October 16, 2002
An interesting day. It began with cloudy weather, it went on to more cloudy weather, then rain, then more rain and after that a storm. Now its at that stage when the whole world seems almost to be wringing out its dry clothes.
I had a visit fro my old friend Douglas who is here from the US on a working visit. He was involved in the RIAS fashion week which was held at the Sunway Lagoon resort city. The poor chap has to sit through hours upon hours of nubile young models parading in various stages of undress, or was it dress, promoting couture by various designers. What a torture it must have been for him… yeah, right.
We talked about book projects and a number of other things. He was looking for suggestions of titles of Malaysia literature for him to read and review. I introduced him to Raihanah and he ended up with several pages of suggestions accompanied by info about each book, the authors, the literary tradition and an incredibly compacted introduction to the contemporary status of the discipline. Perhaps, a lecturer in post-colonial literature is not the person to see if you are looking for ‘a little bit of info’ on books in the area. I have to say the amount of things she could whip out ‘off the top of her head’ was impressive. I guess I could do the same but only if someone asked me about local food.
Then he was off to KL and I’m back home. There is another thing that I must note. I called the NEC computers service and support line today to complain about a problem I am having with my computer. They were very helpful and said they send technicians onsite to handle problems but the lady on the phone was so helpful and gave enough information for me to solve the problem myself in less than ten minutes. I didn’t even need to have a technician come over and of course that means avoiding the hassle of having to be home to wait for him or her to show up. It was impressive. I guess some computer companies are indeed very good when it comes to after sales service. I once had a problem with my DELL computer at the office and they sent a technician the very next morning after I called my complaint in. He came, he checked the computer and ended up replacing the hard disk with a new one. It all took about twenty minutes. Another impressive performance. On the other hand, I once had problems with another electronic device but I can’t remember the which company it was… it was a laptop computer anyway. That time the service left much to be expected.
I had this argument with my brother once. I tend to buy my computers readymade. He, on the other hand, prefers to build them himself piece by piece. His argument was that he could choose the best parts for his machine. My argument was, a machine made from the very best parts may not work as well as expected because the parts may not work best with the other parts whereas the dedicated machines will work together well because they have been designed to do so especially if they come from the same maker. One thing for sure, his machines were much cheaper. The best machine, I think, is definitely the ones you don’t have to pay for like my handphone. I got it free when I opened an account with the RHB bank some time back. Yes, yes, I know there was a catch. They would freeze RM 1000 of my money in the bank for 18 months but I thought that was the idea of opening an account in the first place… to keep you money somewhere safe. Then again, with bank robberies both of the physical kind and the e-kind these days, is the bank really a safe place?
An interesting day. It began with cloudy weather, it went on to more cloudy weather, then rain, then more rain and after that a storm. Now its at that stage when the whole world seems almost to be wringing out its dry clothes.
I had a visit fro my old friend Douglas who is here from the US on a working visit. He was involved in the RIAS fashion week which was held at the Sunway Lagoon resort city. The poor chap has to sit through hours upon hours of nubile young models parading in various stages of undress, or was it dress, promoting couture by various designers. What a torture it must have been for him… yeah, right.
We talked about book projects and a number of other things. He was looking for suggestions of titles of Malaysia literature for him to read and review. I introduced him to Raihanah and he ended up with several pages of suggestions accompanied by info about each book, the authors, the literary tradition and an incredibly compacted introduction to the contemporary status of the discipline. Perhaps, a lecturer in post-colonial literature is not the person to see if you are looking for ‘a little bit of info’ on books in the area. I have to say the amount of things she could whip out ‘off the top of her head’ was impressive. I guess I could do the same but only if someone asked me about local food.
Then he was off to KL and I’m back home. There is another thing that I must note. I called the NEC computers service and support line today to complain about a problem I am having with my computer. They were very helpful and said they send technicians onsite to handle problems but the lady on the phone was so helpful and gave enough information for me to solve the problem myself in less than ten minutes. I didn’t even need to have a technician come over and of course that means avoiding the hassle of having to be home to wait for him or her to show up. It was impressive. I guess some computer companies are indeed very good when it comes to after sales service. I once had a problem with my DELL computer at the office and they sent a technician the very next morning after I called my complaint in. He came, he checked the computer and ended up replacing the hard disk with a new one. It all took about twenty minutes. Another impressive performance. On the other hand, I once had problems with another electronic device but I can’t remember the which company it was… it was a laptop computer anyway. That time the service left much to be expected.
I had this argument with my brother once. I tend to buy my computers readymade. He, on the other hand, prefers to build them himself piece by piece. His argument was that he could choose the best parts for his machine. My argument was, a machine made from the very best parts may not work as well as expected because the parts may not work best with the other parts whereas the dedicated machines will work together well because they have been designed to do so especially if they come from the same maker. One thing for sure, his machines were much cheaper. The best machine, I think, is definitely the ones you don’t have to pay for like my handphone. I got it free when I opened an account with the RHB bank some time back. Yes, yes, I know there was a catch. They would freeze RM 1000 of my money in the bank for 18 months but I thought that was the idea of opening an account in the first place… to keep you money somewhere safe. Then again, with bank robberies both of the physical kind and the e-kind these days, is the bank really a safe place?
Comments