Dance like no one's watching

Won a Paddock Club ticket for the Friday practice session.  Marvellous experience – you get to watch the cars in aircon comfort, don’t have to worry you’re going deaf & shout when you want to talk to your friends and the non-stop flow of food & drinks (alcoholic & non-alcoholic) – glorious.

The minute Booze Queen & I stepped into the McLaren VIP suite, we were greeted by the friendly McLaren staff & given goody bags. The goody bag contained a waterproof jacket, earplugs & a McLaren cap.

There was also a simulator where you can try the Singapore Circuit.  I didn’t try… but Booze Queen did… and it’s really not that easy.  Haha.  She kept turning the wrong direction at one particular turn & kept getting stuck against the wall. 

The staff was also extremely attentive.  Once we were seated at our table, they brought us yummy appetizers.  I didn’t take much food photos – was busy absorbing the whole atmosphere & experience.

The mains & sides were served buffet style.  I really really loved this mains – Alaskan crab on glass noodles.  The crab was sooo fresh & yummy.  The glass noodles were very well marinated with this tangy, citrusy gravy.  Sluuuuurp!

The wagyu beef ramen was also not bad.  The beef was extremely tasty though I didn’t like the fried beancurd skin thingy so much.

Loved the live interview with Jenson Button at the McLaren suite.  Such a pity Lewis Hamilton was only scheduled to make an appearance on Saturday. Boohoo!

Button’s really charismatic in person.  His face looks smaller than on TV too.  Hehe.  Love how he makes eye contact with the audience.  So charming.  Hahaha.  I shall henceforth add him into the list of drivers I support! 

Another highlight of the night was when we got to do the Pit Lane walk… and… WE VISITED THE MCLAREN GARAGE!!

There were hordes & hordes of people but it was worth it!  Don’t know if I would ever have another chance to do this walk!

Love this picture of Jenson Button’s car!

Here’s a small pic of me with Button’s car in the background.  Didn’t manage to take a picture of Lewis’ car as it was really swamped in the garage with all the other guests of McLaren’s.

And this is Rosberg’s car!

All in all, it was a terrific experience.  I guess if you pay $6k (or so I’m told) for the Paddock Club 3-day package, that buys you bollocks of good service.  I can hardly articulate the good service.  When seated at the Paddock Club, all I had to do was turn my head around & someone would come & attend to me.  Champagne, wine, food, dessert – they really pump you with food & drinks non-stop.  Sort of reminds me of how First Class service in a plane would be like.  Hahahahaha.

Back from Hong Kong I bought 5 blouses, 1 tee shirt, 1 skirt, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of really cheap earrings, 1 watch, 1 handbag and 3 pairs of shoes.

I blame it on the shopaholic gene inherited from my mom.

She bought 4 blouses, 1 cardigan, 1 scarf, 4 tee shirts, 2 watches, 1 pass holder and 3 pairs of shoes!!

I’m going Hong Kong for the 2nd time this year!  This trip was decided rather hurriedly.  My mom was moaning that she hasn’t confirmed any holiday plans… and she even contemplated following my aunts on a tour to HK… which I thought was ridiculous since they all speak fluent Cantonese and HK’s such an easy place to get around.

So I offered to accompany my mom to HK – if she pays for the hotel.  Heeheehee.  My mom agreed. 

Anyway, gotta pay off some credit card bills quickly b4 I catch a nap.  My flight’s at 6:30am!

It’s quite funny.  To me at least.  I have a habit of writing down the various tasks that I need to do on a post-it and sticking it on my laptop.  As the list of tasks grow, so do the number of post-its.

Yesterday, my boss walked over to where M1 sits & said to me, “Eh, he learn from you is it?”

I looked over & realised that M1 has also developed the habit of writing things down on post-its & sticking them all over his laptop.  Hahahaha.

Facebook leaves me conflicted. Sometimes I’m glad it allows me to keep in touch with old friends and acquaintances, sometimes it satisfies my curiosity and busybody-ness about which old friend / schoolmate came out of the closet, and sometimes it reminds me why some friends remain on FB only.

Of the new generation of National Day songs, Home, has been my perennial favourite.  This year’s song, In A Heartbeat, however, has quite captured my heart too.  Lovely tune & meaningful words.

Hope you like it too.

From the comments Tan Jee Say has made, it appears that he has no idea what the President of Singapore can and cannot do. And his comment about wanting to check the “excesses of the government”? Good grief! I wonder if he remembers that HE was the one who wanted to frivolously take out $10bil from our reserve to give to any S’porean to start their own business, regardless of viability and never mind if they failed.

We found out today that a 2nd account of ours is under attack by one of “GRC” that left. This is something that I don’t understand. It’s been 2 months plus since the account was handed over to the new account servicer. Why wasn’t more effort put into the 2 months to build rapport to the client? In terms of company strength, technical set up and staff expertise, there’s no way our ex-colleague can win us. The only thing we lacked is rapport since our ex-colleague had a “headstart” in this area. And this is something that should have been obvious to the person who took over. You know you’re the new kid on the block so you gotta work harder. You cannot assume that the client you inherit will be loyal to you like your other clients.

I wonder what more can be done to drive this into the department?

Received another e-mail from Miss Engrish today.  In it she said, “on the other side, due to the huge number involved, I suggest doing the cancellation in patches.  Kindly advice if you have any other arrangements”.

Whoa.  What an cheem statement!  Are we taking sides now?  What patches are we talking about?  Nicotine patch?  Software patch?

Then it occurred to me… she probably meant, “on the other hand, due to the huge number involved, I suggest doing the cancellation in batches”.

Recalling her recent e-mails, I feel like replying, “on my side, I empathise herein again the huge number involved.  I will check with the client and revert upmost update timely after weighting all information on hand whether we can cancel in patches”.

This has gotta be the most classic “damn u iOS autocorrect” story i’ve heard. My colleague’s ex-boyfriend SMSed her to say that he’s getting married. She was happy for him as they’ve remained friends and wanted to reply, “Congrats!”. Unfortunately she typed wrongly… and her iPhone auto-corrected it to “Contest!”

The guy went silent after that.