Spam

The other day, a message in my spam box was entitled,

"i videotaped my mom while she was masturbating"

Seriously, who the hell would be enticed by that title?? Nasty.

Best Valentine's Day conversation overheard (by me)

I step into a random restaurant on rue Mouffetard in Paris on Valentine's Day evening, and am seated beside an American couple. I make eye contact perhaps just once (and unintentionally), but I have the pleasure of eavesdropping on their chat.

"Oh, this [escargots bourgogne] is so delicious. I love this sauce."
"You wanna marry it?", she asks without much emotion.
"No, honey, I'm going to marry you. You got dibs."

I thought it was over, but he gave it a brief afterthought and added:

"I'm going to have an affair with this sauce, though."

End of Days

After having filled out three different forms and visited no fewer than five separate departments for signatures, I got all the "approvals" I needed for the requisite paperwork.

So I sent this yesterday.

Subject: My Days Are Numbered / 後天是我最後一天

"Hello, my esteemed colleagues!

It is with mixed feelings that I inform you (by an impersonal email such as this) I have decided to leave This Company. This Thursday (June 12, 2008) will be my last day in the office.

It has no doubt been a fruitful experience to have worked at this firm with all the different types of people in the company. I only regret not having met more of you outside of the office environment. To say the least, these past 14 months have given me much experience (and about 5lb of body fat) which I will bring with me into my future endeavours.

I plan to remain in Taiwan with my next gainful employment for a few more years, so I'll still be around (though suffering painfully longer working hours). Please don't hesitate to contact me by my personal email below. Other contact methods available after you email me first: mobile phone, IM, facebook, Flickr, shoe size, you name it! I would, of course, also appreciate you passing me your private contact information as well so that we can keep in touch.

With that note, I bid you farewell, and hope we'll meet again soon. Take care!

I also provided a brief translation in Chinese.

各位同事們,你們好!

時間到了, 我得離開這家公司了! 這個星期四(2008年6月12日)是我在這家公司的最後一天. 在這家公司過了十四個酸甜苦辣的月, 我在這裡成長了很多也學習了很多. 我相信這些經念對我的未來會有很大的幫助. 以下是我的聯絡資料, 請大家保持聯絡! 希望各位都好好保重, 再見囉!"

Now I wait my time out in anticipation of a few weeks' break. In the meantime, I'll clean out this computer: clean the cache, delete the cookies and bookmarks, uninstall unapproved software, and generally erase my existence.

Smogger

Now that my scooter is rounding out its third year of ownership, I get a postcard in the mail that says I need to get a smog test for it. I take it to the Yamaha Service Plaza store I normally get the oil changed at.

I ride in, show them my little smog test summons card, and he motions for me to pull in. He takes a stand and a pipe and hooks up the sensor to my exhaust pipe, and then runs some software on the nearby computer, explaining that these test results are stored immediately using government (standard) software, and then uploaded to the DMV databases later on. I'm impressed at how efficient they've made it!

He looks at the stats for my scooter -- not that old, in pretty good condition, despite my accidents and thrashing it around -- and starts it up, running the diagnostic software. The numbers start going up in each of the three categories: CO, HC, and CO2. Neat.

But he freaks out.

"Whoa, why is it so high?? This is twice the limit!"

He starts rapping frantically at the "Cancel" button, preventing the test from completing and uploading to the government database.

Then he hooks up the sensor to a different computer -- the shop's private machine, not connected to the official one -- and starts tweaking some settings in the engine with a screwdriver, playing around with two different dials until the CO and HC pollution was way, way below the legal limits.

Once he was happy with the results, he hooks it back up to the government system and runs it.

"Oh, I hope it's not too low [that it's not believable]. You can't ride it like this, because it will stall on you all the time."

Well, wouldn't you know it, the scooter passes now with flying colours!

A printout taps out of the printer, my paper evidence in case the government wants to see it.

He hooks the scooter back to the private machine, tweaks all the settings back to the original levels (slightly optimizing while he's at it), and sends me back on my way.

"There you go. Now you may continue polluting the air."

(Yeah, he actually said that, but in a good-humoured manner.)

Clearly, this is not his first time, nor is it beyond his own moral limits. I'll probably have the scooter actually looked at during my next oil change, since it does bother me that my scooter isn't running as smoothly as it should.

Male Pattern

Everyone loses hair.

Men lose hair, and the follicles in very visible parts of their head just give up and quit, leading to male pattern baldness and sometimes slightly affected self-esteem.

Women lose hair, but most of the time, they grow back. And then that lost hair ends up all over the apartment, where it seeds dust bunnies and constantly sticks underfoot. Worse yet, flaunts its existence to the men who have male pattern baldness.

Sometimes, life is unfair that way.

I Feel Like ...

So I'm back at work for a bit, and my iPhone starts playing this random song*: Ludacris' "Slap" (lyrics here). I so echo that ... perhaps I should make it the theme song for my next little while!

---
* I have a lot of random songs that I haven't cleaned the ID3 tags for yet, so I'm discovering songs in my own library! My poor memory also helps to create the illusion of constantly having new music in my library, even if I have none.

Stretch and Twist

You know you're getting old(er) and (increasingly) out of shape when, after sitting at your desk for half an hour, you lean back in your chair for a nice big stretch and yawn ... and twist out your back under such incredible physical strain.

Illogical Logic Test

A little backgrounder on that post about the IQ testing. We got to talking about brainteasers and fun problem solving because our company now makes all applicants complete during the interview. The result? It was apparently found that most candidates could be weeded out just by this stage alone! Amazing!

And then, we managed to get our hands on the actual test, read through it, and burst out laughing: the test questions are completely error-ridden -- instructions, grammar, etc. -- prompting you to make assumptions as to what they want to ask. And you can't ask for clarification, because your test administrator has left the room until the time is up!

So here's one of the questions, verbatim:

Halley Comet gets closer to earth every 76 years. “May was born when I am 27 years old, I saw Halley Comet while May was 2 years old.” May’s father says. “I was born when my father was 25 years old, my father saw Halley Comet at 8 years old.”May’s grandfather says. The question is: How old was May’s grandfather while May’s father was born? (Please write your algorithm down)

Yeah, right??

The problem itself isn't difficult, but you need to figure out who said what! And under time constraints and all-round interview nervousness, you're likely to make an (incorrect) assumption just keep trudging through to get the answer.

There are no fewer than 5-6 native English-speaking people on staff here. Would it have killed anyone to run the test by one of us??

Mom was Right

So yesterday, we got around to talking about brainteasers and skill-testing questions, and I looked online and spent the 13 minutes to do an IQ test. And you know what?

Mom was right: I am a genius!

Dear Ben,

Thank you for your interest in the test at IQTest.com.

Your general IQ score is: 143

You may login at ­http://www.iqtest.com/login.html at any time to view your score, purchase your Complete Personal Intelligence Profile or The Consciousness Exercises, or edit your account settings.

Regards,
The Team at IQTest.com

It's no wonder I find that so many people around here are idiots! It's because I'm way ahead of the curve!

---
PS: No, I'd put my money on the IQ test being pretty inaccurate and unreliable as a measure of one's intelligence, just based on my result! Maybe it's set up so that only the real idiots would believe their own score.

Schiesser! Too Rich for Mey Blood

We wandered onto the floor of the shopping complex. We've been here before, but never to this floor -- it's men's apparel. And in a little section in the middle of this floor was the men's underwear.

I'm not talking about your Fruit-of-the-Loom stuff; I'm talking the kind with which you can cuddle your butt, and pamper your twig and berries. The nice materials, the good fits (apparently), all that.

We saw one rack of wares with a bold logo: Schiesser. I read it out loud.

"Doesn't that mean 'sh!t' in German?", M asks.
"Yeah, I think so ..."

Probably not the best name for underwear. I know it's spelled differently (by one letter) and sounds different, but it still leaves a lot of room for error. I mean, what if I started a brand of underwear called "Skitmarks Inc." or "Shetbucket"?

They had a promotion going, $1000NT ($30US) for three plain white underwear, probably the cheapest of any of their product lines. I picked up another box and flipped it over. $780NT apiece. That's $25US for one grey underwear.

"This brand is from Germany," the saleswoman volunteered.
"Oh. Uh-huh. Thanks," I replied.

But no thanks, not even if it's from Europe: this butt is perfectly happy in underwear that's easily half that price. We move on.

And then, with a display on a glamourously black column, there they were: Mey. These designer treasure holders came in lots of patterns: checkers, prints, flag colours, you name it. And in designing it, they seemed to have carefully considered the ... aspects of the male anatomy. I give a subtle nod of approval. The dangling white tag next to the pouch caught my attention.

$2480NT [$75US]

I'm sorry, what was that?? Hey, it's nice underwear, but not that nice. For that price, I could probably pay someone to cradle my ass wherever I go!

Who the heck prices these products, anyway?
Wait, who the heck buys them at those prices??

Victor's Secret

So on the first day of the year, I bought 3 items from Private Structure (to provide a structure for holding my privates, naturally). I've now added them to my collection of new underwear from Zara, Calvin Klein, and the other ones I recently bought from Private Structure. (I've been on a shopping binge for undies and socks recently, dunno why. Maybe all mine have reached the end of their lifespans.)

Anyway, since I've always been partial to briefs and boxer briefs, the new ones are also the same. (I only wear loose boxers to bed, so that my boys can sleep comfortably too. In the daytime, I like to have my body parts ... kept in place. But that's neither here nor there.)

Now, these new ones are snug and form fitting. But they (from all the brands except CK) seem to have forgotten one vital feature for such an undergarment: a sufficiently-sized "pouch" to hold my goodies.

No, I'm not bragging or anything.
They're somehow really damned tight!

WTF? I almost feel like when I put them on, my eyes will pop out. And no, I'm not wearing a size too small either. Given that they're different brands and of different design/styling -- European, American, and Asian -- they shouldn't all be like that, right?? Something's really wrong. Either that, or present-day men prefer to have their cashews treated like stress balls.

No, really, I'm not bragging.

What am I doing wrong? My undies didn't come with an instruction manual, but is there some technique to ... uh ... product placement when I put them on? Or is there something else I should be paying attention to??

Help!

On a side note, I appreciate Joe Boxers for keeping me warm on such cold days. Thank you, Joe, for cupping me so.

Loot Report

So ... what'd you get for Christmas?

I didn't get very much this year. To be fair, though, I didn't want anything. Plenty of people asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I simply replied,

"Nothing."

Honest. I mean, sure, I'd like a new laptop, some more dress shirts for work, more cufflinks, etc. But those are not suitable to receive as gifts, and I don't really need them right now: I'll get them as I really need them.

So really, there's nothing I want or need at this point in my life. It's a nice feeling, and as I told my fiancee, I'm materially content. She quickly informed me,

"I'm not."

Huh. So anyway, what'd you get for Christmas?

Goldfish

Another great American holiday is come and gone, and in its wake has kickstarted the holiday shopping frenzy, which the United States badly needs to get some kind of money flowing around again, as the world starts to turn its back on their dollar.

We had pumpkin pie (from Costco) on Thursday afternoon as a small tribute to the festivities, and then (in true American fashion) proceeded to stuff myself on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night dinners.

And I mean, stuffed myself.
As if it were going out of style.
As if I'd been starved for a month.
As if I were 8 months pregnant. With quintuplets.

Basically, I just keep eating until my stomach was stretching to the brink of exploding half-digested foods all over the walls. (M suggested I wear a garbage bag in case it did happen, to ease the clean-up. I didn't, because if I did blow up, cleaning up wouldn't be my problem.) I keep eating until the food is gone, without any kind of normal signal from stomach to brain signifying that it's starting to hurt.

I basically eat like a goldfish.

Freaking Birthday

I'll tell you something: at my age, it's easy to forget your age. On the day of this past birthday of mine, M told me I was turning a year older than I was actually turning.

And I freaked.
A little bit.

Just a little bit, but I still freaked, and it counts. But after that initial shock, my healthy skepticism kicked in, and I gave her a slanty look while I tried to do the age-math in my head.

Let's see, I was born in that year, and now it's this year, subtract one from the other, and ... holy crap. I really was that old!

I freaked again.

Just a little bit, but more than the first time. And then she gave in and told me she was kidding. But wait! I just did the math in my head, and I got that number! How the hell ...??

Well, turns out I'd been doing some planning for next year, and used 2008 as "this year", so I had also mistakenly advanced my age by a year.

So ... let me tell you two things:
(1) At my age, it's easy to forget your age.
(2) At my age, your math skills are pretty easy to forget too.

The Art of Farting

If you're going to cough really loud to mask the sound of your fart, you definitely need to get the timing right.

Because if you mis-time it, then what's the point, really?
Then you've just coughed and farted into a room of people whose thoughts about you you obviously care about.
And it will be obvious that your fake cough was for covering up your butt burp.
In the future, if you ever cough in front of these people again, they'll wonder if you farted as well and tried to cover it up.
Plus, a cough doesn't cover up the stink of your gas burrito. You know that, right?
Even if you do the cough cover-up right, it never really masks the sound 100%; people can tell, you know, and your best bet is probably just to leave the room before letting your ass do its methane broadcast.

I'm just saying.

1 + 1 Ain't 2

I walked up to the counter beside all the hanging meats dripping with the fatty aroma of roasted flavour. In the distance, behind the back wall, I could hear the frantic stirfrying and deepfrying of several orders at once.

"I'd like a chicken chowmein [雞絲炒麵]."

The crabby lady looked at me like I was ordering a pizza at Burger King.

"We don't have that."
"You don't have chicken chowmein?"
"No. See? It's not on the menu."

I knew it wasn't on the menu, but I wanted chicken chowmein [雞絲炒麵]. I scanned the menu to see they had chicken on various other menu items, but (as she rightfully pointed out) not on chowmein (fried noodles).

Now, I know a little about cooking, but I guess it was just silly of me to assume that stirfrying chicken and frying noodles could be combined in a way to create "chicken and fried noodles".

Still, I attempted to reason with her instead of following the strict letter of the menu. I tried to break it down for her, into little bitesize brain morsels as I had with the plastic knife incident.

"... but you serve chowmein?"
"We have pork chowmein [肉絲炒麵]."
"So, you have chowmein." It was obvious, but I wanted to hear her say it.
"Yes." She was starting to lose interest in this conversation.
"And you have chicken, right?"

There was a long pause as she stared blankly at me with a that's-a-moronic-question look. A second later, something clicked and she caught on to my point. With an aire of a Noodle Nazi, she cut off the argument.

"We don't have chicken chowmein."

I had a mapo tofu over rice [麻婆豆腐飯].

Abercrombie

We wander about Cho Ben Thanh, winding through the narrow aisles of this bustling local market. It's hot, and we do our best to avoid the masses of vendors watching us like hawks while hawking their clothes and sinking their talons into our arms to get our attention.

"Sir, you want T-shirt?"
"What you looking for?"
"Sir, come here, come here."

After getting our fill of Dri-FIT fabric "Adidas", "Puma", and "Nike" shirts, I saw some shirts screenprinted with cheap-looking Abercrombie logos. Inquiring, I found they had some decent ones in the brushed/sueded cotton fabric, complete with the luxurious, velvety neckline trim, and Abercrombie appliques. The fit worked for me, and after some heated bargaining, I dropped them from 260,000vnd down to 150,000vnd (that's $9.40USD).

So now I'm the proud owner -- after inspecting them more closely upon my return and comparing to my one real Abercrombie shirt -- of the following shirts:

1 Abercrombie & Fitch, authentic (bought in SF)
1 Abercrombie & Fitch, says it's authentic (but isn't)
1 Abercrombie & Fitch, doesn't even try to say it's authentic
1 Abercrombie & Fish, no explanation necessary

In their defense, the material is just like the real thing, and it might actually say "fich" -- it's actually very hard to tell altogether.

Confirm? Yes/No.

Theft is prevalent nowadays: stolen credit cards, identity theft, online scamming, you name it. You have to watch your back, and today's systems have built-in checks for you to confirm and have a chance to deny / dispute any transactions before they're cast in stone.

When you're at the supermarket and paying by credit card, they run up your groceries on the till. Beep-beep-beep as the produce flies by, carefully weighed on the scale with the bar code reader, and your eyes are glued to the scrolling screen to make sure they don't pull a fast one on you. And, of course, to check that you're getting that member's special discounted club price for those items, which is the whole reason you drag that thick club card with you which is no good for anything else other than getting you that second 4L tub of ice cream for $2 less.

You get a total on the screen, and you swipe your credit card through the reader. (Note that your card never has to leave your own hands, eliminating the opportunity of crooked clerks making a second imprint to duplicate it.)

Processing, please wait ...

You carefully put your card back in your wallet/purse and the total comes up on the little LCD.

$15.23. Confirm? Yes / No.

This is (obviously) to make sure that the number they plan to charge on your card is the same as you saw flashing up on their colour monitor, so you don't have $15.23 in groceries and have them charge you $105.23 on the card instead with the clerk pocketing $90.

But before you've even had a chance to look at the number and process that it's right -- heck, even if you have agreed that the price is right, you're still looking for the YES button, because it's usually had the word worn off it and you have to guess at the button only because it's next to the NO. And it doesn't help that they don't make it green and red for YES and NO -- they're grey like everything else on the keypad. And the green button is ENTER, which doesn't register as a YES.

I mean, what's the point of letting me check it, if they're not going to let me check it easily?? Anyway, before you've had any opportunity to work through any of these things, the impatient 99 Ranch clerk reaches across the machine and presses YES for you.

... and that's when I got really mad. Everything that happened was a blur, Your Honour.

Stoned at the Bar

I don't know why, but I sometimes enjoy watching the progress bar move when my computer is busy doing something -- installing software, stitching my images together, exporting an album, downloading mail. Sometimes I sit there and watch it go, even if process is 5 minutes, and I know I could be doing a lot better things with those minutes.

I just like watching it move along, getting subtasks done in its predetermined order, and reporting to be immediately when things are complete. Or maybe it's that I want to read each step as it goes, so I can understand what it's doing to get what I want done done. Not that it matters -- it only matters that it's done.

Reason being what it may, that little partially-coloured digital bar, changing ever-so-slowly, still mesmerizes me. It takes away minutes that I can never get back, and yet, I still sit there watching it.

The Hospital, not the Truck

El Camino Hospital staff was really nice (except one late-shift b!tch), very informative, and made me feel at ease. I'm sure that I helped them, since I was appreciative of everything they did for me, but the courtesy was reciprocated. A few things I learned at the hospital:

1. Peeing into the little urinal jug is strangely amusing. You can be standing in the middle of your room, and let loose on your bladder without worrying about getting in trouble for it! The same kind of sick thrill one might derive from sneaking a camera into a stripclub and taking "strictly forbidden" pictures. (Not that I have, but I suspect it would be the same kind of thrill.)
2. The "nurse call" button is a pretty fun power trip. Having a suite of buttons that beckons people is kind of nice. There's one for the nurse (general), and they're paid to answer to you! Then there's a green button with a frowny face, which is for "pain management" -- it basically means, "Dammit, it hurts, it hurts, please somebody bring me another 2mg dose of morphine!" And finally, there's a yellow one with what looks like a burnt out lightbulb. Be careful with this one -- it's not a lightbulb that means "reading light", but rather it's a toilet which means I can't do my daily chores by myself and need someone to come help me with it. (I learned that one the hard way, while looking up at the lightbulb wondering why it wasn't coming on.)
3. If you're nice to the staff, they give you more drugs. And they give you seconds and thirds of jello and chicken soup and cranberry juice. Jello, though sickly sweet, still tastes pretty damned good -- could use a few shots of alcohol to liven it up, though.
4. After an appendectomy, they want to know how much you pass through your system. Use the urinal jug and buzz them each time so they can come examine your pee for colour, viscosity, and volume.
5. That urinal examination job must suck. I could never work in a hospital, but I'm glad some people do.
6. Even if you're only 28 and in decent health, you still feel like an old fogey shuffling down the hallway pushing your IV pole around in order to get doctor-recommended exercise. But the least you can do it double-check your gown to be sure you're not mooning all the people in your wake.
7. It's a real neat thing to use, that hanging chain handle over the bed. Great for hoisting and repositioning yourself when you have no abs functioning. And probably a decent back and bicep workout too (if they don't catch you doing it).
8. That table that is your food tray, your desk, your little mirror and drawer ensemble? I need to get one of those for home!
9. So you've been up and about the hospital floor, walking around fully capable of getting here and there. You're ready to check out and they will still insist on wheelchairing you out to your car. I don't get it.
10. And however pleasant this whole experience seems, I'm sure the medical bill will make up for it.

I figure I'll just keep adding as I remember more. :-) Back to lying on the bed, pretending I'm utterly useless again.