Here's My Story

Financially, that is. It will be the year my permanent residency in Singapore is up for renewal and I'm almost certain that they will not renew it since I have not been working in Singapore for a few years before the renewal date. So that will affect the tax rate on my income and property in Singapore...by a lot! Currently, my income is taxed on a tiered basis and so the effective rate is about 1% or even less. Property tax is 10%. After losing my PR, the income tax rate will be a flat 15% (so that's at least 15 times of current!) and the property tax is a flat 20% (double of current). I estimated that the expected increased tax amount can be sufficiently covered by my dividend income but I cannot be certain. Who knows whether these tax rates will change in 2 years time. Hopefully dividend income will not decrease in future. So the best way is to just go through with it and observe the cashflow for at least a year before doing anything major. In the meantime, I'm trying...

I had been wanting to catch up with William for sometime (think the last was...back in Aug?) but it was a little difficult at first because he had a long trip to Canada with his partner (it was a great trip for them :) ) and then he was posted to temporarily work in Singapore once every two weeks or something like that. Then, due to popular demand (or maybe his generousity with red packet :P), he had wedding dinners to attend (when will I get to attend yours ar?). Then suddenly a window of opportunity appeared...then very nearly closed hahaha. In short, within the last few hours from the tentative time, we (together with Ban as well) managed to have lunch together at Plan B. We wanted a place that had ample parking space and decent food. I never knew how empty Paradigm Mall's carpark bays are during weekday lunch. Since it is an expensive place to dine at, I planned to try something different from my maiden visit . I ordered eggs benedict with ham (or was it bacon?) and muf...

Did I ever want children? I vaguely remember that I did but I'm quite sure wasn't seriously considering. I know that Ban wanted children but he now agrees that it will be unwise because he simply doesn't have the energy to look after children 24/7 while I occasionally fall sick. Personally, I have more reasons not wanting children: (1) I dislike the smell of baby poo and so no changing diapers for me. (2) They are so untidy with things. Take things out but don't put them back. (3) They are messy with food until at least 5 years old. (4) They will be number one priority (if not, then you shouldn't have children in the first place) and so forget about putting your needs above theirs. (5) Not only they can't/won't help but they tend to make things worse. (6) Selfish (understandably to increase their chance of survival but still...). (7) Babies don't sleep through the night until they are around 6-month old. (8) End-of-the-world tantrums al...

Recently, I searched the internet for a better WvW build and came across a build from someone who based it on his PvP build. I was curious and so tried it in PvP and I love it! The major traits selected are: Defense - II Dogged March - IX Cleansing Ire - VIII Last Stand Tactics - II Lung Capacity - VII Shrug It Off - XII Vigorous Shouts Discipline - III Warrior's Sprint It is almost the same as my previous build  except that I took Last Stand instead of Defy Pain and Warrior's Sprint instead of Inspiring Shout. This build is exactly the same as the person who posted it except that he took Spiked Armor instead of Last Stand. I find the latter much more useful in current PvP meta where fear, stun, daze, knockdown etc are present in almost every single hotjoin PvP I'm in. Also, instead of Warrior's Sprint, he chose Deep Cuts for increased bleeding duration. But why the necessity of Warrior's Sprint now? That's because there is a key change in ...

I'm going to talk about something that may seem strange or even funny to some but it's a serious matter, especially for children with special needs. Sensory Integration Therapy is an intervention that's used to hopefully improve a child's neurological processing of sensory information via a series of sensory stimulation and hopefully such improvement leads to other gains. Take note the the word "hopefully" appearing twice. This therapy is essentially the mainstay of occupational therapist in the field of intervention for children with special needs. However, the weakness is this: there is ongoing controversy surrounding its efficacy. The consensus of researchers outside the field of occupational therapy is that it simply doesn't work. With more and more research debunking its usefulness, how did occupational therapist react? Do they look at the evidence, agree and move on? And maybe even work together with researchers to find a better method? I sure ...

After our first visit , we went there again after gym mainly because I wanted to get vacuum dust bags from Harvey Norman (just nearby Watami). As an aside, anyone know where I can get such bags for Pensonic model PVC-25A? Or any brand that have replacement bags of similar size. Once again, I intended to order ramen but was sidetracked into ordering Salmon & Avocado Roll Sushi (RM 21.90) :P When it first arrived at our table, I was dismayed to see it was glazed but luckily there didn't seem to be any taste from it. Then I was disappointed again when I discovered there was pickled vegetable in the centre of each piece. Now, admittedly I do not know whether it's the traditional way of making such roll but I have eaten others before whether there wasn't pickle in them. I dislike pickle and so I didn't like this roll. Salmon and avocado were not bad but no amount of it, wasabi or soy sauce could mask the sour taste of the pickle that was exarcerbated by the r...

After one particular gym session at Fitness First at that mall, I had a hunkering for ramen. Ban and I headed for Sushi Zanmai but there was already a queue there. I was hungry (forgot to eat apple before the workout) and so we went to Watami, which is just a few doors away. I nearly ordered their recommended ramen (think it was Tonkotsu Char Siu Ramen) when I came across their Chicken Katsu Curry at the last minute. I hadn't had that for a while and so I ordered that instead. Presentation was quite nice but just look at the portion of ingredient. Four pieces of chicken and smattering few slices of onion in the gravy. That's it. No carrot, no potato. Stingy for a RM 24.90 dish. So disappointing. Normally Japanese curry's spiciness is mild but not this one. Its curry is spicy without even considering the chilli powder that they had already sprinkled on it. The saving grace of this dish is the quality of its rice (seems to be authentic Japanese rice) and the chick...

There's so much of my warrior build that I want to talk about but I'll try to summarise as well as possible. It's inspired by someone's idea of a healing shout build i.e. each time I use a shout skill, I'll heal. The major traits selected for PVE and WvW are: Defense - II Dogged March - IX Cleansing Ire - XI Defy Pain Tactics - II Lung Capacity - VII Shrug It Off - XII Vigorous Shouts Discipline - III Warrior's Sprint This is a snapshot of the major and minor traits: There's a lot of synergy among the traits. For example, normally a warrior gains adrenaline only if he hits but in this build, I also gain it each time I'm hit and when I swap weapon. Each time I gain adrenaline, I gain regeneration. I also regenerate health based on adrenaline level and each time I'm affected by movement-impending conditions. All of these is on top of the key major trait that allows me to heal each time I use a shout skill, ...

I can't remember exactly when I started playing this game but for sure it's been less than a year because my old laptop's specification didn't meet its minimum requirements. I love mages and so after reading the description of various classes, called professions here in the game, I decided to start of as an elementalist. It was only after a few levels my friends told me that that was the hardest profession to play and boy they are right. Elementalist has maximum 29 buttons to handle (maybe more now since they patched the game to enable some commands for summoned creatures). Compare that to warrior (16) and mesmer (19). Yes, it's not necessary to use all the buttons (some you rarely use and some you never use) but it's tedious to be flipping around. A warrior and mesmer have 2 sets of weapons to use (and you inevitably will use both sets) and each set of weapon comes with 5 skills. Elementalist can only use 1 set of weapons but the 5 weapon skills change depe...

This restaurant was among the 7 (or was it 8?) ramen restaurants mentioned in The Malaysianinsider and since it's located in PJ (at the new Jaya Shopping Centre), I decided (and drag Ban :P) to try it on a Sunday for late lunch. Surprisingly there was lunch set on a weekend. The lunch set (RM 29) consists of a bowl of ramen (choose from 3), a drink and a choice between 2 sticks of yakitori or an ice-cream. Ban and I chose the lunch set where he chose yakitori while I chose ice-cream. It was only after my ramen was served did I notice that there was a difference between the ramen in the lunch set and the ala carte ramen, despite having the same name (gah!). The ala carte Bari-Uma Ramen had egg and possibly 2 pieces of char siu whereas the lunch set version had no egg and only 1 piece of char siu. If I had known earlier, I would have ordered the ala carte version (RM 28) and water. The soup looked oily but fortunately it didn't taste that way. It was ...