esplanade xchange

do you know that raffles city now connects to marina square and suntec city underground? and i don't mean citylink mall... it's via the new esplanade xchange. so now there's another way to get to suntec city during those mad times when there's an IT show going on.

great! :)

higher prices

looks like the freaky weather worldwide these past few months is going to impact us directly after all. :(

wheat: increase of 50% since june
sugar: increase of 26% in 3 months
coffee: increase of 20% also in 3 months
soya: increase of 8% within the same period

while suppliers are currently reluctant to increase prices, if the higher prices persist for another 3 to 6 months, the effect will eventually feed into retail prices. not a very welcome development considering the state of the world's economy.

by post

today i had to go to the post office to weigh the 2 envelopes containing my application forms and documents for the 2 openings doris told me about.

it costs 50 cents for a manilla envelope with about 9 sheets of a4 size paper and i've not done this for a very long time even though i'm actively looking for a job. which company still requires you to submit hardcopy applications by post in this time and age?

so very "old-school" lah... really brings me back to the times when i was looking for my first job. and i don't think it's environmentally-friendly, right? :P

song for xcb

as usual, you can't expect mrbrown not to parody this year's national day song. :)

but i thought last year's "lekuasimi" was funnier. ;)

happy 45th birthday

happy birthday to singapore!

this year's song is written and sung by corrinne may.

sugar-free

while sugar-free food products usually mean that artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose were used previously, increasingly sugar substitute called sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, maltitol and xylitol are added nowadays.

i know about sorbitol and xylitol because that is the sugar substitute commonly used in chewing gum. so is there a difference between the 2 groups of sugar substitutes?

definitely.

artificial sweeteners contains no carbohydrates and thus has no effect on blood sugar level. because it is 100 to 150 sweeter than sugar, the amount required contains neglible caloric content hence it was recommended for weigh-watchers as well as diabetics.

sugar alcohols on the other hand are hydrogenated carbohydrates meaning they will raise your blood sugar levels and contains calorie values ranging from 1.5 to 3.0 per gramme versus 4 calories per gramme of sugar. however, they do not contribute to tooth decay as they are not metabolised by oral bacteria.

interesting isn't it?

basically, what is sugar-free may still make your blood sugar level rise and if such calories are not expended through daily activities and/or exercise, eventually makes you fat! :P

credit: the new york times, wikipedia
photo credit: canonsnapper, flickr

tough

argh... almost got a headache trying to solve the 30 reasoning questions assessment here.

it's super "cheem" lah... i'm happy if i got half of them right. :(

not so long run

but it felt too long... and i couldn't maintain my pace consistently.

my 1st run in many months... haven't been running regularly since the standchart marathon last december so i've been terribly out of practice. besides my obvious laziness, i also blame it on my nike+ ipod sensor. i discovered its battery was flat a few months ago. as luck would have it, it was out of stock in many places.

without a way to track my distance covered, i've put off training for this year's half marathon until today. no more excuses since i got the sensor last month from jurong point, and i don't feel like killing myself in front of tens of thousands people at the marathon singapore in december.

today's run was 3.78km in 28 minutes 27seconds. average pace of  7'29"/km. lousy pace for such a short distance. need to ramp up the distance and speed in 4 months.

wish me strength! :)