::Homework Crapbox:: (2017)
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Apparently, a Singaporean car driver drove over a motorcyclist's foot, then gave the middle finger and shouted at the motorcyclists, then challenged them to a fight, then started fighting with 2 or 3 motorcyclists (who may or may not be Singaporean). In the video, you can clearly see a ponytail girl involved in the fight, and she may or may not be the motorcyclist whose foot the car driver ran over.
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If you were the guy, would you accept the package deal or walk away? Take an honest poll among all men on Earth, how do you think the results would look?
https://sg.style.yahoo.com/man-proposed-fiancees-sister-really-special-reason-180516853.html
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A hippopotamus the size of a pig
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/check-baby-pygmy-hippo-234258242.html
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The New York Times : U.N. Survey Finds Cybersecurity Gaps Everywhere Except Singapore
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/07/05/technology/05reuters-cyber-un.html
This Reuters article is also reported around the world :
https://www.google.com.sg/#q=Singapore+has+a+near-perfect+approach+to+cybersecurity
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Skeletons of 5,000-year-old Chinese ‘giants’ discovered by archaeologists
Yao Ming : "Cheyyy! Still lose to me lor..."
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/skeletons-5-000-old-chinese-093218784.html
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The headline sounds gay. But seriously, Duterte and everyone reading this, go easy on the salt. While sodium chloride is a biochemically essential nutrient, 99% of Singaporeans consume excessive salt (worse, some of the salt you consume from various foods may not even be NaCl salt, but aluminium salts like what Macdonald uses, which causes brain damage), resulting in high blood pressure and kidney failure. Do you know, Singapore has the highest rates of high blood pressure and kidney failure in the world? In addition to highest rates of diabetes, heart disease and many cancers. Another contributing factor for this is that 99% of Singaporeans are chronically sleep deprived (why do you think being an MOE teacher is one of the most health-hazardous white/pink-collar jobs in Singapore?). Well, over to you, Duterte.
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/philippines-duterte-vows-eat-militants-beheadings-041301654.html.
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Well, when LKY said that, he was preoccupied with Singapore's aging population and shrinking youth demographics. Of course, LKY's priority is clearly not AWARE's priority. Cya soon Michelle, as a starship Cpt on Star Trek!
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A film claims to solve the mystery of Amelia Earhart's fate
The film provides evidence that after Amelia crash-landed in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, they were picked up by the Japanese military and that Earhart, presumed to be a U.S. spy, was held prisoner by the Japanese military until she died. And there's more: There is evidence that United States government knew of her whereabouts and did nothing to rescue her and instead covered it up, according to the film, hosted by former FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry.
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/film-claims-solve-mystery-amelia-earharts-fate-203012351.html
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Muslim groups in Malaysia and Indonesia have called for a boycott of Starbucks because of the coffee chain's support for LGBT rights.
Perkasa said in a statement that the Malaysian government should revoke the trading license given to Starbucks and other companies such as Microsoft and Apple that support LGBT rights and same-sex marriage.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-indonesia-muslim-groups-call-091454342.html
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[Indonesia] - Indonesian teenage boy weds 73-year-old bride
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/indonesian-teenage-boy-weds-73-old-bride-114252714.html
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Putin, Xi message to Trump: USA unipolar world is over
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The anti-yellow culture movement or Fan Huang Wen Hua Yun Dong came about from the events of unsolved murder-rape cases of Cheong Gok Tin and two other girls before her, which were believed to be a result of society becoming more “yellow�, a word that represented the perverse, due to the spread of pornography and striptease shows.
Later on, the People’s Action Party launched their own anti-yellow culture campaign in June 1959, which targeted decadent activities, such as gambling, opium smoking and prostitution.
Therefore, the irony – Chua Mia Tee's emotionally-charged artwork, which represented these students pushing to change society from its “yellow� and colonial ways, is now featured on the lottery tickets and advertisements for a nationwide lottery.
Also, the draw is also called the National Day Draw, no less, with the top prize set at $5 million.
Renowned translator and linguist Tan Dan Feng, who noticed this, wrote a Facebook post about the ironic advertisement, highlighting the unfortunate placement of a painting that encapsulates such a rich history.
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Here is Burpple's recommendation for Best Places for Ice Cream in Singapore 2017
https://sg.yahoo.com/style/burpple-best-places-ice-cream-023401523.html
Here's mine... what can I say... I prioritize value for money :
https://www.mcdelivery.com.sg/sg/menu.html?daypartId=21&catId=32
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"The Japanese Host Family From Hell" experienced by digitalmimi
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"Why I REALLY quit English Teaching in JAPAN - 英語教師を辞���由" by kanadajin3
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"CRAZY STORY - GETTING HIT ON IN JAPAN - ナンパ�る��..." by kanadajin3
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LOL! 'Helpful' Dictionary Voice indeed...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4NjydDICAQ
Anyway, THIS is the correct pronunciation :
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Singaporean Natalie Ong is currently 16 years old (15 years old in the 2016 video below), and she's based in Australia. Check out LGBT-judge Adam Lambert's distinctive gesture at 1:07 min of the video, his LGBT-musician way of giving "thumbs up" for Natalie's singing prowess. Can you emulate that gesture? Go on, try it.
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Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland : Who Is The Best Spider-Man?
Bonus Battle : Who Is The Best Looking Aunt May?
https://sg.yahoo.com/style/tom-holland-andrew-garfield-tobey-230013846.html
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[Singapore] - A young female Singaporean student Ho Mei Xia, described as petite and only 1.55m in height, has been jailed 21 weeks for violently assaulting 3 Singapore Police Force officers. And btw, she's a law school student, a future lawyer.
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Mathis posted :
@Joseph, I'm US military personnel stationed in Korea and that 50 cent garbage as you say, not because of Obamas doing, You need to do your homework little boy, Obama carried out more bombing against all our enemies and the only reason he and anyone else has not wiped "fatboy" out is because everybody knows he will bomb SoKor first and that will not be a good option. why do you think Fatboy has food tasters? drives other staff members cars? drives only at night? sleeps in rooms with no windows or air conditioning? Homework do it!
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/china-warns-against-words-deeds-raise-north-korea-084125184.html
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The owner of Pasta J is spot on. The vast majority of Singaporeans have woefully little empathy and sympathy for SME restaurant owners (and in general, all SME business owners), and don't care that unlike MNCs, SMEs are struggling to survive just to fatten the coffers of REITS and greedy landlords. I've reproduced one part of Pasta J owner's post, click on the link to read the full post.
Guys, in the nearly four years I have been operating Pasta J, we have had the privilege of serving many, many great customers.
But there are those who have really made life hard for us too unfortunately. These customers make us feel taken advantage of, abused and disrespected.
Some of these cases I will mention later but I would like to frame it as some learning points on how to be a fair to businesses. As will be listed below, each and every point is a result of actual experiences.
Again, the following points are the hard truths of running a very high cost business like a restaurant.
I have been putting off writing about this but recently things have been really bad.I am far from the only restaurant owner facing this but I guess, we all try not to rock the boat.
1. Waiver of Corkage: We pay rent, renovations, furniture, staff and amenities and utilities to earn a living (I have also continually reinvested to make improvements). Why should we then let customers bring their own wines, provide expensive, easily breakable wine glasses and serve them their wine for free?
Who will pay if the wine glass breaks? Why should we be paying staff to serve that for free? There is a cost for everything and we pay for it. And this being Singapore, we pay a lot for it.
I have had customers get indignant for charging corkage. I am afraid I don't get it.
2. No Shows: A reservation is a commitment taken too lightly by some. Often, the no shows don't even pick up the phone when we contact them to see if they're coming.
We lose customers this way because we either have to put others outdoors (often disliked) or we have to turn them away.
How would customers like it if we don't honour their reservation?
For big reservations, we make special arrangements like getting more staff, preparing ingredients and if they don't show, we feel kinda of let down.
3. Having less guests than reserved: This happens for too often than I can tell you. Again, we lose customers this way and it really hurts when the customer treats it like nothing. I have lost many,many customers this way.
2 such cases are particularly bad. 1 was a reservation for 22pax by a group of army personnel in 30mins. We hustled. At the end, only 7 turned up and the entire group of 7 acted as if nothing happened and didn't tell us the rest were not turning up despite seeing all the other tables joined to theirs with the menus laid out.
Wow.
The 2nd was recent. Despite telling the customer that we will be making special arrangements to cater for his reservation for 24pax, he had 8 less turn up, didn't bother telling me until I asked upon which he admitted to reserving for more just in case.
Well, I certainly felt stupid to cancel my own lunch off and for calling back another staff who was also off.
No apologies for both and other other cases.
4. Late arrival n/or partially very late arrivals: This happens all the time for big groups. Sometimes, the entire party can be seated only 1.5 hours later. We will then have hold empty seats for that long.
5. Changing the recipe: The way I see it, you come to a restaurant to enjoy the restaurant's dishes, not to enjoy your own recipe, which logically, you would have to cook yourself. Why insist on changing it? Especially to remove the main ingredient? We have even been asked to remove the clams from Clammy Addiction!
6. We have been trying to educate customers that it is wrong to add cheese to every pasta or other dishes. We work very hard to craft and produce our dishes, so forgive us pls if we refuse.
From experience, adding cheese to everything is a practice allowed and done mainly at places where the food is bland and the standards are low. We believe our customers know better because logically, cheese doesn't go with everything.
7. Ordering too little and Non - Eaters: going to a restaurant should be an experience and restaurant owners like myself put in a lot of resources to make it a good experience. It hurts us when customers make use of us for meetings, to hang out or just to socialise without being fair to us.
We had cases where customers come in and order just for a fraction of their group size and then have friends join them and worse still expect us to serve everyone. I have even had 8pax come in and ordering 3 main courses and that's it. Then they ask for sharing plates for everyone.
Some think that since we are not full anyway, they are actually doing us a favour by filling up the seats. I have had this said to me to my face. But when we allow it once when we are not busy, can we refuse when it is busy?
Frankly, we don't mind occasionally serving such customers but it has been happening too often. Case in point above.
8. Not complaining then giving a bad review: Actually, we are grateful for opportunities to improve but I believe your dining experience is more important than a opportunity to give a bad review.
It is probably more of a Singaporean thing to not confront issues head-on but this doesn't help the customers. If we were wrong, I insist on making up for it and you would then still have a great experience. If you complain only after, nothing can be done about your time with us.
9. Hogging tables: On busy times, we need to be able to turn the tables because that is mainly when we can make money and make up for slower times.
Other customers also want a chance to dine too.
It is really not right to expect to have the table to yourself for the whole meal service. There is no such thing as unlimited service.
10. Don't abuse the staff: I have found that when I am not around, my staff sometimes get bullied. Someone criticised us for not asking for the doneness of our pork chops and when told that pork chops don't come in doneness, he got angry and then picked on something else. At the end, he threw his receipt into our menu basket in front of our staff in a fit of anger. Don't do that......
11. Pls take care when using our amenities: For example, pls don't mark our sofa or let your children damage anything. We had a case just now but the customer was very responsible to inform us and offered to do something about it. I really appreciated that and thanked him for it. Just please do try to prevent it in future.
Again, I hope everyone reading this understands that I am not trying to be personal. What I have written about is what we have been facing since the beginning and I have put off publicising it.
They're only basic considerations, basic manners and only what is fair.
Everything costs us and restaurants are famously a high cost operation. We are not a cafe. Our main business is selling food, not just coffee, desserts or soft drinks. The bulk of our business is done during peak hours, they are thus very precious.
On the whole, we have been blessed with a growing business and probably more than our fair share of great customers.
Basically, we hope to keep it simple. We want to serve food, really good food and provide great service to customers who will be fair to us because after all, we are running a business.
Hope you all understand.
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Xi to LHL : "ä¸æ–°å�Œæ–¹è¦�继承两国è€�ä¸€è¾ˆé¢†å¯¼äººç•™ä¸‹çš„è‰¯å¥½ä¼ ç»Ÿï¼Œä»Žæˆ˜ç•¥é«˜åº¦å’Œé•¿è¿œè§’åº¦æŠŠæ�¡å¥½ä¸¤å›½å…³ç³»å�‘展方å�‘，继ç»åœ¨æ¶‰ å�Šå½¼æ¤æ ¸å¿ƒåˆ©ç›Šå’Œé‡�大关切问题上相互ç�†è§£å’Œæ”¯æŒ�" or in English: "The two sides should inherit the good tradition left by the older generation of leaders of the two countries and grasp the direction of the development of bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective and continue to understand and support each other in relation to their core interests and major concerns."
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