Interesting Email

Recently I received an email saying about some feedback given to a local driving school, it went like this:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your email.

Please provide us with more information on your feedback so that we can better improve our services.

Thank you once again.

Warm regards,
Ms. Debbie XXXXX

I was puzzled, so I scrolled down further and was surprised that someone had left a rather badly written feedback:

Comments :The driving instructors sucks and most of them don't have the
heart and patience to teach. the costomer service officers are impolite
and inefficient. The school ask us to pay so much money for learning, we
are not make of GOLD!From Web Server: 1

Ok first things first, my grammar and spelling are not that bad and its been ages since I went to the website, let alone take up driving again. It's just one of those things that make life more interesting , I guess.

The Durian Affair

Some hail it as the "King of fruits", while others simply cower at the mere mention of its name. What is about one fruit that can invoke such strong feelings from both sides of the spectrum? In case you do not know I am talking about, it is the durian - a fruit encased in a thorny husk, in a shade of green or yellowish green, with a very pungent aroma to some and odor to others and commonly find in parts of Southeast Asia like Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, to name a few.

There are over 30 varieties of this fruit, each variety having its own unique taste and loyal 'fans'. The inhabitants of Southeast Asia are so in love with this fruit that they have managed to concoct a variety of products made from durian - ice-cream, cakes, jelly, cream puffs, log cakes are but just a few out of a vast ocean of concoctions. They have also invented interesting eating the durian by: frying, fermenting, making it into a paste and even.... more>>

Choices… choices and even more choices

So many things to do and yet so little time to do it all… I used to think I wanted to continue studying and I did after doing part-time work for a while. But lo and behold, the school actually closed down? Hmm… that really put a damper on my plans, that’s a given. So what did I do? Did I follow the rest of them to to another country? Nope. I mean if I really didn’t have a choice I would have had too, but I do have a choice - I decided that since it was so poorly handed and presented, why should they earn money that could be better spent elsewhere? It’s like you might never want to step into a restaurant that had bad service and bad food. Would you?

And so off back to work I went, and I’m happy with it; the pay increased and I get to gain more experience too, plus the environment is pretty good. So no the only option would be to study part-time or would that be full-time? If it were full-time, I would definitely miss my monthly income, can’t spend as much too… Choices… O well, I’ll just take them as they come. After all, the objective of studying is to get a good job with an equivalent amount of pay. It's not a matter of just getting it done and over it, kind of defeats the whole point, doesn't it?

CJ7 the movie

CJ7 - The latest comedy from Stephen Chow, CJ7 is a fantasy tale featuring state of the art visual effects. A poor laborer father (Chow) and his young son’s lives are turned upside down when a fascinating and strange new pet enters their world. Amid the resulting comic mayhem, they ultimately learn a poignant lesson about the true nature of family and the things money can't buy.

At least that’s what the synopsis says. Today was the first time I watched a late night movie on the eve of Chinese New Year, and to say the least the movie was sorely disappointing; even “Underdog” was better than this. There was very little plot throughout the movie, and the transaction of character growth and change was simply non-existent.

There was no indicator of the bonding between the new pet and the humans, so it was hard to understand why the pet would go through so much trouble to please and save this father and son pair. The son was portrayed as this really good little boy, who was hardworking, considerate and understanding. And when he got the pet, he suddenly became more greedy and selfish overnight. Speaking about the pet, there was no clear explanation or indicator of its origin, how it got found after the boy practically threw it away in a moment of anger, and in the end what was up with a look-a-like pet running towards the boy together with a bunch of similar creatures in an array of colors? What poignant lesson did they learn and what were the things they realized couldn’t be bought with money? It also seems that they couldn't decide whether to make the pet organic or mechanical, or a combination of both.

Although there was comic mayhem throughout the movie, the part about the true nature of family and the things money cannot buy was almost close to nil. Even “Underdog” had a more satisfying plot and ending.

Monsoon Season

Monsoon season - that time of the year when the weather gets cold and wet. According to NEA it is now:

• North-East Monsoon Season - December to early March
• Northeast winds prevail, sometimes reaching 20 km/h. Cloudy conditions in December and January with frequent afternoon showers. Spells of widespread moderate to heavy rain might occur lasting from 1 to 3 days at a stretch. Relatively drier in February till early March. Also generally windy with wind speeds sometimes reaching 30 to 40 km/h in the months of January and February.
  

It can get as low (as it can get for an island near the equator) as 23°C to as high as 34°C; all within one day. I used to think that the rainy season was around October to December, but apparently I seem to have forgotten that it hasn't ended yet. >_<

Pesticide in Food Anyone? or maybe not...

Japan police find more pesticide on China dumpling packages
Posted: 03 February 2008 1818 hrs

TOKYO: Japanese investigators have found traces of pesticide on more packages of Chinese-made dumplings, police said on Sunday as Chinese experts arrived in Tokyo to join a widening food poisoning probe.

The toxic substance was found on the surface of six packages of dumplings in western Japan, a spokesman for Hyogo prefectural police said.

The packages were produced at a factory in northern China on the same day as one that triggered a nationwide scare here, the spokesman said, adding that police were still checking if the dumplings themselves were also contaminated.

The Japanese government has said 10 people became sick, with one girl still in serious condition, after eating frozen meat dumplings produced at a factory in China's Hebei province in which high levels of pesticide were detected.

The health ministry said the scare prompted some 950 people to seek medical treatment, but only 10 were diagnosed with pesticide poisoning.

Major foodmakers ordered recalls of frozen and other prepared foods thought to have been produced at the Chinese factory as officials warned Beijing that it had to ensure food safety.

China – Japan's largest trading partner and second biggest supplier of imported food – has denied Tokyo's allegations that the dumplings themselves contained pesticides.

Japanese police have said they were investigating a report of a small tear in a pack of 20 dumplings that made a family ill, opening up the possibility of deliberate tampering.

A team of Chinese experts arrived in Tokyo on Sunday to join the Japanese probe, officials said.

Japanese media quoted Li Chunfeng, a food safety official leading the delegation, as saying before leaving Beijing that his team would work closely with Japanese officials to probe the matter "objectively and fairly".

"We would like to take concerted action with the Japanese side," Li told reporters at Beijing airport.

The global reputation of China's vital manufacturing industry was seriously damaged last year by a string of overseas safety scandals and product recalls involving the country's export goods.


- AFP/so (channelnewsasia)

It'll be some time before I start buying the products again...

My First Digital Camera: Canon Powershot A430

What are Megapixels?
A pixel is basically a dot on the screen (though that's what my lecturer in school told us not to write should there be a similar question, its not accurate but the easiest way to understand what a pixel is). Thus, an image comprises of many of these dots (pixels).

A megapixel comprises of 1 million pixels. It is a term used not only for the number of pixels in an image, but also used to express the number of image sensor elements in digital cameras or the number of display elements in digital displays. The more megapixels there are in an image, it will be more clearer and detailed.

Getting that First Camera
The Canon Powershot A430 is one of the basic cameras' out there I would recommend for beginners or novices alike. It's affordable and easy to maintain, using AA batteries to power up instead of having to charge before use. This can come in pretty handy, especially when you decide to take photos and realize that either you forgot to charge the battery, or the battery needed to be recharged after a period of non-usage. I've had mine for 2 years now, and... more >>