Samsung Malaysia, whither fairness?
When the Samsung Galaxy Note was launched, my housemate Kerol went to Pavilion to get a unit bundled with a Celcom package. It was supposed to be the best phone ever, unfortunately she didn’t get the chance to experience the awesomeness of the phone then.
She took it home, left it to charge for many hours (as you do for new phones). When it was fully charged, she took it out and played with it a little. She noticed that the battery life was ridiculously short. Later she found out that it was due to the instability of the phone’s network connection. In short, the phone constantly looked for available networks and if you’d know anything about this, you’d know that this would quickly zap up the battery.
Kerol thought it was a SIM card problem and so had it changed. It wasn’t. So she went to the Samsung customer service in PJ. Upon inspection (and after upgrading the software etc), they told Kerol that the problem must be a hardware problem and asked her to send it in for repair.
Err… is this fair? A phone is not like a house or a car where the amount spent and commitment to pay is so great that you can’t get a new one if the one you received had defects. In any case, she received a faulty unit from the start and I thought the right thing for Samsung to do was to apologise and replace her unit with a brand new one.
So Kerol sent an email to Samsung customer service, telling them what I just told you. And that she doesn’t want the phone repaired, she wants a new one as replacement. Samsung customer service emailed back, asking her to “back up your data and send your mobile phone to the nearest Samsung Customer Service Center for further verification before any decision for replacement.”
Throughout the few phone conversations asking for updates on the situation, Kerol maintained that she wanted a new unit because she was sold a defect one through no fault of hers, and it wasn’t right for her to only get back a repaired phone. To cut the story short, they changed the phone’s motherboard and told her to collect it. In the end she had no choice but to collect, bound by personal reasons (such as needing to sell off her current phone and that Celcom’s already charging her for service).
I thought it was VERY unfair for Kerol to not get a brand new unit. I thought it was very disgraceful of Samsung customer service centre to push the fixed phone on her. I’ve been singing Samsung’s phones’ praises to all and sundry and it was partly my persuasion that made Kerol decide to get the Samsung Galaxy Note. The desirable and awesome phone is all but marred by the irresponsible, shoddy, “not our problem” customer service.
What do you think?
Checking out the IKEA Malaysia office (because I can!)
So I, along with a few bloggers had the chance to check out IKEA Malaysia’s office. I don’t know why that made me excited but I was (inwardly because outwardly I was nursing a cold). For a company who takes such pride in their products that they gave Swedish names to every single item they sell, no matter how big or small. It also makes you think about the Swedish language and how extensive it must be (even though we can’t pronounce most of the names). Why do I say that? Well if IKEA was Malaysian, can you think of so many Malay words for the products? Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka is already having a hard time controlling the language as it is: I saw an advertisement for “Produk dan Servis”. Really? Would you like a kick in the a** to go with that desecration of the language?
Back to much happier thoughts! 
So we were kindly shown to the open space where IKEA associates work. It’s like an IKEA showroom, only bigger, heh.
Wide open spaces, Dixie Chicks would approve
At the area for photocopying, faxing and assorted paperwork, not-so-subtle reminders to conserve and recycle are plastered at eye view.
Nice lamp
The library section consists of manuals that could help spark creativity. I wish I had time to read some of them 
For inspiration purposes only
This is us at one of the rooms where IKEA staff could go in and… uh, I don’t know what they do in the rooms. Read and be surrounded by wallpapers that showcase Sweden’s nature, I suppose. Cheaper than a plane ticket, that’s for sure.
Hej!
One of the points driven home was IKEA’s habit of conservation. The privacy rooms (as I call it where they read etc) has lights that can only be switched on by staff’s access cards. Pretty neat, eh?
Speaking of conservationism, here’s Tock tarpauing the rest of our scrumptious dinner buffet. I have those green IKEA food containers too, but they’ll never see as much usage as Tock’s 
That was the tour and I only blogged about 1/5 of. The rest included a tour of the massive IKEA store which took well over an hour. To be honest, I’m already very familiar with the IKEA MY layout and design so most of the time, we had a fun game of, “hey I have this in my home too!” led by David.
So what did you learn today? That I went to IKEA and it was fun. Yeap that was pretty much it. What, you went to IKEA too and had more fun? Write it on your own blog la kthxbai.
All I want for Christmas is… a Samsung Galaxy SII!
After asking for almost everyone’s opinion, it’s pretty clear that my next phone will be the Samsung Galaxy SII!
Pretty, isn’t it? Now I just need the money to buy it…
Or a BF like Horng who bought his GF a SII.
Or Ken Watanabe in a traditional Japanese warrior outfit ala The Last Samurai waiting me for atop his great horse with a ’save damsel in distress’ proposal in hand and a SII in the other.
Even though Samsung’s Korean, so the proposal will also state a point about world peace.
A girl can dream
A girl can also shoot a blockbuster movie using the Samsung Galaxy SII, like this:
Hahaha I thought that was pretty cute. I think the next one has already been shared by a lot of people, here it is anyway 
A+ for effort, heh. Click here to watch more similar videos made and shared by SII fans.
Christmas is just 27 days away, any takers?
Chocolate Cake/ White Coffee/ Kronenbourg @ MIFW/ Tefal frying pan
That was about the most mismatched compilation for a blog post, eh? As Cao Cao would say, miss and match confuses the enemy, seizes victory.
Actually he wouldn’t but obviously you can tell that I’m engrossed in watching Three Kingdoms.
It was KennyBaby’s birthday last week and we had a good time at Frontera in Jaya One. They serve a mean chocolate cake – vodka + frangelico + lemon + sugar = best shooter ever! First you take the lemon and sugar, let the lemon juice linger in your mouth then you down the shot. Fuwahhh tastes like a chocolate cake You should really try one for yourself!
Yum!
Knowing that I like coffee, Horng gave me some instant white coffee sachets to try. It’s from his mom’s kopitiam back in Penang, pretty good man! I like the fragrance and the aroma. Can’t find it anywhere here so here’s what it looks like so you can try it if you manage to get hold of it:
Coffee Tree instant white coffee
Kronenbourg 1664 was the official beer sponsor for the Malaysia International Fashion Week (MIFW) 2011. Translated: Kronenbourg parties, yay! I love my Kronenbourg Blanc, best enjoyed with friends. At Zeta Bar:
Recently there was a Tefal warehouse sale. It went on for 3 days and I was there for all 3, heh. On the first day, I saw this little 12cm non-stick frying pan going for RM25. Wah affordable, very excited, can buy, bought! Only when I took it out to use, I realised that it was a bit too small for my kitchen stove burners, heh.
But OK lah, still can use and it makes frying eggs so darn easy. I just found out that it’s called the Tefal Ideal One Egg Wonder Frying Pan, no wonder lah! Maybe I’ll fry you an egg with it one day
Drink GAB beer + stand to win a 1kg Golden Dragon statue!
It’s not even Christmas but last week at GAB’s Tavern, the atmosphere was undeniably Chinese New Year. Got tong tong chiang music, got ang ang decorations, got dragon (not lion) dance… and I missed all that thanks to a traffic policeman who rerouted me and I ended up being 1.5 hours late.
Reluctant usage of Touch ‘n Go credit cannot claim from traffic police department one, right?
Super Cina
The reason for the early CNY was so that GAB can announce their CNY 2012 promo: “9 Grand Treasures for the Year of the Dragon“. Basically if you buy big bottles/ cans of GAB beers (like Tiger, Heineken, Guinness or Anchor), then you need to check the colour or code of the cap liner or pull tab. If you’re lucky, you might win very nice prizes! E.g. your cap liner’s orange colour, the prize is a piece of 5g Gold Dragon coin.
Can you feel it’s Christmas Chinese New Year..?
Then if you’re really very lucky, you might get the red cap liner and win the 1kg Golden Dragon Statue:
Better than any gold savings accounts
That’s all. Oh here’s me posing with MissyBlurKit and Seet Heng from G2. Not in the photo: grumpy looking security officers nearby in case we decided to make a run for it.
Sekian.