So I tried signing up online for the wireless router, only to find after submitting the form ... I got the blank form back. At the bottom was a line that they didn't like my NRIC/FIN. You don't see me saying anything bad about their NRIC/FIN, even under provocation.
With trepidation I dialed the given phone number, 1630. Singaporean phone numbers are eight digits long. They're really seven digits, but the first number is an ``area code,'' 6 for land-line and 9 for cell phones. It turns out 1630 worked. I'd always thought format-breaking phone numbers should be reserved for urgent services like the police (999) or fire department or ambulance (995). Cable modem service seems unworthy somehow.
This put me into a menu system, and that trick of not pressing buttons to make someone answer doesn't work here. They know nobody has rotary dials anymore, so they just hang up. After three billion repetitions of a six-bar tuneless thing I got a person who explained I needed to dial 1633.
There, after the same menu system, I got a person to sign me up. They have to do some processing, and won't deliver the router but rather send a redemption letter that I can take to get the free stuff ... in, they said, ``up to fourteen working days.'' Huh?
On an unrelated note, every time I think I've seen the silliest Next Generation screen grab ever, along comes the silliest Next Generation screen grab ever. Later in the act Dr Crusher drinks a glass of water while Wesley McBeefslab sings ``A British Tar.''
Trivia: Esther, in 1961, was the first hurricane discovered by satellites. Source: Exploring Space with a Camera, Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP-168.
Currently Reading: The Quest for Longitude, Edited by William J H Andrews.