September 2004

So I received the first 3 DVD discs from this online DVD rental store, Hollywoodclicks that I mentioned in my entry a few days ago. It came in a small little brown envelope together with another white prepaid envelope that I am suppose to send back with the DVD once I finished watching it. They will then send the next available DVD in my DVD queue list. Pretty neat.

But the problem was, I had a list of DVDs that I want to rent. It included the 4 discs of the first season of Friends. However, they send me the second to the fourth disc. The first disc of Friends must have been not available. Now, if this was a continuous series, like say West Wing, or X-Files, how would I be able to watch the fifth epsiode without first watching the previous four? As for Friends, it is still not too bad, since each one is a self-contained story. Perhaps they might tune to the system so that if the first disc is not available, they do not send me the next few discs in the series.

I just mail them back the first disc that I finished today. Let’s see how fast is their turnaround time.

Man : Hi, I am so-and-so from so-and-so. We want to reward you for being a loyal customer throughout the years.

Me : Thank you.

Man : Just for you, we are offering you this phone model xxx at a special rate of $xxx!

Me : Do I have to sign a plan?

Man : Oh yes, you will need to sign a 2 year plan for this offer.

Me : You people want to reward me by asking me to spend extra money on a new phone that I don’t need, and not only that, get me signed a 2 year plan with you people? Thanks, but no thanks.

[pauses]

Man : But this phone model xxx has so-and-so, with the latest so-and-so.

Me : I am perfectly happy with my present phone.

Man : May I ask which phone model you using?

Me : SE T68i

[could almost hear his delight through the phone]

Man : Ah ha! Your phone does not have a camera, but this new phone model has a camera with so-and-so.

Me : I don’t need a new phone with a camera. I have no use for that. If I want to take a picture, I will use an actual camera, not a phone. Besides, you can’t bring a handphone with camera for reservists.

[pauses again]

Man : In that case, how about another phone model, so-and-so. It has so-and-so, but it does not have a camera.

Me : Listen, I don’t need another new phone. Everything I ever wanted in a phone and don’t want in a phone is in the phone I am currently using. I have no wish to pay extra money to upgrade to another new phone when my present one is working. And I have no wish to sign any contract with you guys so if your service ever screws up, I can easily change to another company.

[pauses again]

Man : Oh, well thank you very much bah bah bah…

The above took place recently, and though I may not remember word for word, that was roughly what was said. I received a SMS a few minutes after the call ended, asking me to rate the call just now. I replied with the best score. I may a bastard, but I am not THAT bastard. Yet.

I am a telemarketer nightmare. If you want to waste my time by calling me, I will make sure I will derive the most sadistic pleasure by abusing you.

Last night I came across this site Hollywoodclicks from a text ad from some search I did with Google.

Hollywoodclicks is an online DVD rental store in Singapore. For S$35 a month, members rent as many DVDs as they want, and keep them as long as they want, with three movies out at a time. There are no due dates, no late fees and no shipping fees. DVDs are delivered for free by SingPost usually by next-day service. When you want to return the DVD, you just put them in a prepaid envelope and then just mail them back. It is that simple. This concept is not new, as I believe Netflix in USA was the first to offer it. At that time, I told myself it was only a matter of time before someone come up with the same system in Singapore.

Anyway, I signed up. They are having a 14 day free trial, where I get to try out this service for free. I went through the catalog, and it seems pretty big, with the usual blockbusters, classic movies, concerts, musicals, even TV series like X-Files, Friends etc. Since they do not deliver on weekends, I guess I will have to wait till Tuesday at least to receive my DVDs from my mailbox. If I find it good and worthwhile, I might just cancel my SCV subscriptions for that 3 English movie channels and rent DVDs online instead.

There is 1 more online DVD rental store, at MovieMaster. They do have some variations to the subscription plan, offering plans for 1disc, 2 discs, 3 discs and 4 discs plans. It seems like Hollywoodclicks took a majority stake in MovieMaster recently, so I guess the 2 stores sort of merged.

I will update again when I receive my 1st DVD through the mailbox.

This is fashion? Is this model a male or female? Are those boobs or just chest muscles? What’s with the cigarette?

Got this from somewhere, amazing information.

My grandfather worked for the telephone company 45 years. For a long time, his job involved dealing with customers who came in off the street.

Came across this from somewhere. The guy who wrote it has been working for around 5 years in Air Traffic Control projects, both in delivery of radar processing and displays and in R&D for next generation systems.

Here is his overview of the failure approach of a safety critical (if it fails, people could die) system :

1) Everything on Unix, ruggedised releases of UNIX

2) Every box must be able to FAIL ON ITS OWN

3) Every box must have a direct replacement, or replacements, which carry the SAME LOAD.

4) ZERO total system downtime allowed, partial systems failures are allowed, but core systems must keep running.

5) 5 stages of power supply failure, double mains, double generation and lastly a great big warehouse of car batteries if all else fails.

6) 4 Years of testing of FULL system before live.

Quite a few things to talk about today, so I will just lump everything into this post.

There is this colourful character that sometimes sits at the HDB block beside my office around the time I knock off from work. He is an old Indian man, and with a can of beer, he will rant about the Government most of the time. He will complain that the Government cheated his money, how he is not afraid of the Government etc. Today he talked about something different. About how he has to wash his clothes and underwear because he never marry a woman. In Hokkien, Malay, Cantonese and English. Colourful character indeed.

On the way back home, I was walking through some HDB flats and this was what I overhead coming from one unit (it was very loud, I bet everyone in the nearby blocks heard it) :

(in Chinese)

kid : sorry!

woman : why you always do that! {stomping of feet}

kid : sorry! sorry! sorry! sorry!

{cut short by something dropping into the ground and break}

Child abuse?

Last but not least, farewell Brian Clough. One of the most colourful and best English manager of all time. Some of his sayings were a classic. Some of my favourites :

‘If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there.’

‘I only ever hit Roy the once. He got up so I couldn’t have hit him very hard.’

‘We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right.’

‘I can’t even spell spaghetti never mind talk Italian. How could I tell an Italian to get the ball? He might grab mine.’

Rest in peace, Brian Clough, you will always be remembered.

I want some of this :

Property owner agrees to remove hallucinogenic plants that caused female high school student to threaten to get naked.

It will be useful…

Read this from somewhere :

Staples are fascist. Fastening your papers with staples means that no one else is allowed to determine the order in which the papers will be sorted, only you; and one sheet may never be detached from the stack. “This is how I have decided you will view these papers, and you may not choose otherwise.” Rearranging them is wrong.

Staples are also for one-time use only, and make is less convenient to recycle the paper, displaying a wanton disregard for the environment. And they make shredders unnecessarily exciting.

Paperclips, otoh, are very democratic and ecofriendly. Fastening papers with paperclips means that you have organized a stack in a means which you believe to be optimal, but if someone else wants to change the order, or even take some away from the stack, that’s fine by you. They are readily available to rearrange, experiment with, prioritize, or spread across a library table. “It’s all good.”

Paperclips are also reusable, and are easily removed for reuse, or to allow paper recycling or shredding. They can also be reshaping into all kinds of useful cubicle hangers, lock picks, or whatever, promoting additional creativity.

Staples are handy for replacing surgical sutures or nailing down external cable. But with what we know about the environment and landfills, only sad, culturally-bound dittoheads use staples for paper.

My brothers and sisters: free yourself from those chains of oppression formed by crumpled staples! Allow the bright light of democracy to guide you away from the fascism of your Nixon-loving parents. Power to the paperclip! Power to the people!

On the subject of staples, anyone seen a stapleless staple? Tha Japanese loves it.

Stapleless staple

Former child star Macaulay Culkin has been arrested in the US on drug possession charges.

Why do all these actors and actresses all seem to have a mess up life, filled with drugs, booze etc? I remember there was another child actor who screwed up her life before coming clean. Yup, I am referring to that angel, Drew Barrymore.