DING

Monday, February 26, 2007

This weekend I sacrificed sleep, sanity and a social life to get my snowy white gryphon.

Totally worth it.

Added: Just in case anyone's ever wondered, this is what Zynfandel the night elf warrior on Frostmourne looks like. Check out the pr0ny pants. And chest. In fact I look like porn in plate (plate armour, not plate spoon fork). Porn in plate on a plate! It's like a Stormtrooper's wet dream hahaha. Ahem. Very disturbing. I used to look nicer when all my clothes were a set. Now I need to go get a new set so my shoulders don't clash with my wrists. But anyway check out the pants! Lol.

posted by zyn :: 12:22 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink

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protege

Sunday, February 25, 2007

I'd had two beers before the movie and so I was all prepared to snuggle up and take a little nap during the show. But Protege turned out to be, somewhat surprisingly, very, very good. It's kind of like Infernal Affairs meets Requiem for a Dream, but a bit grittier than the former and less likely to make you gouge your own eyes out than the latter. (Man, I will never forget that night in Princeton.)

Daniel Wu is lovely (he really reminds me of John K for some reason), the gorgeous Louis Koo is unrecognisable (always the hallmark of an award-winning show), and I will even spare a grudging accolade for Andy Lau (Linqi are you reading this?). And the little girl kept making me want to cry.

Highly recommended. With or without the beer.

posted by zyn :: 3:30 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink

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lfg* and cny snippets

Friday, February 23, 2007

1.

Anyone interested in taking CFA in Dec? I want to do it but I am very bad at discipline and stuff so I need someone to poke and prod me along. I only taking Level 1 though <-- example of me being bad at discipline and stuff. :(

(*lfg = Looking For Group (e.g. to do quests or kill people) in WoW lingo. It has come to my notice that there are people who don't play WoW!! I mean, who knew?! So now I will endeavour to explain all WoW references.)

2.

Last year was the year of the Dog. Fittingly, I worked hard. This year is the year of the Pig. Equally fittingly, I have done very little so far but eat. This has led to two things:

One, me being down with a throat infection after gobbling six Ferrero Rochers and an unquantifiable amount of bak kwa almost all at once;

Two, me getting fat (don't groan, bear with me). I haven't had a flat stomach for weeks now, since I quit my gym. Will probably join California Fitness soon except that I have commitment phobia and the showers there are gross. But I do want a flat stomach. Sigh.

3.

Most people's Chinese New Year conversations, I imagine, go like this:

Nosy aunt/uncle/your dad's second cousin's husband: Wah so big already ah! So when are you getting married?
Unfortunate victim: Uh... ahahaha. Donno lah.

Mine mostly went like this:

Nosy aunt/uncle/my dad's second cousin's husband: Wah write so many articles ah! So when should I buy house?
Unfortunate victim (i.e. me): Uh... ahahaha. Donno lah.

All in all, though, it was a good CNY. Even though it descended upon me this year with the awkward abruptness of a nervous virgin with low EQ (not that I have any personal experience with that). And even though I had to work two out of three days.

But it made me appreciate Sumiko Tan's column about infrequently met relatives. I have the deepest affection for my cousins, but really very little to say to them three days in a row. And especially now that many of them are married, which gives us even less in common. Which also brings me to

3.

So many of my friends are getting married. I am in the deepest awe. Sometimes I wish - ah, but if wishes were Ferraris. Congratulations to all!

(I foresee an expensive year.)

4.

The other day I went to Dom's house to listen to music. I know it sounds weird, but it was actually quite fun. Inspired by that visit I bought five CDs today:

Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Joni Mitchell - Hits
Zazie - Rodeo (The closest thing to Alizee that That CD Shop could recommend)
High Society - Mansion 3

So far only the Massive Attack and Zazie one have impressed me. But I've met my CD quota for this month already so I'll just have to try again next month. Maybe I'll get The Smiths and Counting Crows. And something funky. Average White Band? That's the only funky thing I know, haha. Recommendations, as always, hugged to bits.

5.

If you've made it all the way down here, wow. You deserve a reward. Rewards are categorised into:

(1) If you know my beloved er zi Josh: Josh sneering, gangsta-style

(2) If you don't (shame on you): Justin Timberlake. Watch it. Trust me.

posted by zyn :: 12:34 PM :: 7 Comments :: permalink

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"we will be performing a scheduled maintenance this week and will be bringing all realms down"

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sigh.

I had planned to blog about the Colossal Clouds of Cynicism that descended upon our lunch table today, during which time everyone except me insisted that straight guys and straight girls can absolutely never be platonic friends, that guys walk around topless on a hot day only to tempt you into bed, and that I am a naive idealist who knows nothing about the Worldly Ways of the Wise.

But then I decided not to be so bimbo.

So instead I shall rant about the unfairness of en blocs and the "landmark ruling" on Waterfront View that was reported today. It's not like I have anything better to do, after all.

From what I understand from the rather unclearly written articles, this one guy at Waterfront View is trying to block the en bloc sale of his estate because the proceeds he will get from the sale of his unit won't be enough to refund the amount that he has so far withdrawn from his CPF account, plus interest, to pay for the home.

That is also rather unclearly written, so let me explain slowly.

Most people who buy a home take a loan to pay for it, and then pay back the loan in monthly installments, partly in cash and partly from CPF funds. Let's say you buy a home for $1 million and your estate goes en bloc with each owner getting $1.2 million. Sounds like you made a profit, right?

But there are two things eating into this profit: the interest on the loan you took, and the "opportunity cost" interest on the CPF funds you withdrew from your account.

Supposing you took a 35-year loan, but your estate went en bloc only 20 years after you bought your home, so you still have 15 years left on your loan.

After you sell your home in the en bloc, you have to use the proceeds to pay back the remaining loan first to the bank. Then you have to give back to CPF the entire amount that you withdrew from your CPF account to pay for your home - PLUS the interest that the withdrawn amount would have earned if it had happily sat dormant in your CPF account (currently 2.5%, I believe). After this, if you still have any money left over, then good for you. Most of the time, apparently, you don't even have enough to pay CPF back in full, so you just give them whatever's left over.

So most people take that into consideration before they sell their homes. But in an en bloc sale, where only 80% of owners need to agree to sell the estate, some people are being forced to sell, even if they don't want to because the sale proceeds won't be enough to cover both the remaining bank loan as well as what is owed to CPF.

In the case of the Waterfront View resident, he bought his unit for $515K and will get $660K after the sale. But he still owes the bank about $343K and CPF, about $407K. After he pays back the bank, what's left over ($660K - $343K) won't be enough to pay CPF back in full.

And this is where it gets unfair. CPF says, oh, it's ok dude, you don't have to make up the shortfall into your own CPF account. Go ahead and sell your house and stop blocking the en bloc.

Of course the guy is all, wtf CPF, this is my retirement money, you morons.

The only way you can block an en bloc is to prove that you are making a loss if the en bloc goes through. But today the Strata Titles Board ruled that CPF losses don't qualify as such a loss.

So my question is, why the hell not? CPF money is still money, and it's money that's supposed to be sacrosanct in Singapore, for heaven's sake, because without CPF we'd have loads of impoverished old people (even more than the loads of impoverished old people we already have).

I suppose the argument goes like this: you don't have to repay CPF in full anyway, and it's unlikely that the unhappy resident could have sold his individual unit at a higher price in the market in any case, so why not just sell now and put the most he can back into his CPF? Also, if a lot of people don't manage to pay back the full CPF amount, then most estates will never get sold because there will always be someone making at least a CPF loss.

But the point is that maybe he was planning never to sell his home, which means he would have had a permanent home over his head and never have had to pay CPF back. And now, having already paid all that interest on his loan, he'll have to find another home to buy, take another loan, and this time he'll have less in his CPF account to withdraw to help finance that new home.

Which then brings me back to the minimum 80% owner consensus to sell an estate en bloc. If an estate has 500 units, that's a potential 100 residents who are dead set against the sale. But if they don't suffer losses big enough to stop the sale, then they lan lan have to sell. People keep complaining about the intimidation tactics and unending harassment they suffer from marketing agents trying to persuade 80% of owners to go en bloc. Shouldn't the barrier be set back at 90% now that the market is doing so well and developers have already built up considerable land banks?

This all seems very unfair but maybe there's something I don't know. If anyone can enlighten me I would be very grateful.

All this and server still not up. Can die.

posted by zyn :: 12:02 AM :: 13 Comments :: permalink

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i'm having a quarter-life crisis

Monday, February 05, 2007

but nothing lifts the spirits like talking to a cute priest.

Even if he is telling me how to play my warrior, which I find unceasingly annoying.

Really quite cute though, so I forgive.

In other news, am still in a funk. Think I need to go out, spend a lot of money, and then go clubbing. The younger, cheaper version of a Porsche and combovers. Haha.

Alternatively, I need to get out of Singapore and rediscover my inner Gandhi. I suspect jumping off the edge of a very high cliff will work.

Any other suggestions?

posted by zyn :: 2:10 AM :: 3 Comments :: permalink

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black tangerine

Saturday, February 03, 2007

I've been in a bit of a funk the whole week and I don't know why.

Actually that's not really true. The reason is simple, but it's so trifling and unlikely that I'm having a hard time convincing even myself of it. All I know is I've spent the week in an uninspired, unmotivated, uninterested gloom that doesn't look like it's going to be lifting anytime soon. Even the plans to buy a new computer brightened me up only temporarily. That is bad because retail therapy is my last line of defence.

Fortunately this, as with all things, shall pass.

In the meantime, I've been playing this song over and over again because David Tao looks unexpectedly delectable topless.


今天我心情有一点怪怪
可是说不出来到底为什么
好像有一些悲哀的征兆
可是病因不知道
头上有橘色的加州阳光
我的口袋只有黑色的柳丁
我只有一个蓝色的感觉
不要问我为什么

很想说 但又觉得没有话好说
我只恨我自己 逃不出这监狱
或许我 是个没有出息的小虫
不要一直做梦 你不是个英雄

叶子用坠落证明换季
可我昏昏沉沉没有办法醒
你愿意做个英雄 还是你会要放弃
天是亮的却布满乌云
所有焦距被闪光判了死刑
你想做什么英雄 我看你不过是佣兵

我只想哭 只想哭 只想哭
我只想哭 只想哭 只想哭

posted by zyn :: 2:29 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink

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speaks

without thinking

stores

without purpose

stalks

without malice

steals

without offense