Services vouchers from discount sites - do they work?

Although am not an obsessed discount voucher sites fan, I do scan these sites for something to buy (or rather some inspiration on what to buy) at least every weekend. Yes, buying stuff do give me joy! Though some look like really good deals, sometimes you can get better prices from Lelong & ebay. Further more, Lelong & ebay merchants send the items out almost immediately after receiving the payments.

Anyhow, you don't get services type of discounts such as restaurants, beauty, home cleaning etc from Lelong or ebay. So very much you still have to fall back to these discount sites. So far I have purchased several restaurant discount vouchers, 1 facial voucher & 1 cleaning services voucher. Never had any problems with the restaurant vouchers as long as I do early bookings. Some food are good, some not...and all these have to do with the restaurants, not the vouchers.

For the facial voucher I got, it was from Facial First (under Bizzy Body) which I redeemed yesterday after having problems finding an available slot for almost a month!

Got a bit pissed when the facial consultant implied that I did not read the treatment details properly which supposedly tailored for acne-ridden people, which I am not. I told them that their description of "prevent blemishes" didn't really imply it has to be acne-ridden, did it?

So after giving her a piece of my mind, we did a cut-down of the treatment so that I did not have to waste the voucher. Oh and as expected, she tried to sell me treatment packages for my high sebum and low moisture skin, which I politely declined.

And the biggest nightmare of all, was the home cleaning service voucher that I purchased from Groupon. The merchant here is One Bright Cleaning Services. Tell you folks, when you see this merchant's name, you should just walk away! This is such an irresponsible merchant.

I bought the voucher early this year and hoped to use their services for pre-Chinese New Year cleaning. They started with a online appointment booking form. They replied me that all the sessions during the period of time were full. Fine, so I made another booking for after the peak period. No reply from them and I had to email them a few times to get a response that they had changed their booking method. Apparently they could not cope with too many vouchers redemption.

So the new arrangement was that they would call you to arrange an appointment. That was in Feb 2013. Up to today which is the expiration of the voucher, no news at all. All my emails were probably routed to trash in their mailbox. Calling was not an option cos they would never pick up.

So I gave up yesterday and contacted Groupon and sent them my email thread with this irresponsible merchant. Groupon was kind enough to refund me and I opted for Groupon credits.

Seriously, how dumb can this merchant be?? If you put up your discounts into all these sites, you should expect that you'll get many purchases right? Isn't that the whole reason why you partner with them in the first place? If you can't cope with the responses, then don't put up discounts!

Anyhow this experience really made me think twice before purchasing any of such services vouchers, except for those restaurant ones.

So do services vouchers work?... I would say Yes... if they are from good & reputable merchants. Even so, please prepare to be patient in getting a convenient slot for yourself. Try to redeem your voucher much earlier and not wait around until almost nearing the expiration date.

There will always be the bad merchants like One Bright Cleaning Services which does not hold the end of their bargain, but in these cases, lets just hope the Discount Voucher sites are more responsible to give us back the refund. At least I know Groupon is.

Neck & Shoulder Exercise

I have been getting neck pain regularly again. My colleague recommended me to watch this video and try out the exercise to see whether it works for me. I have yet to watch it and am putting the video here so that I will do so later.



You guys have any good remedy for neck pain? Please don't tell me to just break it.

Gong Xi Gong Xi

Happy Chinese New Year!!! May the God of Prosperity comes to our homes and bring us lots of gold. Also may all of us have better health, happiness and peace.

Gong Xi Gong Xi!

Understanding the Financial Crisis

Sounds Expensive!

I am at the car service center now. My car's brakes were making lots of noise and I thought I better get them checked.

Apparently the brake rubber was already exhausted and the brake disc was scratched. Hmm... that sounds expensive!

(posted via mms)

Bloated

Oh dear, my stomach is so full of gas lately and I feel soooo bloated. Burrrrppppp....

Happy 51st Birthday, Malaysia!

It has been 51 years since Malaysia gained its independence.

The motto for this year's Independence Day celebration is "Perpaduan Teras Kejayaan" which translated (by me!) means "Unity is the core to success".

Indeed when we are of so many different colours and beliefs, unity is very important. However, shouldn't this be a motto for the leaders as well? Shouldn't the leaders put their differences aside and unite to a better Malaysia? ... or are we up for more soap operas?

So Malaysia, you are 51 years old today. Are you older and wiser?

Magic?

Mmm...it certainly is magic. The magic of mathematics!

Beijing 2008 Limited Edition Pins

To commemorate the Beijing Olympics which is starting tomorrow, here are some pictures of the Beijing 2008 Limited Edition pins that I bought when I was in Chengdu, China 2 years ago. I bought it at the Beijing 2008 shop in one of the shopping complexes there.

The Front Cover:

The Back. Really Limited Edition leh. I think there are only less than 50,000 of these out there, right?

The Pins!

Closeup of one of the pins. This one is with my last name.

Pin of the Beijing 2008 mascots!!

Now that I have shown off my limited edition Beijing Olympics pins, it's time to put them back into my drawer ...

Big Toothache

I just hate hate hate going to the dentist! Thinking about the room, the chair and the equipments are enough to send shivers down my spine. However I had to go see one today. My previous teeth fillings came out and I need them re-filled. Besides that, my wisdom tooth is causing me painful gums as well.


The dentist who attended to me is a SYT (Sweet Young Thing). There were also 2 assistants there, one of them being an old lady. I would think the old lady is a parent or relative to one of the dentists there... as she's definitely over the retirement age.

She was in charge of the suction tube that sucked out my saliva when the dentist was torturing me. If it wasn't for my stress of having that metal drill inside my mouth, I would be laughing aloud. You see, this lady was using the suction tube as if she was vacuuming her home! I could feel the suction tube going all over the insides of my mouth... and I was pretty sure I didn't salivate that much!

The SYT told me that I have lots of problems with my teeth. There were cavities in many of them; and a cracked capping. The worst would be my wisdom tooth that she recommended for me to remove via surgery. Gosh...guess that's my punishment for not visiting the dentist often!

Anyway for today, she filled 6 of my teeth... and 6 more to go next week. Hmm... assuming I still have all my 32 teeth, 38% of them are with holes, how sad!! At the end of the session, I looked at the her and said "This is bloody stressful!".

6 teeth already costs me RM330. Gosh.. I can't imagine the cost for the other 6 teeth and the wisdom tooth surgery if I decided to do it. Looks like I am going to get a big toothache after all.

Note: toothache in cantonese is also used as an expression to mean pain from spending too much money.

Don't microwave your phone!!

I know time is bad and phone bills can cost a lot...but never never microwave your phone. See the video on the consequence!

Viva somebody

It is becoming rather scary that nowadays packing lunch and eating at the office pantry has became a routine for us. This usually means we are really THAT busy until we can't spare any time to drive out like what we used to do many months ago.

Anyhow no matter where we were at for lunch, we usually got to learn something... may it be about movies that we watched, current issues, celebrities, latest gadgets and many more. Sometimes we even learn new words to add to our limited vocabulary.

Today, we learned about the word "Viva".

My colleague was flipping to the newpaper pages and came across this headline with the word Viva. I think it's Viva somebody but I can't remember the details as it was in the Sports section (I never give a damn about sports). So this colleague asked us what "Viva" means.

None of us knew... and I said, "well..there is this song by Spice Girls called Viva Forever. Dunno what it meant though".

Then I took out my PDA phone and searched for this word in my very cool english dictionary program which I installed. Here is what I saw and read out:

"No, no...that can't be it", somebody said. Hmm... but my dictionary did not have any other alternative meaning. Not so cool after all, eh?

So we left it as that and I forgot all about it until now. I checked the meaning from Cambridge Dictionaries Online and found this:

viva (APPROVAL)
exclamation MAINLY US
used to express approval or good wishes:
Throngs of his supporters were shouting "Viva, Ollie, viva!"

Oooooo...Now the headline and Spice Girl's song make perfect sense...

IQ Question

I remember this IQ question that was asked to me many years ago and it suddenly came back to my mind. Try it and see whether you can figure it out:

There is this string of a certain length that takes 60 minutes to burn from one end to the other when in horizontal position. However the rate of burning along the length of the string is not consistent, meaning that if it burned half of its length, it doesn't mean 30 minutes have passed.

So lets say you are given 2 of such strings with same behavior and same length as mentioned above; how do you use them (by burning them of course!) to time 45 minutes?

P/S No...you may not refer to the clock or watch or whatever that can tell you the time!

Fashion Show at Midvalley

Managed to catch Bonia's Fashion Show at Midvalley yesterday when I was there to get my haircut. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me, so had to make do with my phone's 2MP camera.

Anyway, when you guys watch a fashion show at a mall or something, do you really look at the clothes... or at the models?? For me, I think I concentrate more on the latter.

Car Warehouse

Do you know that when you buy a new car, it will be transported from the factory to the warehouse where it will sit there until it is ready to be collected? Well, I didn't know this. Last time when I bought my Iswara and later my Matrix, I collected them from the sales offices. I didn't get to see how these warehouses look like.

Today I had this opportunity. I accompanied Gan to collect his new Myvi. The sales agent brought us to the warehouse where Gan's car was kept. The place was a rather huge old wooden building.... and it was very well guarded - by geese and stray puppies!

I wasn't scared of the puppies. Upon seeing us, one of them were barking but at the same time running far far away from us, hehe. I was a bit intimidated by the geese though. They looked.... mean!

Uncollected cars were parked compactly inside the warehouse. They were covered by layers of dust. The sales agent told us that it's very important for new owners to notify them earlier on when they want to collect the cars. Only then, the warehouse person will move the car out and get it washed. Gosh...I couldn't imagine moving a car out from that "pile".

Gan's car was already washed nicely and parked in an open area when we got there. We inspected the car inside out and everything was fine.

Well, it really doesn't matter where and how they were kept, as long as they look and function like new when they come to you, right?

Traffic Jam

5.30pm at Federal Highway. Don't these people work late?

Malaysia General Election 2008

Today, history was made in Malaysia's political scene and I just had to mark this in my blog.

Yesterday was Malaysia's 12th General Election voting day. I started following the results from about 9.30pm until 2.30am this morning when I got too tired to go on. Anyhow by then, the result was already pretty clear although some states' countings were still going on.

The people's voice were heard loud and clear.

News below was taken from Star Online: General Election:

Sunday March 9, 2008MYT
5:55:52 AM
BN wins federal govt but opposition takes five states

KUALA LUMPUR: The Barisan Nasional will form the next Government as it has won more than half the parliamentary seats.

However, the coalition suffered some of the greatest defeats in its history. Barisan Nasional chairman Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in accepting the results, said this was clear proof of democracy at work in the country.

Among the results yesterday were:

• The Barisan lost Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor,


• PAS strengthened grip on Kelantan,


• Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting won in their seats,


• Among ministers who lost their seats were Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin,


• Gerakan acting president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon lost to Dr P. Ramasamy in the Batu Kawan parliamentary seat.

Meanwhile, party leaders urged for calm and police have banned all victory celebrations.

Chinese Painting... Animated!

This is so beautiful.

First Time in a Wedding Dinner

I just came back from a wedding dinner. No, don't get misled by the title of this post. This is definitely NOT my first time in a wedding dinner. However the following are indeed the first that I have experienced in any wedding dinners before:

It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I got asked "What happened to your hair?!!" at least 5 times within half an hour. These were from ex-colleagues whom I haven't seen for the past 6 years.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I did not know where I should be sitting. You see, it's supposed to be a poolside buffet dinner but it rained. Due to the rain, the table that we were assigned to cannot be seated. No one was there to inform us what we should do and where we should sit. Ended sitting and eating at the reception couch.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where there seemed to be food rationing. There were only 5 buffet trays of food. There were these servers scooping the food for you... you know like in a hostel or a prison. No asking extra is allowed...like in Oliver Twist. Even if you did, you would not get it.
It's the first time in a wedding dinner where I stayed less than 2 hours. I reached there at 7.00pm, started to queue for food around 8.00pm, got my food around 8.10pm, finally found a place to sit and eat at 8.15pm and left at 8.30pm.

Geez, now that I have finally gotten over my shock, I am sensing hunger approaching. Guess I better make myself some Quacker Oats.

What's your f*****g problem?

I had a funny experience when collecting my cheque book today. 2 days ago, I received this letter from my bank asking me to change my cheque book. Apparently Bank Negara is changing their cheque truncation system and the existing cheques will no longer be compatible when they roll out the system.

So I went to my bank to settle this and waited for my turn to be served at this small little glass window thing. I don't understand why most banks' cheque collection booths are designed like that. Anyway there was this long haired cool looking guy queueing behind me. When it's finally my turn, I passed the letter, my old cheque book and my IC to the officer there.

The officer then went somewhere else to get my cheque book and during this time, this middle aged lady seemed to suddenly appeared from nowhere and cut to the front of the line. She looked at the cool looking guy queueing behind me and shouted "I just want to ask a question!". Then she looked around for the officer and as he wasn't there, she just asked the thin air "Where is the guy ah?". Aiya..she wasn't looking at me when she asked ma... so I assumed she was asking the thin air and just kept quiet.

Then finally the officer came with my new cheque book. She then asked the officer in a very "chor lo" manner about this new cheque matter and whether the existing cheques can still be used. The officer replied that the existing cheques can be used until June 08.

She then looked at me with piercing eyes and asked yelled "THEN WHY ARE YOU CHANGING YOUR CHEQUES NOW??!!!" as if I have stolen something from her!

I was stunned... collected my composure back.. and told her in my usual well mannered self (ehem, ehem), "Because I got a letter asking me to!". Then I grabbed my new cheque book and walked away without looking at her.

Well I could have answered her "WHAT'S YOUR F*****G PROBLEM?!!" but that's just not me, right? *Wink*

People can be so funny sometimes...