A load of crap from an idle brain

Over the new year holiday, went to Marina Bay Sands here in Singapore.  No regrets at not having gone earlier.  Honestly, there is nothing great about the place.  The hotel looks like 3 giant pillars and doesn’t even look pleasing in the day time.  Maybe the interiors of the hotel are world class, but the noisy crowd in the lobby of the hotel dragging their luggage around combined with a few girls standing around the doors dressed in cheongsam looking utterly bored and uninterested.  You wonder if this was what they could produce after spending more than SG$ 5 billion?

The whole shopping place looks as if all the premium brands of the world have been rounded up and put up in a giant warehouse.

There was nothing pleasant about the place.  It looked like a hodge podge of ideas.  Too much of money spent but hardly any class in the stuff.  The other structure sticking out like a sore thumb was the helix bridge.  Neither does it protect you from the rain nor from the sun.  Only God knows why they built that structure.

Maybe the whole thing looks awesome in the night.  And yes, it does look good in the pictures (taken at night).  Maybe the hotel up above and the rooms are terrific.  But the general view of the whole place was a big thumbs down.  The shops were all deserted with people not even interested in window shopping.  The only place (as usual) that was filled with people was the food court.  Just like any other eating joint in Singapore, it was chock a block with people and no place to sit.

The Casino was out of bounds for me and Iam surely not stupid enough to pay $100 to go in to gamble or even to look around.  It too looked crowded inside just like the food court.

The best thing about the place is the spectacular view of the skyline of the business district.  The view was great.

Would love to go see the Resorts World Sentosa too, but this experience has simply dampened my expectations.  So, that can wait.

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Is already 5 days into the new year.  Time flies.  Life’s the same.  Nothing much changes.  Inspite of that, we see people flocking to different year end parties everywhere.  Counting down to the new year, binge drinking, puking on the streets, shouting till their voices go hoarse.  Not to mention the millions of dollars that go up in smoke in the form of fireworks.

Only to wake up on the first day of the new year to see that the sun rose from the east exactly like the previous year, the home mortgage is the same, so is the car loan, the wife/girlfriend/husband/parents still nag and the job sucks the same just like the previous year.

Then comes the resolutions, which are buried under the innumerable other pressures and work related tensions that dragged on from the previous year.  Soon they are forgotten. The urge to go to the gym, to eat responsibly, to quit smoking / drinking, to have a healthy lifestyle etc goes down the drain.

Is it all that bad?  Well, its up to oneself to make the best of each day.  Sometimes the day sucks, sometimes i drag myself out of bed to work.  Most of the time i try to do one positive thing in a day.  That would mean read one good article,  listen to one good song, read about one new topic that i have never read about, google about that one thing that has been on the back of my mind, but never bought myself to read more about, smile and say hello to one new person whom i would have been ignoring all these while.

For me a birthday is just another day, a new year is just another year, Christmas is just another festival.  If you live long enough, you will have as many New Years, Birthdays, Christmases, Valentines Days to enjoy.

If you truly love someone, you dont need to wait till the 14th of February to tell them how much you love them.  Everyday can be a Valentine’s Day if you truly wish to.

Look around and see the one thing that you can do that will put a smile to your face when you go to sleep every night.  That’s what i try to do.  Not that it works everytime.  In fact, it flops most of the time.  If i can do that successfully at least 50 days in a year, i believe its pretty good enough.

I see most of my friends carrying a new Android phone, an iPhone or a new gadget and ask me why i dont get one myself.  I dunno why, but inspite of working in the IT field for more than 13 odd years, i never felt any craze for any new gadgets.  My Samsung phone (dont even remember its model) is already 3 years old, my computer is almost 5 years old, i carry an 8GB Creative Zen mp3 player i bought more than 4 years ago, i dont splurge on clothes, shoes, i hardly eat out in restaurants, i hardly go out for movies.  Still, i lead such a busy life that i hardly find time to do my things.

The urge to spend as much as my friends or colleagues do is not there.  I cant understand the reason why i should replace my phone every 12-15 months.

I dunno why iam this way.  Honestly, i dunno why i wrote this post

Above picture courtesy: Burning Liquid

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• Completed 10 years in Singapore.  Never thought that i would last so long here.

• Celebrated my 2nd Wedding Anniversary.

• For the second consecutive year, didn’t fall sick even for a single day.

• Lost more than 13 kgs in 4 months and overall 17 kgs to bring my BMI down to a healthy 23.

• Significant investments done in equity and mutual funds.

• Bought Gold ETFs for the first time ever.

• This blog had 100,000 hits after almost 2 years of moving here. My previous WordPress blog used to have so many hits in 1-2 months itself

• Blogged infrequently, but wrote more original posts unlike last time when i just blogged more about the news.

• Read 13 books and quite a few audio books too; making this year the most prolific when it came to reading.

• Had just one holiday this year and that was a visit back home to India.

• Read more about finance, investing. Diversified my investments and started reading more about the financial reports of the companies I had invested in.

• Got my MBA convocation certificate. Bringing to an end a 3 year juggle between life, study and work.

• Watched tons of movies, but was so busy that hardly had time to update the Movies page of this blog.  Hope to be much more regular next year.

• Made some significant plans for the next year and will disclose them as and when they happen

Overall, nothing great about the year.  Looking forward to the new year with excitement.  Hoping and wishing for an exciting new phase of life.

Previous recaps here – 2009 &  2008

Let me take this opportunity to wish all of you and your loved ones a Happy & Prosperous New Year – 2011

Meanwhile, let me leave you with a few images of the wonderful skyline of the beautiful city of Singapore where the New Year celebrations are to be held.

Click on the images for a bigger version.

Above images courtesy: Marina Bay Countdown

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Wishing the best of what life has to offer to you and your loved ones.  Happy New Year.

Picture source: 123greetings

Finally, i cut off my 8mb Starhub broadband internet connection. Took a 1mb broadband connection from Singtel instead and surprise, surprise, the performance of the 1mb Singtel connection is more reliable and better than what Starhub provided.

Also i was being charged $80 (Rs 2060) per month for a pathetic internet connection by Starhub. It was an internet connection that would be slow when I needed it the most. Eg. most of the evenings, the internet speed would be really crawling and i would have difficulty watching the streaming news on ibnlive and cnbc. As for weekends, the less said the better. The problem with Starhub is that it gives a shared connection. Though the company refuses to admit, it lays a single pipe to a building and as the number of people taking connection in the building increases, you see a marked decrease in the speed and performance of your internet connection.

The Singtel internet connection is dedicated and the 1mb broadband works pretty good. And the icing on the cake? I pay only $15 (Rs 390) per month for the connection. A savings of around $65 ( Rs1690 ) per month or $780 (Rs 20,200) per year. Can you imagine that? I can buy 112 shares of Reliance Petroleum with that money and am sure that the money would double within 2 years time.

And so, my cost cutting methods continue. Realised that complacency is one of the biggest reason why we waste a lot of money. Last month i wrote down every expense that i incur over a month. Then spent time to see how i can reduce them or even cut those expenses completely.

First off, i removed the sports subscription from my cable TV. It saves me $25 (Rs 650) per month to start off. Not much if you see initially, but it does add up to a substantial $300 (Rs 7800) per year.

The second step was to stop taking cabs/taxis for all frivolous reasons. No matter the destination, i opted only for bus or train. If it was urgent, i would rather leave for the destination 30 minutes earlier than normal. This saved me almost $10 per trip. 4 months of not taking a cab saved me more than $370 (Rs 9620). With the American economy already in a recession, one doesn’t know how it might affect the world economy. Its always better to err on the side of caution. So, save and cut down on expenses as much as possible.

There are lots of other places where i have cut my expenses like credit cards, dining out, hanging out with friends, shopping etc. More of it in my next post. Till then….

Happy Lunar New Year. Hope the year of the Rat brings much happiness, prosperity and peace to all of you and your loved ones.

Above picture courtesy here. 

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