If you are looking for Singapore-specific information on the internet, SPH’s latest oline offering, Rednano, might be just the thing you need. Its search capabilities promises Singapore-centric results presented in a complete package with images, directories and maps.

Rednano Mobile Search via SMS 33333
With one simple SMS, users can also obtain directory information - for instance, contact details of restaurants, transport services, entertainment outlets, or business associates.

To use Rednano’s Mobile Search service via SMS, all users need to do is SMS a keyword to Rednano by sending it to the new SMS 33333 short code, and they will receive an SMS with the address and telephone number of the company or organisation they are looking for.

It is that simple. Rednano’s Mobile Search puts details of over 100,000 business listings and tens of thousands of news articles in their hands. The new SMS 33333 short code is also easy for users to remember.

And, similarly with the WAP portal, there are no charges for the SMS service for a limited period.

Very useful and FREE for now, so I get to save charges on data which I use sometimes for Nokia maps or web via GPRS. It’s about time!

Try it online, or SMS your search to 33333.

How can I not blog about this: Connie the Crazy Canadian is likely to drop by Singapore this summer. Guess where she might be staying while she explores our sunny island?

The response from the owner of the intended accommodation wrote this in last year’s email when I first asked:

If you are around it would be Ok. But she and you can’t sleep on the same bed. Either one of you have to sleep on the floor. It is very unhealthy for both of you to sleep on a bed meant for one person. Remember this wherever you are. Your friend Sam also should not sleep together with you on your bed. Your bed is too small for two persons.

(Connie, I think I successfully shifted everyone’s attention to my mom’s erm… sense of humour and you’re no longer the star of this post. Hahahaha but yeah that’s the way I am so too bad, banana.

You’d better bring me plenty of Reese’s, maple cookies, some of your banana bread, and quesadilla haha.)

Some of you Few of you know about my recent displeasure with the hubbub on frozen meat in Singapore (ask me for the password to that post laaaa). Granted, whatever the minister said, whatever AVA planned, and whatever a certain someone had to execute came to a successful reality with heartland freezers being stocked up with frozen pork, and the market-going crowd shall be avoiding their regular butchers I suppose.

Here’s the news report I predicted will appear, and guess what? There’s a video accompanying it, which will show a special appearance of the certain someone for…2 seconds? Haha. See if you can spot her.

For my handful of Canadian and American readers (make that two fingers), this video will demonstrate/remind you of the way we speak in Singapore, of what affectionately is my mother tongue. (You gotta go to the article itself to view the video)

Sales of frozen meat increase at NTUC FairPrice
By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 22 March 2008 1921 hrs

	Photos 1 of 1
	Related Videos Sales of frozen meat increase at NTUC FairPrice

SINGAPORE: Sales of frozen meat at NTUC FairPrice have gone up by 30 per cent in the past month since a public campaign was launched on 23 February to get more people to switch over from chilled, fresh meat.

But the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said care must be taken when buying and storing frozen meat to avoid bacterial growth.

AVA said that compared to chilled or fresh meat, frozen meat can keep longer, plus it’s cheaper too.

AVA added that the price of a chilled chicken has increased by 20 per cent since last September from S$4 a kilogramme, to S$5.

And despite initial reservations, more Singaporeans are warming up to the idea.

NTUC FairPrice said sales of frozen meat at its stores have gone up by 30 per cent in the past month.

So how does one go about buying the meat?

AVA said the meat should be in a hard, frozen state and the packaging should also not be torn, crushed or juice-stained, and there should be no excessive ice crystals on the meat.

Dr Chua Sin-Bin, Chief Executive Officer of AVA, said: “Ice crystals will actually puncture the muscle cells and the next time you thaw the meat out, the damaged muscle cells will allow the goodies, all the nutrients in the muscles, to leak out as drip.”

Another reason why you should avoid thawing and refreezing meat too often is due to bacterial growth.

AVA said that you should buy your meat just before heading home and store it in a cooler bag to keep the temperature constant.

Frozen meat can be kept cold in an insulator bag for up to an hour. But if the meat thaws, keep it in the chiller compartment of your fridge and consume within a few days.

You should also avoid leaving the meat in the car boot, as the higher temperature will encourage quicker thawing of the meat.

And to suit the demands of consumers, AVA is working with importers to package meat in smaller servings. - CNA/vm

From Channelnewsasia.com

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 polys start love classes

By Theresa Tan

Two polytechnics have started classes on love and relationships in a Government bid to get young Singaporeans to pair up. — ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM CALL it the love elective. Two polytechnics have started classes on love and relationships, in a Government bid to get young Singaporeans to pair up. ‘We want to tell students: don’t wait until you have built up your career,’ said the Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) at an event to promote marriages on Wednesday. Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon added: ‘Sometimes it’s too late, especially for girls.’ So the Social Development Unit (SDU) has set its sights on tertiary students. It is funding varsity student bodies whose activities provide opportunities for Cupid to strike. VIDEO Learn the secrets of happy, healthy marriages (2:57) And students’ response to these love electives have been ‘overwhelming’, said SDU officials. In fact, Singapore Polytechnic’s ‘Love relations for life - a journey of romance, love and sexuality’ was among the polytechnic’s 10 most popular general elective module last year. Read the full story in Thursday’s edition of The Straits Times.

Taken from Straits Times Interactive.

I will now fess up. A long-distance relationship is really hard.

And even harder when your girlfriend has to spend all her time planning how to stuff Singaporeans with frozen pork, and who is now losing sleep over her frozen pork galore event at HDB hub this weekend, where thousands of housewives will try to poke and squeeze frozen pork only to complain that it’s hard all over so it can’t be as fresh as fresh pork but must be okay lah, minister say frozen pork nice, cheaper somemore, eat loh.

So after all the news reports show housewives smiling gleefully because they have a chance to be on TV say that they eat frozen pork, their children eat frozen pork, that their dogs eat frozen pork etc and how they all find it a cheaper and just-as-good alternative to the now more expensive fresh pork, the good word will be out on Monday’s papers that Singaporeans will make do with have fallen in love with frozen pork, and they shall have it in their wantons, their gou lou yuk, their prime rib soups, their steamboat shabu shabu etc (but please spare the bak chor mee).

What propaganda won’t tell you is how personal lives are almost wrecked by the pandemonium behind the attempt to convert fresh pork devotees to pay equal worship to frozen pork via a preaching session at HDB hub. That the personal lives of the event planners have been jeopardized is not worthy of mention, for the noble cause of shoving frozen pork into the freezers of every heartlander must be given way to.

No one will think about how a heart is breaking in the land responsible for price hikes in fresh pork because of a certain planner’s obsession with recruiting frozen pork lovers.

I will eat all this damn pork until the day I die.

I’ve reviewed Pfingo and used Skype Pro when calling within Canada and the US. It’s time I shared how I call Singapore from Shanghai.

Cheapest:

Pfingo. Even though my free unlimited calls have expired, calls to Singapore are only S$0.01 per minute, while SMSes are S$0.05 for local SMS and 10 cents for overseas SMS.

(Using Skype sets me back for calls at more than S$0.03/min, and SMSes more than $0.15/SMS)

Thanks to Pfingo’s referral program, I have sufficient credits to last me for quite a while.

However, since it is a VOIP service you’ll need an internet connection.

Most Convenient:

IP Card + Mobile Phone. The cheapest IP card I’ve found here (17900, China Telecom) is one that charges 0.3yuan/min for calls to Singapore. However, cards valued at 100RMB are being sold for 35RMB. Therefore, combined with my current prepaid plan (16RMB/S$3.20 a month) on my mobile phone (calls charged at 0.13yuan/min), calling Singapore would cost me approximately 0.25yuan/min, which is S$0.05/min.

——————————————————————————————-

The best solution might still be getting the party in Singapore to call you, while you enjoy free incoming calls on your mobile phone (with prepaid plan at 16RMB/S$3.20 a month) or fixed line.

I really hope nothing drastic is going to happen, now that “the most ruthless of the Singapore JI members” Mas Selamat Kastari is still on the loose. Even if he gets caught again, we don’t know what he had planned and already prepared before getting caught.

The government is good in making residents not worrying and trusting that he will get caught and taking for granted that all is safe with the tight security in Singapore (even though he managed to escape?), though, with such propaganda:

‘Even as Singaporeans are waiting for answers to the “how”, security experts are already grappling with the question, “what next?”‘

“With the tight security presence, Singaporeans are generally confident this crisis will soon be resolved.”

I guess it’s necessary for us to feel comforted or else it’ll be a panic attack if we only read these:

“When he was last arrested in Indonesia, officers found literature on bomb making on the man.”

“ The militant leader had been on the run after Singapore authorities discovered plans to crash seven truck filled with bombs at various locations around the island.”

“His mindset is more Al Qaeda then JI. He had planned to hijack a plane from Bangkok and crash it into Changi.”

Let’s hope he’s not an angry man anymore.

It’s the first time I’m on a one-way ticket to Shanghai, and it’s painful because I don’t know when I’ll be home. Previously I knew I’d be home within the coming 6 months because I held a 6-month ticket.

The views I long to see:

It’s home greeting me from the plane!

Or does having a one-way ticket entitle me to go back anytime in between 6 months?

Hahahahahahahaha.

I want to get the remaining 1.5 years over and done with quick, but maybe I’ll take that back when I’m finally graduating and hunting for a job. And I might miss the little things here. Might.

CG, I finished my mom’s pappadum already.

Every time, I ask myself why. The self-interrogation usually starts in the sanitarily homely Changi Airport waiting lounge where it becomes a marketplace with Chinese nationals talking at the top of their voices, and where it is unclear whether the stench of salted fish is coming from their bags of purchases or the fact that they removed their shoes.

Then it becomes a full-blown self-chiding session when the man sitting next to me on the plane cannot close his mouth when he yawns, robbing me of my already weak ability to breathe in a plane that recycles its air of salted fish, rare showers, and many more yawns; and he hit me five times while putting on and taking off his jacket.

WHY AM I HERE?

I thank the Indian customs officers who moved me with the simple acknowledgement that I am not part of the above group.