Confession of a Tiramisu junkie

There!!! I confessed it!!! I'm a Tiramisu junkie ... there's no denying it when I finished 2 cups yesterday in a single seating ...

Something about that insiduous little cup/bowl just hooked me, reeling me in slowly at first, and then suddenly launched a blitz by making ambushing me from every corner I turn.

At first, it appeared suitably demure, ensconced behind pricey figures in Italian restaurants, chastely bestowing occassional seductive kisses.

Then it reared its head in coffee chains, shedding its patrician modesty to presume an air of worldly sophistication ... going well beyond hinting at being available for frequent trysts ...

Finally, it is just throwing itself at you from supermarket shelves, and for a time, even petrol kiosk stations, slumming now in the guise provided by Bontà Divina ...

Despite some claims that the Italians invented it for tourists, the Italians do actually eat it before it was introduced to foreigners, though what it was called might differ from region to region, as its actual texture and contents.

I had some of the loveliest in Italy itself, and it has become one of the primary test of an authentic Italian restaurant for me, along with whether it cooks its pasta al-dente.

Aware of my own history with food addiction, the only way apart from stripping myself of cash, credit and NETS cards, is to indulge in it until I'm sick of it.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh so much for trimming my waist!!!!!

La Belle Dame sans Merci!

Now, how am I going to get my hands on and sink my teeth into the floppy tiramisu from Oso Ristorante introduced in 100 Favourite Dishes published in Sunday Times, 14 October 2007 ...

I don't believe in IQ tests ... should I?

Facebook ... I couldn't help it, I guess.

An old school friend invited me to be a facebook contact, and when I got there, lo and behold, she was announcing her IQ score computed from Facebook's IQ test application ...

Okay, got the old competitive spirit in me going and I decided to take one too, despite the late hour.

28 out of 30 questions right, in 11 minutes ... and they can only estimate my IQ to be x, a respectable score that is in the range of top 0.5% to top 0.3% ... depending on the standard deviation.

And for very small secure payment ... of US$1.99, I will receive a full detailed report.

I don't buy it.  I've taken several IQ tests and I can be smart some days and really stupid on other days.

I took the test out of sheer competitiveness, and I won't publish its score, 'cos I'm thinking it might trigger a round of competitiveness.

Can't tell who is acting more stupid, the plaintiff or his lawyer ...

Straits Times 29 October 2007 - Prime Page 3 Director sues woman for allegedly giving him herpes

Plaintiff - Mr Alan Tee, 35 and single, company directory.  Represented by Oliver Quek.

Defendant - Ms June Quah, accounts executive, represented by Allen & Gledhill.

Reporter K.C. Vijayan, Law Correspondent, vijayan@sph.com.sg

Claim : general damages over S$300,000 in medical and man-hour costs for failing infecting him and failing "to tell him she had another partner before who would put her at risk of contracting the STD."

I can't tell who is acting more stupid, the plaintiff for filing the lawsuit, or his lawyer for accepting the case.

There's a lot of improvements that can be made to the Singapore judiciary, but I hope this at least is one of those that obviously do not merit extended wrangling and wasting time.

The plaintiff is 35, not 15, nor even 25.  He has no excuse not to be aware of the risks, including accepting an unfamiliar acquaintance for her word.

As for being "at risk", I wonder if he has any record of honesty with past partners as well as regular medical check-ups himself to be able to demonstrate what he expected her to do.

Is he just out to shame her?  Maybe, for I can see no other objective he could achieve.

Herpes is not 100% curable.  Even if he has existing insurance policies, they won't cover him for it.

For that matter, the woman is in a similar position.

No medical insurance for life.  Prospects of future employment - in doubt.

Love and Lust - victims of typecasting ...

Pat and Max had been working together for some time now.

Pat feels something ... definite ... undeniable ... heart-fluttering ... towards Max.  Pat cannot deny the arousals felt when Max is present, even if just in thoughts ...

Pat has never felt this way before, it is the very first time ... is it love?

One day, Pat summoned the courage to tell Max about these feelings ...

Max listened, and after a while, said seriously that the sentiment is not mutual.

To be continued ... in alternative paths ...

 

Keep or repeal Section 377A of Singapore's Penal Code

The recent spate of arguments for keeping and for repealing Section 377A of Singapore's Penal Code led me to feel very frustrated and annoyed.

Regardless of how the law is interpreted, discriminatory or otherwise, it is one of those that is not enforced as a matter of principle in Singapore, not in recent times anyway.

I'm not into forcing morality into the law, especially when it is impractical to enforce.

Want to talk about maintaining moral standards?  Then a spouse should be able to sue the partner for adultery since the state sanctioned their marriage.  But since when is an unfaithful spouse ever convicted of adultery alone and sentenced in modern times?  Adultery only matters in court for granting of divorce and splitting up of assets and alimony.

Even if the wife don't sue, a married man engaging a prostitute should, by most notions of immorality, be participating in immoral act.  But that is not legislated.

Based on my personal belief, I uphold that homosexual acts are wrong.

Like Singapore's Mr. Brown (aka Lee Kin Mun), I don't believe in forcing others through legislation to comply with my belief, or criminalising those who are engaged in the acts as consentual adults capable of making their own decisions.

But unlike Mr. Brown, I'm not about to support the petition to repeal Section 377A, even though like him, I got friends who are gays and lesbians.

Part of it is because I don't believe homosexual acts are okay.  It is a matter of interpretation whether supporting its repeal is a stamp of acceptance of these acts, or a disapproval of criminalising them.

It is interesting that I read of a forum letter where the writer wrote from personal experience, that he/she was not able "fully relate" with a friend without "accepting" the friend's homosexuality as 'okay'.

I guess people are just different. At one stage in my life, I guess I was like that too.

But with experience, I think I moved on - I don't find being of a different religion really an obstacle in relating to them.  Now it's like, I hate smoking, hate the smell, but I got to work with people who smoke, and I really don't find their smoking (which they don't do in my presence) an obstacle in relating to them, not as human beings, colleagues or friends.

I can understand that the writer might mean he/she was turning a blind eye to the friend's homosexuality, and that is a problem in being friends.  It's like feeling he/she is turning a blind eye when a friend is a serial killer, and it can drive a person mad unless the delimna is resolved.

But one can look at it from another POV.  Being a homosexual to the friend, is as much a part of the friend as he/she being a Buddhist and me being a Christian.

The "trick" is recognising that every person got a right to decide who he wants to be and what he wants to do, even if you don't agree with it.  And also to resist attempting to fix it and recognise you are not the person to do so by default.

Stopping a friend from committing murder is not the same as stopping a friend from smoking or having an informed consentual adult relationship with a "wrong one", be it with another person of the same sex or different gender.  I won't do the latter anymore than I'd dissuade a Muslim from going to Mosque.

I have learned to relate to a fellow Christian who believes homosexuality is not wrong, and is a gay.  I got no problem with doing that with someone who's supposed to believe in the same thing I do, and I got no problem with doing that with others who aren't Christians and I got no expectation of sharing the same belief to start with.

I read of some opposition to repealling 377A, recounting boyhood experiences being molested by adult males.  I feel sorry for them for their awful encounters.  I too, got similar experiences.  I am thankful the encounters didn't leave me with nightmares.

Once was in Primary school when an old man in trunks went into changing rooms at a public pool to hug boys after our school swimming programme.  We didn't know much then, except we want to push him away and get out fast.

Another was in TIMES bookshop at Centrepoint when a guy in his 20s asked me about my private parts.  Again, I was too ill-informed to take any action against him except to ignore him.  Looking back, of course I wished they had been arrested and punished, but I also know that being homosexual is not the same as being a paedophile.  More perverts, I think, are heterosexuals.

The main reason I am not about to support repealling 377A is because the entire legislation of Singapore is, in some way, just a big joke.

There's so many things which I see are wrong, and from my PoV, the apparent anomaly of 377A is really trivial as far as the other aberrations are concerned.

What the heck is the U-turn about forbidding casinos when government decided it needed to attract investments to build the Integrated Resorts to boost Singapore's economy?

Where was the *real* seeking of public opinion, debates and referendum on it?

Or what about the introduction of Group Representative Constituency?

Ministers' payrise 2007?  2% GST increase?  Freedom of expression of speech to protest Myanmar's crackdown?

Seriously, many of these things are a joke, a sad joke ...

If there's no Section 377A to begin with, I wouldn't support introducing it.

But if there's only going to be one thing that I'll ever get the government to listen, if I'm going to have to put myself wholly into getting it, it won't be the repeal of Section 377A, a sleeping dormant law, not when there's other laws out there which, IMO, actually need urgent fixing more.

Volunteering for A380 Welcome Event

Well, it is once-in-a-lifetime chance, unless they keep upping the ante in the airline industry ... which is not so likely.

A380 represents as big a jump when the 747 was introduced.  But forget about shopping mall and spa in the sky, space is still a premium and no airline wants to get sued for passengers getting injured during turbulence while shopping or receiving a massage.

I was fortunate not to get assigned to the touchdown day.  The biggest bigshot VIP arrived late, held up the plane in the sky while the pilot had to find somewhere to circle round and round, and yet be ready to descend at short notice.  Other pilots landing and taking off at Changi and Senai must be laughing their heads off. And after that, the VIP and his lady took a way-past-schedule extended tour of the plane, and other dignitaries got to rush through their already tight 10-minute tour or miss some "precious" shoulder-rubbing moments ...

Before my assigned duty as overglorified jaga - Check Point, I got a tour of the aircraft myself.  Took some videos and photos, but didn't come out too well.  Too many colleagues jostling around and posing themselves in the cabin suites.

Anyway, there's really a Suite for super-first-class passengers, and two suites could even merge to form a honeymoon suite.  No soundproofing though.

I really thought they could do a better job with the diaper-changing tables too, will submit that as Staff-Idea.

Manning CheckPoint, I got to see the PPS passengers arriving ... hot-cars with hot-looking female drivers who barely slowed down to flash their invites ... oversized expats in inversely-proportioned cars ... and the opposites ... and one wife nervously confessing she lost the carpark label ...

I heard from colleagues later the antics observed after these cash cows alighted from their vehicles were more hilarious.

One big sized husband walked ramrod straight ahead with a small wife in tow, practically flying to keep up.  Another couple walked but always looked at opposite directions from each other ...

But for all their money, I wouldn't trade it to get the health of the foreign shipping boss I accompanied (I was re-assigned to other tasks later) on his way out, whose every step was preceded by heavy labourious breathing, I was really worried he'd collapsed before he got to his chauffer driven jaguar.

Another colleague reported though on the bright side, there seemed to be a number of single doctors, males and females.  On the down side, it's not applicable to married men like me.

It's turning out to be an interesting, informative and revealing experience for me who never had to deal directly with the company's customers all these years.

Another round of duty tonight for Corporate clients.  To be followed by a post-event partying.

Too bad the party is at 11pm ... I got to leave earlier to bring the kids home from granny's.  Wonder how a husband and father like me could party anyway with all the mostly single crowd ...

Dear, I don't think he's a real taxi driver, either that or a con ...

Who'd drive through Serangoon and Lavender to get from Lorong 8 Toa Payoh to Wisma Atria??!!

The miserable feller who was supposed to take Snowylady to her dental appointment yesterday, that's who!!!

I was incensed to hear her tell me when she was in the cab, and I asked her to take his number down.  Later, she told me he said it's his first day on the job and he was clueless about the routes.

I said that's what the street directory in the cab is supposed to be for.

She also recounted to me the driver drove away nervously (after accepting the fare of S$10) and refused to take any passenger.

I wondered if this guy has actually passed his taxi-driver's qualification tests ... with the blitz for new cab drivers now, I wonder if he scammed with another taxi driver to share earnings, one do the work, the other hold the license.

Either that or he's just out to con money by driving longer routes.

In any case, though she took down the number, my wife says she'll think about it before reporting him.

That's her all right, she can be fierce with me sometimes, but deep down, she's got a soft spot for ...

Do not feed the kids ...

Maybe I should just make them wear warning tags that says "Home-fed kids, do not feed them anymore" ...

For 2 consecutive weekends, my 2 kids were brought by their maternal uncle and his wife to gatherings where they, as my wife described after she found out what took place, ... 骗吃骗喝.

The first was when wifey and I attended a wedding dinner and left them at my in-laws' place.  Ever since we had children, we were never able to stay long for wedding dinner, usually just dropping in to say hi, and if we're lucky, remain long enough for a couple of courses to be served before we have to rush back to put the kids to sleep.

We probably won't have to do that if the dinner really started at 7:30pm as the invitation card stated, but this is Singapore, I got to 入乡随俗 even for my own wedding ...

That's how it was with Kit Meng's wedding, the weddings before that, and weddings after that.  The only wedding dinners we remained more or less throughout the entire event were those of my brother's and Snowylady's brothers. (Will be going solo for GZ's wedding, will see how it goes.)

Anyway, 2 Saturdays ago, to give my MIL a break, Snowylady's youngest brother took them to his in-laws' weekly clan gathering.

We only got to know about it during the wedding dinner when I received the SMS that went "We took your kids to ...."  Seriously, from any other sender, I'd have called the police at once, but this uncle is Snowylad's godpa after all ...

When we arrived at the scene of the crime, it was too late ... the "dynamic duo" had completed their song and dance act, quite "innocently" prompted the aunts there to feed them all manners of goodies, uhm, or should it be called "baddies" since for one they were already fed their dinner, and two, those stuff aren't exactly calorie-free?  Pineapple tarts, red-bean soup, green-bean soup, *sigh*

When his godpa's FIL playfully "spank" him, despite not being able to speak (properly), Snowylad somehow identified the "correct" aunt present to be his 靠山, complain to her and got her to protect and pamper him ... if he is that perceptive now, he'll be a bigger handful in the future than I feared.

The last Saturday, it happened again, godpa brought them to his estate's RC potluck & karaoke event.  At first, I thought okay, let them go down and have some fun.  But wait a minute, what if they started gorging again ...

This time, Snowylady said to relax ... let godpa godma pamper the kids a bit ... I was told not to go down and interrupt.  I guess she must have told them not to let the kids oversnack.

Nonetheless, when they came up, I learned the duo managed to 骗吃骗喝 again.

Somehow, even though during karaoke, regardless of the song being sung, Snowylad insisted on singing "We will, we will rock you" and Snowylass only wanted to sing 小白船, I was told they managed to hog the limelight without adverse effect.

I concluded the residents were kind: the duo are cute, but they're not invincible. And they cannot tell when they are being humoured by the adults.  Snowylad was sincere when he gave each of them a hug when told to say goodbye, but won't mean much if he thinks he can smile his way out of trouble, even if it was unintentionally caused.

There're things they must learn, and they're not too young.  It is not necessary nor beneficial trying to teach them using the harsh approach, but an indulgent response is quite misleading too.

I love my kids, and the best for them is to be firm, fair, consistent, and remain even tempered, so that they'll realize and appreciate when it is time to be serious.

What does it take to get some service around here? Maybe a creative customer?

Mom-in-law's LG fridge not cooling stuff as cold as it should.  Dutiful daughter worried the food would spoil subtly, so the daughter's husband got a few nudges to "seize the opportunity" to demonstrate his "worthiness".

First problem was when I gave the contact number of the service centre, which incidentally was not far from her place.  They couldn't communicate properly in Mandarin and told her to go to their website instead ...

Second problem was when I called them on her behalf.  They absolutely die-die must have the model number so that their technician can bring the correct parts.  The difficulty is there is no model number on the doors, nor its interior. It's a second-hand fridge and no manual handbook was available.  I don't want to insist on MIL switching off the fridge, and empying it so that we can turn it around to try to find the elusive model number on its back.  There's got to be a better way than such brute force.

So I try a combination of 21st century technology and old fashion legwork.

First, took several shots of the front and interior of the fridge.  I figured that if their technician can't guess from the appearance, it is not confidence inspiring about their experience and capabilities.

I could have emailed the pictures, but that'd mean waiting for "goodness knows when", and a lot of "ding-dongs" back and forth if they want to follow their "procedure".

So I went down (this is where the old-fashioned legwork comes in) to the service centre myself and told them I'm there for servicing a fridge.

The (slightly taken aback) receptionist looked behind me and (half-expectantly) said, "Did you bring the fridge with you?"  (What do I look like?  Hercules?)

Of course not, I told her, and explained the problem I had trying to make a booking over the phone.  I gave them the prints of the photos I took (so that they could pass it around instead of passing my camera-phone around).

First time they had such an experience I guess, from the reaction of the two receptionists.  The two girls asked each other what to do, traded some ideas, but each somehow managed to convince the other why an idea *would not* work ...

One brought the photos in but couldn't find any technician as they were all out on call.  They tried their manageress but she was also initially resistant to this unorthodox approaching, trying to explain to me that they got more than 100 models of fridge, no catalogue of past lines etc., and etc.

The best she could do, she said, is narrow from the photo that it's a 4-series, but that's still too many 'cos 4-series fridge just meant it's got 2 doors instead of 1, 3, 4 or other number of doors.  Yeah, a customer service manager who knows her stuff ... I thought silently.

Of course, they could send the technician over, and in case he didn't have the right parts, he'd have to make another trip and each trip is S$45, excluding parts.

I raised my brows and explained that I believe their technicians are more capable than that, and I could leave the photos behind.  Just make that (silent !@#!$#) appointment.

Finally, she brought the pictures to guy at another counter.  He looked at it, and then started reciting some 5-6 character model number.  Got it down to 2 possible closely related models.

The 2 receptionists' jaws dropped.  One said to the other, "I told you should have asked him."  Her colleague replied, "How I know ..."

*tsk* *tsk* young people nowadays ...

Well, the happy ending to the story is the technician came (someone who spoke Mandarin/Hokkien as I requested), found out the fridge just needs a bit of cleaning, identify the model number, and gave my MIL a discount from the usual service call fee.

So, is this something I got to do everytime I need better service?

Catching with myself ...

It's been several weeks since the company decided to block access to a number of websites, including multiply.  Haven't had time to update my own blog, so just catching up with myself.

1. Being deprived of CHF and multiply can really get one down.  But I try to be positive, and instead thought of other stuff I want to do but never got round to.  So I re-registered as wikipedia contributor and during my breaks, adds new articles, mainly about books I read before, which I found interesting, and don't want to forget.

So far, made headways into I. J. Parker, expanded on Laura Joh Rowland, the juvenile series Race Against Time, and most significantly, A Wizard in Rhyme series by Christopher Stasheff.  For some reason, the latter is becoming out of print.

Also added Babar's Museum of Art, mainly because of the numerous notable artworks it featured.

2.