not knowing what exactly caused their sudden demise) experience and can safely say what NOT to do with aquarium goldfish born and bred in fish tanks and now are out in the open elements.

1. Chlorine kills - Buy anti- chlorine water treatment supplements from the fish dealer. Mine cost about $25 (US$ 20) for a 0.5 litre bottle. Put in easily 1 capful per gallon (4 litres) of water. That (so far) works well for me.

2. Put in salt to reduce the acidity in the water. Again this may be a life saver. So far so good.

3. Choose teenage to young adult goldfish ; I try not to buy baby goldfish. The life insurance bathtub curve which is based on infant mortalities being very high is true to both humans as well as fish, or goldfish. You see, babies have not developed immunities to bacteria and viruses, hence alot of them will die at or just after birth, till about (in human terms) 5 years of age.   So buying teenage or slightly older goldfish reduces the possibility of death as they should have some immunity and be stronger than baby goldfish. 

4. Retain at least 25 % of the water when you change water in your aquarium or tank. For me, I keep 2 bucket fulls of water plus some leftover water in the outdoor feature, this retains some bacteria, as well as some alkalinity from the 'old' water and should be mixed with the new water.

5. Algae is good especially for outdoor water features. Algae are living plants, hence photosynthesis occurs and hence they give out Oxygen during the day and oxygenates the water - good for the goldfish. So clean the tank or water feature but some algae should be beneficial for your goldfish.

6. Keep the Pump and filter running 24 / 7. Previously I stopped the pump and water filter every night ; I believe this was harmful to the previous fish as not enough oxygen was being generated and water was not filtered properly. 

7. Never ever use detergents, brushes, buckets for cleaning house, or gloves when cleaning the aquarium or water feature. Detergents and chemicals kill fishes quickly, hence I keep a separate set of pails, 2 buckets, special gloves, brushes, cleaning scrubs, packet salt and water de- chlorinater all specially for the water feature to raise my hobby goldfish.

May they live long and keep me enchanted by their existence, happily playing in their new home.  

Enjoy the video taken today 31st March 2019.    

Egypt Opening Up Again

At the pyramids of Giza

I am very happy to note that the tours to Egypt are reappearing in the Classifieds. It is by far my most memorable trip in my many trips abroad, not least the tons and tons of historical sites, temples, palaces along both sides of the Nile making a tremendous impact to my mind that this is a truly special place, even though the Middle East has always been a place not for the faint hearted.

To say that the Egyptians were a world power some 3,000 to 5,000 years ago is not an understatement, not by a long shot. The architectural and engineering structures they made with immense precision led some to believe that the pharoahs had some kind of extra-terresterial help from outer space. 

I take all these proclaimations by the tour guides with a huge dose of salt. Tour guides says, they say, science and history say and then they correct themselves. This method of deception has always been guided by wrong interpretations of what actually happened and false hypotheses and the greater the lie, the better the story by the tour guides to keep the tourists entranced.

Singapore has a completely made up fireworks show with a BS storyline every night at 8pm outside the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino for the last 8 to 9 years. The free laser cum fireworks show tells about some mythical island called Temasek and the story is so far fetched that only telling and retelling it thousands of times, the tourist promotion board may hope to draw more curious and naive people from distant lands to come and see our "Merlion" - another BS figure spouting water from its mouth and it is a combination of a big fish and lion head.

Yeah, right. Maybe in 1000 years people from all over the world will say Singapore actually had Merlions swimming in the canal and prowling the streets everywhere as and when the need arose.  That is the 'history' created by the spin doctors and legacy story writers.  

Felucca at Sunset - Alexandria 

Back to Egypt, I went there with my family in 2009, when Noel was 15 and Andrew 12 ; the precocious pre-teen and mid teen. See the pictures below, they were at that age where history was confined to dusty textbooks and long forgotten empires. Hence, the Egypt trip was mainly a fun trip to hang out in the cruise ship along the Nile river, play with 2 other boys from the tour, kick sand along the ruined out temples at Karnak, Kom Ombo, Luxor and Memphis.  

Andrew monkeying around; As seen from the columns the temple was built during the Ptolemic (Greek) and Roman times,by the Greek conquerers to make peace with the Egyptians, as there were many temples dedicated to Horus and Sorbek, they chose Isis to dedicate.

Isis was the wife of Osiris and not that modern day Caliphate as created by Baghdadi. 

Kom Ombo 

As a first timer to Egypt, I was struck by how worldly wise Egyptian people, and as this was the pre Arab Spring era, the country of almost 90 million was ruled by the then dictator Hosni Mubarak. Since those days, the country has had 2 changes of Government, and now is ruled by an ex-General al Sisi.  

The history of Egypt is rich and before and from the days of Julius Caesar, Jesus the son of God, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. A visitor can see the influences of Roman and Greek or Hellenistic architecture as seen from the designs on the columns.  

Abu Simbel 

Gods there were aplenty. From Amun - Ra,Osiris,ISIS to Horus (falcon head) and Hathor (Earth Mother) there literally were up to a hundred gods. Pharoahs were like gods too, and from the time they ascended to the throne, the Pharoahs were only interested in building their funeral pyre or pyramids to honour their death.

The beauty of this country is that they can manage to keep their wonderful treasures for thousands of years (with the exception of the looting inside the pyramids) and even had a secret burial ground called Valley of the Kings (and a separate Valley of the Queens) for the lesser kings from the year 3000 BC.

The rise and fall of empires is inevitable so my little red dot called Singapore needs to wake up to the fact that the exceptional leaders of the past (50s to 80s) have gone and all we have in their wake are technocrats and my opinion is that we are facing an era of decline both economically and possibly in the quality of life.  

Move On - Mike Posner

A very touching and personal video by Mike Posner.

Sad, funny, happy all at the same time. 

What can we do about life but to just embrace it with all its massive heartaches, setbacks, joys, triumphs, disappointments, challenges and frustrations. 

Much of it is situational, so how we deal with Life determines who we are as a person.

'Nuff Said.

All Right, Good Night ! (famous last words of MH 370).  

The One and Only Shoe for My Distance Running

ASICS Kayano 25 

I am first and foremost, a runner. A good one, perhaps in the top 10% of the distance runners if I ever really trained hard for it. It was rather unfortunate that during my younger teenage days, my parents enroled me on a swimming program to keep my brother and I from expending our restless youthful days with the 'samseng' (gangster) boys of the neighbourhood.

When I gave up 10 years of struggling with golf - from 1991 to 2000 I went running ; Yeah I did and still do things in the reverse. I actually gave up an 'old man's game' to train for a young man's sport - the marathon - at the ripe young middle age of  38  people thought I was downright crazy. My wife for one was so afraid that I would be knocked down by a drunk driver as I ran countless kilometers on the roads at 5 am or 5.30 am.

I had to make a time management vs family decision. Golf is a social sport which requires up to 3 other flight mates (or acquaintences cum friends) so there is the social interaction and need to find people with the time, senority and similar level and interest in golf to join you in a game. As I am an 'Eagle' or person who is happy with himself and not requiring loads of friends to mingle and enjoy company I found this aspect of golfing a chore.

Secondly, the time management. For me to play 18 holes (bear in mind I was still in my mid 30s and my kids were 5 and 2 years old respectively) would take 4 hours to half a day on Saturday or Sunday which meant I would be away for half a day on the weekends. Then, I am a below average golfer, so my game was frustratingly inconsistent. Hence I found that the coordination aspect, finding right golfing partners or flight mates, the time aspect to leave the family away for half a day on weekends too much to sacrifice.

Hence, after much thought, I knew I needed to expend my stress in a meaningful and healthy way, hence I turned to my first sport which I loved and still do, long distance running. Out I went to buy the quick dry running vests or sweat shirts, the 'bun huggers', socks and the most important 'equipment' of all - the running shoe.

  

Running is the interplay between the entire body frame and the muscle system all working seamlessly in one machine - my body.

I persevered through all the naysayers and I can proudly say that I have completed a total of 10 full marathons, possibly 6 to 10 half marathons and several 10 km runs in these last 18 years. The time has flown by, but I was and I still am having tremendous fun doing my No. 1 favourite activity - long distance running.

Early on, I spent money subscribing to the Runner's World Magazine which is basically a Bible for the runner from then newbies like me (in 2001). I read it cover to cover and gained tremendous motivation to buy the right running shoe, eat the right foods and sleep well.

The shoes are the most important of all - so after ticking all the boxes I realised that I was a normal pronator meaning my footstrike was more or less centre onto the road. After checking the reviews for months and trying various shoe brands and model, I finally came to the shoe which firstly provided me with the best cushioning possible for my footstrike as well as gave my gait some form of stability ; 

Presenting the ASICS Kayano ; it is a shoe meant for moderate to heavy runners with maximum mid sole cushioning. I choose normally 2 sizes larger to my footsize because I wear thick socks for running (1 size) and my feet expand during the long runs of 10 km or more (1 more size). Hence my size is US Size 10 and I have been using this size ever since with practically zero blisters ; yessir - zero blisters. 

I am probably a very biomechanically efficient runner which means I have economy of stride or cadence and am able to maximise my distance per unit Joule expended. I have not done a Vo2 max test but I reackon the conversion of O2 inhaled through my lungs would be higher than most ordinary folks. The most elite athletes have a very high VO2 max score for distances of 5 km or longer. 

I have been using the Kayano models (I believe I have around 20 versions !) all these years and have never lost the love for the shoe. It does not look like much, their colours are normally quite dull, the version 23 was all Black and the legendary ASICs twin swoosh with a counter swoosh is actually based on stitching which would give the shoe the best flexibility according to their Japanese Designers.

"Anima Sana in Corpore Sano" which simply put means a Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body.

It is a dream shoe for all those slightly heavy guys like me who want a damn good stability shoe and your feet thank you for it after a long run !!! 

Carpe Diem !!! 

Thank You for 100,000 Views !

                                                        Saints at 55 : Mad Men Roof Top Bar ;

L to R : Me, Joe Lee Oon Wah, Hung Kee Chong (black shirt), Faisal Alsagoff, 

Paul Ezekiel, Albert Hong.

Center (front) L to R : Kent Tan Keh Eng (pink shirt),A. Surendran, Thedassaidas, 

         Kenneth Fong, Gurdeep Singh    

It took a long time to reach this milestone, but thanks readers for the 100,000 views ! 

I enjoy putting my random thoughts online, and new my target is to to garner 100, 000 additional views every 3 - 4 years as compared to the first 100, 000 which took more than 10 years to reach.  

Thank You 

10 km run as recorded on my Polar M430

I have recently slowed down in my running speeds, as a natural process of aging I guess. Here is 1 for the record of memories past....

Carpe Diem 

My Rave Run at Nassim Road - 2 loops of 4 km each

Starting at the junction of Cluny / Evans Road opposite the entrance of Botanic Gardens East Gate

I have been running this route for the longest time. The reasons I run it are as listed below :

1. Proximity to home (5 minutes by car)

2. Access to car park just 2 minutes away from start point

3. Wide and (most importantly) tree lined roads more like avenues

4. Embassy row or many embassies are located here, so not many condominiums and hence not so many school buses plying the area causing noise and smoke pollution at 6 am in the mornings ! 

5. Many shrubs to put my isotonic drinks by the roadside. :)

So here goes the route (4 km or so) ;

Start at one end of Nassim Road, and head up the small hillock towards Orchard Road.
Turn right at Lermit Road and run one lap stopping at Cluny Road junction and head back
Turn right and head towards the Orchard Road area, to your left are the embassies of Philippines, Japan Embassy and that of Saudi Arabia.
At the end of Nassim Road at the T junction leading to Orchard Road, head back the same way and make a left turn back along Lermit Road and do the same forward and back.
Once back after Lermit Road, turn left and head towards the start point, the Russian embassy is to your left.

This constitutes 1 Lap of roughly 4 km length. It should take you about 20 to 25 minutes to complete.

A Beautiful Painting

                 Beautiful oil painting bought from one of the shops inside the Souq Waqif

                                             

It depicts 2 soldiers or 'cavalry' in their desert gear mounted on their camels with the backdrop of a clear blue sky. I bought it for roughly 260 Riyals or $100 Singapore with the mounting of the canvas on wood backing.

I spent practically half a day at the market browsing the shops and having a fantastic meal of Lamb Kulwa from the Iraqi Restaurant. (See previous post for details).

Inside the gallery of shops by Qatari artists 

I am most pleased with this piece of artwok and hangs on the wall in my small office.

Carpe Diem ! 

   

Al Shahmi Restaurant in Doha Qatar 25 Feb 2019

Hummus (right with cucumber and pomegranate) 

Located along the ring road near Al Najada towards the Corniche is a lovely restaurant serving Arab food. I have been there 3 times, and I rave about their grilled lamb, beef and chicken chops which are tender, tasty with minmum garnishing allowing the flavour of the meat come out and the wonderful hummus which is a side dish.

The hummus dish is made from chickpeas and made into a paste. With a garnishing of pomegranate, some cucumber and raspberry topping, it is an excellent starter dish which goes well with their Naan type of bread and other pickles native to the region. Olives, green and black in colour, some gherkin and pickled cucumber complete the starters.  

After a nice meal on 25th Feb 2019 

While people criticise Arab meals as being too meaty and salty, if eaten sparingly, the food is really tasty and it is another one off my bucket list of must trys.  

Snacking should not be used to 'Fill" in between tasks

Outside a House in Canberra 2017 

This post is self explainatory. I have the bad habit of snacking on food, especially at the end of the day, to eat some snack, or drink some wine when in actual fact I am neither hungry or thirsty.

I have managed to curb this bad habit for most of the day, as I have stocked in the office, 24 bottles of mineral water and wafer biscuits with oat. As they are both the lowest calorie foods I can find, during the day at the office, I can manage to keep the hunger pangs down by only eating 1 sachet and 1 bottle to drink after a long task (say several quotations or replies to numerous emails).

The work at the office is never ending, so it is up to me to decide when exactly to stop the tasks and head either to the gym at the club or back home. There are days when I visit customers in Singapore and again, I try to minimise eating out in the malls as best as I can.

I have decided to only eat as and when I am hungry, so I have utilised intermittent fasting (up to 16 hours at 1 stretch) to some good effect. The next step is to count calories and reduce the total amount of carbohydrate into my body while at the same time increase the energy expensed each and every day.

My goal (this has been an almost unreachable target) is to weigh 72 kg by June. It is only 1 kg per month from my current 74 to 75 kg.

Al Admadiyah Iraqi Restaurant at Souq Waqif, Doha Qatar

    At Souq Waqif

The most famous Souq or market in Doha is the Souq Waqif, it is by the promenade and just opposite the Islamic Religious Center of Doha. As Qatar was once an English colony, and was once poor, it pays homage to its colonial past by putting up a Pearl structure at the start of the Corniche or old fort.  See below.

Currently it exports a large amount of Natural Gas (or LNG) worldwide and the GDP per capita income, Qatar is the highest in the world, meaning, that the gross domestic product per citizen is an astounding US$ 98,000 per citizen or how much it makes per citizen is equivalent to US$ 98,000.  

  

                       Downtown Doha (Banks mainly) with gleaming shiny Buildings 

There are only about 0.5 million Qataris in the kingdom of Qatar. Ruled by an emir or king and his prince. The remainder of the 3 million population are made up of foreign workers and expatriates. There is a developed 'downtown' of banks with Islamic banking at the forefront. Industry is centered mainly in the traditional Oil and Gas, Liquified Natural Gas, and now Sports Medicine.

2 years ago, Qatar secured a coup in the sporting world by winning the bid for the 2022 World Cup. Hence at least 24 world class teams and their supporters will come to this modern kingdom in the desert and watch the only winter time World Cup held in December of 2022. 

The Restaurant is at one end of the Souq. Watch out for the flies while dining outside though

The Souq Waqif is meant for the tourists like myself. After 2 days of work at the Aspire Hospital, I had some time to myself and ventured to walk and look for souvenirs and knick-knacks to bring back home. My stomach was rumbling and I decided to try something I had never eaten before. Iraqi food. Boy I was so pleasantly surprised. I ordered the lamb Kulwa which is something very much to our Mutton Briyani back home. The lamb is grilled on a stainless steel stake over a coalpit and the end product of the lamb with 3 types of Basmati rice was served to me.

Iraqi Tea 

Best Tasting Lamb Kulwa I have eaten 

I took one bite of the lamb and was in Briyani heaven. The meat was tender, practically falling off the bone, and 'sweet'. After removing the fat, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal served with some dalcha or vegetable soup and topped off with some Naan like Leaventhine bread.

The tea to top off the lunch was also something else, the Swedish couple at the next table were exclaiming it was the best tasting tea they had tasted, and coming from Sweden, I think they do not know their teas !

However, the tea was exceptional, strong to the taste with cinnamon flavour and sugarred accordingly.

This meal will go down as the best meal in the Middle East for me since I have bee coming to Qatar since 2016 !

Watching My Goldfish Swim is Therapeutic

These are the 6 teenage (I think they are young in terms of goldfish age) goldfish. Fantail breed, they are either fully orange in colour, some mix of white and orange colour and somewhat fat. I have taken care of these 6 ; starting from 2 just before the Chinese New Year for 2 months now and watching them swim happily and playing with each other without a care in the world is in a word, therapeutic.

The golden rules of rearing goldfish :

a) Never overfeed them. I only feed them once a day, approximately 6 pellets of speical fish food

b) Chlorine is the killer ; hence, I put in at least 0.2 litres of anti-chlorine formula into the water every time I change water in the water feature outside my home. The frequency of water change varies depending on how murky the water has become. There is a preponderance of algae growth along the walls of the water feature or pong, and algae being plant like, give out oxygen during the  daytime and hence oxygenates the water.

c) Pump must be kept on to provide filtration as well as oxygen to the water.

So far, they have survived 2 odd months. I will try to maintain keeping 8 happy goldfish for as long as possible as watching them swim gives me some tranquility in the soul.   

The Man HImself speaking to reporters after the most famous victory Wolves have secured in recent memory

This is Nuno Esperito Santo, 46 year old maestro manager at Wolves for barely 2 seasons. Last season, he not only secured the promotion to Premier League but also secured the Championship Title. This season, he is managing a new team with exciting, young, talented and phenomenally loyal players who have beaten all of the top teams, with the exception of Man City.

They had just beaten Manchester United who barely 1 week ago beat the Paris St Germain boasting of world class players like French teenage star Kylian Mbappe and Brazilian legend Neymar.

If you can fathom, just 3 years ago, they were playing in the 3rd division or League 1, you will find their rise to the Premier League just incredible.

The team now boasts 10 senior internationals from a myriad of countries :

a) Portugal - Rui Patricio, Reuben Neves, Joao Mouthino, Helder Costa, Diogo Jota
b) Mexico   - Raul Jiminez
c) Spain     - Jonny Otto
d) Morocco - Romain Saiss
e) Ireland   - Matt Doherty
f)  Belgium - Leander Dendonker

There are many who are knocking on their national team's doors, in particular 

a) Conor Coady and Ryan Bennett - England ; Gibbs White - England U 21.  
b) Wily Boly - France
c) Ivan Cavaleiro - Portugal 

The man is a master manipulator, motivator, whip cracker, coach, mentor and inspiration to so many - the players, the staff, the loyal fans and the global new fans who are being romanced by the story of Wolverhampton Wanderers thus far.

So it continues. 

What a time to be in the Wolves Pack !!  

Focus on your Tasks, with the end Objective in Mind ; Success comes Next

Plenty of Time - Ray ; Epidemic Pop

This is a get up and go song. Like a bubblegum pop which basically is brain numbing and I like my songs like that, choruses which go "Ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh.. thats all I want to say to you and all that "

I remember many years ago, when I was in my mid 30s and when they still had CDs on sale in the shopping centre. I was browsing casually and this eager beaver sales guy came bounding up to me wanting to impress me with his wide range of CDs ranging from classical, rock, New Age (now that has gone where ?), Pop, Hot 100, Buddha Bar and all the latest and the greatest in all the genres of music.

Sir, how can I help you ? His demeanor was so enthusiastic. Bright smile.

I'm looking for M2M (the bubblegum duo who had the song Close to You with meaningless).

His smile evaporated, and he grabbed the copy and quite disappointedly shoved it right under my face like I was a cheap fanboy (well I am actually !)

Funny story but true. 

Arguably the Best Car I've Driven So Far

                  The E 250 is really the best car I have driven in recent memory. 

I acquired this car in Jan 2018 and I have had the pleasure of driving it 15 months to date. I can safely say that the Mercedes Benz E 250 7 G Tronics is the best car I have driven in recent memory. This is the 2014 model, but apart from the Park Assist, there is nothing new from this model to the 2019 model. (I may be wrong here). I paid S$ 136,000 or US$ 100,000 in Jan 2018 for a then 3 and a half year old car which had its servicing maintained by Cycle and Carriage or the authorised Merecedes Benz agent. The brand new price in 2014 on the road (including the Certificate of Entitlement) would have been S$ 270,000 or US$ 198,000.

Singapore, as readers from foreign countries who are not aware and will be shocked to find out, is the easily world's most expensive place to own a car. The cost of ownership goes far beyond the price of the car. This similar car in USA brand new will cost no more US$ 70, 000 on the road. 

Petrol (top end) like Shell V98 (with zinc added) costs S$ 2.50 per litre (US$ 1.82) easily 3 times what you would pay in the US$ or in many parts of the Middle East. In addition, there are things called Gantries (constructs over many congested roads)  and a system using Electronic Road Pricing will charge each car (regardless of size or engine capacity) anything from $0.50 to $3.00 depending on time of day - during the morning rush hour there will be literally thousands of cars heading into town so most roads leading into the Central Business District CBD - hence there will be a deduction from the cash card (similar to a stored debit card) mounted on the In Vehicle Unit (IVU) each and every time that car passes under the ERP gantry. Hence a daily 'tax' will be imposed for cars using heavily frequented roads and on average, a daily commute back and forth to office can cost anything from $3 to $6.00 in ERP charges. 

I have stuck to driving cars, out of necessity to ferry family members as well as for business activities.

Back to my Merc E 250, since my acquisition of the car, it has given me (apart from the backup battery for Engine cut-off) zero (nil) problems. One real pleasing aspect is that servicing of the car is pretty inexpensive and there are numerous Mercedes Benz ex-staff providing routine quarterly servicing (if nothing exceptional except oil change  

The 2.0 litre Turbo V6 engine with 207 bhp power is really a speedster on the road, with massive acceleration and only the sports coupes and the likes of the Merc E 63 with 500 bhp in a totally different class.

With the 'low' Certificate of Entitlements or COEs this car 2019 model on the road is about S$ 245,000 or US$ 180, 000. Road Tax for 1 year is S$ 1,200 and Comprehensive Insurance is S$ 1,300 (US$ 1,000).

Features of the car include, electronic adjustable seats, stored preferred seat orientations, climate control airconditioning, predictive control for vehicles or objects which are deemed too close to the front and the on board computer can take over, smooth automatic changeover of gears and 207 bhp turbo acceleration, Man this baby is powerful !!! 

  

Will this be the end for the Army Half Marathon ?

I read with some disbelief that the SAF is calling time on the Army half Marathon in the wake of the recent training related deaths of several NS Men in the space of 16 months.

While each death is truly regrettable, I think, in my opinion hosting an event like the Half Marathon is an 'event' for many an NS Men's life and for many civilians like myself and my friends, it is a goal which for the better part, makes me want to wake up every morning to run and put in the km to train for that goal.

While I fully understand the rationale of standing down and relooking events in the light of safety and occurences, I think, that as an event, the Army Half Marathon is pretty well established in the common psyche of many of us 'middle aged weekend warriors'.

here are some pictures from last year's half marathon, and I am hopefully that this event will be restaged in the coming years.