Crazy going slowly am I

Ever feel like just going crazy? Just because?

I feel like running down the street, greeting people with "Porkchop" and asking them, "Have your fingers ever tasted a cylindrical song that is quite tightly yellow?"

I imagine some people may look at me funny, or try not to look at me at all. While others would ask what is wrong with me.

To which I would reply, "Fish"

Then may then proceed to point at various things that my eye stumbles upon and rename their colours with words like "blellow", "grink", and "foosball".

I imagine that I would be quite fond of the colour, "foosball".

Foosball. Ever say a word so much that it loses meaning? Foosball. Foooooooosball.

Inner Monologue Exposé!

Sometimes people ask me what's on my mind. I usually reply with a "nothing, really" or a "don't worry about it."

Here are a few thoughts that passed through my head this last week:

Watching TV:

I hate Tweety Bird. I hate Tweety Bird with a passion and the only reason I watched Looney Toons as a child was for the small glimmer of a dream that Sylvester would finally get his paws on Tweety and him shut up for good.

On the road:

If I swerve off the road... would that shut him up? No, his bitching would probably just get worse.

Unless it's such a fantastic collision that at least one of us bites it. Then either he won't be able to talk or I won't be able to listen!

Genius!

Wait a minute... what if we both bite it and I end up listening to him for all eternity?

...

Better not risk it.

Over dinner:

I wonder if jamming this chopstick in my ear would be too subtle of a hint.

Over another dinner:

Don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts...

...

Okay, just a quick peek...

Rollerblading the seawall:

If I were a piece of wood, what kind of wood would I be?

Moving day:

[Rocking out to various songs in my head]

Is someone getting the best,
the best, the best, the best of you
(Best of You - Foo Fighters)

Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales
and we stare at the beautiful women
She's looking at you...
Oh no no she looking at me
(Mr Jones - Counting Crows)

Dream on, Dream on, Dream on, Dream on,
Dream on, Dream on, Dream on, AAAHHHHHhhhHhhHHhhHhh!
(Dream On - Aerosmith)

At work:

...
...
...

I'm really not that bright or interesting.

Double Entendres of Ordered Randomness

I'm
missing the point? yeah, that happens.
Something has changed and Not for the better,
maybe
it's Nothing but
you should always read between the lines.

Water balloon mayhem

Control yourself people. I almost ruined a perfectly good pink shirt!

You heard me, PINK!

Float like a butterfly...

On Friday, I attended the free open-air VSO concert at Deer Lake with Najin. Good performance, although being an open-air concert, everything was played through speakers, which really can't compare to hearing an orchestra perform in an acoustically designed hall.

Of note (because these were the only ones I recognized) were their renditions of some Tchaikovsky pieces and a selection from Carmen.

Also, 16 year old Christopher Lee from Korea performed a clarinet solo punctuated by lots of bobbing-shadow-boxing-type movements. Just when you thought he'd stop... he'd bob again. Hehe, "bob". Took a video of it, I'll see if I get around to posting it later. All kidding aside, though, he was really very good.

And as a warning to you all, resist the temptation of "fresh cut french fries". They really aren't as good as they sound. Sure, I finished off one and a half large trays of them... but remember who's talking. That itself doesn't say much.

[Rant] Break a fu.cking leg

You know what annoys me? People who say "good luck" annoy me.

Not only is it cliche and shows no imagination and very little effort on part of the person saying it, but it also implies that if you should succeed or do well then it is a result of chance, not merit.

Whenever I hear, "good luck," I assume the stipend of, "you'll need it". The implication is that your abilities either aren't up to par or your abilities don't matter. With the former, it's just an insult. With the latter, your success or failure is a function of luck or fate and not any thing particular that you did. And as you may know, I am a firm disbeliever in fate.

So what do I suggest as an alternative to "good luck"? How about "go kick some ass".

Have an important game or test coming up? Go kick some ass!

Have an interview tomorrow? Go kick some ass!

Hitting up a girl at the bar? Go kick some ass!

Trying to train a stubborn donkey? Go kick some ass!

Go kick some ass!

Or for something a little more civilized, an "I hope you do well" would suffice. Sure, you can read some implications in that phrase as well (lack of understanding of the person's skills or situation, hope => pray => you need some outside help) but I think it's an improvement over "good luck".

Or how about "You can DO IT!"

That works too.

You're not "special"!

So I've been using my PocketPC (Dell Axim X3) pretty religiously for the last 4 months, keeping track of appointments, contacts, and whatnot. Well, for the last 4 months minus three days. Three days that my axim lay sitting on top of my desk... not plugged in.

And for the third time in a year (you'd think I'd learn) my axim ran out of battery power and I LOST ALL MY DATA!

Running out of battery power I can understand. Designing a device that stores information in volatile RAM when it's a mobile device that most assuredly won't have continual access to an external power supply is one of the most retarded ideas I can think of.

That's right, not "special". Just retarded.

Yes, I have a working, up-to-date backup of my data, but spending the time and effort to roll out the data is more than I'm willing to take. When I was backpacking through Europe, there were a few near scares when I had to sneak quick charges at trainstations for fear of losing my data. Well, no more I can tell you that.

Pen and paper. That's the shit.

(Anybody out there interested in a Dell Axim X3? Despite my glowing review, it's actually pretty cool and useful! Really!)

The Beautiful Country (Movie Impressions)

I saw The Beautiful Country yesterday at Tinseltown (which, by the way... on second thought, I'll save this rant for another day).

It follows the story of Binh (Damien Nguyen), child of a Vietnamese mother and an American GI, as he searches for his mother, and then for a life in America. And while some loose threads are unresolved by the end, the final scene is very satisfying.

I did, however, have 2 problems with the movie.

Being Vietnamese myself, I understood most of the Vietnamese dialog and can say with some authority that the subtitling was terrible. If it was only couple lines here and there I would have forgiven it, but for the majority of the first act, Vietnamese was the only language spoken. I understand that translations are inherently difficult, especially going from languages that are completely unrelated. Differing idioms, sentence structure, and wordplay wreak havoc when trying to do a translation true to the original. Often what you end up with is something that is either all too literal to the meanings of individual words, or something that has taken a few liberties to try and maintain the spirit and convey the same meaning of the original work. What we had in The Beautiful Country was neither.

Most all lines were streamlined and simplified to 2 or 3 word sentences. Some lines took a lot of strayed so far from the actual spoken words that I had to scratch my head. And other lines weren't subtitled at all.

I've heard of bad dubbing/translations before, but what I don't understand is how this could happen when the people credited with the writing and directed are all Caucasion.

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that the writers had some brief notes that were given to a Vietnamese dialog specialist to flesh out, and through miscommunication or time/budgetary concerns, those brief notes ended up being used as the subtitles.

The other problem I had was with a certain plot element. What kind of crazy ship sails from Malasia to New York, fricken New York. Instead of going across the Pacific to some sane destination like Los Angelos, let's take the scenic route below Africa and across the Atlantic. If the writers really wanted to have Binh in New York (although the story didn't really need New York. Any major metropolitan city in America would have sufficed), have the boat land on a Pacific Rim dock and then have the slave trucks drive him over.

Okay, maybe a third problem is that I don't understand people's fascination with China-Doll type women. Don't understand it, probably never will.

Other than these two (and a half) points, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. A friend said it was too slow paced, but I thought the pacing was fine. It's a drama, not a popcorn-action flick. Be glad it wasn't Dragonball Z proportions of epic sucky pacing.

Global W(Arr!)ming...

Recently found a link to hilarious satirical open letter to the kansas school board that advocates teaching the FSM (Flying Spagetti Monster) theory of ID (Intelligent Design) alongside evolution and other ID theories in schools.

Now I'm not going to get into the debate of the merits of ID as a scientific theory to be taught in schools, but rather I'd like to focus on another issue that was touched on in this open letter.

The trend of global warming is inversely related to the number of pirates!



You know what this means, the pirates have been losing ground over hundreds of years to their mortal enemies... the ninja.

For the sake of the world... for the sake of the children, we need more pirates. And we need them now.

Arr, matey!

VS

Patterns in life

Looking over my SFU transcript, and alarming pattern emerged.

Every year, my marks would peak in the Summer semester before taking a drastic fall in the Fall semester.

Every.
Single.
Year.

I even made a chart to illustrate the point:


Okay, so 2004 doesn't follow the pattern exactly since summer semester isn't the highest that year, but that was the only semester that I only took one course, so let's consider it an anomaly. But the Fall semester is still my worst GPA wise.

Delving back, summer-time is when I had lots of distractions from my school work, and fall semester was always the semester I promised myself that I'd crack down and get serious about school.

So what have I learned from this? Don't try so hard. I do my best when I'm not trying. It's when I try my best that everything goes in the crapper. Best intentions and all that jazz?

In other words, motivated underachievement works!

(or it could be related to taking on a larger workload and more intensive courses during the Fall. Who really knows...)

[Rant] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective CSR's (or, "Would you like some bread sticks, too?")

Is it too much to ask for people not to half-ass their jobs?

When ordering a pizza, I've become annoyed with the CSR's too such a point where I'm sure there are nasty comments on my file. Call me crazy if it's not reasonable to expect a modicum of competency from people who's sole job is to answer the fucking phone.

In the past, I worked at a Pizza chain's call centre for three years. I heard it all; the horror stories CSR's have to tell about customers are endless and, sadly, mostly true. However, it goes both ways. While you can get a bad customer, there are also lots of poor CSR's out there.

Here's a few tips on how to be a decent CSR and not have customers bitching at you.

1) Don't answer the phone as if it's a terrible inconvenience.

Pardon me if I interrupted your reading time or your card game with the CSR next to you. Your job is to take calls, dingus. Your supervisor (should) have told you, "You can hear a smile through a phone," and believe it or not, it's not just corporate bullshit, it's true. Speech tones are infectious, so if you sound nice and helpful, chances are the customer on the other end will try to do the same. (Hmm... on that note, maybe I shouldn't have called you a dingus.)

2) LISTEN to what the customer on the line says.

If I ask what specials you have tonight, I don't want to have to give you my phone number and address before you answer my question. I understand that the order taking system you use may require that information before actually placing the order, but that's no reason for not being able to answer simple questions that have nothing to do with delivery time or price.

Also, if I order a pizza with capicollo and sun-dried tomatoes, that's what I want. If I end up getting a pizza with capicollo and diced tomatoes, I'm not a happy customer.

3) Know what you're talking about

If I ask you what size your large pizza is, your next sentence shouldn't start with "I think..." and it sure as hell better not have a "maybe" in it. While thinking is fine, guessing is not. If you don't know it off the top of your head, a simple "If you give me a moment I can find out," (with the intention of following through on it) can do wonders. "It depends," accompanied by a (mandatory) quantifying phrase is also acceptable.

4) Don't leave me in the dark

If it's going to take a minute or two to find the information to answer my question or process my order, tell me.

If you're going to put me on hold for over 5 minutes, tell me.

If there's a way to make things go smoother for both you and me, tell me.

If your quoted price doesn't include delivery, taxes, or other charges, tell me.

If you're going to call me back, tell me. Especially if the order won't go through until you get back in touch with me. It may be another number you need to dial to reach me, or the party/game/music may be too loud to hear the phone unless I'm expecting it.

Related to this, we have the fifth item...

5) Don't pass the buck

If you don't tell me that you're going to call me back, and you can't reach me because I turned off my phone or some other such business, who's fault is that? Any CSR worth her/his salt would not say it's the customer's. Did you tell me you were going to call back? Did you confirm the phone number? And when did the 30 minutes or less timer start? Common sense would indicate that, unless indicated otherwise, it starts exactly the moment you said it. Not 2 minutes after the call back confirmation.

And if I call back to complain about this or anything else, don't imply that it's my fault, don't say it's some other CSR, or the because of the computer. Just make strides to fix my problem. Chances are, I'm more interested in a resolution than playing the blame game.

6 & 7) Do your fucking job

It's your gad-damned job. You voluntarily applied for this job. Please, have some self-respect, pride, and common sense to do your job well. If not for my benefit or the benefit of the customers, then for yourself. It can make customers more helpful and your job easier. A good recommendation and employment history can result as well.

And if not to better yourself, then do the above to spite all those idiot customers you're bound to get. If I never hear somebody ask the price for a 2 topping pizza, then order a 4 topping specialty pizza and complain why it's more expensive than the price I quoted, it'll be too soon.

Or people trying to redeem coupons that they don't really have.

Or customers who think they're so smart and knowledgeable about the system.

God, customers piss me off.

(I'm aware of the irony!)

Grow RPG

Grow was a Flash puzzle game I stumbled upon a while ago. The basic premise is to keep adding gadgets to a ball for it to continually grow and evolve. Certain gadgets have more growth phases than others, and certain growth phases have prerequisites, so using a little bit of grey matter and a lot of trial and error, you have to find the precise order that will evolve the ball into it's complete form.

Confusing? Just give it a try, you'll understand.

But the reason I mention it is that the maker has made a semi-sequal titled Grow RPG. Same premise, different animations and objects, but still amazingly addictive. Maybe even more so than the original.



Figuring the right order is all of the fun, so try not to spoil yourselves by Googling the solution. If you want a bit of a hint, I've taken screen shots of the end solution for both games:

Grow end shot
Grow RPG end shot

Edit: Fixed up unfinished thoughts and half-completed sentences. I used to be able to write coherently on the first try, I swear!

Milky Way : Home Galaxy for the Hopelessly Addicted BBS'er

Press ESC twice to blast off to the Milkyway...

If you were in Greater Vancouver and a fellow BBS'er in the 90's, this phrase should bring up memories; it was the load screen for arguably the most popular local BBS at the time, The Milky Way. I spent a good chunk of the mid to late nineties playing LORD, that Lemonade Stand game, and posting away in the message boards. While I went under many guises, Padishar was the handle most people knew me as.

It made highschool a little more fun and added a little diversity into the mix, allowing me to meet many cool local people in the pre-internet boom era. Milky Way was probably also the main factor in my leaning towards computers and technology and away from soccer and sports. Good or bad? Well, while I claim to be half-decent at soccer (Junior Boys MVP, baby!) I doubt I could have made a career out of it.

The reason for this nostalgia is that the sysop of my once favourite BBS recently passed away. Should I mourn? Should I grieve? Would it be insincere to do so for somebody you barely knew? Instead I will choose to remember the joys that you made possible. Well wishes, Pdk. I hope you knew what joy your BBS and actions brought to many lives.

Gary Golf strikes again!

I was doing some cleaning when I happened upon my copy of SimGolf. I remembered loving this game way back when, so I decided to reinstall it for nostalgia's sake.

Now I remember why I uninstalled it.

This game has taken over my life.



Damn you Sid Meier! At the end of last year it was your remake of Pirates! that had me consumed. Let's just be glad I didn't pull out that other classic Sid Meier game I have in my closet, namely Alpha Centauri. I'd never see sunlight ever again. (never got into the Civilization series, but Alpha Centauri was pure turn-based heroin as far as I'm concerned)

SimGolf NEEDS a sequel. It DEMANDS a sequel. Or at the very least, a remake in the vein of Pirates!

Alright, now that I've gotten that off my chest, it's back to boozing and schmoozing I.M. Picky and Ivanna Richman. Gotta keep expanding my golf course and buy that snazzy airport!

(Somebody... for the love of all that is holy, help me kick this habit!)

Better late than never

I compiled all my Europe trip related bloggings here. I told some people that I would be doing this as well as annotating them with the appropriate pictures and comments... but what can I say. Look at the title of this blog!

I also added an RSS link to the right for those that are interested in such things and didn't know where to find it. I know I told some people that I was planning some significant changes in design and layout, but I think this is the extent of it for the near future. Once again, I refer you to the title of this blog.

Maybe I'll get around to all that extraneous stuff some other time.

Maybe.

Pot Committed

I'm all in. How about you?

A shiver races down his spine. While he likes how things have gone thus far, being forced to show his hand is giving him second thoughts. "Is she bluffling?" he wonders. "What if what I've got isn't strong enough to last?" He doesn't want to make the bet, and yet he's already pot committed. He has to go all in... doesn't he? He looks in her eye as the words stumble from his mouth:

I'm out.

What a doofus. Be a man. Do the right thing!

Street Fighter Salsa

Ever wonder if Ryu and Chun Li of Street Fighter fame ever got together? And if they did, ever wonder if they would take up salsa dancing? Well, wonder no more.

Just bike the stick to the east. Uhh... I mean, click on the link below.

Link (11 MB)

I'm BATMAN! (updated)

You must see Batman Begins. Now. Seriously, get off your ass and watch it. If you've already seen it, go see it again. It's that damn good.

• Best superhero movie I've ever seen? Yes.
• Best action movie I've seen in years? Yes.
• Best damned movie I've seen in years? Hell yes!

For all the people who looked at me weird when I said the first Spiderman wasn't a great movie, Batman Begins is what every superhero movie should aspire to be. This wasn't an action movie that happened to have Batman in it; this was The Batman movie. Also, this was the first movie since the original Matrix that made me want to grab the person next to me and exclaim, "This is fucking awesome!" but wasn't able to because I was too engrossed in the awesomeness of said movie. (Hope I didn't just jinx the franchise)

Christian Bale is such an awesome Batman (giving Keaton a run for his money), and by far the best Bruce Wayne of all the movie incarnations.

Johnny Depp was an amazing Scarecrow (although like Kevin Spacey, I have a genetic bias to love anything the man does on film); Liam Neeson was awesome (as expected) as Ducard, and Michael Caine as Alfred was almost too perfect.

(update: Thanks, Kare, for pointing out it's actually Cillian Murphy, not Johnny Depp in the role of Scarecrow. But I'll be damned if I'm the only one who thinks they could be twins)

I was, however, disappointed with Ken Watanabe's role as Ra's Al Gul. No major spoilers here, but I was hoping he'd get more screen time than he did.

The fight scenes, although jerky, I thought were great for their purpose. The quick cuts styling lent weight to the whole fear/chaos concept, although I wish the Batman/Ra's Al Gul fight scene near the end should have been filmed smoother and with the camera pulled back a bit as to showcase their mastery over their own fears. But maybe I was reading too much into the fight scene cinematography.

Biggest thing that irked me concerned the Batman / Rachel (Katie Holmes) dynamic. And no, it wasn't Katie Holmes' acting (although she was terribly outclasses by most everybody else). My beef had to do with one action Batman took that seemed against his believes. I did, however, like how their relationship was resolved in the end. Again, no big spoilers, just go see the movie for yourself.

The only other small quirk I had about the movie is that the Batmobile wasn't as cool looking. Although I can forgive it since the tank fit so well into the ethos and storytelling of the movie.

Bottom line? I loved this movie. And that's not a word I throw around lightly.




Oh, and the sequel better have a proper looking Batmobile.

There's always room to haggle

For anybody interested in a subscription to the Vancouver Sun, I just got the phone callers to drop their quoted rate to $9.99 / month which includes the Vancouver Sun and access to their pay online services.

Here's how it went down:

Dude calls me up and offers a promotional rate of $17 a month. I said no; the student rate I paid before was alot cheaper.

He then offered to match the price he had on file, $14/month, with the ability to freeze the rate at this price for as long as I continue the subscription. I still said no. There was a reason I dropped the subscription before at that price point.

As a last resort, he offered a price of $9.99/month which included access to their pay online services, also with the ability to freeze this rate for as long as I continue to subscription. While vaguely tempting, I still said no.

Now the person I talked to claimed he was one of the supervisors and so had the power to authorize these discounts. He also said that these prices are strictly only available with outbound calls (they call you, not you call them).

So keep the $9.99 price in mind if somebody from the Sun calls and you have an interest in receiving a newspaper instead of getting all your information through other means.

--

I suppose the lesson is that there's always room to haggle, especially for services. Just don't be a jerk about it; nobody likes to give a jerk a free ride. A few other situations where I was able to receive a lower price come to mind:

• Buying golf clubs? I got Riverside golf to give me what worked out to be about a 20% discount when I bought a set of clubs for Christmas. Granted, they were used clubs, so that may have made a difference.
  
  
• Going to the orchestra? When I was in Vienna I bought some tickets to the orchestra from a street vendor. Convinced him to throw in a free drink (wrote a note on the back of the ticket and signed it).
  
  
• Switching phone providers? When I left Fido some years ago, they offered to give me 2 months on my current plan for free as well as a new cell phone. I stayed with Fido for another 2 months before I switched to Rogers.

Johnson must bike this box.

After I biked this box, I was biking for seven hours. It's a purple stick! Purple I bike! Purple!

(Bike on the stick to the east.)

Stick