Coleslaw Adventure

Nice coleslaw?

Well, it’s a food that is ‘hard to come by’. Literally!

I ordered it on Qoo10 few days ago, on 4th Nov, and arranged it to be delivered on 6th Nov, 3-6pm, as it was indicated to specify a timing for the delivery, so that the food can stay fresh.
Sounds good!

So yesterday waited for it, 3-6pm. Nothing came.
At 6+, I had to leave home to pick penny from dog grooming.
While on the way, the seller called me, and said the delivery guy did not go and pick from her. She only  told me the problem, but never provided any further step to do.
Wait or not to wait? Cancel or not to cancel.

Back home, around 7.30pm, I texted seller to ask for information, until around 8pm, said the Qxpress team will call me. Indeed, someone called, and ask me if I still want to food. 
Sure, why not? Then hang up.

Then, no news … … …

At 9+, close to 10pm, seller texted me and said the delivery guy still not there to collect.
Woah!!
Again, I asked seller what should we all do.
Silence.
I even offered to go and collect from her myself, looking at the time being 10pm already.

Seller then messaged and said it’s getting late, suggested to arrange for tomorrow.
Well, I am not hard-up for the coleslaw to be delivery at the hour, so it is fine with me.

Best thing happened, seller called me at 11pm, and said the delivery guy just reached her place, and ask me if it is ok to delivery the coleslaw.

Although not very willing, just want to close the episode, I said fine. I will wait.

From Tiong Bahru to Joo Chiat, probably 20 minutes should be more than enough.

So watch some TV and waited.
Phone received a SMS at 11.09pm, said the delivery is completed.
What?!?!?!?! Huh!??!?!
Went out to take a look, nothing.

11.30pm, no one appear.
11.45pm, nothing happens. Went to check physically at my gate in case some clever delivery guy just leave it outside the house.
Don’t have.

Well, called the seller. Couldn’t get through. Nice, off the phone and went to sleep I guess.
Track the delivery and saw the driver’s memo stated as delivered (as per SMS’ timing) that has a contact number.
Called, but line was forever engaged.

Gave up.
Decided to go back to do my own things and then sleep.

Morning came, my help came to me and said the coleslaw was hanging outside the house.

What the cuckoo brain of the delivery guy. Food leave outside the door in the middle of the night.
Some food party is it?

Now got dilemma.
Should still eat the coleslaw or throw away?
Decided to keep and eat lah. At most go toilet more often. LOL

While the delivery was really bad this time round, totally unprofessional, I have to agree that this is technically not the seller’s fault.
However, being the seller, there is obligation to ensure things are done smoothly, especially when the problem was known to her right from the beginning.
I am sure seller would see my missed calls, and SMS in the morning.

Guess what? Nothing heard from seller.

Oh well, should I order again from same seller in the future? Hmmmm … 

写给自己的五十

写给自己的五十

人生有几个五十

到达一个变事实

做人终归得踏实

活得精彩有价值

迎来第一个五十

还有老花和近视

身体僵硬或不适

记得要去烦医师

你说你快到五十

功名利禄试一试

成败不会在一时

竭尽全力在一世

他说他已过五十

回头望恍如隔世

云淡风轻最真实

庸庸碌碌过一世

我说我现在五十

你说要再拼几次

他说平凡是写实

我该如何去诠释

人生第一个五十

感叹会有一丝丝

继续前进做战士

不忘行善与布施

人生有几个五十

换来无限的睿智

陪伴无需多奢侈

天伦享受一辈子

Lunch at Swenson

Cracked Tooth

As you can guess from the post title, my tooth cracked.
It on the left upper part, 2nd last position molar tooth.

This tooth problem dated back to around end-2019.
At that time, I felt my tooth was sensitive, but I felt it on the lower jaw of the teeth.
After checking through, the dentist confirmed it is on the upper jaw, and the knocking test showed that particular tooth is sensitive.
Other than that, nothing else was wrong with the tooth.
No crack, no filling needed, nothing at all. So it was then said to take some medication and see how it goes.
In fact, I went to see the dentist twice then, even took a memo from him just in case I need to go for 2nd opinion or even ENT doctor to check.

At that time, the sensitivity of that tooth took around 3 weeks to 'feel better'. After that, I was more careful with food intake etc, as that took still feel sensitive, and at at lower degree.

Then around 2 months ago, when all the coronavirus precaution measures were started, I had a sharp pain on that tooth, and it lasted around 1.5days. After that pain, I could feel the gum area was swollen, and could feel that it was 'badly swollen'.
The swell lasted about 3 weeks, then it subsided. The tooth still feel somewhere sensitive, but no pain, nothing at all.
However, I could feel some discomfort on the tooth when I feel around it with my tongue. That was about all I could do.

And yes, I delayed till today then I go and see the dentist.

I briefed him the story since the last visit, and then he checked the tooth.

Once checked, he said no need checked already.
Crack. Only way is to extract.

Wah!!! So scary. Had not extracted tooth for past 40 years or so.
The thought of it is simply, devastating. LOL
Until almost peed in the pants. Nah, I went to toilet to pee. :P

Still had to face the music.

StyloMylo, but stressed. 

So we moved on. With the injection to numb the nerve area and everything, we were ready to rock!
Yeah!
The assistant was told to hold my head to prevent my head from moving here and there.
*cringe*
Then he started pulling ... ...

Twisting here and there with his tool, having no regards to how my mouth and lips were pressed. Still had to breathe in and out properly to calm myself down, hearing him pulling, and can 'feel' the sound of the tooth being 'creaking' out of my gum.

But I must say, it was pretty fast. I felt it was done within 2 minutes, faster than cooking maggie mee.

Then he asked if I wanted to keep the extracted tooth.

D'uh! What for? Said no. Then after a short while, I said yes, to show Zyan. Hahaha.

Big molar tooth!

Paid for it, took the medication from them, and went off.
Trauma over, but the pain will come later.
Sigh.

Hair Cut

The last hair cut I did was probably in March, around the school holiday period I guess.
It's been a while.

With Covid-19 and its various circuit breaker measures, salons are only recently re-open for hair cut.
Last week actually.
Didn't go last week, as it was expected to be quite crowded, and it actually happened to be long queues for some places as reported in the newspaper.

Anyway, waited until this week to go.

Brought Zyan along, as we are buddies when going to hair cut. :P
We do it in Marine Parade.

Went around 3pm. Ohhh! The shop closed!
We usually cut at this place called Snip Avenue, which is relatively cheap. $3.80 per cut with pre-paid member card, and they give 2 free haircuts. 12 hair cut for $38. Pretty good deal.
But it's closed! Due to Covid situation, they shifted to Bedok Reservoir.

Too lazy to go, thought of going back home.
Then, saw opposite row of shop has a hair salon. $6 per cut. OK, why not?

Do the required SafeEntry and temperature check, and off we go, hair cut with mask on.

Weird to wear mask to have hair cut, but situation requires it, so just live with this little inconvenience.
Thus, bring my 三千烦恼丝 to become 两千？
LOL

The shop also has pre-paid membership card price. $30 for 10 cuts! Nice!
However, didn't sign that up for now. Need to check out on using up the previous ones first. :)

Feels good after the hair cut.
Looks neater now.

Hopefully, when going for next hair cut, the situation is back to a lot more normal than new normal.

 

MCO Card

Last week, I applied for a Visa card.
However, this time it is the MCO Visa Card, linked to cryptocurrency.
So exciting. :P

They have different type of cards, depending on how much MCO coins you have to be transferred to the card app for staking.
Staking can help to earn some coins as well.
Below is the link for you to check it out if keen to understand a little.
https://crypto.com/en/cards.html

Can also use my referral link https://platinum.crypto.com/r/329zrgzqw9 to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $50 USD :)

Anyway, the card arrived. I applied for the Ruby Steel Card. I have staked 50 MCO coins in order to apply for the ruby card.
Beautiful, and also quite heavy actually. :P

It comes in a very simple packaging.
Just a welcome card info and the card itself.
All other instructions, can be found in the App itself or from their website.

The picture did a little injustice to the card itself. LOL.

Well, the next step is activate and top up to the card in order to use it.
It is basically a pre-paid card, thus need to top up value (in terms of $ or crypto) in order to use it.

Have to test it out and see. Should be ok. Will top up some BTC into it and see if it works well. :)

Mother's Day

Yesterday, it was Mother's Day, second Sunday of May.

My mom had been gone for about 5-6 years now, but there are 2 mothers at my household.
My wife and my helper.

Zyan did some kind of google app to give his mother a link to show his appreciation.
Oh well, that was all.

We ordered some food from this place last week, and arranged for delivery yesterday evening. I could only arranged a 6-7pm delivery, which was good enough. Had wanted 5-6pm delivery.

Well, the food came pretty much on time. Just after 6pm, the food arrived.
So we set it up on the table.

And for circuit breaker sake and fun, Karinna and 2 of her good friends arranged a 'zoom dinner'.
So there was special setup with laptop for mic/speaker on the table, for communication purpose.
Virtual dinner with friends, and both having real dinner. LOL.

And we had a bottle of moscato from Naked Grape. Very nice.

Then it was waiting for people to come online, and we each have our dinner at our own home, and enjoying company of friends.

The food was pretty good too. The fried rice is not bad, and the main dish crab (we chose pepper crab) is delicious too.

Quite an interesting experience.
But nothing beats meeting face-to-face for such gathering.
Till next time ... ...

First Ukulele

Quite a few years ago, I was telling Karinna that I wanted to learn ukulele.
Why?
Because guitar is a bit big, and I am lazy to bring bigger item around. Bigger item means bigger storage space as well.

With the circuit break on-going, my backside itchy went to buy 1 ukulele to try.
Actually ordered about 2 weeks ago, and it was delivered quite promptly.

After unpacking, it was put aside for 1 week. LOL.

Today, I made an attempt to play it. With the help of youtube videos. :P

Get to learn how to tune it with the tuner that I bought along with it.
I think the tuner is good, can be used for Zyan's violin as well. :)

Zyan, being the kaypoh one, insisted on using the tuner to tune the ukulele for me.
Afterall, he is the only one at home that has some form of instrumental training.
Just trying to show his professional musical skills to me. Oh well!
Thank you though.

At least now I know the 4 strings are the tunes for "g C E A". Bravo!
And the video tutorial of course has to be easy to learn.  I think generally the videos in there are quite ok for basic learners.
Strumming seems to be the basics.

Learning how to use the fingers to get C chord, F chord, and G chord.
C is pretty much easy, but my fat and stiff fingers have challengers for F and G chords.
Press until feeling pain on the tip of my fingers used, especially the fourth finger.

The song learned in the video is "You Are My Sunshine".
Sun a bit hard to shine with the bruised fingers... lol

At the end, also introduced another 5 videos
This is the video.

Anyway, will see how it goes with more practices....

Oh Fridge!

Oh well.
Not sure we are into the x-th day of the circuit breaker. Never count already.
Still have 4 weeks to go.

Everyone is encouraged not to go out of their home, except for essential stuff and exercise.
Thus, we would need to do some marketing every few days, more for vegetables as they are more perishable as compared to meat stuff.
And eggs. And comfort food. :P

What fun would it be to have the refrigerator play punk on you and stop working.
We had the luck of it yesterday.
Actually, it had sort of stopped momentarily twice previously, few weeks ago.
Managed to revive it somehow fidgeting with the plug.

The switch as 2 sockets. One for the fridge, and another for washing machine.
Switching the plug for the washing machine with the 2 sockets, both are working well.
Switching the plug for the fridge, both won't work.

So went to buy a plug to check if that could be the reason.
Alas, after replacing it with my limited technical household capability, it still didn't work.

Was hoping it can survive the circuit breaker before we replace it. 
Cannot go out how to buy right?
And more over, the shop is not opened.

Well, at least still able to get a fridge during circuit breaker period. It's essential after all right, else how to store food at home? :P

After sourcing online yesterday, we order one in the morning, and pay for express delivery to have it delivered on the same day!
Amazing.

And the delivery man (just one man)is superb.
Hand leg super fast. Chop chop curry pok, less than 15 mins, everything put back in order, and including removing the old one for disposal.
Solid siah.

So now, a new fridge to serve us additionally.

Didn't take a pic of the old fridge, and thank you for serving us for the past 9 years.

Hand Sanitizer

Hopefully by now, most residents should be aware of the hand sanitiser distribution in Singapore

I volunteered to be one of those that helps to distribute the hand sanitiser at designated locations.

They are mostly in the community centres around the whole of Singapore (23-29 Mar), and some malls under Capitaland (until 05 Apr).

All households should have received the pamphlet, which will provide the holder a free 500ml of non-alcohol based hand sanitiser.

To collect, will need to bring the pamphlet along, with your own bottle for collect the hand sanitiser. That’s why it is a BYOB (bring your own bottle) event.

The collection is from 3pm to 9pm on weekdays, and 10am to 9pm on weekends.

For the past 6 days, I was there from 3-6pm on weekdays, and earlier today for most part of the day. Tomorrow will be the last day at Kampong Ubi Community Centre, where I am helping out with.

It’s really nothing difficult. 

Me and the barrel

Essentially, when the people come, they will be ushered to a registration point. They will have to do declaration in relation to their past travel history recently, and temperature measurement.

They will then be moved to a station to have the pamphlet checked and cut as indication of collection, and a hand sanitiser sticker will be pasted on their bottle to remind them it is now a hand sanitiser.

Then the bottle will be push to another counter to fill up the 500ml of liquid.

The 500ml of hand sanitiser were all prepared beforehand onto a measuring cup, indicating the volume. No more, no less, for each pamphlet shown.

When the barrel gets empty, it will be replaced. The hand sanitiser is also mixed in a separate room when the supply gets low. Having extra barrel ready is essential for such event. :P

Once collected, they will be asked to exit from the collection centre, and voila!

Of course, as with any kind of activity, there will always be a group of people who come with different set of challenges for the volunteers.

The men in pink ... ...with me is Arjun from my Neighbourhood Committee

Some come with the pamphlet, claiming they did not receive it (which can be true, as my home did not receive the pamphlet), and some simply just turn up saying they did not bring.

Those that came without the pamphlet, were then asked to write down their name and address as an indication for collection.

Some when given 500ml, asked for more, which would be rejected of course.

Some come with very small bottle, and the volunteers will have more challenge to pour into small bottle.

Some would anyhow walk through and past the registration, and when asked to go back to register, complain every now and then about the ‘mess’.

Well, that is life, no event or process can ever please everyone and all. There will always be some that may not be as appreciative.

Of course, these are just a smaller group of people. Majority of the people would still be cordial and nice to us doing the service.

As for today, there was a kid that join us because his dad brought him over. Cute little fellow that is very eager to help in the stations.

Star boy in action

I asked the kid if he will be there tomorrow. He said don't know.
Shall see tomorrow then. :)

Masks Distribution

Nowadays, if you want to be alone, all you need to do is cough a few times.
People around you will shun away from you.

Last Sunday, after letting Zyan off to attend his violin class, Karinna and I went to Stabucks nearby for a coffee.
Whole I was walking towards to place, I let out a few coughs as my throat was itchy.

In a jiffy, we saw few people who were about a short distance from us, hurriedly walked off.
They were in front of us, contemplating about visiting Starbucks, from what we were able to deduce at the distance away from them.
Oooops. My few coughs cost a little business for Starbucks. :P

Well, this Wuhan coronavirus definitely is causing quite a lot of inconvenience and worry everywhere.
No stock for masks and sanitizers on most shelves of supermarkets.

Then government so nice right? Distributing masks to residences
Each household (rather, resident address) will be given 4 free masks. Information had been disseminated on various channels, letting the people know where they can possibly get the masks.
Collection centre will be centralised at certain location, and each address will be allocated to collect from a specific location.

6 to 9 Feb 2020 (today till Sunday) are the dates allocated for my estate's distribution.
As part of the neighbourhood committee, I went to help out this morning.

My duty is allocated as 0930 to 1300 hrs.
Spent the first few minutes to understand how the agency wants to do the distribution.
The logistic was far from perfect, but to arrange this within a short timeframe, I would say it would still be applaudable.
Small issues here and there can be handled with. No problem.

Perhaps it was the morning time, the crowd was not overwhelming. Only the first 15 minutes there were more people.
Subsequently, only a few people would stroll in now and then to collect the masks.
To collect the masks, just need to show NRIC for proof of address. The address will be matched against the data obtained by the agency for verification purpose.

Probably the busy time would be evening time, when people are off working already.

As expected, now and then will have some people asking for more masks. Their household have 5 persons, given only 4, then the other 1 how? etc.
Seriously, even if your household only have 1 person, and given 4 masks. If you need to use on daily basis, it would still be not enough.
Anyway, there is no single way that will please everybody. This thing bounds to happen.

As I had something to do in the afternoon, and evening, I took my leave after 1pm.

Perhaps will drop by tomorrow also. But tomorrow there are other activities as well. Will see how.