Month: December 2007

Categories
Announcement

My Site Is Almost Back Up, Last Installment From Our Mount K Trip, And Our Upcoming Trip

OK. It has been a real painful experience migrating the blog entries. It is even a more painful experience migrating the articles. What is the difference between blog entries and articles you may ask. To me, articles are not time sensitive, don’t have to be arranged chronologically, may contains a great number of words and pictures, and hence, not suitable to be put onto the front page. If you notice the header of my site, there is one link to the blog and I have just added another link to the article section today.

My previous blog engine was a proper content management system. To replicate that in this blog engine, it was tough. Try pick one random article, say Our Mount Kinabalu Experience and scroll to the bottom of the article. See that drop-down list box? I have to code that myself and link all the sub-pages together! Cool thing, eh?

On a side note, I know it is long overdue to release the personal journals of our Mount Kinabalu trip. The fact is, we have been waiting for our friend TK to write his. However, our hope diminishes as time goes by. So, it is a high time to release ours. Cynthia’s journal is her first article contribution to my site. You can read our personal journals through our Mount Kinabalu article.

Enjoy.

PS. Cynthia and I will be flying to Hong Kong / Macau coming this Saturday till the end of the year. I will try to keep up with your blogs and to post something in mine from time to time.

PS. Why only 95%? Ain’t you done? Not quite my friend. I intend to write a proper profile page and perhaps, find a way to construct a site-map. Besides, I wish to tidy up the side bars. Seems a bit too crowded, eh?

Categories
Diary

A Roller Coaster Ride With Hyflux Water Trust

My virgin foray into the stock market is best described in the following analogy.

Once upon a time in a remote village, a young boy grew up listening to the legendary war stories of his ancestors. How those legendary heroes won battles, pillaged other villages, and took home the women as their own. Barely able to shoot anything – set aside to avoid getting shot – this young boy could not hide his excitement when one day, he got to join rank with the rest of the comrades for the battles somewhere far away (does it sound like a number of movies that you have watched?).

The battlefield was nothing like what this young boy has imagined. Suddenly, all the stories of how people got blown up into pieces, the casualties of the war, and the fact that not everyone who joined the campaign came back in one piece made sense to him. Feeling lost, this young boy took cover, observed, and uncertain of the next cause of action.

When I opened the trading account last month, I had no idea what to do with it. One day, I noticed the promotional counter right underneath my office for the IPO of Hyflux Water Trust (HWT). I personally like the branding of Hyflux (as well as Olivia Lum) and I believe that human beings are over-populating the planet. We are not going to have enough clean water for our next generation. Hence, I am a believer of treating water is the way to go. Besides, HWT’s current projects are in China and China is a high growth region. Through the ATM, I subscribed to 11 lots of HWT share that was priced at S$0.78.

I got 3 lots of HWT share that worthed S$2,340 before the trade started. A few friends congratulated me and wished me the best. On day one, the share price dipped and I lost S$210 on paper (-10%). On day three, the share price rose and I made S$375 on paper (+16%). As the US market went down, many counters went down too. So was HWT. Last week, I gathered enough courage to put a buy order of 9 lots at S$0.76. It was not easy to stare at the potential S$7k investment and submit the order. The feeling is hard to describe. It was like my heart beat faster, my mind was preoccupied with tons of “what-if”. Looking back, it is fortunate that the market closed at S$0.765 and my order did not materialized. Today, HWT share closed at S$0.74 (a paper lost of S$120 with 3 lots).

I do not intend to speculate. All I want to do is to stock up a bit more on HWT because I truly believe in its potential. It is hard to decide when to buy and when to sell. At times I wonder, there is no announcement on the progress of HWT as of today but yet, the share price swings up and down. History tells us that if one was to invest S$10k in Cosco or Raffles Education five years ago, one would have been a millionaire today. History also tells us that many get burned in the stock market and some of them now invest in managed funds instead. One thing for sure is that these are the battles I wish to participate. But meanwhile I have to learn how to shoot … and to avoid being shot.

Categories
Movie Reviews

Hero, Enchanted, and Warlords

I thought “Hero” and “Enchanted” are both not showing in cinemas now but I am wrong. So, what the heck. I will do a three-in-one review then.

Takuya Kimura was great in the samurai movie Love and Honor. In “Hero”, he plays a rather usual prosecutor who doesn’t dress up like a typical lawyer and defies the higher power. He enjoys slow trials because he believes that only then, the accused can fully appreciate the weight of their sins. Together with him was a team of prosecutors who take on this bizarre case of murder that ultimately involves someone politically influential. The Korean actor Lee Byung Hun (so good looking!) is in the poster of this movie but his appearance is too brief. I think the part of the Japanese prosecutors’ visit to Korea is probably the highlight of the movie. Quite a number of scenes are a bit too far fetched. The entertainment value is there. However, some may find the pace of the movie a bit too slow.

“Enchanted” is a surprise to me. I watched “Enchanted” because it is nominated for the Golden Globe award. A rather forgettable storyline aside, the transition between the animation and the real life acting is pretty interesting. I especially like the acting of Amy Adams. Where does she come from?! She acts as though she was a cartoon character. Awesome! I personally didn’t like the cockroaches and rats but besides that, “Enchanted” is a very entertaining movie. I was laughing all the way till the end. A decent comedy-fantasy-musical film I must say.

It’s been a long time since TK watched a Chinese movie (not for Cynthia and I as Lust, Caution still lives vividly in my mind to say the least). “Warlords” is a well made Chinese movie. Perhaps one of the better ones in recent days. There is nothing groundbreaking in terms of storyline. The same kind of treachery, betrayal, bonding, honor, and sacrifice. Andy Lau plays the honored one who believes in righteousness and he is all for his people. Jet Li plays the General who believes that so long as the means justify the ends, people will understand the truth in the end – even if they have to die for it. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays as the loyal and obedience one who takes promises seriously. Together, they sworn in as blood brothers and have decided to wage war to the Chinese cities that have fallen to the hands of the warlords on behalf of the Empress. The acting is top notch. So is the filming of the war scenes. Nothing groundbreaking like I said. Nevertheless a good Chinese movie to watch in recent days.

Categories
Diary

Okay, My Today’s Blog Entries Will Probably Read Silly 10 Years From Now

Ever since I changed the blog engine not too long ago, every night I painstakingly convert one blog entry after another. Then I stumbled on stuffs that I wrote 10 years ago and I got goose bumps all over my body. Tempting not to convert those old articles into blog entries but I think, perhaps what I write today will read silly 10 years from now anyway. So I park these old entries in the category of From The Attic. Back in those days, I kept an email group of friends and family and I broadcast my materials regularly, and I received feedback regularly. From The Attic is a tiny potion of what I was used to have (imagine the amount of goose bumps I would have … I could die from it). Looking back, I am amazed in how Internet has changed our lives. The self-managed email group is out, friendly and anonymous traffic are in.

And it was the malicious anonymous traffic that brought down my previous site. I am still in the mist of converting my entries. As you can see from the bar above, after staying till wee hours every night (last night I worked till 5am), it is now 31% complete. Still quite a way to go. I need to go through each entry and manually change all the links, upload all the images into the designated directories at the server, re-size some of the over-sized ones to fit the standard template, and etc. After which, I will think of what to do with some of the timeless entries (a technical term by WordPress to indicate that nature of the entry that is different from the time sensitive blogs, not that they are literally timeless). Perhaps I will put them as pages.  Stay tuned.

Categories
Documentary Movie Reviews

Nanking – A Powerful Documentary Inspired by the Late Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking

When I first saw the bombs landed on Iraq’s capital Baghdad on CNN, I felt the tears at the back of my eyes. I had the same feeling when I watched the Japanese in “Nanking” dropping the bombs onto the city of China, Nanking – even a more intense feeling. I was gasping for air. It is hard to watch because wartime documentary films are not Hollywood films. Those were the real houses built by real people lived by real people and the corpses scattered on the ground were real. The crying of the survived ones was as real as those who were dead. Since young, I spent lots of time reading the history of China during WWII – especially on the Japanese invasion. The atrocity of the war and the suffering of the people. I have read pages and pages of historical articles and I have probably seen more gruesome pictures of the execution of the Chinese by the Japanese than I should have at that young age. One picture that still vividly lives in my mind till today is a sea of dead semi-naked Chinese women lying flat on the ground with long sticks inserted into their private parts. I read that the Japanese wouldn’t want to waste bullets on Chinese women, sticks would do the job.

War is horrible and of course, I don’t despise the Japanese (though I am angry with them for not admiting what they have done in the past till today). I despise the war. The documentary film “Nanking” was played out by a group of contemprary actors taking the role of the missionaries, university professors, doctors, and businessmen. These foreigners witnessed the cruelty of war and they stayed behind to establish a safety zone for the Chinese refugees in Nanking. The interviews of the war survivors were conducted with the real people who did survive the war. Hearing them recounting what they had been through made me want to tear. The emotion is so real and overwhelming. These are people of over 80 years of age and you could visualize the scenes with their words.

“Nanking” also displays some of the video clips taken during the war and some, I would suppose, are unofficial interviews with the Japanese soldiers. What “Nanking” has brought out is aligned with my expectation on how the history should be told. At the end of the film, my friend and I turned to each other and hope that we won’t see a war at our doorsteps in our generation, and the next, and the next after, and the …

Categories
Announcement

Re-categorize My Blog Entries

recategorize.jpg

Since I have been handed this golden opportunity by the hackers to re-organize the contents of my site, I have taken the liberty to re-think most of the entries I have written and to come up with a new set of category. After all, we are unable to migrate the old category structure into the new one. One friend of mine told me that I should have classified my movie reviews into different genres because those who don’t like horror movies for instance, will never watch another horror movie no matter how good I think it is.

There are still lots of things to be done. Of course the folks at Osbob.com will continue to find ways to improve my site or at least offer the similar level of functionality like I used to have. While for me, I shall go through each and every blogs, to examine and update the internal links accordingly and to re-link all the images.

Certainly sounds like a new job. Hopeful there will be enough investors to show me the money.

Categories
Announcement

Site Maintenance And Seeking Of Feedback

After my site has been hacked three days in a roll, the team at Osbob.com and I have decided to adopt a different strategy and go for a more robust blogging focused engine rather that the content management system we used to have. We are still in the mist to try out new things and certainly, by the look of my site now, there are still plenty to be done such as the look-and-feel, the article section, the categorization of the hundreds of blog entries, the re-linking of all the content items, and etc. Hopefully by Christmas this year, we will return to normalcy with a fresh look. We thank you for your patience over this episode and support over the years. Please do return from time to time to see the exciting features coming your way.

Meanwhile, if you could drop in a few comments and suggestions on what this site has been doing well in the past and what can be improved, we would greatly appreciate that.

Yours,
Wilfrid + The Osbob.com Team

Categories
Announcement

See You Whenever We See Next

So my site got hacked again. One of my friends texted me and asked, “End of your blogging career?” I am tired of this daily battle against the unknown hackers and the way things are going, I am not sure when I will start focusing on writing something fun rather than worrying that my site is passing virus to the loyal readers. I am frustrated that I have to hassle my friend for help in a daily basis. Thank you for your visit and your comments over the years. I know at least one of you has been putting up with my nonsense since 1996. If there is a way to continue, I will let you know. See you whenever we see next.

PS. We are shutting down the blog engine till we find a safe way ahead

Categories
Other People's Lives

A Ridiculous S$1,000 Claim Against My Friend By Her Ex-Landlady

Previously I wrote about my friend filing a police report against her ex-landlady for harassment. On the same day, her ex-landlady filed a S$1,000 small claim against my friend for something totally ridiculously trivial. Upon receiving the Notice of Consultation from the Small Claims Tribunal, my friend contacted me if I know of anyone in the law business (having friends to think that I am a walking Yellow Pages is a compliment but yet the reason behind is beyond me). In case if you can’t read the words from the picture above (click to enlarge), here are the exact claim from my friend’s ex-landlady.

Outstanding electricity & water & gas bill for the sum of $123.30 inclusive of purchasing of pipe divider and dirty walls & flooring plus light scratches, moving of items without permission. Claiming for S$1,000 (ALL-IN).

Lawyers will probably cost more than S$1,000 just to consult and inside the Small Claims Tribunal in Singapore, there are no lawyers involved. Just the parties in dispute and the mediator behind close doors. If the matter cannot be resolved in the Small Claims Tribunal, the parties may choose to sue each other in a proper way – full frontal assault with blood and gore.

I am a banker wannabe by day and a lawyer wannabe by night. So I offered my free service to my friend only if she wanted it. I believe in the justice system that has evolved all the way back since the days of the Roman empire; I believe that the truth will find the way to reach us; and I believe that people like her ex-landlady who are wasting our taxpayer’s money should be punished. But before we get to that, I must make sure that my friend is not going to lose the case later this week. Then we shall sue her ex-landlady for anything ranging from emotional distress to reputational damage.

I reviewed the documents she has including tenant agreement, letter of termination, police report, and etc. It is not difficult to reconstruct the events in a chronological manner. The agreed monthly rental was S$1,200 for the entire HDB apartment. At first, her ex-landlady didn’t even want to inform HDB for the approval but my friend insisted. Within a month of stay, her ex-landlady raised the rent (possibly because there is another tenant who offered higher). Not comfortable with how the whole thing was handled, my friend terminated the contract giving one month notice. Her ex-landlady subsequently asked her to move out within 2 weeks claiming that since it is her apartment, she can do whatever she wants. My friend wanted to avoid conflict so she agreed to move out within two weeks.

On the day of the returning of keys, the landlady inspected the apartment and returned the full deposit minus S$100 for the anticipated PUB bills (i.e. utility bills) because her ex-landlady had no idea how much it would be. My friend did not object and they parted way.

A month or so ago, the landlady started to call her (and her company) incessantly asking for outstanding PUB balance to be transferred to the landlady’s account. My friend wanted to see the actual bill and have the payment acknowledgement properly signed but the landlady refused to meet or fax her the bills for verification. My friend suggested three time-slots to meet at her workplace (morning, lunch, and evening) but her ex-landlady claimed that she was not able to. Now how can her ex-landlady find time to attend the Small Claims Tribunal at 11am is beyond me.

As suggested by the police and the court, if my friend feels that she is being harassed, she has the right not to meet her ex-landlady alone. Now, to recap from the lawyer wannabe point of view …

  1. The fact that the landlady has returned the deposit upon inspecting the apartment indicates that the landlady is satisfied with the condition of the apartment. According to the contract, there should be a deduction of S$100 per item that is not working or in a not satisfactory condition.
  2. My friend is not obliged to pay the outstanding without seeing the actual bills. Period. In fact, there should be a refund if the S$100 deduction is more than cover the 2 months PUB bills (note that some flats or estates are heavily subsidised by the government).
  3. The claim should be dismissed after my friend verifies the bills and makes necessary payment (if applicable). S$1,000 is ridiculous.

I am planning to accompany my friend to the Tribunal. Stay tuned for the outcome.

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

The Golden Compass – A Promising Beginning Of A Potential Trilogy

When Nicole Kidman first made an appearance in the movie, the dinning hall scene struck a certain sense of familiarity. I whispered to Cynthia, “That dinning hall reminds me of my University days.” Turns out that some scenes were filmed in Oxford, UK (not sure if that particular scene was). As far as I can remember, the dinning halls of the colleges in Oxford look somewhat the same (note: I admit I have not been to all 39 colleges) as I did receive invites from friends of different collages for dinner once in a blue moon. Two long rows of tables along the longer side of the rectangular hall with the “high table” at the short end furthest away from the entrance. Usually the guests of honour and the college fellows take up the high table while the rest of the students dine at the long tables.

But familiarity is certainly not enough for me to like the movie. I admit that I chose “The Golden Compass” because I am impressed by the trailer and I am a big fan of Nicole Kidman. Her airtime in “The Golden Compass” is much less than Michelle Pfeiffer in “Stardust”. Naturally, I would be disappointed. Even Daniel Craig (the latest James Bond) and the Bond girl Eva Green don’t get too much airtime either. The main star of the movie turns out to be a teenage actress from UK – Dakota Blue Richards. She has beaten 10,000 others for the role.

Dakota Blue Richards can easily be one of my favorite child actresses (my favorite being Dakota Fanning). It is hard not to feel her emotions as she journeys from the collage she resides in, and into the land of the ice bears, flying witches with arrows and bows, and different factions of humans that wield guns.

“The Golden Compass” is based on the children novel “Northern Lights” (1995) written by Philip Pullman. That book has won the Carnegie Medal for children’s fiction and yet, has generated a share of controversy with claims that the book attempts to sell atheism to kids. The world of the religious skeptic Philip Pullman is dark and individualistic and religion is evil. Fans of the book are disappointed with “The Golden Compass” as the religion aspect is being washed down in order to perhaps gain a wider audience. For example, the evil organization that dominates the world is renamed to “Magisterium” while in the book, it is referred to as “the church”.

To me, it doesn’t matter. “The Golden Compass” may as well be the extreme opposite end of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and I would say, it is perhaps closer to a scaled down version of the “Lord of the Ring”. I am certainly looking forward to what the next two installments will bring, that is if the filmmaker has decided to carry on producing them.