Poor Advertising

Today's deal at Groupon had the following offer - $22 for four or $45 for eight 45 min music lessons at Asia Music School in 2 locations (worth up to $620).

I have nothing against the deal. But what irked me was their advertising pictures. 

A perfect example of how NOT to place your hands when playing the piano.

This hand position is wrong. The fingers are supposed to be more firm and curved. And why is the thumb slouching below the piano key level?

Her violin position is almost painful to look at.

This is even more laughable. While I am not a violinist, I do play the cello and I have played in an orchestra many times, so I do have a certain degree of familiarity with string instruments. Firstly, she is holding the bow wrongly. Her fingers look as if she is about to cut a piece of steak with a knife. Secondly, what is the bow doing at around 45 degrees across the violin? The bow should be almost perpendicular to the violin. And thirdly, what's with that chicken-wing-like thrust-up elbow?

Dear Asia Music School, with this kind of advertising, I would never recommend anyone to sign up with your school. I doubt your teaching capabilities if you don't even know that these positions are wrong. Or could it be due to ignorance from your marketing department? Either way, you fail. 

Dawn of Magic

Dawn of Magic, on iPhone. Don't let this picture deceive you - the actual game graphics are pretty horrible.
Source: www.iphone-screenshots.com

I have been a fan of RPG (role playing games) since young, so naturally, I do look out quite a bit for RPGs on the iPhone. A few months ago, a colleague recommended Dawn of Magic to me. It was free, so I downloaded it and started playing it without much thought.

After a while, I started to wonder why I was even playing this game. The plot is mediocre, the graphics are poor. The translations need a lot of improvement, the controls are clumsy, and the game mechanics suck. They have an experience cap on enemies, so if you fight enemies that are too low level, you get only 1 experience point... and no gold. If you run out of gold and your main characters reach the level cap (which is pretty low), too bad - there's no way you can earn money. Except by paying real cash for it. And the experience you get depends on the lowest level character you have in your party, which makes it pretty unbalanced. All these show a lack of effort in designing the game mechanics.

But I haven't mentioned the worst yet - it's the music. They obviously didn't pay much attention and resources to music, because it was of low quality (sounded like some 16-bit midi music. Hey, this is 2011, not the 1980s!) and poorly composed. After a while, I switched off the music because it was definitely doing more harm than good to the enjoyment of the game.

The best word of advice for RPG fans - stay clear away from Dawn of Magic. There are definitely much better alternatives out there.

Batam (Dec 2011)

Had my first trip to Batam last week with my gf. It was a 3D2N trip, which, according to my friends, is already a tad long for Batam. I found it all right though, because I have been feeling rather burnt out from work prior to the trip, so it was a good chance just to relax and do nothing. 

We purchased our trip via Groupon, so it was just $130 for 3D2N, inclusive of ferry, hotel, daily buffet breakfast, one seafood lunch, one massage, city & shopping tour, and the relevant fees (passenger departure fee, fuel surcharge, Batam terminal fee). Including the amount we spent there for shopping for food, the total bill came up to only $230 per pax.

Day 1

We had chosen the 740am ferry, and only realised that we had to collect our boarding pass 90 minutes prior to the trip, which means 610am. Since 90 minutes is probably a conservative buffer, we decided to reach Harbourfront Ferry Terminal by around 630am instead. After we collected the boarding pass, we had a quick breakfast at McDonald's before boarding the ferry.

When we reached there and got onto the bus, we were ferried to Polo Ralph Lauren shop. They were not really cheap (in absolute terms), in the general range of 450,000 to 650,000 rupiah (S$64.01 to S$92.46), so the whole tour group left in just five minutes. The next stop was to Diana Layer Cakes, a shop rather well known for their handmade kueh lapis. It was freshly made to order, so the tour guide helped to consolidate the orders, which would then be delivered to our hotel later. We weren't that interested in kueh lapis, so we didn't order any.

Diana Layer Cakes, well known for their handmade kueh lapis

Our group of mostly Singaporeans trying out samples of kueh lapis

The next stop was at Batam 1st Factory Outlet, which sells a decent variety of clothing like Armani Exchange, Hard Rock Cafe, Esprit, etc. We were given vouchers of 50,000 rupiah (S$7.11) which was only valid with a minimum spending of 200,000 rupiah (S$28.45). The clothes there were cheap, around 140,000 rupiah each (S$19.91), but they were not cheap to the extent that we would buy a lot. So we ended up buying just two t-shirts, which cost us around 115,000 rupiah (S$16.36) each after using the voucher.

Our package also included a 60-minute massage, so the guide brought us to Sawadika Refleksi Massage. We were given the option to upgrade our massage, but we didn't take it. The place was dimly lit, the floor was oily (from massage oils) and the thin mattress didn't look too clean. I hope it just looks old...

After the massage, we were brought to a local produce shop, which was selling lots of Indonesian prawn and fish crackers, and other snacks. We bought quite a lot of snacks to bring back to Singapore, and some of them, especially the fish crackers, were really good.

Lunch was at Golden Prawn 933 Restaurant, which was part of our package. I was initially quite skeptical of the "sumptuous 7-course fresh seafood lunch" that was written in our itinerary, but it turned out better than expected, albeit not fantastic. The lunch consisted of deep fried squid, sweet and sour fish, fried prawns, tofu vegetable soup, chilli crab, steamed sea snails, and vegetables. But what intrigued me more was the size of the restaurant - it was really huge. I think it can seat more than 1,000 people comfortably!

The restaurant stretches as far as the eye can see... well, almost.

We were looking forward to checking into the hotel after lunch, but apparently there were still some other events on the itinerary. There was a cultural dance, but thankfully no one was interested so the guide skipped it. There was also a visit to the Golden Go-Kart Centre and the Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple, but by that time we were so hot and tired (only managed to get 4+ hours of sleep the night before) that we just remained in the bus.

The final stop before the hotel was Batam City Square, a big, relatively new and fully air-conditioned shopping mall. Had a bite at KFC, did a bit of shopping, then proceeded to the hotel, Mercure Batam Hotel.

When we checked in, we were quite surprised by how big the room was.

Our room at Mercure Batam Hotel

As seen from the picture, it was extremely spacious. The design, however, was rather old fashioned. The room was also a bit too dimly lit for my liking.

The bathroom. The shower head was a bit too low for my liking,
since I had to lower my head slightly while using it

It's a pity there was no wifi connection in the hotel room; wifi was only available at the lobby and restaurant. 

Day 2

Since we had the whole day to ourselves, we decided to take it easy. Had a late buffet breakfast at the hotel, before taking a cab to Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall. It's advisable to ask the hotel receptionist for a rough estimate of the fare so that you don't get ripped off by the taxi drivers. The hotel told us that it should cost around 30,000 rupiah (S$4.27). We were quoted 35,000 rupiah (S$4.98) which wasn't a big difference, so we took it.

Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall

They have A&W, which is already extinct in Singapore, so we had our lunch there. Love their curly fries and root beer float!

There was a cinema on the top floor, and it was showing just four movies - Trespass, Machine Gun Preacher, one local movie, and I can't remember the last one. Each ticket costs only 25,000 rupiah (S$3.56) so we bought two tickets for Trespass, since it was the only movie with recognisable actors (Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman). There was still around 1.5 hours to the movie, so we went to the several massage parlours just outside the shopping mall for a quick massage. Unfortunately, they were all full so we went to Godiva Coffee for coffee and wifi.

At first I was a bit worried about the cinema seats - this was Indonesia, not Singapore, so I thought the seats would be old and filthy. To our surprise, the seats were new, comfortable, and were high enough to provide a good headrest. I find the seats even better than Golden Village's in Singapore!

Trespass sucked, by the way. I am glad we only paid around S$7 for two tickets.

Had dinner at Grand Duck Restaurant, which serves Chinese food. Their specialty roast duck didn't look enticing at all but actually tasted pretty good.

Day 3

We departed for Batam Centre Ferry Terminal shortly after breakfast. Mega Mall, a big shopping mall, was conveniently located just opposite the ferry terminal (connected via an overhead bridge), so we went there for a quick lunch at Grand Canyon Coffee. I was feeling a little apprehensive though, because during our last trip to Bali, we also had lunch at Grand Canyon Coffee just before our flight back to Singapore. And I had a horrible bout of diarrhea immediately after I reached Singapore.

There was also a Baskin Robbins nearby and it was having a 1-for-1 offer, so we bought two double scoops of ice cream at 52,000 rupiah (S$7.40). Their strawberry ice cream was fantastic; it had big chunks of strawberries inside!

Reached Singapore at around 430pm, this time thankfully without the diarrhea.

To sum up, I wouldn't mind going to Batam again. But if I do so, it will at most be a 2D1N trip. In fact, a day trip would also suffice since Batam Centre is right beside the ferry terminal; we could just travel there in the morning, eat (A&W!), shop, get a massage, watch a movie (if there are shows worth watching), and return to Singapore in the evening.

Pork pozole

Pork pozole (serves 3)

Pozole is actually a kind of Mexican stew.

Pork pozole

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1 whole white onion

4 garlic cloves, chopped into small pieces

400g of lean pork, chopped into cubes

6 brown mushrooms, chopped into pieces

0.5 cup of canned corn

1 green capsicum, chopped into pieces

3 teaspoons of cumin seeds

3 teaspoons of chilli powder

1 litre of chicken stock

1.5 teaspoon of coriander powder

Salt

Black pepper

Parsley

Instructions:

1) Heat some olive oil over medium heat in a skillet, then add garlic and white onions and fry until the garlic is slightly brown.

2) Add the pork cubes and stir fry continuously for around 8 minutes. If the mixture starts to dry up, feel free to add more olive oil.

3) Add the canned corn, mushrooms, cumin seeds, chilli powder, chicken stock, and coriander powder. Season with black pepper and just a bit of salt.

4) Cover the skillet and let the mixture simmer at low heat for around 45 minutes. 

5) Sprinkle some parsley on top, and serve with either rice or bread.

Note: Feel free to substitute the cumin seeds with cumin powder, or the green capsicum with red or yellow capsicum. Remember to take it easy on the salt, because after simmering, a significant portion of the stock would have evaporated, so the remaining stock would be much more concentrated.

Train delay galore, Episode 03

I can't believe it. SMRT broke down again this morning, making it the third train delay in four days. What is wrong with them?

I heard the news from 938 Live, and the delay seemed like a contagious illness which affected Marina Bay to Newton MRT stations first. It then started spreading to the other stations followed by several 'false recoveries'. Here's the condition of the 'patient', from SMRT website (yes, they finally bothered to update it in a more timely manner):

755am: No train services between Marina Bay and Newton

818am: No train services between Marina Bay and Toa Payoh (condition worsened)

825am: Northbound train services from Raffles Place to Jurong East have been restored, but still no northbound train from Marina Bay to Raffles Place (moderate recovery)

850am: Northbound train services from Raffles Place to Ang Mo Kio are down again, and southbound train services from Ang Mo Kio to Marina Bay are now unavailable (condition deteriorated sharply)

900am: Northbound train services from Raffles Place to Jurong East are available again (moderate recovery)
1000am: Southbound train services from Ang Mo Kio to Toa Payoh have been restored
1055am: Southbound train services from Toa Payoh to Newton have been restored
118pm: Southbound train services from Toa Payoh to Raffles Place have been restored
148pm: All services have been fully restored, but expect delays. (fully recovered but relapses are expected)

I hope there isn't an episode 04 to this.

Signs of getting old

I just reached 30 this month. I am getting old, and the signs are plentiful.

1) I used to insist on drinking iced water. Now I ask for warm water more often.
2) One mahjong or drinking session makes me tired for the next 2 days.
3) I try to go to bed earlier, preferably before 1130pm. In the past I would only start using my computer at 1130pm and sleep at 2am.
4) Even during weekends, I wake up at around 8am because I don't want to waste the morning sleeping.
5) I used to eat and drink without worrying about my health. Now... I eat and drink as usual but with a lot of worry and guilt.
6) My appetite is only half of what it used to be.
7) Reading newspapers is now a must. If I were to go overseas and miss out on several days of news, I would catch up on every day once I am back.
8) When I read newspapers, I used to read only the Life section. Now I read every section other than Life.
9) Vegetables are now a necessity in every meal.
10) I am actually aware of who our ministers are.
11) I used to be able to survive on 5 hours of sleep daily. Now I can barely survive with 7.
12) Dinner at home is (usually) much more desirable than dinner with friends outside.
13) Staying at home is a luxury.
14) I used to scoff at supplements. Now I take them daily.
15) In the past, friends > family. Now, family > friends.
16) 3 days without exercising makes me feel uncomfortable. 1 week without exercise is unbearable.
17) Coffee (with less or no sugar) has replaced soft drinks entirely.
18) I used to think that people who need to drink coffee after lunch are very 'uncle'. Now I do the same.
19) I need to think aloud in order to remember what I am thinking.

This list is definitely not exhaustive, so I think I will be adding on to it regularly.

Train delays galore

Dear SMRT, what is your problem recently? After the Circle Line train delay yesterday during the morning peak hours, you pull another train delay on the North South Line today during the evening peak hours?

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will probably investigate these incidences and fine SMRT. But how much will it be? Considering that SMRT made a net profit (before tax) of S$191.7m in FY2010, how much should the fine be in order to be significant? For the recent security lapse at Bishan MRT depot in August, they were fined S$200,000. In absolute terms, S$200,000 may seem like a lot. But this is just 0.02% of their gross revenue, or 0.10% of their net profit. As further evidence, with regards to this event, their CEO Saw Phaik Hwa said in a seemingly flippant manner, "If LTA fines us, so be it." 

Maybe I should buy  some SMRT shares to make myself feel better whenever I get stuck in a train delay or when I feel irritated that they were fined just a nominal amount.

Now, I wonder what would Saw Phaik Hwa say this time? Last month she still had the audacity to comment that "I don't see anything significant" in the number of train disruptions and delays.

Additionally, according to the Straits Times, SMRT claimed to have issued travel advisories on signs at stations to inform passengers of the reduced frequencies. Well, I took the train yesterday morning from Lorong Chuan and there were absolutely no such signs. If there were, I could have walked just 3 minutes to the nearby bus stop to take a bus to Toa Payoh MRT, instead of being stuck at the train station for 20 minutes.

For the train delay just now, I went to their website for more information during the delay. There was nothing. For such a major train delay, SMRT did not even bother to update their website or Facebook page.

Update as of 928pm:

SMRT finally bothered to post something on their website at 835pm and 856pm. Hello, the delay started before 7pm! What took you so long?

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee @ Hong Lim Food Centre

By now, it should be obvious that Hong Lim Food Centre is one of my favourite food haunts. That place alone has many choices for good and cheap food, like curry chicken noodles, prawn noodles, crayfish hor fun, laksa yong tau fu, bak kut teh, and braised pig trotters. 

Fried kway teow, $4 for a large plate

The noodles were moist and extremely tasty, and came with just enough hum. Today's portion, however, came with an over-generous serving of crispy pork lard which tasted so delicious that I ate several pieces in the first few mouthfuls. After that, guilt took over and I started to extract the pork lard from the noodles and put them aside.

They used to deliver your order to your table, but this year they changed it to self-service (sigh). Gone were the days where I could wait for my char kway teow at the comfort of my table instead of queueing.

As I mentioned before, Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee is my favourite char kway teow, and is a must-try if you do visit Hong Lim Food Centre. I still haven't tried Bedok South's Hillstreet Char Kway Teow though, which ieat gave the highest score so far for his char kway teow reviews.

Old Stall Famous Hokkien St Prawn Noodles @ Hong Lim Food Centre

Finally found a place selling decent prawn noodles that is of a reasonable distance from my office! Before this, if I had a craving for prawn noodles, I only had two choices - 大路虾面 from China Square Central, and another one from Circular Road (I forgot its exact name). The former tasted horrible, while the latter was still arguably acceptable but comes with atrocious service (they spilled soup on me and did not even bother to apologise). Unsurprisingly, I boycotted both. So it was a pleasant surprise that I found out about Old Stall Famous Hokkien St Prawn Noodles from Hong Lim Food Centre.

Prawn soup (without noodles) with prawns and pork ribs, $5

It's easy to rate this bowl of soup based on three things - simply, the soup, pork ribs, and prawns. Let's start from the soup first. 

The soup was not bad, but definitely nowhere as good as Hoe Nam Prawn Noodles or Penang Road Cafe, which I have blogged about previously here. However, what gave the soup a big boost was its chilli powder. The stall owner kept on asking me to be generous with the chilli powder, which I did gladly. And yes, it really made a difference. I wouldn't say that the soup tasted fantastic after that, but it was good enough to satisfy my prawn mee craving. 

The pork ribs were surprisingly good. The meat was tender and fresh, which was a big difference over Penang Road Cafe's. The prawns were shelled, to my relief; I detest eating shelled big prawns with just chopsticks and a spoon. They tasted decent; nothing really special about them.

If you happen to work near Raffles Place, this is arguably the best place you can go for prawn noodles. The stall is on the 2nd floor of Hong Lim Food Centre, and if you do order from here, remember to add more chilli powder into the soup. And order it with pork ribs!

The Liszt Legacy (2 Dec 2011)

Venue: Esplanade Concert Hall

Conductor: Alexandar Shelley

Pianist: Stephen Hough

Programme:

Franz Liszt - Prometheus

Richard Strauss - Don Juan, Op. 20

Franz Liszt - Hamlet

Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor, Op. 30

I bought tickets to this concert especially for Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto, so I shall just comment on it. 

One word to describe it - disappointing. 

It was obvious that Hough was totally not serious about this piece at all. After the simple opening (which I already found to be a little too fast), he suddenly decided to leave the orchestra and conductor behind by sprinting forward in a mad rush and clash of notes. The orchestra, caught offguard, was around one beat off until they scrambled to catch up. This happened practically everytime there was a cadenza by Hough. It is all right to be fast, but rushing is a different thing entirely. There was no time to bring out each note; they were simply glossed over, as if they were insignificant individually.

After five minutes into the first movement, I was starting to feel very sorry for Shelley, who was struggling just to keep in line with Hough.

There were also many wrong notes played. This was actually understandable and forgivable, because this piano concerto is an extremely difficult piece. But rushing off on your own and ignoring the conductor and orchestra consistently shows a very disrespectful and selfish attitude. 

This torture lasted throughout all three movements. For the third movement, Alla breve, as the piece approached its climax, I thought this was a chance for Hough to at least end this concerto on a good note. But no, he didn't take it. The supposedly impassioned and dazzling climax was, unsurprisingly, rushed over again (with several wrong notes). 

I am not going to give him any applause, I told myself. He doesn't deserve any. But when the concerto ended, there was thunderous applause from the audience. What? Why are you all rewarding this crappy performance? 

I looked around at the audience more closely, and realised that there was a disproportionately large number of ang mohs tonight. And those that were giving him a standing ovation were all ang mohs. 

Hmm. Interesting. I wonder what this says about their tastes in music.

Update as of 3rd Dec, 2011:
The Straits Times gave the performance a good review, to my absolute disgust. The reviewer, Marc Rochester, depicted Hough's performance as "brilliant, exciting and super-charged", and even claimed that the SSO "relished every moment" (which they obviously didn't).


Marc, my respect for you just went down several levels. Don't worry, you are not on the same level as Hough yet.

The 13th Month Bonus is a Right?

Many people have been sharing this blog post on 'The Coveted 13th Month 'Bonus' in Singapore'. It seems that many agree with him, considering the number of shares on Facebook. His arguments are interesting, I must admit. I have never thought about our wages in this way. But then again, I don't think that is the intent of employers - to shortchange employees by one month. 

The employer can always justify the monthly pay by determining how much you should be paid annually, then divide it by 12. For example, they may offer you an annual salary of $36,000. To make it simple, they pay you $3,000 a month. This smoothens out the irregularities in monthly pay due to the number of days in that particular month. To put it in perspective, this is similar to offering you $692.31 a week. 

So in his case, he will complain about being paid $3,000 a month and argue that he should be paid an extra $3,000 a year (let's ignore the extra one day for simplicity). This makes his annual pay $39,000. But as I just mentioned, maybe his employers only intended to pay him $36,000 a year. So if he makes noise about being paid monthly, they can just pay him $692.31 a week to shut him up.