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. :)
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
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...
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
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.
(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.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Affordable?
I did not know that the word "affordable" and a price tag of $1170 can go into the same sentence...
Photo Credit: Scoretronics
Photo Credit: Scoretronics
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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
Monday, January 25, 2010
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."
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."
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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!)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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
I have done some research on the budget and gross income of the four terminator movies, here goes:
Ref: wikipedia
Monday, January 18, 2010
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!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
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!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
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?
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?
Friday, January 15, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Dream House
After all the house hunting, this is what I want in my dream house. I've made an illustrataion.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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