TOTO F1 Draw

Tonight is TOTO big draw again, this time it's the F1 $9.7 million prize specially organised to celebrate the 2009 Singapore Night Race.

As usual the outlet hotspots are seeing snaking queues. Yishun is one of them.

Top: 7-11 Yishun   Bottom: Pools Yishun

Hougang is another hotspot...

 

                                

The tickets to financial hopes and freedom...

Post draw update. Above tickets gone up in smoke. Three winners share the main prize.
$3,243,528 to each of the winner. They got their financial freedom. To those whose dream has burst like a balloon, live to bet another draw.

Ancient Wonders

The Eqyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China - what do they have in common ?



Beside being the famous duo of the seven wonders, they were built without the luxury of modern day machinery.
Sheer manual labour, grit, sweat and blood. No cranes, no lifts, no bulldozers and no excavators. And no professional engineers from the top universities.


It took 20 years to construct a pyramid with 100,000 forced labourers.
And millions over 1,000 years for the great wall.
Is the modern man with state of the art machines able to carry out these similiar projects ?

concrete pump

Many civil engineers suggest that modern man does not possess the structural genius required to build the Great Pyramid even today. Forget about building a new wall of China, as human rights and cost will ensure the project will never see light.

tower cranes

Until you stand in front of the Great Pyramid in Giza everything you read about it is just theory. Once you see it in person, lots of those theories begin to simply vanish into thin air, so say Craig B. Smith author of his book "Building The Great Pyramid". So, how big is the pyramid ?

The base length of the Great Pyramid is calculated as 230.33 meters or 756 feet. Its height is146.59 meters or 481 feet. The angle of inclination or slope of its faces  are 51° 50' 40".

A total of over 2,300,000 blocks of limestone and granite were used in its construction with the average block weighing 2.5 tons and none weighing less than 2 tons. Till this day no one is able to give a clear picture how the Eygptians manage to move these blocks progressively up to the top.

Fingers of Destiny

The length between index and ring finger is believed to be linked to exposure to the male hormone testosterone in the womb, according to scientists from the University of California at Berkeley. The higher the testosterone, the greater the length of the ring finger and the more "masculine" the resulting child – whether male or female.



Men are 2.5 times more likely to have an index finger which is shorter than their ring finger. In women, the ring finger and index finger tend to be about the same length.
The scientists also found the difference in length between women's ring fingers and index fingers tend to be greater for lesbians than straight women. The same study also found that a greater difference in length of men's ring fingers and index fingers for gay men with several older brothers as compared to straight men.

Dr John Manning of University of Liverpool School of Biological Sciences explains "men who experienced high concentrations of foetal testosterone have relatively long fingers - in particular, ring finger which are longer than their index finger. Conversely, men who experienced low concentrations of foetal testosterone have shorter ring finger than their index finger."




Women with longer index finger had decreased spatial skills - such as car parking and map reading while males are at particular risk from suffering from deep vein thrombosis. Children were found to be more neurotic, sensitive and have greater literary and verbal abilities.

Girls who want to know if a potential boyfriend is a spend-thrift or the tight-fisted kind should check out his fingers. If they find a big difference in length between ring and index finger, he is likely to be more aggressive and dominant. Men whose index and ring fingers are closer in size tend to be physically weaker and more prone to compromise.

A report just published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology suggests that people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers.

Fingers are to carry out daily chores such as eating, writing and drawing, so in any given event and emotion DO NOT DO THIS...

MRT, MTR or Metro

It has been more than 20 years since the first MRT train started running along the 65 km route. Then, a MRT study team from Harvard weighed the pro and con of an all-bus sytem and a railbased network before presenting the findings to the government.

In 1982 the government announced the go ahead. Construction works commenced in 1984 and the first phase of the system running from Yio Chu Kang to Toa Payoh opened for service in 1987.

The successful completion of the rail network involved 13 Japanese contractors, namely Takenaka, Kajima, Shimizu, Obayashi, Sato Kogyo and Nishimatsu.

In the early days of construction, Raffle Place station used to be the biggest and deepest, followed by the Dhoby Ghaut in 2003.


The Hongkong MRT system began construction in 1975 and the first train service start in 1979.


The construction of the Bangkok Metro line, known as MRT began in 1996. The first line was opened in 2004.


The Kuala Lumpur Metro began construction in 1993 and opened 1996.


Construction started on September 16, 1997 for the Manila MRTC and began operational in 1999.


Ho Chi Minh City Metro works are due to begin in 2009. Completion of Line 1, which have 11 surface and three sub-surface stations, also related bus stations, is expected in 2014.


Jakarta planned to start the construction of their MRT system in 2010 and operational in 2016.


Sydney is in the world's top 50 urban cities by GDP and yet it is without a metro system.
Construction will start in 2010, with the first metro train running between Castle Hill and Epping in 2015, and the entire line to be fully functional two years later.
Premier Morris Iemma told reporters in 2008 "It will happen because the city needs it,"

Update February 2010:
New premier Kristina Keneally axed the 9km long CBD Metro scheme even though the government had already spent more than A$330 million on the project. Keneally ousted Rees as New South Wales premier in December 2009. Keneally said the metro scheme failed to address Sydney’s real transport needs.

The scrapping of the Metro is a setback to Sydney's bid to become an Asia-Pacific financial hub.

Email Address, Got One?

Pulled this off the www and should make good reading. Those who already read this, you surely had a good laugh. For those who are reading it for the first time, enjoy.



An unemployed man with not much education applies for a position as a toilet cleaner at Microsoft.
He went for an interview and the HR lady ask for his email address so Microsoft can send the employment terms and day to report for work.


The man is worried and replies that he has no computer and therefore has no email address. The lady tells him that without a email address it will be difficult to be selected.

The man goes home dejected and wonders how to pass the day on his last $10 note. Passing by the fruit shop he decides to buy 5 kg of strawberries.

As he walks home he make some house calls to sell the strawberries which otherwise he can't finish. After a couple of hours he double his capital so goes back to the shop to repeat the process 3 more times. In the end he goes home with $60 in his pocket.



He comes to realise that he can survive this way and so he start every day earlier and comes home every day later selling strawberries and additional products. So he triple his money every day.

A short time later he buys a push cart which he soon upgrades to a small truck and after 5 years he is the owner of a fleet of delivery trucks. And soon enough he becomes the owner of one of the largest food chain in the USA.

Now that money is no longer a problem he decides to buy insurance for his family and calls an agent to discuss a good policy. The agent asks him for his email address to send the proposed policy.

The man unabashedly tells him he doesn't have an email address. The agent was surprised that this rich man has no email address and comments "you have no email address and yet nevertheless built this large empire. Can you imagine where you would be if you had an email address".

The man pause for a moment and say "I would be a toilet cleaner at Microsoft"


You read this story and probably have an email address. Therefore you are closer to become a toilet cleaner than to be a millionaire.

Man, Gone Mad

Taiwan opened its first toilet theme restaurant in 2004 after being inspired by a Japanese cartoon featuring restroom images and the toilet themes run through the food and drinks menus.
Modern Toilet draws on people ages 15 to 35, especially students from the three universities nearby and there are already 12 such restaurants in the country.


Hong Kong, China and Japan too jumped on the bandwagan.


And followed soon by Penang.


Thankfully, Singapore is sane enough to avoid this nauseous antics.


Instead a hospital themed fine-dining restaurant came with surgical tables, golden wheelchairs seatings and staff in hospital garb named Aurum come on the scene in 2006.


But this turned out to be too much for the public to swallow, and Aurum quit the scene last year.

Smooth Operators

It's often heard nowadays that desperate times call for tough measures.




Jerry Ee 35, made off with about 3,000 watches from the stores at which he was a supervisor before vanishing on Dec 25 2008 with two bags of loot worth $7.6 million.
A court heard how he returned to the Cortina outlet at Raffles City Shopping Centre after closing hours with two empty luggage bags.
He cleaned out 366 new watches from the safe, packed them into the bags and left in a rented limousine.
Within two hours, he was across the Causeway. He fulfilled his prophecy of 'Whatever you do, do big.' For that he faces a 15 years jail term, sentencing on 18 September 2009.

Update 2 October 2009: Jerry Ee sentenced to 9 years imprisonment.



FOUR men age 33 to 39, were caught and charged in court on September 4, 2009 with theft of a container-load of Dior cosmetics and perfumes worth $1 million.
It is believed that the four suspects used their skills as heavy-vehicle drivers to transport their loot, comprising 150,000 items out of the Jurong Logistics Hub in the dead of night.
They then allegedly pulled over somewhere along the way, transferred the stolen goods into another container and moved that across the island to a rented space in a Kaki Bukit industrial building.
Most of the items have been recovered and if convicted, each of them can be jailed for up to three years

On September 2, 2009 five men smash the glass storefront with a large rock took off with 23 Macbook Pro Laptop computers, 14 iPhones, and nine iPod Touch devices.
This happened at New Jersey USA and the police have said they are on the hunt for a total of five black males.

Around Town

Keeping money in the bank is no longer motivated. The interest rate is now a measly less than 1 percent.

Bank Interest Rates

We have heard of the Kidney Foundation, Ren Ci Hospital but donation appeal for "coffin for the poor" is unheard of. This banner is hung at the overhead bridge outside Queensway Shopping Centre.

Funeral Agent Banner Advertisement

The Queensway Shopping Centre popular with people looking for the latest sport shoes and accessories is now almost 40 years old.

Backgound: Queensway Shopping Centre

Look like it's a deal gone bad. It was extensively renovated to become a new kopitiam, but now it's being fenced up and all activities ceased. It used to be the old Police Centre at the Queenstown MRT station.

This odd sign give the impression that chicken fares are served...

...but no, it's the name of a kopitiam.

Update, Burj Dubai

Burj Dubai, is set to officially open on December 2, to coincide with the country's National Day after a 3 months delay.

Burj Dubai tower prices have dropped as much as 50%, reported The National. UK-based property consultants Sherwoods said prices in the development, excluding the tower, had fallen from an average of US$952 per square foot to US$828. Brokers said downtown Burj Dubai had seen some of the biggest price drops in Dubai because prices had previously risen so sharply.

Speculation have been rife about the final height of the 160-floor Burj Dubai, which reportedly stands at 818 metres.
The total bill for the Burj Dubai project is about US$4.1 billion.

Seems like Dubai is the place to be with soccer star David Beckham, recent rumors making rounds that he is all set to own his apartment in the Burj Dubai tower. There are 144 Armani-designed apartments in the tower and the cost of one of them is said to be US$7.5 million.

Then, and Now

The Douglas DC-3 first passenger plane and flight was in 1935. Early U.S. airlines like United, American, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3. Capacity 28 passengers.
The Airbus A380 seat 525 passengers in 3-class layout.




Motorola DynaTAC 8000X is the first commercial handheld mobile phone in 1983 boasting 60 minutes talk time on a 10-hour charge. The Nokia E63 today has a talk time of 4 hours.
In Hongkong it was known as tai kor tai, probably referring to the triad bosses who will lose face if seen without one.


The first car manufacturers in the world were French:
Panhard & Levassor (1889) and Peugeot (1891) with output of 24 hp.
The new Peugeot 207 1.6l has 175 hp.


The first practical use of television was in Germany in 1929.
Then screen size was 12" standard. Today 42" screen is the rage.



IBM introduced in 1986 a personal computer with 256k RAM, Floppy Disk Drive and DOS operating system.


In the 1970s the 8 track car stereo system was the rage. No decent car owners will be seen without one.

Today's car stereo boast of iPod compatibilty beside radio/CD/MP3.
In the 1980s self-respecting adults would be out of place without a pager, also called a beeper. When beeped, the holder would head to a nearest public phone to return the call. That was convenience!
Today primary school students would be out of place without a 3G phone equipped with camera.


The legendary Walkman was such a hit then, equivalent to the iPod, playing on cassett with probably twenty songs.

It was not so long ago during the internet explosion in 1997 the first digital camera to hit the market was the Kodak DC210 boasting of 1.3 mega pixel and cost a princely sum of $1,300.