First it was mocca with the matching green pipes.
Then I see 5 macho clones entertaining a baby and selling diapers.
Now cockroach spray also use muscle-man.
Is this the new generation of ads? No more skimpily dressed women? At least we should see more FedEx water-walking ads and M1 Indian Curry House ads!!!
I re-consulted the doctor on Sunday to get an MC today. It was a horribly long wait considering how miserable I already was. Many people missed the queue and came back to be inserted, pushing my number further back. While waiting there, I saw….
1. A typical singaporean middle-age couple. They had queue number 80, and it was showing 79 on the queue board. Soon there was a “Ding Dong” and the couple stood up quickly with their kid, ready to go in. But when the looked up the number showed 84. They started to grumble “why skip our number” “how come lidat” and started to complain to the nurse at the counter. The nurse had to explain to them they had already missed their turn and the 79 was also one who missed their turn. They would have to wait a few more turns based on their queue insertion practices. Even so the couple grumbled non-stop. They returned to their seats and continued grumbling and showing faces of disapproval. They seem to have not realize it was completely their fault for missing the queue.
2. An innocent child. He was holding some stickers in one hand and a biscuit on the other. Somehow he squeezed it too tightly and the biscuit crumbled, parts of it falling to the floor. His dad said to him “掉了, 不要了”. He heard that and began opening his hand, making more pieces of the biscuit drop… His dad stopped him and said “eh! 手里面的拿去吃!” while picking up the pieces to throw them away. The kid then raised the other hand and put the sticker into his mouth…
Had a nice chill with windy and angdao tonight. Been a long time since we just ran out late at night, as if during poly days. Especially after all of us started working, it’s hard enough to get together.
Picked windy up at Simei and drove up to Arab St, where there’s a little “Jazz” bar. Pretty cosy environment, thanks to the wind and the few drops of rain. The music was only average, and the singer could have been better. We haven’t had dinner (10pm) so it was disappointing they only had finger food left. Luckily the finger food was pretty decent (or maybe we were hungry) and the Dark Erdinger beer just great. The irony was I didn’t take any finger food as all of ’em were fried — I was down with a flu-cum-sore-throat. And, I had none of the beer cos I was the driver, plus I’ve quit drinking (yeah, I know, the same question “When did I ever start?”)
In order to satisfy my stomach we ran a sequel to our chill, driving to Geylang for Dim Sum. It’s a totally crowded stall somewhere opposite those durian sellers who ‘ka’ people. The highlight for us was the porridge, even though I said earlier in the car that I’m not interested in porridge. A must-try is the porridge in claypot. When it’s served it’s still bubbling, means it’s still boiling hot. We had the frog porridge, but I guess it didn’t matter what you mix in it; it’s the porridge that’s good.
We went for a spin round the Manjusri Sec neighbourhood after the meal, then another slow drive back home. I think I’ve clocked about 150km for the past month. If this goes on for the next few months I should upgrade to the “premium” membership for cheaper prices.
I think it was a pity we couldn’t gather more kakis: jonquil31 or ahLi and “HER OTHER HALF”…
Charity organizations are back online after the charity sagas, and getting more aggressive than ever. Instead of having cans where u drop coins as you wish, they’re demanding you donate $10 or more for some freebie. Some even spending minutes to coerce you into giving. To authenticate themselves they even show their IC and apply for certificates.
Shouldn’t charity be about giving whatever amount you wish to?
Furthermore, I personally feel like giving money is a bad form of donation (if not the worst). I agree that not all people have the time/energy to actually perform charitable work, but when you put in cash, you don’t know how your money is actually being used. How much of it will end up in the director’s pocket or a gold tap in his office? Why not donate relevant items such as rice for disaster aid, or milk powder for poor kids? Even if you had used your money to buy the items to give, it’ll be less likely the organization will resell off those items in exchange for cash, and more likely it’ll fulfil its intended use.
I have also heard about petroleum companies in poor but oil-rich countries who are doing their part by donating to local villages. What happened was the village chiefs ended up with very nice houses, while the villagers were still as poor. If actual aid items were given out, I bet the chief will not stock up as much and more will reach the ground.
That said, I’ll still give 10 or 20cents to people who approach me sincerely for petty donations, but I’ll think thrice for salesman style appeals for cash.
Singaporeans are ungracious. They don’t give up seats to needy people, they sit on the outer seat of the bus, they stand on the right of the escalator, they buy trolleys (trollies?) full of groceries at the supermarket express counters.
Yeah as usual its a few black sheep who will tarnish the name of “Singaporeans”, but just one or two of them can really hog the express side of the escalator. When you’re just behind the hoggers you could still advise them to stand aside, but you just can’t holler up when you’re trapped behind…
And I can understand sometimes you are just dead beat and need a seat to snore on the MRT train… but every one else in the cabin? Also, can’t people just WAIT for train passengers to alight before trying to storm in? Especially those pesky kids who think they’re smart to squeeze under the butts of people trying to get out so they could get a seat. Wonder what the parents are teaching them.
When will we reach the stage where kids are taught to wait for alighting passengers, and need not snatch seats because someone will willingly give up his/hers once they’re in? When will people queue intelligently and turn queue lines so as not to block passageways? Where is the obiang courtesy bear I knew many years ago???
A thought came across my head after watching the Macdonald’s ad of a man dropping coins to a guy who is singing by the lane. The singing guy stopped and asked, “Hey prices are going up everywhere! Can give more?”
I’m tempted to take a donation can and do that to everyone who cares to drop in a few cents…
Was queuing to withdraw money today at Civic Centre, when loads of coin dropping sound came from behind. Everyone turned back (naturally!) and most were surprised they didn’t notice the coin deposit machine beside the cash deposit machine! I believe many people would have stocked up coins and had to change them off with people who needed loose change, so this should be a very useful machine! I probably should find some time where there’s no people there to try it out.
I tried to look up information about the machine on the net, but didn’t find any. Rather strange, no notice whatsoever, or maybe its a fake machine lol. Too bad I didn’t have a internet-enabled camera phone, I’d just take a shot and blog on the spot while waiting for the damn long queue…
Over skimpily dressed supermodels? No.. over a skimpy notebook. The Compaq Presario B1900 has caught my eye for a while now, for its clean design and ultraportable features. It’s currently number 1 on the CNet reviews, with a rating of 9/10.
Pros: light (1.75kg), good connectivity (wifi, bluetooth, sd/mmc/ms), slightly better gfx (by ATI), cost ($2k – $1), detachable DVD-RW
Cons: battery (2hr?), non-gamer (not powerful enough)
I’d gladly top the battery from 4-cell to 6-cell for an extra hour’s worth of battery life, with the weight up to 1.9kg — it’s still tons light than my current one. If I really do get 1 I’ll need a RAM upgrade to 2gb too. These will definitely push the base price up and set me back by $2K+. And with the impending GST increase…ahhhhhh!
13 more days… how about an ultra early birthday present? 😛
As I sit at my laptop typing away, a trail of ants were busy making their way up and down a wall. By a trail I mean a rather defined path that the ants were taking. I decided to exterminate the ants, and I thought I was smarter than them by ambushing all of them by masking-tape them up at an easy-taping point along the trail. I even thought to prevent any ant from escaping and running back to inform its peers I’ll have to make sure those running back are taped faster and I tape them when they are more isolated.
The first ambush was a total success — I manage to tape up the ants at that point, and the others were far enough not to be frantic and still follow the trail into the “killing zone”. To my surprise after the ants approach the zone they went into a frenzy, darting into directions randomly. It was obvious they knew there was a massacre there previously, despite me leaving no corpses around the area. As a result I had to start taping them further and further from the ambush point, until I couldn’t reach them anymore.
The ants have won. Even though I was able to kill more of them than if I just zapped them everywhere along the path I was not able to complete my plan of luring each and every ant into the ambush area. How did the dead talk? And how were they able to know the path was there or was dangerous without any communication? I asked Google, and there were ready answers
Ants drop chemicals as they walk, and other ants follow the chemical trail. As more ants walk over the path they build up the “visibility” of the path. What about the danger warning?
Wikipedia: Ant (Communication)
A crushed ant, for example, will emit an alarm pheromone which in high concentration sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy; and in lower concentration, merely attracts them.
Now, after writing all these and reading back, I think this is an entry so boring that even I myself will be amazed by how boring I can be when I read it back some years later. For that I’m still going to post it. 🙂
Just caught pirates III at causeway point a while ago, and like other sequels i’ve always felt that sequels are just not as good as the first of the series. Pirates II was quite good though, but III didn’t follow up well. Effects was still great, and still hilarious, but the story became so-so. Or maybe because it was a below-average theatre and it was a rather long show. Or maybe because of the hot dog combo that cooked for half an hour. Anyway I’m still impressed overall, and not so looking forward to Aqua de Viva. X-Men is still the only series I felt that was getting better each time.
Watching Singapore becoming a pirated Venice in the show reminds me of a piracy map I saw a few days back. Check out the attacks near Singapore! There’s like one whole cluster. But if you zoom in you’ll realize that there’re only like 2 “attempted” attacks on the left and right. The rest are further off in Indonesia. Well, just also wondering if we’ll still see them hold swords, fire cannons and swing onto the victim ship… LOL!