YUM YUM LIST OF 07

The list is out. Again. It has to get out every year ok??!! It’s the End of The Year and it’s time I toast to slumps, bumps and all things yummy……. All things pertaining to my life that is

Jiving It in Top Gear:
The scandalous F1 2007 is none other like before. Industry espionage, underhanded sabotaging, backstabbing remarks, off the record statements that got on the record, the engagement of our darling Datin, the breakout rookie that almost but didn’t win, the de-crowning of the strutting Spaniard, and above all…. The Iceman Reigns Champ. You gotta love this year’s finale race. And I got to watch it all from the Gold Box at this year’s Sepang. You gotta love that too.

Jiving It Big Screen:
300- For glory, for honour and for real 12-pecs MEN! RWOAR! It’s the real thang baby doll. I absolute love the feminist line thrown at the Persian’s face: “Only Spartan women give birth to real men” If I had a swhang, I’d go to war for that woman.

Transformers- Too hot too handle Fox and the new Hollywood bad boy LePoof (okay LeBouf) played in the sandbox with the imaginary friend of every kid growing up in the 80’s. I still have my Constructobots (mine was the cement mixer and crane) and can’t say I’m surprise years later, I grow up and get to play with the real things in my job. Somehow it’s not as fun tho, the foreign workers spoil it for me. Autobots, roll out!

Honorable Mention: The Shaken and Not Stirred Bond Royale, Hitman

Jiving It on the Tube: to the fans all I can say is; Yata! Whoever did the illustrations for Issac Mendez (Mister Isaak?) is pure genius. OOOOOO and lets not forget Uber sexpot Vince Chase and his Entourage. This slurpy drool worthy crew (ok, maybe just Vinny and E)captivated me from the Pilot onwards. As Britney says: Give Me, Give Me, Give Me More (without the Mandy Moore- ryhme and punn not intended)

Jiving It w Jimmy Choo
The Choo-meister did a super sexy stiletto sketch design for me. Awesome. Dood, Malaysia Representz!















Jiving It in Da Jungle
Trail running, kayaking, obstacle courses, more kayaking, more IQ puzzles, more trail running- that’s to sum up the high I’ve gotten myself addicted on. Not to mention rock climbing and hiking. The best mistake I made in my life was entering the reality ‘radio’ broadcast of the extreme challenge. Every race takes you through the side of an island/mountain that you would never normally see as a tourist. It’s simply amazing stuff, crossing the finish line.

Jiving It Facebook Style
I can’t deny this social network platform has finally taken Asia by storm. It’s brewing and it’s gonna get bigger, once people get their arses off the other platforms (WAYN, Friendster, Multipler, Hi-Five) The Yum Yum clique absolutely loves the Hatching Eggs, Growing Gift, Naughty Gifts, Scrabulous, trout slapping, sheep throwing and just plain giving a shout out. Facebook gets a definite Jive Yum Yum Props!

Jiving It Politics
The Bersih gathering and march took lots of guts and the strong belief in the Need for Change. Malaysians are getting more aware and are not afraid to voice it! On the right side of democracy, and the Freedom of free speech and Press, I pay props to CNN and Al-Jazeera. Don’t you think something is wrong when even our Bar Council has to take to the streets?!

Jiving It Horcrux:
Bidding farewell to 7 years of escapism, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is, as Ron Weasly says, “WICKED!” Plus the fact the crew got our asses out at 4AM to fight with the little puny kids over the book supply. Tesco gets the Yum Yum vote for price slashing and down with other stores for fuming. Consumer Rights Rule!

What Jives the Yum Yum Monsta: Amy Winehouse, Mika, Ruyue (at the Gardens), The Loaf (Langkawi), Absolute Pear, Supernova, SPACE Design Magazine (Must add for the Ish & Wallpaper Crowd), Graduation, NYE party (2006), Vietnamese Coffee, Neil Gaiman, Clive Owen, and of course based on my previous blog, LP. And to show you my devotion to Shinoda, here’s another uber cool utoobe to pimp up my blog: (come one admit it, having a utoobe really make my blog look snazzy rite :P besides it boosts my self esteem in the video capturing area- it’s hard for old dogs to learn new tricks)



What Yum Yum looks forward to in 2008:
Watchman (The Movie), the graphic novel was great, lets see if the director of 300 brings the same magic he did with the Spartans, Australia (still in the works), Ironman, Harry Potter 5, House Season 4,

Peeves on the Celluloid:
24 season 6. Going downhill and taking FILF Keifer with it. Grey’s season 3.

Peeved down under:
Why couldn’t LP perform in Stadium Merdeka again like they did 4 years ago? This year saw me and the Rockers faced off with SISTIC Corp. (oh, and L and M would like to add here: SISTIC SUCKS) I don’t know what Singapore has against me, but last year, the Qbar at Clarke Quay made my Peeved off list as well.

To recap:
Housed in a charming colonial structure next to the museum on Clarke Quay, the Qbar opened with me in attendance. Snobbish service, inefficient waiters and worst of all, a face-to-face pick up meeting by none other than Singapore’s very own Dr. Love. *shudder* Having him tell me that we are destined to end up together in a sober tone, definitely brought my ego down. I don’t need Singapore’s sexpert and love doctor trying to hit on me and tell me we’d make beautiful babies. This is the Love Doctor that patients go to, and actually perform sex in front of him so that he could correct their mistakes. (close your mouth JH, you’re starting to drool)

Here’s more on Dr Wei: Dr Love

Oooo and you can scroll down to my next blog posting abt Sistic.

Peeved Beyond the Stratosphere:
ANGKASAWAN my arse. ‘Nuff said. This takes first over the ‘leaking’ comment and flag burning when Condoleeza was around. (for my foreign friends, if someone said he was an angkasawan here, most likely he’d get a good fannysmackin for being a space tourist)

Peeved Off Politics:
Myanmar. Just not right.

Peeved on Prejudice:
Date a foreign guy, and they label you SPG. Date an older man and you are a gold digger. Date a younger man, and you get labelled ‘Mrs Robinson’. Date another race and they ask you if you’re desperate. Be friends with a lonely guy and they’ll say he’s into you. So forgive me if I’m perplex as to what the definition of Love really is. I once thought that it had no boundaries, terms and conditions.

Peeved at the Good Charlotte Concert
Way too many opening acts and the Deejays were too draggy.

Peeved at 50 Independence
Did you really feel the love?

Horrible Mentions: The Apartment at the Curve. Reason: claim to fame is serving food based on Jamie Oliver (which is no brainer and simple) recipes. And yet the food fell flat, and the service sucks. The most peevious thing of all: its gets the crowds as it’s the place to be seen. That’s the only thing.

A Tell Tale Heart. Staged at the KLPAC, it just didn’t do Poe any justice.

**********

31
Sistic Makes Me SIC!!

I promised myself that I wouldn’t blog about Sistic, but what happened today just blew my mind away. Sistic is the ticketing agent that we bought the LP tickets from. But because of their ineffective (I wouldn’t say inefficient, they very efficiently processed my credit card charges) the tickets never got to my hands. Spending four hours standing at their representative booth in Singapore and talking for four hours to them proved their inadequacy in after sales customer service. We were passed around to no less than 5 personnel, which after five hours, we got some sort of manager on the line who still couldn’t provide us with the solution.

Issue 1: On their online form, we had written down the Company name at which our friend worked at. However, it DID NOT state on the form that the Company name would not be printed. They didn’t print it, and the tickets never got to the person at the Company. Sistic admitted that it is their oversight. But because they have never encountered such a problem before, they cannot refund our money (all one thousand over ringgit worth of it) as there is no policy about such matters.

Issue 2: When the tickets were delivered and signed off by someone at the reception, the postman from SingPost (it was through registered post) did not bother to take down the identification number of the person who signed it off. Sistic claims that the receptionist might have taken it and blames SingPost for not carrying out their duties fully. Sistic tells me to take the matter up with SingPost. As a consumer, this matter should be taken up between Sistic and SingPost, and NOT SingPost and I, because as long as the tickets did not reach my hands, the deliverable goods are not in my possession therefore the blame is still on Sistic.

Issue 3: After tracking down the receptionist, she said she had handed the mail directly back to Sistic as there was no company name printed on it. When Sistic received the returned package, no one bothered to take down the returned package or the receptionist name or even log the returned tickets. Since this counter was a representative of Sistic (Velocity) Sistic then tells me to take the matter up with Velocity. If Velocity is representing Sistic, then Sistic should deal with the matter with Velocity as Sistic is still the merchandiser. Sistic still tries to shift the blame. They way I see it: Velocity = Sistic = blame.

Issue 4: The Sistic customer service implies that my friends and I are liars, pretending to loose the tickets just to get 3 free more tickets. My blood pressure has never been so high. At this point, M finally erupts like Mount Kawarata (for the record, I erupted 1 minute into the conversation dealing with the Sistic people; M lasted 3.5 hours). When M finally sounds like a postal woman gone lunatic, Sistic then tries to imply the receptionist stole the tickets. All 3 of us went berserk! There was a small crowd gathering by now.

Issue 5: Even after Sistic admits that YES it is their fault that the tickets are not in my hands, they tell me: It’s company policy not to refund tickets. I should take it up with the organizer, which is Lushington Entertainment. The organizer has NOTHING to do with the tickets issued, because Sistic as the ticketing agent issues ALL tickets and Lushington has nothing to do with the sales. They are the event organizers and promoters. Once this simple piece of information was relayed, we realized that we were getting nowhere with Sistic. We then requested for the person to contact at Lushington (so that we can lodge a formal complaint) Sucktic then tells me, they do NOT deal directly with Lushington and can not give me their
number. WTF?! Then why did they tell me to talk to them?!

Issue 6: We kept repeating (or more like M kept repeating) that all the answers above were not acceptable solutions to the problem. And the answer the customer service agent 1,2,3,4 & 5 tells us: Buy new ones. FUDGE! That is not an acceptable solution.

Issue 7: I immediately lodge a dispute with my credit card company. One month later (which is today, in which the following ordeal I had to endure finally broke me and made me blog) Sistic calls and says, We are glad to inform you that we will refund you the money 50%. WTF?!! WTH???!!

Does this make sense to you? Sistic will refund me 50%?! To show you how polite M is, the following excerpt from the latest correspondence between M and Sistic goes as follows:

Dear all (meaning the managers at Sistic as we have been corresponding for a while now),

We thank you for following up on this matter.

Yan has called me on Saturday to inform me on SISTIC's decision to refund
us 50% on the undelivered tickets. My friends and I have discussed this matter and we have decided to REJECT this offer. Pls do not transfer any money or write off this problem just yet until this matter is solved reasonably and agreed by all parties.

Frankly speaking, we don't understand the rationale behind SISTIC's decision.
Does this mean you are claiming 50% culpability of this problem? And what
about the remaining 50%?

Citibank is also investigating on our behalf as we've submitted a dispute
form (100% dispute).

Kindly understand the position you're putting us in. We've paid a total
RM1100 just to go to the concert (not counting the transportation and meal
costs etc) and now you're informing us we have to still pay an additional
RM550 just because of someone else's mistake? This is highly unacceptable.
We have mentioned time and again that we want a solution that is reasonable
and agreeable - unfortunately the '50%' solution did not fall into either
one of those categories.

Thank you for your kind attention.
Pls communicate our concerns to your management.

M

Kesimpulannya: Are they freaking kidding me? You admit liability, yet you do not want to step up to the plate and take full culpability? Still insisting that somehow it was my fault in all the issues stated above!? I wonder if I was face to face with these people, would they still act all bravado and tell me to take the 50% as hey, I should pat myself on the back and consider myself lucky? Do people in this day and age take advantage of the distance proximity the internet allows and empowers them to act without balls? Is the only way to get their full attention and fair results is to SUE them?! What Sistic doesn’t know is that 2 of the 3 tickets were bought by a lawyer who now I am told has all the time in the world to file a law suit against them. Is this what the world boils down to? Suing and counter claim?! I think I will definitely win on the basis of emotional distress.