Still needed: civic minded people in Singapore

While I was l writing my last post, I thought that there was too much to write. Not to mention that it might make you sleepy (and also make me sleepy).

It’s been some time since I’ve taken the MRT, which I did last Friday. I had wanted to buy one bag which I deliberated over on Thu, so I decided to get it the next day.

Since we were to have dinner at Dallas Boat Quay, I parked my car at UOB Plaza, then take the MRT to City Hall, which unfortunately the bag I wanted was sold out. Next alternative was to go to Bugis. And so I did.

Well, the main thing I wanted to say was not what bag I bought, but my experience on the train, which unfortunately despite the long hiatus of travelling on public transport, things still have not changed. And it was made worse with the fact that I went to Taiwan just 2 months ago, and see the big difference in the mentality of people here in Singapore and those in Taiwan.

I see priority seats being made more obvious around. And I kinda imagine myself being in Taiwan that no matter how crowded the trains are, the priority seats are usually empty, otherwise occupied by those in great need. Yes, they deliberately avoid sitting at those areas.

Unfortunately, when I snapped back to reality, I dun see the same. Despite the signs, the seats are just seats for everyone, and when you see an empty seat, you just rush for it and sit down.

One couple came into the crowded train, carrying a small boy. I was standing in front of the priority seat. I looked at the lady sitting at that place, who was looking at the guy carrying his son. She didn’t make any attempt to stand up. I continued staring at her. She was carrying one LV bag, nothing else. Just a normal lady working around the area and going back from work.

The others who were in front of the guy didn’t seem to be bothered also. In fact, the guy was not pissed or anything, coz his son seemed to be enjoying himself by hanging on the handrails while his father held him.

I alighted at the next station.

Will there be a day when the people here will behave like those in Taiwan? In terms of graciousness and courtesy?

Kaypoh ass

Can’t believe someone can be so 吃饱没事做.

Think I mentioned before that my place is always full of cars, and many a time some can’t find a parking lot if you come back too late. Heard too that the season parking might also run out in certain months. So it is not an unusual sight to see someone park illegally.

And yet, this morning, I see this kaypoh person who had too much time in his hand and took photos of this car which was parked at a non-parking lot. That car owner is a resident staying at the same block as mine. I thought the car was offending the kaypoh but he was not even a driver! He was taking photos left, right, centre, front, back, before he went off by the stairs.

What!?!?! And frankly I dun even recognise him as a resident here.

What shit. If got so much time in your hands, then go eat breakfast!

And to take photos for what? I won’t be surprised if it appears at that stupid *STOMP site.

*Edit: When I was saying about STOMP being stupid, I’m referring to the section “be seen”…something I think, where those people take pictures of things they see. I find the other sections rather entertaining though, so pls do not be mistaken.

Of laziness, bodohness and stubbornness

Oh shit? Why am I drinking coffee?? Forgot.

Nowadays after meals, I tend to burp a lot. When I was much younger, I dun even burp, not to mention those self-induced ones. My tummy must be disintegrating in quality.

Was just talking about one of my many cousins last nite. Really pity my auntie and uncle, having to have such a lazy person for an in-law. They are just like those helplines who had to activate upon notification. If I were her, I would have slapped her. But such is the love  of parents for their kids.

——–

Just going to work as usual to Acronman today but had a hard time finding a lot coz there were a lot of 7th month prayers going on for the people working here so they stayed back for it and the buffet after that. I had to wait coz I didn’t have season parking and no lots available.

Wait, wait….then Caramel started to get restless. He started jumping around, and for unknown reasons jumped from my lap to the seat beside and then went to smash his face against the passenger seat window! I heard a really loud thud and he didn’t seem to feel any pain coz he looked nonchalant. But when I looked at his face to see if he was injured or something, I saw tears in his eyes.

Haha…duno why he so bodoh. Maybe he thought it was opened coz on the way to work I wound down the windows, until I reached Bt Batok and I had to wind them up coz of the ashes from the ongoing praying.

——–

By the way, if any of you people out there ever comes to my mum to make wetsuits, pls take her advise. I’m not trying to show off about her skills but she’s got enough experience to know what works and what not. Just today I see another person coming back to her coz he refused to listen to her numerous advices that that particular design doesn’t work before making it. And today he came back with a slightly damaged top coz he tried too hard to wear it and fingernails dug into the material while he struggled to wear, causing a tear. All because he didn’t want to put a zipper.

This is only one of the many many cases. Having worn it before for the same design doesn’t mean it works everytime (this is the reason every person gave when they refused to listen to her and always regretted it after that). You have to take into consideration of the characteristics of the material used.

Now, both parties gotta waste spend more time to fix it.

Remember, 不听老人言，吃亏在眼前.

Decision maker isn’t always the best person to talk to

Yesterday I was having lunch with one of the liner coz the rep was in town for a few days. Since I was in charge of that region, I had to go too to voice out any complaints or listen to what is in store.

Something which my CEO mentioned, make me agree with him.

He was talking about the restaurant that we went to, and mentioned that he knows the chef and that he sometimes whips up something special for him upon his request. The guy from the liner company also is a frequent patroniser of the restaurant, yet he didn’t know that they can do this.

And why is this so? This is because he always talk to the managers and those of the higher rank. He likes rubbing shoulders with those who can make decisions. My boss talk to the chefs and they are the ones who does the work and handle the food.

How will the managers know what goes on in the kitchen?

True. Fully describes this liner guy. He always will talk to my bosses and whenever we ask him to do something, it would be draggy. I remember once when me and my colleague got him to settle some issues, it took like 2 days and nothing positive comes out of it. The boss came to know about it and asks him about it. 1 hour later after he called him to inform that he settled the problem.

Frustration.

Sometimes short cut doesn’t exactly mean the best. You need to see who does the runner work who can filter you off the higher management even before they get around to know something about it.

If you got it, flaunt it!

I seriously feel sick now. It’s one of those days when you suddenly start sneezing and tearing, and your head feels like a ton of bricks landed on it.

I told myself no phone calls tonite. Yes, many might say I can just off my phone, but unfortunately 人在江湖，身不由己.

The calls keep coming in. I tell them tomorrow settle. My head is too heavy today after the hyper tension yesterday and today.

I feel my neck growing bigger. It’s always the case when I get too stressed. I had a hard time keeping it down, and I certainly dun want it to recur again.

Tmrw will definitely be another shitty day. I know, coz I just got some undesirable emails. Sighz.

I was reading the Chinese papers today and Aileen Tan sparked off some response from the public on her recent commercial for Bio Essence. I did notice la, but I didn’t think it was anything sleazy.

Well, if you still duno what I’m talking about, check out her latest Bio Essence ad. She was wearing a super low cut dress that exposed a lot of her cleavage. So now everyone started talking about ‘aunties’ flaunting their assets nowadays.

Mentioned were Ann Kok (almost 40) on her role in ‘Housewives Holiday’ (主妇的假期) where she wore her bikini. And also Pan Ling Ling who wore the same in another show ‘Beach Ball Babes’（球爱大战）where she was acting the young-at-heart mother role.

And Hong Huifang also wearing ‘less’ nowadays.

Seriously, I duno what’s the hooha all about. They have the assets, then flaunt it if they dare. Plus I actually think that Aileen Tan’s showing her cleavage is actually a very good marketing point for BioEssence to emphasise the quality of their product and that it delivers results.

And more so, they are still quite pretty at their age. If the papers didn’t reveal their actual age, do you think you can still guess how old they are based on their looks alone (by that I mean no counting back the years when they started their acting career)?

Their husbands are not complaining, so why more other people are?

Celebrity news and thoughts

The recent reports on the 红星大奖 is making me feel that the whole thing is over-sensationalised.

First, so many people had been shortlisted for the 最佳 ranking for the 小娘惹show. Like what Pat Mok had said, because of a single show, the rest of them had been neglected just because they had been acting in another serial other than 小娘惹 and so didn’t stand a chance to be in. While one side might say sour grapes, the other (like me) feels like having an OD of the show.

And when 戴阳天 got ‘ousted’ from the ranking, everyone felt it was a surprise. WHY? I dun think that was even a small surprise. Just because he was in the famed show means he should be in the running?

And now I feel the whole thing is just an act of trying to garner votes for them, whether in or out. So as to get more people to spend more money on the phone.

Tsk.

Another news which made me rather irked was the arrest of 大炳 for the 2nd time for drug abuse.

I used to enjoy watching his show, but now I feel he’s like a hypocrite.

Like what 张小燕 had said, if he is feeling stressed about the debts he had to pay, he should have gone thru the proper way of getting himself treated by the doctor, and not to resort to drugs and blame everything he did for the predicament he is facing now.

A waste of his talents, but he deserved it.

叶子，已掉落。。。

Thru Cruz’s twitter and blog entry, I heard some sad news.

I wonder if anyone remembers Ah Sang, the one who sang 叶子?

Apparently she passed away due to cancer this morning. At a young age of 34.

Life…is sometimes just unpredictable.

RIP, Ah Sang.

Another fatality

Just read about some accident in Tioman last weekend.

And I didn’t realise that it was a friend of someone I knew online, until just now.

I duno why such incidents keep happening, and yet nothing much was being looked into it when the last incident happened less than a year ago, same cause.

I really duno what else to say.

To those who know her, my deepest condolences.

Gossips, and new stuff

OMG. I just heard one news this morning. While one didn’t shock me as much (I kinda predicted it when the divorce was announced earlier on), the other one was a surprise.

Jamie Yeo has a new bf, her company’s angmoh big boss.

And then, Jean Danker and Glenn Ong together. *faints* *shakes head*

Anyway, none of my business. But when I got to know about the 2nd piece of news, I slapped my forehead and rolled my eyes. 

Dun ask me why.

Also read in the papers last nite that Harlem Yu and Annie Yi are in the midst of divorcing. Not that so many words were said about it, but Harlem had 默认 about this news. 

A pity, but it looks like a release for Harlem finally.

I just downloaded Google Chrome in office and I love it to bits. I was getting frustrated with the IE coz it loads really slow, especially when I tried to play Lexulous online. I leave the window open, do my work, go back again after 5 mins, the screen is still blank.

Can’t use Google Chrome on my laptop coz there’s no version for Mac yet (I think still). 

Last nite I was doing some wallpaper calendar for one of my photos taken during the Malapascua trip. I think I might try to submit it at Smashing Magazine and see if it gets selected as the monthly calendar. Whatever it turns out to be, I am already using that as a wallpaper for my Mac. Cool.

More later.

Divers reunion dinner #2 – 7 Feb 09

It was supposed to be a final gathering for AC, but she was not free on that nite with a home dinner ongoing with her frens. But we went ahead anyway, and finally got a lou hei for the bunch of us.

It was supposed to be potluck, but on Friday WK thought that potluck will end up with a lot of food leftover and so we changed to just pizza and KFC. Turned out to be a really good idea coz there were actually still food left over despite only KFC and pizza.

I brought along a yusheng for a final toss for this year.

It was really great fun with booze, good food and plenty of breeze.

C was really a good host, for he brought down wines, cheeses and fruits, amongst others.

I think I like his fridge, coz it was so so so full. And we ate quite a bit of his stuff. Haha.

Poor Caramel who was there was unable to roam around downstairs, for they had a rule which says “pets not allowed”. And the security guard saw him. So poor him had to stay in the big bathroom for the nite, alone.

It was so breezy, that it became really cold. We really shivered there and had to keep talking and eating to distract ourselves. LOL.

Quite like that place. Spacious, breezy and quiet.

And we enjoyed ourselves that nite too…

A young life gone

It was quite shocking to hear that this Brazilian model who had her legs and hands amputated due to some viral infection.

I was thinking, how devastated she will be when she realise what had happened to her limbs when she wakes up. Especially when she is a model and had years of highly possible successful career ahead.

And when the news struck that she had succumbed to the virus and passed on, everyone who didn’t know her before and read the news felt great sadness for her.

On one hand, at least she didn’t need to suffer for life without limbs which would have been a great blow to her. On the other hand, it is very tragic to know that an up and coming supermodel had her life ended so abruptly.

My condolences to her parents and boyfriend.

Lunch, dinner and something dampening

I am aching all over, and I seriously do not know why. PMS? Never had it like this if it is really the case.

Had lunch at Shang Palace today due to a birthday celebration of a director. Was supposed to go somewhere cheaper as it was the last day of one of the colleagues, then was ‘hijacked’ to go to Shangri-la.

I really had no idea what I ate, but it was ALOT. Some 3 little portions of appetisers, Peking duck, crayfish with some cheesy sauce, fish, and some other stuff which I couldn’t remember. Then we had like 2 different types of desserts, one of them with 3 small portions of cream mochi, mango pudding and fried macha sesame mochi. Then the 2nd dessert was the chocolatey birthday cake.

I brought my lunch to dinner. With my tummy. 

Dinner was a gathering for JM who came back from London for a while, so we had zi char at this place at Tiong Bahru, opposite Link Hotel. I was so full, that I skipped my favourite crabs, and only ate a piece of meat, toufu, chicken and man tou.

It was fun catching up with each other, as we had not met up for some time.

*-*-*

Wishing that Monday will not come at all. Really.

I dread going to work now.

I hate hate hate it now.

Can I leave?

A shock, but something to learn from

The whole Singapore grieves for the unfortunate death of Ms Lo in Mumbai, who sacrificed under the hands of the ruthless militants. While many held hopes for the whole saga to finish and the release of her, it was then known that she had actually come under the gunpoint and ‘used’ to pass a message thru Singapore to India about not to fight back, otherwise she would be killed. It was sad to know that she had died, traumatised before. Thus the news came as a shock to us because this was not revealed before the announcement of her death, due to operational issues.

I was driving when I heard my fren receiving an sms news on this. Very sad.

Being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And not that she deserved to die too.

Many of us, whether we show it or not, mourns for her death. She’ll be remembered, and forever reminding us that we should not undermine the powers of our enemies.

Rest In Peace, Hwei Yen.

Death for the nth time, hung up like a monkey

The boss called me this morning to cancel his flight tonite coz his nephew passed away in his sleep. Heart failure most probably. That set me thinking…when a person gets a heart attack while he/she is sleeping, does he/she actually wake up clutching his chest, and eventually dies, or just peacefully sleeping till dead while the heart just fails?

G told me it depends. Both scenerios do happen.

So sad, coz his nephew should be still quite young.

Bombay and Bangkok are still in chaos. My colleague got me to check for his about whether he can cancel his next Friday’s ticket since he is still out of station. But the red hotline is hotter than hot. And it sounds rather funny, like someone took my call but just put it on hold again, coz I could hear the ringing instead of the recorded voice. Then it reverted to the voice machine again.

And twenty minutes later, they hung up my phone. *(&*^&$%^R&(*_

Why are people so fond of putting me on hold today? Only this morning, I was calling my travel agent to help me check what will be the procedure and whether any cost involved. Just as she was checking, another call came in for her and she yakked on the phone for like 5 mins before I decide that she wasn’t putting down the phone anytime soon and hung up.

Luckily she called me back, otherwise I would have called her and scolded her for putting me on hold instead of just telling me that she will call me back.

I’m feeling bored now. No mood.

Should be going out later at nite, but still deciding where to go and what to do.

I wanna zzz now.