A Lao guy just won 575,250 GBP! NOT

Returning from a harrowing breakfast when I contemplated hanging myelf from getting a primary school-level English question wrong, one of the Lao people I know came to me with yet another query which blew my senses away. If my days are traffic accidents, today would be like a train wreck.

Apparently, his father has received the following email and was so excited that he was about to reply to it. He asked me for advice on the authencity of the email as he suspected that the email is not well, truthful (understatement of the century). Check this shit out.

- - - - -

THE LOTTERY COORDINATOR,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT,
COCA-COLA LOTTERY PROMOTION.

Dear Prize Winner,

COCA-COLA LOTTERY PROMOTION, wishes to inform you of the results of its Promotional draws held on the 27th of July, 2006 as part of our mid Year splash. We are happy to officially inform you that you have emerged a winner under our Third Category Draws.

You have consequently been awarded a lump sum pay out of £575,250 (Five Hundred And Seventy Five Thousand Two Hundred And Fifty Great Britain Pounds Sterling) in
cash, which is the winning payout for Third Category winners. This is from the total prize money of £2,876,250 shared between 8 international winners in the category.

(i) Winning Numbers: 09, 12, 22, 39, 40, 49, (05)
(ii) Ticket Number: 44-8201-093
(iii) File Reference Number: BLP20-147-1
(iv) Lotto Batch Number: A14736
Please contact your claims agent immediately.

Find below all contact details;

MR.JOHN WOODBRIDGE,
PAYMENT OFFICER,
COCA-COLA LOTTERY PROMOTION
PHONE: +44-703-1870-646
Email: paymentofficer@katamail.com

For easy reference and identification, your lotto
payment order details stated above must be provided to
your claims agent.

Congratulations once again from all our staff and thank
you for being part of our promotions program.

Sincerely,

MR.PETER SMITH,
LOTTERY COORDINATOR,
COCA-COLA LOTTERY PROMOTION
8 CHANCEL ST.
LONDON, SE1 0UX

Please do not reply to this email. Contact your claims
agent Mr.John Woodbridge as specified above. (TERMS AND
CONDITIONS APPLY).

- - - - -

Oooh, Coca-Cola lottery promotion is going to give out an 575,250 GBP (Great Britain Pounds) to some Lao guy. Why? No reason - simply because Coca Cola is rich I guess. All you have to do is to contact you payment officer, Mr John Woodbridge at paymentofficer@katamail.com.

You know, you would think that Coca Cola could afford a decent email address for its payment officer instead of getting katamail.com which is based in Nigeria. But hey, I guess it is only polite to give Mr John Woodbridge the benefit of the doubt right? Maybe he is staying in Nigeria handling the multi-million international lottery for Coca Cola (SNIGGER). And even though there is no such thing as international lottery, the email did not come from Coca-Cola and we are told to send a reply to an email account based in Nigeria. I have no problems at all. I have thus drafted the following email and told my Lao friend's father to send it back to Mr John Woodbridge to claim his "prize".

- - - - -

Dear Mr John Woodbridge,

I am so happy to hear that I won 575,250 GBP! My friend, Captain Obvious, was equally ectastic that a Lao guy could win more than a million USD from doing nothing and simply replying to an email account based in Nigeria. He said that you are possibly an African who is somehow managing an international lottery for Coca-Cola from a dingy slum in Lagos, Nigeria. CO said that it is entirely believable although we are still not entirely sure what is an international lottery and how it works. He also said that in Singapore, Woodbridge denotes a hospital for madmen.

CO also told me that a good deed should beckon another. I am thus writing to inform you that there is an oilfield in Laos which is on the verge of striking a rich oil pool! With just a nominal investment from you, I could guarantee a monthly payback of US$1 million for 10 years. Yes, monthly. What, you never head of an oilfield in Laos? I assure you that it is completely authentic. It is located in the remote mountaineous region of Borikhamxay where it is rumoured that dinosaurs fossils and UFO have been found deep in the sub-strata layers. These bones of dinosaurs and aliens have fossilised into a rich field of crude oil! In this age of booming oil prices, you are guaranteed riches beyond your dream. Maybe you can even quit your job as a lottery coordinator and prize officer for Coca-Cola. How much is Coca-Cola paying you to manage their international lottery anyway? Couple of Nigerian banana dollars?

I thus invite you to come to Borikhamxay to see the oilfield. You could then pass me my prize money also! What a bargain! Email me at laopricewinner@dumbass.com.

Waiting to hear from you. Don't let the good chance slips away!

bestest regards,
Mr Prize Winner

PS : Terms and conditions apply. CO said that the term is that you must be a dumbass and conditions are that you must give me the money. Simple heh?

PPS : CO told me that he has also put in a welcome virus in this email I am sending to you. By the time you read this far, he said that it would already been active. I am not sure what he meant, but I am sure that it is all good as CO is so handsome and smart. See you in Laos!

- - - - -

It is one thing to try to take advantage of cosmopolitan Singaporeans. It is another thing to try to swindle innocent Lao people who are new to this kind of scams in the internet world. It is sad to hear that these Lao people are actually excited enough to contemplate replying to such a bogus scam email originating from Nigeria. God knows, how many Lao people might have been cheated. Death to internet swindlers from Africa and Eastern Europe. I hope they really come to Borikhamxay and see the oilfield. It would be great to see their faces.

Pop Quiz which makes me want to hang myself

I was having breakfast today with a guest. I was eating my raisin bread and some strange prawn balls off the hotel's breakfast buffet and thinking to myself that this wasn't too bad for a morning's start, when the guest asked me this English question. Apparently, his daughters were given this question in some primary school tests in Singapore:

Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.

The man died in a ______ accident.

(a) dangerous
(b) fatal
(c) tragic

My immediate answer was tragic. I didn't even have to think about it and begin thinking about whether I should have a glass of milk to wash the bread down.

Dangerous accident sounded so . . . weak and wrong although I can still make a case for it if I want to. Nay.

Fatal accident is practically a redundant phrase because the man died. I mean, of course the accident is fatal, the man died. Duh. What else could the accident be? Tiny-weeny fatal? Double Nay.

Answer :

The guest looked at me and said that her daughters were told by her teachers and school that the correct answer was Fatal. The man died in a fatal accident.

A lot of emotions came into my head. Confusion, regret, shamefulness at answering a primary school-level question wrongly but most of all . . . . .



HOLY SHIT. WTF IS THAT ANSWER AGAIN?


A man died in a fatal accident is the most stupid and redundant statement of all time. Its inherent duplicity of meaning hit me like a cheap Japanese car hitting a brickwall. In this case, the wall of stupidity erected by MOE won as I staggered away from this car-wreck of an English statement like a driver drunk on absolut. I can't believe MOE said this is the correct answer. Like DUH. Of course - it is a fatal accident, you freaking moron. What else could it be? Died from a near fatal accident? Died from an almost fatal accident? Died from just a bit fatal accident? Died from an accident which is 70% fatal and 30% ok and non-fatal? Wah lau eh. It is early morning and I felt like killing myself already. Pass me the rope please.

If I have a kid and she comes to me saying that her teacher taught her that "a man died in a fatal accident", I am really going to open a can of whoop-ass on her teacher using a dictionary as a weapon of mass destruction. Our primary school education blows.

Review of C-Movie " Cerberus"

The great thing about being out of Singapore and working in the IndoChina region is that you get to sample the whole range of illegal DVDs circulating around in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. To call these DVDs illegal might be misleading since some of these countries haven't got around to instituting their own intellectual property laws yet. In Laos for example, it is against the law to sell illegal VCDs but the law is kinda murky on the sale of illegal DVDs. What's the difference? I honestly have no idea. In any cases, law enforcement on intellectual property rights violation is weak and almost non-existent. I mean, if Singapore has a problem dealing with our own "pirates", we shouldn't expect much from our friends from IndoChina.

Thus I have the honor (dubious)of getting to watch the entire plethora of movies from Hollywood as well as the rest of the world such as Russia, Germany and hell, even Azerbaijan. Singaporean movie-goers are usually familiar only with the A-movies from Hollywood i.e. those that make it from the production studio to the big screen such as Titanic and Spiderman. Let me try to explain the categories of A-Z movies from Hollywood:

A-Movies : Think movies you watch on the big screen like Spiderman or Lord of the Rings. Nuff said.

B-Movies : The line is slightly blur. B-Movies have average script, lesser cash to throw around and even lesser know actors. I am not saying that such movies are bad (in fact, some are awesome) but there a lot of slapstick horror duds along the way. 50% made it to the movies, the other straight to cable TV and the video store. Many of them are sci-fi, slasher horror movies with no lofty ambitions other than to serve up bloody carnage and awesome boobies (which is all good in my book). Some of the best slasher movies started off as B-Movies such as Friday the 13th. My favourite movie is the Army of Darkness starring Bruce Campbell and is frequently shown on AXN. If you see a guy sawing off his own arm and attaching a chainsaw to it while attacking demons with slapstick comedy thrown in for good measure, it is probably a kick-ass B-grade movie.

C-Movies : OMG. Probably no C-Movies ever made it to the big screen. All are destined for cable hell. These are the movies which cable network like HBO shows at 2 am where nobody in their right mind will get up to watch. These are "time fillers" and TCS used to show quite a lot of these movies in the early 90's. These movies have little money, no ambitions and starring actors and actresses from Eastern European countries which are paid by pizzas and hot soups instead of money. You get the picture.

To this end, I will preview an excellent C-Movie. This movie is so good it should be promoted to B level instantly. Introducing a movie I watched last night:

There is no need for me to go too much into the details of this C-Movie horror flick called Cerberus. But Cerberus is the kind of movie which all low-budget movies should follow. Below is CO's easy checklist on what a good B or C movie should encompass:

Yep, Cerberus has almost all the above kick-ass characteristics of a good movie. For those who really want to know the plot, it is about a group of mercenaries stealing a magic sword from a cave in Romania which was guarded by a three-headed dog with a snake for a tail (I am not making this shit up). The hell dog got loose and needless to say, rampaged through some small Romanian town and opened up a can of whoop-ass on horny Romanian girls, fat Romanian bartenders and ruthless but stupid mercenaries. The producer even thrown in a Japanese mafia gangster to ensure there are no racial discrimination when it came to getting your ass kicked.

It has all the standard ingredients necessary to make you laugh and cry at the same time. E.g. ever notice in all horror monster movies, there is always a token black guy who sacrifices himself to save his friends from the monster? In Cerberus, we have a black guy who told his friends this:

Token Black Guy : Quick, the hell dog is chasing us! Run! I will try to buy time by blowing up the cave even though it will not slow the dog down at all.

White hunky guy : But why? We can easily out run the giant dog. If you spent time blowing up the cave, chances are that you would be late in crawling up the escape vent and you would be eaten.

Token Black Guy : Despite certain death by being eaten by the dog, I must still fufill my destiny as a token black actor who is lowly paid and highly forgettable. It is my only purpose in the movie.

Yep, Token Black Guy stayed behind to blow up the cave and of course got eaten by the dog even though there is absolutely no need for him to do so. Dumbass.

And then the girls. OMG, the Romanian girls. Their only purpose in the movie is to take off their clothes, have sex and then get killed by the hell dog. They don't even have a single word of dialogue. Their modus operandi in the movie is :

Step 1 : Take off clothes.

Step 2 : Being groped by male actors

Step 3 : Notice giant dog creeping behind the male actor

Step 4 : Scream weakly

Step 5 : Dies.

(Rinse and Repeat 932nd time)

Which is all good actually. But the best thing about the movie is this bad-ass mercenary called Cutter. Cutter got this magic sword and became invincible. He then ran around town, killing all the old Romanian people, his Japanese boss and banged the absolutely stunning barmaid a few times. I mean, if this is not a good movie, I don't know what is.

Critique of Thai Airline food

I had written a follow-up piece to the death to whiny traitorous Singaporeans but wanted to try to edit some photos so as to illustrate my points better. The operative word is "try" since I am a technological doofus and have no clue how to work a photoshop. Come to think, I don't even own a photoshop. All I got are some free software called "The Gimp" and "Serif Photoplus". All hail Captain Obvious! Maximus Al Cheapo!

While pondering the mathematic and bafflingly complexities of simply drawing a f'kng straight line in photoplus, I chanced about two past pictures of food which I forgot to post. These are pictures which I took from one of those many forgotten trips to Bangkok on Thai Airlines.

I have been to Bangkok for personal and for work so often that I lost track. It is like a third home to me. Almost all these trips are on Thai Airlines (like 30+ and still counting), so I am in a better position than most to commend on Thai Airlines service and food. So here goes my critique on food based on the following scale:

Style : 1 to 10 (1 being the sloppy state of food you are served at your chap chye rice stall, 10 being fine dining - think Lawrys)

Taste : 1 to 10 (1 would mean that the food is equal to an absolute shit burger with a supersized cup of diarrhea to wash it down with. 10 would mean equivalent either to buttered foie gras or black vinegar pork leg with soya sauced eggs. OMG)

Similiarity to Prison Food : 1 to 10 (1 would mean that the food is so good that it bears no resemblance to prison food. 10 would mean the plane you are on is Con-Air)

Breakfast

Rise and shine! Here's come breakfast fit for a king! That's if you are an insane English king who likes his breakfast to come with a piece of sad looking salmon on rye bread and some equally forlorn looking potato salad on the side. I seen prisoners who eat better than this. At least, the Thais are kind enough to give you a small cup of water to wash this breakfast of champions down - like you are a prisoner doing hard labour in a Nazi concentration camp. I usually have to ask for tons of soya sauce to mask the flavour (or lack of it) of this sad excuse of a breakfast. Someone remind me to bring some oatmeal when I next travel on Thai Airline.

Style : 4/10 (unless you are a priest who is into the fish on bread thingy)

Taste : 3/10 (slight possibility that you might perish)

Similarity to Prison Food : 9/10

Lunch

For lunch, you ALWAYS get a choice of either (a) seafood noodles or (b) rice with thai curry chicken. There is almost no exception. The airline probably figured that these two are the safest (read : boring ass) dishes since they do not offend (a) the muslims or (b) travelling vegetarians who suddenly decide that seafood is not meat. Seriously, I met some vegetarians in my life who said eating seafood is okay. What sort of twisted logic are these vegetarians working on? Vegetarians, meet hypocrisy. If I am a prawn, I will be damn insulted.

Nobody in their right mind will order seafood noodles on Thai Airlines. If you order seafood noodles, I will laugh at you unreservedly for spending a couple of hundred dollars on a cramp economic seat eating noodles with small prawns. Wise-up. I am not saying that the Thai Airline's idea of lunch which consists of rice with chicken is as awesome as xia long baos or buttered foie gras (OMFG). I am just saying that it is a notch better than prison food at Changi and still better than f'kng seafood noodles.

Remember, if you are going to suffer, always go for the rice with chicken. This rule applies on all airlines, and I have travelled on many. I remember once, the guy next to me ordered seafood noodles. I was laughing at him all the way.

The redeeming feature about this lunch is that the Thais always give you two massive pieces of curry chicken which covers half the plate. They are not the most succulent piece of meat in the world but beggars could not be choosers. Remember, you are in f'kng economy class which makes you only a class above cattle. Of course, like most airlines, the Thais will make a half-hearted attempt at a "balanced meal" by throwing in some sad cauliflower and horrific carrots on the side. Why bother? Just pick those out of your rice and throw it at the kid sitting in front. Just kidding, the idiot kid might eat the vegetables you threw and die. Another small positive is that the bread roll is semi hot. When travelling at 10000+ feet in the air, hot bread is always welcome.

And the MOST IMPORTANT RULE on lunches on any airline, don't eat the salad. Never eat the salad. Thou should never ask why. It is like the Matrix, one could not explain it. You will have to experience it - in which case, the rest of your journey will be spent in the toilet wishing you are dead.

Style : 5/10 (looks damn messy)

Taste : 6/10 (you won't die, unless you eat the salad)

Similarity to Prison Food : 5/10

Dinner

Well, for dinner, we have the following menu at Thai Airline for you to choose. Scroll down for the menu :

(a) Seafood Noodles

(b) Rice with Thai Curry Chicken

So what will it be, suckers?

Happy Planet Index - Singaporeans are unhappy. Big F'ng- Deal.

It is official. Singaporeans are the most unhappy people in Asia. British think-tank New Economic Foundation (NEF) ranked Singapore near the bottom quarter of a new unofficial Happy Planet Index. In fact, we are ranked 131st out of 178 countries and the most unhappy nation in Asia. The HPI combined three indicators: life expectancy, life satisfaction, and the country’s “ecological footprint”, or consumption of natural resources. Vietnam is the happiest nation in Asia. NEF's policy director, Andrew Simms said it measured the "quality of life".

(Let me just say that if sprouting bullshit is a crime, Mr Simms would be arrested and shot on the spot. After which, he should be arrested and shot again).

There will be a lot of people writing in using the Happy Index (what a gay name) to criticise and beat up our Singaporean government. E.g. moaning that despite the nation's impressive economic progress, the Singaporean government has no soul and does not improve the lives satisfication of the ordinary Singaporeans, blah blah no quality of life, blah blah no freedom of speeches, blab blah see what happened to Chee Soon Juan and the blogger Mr Brown who is the "voice of the people", etc etc . . . ad nauseum.










BIG F'NG DEAL.



Before anyone moves into bitching mode, consider this: Would you like to be a citizen in Vanuatu, the No.1 Happiest Place on Earth? Don't even know where is Vanuatu? Hell, you can consider Vietnam which is the 12th Happiest Place on Earth or Palestine (yes, THAT PALESTINE in Gaza which is ruled by the Hamas) at 45th? Want to renounce your Singaporean citizenship and migrate to Palestine or Vanuatu? No?

I DON'T THINK SO, YOU COMPLAINING DUMBASSES!

This index blows so much ass that CO has to wash himself with soap after reading this filth in the Business Times. Singapore rocks! And all you complaining Singaporeans can either migrate across the crossway, or to Australia/NZ, Netherlands, the US or even to North Pole to play with the f'ng polar bears for all I care. More space for me and less bitching around! No more having to stand in queue in McDonalds since everyone has migrated to Australia to eat healthy tofu burgers or Japan to eat raw fish! And while you are at it, take the LV shops with you! Nobody likes them, they take up too much space - space which we could setup a few illegal pirated games / DVDs shop or Old Chang Kees. See, everybody wins! You don’t like Singapore and I don't like you! More Old Chang Kee's curry puff for me! Woo-Hoo!

I had enough of Singaporeans complaining about Singapore. People from other countries, like here in Laos, have nothing but respect and praises about Singapore and our government. The Lao people think the Singaporean government is the best thing since sliced bread (or in the local case, sticky rice) - name one government you trust which could transform Singapore into the awesome kick-ass global metropolis within 40 years? Let's recap - in case you miss the obvious.

No wars, no social and racist riots, no ethnic cleansing killing millions, annual economic progress, public transportation that works, NUS Arts Canteen with kick-ass beef horfun and slutty girls in mini-skirts and black bras walking around, clean HDB flats, McDonalds and KFC everywhere, movie theatres showing the latest movies, awesome paved roads with no cows taking a dump in the middle of it, Sentosa, Parsar Malams selling chinese sausages, Crystal Jade and xia long baos (I can eat a million of these), Chwui Kweh at Tiong Bahru market, cheese murtabak at Fong Seng, no chewing gum sticking on bus seats, glittering Orchard Road with more slutty girls in mini-skirts and strapless bras. . . etc etc. Ladies and Gentlemen, Assholes and Bitches, this is as close to paradise on Earth. If we can get rid of LV, Mango (not the fruit, stupid), Gucci, Myphosis, Zara, Hugo F'ng Boss (Men and Women franchises), Burberry, G2000, Body Shop and dismantle Star Bucks, Singapore will be exactly the Paradise you read about only in the Bible. Singapore is THAT good. Take it from a guy working outside Singapore - you don't appreciate Singapore only after you left the country and has travelled around. You won't believe the kind of living conditions some other countries' people are in.

And while I am at it, I have enough of Singaporeans coming up to me and say "I really like the vast, empty, open green space and hills in Laos/Australia/NZ/Malaysia. Singapore is too modern and have too many buildings that it make me feel constricted. Oh, look! A cow on the road! So cute! This is the kampung life I missed!"

These are the same Singaporeans who usually leave Laos within 4 days after saying they are sick of having nothing to do and nowhere to shop after seeing the 352th cows on the road. DUMBASSES.

DEATH TO STUPID AND WHINY SINGAPOREANS.

Divine Deliverance at last

World Cup ended last night or yesterday, depending where you are watching it from. In case you are reading this blog from Mars or some planet in Vector Saturn, I am pleased to inform you that Italy has won the World Cup, triumphing over France 5-3 on penalties. In a way, France's charismatic captain, Zinedine Zidane (nicknamed Zizou) contributed to his own team's downfall when he HEADBUTTED Marco Matterazzi in the dying minutes. In Matterrazi's chest.

In case, you couldn't quite understand the significance of the headbutt, It was as if Zidane had mistaken Matterazi for Pamela Anderson, and mesmerised by her pair of womanly breasts, decided to headbutt those titties. Imagine a bald French guy smashing his bald head into your chest violently. Romantic but Ouch.

May I also take a second to register my views on Italy winning the 2006 World Cup.






YESSSSSS!~! THANK BLOODY SODDING GOD THAT THE FRENCH GOT THEIR ASSES KICKED. HA HA HA!



It makes all this business of waking up at 2 am for the last month immensely worth it. I will do it all over again just to follow the trials and tribulations of England and Italy. England remains the favourite in my heart given the Manchester United connections. But Italy is a close second. Why Italy, I hear you ask? Well, it is not because of the Italian women or I crave pizza and pasta. It is because it has been a well known football injustice that Italy has been robbed for the last twenty years. Unlucky against Brazil in 94, robbed by France in 98 and then in 2000, and then was blatanly mugged by South Korea in 2002.

And of course, almost all the assholes I know support Thierry Henry, Zizou and France. One of the guys I know here in Laos was so sure that France would win, he demanded that I (Italy) bet against him (France) with OUR CARS as wager. In other words, he put his Mercedes Benz S320 on the line against my kick-ass Toyota Corolla (it is kick ass simply because I enjoyed winding down the car window and disturbing the locals by playing the Chicken Little's Numa Numa song full blast when driving up Lane Xang Avenue). However, I demurred as it wouldn't be nice and CO is a good man who does not take advantage of retards who thought they know their football. If CO is a bad man, I will be driving a freaking MERCEDES BENZ S320 this morning. But no - the satisfaction of seeing Italy erasing the two-decade football injustice by lifting the World Cup is good enough.

So what can CO say at the end of it all? Just a terrific feeling to see a pair of bruised titties and Italy winning the World Cup. More later.