Motd.Escrito.Info

With all the hype created in the media, I had expected much more from the local company Tatarah. A few days after their explosive launched, the site went down due to bandwidth issues. I wasn’t expecting this from happening. After all, Tatarah gave out a suzuki swift just to mark their grand launch and there was even a Mercedes Benz in line for bidders to try their luck. They were all set to go but who would have expected this to happen?

Since I didn’t win the suzuki swift, might as well try my luck getting the Mercedes Benz. I had trouble login to their site to place the bid from there, I sensed that something was amiss. Did Tatarah had enough bandwidth to support the huge traffic that it was going to get? With all the hype and marketing they had generated, it just did not make sense for the site to be down a few days after their launch. I knew my login and password were correct but I was still kept out of the site. Requesting for a reset of password did not do much help at all. In the end, I gave up after trying for 30mins.

Days had passed but Tatarah was still down. All the marketing and hype that was build around it had burst like a bubble. Bidders who had placed their bids before the downtime would had got most of the items. How was I to out bid them if the site was down after so many days? How did Tatarah got themselves into such a mess?

Was it because of poor planning and management? Maybe some Entrepreneurs out there might be able to shed some light and let us learn from this. For now, I could only dream of the Mercedes Benz instead of owning it.

My heart went out to those errant cabbies. They were just a  small group of people trying to earn more to feed themselves and their families at the end of the day. But for that few bucks, they tarnished the Republic’s 23,000 cab drivers effort to improve the industry’s image.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) took action after following complaints about errant cab drivers who pick and chose passengers, refuse to use the meter or overcharging passengers. With tourist at it’s peak, many were concern that errant drivers will tarnish Singapore image as a top class tourist destination.

LTA then conducted its biggest operation to catch errant cab drivers from Oct 24 – 27. In 4 days, 41 errant cabbies are caught. Between January – September this year, 287 errant cab drivers were penalized up from last year’s 202.

Popular spots like Boat Quay, Clark Quay and Orchard Towers are targeted for the operation. 22 were caught for touting,  11 for refusing to pick up passengers and 8 for over charging.

I knew of cases where taxi drivers were touting but not to such extent. 22 caught in 4 days! That was unbelievable. At least 5 cases per day and only 3 popular spots were targeted. How many more errant drivers were still undiscovered by the authorities? 

This was the most interesting complaint I had read so far.

I AM disappointed with the service at the Changi Airport limo service counter on Oct 19 at 11.30pm. As it was peak hour late on a Friday night, with a long queue at the usual taxi lanes, we decided to take the limo service. This was not the first time we had used the limo service, but we were shocked to be told by not one, but three limo drivers that they do not take passengers except to the town area. Their attitude was unwarranted when they heard we were heading to Jurong. One even asked us to pay a higher fare.

As a frequent traveller, it occurred to me previously but I didn’t think much of it as I thought it meant $35 for any destination in the town area. But when I checked the sign at the counter, I realized this wasn’t the case as the sign clearly indicated ‘$35 for any destination in Singapore’.

A further check online reveals: ‘Limo Transfer Service to any destination in Singapore from Changi Airport arrival hall located at Terminals 1 and 2 (available 24 hours daily) to be at $35, with a possible flat $12 midnight surcharge, $10 surcharge for every additional stop and prevailing administration fee for credit and charge card payments are applicable. All other surcharges such as ERP, holiday surcharge and peak period will be waived.’

I am a Singaporean and had always been proud of our public transport services, but this incident reflects badly on us. And, I personally witnessed the same ordeal some foreigners had to go through that Friday night.

With the recent incidents of taxi drivers touting in Singapore, shouldn’t the authority look into the airport limo service? This is especially important as they may be the first Singaporean’s to welcome foreigners to Singapore. They can either make or break a vacation for our visitors.

After the complaint was published on ST Forum, Ms Kuek Chor Ling from SMRT Corporation Ltd replied.

I REFER to the letter, ‘Airport limos will go only to town area’ (ST, Oct 29), by Mr Chia Soon Peng.

We have since contacted Mr Chia to apologize for the unpleasant encounter and convey the disciplinary action taken against our taxi driver who was among the three drivers he spoke to.

We thank Mr Chia for bringing the matter to our attention, and would like to encourage passengers who encounter similar situations to report the matter by contacting our hotline on 6555- 8888.

Kuek Chor Ling (Ms)
Manager, Corporate Marketing and Communications
SMRT Corporation Ltd

So what kind of disciplinary action was taken? Was it a verbal warning or revoke of their vocational driving licence? Is it worth all that just for a few extra bucks?

and why do I say that? Prices of oil have hit the roof with historic heights. US $93 per barrel and it might just cross the US $100 dollar mark if the tension in the Middle East are not resolved. Adding salt to the wound of car owners, LTA announced the 3rd round of increase for ERP this year last night. With the new increase, you can see that some gantry have hit the $5 mark.

Before going on, let us ask ourselves this.

Does this effectively decrease the number of cars on the road?

No it does not. In fact with the drop of COE, there are more cars on the road than before.

If it does not decrease the number of cars on the road then why does LTA keep increasing the ERP? This just doesn’t make any sense to me.

On one hand, LTA allows more car ownership on the other hand, they keep increasing the ERP to decrease the cars on the road. Aren’t they slapping their own face by doing so?

Maybe it’s not that bad after all. The roads would be less congested during peak hours with all the beautiful cars all parked nicely in their respective carparks in HDB because it cost more right now to drive that piece of scrape metal on the road.

Besides ERP, the price of petrol have once again increased. There is no surprise here. Petrol comes from crude oil so if the price of crude oil increase, how can the price of petrol stay the same?

How many times did the price of petrol increase this year? I lost count. Guess my ten little fingers just weren’t enough to keep track. I did a search and this site came up. Petrolwatch.com.sg have a updated list of petrol prices in Singapore.

With all these price hikes, would I still drive my scrape metal on the car?

Nah! I think my scrape metal would join the other scrape metal at the HDB parking for now.

is the IN thing right now. I meant how many artist/actor/actress had actually broke the law, done jail time and gone back to their career, more famous than before?

I was grabbing a cup of hot tea from kopitiam when I heard those uncles having their tea break talking about this. Their conversation was in Hokkien though. For the sake of readability, I translate it into English.

Uncle 1,”You know hor, Christopher Lee going to star in another TV drama.”

Uncle 2,”Christopher Lee? Who is that?”

Uncle 1,”You know the one got jail for drink driving one lah.”

Uncle 2,”That one lar? He still can be actor meh?”

Uncle 2 might not have known who is Christopher Lee but once you mentioned the actor that had done time behind bars instantly recall his memory. Christopher Lee was not remembered for his roles in the local production rather he was known for doing time behind bars.

The latest to join the long list after Christopher Lee is Ex TV  host Benedict Goh. He was being sentenced to 3 weeks jail and banned from driving for 4 years after pleading guilty to  drink driving and colliding into a stationary car.

The difference between the 2? Christopher Lee committed a hit-and-run while Benedict Goh collided into a stationary car. Maybe that was the explanation why Christopher Lee got a longer jail term.

Besides the 2 above, there was the bad boy, Nicholas Tse, who crashed his Ferrari F360 Modena in central Hongkong. He claimed that his driver was responsible for the crash but investigations showed otherwise. Nicholas Tse was sentenced to 240 hours of community service for obstruction of justice.

 Nicholas Tse had another accident in November where he crashed his Audi in Lantau. He was banned from driving for 6 months and fined HK$4000 dollars for reckless driving. Because of these crashes, the crash site for his Ferrari on Red Cotton Drive in Central is popularly known as “Nicholas Curve” by locals.

Should I do time in order to be famous in blogsphere? Nah! I better work my way the blogsphere through hard work and tears. For those who want instant success, maybe you can try it out!

I could not believe my eyes as this scene unfold in front of me. I had heard and read about the ugly side of Singaporeans when they took public transport but this was really unbelievable!

I was on the NorthEast line heading towards Chinatown station to switch to the EastWest line when this happened. A father with his 2 children decided to occupy the whole row of seats on the train so that they could lay down and have a quick nap. The father was sitting in the center while his 2 children lay across the seats. How convenient. I got this photo from Stomp. The child was seated this way.

It’s way too ridiculous. Though it was not the peak hours yet but there were other passengers who paid the same fare and was standing in front of them! Even though the children were sleepy, it was wrong for them to do that. The children might not understand this but surely the father knew better.

An elderly passenger board the train after a few stops and stood by the side, waiting for the father to wake the children. This never happened. The father simply ignored his existence and pretend to make an “important” call to his business partner. This was totally unforgivable. What kind of teaching was he passing on to his 2 children?

I decided to give up my seat to this poor man while staring at the goons. I deeply regretted not snapping his photo and send it to stomp. After all, there was a section dedicated to this ugly commuters in Singapore. This might be happening on the train everyday as no one even raised an eyebrow to reprimand the father’s action.

There were many inconsiderate commuters in Singapore. Take the picture on the right for example. Would you approached the lady and request her to remove the bags from the seats?

Most Singaporeans would just mind their own business in this case. And this commuters just got away with their inconsiderate deeds. I didn’t notice this at all while travelling on the MRT in Bangkok.

In fact, the Thais gave up their seats to those that needed it more. Why wasn’t this happening in Singapore? Was it because the teachers never touch on moral education or the values taught by the parents were all wrong?

We even have to run campaigns to educate commuters to stand on the left while using the escalator. To further insult ourselves, yellow lines and boxes were drawn to educated the commuters where to stand while waiting for the trains.

When will we ever behave like a first class citizen?

I was reading The Keropok – Singapore Daily Photo and decided to share this in reference to this entry. That photo of the green chess board was taken in Bishan Park if you needed to find it.

This was taken while on holiday at Hard Rock Hotel, Bali. Yes you guess it. Life Size Chess Pieces! In order to move those pieces, you had to physically shift them as the game progressed. A mental and physical game with this chess pieces.

I knew nothing about chess and how the game was supposed to be played. There was too many can do and must do. Guess I would need to read up Chess for Dummies!

Shozu! Shozu! I heard my friend screaming over his phone. What’s the excitement all about? Fancy getting excited over a dog? That was what I thought at first.

Nah, Shozu is the new service that Starhub launch in September. What actually is this service all about? A quick search on Starhub’s website and this is what I had gathered.

Imagine taking photos or videos with your mobile phone and transferring them instantly on-the-go with a single click to your account on a popular Web or social-networking destination like YouTube or Flickr, all for a low monthly flat fee without worrying about data charges.

StarHub is the first in Asia and Singapore to fulfill the desires of mobile bloggers, social networkers and citizen journalists here through a partnership with ShoZu, a provider of one-click media exchange services between mobile phones and Web 2.0/social networking sites.

StarHub’s new ShoZu Access service provides media-sharing enthusiasts the easiest way to upload their photos or videos directly from their camera phones, the moment they are taken, directly to their accounts on 25 popular Web destinations*. Users can even send their media to any email address and to multiple destinations at once!

The innovative direct-to-Web service allows users to pre-program their accounts on these sites and upload photos and videos to them on-the-go with a single click directly from their mobile phones, thus eliminating the hassle and delay of first needing to transfer their media to a PC.

I like the part on the flat monthly fee and without the need to worry about data charges. Now I can start to take more photos and videos with my camera phone and upload to Youtube or Flickr in real time! Isn’t that great?