CountDown To The New Year

I Saw Foreigners Kissing Santa Claus On Xmas Day
What I saw around me was a sea of foreigners. Tourists, maybe even the work and student pass holders *(well if you ask me, at least the student pass holders are paying some of their dues but certainly not the work pass holders - look I know a privately-funded international school actually offers to pay $1500 a month for their housing needs here). Or the long-haul residents (a Chinese PR tenant I had was making a whopping $48000 a year for the health food pyramid-selling he indulges in)

Like that Czech woman who works the reception counter at the SSC gym. Or the countless Filipina and Filipinos working the fashion and sports retail outlets here (they don't seem to know very much about the products they sell). And the Malaysian Chinese at the high-end hotel F&B outlets and the low-end kopi-tiams (the really loud and crude louts are found here usually with rude service to boot).

Even the telecomunication retail shops are dominated by them (no service or knowledge if you ask me).

Not all offer good service. In fact, most would give us a bad name in terms of the kinda product knowledge and the level of service they provide.

Are we sure we shouldn't be training the locals (like we are doing now at the ITEs and polys) to do a better job at projecting Singapore service at its best?

You Developed It, So Clean It Up, Bozo (ORDEAL NO 1)
On 11th December 2006, the e-kiosk at the Bishan community library kicked up a big fuss, telling me how it could not read my contactless cashcard.

By then it had already swallowed up $30 worth of cash from my bank account without remitting any part of it to either my cashcard or to my multi-media account. That $30 just DISAPPEARED INTO THIN AIR!

If you remember, this same card had given me much grief at the xeroxing machines at the same place as well as at the train fare-gates. Simply because it clashes with the EZlink technology and all the STATE-OF-THE-ART machines can't read it.

Read : BIG TIME COUNTRY BUMPKIN ALIEN SENT HERE ON EARTH TO TROUBLE US POOR EARTHLINGS courtesy of our NETS people.

Now I could have topped up my multi-media account via my ATM card of course but as I said, I was "conditioned" to transfer funds from my bank to the cashcard and then to my multi-media account simply because IT HAD BEEN THAT WAY WELL BEFORE THEY INVENTED THE E-KIOSKS.

Much like what the PAP IS TELLING ALL OF US ALL THIS TIME! THAT, THAT WAS THE WAY IT WAS, IT WON'T CHANGE AND IT WILL BE STATUS QUO. Even if China and India are on the ascent. And the Middle East is not far behind.

And Volcano Land should not have spouted any lava in the first place on SENTOSA ISLAND. We should have had Disney, Universal or Fox Studios to do the trick.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was, GET THIS PEOPLE, the community library was AUDACIOUS enough (fuck you, read my lips) to insist I deal with NETS MYSELF, even though the two institutions have been in cahoots co-developing the software, the machine and the whole works.

The library staff even has my record of my CASHCARD transactions and they could have simply faxed the details over to the NETS people.

But NO SIREE, I had to run up to the Orchard community library one Thursday afternoon (because I was down at Orchard Road sniffing out some shopping bargains - GUESS had some really hefty discounts but of course I couldn't really find anything I want and the woman sales staff disallowed trying on the outfit - SO HOW DO WE KNOW IF THE SIZE FITS AND IF WE LOOK GOOD IN IT? BIG TIME BIMBO!) and instruct the staff to print out my bank statement and fax it over.

And it was a good three weeks wait.

In the period in between, I had repeated calls from the library staff but no action on the part of the NETS people. They were shoving the LITTLE BASTARD back and forth, back and forth and back and forth again and again!

I hope the library catches fire and the NETS people die in a mudslide.

Caveat Emptor! Product Defect! Product Recall! Dont Buy This! (ORDEAL NO 2)
It was too good to be true. Two luggages for the price of one. $29.90 to be exact. A smaller suitcase Russian dolled inside a bigger one.

I had no problems with the bigger luggage but once I tried to change the combi-lockset numbers (because it was sited so close to the handlebar which I think is a manufacturing defect) on the smaller one, it could not open.

Frantic calls to CARREFOUR were routed to the sales promoter from another company who was unhelpful and unfriendly (so I fucked her up in a SMS text, she threatened to lodge a police report and I wanted to counter-report when her male friend called up and THREATENED ME ).

In fact when I thought about it, there were no sales promoter on hand on the day I purchased the set.

Threats to complain and SUE THE COMPANY FOR NEGLIGENCE finally had them deliver a new suitcase, only to have the same problem repeat itself. THIS HAD GOTTA BE A MANUFACTURING DEFECT which the company is hiding and dumping its products at a CHEAP SALE, I thought.

The luggage looks suspiciously like another brand with its COMPANY NAME striped across the suitcase in the middle except this is now called MEGA-POLO and not SWISS POLO (which if you remember, its lightweight flimsy handles broke the last time).

I had to lug the BASTARD thing around and trudge off to a local BAG company here to have it fixed.

An Ounce Worth But A Pound In Exchange
I chatted with UNCLE CABBY and related to him about my recent bad buys. We agreed that many of the stuff now, because they are manufactured in some Third World, come with cheaper material and labour. But they are priced exorbitantly especially the branded ones.

We can imagine the huge profit margins the manufacturers are raking in.

Dry And Wet : Like The Way You Fuck Someone
Whoever it was who suggested levying a tax on plastic bags has got to be OUT OF HIS FUCKING MIND, not once but twice over. He has obviously overlooked the issue of dry and wet groceries. The latter, usually being perishables, need plastic bags to keep them in and to be thrashed after consumption in that same plastic bag.

Dry groceries (usually durables) could be bagged in recyclable bags for sure. But please, look at the distinction before you suggest anything stupid.

To his credit , however, he wrote an excellent article about TAIWAN and how it is really going the pro-democracy way. Just like the other writer who wrote something on meritocracy and just today something on the changing facets of a traditional "family nucleus".

She is still deadset against "welfarism" just as I am deadset against the "subsidy" (no, it is not even that, it is a donation) she gets from the fellowship she gets awarded to study at some overseas educational institution.

A Second Interview By An "INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL"
I met up with the Academic Director (if you are the Academic Director, then I am Prince Charming from FUCK-YOUR-ARSE School for the Morons And Bimbos).

First he had a form for me to fill in, listing all the subjects I can teach in three modes : C1 Expert C2 Able to teach after some preparation C3 Unable to teach.

Now what was particularly stupid was I should be only filling in THOSE SUBJECTS I CAN TEACH and leaving those I can't teach blank, right? That is what HE EXPLICITLY WANTED ME TO DO!

So why is there a need for C3 unless he wants me to fill up all the blanks corresponding to all the teaching subjects listed.

From his accent I can't really gauge where he hails from. Singapore? China? Taiwan? Malaysia? Like I couldn't the Mynamese girl serving at the Burger King counter. I thought she was HongKee.

But I kept emphasizing to him how I thought communication skills was important. I hope he caught my drift. If he didn't, he is as DAFT as George Bush. Better still, the PAP!

Wussy No 1
I place my stack of newspapers on the table. She was sitting at the next table.

When I came back from ordering my food at the fast-food joint, she was reading my copy of URBAN (look she was reading URBAN - about fashion and so on and not even the WORLD NEWS OR LOCAL NEWS).

She apologized and said she didn't know it belonged to someone??????????????

I was MAGNAMINOUS that day so I told her to carry on reading and to return me the copy after she is done.

Wussy No 2
She showed me a few jewellery pieces, brandishing a calculator and toting up the prices and the "discounts" she was giving out.

She showed me a ring I already bought at another jeweller for $3. She wanted $45, after a "discount".

I flashed my finger and told her I got that for $3!!!!!!!!!!