Dinner at Fiesta Basilia

I met an old friend, Eugene, for dinner at Fiesta Basilia at United Square last night. The food was the usual Brazilian style meats that had become popular with the advent of that place at Sixth Avenue and Carnivore at Vivocity.

I would suppose if you were a carnivore, this place would be ideal for you.

As usual, we talked about the pop music of the eighties which was Eugene's passion.

Torchlight

I have been playing quite a bit of 'Torchlight' for the last few weeks. It is amazingly addictive. It's exactly like the old Diablo I and II and Rage of Mages I and II.

Photocopiers

I heard that Selex was bought by Canon. When did that take place? I don't know. Hmm..

Here are the surviving photocopier brands that are left:

Dell
Canon
Hewlett Packard
Konica Minolta
Kyocera Mita, including its Copystar brand
Océ. including its Océ Imagistics brand
Oki Electric Industry, OKI Printing Solutions brand
Panasonic
Ricoh
Samsung
Sharp
Toshiba
Xerox / Fuji Xerox

Kallang Leisurepark

National Stadium IV

Honesty, service and sales

One night, I was at a store which I would not be naming.* I would call it Store X. I asked Mr X, the storekeeper if they had product X available. He thought a little and he told me that Store X would definitely be bringing it in. Then, Mr X realised that he was caught in a lie as he was not really bringing it in and I would certainly be coming back. He switched his tune. All of a sudden, he told me that he would have to make a special order. In any case, I did not care for the way he took me for a fool. His shifty eyes, his mannerisms and his body language told me a bit. If people doing sales had some integrity, it would be really nice. As it was, I was turned off by his replies. I thanked him and told him that I would be ordering product X from aboard.

*If you want to know which store, you can ask me, I will tell you in private.

National Stadium III

Ostia, Atlantic Star and Traumfabrik

We had a good session today. June Hwang, Terence, James, Chew Ming and I played 'Traumfabrik', 'Atlantic Star' and 'Ostia'. June Hwang won in 'Ostia', a very clever game of auctioning and resource allocation, June Hwang managed the most points in 'Atlantic Star' and finally, Chew Ming managed his contracts well and scored the most points for 'Traumfabrik'.

Cityscape

Ordering German games

If anyone would like to combine for an order of German games from aboard, I would be interested. It's simply too expensive to get it locally. There is one or two sources at home. Not much real competition, hence the exorbitant prices.

German games session

German games session this afternoon. Since we are going to have five players, 'Goa', 'Verrater' and other four player games are out. Heh.

I should compile a listing of possible games for different number of players in future. An inventory of German games.

Expensive games

If games in Singapore weren't so expensive, I would be a regular purchaser. As it is, I hardly buy boardgames and card games these days. I am thinking of making an order from a German company some day.

I am also thinking of a trip to Essen next year.

National Stadium II

The approaching end

The month has passed very swiftly. My trip to China has taken up a sizeable amount of time and drained me. In an eyeblink, it is nearing the end of the month.

Card games

I bumped into a bunch of people at Paradigm Infinitium last night. Cedric, Colin and two other people were playing 'Dominion' and its expansion 'Dominion: Intrigue'. I was told that it was a non-collectible card game much akin to 'Magic: The Gathering' where everyone constructed their own decks. Hand management was, of course, paramount. Meanwhile, Gerard and several others were playing 'Thunderstone', a game that according to Gerard, was similiar in mechanics to 'Dominion'. Hmm..

Victorian Era cruisers

I am fascinated by Victorian era protected cruisers of the different classes and armoured cruisers (sometimes classified as second class battleships). I have been reading up on them. I am also interested in the sloops, gunboats and frigates that were used in colonial policing duties, trade protection and commerce raiding when it came to war. Heh. I have been reading up on them over the years. Do you have an interest in this area like I do?

Aggressive sales, understanding needs, photocopiers and what not

The company had acquired a Fuji-Xerox multi-function copier from a third party dealer. The machine had lasted over a decade, being temperamental towards the end. The company had spent a considerable amount on repairs and the dealer had undoubtedly made a tidy sum. The sales people from the dealer, no doubt, being driven by a commission based system, was aggressive and had advised the company to purchase a brand new high-end device. These sales people had made little effort in understanding the needs of the company, which, really, was quite limited in volume in terms of copies and faxes. Each time, the dealer would play on the fears that there would be no more spare parts for the machine when in reality, there was. Finally, it did come a day when the spares ran out. At this point, the dealer reluctantly refused another service contract.

Given my previous experience with the sales people from the dealer, I saw little need in contacting the dealer for a new device. I decided to approach the companies that manufactured them, namely, Ricoh, Fuji-Xerox and Canon. The differences in approach of the sales teams was considerable for the latter two principals.

I found that the turnover in the sales staff of these companies dealing in copier and document imaging was massive. Many of the sales people who visited me were no longer with the company. I had tried calling them with the stack of business cards they gave me when they visited me time and again over the years. These sales people were likely to be under great pressure to achieve a certain level of sales and many had departed on not being able to deliver their quota.

I had also found the majority of the sales pitch of these people wanting with a number of them not appearing to understand their product and the options for leasing, hire-purchase and outright purchase.

National Stadium I