Performance does not link to salaries

In the world where we thought people are paid according to performance, it is no longer so. Just to diffuse the anger on the streets that our world's highest paid Ministers and several GLCs Top management are overpaid for sloppy work and huge losses. Here is the CNNMoney.com list of Top 5 overpaid CEOs in America which are overpaid worst performers of 2008.

In summary:

1) Michael Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch : Awarded total compensation of $71.8 million despite share prices falling over 71% last year and though he has been on board for 17 years, his compensation package included a $6 million "stay bonus" and use of corporate jet. Not bad for a clothing firm - I meant the compensation not the idiocy of renumeration here.

2) James W. Stewart, BJ Services Company : $34.6 million bulk of which is stock options granted more than five years ago. Energy company, BJS stocks have halved since.

3) Brian Roberts, Comcast Corp. : Total compensation of $40.8 million last year, $22 million in earnings related to stock options. Cable and Internet provider, Comcast shares are down 7%.

4) John Faraci, International Paper : Total compensation of $38.2 million, including $21 million in pension payments though he is still working for the company for past 6 years. Shares of the paper company sank 63% last year.

5) Eugene Isenberg, Nabors Industries : Total compensation of $79.3 million, out of which $58.7 million is bonuses. In 2008, shares of the oil and gas drilling company plummeted 51%.

Ignorance is bliss

Many have asked me why I choose to help migrant workers instead of our own aged or kids, which I have in the past, but somehow I feel that the way we treat our foreign workers here in Singapore is just too shameful to speak of and we really need to raise awareness to the ignorant.

Yes, we were just praised by Bernie Ecclestone on Straits State Times, who last year called Singapore GP the "jewel in F1's crown", that the country once again put on a great show.

Fantastic job, no complaints. Every year is a big improvement, and next year it'll be better."

Indeed business was roaring from St James to Harry's Bar at F1 Rocks. In such times, I find it a necessity to remind everyone though ignorance is a bliss, progress of our nation should not come at all cost. I leave you with an actual video clip which will probably not be seen in our State media and a great journalistic new media article follows. Do watch the clip before reading.



And you wonder why Singaporean shun the readily available job of a construction worker.


I would think S$10 million dollars to be spent on integrating foreign talent immigrants as suggested by Minister for Community, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, should be better spent on teaching such companies including our Ministry of Manpower on how to treat humans with respect or at least provide proper housing and sanitation.

Which brings me to another point on such wanton suggestions of wasteful taxpayers dollars. Why should money be spent on new citizens who might treat Singapore as a playground/hotel? Does Australia or Britain have policies or grants on teaching new immigrants how to speak proper English or how to integrate with the society? The filtering should have been done at the beginning to prevent the square pegs from trying to fit into a round hole and not be polishing or turning the cube into a ball, not especially when it has already been squeezed in. This is growth at all cost...and us taxpayers bearing even such integration costs. An obvious ill-thought immigration policy now being willfully corrected.

2nd F1 Night Race

Had a quieter night and caught the race from the telly and tearing engine sounds though we were high up...and that concludes the 2nd Singapore F1 Night Race, back to normal traffic soon at the Marina area. Good job Hamilton..until next Sep 2010!
Leave you with a view from the 64th floor of Sail@Marina.

F1 Rocks

This year being the 2nd year of the Singapore F1 night race, I thought I would give it a miss since I wasn't following much of the race as my fav team Ferrari wasn't doing so well. But my buddy Jase has always been the "THE MAN" and scored us Grandstand Pitstop tickets. But since it was qualifying night and there wasn't much action, we decided to venture out to somewhere new this year...


This was just the beginning of a great night though with slight hiccups but Jase always have more up his sleeves with LG F1 ROCKS Concert tickets@ Fort Canning park.. just look at the following pictures and 2 sentences.

Black Eye Peas RAWKS!
And Beyonce is HAWT!

Singapore Slingers vs Smart Gilas Philipinas

High flying Aguilar stopping Jeffers from going to the hole. You can clearly see how high he jumps.

It was forewarned by one of my readers who left an indelible comment on my Cbox to watch out for this team. Smart Gilas plays like the Europeans as coached by former Eurobasket and Iranian coach, Rajko Toroman. They have a young squad average 22 years of age with a former LA Lakers player - #11 CJ Giles. Together with 2009 PBA Number 1 draft pick #16 Japeth Aguilar, the twin towers killed Slingers centre defense as clearly seen by the number of alley hoop dunks and offensive rebounds. By the 5th minute mark, the Gilas were up 12-8 with both Giles and Aguilar scoring 10 of the dozen.

Gilas Twin Towers against Brown and Jeffers

But as we saw in the first game against Coca-Cola Tigers, the tenacity of our boys especially #33 Brown and #30 Jeffers came out fast to showed the Gilas what is Slingers' defense and did well to stop their scoring; as we managed to climb back up 13-12 with the first lead. Henceforth, I know tonight will be an exciting matchup.

We're working very hard

Is it me or does the CEO of Singapore Tourist Board seems eager to tell everyone she and her team works very hard? Haha



Bonuses?

Anyway F1 coming to town and thanks to Jase..will be going to take some fast speeding action!

Digital Photography

With the advent of digital photography, there is now an influx of many amateurs who were once stopped by the cost of film (or for the matter of processing film in order to learn from bad shots, now it is shoot and review) and high barriers of entry for expensive equipment. I've always love photography, and admire the works of many journalists or cameramen since I was young. With the birth of great engineering marvel of a digital camera, and with the ease of reviewing and editing photos, and sharing them online on Flickr or Facebook - it allows constructive criticisms and improvements to be made.

There are now no fast rules to improving your pictures, and everyone has their own styles and perspective. And very often I am happy I have a bunch of friends who quite often share and explain how to improve my shots. I think the world is much better off shooting pictures than shooting off bullets, where recently it is reported that US is having a shortage of ammos.

I welcome more photographers as we look through the world with our lens and capture the beauty from our perspective. Got all excited about photography today again as I find out I can actually take Lomo-style photos with this Diana Lens and Adapter for DSLRs. I know we can actually post-process it on the computer to get the Lomographic Effect, but I am such a procrastinator when it comes to editing pictures...and do not believe in post-processing what we see through the lens.

Hope to get the adapter and lens soon!!

Slingers lost to Smart Gilas

Singapore Slingers had a tough loss of 3 pts to Smart Gilas Pilipinas tonight - 67-70 was the final score. Our locals played well again with great tight defense. Unfortunately we lost ground in the centre, and allowed many alley hoop dunks which were a joy in the stands as many Filipinos came to cheer their team. Got my friends, Kelvin, Keith and Vicky along tonight to help cheer for the Slingers.

With loud chants for defence as the game was closely contested tonight, my friends realised they were mere squeaks and shouting with the wrong crowd. After the match, they lamented the fact that it feels like they are not in Singapore Indoor Stadium, that this is not on home court. Like the S-League, it seems that locals are too pre-occupied with work or their busy lifestyle, the passionate Filipinos are more interested in a live game of basketball. I do hope Kelvin being a local school teacher with experience as basketball coaching will encourage more Singaporeans to come support the Slingers and have our boys a louder cheer.

I will have my detailed review of the match soon.

Note: Crossed my 10k pictures snapped on my DSLR tonight, numbers revert back to 0001 and almost had a shocked that I might have lost some photos!

Interesting observations on housing in Singapore

With the recent 20-40% rise in property prices following gains in stock market. There are a few interesting observations which seems to highlight possible money generating schemes. An estimate 100% profit is being suggested here.

Increase in housing prices, especially in public housing with higher COVs and HDB's new estimated land prices. Who will stand to gain from the increase?

1) Stamp fee will be payable to Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). For properties above S$360,000, stamp fee payable will be 3% of the purchase price minus S$5,400.).
2) Bank loan, with higher loan, longer period and possible increase in SIBOR rates - more interests to be paid out as local banks can collectively raise their rates.
3) Legal fees - conveyancing transactions, disbursements, solicitors' fees (sometimes peg to % depending on law firms); Lawyers and law firms make $, and pay respective taxes.
4) Higher annual property tax from increased valuations from IRAS.

I bet the budget next year will be showing signs of overspilling coffers. Despite the $20 billion estimate spending in the recession, I guess as usual our effective government will find ways to make it back (from old studies of for-the-poor GST, to ERPs, COEs etc).

I do think we are in the verge of an absolute recovery...that is if this is actually sustainable. A newly met acquaintance broke it down for me how it might actually be possible. Newly weds have parents with life-savings to loan or give cash for deposits or partial payment of the houses (so if you think about it, their old parents' $90k cheap HDB is effectively used to pay for their children's' current purchases as well). Apparently a couple wanted to purchase a flat from their parents at the cost price which is $190k below valuation, HDB disapproved it. Since there are laws preventing hand-me-downs, effectively the couple has to purchase at valuation with the above mentioned four observations of gains. Also with the recent rise in equities have resulted in 100-200% reap in profit for many who have bought into this incredible run since March 2009 which will pay easily for 10-20% of the housing price. Let's just pray all this is sustainable, otherwise many might end up in great debt.

Deserving

I know a lot of critics are out there lambasting Michael Jordan over his Hall of Fame acceptance speech. Critics told him who he should thank and blame him for not thanking this and that, and he should be more humble etc. Seriously, he is all deserving the honours and achievements, so why compromise, why be nice especially during those times who are we to know what transpired behind those closed locker rooms, how they tried to break up the Bulls each time in the name of assured transitions, or how others have equally shown ill-feelings towards him back then - Michael after all is leaving a legacy behind.


6-time NBA champion: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 (all with Chicago Bulls)
6 NBA Finals appearances: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
5-time NBA Most Valuable Player: 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998
10-time scoring champion: 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
14-time NBA All-Star: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003
3-time NBA All-Star Game MVP: 1988, 1996, 1998
6-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
1-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year: 1987-88
11-time All-NBA selection:
First team: 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
9-time All-Defensive selection:
First team: 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
NBA Rookie of the Year: 1985
2-time NBA Slam Dunk Contest champions: 1987, 1988

The list goes on here.


Similar to a friend who was interviewed by the papers recently for him achieving Magic accolades and achievement here and globally. JC Sum spoke about his GP teacher back in VJC dissing his essay on Magic as a Performing Art and now VJC invites him back to perform during a OVA (Old Victorian Alumi) event for performing arts in this year's June 3rd's ST Life section.

Here is his full unedited quote of that story (understood it was edited in the print version):

"So, it is completely ironic that 15 years after failing this essay, I would go on to win a first place award presented by the National University Centre for the Arts in 1997, perform magic across the world, present two mega illusions for collectively 15,000 people and star in Singapore’s first permanent illusion show. And then be invited by OVA to represent Victorians who have made achievements in the performing arts and be part of a concert that is held in Singapore’s premier performing arts venue.

Back then, I’m sure the teacher thought of me as ignorant and uninformed … the difference is, 15 years ago I knew it was the other way around…. Now, I’m sure he knows too."

I guess if this is what drives us to be motivated, surely we deserve to take some payback time back to highlight the reasons why we get so driven and competitive right? Why is noone telling the person who once tried to cut us from our dreams to shut up and stop the hurt or criticism? So in my humble opinion, I think everyone has their right to their own Hall of Fame induction and their own way of getting back in life; because if one is not an inspiring Michael Jordan or JC Sum, he might have fallen and never stood up to his unkind critics.


I leave you with some great videos of my main man and remember what he has done for us, for the game and no one else has as big a heart as him for the love of the game.

He is legendary...and nothing can take it away from him.

Gift or Curse?

When I was younger, I wished I had super memory etching every formula there is in school. In the University courses I took, where open book is uncommon, the number of formula for one paper might sometimes exceed 30 and they go like this:

A simple one on Doping Concentration: C(z,t) = Q/sqrt(piDt)*exp[-(z/a)^2] where fixed dose Q= a/sqrt(pi)*c0, diffusion length a= 2* sqrt (Dt), where D = diffusivity of element and t = time, z is junction depth = a* sqrt [ln(Q/Nd*sqrt piDt) and Nd = phosphorus junction depth. This constitute to remembering one formula!

Yet some days you wish you do not remember things which agonises with every detail.

These 4 persons have the mental powers to remember every detail in their life like a VCR. A gift or curse? You decide.

Eric Sandrin no more

Jase talking to Eric in a previous Slingers' postgame.


So with Marcus Ng on board, we know we do not have Darren Doc Ng. And as the season starts, slowly we come to terms that Eric will not be returning - after last season with the Slingers Eric went to play in the Korean Basketball League in team Ulsan Mobis and averaged 11.8 points with 6.6 rebounds during 24 games in the KBL 2008/9 season.

Korean-American Eric Sandrin, who managed to play in three games with the NBA Sacramento Kings in California (used to be my favorite team), before spending time with the world renown Harlem Globetrotters where his nickname was "Shanghai"! With Eric's Korean roots, I would think they would nicknamed him "Kimchi"! Then again, light skinned asians know that most Western countries think we are all from China some way or another!

Eric, who has a Korean mother holds three citizenships: U.S. / Korean / Brazilian. He’s been talked about back in Korea quite a bit as his older brother Daniel Sandrin, took Korean citizenship under the name “Lee Dong-jun” playing in the KBL with team Daegu Orions. Eric possibly will be known as "Lee Seung Joon" and has joined Seoul Samsung Thunders recently.

As Korean Basketball League made a rule for ethnic Korean draft last year, Eric finally has a chance to play in the league. All the best to you Eric! Hope to see you back here someday.

Singapore Slingers vs Coca Cola Tigers

Before a basketball match, most teams will often go out to the floor doing pregame warmups, shooting and layup practises. And quite often it tells a lot about a team if you watch the players closely and you can tell if one is going to play well that night and if he will be making his shot. So since the Brewerkz beer was still not ready, I decided to head to the floor early and see how our Singapore Slingers boys are doing.


From the warmups, I could see that Darren "Doc" Ng will clearly not be coming back as his younger brother Marcus Ng dons his #8 jersey. And from the likes of it, he was not a shooter like his older brother(as I heard in the Captain's Lounge during half time from a Malaysian auntie talking on her mobile rather loudly: "...yeah lar ok...but Marcus not like Darren, cannot shoot 3 pointers!"), but I have to say he is rather a boyish looking chap. Also noticed our Singaporean boys trying very hard to dunk. Haha who say yellow asian boys can't dunk?

Defense wins games - Go Slingers

Just a quick update for tonight's game where I think Coach Frank did a great job with player rotation, especially with the locals and they did well in the overall defense. The intensity kept up throughout the game. Wei Jian and Michael Wong did well scoring double digits and of course so did our mighty mouse #1 Al Vergara who topped all scores at 20.

I will blog more about what went wrong and what was right in the next entry accompanied with more pictures.



Oh yeah we won Coca Cola Tigers 93-85...it was an exciting close game. Many a times, Keith and myself, who were sitting on the courtside, stopped taking photos and watched the game! Do support your locals, they are playing well..I promise won't end up like the S-League.

Friday afternoons

First time being stuck in a cafe on a lazy rainy Friday afternoon working in town.


I love my Friday afternoons where I complete my rounds of morning conference calls and I meet my buddies for lunch in Shenton business area and settle comfortable in a cafe with a nice hot drink and do my work. It is sort of a reward for having an office in a factory in the suburbs and coming out to see the "real" world.

Getting comfortable with not needing to wear shirts/pants to work and not involving in office politics as my bosses are in the US.

Right now watching the world passing by with everyone getting busy, cars and trucks driving by. I love Fridays. TGIF.

First game of the season - Slingers

Tomorrow will be the first home game of the Singapore Slingers season 2009/2010. They will be playing against PBA Coca-Cola Tigers from Philippines. It should be an interesting match up and my first time seeing the locals in action with a much different line up from previous years. How will they fare? Lions vs Tiger..wonder if they will have a tiger mascot carrying coke vs our glorious lion mascot with his Brewerkz beer!!! Hahah...I hate coke and never refused a Brewerkz draft!

Anyway getting excited from the months of absence of live basketball!

Just to break down the Tigers which was formed in 2002 and won 2 straight PBA championships but since then, they have been on a downhill at under 0.500 W/L %. Tigers are currently led by head coach - Kenneth Duremdes who is a retired Filipino professional basketball player. Kenneth is a former PBA Most Valuable Player in 1998, and a former member of the Philippine national basketball team. Why am I listing the coach instead of the players is due to quite a number of transfers and trades in the Tiger's squad, they are confusing me!

Anyway it will be pretty interesting to see how we fare tomorrow! Go Slingers!
And if you haven't already got your tickets...get them at Sistic.

I will try to cover the game tomorrow with pictures to be posted within a couple of days!

My next ride has to be topless

Haha here is a sneak peek of the CLK350 rental in Edinburgh which cost us over S$300 a day..
Slow piece of metal even after slamming the pedal to the floor...though proclaimed to be 268bhp...Daimler make heavy cars.

Note to self - 2

Following 10 notes to myself in July, here are another 10 reminders to myself, after a relaxing vacation in UK.

1) As one get older, there is a constant need to exercise the brain as things become mundane or easier - apparently blogging and facebook helps in many ways.
2) There is no rushing of things, everything is about the journey and process - be it learning a new martial arts, new academic interest or falling in love.
3) Realization that there are more Nissan Sunny/Latio haters in Singapore than I think.
4) Though I have some flair in sales when I started working, Dad often lament what will happen if I grow old and selling isn't exactly a skill set I can survive with - then I saw all my insurance/car/house sales agent friends. They have so far made enough to live comfortably and my engineering pay off is still far off from retirement. Never listen to your parents - what they know now, might not apply 20 years later.
5) We need to understand that there are always alternatives, especially after you have seen the greener pastures.
6) When you live by a loch with a calming view which you can wake up to every morning for the rest of your life, you ask yourself why are you compromising living on an island of a never ending rat race.
7) By moving yourself away from the norm, peer pressures and highly creative marketing, somehow a nice grocery bag seems more relevant than a branded LV, Prada bag.
8) By ridding yourself of wants, you realize actually your needs aren't so difficult to fulfill.
9) When you have finally fulfilled the list of things you wanted to do when you were a teenager - its either time to make a new list or grow up.
10) U2 concerts are best enjoyed live and not on DVDs.

Slingers schedule 2009/2010

Gullibility

What is found these days in the local newspapers, online portals like Asiaone and STOMP, is nothing less than a tabloid reporting trashy, hardly critical articles. A book launch covers more pages than important issues on the ground. My Spiderman/Superman cartoon days often made me wish I did better in my languages and studied journalism instead. Not in hope of peeling of my outer clothing, but to report the truth. And with journalism in Singapore being the way it is today, I am glad I suck in languages and did better in engineering topics.

Perhaps RADM Lui should watch a couple of 2009 movies recommended by an engineer. "State of Play" starring Russel Crowe, that is how journalists or a newspaper should be. If not at least strive to have his team of journalists be like Robert Downey Jr. in "The Soloist" doing some good for those who have fallen through the cracks of society.

Would like to share this interesting article written by our local famed blogger - Yawning Bread: Mainstream media here continues to hold ground, said minister

I shall extract excerpts which I find would make him a better journalist, and by the way in no means of RADM Lui's poor standards.

One can go on and on adding layers to facts, each layer altering one's perception to some degree. Generally, it would never be possible to exhaust all layers of facts. Since that is the case, then one may ask: How many layers have to be unearthed for the Truth to be understood? If perception is so contingent upon the adding of layers of information, how will we ever know when we have grasped the Truth?

Lui said in his speech, Singapore's mainstream media "remains the dominant source of information", a claim he supported by reference to the 2008 Nielsen Media Index survey, saying "75 per cent of those surveyed selected newspapers as their preferred source of news", that's news. Can it be otherwise? How can non-mainstream media contest at being the "preferred source of news" when it is not actually a source of news?

By foolishly remaining complacent about people trusting mainstream media for "news", the government is blindsided to another set of dynamics: It is commentary that more likely shapes political opinion and it is doubtful if the mainstream media play a hegemonic role anymore in the formation of political opinion. Moreover, as elections in Malaysia and other countries have shown, political opinion formed by the net-savvy minority can spread by word of mouth and other means to non-net-savvy sections of the population.

I shall end with his last sentence in that blog entry which left indelible parting questions to my mind as well. "Is our mainstream media considered credible simply because, after 44 years, our people have been made apathetic and credulous?"

Slingers roster update

Image shamelessly stolen from Slingers website.

As of today, Singapore Slingers has confirmed 8 other players (with 4 more to go) who will be representing Singapore for ABL from October 2009 – February 2010. Of the 8 already announced - 4 of them were from last season.

Comprising of mainly locals unlike previous seasons, this is perhaps Bob Turner's (Owner of Singapore Slingers) thoughtful way to improve local basketball standards. The current local Slingers roster are familiar names we have seen before in previous seasons - Hong Wei Jian, Pathman Matialakan, Desmond Oh Wei Jie and yes, Michael Wong! Other Singaporean players are Wong Wei Long, Steven Khoo Kian Huat and Lim Wai Sian. Michael due to work commitments like Wei Long and Steven will join the team as part-time basis.

The 3 import players are Kyle Jeffers (Playing for the Langen, Germany team Stats: 14.5ppg, 9.9rpg, 1.5apg, 1.3spg, FGP: 61.6%, 3PT: 33.3%, FT: 55.5%, College team - Oregon State Beavers, USA), Michael LeBlanc (Plays in Asia quite a bit and used to play for the Malaysia team, see video highlights below against the Slingers last season scoring 27pts, USA) and Al Vergara (Philippines) who was here last season. With 4 more places to go, there is still no news of more Darren and Eric. I know many of you like Darren "Doc" Ng. I personally would hope Slingers try to get back as well - poster bad boy, Eric Sandrin.

Help the migrant workers

If you guys have time and would like to do something for these foreign workers who helped us to reach our current developed status but some selected greedy /unkind Singaporeans have so far lack the morals and mercies to treat them like human - please help out. Trinity Soup Kitchen which was started by a group of kind people since last year which was only recently highlighted by the newspapers.

You can help either physically or financially or in kinds..do click on the website for more info - http://trinitysoupkitchen.wordpress.com/

More games with the Slingers

Besides the Asean Basketball League, there will still be matches with PBA teams in the Singapore Challenge Series 2009. For more info, please refer to poster below:




Tickets are available now.

Power efficiency in mobile computing

24 hour battery life laptop? HP claims it.

Six teams for ABL

Official release in the news today is that 6 teams from Asean will be joining the inaugural ABL in September. The teams announced are Barracudas from Brunei, Kuala Lumpur Dragons, Philippine Patriots, Thailand Tigers and one of last season's match up Satria Muda BritAma from Indonesia and last but not least is your Singapore Slingers.

I do hope there is demand to watch these teams especially Brunei. Anyway top four teams will compete in the playoffs. This will be a long road ahead to emulate the NBA, hopefully more teams join to compete and expand this league into an Asian one and raises the standard overall.

Drinking is good

I do not have to stress the fact drinking is good for health. So says in Scotland that whiskey is the water of life, and this Australian newspaper article about relating drinking to a better cognitive function in aging years.



On a topic of alcohol, this refreshing video of Absolut vodka's ad is nice.

Don't click

Anyway LTA called me back and said, that seating capacity does not include driver. Wow anyway mystery solved.

Another mystery awaits here. Do not click this link. Just don't. Curiosity kills the cat.

Petrolhead quiz time

Made a 1800-CALL LTA call and posed a question back to LTA who got me puzzled when they drop me a notice for upcoming vehicle inspection.



What passenger car in Singapore only seats 3? Mind you, my ride is a legit 4 door Japanese vehicle. Oh unless LTA thinks I own this car.

Still waiting for LTA to call me back, apparently it stumped the lady on the end of the line - she needed a help line.