Monday 23 February 2015

pay to watch the Ocsars?

I love watching the Oscars on TV

In Singapore we used to get it on our free to air channels but the last few years the Ocsars were shown on one of the Cable channels.  First it was on the Star network on a channel everyone subscribed to, then it was on the Star (now Fox) movie channel.  It frustrated me that I couldnt watch the Ocsars so last year I subscribed to the Fox movies pack just to watch the Oscars.

This year they bloody changed it again.  I know they sell the rights to different channels, and I know its not the cable operators (in Singapore) fault, who gets the rights.  I am pissed that our free to air channels (which is  paid for by our very rich government) dont bother to get the rights to air something like this.

Its on HBO this year and I am not going to subscribe to HBO just to watch the Oscars like I did last year.  I will just wait for the news and E online to update us and then find out who won what.
Even  though HBO does have some good shows on ( not the movies) like Game of Thrones, I wont subscribe to it as in Singapore the censorship is quite brutal and you lose half the plot as they wont show nudity, sex and gay themes on TV.

So I sit in the office, typing out my annoyance and have E online in the background on my laptop, waiting to see who will win. Just to feed my voyeuristic habit  in a celebrity obsessed culture.

Tuesday 10 February 2015

restaurant feedback.....PS Cafe

I love cafes and eating out in places that give out that lazy ambient vibe.
I never fancied myself as a reviewer of restaurants as food is subject to personal tastes.  One mans meat etc.....but this time I just had to say something

I took my sister and her partner to a branch of my favourite cafe for lunch and expected to have a fuss free lazy afternoon.
We arrived on time and as expected we  had to wait to be seated. i dont mind waiting but i do mind the lack of communication and  the lack of a smile, I think smiles are too expensive in this place,  They  made us wait with no greeting, not even a  "I'll be with you in a minute".  we were ignored as they walked and stood chatting in front of us to set up a new digital interactive customer thingy.

good food....but water glasses were always empty
It was tedious trying to catch the eye of any waiter to get our orders once we were seated and even more difficult to communicate with one of the waiters that wore a badge stating he only spoke Mandarin. He was however  one of the more attentive waiters around.   I live in Singapore, its a multi racial country and we pride ourselves on having everyone speak some English. even if its broken English.  Yes service staff is hard to find as Singaporeans cannot afford to live in this country and work as service staff on the low wages wait staff earn.  Businesses depend on cheap foreign labour to work as wait staff, and there are plenty of young people from China here doing just that. What I hate is that they will not communicate in English but expect everyone in Singapore to speak Mandarin! OK rant over and back to the main issue here.......

The restaurant was not full,we were just made to feel like we were an encumbrance and the staff wished we were somewhere else and not sitting in the restaurant trying to have a relaxed meal ..

 Its one of my favourite chain of restaurants in Singapore and I frequent the one at Palais Renaissance alot.....the one at Dempsey, Harding Road is a beautiful place in a perfect setting for lazy afternoon lunches, food is good  but the service staff are pretentious and  obviously not interested at all in serving anyone.

It pains me that common courtesy and a simple smile was totally not forthcoming. While I sympathise with the wait staff as some customers are very difficult, I still think that if you take a job serving people you should be service orientated.

So while I may still go to the cafe at Palais Renaissance, I hesitate to head out to Harding road to be treated like something the cat dragged in.


Monday 9 February 2015

things we do for our children..

Son no 2 still stays with me rent free and people I talk to are divided on whether he should or should not pay rent to his mother.

He earns a fairly good income, he doesn't contribute any money to grocery bills, or electricity or the cable bill or anything.

I wash his clothes and do the cooking and grocery shopping and clean the home. there are no expectations on his part for me to clean his room, but I do.....as sometimes the smells coming from his room can be quite strange.....and when I run out of spoons and forks and cereal bowls I have to venture into the dark abyss that is his room to rescue said cutlery and bowls and sometimes tupperware.

furry sandwich anyone?
After finding this tupperware with a sandwich that probably could have walked away, in his room, I am now determined to charge rent and a hazard fee........

I do know I am not doing him any favours by not giving him some responsibility for the home we share.
Perhaps that should have been one of my resolutions this year.....charge and collect rent from son.

too late to add on a resolution?

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Resolution failure

I have failed miserably in keeping any of the resolutions and its only February.

Admitting failure early is better than stressing myself out trying to keep the resolutions.
They weren't that hard to begin with, extremely doable I thought....I obviously thought wrong

I wanted to write more, blog more.  That hasn't happened, not that I didnt have thoughts/ideas/screaming necessity to blog, I just didn't have the time.  During the day I am at work and fairly busy and one shouldn't be blogging while at work( its lunchtime now so don't judge me) and by the time I get home, I am brain dead.

Take time off to take pictures - I haven't taken any time off yet but I will .....my sister is here from London to celebrate her 50th birthday  so I will be taking some  time off to hang out with family and hopefully take some pictures too.

the last resolution I made was to be as honest as I can be.....definitely failed there.....but I am working on it so its not a hopeless case... yet.

There is alot I want to say, plenty of words floating through my brain all day and night. I just have to make the time to sit down and hammer away at the keyboard so that the thoughts that are all jumbled up in my head appear magically as a respectable want to read post.
soon........