No thanks to KLM and their weird restrictions on air tickets, I’m back for a full month for Chinese New Year in Singapore! Its been a while actually, that I’m back, so its interesting to be back in Chinatown getting pomalos and Bah Kwa once again!
07 FebHome for CNY
05 FebGrouse with UOB Credit Cards
If you live in Singapore, you might be interested to get a Credit Card, because we are *almost* a CC-nation. I call this almost because as much as I’ve been putting my card on the table, at least we don’t get the “you don’t need to sign if its less than 25USD” and stuff like that.
There are two cards which provide the most perks and would probably roll of the lips of locals: Citibank and UOB. Since I’ve done the whole route couple of years ago, I just happen to have a grouse.
When I first qualifying for my first Credit Card, the first card I applied for was a UOB Lady’s Card. And the every single other flashy cute looking thing from DBS, Standard Chartered, Citibank, ABN and what have you. I’ve since canceled them all, and kept the Lady’s Card. Which I’ve kept and used for the past four years.
Lately, for known reasons – my Dutch Credit Card which had a very low limit – bounced in New York because I was traumatized after being almost blown up on Christmas Day and decided to well, shop and shop and shop. I decided to just upgrade to a UOB Lady’s Platinum Card. Kind of like playing on the stronger currency, whether its Singapore dollars or Euros.
UOB has been a pain.
Did I mention that I’ve been a paying customer to them for the past five years? And that I’ve never missed a bill? And have almost always used their Credit Cards?
The sequence of events goes:
(1) I apply for a Lady’s Platinum, I’m far beyond their stated minimum income. I need to settle this before I fly off from Singapore.
(2) I send in three of my latest monthly statements.
(3) After two weeks I have no reply.
(4) I call UOB Call Center and they said they would call me back when they have found my application.
(5) They didn’t call me back.
(6) Few days later I receive a letter stating that they need more documents. I say that I have a werkgeversverklaring in order for us to get a mortgage from the bank. Its in Dutch, but they say its FINE.
(7) I email my werkgeversverklaring to them. They call me the next day saying that it is in order. No news for next few days.
(8) I call them again, and they say its a foreign language and ask if I have something in English.
(9) I don’t have anything in English, and retrieving it takes more time. They already have three months of salary in English! Did I mention that I submitted this application weeks ago to get the card in Singapore and I’m not going to let them fly a Credit Card from Singapore to the Netherlands.
(10) I decided that I’m not wasting all my time talking to the UOB call center. I just tell them settle it or I’m just going to cancel all my cards because this is getting stupid.
I get a call by Zen, who is settling the whole case. He seems to be helpful and he would fix this. He calls me (finally) to say that UOB is couriering me the card. Tonight. Anyway, we’ll see, at least he’s trying, so I’m going to update this possibly tonight I hope.
- As promised, I got the card. Lets see if they managed to link it up to my Internet Banking in time. -
03 FebSome more on the JooJoo pad
I think another thing which crossed my mind is the JooJoo pad when the iPad was released. Since this was made my Fusion Garage, which is a Singapore based company, I thought I would say a few things about it.
- The JooJoo pad has a lawsuit on it via TechCrunch. That’s kind of scary for consumers no?
- The JooJoo pad is only available in the US. No idea why.
- It costs 499USD. The iPad costs 499USD for the cheapest model. With no option for 3G.
- The UI looks like they took alot of notes from Apple.
- It has 4GB of flash memory. Ouch.
Okay, well, all seems bad. I’m half thinking of a few things on this. Had you started off on a clean slate designing the JooJoo pad, it would probably have been to reanalyze the 200USD possible price point and stay there. No need for a 12″ screen, screens usually cost the most, to push down the price point. And don’t use flash as an excuse, the percentage of people not buying an iPhone because it doesn’t support flash is probably a 0.00000000000000000000002458% (You get the idea) or something. I still think the whole general idea of the JooJoo was a good idea, competition is always good, but the price point (and the lawsuit) isn’t too bright as of the moment.
03 FebThe obligatory iPad post
On the 27th January, Steve Jobs announced the tech world’s worst kept secret, the Apple tablet PC, after Seth Godin, random publishers, leaked China replicas and every thing else pointed to the fact that Apple was indeed developing a tablet PC. On 28th January, I decided NOT to blog about it, didn’t have a clue on what I felt about it.
So here it is.
Do I need an iPad? No.
Do I want an iPad? Probably yes.
Why do I want an iPad? Probably need to think about it, maybe when my MacBook reaches a ripe old laptop age of 4 years, which in computer years means 100. Probably.
Ok. So here’s why I probably want an iPad. I have a feeling its going to be a love-love situation just after buying my iPhone, what I thought I didn’t need, I just felt in love with. Now nothing, even if you pay me 100 bucks to use a Nexus One for a year, would I give up my iPhone.
(1) Games. I hate the App Store. I really do. I’m spending money on Cluedo, GTA Chinatown Wars, and all sort of time wasting stuff because having the App Store with its 170K Apps is easy to download. So, what are the possibilities of the iPad? I used to bring my MacBook everywhere, now I’ll just bring the iPad everywhere.
(2) Home. I have a feeling somewhere deep inside me, I’m a control freak. I want to know how many calories I’m using. I want to know how much money I’m spending to the last dime. I imagine controlling my television, heating, lights and whatever using a tablet PC, just like what we used to envision. We would know how to regulate energy in the home, or if having the room at 3 degrees more would cause a great change in our electricity bill.
(3) Work. Its weird. iWork? I don’t know about this, but I rely on Keynote that much to give good presentations.
(4) Size. Is perfect. Giant iPod? Is great.
Why won’t I buy it now?
(1) Camera. I probably need one. Eventually.
(2) Price. 16GB on an iPhone is insufficient for me. I have too many photos and videos I want to bring around. I like the 64GB model with 3G. That’s going to be expensive. I might have to wait for my MacBook to literally start working like a snail first.
(3) iBooks. Has that tiny print to show that it is for the US market only. Along with downloading of movies and what have you not which we outsiders in the international market do not have. I would buy this over a Kindle though.
(4) Instability. Uh. I’m not going to be an early adopter of code adopted for the iPad.
I think that’s what I can think of for now. Ignore the name iPad, everyone hated the name MacBook Pro when it was first announced, but now MacBook eventually is well sort-of-okay. And even if it was called iHippo, iGraffic, iWhatever, you would have bought it anyway. Names are only important when establishing an entire product line, read: RAZR.
01 FebIn Singapore for CNY
After settling my passport / driving license / and other what-have-yous I finally have time to blog. Anyway, I’m back in Singapore for Chinese New Year, the first time since three years I’m actually back! I’m usually back twice a year, but CNY is a date in the middle of nowhere (February anyone?), so I’m quite happy to be actually catching it this time round.
What’s up here?
Well, firstly, my favorite hair stylist Uncle Sunny (Kimage Funan), decided that I should be a redhead without consulting me. He also assumed that I was 21 years old which made me very happy – so I let him do whatever. I think it was his ploy, but whatever, I haven’t been so red for a while, and it IS Chinese New Year after all. No curls this time round, I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting six hours to digital perm my hair this time round. 
Next, I hopped over to Toa Payoh to buy furnishing / decorations for my new house. And I managed to get two Philips LivingColors mini for only 135SGD! Assuming 1EUR = 1.97SGD, that’s an incredibly good deal. My train of thought was this: Oooooh, they are selling LivingColors here for 99SGD a pop, and they are selling it in Holland for 99EUR, I need one. I go to the counter, oh, you can get this for 80SGD, but if you buy two, its 135SGD. That’s like only 30~EUR each! Anyway, the lights are awesome and designer, just the way I like them.
Till then!
27 JanStatistic probabilities
Lately, I’ve been questioning the validity of statistic probabilities and how “that would never happen to me”. Well, funny thing is, three days ago, I won the lottery.
Oh yes, in Singapore, we have 4D, you choose four numbers and then if you are on of the twenty three numbers announced three times a week, you win. The probability of that happening is like 0.23%. Last time I bought 4D was eons ago, because I just don’t gamble. So I just bought the number of the house I just bought… and I won! Okay, it wasn’t much, but imagine the probability of actually winning. Or ending up in a plane with the Al-Qaeda’s plan to bring it down.
Now, I don’t believe in statistic probability anymore. If its an outlier, I better start planning for it.
21 JanGetUncommon review
I am in Singapore! And I finally got my order of the Uncommon cases for iPhone as well. Well, it rocks – sort of. Well, I half anticipated a case which is non-generic and what nobody has, and apparently there it was, my black and white Sadoko like princess imprinted on my iPhone case. It fits to a tee and covers the edges of the iPhone which my previous case did not do – and hence the onslaught of ugly marks. I really like it.
However, the dock area is weird. Its protruding and didn’t let me dock properly on anything possible – including the Vestalife Ladybug II speakers which I really wanted to get. Oh well, there, I saved a bunch of money for my speakers now. At least for now.
PS: I can’t wait for the announcement of some sort of Apple tablet on the 27th January too!
07 JanHello 2010
Just back from New York to welcome in 2010 with M. Happy 2010!
Us, before going up the Empire State Building.
M&Ms, the bane of my life and the factor to my bad cough.
Coutured myself in retail therapy with a cute JC top.
01 JanPartly NYC
Just so you know, b is taking care of my apartment. I actually miss Holland.
So…. New York City! I finally managed to find an Internet connection which didn’t involve me to data roam which was totally expensive.
On Christmas Day, me and Maaike almost got blown up. Literaly. On NW0253. Me on seat 17C which is like seats away from that guy with the bomb in his underwear. These things you don’t want to think about anymore.
Talk about insane. We were only allowed information about it when I was in Best Western Detriot and walking in, CNN was providing breaking news of our plane, on international television, about the alleged Terror attack. Yeah, it’s things you don’t want to think about, I mean just hours ago, h & I were just scribbling a list of things we were daring each other to do in 2010. And I was like, I need to finish more things on my TODO list – all you peeps who have ever met me should ever know.
Anyway, it’s a pain typing this on my iPhone. 2010 is here, it didn’t end with a blast. Partied to the last day of 2009 in Webster Hall, and who knows what 2010 will bring?
Xxx, Summer
23 DecUncommon iPhone cases
Since I got my iPhone in April, so has my dad and b – both 16GB White! I seem to have some influencing prowress around here.
Anyway, just saw something which caught my eye, There’s a company called Uncommon which is offering customized iPhone cases etched with embedded 3D design – what better news could this get? It also offers a whole bunch of artwork by progressive artists, something like Moo.com but for the iPhone. Check out Getuncommon.com, I think this rocks, would be nice if someone had a real case to show how it is like.