Shopping (!)

I went to shop. Yes, it’s something unheard of in my entire life until a few days ago.

December 4
My friends and I went to Golden Mile Complex to buy Penang-bound bus tickets. It’s a relatively trouble-free affair, just to compare prices amongst the reputable companies, and was quickly done. After having lunch we headed for Bugis, where we went to Kuan Yin Temple for prayer (That proves I am not an atheist while being a freethinker). Before that, we were in Bugis Junction, mainly browsing for books in Books Kinokuniya. I got interested in the book My Life by Bill Clinton, but too bad, they have only Volume I of the book, and not that of the complete edition. Therefore I suggested to go to the main outlet at Ngee Ann city to check out the book, which my friend readily agreed.

The decision signifies the start of ‘financial disaster’ for me. I found the book but alas, other books captured my attention as well. And so my wallet was unloaded, a rather hefty S$137.50. I shall now present to you one of the most expensive books, in terms of price-to-page ratio, that I’ve ever bought.

This is it – The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham and Spencer B. Meredith.

You can see how small the book is by comparing it with my palm. In addition, the 122 pages attributes further to the small volume of the book. Yet, it costs…

A whopping S$53.07 (ard. RM124)! That’s over S$0.43 (RM1.02) per page! The technique of producing this book may be the main factor behind the price, as described in the book Security Analysis:

This… was photographed by hand from the original pages… A customized vertical camera, designed to minimize distortion and to prevent damage to rare books, was used.

And there goes my fifty bucks… :’(

Notwithstanding the price, the purchase was pretty fruitful. I had bought the book The Federalist Papers, a reading recommended by Dr. Alan Chong of FASS PS Department. Although the semester has ended, my reading has not. I think it’s good to keep this habit, always. Also on the bill were Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, a book by Philip Fisher. I can see the content is very good, so it’s a guilt not to buy it. Forgive me…

When my friend and I decided to return to the Residence, we got lost… And it was my fault. Apparently, I could just get to the other side of the road and get a bus back, but instead I walked a few blocks. I guess my orientation has been compromised by the excitement of the purchase…

December 5
Originally I intended not to go out on the day as I wanted to pack my belongings. However the things I wanted to bring home, primarily the new books, were too voluminous and simply could not fit the simple school bag of my Form Six years. I had to buy a luggage of appropriate size. My friend suggested that we go to HarbourFront to check it out, and I agreed.

Apparently there are some spillover effects from the get-lost incident the day before. I ended up at…

PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, some distance away from HarbourFront. I only realized that I boarded the wrong bus after it turned into Alexandra Road. Trying to save my very face, I pretended that nothing happened and disembarked the bus ‘in style’ (It’s a new Volvo!)… Shameless…

The opportunity was not wasted. I took some photos, hopefully I can present them to my grandpa on the latest development in Singapore shipping industry. Just that I was very careful when taking photos, lest the security guard misunderstood me for some fundamentalists…

We couldn’t find a good-enough deal at HarbourFront. Sure, the prices are all very reasonable, but not in packages suitable for us. Moreover some of my friends suggested to go to Orchard for more ‘extensive’ research. So we didn’t buy any luggages there, just some trivial household stuff to bring home as gifts, (stingy) human nature being what it is.

I think from now on it’s best that I leave the pictures to speak for themselves…

In the end we met a large group of MSL fellow. The details have been documented by lots of friends so I do not want to go further. I think that wraps up the story for the time being. And I am really sorry if I made you feel bored, since I am not adept to writing this kind of ‘account’…

Blogging Experience du jour

What a traumatic experience I had during the past week, it almost got me out of blogging. Perhaps that explains why I did not update my blog ‘properly’ during the past week. Besides having an examination, the sensation has something to do with it. If you do not know already, you may find it out here.

I have done enough contemplation and I guess it’s time for me to continue. You may have noticed several changes in this blog. Among them,

• Image links have been removed. Obviously I need to be considerate towards the readers who are using dial-up connection. I also do not want to eat up too much bandwidth, although I do not have to pay for it.
• Visitors’ tracker has been removed. I hope now you can browse with peace of mind, without having to worry about somebody (probably not me) constantly ‘watching your back’.
• The blog has been delisted from Blogger’s list. You can still access it, as you are doing now, but it will not be promoted in any way. This is in line with one of the policies.
• RSS subscription counter has been removed. I think this is redundant. If you like to subscribe to my blog, and you are using Mozilla Firefox, you may click the orange button on the right-hand-side of the address bar. (Thank you! ) The RSS subscription for Internet Explorer 7.0+ is located below the address bar.

In addition to the removal of those features, I would like to keep myself adhered to the policies described in the aforementioned blog (first paragraph). Hopefully it may help me to have a positive blogging experience, rather than the contrary.

I will return to Penang in December 9, and therefore may not update often (I don’t have an Internet connection!). I have posted well over 100 articles, some still left unpublished (This is the 101st article). I have saved the unpublished articles on my laptop computer, and hopefully I can utilize the time offline to write something with more depth. When it is ready I shall publish it post-dated so it will appear on top of this blog.

I guess I’d better stop now, and not forget to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!