Attitude of Singaporeans towards road usage

As a trainee, I always like to proclaim that I am a safe driver, almost never exceeding 50kmh. This is always met with 2 typical responses,

1: “But at such a slow speed, aren’t you a danger to people behind you? I hit 70kmh easily” *smug look*
2: “When driving, you have to be confident. Don’t be scared”

Response to the 1st point, the typical speed limit for roads that I am allowed on is 60kmh. You’re telling me that driving 10kmh below the speed limit is being a danger? Not to mention that I have to drive on the slowest lane. This morning, I just found out that someone I know personally has been involved in a fatal accident, because she was driving was at 80kmh and knocked down a student who ran onto the road suddenly. It is just not possible to be able to brake in time at that kind of speed, regardless of how fast your reaction time is.

Response to the 2nd point, I’m not scared about my ability to control the car. On an open road, I am confident I can handle it as well as anybody. What I’m scared about is that other people are unable to handle themselves. People can randomly charge out onto the roads ( Little India, yo? ) and other drivers can happily cut into your lane with no warning. Anybody will agree with me that these are not isolated incidents and happen every day in Singapore. Just yesterday morning I witnessed a ‘live’ accident between 2 vehicles while on my way to work, because one driver was ‘confident’ that nobody would beat the red light, and the taxi was ‘confident’ that he has right-of-way from turning traffic.

I wonder where does this cowboy road attitude come from? Is it just because its in common practice, then  everybody else has to follow? ( let’s not get into seatbelts, people ). I suppose my own view is coloured by the fact that I have been a road cyclist for years. As a cyclist, you cannot take any chances that a vehicle will give you right-of-way, as pretty any collision will result in you getting hurt badly. ( I know because I actually got into a light collision before )

Conclusion:
Laugh all you want, I’m driving safely and keeping my seatbelt on. Not happy? Drive yourself.

What do I really want from my job?

Recently got converted from contract staff to perm. After doing some research with people I know who are in the same industry, turns out that the terms of the conversion as well as some other factors regarding the conversion itself resulted in me getting shafted. Net result is that I am now entertaining the possibility of looking for another job.

However, in the process of researching the job market, I keep asking myself, what do I really want from my hypothetical new job?. For the past year I’ve been telling myself and others to reject the rat-race, and to only do work that I enjoy. I enjoy my current job, the working environment and the people there. Ostensibly, the only real reason that I am unhappy is that I am quite significantly underpaid compared to other companies out there ( as well as somewhat clueless managerial support ).  

However, while I am getting underpaid, I can still live quite comfortably on my salary, and if all goes well with my investment matters, I can hope for an early retirement. So if I can still carry out my plans on my current salary, doesn’t the act of looking for a new job go against my previous philosophy?

This confuses me!

sometimes, life is really annoying

what do you do when the perfect girl drops into your life just a mere 30 days ago, but you find out she’s already attached?

Never buying Creative products again.. >.<

My “dream-machine” PC at home had been having a strange issue for the past year. During startup, it would often hang at the Vista initialization screen. Usually it would resolve itself when I reset the computer. But recently, it was taking 2 or more resets to get the blasted thing to start correctly. ( not to mention BSODs cropping up in a new machine )

All the while I thought it was a hard-drive problem, ( maybe something to do with cold startups…who knows about these mechanical thingies… ), but last week, I noticed that my Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound card was disabled after a particularly bad number of resets (3? 4?). 1 + 1 = 3? I pulled out the blasted thing from my computer and went to the in-built soundcard on my motherboard and my computer has not hanged on me ever since ( ‘ever since’ defined as 3 days before this message ) . GG.

Conclusion: Creative fails. Srsly.

yay, first post!

Went Sakura@Yio Chu Kang buffet last Friday to send off one of our company peeps. Some interesting things that you probably never see in a buffet…

hainanese chicken

black chicken herbal soup

dango

mochi

$30 for Fridays, pretty reasonable, considering the volume and selection of foods in there. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the cheese sausages though ;/ that make me a slighty less happy panda.

For dessert, I invented a new dish  cookies&creme ice cream mixed with wasabi in a cup of sprite. REFRESHING!!! YAYYYYY!  I even had seconds!