Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Now life makes sense

I attended this workshop today on career development for after I have no job.  :)  Before we went in, we had to fill out a questionnaire on what motivated us at the job.  Random questions where your personality got revealed after you totaled the scores.  You know, that kind of thing.  Guess in which two categories I achieved perfect scores.  :)

1.  Authenticity Seeker (20/20):  Integrity, passion, consistency of character, self-awareness, personal expression, helping, dedication to cause, improvement, prefers work that manifests own values.

2.  Novelty Seeker (20/20):  Risk-taking, constant change, unfamiliarity, high-energy, challenge, variety, possibility, competition, creativity, restless; moves from project to project.

For the sake of contrast, here are my two lowest scores:

1.  Stability Seeker (11/20):  Structure, reliability, honour, dependability, good planning, efficiency, tradition, permanence, predictability, motivated by job security and long-term career with one firm.

2.  Personal Developer (13/20)  Self-management, self-mastery, continuous learning, challenging work, excellence, performance, excited by work itself.

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

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Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Google Adwords Fail

Saw this in my gmail today:

"Finish your degree at SFU - www.sfu.ca/integratedstudies - A 3-year program for working adults who want to finish a degree"

LOL.  :)

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pets

I saw a woman the other day
She had a little Chihuahua
Carrying it around in her purse
It was wearing a cute little bow tie
Black with bright pink polka dots
And a little top hat

Of course you might ask the question
Dear Paris, what have you started?
But I asked another one
It just naturally popped into my mind
Are pets meant to be...

Displayed?
Dressed up?
Showed off?
Coddled?
Smothered (with love, I suppose)?
Or would they ever roam free (if given the chance)?

I suppose it's the owner's prerogative
And there might be laws about that to a certain extent
But do dogs never want to be free
Run with the wind
Chase cats
I don't know
The stuff that dogs do
Or cats
Hamsters
Budgies
Fish for that matter
(You know you felt sorry for pet fish after watching Finding Nemo)

And I wondered
How many out there are like Nora
Both before and after the epiphany
Because it wasn't Torvald's prerogrative
Was it?

Then why...
Do people act that way?

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

War of Attrition: Me vs The Bed Bugs

Day 4:

I am down to 5 water bottles. I have a peach too, but am afraid to eat it, with the worry that they've laid eggs in it. I have nightmares about the time I was a kid and ate a peach to find a small centipede crawling around in the pit.

My brother has given up hope long ago. He has run to become a scientist in Antartica, where he swears it's too cold for the bed bugs to survive. I didn't even know he was qualified.

I am holed up in the living room, vacuum-sealed from the rest of the home. The transparent walls surrounding my sleeping area are military-grade impermeable plastic, 0.5 cm thick.

The bedroom is a warzone. The mattresses are all gone. So are the box springs. It was a necessary option, given how the suckers had set up base there. We had no choice. Today, we decided to get rid of the frames and headboards too. You just can't take the risk.

My brother promises me that his lab in Antarctica is developing a blowtorch that will turn the coldest piece of frozen wood to ashes within seconds. Normal furniture will take only fractions of a second. While I wait for the new weapons and the black ops reinforcements, I focus on survival and reconnaissance.

The cameras are encased in military-grade steel enclosures and hooked via military-grade fibre to the computers in my plastic bubble. Every now and then I see them move at night with the infra-red vision. They only come out at night, like the bloodsucking vampires they are. There are masses of them, and their numbers grow each day, breeding with horrifying efficiency. They are mustering an army, but for what purpose, I cannot tell. Will they make an assault on my living room bubble?

The neutral zone in between our two bases is smothered with vaseline. I have poured 10,000 litres of the stuff over every surface and crack I could find. It's horrible. I needed to open up a corporate account with Unilever to purchase the stuff in bulk. It arrives by the truckload each day. The drivers refuse to step inside my home. I make a mad dash to retrieve the latest shipment, knowing full well that the little devils could be mounting a counterattack while I was outside the home.

Every now and then, they actually manage to take down one of my cameras. Exactly how they're able to do it, I still cannot tell. During these times, I outfit myself with a suit arrayed with bright white LEDs to ward off the monsters, and go to fix the affected camera. During the day if possible. At night, the risk is too great.

Water. How will I get water. I need to order more supplies soon, but war is expensive. The city refuses to open up the taps to allow me to access the public water supply, fearful of the case that my home will contaminate the city with these horrible creatures. I am cut off from civilization in all ways that I should not expect for normal society. I consider myself lucky that corporations are willing to profit from my suffering to deliver me vaseline, bottled water, and nonperishable food. But what's taking so long. I ordered my last food shipment a week ago. I may be forced to make drastic decisions.

What if they ever pierce my bubble? The thought pains me. If I ever lost my last bastion of defense, I would lose the will to fight. My only hope is to wait for the ultimate blowtorch. And then these suckers will know the meaning of pain. Oh yes they will. They shall know pain. Because it will be payback time. Because then... it's all offense, baby. No more of this turtling up in a hole crap.

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Installing Linux again....

So I bought this used PC, but it's kinda full of dust and dirt. So I'm just gonna scavenge parts, clean them up, and mix them with parts from another PC. Then I'm going to install Ubuntu. It'll be the first time I've ever installed or used Ubuntu, despite hearing so many good things about it over the years. I hope I end up using it longer than I did Red Hat or Mandrake. :)

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Friday, December 05, 2008

Life as an SCV; Lost Opportunities

So I know someone who's letting me try working at a shipping company for a bit, huh? Never did real physical labour for pay before, was interested in seeing what it was like. Lot of free time, why not? It gives me money too, while I work on my stuff. :)

There's a lot of activity that happens on the ground at the warehouse where I've been doing stuff for the past two days. Basically, I unwrap big blocks of lumber, restack the lumber, and then rewrap the lumber with a bunch of Mexican dudes. It's cool, and they're teaching me Spanish.

The forklifts are going all over the place, dropping off new shipments of lumber, and picking up the ones we repackaged. You feel small beside some of these things. Then it hit me. I'm an SCV, surrounded by siege tanks and goliaths on patrol. Any minute, I should be expecting a reaver drop or ling rush. And I'm only an SCV. Not even a marine. Not even a medic. A lowly SCV. And I hope that the goliaths will be able to stop the onslaught. Because I certainly don't wanna be hit by the spread of the siege tanks.

And after a couple of days, my body is starting to ache. I go in tomorrow for a third day, and I don't think I'll survive unless I hit the hot tub tonight. So I go to the pool and soak in the hot tub for 10 minutes. It's nice. Get out and lie down on a reclining chair for another 15 minutes. Then go to the shower. But on the way, I pass the pool. I think to myself, gee, it'd be nice to swim a bit. I haven't swum for a month maybe. So I get in the pool.

As I'm fixing up my trunks, this big monster of a guy gets into the pool and moves in front of me. The most intense dose of BO I've ever experienced hits me, and I gag. And then he starts swimming. In the lane where I wanted to swim. Because it was relatively empty. As I watch him splashes through the water and into the distance, the odour finally starts to fade, and I am left with only one unsettling thought: I cannot swim in this water that has been contaminated by whatever caused this odour. I watch the guy to my left move to the other lane and start swimming there, rather than wait his turn for our lane. I think about following him, maybe the contimation won't spread to the rest of the pool so easily. But I realize that the rest of the lanes are too packed.

So I forlornly get out of the water and head for the showers.

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Monday, June 09, 2008

It's like an alien world

Today, I watched maybe an entire hour of makeup videos on youtube. @@ Crazy. I never realized how much work girls put into their hair, eyes, skin, etc. It's so friggin complicated. I mean... wow. It's just crazy. @@ And it requires a ton of knowledge. And people (well, the women) look like they actually really appreciate these videos. Check out these comments:

"I was wondering... when you use the kabuki brush to buff the mineral foundation in, doesn't the liquid concealer come off with the brushing? Or is the brand that you showed us really good in that it stays on your skin?
I only conceal. I've tried doing powder foundation but whenever I brush over the concealed parts the colour just comes right off to reveal the redness that was under."

" l have a interview 2morrow and I'm going to do that look.

thank u"

"It is basically like a razor with grooves for safety and so it gets a grip on your hairs, so it will grow back faster than tweezing, because tweezing takes the hair out from the roots. But eyebrow hair doesn't grow that fast. I used the eyebrow shaper between my brows, it took 1 and 1/2 weeks."

" god i really love u !!
i'm from belgium and it's not easy to find these tips in dutch, but with your explanation it is so easy"

"i LOOOOOVE the second look!!! absolutely gorgeous, fun and easy to do :D thanks i've been wondering what to do with my bangs since the haircut lady cut them wrong from the start!!! thanks A LOOOT mwah"

Suffice it to say... if a girl asks me if she looks pretty, from now on, I will say yes, she looks gorgeous. Can't imagine what girls feel if they put all that work into it, and then people tell them it doesn't look good. I mean, most women are naturally beautiful anyway, but now I'll feel super guilty if I ever say no to that question. @@

It's definitely a world I'll never fully understand.

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