Saturday, July 09, 2005
Found it!
Finally, a decent article in Sports Illustrated (see previous post)! Guess they have something more than swimsuit babes after all.... I thought OLN or the official Tour de France website would at least have quicker news.... I mean, newsflash is called newsflash cos it's supposed to be out fast! Well, that wasn't the only weird thing today. One of my friends apparently has not heard of the Tour de France!!! And he happens to be one of the more outdoorsy kind..... Guys, keep those LiveStrong wristbands on and make sure everyone out there knows what it stands for!
Missing Tour de France?
I can't find any articles right now on Stage 8 of the Tour de France!! Is it just me? Looks like Lance Armstrong is still in yellow after the end of the Stage 8 race. But it's taking quite a while for any website to write an article about it.... Maybe cycling just isn't popular enough....
Friday, July 08, 2005
Canoe gets Number 4 placing
California Concrete Canoe is number 4 in nationals! Hell yeah! HELL YEAH!
Over here for the complete rankings:
http://www.uah.edu/student_life/organizations/ASCE
And looks like it was the oral presentations that made all the difference. Still remember when it was me up on stage a few years ago. Had a bit of stage fright back then, but we managed to get number 2 in presentations just behind Wisconsin.
Keep it up Cal! Number One next year! Let there be light!
Over here for the complete rankings:
http://www.uah.edu/student_life/organizations/ASCE
And looks like it was the oral presentations that made all the difference. Still remember when it was me up on stage a few years ago. Had a bit of stage fright back then, but we managed to get number 2 in presentations just behind Wisconsin.
Keep it up Cal! Number One next year! Let there be light!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Poor service? We're used to it!
I was having after-dinner dessert with some friends at the Coffee Club in Ngee Ann City on a weekday evening. To start with, we sat there for pretty long without anyone coming to take our orders until we finally managed to flag down a passing waiter. I ordered a New York Cheesecake, but it didn't come after 20 minutes, so I had to flag down the waiter again to remind him. 10 minutes later, when my friends had already finished their food, I was told that they had run out of Cheesecake. The waiter apologised and gave a lame excuse: he didn't know they had run out of Cheesecake. Cheesecakes are placed right at the counter, so can it possibly take half an hour to realise that there are no Cheesecakes left?
My friend, who is currently studying in the United States, asked me, "Why is it that this cafe is still so crowded with well-dressed customers despite its poor service?" Indeed, a similar cafe in New York City, Boston, or San Francisco would be completely empty if it had such pathetic service standards, even if it had excellent food. Apparently poor customer service is so prevalent that it doesn't even bother the "well-heeled" Singaporean diner anymore. Coffee Club in Ngee Ann City serves excellent food, but I will never go there again. A Cheesecake is not worth 6 dollars if there is no service.
My friend, who is currently studying in the United States, asked me, "Why is it that this cafe is still so crowded with well-dressed customers despite its poor service?" Indeed, a similar cafe in New York City, Boston, or San Francisco would be completely empty if it had such pathetic service standards, even if it had excellent food. Apparently poor customer service is so prevalent that it doesn't even bother the "well-heeled" Singaporean diner anymore. Coffee Club in Ngee Ann City serves excellent food, but I will never go there again. A Cheesecake is not worth 6 dollars if there is no service.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
Rollerblades or in-line skates?
Pro-skaters keep reminding me that it's "in-line skating" and not "rollerblading". They are pretty adamant that using the word "rollerblading" is outright WRONG! So what's all this fuss about political correctness?
Okay, so Rollerblade is a brand of skates, and supposedly not the official name of the sport so you CAN'T use their name, or so they say. Is that really so? I hear that the sport was originally called "rollerblading", and in fact the very first society founded in the US to govern the sport had the name "rollerblade" in it!!!
While its perfectly alright to call "quad-skates" roller-skates (yes, I'm so not kidding, that's the "official" name!), and its perfectly alright to call tissue paper "kleenex", it is not okay to use the term rollerblading. What about using "Xerox" to mean "photocopy"? How 'bout Q-tips (that's what they call cotton-buds in the US)?
Nobody gives a hoot if I say xerox, or roller-skates, or Q-tips or kleenex, but I'd almost get shot by the pros if i say "rollerblade". In fact, I'm pretty sure the original "Rollerblade" company is pretty proud that their name is synonymous with the sport worldwide.
I don't buy all this political correctness. We should all just call things whatever we feel comfortable calling them.
Okay, so Rollerblade is a brand of skates, and supposedly not the official name of the sport so you CAN'T use their name, or so they say. Is that really so? I hear that the sport was originally called "rollerblading", and in fact the very first society founded in the US to govern the sport had the name "rollerblade" in it!!!
While its perfectly alright to call "quad-skates" roller-skates (yes, I'm so not kidding, that's the "official" name!), and its perfectly alright to call tissue paper "kleenex", it is not okay to use the term rollerblading. What about using "Xerox" to mean "photocopy"? How 'bout Q-tips (that's what they call cotton-buds in the US)?
Nobody gives a hoot if I say xerox, or roller-skates, or Q-tips or kleenex, but I'd almost get shot by the pros if i say "rollerblade". In fact, I'm pretty sure the original "Rollerblade" company is pretty proud that their name is synonymous with the sport worldwide.
I don't buy all this political correctness. We should all just call things whatever we feel comfortable calling them.
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