I once ate a fish this big!

Despite having eaten most types of meat commonly available (though I always wonder what elephant taste like) I still find the size range in seafood amazing, I mean with chicken and beef the sizes varies but not by much wheras seafood....well, you get cocktail shrimps.....then you have the whale, which is probably the largest animal known in current existance....unless they found a whalasaurus which I imagine anything with "saurus" suffix would be at least huge and probably really really old.

Here's lookin' at you

While I was looking through my hard drive I found this photo of a moron dressed like something out of an old gangster movie, someone shoot this guy already.

趙ダサ〜！
(oh and yeah, that's a pack of chewing gum in my right vest pocket)

P.S

In light of my recent unemployment I will not be able to frequently update my blogs due to limited internet access.

Hima hima seijin ya!

(To be sung in tune of Jingle bells)

I just quit my job, this is my last day
All my stuff are packed, no more work for me
Now I can stay home do nothing all day long
or go play with my cats or play video games all day HEY!

NA NA NA, NA NA NA NO MORE WORK FOR ME~

NA NA NA, NA NA NA NO MORE WORK FOR ME~ HEY!

NA NA NA, NA NA NA NO MORE WORK FOR ME~

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NO MORE WORK FOR MEEE~*

U.N employment

Ah yes the sweet smell of unemployment it's so close now I can feel it, in less than 48 hours I will officially be free, no more waking up in the morning to go to work and no more going through the hellish morning and evening traffic,.....and no more monthly paycheck or free internet(crap!), oh well I guess I just have to find some way to not spend as much money until I find another job.

Now that I've cleaned up my most of workspace I've almost have nothing to do in the office anymore except for training the new staff but then again I can leave that to someone else so now it's time for.........Warcraft 3.

5 more...oh wait.....

I can't believe it....I was supposed to have 5 more days left now it's 7 days, tricky bastards! slipping in work days for the weekend. 

But seriously I'm not upset over it in fact it only means more money for me I mean with a 2 x 10 hour overtime pay when I'll be jobless by next Friday....sweet.

Now, if only I earn the same amount (numerical not value) per month but in US dollars.....

I wanna be a chocolatier!

As I may have mentioned before I'm currently (though not for long) working as a student counselor for foundation year students, this also includes a little bit of careers counseling as well.

I fully understand that it's very difficult for people who have only gone through 10 to 12 years of education, with ages ranging from 15-19, to decide on which university course to do, most of the students are not even certain or even care about what sort of career they want to go into.

I like to think that students today are more exposed to information about the different jobs available to them and have some idea of what the job involves more than I was then, so when I hear "I want to do software engineering because I like video games" unless they can tell me what aspect of video games they like or would like to work on I get a little upset.

More Chinese hilarity

Chuang Tse, A prominent Chinese Taosit once had a conversation with one of his contemporaries regarding what fish likes and it went something like this;

Chuang Tse and Huizi were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when Chuang Tse said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"

Huizi: "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?"

Chuang Tse: "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"

Huizi: "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"

Chuang Tse: "Let's go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."

I may be reading this the wrong way but Chuang Tse's last reply sounded like "I know but I ain't tellin'" which doesn't sound very well thought out to me then again he became prominent Taosit philosopher who thought he was a butterfly while I'm sitting behind a desk making blog entries.

if you ask me who the other guy is I wouldn't have a clue I mean Who is he anyway?

End of week countdown

By the end of the day I will have 13 working days left before I'm NEET, "don't you mean 15 working days since today is the 10th of August and there's still 3 full weeks to go until the 31st?" No my unsuspecting fellow, there's a public holiday next Friday and I'm taking the Thursday off so I have 13 days of working left! and that means I'm going to have a 4 day weekend *glee*

iWant

Once again I'm getting the news late, which is good since I'm not a tech journalist.

First I'm just going to say one thing about iWorks '08........AWESOME! and to have them call the spreadsheet Numbers just made me a prophet, too bad the whole package is beyond my iBook's capacity.

Now a few words about the new  iMac, While the tech specs are quiet expected the design on it's own looks disjointed, it feels like there's a barrier between the monitor and the the rest of the body, aside from that I like the new keyboard design now the only thing they need to do to improve it is make it paper thin so I can place it on an angled surface and play "tactical officer" or "helmsmen" from Star Trek:TNG.


*OK something is seriously screwed with text formating in blogger, I'm gonna have to try and fix this

Because it's notable

I feel like posting something here but I seem to be lacking in topic today, so I'm just going to post about not having anything a topic to post.

or

I could dedicate today's post space to another random wikipedia entry for random information which you'll likely find no use for whatsoever.

Today, 62 years ago....

On this day more than anything we must ask ourselves was it worth it? Was it worth the 80,000 and more in the years that followed? Should today be passed by just like any other day? and what have we learned from it?

Friday night lights

Well this just sucks monkey balls. I started today thinking this was going to be a good day, it's a Friday, end of the week I usually finish the day on a good note with the weekend to look forward to. Sometime between 9 and noon (yes I'm being very particular here) I saw one of the newspaper headline saying something about some big gubernatorial campaign rally planned for today.

During my lunch period as I was walking to buy lunch (KFC naturaly) and to buy a new battery for my mobile phone (which had been dead for the last 3 days) I saw a convoy of busses, cars and bikes carrying the campaigners which is NEVER a good sign in this god forsaken city, at this point I knew that I was never going to get home on time.

The irony behind the campaign (which is expected in any political campaign) was it caused exactly the opposite of what the candidate "vowed" to reduce, traffic jams, hours and hours of traffic jam. Starting from noon until well after 18:00 (that's 6 pm in laymen's term). Knowing this in advance I decided to go to my favorite cafe in the mall just across my office after office hours to spend some time reading only to find out that it was closed, bugger me.

Since new batteries needed to be recharged before I can use it I couldn't call home to say I was going to be late, I also ran out of coins to call from a pay phone so I decided to catch a movie only to reminded that movie ticket prices are double that of the weekday prices.

Eventually I managed to get a cab probably after 7, I'm not sure since my mobile phone's dead, my iPod ran out of juice and so did my iBook so I can't tell what time it was nor did I look at the big round clock in the mall I was in, I also stopped wearing wristwatches years ago since I had a mobile phone.

Ok so it may not sound as bad as what others may have been through but I wasn't happy with my day today but as with all bad things there's usually a silver lining, mine was some chocolate souvenir gift from a very lovely (and very smart) lady, emphasis on the chocolate, that and a big fat Whooper.


Note: that was the first time ever I've met a person who stumbled across this blog by some mere chance.

Begin countdown

That's 3 days down counting today, 4 weeks or 18 working days to go (including 2 public holidays) until I'm NEET , someone said to me that it felt like impending doom, I don't feel anything of that sort, or any sort really probably because I've got things planned ahead or as someone said to me I'm an "emotionless inhuman* bastard"

Then again if I was emotionless why am I angry over my disfunctional taskbar?....


*the state of not being human

Watering hole

Ah yes if there are 2 things I've learnt from living in Melbourne, Australia was that there will never be enough food joints, bars and pubs, the second was quaint sophistication doesn't need to be expensive. Though I no longer live in Melbourne I still check for new venues from one of the most authorative website about food and drinks in Melbourne, apparently it is easier to look for a good place to eat onine than physically hunting them down yourself, then again it's less fun.

Today I found what seem to be a place that I'd go later (after work) with some friends if I was in the city, the place is called Ume Nomiya as the name suggests it's not a place to go if you're looking for an "Australian experience", the words edamame and sake in one sentence alone caught my eye (though those two are pretty much a staple in any Japanese watering hole) however I can't give an honest review about it because I haven't been there yet but it's definitely on the top of my things-to-do list once I have a chance to visit Melbourne again

Those damn Sheep F***ers!

As I was reading some blog entries from The Age's website I found an article by Jack Marx on his interpretation of Waltzing Matilda, somehow I just couldn't stop laughing for a few minutes.

Like a sore thumb

In any story, whether it's in a movie, book or stage play, it is quite common to see characters with complex backgrounds whether it is the antagonist, protagonist or other major supporting characters, characters with a confilcted history that explains their reason for being so the audience may understand or even sympathize with the characters and their actions. To emphaisze my point, many people find Hanibal Lecter to be one of the most fictional evil characters to be created yet he is not hated in fact there are certain qualities in Lecter that some may find attractive.

To have a character that creates an air of pure annoyance, hatred and revulsion amongst the audience on the other hand might be a little more difficult to find, characters like Dolores Umbridge for instance, these characters I Sincerely believe deserve a special kind of award.

Same old, same old....

A small party goes on a quest to find and destroy items magical and malicious in nature to destroy evil that will soon engulf the land. In their epic quest this small band of unlikely heroes was aided by others including powerful wizards and elves in escaping creatures of the dark and battling the forces of evil, during their journey they also discover friendship, love, betrayal, sorrow and death.

Sorry to dissapoint but I'm not describing Lord of the Rings here (although I could well be), it's that new Harry Potter book everyone's been ranting and raving and lining up at ungodly hours about, I bought it at about 12 o'clock in the afternoon 2 days after the release date and by golly gosh there were still plenty of copies left.

Side note: I remembered a person comenting about the Harry Potter series that he wished he had a book this exciting when he was at school, the man was about the same age as I am. In retrospect mayhap I should have mentioned that we (our generation, and prior) had a better book (not saying this one is bad), published some time ago by another person also with a J.R in his name and I've been reading it since I was 15, plus it made a better movie too.

Chioces

There lay before me 3 choices that I have to make, I know it's only a matter of time before I can take them all but not at once as sacrifices must be made for each choice we make, one must take careful consideration into the choices they make as each choice defines the person.

There lay before me a story of a tragic prince, a series of humorous anecdotes by a strange and possible deranged indivudual and a tome describing the life a boy who is forced to make difficult decissions early in life .

Out for a flick

It's been a while (read: years) since I went to he cinemas on my own, usually I have a company or two. I fogot why sometimes it's better to go at it alone, you get your seats easier since you don't need to be near anyone else and if you hear a mobile ringing (or much worse, talking on his mobile) next to you have no reluctance in "accidentally" spilling your drink on the guy, not that there was any of the latter in yesterday's movie viewing experience.

I went to watch the new Harry Potter movie (the Order of Phoenix) not because I'm a huge Pott-head I'm just curious on how they plan on fitting a book that thick in less than 7 hours, the end result was once again disappointing, many plots were cut for the sake of time (not everyone can plant their rear end 7 or 12 hours non stop for a movie) and many major characters in the book had a much less distinguished role making it less of a movie and more like an extended trailer.

On a positive note it the whole movie gave a clear visualisation of major events in the book for those people lacking in the imagination department, like just about 70% of the audience in Indonesia.


As a side note, I wonder if it's in bad taste to be walking around tomorrow wearing a T-shirt with ****E DIES written in big bold letters in front of a bookshop....

Signed and sealed

Wow that was easier than I thought, I just submitted my resignation letter to the HR manager and told my unit manager that I won't be here for much longer, in that order. Not that I don't like working where I am right now but in fact it's quite enjoyable most of the time but I just don't see myself going anywhere working here. It does have it's perks though, it's conveniently close to where I live and VERY close to 2 malls and an "electronics mall", free net access, my own room (or office if you prefer) and some good people to work with and to top it all off a nice, relatively stable working environment basically a near perfect job (if you don't take the wage into consideration)......if you're 40 years old.

I'll be out of work by the end of next month and afetr a period of undeserved rest and relaxation (which I will use to finish some games) I'll be off to the land where the local hero is a lying, backstabbing S.O.B.

More than meets the eye?

I got into the office this morning and did my regular routine of checking the e-mail and opening several news sites, the news in the last few weeks have in fact been nothing short of eventful with terrorists in London, big football event in Asia, earthquake in Japan and so on and so forth. This morning one article caught my eye but for the wrong reasons, with a headline like “Transformer explosion rattles Manhattan” I couldn’t help but think some giant robot blew up in down town New York instead of some steam pipe burst causing an electrical malfunction.

The wordings in the article didn't help either, here' part of the news excrept:

"...causing a transformer to explode and sending thick plumes of steam and ash into the air near Grand Central Terminal"

""It felt like an earthquake. We saw hundreds and hundreds of people running down Third Avenue," she said. "They were screaming, they were crying.""

"...the blast left a crater "many dozens of feet wide," comparing it to the craters she saw after bombings during a stint in Iraq. She also said a "hissing noise" can be heard for blocks."

That ain't cool yo!

This actually came to me as a surprise, someone down in Sydney apparently have figured out a way to get rid of 'hoons' (Auspeak for 'rowdy teenagers') in a certain area by simply making the place 'uncool' by playing some old music and installing pink lights. I'm surprised no one has ever thought of this before since teenagers only hang out in "cool" places it only make sense. On the other hand if this method is implimented on a larger scale there are two things that might happen in the long term; one possibility is that the teenagers might start listening to the Rat Pack and Tom Jones regularly or that area might attract the 50+ crowds to hang around in the vicinity, unless of course they already do that.



*fixed on 18/07/2007 because I think faster than I type

Winzip error

I get up in the morning and got myself ready for work as usual then went about my business as usual (including being dropped off at a public area and walking accross the bridge to get to my office) followed by a 1 hour introductory presentation to the students I will be assisting throughout the year, which went pretty well if I may say so. Finishing early I retired to my office to check my e-mail, I picked up my keyboard to reply to a moderately important e-mail and realized one important detail, my zipper was undone, at that point I also realized that I haven't gone to the toilet once since I left home....

Heroes season 1 finale

The bad thing about living outside the US is you get to watch the good TV series later, the good thing is you don't have to endure mid season hiatus' which is becoming somewhat of a plague in American TV series lately. That's not the point of this post though, I just watched Heroes season one's finale and I thought it was somewhat anticlimactic when the big destined fight was a little more than fisticuffs, I'd actually like to see something in the scale of the Peter vs Sylar fight in episode where Hiro went to the future but I guess they have a good reason for that. I do like the cockroach showing up at the end though, the season began with talk of cockroaches and ends with a cockroach (the bit with Hiro arrived in past is season 2).

At the end of the episode I found myself wishing I had the same ability as Hiro for the sole purpose of jumping ahead in time to watch the next episode of Heroes.

Autobots Roll Out

I went to watch Transformers: The Movie yesterday suffice to say I wasn't impressed, it was good and I did somewhat enjoy it but.....well I'll let my alter ego do the talking.

POP!

Bubble wraps, what is it with bubble wraps that makes so special, so special that a lot of people are addicted to it? Like heroin it was used for something else but now many use it to satisfy their addiction to it to a point where specific products are made to increase the effects of the products' abuse, bubble wraps now faces the same dillema with this, specifically made to satisfy your inner need to feel, hear and experience the sensation of popping the bubbles in bubble wraps.

Melancholy of a toilet paper purchase

So there I was waiting in line to buy a pack of toilet paper (premium quality of course, I'm really particular on what goes on my ass), I picked the specific line because there were two people, count them, TWO people, in front of me and the lane was supposed to be the fast lane, it's a basket only line, no trolley's allowed, so I thought "this isn't going to take long", maybe its just me, maybe it's fate I don't know but this became the longest queue I had to stand in for a pack of toilet paper.

The first person wasn't much of a problem she was in and out pretty fast, the second person was a lady, she looked like trouble, by that I mean she had that "I'm gonna kill you" expression on her face, then I saw her shopping basket, there was a full size pillow on it, yes on the basket not in it. Once the first person was done with her business she the second lady than proceeded to empty her groceries on the counter. Beside the pillow she had packs of soap, shaving cream, a potato peeler, bags of fruit, stacks of chocolate bars and assorted candies, I think she created an entirely new dimension for her to put groceries in that basket. So I asked the lady of I can cut in line because I was only carrying one pack of toilet roll, true to her expression she said no, I thought it was fair enough, she got there first but I didn't think the "I'm going to kill you" expression was necessary when she said no.

When it was time for her to pay she pulled out a credit card, an ANZ Visa card as I recall, the cashier guy then proceed to swipe the card to the machine, which was on a different counter, I saw the guy swiping it several times and I thought "oh god this is going to be a while". The cashier guy then asked the lady if she had another card because her first one was obviously not working, she then produced another card which again didn't work. At this point I asked the cashier guy if he could put the lady's payment on hold while I pay for my pack of toilet roll, with cash. The guy told me to be patient so I looked at the cashiers to my left, which was not the fast lane and it seem to be going quite smoothly but it had trolleys, with more stuff in it, it discouraged me to switch lanes when I saw what the other guy next to me had in his trolley.

After some time the lady hasn't finished with her damn payment so I jumped lane and asked this other lady in front of me if I can cut in line explaining to her that I've only got a pack of toilet paper, kindly enough she let me pass, now the person who is now in front of me was just about to finish her shopping and I thought "finally I can go home with my toilet paper" I had my money in my hand ready to pay for the toilet paper, then the person in front of me produced a debit card from her purse, I felt like crying.

It took almost half an hour to buy a toilet paper in that grocery shop, I'm never going to buy anything from that store ever again.

Down time

What's a single guy to do after a moderately busy week on a Friday evening after work? I sit in a cafe drinking camomile tea while reading a recently bought copy of Fromm's "Fear of freedom".

"Gaza is lost"

Says one of the officials in Mahmoud Abbas' government with regards to the recent conflict in Palestine. My question is why would the Palestinian government care about some Australian guy called Garry being lost in a middle of a potential civil war? and why would Garry be in Palestine to begin with? He should have at least brought a map or ask around so he won't get lost.

250 POSTS!!!

I made it it's been almost 2 years since I started this blog and now I've reached a quarter of a mile stone, I've reached a quarter of a thousand posts, I only need 250 more to make it to 500 posts and 750 more posts to make it a grand and it all started with this measly test post, come to think of it I haven't done much with it since then.

May 25th.....

and here I am in the office......without a towel....crap I just hope I don't get into any sort of trouble

Crowded sandbox fight

Addendum to this post.

Kid E: My dad says I came from a flying spaceship that looks like an old jet plane!

Everyone else: huh?

I'm Psychic!

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING!

NO YOU CAN'T!

FINE GO AHEAD IF YOU INSIST!

Absurd Logic

I don't like to argue much about beleifs and religion........wait, that's a complete and utter lie, I like doing it but not for the sake of proving myself right or establishing my position but more into deconstructing the logic behind the whole concept.

Hearing some supposed religious individuals argue against another regarding the merits of one over the other however is better than watching sitcoms, the arguments will always spiral down to the basic "my daddy is better than your daddy" (I was going to use another example which involves a specific human male organ but it just doesn't seem appropriate).

Imagine 4 kids in a playground

Kid A: My dad's better than yours
Kid B: Well my dad can beat your dad any day.
*Kid A throws sand to kid B's face and they fight each other"
Kid C: Stupidhead, dads don't exist you made it up because you're scared.
Kid A&B (to C):Shut up I have a dad, that's how I got my clothes! clothes don't just show up for no reason!
*Kid A, B and C fights each other*
somwhere in the corner you see Kid D
Kid D: *muttering* My dad left after I was born, I never see him but I know he's there.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

It is an undeniable fact that the Great Wooden Plank is the source of all creation and the benevolant and just ruler of all things, denying its wisdom and existance will not lead to punishment as the Great Wooden Plank is benevolant.

multi tasking

I am currently surfing through the net with 3 different browsers opened, Firefox, Opera and IE, out of the 3 I actually prefer firefox but for some reason it's extremely unstable on my office PC, it crashes, quits for no reason and shows computer languages on some pages.

Opera is by far the most gimmicky browser I've ever used the tab browsing and built in search engine is a standard in any browser these days but the rest of it are probably things I won't even need, nifty but that's about it, the upload time is definitely slower than firefox.

With IE I don't have that much of a problem except its excessively slow loading time which the main reason why I switched to the other browsers.


Post Scrpit: I just had my fears confirmed, it's not the browsers that are unstable, it's the damn OS.

May I?

Ah May, the 5th month of the year by Gregorian standards and not 2 days ago was the day when some jackass German took a pill and shot himself in the head not that it bears any significance to the following month and yesterday was May day where once a year every working person would run out and call for help, some say it's the 8th day of the week between Tuesday and Wednesday but nobody seems to notice.

Let's take a look at today in history.

1829 - Some British naval Captain established a colony on some coast in some country. Nobody else cares

1945 - Some German General surrendered a German City to some Russian general. Nobody else but the Russians cared

1982 - A British ship sank an Argentinian ship over some insignificant islands with falcons. The falcons couldn't care less

Annual celebrations observed this month:

01/05: May day, The one day where people notice that there are 8 days in a week yet are always frustrated as it is not always celebrated between Tuesday and Wedneday causing people to march to the streets.

05/05: Mayonnaise day, Where people pour mayonnaise all over the sink yelling OSOS!

08/05: VE Day (Australia only), otherwise known as cheap beer day where everyone drinks VB in excess, the E is a typo error due to the drunken state of the the entire Victorian populous where the day was first celebrated.

25/05: Towel day, Stick your thumb out, you're in for one hell of a ride. Oh don't forget to bring your towel. (thank's Doug)

Hey man.....

Tired of work? dumped by your girlfriend? School assignment riding your back? why don't you have a cup of....

"Well it should be!"

In criminology public order crime is defined as "...crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently"

in my book this would include enacting the DRM, invention and continued production of unstable computer OS and public phone surveys.

Gay is the new black

They have been under fire from many aspects of society, some treat them as diseased, a threat to society, sub-normal or mentally ill, religious communities have treated them as sinners and laws have been made to limit their rights and ridicule their existence even further only because they are considered as different.

Now I could be talking about a lot of things here, African descent, Women, Homosexuals, Jew, Chinese, Muslims, Anglo Saxon, Christian, Arab, Mac users, Communist or just pick any social, ethnic, political group and I mean any and I can assure you they have been ridiculed one way or the other.

Today Gay is the new black, but not in a good way.

Fun things I do when I'm bored

The U.S Second Amendment reads;

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I'm no legal expert, I wish I was but I'm not, so honestly I have no idea what's being said here and I'm willing to bet that I don't think the majority of people REALLY understand what it's saying. So I'm going to break it down despite of my lack of knowledge (granted to me by the powers of free speech).

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

The first issue here is the definition of Militia, to my understanding it's just about everyone who can pick up arms when required by the governing body (not necessarily the State) to conduct martial activities.
What of the term "well regulated"? would it be safe to assume that it means an organized regularly trained group? if so "A well regulated Militia" could mean any able bodied individual who are part of a regularly trained militaristic group. In modern terms this could fall into several categories; the military, civil defense groups and police force* amongst others, basically paramilitary.
So as a whole the first part could read as "In the interest of State security, a regularly trained force are necessary"

Now for the second part,

"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Well, taken out off context this reads exactly like what it says, that "the people have the right and shall continue to have the right to have and bear arms" (but not arm bears which I don't think is very fair). Now since they separate "Keep" and "bear" I would assume keep means own and bear means to carry and the rest should basically be quite clear.

When the whole passage is read it would read as "In the interest of State security, a regularly trained force are necessary and that the people have the right to own and carry arms"

Or should it be read as "Every member of a professionally trained military or paramilitary group are allowed to own and carry weapons in the interest of State security"?

Like I said I'm not a legal expert, heck I'm not even American so why should I care right? I don't, really, I just have too much time on my hand.

*The Police force while not a military body conducts the role of the guardian as defined by Plato though on a different scale.

"...duh...."

This guy sounds like some guy I know back in junior high when asked about his homework, what did he say you ask? well I don't recall, I remembered he said it but I don't recall what it was.

Flickers

7:45 AM
Light: *flick* *flick*
Me: huh? meh probably temporary
8:10
Light:*flick* *flick* *flick*
Me: This is getting annoying
Light: *flick* *flick* *flick*
9:00
*light bulb in hand*
Me: Let's see you flick again!

"The spice must flow"

It's amazing how money has the ability to disappear without any sort of logical explanation, it's impossible that I spent more money in one week than I usually do in a month without any sort of major purchase. Why is it every time I decide to save some cash for something else it just seem to evaporate? and when I don't have any intention of saving money for a particular purpose it just piles up before something happens and I have to spend more than I want? I hate cosmic balance.

Oooh Pretty colors......

Me: I think I'll go change my template from that gaudy brownish to something else
Me: hmmm...blue looks good, easy on the eyes and has that calming effect to it, I'll just rid of that dumb arrows when I figure out how
*clicks "use this template"*
Blogger: Are you sure you want to change you're template? you will loose all your changes in the previous template
Me: *Click O.K*
Me: wait, wtf? NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-_-

There comes a time where someone would just stop and ask themselves "Where the hell am I going with this?"

Iovis Dies

Ah yes, Thursday, the 4th regular working day, the fifth day of the week if you believe in the "Sunday first" convention, and one day away from a weekend, which I would be able to enjoy if I don't have to work on the weekend again on BOTH days, but enough about that, we're talking about Thursday now. Has anyone ever wondered why hey call it Thursday? was it supposed to be the 3rd day of the week? or is it because it's three days before Sunday? No Thursday happens to be Thor's day, yes, the Norse god of Lightning/Thunder.

But wait, why does the predominantly Christian society that is the English recognize a germanic pagan god? even to a point where they call to it more times than they say "Jesus", while at the same time Roman culture was the predominant culture in most of Europe in the pre-Christian era. Some of the European languages makes reference to Jupiter when referring to this day and not Thor, even the Japanese call this day Mokuyoubi in reference to Mokusei or the planet Jupiter in which the planet was named after the Greek god of lightning.

So what's with the reference to a Norse god instead of a a Greek one like most Europeans do? This is because the English language and culture are more exposed to the old Germanic culture before the Romans set their foot into what is now called England.

For those overtly devout Christians who wonder "why must we make reference to pagan gods every time we refer to certain days of the week?", It's because if you don't you'll have a Mjolnir shoved up your hole and be struck down by bolts of lightning.

Go with dumb

Now, selling stupid at an affordable rate.

"I have a dream"

I usually don't talk about the things I see during my sleep, mostly I don't even remember dreaming other times it's just too insignificant. Last night however was different I can vaguely remember it clearly, it was about a new apple software called "theater", a movie making program that works just like garage band but with an interface like iMovie, sort of a cross between the two.

It works like garage band because you can pick, drop and various actors and actions from the palette, non generic speeches/sound are recordable just like in GB, all "actors" speeches are synchronized with their lip movements while non generic actions actions can personally be added with apple's camera and have the "actors" imitate the recorded action. A wide range of sample scripts are available for the users to choose and are also editable.

The tag line on the package says "Like Hollywood in a box"

Thus spoke the Sundanese

Once again proving Indonesian linguistic superiority

Like finding a.....

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Unclean.....

After watching 300 I was reminded of something that my lecturer mentioned back when I was still doing my undergraduate studies; that societies are shaped through habits, rituals written and unwritten laws and values, and what better way to enforce values than using the various forms of mass media. The power of the media is so potent that the mass (or general public) may be socially conditioned or engineered by constant exposure of a concept.

300 is by no means the most violent movie I've ever watched but it is a prominent feature with rolling heads, detached arms and feet and an excessive amount of stabbing. Yet as I was watching it I saw some people grimaced over what was happening on the screen while some (including myself) just sat there and watched it like any other movie, I was not shocked or excited as some people may have done when I saw some heads flew, I said excited because some people do like to over react on some things (and I try to avoid watching movies with people with such reaction), I just watched it with no particular emotional thought and not because I know it's just a movie, in fact I do believe (with scientific and historical proof) wars in such period is that violent if not more, but perhaps more to the fact that I've been exposed to that amount media violence that it becomes normal.

What becomes my concern is when people personally witness such violence for the first time would they react the same way to it as they have reacted to media presented violence, with indifference, or would they react differently? Mind you that my concern is not about seeing the negative or positive aspect about desensitization but merely questioning whether desensitivity towards media presented violence translate to "real" violence.

(Long)Weekend update

I wonder why I feel so tired this morning, I just got off a 3 day weekend....oh wait that's probably why. Unsurprisingly nothing special happened over the weekend, except for Sunday. Last Friday I ducked out of work early because I needed to see someone regarding other employment options and a few other things we talked for about 4 and a half hour about the type of work, possible placement, the state of the clienteles and how to deal with them and so on and so forth.

I can't seem to remember what happened on Saturday aside from playing games and reading books I even have doubts about that......oh wait that's right I went out shopping for food.

Sunday..... now I have to say I really enjoyed last Sunday, a very good friend of mine came over to take a look at the newly born kittens. I spent the first half of the day preparing the ingredients I bought the day before and waiting for the right time to cook, the dilemma with spaghetti is that they're really easy to cook yet they cool off quite quickly so needed to wait for the right moment to cook it, even then she ended up coming in later than I thought so when she told me she was about 10 minutes away I had to reheat the food, it ended up being too dry for my taste but my friend said she liked it so I was relieved and I still can't come up with a name for my own cooking. We then chatted for a while, catching up on a few things and talked about our problems, I just don't like her comment on my tie collection, I like my tie. It's not everyday I can enjoy my weekend like last Sunday......and I do realize how stupidly giddy I was for the day.

Monday was hot, I can't see how else to describe it, it must have been the hottest day since the previous Monday, so I decided to make myself a kiwi-strawberry juice semi-slurpee to cool things off while watching a sumo match on TV. Good thing it rained at noon for a few hours, it rained hard enough and long enough to stop the silly preacher from talking for the rest of the day, sadly they came back at night.....they always come back at night.

So that was it, that was my weekend it's a bit of a mixed bag, thankfully nothing disastrous happened.

Food for thought

for some reason this just popped into my head:

Salmon wrapped fried chicken (serves 1-3)

4-6 pieces of medium sized chicken breast
4-6 thinly sliced salmon
2 eggs
50g flour
3-4 cloves of garlic

-------------------

-Heat water until half boiled
-Peel and crush garlic
-Add crushed garlic to boiling water
-Boil chicken until cooked
-Beat egg in a bowl
-Wrap each chicken pieces with salmon
-Dip salmon wrapped chicken to the egg
-cover with flour
-Deep fry until brown
-Serve with lemon slices and tartar sauce or melted garlic butter and mashed potatoes

"I hold these..."

It is said that truth goes through three stages, first it is ridiculed, then it's violently attacked and finally it is self-evident. I have no disagreement about this concept however I would not consider the third stage to be the final stage, I'd like to propose another stage of the, that is of irrelevance for the truth will remain true until it is proven false or it looses its relevance.

So awesome it's.....

This goes to my list of things that should exist but doesn't, seriously.

Serenity

While it is an awesome movie no this entry is not about the movie. I now have new office area it's small, cold and if you're claustrophobic you'd hate it but since I'm not I actually like it, it gives me space to do my own thing without a lot of distraction. The bad thing is I have to swap with my other colleague every other week so I only get to use it for 2 weeks in a month.

In for repairs (finally)

I so don't want to work today.....My morning started of like usual, my alarm goes off at 04:30 to drown out other unpleasant noise coming from outside, played some games then went back to my room to read and listen to music until it's about 06:00 then i went about my business. I left at 06:30 and arrived at the office at 07:15. Since I backed up everything in my new Hard drive I thought I'd reinstall the iBook only to find out that my HD was screwed, again, the internal drive was still not detected.

As I mentioned in my previous post it has been screwed for some days now, I thought of bringing it for repairs on the weekend but I had to go to a wedding on the Saturday, then I went to Java jazz in the evening so that's Saturday out and on the Sunday I was meeting a friend of mine again until about 16:00 so that's Sunday out.

I swear, running a notebook from an external HD is tedious when you bought it for the sole reason of portability. Yes, I know it's rather sad when a person gets depressed over a busted computer.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Numbers of job applications sent CV's sent, a lot.

Percentage of it being rejected, 100%

I've just about every reason for rejection, Under qualified, over qualified, under experienced, no visually presentable feature (god damn TV stations), insufficient reference etc. the list goes on

At this point I am still being picky about the jobs I applied for but not because of the payslip (though it its a factor) it's more to career enhancement plus I still need to get enough money to do a postgraduate degree. but I'm sure as hell can't do anything with my current wage, heck even a slight increase wouldn't help at all.

I'd sell my soul but I'd have to have one to begin with.

I have a new theory about myself, I have a stronger magnetic field than most other people. This is the 2nd time my iBook's hard drive went wonky, now it's occasionally detectable but for some reason unrepairable through 2 major disk fixing programs well, I'm going to have to buy a new external hard drive just to try and save whatever data I can salvage right now if there are any left. Seriously though I'm guessing my internal hard drive keeps on acting funny because the internal coolant system is busted.

Then there's the office computer, this is the 3rd time in 6 months I have to send the blasted thing to I.T to have it physically repaired, first I thought it was just a typical WinXP feature to auto shutdown when you're typing e-mails or reports, then I thought it was a virus sent through the "series of tubes", now they tell me it was a loose component in the box, how the hell do you do that when you hardly touch the damn thing?

sharp wooden objects

Don't you just love those thick juicy meat once you take it out of the grill ready to be chewed? I particularly like it if it's smothered with garlic butter. There are those who view its consumption with disgust while others prohibit it outright, me, I don't listen to those people, I have nothing against those people, to each his own I say as long as you don't tell me what should be on my plate, I just like to eat stakes.

Vegetables on the other hand, you pick those things straight from the ground where you spread processed animal dung all over it, now who in the right mind would eat food marinated for months with processed animal litter.

OBJECTION!

In all societies there is one constant that is of the law, or to interprate it loosely rules, it may even be said that the law of the land (and it's implementation) reflects the society. Since the emergence of a structured society various laws and legal rulings have been made and changed according to those who are in charge of social control, in modern terms this body is generally understood as the legislative body.

In most cases members of the legislative body are given the right to create and interpret the law while in other cases, such as societies that abide by the Islamic law, the legislative body have not the right to create laws, therefore in such societies legal ruling should not be given or may be considered as invalid if the ruling is found to be in conflict with the law itself, while it may sound obvious such cases have occured in the past.

In modern democratic societies however the infalibility of the law regardless of its source has come under constant scrutiny and the legitimacy of a law have come under question when it is considered to be disadvantageous or unjust to a particular segment of the society. On the other hand, in religious societies, partcularly of those in the same religious community do not question the law and does consider the law itself to be infalible, the interpretation of the law however have differed from one community to another and have infact come into conflict with each other.

The importance of the law is not something to be neglected or ignored however rules and regulation is best to used maintain a safe degree of order in a society instead of fully controling it therefore for society to progress safely laws and its interpertation, much like the society itself, have to be subject to change to maintain order.




Brought to you by the National Organization of Democratic Unity and Harmony

'ead asplode

WHAT I WANT FOR TODAY

(and for the rest of the month)WHAT I WANT TO USE IT FOR

finally....

Thank god it's Friday I finally get to get some rest. I was seriously close to reaching my breaking point today, I conteplated throwing down the gauntlet on some parent today but me being me and a certain aspect of my job requires me to keep my temper in check. As always I have to work again tomorrow but at least this woll take my mind off all the frustrations I have to deal with in the past week.

on a less related note, in fact it;s not related at all! I don't like being forced to change my username to some dumbass google account but the change is for the better I guess I'll probably tinker with it some other time, oh and HEY GOOGLE! MAKE BLOGGER MORE SAFARI FRIENDLY WILL YOU!!

extreme displeasure

Muscle cramps are never a good thing, they cause a degree of discomfort and sometimes a significant amount of pain, yet they can be easily avoided with correct preparation. However, sometimes the condition strikes in the most unexpected time and in the most unexpected place usually resulting in an elevated amount of pain, like for example testicular muscle cramp in the toilet while defecating.


If you're feel somewhat uncomfortable reading this imagine experiencing it.

Monoculturism?

I have to say I love the slogan for the Australian DIMIA...no...DIMA...that's not it either..DIA....certainly not that....DIC.....not quite.....DIAC that's it! the Australian Department of Imigration and Citizenship, apparently they don't seem to see Indigenous People and Multiculturalism as something worth noting anymore...... oh yeah back to the slogan I'm not sure how long it's been this but "to enrich Australia through the well managed entry and settlement of people", pretty straight to the point I guess......very "Howardy".

heh heh good way to dodge the bullet there, include the "and" in the acronym

"I'll see you again.....sometime"

I really don't feel like doing anything today, being the last day for a colleague and someone who I consider to be a close friend of mine working here. By the end of today we'll say our farewells, good lucks and keep in touch's yet how many of us do "keep in touch" really? well plenty probably I'm just too lazy to do it. Come to think of it there is some merit in people calling me a anti-social then again unlike most people I don't like to live beyond my means.

on another note,

I find my predicament, for a lack of better word, annoying, the most frequented non productive website in the office is that damn friendster site that every other person on earth who are plugged to the net have an account in and visits just about every other hour yet they firewalled Live Journal making updating it from the office impossible for me and I tend to forget what I wanted to post there once I get home, I'm going to have to back-log quite a few from the last few days on that.

oh the hilarity......

Yesterday evening just when I was about to go home it rained again it was quite heavy until about 17:30 when it turned into light showers so I decided to go and cross the road from my office to catch a cab (the fare's cheaper that way). I waited 15 minutes for a cab, funny how none of them were empty, then the rain started to pour heavily again by this time I was already half way through to a shopping mall hoping I could get a cab there, by the time I got into the mall I was drenched (second time in the week), my iPod was still functioning and since it was raining no cabs were stopping by since there were no shelter for people waiting for cabs, which means no readily available cabs. So there I was waiting for the rain to stop so I can go to the other mall to catch a cab home listening to Utada Hikaru's "僕はくま" (I'm a Bear).

I don't get it, why does rain in this part of the world almost always pour when people go TO work in the morning or evening when people go home FROM work, it's hardly ever in the afternoon DURING work where most people are still inside the building.

Segwayed!

Wow, two posts in a day this just shows how extemely busy I am at the moment.

I was browsing through various linked articles in Wikipedia when I stumbled upon "Kiev", yes the Ukranian city of Kiev. There was nothing significant about the article itself but it did remind me of Chicken Kiev. Mmmm Chicken Kiev......

Just another day

Well here I am again at the office, after being soaked last Sunday I would have thought that I'd be sick but it seems like I've run out of sickness since last week.

I'm not exactly looking forward for the end of the month either, a colleague of mine is resigning by the end of the month due to "personal" reasons, she never said what it really was and I probably would never find out what. I usually don't get affected by people leaving but it's a different case with this one, let's just say it's "personal".

Well guess there's nothing I can do now but make tea.

Great Timing!

Hey, guess what? I'm working on a Sunday, again, usually I don't mind but for some reason I really don't feel like going but here I am anyway, soaking wet from the rain. I took a bike ride from home to work, again nothing that I usually have a problem with except this time half way through the ride the skies opened up and rain started to pour which brought me in my current state, cold and soaking wet good thing I have some clothes here in the office.

Rinse and Repeat!

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while excpecting different results, then I'm pretty sure I'm bat-shit insane

Curtain close?.......no? not yet.? darn

I may be exaggerating if I said I was close to "taking the journey home" when I was sick, I mean people have died from fevers before and I reckon 41 degrees is quite high for a human being. Now the question that lingers in my head is why didn't I just kick the bucket when I had the chance? All I had to do was lock myself in the room and refuse all kinds of medical treatment and that'd be it and I see no reason why I shouldn't. Damn me and my tendencies to miss good opportunities.


Chalk this one up for things I should do but didn't.

*cough* *wheeze*

This is officially the fifth day I've been sick since last Thursday perhaps the longest time I've been sick since I hit puberty, It strated as small coughs then it turned into fever now it's back to the cough though much more severe than the first one and with an added constant sweating, the cold type and dizziness. In any case I guess I'll try popping back into the office tomorrow see how I hold out, I don't think the fever's going to come back for now but just to be safe I'll have to go through the day slowly, if that's even possible.

I'm a really hot guy! Seriously!

Looks like I'm sick, again, for the 2nd time this week. Well monday was really exhaustion more than anything but I still couldn't do anything, now I've got a fever of god knows how many degrees, I actually forgot, my guess is 37 C but that's just what I think. stayed at the office until around 13:00 I realize I was in no shape to work when I started to forget the things I said one sentence prior. I got back from work early today, like 4 hours early and once I got home I decided to play my PS2 but I wasn't in any condition to even do that, so I ate some chicken soup, drank some juice and went to bed.

Now here I am blogging instead of sleeping simply because I out-slept myself, yet I feel dozey regardless, oh well at least this one didn't come with a splitting headache, except when I sneeze.

Excuse me....

Looking at the current form of human communication when compared to the past I hypothesise that the future of human communication can be summarized in this excrept of futurespeak between 2 people.

Person 1 : *mumble mumble mumble*
Person 2 : *grumble grumble*
Person 1 : *grumble* *eats something* *mumble(with mouth full)*
Person 2 : *mumble grumble*
Person 2's phone rings
Person 2 : *Loudly* WHAT? YEAH, OK I'LL SEE YOU LATER, BYE.
Person 2 : *mumble*
Person 1 : meh *grumble mumble*

While the above may sound mostly incoherent by most people today it is almost assured that at one point in human history human language will evolve into such form.

Stop! Hammer time!

Ah finally back in the regular office hours of 08:30-17:00. Since last Friday me and a colleague had to arrange several things for what was supposed to be a huge 2 day exhibition (which it was big, kind of, about 8000 attendees over 2 days),on the Friday we mostly did booth checking; fixing spelling erors, arranging table and chairs, easy stuff it took us 2 hours from 19:00-21:00.

Over the next two days we were assigned tothe General information, there were lots of questions that we couldn't answer simply because the question were really meant for each visiting institution (how should I know which Hongokng University offers education as a course), aside from that the single most common question was "where's the toilet". We hung around the convention from 09:00 to 18:00 on Saturday after which we went to a dinner invitation, I was previously informed that there will be a free buffet and a free flow of that bitter golden colored bevarge, my old University student habit kicked in. I got back home at around 23:00.

The sunday wasn't that different either, exhibition form 11:00-18:00 and a dinner invitation, this time by the Hong Kong Trade Development Commission (HKTDC), no alcohol involved just a fancy full course dinner at the Hotel formerly known as Hilton (a.k.a Sultan) which I admit was very nice, one of the HKTDC people commented that the hotel was "showing signs of it's age" which I have to agree with considering that I used to frequent the hotel a while back. Over the course of the dinner we talked about a few things mainly about living and the current living cost in Hong Kong, education cost, employment opportnities for fresh graduates and social and business trends amongst other things, the rest of the night we had a nice sophisticated fun. The dinner was finished at around 21:00 which I decided to go straight home thinking I would still be in shape to work the next day.

Yesterday I woke up tired and I wasn't feeling very well, in the morning my throat was sore from talking too much the previous night, I called in sick and stayed home all day sitting in front of the T.V playing games all day.

Now I'm going to make a cup tea.

Interesting point

Yesterday one of my colleagues played a song from her computer, I wasn't sure what the song is called but I was certain that it was Adam Sandler's voice I heard, the song itself was not to my particular liking but what it is saying reminded me of a question I had a sometime ago, When the hell did emo become cool? the song I heard was clearly a mockery of this fact. These days you can hardly switch to a radio station (never mind the fact that I hardly ever listen to the radio) without listening to some moron whine about how the want to die, how their lovers left them and want to die, how they were disapointed by someone and want to kill that person and then kill themselves after or how they stub their toes to a table leg and wants to die, quite the contrast compared to gangster rap music from the same period where people seem to enjoy killing other people and brag about it.

I guess the the major part of the late 20th century up to now can be described as the new great depression and the popularity of these emo crap clearly shows that there are a large number of people who wants to die, like to think about dieing (preferably by suicide) or they just like to be depressed, It's depressing really, makes me want to kill myself.

odd feeling

For reasons best be kept to myself I'm not feeling very comfortable with the current state things, questioning why on this matter is not going to do me any good. I guess it's one of those things that I'll have to let pass, I mean why the hell not it seems like I've been doing that quite often lately anyway.

Times like this I wish I was fishing or running through quests in Azeroth.

新年明けましておめでとう！

Wow, it's been almost a month since I last blogged here and before I know it it's 2007 already, damn you office firewall! Looking back at last year it was actually quite different than the previous years, for instance, I now go to an office instead of a classroom, having to wear "work shoes" for 5 days is another, aside from that I went through quite a bit of things, some better than others while the others are best unmentioned though personaly I don't feel I've changed that much.

Now on to more important things, I find this years 紅白歌合戦 to be quite disappointing, it wasn't as explosive as the previous years too many slow songs and not enough fun music to be enjoyed, even モむwasn't as good or as large as last years. I have to agree with one comment though, 生紅白、最高, although not as lame as "wardrobe malfunction" NHK has to seriously come up with a better excuse than body suits seriously.

In any case, 今年もよろしくお願いします これからこのブロッグをもっと面白くなりますように...って無理かも。

oh and as an addendum the harrowing sound of rogue fireworks are now drowned by sudden rain, 神様、私の祈りを聞くと感謝しています.

So once again, good riddance 2006!