How not to do business

Back to current day for a bit.

I called Starhub. Because lately I’ve been getting a lot of these bill overdue notices, when I’ve sent in all the reply stubs with required credit card information.

Being a hubber, as they like to refer to customers who use their TV, mobile and fixed line services, I wanted to start on a clean slate.

I called their customer service line and told them I wanted to pay for everything.

But I could not.

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How good is homemade?

Well, it’s time for making Chinese New Year goodies again.

On Thursday, I went to JB for another bad haircut and groceries and many of the shops were selling homemade cookies.

Besides a sticker for the Chinese symbol of “Luck”, they bore no other marks. It would be impossible to tell what went into those cookies and who made them.

If the China melamine milk scandal had happened during Chinese New Year, I think it’d be an utter mess trying to trace the source of foods and a lot more people could’ve been adversely affected.

And so today, we began our own “homemade” factory. And I threw my father off the production line, two minutes after he joined in to help us.

Was it terribly evil of me?

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Shutterfly Photo Book Review

When I submitted my travel reviews at TripAdvisor, they sent me a coupon for a free 8″x8″ hardcover photo book  containing 20 pages, worth US$29.99 at Shutterfly. All I had to do was to pay for shipping,

Looking up the shipping cost, it’d cost me US$7.99 to my friend’s address in the US where I’d be staying, so I decided to take up the offer to try out the quality of the prints.

Cover of Photo Book.
Cover of Photo Book.

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PSLE and life

Here we go again.

The Primary Sixers are taking their PSLE and they’re not pleased the Mathematics paper is harder than they anticipated. (See Parents Up In Arms Again Over PSLE Mathematics Paper)

Even the top students felt the bite and some were unable to complete the paper.

I don’t know why such things make news in Singapore. But since it does, I wish that when such reports are made, they’d interview someone else that puts things in perspective.

Since they don’t, I’ll volunteer some thoughts. And I’ll get right to the point by dealing with points brought up in the article.

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TransitLink Guide 2009

My TransitLink Guide 2004 has been with me on every single bus trip. My well-thumbed guide, with sections that have fallen out and now sometimes out-of-date, has even taken me to places I didn’t intend to go because of route changes. Which is okay, because I get to go to places I would not have, and discover things I wouldn’t have seen. That’s the joy of travel in a country I call home, but don’t know so well.

Now, four years on, I decided to upgrade to a shiny new TransitLink Guide 2009.

TransitLink Guide 2009

For years, the then Bus Guide, now TransitLink Guide has seen very little change in format. Today, for S$2.50 including GST, I’m now the owner of a copy of the hefty mini Yellow Pages of the public transportation system.

Is the new TransitLink guide an upgrade, a ho-hum side-grade or worse, a downgrade?

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