extremestanle's Xanga Site

Saturday, February 16, 2008

New Year Delight

This by far was the most stressful and physically taxing vacation I have ever had. It was fun no doubt. I ate lots of great food, saw cool places and took some great shots with my camera :) Thing was that I had fever, headache and diarrhea right at the morning of my trip.

That was number one. Next in line is the congestion and traffic jam as my destination was a tourist attraction area which pulls people from all over the place like Singapore and locals. A two hour drive turned to a 6 hour drive. The place for your information is Malacca, Malaysia.

Busy streets of Malacca

It was a great trip overall but I could have had much more fun without the illness especially the stomach parts. I just chowed down the food with the "Care later" principle. I'm currently paying for that right now with even worst diarrhea and stomach aches :(

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Pride breeds destruction

I got a new chair from IKEA recently. My old car was really falling apart after using it for let say, 5 years? The mechanisms are all rusted and have fallen apart. Then arm rests are also really wobbly even though after endless tightening sessions.

So I got to IKEA and got me a chair! I brought it back home in excitement.

"Yay!!! I'm getting a new chair...."

I practically tore open the box in anticipation. I took out the chair. I chose the color black it suits my room plus it does not stain easily as the white one. But lo and ho as I took it out and flip it over only to find that I took the wrong box!!! The chair was in white. WHITE?!! Not black! I actually checked again just in case my eyes were playing tricks on me buy yeah, its white alright.

But who cares right. I just took it back to IKEA the following week (there's a one week return policy thingy) and got myself a black one. THIS time I got real "smart" and tore it right in IKEA to check the color and repackage it again there itself.

So I went back and opened it up again and guess what???!!!! Psyched....ahhaha. Nah, nothing happened this time. It was black, plain black. As black as the sky during night time...

Oh I turn to thee oh Chair from IKEA,
The chair tested every minute on display,
I look at they velvet vest,
Against the blaze of the sun in the west,
Time stood still as I gaze at thee,
The chair from IKEA we are bound to see......

OK!!! I am getting lamer by the minute. Funny me....So, I tore the cover open and took out the different parts of the chair. As you know IKEA requires you to fix your own furniture. I took ONE glance at the instructions and threw the book aside.

"I don't need a book! Doesn't look that difficult anyways"

I fixed everything up WITHOUT the book. I looked at the chair and smiled in satisfaction. I quickly sat on the chair, wanting to embrace its comfort. To my surprise, it felt like something had went wrong. This certainly does not have the "feel" of the chair I sat on in IKEA. This is why....

The chair was on BACKWARDS!!! I felt so embarrassed at that moment of stupidity. It took me more that 15 minutes to re-configure the whole thing again. I'll use the instruction manual next time.

*Just want to note that I will be quite incative in the blogging community this year. I have this very important ëxam-that-will-determine-your-future kind of thing going on. So please don't feel neglected if I don't drop you a comment. I will still post from time to time and perhaps drop by your sites :) In regards, Stanley.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Irritating Operators

Wonder why I've been gone for almost a whole week??? My internet was down...again, sadly. Maxis's services have been declining recently. The internet connection is not very consistent. Funny thing this never happened in like 3 years. Internet problems aside, that is not what I am pissed about. Not to say angry to the extent I want to kill somebody but more like.....urghhh....I FEEL like killing that person.

So my internet had problem. So what do I do? I called the "Broadband helpline service". I was put through the torture consisting of 10 minutes of advertisements.

10 minutes later...

I finally got through. The operator asked me for my personal details cause, yeah, someone who is not using THEIR service would call THEIR service to ask for some assistance. That is so logical right. I mean if I'm using some other broadband service, why in the world would I like call them to complain about their services. This process took 10 minutes.

Next the operator asked me this exact question.

Do you have a problem with our service?

I was going "What the *************". This is a helpline for goodness sake. I was expecting more of a "What" kind of question. I answered her question nicely but with a "sweat".

I said "I have a problem with my broadband services". You know what she said then???

Please check your modem. Is the lights on? Please check the switch to see of its on.

I was so tempted to say.

Oh!!! You have to turn on the switch??? Really???? I thought you just had to leave it there and the power will come on by itself. No wonder my radio did not work....

But being the ever cool Stanley I just gave that boring "yes" answer. The operator proceeded with a list of questionnaires as if I was sitting for a test kind of thing. That took 15 minutes. Then the operator told me to try again 1/2 an hour later PROMISING that the line would be fine by then.

1 hour later....

I opened Firefox

I saw the loading bar

Still loading....

No DSL connection
Sytem password:
Username:
Password:

I was like "whatever" and went to sleep. Next night I tried again, no connection. After 24 hours and no connection!!!! I called again.

Commercials....

Personality quiz.....

Questionnaire.....

The operator asked me to try again in fifteen minutes.

15 minutes later.....

No connection.....

30 minutes later....

No connection.....

I even waited till after dinner but guess what, NO CONNECTION!!!!
So what to do? I called the helpline again.

Commercials....

Personality quiz.....

Questionnaire.....

Guess what now. After all the trouble you know what the operator told me? You know what????

"I am very sorry but our sever have been down for the past few days. Our technicians are sill looking into the problem. You just have to be patient and wait. I understand your frustration. Our services will resume as soon as possible."

I just put the phone down afraid that I was going to say something stupid. Why can't they tell me that three days ago??!!!

I quote the technician who came to repair my system months back:

"Mereka tu bodoh punye. Marah saje. Tahu cakap problem technical saja"
(They're stupid. Just scold them. They only know how to say technical error)

That's what my father did. The last time he had to shout at them to get a technician down to our house.

Final equation

(3)(Commercials) + (3)(calling) + (3)(personal questions) + (3)(Lame questions) + (3)(Questionnaire) + 24 hours waiting + 15 minutes waiting + 30 minutes waiting

Simplyfy...

45 + 15 + 45 + 30 + 45 + 1440 (24 hours) + 15 + 30 = 1665 minutes

27 ++ hours

Interesting facts:

155,000 people die a day http://ask.yahoo.com/20051128.html

Thats all I have to say.