Airasia Flight 8501 Missing 28 Dec 2014

Just learnt yesterday that flight 8501 from Airasia lost contact with the Air Traffic controllers. 

Our thoughts are with the families of the passengers and the crew members of the flight.

Really hope that there will be a miracle this time. 

Merry Christmas 2014

(Image taken from the internet)

Des-talk would like to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas 2014

Wanna own a pet?? Tips from expert on how to own a dog

I know I been blogging a bit about dogs (and cats) but this is kinda important to dog's owners, please bear with me while normal service will resume shortly.

If you are intending to own a dog or already have a dog, I would recommend you to spend some time watch this video.

Watch how Cesar Millan, one of the best dog trainers in the world, guides dog into the correct behaviour and action and explains what is the rational behind what he is doing, not only in human's perspective, but also in the dog's perspective.

(Video credits to its owner)

Heroes for animals [The Joy Truck]

Please watch this video first:
(The video is filmed in Mandarin but there are English subtitles below)

(Video credits to its owner / Mediacorp)

There are at least 2 such HEROES for dogs / cats in Singapore who so selflessly care for unwanted / abandoned four legged friends. I thought I should pay tribute to them

Derrick Tan 
Voices for Animals (VFA)
https://www.facebook.com/VFASIN?ref=br_tf

VFA is a temporary adoption centre which Derrick runs to adopt abandoned / unwanted dogs. Some dogs are 'harvested' for breeding purposes (locked in cages most of their lives) while others are abandoned by their owners and left to fend for themselves. If they are not adopted by kind souls like Derrick, they will fall ill (some has already some diseases before being abandoned) and probably left to die. VFA rescue these animals, nurse them back to health before putting them for adoption to new owners.

Rescuing and nursing these dogs back to good health isn't cheap as their full body check-ups, surgery should they require are all very expensive. Expenses for 1 dog can cost up to SGD 1k. Yet, Derrick did not let the cost deter him from saving more dogs.

Derrick is actively looking for new owners to dogs in VFA, so if you live in Singapore and would like a pet, please check out his facebook for details of the next VFA adoption drive. As he said in the film, when you adopt the dog, you are saving 2 lives, first is the dog that you adopt and second is that you give VFA the opportunity to have another dog because of an empty space. If you are not living in Singapore, do consider a donation to them to help support their expenses.

Please help like and share their Facebook page to your friends.

Mdm Wong
Mdm Wong's Shelter and Friends (MWS)
https://www.facebook.com/Mdmwongsshelterandfriends

Mdm Wong is 68 this year and for the past 40 years, she spends at least 12 hours a day, 365 days a year to care for the animals (mainly cats and dogs) at the shelter. She had never taken a day off and has never went on a holiday ever since she started taking care of the animals.

All the years, she has been paying the cost for the shelters and even exhausted the proceeds from selling her 5-room HDB flat (Over SGD $300k) on these animals. She ensures that the animals get care, get to eat before she does. She doesn't have any money and live simply but she take great care of the animals in the shelter. Many people called Mdm Wong a fool but that's really what she wants to do.  I think she is nowhere near being a fool. She is a heroine!

From MWS Facebook page, I understand that there are running a deficit of SGD10,000 medical bills for the animals and as on 25 Oct 2014, they managed to raise SGD$4621. Although its heartening to see people donating and they managed to cover close to half of the medical bills, they also have another half to go.

Do go to MWS Facebook page to support them and make a small donation if possible. Please also help like and share their Facebook page to your friends.

A dog's life is not as long as a human's, they live at most 15 to 20 years but all dogs / cats have feelings just like a human. Using them to feed our human wants is cruel enough like breeding, abandoning them after their useful period is over is totally unacceptable. We being human have the intelligence to make the world go round, but should we spare a thought for our 4 legged friends who don't?  

More birthdays lately?

Seen somewhere:

If you notice that more people are celebrating their birthday lately,  just know that Valentine day is 9 months ago...

Will you cycle to work in hot, sunny, wet Singapore?

Read:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/10-ideas-to-make/1427468.html?cid=FBSG

With the highs of COEs and heavy traffics on the road as well as on the MRT trains, would you switch to cycling to office?

For me, cycling, NO.

Firstly, my house to office is about 30km and even if I travel at average 30kmh, it will need exactly one hour for me to reach office. And ask any cyclist, to maintain 30kmh and above speed isn't really a easy feat. Trust me.

Secondly, in hot humid Singapore, even if you manage to average 30kmh in the morning, you are likely to end up sweating when you reach office. So unless you have a shower facility at your office or unless you are a gym instructor or a life guard, it's likely you're going to work in sweat-stained skin.

Thirdly, Singapore laws states that you have to ride on the road (not pavement) with the fast moving car driven by anxious, kan cheong, impatient drivers (you get the meaning), so that will put me in a dangerous, to which, sorry, I am not willing to take this risk, not when I am travelling at 20kmh and they are travelling at at least 70kmh.

There is one thing, however, that lure me back to the 2 wheel machine - the electric-ation of bicycles and the introduction of electric skate scooter.

On the electric bicycles, the inconvenience of point 1 and 3 above stays the same but it kinda solves the problem state in point 2. If you do not need to pedal or only pedal when necessary, you are likely to excrete less sweat and hence more likely to reach the office dry (or drier than taking a normal one).

The electric scooters are the interesting ones because they allow for partial journey transportation. Part of my whole journey I ride of the e-scooter and then I simply fold it up and take a train (with it, of course) and then I fold down and continue my journey on the scooter again. Something you cannot do with an electric bicycle. This is extremely good for people who need to walk / take a bus to the mrt station and walk / take a bus from the mrt station to the destination.

Riding to office from home is out for me, but I am still keeping my options open on the electric 2 wheelers to run errands nearby my house or perhaps at the maximum go to the next town.

Des-talk wishes all our Indian readers Happy Deepavali 2014.

Life BEORE and AFTER we have the Internet

(Credits to the producer of the video: TreePotatoes)

This is quite funny, as always from the creative people from TreePotatoes. Do check out their other videos on youtube as well.

Seen: Umbrella Sharing Point @ Yishun MRT

Seen on the floor while walking through the covered pathway to Yishun MRT station. Not sure if this is a new initiative or was this implemented somewhere already. 

I guess generally this is good, it's not so clear what one should do. Do i throw my used umbrella that I don't want in the blue box or do I pass my Burberry umbrella there to a stranger to use after reaching the station, and my contact as well with the hope that the stranger will return the umbrella to me one day. 

   

While I am not serious with the scenarios above, the box will be good as useless until somebody demonstrate or at least explain what the box is used for. I know i sound very Singaporean, everything also need instruction but I don't really can see how this work without.

Having said that, I guess the relevant parties are preparing for the umbrella sharing campaigns and will be pushing them out real soon.

Guinness Book of Records (18+ only)

Seen somewhere on the internet: 

My penis was in the Guinness Book of Records....
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
Then the librarian told me to take it out.

Road Safety: Road Crossing for Pedestrians

I notice whenever I am driving or when I am taking a bus that pedestrians crossing the road has this habit: 

Refer to the diagram below. 

In a lane, whenever someone try to cross the road with oncoming traffic, the person will rush/ run to cross 3/4 of a lane (marked as distance 'A') while at the last quarter of the lane, for some reason, they will slow down and walk (marked distance 'B')  

Please note here that I am not talking about dangerous crossing where the vehicle are so near that they have to brake. I am talking more about those crossings where drivers need not brake when these pedestrians are crossing.

So, when a oncoming car is approaching, a pedestrian crosses distance A and even if he/she stopped within distance B, the car will be able to clear the pedestrian without the need to slow down as the driver can veer the car closer to the lane marking on his/her right. However, with a bus or a truck oncoming, they are not able to clear, hence making it dangerous for both the motorist and the pedestrian.

I was in a bus earlier today and witness such a crossing where a pedestrian slowed down at distance B and the bus nearly had to jam brake.

I would like to put the message across to everyone reading this blog that in such crossing, please make it a point to run or walk quickly THROUGHOUT the crossing and not the first 3/4 of it. Although generally it is safe, make 3/4 crossing a habit and you might endanger yourself one day if the oncoming vehicle is a bus or a truck and worse still it might be speeding.

Walk safe, drive safe, don't inconsiderate other road users, no matter if you are a driver or a pedestrian.

Medical fees are never cheap

(Credits to Dan Khoo Productions)

A well filmed humorous clip to show that medical fees are never cheap.

Service sucks, so we.....

So here's the deal. Our service tonight sucked. Took 20 minutes to get water, 40 minutes for an appetizer and over an hour for our entree. People all around us were making fun of the restaurant & how bad the service was. Yeah, it was pretty terrible. But, it was very obvious that the issue was being short staffed, not the server. He was running around like crazy and never acted annoyed with any table. At one point we counted he had 12 tables plus the bar. More than any one person could handle! As I sat there and watched him run back & forth and apologize for the wait, I said to Steven... Wow, this used to be us. Waiting tables. I don't miss it at all and I never loved that job. I did it for the tips. Steven and I agreed it would feel good to make this guys night when he would probably be getting minimal to no tips due to slow service. We walked out before he saw this and I'm not posting this for a pat on the back. I'm just sharing this as a friendly reminder to think of the entire situation, before you judge. And always always always remember where you came from.

 Above content and image seen on Facebook and posted by Makenzie Schultz

Des: I am sure that will make the waiter day but more than that, I think that it's pretty awesome to have someone who experience bad service and able to turn something good out of it. The natural reaction of a typical person is to sulky, be angry or 'complain' as we would like in Singapore but the thing is that apart from these very typical reactions, how often can you control yourself and maybe make the best out of the situation or even make someone day out of it?

"ATM" that dispenses GOLD now available....

...at Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands.

See:
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/business/more-business-stories/story/asias-first-gold-dispensing-atms-installed-singapore-20140

This is how one look like:

(Image taken from the above website)

While it's more like a dispensing machine, just like those below, for some reasons, they decides to call it an "ATM" Not wrong as ATM stands for Automatic Teller Machine and teller is associated with banks and you can buy gold from banks as well, but its just weird to be called an "ATM"

(Image credits to its owner)

So will we have GDM - Gold Deposit Machines alongside with Cash Deposit Machines (CDM) in future, where we can deposit used gold into the machines and get cash or money transferred to our bank account?

F1 SG: Exhibition at Raffles City Shopping Centre

This is a Ferrari half-size model

It look just like any model Ferrari (and there are tons of them) until you take a closer look...They are actually built up from Lego blocks. Its Shell-Ferrari having an exhibition in Raffles City SC and they are showcasing not 1 but 4 Ferrari models build up to realistically resemble the real life models.

Here are some more photos. Enjoy...

Fashion Disaster?

The Colombian cycling team

(Image credits to its owner)

The Colombian's women cycling team made headlines by pulling their pants down....nope, they actually had their pants on, its the design of their jerseys. While many may call it a fashion disaster, I think its kinda of innovative, although I must agree that its distasteful on a national team. I am sure it will make head turn when its on clothes that we wear out. 

[Random Thought] OMG

If God wants to express OMG, does he says "Oh My Self !!"

Life Hack: Cleaning the Grout

Chance this on FB, thought I share it here as well

First, for people who dont know, grout refer the gap between the tiles. I didn't know as well until I went to google its meaning. 

So here's the 'recipe' :

7 cups of water

1/2 cup baking soda 

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup vinegar

Mix them and pour them into the a spray bottle and spray your floor, let it sit for a minute or 2...then scrub.

This is the effect that you get

Image and content seen on facebook by Jacky Willis Huhn. 

COE Categorisation - is something wrong, LTA?

VW Passat with its 1390cc engine and 122bhp goes into Cat A

in the current LTA COE categorisation system. 

(Image credits to its owner)

CarBuyer Singapore ran this article on Sept 2 "How to 'fool' the LTA" on getting premium cars like Merc and BMW into mainstream 'Cat A' category.

Read:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/fool-lta-143020130.html

Previously, LTA COE system only factor of consideration is the engine cc. Vehicle at and below 1600cc will fall under Category A while cars more than 1600cc will fall under Category B. Simple as that.

However,  due to improvement in technologies, large cars like VW Passat, Audi A4 all introduced smaller cc engine but with larger power output. Hence more cars can get into Cat A (Cat A price is usually lower) and benefit from the lower COE. LTA reacted to this and recently added an additional criteria - a car has to be equal or less than 1600cc AND equal or less than 130bhp in order to be classified under Cat A.

Yet, within the article car manufacturer Merc and BMW managed to 'fool' LTA by introducing lower cc lower output cars so that their cars are able to fit Cat A criteria once again. And we are taking about cars like Merc C-class and Volkswagen Passat, some are cars that goes head to head with Toyota Camry, a true 2.0litre and above sedan.

A large triggering factor to this trend will be that since manufacturer charge premium prices for their cars, they have the additional profits for the freeplay which could mean changing another engine to developing entirely a new model to suit the criteria, any criteria that LTA sets.

To make Cat A truly 'mainstream' and to have a fairer, LTA should go right into the heart of the question and categorise using the PRICE of the car. Price before COE or even OMV should be used to categories COE (and IMO, road tax as well). If a manufacturer wants to get into Cat A, it will have to drop its price to a certain level which due to the cost of premium cars, they are not likely nor have the motivation to do so unless COE goes sky high for Cat B and rock bottom for Cat A.

Comparison between iPhone 6 and Nexus 4

(Image credits to its owner)

Offer Offer!!

Saw this at the supermarket near my house couple of days ago. The supermarket people ain't really sincere about giving you a discount ya?

A trip to Hong Kong.....

I went to HK last weekend, here's a photo that I took on one of its street and I thought I shall blog a little about my trip here......

Except that I haven't been to Hong Kong over the last weekend. This is a photo that I took in SG at Jurong Point. Kinda really look like a street in Hong Kong, isn't it?

This "Hong Kong Street" was opened in Jurong Point quite sometime ago but over the last weekend was my first time stepping into the street and boy, was i amazed by the similarity with the real thing in HK. Feels like I was there.

Mid Autumn Festival 2014

(Image credits belongs to its owner)

Des-talk would like to wish all its Chinese reader a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2014

在此月圆下祝贺大家中秋节快乐，家好月圆庆团圆

How it feels to ride on a dog's back

(Video credits to its owner)

Ever been horse-riding? How does it feel like? Now with technology (in the case a Gopro cam), you can go dog riding, virtually that is. Anyway, this is an amazing video on an excited dog strapped with Go Pro on his back and running to the beach. Enjoy!!!

RSAF just got cooler with this breakdance air marshall

(Video credits to its owner)

RSAF just got cooler with this air marshall and boy his moves are smooth. What's amazing is that this is done in hot humid Singapore where temperature goes up to 35 deg C. He probably end his day in a wet shirt if he continue like that for his full shift but nevertheless, kudos to him for keeping the pilots (and us) entertained. 

Maybe air marshalls from other temperate countries could do this in winter to keep warm...

Is Singapore become a shit city?

(Seen on Facebook)

We seen that on several occasions, people defecate in public such as at MRT station, along the road or somewhere. So it seems like Singapore become the 'Shit City' in Asia. 

I particularly like a comment posted in the same facebook post:

"Just because Singapore is known as the Garden City doesnt mean you have to fertilise it"

I guess its really apt especially when you talk about garden city and 'shit city' under the same breath.

Singapore Comedian "Muthu" dies

David Bala, more commonly known to the public as "Encik Muthu" passed away earlier today.

Muthu is one of my favourite character in 'Just Follow Law' with his very Indian actions and jokes like:

Supervisor: "Say somemore?"
Muthu: "Somemore.

Here's a clip of David Bala acting in Just Follow Law

(Video rights to its owner)

And of course his famous you die i die everybody die scene:

(Video rights to its owner)

Thank you for the joy and laughter that you brought us. RIP Encik Muthu!

HDB Case...I dont think it can be called insensitive anymore right?

In recent news....

HDB suggestion of debarking noisy dog angers dog groups and dog owners alike.

Here's the link to todayonline article.
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/hdb-suggestion-debark-noisy-dogs-angers-animal-rights-groups

And here is the original letter from HDB

(Image credits to its owner)

Firstly, I am not a dog owner nor I belong to any animal rights groups. However, the news really enraged me with such a suggestion from HDB. I don't think this can be called insensitive anymore. Its downright cruel. Like talking, barking is a natural process and I don't think the humans would like their vocal cords to be removed because they are too noisy.

Actually, not too long ago,  a group of Singaporean was sent back to Singapore in Batam because they were too noisy at the custom. How do you thing these group of Singaporean felt?

What's more, now, we are talking about removing the dog vocal cord permanent so the dog could not bark anymore. What right has the human show such cruelty to animals?

A true dilemma...[18+]

[Seen on FB, Laugh Now]

Two men are having a drink in a bar. One says: "You know, I've never really understood what a dilemma is..."

"Let me tell you a story," says the other man, "Imagine you wake up in a bed with two people
next to you. To your left is an incredibly beautiful woman willing to have sex with you, and to your
right is a very horny gay man."

"So where's the dilemma?" replies the first man.

"To whom do you turn your back?"

Double Deckers vs Bendy Bus

My wife asked me what's the fuss and difference about having double deckers and bendy buses, since they are both high capacity buses.

While answering her, I thought I do a post on the question as well

Compared to single deckers which can take about 90 passengers, high capacity buses are a welcomed sign in the more and more crowded Singapore. It is more efficient to run per passenger and with a 35% more capacity than a normal single deck bus, it means 5 single deck sent out, 4 high capacity buses can do the job, with one less driver, less pollution and such.

For comparison in this post, representing double deckers will be SBS Transit Volvo B9TL ("B9TL" or "DD") vs SMRT Man A24 ("A24") which will represent Bendy / Articulated buses.

Volvo B9TL on SBST Service 240 

Image source: http://publictransportsg.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/240_blog.jpg

Man A24 "Mandy" on SMRT Service 190

Image source: http://publictransportsg.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/388_190-2.jpg

Here are a few things that I will consider

1) Max Capacity
B9TL-124 (53 Upper Deck, 27 Lower Deck, 44 Standing)
A24-131 (54 Seating, 76 Standing)

Score: B9TL DD: 1, A24 Bendy: 1 (Since both are high capacity, I think both should get a point.)

2) Boarding / Alighting
Boarding
In the DD, there are  2 routes, you either choose to go up to the upper deck or walk straight to the lower deck, there is a divergence of people which means less congestion (hence faster speed when boarding).
In the A24, you can only walk straight.

Alighting
Unloading is the more interesting part here as the DD has 1 door to exit while the A24 has 2 exit doors. So while alighting the A24 will be much faster than the B9TL. We talk about divergence of people while boarding, however the same point is a drawback the DD has when the direction is reversed. People from the upper deck and lower deck have to wait for the same exit door to exit, hence alighting is slower.

Score: B9TL DD: 1, A24 Bendy: 2

3) Occupied Road Space 
B9TL - 12m
A24 - 18.75m
If you have been at a bus stop with more than 8 services calling at the bus stop, you will know buses when they doesnt come, all doesnt come, but when they come, all will come together. So when 5 buses call at the bus stop, the first 3 could open its door but the next 2 will have to wait till the first 3 had finished their boarding and alighting

The scenario is usually made worse when the first 2 buses are bendies, because 18.75m x 2 = 37.5m compared to 12m x 3 = 36m, so 2 bendies take the space of 3 DD or Single Decks, which is no good for an efficient Public Transport system.

Score: B9TL DD: 2, A24 Bendy: 2

4) Comfort
I am not one who love standing on the bus, especially for long trips, so if we compare seating capacity, its 80 seats in total for B9TL vs 54 seats total for A24. Putting it in the other perspectives, 32 more passengers will have to stand if an A24 came instead of a B9TL. So for long trips (or a long enough trip at least) the DD wins in this respect.

Score: B9TL DD: 3, A24 Bendy: 2

Review, in my opinion.
SMRT, with their Enviro500 Double Decks and existing articulated buses,will have more flexibility in deploying buses based on the load of the particular service. Cross town services such as 969, 857, 190, 972 as well as SBS transit 161, 168 should have more DD since the passengers take from one town to another with not many passengers alighting frequently. Feeder services and certain intra-town services such as 851, 854, 961 should go for more bendy buses in their fleet as passengers board and alight at various bus stops along these routes.

SBST, with most its routes going through towns and neighbourhood, should consider buying Bendies to compliment the DD and also to have more flexibility.

Water: America vs Africa

(Photo credits to its owner)

Found this very meaningful picture.

More like Rest of the world vs Africa. Well, whatever it is, although water is abundance and there is rain, snow in your area, do not take things for granted. It's okay if you don't make considerable effort to save water but at least make a conscious effort not to waste it. 

Richard Attenborough vs David Attenborough

[Not to be confused. Get your facts right.]

For people who have been watching wildlife documentaries, you should be quite familiar with the voice of Sir David Attenborough.

This is Sir David Attenborough, the wildlife presenter. He is still alive as on 25 Aug 2014.

This is Sir David Attenborough brother - Richard Attenborough, who is an actor and director. He died on Sunday 24 Aug 2014.

Source of both Attenborough pic: http://www.smh.com.au/

RIP Richard Attenborough.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge - Review

Bill Gates taking the ice bucket challenge

Photos: www.techtimes.com 

(All rights reserved to its owner)

Question: There are so many charities & causes out there, why did ALS Ice Bucket Challenge go viral so quickly on social media?

Here's what I think 

1) Associated groups 

Before he got ALS, Pete Frates is an baseball athlete in Boston University. See within these sentence, there are the baseball group - people who play baseball. athletes group - people who are athletes and Boston university group - people who are studying / teaching / working in Boston University. Spreading out further, association can also be made when Pete is an fellow Bostonian (not sure if that is how they call people from Boston), Pete is an American, Pete is a fellow human...okay, maybe that's a bit far. 

When people are able to associate, they are more likely to help (in this case, spread the ice bucket challenge). E.g. if you are studying in Boston University and even if you don't know Pete, you know he is from the university, there is a high chance that you will help spread the challenge in the name of a fellow 'college-mate'. 

What's more, when people from non-related groups did the challenge, e.g. celebrity, then celebrity group becomes an associated group and so on.  That's probably one of the main reason why it became viral worldwide. 

2) Fun factor

The ice bucket challenge looks fun and when fun and good cause come together, people are more willing to do it and more willing to share. 

A challenge will be anytime more interesting and intoxicating then a 'please donate' plead, so interest is generated and word is spread. "Hey, have you done the ice bucket challenge" will probably be the most discussed topic in universities, social groups, etc 

3) Nomination

The nomination of 3 people to do the ice bucket challenge plays 2 important roles. The first -  the MLM concept: 

1>3>9> 27>81>243>729>2187>6,561>19,683>59,049>177,147>531,441

In 12 times of spreading, 1 person can reach out to more than half a million of people. Of course you may argue that no everybody will accept the challenge, which I agree but even if 1 in 5 takes up the challenge. we have 1 person reaching out to over 100,000 people doing the challenge.

The 2nd role is the specificity. Its points directly at you when you are nominated by your friend, shouts at you to do it, and inevitably, you have some form of peer pressure of doing it, or at least the pressure will make you seriously consider whether should you do it or not.

4) The $$$ factor (or the lack of it)

The challenge is to pour an ice bucket over you, it doesn't compel you to donate or take the challenge if you don't wish to. And categorising people into these 4 categories:

a) People who will take the challenge and donate

b) People who will take the challenge but not donate

c) People who will not take the challenge but will donate

d) People who will not take the challenge nor donate  

Putting on a chart, it will be something like this:

Except category (d), the rest will have achieved the ALS cause's objectives of either raising funds or raising awareness. With a 'heart', most people will choose (a), (b) or (c), in which the old chinese saying: 有钱出钱， 有力出力 （People with the money donate the money, people without money can help with using energy). 

If a cause or charity ask for money upfront, excuses automatically come out cognitively like"Oh, but I am a bit tight this month", "is this for real, or should I check first before I donate" Trust me, you will never check and never donate afterwards. 

I observed that people are more willing to help out with doing things rather than coming out money, so getting people to do the challenge and raising awareness is much easier than raising money upfront from people. Of course, then there is the other group who will not want to go through coldness and 'pain' but still genuinely want to help, so these are the people who will donate money. 

Conclusion

For the past week or 2, I have been seeing videos of the ice bucket challenge from people I know and people I don't. For a good cause like this, videos going viral on social medias are definitely good and it should be supported.

S$3 million Taxi?

Read:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/3-million-bugatti-cannot-193304385.html

A few days ago Yahoo ran this feature on a very rich Singaporean bought a cool S$3 million Bugatti Veyron Gran Sport Vitesse Special edition and the car  CANNOT be driven on Singapore roads.

What's more ridiculous is that as the edition is painted black with a yellow roof, it does look like a yellow-top taxi.

I placed a picture of a yellow top taxi beside special edition Veyron for you to compare and decide.

(Image belongs to their respective owners)

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Recently, everybody, like really everybody is doing the ALS Ice bucket challenge.
The challenge is to mix a bucket of ice and water and pour it over yourself, like this:

or like this as a group

So what exactly is ALS and how did it come about and what's the cause it's supporting?

ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis which in very simple terms, is a type of brain degenerative disease. Its characteristics include muscle pull / tightness, muscle mass decrease, difficulty of speech, swallowing and breathing.

Here's an ESPN feature of Pete's story and ALS ice bucket challenge which I strongly encourage you to watch if you are interested, but if you do not have the time or are simply too lazy or just not interested in the details, scroll down somemore.

ESPN Feature on Pete's story & ALS on Youtube 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCoKB_tU9ng

It started this this man, Pete Frates

Pete Frates was diagnosed with ALS and wanted to fight this disease collective and wanted more action to be done. His friends introduced him to the ice bucket challenge, which main objective is to raise awareness and funds for a specific charity. Pete went on social media and ask his friends to do it for his cause - ALS. Then things got viral and his friends, athletes, celebrities and everyone just did it. In Aug 2014, Pete did the challenge he asked so many people to do himself.

My respect to you, Pete Frates and I hope you win the fight against ALS.

(All screengrabs above are from the video and all rights belongs to ESPN and their respective owner)

FINALLY: SMRT Double Deckers

i posted something about SMRT not having double decker buses sometime in 2012.
Here's the link
http://des-talk.blogspot.sg/2012/09/smrt-why-no-double-decker.html

And in 2014, on 13th July 2014 to be exact, SMRT deployed 3 revenue service double deckers ADL Enivro 500 on service 972.

Source: (buses[IN]gapore) Facebook

Service 972 on Enviro500

Why 972? Presumably, and this is in my opinion, 972 is a route created to ease off the crazily crowded 190 route from Bt Panjang in the morning and to Bt Panjang in the evening. LTA would want more people to take this bus, hence putting a more higher capacity, comfortable bus, people would be 'attracted' to take the service, sort of.

I commute to Bt Panjang in the evening at times and I have taken the double decker on 972 a couple of times. On the upper deck, due to the fact that you don't have people standing around you (less dense) make the journey (less tense) more light hearted. Also, as with the thing about double deckers, as you are higher, you enjoy more scenery.

SMRT announce that on 18 Aug 2014, 5 more services will get double deckers buses: 106, 190, 850E, 966 and 969.

I am not too sure about 966 and 106 as I seldom take them but its really good to have double deckers on 190 (as it plys non stop after Stevens Road to PIE and onto BKE).
For 850E, it plys non-stop for almost the entire CTE plus a bit of SLE before exiting Yishun.
For 969, which I have been ranting about in my previous post, it plys non stop after Tampines Interchange onto TPE till it exits SLE and enter Yishun.

I don't think 969 will get a lot of these 200+1 double deckers but ideally and I am hoping, every alternate bus is a Enviro 500.

Source: (buses[IN]gapore) Facebook

Service 969 on Enviro500

Oh Oh...

(Photo credits to its owner)

As a child, I always imagine that this will happen. This lady proved me right. 

Sorry to gloat over misfortune, but its really funny!!