City of Surcharge

I wonder is this deja vu or just coincidence, MacDonald Delivery Service (MDS) surcharge is now $3, i can remember it is only $2 last month.

So whats next? More things to come. Here are some of things i predict will hit us soon. Deja vu?

1. Petrol and diesel price.
2. Water tax (currently 30%)
3. Electricity Tariff (currently 21.38¢/kWh for domestic)
4. Refuse Removal (currently $5.88 on my last bill)
5. MRT and Bus fares.
6. TV license (currently $110 for color tv)

I just found something very interesting with Google. Here are the electricity tariff that keeps increasing year after year.

Electricity tariff:

2002 15.02¢/kWh
2005 16.73¢/kWh
2006 21.15¢/kWh
Oct 2007 21.38¢/kWh

A complete list can be found here.

If you don't pay your utility bill promptly, you will be "invited" to join PAY-AS-YOU-USE’Metering Scheme. In Singapore there is no welfare, no charity for the poor, you don't pay, you don't get water and electricity.

City of possible impossibilities

Finally, they have announced this news after giving themselves a fat bonus and fat pension.

Top public sector officers to get 4% to 21% pay rise in January

I was expecting them to announce this sooner or later, they cannot afford to wait any longer. Like they said before, there is no such thing as good time, with all the bad news of rising costs of living, news of government spending our national reserves on various foreign assets, anything can happen, especially the bad ones.

Many bloggers have written extensively on the recent taxi hike, some of them even thinking of boycott taxi entirely. Seem like taxi drivers going to suffer, some describe them as worker bees working hard to feed those taxi operators who are the queen bees. The queen bees only know how to increase their own profits. See the amount of profits ComfortDelgro generates year after year, what are they doing, obsessed with breaking new records? The figures below taken from Lucky Tan's blog.

ComfortDelgro Profits
2006 - S$244.6 million
2005 - S$201.9 milion
2004 - S$200.6 million
2003 - S$134.0 million

The taxi drivers suffer, we consumers suffer. Enough is enough.

Creative service sucks?

Definitely something is wrong when it takes 6 weeks to replace your item which can be taken anytime from shelves. Read this blog by Cloudywind:

Creative's way of customer support

It is also interesting to read one comment left by Buaya. Not only he need to wait 2 months to replace his Zen player, he also need to pay a few hundreds even though it is under warranty! This shows that they are not the only "victims" of Creative sucked service!

I got the same 'service' from Creative!

My Zen's LCD screen cracked and they told me I had to pay for it even though it was under warranty. I was ok with that and asked how long do I have to wait for me to get it repaired. They told me it will take about 2 weeks.

The 2 weeks turned to 2 months! And guess what? All they did was to REPLACE a new Zen for me...

When I asked them why can't they just take 1 from the shelves, they said it was not possible, citing some funny reasons. And I actually have to personally go down to the Creative Center to complain before they actually handed me the brand new Zen, taken from inside their storeroom to replace the cracked one. And I still have to fork out a few hundred dollars for that...

Didn't we read about our Town Council buying lots of Creative shares and it is also a major shareholder too!

Town councils investing in stock market

Plagiarism equal creativity?

The news is everywhere, some "senior citizens" doing rap song, circulating on YouTube and blogs. It is even discovered that the song is "plagiarised" from a rap group KRS-One. Telling people to get creative by practising "plagiarism" huh? Hope they don't get sued like Timbaland.

Here are links of some blogs commenting this video:

1. MDA Senior Director's Rap

2. MDA Senior Management Rap was inspired by KRS-One?

3. MDA head honchos rap on video to get Singapore “creative and connected”

Congratulation to our ministers

Civil servants to get two-month bonus in December 2007

This is indeed a good news for all the civil servants. Well done, time to pat each other shoulders, thank you for all the hard work in helping our people, creating so many new schemes that make Singapore so unique.

We will never forget all the goodies you have shower on our head after KO all the oppositions big time in every election.

Not only you get extra bonus every year, you will get pay hike too. You really make us envious, make us regret not study hard enough to become great leaders like you.

Here are the example of pay hikes you are getting for past few years. There are alot more from Google.

1. Singapore civil servants get 13% pay hike

2. PM, ministers to get pay rise of between 14% and 33%

3. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT BY MR TEO CHEE HEAN, MINISTER-IN-CHARGE OF THE CIVIL SERVICE, ON CIVIL SERVICE SALARY REVISIONS, AT PARLIAMENT 9 APRIL 2007

And not forgetting your fat pensions too.

Do we need 5 lives to learn a lesson?

Isn't this too late? Isn't this a tragedy waiting to happen? Do you think insurance company will pay for such negligence cos safety measures are taken for granted?

"The 22 crew, who were not wearing life vests, were thrown off and many had to cling onto a pontoon to avoid being swept under by the current. It was not clear if the five who drowned all knew how to swim."

Ren Ci downfall

Looking at the news from Today. It is not difficult to see what is happening, another corruption case happening in a charity organisation, this time it is a Buddhist endorsed one, Ren Ci. One by one, they fall, NKF, Youth Challenge. The power of money is irresistable, not even the "holy" one is immune to it. No wonder after that "peanut" legacy, now SM Goh himself also thinking same way like his wife, suggesting pay hike for charity.

"Ren Ci is being probed for allegedly making interest-free loans to third parties, with its own records reflecting a smaller amount than what was in the borrowers' books."

Who is that "third party"? Where the money (the difference) goes to when the "borrower" return to him? To his own pocket?