1) Blogger tests OCBC cake advertisement

You know that ad where these bank tellers surprise some girl and her mom on her birthday by presenting her with a birthday cake in the banking hall? Well, some lady who has earned the nickname 'Kitchen Tigress' decided to try it out. She went to the Marine Parade branch and asked for one. When the manager told her she had mistaken the point of the ad, she stood her ground until the helpless manager relented and bought her a 7.6cm cake from a nearby shop.

Those who read her blog post on it, all 400 comments, either condemned her actions, or praised them. The woman, in her defense, seemed slightly rational in the way she approached the situation; she didn't go about flaming those who didn't support her, nor did she childishly ignore them. She was 'well aware of the idea of artistic license in ads', but said also that 'advertisers should be ready to honor claims made in the ad, or at least give an acceptable explanation of why consumers shouldn't expect it to do so.'

Firstly, I'd like to say I agree with what the executive director of CASE said, that OCBC never actually stated that a birthday cake would be an entitlement to every customer who visits the bank on their birthday, and that the ad was meant to simply portray an image of consumer friendliness.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that, as interesting as the woman's actions may have been, her thinking is severely flawed, for by extension one could very well demand to know why a certain perfume, whose ads show men falling head over heels, jumping artistically over barriers to find the woman using the perfume, does not actually happen in real life. I could also ask why Sheng Siong doesn't enforce that intriguing gesture to show they really care for their customers, and why I can't take pictures like Ken Watanabe if and when I buy a Canon 7D.

Thirdly, it is because of these people, who go beyond the logical train of thought, that many institutions, companies and insurance policies have a whole gamut of terms and conditions attached to anything and everything. These people find loopholes beyond what an average person who busies himself would be free enough to explore, even if some are entirely superfluous. It's why when McDonald's had introduced their porridge to their menu, the dang bowl had the warning that the porridge was hot. I'm not implying that all these anally charged tightening of loopholes is always bad, nor the people who lead companies to do so, I'm just saying that past a certain point, people should just busy themselves with more productive, less idiotic ventures. This leads me to...

2) McDonald's pulls pig toy

There was a forum letter written yesterday by this woman lamenting about the whole Doraemon Zodiac toy series, under a CNY promotion by McDonald's, which replaced the pig with a cupid. ST followed up on this, (you can tell when there's a dry news day) interviewing more distraught and traumatised McDonald's customers who no longer saw the point in living when such a travesty had occurred.

"I was born in the year of the pig and would have collected the whole set. But without the pig, it makes no sense for me to do so."

-Cat Lady, Daphne Koh

On a deeper level, though, it is interesting to note two things; one, that McDonald's communications director for Singapore noted that they did not want to be disrespectful towards 'any religion or culture', and two, that, as an interviewee did attest, it is probably unlikely that any Muslim would buy the set of the Chinese Zodiac anyway. Both go to show one thing; just how obsessed some segments of the public are nowadays with avoiding anything and everything that may potentially incur the wrath of the Muslim community. Thanks to various news that has made its way into our lives on the Danish cartoons, the usage of the word Allah and such, the world, not just Singapore, has become much more sensitive to the sensitivities of the Muslim community, and perhaps in a manner much more than necessary.

Muslims are not all the raving, bomb-strapping fanatics that the US put them out to be, as I am sure we all know. But they've made enough of a name for themselves, the fanatical bunch, to warrant such terrified attempts to appease them in odd ways.

On a lighter note, though, you should really see the Doraemon toys that are masqueraded as the Chinese Zodiac. The fact that they can pass them off as animal representations baffles me completely. Another thing; those who actually intended to buy all 12 of them, at an extra of 2 bucks each on top of a meal, are equally as baffling.

3) Befuddlement gives way to shameful disgust as I read the commentary on those who filmed the molestation of a woman at the New Year's Eve party. No one stopped to help as four men repeatedly molested a bikini-clad woman; people were busy taking pictures (with flash, how's that for surreptitiousness?) and filming the event.

The disgust that many have at such a lack of morality in today's world has been repeated ad nauseam, but it has been done so only because such events keep repeating themselves, and people constantly fail to step up to the plate and act. This is not something like the case of an armed man killing a person. Sure, there may have been four guys, but standing up and getting beaten down is, in my opinion, better than standing around. Seriously.

I say it and I know that when push comes to shove, I may not do as I say; such occasions are a true test of a person's grit and values. But I will try, and in the case that I don't, I'm sure I can't go back and sleep as soundly as the idiots who filmed the event.

What's worse is that people commented on the video (it was posted on Youtube!) saying things along the lines of, she deserved it, with what she was wearing, or even that she enjoyed it. With regards to the first, that's plain Neanderthal. Go become a radical Muslim cleric, why don't you. Where will it all end? If you can't control your urges at the very first sight of female flesh, then all is lost.

As to the second, the comment seems utterly childish, but let's address it anyway. Even if the woman was enjoying it, I'm sure she mustn't have been crying in ecstasy. Four men groping her would look wrong in any context, and the fact that no one challenged the men obviously shows that no one has the right to assert that the woman was enjoying it. It's plain sick.

Ultimately, the guys who filmed it weren't even doing so for evidence against the offenders, they didn't even sheepishly walk away. I'd say society needs to be fixed, but then I'd also just say that these countdown parties are full of pretentious crap, with young people not knowing the kind of things the experienced ones may be planning.

You say there's a first time for everything? That's bull, I say. Some things in life don't have to be tried at all.

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