I know what I want
30/01/2007
I think…
It’s probably a really bad idea, but I think the universe is as vast as it is interlinked. I think coincidences are more than that, most of the time I think they’re signs.
I like to see patterns. I like to think that when lots of people turn up in a restaurant after me, that it’s a good day for the owners. But if lots of people turn up in restaurants after me in several different instances, that I’m good for business.
I think if I talk about something, and then it shows up on tv, that the cosmos is trying to tell me something.
So trust me when I tell you that through my extensive and exhaustive research for meaning in life and work, I’ve finally settled on what I want to do with the next phase of my career.
Yes. I want to be a webelf.
Santa has his elves. I’m sure there are elves in forests. So I want to be a webelf. I hear Neil Gaiman has one. That’s a healthy market right there.
As webelf, I will spend my time figuring out what to do with things, and fighting the forces of webimps.
I think.
bali hai
29/01/2007
Had a good time in Bali. And several other people will blog about it, or write about it, so this isn’t going to be the minute by minute account of what to do.
Instead, I bring you – the Bali 3′s.
When in Bali, do
- Wear sunblock religiously. It’s really scorching hot.
- Bring insect repellent along with you. The mozzies there are relentless! I applied some before white water rafting, but after the swim it washed off and at once I knew I was going to suffer. Suffice to say, I’m still itching from it.
- Bring lots of spare clothes. It’s really, really hot. You get really, really sweaty. You’ll probably want to shower just to feel better.
My favourite Bali moments are:
- Rafting down the Ayung River.
17 of us went for this, and it was a blast. The entire trip took about six hours, mostly because we had to travel about three hours to and back from Ubud. Rafting on its own took about an hour and a half, and at the end, there was a small buffet spread and hot showers.The river wasn’t the most spectacular river ever, but it was fantastic just to roll over all the rapids and rocks. If you’re lucky you’ll catch a few monitor lizards and the odd native taking a bath. But what I liked was that for an hour and a half, life as I know it takes a backseat, and I’ve a first hand glimpse of someone else’s. Definitely worth the time and effort.
You can make arrangements with Sobek, which is tried and tested. Group discounts are available, so ask. The cheaper alternative is Bali Adventure Tours.
- Our early dip in the sea.
Morning is the best time, it’s not as hot, and there are fewer tourists. Our hotel was by the beach, so it was easy for us.I went with Eh Don, Eevahn and Mozzie, and even though I had problems waking up at 7am, it was pretty much worth the while. It was more tranquil than the din that is the beachfront in the afternoon, it was cool, and it was fun. I had to be coaxed into actually getting into the sea, but once I was hit by a couple of waves, it was fun.
- Seafood by the beach.
Jimbaran is the place to go, you can dine by the seaside while watching the sunset. We had loads of prawns, fish and squid, drinks and transport to and from the hotel for about S$16 per person. Live music available, and the band was ok. There are also day tours that will end up at Jimbaran.
What not to expect of Bali
- Air-conditioning. It’s sparse. It’s intermittent. And ineffective.
- Easily available internet access. Internet cafes weren’t in my face enough for my liking, and the hotel had wi-fi hotspots at certain areas. Unacceptable.
- Gourmet food. Even the food at the Hard Rock Cafe was disappointing.
There you have it. My Bali 3 by 3. 
dinner at little india
24/01/2007
I felt like a tourist in my own country last night. I followed Mads to Little India for some facial hair threading, and we ended up walking down the whole of Little India.
It’s amazing. The place is bustling even at nine in the evening. I felt like a tourist in my own country.
So after the threading, we went to Ananda Bhavan for dinner. It’s like a little cafeteria next to Tekka Market. Mads had a huge paper thosai, which was rolled almost like a love letter. I had the idly – which were two little steamed cakes, kind of like the chinese steamed bowl buns they sell at fairs and pasar malams, except it wasn’t sweet. The carbs come with the same accompaniment – a dollop of spicy white sauce, a dollop of spicy tomatoey sauce, and a small bowl of watery curry-ish sauce. We shared a Pani Puri – a small crispy fritter, hollowed out and filled with potato and tomato and little bits of fried batter. You douse it in a little sweet sauce before eating. Neato! The lassi was a little rich, but very yogurty nonetheless.
After that huge meal, we went to this place to get rose water. Joh’s Flower Shop or something like that. The store, was so-so. Had loads of really retro toilettries and cosmetics and the rose water we were looking for ($2.40 for 500ml). But it was the getting there that was pretty amazing. We passed by stores selling the garlands and more food, so it was a mix of jasmine and fritters and people selling the fritters.
After the rose water we headed on to Mustaffa. Everyone says it’s huge. It’s not. It’s just got everything in bulk! Stacks of watches in the counters, and there were many many counters. I’ve never seen so many Casio or Seiko watches at the same place before.
I bought myself a funky army watch, which will hopefully come in handy in Bali.
And then we went to look for toilettries, and there was so many to choose from. It was dizzifying. This is why they open 24 hours. It’s because it takes that long to get around.
All in all, it was fun. Many thanks to ms Mads for graciously bringing me around my own country.
As expected, KF started complaining that I always refused to go to Mustaffa with him, but went with Mads so I expect we’ll be making another trip there soon.
In other news, we’ll be in Bali for the next few days so leave a message if you miss me. Back on Saturday 27 Jan. Ta.
evidence that david caruso is annoying
20/01/2007
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. CSI Miami is so hard to watch because David Caruso is idiotic.
i’ve been to the summit
20/01/2007
on a horse with no name, it feels good to be out of the rain
I woke up this morning, and thought it was Saturday. I went back to sleep. Then my phone buzzed with an SMS from my favourite duck in the whole wide world, Donnie, asking if I wanted breakfast.
Reality bites.
Feeling cheated, I woke my sorry ass up because it was already half past nine.
The rest of my day didn’t fare too great either. After pretty much schmoozing and presentationing and meeting people the last 4 days, I was in bad shape for work. I can’t even bring myself to talk about it.
I am exhausted. I can’t move the needle, let alone tell you what success looks like. I just want to sleep in tomorrow. And look forward to next week.
confer
17/01/2007
I’m generally skeptical of anything in the organisation that calls itself a “summit”. A summit is the top of a mountain. But over at the Big Why, a summit is where we aim to gather, take stock, learn and move on.
The ascend to the summit began yesterday for me, with a few meetings and greetings. It’s particularly difficult as an I to do these things, and it’s so tiring. At the end of the day I don’t want to talk any more. Even Mr C gets mostly nods and umms instead of words and sentences (after I’m done dishing my highlights).
But you know what, it is always interesting. Let it not be said that my time at the Big Why was ever boring.
What I noticed at these summits (I’ve only ever been to two, so I’m taking some liberties to generalise) is that we all work for the same company, but we’re all so very different. It’s a culturally diverse company. Our markets are even more diverse.
I’m getting a vibe from these sessions. I don’t know exactly what the “specificities” are, but it’s a vibe from just watching the interaction and connecting them to the discussions I’ve had with various folks I work with. Can’t really put my finger exactly on it, but I’m getting there, I think.
Generalise
It would seem from what I saw today Americans are uninhibited with their views. Europeans are inquisitive. Asians are a rather quiet lot. In fact, if not for the lone Indian who, once in a while chimed in, the East Asians pretty much said nothing.
Which could stem from several factors:
- Perceived language incapacity
- Nonchalance
- Unwillingness to sound contrarian
- Unwillingness to add noise
- Introversion or aversion to draw attention to ourselves
Whatever the reason, I’ll generalise my observations, since N’s like me like doing this stuff:
- The people who think out loud, really shouldn’t, especially at an engagement where dozens of other people have to indulge you with their time and half the time they really spend thinking about how to shut you up. With bits of string and a blunt knife.
- East Asians do a relatively poorer job of representing themselves whatever the reason, and somehow come off as nonchalant or bored or both.
- A good presentation voice and pace makes for a quick presentation.
- People like repeating mantras and catch phrases.
I guess summits are fun. After all, the view is different from the top. It’s fun being privy to this perspective, and I will actually try to enjoy it tomorrow. Actually, later today.
buy buy, love
14/01/2007
I expected to buy up a storm when I took a couple of days off after Christmas for the Post Christmas Sales. But alas, nothing materialised. It was wet, and crowded, and disgusting. I hardly bought anything (that I remember at least).
offline
Then a couple days back I went health food shopping. Got my mom an all-natural facial essence and she seems to be pleased with it. She says it makes her feel refreshed. I had to check that she wasn’t eating it, haha. She also likes the ginseng pills, she says she feels less tired after consuming it. That was moola well spent, if I do say so myself. Too bad can’t do my health food shopping online.
online
Last night out of sheer itchybacksideness I went to Amazon and found myself unable to resist her charms. I love Amazon. It’s been there since text-based browsing, and it was already a personal favourite then – remember they were the world’s largest book store? With 2.5 million titles? As the internet matured Amazon moved along with it – selling more than books – and now I am so dependant on the community on Amazon to help me make a purchase (even at a brick and mortar store) it’s scary.
In fact – because of the description and the reviews on Amazon, I bought Cranium instead of Trivial Pursuit, and I didn’t bother with Scene It.
Using Amazon is easy and fun. It looks like a company that’s focused on doing 1 thing, with many moving parts co-perating to make that 1 thing happen. I always enjoy myself there. Because:
- They take pains to give you an endless browsing experience. There are always sale items and bargains
- When you’re done browsing, they tell you what other people thought of the product, and what else they purchased
- They keep your browsing history, in case you want to go back
- If you search something, they will help you refine your search. For example, I searched Women’s shoes. And on the left nav, you can find different other filters – like filter by brand, by size, by price. You can add a filter within a filter, so I can look for shoes that are a) from Asics b) size 5 and c) under $50
- After you make your purchase, you get a day or so to make changes to the order. So there have been instances where right before the order ships, I change my order to something completely different, and nothing bad happens. You don’t have to call customer care and apologise profusely, you don’t have to write an email to explain things. It happens on your My Account dashboard.
- The community of reviewers and raters – people who own the product and will tell you if that pair of jeans runs small or the game is better than another. It’s invaluable
- $25 free shipping. Neato!
- If you want to sell something, they’ll fill in the product details for you, cos they have it!
After Amazon, I still didn’t feel like I had quite enough, so I headed onto Target.com. Target has its own set of inventory, but the backend is an Amazon one, so you can use the same login, and it also features the 1-Click purchasing. Neato!
Two huge online shopping sites, 1 board game, and 3 pieces of clothing later, I pressed on and headed to Gap, Old Navy and Piperlime – their shoe store. You used to be able to buy Gap off Amazon, but they might have ended that relationship. Well, why would you use Amazon to sell your stuff if your site isn’t so bad itself.
The feel of Gap, Old Navy and Piperlime is different from Amazon. First, there is no user reviews and ratings. The site is more browse than search. But – they’ve also gone to some lengths to make the buying experience easier for their target audience. For example, now you can do a Quick View from the browse page instead of clicking a top and waiting for a page to load to see if you like it or they have it in your size and then go back and continue browsing. The Quick View loads on the browse or category results page without disrupting your original flow.
Old Navy boasts $5 shipping, and most times at Gap if you purchase over $75 you get free standard shipping anyway. At Piperlime, shipping is free for most shoes.
The only grouse I had with Piperlime is that they didn’t seem to share the customer database with Gap/OldNavy so I had to register again. But it wasn’t too difficult to set up. I just didn’t like typing the address in all over again.
After you shop at a US store, you can’t really bear to use any of the online stores here (except out of desperation). Maybe to order a hamper. But that’s about it.
Anyway. Here I am, the next day, with a large shipment on VPost, an email from Target saying they’ve shipped, and a hole in my pocket that hopefully will come in handy for Chinese New Year.
And this is why it’s so fun to be on the internet.
In pursuit of all things trivial
13/01/2007
Yesterday turned out to be Game Night at the office. A few of us intellectual ones already made plans to play Trivial Pursuit The rest sat around with the DS lites and alternated between Mario Kart and Bomberman.
It was a good day.
Strangely I noticed some things at Game Night which probably mirrors life:
- Some people just don’t know how to fit in. They don’t want to participate, but enjoy standing by the sidelines running a useless commentary. Needless to say they get shoed away quickly.
- Some people can’t focus on what they’re doing. They’ll get all excited about the game happening in the other group and try to join in both. They quickly get knocked off as well
This is why people form cliques at any workplace. It’s hard to get along with everyone, and there are some personalities you just can’t stand and vice versa. In the end, you gravitate towards those you have more in common with.
It’s going to be interesting when we take the trip. These groups are going to be more apparent, but I guess with some careful co-ordination it will be minimised. There will be group activities designed to help us get acquainted with each other but I think within departments the groups are going to show and the rift will likely remain.
Am excited to see if my observation is correct.
OOoohhh a fruit and a phone…
10/01/2007
By the time Apple unveiled their iPhone at CES yesterday (or their this morning), KF and I were kinda sure it would be a late entrant with too much ground to gain after Nokia and Motorola.
And it doesn’t look all that great. Sure it’s completely touch screen and looks sexy as hell in the demo. Hey it’s only 11.6mm thick! But it’s still a wide-ass large clunker.
I haven’t really watched Steve Jobs selling it yet, we just read the minute by minute account, so it wasn’t all that exciting, I guess we’ll change our minds after watching Job’s webcast.
Anyway. The clunker boasts some really fine features, touchscreen controls, a 2mp camera, an 8gb iPod to go along, iTunes which will manage everything – notes, contacts, and all, it’s quad-band, wifi and all, for now in my books it’s just a souped up blackberry.
Snack of the week
09/01/2007
Been afflicted with a case of the munchies at night lately, and decided to try this: Ryvita Whole Grain Crispbread. I tried the Kavli one before, but it’s kinda cardboardy.
The Ryvita Rye Crispbread Original tastes better than it looks. It’s a little more crisp and less dense than Kavli, so it’s actually crispy. I haven’t tried the sesame one yet, but original tastes fine on its own, or with some cheese.
It’s on offer at Cold Storage right now, $3.20 for a 250g pack.
