Kopi Tiam: Ineptly Yours

I come from a small rustic kampong in the middle of nowhere. I guess someone has to; we can’t all come from the city, right? Life, back then, was simple, so simple that we invented another word to replace “simple”. It is called simply simple. Kekekekeke

Everything around was simply simple. We don’t see much private cars; there were more kereta sapu than private cars if my memory didn’t betray me. We took bus because it was cheaper, and the conductor was a really nice person with a great smile. Laksa was only 10 cents; my school pocket money was 15 cents, 20 cents and finally 40 cents. I no longer take buses now, laksa is now HK$20 per bowl and my daughter’s pocket money now is HK$20 per day. How time have changed. They say it is something to do with inflation, that might be true but I am thinking of something else.

It is something to do with people doing less and charging more. When I was young, everybody work like shit all day long and paid miserably low….more like you are being paid in terms of speck of dirt. Today we work lesser, and being paid more! Some even work on a newer platform called ‘working at home’. Gee! If my mum were to be like that in those good old days, we get to eat stuffed ‘tau hu’ all the time! What is working at home? More like ‘dream at home’ rather, and create innovative ideas to make all of us working less and getting paid more for doing some other menial stuff. The world has come to accept what I believe is truly neurotic ideas for inept old timers like me. It is call automation. Everything, with the exception of my Caltex Ah Pek, is going towards that direction. I give you a few examples to set your mind rolling:

a. Escalators – stand there and wait for 30 seconds and you will arrive at level 2 unless you are Mr. Bean
b. Toilets – pee and press a button. Maintained your seat posture and jets of water will ooze out. Don't not stand up after pressing the buttons, else you will have water on your face

c. Touch-n-go – touch your card against a board, PLUS will bill you later with more chances of over-charging
d. Credit cards – swipe and go. Simple and no hassle with paper money and coins (I hate coins!!!) except when faced robbers you had better remember those 6 alpha numeric PIN
e. Machine car wash – drive through and it squeaky clean at the exit, except if you left your windows opened
f. Digitize dashboard – touch sensors allowing you to switch CD, air-con, lights etc except these little silicon gadgets have short life span. Malaysian are notoriously sustainable in this manner, they use their car even when their cars habitually exhaust a cloud of black fumes
g. Ultra Slim Laptop – they look good, gives you the feel that you are in league with the progress of technology except someone may sit on it……….
h. Hong Kong’s Octopus – nobody leaves home without it. Except if you forget to charge up or lose it, you will find it is gone forever
i. Jacuzzi – you no longer need to go to Japan, your local spa has a series of them. Except those little air holes are places filled with bacteria.
j. Intelligent Lift and Info TV in the Lift – you can’t have these!

Intelligent lift gets you to all floors except your floor. The whole idea of intelligent lift stems out to reduce your travelling time by letting you onto designated floors. What they don't tell you is, you must indicate your floors at the lobby. Well……..chances is that we all rush into the first available lift and that’s when your trouble begins. You go all the way up, and then come down to where you first started. Hops onto another only to find out it wont stop at your floor either. And after many trials and errors you finally managed, if you are lucky, to get where you had originally intended but you are either too late for your appointment or it is time to go home.

Lift with Info TV is really bad because when you are engrossed on the news, you naturally forget your way out. It is also a place where the TV sound may conveniently camouflage someone’s discreet fart.

Computers are another trouble invention. With computers comes email, don't you all dread mails popping out all the time? You write something, you are given a reply almost at the same time it pops out of your computer. Not much of feeling, isn’t it? Unlike those good old days when you waited patiently for a letter of reply. Then there is that all new, blue tooth, blu ray, MP3 or 4, built-in camera etc etc. I never really know how to use them, and I honestly don't know why they are there for. If I want to send something to a person near to me, I would send it via email. Why blue-tooth? In the first place, how on earth do they come up with names like blue-tooth when it is supposingly white! What is the difference between MP3 or 4 and DVDs? And the built-in camera……..ohhhhh I am ugly enough but the camera made me even uglier!

I think one of these days; these creative people from the moons of Saturn will invent a fully automatic head styler. Hey, we used to call them barber, and then we upgraded them to hair stylist, now it should be the head styler! Imagine putting your head into a head chamber with thousands of little razor sharp knife manned by an on-board computer made of silicon chips. At a press of the button, you will hear music through the MP10 with MC Hammer doing the Hippopotamus Jam Ram (hey, they wouldnt call it Hip Hop no more!). At the press of another button, the thousand and 1 knives will start clicking, and in less than 5 seconds you will receive an email telling you the service is done.