What has been in my head lately?

Perhaps, I should be periodically jotting down "What has been in my head lately?" so that in future, I can relish / or puke at this period in my life.

Running / Exercising - My only exercise regime is my almost daily swim at Safra. I target to swim a ten-lap continuous front crawl. Who knows when I will achieve that. I am currently at six. I have not been actively running ever since I graduated from Hendon. Unlike my other buddies who have their weekly dose of football, or daily dose of college life or even occasional dose of get-together-for-sports, I am by myself. Since the conclusion of the recent ICT, I find a short adrenaline rush for a bit of running. I shamelessly pulled along Onion for a Chandu session, disguising it as an evening photography opportunity. Well, I did took a few photos. Yesterday, having had a craving for another session to work my legs, I went for another round of running. I am not exactly sure how long; the route went from Brickland Road, to Bukit Batok Road, down Choa Chu Kang Way, into Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, back to my house MSCP.

Hypocrites - A certain ethnic group recently fired up a saga about the level of alcohol content in a beer product. It is said that a proclaimed halal beer had it's alcohol level higher than the stated and legally allowed level. While that whole country is debating the number of alcohol molecules allowable, I am thinking about the fundamentals. What is the principle behind the forbidden consumption of this drink? Will it be any difference (religiously) if the alcohol level is at 0.01% or 0.001% or 100%? It as hypocritical as Buddhist vegetarian eating mock chicken and a someone cursing another to death, short of actually killing him/her. Pass the pork rendang please, the halal one, if you don't mind.

Show - Everything since the nomination day seems like a theatrical production. We have the uprising of superstars like Ms NS, hated character like Biscuit Tin and a certain minister without portfolio, wayang promises (sometimes: lies), some good food for the brain, some conspiracy drama to fix up a minister. The older generation seemed to still hold fear and skepticism to the system of election, while the newer generation take this opportunity to party out at the various rallies. It became the talk of the town and it's certainly better than National Day Parade. Since 50 years passed so quickly, I certainly hope 5 years will pass just as quickly.

The people up there are a bunch of hypocritic nincompoops. They came out with a hundred and one rules and break them all in one night.

Fill the front seats before seating people at the back of trucks.

Not seating beyond 1.1metres above the truck platform.

No carrying of people without proper top canopy.

Just look at Chingay.

不吐不快

I am once again owned by the evil aura of Fool. I am satisfactorily convinced that if we are held ransom by some crooks, and that the crook will only release one of us, she will, without a doubt, push me to die. Summing it up, she is downright selfish. I am not asking for her magnanimity of sacrificing herself in the name of justice or moral (if she even has a sense of it), but at the very basic level, I just hope she do not sabotage me. Is that too much to ask for?

When Pam the baker came to our workplace, she even lied that Pam specifically wants to speak to ME, capitalised and bolded. And she wants to speak to no one else but ME. It turned out that she could not handle this customer and she think that the only way out was to trick me into moving into the firing range of Pam and throwing a cylume stick onto me before retreating to the safety of her excuses that do not hold water. I would always remember her words, "I don't know anything, I don't know, I don't know, I'm new, I'm new." I would have crudely told her to SHUT UP, if not for the presence of a customer.

After which, I gave her a piece of my mind and drenched her with my expression of displeasure. Of course, she had nothing to talk back, because she could not find a good enough argument and also quite possibly, she could not be bother since I had already solved HER problem. I would believe the latter is more true.

Sometimes, there are things that I wish I could be blunt in expressing, but rationally, I know that it is not suitable, not morally right, not situationally right, not politically right, not appearing right, and I just have to suck it up and bury it and carry on looking all jovial and cheerful.

Behind the jester's facade lies countless unspeakables.

Credit

I am slightly taken aback by the shame of Singaporeans who signed up for spa packages, paying installments with their credit cards, and when the spa close down, they approach the bank, asking for a waiver of the remaining charges.

The banks have explained quite clearly, they are merely a middle party paying in advanced for the customers, like any other deals transacted on a credit card.

Why can't the Singaporeans understand simple instructions? By asking the banks to waive the charges is effectively asking the bank whether they could shop without paying money if they realised afterwards that they should not have bought the item. Or, do they know what is a credit card in the first place?

Degraded humans

I read in today's paper that someone is claiming that a dog leaves more carbon footprint that a human driving a car. How shameless! Humans have degraded to turning to blame a helpless community for climate changes, rather than reflecting on their own actions. The article claimed that manufacturing of dog food involves huge amounts of meat and so on. And of course, they repeated the same thing on cats and hamsters.

In the first place, how many dog owners really feed their pets with high meat content pet food? Look at your pet food's ingredient list. Is meat anywhere at the top? If we think of how many dogs can feed on the left overs at buffets and banquets, or even hawker centres, tell me, how valid is the finding in the papers.

Selfish humans.

Murdered Justice

I see our government, I meant to say our judicial system has turned blind. I know Lady Justice is blindfolded, holding a balance, but that does not mean that the judges sitting high up in the courts should wear a blindfold as well. From the various state-controlled news source here, I only see the demonising of David's family, or the dead himself. However, from the Jakarta Post, I read with shock and disgust the covered-up portion of the story that never came up in the 154th media.

From Jakarta Post
The case of David Hartanto Wijaya, an Indonesian student who died at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in March, is entering a crucial stage, but the family continues to suspect an unfair process.

David’s family filed a request in April to the Singaporean coroner court to consider the case as a murder, challenging conclusions made by the NTU and Singaporean police that David had committed suicide. Only if the coroner court finds it was not suicide will the case be forwarded to the criminal court. However, David’s family has felt that they still received unequal treatment throughout the process. The case has just entered the third phase of the court process, with more new witnesses to be presented by the NTU and the family.

Hartono Wijaya, David’s father, said the NTU had already presented 22 witnesses, with four more to be presented soon.
“But so far we were only given opportunities to present four witnesses, out of nine names we have submitted,” Hartono said on the telephone from Singapore.

“Our request that David’s laptop and digital hard disk be returned to the family was also denied. And we just found out that the judge never received the family’s request until today,” he said Wednesday after one of the court’s sessions.
Wednesday saw the coroner court receive testimonies from four witnesses brought forward by David’s family.
“One of them is his brother, the other three are his friends. But they are not eyewitnesses. They were all witnesses to David’s life as a brother, as a friend,” Hartono said.

The family had tried to find eyewitnesses from the university but everyone had remained tight-lipped, he said.
Hartono said the President of NTU Su Guan Ning had told the family that the university had a witness who saw David attempt to slit his wrist before he jumped from a building in the university.
“But when we asked to meet the person? The NTU rejected us.”

The NTU alleged David had attempted to kill Chan Kap Luk, David’s professor, just before David committed suicide.
Indonesian lawyer O. C. Kaligis, an advisor to the family, said the Singapore’s coroner court process turned out to analyze the possibility whether there had been a murder attempt on Professor Chan Kap Luk.

“What we see is that the court only focused on how David Hartanto Wijaya tried to murder the professor,” Kaligis said.

“From the start there has never been an analysis on the cause of David’s death.”

The pictures that show his deep wounds were never exhibited, said the lawyer who advocated the family pro bono.
Horrendously graphic pictures of David’s corpse showed he did not commit suicide. The pictures had been analyzed by Indonesian forensic experts Djaja Surya Atmadja and Evi Untoro, and they said any forensic doctor around the world would see from the forensic report that David’s body had defense wounds.

“It was absolutely not a suicide.”

Iwan Piliang, a blogger who has been accompanying the family since the beginning, said that they would bring forward two forensic experts from Indonesia who had analyzed David’s body from the Singaporean doctors’ forensic report and pictures of his body, “including a digital forensic expert who is the one and only expert in Indonesia.”

Judge for yourself.

Piak!

PIAK! And he fell onto the road from the bus stop.

The time was 08 33hrs. A malay man in his late thirties fell onto the ground - 'l'-shaped and chin tucked in. He must have hit his forehead on impact, evident from the bump. Several panicky commuters at the bus stop gathered to help his motionless and stiff body. A young man walked over, take a look and immediately called the police on his mobile, describing all that had happened and was happening in detail to the police, who then informed the ambulance.

After 5 minutes, someone in among the panicky party finally asked the million dollar question, "Did anyone call the ambulance?" And one can bet nobody remembered the details on how the man fell, how he was behaving before the fall and how he went into a fit and how he was salivating after the fit. When someone finally took the responsibility to make the call, the young man told him that it has been done.

The ambulance arrived with the paramedics and asked who could tell the story of what happened. No one could and everyone pointed to the young man, who then systematically relate the whole incident. He stayed there until the man regain conciousness and was coaxed onto the stretcher bound for the hospital.

The young man also got to know a pretty lady who was civic-minded enough to help the fallen man, and he had a good impression of her. But she left before him because she was already late for work. Afterall, she was among those who stayed the latest.


Just 45 minutes ago, Capital 958FM was airing a call-in talk show. Today the topic was whether a $3000 fine was sufficient to prevent people from feeding wild animals. Many callers who called in discussed about how the hefty price tag was too much and suggested a lower one for first timers, some took the chance to link 'wild' with 'strays' and condemn the feeders, others brought up the theory of 'classical conditioning', claiming that feeding animals will stop them from gathering their own food. Only one madam spoke with great emotions about the humanity of the topic, i.e. are human beings really happy to see the strays die of starvation so that their so-called home can be free of faeces. "YOU WANT THEM TO DIE OF STARVATION AR?" were her last words (translated from Mandarin).

How true. If the theory of classical conditioning rules, then we should all stop donating money to beggars, stop buying tissue papers from make-shift sellers at MRT stations and stop dropping coins into blind musicians' tins, for all these will prevent them from finding a proper job.

And the young man felt a bit of regret saving that human this morning.

Ugly Martian strikes again

Martian self-proclaimed to be an 'excellent customer service personnel' who loves to goreng with customers and boast of being able to handle any type of customers. I once had a debate with her that we cannot go on pleasing all the customers because ultimately, customers would not care how much discount a company gives, they will go for the cheapest one, with or without discount.

2 days ago, Martian quarrelled with Chris-CD. Pardon me for suffixing, but I recently handled 2 different Chrises and I foresee more of them in the future. Back to the quarrel. I believe that being in the service line, we have to follow certain guidelines when it comes to handling clients. Things like who, what, when, where, why and how (affectionately known as 5 wives and 1 husband) are guidelines, pricing and rates are guidelines, even, if you like, the manner in which one starts a tele-conversation, could be guided by certain scripts. But no matter the degree of conformity to guidelines, the service personnel should, under no circumstance, quarrel with the client. One may disagree with the client, one may feel p!ssed with the client, one may even detest the sound of the client, but the service personnel should just end the call amicably(whatever exits the mouth after the phone slams down remains at the respective sides).

Martian talked crudely to Chris-CD and slammed the phone down before Chris-CD even finish his part. And after which, Chris-CD called me and complained about Martian, which I managed to pacify after a few minutes. Chris-CD is not an unreasonable guy. Martian wasn't in the wrong for calling Chris-CD to inform him about us not receiving the cheque long overdue. But, in my opinion, Martian should have exercised some common sense. If the cheque had not arrived, it could be due to late posting, leading to an extra working day of delay. If she had not applied the 'Chris-CD is a con man' schema, she would have rationally foreseen this delivery lapse. On Chris-CD's part, I could understand the stress on him. Being an operation manager, he did his best to rush the accounts department to churn out our cheque, and other than that, there is not much he could do(not forgetting he still has his roadshow to run). But he had to bear with the continuous bugging from the Martian, it was only natural that he flared up.

Now, I am like Chris-CD's best friend, as far as his relationship with our business is concerned, and I am happy to provide him with any assistance that could be of help to him, just like I helped Chris-Grey at Fairy Point.