Wizard of Id - 29th March 2009

Source: http://comics.com/wizard_of_id/

Familiar story isn't it? Unfortunately, despite the failings of the top executives of banks, finance firms and auto-makers in the US, their government has no choice but to bail them out due to the disastrous macroeconomic impact that would follow on their collapse. Conversely, the small firms that get innocently embroiled into the economic mayhem are left to their own devices.

The world is unfair. And it will always remain that way.

Non-sequitur

I just read this on the panel of 'Useless Knowledge' on the right side of my blog:

A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.

Wow... Imagine a bouncing ball of glass... :O

Kids, do not try this at home! Adults, if you intend to try this, do remember that a ball of glass will shatter when dropped on/thrown against most surfaces. A ball of solid steel, meanwhile, is likely to shatter everything else. A ball of rubber can be dropped/thrown quite safely. Do note though, that I shall not be responsible for shattered chandeliers, smashed glasses (drinking glasses, reading glasses, glass balls, etc...), holes in windows, and any other possible damages resulting directly or indirectly from dropping or throwing a rubber ball.

Ok, now you can go ahead and experiment.






Go on!

Chess gang meet-up (Mar 09)

Jia Chuan is back for a two weeks break. As per usual practice, it was the perfect excuse to meet up for lunch and chess! And seeing as Hon's birthday was merely a week ago, we decided to include a belated birthday celebration for him!

Esmirada Orchard was chosen as the venue from an initial shortlist of three. I was quite excited to eat there as I hadn't been there before. It helped that I had read about their lunch promotion with Citibank, which means that we could get a good discount for our meal! :D

The plan was to meet at Orchard MRT at 12 to get Hon's birthday card signed, before he reaches at the 'actual' meeting time of 12:30. Shi Qin was pretty late, and we were initially worried that he would spoil our plans by being later than Hon. Thankfully, our worries were unfounded. Hon was over 10mins late. When queried, he gave a very interesting response:

"I was late because I left my house late."

-.-" Oh. Wow. I resisted an urge to laugh out.

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The metal cover of the menu. I like how the rust gave the restaurant name a nice highlight.

I was quite impressed by the decor at Esmirada Orchard. The instant I stepped in, I was reminded of Hogwarts Castle in the Harry Potter movies. If only they had used chalices instead of glasses.

We were disappointed to learn that the Citibank cards discount only applies to their ala carte items and not for the set lunch. Nonetheless, most of us decided to go for the set lunch. I had a two-course set with a main course of roasted chicken and warm chocolate cake and walnut maple ice-cream for dessert.

The chicken turned out quite burnt, and I had to spend quite a bit of time slicing / chipping off the charred bits. Otherwise the taste was good. I loved the crispiness of the potato wedges, though they were a tad too salty for me.

Unlike the main course, dessert was great! The warm chocolate cake was delightfully sweet, and combined well with the ice-cream, while the walnuts provided a good juxtaposition of textures.

Hon's birthday cake was yet another chocolate cake. It lost out to Esmirada's offering, but was still good. By then, everyone was pretty full, and being the cake-lover that I am, I was glad to have more of it. ;P

Non-sequitur: The three lychees in each glass of Cher's Lychee Martini were pierced with one of these plastic sword. Very interesting!

Lunch was followed by some browsing and shopping at Borders, before we proceeded to Cairnhill CC for our long-awaited chess session!

(I ended my day with more cake during my grandma's birthday celebration at night. No, it was not chocolate cake.)

Wei Ting's Wedding Dinner

First wedding dinner of the year(and I already know it's not going to be the last)!

Yesterday's dinner at Oriental Mandarin Hotel was interesting in that the menu departed from the usual wedding fare I had been accustomed to. An example is the 2nd course(out of nine), Double boiled shark's fin soup with chicken. Unlike the shark's fin soup that we commonly find at Chinese wedding banquets, this one is not so thick, and it contains one small abalone, one dried scallop, and chicken on top of the leading character - shark's fin.

My favourite dish last night was the Baked fillet of cod in superior teriyaki sauce. One huge chunk of juicy fried cod with a very compatible sauce. Marvellous. I can eat that everyday, every meal. Heck, I feel like eating it now.

The Crispy king prawn was quite a disappointment though. The presentation was excellent, unfortunately, it wasn't as crispy as it looked, and in fact, turned out a tad tough. Many had difficulty removing it from the skewer.

Hmm... Close up, it looks rather like a worm doesn't it? o.O

Right up next is the deep fried pork ribs glazed with honey. The fatty part was an indulgent delight; the meat was too tough once again.

Here's a closer look...

And finally, for dessert, we had these two slices of cake below. The brown one is chocolate mousse, but I'm not sure what the yellow one is made of. It has a nice tangy flavour though. The orange bits at the side was mango.

And of course, a photo of the groom with a back view of the bride (my cousin Wei Ting).

Overall, I think the food presentation was great, but the taste and texture of the food have lots of room for improvement. Service too, wasn't fantastic. Although we were served for every dish, topping up of drinks wasn't as prompt as I would like. In fact, no one topped up my iced lemon tee; I merely got a new glass when before the toasting session. I love the washroom though. Spacious, clean, dry, with an attendant to boot! Towels were provided for us to dry our hands.

And finally, the souvenir for the evening:

Very interesting...

14 Jan 2009 or The First Post of 2009

The spider had established itself. A big web spanning 50cm across, with a second layer starting to form behind. It had grown to around 8cm in length, pretty remarkable given the open location it had chosen to make it's home. The line of dead insects stuck on the web seemed to be 'arranged' in order by the web master. That was the last time I saw it, on 12th Jan.

The row of bougainvilleas have been pruned. The arachnid and it's home were gone.

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I arrived at Tampines. There was no queue at the station control. I thought I could change my ez-link card.

The sign on the glass panel at the control says the nearest locations for the replacement of ez-link cards are Tampines and Bedok Ticket Counters. I thought the Station Control IS the Ticket Counter.

"Hi, I would like to exchange my ez-link card!" I flashed a smile.

Station staff pointed at the sign and replied curtly, "Look here."

I read the sign again. I did not realise my mistake.

"Ya, it says Tampines Ticket Counter..."

Looking irritated, she shot back, "Go to the Ticket Counter!"

"Isn't this the Ticket Counter?" I was totally bewildered.

Finally, looking very irritated, she pointed to a sign higher up the glass panel: STATION CONTROL.

I turned back to walk away, and promptly saw the Ticket Counter at the other end of the station. I left wondering why she couldn't have politely pointed out the Ticket Counter to me right from the start instead of beating around the bush and speaking with such attitude. Even if I had been ignorant, she should have been polite, which is the least I expect from a service staff!

Membership promotion, anyone?

In October, I received that scam call from a China girl. Today, I received a telemarketing call from Sam. He is an Indian.

Now, I do not have any prejudice towards Indians, but some of them do speak with an incomprehensible accent, and Sam is one of those.

"Good morning, my name is Sam. I'm calling from ... Company... Our company is celebrating our 10th anniversary, so we are having a promotion. 50 selected people will get to sign up for our membership at...and you are one of the lucky ones selected. This card...very good...many discounts with...free accomodation at ...Hotel at Kuala Lumpur...Transferrable to your friends and family members... Two years free... Only have to pay $59.90; $59.90 to sign up for the membership!"

The "..." represent the parts which I could not understand. I told him, "Sorry, I'm not interested."

And I told him, "Sorry, I'm not interested."

And I told him again, "Sorry, I'm not interested."

"May I know why is that so? This is a very good deal, and we are having a promotion now so only 50 people will get it. You will only have to pay $59.90! Other people have to pay three hundred and ... to get it. Our company is located at Genting Lane, and we have been here for 10 years already. If you have any queries I can transfer you to our ... Manager or you can call 6*******(I did not bother to remember)."

"No, I don't want it."

"...Can I have your name and address so we can send our courier team to your place to explain the details to you? It's really a very good deal..."

"Sorry, I'm not interested. You can give the promotion to someone else."

"Sir, can I have your name and address so we can send our courier team..."

I interrrupted him, "Sorry, no."

"...to your place..."

After some more rambling, he finally gave in to my persistent rejection.

"Ok. It's really a pity that you are giving up this chance, Sir. "

Phew... Finally! Actually throughout the conversation, I was wondering whether I should have just hung up the phone, but I decided that would be too rude of me. I believe many would have done so if they had the same experience. Anyway, I did not believe that the so called 'promotion' is only for 50 people. He probably said that to everyone he called up. Unfortunately for him, I do not have the habit of taking up dodgy offers from people of ambiguous background, saying things I could not understand half the time.

While it was a relieve to finally get him off my back, I was to have another shock shortly after. Barely 10 minutes after he hung up the phone, I received another call. A private line, just like before.

"Good morning, my name is Sam. I'm calling from ... Company... Our company is celebrating our 10th anniversary, so we are having a promotion. 50 selected people will get to sign up for our membership at...and you are one of the lucky ones selected..."

"You called me earlier."

"(Pause)Ya...actually I really think it would be a pity if you give up this chance. For only $59.90, you get to enjoy...while others need to pay...If you have any queries, I can transfer you to our...Manager..."

"No, I'm not interested. Bye!"

Kevin's Wedding Dinner

The Merchant Court Ballroom
Swissotel Merchant Court, Singapore
20 Merchant Road

On Sunday, I attended the long-awaited marriage of my army bunk-mate, Kevin Lu, with his girlfriend of ten years, Brenda Tan. But before that, Fabian and I met up with WP and Joanne at Tampines, for a ride down to Orchard to meet Kenny for some shopping.

There's a bicycle stand along the sheltered walkway behind the MRT station. Many people wait there for the free shuttle service to Giant. And it was here, I found a number of bicycles with rubbish in their baskets. So many inconsiderate and self-centred people around! :-(

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Wei Ping was driving his sis' husband's car. It is a very interesting car. The back seats came with seat-belts but no clips for them. So how are passengers at the back supposed to fasten their seat-belts? Hmm...

At Orchard, we spent some time looking for a cheap carpark. One particular dark and cramped hotel carpark charges $4.00 per entry! Luckily though, we managed to get a lot in the Shaw Centre Carpark at only $2.14 per entry! :-D

Kenny was late. We were supposed to meet at DFS Galleria at 6pm. It was close to 7 by the time he reached, along with his girlfriend, two younger brothers, and the girlfriend of one of his brothers. His mum was there too, and had evidently reached much earlier as she berated him for his lateness. We were quite surprised to see the family turnout, which we found out later was due to Kenny's mum playing Santa to her three sons, promising to buy one a Gucci belt each (WOW!) while getting a Gucci bag(and more) for herself.

I even met Leng there while waiting for the family to get their stuff. Wei Ping and Fabian thought she was my girlfriend. Lol! Apparently she was there to buy the LV wallet for RC for their gift exchange. Singapore is so small that we can easily bump into someone familiar along Orchard Road.

It was almost 8pm by the time Mummy Goh completed the purchase(she was actually the fastest among the four shoppers, so it really wasn't her fault that they took so long) with a 30% staff discount courtesy of Joanne. We watched in amazement as she fished out a thick stack of $50 notes, with more left in her bag!

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It was finally time to make our way to the dinner, more than half an hour late. After some initial confusion over the location of the banquet at Swissotel, we arrived at the Ballroom, where Kevin and bride were waiting at the entrance to welcome guests. Ha! Dinner has not commenced yet!

Unfortunately, it was already past 8:30pm by the time the dinner started, and my stomach was growling away. Fortunately, there was extra food available as two of my fellow guests were absent. :-p

There was a video montage of Kevin and Brenda, from when they were babies to their current stage as husband and wife. There was also a video of the proceedings earlier in the day, and we saw how the army friends who were chosen to be his 'Brothers' were treated to 'kaya' (wasabi) buns and raw bitter gourd juice. What a nutricious and 'delicious way to start the day!

It was almost 11pm by the time we ended. The nine-courses were all pretty delicious and I really enjoyed my dinner. The only minor grouse I had was that prawns appeared too often. Haha!