My computer is dying...

lolz... yes my computer of nearly 3 years old is about to die I think...

other than louder noises coming from the harddisk, my CMOS just failed today... so now my system time is 2003 cos of the CMOS failure.... it is interesting though cos as a result, some security boxes pop by as I surf the Internet... boxes that says the seurity certs wld not be valid till 2006 (the computer thinks I'm in 2003 still)... wow... so it means I've previously surfed net and allows these certs to be used without me knowing it?

lolz... o.k... c if the computer can last till next weekend...where I would have to buy a new one I guess... would retain both my DVD ... so just a change of motherboard and the other cards...

Room Cleaning... guilt and spiders...

heh was on leave last week and spent quite some time cleaning my room... then I bought a plastic container to keep books and the container is kept under my bed...

hmm didn't do this room cleaning for past 2-3 years... and quite amazed by the layer of dust on the books and other stuff... haiz... and more amazed by the number of spiders living under my bed and behind the books... i think got a few generations of spiders there... from the dried out bodies and living ones ( i squashed them... dun ask how)... i think all in all got a few hundreds of them... eeks... sleeping on top of spiders... haiz

then... my parents notice my cleaning... and today while I'm at work... they finished up the rest of cleaning!! Ahhh.... that makes me feel quite guilty actually... cos u really have to spend a few hours doing that.... haiz...and they also wiped my table... cleaning the dust... sigh...o.k. these are what I planned to do next weekend when I'm on leave again de k? A bit at a time mah...

Was sorting out the old stuff and realised I got a stack of greeting cards... still remember those days where we spent time writing greeting cards to friends? That was like what, 10 years ago? kekeke... threw some away... kept the rest... esp those with plenty of words on it... sorting thru the cards let me remember some old friends... many whom I'm no longer in contact with... oh well... that's life I guess...

I actually spent time ( last time) doing up cards k? 1 failure product which i kept.... i found it... and here's the pic... exact date of creation cannot remember le... my artwork... not great.. but well...








Then was sorting thru other stuff... and found those research works done during Science Research Programme... hmmm some hardness testing (to be exact: Hardness Testing of Tungsten Carbide Cobalt) thingy... chim right? lolz... oh well...old stuff...

tommorrow wld need to buy 2 new boxes... 1 to keep my stuff... the other to keep whatever that my parents packed out of the room... now my room less cluttered... but well... still got my bookshelf...o.k. next weekend.... sigh... stupid spiders...

A complaint

eh... long time no blog... and end up this blog is a complaint entry... lolz

2 things to talk abt... use of foreign 'talent' by some service based shops like 7-11 and StarBucks.
Nothing against foreign 'talent' but if these shops wanna use them, they better train them properly! Went to 2 different 7-11, was served by foreign 'talent' who smile nicely at you but they dunno wat u are asking abt. At the 1st 7-11, an ang moh tourist was asking the counter ger the price of a pack of dried mango... and the conversation goes:

Tourist: "The price you quote me wasn't the price I saw. So how much is it per kilogram?'

Foreign 'talent': "Huh? errr .... (long pause and confused look)... 12 per kilogram...."

Tourist: "$12 dollars per kilogram for dried mangos?"

Foreign 'talent': "errr 12.... 12....long silence"

At this point a local counter person came by... took a look at some labels behind the counter and said "It's 35 cents per 100 grams" and which the tourist promptly said "Yes, for 35 cents per 100 grams I wld take this pack of dried mangos..." most likely he wld go home and tell his country mates that Singaporeans cannot count (since he wldn't know it's a foreign 'talent' serving him). I cld tell of course...the accent... ahem... but well.. i think one day our kids wld grow up with that accent...considering they are spending a large part of their childhood with 'talents' from that country... ahem...

Talking abt service industry... haiz... the 2nd 7-11 shop I went into, I asked for World of Warcraft playing cards, the foreign 'talent' looked at me blankly and just smiled.... then I said 'WoW cards'... and she gave me the prepaid telecom card 'World card'.... and I replied 'WoW playing cards'... and she gave me a pack of 'poker playing cards'.... at that point in time a local counter staff walked by... looked at me and I said 'WoW playing cards' which the local counter staff promptly said 'out of stock'...

Then I went into Starbucks... and was served by foreign 'talent'... who looked at me and smiled and I said 'Tall cuppucino and blue berry bagel'... she didn't relay the message to her colleagues but end up spending a long time trying to figure out how much change to give me. I gave her a $10 note for the items that cost abt $7plus... so her colleagues gotta ask me what I need (after waiting a long pause of course) before making my cuppucino... the foreign 'talent' then gave me my bagel...straight from their display shelf without heating it up... cold bagel is quite hard...

I looked at the bagel and said 'could I have cream cheese?'... and at that point in time she started serving another customer cos a long queue was forming up... and she said "Oh, another 50 cents please". And I folked out another 50cents...waited for her to finish serving the next customer... gave her the money and she said 'Oh sorry it's 70 cents'... o.k... fine. I got my cream chesse... and ate it with my cold bagel...

Next time i better go coffee shop... get my kopi and bread toast at half the price and being served at half the time needed...

Sometimes... some of the higher ups shld not say that Singaporeans complain too much without looking at the issues.... you get foreign 'talent' to come in and start lowering our overall standard of service, then blame the locals for not maintaining S'pore's 'high image of efficency and service stads'... weird... we are not the ones at fault... and...the higher ups shld go talk to these companies who front Singapore's serving industry and tell them to give their staff proper training... ahem... why a sudden influx of foreign 'talents' from that country in particular...

5 years later we see how... ahem...

b) 2nd complaint is abt the price of WoW cards.. ahem... the price up from $4.50 per pack to $5.90 per pack and now.... people are charging $7 per pack! oh well I wld wait for new stocks... 1-2 weeks anyway...