Why Add Limbs to A Snake?

What is this bald and ugly old man doing in this selfie? Is he engaging in some kind of sex weirdo? Or self-torture?

His ear is itchy! Naturally he stretches out his hand to scratch it!

This is what most of us would do in similar situations, even in public, I suppose.

How many of us attempt to do it the following way? Silly, isn’t it, Ah Kong? My grandchildren would probably say this to me. Why the extra effort? If you were not careful, you might twist your arm!

Why so hard to reach?

But in life, many of us do things this way, figuratively speaking!

Pan Pacific Serviced Suites at Beach Road, Singapore provides two TVs in their guest suites, one in the living room and the other in the bedroom.

Both are Samsung SmartTVs, but the one in the living room is too smart for a IT dinosaur like me to figure out how to use it. Turning on is easy. But where is the sound????

I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the sound and had to summon its technician for help

“Sir, look into the box below and you will see another control. Press the power button and you will get the sound,” said the young man patronisingly. Isn’t it too simple to ask for help, silly old man? I suppose he must be saying this to himself.

Adding a limb to a snake?

Oh, you need another control to turn on the sound, I see. It is certainly a very smart TV!

Up to today, I still cannot understand the logic of this extra need. 

Why scratch your ear the hard way??? Isn't Maxel's is the best way?

How satisfying!

Talking about stretching your arm backwards to reach your itchy ear, I am reminded of my HTC smartphone. After the expiry of my iPhone 4 contract, the not-so-sweet-young-thing in the Optus Shop in Malvern advised me to go for the above model. She said it was the No 1 selling smartphone in the world then. This was about three of four years ago. I took her word for it and did not try to check her claim out. That was a mistake!

Not really brilliant!

 You can see that the slogan in it reads: quietly brilliant. It reminds me of a joke about the name of one of Malaysia’s earlier Finance Minister – Tun Daim, whose name if spelt incorrectly as Diam can mean “quiet” (more accurately, as a verb, meaning keep quiet). He is certainly brilliant.

I really hate this phone. It is one of the most difficult mobile phones for someone too clumsy like me to use. Try adding an email account with this phone and you know what I mean.

To me, this is a another classic example of how one has to stretch one’s arm backwards to reach the one’s ear!!!

(I lost my iPhone 5 in Subang Parade recently and had to re-activate this HTC phone. As if it knew my sentiment, it refused to charge. I paid A$45 for a new battery. It worked for a couple of weeks. It is DEAD again! So much for this brilliant phone from Taiwan. I heard the brand hardly sells now. NO WONDER!)