Right into week 8.
Once again, a fistful of reasons for the delays. My birthday bash, Chinese New Year, tests, essays, economics summit, the list goes on. And more unfortunate is that I cant tell you all about it in this post. Or at least not yet.
‘Tis gonna be a short post this time (I’ve got 2 essays and a test coming up), so just to keep you faithful readers occupied for the time being, here’s a guide on HOW NOT TO REPLY AN EMAIL. Below are 2 emails that I’ve sent out so far regarding my group project. Mind you, I didn’t change the names in the email to protect any image or something, I really sent them out this way, although her name is obviously not Marion. And apologies to Sniff Petrol, but I just can’t get enough of the nickels thing.
First email is a reply to my friend regarding a group meeting:
Tickle my nickels, the CDA project art thou come.
Small wonder today the weather ain’t so Gary, the ducks snorting their own turd and people fumbling around fully feathered just as heavily as they are shedding it. oyster sauce and water chestnut knows no fear in this muddy day. So does the park bench and the diving birds.
Big wonder, thou, is our project. great biscuits of suggestions, thought there aint masterminds anymore in the world of Elizabeths and Roxette. Just one piece to point out: maybe we should get our squeakies together one day to skim through the work before assigning the cake to each person? A little brainstorming and Ninja Turtle would do no harm.
Aside from that, well done, Marion, and looking forward to everything the world has to offer.
Gary
Second email (so far) is to ask if she sent me the right thing, because I have little to no idea what was in my inbox:
Fundle my candle,
Great weather today, Marion. Not too cold to freeze the squiggles, and not too warm to bake the nickels. Same can’t be squirmed of the industrial trial today. The panting peacock just had to wiggle 2600 weasels when all number housewives could squeak an amoeba just under 10000 to make some biscuits. Little known, I fancy it. As effective as getting the kangaroos to stop breathing to reduce CO2 by 35%; sounds like monkey Valentine, but give it a few clockers, and then they stop breathing for good. Whoopee.
Back to today’s oysters. Just curiosity for peanuts, I wonder if you saw what you just squirrel-mailed me? Well, 12 jars of “which provided at.......” and “how much pay to s......” Good cookies, I reckon, but overdone to the pencil. Almost like calling him Alexander the Third......from left. Sigh, I’ll have to sausage up at 7 tomorrow and start the Sta-tallatta in the house of books.
Anyways, good work once again Marion, and looking forward to the next snuggle up. Thought I have no half watermelon when will it be.
Gary
Well, this is it for this time, on HOW NOT TO REPLY AN EMAIL.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Movie Review: The Warlords and 2012
End of week 4.
Sheer carelessness and overconfidence once again left me all alone to spend my weekends with the mallards and avian. I’d gone through Friday without giving a thought at all that my friends would be out of campus for the weekends. Then on Saturday, I discovered some facts and a lot more. A friend went to London, some went to Sheffield, a few went to watch football, some went for rugby, and the rest went to watch footballers play rugby.
So, with the Anas platyrhynchos still scouring for grass and weed outside, I decided to catch up with some movies. After rummaging here and there, I found two films that would suit the cold and not so quiet night (my flatmate decided to turn the kitchen next door into ZoukOut ) : The Warlords and 2012.
So, lets begin with The Warlords, or “Tau Ming Chong” in Cantonese. Chinese war movie about some dynasties in the past (Wiki says Qing, wont doubt them), starring the cool Jet Li, the cooler Takeshi Kaneshiro and the, err, quite cool Andy Lau, and the subtly pretty Xu JingLei. Its about a soldier who left the military after being betrayed by the institution, leaving 5000 of his dudes dead on battlefield. Then he joined some thugs and advised them to join the army, so that they can be bigger thugs. He then got betrayed by the institution yet again, and almost everyone relevant in the movie dies in the end. Winner of, amongst the many, Best Film and Best Actor award. Mind you, they had 2 nominations for best actor. That’s how good the movie was. Until I watched it.
Let’s talk about the good sides first, as I don’t want to give you the negative image as yet. The war and fighting scenes were excellent, and the cinematography used was unusual compared to other war epics such as Red Cliff (1&2). The usual SS (stab and slit) was present, with the lead actors killing their way to victory. But what caught my eye was the way the director focuses more on the ‘unknown’ soldiers, rather than just making the lead actors look invincible. Peter Chan, the man behind the scenes, had made the side casts feel more integrated into the plot, rather than just, well, side casts. Whereas in Red Cliff, the generals and ministers didn’t even bother about the small ones. Here, I like the scene where Andy Lau begs for food from the ministers, and subsequently distributing the buns to his people. Doesn’t seem like much, but not often seen on other movies either.
Also, I liked the thought-provoking idea of a man with his principles. Jet Li strongly believed that all the villagers should be left untouched, while all soldiers must be killed. Again, doesn’t sound like much, until you see Andy being chained to the pillars while screaming not to kill the enemies who surrendered. Jet insists that if they keep the enemies alive, his soldiers will have to share the food with the other useless squirrels, while Andy thought it was inhumane to kill them because they surrendered. But Jet then said that, if they chose to be in a war, they chose to kill, and be-killed, so to speak. Both sounded logical and sensible at the same time. And that really made me wonder, if that happens to some pitiful chap in real life, how on earth is he going to solve it.
The negative parts (though not as negative as the next review) is just my opinion on how to make this movie better. And all I’d like to say is: the plot is too thin. Even kids with an IQ of -24 can tell that in the end, who dies and who doesn’t. The idea of betrayal is just too obvious. Then, there isn’t much depth in the dialogues, not like in Red Cliff, where the generals talk over coffee, or tea, on the strategies to attack the opponents and they draw it on maps and this makes you think if its viable or not. Here, it’s just showing the old, wrinkly imperial people BS-ing with Jet and Andy, and that’s really annoying when you start to see those antique beings as people sitting behind cashiers and registers. You know what I mean, thinking that you are a yob, a nutter who can’t speak English, an idiot who has to pack your own groceries, those sort of stuff.
And the budget. US$40 million. Microscopic by American standards, and especially the next movie. But the relatively big budget is not reflective of some core parts of the movie: to make the movie look good. Look at Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, with only US$15 million to play with, and they make people fly and mixing subtle soft focus and deep colour contrast with intense er-hu music. And Red Cliff: US$80 million, which in coins will fill up my whole flat with change to spare, and once again, spotted with soft, slow close-ups on the magnificent Lin ChiLin. And lets not forget the part where the camera chases the pigeon at the end of Part 1, and you can indulge yourself at the immense detailing of each and every vessel of the enemies. Here in Warlord? The only entertainment the lead actors get are some cheap looking opera at a run-down restaurant. No ladies in silk dancing away, no talented old lady singing and playing the er-hu. Which is the total opposite of The Banquet: undisclosed budget, but in SD format, looks as vivid as HD, and hence freaking beautiful to watch.
All in all, it left me a little disappointed, though I had high expectations for it. But a good, thought-provoking movie altogether, which can’t be said for the next review.
2012. Which in my language, would probably mean “I have really low expectations for it, and the good thing is, it was fulfilled.” And I’m forced to tell you all the backside, opps, bad side to it first because you’ll have to give me some time to think about something that hasn’t gone wrong with it.
First, the graphics. I thought it was forgivable, since I was watching it in Flash. Then I saw the earthquakes and splitting roads and I thought they made the movie with Microsoft Paint. The limo was stupid, the drive through the collapsing glass building was stupid, the Bentley spinning on the ice when it leaped off the plane was stupid, and the arcs were incredibly stupid. When the limo made the jump, the passengers at the back felt nothing. Lincoln suspension technology at its best? My foot. Then it crashed into the glass building, and while in there, the building seemed to stop collapsing. And there were no one in there, no tables, no chairs, just some paper. Maybe they drove through the income tax department? And the Bentley defied the laws of physics, and created its own, that is “if thy moving object falls on ice at the speed of sound, thy shall spin one round and stop, and not damage any bumpers or destroy any wheels in the process.” Hilarious. And finally the arcs, and I said finally because I won’t go any deeper with the graphics or I will go on for months, is that it left the Tibetian mountains through a hole less than the quarter of the height of the hills. And crashed into Everest looking about half the height of it. Did the water that entered inflated it?
And then there’s the sheer un-common sense of some things. In 3 years, Mr President Obama will turn from a 40-ish year man with 6 packs and white teeth, to a 70-year-old with alarmingly receding hairline and a water bed under his shirt in the movie. Doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I mean, if they want to make it as real as possible, then go all the way. And his daughter really grew up in the 3 years.
Then there’s the free riding problem. Yuri and the Gang paid a billion Euros per pax for a cruise round the Everest Sea (huh?) but those Chinese builders and a few thousand more dudes (where did they came from? How did they know about the secret project?) that were hanging around the dock could board for free. Talk about first come, last serve. Like Nando’s in Birmingham.
There’s also the cleverness of Dr Satyam, the dude who lives right above the most unstable part of the planet, containing active plutocarbohydranikejenifferpotatosmiroffbananapinkpanther matter which would cause earthquakes and sinking land mass. And is more worried about the safety of Americans than his family above. AND whose house is the only place on earth not hit by an earthquake. But a tsunami. Crikey. And did you notice him and few thousand people trekking as the arcs were closing? Guess where they’re going? You’re right, I have no idea either.
But there’s some wit to the movie, I suppose. Like how Professor Adrian said, “This room could fit 10” when he was butler-ed to his cabin aboard the, I dunno, HMS INTERNATIONALLE FREAKING EXPENSIVE CRUISE TRIP, but didn’t tell the captain so, and instead just asked so that those Chinese engineers be invited to the loading deck. He’s smart, I can tell, cos if David Hasselhoff landed in his room, he’d have to spend the night picking up burgers from the carpet.
Dr Gordon was a genius too. ‘The Breast Guy’ at day, the ‘Pilot who only had an hour of lessons and then could fly the largest Russian airplane’ dude by night. Speechless.
Also, I suppose these guys are all used to the cold, as they could just walk in the freezing cold in Tibet wearing nothing but a coat for Curtis, Bermuda shorts for Dr Gordon, t-shirt and some fancy hat for the kids, sleazy Tamara, Yuri’s chick wearing her dog and Yuri himself, forever in a coat and tie, whether he’s waiting for the landing gear to repair itself, or when he’s launching his kids into the air.
So, what was enjoyable in the movie? Well, I found this movie quite hilarious, actually. Like the guy who was supposed to be Arnold Schweazzehaihfiafiger quite funny, desperately copying his accent. Or how the software on the arc was not written in Chinese, given that those guys built the thing. Or how is it ever possible that even after the worse volcano eruptions the world has ever seen, the skies were still as clear as Lithuania. When scientists used to say that dinosaurs were possibly killed because the blanket of ashes stuffed their noses and turned them into what’s known today as Shell V-Power. AND, AND, how a stupid power drill can stop a potential 10 tonnes of arc door from closing. I mean, did you see the size of the gears where Gordon became minced meat? They were huge!
I could go on and on with this also, but just one question before I end this post. Notice that the Chinese Premier was nowhere to be seen? I dunno, maybe I just overlooked. But assuming that he wasn’t there, could it be that he was already launched into outer space with a Chinese-made space shuttle and the Taikonaut at the wheel together with the whole parliament and their families? And leave the Americans and the stupid rich people to take the plane and transit and transit again and queue up to get into arcs with the waterproof properties of a copy of The Star? I mean, this is what people should be thinking of, not “Oh, in the future only China can save the world, they have the capabilities” and stuff like that.
Long post, apologies for that if you want some. Take all the time you need in this world to read it.
Sheer carelessness and overconfidence once again left me all alone to spend my weekends with the mallards and avian. I’d gone through Friday without giving a thought at all that my friends would be out of campus for the weekends. Then on Saturday, I discovered some facts and a lot more. A friend went to London, some went to Sheffield, a few went to watch football, some went for rugby, and the rest went to watch footballers play rugby.
So, with the Anas platyrhynchos still scouring for grass and weed outside, I decided to catch up with some movies. After rummaging here and there, I found two films that would suit the cold and not so quiet night (my flatmate decided to turn the kitchen next door into ZoukOut ) : The Warlords and 2012.
So, lets begin with The Warlords, or “Tau Ming Chong” in Cantonese. Chinese war movie about some dynasties in the past (Wiki says Qing, wont doubt them), starring the cool Jet Li, the cooler Takeshi Kaneshiro and the, err, quite cool Andy Lau, and the subtly pretty Xu JingLei. Its about a soldier who left the military after being betrayed by the institution, leaving 5000 of his dudes dead on battlefield. Then he joined some thugs and advised them to join the army, so that they can be bigger thugs. He then got betrayed by the institution yet again, and almost everyone relevant in the movie dies in the end. Winner of, amongst the many, Best Film and Best Actor award. Mind you, they had 2 nominations for best actor. That’s how good the movie was. Until I watched it.
Let’s talk about the good sides first, as I don’t want to give you the negative image as yet. The war and fighting scenes were excellent, and the cinematography used was unusual compared to other war epics such as Red Cliff (1&2). The usual SS (stab and slit) was present, with the lead actors killing their way to victory. But what caught my eye was the way the director focuses more on the ‘unknown’ soldiers, rather than just making the lead actors look invincible. Peter Chan, the man behind the scenes, had made the side casts feel more integrated into the plot, rather than just, well, side casts. Whereas in Red Cliff, the generals and ministers didn’t even bother about the small ones. Here, I like the scene where Andy Lau begs for food from the ministers, and subsequently distributing the buns to his people. Doesn’t seem like much, but not often seen on other movies either.
Also, I liked the thought-provoking idea of a man with his principles. Jet Li strongly believed that all the villagers should be left untouched, while all soldiers must be killed. Again, doesn’t sound like much, until you see Andy being chained to the pillars while screaming not to kill the enemies who surrendered. Jet insists that if they keep the enemies alive, his soldiers will have to share the food with the other useless squirrels, while Andy thought it was inhumane to kill them because they surrendered. But Jet then said that, if they chose to be in a war, they chose to kill, and be-killed, so to speak. Both sounded logical and sensible at the same time. And that really made me wonder, if that happens to some pitiful chap in real life, how on earth is he going to solve it.
The negative parts (though not as negative as the next review) is just my opinion on how to make this movie better. And all I’d like to say is: the plot is too thin. Even kids with an IQ of -24 can tell that in the end, who dies and who doesn’t. The idea of betrayal is just too obvious. Then, there isn’t much depth in the dialogues, not like in Red Cliff, where the generals talk over coffee, or tea, on the strategies to attack the opponents and they draw it on maps and this makes you think if its viable or not. Here, it’s just showing the old, wrinkly imperial people BS-ing with Jet and Andy, and that’s really annoying when you start to see those antique beings as people sitting behind cashiers and registers. You know what I mean, thinking that you are a yob, a nutter who can’t speak English, an idiot who has to pack your own groceries, those sort of stuff.
And the budget. US$40 million. Microscopic by American standards, and especially the next movie. But the relatively big budget is not reflective of some core parts of the movie: to make the movie look good. Look at Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, with only US$15 million to play with, and they make people fly and mixing subtle soft focus and deep colour contrast with intense er-hu music. And Red Cliff: US$80 million, which in coins will fill up my whole flat with change to spare, and once again, spotted with soft, slow close-ups on the magnificent Lin ChiLin. And lets not forget the part where the camera chases the pigeon at the end of Part 1, and you can indulge yourself at the immense detailing of each and every vessel of the enemies. Here in Warlord? The only entertainment the lead actors get are some cheap looking opera at a run-down restaurant. No ladies in silk dancing away, no talented old lady singing and playing the er-hu. Which is the total opposite of The Banquet: undisclosed budget, but in SD format, looks as vivid as HD, and hence freaking beautiful to watch.
All in all, it left me a little disappointed, though I had high expectations for it. But a good, thought-provoking movie altogether, which can’t be said for the next review.
2012. Which in my language, would probably mean “I have really low expectations for it, and the good thing is, it was fulfilled.” And I’m forced to tell you all the backside, opps, bad side to it first because you’ll have to give me some time to think about something that hasn’t gone wrong with it.
First, the graphics. I thought it was forgivable, since I was watching it in Flash. Then I saw the earthquakes and splitting roads and I thought they made the movie with Microsoft Paint. The limo was stupid, the drive through the collapsing glass building was stupid, the Bentley spinning on the ice when it leaped off the plane was stupid, and the arcs were incredibly stupid. When the limo made the jump, the passengers at the back felt nothing. Lincoln suspension technology at its best? My foot. Then it crashed into the glass building, and while in there, the building seemed to stop collapsing. And there were no one in there, no tables, no chairs, just some paper. Maybe they drove through the income tax department? And the Bentley defied the laws of physics, and created its own, that is “if thy moving object falls on ice at the speed of sound, thy shall spin one round and stop, and not damage any bumpers or destroy any wheels in the process.” Hilarious. And finally the arcs, and I said finally because I won’t go any deeper with the graphics or I will go on for months, is that it left the Tibetian mountains through a hole less than the quarter of the height of the hills. And crashed into Everest looking about half the height of it. Did the water that entered inflated it?
And then there’s the sheer un-common sense of some things. In 3 years, Mr President Obama will turn from a 40-ish year man with 6 packs and white teeth, to a 70-year-old with alarmingly receding hairline and a water bed under his shirt in the movie. Doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I mean, if they want to make it as real as possible, then go all the way. And his daughter really grew up in the 3 years.
Then there’s the free riding problem. Yuri and the Gang paid a billion Euros per pax for a cruise round the Everest Sea (huh?) but those Chinese builders and a few thousand more dudes (where did they came from? How did they know about the secret project?) that were hanging around the dock could board for free. Talk about first come, last serve. Like Nando’s in Birmingham.
There’s also the cleverness of Dr Satyam, the dude who lives right above the most unstable part of the planet, containing active plutocarbohydranikejenifferpotatosmiroffbananapinkpanther matter which would cause earthquakes and sinking land mass. And is more worried about the safety of Americans than his family above. AND whose house is the only place on earth not hit by an earthquake. But a tsunami. Crikey. And did you notice him and few thousand people trekking as the arcs were closing? Guess where they’re going? You’re right, I have no idea either.
But there’s some wit to the movie, I suppose. Like how Professor Adrian said, “This room could fit 10” when he was butler-ed to his cabin aboard the, I dunno, HMS INTERNATIONALLE FREAKING EXPENSIVE CRUISE TRIP, but didn’t tell the captain so, and instead just asked so that those Chinese engineers be invited to the loading deck. He’s smart, I can tell, cos if David Hasselhoff landed in his room, he’d have to spend the night picking up burgers from the carpet.
Dr Gordon was a genius too. ‘The Breast Guy’ at day, the ‘Pilot who only had an hour of lessons and then could fly the largest Russian airplane’ dude by night. Speechless.
Also, I suppose these guys are all used to the cold, as they could just walk in the freezing cold in Tibet wearing nothing but a coat for Curtis, Bermuda shorts for Dr Gordon, t-shirt and some fancy hat for the kids, sleazy Tamara, Yuri’s chick wearing her dog and Yuri himself, forever in a coat and tie, whether he’s waiting for the landing gear to repair itself, or when he’s launching his kids into the air.
So, what was enjoyable in the movie? Well, I found this movie quite hilarious, actually. Like the guy who was supposed to be Arnold Schweazzehaihfiafiger quite funny, desperately copying his accent. Or how the software on the arc was not written in Chinese, given that those guys built the thing. Or how is it ever possible that even after the worse volcano eruptions the world has ever seen, the skies were still as clear as Lithuania. When scientists used to say that dinosaurs were possibly killed because the blanket of ashes stuffed their noses and turned them into what’s known today as Shell V-Power. AND, AND, how a stupid power drill can stop a potential 10 tonnes of arc door from closing. I mean, did you see the size of the gears where Gordon became minced meat? They were huge!
I could go on and on with this also, but just one question before I end this post. Notice that the Chinese Premier was nowhere to be seen? I dunno, maybe I just overlooked. But assuming that he wasn’t there, could it be that he was already launched into outer space with a Chinese-made space shuttle and the Taikonaut at the wheel together with the whole parliament and their families? And leave the Americans and the stupid rich people to take the plane and transit and transit again and queue up to get into arcs with the waterproof properties of a copy of The Star? I mean, this is what people should be thinking of, not “Oh, in the future only China can save the world, they have the capabilities” and stuff like that.
Long post, apologies for that if you want some. Take all the time you need in this world to read it.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Of Toyotas, Tesco and Roll-Overs
End of week 3.
Blogging can sometimes be such an arduous task. At times, so much happens in a week that it would take more than 1000 words, or even 1500 words to describe. There’s meetings on Monday, meet ups on Wednesday, Hustle on Friday and a weekend in Birmingham or something.
And then there are times where nothing faintly spectacular happened at all. Such as this week. So ordinary and mundane beyond words. And so ridiculously typical.
The weather was as usual- cold but with this gloomy “I’d like to rain, but only when you walk out without an umbrella” look. The ducks were as usual- noisy and leaving trails of undigested grass everywhere. Classes were as usual- some funny lecturers, some not so funny. Work was also as usual- a pile of them.
My kitchen was as usual- messy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, squeaky clean on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tesco was as usual- long queues, long wait, and long walk. The Financial Times was as usual- ban big bonuses, something about Cadbury, and Gordon Brown.
It wasn’t the worse week, but it was bad enough to deserve a blogging.
It was also as usual, with people who only comment on something just by looking at it from a single perspective. Its like saying Jay Chou is as normal as my week and as handsome as a teapot, and then when you watch him live, POW!! He’s a genius, a man brimming with talent, a soul made of G sharps and A minors.
What I’m referring to is the recent recall made by Toyota on their cars to replace the floor mats. It seems that those mats, if not properly fitted, would jam the oil pedal wide open. While that sounds great for drifting, I suppose the old uncles and aunties and 401(K) recipients wouldn’t have found that funny. But leave that aside for a moment. What caught my attention were the comments made that this mass recall would damage Toyota’s outstanding reputation in their owners’ head. Err, I’m not sure about that statement though.....
Lets run through a bit of history, and go back in time when some of the new Ford SUVs left the factory, all gleaming and shiny, with its new found ability: to roll over at highway speeds. Like how ducks naturally leave their solids all over the place, the new Explorers, for some reason would turn turtle. And its not just a handful of them that were written off and hit the scrap yard: there were more than 160 cases. And what did Ford did to mend things back? I have no idea honestly, but Firestone did receive a record fine for not dealing with the issue properly. This made news and many lawsuits over the years, and then what? People are still buying Explorers until today. So my question is, if the absence of proper handling of the issue and presence of rollovers and big news done little to damage Ford’s image, then what is that small recall gonna do to Toyota and their sales charts?
I suppose it would do the sales charts even better.
It shows that Toyota cares for their customers. Though the young dudes would fancy the idea of a wide open throttle along the LDP, Toyota is now giving them the option to lift off the oil and onto the brakes in case they’re heading for the McDonalds drive-thru at the speed of light. It shows that Toyota is committed to making good, safe cars and ensure (or at least try) that their customers live long enough to return to their showrooms for another Camry. And this is the most a customer can ask from a firm.
US ’08 Mercedes GLs models have shiny, distracting dashboards. Audi Q7s (used to) have some fancy LED dash displays that when you put on a polarised sunglasses, you wouldn’t know how far you have travelled. And the Ford Escape that Car and Driver tested left the factory with rattly roof racks. But did any of them recalled their GLs and Q7s and Escapes for a replacement, or at least a repair? Nought.
Toyota, on the other hand, did recall their cars in the past a handful of times. For instance, when their Lexus cars had, for a short period of time, brake lights with a mind of their own. The market did come up with similar predictions, that the recall would in turn destroy the marquee’s image. But after the recall, a survey found that owners were indeed happy that Lexus was responsible enough to stand up for their faults, and naturally their brand confidence had grown over the years.
Thus, only time will tell if this mass recall would poke a hole through their image balloon, but I reckon Toyota customers would appreciate this even more. And if they can escape this recall unscathed, it will be a very big eye opener to both customers and other makers alike. Customers can be sure that their Toyota would not leave the factory with any major defects, while making them think if other car makers would go to such lengths for the same reason.
So, this is it, this week’s post. Business as usual tomorrow onwards.
Blogging can sometimes be such an arduous task. At times, so much happens in a week that it would take more than 1000 words, or even 1500 words to describe. There’s meetings on Monday, meet ups on Wednesday, Hustle on Friday and a weekend in Birmingham or something.
And then there are times where nothing faintly spectacular happened at all. Such as this week. So ordinary and mundane beyond words. And so ridiculously typical.
The weather was as usual- cold but with this gloomy “I’d like to rain, but only when you walk out without an umbrella” look. The ducks were as usual- noisy and leaving trails of undigested grass everywhere. Classes were as usual- some funny lecturers, some not so funny. Work was also as usual- a pile of them.
My kitchen was as usual- messy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, squeaky clean on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tesco was as usual- long queues, long wait, and long walk. The Financial Times was as usual- ban big bonuses, something about Cadbury, and Gordon Brown.
It wasn’t the worse week, but it was bad enough to deserve a blogging.
It was also as usual, with people who only comment on something just by looking at it from a single perspective. Its like saying Jay Chou is as normal as my week and as handsome as a teapot, and then when you watch him live, POW!! He’s a genius, a man brimming with talent, a soul made of G sharps and A minors.
What I’m referring to is the recent recall made by Toyota on their cars to replace the floor mats. It seems that those mats, if not properly fitted, would jam the oil pedal wide open. While that sounds great for drifting, I suppose the old uncles and aunties and 401(K) recipients wouldn’t have found that funny. But leave that aside for a moment. What caught my attention were the comments made that this mass recall would damage Toyota’s outstanding reputation in their owners’ head. Err, I’m not sure about that statement though.....
Lets run through a bit of history, and go back in time when some of the new Ford SUVs left the factory, all gleaming and shiny, with its new found ability: to roll over at highway speeds. Like how ducks naturally leave their solids all over the place, the new Explorers, for some reason would turn turtle. And its not just a handful of them that were written off and hit the scrap yard: there were more than 160 cases. And what did Ford did to mend things back? I have no idea honestly, but Firestone did receive a record fine for not dealing with the issue properly. This made news and many lawsuits over the years, and then what? People are still buying Explorers until today. So my question is, if the absence of proper handling of the issue and presence of rollovers and big news done little to damage Ford’s image, then what is that small recall gonna do to Toyota and their sales charts?
I suppose it would do the sales charts even better.
It shows that Toyota cares for their customers. Though the young dudes would fancy the idea of a wide open throttle along the LDP, Toyota is now giving them the option to lift off the oil and onto the brakes in case they’re heading for the McDonalds drive-thru at the speed of light. It shows that Toyota is committed to making good, safe cars and ensure (or at least try) that their customers live long enough to return to their showrooms for another Camry. And this is the most a customer can ask from a firm.
US ’08 Mercedes GLs models have shiny, distracting dashboards. Audi Q7s (used to) have some fancy LED dash displays that when you put on a polarised sunglasses, you wouldn’t know how far you have travelled. And the Ford Escape that Car and Driver tested left the factory with rattly roof racks. But did any of them recalled their GLs and Q7s and Escapes for a replacement, or at least a repair? Nought.
Toyota, on the other hand, did recall their cars in the past a handful of times. For instance, when their Lexus cars had, for a short period of time, brake lights with a mind of their own. The market did come up with similar predictions, that the recall would in turn destroy the marquee’s image. But after the recall, a survey found that owners were indeed happy that Lexus was responsible enough to stand up for their faults, and naturally their brand confidence had grown over the years.
Thus, only time will tell if this mass recall would poke a hole through their image balloon, but I reckon Toyota customers would appreciate this even more. And if they can escape this recall unscathed, it will be a very big eye opener to both customers and other makers alike. Customers can be sure that their Toyota would not leave the factory with any major defects, while making them think if other car makers would go to such lengths for the same reason.
So, this is it, this week’s post. Business as usual tomorrow onwards.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The (EPIC?) Post
End of week 2.
Ok, I know my epic post is overdue. Big time overdue. And I also have to cancel it, due to many, many reasons. (Time constraints, time constraints and time constraints. Your choice) I’m sure you would be asking, “2 month overdue and you blame it on time constraint. How ironic, or the lack thereof.” Yes, yes, my apologies, for keeping you at the edge of your seat with the previous post, and then making you fall off when the post wouldn’t arrive until two months later.
But fear not, as I’ll replace the epic post with a less epic one, but is no less epic than the originally-planned epic one (Huh?). Due to time constraints, again, I’m unable to type the whole post from scratch. Instead, I’m dipping my toes into micro-blogging, in which I would make a compilation of blogs written on my Nokia in the past few weeks to tell you what has happened. (My Nokia keypad is 5mm wide, how micro is that!!). What I’ll do is just copy all the stuff from my QuickOffice over to Word, and see what would it turn out to be. So, let’s go!
12th December 2009. At Coventry train station, while waiting for my ride to London to arrive:
“So, I’m waiting at Coventry station. Can’t wait to get into my MH flight tomorrow, although I still have to get to London before I could start thinking of the flight back home. Didn’t know that some chocolates and t-shirts and notes can weigh this much. Think I better not put the laptop and the 1kg Cadbury together in the bag pack, or I’ll be 3 inches shorter by the end of the day. Not many people on this side of the platform. Long day ahead, I can foresee.”
Then I realised I got on the wrong platform. (Thanks Captain Platform, your info is so accurate you can start writing history text books. In Huttese). Got into the right train later on and left at 1pm. In the train:
“I wonder if all these horses and sheep and cows would be bothered by these trains passing by every few minutes. Will the noise stress out these animals, and make them skinnier and produce less milk? If so, please put them far away from these rail tracks. Prices of meat here is already expensive enough, the economy cannot afford anymore skinny and stressed animals.”
Got to London at about 3pm, and had to rush to my friend’s place, before rushing again to the shopping district in Sloan Square to collect something. While on my way back, in the Tube:
“Porsche, Porsche, Aston, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, had never seen so many Porsches in a single night before. It’s as if the national car here is Porsche, like how we see Protons all over the place at home. I guess Rolls-Royces have some veto power or something around here, because only the Phantom can stop at the side of the road, while others cant. And there goes another Porsche.”
The next morning, had to rush for my 11am flight. At Heathrow, while waiting for boarding:
“No wi-fi in Terminal 4. But that’s not going to dampen my mood for the 13-hour flight home.”
After getting onto the plane, Mr Pilot said that some of the luggage was stuffed into the wrong plane, and the flight would be delayed. But don’t worry, because “a lighter plane can fly at a higher altitude, so this flight would only take 11 hours.”
It was touchdown 11 hours later, at 7am local time, and naturally, I wouldn’t have time to blog about anything. Heck, I didn’t even have time to meet up with my friends, only knocking on Kang’s door one evening when I happened to be around the area.
I spent a few days in Singapore, crashing Orchard Road, Ion and Zouk. Nothing much there, except that clubbing there seemed really safe, and a Visa can do wonders over there down south.
In KL, it was the usual: karaoke, movies, and eating. And spending more time at home.
2 and a half weeks later, and I’m back in London. My friend came late to pick me up in Paddington Station (I took the Heathrow express) and I was so worried that I would be spending the night there.
I went back to the home of the ducks the next day, only to return to London a week later when I was informed of a relative’s arrival there. Got there in no time, and had a great time walking around parts of London that I have not been too. But the more exciting part came the next day, when the worse-in-30-years snow fell upon London. Instincts told me to leave for Euston early, and fair enough, I suppose I caught the last train leaving the city that day, at 2pm. As the train slowly chucked northwards, the snow got thicker and thicker. And back at home, when I checked the weather forecast, 2 airports in London were totally closed, and most flights in Heathrow were cancelled. I was this close, this close to Facebook-ing in the train station throughout the night.
Then, the last micro blog came last week, when I met up with a friend in a restaurant in campus. While waiting for him:
“I’m now in one of the university’s most expensive restaurant. Yet I still have to self order. It does feel weird though, as I am paying more than RM50 per meal, and I still have to queue up to have my order taken. I mean, lets think of it, in a coffee shop back home, even if my order only costs RM1 (like what, 20 pence?) there will be a dude who comes over to take my order.
Apart from that, things had been going well so far. I spent the whole morning getting ready for a non-existant class, only to end up reading the newspaper in the library. Lecture was good too, the lecturer interesting and nonetheless keen to lecture(?)”
So, that was it. 2 months. 3 countries. And some micro blogging, which I don’t even know whether I’m using the right term. Anyway, apologies for the epic thing, and this somewhat lower-than-usual quality of blog, and as I’m still not used to uploading photos, will have to wait for that. Until then, take your time reading this post, while waiting for the next one to arrive.
Ok, I know my epic post is overdue. Big time overdue. And I also have to cancel it, due to many, many reasons. (Time constraints, time constraints and time constraints. Your choice) I’m sure you would be asking, “2 month overdue and you blame it on time constraint. How ironic, or the lack thereof.” Yes, yes, my apologies, for keeping you at the edge of your seat with the previous post, and then making you fall off when the post wouldn’t arrive until two months later.
But fear not, as I’ll replace the epic post with a less epic one, but is no less epic than the originally-planned epic one (Huh?). Due to time constraints, again, I’m unable to type the whole post from scratch. Instead, I’m dipping my toes into micro-blogging, in which I would make a compilation of blogs written on my Nokia in the past few weeks to tell you what has happened. (My Nokia keypad is 5mm wide, how micro is that!!). What I’ll do is just copy all the stuff from my QuickOffice over to Word, and see what would it turn out to be. So, let’s go!
12th December 2009. At Coventry train station, while waiting for my ride to London to arrive:
“So, I’m waiting at Coventry station. Can’t wait to get into my MH flight tomorrow, although I still have to get to London before I could start thinking of the flight back home. Didn’t know that some chocolates and t-shirts and notes can weigh this much. Think I better not put the laptop and the 1kg Cadbury together in the bag pack, or I’ll be 3 inches shorter by the end of the day. Not many people on this side of the platform. Long day ahead, I can foresee.”
Then I realised I got on the wrong platform. (Thanks Captain Platform, your info is so accurate you can start writing history text books. In Huttese). Got into the right train later on and left at 1pm. In the train:
“I wonder if all these horses and sheep and cows would be bothered by these trains passing by every few minutes. Will the noise stress out these animals, and make them skinnier and produce less milk? If so, please put them far away from these rail tracks. Prices of meat here is already expensive enough, the economy cannot afford anymore skinny and stressed animals.”
Got to London at about 3pm, and had to rush to my friend’s place, before rushing again to the shopping district in Sloan Square to collect something. While on my way back, in the Tube:
“Porsche, Porsche, Aston, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, had never seen so many Porsches in a single night before. It’s as if the national car here is Porsche, like how we see Protons all over the place at home. I guess Rolls-Royces have some veto power or something around here, because only the Phantom can stop at the side of the road, while others cant. And there goes another Porsche.”
The next morning, had to rush for my 11am flight. At Heathrow, while waiting for boarding:
“No wi-fi in Terminal 4. But that’s not going to dampen my mood for the 13-hour flight home.”
After getting onto the plane, Mr Pilot said that some of the luggage was stuffed into the wrong plane, and the flight would be delayed. But don’t worry, because “a lighter plane can fly at a higher altitude, so this flight would only take 11 hours.”
It was touchdown 11 hours later, at 7am local time, and naturally, I wouldn’t have time to blog about anything. Heck, I didn’t even have time to meet up with my friends, only knocking on Kang’s door one evening when I happened to be around the area.
I spent a few days in Singapore, crashing Orchard Road, Ion and Zouk. Nothing much there, except that clubbing there seemed really safe, and a Visa can do wonders over there down south.
In KL, it was the usual: karaoke, movies, and eating. And spending more time at home.
2 and a half weeks later, and I’m back in London. My friend came late to pick me up in Paddington Station (I took the Heathrow express) and I was so worried that I would be spending the night there.
I went back to the home of the ducks the next day, only to return to London a week later when I was informed of a relative’s arrival there. Got there in no time, and had a great time walking around parts of London that I have not been too. But the more exciting part came the next day, when the worse-in-30-years snow fell upon London. Instincts told me to leave for Euston early, and fair enough, I suppose I caught the last train leaving the city that day, at 2pm. As the train slowly chucked northwards, the snow got thicker and thicker. And back at home, when I checked the weather forecast, 2 airports in London were totally closed, and most flights in Heathrow were cancelled. I was this close, this close to Facebook-ing in the train station throughout the night.
Then, the last micro blog came last week, when I met up with a friend in a restaurant in campus. While waiting for him:
“I’m now in one of the university’s most expensive restaurant. Yet I still have to self order. It does feel weird though, as I am paying more than RM50 per meal, and I still have to queue up to have my order taken. I mean, lets think of it, in a coffee shop back home, even if my order only costs RM1 (like what, 20 pence?) there will be a dude who comes over to take my order.
Apart from that, things had been going well so far. I spent the whole morning getting ready for a non-existant class, only to end up reading the newspaper in the library. Lecture was good too, the lecturer interesting and nonetheless keen to lecture(?)”
So, that was it. 2 months. 3 countries. And some micro blogging, which I don’t even know whether I’m using the right term. Anyway, apologies for the epic thing, and this somewhat lower-than-usual quality of blog, and as I’m still not used to uploading photos, will have to wait for that. Until then, take your time reading this post, while waiting for the next one to arrive.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Sharks, Vodka and Magic Ducks
Week 9. Weird week, I must say. Both on the weather and what has happened around campus.
So, lets start with the weather. Monday. I thought this Monday was a normal Monday, as always. Except that it wasn’t.
So I got up at about 8, opened the curtains, and went to the bathroom. And then I ran back out to the window. The first thing that crossed my mind when I looked out at the lake again was, “Am I drunk?” Then I thought, no I am not, because I didn’t drink anything else the previous night, besides chicken soup and orange, so I can’t be hung over over some chicken soup. I also asked a bunch of questions, like am I in need of a new pair of glasses, or that I am still dreaming, because, staring at the lake, I saw the ducks and birds STANDING ON the lake, not SWIMMING IN it. They were really like that magician, Chris Angel (or Angle, given the shape of his face), walking around on water like nothing’s happening. Then I looked closer and there it was; a sheet of ice on the surface of the lake. To the far right, the wooden platoon was all white, presumably covered with a sheet of ice, and to the far left, the pathway under the huge tree was white too.
So, of course, Google to the rescue, and a quick check on the weather forecast reveals the current temperature to be -2°C, and the highest it would go on that day would be 4°C. Out comes my wool coat and gloves, my Abercrombie back in the wardrobe, and as I walked around the uni alongside my squealing and shivering friends, I felt like I won the Noble Prize for Genius-sity. Soon, I found out that there was a frosting that night, and there’s even snow, I suppose. Don’t really trust my source though, because I deliberately turned off my heater that night as it was a bit warm. Either he’s wrong, or there’s something wrong with me.
Also, The Daily Telegraph and, new to this week, The Times were sold at below market prices, at 45p. This got me thinking, whether I should thank the publishers for being so understanding and selling us the papers at discounted prices, or the Londoners for happily subsidising us. I guess there’s a bit of price discrimination here (I know I sound very econ-sy, but can’t help it, I eat, sleep and read econs everyday). Okay, let me rephrase it; I guess there’s a bit of price differentiation among the regions (even worse!). But whatever, I’m sure you get what I mean, that the newspapers are priced differently at different places to appeal to different types of buyers.
Call me greedy, but I still can’t figure out why this doesn’t apply to other books and magazines. Yes, there’s subscriptions, but if you look at the leaflets, it’s for a minimum of around 20 weeks, in which within that period, the ‘subscriber’ wouldn’t be in town (or even the country) for 4 or more weeks, and the magazines would be mugged by the ducks and eaten for supper. The thing is, we students definitely wouldn’t be in the university throughout the subscription period. Our term is 10 weeks long, and then followed by a 4-week long vacation. Take a 52-week subscription, and it’ll get worse during summer breaks, as the accommodation assistants will have a hard time figuring out where to put the thousands of copies of Times and Newsweek and FHM and Vanity Fair and whatnot when the 700 occupants disappear for 3 months and their post boxes are filled with pizza delivery leaflets, should everyone choose to subscribe to it. My thought is, sell the mags in the newsstands at subscription-rate prices, so we could buy them whenever we have time to read them (or whenever we are in town). Besides, we students are always broke (thanks to £3/pint drinks and £15-train ride to London), so it gives publishers a lot more reason to re-price their mags. Probably with the adjusted pricing, reader volume would increase too. Reminds me much of home, where the (desperate) public like you and me pay full price for a copy of The Star, while the small kids in primary school who could hardly pronounce their father’s name can get the paper at 40 cents off list price. Why on earth some 8-year-old would want to subscribe to newspapers, I have no idea. I never said life was fair.
Moving along. This week, in campus, it was a normal occurrence to see people walking around with childish balloons tied around their necks and with a mattress on their head. Lecturers and students were to be found drinking beer and vodka in the lecture halls. And, the gnome-d guys would walk around with a handful of flour and baked beans (and a lot more on their head and face). Don’t get me wrong and call the cops, my university didn’t lose authority over the students, and there wasn’t a strike among the uni staff either. It was Rag week, where this Rag Society, in the name of charity, would, aside from delivering beer and mattresses and spill beans all over your face, send chocolates and flowers to your loved ones, and balloons and a singing Santa Claus to the other weirdos. I was honestly afraid my neighbour would send me my own chair, but thankfully it didn’t happen. Otherwise I would have drag raced the crazy cyclists along Library Road.
What they deliver didn’t stir my attention; it was how they made the delivery that was a bit interesting for me. There would be this team of about 5 guys, 4 decently dressed, and one in some costume. (In Macro class, a shark came. For World economy, it was this green thing, a fusion of Kermit and Bob The Builder or something). Really cool, and these guys do special deliveries too, like hugs. They should have more of these events, not just because it’s for charity, which is good, but it also takes away the routine-ness out of the uni. It gives us (or more like me) a chance to stop and ‘woo’ the mattress guy and wish him luck that he hasn’t got many hours afterwards, and subsequently snicker behind his back when he’s off to his next lecture. Yeah, it’s bad, but it makes people happy, and that’s more important.
Okay, I am writing too much in this post. Next posting will be an epic one to mark the end of the term. Haha, but whether it would be posted by chapters or a freaking long one, I have yet to decide.
Anyway, Week 10, HERE I COME!!!
So, lets start with the weather. Monday. I thought this Monday was a normal Monday, as always. Except that it wasn’t.
So I got up at about 8, opened the curtains, and went to the bathroom. And then I ran back out to the window. The first thing that crossed my mind when I looked out at the lake again was, “Am I drunk?” Then I thought, no I am not, because I didn’t drink anything else the previous night, besides chicken soup and orange, so I can’t be hung over over some chicken soup. I also asked a bunch of questions, like am I in need of a new pair of glasses, or that I am still dreaming, because, staring at the lake, I saw the ducks and birds STANDING ON the lake, not SWIMMING IN it. They were really like that magician, Chris Angel (or Angle, given the shape of his face), walking around on water like nothing’s happening. Then I looked closer and there it was; a sheet of ice on the surface of the lake. To the far right, the wooden platoon was all white, presumably covered with a sheet of ice, and to the far left, the pathway under the huge tree was white too.
So, of course, Google to the rescue, and a quick check on the weather forecast reveals the current temperature to be -2°C, and the highest it would go on that day would be 4°C. Out comes my wool coat and gloves, my Abercrombie back in the wardrobe, and as I walked around the uni alongside my squealing and shivering friends, I felt like I won the Noble Prize for Genius-sity. Soon, I found out that there was a frosting that night, and there’s even snow, I suppose. Don’t really trust my source though, because I deliberately turned off my heater that night as it was a bit warm. Either he’s wrong, or there’s something wrong with me.
Also, The Daily Telegraph and, new to this week, The Times were sold at below market prices, at 45p. This got me thinking, whether I should thank the publishers for being so understanding and selling us the papers at discounted prices, or the Londoners for happily subsidising us. I guess there’s a bit of price discrimination here (I know I sound very econ-sy, but can’t help it, I eat, sleep and read econs everyday). Okay, let me rephrase it; I guess there’s a bit of price differentiation among the regions (even worse!). But whatever, I’m sure you get what I mean, that the newspapers are priced differently at different places to appeal to different types of buyers.
Call me greedy, but I still can’t figure out why this doesn’t apply to other books and magazines. Yes, there’s subscriptions, but if you look at the leaflets, it’s for a minimum of around 20 weeks, in which within that period, the ‘subscriber’ wouldn’t be in town (or even the country) for 4 or more weeks, and the magazines would be mugged by the ducks and eaten for supper. The thing is, we students definitely wouldn’t be in the university throughout the subscription period. Our term is 10 weeks long, and then followed by a 4-week long vacation. Take a 52-week subscription, and it’ll get worse during summer breaks, as the accommodation assistants will have a hard time figuring out where to put the thousands of copies of Times and Newsweek and FHM and Vanity Fair and whatnot when the 700 occupants disappear for 3 months and their post boxes are filled with pizza delivery leaflets, should everyone choose to subscribe to it. My thought is, sell the mags in the newsstands at subscription-rate prices, so we could buy them whenever we have time to read them (or whenever we are in town). Besides, we students are always broke (thanks to £3/pint drinks and £15-train ride to London), so it gives publishers a lot more reason to re-price their mags. Probably with the adjusted pricing, reader volume would increase too. Reminds me much of home, where the (desperate) public like you and me pay full price for a copy of The Star, while the small kids in primary school who could hardly pronounce their father’s name can get the paper at 40 cents off list price. Why on earth some 8-year-old would want to subscribe to newspapers, I have no idea. I never said life was fair.
Moving along. This week, in campus, it was a normal occurrence to see people walking around with childish balloons tied around their necks and with a mattress on their head. Lecturers and students were to be found drinking beer and vodka in the lecture halls. And, the gnome-d guys would walk around with a handful of flour and baked beans (and a lot more on their head and face). Don’t get me wrong and call the cops, my university didn’t lose authority over the students, and there wasn’t a strike among the uni staff either. It was Rag week, where this Rag Society, in the name of charity, would, aside from delivering beer and mattresses and spill beans all over your face, send chocolates and flowers to your loved ones, and balloons and a singing Santa Claus to the other weirdos. I was honestly afraid my neighbour would send me my own chair, but thankfully it didn’t happen. Otherwise I would have drag raced the crazy cyclists along Library Road.
What they deliver didn’t stir my attention; it was how they made the delivery that was a bit interesting for me. There would be this team of about 5 guys, 4 decently dressed, and one in some costume. (In Macro class, a shark came. For World economy, it was this green thing, a fusion of Kermit and Bob The Builder or something). Really cool, and these guys do special deliveries too, like hugs. They should have more of these events, not just because it’s for charity, which is good, but it also takes away the routine-ness out of the uni. It gives us (or more like me) a chance to stop and ‘woo’ the mattress guy and wish him luck that he hasn’t got many hours afterwards, and subsequently snicker behind his back when he’s off to his next lecture. Yeah, it’s bad, but it makes people happy, and that’s more important.
Okay, I am writing too much in this post. Next posting will be an epic one to mark the end of the term. Haha, but whether it would be posted by chapters or a freaking long one, I have yet to decide.
Anyway, Week 10, HERE I COME!!!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Windy Coolness and Cheesy Business. Or is it Cheesy Coolness and Windy Business? You Decide
So, week 9 is coming to an end. And I am starting to make an effort to blog a little, which is good, I suppose, take a break to tell you what’s going on around here.
Which isn’t much, considering that I hadn’t been out often this week.
But, in the past few days, the weather has got a bit weirder. Monday morning turned out fine; sunny and breezy, the ducks happily shedding their feathers all over the place. But within an hour or two, it turned cloudy, then dark, then the weather system unleashed the mother of all winds; it was so strong that when you watch the rain, it’s as if the drops of water were hosed at 90° rather than falling from the sky. Tens of umbrellas were fatally destroyed, papers (presumably posters for climate change) flew everywhere, and everyone standing outside the library at that moment looked like Batman, jackets and scarves blown up like some epic superhero movie. I for once looked like George Clooney, when he’s got a bad hair day, that is....
24 hours later, and it seemed that my uni had been transported into a totally different weather dimension. The sun was even brighter, the wind was gone, more ducks and herons this time. Then, you step out of the accommodation and POW!! Your nose is frozen. Weather forecast forecasted (so corny) 4°C that day. THAT DAY!! Not night, but the day, and I wouldn’t doubt it, the first time in many years since I trusted those silly graphics of clouds and rains. I was properly insulated though, my Abercrombie and Fitch jacket doing a tidy job of keeping myself and my handphone nice and warm. But my nose and ears were, I dunno, frosting? So listen up, Nike and Adidas and Marks and Spencer and Cheetah and Kiki Lala, and whatever clothing line, here’s a tip to make some money (or at least my money). Try selling ski masks that reaches up to the nose, something like Zorro’s but inverted to cover the nose rather than risk not seeing any oncoming car.
That night, though, my uni was transported back to the initial horrific climate conditions once again, with a severe downpour and even stronger winds reaching 16mph, if my memory (or Google) didn’t fail me. Which is about 26kmh. Which is normally how fast some uncles drive in KL. Freaking slow, but latch yourself to his windscreen and you get what I mean. Imagine walking against it, just like what I’ve experienced, and everyone on the path looked like they had osteoporosis, slanting back and forth and side to side just to stay upright. Funny.
These days, the sky turns dark at 4.30pm, rather than the usual 5pm a few weeks ago. With this, I can tell you with certainty that jogging at 5pm with temperatures hovering around 6°C is not a right thing to do. Right after my last class on Thursday, I gave it a solid 5-minute run back to my ecological duck-friendly place. After getting into my room, I felt like pouring hot water down my nose. That was how piercing the cold was. And funnily, after jogging around my biologically diversified place many times, I still can’t get myself to sweat.
A bit of economics now, and the Dubai debt default thing seemed to be a new hype today. Dow Jones is down 154 points (at time of press), presumably being affected by this. That’s what economists do best: relate everything together. Pimco’s investment manager went like “relax, testing testing oni, very quick okay wan la” (@CNN). Experts say it isn’t a crisis at all. US stock markets were like “Sei Lo!!” and percentage points fell.
This is big news, but there’s something that is even more important than the crazy debt: the Krafts-Cadbury thing. Oh, its so big that it will determine whether we will eat chocolate or chocolate cheese for snacks. It will determine whether future Dairy milk will come with bacteria and microorganisms. And, it will determine whether the Cadbury packaging will remain purple, or become yellow. Scary.
I can’t imagine how Krafts is going to integrate the famous Cadbury Dairy Milk into their line of products. Imagine brown Oreos, Jacob Crunchie biscuits, and Toblerone Flakes and you are not far off. I also cannot imagine Cadbury stuff taking in a bit of Krafts: Cadbury Dairy Milk with Ali Coffee, Dairy Milk with Taco Bell, kinda scary. And then there’s the cheese- Dairy Tiramisu!! Can bake cake....
Then there’s the Cadbury factory in Birmingham. The chocolate figures were annoying enough, but if they’re sold, there might be Cheeseman and Chocolate Girl holding hands in the amusement park, production side that smells like cough mixture, and at the chocolate bar, they ask you, “green cheese or purple cheese to go with the chocolate?”
Maybe Krafts would just buy over Cadbury and keep them as an individual entity, like Oreo, you don’t get Oreos with the yellow stuff inside, do you? Or they might just use it to make better Toblerone. And Taco Bell.
Let’s just hope for the best, and eat as much Cadbury as possible, in case the brand disappears.
And hope for good weekend as well.
Which isn’t much, considering that I hadn’t been out often this week.
But, in the past few days, the weather has got a bit weirder. Monday morning turned out fine; sunny and breezy, the ducks happily shedding their feathers all over the place. But within an hour or two, it turned cloudy, then dark, then the weather system unleashed the mother of all winds; it was so strong that when you watch the rain, it’s as if the drops of water were hosed at 90° rather than falling from the sky. Tens of umbrellas were fatally destroyed, papers (presumably posters for climate change) flew everywhere, and everyone standing outside the library at that moment looked like Batman, jackets and scarves blown up like some epic superhero movie. I for once looked like George Clooney, when he’s got a bad hair day, that is....
24 hours later, and it seemed that my uni had been transported into a totally different weather dimension. The sun was even brighter, the wind was gone, more ducks and herons this time. Then, you step out of the accommodation and POW!! Your nose is frozen. Weather forecast forecasted (so corny) 4°C that day. THAT DAY!! Not night, but the day, and I wouldn’t doubt it, the first time in many years since I trusted those silly graphics of clouds and rains. I was properly insulated though, my Abercrombie and Fitch jacket doing a tidy job of keeping myself and my handphone nice and warm. But my nose and ears were, I dunno, frosting? So listen up, Nike and Adidas and Marks and Spencer and Cheetah and Kiki Lala, and whatever clothing line, here’s a tip to make some money (or at least my money). Try selling ski masks that reaches up to the nose, something like Zorro’s but inverted to cover the nose rather than risk not seeing any oncoming car.
That night, though, my uni was transported back to the initial horrific climate conditions once again, with a severe downpour and even stronger winds reaching 16mph, if my memory (or Google) didn’t fail me. Which is about 26kmh. Which is normally how fast some uncles drive in KL. Freaking slow, but latch yourself to his windscreen and you get what I mean. Imagine walking against it, just like what I’ve experienced, and everyone on the path looked like they had osteoporosis, slanting back and forth and side to side just to stay upright. Funny.
These days, the sky turns dark at 4.30pm, rather than the usual 5pm a few weeks ago. With this, I can tell you with certainty that jogging at 5pm with temperatures hovering around 6°C is not a right thing to do. Right after my last class on Thursday, I gave it a solid 5-minute run back to my ecological duck-friendly place. After getting into my room, I felt like pouring hot water down my nose. That was how piercing the cold was. And funnily, after jogging around my biologically diversified place many times, I still can’t get myself to sweat.
A bit of economics now, and the Dubai debt default thing seemed to be a new hype today. Dow Jones is down 154 points (at time of press), presumably being affected by this. That’s what economists do best: relate everything together. Pimco’s investment manager went like “relax, testing testing oni, very quick okay wan la” (@CNN). Experts say it isn’t a crisis at all. US stock markets were like “Sei Lo!!” and percentage points fell.
This is big news, but there’s something that is even more important than the crazy debt: the Krafts-Cadbury thing. Oh, its so big that it will determine whether we will eat chocolate or chocolate cheese for snacks. It will determine whether future Dairy milk will come with bacteria and microorganisms. And, it will determine whether the Cadbury packaging will remain purple, or become yellow. Scary.
I can’t imagine how Krafts is going to integrate the famous Cadbury Dairy Milk into their line of products. Imagine brown Oreos, Jacob Crunchie biscuits, and Toblerone Flakes and you are not far off. I also cannot imagine Cadbury stuff taking in a bit of Krafts: Cadbury Dairy Milk with Ali Coffee, Dairy Milk with Taco Bell, kinda scary. And then there’s the cheese- Dairy Tiramisu!! Can bake cake....
Then there’s the Cadbury factory in Birmingham. The chocolate figures were annoying enough, but if they’re sold, there might be Cheeseman and Chocolate Girl holding hands in the amusement park, production side that smells like cough mixture, and at the chocolate bar, they ask you, “green cheese or purple cheese to go with the chocolate?”
Maybe Krafts would just buy over Cadbury and keep them as an individual entity, like Oreo, you don’t get Oreos with the yellow stuff inside, do you? Or they might just use it to make better Toblerone. And Taco Bell.
Let’s just hope for the best, and eat as much Cadbury as possible, in case the brand disappears.
And hope for good weekend as well.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Oh My Blog......
I have neglected my blog so badly that when friend had actually went “go update your blog la”, and I thought, “oh, ok, yeah, what blog?”
To make it up to my blog, I’ll just write a summary of the week, not like I have a lot of time to do so (gotta a lot of catching up to do i.e. catch up with some sleep, catch up on football etc etc).
So, let’s go.
Week 7 was a week of ups and downs, just like any other week here. There’s The Economist going on promotion, selling for a pound with free gifts and the Guardian newspaper going for 45 pence and giving out free chocolate and tea. The weather was not so good on aggregate, windy and rainy, and there was more duck poo on the walkway than last week.
But leave that alone. I‘ve gone out twice this week at night, on both occasions to the same place, Varsity. It’s a pub somewhere north of the campus, only 5 minutes from my scenic place, but 5 years from all the other ugly places. Which is far, for my friends. I hear you say “why the same place” but this is a campus university, not Campus@Euphoria or something, so choices will be limited. Unless, of course you want to go pub-crawling in Coventry and get drunk and get on a wrong bus. And end up in Pulau Tioman. And be late for next morning’s lecture.
But anyway, back to Varsity. (sounds just like another building block in uni. Hey guys, where’s your next class? Humanities building? Maths and Stats? VARSITY? ) The interior is very TGI-ish, with wood and soft lighting all over the place. There was no music on Tuesday, but it was a blast on Thursday, as it was a £1 night, where selected drinks went for a pound each.
Nothing much happened on Tuesday, as we only thought of coming here to check out the place. A pint of Kronenbourg and a bucket of chips later, and we were off at 11.15pm. But on Thursday, it was more crowded, and we had to sit outdoors as the bar and tables were full. This posed a new set of problems. Aside from my pro-photographer friend complaining about the hopeless lighting, a quick glance on the Internet showed temperature of about 10°C and winds of 10mph. So we had guys who shrieked ‘cold!’ after 3 Heineken, girl who shrieked ‘cold!’ all the time, and a guy who was bored of all the shrieking. Guess who.
Nightlife aside, I did spend my last weekend (Saturday) in the Cadbury Factory in Birmingham. It was a much-needed outing, considering the after effects of being conned in the Maths test (comparing the past year papers and the actual ones was like putting HSBC Bank and Tyra Bank side by side; both are banks but that’s about it). Anyway, the place was not very beautiful, but interesting. We began our excursion with a visit to the mini museum. There, there were displays and portraits of the pioneers of Cadbury, as well as a glass wall looking into the factory, where robotic arms were arranging the chocolates for packaging. The robot had actually made a mistake, as it arranged the boxes too close to the edge of the boxes below. The second row came, and, pow, all of the top row chocolates fell, and out came my laughter. Then the machine operator came and picked them up. Some robots just never learn.
Then, it was a short trip into the history of how the dairy milk chocolate was made. Before I go on, grab a Cadbury chocolate wrapper and observe the 2 glasses of milk being poured into the chocolate, and you’ll notice that one is full, while the other is half full. This is because, while the 2 pioneers of Cadbury was figuring out how to give the chocolate a better texture and taste, one had drank half the cup before deciding that fresh milk could be added, thus the milk-pouring symbol.
History lesson over, we were lead to a chocolate bar, where we choose our ingredient, and top it up with warm, liquid chocolate. I went for marshmallow, which the taste was an out of this world experience. We then got into the larger museum. There, they had displays of all sorts of Cadbury; the first few original Cadburys (all expired, I suppose); chocolate trumpets used in their TV advertisements, and media boxes explaining how each type of Cadbury was made (Caramel is good, Turkish, er...no comment). Past that, we ventured to the production side, where we caught glimpses of how the chocolates were manufactured. No doubt it was a fun job to work in a chocolate factory (Willy Wonka comes to mind, but not that hat) but watching those guys in white standing around the machineries, looking at us looking at them, I dunno. Like a zoo?? So bad....
Past the factory, and into the amusement park, where we get into the ‘car’ and it brought us along a track decorated with figures of chocolate houses and animals and, I can’t really describe it because it was really meant for kids and I can’t decipher what message it was sending out. At the end of it, the attendant unlocked the car and the first words my friend said to her were “WHAT WAS THAT?” That’s how bad it was.
Finally, gift shop time. Everyone went for the, wait for it, 1KG DAIRY MILK BAR!!! Other stuffs we bought were irrelevant compared to the mother of all chocolate bars. I was looking for 2kg, but, I suppose they don’t make it because if the robots drop them, the guys will break the robotic arm. I also took the assortment packs, that holds 25 mini pieces of caramel, crunchie, flake and dairy milk, as well as some Santa’s biscuit or something. The t-shirt was very tempting as well, but, oh well, maybe next time.
So, here’s it. 7 days of week 7. There’s more to come, I guess.
Birmingham city streets
holographics used to tell the stories
museum exhibits
chocolate trumpet
Chocolate Marshmallow
at Varsity
lousy drink
To make it up to my blog, I’ll just write a summary of the week, not like I have a lot of time to do so (gotta a lot of catching up to do i.e. catch up with some sleep, catch up on football etc etc).
So, let’s go.
Week 7 was a week of ups and downs, just like any other week here. There’s The Economist going on promotion, selling for a pound with free gifts and the Guardian newspaper going for 45 pence and giving out free chocolate and tea. The weather was not so good on aggregate, windy and rainy, and there was more duck poo on the walkway than last week.
But leave that alone. I‘ve gone out twice this week at night, on both occasions to the same place, Varsity. It’s a pub somewhere north of the campus, only 5 minutes from my scenic place, but 5 years from all the other ugly places. Which is far, for my friends. I hear you say “why the same place” but this is a campus university, not Campus@Euphoria or something, so choices will be limited. Unless, of course you want to go pub-crawling in Coventry and get drunk and get on a wrong bus. And end up in Pulau Tioman. And be late for next morning’s lecture.
But anyway, back to Varsity. (sounds just like another building block in uni. Hey guys, where’s your next class? Humanities building? Maths and Stats? VARSITY? ) The interior is very TGI-ish, with wood and soft lighting all over the place. There was no music on Tuesday, but it was a blast on Thursday, as it was a £1 night, where selected drinks went for a pound each.
Nothing much happened on Tuesday, as we only thought of coming here to check out the place. A pint of Kronenbourg and a bucket of chips later, and we were off at 11.15pm. But on Thursday, it was more crowded, and we had to sit outdoors as the bar and tables were full. This posed a new set of problems. Aside from my pro-photographer friend complaining about the hopeless lighting, a quick glance on the Internet showed temperature of about 10°C and winds of 10mph. So we had guys who shrieked ‘cold!’ after 3 Heineken, girl who shrieked ‘cold!’ all the time, and a guy who was bored of all the shrieking. Guess who.
Nightlife aside, I did spend my last weekend (Saturday) in the Cadbury Factory in Birmingham. It was a much-needed outing, considering the after effects of being conned in the Maths test (comparing the past year papers and the actual ones was like putting HSBC Bank and Tyra Bank side by side; both are banks but that’s about it). Anyway, the place was not very beautiful, but interesting. We began our excursion with a visit to the mini museum. There, there were displays and portraits of the pioneers of Cadbury, as well as a glass wall looking into the factory, where robotic arms were arranging the chocolates for packaging. The robot had actually made a mistake, as it arranged the boxes too close to the edge of the boxes below. The second row came, and, pow, all of the top row chocolates fell, and out came my laughter. Then the machine operator came and picked them up. Some robots just never learn.
Then, it was a short trip into the history of how the dairy milk chocolate was made. Before I go on, grab a Cadbury chocolate wrapper and observe the 2 glasses of milk being poured into the chocolate, and you’ll notice that one is full, while the other is half full. This is because, while the 2 pioneers of Cadbury was figuring out how to give the chocolate a better texture and taste, one had drank half the cup before deciding that fresh milk could be added, thus the milk-pouring symbol.
History lesson over, we were lead to a chocolate bar, where we choose our ingredient, and top it up with warm, liquid chocolate. I went for marshmallow, which the taste was an out of this world experience. We then got into the larger museum. There, they had displays of all sorts of Cadbury; the first few original Cadburys (all expired, I suppose); chocolate trumpets used in their TV advertisements, and media boxes explaining how each type of Cadbury was made (Caramel is good, Turkish, er...no comment). Past that, we ventured to the production side, where we caught glimpses of how the chocolates were manufactured. No doubt it was a fun job to work in a chocolate factory (Willy Wonka comes to mind, but not that hat) but watching those guys in white standing around the machineries, looking at us looking at them, I dunno. Like a zoo?? So bad....
Past the factory, and into the amusement park, where we get into the ‘car’ and it brought us along a track decorated with figures of chocolate houses and animals and, I can’t really describe it because it was really meant for kids and I can’t decipher what message it was sending out. At the end of it, the attendant unlocked the car and the first words my friend said to her were “WHAT WAS THAT?” That’s how bad it was.
Finally, gift shop time. Everyone went for the, wait for it, 1KG DAIRY MILK BAR!!! Other stuffs we bought were irrelevant compared to the mother of all chocolate bars. I was looking for 2kg, but, I suppose they don’t make it because if the robots drop them, the guys will break the robotic arm. I also took the assortment packs, that holds 25 mini pieces of caramel, crunchie, flake and dairy milk, as well as some Santa’s biscuit or something. The t-shirt was very tempting as well, but, oh well, maybe next time.
So, here’s it. 7 days of week 7. There’s more to come, I guess.
Birmingham city streets
holographics used to tell the stories
museum exhibits
chocolate trumpet
Chocolate Marshmallow
at Varsity
lousy drink
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