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Showing posts from August, 2004

You put de lime in de coconut...

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Here's Coconut, the new Westie puppy of my girlfriend and me. A real handful, but also a real joy. He lives with her, half the world away: how I wish I were there.

The quality of service is strained

Wow, just called FedEx Singapore to try to send a letter overnight to the US and had to listen to a completely inept telephone person. It's not that he didn't answer my questions, but basically he couldn't seem to comprehend that I'm pretty much a newbie to FedEx and didn't know their procedures. Hence such scintillating exchanges as: FedEx Man: "Will you be using your own envelopes or FedEx ones?" Me: "Is there a difference?" FedEx Man: "Price difference." Me: "Huh?" FedEx Man: "Price difference." Me: "Okay, which one is cheaper?" FedEx Man: "Of course FedEx will be cheaper." It wasn't surly, but it sure wasn't friendly. Please. "Of course"? How was I to know? And since I had told him that I needed it there by the next day, he could have offered that I could go to a FedEx authorised center instead of sticking to trying to arrange a pickup. Which in itself was fairly path

Back in black

Back in Singapore, and this blog should be back in form soon. Meanwhile, I just finished reading Schott's Original Miscellany , which is an incredible book for trivia buffs like me: it's like the compendia I used to read as a child, what with diverse info from the Mohs scale to the hair colour of Miss America winners (70% brunette, roughly). A scintillating read.

Disturbing

" Child Pimp & Ho Costumes ". This anti-PC swing has gone too far.

Stupid inventions

My stupid invention #1: fake fake meat. It looks like tofu... but is made of meat. For when you're dining with vegetarians.

Hoosiers

In Indiana now. Saw my first "John Kerry for President" sign in this red state. May be more intermittent in my posting. But I'll say this: the nomenclature of Indiana towns has a great ring to it. I knew about French Lick from my Boston days (Larry Bird, yeah!), but it was nice to see Bean Blossom on the road signs.