Funny little encounter....

....I experienced last week which, after so many days, still rings fresh in my mind and I've decided (after some prodding) to put it down.

I happened to find myself out east at the Singapore Expo Centre (not sure what the real name is - more on that place another time...) and helping to set up a booth for some trade show going on there and this is what I encountered - on the opening morning of the trade show, I got a call from a colleague to meet him at the entrance to the hall as he needed a hand to carry a workstation into the hall.

Strange, I felt, as we went around carrying such things with trolleys. So I trodded outside to help him, only to see there were a few trolleys outside with people hand-carrying all sorts of equipment, by hand, into the hall. Huh?

So, feeling a bit ridiculous over what I saw, I decided to approach the security guard. And the conversation went something like this (in hindsight, I really wished I had recorded it, for posterity, if anything):

Me - "Excuse me, can I wheel my workstation into the hall"
Guard - "No, cannot. Must carry into the hall"
Me - "Why not? This is an expensive and very heavy piece of workstation"
Guard - "Cannot. Minister coming. So cannot use trolley. Must use hand to carry"
Me - Puzzled "Why minister coming cannot use trolley, ah?"
Guard - Pointing the walkie-talkie at me threateningly "Cannot. Minister coming"
Me - "So, if I carry this computer and I drop it because it too heavy, then how? Who will compensate my company?"
Guard - Silence....
Me - "But still cannot use trolley?"
Guard - "No. Minister coming"
Me - repeat earlier question about dropping the computer and who would compensate me
Guard - "You wait ah - I call my supervisor"

And guess what? The whole "minister is coming" conversation repeated itself. And I was then passed on to the supervisor's "boss", who repeated the "minister is coming" conversation yet again but eventually realised I wasn't going to back down, relented and, lo and behold, we were all allowed to wheel our hardware.

And guess what? I never saw the minister coming our way although, with all due respect to the minister concerned, I really would have wanted to ask what his stand was for trolleys.

In the end, I'm not sure which I found more amusing - the whole "minister is coming" excuse being used to hold every trolley off at the entrance (I should have taken a pic of that too - in hindsight, it really was quite funny) or the fact that everyone else just left their trolleys there and actually carried their stuff in. By hand.

Arrgh.....

Paris vs Lance

I was at a bookstore yesterday evening with a couple of vouchers in hand and looking to get a certain book on Apple's Steve Wozniak aptly called iWoz. So naturally I found myself at the section called biographies. Strangely, the book couldn't be found - the closest thing they had was the OTHER recent Apple related book called iCon but that's about the other Steve. So I approached the very friendly counter staff who quickily brought me to the "Management" section. What was this about asking the right questions, again?

Anyway, this blog's not about that book (maybe I'll be able to say something about it AFTER I finally finish iCon but that's going to take a while at the rate things are going). As if an interlude to my search for the Woz, I couldn't help but notice two teenagers going through with most intense interest a semi-biography on possibly the most notoriously famous socialite of our times - the one and only Paris Hilton. What caught my attention wasn't the obvious level of interest they had in her (and her dress sense and boyfriends and what-nots....) but the irony that, just next them were two biographies on, to me at least, one of the greatest living sporting icons of our times - Lance Armstrong.

So, this was what I was struck with - one famous beyond recognition, thanks, in part, I suppose to an interesting private video that got lost and somehow found its way to the internet while the other, has won Tour de France most times than any and, as if that wasn't tough enough, shrugged off testicular cancer and half a dozen brain tumours like how we lesser mortals brush off a mild cold somewhere in between winning tours. A bit tougher than prancing around with an on-again off-again underwieght friend in some farm house or roadside diner kitchen, if you ask me. Incidentally, in case anyone should ask - the Tour de France comprises about 3000 kilometres worth of some crazy cycling within a span of weeks - it's almost like, in the words of my cycling buddy, competing in a marathon every day, continuously, for a month.

But, in the end, its the glitzy socialite, with her girl and boyfriends, spotlight and all, which gets the attention of the teenagers.

Oh what irony....

And new year and a new begining....

....and ARRGH! What have they done?

Thanks to a friendly prod from a friendly voice received today, I decided to get back to my blog, neglected since the end of '06 and, wow, they've gone Google. So, terrific, I thought. Right?

Wrong. And just how wrong it could get was so hillarious I'd considered writing off this blog altogether and starting all over again elsewhere.

First, it started pretty normally, with this:

And so it tells me I've got to create a Google account - no problemo, right? S'ok - so I go on to happily click on the Sign In First to sign up.


That brought me to the following screen:

So far so good - there was this link for the uninitiated like me to Create an Account Now and that brought me to this other screen:

And, ladies and gentlemen, let the party begin....

Maybe the problem lies with me, the uninitiated and clueless user, but, let's see now, I'm signing up for a new Google account (which, by the way, I more-or-less was required to) and at the top of the page it says "Create an Account". So what should I enter for the section labelled "Your current e-mail address"?

What I'd like to be my new Google address?

*Buzzer goes off*

Wrong answer. That e-mail I provided doesn't exist yet (I'm trying to create a new one, remember ?). Please try again.

The old e-mail (what's wrong with my old e-mail anyway, apart from the fact it's not a Google account ?) address which I've been on for ages?

*Buzzer goes off again*

Wrong answer. Again. That e-mail address already exists so it won't do. Of course it made me wonder "then why ask someone who's creating a new e-mail account for a current e-mail address?". Sigh.

Another try - how about some pseudo-randomly thought out e-mail address?

*Buzzer goes off yet again*

....and on....

..and on..

...

Along the way, I also wondered why the terms and conditions were in a totally incomprehensible form....

It's as if someone were highlighting the fact that hardly anyone bothers to really read those things....

So, on the verge of giving up, like any other near-insane person on a rampage, I suddenly felt the faint spark of brillance. Why don't we just forget all this and either kill this blog or try creating a Google mail account from scratch rather than going through this Blogger route?

And, well, if that didn't work, I wouldn't have been able to post my first blog of the year. Of course, along the way, I've also lost the will to do many other things....surely I'm not the only one who's had to go through all this?