So we decided to go out for lunch today to celebrate a colleague's confirmation. We settled on one of them none-too-cheap restaurants over at Gardens, Midvalley and were all hyped up for a sumptious meal. After all, as you can see from the pic below, it promised "Hospitality with a Heart."
Turns out to be another fanciful tagline that means nothing because the whole experience quickly turned into a highly stressful one, leaving me to walk away wondering: "Why are we paying so much money for so mundane food (which you can get from a hawker stall by the way) if not for good service (which is still charged at 10% service charge)?
Instead, we had a couple of immigrant workers (read: cheap labour) serving us and getting us off the wrong foot by messing up our order. Despite repeated attempts to communicate, they just didn't get it.
First, it was the wrong drink.
Then, they refused to cancel an order of rice (beats me why?) until we "insisted" quite "firmly."
The food came slow. The bill came slower. And our dessert, well... let's just say when I peered over after waiting for 15 minutes, I saw one worker scolding another worker for forgetting to "process" the order.
The best part of the whole experience? Well, my colleage ordered a takeaway of his drink. Mind you, this was a new order for a new drink, just that he wanted it packed for takeaway. Guess what he got?
His RM 8.00 Lemongrass mixed with syrup water was packed in a plastic bag a la mamak stall. What? From a high-end restaurant, I expect better. *shakes head*
Well, I'm sorry to say this but, is the restaurant business so difficult that you need to overcharge AND cut corners by hiring cheap labour who can't speak the language whilst saving money by giving us plastic bags for takeaway?
*shakes head*
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Bad, bad service at expensive restaurant *geram*
RIP: Gary Gygax
Once upon a time, children and adolescents used to play with toy soldiers and fashionable dolls with little more than their imagination, hands and mouth.
Then, sometime in the 70s, a man came along and thought: "what fun it would be if we added dice, swords and dragons to this?" Thus, the great-grandfather of all Role-Playing Games (yes, even World of Warcraft) was born - Dungeons and Dragons. Or rather, its predecessor first - Chainmail.
The man responsible for our great hobby - Gary Gygax - has passed away today according to Troll Lord Games, his latest publisher. He aged 69.
May he rest in peace.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
This song is dedicated to all you PR Consultants out there
Boss shared this with me. We sniggered.
This is dedicated to all the PR Consultants out there coz you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're my client, this is not aimed at you. I love all my clients *saysng*. It's just, so, funny. :)
*addendum*
In case you can't hear the lyrics, here it is:
Sometimes you call me up and beg me for free advice...
You're stealing from me, and wondering why I'm not nice...
My mind and my time--are my merchandise.
Don't make me say this twice:
If you come to my office or call my phone, I'm billing time.
If you stop me at parties to whine and moan, I'm billing time.
You say you want the best but then you don't pay the fee.
Motions cost money, but you think they should be free.
You cry "Oh why, is my bill so high?" [my bill so high?]
Well let me clarify:
If you come to my office or call my phone, I'm billing time.
If you stop me at parties to whine and moan, I'm billing time.
If I think of you when I am all alone, I'm billing time.
If you're late for appointments, I will be waiting... and billing time.
Still billing time...
I'm billing time.
davidlian wants: an Eee PC
A while ago, I was tagged by SlowCatchupKuan to post my "dream" gadget on my blog. So, I went home and took a nap, but quite unsuccessfully, I found that when I woke up, I couldn't remember what gadgets I had dreamt about.
After reading Kuan's post more carefully, I think she may have actually meant what gadget I would want. So here goes:
Pic from Slashgear.comI had just gotten rid of my Acer notebook last year in favour of a home-brewed desktop setup (for the games) and have my Nokia N95 for my mobile computing needs. Then, I met this guy at an event with a cool looking, darn compact sub-notebook with a cool Linux interface. It looked like those RM 8,000 Viaos Sony had and i thought "Surely must be super-ex one lah."
We started to chat about general computing stuff when I popped the question: "How much?"
"RM 1,400."
"What?"
"Yeap. There are cheaper models."
That pretty much sold it for me. I love the concept of the EeePC - 4 - 8 GB of storage space (put everything else on your thumbdrive), 1 GB of RAM, Built-in Graphics Card, 7" Screen (with a 9" version on the way), nicely sized (though not full) keyboard, WiFi, BlueTooth. It's the perfect carry around sub-notebook for when you want to use a PC to do something.
It's light. It's tough enough (especially since everything is solid state) . And it looks cool.
I could see myself using this at Starbucks to browse the internet, or sitting in front of a TV typing up a blog post. Or paired with the N95 (you can install Windows on the Eee PC) to do some heavyweight browsing.
So why haven't I gotten one? Coz I'm waiting for this 9", 12GB version to come out sometime mid-2008.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Free Books? Neil Gaiman and Harper Collins says so...
I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, simply love his dark mix of mythology and reality.
Just yesterday, Mr. Gaiman and his publisher Harper-Collins just announced the availabilty of one of his classics - American Gods - for free reading on the Harper-Collins website. Apparently, this is going to be some sort of experiment to see if people who take to reading full whole books online would buy an actual hard-cover or paperback.
I think this is a fantastic idea because the most unnerving thing about purchasing books online is you never really get to know the content of the book, especially if you can't find that same book in bookstores. Preview pages are great, but sometimes, I want to just browse through the entire thing before I buy.
By putting full books online for reading / browsing, publishers are effectively translating the whole in-bookstore browsing experience online. It'll be just like walking into a brick and mortar bookstore, picking up a book you'll potentially buy, and reading the first couple of chapters before actually buying the book.
Naturally, there's a fear that people will just read the entire book online, but in my humble experience, there's nothing quite like holding a real book in your hand. Besides, book piracy is already rampant on the internet and you can easily find best-sellers on any 'pirate' torrent sites out there, so I doubt putting full books online for free is going to dampen sales at all. In fact, it may encourage it.
Kudos to Harper Collins and Mr. Gaiman for this move. Amazon, what are you waiting for? Enough with crummy first chapters already!
