More computer fun/Ramsay (scores one) vs S'pore hawkers (score two)...

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Windows 8... Thanks for listening, Microsoft
(You're not so "£$%^&* after all! These features are now in Windows 8 too.)

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Gordon Ramsay... chilli crab king? Not so fast...

Happily, the great cook-off event today (July 7) at Newton hawker centre went off without a hitch. As usual there were Singaporeans prepared to queue up long before the event which was scheduled for 6pm. Yup, a queue had started to form at 1am!

Here's Channel NewsAsia's and ST's post-result reports:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/s-pore-hawkers-beat/736856.html

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/gordon-ramsay-wins-chilli-crab-loses-his-laksa-and-chicken-rice-201307

Not one to resist using words that require the asterisk ("bleeper"), Ramsay said: "What I'm taking home is a confirmation of how good hawker food is. I won three Michelin stars and they still kick my a**."

Now if only someone had taught Ramsay some Hokkien cum Singlish, then that quote might well have been: "Kan ngee nah hiah [or, if you prefer: yeow siew, ah], Singapore makan super sedap, man! I three Michelin stars, pao chiak, meh? But, wah lau, I still kena hantam!"

Yes, I think Singapore missed an opportunity to make Ramsay an ambassador of Singlish. Imagine, on TV watched worldwide, Ramsay ranting away: "You, siow eh, can cook or cannot? You boey lau kwee, ah?"; OR, gushing, "Tiok beh piow, man... you get to go to the next round!"

Q: Why was the computer mouse so-called?

Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the ubiquitous computing device known as the "mouse", died on July 3. He was 88. Here's what the first computer mouse looked like...

It's a far cry from the typically sleek models we have today...

Some designers have even come up with wacky (and in the example below, I dare say offensive) variations:

Meanwhile, one site has a selection of computer mouse poems, such as this one below:

Computer Mice

by Todd-Michael St. Pierre

Can anyone give me advice . . . ?
What to do with computer mice?
At night they come out
And race all about.
Each mouse and its spouse
Invading my house.
They wreck my office
And they're not too nice.
What to do with computer mice?
Wait, I hadn't thought about that -
Perhaps, I'll get a computer cat!

Here's the site:

http://www.mousearena.com/computer-mouse-poem/

There is actually some debate -- among the nerds themselves of course -- as to whether the plural form is "computer mice" or "computer mouses". I prefer the former.

So, why are computer mice/computer mouses so-called? The inventor himself, the late Mr Engelbart, admitted that he had no idea! For a fuller story about the origins of the computer mouse, here is an interesting article from Scientific American (August 18, 2009):

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=origins-computer-mouse 

Gordon Ramsay met his match... 'Puan Agak-agak'!

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's in town for a cook-off contest with selected local hawkers. It's all over the news:

It's great publicity for Singapore, and we are told Ramsay was at the Maxwell Road hawker centre today (July 5) to check out his chicken rice competitor. There will be free admission to Sunday's event:

I hope crowd control will be good and that there won't be a Hell-O Kitty type of unruly chaos.

Before he arrived in Singapore, Ramsay was in Malaysia, where he met his match in the person of one feisty woman I shall dub "Puan Agak-agak". This video of their encounter is a must-watch!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UjzXJcxr8k

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Here's another video that's unrelated to the Ramsay event. It's about DIY mini-hamburgers the Japanese way (only the Japanese would come up with something so ridiculous yet so thorough in execution):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1jDkYy2cBc

As they say, the devil's in the details...

I had earlier posted here this ST Forum letter from someone who, for very good reasons, was concerned:

I am sure his concern was shared by many. DBS replied in today's ST Forum (July 4):

So, it is important to have three things done if you are not writing a cash cheque:
*Cross the cheque with two parallel lines
*Write within the parallel lines "A/C Payee Only"
" Cancel out "or bearer"

I think it is a good and sensible practice... something to be done unerringly, like a robot going about its task.

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Meanwhile, I spotted this small ad in today's Mind Your Body magazine supplement:

So, is he or she or it a human or a robot?

Also spotted in the main ST pages is this big ad:

I don't know what plaque -- collected into a lump -- looks like, but this toothbrush ad seems to know how to depict it...

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Finally, a little teaser. What's wrong with this write-up found in an upper Primary School social studies textbook?...

By the way, today's blog entry is No 888!

The spoon story...

The spoon story (A)

Spoon note: Once upon a time, circa the 1950s/1960s, "to spoon" was a slang term for "to cuddle". Hence, these opening lines from the song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon"...

By the light of the silvery moon
I want to spoon
To my honey I'll croon, love's tunes,,,

I believe the slang term has evolved to become a bit more explicit today.

The spoon story (B)

A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.

Last week, we took some friends to a new Indian restaurant, 'Karry Muthu's Place,' and noticed that the Indian waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.  It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around and saw that all the Indian staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I inquired, 'Why the spoon?'

'Well, 'he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired a consulting firm to revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently-dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift..'

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare. 'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now..' I was impressed.

I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the Indian waiter's fly.

Looking around, I saw that all of the Indian waiters had a string hanging from their fly too. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?'

'Oh, certainly!' Then the Indian waiter lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also learned that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39% and saving water'

I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'




'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon from my shirt.'

Never fear, Dad's Army's here...

Yesterday (July 1) was Singapore Armed Forces Day (SAF Day), with fit young soldiers strutting their stuff, the unveiling of the best units, promotions given out, etc.

Today, I received an email with an interesting line of argument... if you want to strike fear into your enemies, send in the oldies and keep the still wet-behind-the-ears 18-year-olds at home...

 

 

 

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. They've got the whole thing backwards.  Instead of sending 18-year-olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35. For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on fighting the enemy. Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry.' We are normally bad-tempered and impatient, and maybe letting us take on some asshole   that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.  An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10am. Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell! Besides, like I said, I'm tired and I can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up, rifle at the ready.  If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd have forgotten where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser. Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling. They could lighten up on the obstacle course, though... combat veterans swear they never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any press-ups after completing basic training.  Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too... I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.  An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl... And he still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.  These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.  Let us old guys track down those terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed-off old farts with bad attitude and automatic weapons, and who know their best years are already behind them.  HEY!! How about recruiting women over 50...in menopause! You think men have attitude issues? If nothing else, put these women on border patrol. They'll have the border secured on the very first night.

Some ads connect, others connoct...

These two Durex ads are really good (warning: the second one, a video clip meant for the Chinese market, has risque content):

http://vimeo.com/44361555

But this Nokia ad (in China) got lost in translation...

Snot, you're on candid camera? This local ad is by a firm touting indoor surveillance cameras that can transmit footage to your mobile phone...

I don't know why anyone in Singapore would want to use a foldable bicycle to conduct covert operations, military-style C'mon, our neighbour across the sea is doing its best now to tackle the smog!...

This bike is even supposed to have sports rims, although the illustration above seems to show regular bicycle spokes. Speaking of rims, this is an ordinary luggage suitcase ad...

 But the luggage bags in this ad below seem to be sporting sports rims!...

 

I've been blogging on dogs these past couple of days. I'll wrap up with (1) an ad pitched at sales people who aspire to be the "top dog" in their tradecraft; (2) a magazine story with an "insert dog here" illustration; and (3) an adorable pic of Hugo, KA's pug "furkid":