Why I shall never trouble MPs and multi-billionaires ever again

A man accosted an MP at a grassroots event because the man was upset that he didn't get what he was there for.

No, I'm not talking about Ong Kah Chua who set MP Seng Han Thong ablaze at the Yio Chu Kang Community Club last Sunday, apparently because Ong didn't get a hongbao.

I'm talking about me.

I had woken up early one weekend morning to join a walk-a-jog only to find that the organisers had ran out of T-shirts for the participants.

I felt aggrieved enough that when I spotted MP Yeo Cheow Tong in the crowd, I went right up to him, accepted his handshake and demanded my free T-shirt.

Taken aback, the MP said he wasn't in charge of T-shirts. Then some dude accompanying Mr Yeo sensed that I was a trouble-maker and quickly stood between me and the MP without saying a word.

Mr Yeo wisely walked away to glad-hand someone else and the dude followed him - leaving me still aggrieved and T-shirtless.

Did I consider scoring some thinner and a lighter so that I could get me some fiery justice? No, because I had to get past the dude who had already seen me and would be watching out for me.

Did Mr Seng had a dude like that with him last Sunday?

Security doesn't necessarily mean cutting off access.

In the mid-'90s, Bill Gates was in Singapore to promote the launch of Windows 95. I wrote a column about it for a magazine:

"There I was in the front row at the Shangri-la Hotel ballroom. There he was up on stage, mere metres away from where I was slouching in my seat.

"I was so close to Bill Gates that that if I did it just right, I could clamber onto the stage, grab him by his lapels and yell into his face: 'You're the richest man in America, you're the CEO of the largest software company in the world, you're the visionary leader of our technological future - for God's sake, why can't you get glasses that won't keep slipping down your nose?' before any of the security people could get to me (not that I spotted any)."

Soon after the article was published, I received a fax from someone named Alan Solomon. He wrote:

"In the paragraph where you described Mr Bill Gates' glasses and the action you thought of taking to rectify the situation, you stated that you felt you could grab Mr Gates before his security could get to you.

"You then had in brackets: 'not that I spotted any'.

"Well, Mr Ong, we spotted you.

"My company was in charge of Mr Gates' security planning. So the statement that you didn't see any security is a compliment to my security advice.

"Good personal security does not mean a uniform and a gun. It is highly-trained specialists who sit right beside people like yourself."

Our MPs should hire Mr Solomon.

- Published in The New Paper, 14 January 2009

Hi

I was sent the news items of the attack on MP Seng Han Thong along with your piece about the fax you received from me about 300 years ago [it seems].

Thanks for mentioning the situation, and I am pleased to know that you are still writing with that nice intelligent sense of humor which has always been evident in your articles.

Best wishes
Alan Solomon
Safety and Security Manager
International School of Beijing

How a Singaporean declared war on the iPod - and lost

Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed last week that he has a “hormonal imbalance” (notice the incredulous quote marks) which was blamed for his scary weight loss in the past year.

How will this affect the iPod maker’s future? At least one prominent Singaporean will be watching closely.

Whenever anyone talks about Singapore entrepreneurship, one name will invariably be brought up – Sim Wong Hoo, founder and CEO of Creative Technology, which launched its new Zii chip a few days ago at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas amid much self-manufactured hype.

Four years ago, the man fell for his own hype.

“The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war,” he announced in November 2004. Infamous last words.

At the time, Creative’s Zen MP3 player was second only to Apple’s iPod in market share. “It’s our target to beat iPod in this quarter,” Mr Sim said.

What bravado! What chutzpah! What moxie!

A diploma holder from Ngee Ann Poly taking on Steve Jobs himself – a high school drop-out.

Mr Sim even dismissed the just released original iPod Shuffle as “a big let-down for the whole industry” and added that Apple was at “square one” while Creative was at “square 100”.

Fast forward to present day.

Needless to say, Apple remains top banana in the MP3 player market, leaving Zen to scramble for scraps with other iPod-killer wannabes like Microsoft’s Zune and Sony’s re-imagined Walkman.

According to Creative’s latest annual report, its workforce has been cut by 47 per cent in the last fiscal year. Casualties of a war that the company itself declared four years ago?

In a message to shareholders, Mr Sim thanked them for their “patience with Creative”. What? No more warmongering against companies named after fruit?

Actually, we don’t really hear much from Mr Sim nowadays. In recent times, the multi-millionaire has delegated the role of Creative’s frontman to the company’s president and COO, Mr Craig McHugh, an American – like Steve Jobs!

Because the Apple founder was one reason Creative never had a chance in the “MP3 war”.

With his black mock-turtleneck, blue jeans, sneakers and cult of personality, Jobs looks like a hip liberal arts professor you could hang out and discuss sex, drugs and rock and roll with.

Mr Sim, on the other hand, looks like the uncle in your neighbourhood traditional Chinese medicine shop dispensing ginseng and fungus to your grandmother.

Who would you rather buy a music player from?

If only Mr Sim had worn a mock-turtleneck back in 2004, the world could’ve been a very different place today.

- Published in The New Paper, 11 January 2009

UPDATE: Steve Jobs died in October 2011

Death of VHS: Whither Diana Ser's comic genius?

VHS is dead. Long live DVD! No, wait, isn’t DVD also dying? Long live Blu-ray!

No, wait. isn’t Blu-ray going to be obsolete in a few years? Long live digital distribution!

No wonder the salesman at Harvey Norman openly laughed in my face when I told him I was looking for a new VCR to replace mine that had just broken down.

Hey, at least I wasn’t looking for an LD player. Now that would be a joke. Unlike the short-lived laser disc, the VHS (or Video Home System) lasted 30 years.

But just before Christmas, the LA Times reported that the last major US supplier of video tapes was finally calling it quits. Hollywood has already stopped releasing movies on VHS in 2006.

Surprisingly, JVC was still manufacturing stand-alone VCRs until last October – the last company to do so.

Surely, I can buy one somewhere in Singapore. Otherwise, how was I going to play the dozens of mouldy tapes of shows I had recorded from TV over the years that I had never gotten around to watch?



Like that episode of the local sitcom Three Rooms from the late ’90s where Diana Ser supposedly did something hilarious which I can’t describe because dammit, I haven’t seen the episode.

Now I may never know the comic genius of Ms Ser, thanks to the obsolescence of video tape technology.

But it’s not just video. Research firm Gartner has recently urged the music industry to “move away from the retail CD as its primary revenue generator before Christmas 2009” to focus on digital distribution as CD sales continue to plummet in the new millennium.

And I still have cassettes.

But no eight-track cartridges, thank goodness.

The great thing about compact discs is that even if they stop making CD players, I have already ripped the songs from my CD collection onto my computer.

The trouble is my iTunes library has now swollen to over 18,000 songs – every one of which I’ve promised myself I would listen to at least once before I die.

Even the non-English titles by Celine Dion that I can’t pronounce. Even something called If You Love Someone, Set Them On Fire by the Dead Milkmen. And yes, even the Muppets.



After wiping the tears from his eyes from all that laughing, the salesman at Harvey Norman recommended that I get a DVD/HDD video recorder instead.

Long story short, on my HDD are now hours of shows recorded from TV that I will probably never get around to watch.

And soon it will be replaced by newer technology with which I will record more shows that I won’t get around to watch – and so on.

By the way, my turntable also just broke down.

Did Diana Ser ever release a comedy album?

- Published in The New Paper, 4 January 2009