Migration

It's time. This blog is moving to its own server at miyagi.sg. Please, please, please, please, please, please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. Oh, and RSS feed for comments is also available. So cool, hor? Because I still support Blogger and how it got me started so easily, all entries before this post will remain here, though, but comments will be closed from now. (OK, yah lah, I can't be bothered to migrate everything over lah. I got a day job, ungderstang? Where got time?) At the new place, which is WordPress powered, you'll find categories like Ingterneck, Navel Gazing and Food & Beverage, and there's a nifty calendar thing as well as an assortment of things that will screw up my template. You'll find duplicate posts there from July to date, because I wanted to populate the site to see what it looked like, and now I can't be arsed to remove them. The other blogs I collaborate on will still be on Blogger:

• Twice-Poisoned Dog
• Days Were The Those
• Not Romancing Singapore

See you over at the new place! This is what it looks like iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of How Can You Keep Moving from the album "Into the Purple Valley" by Ry Cooder

I waited and waited and waited

...and in the end, I had to open the door myself iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of Red Slurpee from the album "Away With The Pixies" by Ben Lee

Technorati Tags: Singapore, trrd

A very engaging week ahead

For starters, there's the humongonimous class at 6pm at Bishan Sports Hall on Saturday which NEEDS MORE VOLUNTEERS! Thank you again, Threez! If you like working with kids, and you should, you might want to come down at 5.45pm Saturday and let me tell you what's required of you. From 6 - 7pm, you'll enjoy one of the most fulfilling hours of your week, working with special needs kids as they're put through their paces by our head coaches. Email me here, and I'll put your names down for the hour. Thank you. --- Then, if you don't already know, there's the Singapore Writers' Festival, which showcases some non-Singapore writers, and Xiaxue, mrbrown and myself. The three of us have been engaged to conduct a talk and workshop about 'How to create and maintain blogs' on Saturday, 3rd of September, at the National Library Black Box on the 5th floor, then we're off to Rouge for some networking night, and then we'll be conducting another talk about 'Creating online communities through blogging' with Cory Doctorow! Cory Doctorow leh! Earlier this evening however, I was informed by Linda Chia that our first talk and workshop has been sold out! Free one also can sold out leh! Special Olympics

Technorati Tags: blog, gymnastics, Singapore, special olympics, writers' festival

Copywriters from hell

Dangerous to drive behind taxis with stupid ads... will laugh until nearly accident

Less of fat, less of you!

No, really, that was the tagline for Caffe Roma that was on the taxi bumper.

Technorati Tags: Singapore

Help needed!

This is the kind of news I like to make! Thank you Threez for the article in today's Straits Times' 'Mind Your Body' section. The phones have been ringing off the hook, and we've been taking names for our special needs gymnastics class on Saturday. Anyone who wants to volunteer to be a coach's assistant on Saturday at 6pm, please come to Bishan Sports Hall. But oh wait, emu me first: bsylee@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: gymnastics, Singapore

TODAY: When a company met angry blogger

Excerpt:

In the age of the Internet grapevine, know your stuff before tackling customer complaints on the Web IT HAS been said, and quite often by bloggers, that businesses ignore blogs and online discussion forums at their peril. (Try a Google search with the term “businesses ignore blogs at their peril”, and you will see what I mean). News sites abound with tales of companies which either ignore, or do not wake up to, the extent of customer dissatisfaction until it is too late. But what happens in the rare case — at least in the local experience — that a company actually responds to rumbles of consumer discontent online? Judging by the reaction when one company did so last week, is it a case of “damned if you don’t, damned if you do”? One apparently disgruntled customer of a company that provides protective wrapping for mobile phones, PDAs and other similar devices posted his complaint on a discussion forum. Now, what typically happens in an instance like this, is that other forum members might commiserate or disagree with a customer’s complaint, or share their own experiences. But what happened this time was that a representative of the company decided to respond to the allegations by emailing the original poster — with interesting results.

Read more here.

Technorati Tags: blog, Singapore, TODAY

Monday macchiato nosso good

There's a scary looking mechanical tiger in United Square at Novena that has scary bloodshot eyes and wheels on its paws. Apparently the handlers of this tiger charge $5 for a ride on it. Siao! Then there were the staff of the Haagen Dazs cafe who said they couldn't serve me a double shot macchiato because it wasn't on the menu, even if a single macchiato was. Even after I explained that a double macchiato was like a double espresso, only you put a small spot of foamed milk to mark the espresso, making it a macchiato, because a macchiato in Italian means 'spotted'. I even offered to pay 50 cents for the spot of foamed milk. But, cannot, said the waiters. To their credit, the waiters told the cafe manager, who suggested I order a cappucino instead. I said, 'nair mind, I'll have a double espresso'. To his credit, the manager asked again what it was I really wanted, and I said 'double macchiatto, which is like a double espresso, only you put a small spot of milk to mark the espresso, and I'll pay 50 cents for the milk'. And the manager said 'ok', and instructed his waiters to make me a double macchiato with no extra charge for the spot of milk. Good job, manager of cafe! 100 points for effort. Zero for the waiters who served me a double macchiato with enough foamed milk to spot twenty espressos. Dude, where's my coffee? iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of The Look Of Love from the album "Music To Watch Girls By (Disc 2)" by Dusty Springfield

When salespeople take the window out of window shopping

Bad day, bad coffee, bad mood When you don't have much money, like me, you'd sometimes like to do a spot of window shopping, which I tried to do today. It wasn't a very good spot of window shopping, given the Sunday crowds and the rain which forced the Sunday crowds into the malls. Still, I managed a good coupla minutes looking at shop windows dressed to entice people to buy things. But only a couple of minutes. Because every shop contained shop assistants who'd spy me looking at their shop windows and then creep up on me outside and say something to the effect of 'Hi, would you like to take a look at some of our fine merchandise, like the one you're eyeing, as we're also having a special discount on these items', only, this being Singapore, sounds more like, 'Arh, we got terty pessand sales on slackted item, come inside and see more lah'. My responses were to the effect of 'Nabeh, scare me! Fuck off! Leemee lone!', but me being the polite gentleman that I am, sounded more like, 'Er, no tankew, just looking'. Vale, Hunter S. Thompson (again) iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair (Jaffa Remix) from the album "Verve Remixed 2" by Nina Simone

Please don't flambée my backside, the food's quite good

I am thankful for a lot of things, really. Like having enough money to give myself a treat after a reasonably crappy day at work. And what treat did I have enough money to give myself, you may well ask? Well, I went and had dinner at that venerable Russo-Hainanese institution that serves the best borsch bar none: Shashlik Restaurant. If you've been there, you'd know the food's real good, and you'd immediately forgive the late 70s lighting, the late 70s furnishing, the late 70s crockery and the late 70s waiters. I've heard before about how rude and brusque the waiters at Shashlik were, and I'd like to clarify one thing: the waiters aren't rude, they're just Hainanese. They'll stand around the bar and talk loudly in Russian because they think they're the best Russian restaurant in town, and they'd be right. And one of the fabulous things about the brusque borsch serving waiters is that even when there's a bunch of them talking loudly in Russian at the bar, there's still a couple of them brusquely pushing borsch, shashlik, and all manner of flambé on squeaky trolleys around the restaurant. If you were to go there, on the 6th floor of the Far East Shopping Centre (not Far East Plaza, which is the cool and funky place with the funky clothes and the funky people selling funky clothes to funky people), I'd recommend you have the borsch to start with, then the shashlik beef/lamb, and then the flambéed banana/cherry/alaska for dessert, topped off with the best Hainanese Russian kopitiam coffee this side of Ya Kun's. I really think this is the best Russian restaurant in town, and I'm not saying this because I'm afraid the Hainanese waiters might flambée my backside if I said otherwise. Dinner was good enough for me to want to dine there again soon, which is significant in itself because before tonight, the last time I dined there must've been twenty years ago. Got dress code one leh Quite dark, until the flaming trolley comes by Then they take the stuff off the flaming trolley onto your table: Banana Flambé The coffee's nosso good if you're expecting espresso Must be nice to the waiters, else they flambée your backside Surf stop: Majulah Singapura's Journal iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of Smoke from the album "Whatever And Ever Amen" by Ben Folds Five

Technorati Tags: food, Russian, Hainanese, Singapore, Shashlik

It is Wednesday and the weather is gana sai

So my blains been boiling the past two days on account of the weather. It was also good to know I wasn't the only one. Overheard in the lift of my office building was this exchange:

"Gana sai" "Simi gana sai?" "Wedder lah" "Orh. The heat" "The heat is sibeh hot" "This morning got haze some more" "Got meh?" "Gort!"

It really, really isn't conducive for work, this weather. Or for decent conversation either. Or for blogging. The Imperial Cafe & Pub, MacCallum Street. Hot place. No, really. Surf stop: Sangsara.net iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of And So It Goes from the album "Greatest Hits Vol. III" by Billy Joel P.S. Yes, I know there was an earthquake in Miyagi.

Technorati Tags: blog, weather, Singapore

TODAY: All abuzz over no poll or no holiday?

Excerpt:

This week opinions and impressions of the Singapore Presidential candidates made up quite a few blog posts, with sites such as Newsintercom (www.newsin tercom.org) even creating a mock-up online polling system, complete with buttons and live results — albeit with only one candidate for readers to "vote" for.

Read more here.

Technorati Tags: TODAY, Presidential , Singapore, Elections