void of existence

Lil: ‘I am starting to date again.’

Me: ‘Really?  What’s his name?  What does he do?  Is he single/married/divorced? Where does he stay?’

Lil:’Aiya..He is cute.  I bought this shirt for him for his birthday on Thursday.  He wears jeans a lot so this shirt will go well with it.  So what you guys think?’

Me:  ‘He wears jeans a lot?  What does he do?’

Lil:   ‘He sells car la.  Thought I told you that I just bought a car?’

Me: ‘So…..He is a used car salesman…’

Roy: ‘Hmm….Used car salesman…it has this negative ring to it somehow.’

Me: ‘I know.  hahahaha’

Lil: ‘He sells new car.  I am so not going to talk to you anymore.’

Me:  ‘Hahahahahhahahahahahahhahaha’

Another one of my nasty jokes cracked me up good last evening.  Of course, p3 was majorly upset. 

Later, I was stuck in the Underbog and we almost got to the last boss but it was too late. 

Now this music video really brings back a lot of memories.

When you buy a car, things you need to take note of:

1)  CoE (Certificate of Entitlement) – This is a licence for a car to be on the road for 10 years.  If you are buying a used car, it means that this licence is valid until the car’s 10th year.  Another CoE can be purchased after the 10th year for another 10 year.  But you will lose your PARF (which I will explain later).

2)  OMV – This is the Open Market Value of the car.  This value is the amount of the car estimated by the authorities.  There is a formula behind this number but dun bother with it.  It will just give you a headache.

3)  PARF – In short, this is the paper value that you will get back right after end of its 10th year.  If another CoE is purchased, the PARF will be zero.

4)  Depreciation – The depreciation of a car is the value that you will lose every year of ownership.  It is not the same as your monthly payment.  And its normally lower than the annual payment of the car.  To calculate depreciation, take the Price of the car minus 55% of OMV divide by number of year of CoE (New car is 10).  

Depr:  [Price-PARF]/[No. of years of CoE]

As the monthly loan payment includes the PARF in the repayment, the depreciation is lower than the loan payment within the same period.

5)  Interest rates – You would want a lower interest rates. 

Total Interest:  Loan amount*interest rates*period of loan

Side note:

High OMV value = lower depreciation (Good!)

Low CoE = Less expenses on the licence per year (Good!)

Been a busy weekend surprisingly.  My WoW is disrupted severly and I am stuck 2 levels behind schedule.  Oh well..bother that.

I went car shopping again .. with Juice this time.  At least he knows what he is looking for.  Its always fun to shop with him actually.  The funny thing is I get a number of sales guys pulling me to one side and telling me that they would cut me into part of the commission if they get a sale.  Of course, I smiled and agreed.  Juice and I find this totally amusing.  After explaining COE and OMV about a million times, I should know better right..

Come to think of it.  I will do a post specially for that topic…later

Then on Sunday, RG wanted to move house.  We met up and went for lunch first…I made her buy, of coz.  I have no intention of kotot-ing her but at least that will keep the favors clear.  So I suggested Macdonald’s.  She wanted Marche, which is closed for renovation (I think), and we ended up in Mackeedee’s.  She is pretty good company now that I went out lunch with her.  The fact that she talks a lot is irritating, but to her credit, she doesnt try to get me to talk when I am keeping quiet.  Some people tend to go like ‘What’s wrong? Why are you (so quiet/not responsive/etc etc)?’  At least she left me alone and bubble on. 

So I went back home and continue with WoW.  I cooked dinner again for myself with the fishballs from the fish shop on the opposite street.  Its really good.  If you are going to buy em fishballs, remember not to add too much salt to the soup base.  I believe they added salt into the fishball for seasoning.  So there I was…happily sinking into my one dozen of fishballs.  I made some porridge as well.  Fishball porridge soup …. hahaha …. oxymoron. 

Later that evening, Fe called me.  Havent heard from him for a long time.  Well, apparently, his dreamgirl decided that it is better for them to be friends.  So he is single again.  He was cursing and swearing (nothin new abt that) that he should have stayed in Sg.  Well, never do what a woman wants during courtship that will require a major sacrifice.  The problem with a lot of people is that they will do strange things that involve sacrificing for the other half.  Things that is not in their characters.  Think long term…Think Tofu…. If you wanna speed/drift/overtake, make sure the tofu dun break.  Anyways, he is trying to come back to settle down.  I am a bit apprehensive about ’settle down’ part when he said it.  Its almost scary.  Oh well, I better make a trip up to visit him soon.  Been draggin about this since 15 years ago.

As I was walking along the street yesterday towards the car park, a number of things come to mind. 

-  How well do we communicate with our environment & surrounding?

-  How well do we communicate with each other?

-  How well do we communicate with the events around us?

Of course, when we talked about communication, we are actually talking about our own singular point of view.  An incident happened with 10 persons around it, each of these people will have their own version.  We talked, but do we listen.  If we hear, do we listen with our ears or our eyes or our hearts or our mind? 

Further to that, there are things that simply escape us.  Do we observe the old lady sitting in the corner sipping her coffee?  Do we see the flock of sparrows playing next to the building?  Do we read the signs on the signboards?

But sometimes, its good to be oblivion to our surrounding.  Ignorant is bliss after all..or is it? 

Let me give you an example that I just heard from a friend.  It really accentuated the point I am trying to make here:

Imagine that I have a pen and a paper.  Now, I drew a dot on a paper.  And I hold it up for you to see.  Now, answer to yourself before reading on.  What do you see?

——–

Before we get to the answer, something really amusing happened this morning when I was queueing to buy coffee.  The little shop had a long queue, so this guy (who was the assistant) tapped on my shoulder and said ‘Ehh..Kill me, eh.kill me’.  For a flicker of a moment, I was taken aback before I realized that he was saying ‘Ex..cuse me, excuse me.’  Now that was amusing to me.  Pardon me, I am not laughing at his English.  I am actually impressed by the fact that he is trying despite everything.  How many of us will dare to be wrong and speak a language we are not comfortable with in such a confident way?  In fact, it seems like the more educated we are, the less we attempt.

——-

Back to the question.  So what do you see?  Do you see a dot?  Well, if you do, congratulations.  You just fall into the category of majority who pass life without knowing what hit them.  Despite of what you want to be and what your dreams are, you have become mundane.  You have forgotten the big picture and are absorp in your own little world with your problems being bigger than they maybe actually are. 

When you hold out the paper, you should be seeing a paper with a dot.  Not just the dot itself.  You should be seeing the person holding the paper.  You should be seeing the table or foundation that the paper is resting on when the dot is drawn.  You should be seeing the colour of the dot.  There is so much, so much more. 

I fell for this too.  But I really want to make this work.  I want to be successful in work, smoke a good cigar and play WoW.  I want to smell the flower, smoke a cigar and play WoW.  I want to see the world, smoke a good cigar and play WoW.  I want to have a good family, smoke a good cigar and play WoW.  =)

Have a Nice day!

What would you think? 

An old man is injured.  He is not seriously hurt..not serious as in he is still concious and can move (with some assistance).  The motorcyclist said that he needs to wait for the tow truck.  So he suggested ‘Since you have a car, can you help take him to the hospital.’  Its kinda on the way to where you wanna go anyways.  But Err..ok..

Then you roll him into A&E where the nurse asked you to fill out the paperwork.  Then you inform the nurse that you are not related, just helping since you are there.  The nurse said that since you are the one who brought him there, you should help.  Err..ok…

And since you are there, the nurse suggested that you call the relatives of the old man.  Err..ok..

So you make that call and the lady on the other side of the call asked you ‘Who are you?’  You explained that where you witness the accident and brought the old timer to the hospital.  Then the lady asked ‘Why you didnt call me earlier on the spot? Then I can take a ride with you.  Now I need to ask my husband to drive.’  Err..ok..

I must have done something wrong in my previous life to these people.