Thursday, April 24, 2008

Mirror Mirror on the Wall ...

This morning during the boring ride in the LRT ... I noticed a fella standing near me holding up his mobile phone ... and I saw his face featured on the monitor! I can't help myself but to 'peep' @ his face. Ok, the first word that cross my mind is ... DUH!


He must be so obsessed with his looks that he needs to captured it and set it as a phone wallpaper. I bet his PC has his face plastered on the desktop or even as a screen saver! How lame!

I can understand it if he looks like one of these dudes ...










... but no he has to look like him ...
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... but then again, I think Mr Bean still looks better :)

Please guys, don't use your face as the phone wallpaper unless it's a couple thingy or group shots because it's not man @ all. My 2 cents.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Quote of the Day - 21 April 2008


"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Friday, April 18, 2008

They Need Our Support


World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.


World Vision Malaysia's aim is to raise funds for and heighten awareness of poor children and communities overseas. This is achieved primarily through Child Sponsorship, 30-Hour Famine and Gifts of Hope.


Through it's child sponsorship programme, World Vision carries out long-term, community-wide development projects. These initiatives address the root causes of poverty and give children and families a better living environment.

Here are some examples of World Vision's projects in 2007 ...

Food - 31 farmers learnt to cultivate greenhouse crops, supplying vegetables all year round (Xinjiang, China)


Water and Sanitation - Toilets were built for 240 families (Yongsheng, China)


Health - 800 expectant mothers were vaccinated and given nutritional supplements (Mya Nandar, Myanmar)


Education - A new school was built for 131 students (Singkawang, Indonesia)


Economic Development - 24 women formed silk weaving support groups (Bati, Cambodia)


For a mere RM50 per month, you experience another kind of happiness by knowing that with a simple gesture, you are helping a child from another corner of the world to have a better future.

Do visit here for updates and activities on the work by World Vision Malaysia.

These are the recent letters I received from my 'kids' and I hope you will also receive one soon.



Greetings from Myanmar



Sawadika from Thailand

Saturday, April 12, 2008

It's a Matter of Service


Do you subscribe to a local pay TV? The only company which cuts off the service if you made the payment on the 31st day after receiving the statement or if rainy day, you can only see a pitch black screen with some crap message on the top of the screen even after the company claimed about transferring some shit to the 3rd satellite?

If yes, then you and I should know by now that to avoid disruption of their service, we need to replace the existing card to their new gold 'security smart card' immediately after receiving them.


I received the card on Thursday ... followed their step-by-step guide (4 steps only) but nothing happen. So I used my existing card for the evening and asked my dad to try again next day. My dad tried for 1 hour with no success. So he used the old card for his TV times.


Come Saturday morning, I called their customer service hotline number at 10.40 am. First attempt - failed. 2nd attempt also failed. I've to redial the hotline number 7x before I reached their voice mail. Ok ... so I waited for all the instructions ... i.e. press 1 for BM, press 2 for English, press 3 for Chinese and press 4 for tamil.


Fine ... I pressed 2, the voice mail came back reminding those subscribers who did not sign up for the magazine to do so and blah blah blah .... then voice mail asked to press 1 for .... press 2 for ... press 3 for ... the list goes on (this has taken too long on the phone) ... after pressing all the necessary numbers ... I was put on hold . Fine. I hold ... (while listening to their advertisements) ... after 30 seconds ... still holding ... after 60 seconds still holding (then the voice mail came back, saying all the customer service staff are engaged) ok ... I'm still holding because I don't want to redial and go thru all the hassle again.


By now, 5 mins has passed and I'm still holding the receiver to my ears. At one time, I even have to put down the receiver to get the newspaper so that I can read something while still holding ... voice mail came back saying all the conversation will be recorded for training purposes ... still holding and listening to their ads ... and finally (thank God) someone answer the phone ... so I explained my problem and the following conversation took place ...

Me: I received the new Smart Card and it doesn't work
CS: Did you put it in the proper slot? (what dumb question!)
Me: Yes, I tried the step-by-step guide but I still can't view any programs
CS: You have to take out the old card and insert the new card then press 880
Me: But your guide never ask us to press any 880, it just said insert the new card and press 'OK'
CS: Err you need to press 880
Me: Fine, let me do that now, please wait (message did appear on the screen saying the software is being updated and have to wait for approx 10 minutes) ... so now I've to wait for 10 minutes and I can view the channels?
CS: Yes
Me: Ok that's all ... thank you for the help.


did you read anywhere from the guide above to press 880?

I tried and waited. After 20 mins, when I tried to press the channel ... guess what? The card doesn't work. I thought maybe the system did not have enough time to update the software, so I tried again and waited for another 15 mins. Nothing happen. I tried again for 3x! Still can't see a thing on the screen except the message "Please insert Smart Card". I've now repeated the process for 5x ... insert new card, press 880, press OK and wait 15 mins. Still nothing happen. I wasted my Saturday morning with no TV and have to do all the crap installing and this really pisses me off.

I've no choice but to call the hotline again (same process as above all over again). Finally, this took place ...

Me: The smart card doesn't work
CS: Did you follow the step-by-step guide
Me: Yes I did and the message on the screen read "Please insert the smart card"
CS: Did it says "insert Smart Card or insert (brand) Smart Card"?
Me: It only said "insert smart card" (duh! what's the difference?)
CS: Please insert the old card back to the slot
Me: I did ... now what?
CS: What's on the screen?

Me: I can view the program
CS: What do you mean?
Me: I mean I can see the TV program now with the old card! (can't they understand simple English?)
CS: Ok now take out the old card and insert the smart card and press 880
Me: I did all that already
CS: Yes but sometimes the system cannot detect it the 1st time so you need to repeat it again
Me: I did that 5x already for the pass 1 hour!
CS: I understand but sometime the system cannot detect it the 1st time
Me: (raising my voice now) .You don't understand me, I said I did all that 5x ... 5x since the last time I call you people (I nearly cursed #$%@)
CS: You only called us at 10.45 am this morning (her voice told me she's quite pissed off @ my outrage by now)
Me: Yes so? I repeated the instruction for 5x ... how many times do I need to repeat the whole thing huh? The next 100th times before I can see something?
CS: Ok, then we will try to update the system from our side here ... just leave the decoder on standby mode with the inserted Smart Card and wait for 10 mins.
Me: Thank you.


After 20 mins, without lifting my finger and pressing 880 I can view the programs with the not so smart ... Smart Card.


9 out of 10 subscribers who called their hotline will agree that their service sucks big time and the remaining lucky subscriber never call them before. They can't even come up with a proper guide on their service but expect us to settle the bill on time. Well, we are a bunch of suckers aren't we? We can't live watching government controlled TV stations so we have to pay but they can't stop us from ranting @ their customer service when the time comes.

Life sucks sometimes but working for that company's customer service sucks even more.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Video Selection - 新不了情

Two different version of this song 新不了情 (Endless Love)

From the movie - C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri (1993)



From the series - C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri (2008)

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Quote of the Day - 5 April 2008


"Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners." - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)