Minister's pay hike

Dear Sir,

your pay keeps going up and up, but mine still hentak-kaki. Papers keep reporting Singapore economy damn good, TV also say. But I don't feel it leh. Kopi increase, other basic makan things also increase. Don't believe, compare a kg of rice in October 2006 and now. GST hike not even here. Aku dread the day it arrives, in July. Outsiders say our gahmen very forward looking. I agree. I think our capitalist also damn forward looking. Increase first, and then later say GST absorb! Tamade. Like that, no wonder that BIG supermarket will absorb GST la.

But I think hor, I am ok with your pay raise la. After all, where to find honorable and selfless gahmen calibre people? Where to find people to run a trillion dollar enterprise? After all our country is unique and outstanding. So I think you have made the right choice.
Your pay should also be outstanding. Soon we will outstand all, Singapura Boleh!

But hor please, try to make our lives better la and empathise more la. I know a lot of people complain your pay damn high even higher then the other first world leaders. But please la, those leaders I am sure are paid equally or if not even more in other means. Over there, under
the table is high traffic, very busy one. That's why I don't think they negotiate at a glass table, ha ha ha. Complainers even compare your pay with other CEO. But CEO never sacrifice their weekend go around shaking hands, plant trees, cut ribbon, dance and talk talk?
Surely you deserve more just for working on weekends. And Singapore so humid.

Look around us, our neighbours are tripping over their own feet. Some try to challenge our airport, also fail (KLIA, Suvarnabhumi). Buddy, buddy want to dig a longkang to by-pass us, now terrorist ground and kena coup some more. Now gahmen there also lost. Donno what to do. MY
bros always boleh. We got first world port, they want to potong jalan. Now most customer who left ours have quietly come back. And Proton? Boleh tahan la. Pakai Petronas money to support. Belakang, Indon. Sore eyes, go and ban granite and sand. Now you give them face, sign
extradition treaty. I wonder if they can even extradite one guy back.
Before they start, I think that fella fly their plane already.

So with all this tripping, we suddenly look damn good. No. You Sir. Look damn good. With IR and maybe F1 here. Pow chiak! 2008 can increase pay again! And maybe means testing for hospital bills! Not only are your own people envious of your success, even your fellow neighbouring peers are. Maybe these peers will be attracted to join you, more foreign talent!

That is why you deserve it. We are small like a snort (pee-sai). Other normally BIG country can bicker and have their rights to voice up. We do not have the luxury. Just follow your lead lor. Chin-chai la. As long as Singapore ok, I say ok!

yours sincerely,
MG

Trattoria Italiana

Hvn't blogged for awhile. Busy. Since i'm waiting for wifey at this
italian restaurant i might as well.

Basket! H20 not free. Still or sparkling? Still. Acqua Panna came.
Fiak! Wife arrive 35 mins late.

Skype chope my port 80

Skype chope my port 80,
originally uploaded by MacroGrey.

Haven't blogged for ages. Has it been almost a year now? Well, what can I say? Been busy and just didn't feel like blogging.

Anyway, today I just got tired of Skype using port 80 on my WinXP machine. I'm running an intranet application on my pc. Been manually starting this sequentially for months (Webrick then Skype). Yes I know, been procrastinating. Finally got my act together, searched google and whoa, lots of people had the same experience. Seems Skype default connection port is 80 and 443! Yes 80 and 443! To change it to another go to Tools->Option->Connection. I set mine to something high. Basket why did they default it so? Using port 80 and 443 (SSL).
WTF! You'll never get that through on a unix machine unless you're root. So ok, it's about time I configure my intranet application to start automatically when my pc starts. And oh, google led me to discover a few WinXP tip, http://photomatt.net/2006/10/13/windows-tip

• netstat -a -o -n
• tasklist /fi "PID eq 1280"
• taskkill /PID 1280

and http://weblogs.asp.net/george_v_reilly/archive/2004/09/15/230281.aspx
another bloggers experience with Skype's:80