Aniconic Mar » Rants

The overdue world cup post.

Mar — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:19:42 +0000

Is $90 too much to be paying for entertainment, especially for an event that’s held once every 4 years, 31 days long and, if you really bothered to count it up, 5,760 minutes of the beautiful game.

That’s about 1.56 cents per minute, costs less than your per minute billing, and certainly affordable right?

Well apparently not if you’re among the masses that thinks Singtel+Starhub are overcharging their customers this time round and persistently calling out for a boycott of their package.

And I’m one of them, though not as vocal nor aggressive though.

I simply wasn’t that interested in catching the games live (think: no Ronaldo (the Brazilian), no Zidane, no Nedved, no Owen..) and the price tag certainly made my decision easier.

In any case, I think the Pareto (80/20) rule is at work here, where they (licensed operators) probably think that instead of serving 80 people and earn, say $100, why not serve 20 people and still earn that same amount — at the same time using less resource, thus having the ability to ‘up’ the quality of their service.

When you serve a smaller quantity, and charge them a premium, you’re able to focus your service and maintain quality at the same time.

Something which I’ve been trying, but failed, to pass onto my colleagues at the office, who are determined to serve everyone, everytime.

Well you just can’t please everyone, everytime right?

At least not with the resources that we have at hand.

Anyway, this is a post about the World Cup, and, for the records, I am extremely excited, but just not fancied yet, about it.

Yes, it’s about the World Cup 2010, held somewhere at the tip of the African continent, and I think there’s still a misconception that South Africa is somewhere on the level of the third world countries of the same continent, but the country is actually well developed, in a way.

I used to order my tees from the South African tee outfit, Springleap — they were really good looking tees too!

Just an example of how South Africans are quite resourceful these days, other than the fact that they didn’t charge me for global shipping since they didn’t really knew how much it’d cost them then!

That’s why Aliens gave them a visit ~~and got stranded and ostracised~~, to capture the technology there.

And it’s this technology that has enabled me to catch the World Cup 2010 for free!

I’m not really obliged to be listing any of these free ‘resources’ within this blog, so contact me if you need some heads up, but you’d already knew that Googling ‘World Cup 2010 Live Free’ could probably help you in your quest.

Probably.

So $90 saved for me, or rather one which could have been used to pay off my LTA bike fine, but unfortunately (depending on how you look at it~) was siphoned towards a new pair of..

… Adidas Predator Power Swerve FG cleats.

My curent Adipure has served me well, and I was absolutely looking forward to a new pair of Adipure II cleants, but the PowerSweve FG was simply too delicious to be resisted.

And I get tempted easily — it’s Adidas after all — but it was all worth it.

Beautiful, clean, sleek and thoroughly comfortable, and when I told a friend about it, he quipped, as he usually does.

(Him) “Wah, World Cup start already so must watch at home and put on these boots is it?”

(Me) -.-”

Nevertheless, some things are just worth paying for, but $90 to view the World Cup isn’t one of them.

Btw, is it just me or does Nike seem to have held some sort of mass discounted cleats sale and almost 90% of the players are donning these Orange-Grey cleats, making them look cheap along the way???

Oh, Lionel Messi dons the Adizero. Powerful stuffs.

Wish you recover well.

Mar — Sun, 23 May 2010 07:53:45 +0000

Just like that it snapped, the ankle gave way and positioned itself awkwardly, maybe because he jumped and tried too hard and landed badly, and immediately the players reactions were to gesture for a call — an ambulance.

It arrived duely, not after the unfortunate player had spent 20 odd minutes lying in the middle of the pitch, under the unforgiving hot sun.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you see it, a few guys flanked him and did their best to provide shade as well as fanning a piece of cardboard for air.

And that was how my 2nd game in two days ended, prematurely, and on both occasion, my team conceding 6 goals.

Oh, it sucks badly to lose, but it happens now and then, but the manner of this morning’s loss felt less weary than yesterday’s league game with Skopets FC.

This morning, it was a team, playing for each other and pushing each other, and how miserable it felt yesterday after the team disintegrated and whined internally, cos we were 5-2 up and in control before losing everything in the second half.

That feeling of thinking that everything’s going to be okay, but in the end it’s all screwed up, and its beyond your control, well it’s beyond terrible.

It’s terrible, horrendous and catastrophic when Men gives up, and Skopets FC gave up yesterday.

Ironically, it was a haphazard collection of bunch of uncles and young men from all walks of life and nationalities that enlightened me, during this morning’s game, where even though we were losing, it was a graceful loss.

There were no whining, no finger-pointing, no rush-of blood to the head tackles (unless you count the events that led to the ankle breaking) and it was a fun social game of soccer, the way it was meant to be.

I really don’t know what the future holds for Skopets FC, following this dejection, and I think someone mentioned about us taking a break from soccer, just to straighten out our minds and, hopefully, our team spirit.

If there’s anything that wins or loses games, it is team spirit.

Without the team, there’ll be no spirt and without the spirit, there’s no team.

Oh well, another loss, another knock on the chin, but gotta look forward to the final league game of the season now, and that’s next week.

And I have no idea what I’m gonna be spenind my Saturday afternoons with when it’s over.

Maybe I could write a book.

“What to do when someone breaks an ankle during a soccer game.”

Poor chap. Wish you recover well, and on the bright side, if any, he’ll be getting a lot of MCs.

iPage’s Anytime Money Back Guarantee

Mar — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 04:27:26 +0000

Let’s see how fast iPage.com sticks to this ANYTIME money back guarantee of theirs.

Which really was the reason that I tried taking them up, cos their offer was irresistibly good:

1) Money Back Guarantee
This eliminates any risk of potentially getting stucked with a service or product that I’m not happy with.

2) Low Yearly Fee
Let’s face it, when are we unmoved by the price factor? Sure iPage’s plan wasn’t the lowest, compared to other hosts’ but I just had this itch to switch to another host and at this moment in time, price had to be one of the factor.

3) They Looked The Look
I know, I know, never judge a book by its cover and I may be a sucker for their ‘image’ here , in falling for their marketing cosmetics but that’s how it really goes on in life, without most of us giving any though to it. The more professional it looks, the more inclined you’re going to part with your money. Right?

So why the sudden urge for a refund?

Let’s just say I wasn’t a satisfied customer after a purchase, which I wouldn’t go deep into at the moment.

And please don’t think that they’ve got bad services or poorly designed products, because they’re actually quite good.

Plus they’ve really done well and came back strongly into the web hosting market, especially after a hiatus a few years back, and especially so with a “No questions asked”, “Anytime cancel” policy.

So now I await their reply.

Rafa Benitez must finish what he has started.

Mar — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:04:21 +0000

Overheard from A Red Thing: Benitez should stay on and finish what he has began, and this is a message to all you fairweather *sic* ‘fans’.

… fans of a club support it through thick and thin, because at this moment these vocal fans who ask for the axe sound more like disgruntled shareholders, except they don’t own any shares…

… one of the main reason that Torres’ full potential is nearly unleashed, that Gerrard decided to stay when Chelsea courted him, and that the mere mention of ‘Liverpool’ in Europe meant a team that’s never to be discounted…

… Liverpool have over the years proven how strong they are when they go into the second half and especially when their backs are against the wall…

And maybe I might add just how myopic these fans are who are simply impatient for the silverware, and don’t they know that success is sweeter the longer it takes and the harder it gets? Maybe I’m too optimistic, but at the very least, I’m the least bit pessimistic — and Pessimists never gets anything done and never achieve anything that they want, because they tell themselves that it’s impossible. I just happen to think that in life, anything is possible.

Likened to an Intention Manifestation Model thingy, but just that much more simpler, believe you can, and you will, but believe you can’t, and you won’t.

My message to Rafa Benitez, if he’s by a one in a Billion chance that he’s reading this, well, you’ll never walk alone. It’s a Red thing.

The Hurt Locker

Mar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:00:47 +0000

I had to find my own hurt locker, you know the one where you go to at the end of the day, and slam open or shut the door on its hinge as you let go of that pent up frust from the day’s events?

And inside you’ll find cut up photographs of your ex-girlfriends, or boyfriends (whatever your sexual orientation may be), or your crushes and admirers, along with piles of school textbooks of which you spent your holiday’s pocket money with but never bothered to put them in your bag, because they’re too bulky to be carried around.

Then on somedays that locker becomes your best friend as you know that it’s the one place where you can go to and confide with, without it ever telling you off or analysing how silly your decisions probably were. Heck it probably won’t even say anything, it merely listens, and we all need a listening ear sometimes.

Well I couldn’t find my hurt locker.

Where is my confidant? My late mum was the closest to one that I’ve ever had, and I suppose the next best thing to come along would be, wait for it… you! Yes, you, Mr and Ms Internet, whoever you are and may be.

Like a hurt locker, you’re anonymous, you’re a noun, and you listen (hopefully~) and I do recognise familiar voices, where at times you leave me with crumbs and leftovers for me to munch on whenever you comment here. So thank you, for that voice. I guess everyone needs that little voice to give them a nudge sometimes. Nobody wants to be alone right?

However most of the time it’s been a solitary journey, yet strangely comforting and arguably it’s one that keeps the engine running and one that keeps the meter running.

I guess that’s my answer should anyone ask me, ‘Do you still blog, and why?’.

Or maybe my answer could be, “I’m hoping that it’ll lead me to my hurt locker, where memories are stored and shared. I hope it gets vandalised with little words or big words, as long as it gets vandalised, where it’s sort of an indication of an entity’s existence. I wish it’s big enough to fit my needs yet inconspicuous to be ‘off the radar’. Most imprtantly, my hurt locker’s not just gonna be about the hurt, but the joys, the tribulations and the jubilations of days passed by.”

I could probably call it ‘The Locker Of life’, or ‘The Scribe Locker’, but I guess ‘The Hurt Locker’ sounds dramatic and catchy. Eh, wait a sec, didn’t a movie with the same name won Best Picture as well? I suppose the locker belonging to the main character of that movie’s can be likened to a blog online eh?

Anyway congrats to “The Hurt Locker’s” team and their victories. Though I still think there was a movie that was much more deserving to have walked away with more recognition than the jibes and snubs that it received. Avatar deserves it’s award, but that’s how hollywood goes, and fans of Pandora will just have to bite the bullet.

Gee, where’s that hurt locker when you need one eh?

What Weekend?

Mar — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:38:40 +0000

Of course, I’m thankful that there’s a project for us folks at the office and production to be working with, but I certainly wasn’t subscribing for it to take place over the weekend.

The weekend, a time when most of us will be enjoying waking up as late as we ought to, but I had to wake by 9am. No, not because of work though, but because I had a rendez-vouz with Jake Sully and Neytiri at Lido, Shaw House that morning.

Yep, it was Avatar-mania all over again, even if it’s in its 13th week of showing here, it still feels fresh and thankfully, the theatre wasn’t that full, or else my movie experience will be spoiled with blatant ringtones, baby wailings or musings of crackers’ packaging being ripped open.

But I did head back to the office, after the movie to continue with my workload, which somehow bloated up as the weekend approached.

And I guess it made me tick off a customer, or should I add the verb, ‘irritating’ to it, as the fella kept sending me horrendous artworks for print, again and again and again.

Yes, I can be patient, and it has its virtues, but I suppose being firm and direct has its fair share of virtues too. If that fella is too slack to tighten his strings, and starts giving me a hell lot more work than I should be bothered to do, then I make sure hell goes back to where it came from. Fair enough?

This line I’m in, there are just some blokes that aren’t cut out to be here, and I think it’ll even do Singapore’s productivity much good if these deadweights take up another hobby, other than ‘harassing that good looking and helpful FA artist at the printshop’.

On a separate issue, and totally unrelated to these musings above, I think I’ve hit the jackpot in ‘How to become an early riser’, after almost years of battling the sleeping monster everytime my alarm goes off.

I reach office late, EVERYDAY, but a few years back, at my old company, I always come on time. Usually, as latecomers get fined. Heh.

So now I’d have thought that setting my alarm to go off earlier would make me wake up earlier, which it did, but after which I’d only go back to sleep again, considering that there’s time to spare.

Which then leads me to waking up late, and reaching the office late again. Bravo.

BUT I think I’ve done enough to give myself credit, in rising to the challenge of being an early rise, these past 2-3 days, and I’m still fishy if this new technique I’m working on is really working, because if it is, then it’s really really great news.

News which means, I get to work early, get more productive earlier, and gets to go home earlier too!

So just how do I do it?

Well, let’s just say I’m not prepared to reveal much details yet, because I fear it might just sound silly — yes sillier than sending horrendous artworks for print — unless I give it a few more days’ test, to report on its effectiveness.

Awww, you wanna be an early riser too?

PS: Have you seen my blogpost where I muse on who really should be given the Oscar’s Best Picture? Guess you haven’t, so here it is. And the winner for the Best Picture goes to..

Zynga Poker Phishing Scam, Too Cute.

Mar — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:07:22 +0000

Gee, when is a scam ever cute?

Actually, never, but when it’s a 13year old kiddo that’s having a major Schizophrenia attack, who simply can’t decide if he want’s to be an Englishman or a Frenchman, it’s surely cute as a pie.

Only 13year olds, learned in the art of texting, will apply such slang and blasphemous language, while phishing, upon the blob of ADHD-overloaded working adults, that is facebook users, and start phishing.

For the uninitiated, phishing is when someone, or some site, imitates 99% of another legitimate site and makes you go through the (pretentious) usual username+password login thingy, only to steal that info and then dump you into a dummy website, where if you’re lucky, videos of Obama Vin Diesel are on incessant reruns.

If you’re unlucky, they just steal your username+password, your credit card details, your personal addresses, your baby photos, your list of most visited porn sites and then send these information to a scam ring in Nigeria, and you wouldn’t want that to happen right?

Like who’d want their list of porn sites to be stolen? (In any case, I’ll show my favourite here, so there’s no need to steal them from me anymore.)

So I enjoy playing Zynga Poker on Facebook a lot, and it’s taught me plenty of life applicable lessons as well, especially in the summarised context of when to hold your cards, and when to fold your cards.

Btw since Zynga Poker utilises virtual currency, there’s no real money involved, so I’ll consider myself vindicated of any gambling accusations, and gambling is bad for you — IF you’re a lousy gambler that is, because gambling is a skill and luck is only temporary.

Anyway, back to this phishing scam thingy, it’s applaudable that there was effort to think of coming up with a username like ‘Zynga Admin’ or an appname like ‘Texasholdem_center’, but at the same time, it’s laughable that its sales’ pitch was badly translated.

That’s what you get from outsourcing your copywriting materials to your cousins eh?

And using the title ‘Final Warning’ when this is the first (fake) warning that i’m receiving from the phisher, it just don’t add up.

Though the scammer did one thing right, that is to provide a time frame for facebook (dumb) users to react and proceed to the phishing site or app, 24hours is simply too short a time.

Like what if people genuinely forgot about it and missed the deadline, and when they don’t get kicked out of the game, won’t they realise that your threat is simply, for the lack of a better words (and it rhymed, a little), full of crap.

AND you know what makes this scam an even bigger sham? That the scammer is phishing a virtual gambling game, which uses virtual currency with which you’re only able to buy virtual drinks and snacks for your virtual friends.

Maybe the phisher could share a thing or two from these real(ly) dumb criminals.

The Dota (Game) Personality Test

googooboyy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:16:17 +0000

DOTA is such a beautiful game.

Anyone who’s ever played the Warcraft III mod, Defence of The Ancients, or DOTA, will attest to just how immersively challenging the game can be.

At times, and for a split second, it will suck you in as you forget that it’s all just a make believe world and you get all emotional while playing the game.

Still it is a very beautiful game, but unfortunately one that is tainted by leavers, gamers who purposely spoil the game and wreck the team balance by quitting early or halfway during the game — but mostly due to losing the early stage of the game.

The players who leave are usually those that are killed off after a couple of times, or those that sees no hope within a game.

And leavers are frowned upon with much disgust and hatred within the DOTA community, but the sad state is that it’s a prevalent action and only too common.

I am seriously disgusted by leavers, although I admit I may at have been guilty one or two times, but definitely never the first one to leave and spoil a good game, just because my team is losing.

This evening, my group of gamers bailed on me, as they left game after game, after game, much to my horror.

I mean, so what if our team is losing, cos it’s not over till it’s over — and there are ways to overcome a purple patch, like for example to play defensively when you know the opposing team has the upper hand.

There are tactics to overcome an overwhelming opposing team and sadly, my team today didn’t seem to have the guts to overcome anything.

It was sad to see them quit on me, but mainly because I know that together we make a damn good team.

In my thoughts whenever they left or quitted, I doo sense a lack of responsibility on their part.

It’s just a game, why can’t you just continue and adjust tactics instead of spoiling the game?

Granted there have been tremendously awesome games, where a team is forced to defend and defend and defend but finally clinching victory — and such is the beauty of DOTA, that is there’s always that chance and you are never out of the game.

It’s a team game, and anything can happen, and mistakes DO happen a lot.

The only surest way to lose in dota is when your team comprises of quitters who dump the team in a hurry, and as cliche as it may sound, quitters never win.

I somehow sense that the way they players react during games reflect their characters and personalities — and I secretly wonder if players who quit the game in such circumstances are likely to throw in the towel whenever things aren’t going their way.

Wait no, I’m not labeling my team as real life quitters or losers, but I like to think that there is a portion of them that secretly runs away whenever the going gets tough.

I know it’s easier to talk about it, but I’ve been through situations where one’s endurance and patience are tested to its limits, especially during my NS period, and witness first hand accounts of quiiters myself.

Needless to say, they never achieved much during their tenure and most of the time they end up complaining about their lack of luck or moan about the system.

No, I’m not the strongest or smartest person there is, and seriously I know that i’m not, but I do know my limits and I know that no matter what, it’s just a game and in games, there is always a possility of turning the tide.

And it’s damn satisfying too whenever the tide shifts, but leavers wrecks and disintegrates every meaning of fun from of it.

So instead of quitting to other’s chagrin, I would rather lose gracefully, knowing that I’ve been defeated by a better team.

And I have been beaten by many better teams plenty of times.

So yes, I’ll acknowledge whenever there is a better adversary in Dota, where it is as much a great game as it is a personality test.

DOTA, such a painfully beautiful game.

The ‘Singnet Is Upgrading Give Me Your Account Details’ Scam

Mar — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:54:35 +0000

Going under the moniker of The Support Team (don’t know which team or company), the (these unrelentless Scammers, or in this case Phishers) will send you an email with the subject ‘Attn Subscriber’ (they didn’t even bother to spell out attention), along with a body text like this:

Dear SINGNET Subscriber¹,

This mail is to inform all our SINGNET users
that we will be maintaining and upgrading
our website in a couple of days from now².As
a Subscriber you are required to send us
your Email account details to enable us know
if you are still making use of your mailbox.

Be informed that we will be deleting all
mail accounts that is not functioning³ to
enable us create more space for new
subscribers, You are to send your mail
account details which are as follows:

Username:
Password:

Failure to do this will immediately render
your email address deactivated⁴ from our
database.

Thank you for using SINGNET
From The Support Team⁵

Woah! Credit to whoever copyrighted this crop of text because at first glance it can be totally deceiving and forceful, and I will attempt once more utilising my ultra scam awareness skills which I have since levelled up to a higher level ever since Bidpax.com tried to hook me.

¹No reputable online business would address their valuable customers via a generic noun whenever a critical change is inevitable. In any case, any real online business SHOULD attempt to contact their customers via their first names, at the very least, as this creates an emotional bond and not appear as a scam. And this email I received brutally failed the scam test with only their first sentence.

²When exactly is that? Tomorrow? Three days later? Being a Singaporean, I would naturally want to delay giving you my details until the very last day, just like how most of us only give our homeworks full attention on the night before submission day or like how we will queue to replace our old ez-link cards only on the final day, and then proceed to whine that we didn’t know earlier or didn’t have the time. Too bad, oh dear Scammer, but I want to be able to complain and you’re not giving me the time.

³You mean by being able to receive your email finely and simply by not replying, that it isn’t functioning? Even though my customers and friends are able to receive my emails perfectly and if I don’t reply to you that it isn’t functioning? Okay, I’ll reply then, but when’s the deadline huh?

⁴ ‘Render your email address deactivated’. Actually there’s not much wrong with this line except that I find the words used to convey the message a little amusing. Anyway, deactivate it for all I care. I’ll just complain back stating how you never gave me any deadline so I didn’t knew that my time was up! No fair I say, no fair!

⁵ Signing off as a generic name in just too generic. This is definitely a sure-fire sign of a Scammer/Phisher as there’s no real name/contact details. Ooh, so busted!

There you go, Scammers or Phishers at work and me trying to teach them how to write better copy you how to avoid stuffs like these.

I’m amazed that there are still conmen (or conwomen, or conpeople) still phishing around for stuffs or information like these, so outdated and so bo liao (hokkien for, and loosely translated, ‘nothing better to do’.

I’m definitely replying to them, not with my account details, but with a few friendly words, because since it’s the second time that I’m on the receiving on of such mails, something needs to be done.

And this email address is from focuspm@singnet.com.sg, but strangely when I hit reply, the address is now maintananceteam_engi01@msn.com.

Stramge, and anyway do note that I didn’t hide these addresses, so that any spambots scanning my pages for an email address will catch these, and hopefully volley back with a dose of their own medicine.

Ahh, sweet revenge.

Fulham 3 – Liverpool 1

Mar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:49:20 +0000

Finally, fodder for journalists and bloggers everywhere to pounce on and milk till it’s dry right?

Liverpool deservedly lost against a Fulham side which seems to have finally found their scoring boots, especially Zamora, who is now famous around the world for missing the open goalmouth from yards out, with the goalkeeper on his bum and defenders miles away.

For having a squad so thin that it makes the Olsen twins look big and fat, Rafa shouldn’t be piling the blame on injuries, because the management team hasn’t been getting their act for a few years now.

The new Anfield stadium that was supposed to be half built by now has it’s planned shelved. The much anticipated and rumoured transfer of David Villa or Silva has just as much weight as the air that you’re breathing in now.

Unless new owners (with $$$) come in to rectify the bank books , he accounts journal or whatever it is that they use to keep track of their finances, and only till then will any reversal of fortunes be truly seen.

I’m afraid there’ll be more of the one hit wonder (victory over the Red Devils) from my beloved Reds this season, as they’ll struggle to find inspiration in their football.

Sure, they’d probably get motivated, but there’s a THICK RED LINE between motivation and inspiration.

Motivation, it gets you fired up for the day, and after you get exhausted, you pat yourself on your back, and then you set off to rest, and you wonder what will happen tomorrow.

Inspiration, it gets you fired up for the day, and ever after you’re exhausted, you still find yourself planning and imagining tomorrow. You don’t really want to rest, so you’ll find hundreds of reasons to continue whatever you’re doing for the rest of your life.

Now this is inspiration.

Badly, and really really badly, Liverpool’s players needs some inspiration right now, and unfortunately an 80% fit Torres isn’t enough, and a sidelined captain is just too bad.

How much can a manager like Rafa motivate? Sure, he inspires, but then it begs the question of who will inspire Rafa?

Fulham 3 – Liverpool 1. So not inspirational~