Monday, May 18, 2009

Toilet Break

I thought this was funny~ Check out the poster!

Taken from http://gangasudhan.com/blog/2009/02/exclusive-interview-with-mas-selamat.html


G (Interviewer): So it's been a whole year and the authorities in Singapore are still searching the boots of budget cars and the storage compartments of motorcycles, hoping to find you. What do you think?

MSK (Mas Selamat): Eh, betul ke [Note: is that correct]? Bike box also they search ah? I am not THAT good lah - how to hide inside such a small space.If I do, I just call my brudders activate 3 Bangla [Note: Bangladesh Nationals who are illegal immigrants], hide in 3 different cars of sama-sama [Note: same] brand and then tip off ICA. When they get the first Bangla, they will search high and low for the specific brand and let other types go without checking much.So I will hide in another type of car driven by one pakcik and makcik [Note: Uncle and Aunty] with groceries - simple. Maybe if I boring-boring, wear disguise also can jalan [Note: go] through lah!

G: Interesting tactic. So was that how you left Singapore?

MSK: Oi! Nice try.... Who say I already left? Singapore government ah? Not so safe if narrow down further right. That minister [Note: Wong Kan Seng] already tembah [Note: shoot] he narrow down to 2 possibilities, you still want me to reveal further? Cannot lah, must jagah [Note: protect] a bit. But can confirm that the minister was spot on with his predictions sial!

G: Ok, ok, just trying our luck there to help the Singapore authorities, sorry. Well, since they have narrowed it down to 2 possibilities - one of which is where you actually are - within a short span of just one year, how safe do you feel about your status?

MSK: Correct also lah. They quite fast bring down to just 2 possibilities - a bit scary. I think one more year, become one possibility already - confirm. Then must lebeh jagah diri [Note: extra protect] myself to not get caught. Hopefully they narrow down to the wrong one, then a bit safe. Otherwise Selamat must Jalan [Note: run] again, hahahaha.

G: You seem quite upbeat and confident that even if they narrow down to the one correct possibility of the 2, you can still evade arrest. Why is this so?

MSK: Ya lah, no problem. They already kalang-kabut [Note: confused] the other time, use all their manpower, dogs, army - still cannot find me. I think my tactics can tahan [Note: withstand] lah. I use toilet paper and extra clothing already can bypass everyone.

G: So what are your plans moving forward?

MSK: Good question man. My Toilet Break episode is still an icon and macam I am the most 'published' man in Singapore sial - heard my posters are still pasted at many locations. More like 'In Memory' lah - they want everyone to remember about my success ah? Sure as hell doesn't look like it is meant to alert anyone....One thing I learn from Singapore is to market knowledge and experience to other countries so I am now conducting workshops on 101 Ways To Escape With A Limp. Quite popular and a lot of people join in - criminal biasah [Note: normal], terrorists and even civil servant also. Maybe the civil servant want to jagah their rice bowl so want to learn where are the lubangs [Note: loopholes].My rates are reasonable for everyone but of course got a special discount if member of Terrorist Organisation lah - cannot forget my brudders and the past.

G: I see. Sounds like the whole episode has been a blessing in disguise for your 'career'.

MSK: Yah, definitely! Now, no need to worry about money matters already - set for life. Really, it is so good that I decided not to hantam [Note: hit] Singapore already lah. Don't think they will learn anything anyway - old people kena 'export', poor people asked to go [censored]-spider, you think they really care if people die? Like that, seriously no point attacking lah.Who knows, if business picks up, maybe I anonymously pledge some money for my own capture lah, hahahaha. That one will be kelakar [Note: funny] seh! Maybe I do for second year anniversary, so can keep my semangat [Note: spirit] going - good for business also.

G: Interesting ideas you have. But nevertheless, you are still on many a Wanted List around the region and maybe even Interpol will be looking for you. In any case, you can never go mainstream with your business development. Any thoughts on that?

MSK: True also. Too bad I cannot anyhow say 'sorry' like that minister... what's his name.... Wan Kosong? [Note: Wong Kan Seng] ... and continue with my own thing macam [Note: like] no problem. But I really like the PM style - diam-diam [Note: quiet] for dunno how long then come out and tembah [Note: shoot] one 'what to do'. Class lah, that one.As for my business, no problem lah. I am in niche market and with celebrity status, I just need to wait for people to come. Aiyah, even that minister [Note: Wong Kan Seng] don't have photo on his wiki page ok!Also, Osama is impressed with my strategies so maybe got one lubang [Note: opportunity] from his side as consultant coming up. Like that, can go Saudi or Afghanistan macam [Note: like] Foreign Talent seh. Not bad for a 'Mat' fella right?By the way, ask Jack Neo if he want to do movie on my escape lah - he can call it Toilet Sure Break or something. But must pay royalty one...

G: Hahaha, yet another enterprising idea. Too bad you can't join politics in Singapore. With your popularity, poster-reach and iconic reputation, you can be a great Minister of Home Affairs! What better person to take charge than the man who exposed all the frailties of the arrogant system?

MSK: Thanks for the compliment man! You like macam angkat [Note: curry favour] me because I agree to this interview sial... Anyway, politics maybe not for me. If got problem and I go into the toilet, dunno if anyone will trust me to return.

G: That's a good point Mas Selamat. Well, we're coming to the end of this chat and would like to pose you a final question. What do you think will happen if you do get arrested and brought back to Singapore?

MSK: Sure habis [Note: finish] one. They will lock me up and throw away the key sial. Not to mention throw one big, fat wayang to trumpet their success to the world - even if I were to be overseas and be caught by some other country's authorities and sent back.I expect they will put their best-of-the-best officers to 'look after' me and have dedicated officers to watch me round-the-clock. But one thing's for sure - they have to give me a Toilet Break...

G: Ahhh, I see. A man who can escape from a toilet, will always have an opportunity! Happy Anniversary, you 'Limping Terrorist'.

MSK: Thanks lah, nice to be remembered. Let my fans in Singapore know every time I go toilet and hear the tap running always remember that wonderful day lah. Brings a tear to my eye and a twitch to my limp...
Mas Selamat remains a fugitive and anyone who does not doubt the authenticity of this interview really needs to check themselves into IMH - good news, they now have a bigger budget!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Quote from George Akerlof

Meaningful quote for my future economist students...

I want you to also remember that the best predictor of how good an economist you are, or will be, is not some grade, but your commitment to the subject matter. There are billions of poor people out there. There are also some rich people who have economic and social problems so there is very good reason to make such a commitment.

Would Americans like to work as little as Europeans? What's stopping them?

Taken from http://economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3987228

MOST people greet the weekend with gratitude. But some economists view it with puzzlement. Why, they wonder, does the bulk of the population rest on the same two days each week? Why does everyone's week end at "the" weekend? From an economic point of view, it would surely be more efficient to stagger days of rest throughout the week. That way, expensive pieces of equipment would not lie idle for two days in seven, and infrastructure would be less congested the other five.

One person impressed by this logic was Josef Stalin, who rationalised the Soviet calendar in 1929. Workers were given every fifth day off, but their shifts were staggered, so that factories could run without interruption. The staggered week appealed rather less to the people who worked it, however. According to Witold Rybcynski's 1991 book about leisure, "Waiting for the Weekend", Stalin's four days on, one day off, was unpopular, even though it was less onerous than the six-day week that preceded it. Families and friends rarely had the same day off; administrative staff rarely worked at the same time. After less than three years, the staggered working week was abandoned.

Echoes of Stalin's discovery can be found in a recent paper* by Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser, both of Harvard, and Bruce Sacerdote, of Dartmouth College. The authors begin from the premise that Stalin unwittingly proved: people complement each other at work, and perhaps at play too. Couples want to go on holiday together; parents want time off when schools are out. As a result, the economists say, people do not make solipsistic decisions about how much labour to offer in the marketplace. Their choice depends on everyone else's. Knocking off early carries less of a stigma if others do the same. Jobless youth find unemployment more tolerable if their friends are also out of work. Conversely, an ambitious underling will want to put in at least as many hours as his boss, whatever time she clocks off.

Messrs Alesina, Glaeser and Sacerdote think this principle might help to explain why Europeans work so much less than Americans. The gap is quite striking. According to the Luxembourg Income Study, the typical American worker puts in 1,820 hours over the course of a year. Meanwhile, according to the OECD, his German and French counterparts clock up a mere 1,480 and 1,467 hours respectively. They put in five or six fewer weeks per year, and three fewer hours per working week.

Edward Prescott, a winner of the Nobel prize for economics, blames these transatlantic differences on tax. Europeans would like to work more, but are deterred by the high percentage of their extra earnings the state would confiscate. Olivier Blanchard, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, puts it down to transatlantic differences in taste. Europeans, he says, put a higher implicit price on their leisure. "There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Europeans enjoy their leisure more than their American counterparts," he writes.

But why? Some speculate that Americans, being the cultural heirs of the industrious Puritan settlers, are still gripped by a Protestant work ethic. However, as recently as 1970, Europeans worked more each year than Americans. Why should their work ethic have lapsed since then?Rather than blaming culture or taxes, Messrs Alesina, Glaeser and Sacerdote instead credit trade unions. The strength of organised labour peaked in Europe in the 1970s, about the time that work hours started falling. After the first oil shock of 1973, the authors write, Germany's unions marched to the slogan "work less, work all", and the same mantra, in different languages, was recited across the continent. In France, the unions eventually won an agreement in 1981 to cut the working week to 39 hours. The government then took up their battle, culminating in the national 35-hour week implemented in 2000. Indeed, their cause has gone continent-wide. The European Union's working-time directive, first issued in 1993 and subject to fierce debate again this month in the European Parliament, insists that workers toil no more than 48 hours each week on average (see article).Let's all go home.

There is an obvious liberal objection to any regulation of work hours: workers should be free to sell as much or as little of their labour as they wish, and employers free to buy as much as is profitable. Union demands and working-time directives are unnecessary encumbrances, stopping workers and employers striking deals to their mutual advantage.

But Messrs Alesina, Glaeser and Sacerdote float an alternative possibility. Such regulations might solve a co-ordination problem, they suggest. If Europeans complement each other at work and rest, they may prefer to work shorter hours and fewer weeks provided others do the same. If so, the authors write, "national policies that enforce higher levels of relaxation can, at least in theory, increase welfare." Perhaps Americans would also like to work less, if their family, friends, or bosses worked less also. But in a competitive economy there is no way to co-ordinate their decisions. The individual American can act with others, but not too far ahead of them.

By recent evidence, however, Europe's unions got ahead of themselves. By demanding shorter working weeks with no loss of pay, they raised the cost of labour and undermined employment. In the past year or so, the French government has backed away from the 35-hour week, and German unions, most prominently at Siemens and DaimlerChrysler, have agreed to work longer for no more pay. The unions that once marched to the slogan "work less, work all", have now conceded the need to work more, if they are to work at all.

* "Work and leisure in the US and Europe". Prepared for the NBER Macroeconomic Annual, 2005

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Random knowledge learnt

sometimes girls tend to tell guys their problems instead of other girls cos they know that the guy who like them will be more sympathetic to them as compared to other girl friends who may be too busy with their own work...

Ok point taken~ Din noe girl girl interaction can be so complicated too... (No offense intended)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Jokes about JC

Got this from my friend's blog...

Q: How many RJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4 whole faculties. One to design the new bulb, one to manufacture and test it out, one to write a proposal on it and one to market it.

Q: How many HCJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. To compete with RJC.

Q: How many VJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. One student to screw it in and the rest to cheer and wave flags and banners to give him/her support.

Q: How many NJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They can study without light.

Q: How many AJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They're too busy trying to be one of the top 5 JCs.

Q: How many ACJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They'll rather use all their money to employ YJC to do it for them.

Q: How many YJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Only one teacher to tell them what a light bulb is in the first place and to demonstrate how to change the light bulb. (So how do you think they're able to change it for ACJC?)

Q: How many CJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They'll prefer it to be darker.

Q: How many JJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Their physics is so bad that they made their macho male physics teacher cry.

Q: How many TPJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Would they even bother?

Q: How many SAJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They believe in praying for it to turn on by itself.

Q: How many NYJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are still using oil lamps.

Q: How many SRJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Huh, what is litebarb?

Q: How many PJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Heck the light bulb; the principal would do something about the rightbarbs. Let's do 300 jumping jacks for not wearing the proper school attire.

Q: How many MJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are too busy trying to get promoted.

Q: How many IJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are Innovians. They'll find ways out of the dark.

Q: Who wrote all this?
A: A TJCian.

Q: How many TJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They think they are already very bright.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Bus 96 on the expressway

Ever imagined what it would be like if life decides to take an unexpected break from its monotonous routine?

I was on bus 96 yesterday when it decided to 'deviate' from its planned route and take an 'unexpected' detour along the expressway.

At first, I thought it was an unfortunate traffic accident. Later, after catching the news, I realized that it was a war relic- a Japanese bomb from WWII. In any case, the road leading from NUS to Clementi was sealed off. All traffic was directed onto the AYE. I wasn't paying attention to the route the bus was taking since I did not expect it to be any different from what it had taken for the past 4 years. However, 2 things caught my attention.

1) Instead of travelling straight, the bus took a left turn and I could immediately see the expressway.

2) (And the more hilarious, unnerving factor) The driver called his superior on the mobile phone and blabbered in Mandarin: "Ya! I'm on the expressway. Ya AYE~ How do I get to Clementi?" I had to control myself and not laugh hysterically out loud lest all the pessenger thought I went berserk. But oh my! It was so hilarious! ( Of course, at that time, it didn't occur to me that I was just miles away from a bomb site!)

I thought to myself: Oh great! I'm in a hurry to get home so that I can start studying for EC4333 Midterm Exam the next day and now I'm on a round-the-island tour that god knows when it will end. Hopefully at Clementi too.
However, a part of me was secretly enjoying the unexpected break from the monotony of school life. Never in my wildest dream had I expected 96 to take me on a ride along AYE. So I was secretly enjoying every moment of this chanced occurrence.

After a brief journey on the AYE, the bus exited the expressway and came back to the bus stop opposite New Town Secondary School. I thought to myself: Great, we are back to Clementi again! Just take the right turn in front and we'll be on the road all the way straight to Clementi.

However, there was no right turn! The road did not allow vehicles to take a right turn, so 96 took a left turn and headed in the direction of NUS!

"Oh no! I'm going back to NUS again?"

I'm starting to worry that this journey would never end.

However, the bus driver decided to have mercy on me and took a left turn along the highway to NUS onto -- guess what? -- AYE again! For the second time in the hour, I was on AYE again albeit on the other side of the expressway heading towards Jurong.

The bus took another 12 mins to navigate the expressway and all the major roads in Clementi before it finally arrived back what it started -- Clementi Interchange.

Great! Bus 96 had taken me on a tour of the major roads in Clementi and the AYE, no less!

It's this kind of unexpected encounters, I believe, that adds that element of excitement into our usually monotonous routine. Things often happen unexpectedly and adds joy and thrill to our life! =)

Monday, February 16, 2009

我是一隻小小鳥

A song I have always liked since young~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qKSZnIdo9I

PS If anyone knows how to make the video appear here, tell me.

If you love her, set her free

If you love her, set her free... so that she may find the love she desires. These words from R ring in my head. Everyone has his/her own ima...