Poll for Bloggers

One thing that I've been wanting to do is add a poll feature to my blog. Now that I've found one, the first poll I want to run is how blogging has changed your life. Not an original idea, but I think it is apt given the situation here. I would like to find out how many people who read my blog actually think that blogging is the greatest idea since the internet.

There will be a new poll every week, so grab your chance to let me know what you think before the next week. It's an anonymous poll so no worries about me sending the FEDs after you.

Your Google Reputation

With the success of the Google search engine, people are now using it to not just to research their next purchase or for information about the world around them. They are now googling people they are thinking about hiring, giving loans to, being friends with and maybe even going on a trip with.

This has led to the new phenomena of personal branding on the internet. How well are you promoting yourself in cyberspace? It is now very possible that headhunters will be "digging" into your job history and achievements on google rather than from your resume. And your online activity may just become your work references...

The Wavy Wand

While technology can be very sobering (re my previous entry on vishing), it can also be used entirely for fun without any real useful function whatsoever. The wavy wand is one such "technology toy". First we progressed by putting words on paper, then on email, and now on air... If the wavy wand technology ever evolves to drawing pictures in the air, we would have found a way of crafting graffiti in the air. The upside? At least they're not permanent. It seems that some have used the wavy wand technology for their license plate. Now that would be a definite one that would make the lives of policemen really tough.

Think about the air radio announcer - "Attention, a dangerous criminal is now heading south of Never Never road. His vehicle number is SC345, no SQ221, no WE888....."

Are you a Victim of Vishing?

It wasn't too long ago that we wised up to phishing. Now, another internet con has sprung up - Vishing. Voice-Phishing, or Vishing is a modification of Phishing. While Phishing tricks you into clicking a link to enter personal information, Vishing gets you to call a number where your personal information is recorded through voice mail.

As vishing is more representative of the way banks work, victims are more ready to reveal personal information. It is inevitable that as technology gets sophisticated, cons become more complex and difficult to detect. Financial institutions are now encountering problems that they have never been prepared for in the history of banking. System security is becoming increasingly more expensive as hackers get more savvy with technology. Banks now struggle with the costs of internet security and are even considering passing it to customers. Whoever said that technology does not come with a hefty price tag?

Mine, All Mine

Reading through my personal emails, I came across photos of a birthday celebration for a friend. We went to this great Mexican place called Iguana at Clarke Quay. I was early, so I went shopping for an item, joining my two friends when they messaged me that they had arrived. I reached the restaurant to find them already seated, and we proceeded to order drinks. What's a birthday celebration without drinks?? The birthday gal ordered a strawberry margarita, and as I looked at the menu and the size of the glass, I assumed she was planning to share her margarita with her 2 best girl friends as a sort of birthday tradition.

When the pink (and oh so juicy looking) margarita arrived, it came with 3 straws. As big as a bowl of soup, I watched as she took big gulps of the margarita. Not sips, gulps as if she were drinking water or orange juice.

"Hey, go easy on that! That's margarita you know, not strawberry juice."

She looked at me with her big, round eyes while continuing to gulp down her margarita. Worried that she'd get herself drunk even before dinner arrived, I said it was our turns for the margarita. She looked at me, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you order the margarita to be shared among the 3 of us?" I demanded.

"No!! I want it all by myself!! Look, its this pink! So beautiful!! I'm not going to share this beautiful pink margarita with anyone!"

She grabbed the glass possessively and glared at us.

I was stunned. My friend hardly drinks and the last time we went out together, I remembered she couldn't even finish a glass of alcohol. I reasoned that it had been some time since we'd gone drinking, and she could have become a better drinker without my knowing.

"So when was the last time you went drinking? How many glasses did you have?"

The answer was not encouraging. I pulled the glass away from her and told her to stop and wait until the food came before gulping down any more of that margarita. She was annoyed, but put up with me or she knew I'd nag her until the new kingdom came.

So dinner came, and halfway through our appetizers, she suddenly barfed into her own mouth. Pressing her hands to her lips, she looked around desperately for a vessel to hold whatever she needed to let out. Without missing a beat, my other girlfriend grabbed my empty coke glass and shoved it in front of her. Out came her appetizers and whatever else she had before that. The laughable part was her barf filled my empty glass exactly. It looked like a new cocktail invention that had yet to be put to the blender. However, I was too grossed out to laugh as her vomit sat in the glass that I had been drinking from. I pushed it to the far end of the table and ignored it. The waitress who witnessed the episode, tactfully came and took the glass away, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She then politely asked my friend if she needed napkins to clean herself. We both stared at her, and she back at us. None of us were capable of speaking at that moment. She then smiled and said "No, thank you.", giving the waitress a generous grin. She then got off her seat and disappeared to the Ladies' for a bit.

My other girlfriend and I just looked at each other. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Should we proceed with the evening? After all, our main course hadn't even arrived yet. What if she was too sick to carry on? Should we call it a night and go home? That would be a shame of an ending for a birthday celebration.

Thankfully, the birthday girl returned fromt he Ladies' sober, and composed. She was well enough to continue with the evening and we ended up having a good time still. However, she kept staring at the strawberry margarita the whole evening, complaining what a waste of a beautiful pink drink it was....

Mingling with My Past

I have just returned from the farewell dinner for the sales director of the previous company I worked for. It was like old times. All of us joking, catching up with each other and describing challenging situations at work created by my ex-boss. Its ironic that what pulled us together, and forged the bonds between us was my boss. He is the reason why people are starting to leave the company, and for the low morale in the office.

All of us have spent at least 5-11 years working with each other. Having been in each other's lives almost everyday for those years, we were almost like brothers and sisters, a kind of a second family away from home. We would never be able to find the same comaderie and special team spirit that we had. Which is why so many of us stuck on for as long as we did - because we felt that we were a family united against a common enemy.

Well, my sales director is moving to Manhattan, New York to take up a new leadership position in a financial institution. At the same time, he is starting a real estate company in India, his home town. Already, he has 11 projects even before his business has been officially launched. In actual fact, my sales director has a huge family business. His dad owns a huge tea plantation. Being a party animal, we have heard stories of how he returned home drunk, crawled out of his car and slept out in the tea plantation. When those times occurred, the caretaker who had seen him grow up would dutifully bring out a blanket to cover him from the cold.

A charming chap, his ex girlfriend was the daughter of one of the chair members of the Citibank Group worldwide. He broke it off as he could not take the stress of a girlfriend who jet sets around the world to do her shopping on a private jet, and who's single purchase equals 10K. Being a man who respected values like hard work and capability, he could not envision himself living off her father's money. At the same time, he could not afford her lifestyle. As much as he liked her, he called off the relationship and took up smoking again.

Meeting him again after some time, where I never got the chance to properly thank him, I was surprised when he gave me a big hug and a big peck on the cheek. But then again, I have always felt that he had a soft spot for me as a sister. I am truly happy for him as I have always felt that Singapore was too small and narrow minded for his talent and big heart. I think he will truly thrive in NY and live it up there. It is always heartwarming to know that those who were a large part of your life are moving on to bigger and better things, even if its tough saying goodbye and letting them go. But then there will always be opporunities to meet up again. Like his invitation to join him at Bintan for the weekend where he has gotten a total of 48 friends to give him a sending away party in Banyan tree. They have booked 24 rooms and Banyan tree will let us book a room for 160 for a 3 day 2 night stay where its original rates are 200 per night. My bags are already packed...

Double Accident

I wasn't able to attend dawn prayer this morning due to a phone meeting I scheduled at 7 in the morning. So I was keen to find out what the theme was today. An sms to my godbrother resulted in an email full of exclamation marks to me. Apparently, he managed to get a lift back to his office after prayer. But as it was raining heavily (traffic slows down and people make rash decisions), their vehicle took 2 hits - one from a motorcyclist and one from a cab. It resulted in him being late for work.

While the motorcyclist stopped and exchanged numbers with the driver giving my godbrother a lift, the cab simply raced off after hitting their vehicle on the window. They gave chase until Novena, where my godbrother alighted and knocked on the window of the cab driver who had to stop for a traffic light. He told the cab driver off and wanted to call the police. The cab driver, instead of being repentant, shouted back that they were the ones at fault instead. My godbrother promptly got the number of the passenger in the cab who had witnessed the accident and who concurred that it was the cabbie's fault.

if I had gone for dawn prayer with them, I would have been in the same vehicle as my godbrother since we both work a couple of blocks from each other too. And why did I arrange to have the phone meeting this morning instead of yesterday or tomorrow? I have no idea. Gut? Supernatural instinct? Maybe yet another coincidence...

Optical Recall

Today's news included the following headline: Award for Clear-Sighted Act that Led to Global Recall. It is about a core team who took the courage to draw the link between eye infection and the contact lens solution (ReNu multipurpose)sold by Bausch & Lomb.

Apparently Singapore is the first country to draw this correlation, and this has led to a worldwide recall of the contact lens solution. this brings to mind the Dell laptop incident. A friend, referred to in one of my previous entries as "Mr Cool", is an insider working in Dell. When we forwarded him the article, his only comment was that whoever owned the Dell laptop had not heeded the recall of all Dell laptop batteries for that model.

It is bizarre that 2 product recalls had such overwhelming opposite results. While the first led to much positive PR for Singapore (& Bausch & Lombe), the latter seems to have created bad online publicity which is curently still being spread.

Milestones

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. First, the important phone meeting, followed by a busy day that will end up with a dinner with my ex-colleagues. It is no ordinary dinner as the sales director of my ex company, is leaving. He has been with the company for almost 10 years, and has finally made the decision to move. Having been my work reference during interviews for my current job, he had given me a glowing testimonial and helped convince my boss that I had great potential to contribute to the company.

Tomorrow, I would attend his farewell dinner from my ex-company. It certainly felt odd for a couple of reasons. For one, he's been with the company so long that he's almost a permanent fixture there. While we knew he wasn't too happy with the top brass, we never really expected the day that he would actually leave. Secondly, I couldn't shake off the irony that this man who had helped me move to a job with a lot more promise and opportunity, is now finally leaving the company as well.

It is with nostalgia and a myriad of unexplainable emotions that I look forward to this dinner. A gathering of ex comrades if you will. It will be interesting to take a walk back to how life was like for me 6 months ago.

Dawn Prayers

The first day I attended dawn prayer, it felt like any ordinary day without much incident. The miracle was that for someone like me - a diehard night owl who slept like a log - I had no problem waking up bright and alert when the alarm rang. And the fact that I wasn't even tired during the prayer meeting.

Well, it seemed like an ordinary day. The rest of the day were definitely not very ordinary. I stepped into my office to find an email from someone who is pretty high up on the management level. And, he was offering help with a project that was a whole nest bed of problems which I had no power to solve even if I had the expertise. However, it was a high priority for me that I should clear this nest bed and get the project up and running well. I have been hitting the wall for almost six months with minimal headway. Now, this email had the promise of setting up my project on entirely new (and proper!) parameters that could very possibly end up in success.

When a colleague brought the email to my attention, I had to reread it, and it took quite a while for the information to sink in. When you've been banging your head against a hard wall for a long time, and the wall gives way into a hole, you're unprepared for it as you're so used to bracing yourself to hit the wall. That was how I felt.

Another unexpected incident happened when i was in the middle of a meeting. My boss walks in and motions for me to go out for a word with her. This is the first time that she's done this (to me) and I was surprised. What transpired between us was even more surprising. Upon consultation with a 3rd party, she had set up a program management office with which she needed someone to help her run and manage in her absence. Someone who could also help develop communication plans for each of the different programs. Apparently she felt that I would be the person most suitable for that role. While her decision was sound (given my job role and experience), I was stunned that she was wiling to place so much trust on me as I have been barely confirmed in the job for 2 months.

I can't help but feel that some celestial power is at work behind these series of events. Coincidences again? The important thing is that not only do I feel empowered, but also that some higher being is watching over me.

The Amazing Race in Asia

While it may be news to some that The Amazing Race has come to Asia, I'm sure not many know that our company is one of the main sponsors for the show. It is with some pride that AXN did not approach any of our competitors, but came straight to us for sponsorship. How is this information directly relevant to me? I've been asked by my brand manager who's participating in the sponsorship to be on her team. It is a joint collaboration between two cross functional departments, and all of us have been made to sign confidentiality agreements. It is only now that I can reveal our sponsorship of the event, as the press conference has been held.

If you watch AXN on the evening slots, you can catch the promotion for the program on eBuzz. It was from a long and tedious meeting on the details and promotion tie ups for this show with the AXN people & 2 media agencies (you can't possibly imagine the millions of branding & promotional opportunities on this show!!) that I returned home past 9 at night. After 2 days of waking up at 4.30 in the morning for dawn prayer and a long day of intensive meetings (4 today!), I am close to forgetting how to make my way home.

I look forward to bed, in preparation for my 7 am phone meeting tomorrow. I would have to forego dawn prayer for tomorrow morning, and am not too happy about it. However, the phone meeting is an important one, with a fantastic opportunity to move forward on one of my projects. It was made possible by my VP, so I'm not about to pass it up or try to change it.

Though the meeting was tedious, being involved in the AXN meeting was a great learning opportunity. One of the lessons learnt is what a brilliant man one of our top executives from the other department is. At every disclosure and detail of the race, he was first to jump on the advertising and promotional opportunities, and the first to come up with ingenuous ideas for saturating the screen with our logos and branding. Of course the other plus is being involved in such an exciting marketing endeavor. I am grateful for this chance at sneaking some glamour into my life - even if it IS robbing me of a life...

Flying in Your Dreams

I had lunch with a colleague who revealed to me she dreams about flying a lot. The interesting thing is, she's always conscious that its just a dream. In her dream, she flies as if she was swimming. However, due to being new at flying, she keeps bumping into trees. Each time she dreams of flying, she gets better and has more control over her flight pattern. I was intrigued. After googling her dream, it became easier to understand what her dream was about.

What about you? Do you have frequent dreams about:
Falling?
Being Chased?
Your Teeth Falling Out?
Being Naked in Public?
Failing in Exams?

Check out what they're all about!

A Little Freaked Out

It is mind boggling how a perfectly innocent stranger can suddenly be linked to your childhood. In my previous blog about meeting a cute guy at church camp, remember how I thought his small group leader was setting us up? Well, I now think it could be part of a higher conspiracy to freak me out. Some sort of celestial prank, even. To recap a little, after church camp, his small group leader invited me to join them at an opera some time back. As the date was around the corner and the tickets were not confirmed, (AND I still had that nagging feeling that I was being set up), I cancelled on the opera. After that, I bumped into him a couple of times in church and simply smiled politely (and guiltily).

Well, in support of this fantastic prayer wave that Singapore is currently experiencing after GDOP (all churches have come together and committed to set up a schedule to pray for Singapore 24x7 for 365 days starting July this year to June in 2007!), our church is taking over the roster this week. As such there is dawn prayer for working executives, and we take the time slot from 6-7.30am. Shuttle buses will then take us from church direct to 2 business districts after. Gratefully, one of them is where I work at.

Anyway, in making arrangements for the trip to church, I sent an sms to a guy friend who drives and is staying a couple of streets away from me. At the same time, I spoke to my (oh so adorable) god brother who also happens to stay in the same estate as myself, to organize a cab pool (Yes, I am a control freak). When my god brother came online on msn, we were finalising our cab pool (since my guy friend did not reply) and my god brother came back to me a few minutes later saying that there would be 3 of us cab pooling to church. Guess who the 3rd person is? You got it. That cute guy from camp. Did I mention that my god brother is from the same small group as him? That wasn't the surprising part.

My guy friend finally replied saying that he could pick me up, and whomever else that needed a ride. So I messaged my godbrother to tell him the good news. Since my guy friend did not know where the guy from camp stayed, I asked my godbrother who then told me the name of the street. That's when I freaked out. He's staying on the same street as my grandmother's old house, which is only a little way down my nanny's house. I SPENT MY CHILDHOOD THERE. HE COULD VERY WELL HAVE BEEN MY PLAYMATE WHEN I WAS YOUNG...

Ok. I'm going to bed. *shivers*

Horse Riding in Nepal

Received a couple of invitations to join an exchange program to Japan or go horse back riding in Nepal. While the former sounds really dreamy (I've been wanting to go Japan for ages!!), and we get to stay in the houses of the locals there, its where Dell laptops explode. Plus the fact that the trip costs twice that for the Nepal trip.

So I took a (more) scrutinising look at the Nepal trip. It sounds awesome. The upside? The cost includes 4 weeks training of horse riding. Is that a good deal or what???

Again, I wish they had a poll feature here. Do I go sashay with the Geishas or horseback riding along the Nepal mountain range? Anybody keen to join me?

Palace of the Golden Horses

Now that I've finally received photos (uploaded to the above link) from my room mate, they've all been uploaded to www.flickr.com. Another free, friendly web service friends that I use to share our escapades or vanity photos. Check it out.

No more bounced emails!

A reminder email to my room mate from church camp (with attached pics from my friend) resulted in an email with the pics she owed me. Being the considerate person that she is, she did not want to flood my mailbox with a large file. Or have it bounce back to her.

So what do you do when you have digital family photos or vacation photos to distribute but would inadvertently crash their mailbox, or bounce back to you? Well, besides getting them to sign up for a larger mailbox or getting an FTP account, here's a solution that is FREE and that WORKS.

yousendit.com - while the name may not be imaginative, it certainly does the trick. I downloaded my (zipped) 2.5 MB of photos fuss free, and without any need to login.