By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

The Bangkok trip is still on hold, but things are looking better over there as we speak. hopefully a resolution will be found in the coming week or so.

but no worries,mate. the next stop for agnes and myself is..MALACCA. We will be going there this weekend together with the rest of the family. It is a tour organised by the Siglap CC. The schedule seems quite packed by the looks of things. I just love Malacca. It is my favourite city in Malaysia. Always had lots of fun and memories every time I been there (except that one time I went there with my family years ago, where I fell ill with asthma for the entire trip). We will be staying at Bayview Hotel Malacca.

as for the rest:

- be applying for season parking tomorrow during lunch. I am spending a lot more time at the flat these days. and the parking is a killer with parking coupons. not to mention the fines. on saturday i was fined $30. the second time I gotten fined. so season parking does make sense.

- we will be going to look at cars the week after. about time too. hope it actually comes to pass.

- Today and tomorrow I am on course at IPAM. am taking a computer maintanance course. I must say I am quite enjoying the course. it is practical and useful since I am on the computer almost everyday.

- am considering if we need a desktop PC at the flat. or maybe I could just refurbish my old PC and bring it over.

- will be staying over at the flat on friday since we have to board the buses at 6.30 am on saturday! so it makes more sense to stay at the flat than to have to wake up extra early and commute to Bedok. and in all probability Agnes will be staying over as well due to the expected congestion at 166 in the morning.

- then on Thursday and friday I will be over at MND HQ on some enforcement course conducted by CID.

- so i will only be at the office on wednesday this week, provided I do not take time off.

- on saturday we went shopping at IKEA and Giant at Tampines. we spent quite a bit on stuff for the house.home shopping is always fun.

- also on saturday: the Mio TV went on the blink. apparently the wireless modem thingies somehow got spoilt, less than a fortnight after it was installed on 25/8. I called the helpdesk the next day, as apparently they only work during office hours, and tried all the stuff the guy on the other side told me to do to no avail. so I made an appointment for wednesday afternoon for the technician to come down. to my surprise I got a call early on sunday morning from the technician. he was in the area and wanted to know if I was home. obviously I was not, but told him I had made the appointment for wednesday. he checked back with the office and confirmed with the office about my appointment. despite the short notice and rush it was worthwhile to get it done on sunday than on wednesday, as I have to take time off or leave on wednesday to meet the technician. anyway after that he called me back. I told him it would take me about 1/2 an hour to reach bedok north from home. so i rushed as fast as sunny could go to bedok and reached there a little over half an hour later. then the techie guy came about 20 minutes later. he replaced both the wireless things with even bigger(and badder) ones. and now Mio TV works a treat.

- to be honest Mio TV sucks. we only got it because it cost $3 more than the broadband-only plan. so it made sense to sign up for that reason alone. the variety of shows on offer sucks. only worth it if you subscribe to the video-on-demands and season passes to the various popular series. the screen freezes sometimes when viewing. irritating. then there is the issue of the confusing on-screen navigation menu. so much more difficult to find films to watch than on starhub/SCV cable tv. and best of all, the set box takes at least 5 minutes to set up in a best case scenario. in some cases it can take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes before one can actually view any content!an eternity if you ask me. when one can view free-to-view television almost instantaneously, it make little sense to have to wait so long when one can just view TV normally.

- Liverpool beat Man U (there I said it) 2-1 at Anfield. yayyyy. on the flip side my beloved Newcastle crashed out against Hull. so a week of mixed emotions as my two teams had differing fortunes on the day.

- in other soccer related new England trounched Croatia 4-1 over at their own patch. a hat trick from the sometimes maligned Theo Walcott and the first goal in years from the mercurial Wayne Rooney turned the betting books on their heads as England are now firm favourites to qualify from their group and put behind them the nightmare of their failure to qualify for Euro 08.