The internet is a wondrous thing, especially when social media was invented.

I mean, suddenly, you’re connected to this wide, wild world (geddit? 😎) full of heartwarming stories, nasty people *coughkeyboardwarriorscough* and more.

But there’s a downside to it all.

TMI.

Too. Much. Information. Your newsfeed gets updated every single time you go in, sometimes even in the middle of reading something.

Heh, we get you.

And that’s why we’re going to write about the top 10 most spoken-about topics in Singapore every day.

So you have something to talk about over lunch mah 😉

1. Woman Waited 20 Hours For Grab Ride That Never Arrived

Remember her?

Yup, the graduate photoshoot girl who went viral two years ago for her photos.

Just so you know, she’s still active in social media, primarily in YouTube and Instagram. Here’s her latest YouTube video (uploaded just five days ago!):

She’s back again, this time with a Grab experience that’s sad, funny and makes you want to cheer for her. All at the same time.

She posted on her Facebook account about the experience she had with a JustGrab driver.

The booking was confirmed and the map on the Grab app showed the driver dropping off another passenger nearby.

After waiting for a while, she realised that the driver wasn’t moving and tried contacting him.

Only for him to go MIA. Her calls and texts were all rejected and ignored.

So, what would you do in this situation? I’ll screenshot the heck out of the app and cancel the ride.

But that’s not what she did.

Instead, she decided to play the waiting game with the driver and used her friend’s phone to get another ride home.

When she woke up, she realised that her Grab ride is still On The Way.

And she decided to have some fun.

She created a sad story out of it.

And her family joined in the fun as well.

Kidding, the brothers are worried about their sister.

And her parents lost all hope of ever seeing her again.

But on a serious note, she clarified that she tried reaching out to Grab, but their only response was, “I’m sorry”

Finally, at 2.16 pm, the driver couldn’t take it anymore and called her.

He asked, why wouldn’t you cancel the ride?!

And the reason why he refuses to get into contact with her?

It’s allegedly because many passengers refused to cancel rides in the past, which was why he couldn’t be bothered to pick up or reply any messages.

Wow.

So he wants to cancel rides, but he blames other passengers for not cancelling the ride for him.

Self-entitled much?

Elizabeth Boon allegedly couldn’t cancel the ride on her app. She was only able to get Grab’s help in cancelling her ride at 5.45pm.

Her lesson to all Grab drivers? Just practise basic courtesy and alert the passenger that you don’t want his or her money.

And request a cancellation.

Don’t make us wait for you, hoping for our impatience to just cancel the ride for your benefit. 

You know what? I think I just fell in love again.

2. Man Jailed 16 Years & 18 Strokes Of Cane For Raping His Mom

Live long enough and you’ll hear plenty of stories about unfilial children.

Whether it be sons who get money at the age of 35 for renovation works (for their new home).

To children who sue their parents for taking their ang bao money.

But this takes the cake.

On 4 Oct 2013, a man pinned his mother to her bed, molested her, then raped her.

The man was the second son of three children from her first marriage, and she invited him to stay with her and her husband because he didn’t have a home.

After the incident, she fled to her daughter-in-law’s home. On the way there, she called her son and recorded the conversation.

When asked why he did it, he replied that he likes it and wants to do it again.

The man’s legal team attempted to defend him by saying the mother and her husband created the hoo-ha to get him out of their house.

They also argued that there was no mentioned of rape in the audio recording, and samples taken from the woman at the hospital was mishandled, resulting in loss of evidence.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), their defence did not hold and the man was sentenced to 16 years jail and 18 strokes of the cane.

3. Two-Year-Old Girl Left in Car by Mother Dies

Parents are human beings too, we get it. They make mistakes too. But sometimes, the consequences of the mistake might be more than you can bear.

And that’s what happened to this unfortunate mother in Malaysia.

On 15 Mar, it was reported that a mother forgot about her two-year-old daughter and left her in a car.

For four hours.

Ms Hasmah Masroh, 32, a lecturer at Port Dickson Vocational College, usually leave her elder child at the kindergarten and two-year-old Nur Awfa Humaisha Muhammad Ali Riduan at the babysitter before going to work.

On that day, she went about her routine but forgot about her second child, who was asleep in the car seat.

She only realised her mistake at 1 pm and rushed to her car. By then, the toddler was unconscious.

The toddler was pronounced dead at the Port Dickson health clinic.

So, one lesson you can learn from this: do a final check of your valuables and personal belongings before you leave your car.

4. New Study Finds Plastic Particles in Bottled Water Like Evian, Aqua, Dasani and More

If you’re someone like me, your daily water intake comes mainly from bottled mineral water.

Here’s what you need to know.

The study, which stretches across nine countries, found that there was a widespread contamination with plastic in bottled water.

250 bottles of water were tested, and 93% of this sample group came up positive for plastic.

The bottles of water that comes up positive for contamination include top brands Aqua, Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino

Results ranged from “zero to more than 10,000 likely plastic particles in a single bottle”, and were identified to include polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), usually used for bottle caps.

The study suspected that the contamination occurred during the packaging process, and commented that “65% of the plastic debris found are actually fragments and not fibre”.

It was also concluded that tap water is “safer than bottled water”, according to the study.

Well, it might be time to consider changing your habit liao. After all, tap water is free (at least those in public toilets lah).

5. Former GM of AMK Town Council Charged With Corruption

On 14 Mar 2018, the former GM of Ang Mo Kio town council, Wong Chee Meng, was charged with 55 counts of corruption involving $107,000.

He was accused of accepting bribes from the director and shareholder of two building and construction firms, 19-NS2 Enterprise and 19-ANC Enterprise.

Over three years, Chia Sin Lan, the director and shareholder of the firms about S$49,377 entertaining Wong at KTV lounges and treating him to meals.

He also sponsored his Geylang’s “spa treatment”, and gave $30,000 to Wong’s mistress.

Chia also gave Wong’s daughter-in-law a job at 4-Ever Engineering where she worked at for five months.

When Wong wanted to buy a Toyota Corolla Altis, Chia got car salesman Yip Fong Yin to give a $13,500 discount for the car.

Both men are now on bail on S$100,000 each, and the hearing will continue on 11 Apr.

6. Businesswoman Jailed 6 Weeks for Hitting Maid

Foreign domestic workers, or maids as we know them, have it tough.

They have to deal with unreasonable employees (and we all know the pattern of Singaporeans right?), get paid peanuts and are typically exploited.

Here’s one more example of a maid who was abused, except that this time, justice is served.

On Jan 2017, Liang Dongmei felt that her Indonesian maid was rude to her.

Formerly a Chinese National but now a Singaporean, Liang couldn’t take it and started scolding her maid in Mandarin.

The maid couldn’t understand her and didn’t look at her during her raging. She marched up to her maid and pulled her hair.

When the maid attempted to escape the house with her belongings, Liang prevented her from doing so at the front door and accidentally scratched her face.

The maid managed to successfully escape and made a police report.

Liang was sentenced to 6 weeks jail on 14 Mar 2018.

Moral of the story? The boss isn’t always right. Unfortunately, there are more cases that went unreported because the maids are just too afraid to speak up.

7. Social Studies Guide Book Says: Speak Singlish & Play at Void Deck Equals Lower Class

Screenshots of a social studies guidebook have been making the rounds on the internet. And it’s getting attention…of the wrong kind.

If you…

• speak Singlish
• eat at hawker centre or at home
• take on part-time jobs to help the family
• play at void decks

You belong to the lower socio-economic status in Singapore.

On the other hand, if you…

• use proper English
• eat regularly at expensive restaurants
• travel overseas during school holidays
• and play sports like tennis and golf at an exclusive country club

You’re high-class.

Just by reading this, you’d expect Singaporeans to be triggered.

Written by Rowan Luc, this is a guide to Social Studies for Secondary Three students, to supplement the official syllabus taught in Singapore schools.

MOE has since responded to the online outrage and said that the book doesn’t belong to MOE’s approved textbook list.

Books that are approved typically carries the MOE stamp of approval.

In other words, check out MOE’s list here before going out to buy any books. It might just teach your kids the wrong thing.

8. Stephen Hawking Dies At The Age of 76

A world-renowned scientist with one of the best minds ever seen since Einstein, Stephen Hawking passed away at his own home in Cambridge at the age of 76.

Despite being diagnosed with a rare disease at the age of 22 and only given a few more years to live, he went on to astound the world with his theory on black holes and the universe.

He was also offered a knighthood but turned it down because he had issues with the government’s funding for science.

You can read about his life work here.

9. McDonald’s Choco Pie Totally Sold Out in S’pore

It’s official.

If you’ve not had the chance to try McDonald’s Choco Pie that drove everyone crazy, sucks to be you.

For the past couple of days, people were not able to order McDonald’s Choco pie anymore.

Both online…

and offline.

On 12 Mar 2018, 12 days after McDonald’s choco pie started selling, McDonald’s announced that the choco pie is officially sold out.

Instead, they’re offering the red bean pie and apple pie at $1 each.

P.S: The $1 thing seems to apply only if you buy at the counter. I ordered via McDelivery yesterday and the red bean pie cost me $1.50 each.

And try not to get your hopes up because it’s not coming back anytime soon. It ain’t Nasi Lemak, you know.

Oh well, time to look for the next craze liao.

10. SMRT Using F1 Racing Technology To Monitor Train Performances

Admit it, taking the train in Singapore is like getting on the stock market. You’re not sure when it’ll crash.

SMRT has always been working on upping the efficiency and reliability of their train services.

And this time, they’re going high speed. F1 fast, to be exact.

It was announced that SMRT will be partnering McLaren Applied Technologies to produce condition-monitoring solutions that can help track and predict train performances.

Typically used in F1 races that track the performances of the race cars, the solutions are able to feed real-time information to the F1 pit crews and mission control, allowing them to solve problems in the shortest time possible.

SMRT and McLaren Applied technologies will work on solutions to monitor “the train motors, brakes, pneumatic systems and gearboxes on a test-bed SMRT train”.

It is hoped that with these solutions, train disruptions and breakdowns can be minimised.

So there you go, ten most-spoken about topics in Singapore you need to know.

You’re welcome! 😉

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This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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Featured Image: Elizabeth Boon’s Facebook Page