Month: December 2008

Beware of the Insurance Agent…

Seven months ago, a Great Eastern Life insurance planner tried to pull a fast one on me. I emailed her to ask about the insurance plans that could be coupled with a rider plan that I was interested in for L-A and she promptly replied with an email. The plans featured in her email were all very expensive and the impression given was that those were all that I could choose from. Unfortunately for her, I had already done my own research and I asked her about linking it to term insurance. She then send me another email where the prices were about a THIRD of what she had originally sent me!

She still had to give me a house visit because she was delivering a free insurance policy for L-A, but she already knew that she had lost my trust and her credit-worthiness as an insurance agent because she didn’t try too hard to sell me anything.

You should always remember that these planners are not doing their work for free and they may (read most of the time) recommend you some products to their own benefit rather than yours. The Minibonds scandal comes to mind…

The threat

This was a really strange incident. I was one of the taller guys in Secondary School and I hung out quite often with this Indian guy, Vig, who was taller than me and a rugby player to boot. I wonder what possessed that little pipsqueak of an ah-beng to come up to the both of us at the video game shop in Serene Centre to give us this ominous warning: “Be careful you two. Watch out. We’re watching you.”

We humoured him by telling him “Oh, ok” before we promptly got back to watching people play Street Fighter II…

The Pledge

One little known fact about me is that I was one of the people who led the school in the pledge almost every other morning. Guess that’s one of the reasons why I seem to be able to recite the pledge easily from memory when some Singaporeans my age have trouble going past the first 3 lines.

Challenge yourself! Can you do it without any assistance?

Western Food at OCS

Kinda miss the Western Food at OCS that some of us Air Wing cadets used to go in the evenings. It was nice to get something other than the food served at the cookhouse, not saying that the cookhouse food was inedible or anything.

Cadets from Navy and Army seemed to be always bewildered that the Air Wing cadets could patronise the Western Food stall so often since their movements were quite restricted. Guess that’s one of the privileges of being with the Air Force! 😉

Probably one of the first toys I received as a gift from a friend…

…was the Han Solo Star Wars figurine in arctic gear that I received during a kindergarten party. Think the party was for my birthday if I remember correctly. It was given by Dan Lim, whom I have as one of my Facebook contacts!

Thanks Dan! Think I still have the toy somewhere. :p

Don’t cry over spilt Coke

Once I went to Centrepoint MacDonald’s by myself when I was in Secondary (or Primary?) School and I ordered a meal. Unfortunately while I was walking to one of the stone tables outside of Macs, my drink slid off the tray and dropped to the floor! As there was nothing much I could do, I sidestepped the mess I created and looked at the cleaning staff guiltily, bemoaning the loss of my drink at the same time…

As I was eating my burger, one of the Macs staff came up to me and gave me a replacement drink gratis! Although it was probably a small gesture coming from a multinational conglomerate like Macs, it was very, very appreciated by a young, little, innocent me (yes, it was that long ago….).

Thanks Mr Ronald MacDonald!