a labour of love and laughs

I generally like musicals and I'm pretty patriotic, so there was no hesitation to take up an offer of free tickets to watch A Labour of Love, put up by NTUC.

The music was grandiose and inspiring, almost like a local version of Les Miz with its revolutionary themes of self-sacrifice and hope for a better age. I particularly liked the scene where they opened the first NTUC Fairprice, which would certainly make a perfect TV ad.

But the real gems were in the script, which had me doubled up in laughter on more than a few occasions. It was like watching a dramatised version of a national education textbook. Where else do you here "little red dot" and "against all odds" used in the same sentence? They certainly don't fit into common parlance. It was totally hilarious because the characters are all speaking in rather colloquial Singlish, but every now and then you would get snippets lifted out of the PAP phrasebook like "our effective and efficient government".

Some of the humour was contextual too. Like this dialogue towards the end:
Union Leader: Are you feeling better today?
Dying Wife: I'm ok. Did you attend the union meeting this morning?
(Followed by a lengthy schpiel on the importance of the unions and the ideals they all espouse, macham like deathbed speech.)

And when the grandfather relates the tragic event of her death to his grandson years later, he remarks, "It wasn't all bad. At least we had NTUC Income Shield."

But probably the funniest comment was from the person who brought us to the show. "I want to tear my NTUC membership ..."

game control blog

Game Control has started their own blog to archive The Casino Royale Game experience. So to support the excellent work they did with the game, we will be contributing our thoughts and feelings about some of the clues, and how we solved them. See here for updates ...

Clue #1
Clue #2
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Meta Clue

domain thief

I am most upset. Apparently the domain registration for my homepage expired and some web squatter has taken it over! Wah lau, some people have no shame man. I can understand why some people would steal domains from large corporations to make a profit, but my humble hompage really is a page and not much else.

The worst part is losing all the email forwarding. This is utterly inconvenient and annoying.

Well, it's about time I switched away from the crappy China-based hosting company I've been using so far. If anyone knows a good domain host to recommend, please let me know.

casino royale game in retrospect

After almost 20 hours of non-stop action, I'm back, had a nap, and ready to write about The Casino Royale Game. Many people are already asking how it went, so the best way to let everyone know is to put it down here. To cut a long story short, we had a lot of fun, got to know each other better, and somehow we even managed to win.

It's not that we didn't want to win. But you can't enter a competition with the stated aim of just taking part - you have to set your sights on the goal or the whole thing just falls flat and you will decide to go home halfway through. Still, we really never expected it, because we always thought our stomachs would get in the way. Most of us missed the opening brief because we were scrounging the Esplanade for last minute snacks, and along the way we made numerous pit stops at Carrefour, Kopitiam and Seah Im Food Centre (see complete list of food stops here). We also discovered the delights of a particular brand of roasted seaweed with wasabe. The race is important, but the food even more so! Sadly by the end of it all, we were a little to tired to take advantage of the one-for-one UOB offer at Hog's Breath Cafe as we had originally planned. But enough about food.

Our team comprised Agent R, who's local knowledge of Singapore allowed us to make some great conceptual leaps from half-solved clues; Agent J, specialist in Japanese and pop culture. Agent F, literary genius and sometime barbarian; Agent M, the data cruncher and myself, who helped out here and there by running errands and buying snacks.

The format of The Game was fairly simple. There was a total of 15 RV points, and at each location a new clue to lead us to the next place. The clues were quite diverse, such as number puzzles, patterns hidden in classified ads, an X-ray, Japanese drama serials and my personal favorite was an interactive software puzzle. You can tell from the website that the organisers are quite techie, but the software puzzle took the cake. Time to solve each puzzle ranged from 15 minutes without hints to 3 hours with a lot of hints. I can't put the snazzy software here, but this was one of my personal favourite clues (that does not require additional information to solve):

The RV points were located all around Singapore, stretching from Sengkang in the North to Changi Airport in the East to Harbourfront in the South and Kent Ridge Park in the West. We covered the distances on a whirlwind journey in our souped up Subaru Forester (which had no fear of cars, pickups or even small buses although the people inside were plenty scared at some points) and armed with 5 laptops and an M1 Wireless Broadband Router (our invaluable companion), we carried our little Wi-Fi bubble everywhere that had a power source (unfortunately Kopitiam was not one such place, which explains why we spent 2 hours there eating and not getting much solving done).

Our position in the game was quite a roller coaster. We started off on a red herring (didn't know we could check with Mission Control at first, oops) but once we discovered the real clue we made short work of it. We zoomed through the first couple of clues until we got totally stumped by some picture cards of Japanese pop stars and a cryptic classified ad. Four frustrated (but gastronomically fulfilling) hours later, we found ourselves at the very bottom of the pack. It was then that we also realised that we could take hints from Mission Control, and became what I termed 'hint whores'. Personally I'd have preferred that everyone just spent more time to puzzle out the clues, but we were't about to handicap ourselves on an ideal if all the other teams were doing it. After that we managed to claw our way back into the first few positions in the real time race, and eventually won because we had suffered much less time penalty from hints compared to other teams.

Apart from eating well, we also tried to make sure we were comfortable. After spending a few hours in the stationary car suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, we opted for more creature comforts wherever possible. In a way, this approach actually backfired because there was a lot less focus and less urgency. (Especially in eating places.) But it certainly made the whole thing much more enjoyable! Here is one of our temporary HQs in the Science Hub, eating prata and listening to the greatest hits music clue:

The conduct of The Casino Royale Game obviously invites comparison to the Singapore Amazing Race, of which I am also a two-time participant. I will always look back fondly on the 2003 race as a great experience, just as I will Casino Royale. Here are some of the key differences in the two formats:

• Casino Royale got car, Amazing Race don't have.
• Casino Royale can confirm the solution with Mission Control before you go to the next checkpoint. Amazing Race you just find your way there (sometimes walking for hours) and hope to find the checkpoint.
• Amazing Race got no hints, Casino Royale can opt to take hints for time penalty. And they are quite generous with confirming if you are on the right track too. (We didn't know this at first, maybe they briefed it while we were eating.)
• Amazing Race got tasks to complete at each checkpoint (such as snow tubing, eating a balut) and the chance to visit some very scenic spots. Casino Royale is all about solving the clues.
• Casino Royale over one night, Amazing Race over two.
• Put all the above together and you can tell the Amazing Race is much more phyically and emotionally draining (and satisfying). But Casino Royale was much more intellectually challenging.

In summary, both have their merits, and I suppose they appeal to different audiences. My own personal ideal would be some balance between the two, with clues and car from Casino Royale (and not so many hints) with more time and some of the better scenary and physical challenges from Amazing Race. But the important thing is, they were both awesome fun!

call from america

I realise I don't really have an opinion on ministerial pay, per se. Is it too high or too low, I don't know. The thing that annoys me is the arguments some people raise, the two most prominent being that 1) public service is about self-sacrifice and 2) our ministers earn much more compared to other countries.

For the first point, you can see my previous post. For the second point, I always thought that this was a moot point because in other countries, top leaders enjoy plenty of other kickbacks such as real power, and a whole bunch of business affiliationsa and concessions that might be seen as corruption on our sunny island. Anyway, rather than belabour the point, I found that it was expressed far more eloquently and convincingly (with numbers and statistics some more) by Janadas Devan in his recent Call from America. I heard this on 93.8 Live, but since managed to find it online as well. Happy reading ...

Radio Singapore International - Call From America with Janadas Devan
How much is Hillary Clinton worth?
April 11, 2007

How much were the Clintons worth when Mr Bill Clinton stepped down as president in 2000? Answer: More than US$11 million below zero – which was what they owed to all the lawyers who had helped to defend them against a flurry of charges in the 1990s. They had no home, having lived in public housing for a good portion of their adult lives – in the White House for eight years, and before that in the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas. Unlike almost every other previous presidential couple in the second half of the 20th century, the Clintons had no private vacation home – no Kennebunkport, as in the case of the elder Bush; no Crawford ranch, as in the case of the younger Bush..

How much are the Clintons worth now?

There are no exact figures – Mrs Hilary Clinton, as Senator, is obliged to disclose only a broad estimate of her wealth: for example, that the Clintons have a joint bank account worth between $5 million to $25 million, as well as a blind trust worth in the same range – but their total net assets must be in the tens of millions of dollars. We know that Mrs Clinton made at least US$10 million on her memoirs and Mr Clinton at least US$12 million on his. We also know that in 2004 alone, Mr Clinton made at least US$4 million giving speeches. The Clintons have paid off all their legal debts, and now own three homes –in Washington DC, in Long Island and in New York City. Aside from his speech making and memoir writing, his philanthropic work and his work on his Presidential Library, Mr Clinton is also an advisor to funds run by the Yucaipa Companies, a California private equity firm controlled by one of his many best friends, the billionaire Ronald Burkle. The New York Times reported last year that Mr Clinton will receive a share of the profits in the funds “should their returns exceed 9 percent over the life of the funds. One fund had reported a gain of 51.3 percent and the other 25.8 percent in 2005.” Mr. Clinton, according to the Times is also a partner in another “Yucaipa fund that invests in overseas ventures, for which
he receives regular payments and would draw one-third of the profits when the
fund is dissolved at least five years from now.”

''If we make money, he makes money,'' Mr. Burkle was reported to have said. Mr. Clinton's share of the profits in the Yucaipa funds could reach into the tens of millions of dollars. Not bad for a man who earned only US$250,000 a year when he was president and who had massive debts when he left office six years ago.

Which is better: The US system of relative poverty for officials while serving in government, followed by rather obscene amounts of money once they leave; or the Singapore system of relatively high salaries for public servants so they will stay in government for as long as possible? Americans and Singaporeans will have to decide these questions for themselves.

But it should be noted the US system has a cost. Mr Clinton is only one man, and he is not the only former president who has grown rich in his post-presidential years. Of more concern are the thousands of other public servants.

Take judges. Chief Justice John Roberts complained in January of the low salaries judges get. Appellate court judge get US$175,000 a year, about the same as first-year associates at top metropolitan law firms. And federal district court judges are paid about half what senior law professors get. As a result, the bench is losing judges. The hemorrhaging “has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis,” Chief Justice Roberts said.

Mr Clinton and other famous politicians can take care of themselves easily in their retirement. Not so judges and other public servants on low government salaries. The best leave for the private sector the first opportunity they get. They don’t lose. Instead the Government suffers; the judiciary is weakened; the public loses.

the game

I've been rather preoccupied. What with work, house-hunting, church-hunting, bridal packages and lots of other related decisions, there's not much time for other things. I'll try to post a primer of important and useful information on each topic as we clear the hurdles, but for now we are just starting the steeplechase.

Nevertheless, it's important not to let the future crowd out the present. So we had a really good game of tennis today, possibly one of the best ever with just the right weather and people. Last night, we gorged on home-cooked steaks.

And next week, we're gearing up for The Casino Royale Game. Touted as Da Vinci Code meets Amazing Race, it will run from Saturday overnight till Sunday. What better way to get to know friends and fiance better, than to spend the night driving round the island chasing up brainteasers.

How the entire team got together is really pretty random, but having met everyone last night I'm sure we're in for a whale of a time. We might actually stand a pretty good chance, provided we don't get sidetracked by our stomachs and the lure of roadside delicacies. If diversity is a strength, we're pretty strong. With a lawyer, a cryptographer, a marketeer, an academic/administrator and me for the monkey work; with combined education on four continents; and a ton of extraneous useless knowledge from literature to indie music to cooking recipes and knowledge of the best eating places on the island (see where the danger lies), I'm sure it will be non-stop nonsense all through the night.

winterbells

It's not often one finds a game combining the precision of a first-person shoot-em-up with beautiful fantasy artwork akin to Christian Riese Lassen. But such is Winterbells. And in the age of WoW when a new game can take days to master, this one takes only one minute. But it's value as a procrastination tool is not to be underestimated, and it can give many hours of sinful pleasure.

Of course the key to succeeding in a game like this is having the correct equipment. I realised early on that my wireless optical mouse is far from adequate, because occasional blips in the radio signal led to frustrating falls from the heavens. So what is the best tool of the trade?

Logitech Wireless Optical Mouse
As mentioned above, lapses of control led to many bunny deaths, but was this a problem with the wireless or with the optical?

IBM Optical Mouse
Optical mouse manufacturers have long claimed that the precision and sensitivity of the optical mouse far surpasses the originals. No wonder you don't The obvious solution was to try out a non-wireless mouse. But it still has problems!

Logitech Trackball
So I thought maybe the problem lies with the optics, and I dug out the old trackball. Unfortunately, there seems to be some grit in the works, and unlike the old mice where you can open it up and clean out the dirt, the trackball is pretty much closed and doomed to failure.

IBM Pointing Stick
I wouldn't even consider playing this game on a touchpad. But the pointing stick seemed to offer more potential. After all, I've used a pointing stick for years, since it it more convenient than plugging in a mouse and does a much better job than any of the other laptop input devices. Nevertheless, it too suffered from lapses when the bunny freezes in mid air.

Some better, some worse, but none of the peripherals seemed able to handle the control smoothly. Perhaps the problem lies with the programming of the event handlers, which may be clogging up memory or processor power leading to occasional lags. Obviously I can't change the code, but maybe I should get a new gaming machine.

public service pay

Yet another blurb on civil servant salaries in the news today ... I thought I'd air my views. Needless to say, I am not subjected to any salary increase, I thought I would make that clear first.

April 6, 2007
Public service pay - hot topic in the House on Monday
By Keith Lin

Said Mr Lim, a lawyer: 'No one begrudges the fact that
they should be paid well. But how well is the million-dollar question.'

How well is not really the million dollar question. The question is really how much is well? Civil servants do not exist in a vacuum. If people outside are getting twice as much, then even if they earn a comfortable amount, is this considered being paid well? There is a difference between being paid a lot and being paid well; just as there is a difference between saying a BMW is reasonably priced and saying it is cheap. And of course everything is relative.

When many office holders and top mandarins assume their posts, they are already
mentally prepared that it will be at 'great cost' to their career, wealth and family life, he added. 'If there's something we should promote, it's this sense of sacrifice.'

I really love it when people seem to think that civil service should be a reward unto itself. So just because people find meaning in their work and are passionate about their jobs, whether it be serving the country or social work, is there no need to give them sufficient renumeration for their time, efforts and worth? It's like saying "those poor lawyers have an awful job, always facing moral dilemnas and having to suffer their conscience, we should pay them more because of the emotional hardhip they go through. The nurses don't need to be paid so much. Their work is meaningful and rewarding and they can derive happiness and satisfaction from that; we just need to give them enough to get by.

Jurong GRC MP Madam Halimah Yacob believed most people have 'made up their minds one way or the other'.
But the debate may deepen Singaporeans' understanding of the pay increment, she added. Instead of just focusing on the people at the top, she would like more attention to be given to how the majority of civil servants will be affected by the revision.

Hear hear ... the rest of the civil service isn't paid very well either! In fact, much less so :(

mixed signals

I am a very confused person.

While my private investor friend is sending me articles like Will the Sub-Prime Mortgages Implosion Meltdown the Stock Market? and Durable goods data and investment data point to US hard landing in 2007, my broker is telling us he has decreased his cash levels from 60% to 20%.

The U.S. and Singapore markets are so closely tied, one of them must be wrong. But who?

I'm so tempted to just liquidate all my holdings so I don't have to worry about the market anymore. Quit while I'm ahead. But that's how I missed the last run.