Insanity

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -- Albert Einstein

By that definition, I am crazy. =(

Ugh, Jesus Should Call His ISP

 

Photo Credits: Bob's House of Video Games

Two Things I've Learned...

...through my countless trips to Lowe's in order to make our home move-in ready:

(1) Money can buy you lots of goodies...

(2) Even better when you have bottomless money to buy all the goodies.

Reacher and Settler

Great wisdom (TV show How I Met Your Mother) once said that there are always a reacher and a settler in any relationship. For those of you who does not watch sitcom either because you don't live in this country or those who lives in this country but are "too cool" for sitcoms, the reacher refers to the one who reached for the one above their league and the settler settled for the one below their league. Now I won't say that ALL relationships are necessarily based on this model, but certainly one can see the advantages of this model. If there's neither a reacher nor a settler in a relationship, perhaps a relationship between two highly independent individuals is just harder to maintain.

Just take a step back and think for a second here how a reacher/settler relationship model will make a relationship stronger? The reacher has already obtained someone above their league, if they know what's good for them, they'll strive to keep this settler instead of "exploring other options." What do the settle get out of it? You may ask. Ah, the answer is quite simple (I am starting to sound like a character under Chuck Norris). First you have to ask, "Why do they settle in the first place?" Answer: they prefer not to be with someone of their own league or above them. They have the need to be adored, hence it befits them to stay in the relationship with the reacher. If you look at it close enough, it's really a symbiotic rather than a parasitic relationship. ^__^

Wisdom (?)

Finally, with my (almost) 40-year-old wisdom (?), I can now look back at all the mistakes I've made and say that should I encounter the 20 something me right now, I will tell her, "Don't even bother with this, this, and that, they will never happen." On the other hand, knowing myself as well as I do, the 20 something me would probably go ahead and make those mistakes anyway. If the not-yet 40 something myself won't listen to the 60 something myself telling me to not do X, Y, and Z. The 20 something me is definitely not going to listen to the 40 something me about not doing A, B, and C. In my own defense, however weak the defense is, our mistakes make us who we are today, right? :D

OMG OMG The *Bleeping* Autosave Feature

I know this has been discussed to death but I must vent my frustration. What's with this autosave in blogger THAT CANNOT BE DISABLED? If it cannot be disabled, why DID they make it autosave every minute? If whatever changes/edits/mistakes I made will saved RIGHT AWAY, it defeat the purpose of having a "save" feature! Now that I am aware of it, just the change of color of the "Save Now" button is a big distraction. When is the update coming? :((

Turning Forty

As a woman who is inching towards 40-year old, I think I am finally qualify to write an essay on how not to freak out when you turn 30/40 (freaking out when you turn 30. Hah!) A few things to keep in mind:

1) Don't try to compare yourself with someone in their 20's. They are in their 20's, you are not. Keep in mind that everybody will eventually turn 40, barring untimely deaths, which nobody counts on.

2) Don't focus on "Oh my God, I am turning 40," instead, focus on your accomplishments so far. Unfortunately, not everyone can be rich and famous -- that would just cause ridiculous inflation -- hopefully you will be able to find some reasons why the first half of your life was not entirely pointless.

3) Don't tell yourself what you can't do because of your age. Be realistic with limitations, but for the most part, not a whole lot are entirely out of reach. I find a lot of inspiration in the 50+ individuals who go onto Wipeout. It's 40, not the end of the world.

4) Be young in spirit, keep your mind active, keep your body active, pay attention to a healthy life style, and most importantly, keep your sense of humor -- being old doesn't mean you also have to be boring. :)

Diamond Back Award :)

Lady Bug Award

 

Peanut Butter Jelly TIme Award :D

Grapevine Award

Muddy Buddies Award :)

Pocket Frogs

So I totally got sucked into this new iPod game. Here's screen capture from the Single Rainbow award. :)

iPod Apps (Specifically Free Games)

So my newest hobby is to download (mostly free) games onto my iPod Touch, try them, then removed them. Well, most of them ended up being removed, to make the clutterness manageable.

Here's how I think the ratings of the games should go:-

1 - Uber awesome, a game that I am willing to pay (up to $2.99) for, and don't feel ripped off
2 - Addicting game that I'll play even when I should be doing something else
3 - Okay game that I'll play with if I'm in line or waiting for a friend running late
4 - Ugh, it's okay, but Delete!
5 - A waste of time to just install/uninstall it

WipeOut Wii Game

This looks like it has the potential to be interesting. hehe.

Advertisement

By now we are all used to the model of a free video clip after we are forced to watch a short commercial first. Okay, that's not a complaint, I understand that somehow the bandwidths got to get paid, the engineers putting the websites up have to get paid. But if I am on GameSpot.com watching the video of a product, isn't that in and of itself a commercial? Why is there a commercial in front of another commercial? :O

Marriage, Revisited

People think that when they are not cheating on their current partners they are in a monogamy relationship. True monogamy, in the animal kingdom, is defined by mating with one partner for one's entire life. Hard to imagine, isn't it? A few species, mostly birds, are actually monogamous. If their mating partner die before them, they will never mate again.

For the longest time I wondered what is the reason to get married -- as many who does not support the institution of marriage would say, "If I am faithful to him/her, does a piece of paper matter?" On the other hand, if a piece of paper does not matter, why DO people get cold feet before marriage, if it changes nothing?

I have finally found the answer to my long term quest of the meaning of marriage -- when you are in a monogamous relationship, a lot less thought went into that decision, if it's a conscious decision at all. Is it still a commitment? Sure it's a commitment of sort, a commitment that says you agree to be monogamous on a temporary and indefinitely basis with your current partner. Whereas a marriage is, hopefully at least at the time of the wedding, a commitment, sometimes in front of many friends and family that a conscious decision has been made to spend the rest of one's life with the partner and, for most, the realization of starting a family.

Nissan Commercial: Kidzilla

What? No fine print disclaimer on the bottom that this was dramatization and NOT really how they test their cars? And here I thought everything in this country has to come with a disclaimer...

Karma

A friend of mine (Cathlolic, no less) likes to warn me about potential bad karma whenever I bad mouth someone behind their back. Why is it so ironic that she is Catholic? Because, correct me if I am wrong, I associate the entire concept of karma more with the Buddhism idea. I suppose the whole stick and carrot (Heaven v. hell) idea is a karma of sort...

Here's my thinking about her comment -- sure, I'm bad mouthing someone, but how does she know that this is not the person's karma getting back at them, through me? I might just be a middle ring of a chain, instead of the beginning of another ripple of karma. Besides, I'm not that naive to think that everybody I have came across think of me as a princess/goddess, I'm pretty sure for every person I've called names behind their back, one or more people will call me something else behind my back. So long as all these take place behind someone's back, nobody has any pent up anger, nobody's feeling gets hurt, no harm no foul, and life has, again, came a full circle.

Liquid

Money is sometimes also referred to as liquid, hence liquidation sale before a place go out for business - quick way to get some cash in, or how liquid your investment is, etc. Why money is also referred to as liquid, I'm not sure (too lazy to google this one), but ironically, money has other properties that's identical to those of true liquid.

I remember in my science class when they explained the difference between the three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Think of solid as a wooden cube, it will neither change shape nor compress; air, as we all know, is highly compressable, up to a certain point; liquid, however, is the strangest among the three, it's highly malleable, you can pour it into containers of any shape, but it actually won't compress at all, as opposed to contrary belief. Think of water inside a plunger, if the outlet it block, no matter how hard you press, it won't give.

So here's a very simple concept for all ye American folks who are in debt up to their eyeballs (the one's being laid off due to the poor economy notwithstanding), if you monthly income is $2,000, and your expenses -- rent, food, car insurance, cell phone bill, gas, etc -- adds up to exactly $2,000, no, you do NOT have extra anywhere for even a $4 item. You cannot just squeeze it out of thin air, unless you cut expenses else where.

That is a simple concept that mysterious escape lots. The fact that the concept escapes lots eludes me....

Cue

I have recently acquired the sling box, the device that allow you to watch your TV/DVR from a computer or mobile device. As I like to watch some TV before bed, I have quickly came to the realization that I am plowing through TV shows faster than they make them O.o so I started recording/watching random stuff. Granted, not every shows can be Dexter or Weeds, but if my purpose is just for something to put me to sleep, it's not difficult. However, there's got to be a line for everything. The cue for me to drop a TV show is the heart-to-heart talk between characters. Perhaps that's what I am doing wrong at work, I have never had a heart-to-heart talk with anyone I work with. What's with the let's sit down and spill our heart out with our coworkers at the end of the day? That's worse than your medical drama with the core group of people mix and match sleeping with everybody else. Of the shows that I have watched in the past, first there's Crossing Jordon, then comes Gray's Anatomy, then the latest Rookie Blue.

Heart-to-heart talk = delete from my DVR!

The US Economy

Today, I've done my fair share in supporting the US economy... (not one, but TWO awesome fish ice trays =D)


Sold by HDE on Amazon.com.



Sold, obviously, by SourcingMap.

Movie: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Didn't really bother doing a lot of research on this movie. Is it from a book series?

I know it's a kid's movie (more like a teenager one), and I wasn't expecting Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings quality, but a few scenes can be done better. Overall, it also exceeded expectation -- I was afraid the dialogs will be overly cheesy, but that wasn't the case.

Couple things though:-

(1) The so-called "camp" thing that they stay at is pretty much an orphanage. Their human parents cannot get in there, their god parents aren't allow to see them. These are all abandoned kids!! Man, they'd all (most) have serious issues!

(2) Why are they training in martial arts with swords and shields?? There are no adults around, and since they cannot go into Olympia, the natural assumption will be they will rejoin the human society when they reach adulthood. Isn't there more important skills to learn than fighting with swords and shields, on their feet? :O Or are they all trained to be private investigators, military personnel (specifically special forces), bouncers, bounty hunters, stunt actors (?), etc?

Movie: Leap Year

Okay, another one of your romance comedy. Spoiler alert: It's a happy ending!! Bet you didn't see that one coming, huh? This movie exceeded my expectation, got some funny dialog. I particularly like the one regarding her suitcase:-

She: "It's a gift from my fiancee."

He: "He bought you a suitcase?"

She: "It's a Vuitton."

He: " A what?"

She: "It's a Louis Vuitton."

He: "She named her suitcase.This woman is a crack pot."

If you like romance comedy, this is not a bad choice for a relaxing weekend afternoon.

The Simpler Time

So I made Hubby watched Around the World in 80 Days (circa 1956) because he has obviously never heard the story before. T.T While watching the movie, not only was he awed at the awesomeness of movie production back in the 50's he also commented on how he think the "simpler days" (not the 50's, but the age the story was based in - 1800s). I am sorry to say that I do not share his sentiment towards the "good ol' days." I am a strong believer that modern days are better than "good ol' days," and the future will continue to be better. That is up to the point that finally succeeded in making the world uninhabitable and wiping out our own species.



Older days make me think of oppression. And I don't just mean for females and/or colored people. I mean for anyone other than those born to wealth. And even females born of wealth might not be able to fully exercise her free will. I feel that in modern days, at least in US, one can truly say that one can rise above one's birth through hard work. Sure, it certainly helps to be born with a silver spoon, but at least through hard work it's not impossible to become wealth, or at least attain a certain level of comfortableness. I don't think any of the now billionaires dot-comers started out as Rockefellers.

Don't even get me started on technological/medical advancement. Really? Do you want to choose between dying from appendectomy or having a surgery without anesthesia? Have you ever needed a cavity filled/wisdom tooth pulled? Okay, I rest my case.

Hubby said to not burst his bubbles.... =.=

Marriage

Many people like to ask this question: why get married? Do I need a piece of paper to prove my love? The answer? No. A piece of paper, of course, will not show your love, as evidence by many people who get married for all sorts of (wrong) reasons. However, I do believe there are differences between getting married or not.

Certainly there are unwedded relationships that are stronger than a marriage. Certainly some people truly hate the convention that you must get married to be "official." But those are the exception to the rules. And since I am not a believer of pre-marital/post-marital sex, that has nothing to do with this discussion either.

In my opinion, there are two major differences between marriage and "in a relationship." Seriously, if marriage is just a continuation of dating/cohabiting with an additional, official piece of paper, why would people get cold feet? Hmmmm?

Difference #1: Getting married is a ceremony to attest your love, and more importantly, to make the announcement that you are making a commitment to this individual, that you have chosen him/her to be your life partner in front of your friends and families. To put it in simple terms, it's a lot more complicated to get out of that relationship than dividing up the DVDs tomorrow and just move out when things go south.

Difference #2: So long as you didn't officially make the commitment, the deal is not sealed, you can always back out of it. If you have been screwed over before, you will know there is very much a difference between a verbal contract versus a written one. And for most individuals with some sense of moral, they will at least think twice before making a promise. In a steady relationship, faithfulness is merely implied.

Difference #3: Dating is like testing the water, shopping for a product -- you can always change your mind, up to the point of making the decision/commitment. He/she does something that severely annoy/disappoint/embarrass you, you can always withdraw from the relationship. Whilst you are in a marriage, for better or for worse, you will first try your darnest to resolve the issue before calling it quits.

Last but not the least, getting married is like the last call. Many people get comfortable in a mediocre relationship because they are lazy, lack of time, lack of energy, or generally being a coward and things just drag on. They don't really believe they are with their life partner, but they will continue to waste the other person (and their own) time. Getting married, in this case, is like the last call, "Buddy, shit or get off the pot!"

Trust With My Life

As with everyone else, I have worked with my fair share of assholes and morons. Luckily for most of us, with the exception of the military, I do not need to trust these assholes and morons with my life. I only need to maintain a "professional" relationship with them so chit can get done and we all collect our paychecks at the end of the month, or bi-weekly, or weekly, or cash at the end of every day.

I used to know this one guy, who was in his early twenties, who would always want to be the driver whenever we go somewhere, because he didn't trust anyone with his life. He also insisted on sitting at the seat with his back against the wall whenever we went to a restaurant. No, he was not an immigrant from a war-torn country. Not as far as I know. Born and raised in US to the best of my knowledge. Well, perhaps he was from a bad neighborhood.

Back then I just thought he was a little strange, after all, his liking to drive and restaurant seating arrangement did not bother me that much. As I get older, I am starting to see his theory. Well, no, I don't think anyone will want to try to take me out in a restaurant, but I definitely would rather drive myself if I don't trust a person's driving -- same criteria insurance companies use -- single males in their early twenties. As much as I love you, guys, you just cannot gamble with my life.

Neutral

Once upon a time when I was young, innocent, and naive, I used to assume that everyone I met is a nice person, until proven otherwise. After way too many disappointments, I learned to withhold my judgment until the person has done something to convince me one way or another. Every new person I met starts with a neutral score of zero. Zero not as in on a scale from 0 to 10 and 10 being the highest, zero as in the point of origin (0,0) on a graph. I neither like nor dislike a person until he or she has convinced me of one way or another.

Religious fanatics - automatic 40 points deduction on their IQ chart. If I work with you, that's highly unprofessional, I do not need to know your religious viewpoint. If I do not work with you, our conversation ends right here, and hopefully I will never have to talk to you again. Amen.

Ego

Another good lesson to learn is not to tie your ego to irrelevant things. A project is a project, it can be your baby, but its not an extension of your ego. Never seen a case where people view irrelevant subjects as their egos ending well. Things get personal, you are not able to remain objective, drama ensues. Never ends well.

Two Things

Two things I've learned at my current job:-

(1) If someone really does not want to do something, you cannot twist his arm to make him do it. I'm not a big burly man, nor is it my job to twist anyone's arm (last I checked I am not a bouncer at a club);

(2) If someone really insist on doing something, there is nothing you can say or do to stop him.

All you can do is to "strongly recommended" or "strongly advise against" someone doing something. Beyond that, everybody is an adult and must live with the consequences of one's own actions.

Whiners

Without delving into too much details, I hate whiners. I absolutely hate people who not only take my effort for granted, but would also offer their highly unsolicited suggestions of "can we _______?" or "why can't we _________?" If you are not going to volunteer your service, STFU.

You may be used to dealing with some ridiculously accommodating or passive-aggressive individuals but if you think I am one of them, I am afraid you are gravely mistaken.

Under two situations will I tolerate whiners:

(1) you are a paying customer, because $ talks;

(2) I am paid and it's part of my job to listen to your pathetic whining, also because $ talks.

When neither one of those applies, next time you tell me "I want ________" in your little whiny noice expect to get one or more of the following responses:-

"Well, that's nice."

"And that means what to me?" or "And that concerns me how?"

"Let me try to find that rat's ass I care to give." (From Pushing Daisies, said by Elliott)

and my favorite line that I have recently learned,

"We all want many things in life, it builds character."

Playing Chicken

In American English, "playing chicken" is this "game" when two cars drive at high speed straight towards each other and see who will turn away first. Obviously the psychopath with the death wish will always be the winner. I do, however, like to play chicken with fancy cars like Mercedes and BMWs on highway merges. Allow me to explain how merges work, evidently the simple concept of one car at a time depending who's further ahead eludes many people. Particularly people in fancy cars, they LOOOOVE to try to PASS you from behind during a merge. Ugh, excuse me. Anyway you look at it my car is in front of yours. Really, let me ask you this, do you seriously want to play chicken with a 10+ year old Dodge Neon? I sure as hell ain't gonna be the one who steer away first. Even if it's a no fault incident and we are each responsible for our own repair cost, I still come out ahead in $ amount. Muhahahaha. You want to play chicken at a merge, drive a crappy car!

Persistency

Okay, I am not going to lie. I am not a persistent person nor do I have a lot of stamina. I give up quite easily. Recently someone had told me that she believes that one can achieve whatever one sets up to do, as long as he/she wants it enough. Not to say that being persistent is not a good trait, but I certainly hope that only applies to certain situations.

For example, when a man (or a woman) are too persistent about an object of affection despite their lack of interest, that's a stalker in the works. Okay, that maybe an extreme example. Some goals simply cannot be achieved with hard work and determination, e.g. becoming the next James Cameron. It takes hard work, luck, AND talent, and no amount of hard work can compensate for a lack of talent.

Sometimes, one simply needs to know when to quit.

Devil's Advocate

Took me a while to learn what the term meant. Which is odd considering that I played the devil's advocate A LOT. Just a note that what I said does not necessarily reflects what I believe. I just like to make sure I have considered all perspectives of an event is all. =)

Freecells

If you don't know what Freecell, the solitaire card game is, here's more than you will ever need to know at Wikipedia.

A week or so ago I got into a discussion with the Hubby who claimed that he had heard from various sources that ALL freecell games are solvable. Here's another thing you need to learn about men:- they will believe in all external sources except their wives! (Okay, to be fair to him, only on certain subjects and occasionally.) I had my doubts but was too lazy to look it up online until today. Evidently, a few are universally (and I use that term loosely) agreed to be unsolvable. For the fun of it, I'll post them on my random blog. :)

According to one Robert McMillan, there are 8 unsolvable games in the Window FreeCell game, and they are:

Games Nos.

11,982
146,692
186,216
455,889
495,505
512,118
517,776
781,948

Also from Wikipedia:

Game 11982

When Microsoft FreeCell became very popular during the 1990s it was not clear which of the 32,000 deals in the program were solvable. To clarify the situation, Dave Ring started The Internet FreeCell Project and took on the challenge of trying to solve all the deals using human solvers. Ring assigned 100 consecutive games chunks across volunteering human solvers and collected the games that they reported to be unsolvable, and assigned them to other people. This project used the power of crowdsourcing to quickly converge on the answer. The project was finished in October 1995, and only one game defied every human player's attempt: #11,982. Although this deal has defied every attempt to solve it, even by several exhaustive-search software solvers, no definitive proof has yet been offered that it is, in fact, unsolvable.

Several more presumably unsolvable instances were also discovered when Windows XP updated Freecell to 1,000,000 game instances, but 11,982 is still the most infamous of them.

11,982 is inherently difficult due to the large number of aces and other small cards high in the stack, as well as the high cards being relatively evenly distributed among the stacks, requiring one to use many of the cells to get to any useful cards.

Game 11,982 in Kpatience is identical to the one on Windows.

Awwwww man, how did I miss being one of the human solvers for this project? LOL

The Wisdom of The 70s Show

Red's wife in 70s show told her husband once, "When a woman come into the store (he sells home applicances), all she knows is what color she wants (as opposed to the actual features of the item)." She couldn't be more right. :D Specifically when I went to look for a hubby, all I know is he will be White. Hahaha.

Hubbies aside (polyandry?), that rule of thumb still applies, the cuteness of item matters to me. Features are important too... but cuteness plays a very big role. So as it turns out, Fry's and even Blockbuster sell these uber cheap headphones, and they are, you guessed it, CUTE. Did I mention uber cheap? So I had to buy them. I bought a $4.99 pair from Blockbuster. Surprisingly, it works! I know, I had my doubts. It stopped working after about a week or two. At first I assumed it's the integrity of the product, but lucky for the company Hubby came clean that it was him who broke it. No, I did not get upset. Quite the contrary, I was very excited that now I had the perfect reason to go try a different pair (cuz there are just SO many cute headphones out there)! I found the absolutely cheapest one possible -- the low, low price of $3.99! Still pink! Still pretty! Interestingly enough, it still works... depending on which way you twists it. For the most part it serves its purpose.

Lesson learned: $4.99 is the cheapest one can go for headphones, at least in the US of A.

I saw a couple more pretty pairs at Fry's... just waiting for the perfect excuse to present itself. :)

Facebook

I tried porting my blog entries into my Facebook account and came to the conclusion that none of my "real friends" give a rat's ass about what I have to say. LOL. So I guess I will continue to blog here and present my great wisdom to a broader audiences (mostly strangers). My blog will prevail...

Men

If you are a straight female in a long term committed relationship with a heterosexual male (I can't speak for homosexual males) or a single female who will one day enter into a long-term relationship with one, there are two things you need to learn about men:-

(1) Occasionally, they will, mark my words, commit entirely bizarre and unexplainable acts. I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but when I do, I will be sure to return to this entry and add it in.

(2) When you ask in utter horrid what they were thinking, they will tell you matter-of-factly, "I wasn't thinking." Believe me, ladies, and this will save you lots of anguish going forward. Men are not like women, when they admitted to not thinking, take it literally. Unlike us, their brains are capable of disengaging, sometimes it truly was not thinking, so don't waste your time trying to figure out what they meant by not thinking. It meant exactly that.

Affordable?

I did not know that the word "affordable" and a price tag of $1170 can go into the same sentence...



Photo Credit: Scoretronics

Older People

Is there age discrimination in employment? Of course, some companies are more blatant than others. If you you truly believes age discrimination doesn't exist, I worry for you. Instead of talking about how WRONG that is -- I'm sure there are already hundreds of thousands of website on the WWW beaten that horse to death -- let's look at some possible reasons of why some companies prefer hiring younger employees. And before I go on, let me clarify that by "older people" here I mean non Gen Y, and yes, I fall into my own "older people" category, so I am really not here to justify companies' actions. Instead, I am just discussing about some of my observations about "older people."

The age of the interviewer/hiring manager notwithstanding, what are some advantages for companies to hire younger people? Well, let me tell you about how "older people" behave, from personal experience and observation. Older people tend to be more set in their ways. We see a younger person doing things differently, our immediate reaction -- whether we express it explicitly or not -- are to find faults with the new way of doing things. I admit it, I have those thoughts. It's like a classic Asian mother-in-law/daughter-in-law mentality. Allow me to elaborate, Asian men tend to have a more unusual bond with their mothers, which makes it very difficult for the mother to accept the wife -- the woman who steals the son from her. In the good old days, the son doesn't move out when he gets married, the wife moves into the husband's family when they get married, thus begin the war between the mother/daughter-in-law, usually ends up the daughter-in-law being tortured, psychologically and/or physically. So years after that, when the daughter-in-law had her own son and became a mother-in-law herself, it's her turn to torture the other woman, so on and so forth, you get the idea.

And just what does that have to do with our current subject. Ah, just let me get there. When started working, technology wasn't as advanced as they are today, so we had to do many things the long way. We used fax instead of email. Long distance calls were a big deal. I worked with this lady before who would, literally, yell at you if you dare dial the fax number first before you put down the piece of paper, presumably because that's the way she had always done it because the first generation fax machines required that the piece of document be put down first. It was kind of sad that her only accomplishment in life was the proper way of using the fax machine...

Whilst the last two might not be the best examples, but my point is that because we had to do things the hard way, we find it difficult to let the new blood who just enter the work force to "get away with it," and that could easily let to a less friendly and productive environment, and many good suggestions by the younger generation can be overlooked.

Another interesting observation is, this is San Jose, heart of the Silicon Valley. You want to work for a company with great benefit you aim for a tech firm. However, I've came to realize that some people from the older generation resist to update their knowledge of technology. Again, I was guilty of that myself. It took me the longest time before I set up a Twitter and Facebook account to see what they are all about. I will admit that to date I am not a big fan of oversharing, but the point is, it only takes a few minutes to sit down, create an account, mess around and see what the hype is about.

Just imagine, if you are the owner of Facebook, would you hire someone who doesn't even have a Facebook account and has no idea what it is, regardless of whether you are applying for a position on the development team or direct sales. Is it really so horrible that employers prefer to hire employees that at least have certain knowledge of the company if not totally passionate over it? You can learn about a product without 100% embracing it. I still don't get the point of Facebook, I guess you will have to be Gen Y to understand why would want to share your every movement with your friends/families on a regular basis, or worse, the cryptic messages of "______ is sad/angry/happy" without providing a reason.

Forget about the employment aspect of it, technology, especially when it is advancing in leaps and bounds nowadays, infiltrates every aspect of our lives. It is really to own benefit to make sure we don't fall too far behind of what's the latest and greatest out there. You don't have to own a smart phone, but it'd be nice for you to know that web-enabled phones are highly popular now. In the good old days maybe it didn't matter as much, but things didn't use to change at the same pace as they are today, and if you keep up with the news, you'd know that the average retirement age is now 67, so even if you are 50 years old now, you could easily still have another 17 years to go. It might not be a pleasant thought, but it is, unfortunately, the cold, hard truth. So do yourself and everyone a favor, if you have seen/heard of Twitter/Facebook/social networking and have NO idea what the hell it is, sit down, create an account and start catching up with the rest of the world.

Happy

Today I said something I should be ashamed about as an Asian. You know that stereotype of driven, hard-working Asian? Okay, if you work for a decently sized company, you'd know about the evaluation two times a year - mid-year and year-end (or beginning of the year, depending on your perspective.) So beginning of the year, you set these "goals" of what you want to accomplish during the year, middle of the year you'll be evaluated to see if you are still on track, and end of the year you will be evaluated yet again and that will determine what size of a raise you get. You get the idea. But you know, some positions just simply don't have a path, so making up these "goals" every year is becoming quite a hassle. I knew I shouldn't but finally I had to ask my adviser, "So what if I say I am very happy where I am and don't go anywhere else (moving up)?" You know how there are things that you kind of know you are not suppose to say? Yeah, this is one of them, but I just have very bad self-control, so I asked. :P I fully expected a canned answer, "No, you should not say that, you should aim for something higher, etc., etc.," you get the idea, but NO! To my surprise, my adviser said, "That's great that you are happy!" LOL. I guess it's a lot less paper work for everyone involved. :P Next time I'll just say that when I don't feel like wasting my time on the evaluation. Goal: "Get my job done right." Aspiration: "Get my job done right." =D

Entropy

So I had this following conversation with a fanatic:

Fanatic (after realized that I'm an agnostic): "What day do you celebrate evil's birthday?" [Dangerous statement that implies, well, stated that anyone not belonging to his religion denomination = evil-worshipper. At least I can follow the logic behind his intended insult instead of him just calling me a "fag" or "blonde."]

P: "I do not believe there is a God so naturally I do not believer there's an evil either."

Fanatic: "So you are saying that the planet just appeared out of nowhere?"

P: "Ultimately it's the same question. If you can believe that God was just there at the beginning, why not a planet? But that's not what I am saying, I am saying that I do not know and that it's not comprehensible with our current knowledge."

Then the conversation, as expected, took a dive and the logic which incredibly lasted as long as it did started to fall apart and I decided to extract myself from that conversation.

What I was trying to say was, that conversation really made me realize that I cannot state that I believe in the big bang theory, or that the beginning of life as we know it can be entirely explained by our current knowledge of science. I should elaborate more, I do not have the knowledge in physics to actually understand big bang theory, from a very simplistic point of view I do not understand how and why everything and anything exist, regardless of whether it's God, the universe, or a planet, or a tree, or an ant, you get the idea. I believe in the process of evolution because we have hard evidence of it. Unless you are hardcore fanatics who believe that fossil records are planted by God to test our faith (What is the point of that? Is he insecure or just cruel or seriously need a live after he created Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden?), you will have to believe in evolution, but the whole brown soup beginning of life? Ugh.

Let me introduce this very basic concept of entropy in physics. Entropy = randomness. To give an example that even a little kid can understand, entropy aka randomness always increases. Imagine a stack of paper in the middle of a room. You put a fan in there, paper will get all over the room. Life being created by chance = same probability this stack of paper will coincidentally arrange itself back into a neatly stacked pile of paper, in it's original order. I am not even going to honey coat it by saying that it's plausible but not possible. I am going to unscientifically say that the chance of that is none. So saying that earth was a big conglomerate of substances and with added energy from thunder these elements just by chance arrange themselves and form the first live.... I can't buy it. I can't buy it more than I can buy that there is God. Every time I say I find it harder to convince myself. If I believe that the Bible is like a Disney watered down version of how things should be, then the whole brown soup theory is about equally as Disney.

I have never said this before, it's not that I don't want to believe. Risking sounding like Fox Mulder, I want to believe, very much so. I just can't. I went to a Catholic kindergarten, primary, and secondary school. The viewpoint they teach was very simple: good people go to Heaven, bad people go to Hell. And quite frankly, most of us go through life without killing another person, so there really aren't that many bad people walking the earth. And, knowing what we know, that most serial killer are mentally ill and most of them abused as a child, can you really hold them accountable for their actions? For all eternity?

My one and only Mormon friend S has a very simplistic viewpoint of religion/life. Well, very similar to my Catholic background one. She believes that Heaven is easy to get into and most people, regardless of whether they are religious or not, will be able to enter Heaven. How I wish that is true. But the truth has nothing to do with what I wish for. I believe that the truth is absolute, regardless of what we want it to be, but being an agnostic, even that is questionable. Perhaps it will differ depending of what we believe... but the only fairness is life is perhaps none of us will know for certain (other than those who think they know for certain) until we've "crossed over," whatever that may be.

In the mean time, I will continue to subscribe to the theory that, "If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't."

Movie Review: Final Destination 4

Not bad for a part 4. I will definitely watch Part 5, if there will ever be one! :) (And blu-ray at $19.99, it's a steal!)

Movie Review: Terminator Salvation (Is it possible to spoil this?)

I think I am only going to give it a 3 out of 5 on this one. Granted, it is already part IV, we should just be happy that it doesn't suck badly, right? Some of the computer scenes could be done better. And by computer scenes, I mean computer scenes literally, as in when the characters were using the computer in the movie. Not cgi. With $200 million budget, you would think they could at least spend a bit more time to make it looks less cliche, but nowadays seems every actors/actresses get paid in the millions, so maybe $200 million is not that much after all.



I have done some research on the budget and gross income of the four terminator movies, here goes:



Ref: wikipedia

Movie Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Not a bad movie either, but as I always say you need to adjust your expectation according to the type of movies you are watching. Needless to say you will be disappointed going in there expecting this is going to be the next Hollywood blockbuster. Well, it's not, but it has hot chicks and fighting scenes. So there!

Movie Review: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Possible Spoiler)

Wow, this movie absolutely exceeded my expectation. I only picked it up because the title sounded funny, I barely remembered the trailer. So I sat there and the movie started, right. I thought, "Oh, great, it's another one of those -- struggling genius scientist, he invents, he fails, he invents, he failt, story drums up to this big climax and he experiences epic failure, the he finally succeeds in the grand finale." I was genuinely surprised when his invention worked from the beginning!! Thank GOD we could skip all the aggravation knowing the whole time that he WILL succeed in the end. The movie went a complete different direction and the incredible attention to details were amazing. Right down to the big banana knocking down the Columbia Picture woman statue at the beginning of the DVD. This is a must see!

The Making of a Fanatic

Step 1: Identify a cause

Step 2: Convince self that cause is bigger than anything else in life, and sometimes life itself (be it themselves or others, especially others.) Irony is when pro-life peeps bomb abortion clinics or murder abortion doctors.

Step 3: Go far and wide and preach the said cause and make that your life.

Step 4: All malicious, violent acts stemming from the said cause are now justified.

What I don't understand is, having a cause should give one purpose not introduce anger, or are the bitter ones with lots of anger more inclined to becoming a fanatic?

Chicken Pox

Chicken pox is one of those disease that if you get it in your childhood, it's just a minor discomfort, and you are immune to it for the rest of your life; on the other hand, if you get it in your adulthood, the result can be much more serious, for example, infertility in women.

Many issues in life are like chicken pox. If you have to make the mistake once to learn the lesson and never repeat that error again, it's better to make that mistake when you are young and your actions bear no serious consequences. The price to pay for the same mistake will be much higher when made in your adulthood.

Dream House

After all the house hunting, this is what I want in my dream house. I've made an illustrataion.

Murphy Laws Site - Murphy Laws

Murphy Laws Site - Murphy Laws

Movie Review: Paranormal Activity (Spoiler Alert)

Okay, my friend raved about this so I had to see it, risking not being able to sleep for a few nights, but it was definitely not as scary as I had expected. Of all the random movies out there ("Stuck," "Open Waters," to name a few), this is one of those movies that should be labeled as "based on a true story," however loosely. I went into the movie thinking that it's "based on a true story," and it had some scary scenes. Once my husband told me that it was entirely fictional, it took out the suspension of disbelief and the rest are just okay. Also, once it's established that this is fictional, it seemed there are room for improvement, specifically:-

(1) A better escalation. I would like to see the severity of it increase gradually. Or maybe I just prefer the Asian type of scariness -- intangibility. The door moving on its own was scary, but footprints and opened roof access etc. implied a physical body, took the joy out of it (at least for me).

(2) I really liked how the guy tried to systematically figured what was going on. The sprinkling of powder on the ground was ingenious, that definitely should have been the way it went. More systematic methods by the guy, internet research, and other paranormal fans/experts coming over.

And the ending just seemed abrupt, both the theatrical and original one, but I guess there's really only one way it can end. :(

Depression

Do you think $1 million is a lot of money? I bet you do, because it sounds like a lot of money. That's why many game shows and reality TV shows set that to be the prize money. (Or should I say it's actually not a lot of money precisely for that reason?) $1 million might sound like a lot of money, or any amount using that as a unit thereof, e.g. "half a million ($500,000)," or "quarter of a million ($250,000)."

Well, let me tell you this: $1 million is NOT a lot of money, especially in the bay area. No, just because I say that doesn't mean I have a few millions lying around in the bank, so don't bother finding out who I am , where I live and try to rob me or kidnap my cats (catnap?). So why do I say that? Depression from house hunting.

You know what $250,000 (a quarter of a million) can get you in the bay area? Nothing. And I do mean nothing. Not even a shed in someone's backyard. What about $500K, you may ask. Now we are talking. Perhaps, perhaps a condo in a semi-decent (I do mean semi-decent) area, or a house in a questionable area. What is "questionable" area, you may ask. Well, bad neighborhood, brand new house next to the landfill, or across the street from the ghetto. Seriously, we have seen this road (a regular residential road, not even an expressway) dividing brand new houses from very bad neighborhood. Um, the bad elements can cross the street, you know? And, of course, houses/condos build on top of CA's famous naturally occurring abestos.

Well, what does a decent house in a decent neighborhood cost? You may ask. Think $1000 per square feet. So unless you have $1 mil or $2 mil to spare, don't even bother. But you said $1 mil is not a lot of money? $1 mil might be the price tag of a (1,000 sf) house, but let's not forget closing cost, property tax, and HOA. All in all, it's very depressing...

Travelling

So I take this annual trip to China, and I hate it. No offense to China, the time actually there wasn't too horrible, it's more getting there that I hate from the bottom of my heart. Regardless, I am not a big traveling person. Just... not my thing. So I had this conversation with a different friend (yeah, some friends I got, huh?)

"I'll be happy if I never leave this continent again for the rest of my life," I said.
"You are boring," she said.
"What's so good about traveling?" I asked.
"To learn different cultures."

Listen, lady, going to Europe or whatever destination you have for two weeks (hitting a few different locations) and going from touristy spot to touristy spot has nothing to do with learning the culture. In fact, you learned nothing about their culture. In your two weeks of travel, you probably seen more tourists than natives. Unless you are a mormon on a mission and live in a foreign place for two years and learn their language and eat their local cuisine, you can't tell me it's about the culture. It's more like following the tourist guide and hitting all the spots and taking pictures and bringing back souvenirs. :P

Movies

Evidently the type of movies I feel like watching varies with the time of the day!

AM :- almost never able to summon up enough attention span to start any movies
Mid Day:- Best time for block busters, the type that requires some concentration to appreciate
Evening:- B-line movies, the type that you can multitask (chat online, surf the web, etc.) and still be able to follow.