Has anyone noticed the prepaid wars that have been going on?

Maxis Hotlink and Digi Prepaid and Celcom Xpax are having the most outrageous war I have ever witnessed. It is crazy. I can’t even go out of my house without seeing at least one Maxis or Digi or Celcom ad. At the rate their relentless ad campaigns are going, I’m probably gonna even start dreaming about them soon.

When telcos invade our dreams

Every one of the telcos is out there saying they’re the best. Everyone is saying they’re the cheapest among the rest. It’s like a noisy scene straight out from the pasar malam. “Don’t buy them lah, buy me!” they all scream, yelling one on top of the other.
The fight between our three mobile operators is becoming so intense, it made the Tyson vs Holyfield look like two playboy bunnies going at it with fluffy pink pillows.

Traditionally, Hotlink has always been the leader of the pack when it comes to prepaid.
The latest round of battles restarted when Hotlink launched their Total Plan. When it first came out, it was such an attractive package that prompted many prepaid customers to “Activate Hotlink”.
But the flaw though is that the multitude of different call rates to different operators in different states at different time of the day made it too complicated for the average consumer to comprehend.
Digi Prepaid was smart, and they capitalised on that by unveiling their One Low Flat Rate campaign – 38c/min to any network in any state. A lot of Hotlink’s customers dropped their 012 numbers and switched to 016. Needless to say, Maxis wasn’t too happy.

What a lot of customers don’t know or don’t care is that the 38c/min is only after you spent more than RM30 in a month.
Desperate to shed its stigma as the most expensive telco provider, Celcom Xpax emerged as the late entrant in this bitter war with a weapon of mass destruction of its own.
By attacking both Hotlink’s confusing call rates structure and Digi’s reluctance to announce that 38c/min is only after you have spent a certain amount, Xpax retaliated with their Guaranteed Lowest Prices For 5 Months campaign – 38c/min within the network to any state, without needing to spend a minimum amount.

Then, it gets interesting! Around this time someone came up with a supposedly “anonymous” website at TheTruthAboutPrepaid.com, claiming to want to spread the truth about prepaid.

With its yellow background and singing of praises about Digi, it doesn’t take a Malaysian-astronaut-making-teh-tarik-in-space to work out exactly which telco is behind this.
A check on the site’s domain registry confirms the identity of the devil.

For a short while, Xpax returned the blow to Digi of its own with a website at TheTruthAboutPrepaid.com.my (note the .my extension).
But the whole thing lasted for barely a month before it was shelved. I won’t be surprised if Digi tried to sue Celcom for copying their ideas. Then again, Celcom needs to copy other people’s ideas because they seems to always come up with the stupidest advertising strategy.

Like right now, they’re getting the England football players to promote their Celcom brand. But they can’t even afford to get those football players to pose with a proper phone for their ad!
Look at the phones these idiots are holding on the billboard…

Now, compare that to the phones they are holding on in the Celcom website.

What lah! Have to photoshop the phones in some more!
I think the most ridiculous thing about all these “truth” campaigns is how the telco operators so carefully avoid outright mentioning their rivals’ name, presumably due for legal reasons.
Xpax becomes “Telco X” and comes with a purple header; Hotlink becomes “Telco H” with a red header.

CAN IT BE ANYMORE OBVIOUS?!
Wanna say Xpax, say Xpax lah! Say what “Telco X” somemore? Idiot!

To Blogger J and Blogger X: Just kidding only hor!

Right now, all eyes are on Hotlink, who has to this date refused to play with Digi and Celcom in their game of underhanded advertising tactics. The red prepaid company responded by slashing their call rates down to as low as 10 cents/min for Activ5 – the lowest call rate among all telcos.

It sucks that Hotlink’s call rates structure is still as complicated as ever. The average consumer probably wouldn’t even bother making the comparison. Which is why despite Hotlink’s lower prices, they’re unable to shift people’s long-time perception that Digi is cheaper, eventhough that may not always be the case.
But no matter how you look at it, the truth about the truth about prepaid is THIS.

Not one single prepaid plan can offer the cheapest rates across all the different scenarios.
Everybody’s usage pattern is different, and depending on what type of a user you are, one operator would turn out to be cheaper than the other. What works for one person, is not always gonna work for the next.
Hmm… maybe I should do review of each of these prepaid plans. That’ll put to rest once and for all which telco is the best.

I see all those telco operators all claiming to be heroes wanting to spread the truth, but then they twist the truths to make themselves look good.
At the end of the day, Maxis Hotlink, Digi Prepaid and Celcom Xpax are all just doing the same thing.
They say “Trust me, I am telling the truth.”
But then you ALL say you are telling the truth!
“Aiya! You should listen to me more, because my truth is more truthful than their truth!”
WTF.

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This is hilarious.

A politician has suggested to his colleagues to adopt one illegal motorbike racer each, so these Mat Rempits can lead a better life.
Now, before you guys shoot down this man’s suggestion without so much as giving it a second thought, please let me go on record and say that I think this is a BRILLIANT idea. Who cares about adopting unwanted children and orphans? Those are out of fashion already. Nobody wants them anyway.
Let’s all adopt illegal motorbike racers!

Who knows, if this works out well, next time those Hollywood A-listers like Madonna or Angelina Jolie wanna adopt another baby from impoverished countries, they can come to Malaysia. Heck, this can even be part of the Visit Malaysia Year 2007 campaign.
Just think about it. Which of the following would you rather adopt?

A sick, poor orphan from Cambodia?

A starving, HIV-positive orphan from Ethiopia?

Or that crazy lawless Mat Rempit from Malaysia?
Obviously, the obvious choice here is obvious. Right?
Those Hollywood celebrities would be fighting with each other to adopt our illegal motorbike racers from Malaysia! Think about all the endless entertainment value they’re gonna get out of them.
Don’t be surprised if the next time you flip open a tabloid magazine, you get see this photo of a new member of the family added to the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt household.

I heard that soon, our politicians are gonna come up with an Adopt-An-AhLong campaign.
Can’t wait.

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In a news that flew under the radar of most Malaysians, a garblement officer – the same dude who reprimanded actress Sharifah Amani for speaking English instead of her mother tongue during an award ceremony – has come out to declare that it is now illegal to use Bahasa Malaysia incorrectly, such as mixing it with English.

This is big. In case you don’t understand the gravity of the situation, words such as “MyKad” and “Cyberjaya” could now considered illegal and a finable offence, because they combine English and Bahasa Malaysia words together.
To help enforce this new ruling, the garblement will set up a special “National Language Unit” to clamp down on offenders. After the first warning, “criminals” would be slapped with a whooping RM1,000 fine if found guilty .

You must think that I’m joking, but I’m not.
With a RM1,000 fine, incorrectly using Bahasa Malaysia is now officially a more dangerous offence compared to speeding and running red lights. Although no specific mention were made about what the garblement is gonna do with the fine, I am guessing that these money will go into educating repeat offenders on the correct usage of Bahasa Malaysia and helping them settle back into real life.

The only consolation with this new ruling is that it covers signboards and displays only. But you know and I know that it is only a matter of time before the ruling includes everyday speeches as well. When that happens, imagine the tactics garblement is gonna employ to track down on offenders.

Thanks to Jojo for appearing in this sketch.

“Miss, do you want this? It’s clear, ok? I give you discount lah!”

“You want it? I have more. Lord of the Rings? Finding Nemo? Mr and Mrs Smith?”


Damn men-siasoi-kan.

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As we approach Malaysia’s other National Day on the 16th September, may I draw your attention to this online poll published on The Star Online‘s Merdeka website.

Not sure about everyone else, but personally I would pick the third choice. I am too young to live through all 49 years of Malaysia’s independance, but one thing I’m sure of is that our country has seen PLENTY of positive changes throughout the past 24 years of my existence.

Of course, we’re not as wealthy as Singapore or as well-developed as Hong Kong. But hey, despite a few mishaps I think our Prime Minster Abdullah Badawi has been doing a pretty good job thus far. And you know what? We may be slow but I reckon we’ll get there, eventually.
Imagine my shock when I clicked on the results and saw this.

Get this. 90% of those polled said we as a nation are maturing too slowly. NINETY FREAKING PERCENT!
That’s almost unanimous! If it’s 40%, I can probably accept. If it’s 70% I’ll be damn surprised, but I still won’t get a heart attack. But man, we’re talking 90% here. 90% of the people here are not happy with the speed of our development.
That means out of ten Malaysians, NINE of them thinks we’re progressing far too slowly. That is sad. That is something very, very discouraging to hear.
Are the ones happy with our progress so far do not have access to the Internet?
Are these the same ninety percent who voted our ruling party into government?
What exactly is going on?

I was thinking and thinking, wondering why so many people have so little confidence in the development of our country, but I just could not find an answer.
Then I thought, someone must be rigging this thing.
Someone malicious out there must be sitting in front of his computer, clicking “No, we’re maturing too slowly” MULTIPLE TIMES just to sabotage the results of the online survey. I reckon that someone must be doing it because he wanted to make the present administration look bad. And he’s doing it to make Abdullah Badawi look like a lousy Prime Minister.
Whaddya know? A big bird from Kubang Pasu sent me this pic that seems to explain everything.

I KNEW IT, DR M!

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A few days ago, my phone went beeping with this SMS from an unknown number.

Needless to say I was quite disturbed that things like this is happening in our own backyard, especially in Saujana Carpark which is located smack in the middle of the city centre. Apart from some petty burglary cases, serious crime such as kidnapping is still considered relatively rare here. My only consolation was that it wouldn’t be too difficult for people to spot a green Proton Wira with a Peninsular Malaysian car plate number in Kuching.
But a couple of hours after I received that message, I was sent YET ANOTHER SMS about the same incident.

Immediately, I smell a rat. Not just any rat. A big fat juicy rat.
Because this time round the SMS claimed that the girl is kidnapped from a different carpark. But therein lies the problem. There’s no such place called “Parade Carpark” ANYWHERE in Kuching!
So I asked around online and as it turned out, not just me but tons of other people had received similar SMSes. Some got “Subang Parade Carpark”, others got “Ipoh Parade Carpark”. But the plot is still largely the same: some 18-year-old Chinese girl was kidnapped at some mysterious unidentified carpark in a green Proton Wira aeroback bearing the car registration number WFE 2365, and message ending with a plea to “forward 2every1”.
Then yesterday as I was flipping through old newspapers, the penny dropped. Or as my Mandarin teacher would say, “water drop stone come out”.

Turns out that the abducted girl had already been rescued ages ago. The SMS was one day late. And best of all, the carpark in question was Ipoh Parade Carpark.
What I wanna know is, how the hell did “Ipoh Parade Carpark” become “Parade Carpark” become “Subang Parade Carpark” become “Saujana Carpark”?
Damn, we are so hopeless playing this game of Chinese whisper. Either that, or there are lots of stupid 18-year-old Chinese girls walking around in empty carparks waiting to be kidnapped.

But never mind that. Because what really irked me was the fact that there are people actually forwarding these SMSes to their friends. If it’s a forwarded e-mail, I can understand because e-mail is free. But come on lah, why are these people, happily wasting 20c per SMS to forward the SMS to everyone in their phone book? What is going on?
Then hor, some people even find the time to delete the word “Ipoh Parade Carpark” and replace it with stuff like “Subang Parade Carpark” to confuse people. OI, VERY FUN IS IT?!

THEN there are those who forward these messages WITHOUT EVEN READING IT. If this thing is happening in Ipoh, keep it in Ipoh. If it’s happening in Subang, keep it in Subang.
Why forward me an SMS about a girl who got kidnapped in Ipoh when I’m staying 1000km away in Kuching? What do you expect me to do?

THIS?

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We’ve got movies on sharks that attack people.

We’ve got movies on snakes that attack people.

We’ve got movies on giant monkeys that attack people.

Heck, we’ve even got movies on toy puppets that attack people.

Now, coming soon to a cinema near you, is a movie on human shit that attacks people.
Tell me that does not look like the fiercest pile of monstrous flesh-eating blobs of slimey shit!

Sarah had too much curry last night, and now she’s paying the price.

After watching the movie you might not wanna go to the toilet alone at night anymore, lest your own crap jumps up from the bowl and bites you in the arse.

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This is the poster for Dragon Tiger Gate, arguably the most hotly anticipated martial arts movie to come out from Hong Kong this season.

Ads for this movie are everywhere in Hong Kong.
I don’t know about you, but everytime I see this,


I can’t help but to imagine this instead.

What kinda kung fu fighters have such perfect hair!
Bluff people one.

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The FIFA World Cup has been a huge money-making machinery with many businesses cashing in on the football craze that’s going on right now. But when is it considered taking it too far?

I admit, I myself was caught up by the madness as well. I’m not a jersey person and I even just bought an “Official Licensed” Germany football jersey to join in on the fun. Then immediately after that Germany got knocked out of the tournament by Italy. So stupid. 🙁
One of the most bizarre “Official Licensed World Cup Merchandise” I’ve seen on the market is definintely this.

The Official FIFA World Cup 2006 Fragrance
“Introducing the officially licensed 2006 FIFA World Cup™ fragrance. Feel the excitement of winning the most coveted trophy in the world, wear the scent of victory.”
Excuse me, but what in the name of Ronaldinho’s balls is that supposed to mean?

What exactly is the “scent of victory”? I know what flower smells like, I know what coffee smells like, but how the heck would anyone know what “victory” smells like. It’s completely ambiguous and meaningless.
If that’s the case, everyone can just bottle their farts and sell it as a “scent of victory”. Because everytime I fart I feel a sense of victory.

Wanna smell like dirty, sweaty footballers?
Get the Official World Cup Fragrance today!

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