Sunday, April 12, 2009
Just Some Sunday Thought...
please be philosophical please be tapped into your femininity please be able to take the wheel from me please be crazy and curious papa love your princess so that she will find loving princes familiar papa cry for your princess so that she will find gentle princes familiar please be a sexaholic please be unpredictably miserable please be self absorbed much (not the good kind) please be addicted to some substance papa listen to your princess so that she will find attentive princes familiar papa hear your princess so that she will find curious princes familiar please be the jerk of my knee I've fit you always you finish my sentences I think I love you what is your name again no matter i'm guessing your thoughts again correctly and I love the way you press my buttons so much sometimes I could strangle you papa laugh with your princess so that she will find funny princes familiar papa respect your princess so that she will find respectful princes familiar papa love your princess so that she will find loving prices familiar papa cry for your princess so that she will find gentle princes familiar please be strangely enigmatic please be just like my
Labels: random
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Name's Müller. John Müller.
Friends, I am livid. Very much so! It has only been 77 days since the first black person was sworn in as the President of the United States and some Texas lawmaker unwound the progress made in minority acceptance. And that Texas lawmaker is no other than Betty Brown, a Republican State Representative.
Representative Betty Brown, during a House testimony on voter identification legislation while questioning Ramey Ko, suggested that Asian-Americans should change their names because they're hard to pronounce.
"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese--I understand it's a rather difficult language--do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"
...and later added...
"Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"
What the...?!?
Let's frame this discussion in the proper light. This question was posed to an Asian American, just like me, who is an American citizen. So, what is up with the "you and your citizens" and "we" separation? Clearly, Rep. Brown has some sort of an inclination towards racial divide, for otherwise she in her mind wouldn't dare use such divisive language. Can you imagine if someone you know tells a Hispanic hired help, "Why don't you people learn more English?"
Now, let's look at the context of the discussion: House testimony on voter identification legislation. Key word on identification.
I'm sure you have heard jokes about going through phonebooks and complaining about how everyone is a "Chang" or "Wong," right? Well, let's flip that around. Have you ever tried looking up someone in the phonebook who is either a "Smith" or "Brown," and how thick that section is? Right...
Let's say, for the sake of argument, poll workers truly have a hard time identifying Americans of Asian descent. And for the expressed goal, all Asian Americans will change their surnames to something like "Smith" or "Brown." Now, do you honestly think that it is easier to identify people at polling stations? Instead of lines for last names beginning with "A-H," "I-P," and "Q-Z," they probably will have to have a line just for "Smith," another for "Brown", and finally a line for "Others."
So really, is it truly "easier?" I don't know, but I'd like to ask poll workers what they think about living in a district where there were many Smiths in the community...
Finally, there's the whole "American" thing. Apparently, for Rep. Brown, an American is defined as someone who is either Caucasian, or someone who has a Caucasian surname. Otherwise, anybody else is not an American. I mean, she addressed the question to an American who happened to be not white, and addressed him as if he wasn't an American!
Like I said, I am livid. Just for that, I might consider changing my surname from "Ho" to "Müller." I mean, it should be easier to pronounce, right? But good luck to the poll workers in trying to write that down correctly, cos you don't want to confuse "John Müller" with "John Mueller" or "John Muller," with the latter two being bastardized by the immigration officer at Ellis Island who didn't know "ü". Maybe Betty Brown is related to those uneducated immigration officers?
Come to think of it... Isn't "Brown" the bastardized version of "Braun"?!?
Anyway, if you are a Texan and find this extremely offensive, voice your complaint to the ignorant representative by emailing Brown. Sorry, my Texan friends, but this is yet another reason why I have a distaste for Texas...
Here are the ongoing articles regarding this dumb person: news.google.com - subject "Betty Brown"
Below is the video of the testimony uploaded by KXAN, an NBC affiliate from Austin (if you want the racial comments, fast forward to the 3:30 mark):
Labels: government, ignorance, racism, stupidity, Texas
Friday, April 03, 2009
I Love You, AT&T! Sort of...
Well… How about that? About eight minutes ago, Engadget received a statement from AT&T, stating:
The language added on March 30 to AT&T's wireless data service Terms and Conditions was done in error. It was brought to our attention and we have since removed it. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
I guess that's reason to celebrate after just posting a blog about how upset I was. But as my friend Changren pointed out, which I suspect as well, the error wasn't done by AT&T in poor judgment, but rather that the error itself was being discovered by angry users.
How the hell can you write something in error, especially when it was extremely detailed and broad, covering almost everything? Oh well, apologies accepted.
Labels: ATandT, stupidity, technology
AT&T, You've Outdone Yourself!
Congratulations, AT&T! You have yet outdone yourself when it comes to f**king over your customers! It was barely two years ago when you changed your terms and conditions to include a threat to suspend/terminate any customer contract if you think I engage in conduct that you believe "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."
Well, thank you very much for not terminating my service with you when I wrote that blog entry criticizing you for that s**tty terms of service. But just so you know, I'm going to criticize you yet again today.
What the f**k is wrong with you?!? Last night, you updated your Terms and Conditions, and I have beef with your 2. WIRELESS DATA SERVICE TERMS AND CONDITIONS chapter, I. 8. Prohibited and Permissible Use section, to effectively disallow "downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device, web broadcasting, and... any applications that tether the device... to Personal Computers or other equipment."
Seriously, no tethering, even if I don't use more bandwidth than I would otherwise normally use natively on my N95 smartphone?
Seriously, I can't install applications, such as Google Maps or Skype, since these applications are software that "maintain continuous active Internet connections" whenever I'm driving around or VoIP'ing?
Seriously, I can't set up my N95 smartphone's email client to stay connected all the time and check my email every minute?
Seriously, I can't use my N95 smartphone to take a picture, and instantly upload the picture using my "unlimited data plan" to Facebook via Mobile Uploader, or the Flickr application, because "applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts" are strictly prohibited?
What the f**k?!?
I love you, but I truly hate you. Really. But I'm going to continue using my N95 as I have always, and if you cut me off, I'll see you in court!
Labels: stupidity, technology
Monday, March 30, 2009
What a Shitty Weekend...
Don't get me wrong. The fact that I ran a rather decent race in the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race in a nasty, cold and slushy winter storm had nothing to do with my God awful weekend. And neither did the fact that I lost my company pager during the race contribute to my shitty weekend. In fact, the race in the increment weather was probably one of the few highlights of my weekend!
It all started on Friday. There is this one person, who we shall simply call AM, who I consider a friend. More so as an acquaintance than a friend, but if asked to join her for beer, I wouldn't turn her down. Anyway, AM learned of an alumni reception event that I was attending from a mutual friend who I invited. So on Friday, AM invited herself by asking if she could tag along.
Despite having RSVP'ed already, I had to go through a couple hassles to add AM to the guest list. I figured, why not? The more the merrier. Now, mind you, I have never attended one of these alumni receptions before, so I was nervous and excited. If you know me well, you will know that I have had no qualms about attending events on my own. But this was so exciting that I actually asked a friend to tag along. Plus another one who self-invited.
Come Saturday. The event started at 17:00. My friend and I were already there by 17:15. But guess who decided to show up a quarter till 19:00? AM. This alone was not a problem whatsoever, but the problem is this. She came upstairs, sat at our table, and the first thing out of her mouth was: "The Pitt game starts at 19:00."
And so it began...
In the five minutes she was up there at the reception, she would not stop talking about the game, and wanting to get real food at the bar downstairs, despite the facts that there was plenty of munchable appetizers that were a couple cuts above other receptions, and her mentioning this when the Vice President of University Advancement who was the host of the reception was standing near our table. Worse, AM kept on talking about not wanting to miss the game, but end every statement of her wishes with, "But no rush, John."
What the f**k?!? Here was a guest, who showed up nearly two hours after the reception started, who didn't even attend Missouri State University, who invited herself without being asked, who had the audacity to enter her name in the door prize, started acting like an immature girl! Worse, AM attended neither Pittsburgh nor Villanova.
AM was so annoying, who by the way is 30 years old, that I simply told her that she should go downstairs and I would join her later. This, after trying to appease her by having the bartender turn on the TV so that the game could be viewed, followed by, "But this isn't basketball atmosphere" from her.
Oh man, what a bitch! An immature one at that, too. And sadly, this wasn't the first time AM pulled an immature act on me either.
Fast forward to Sunday. After running the wet and cold Shamrock Shuffle 8K, a few of us went to Fireside Inn for lunch. Everything was hunky dorey, and when we were done, I gave two of my friends a ride to their homes. First stop, AE.
Oh, let me interject here with a quick side note from when I picked up AE to lunch. I had asked which way to turn when we got to the end of her street, and her delayed response was, "Oh, turn right. Sorry, I'm not very good at giving timely directions." End side note.
Not knowing her neighborhood well, and she had been joking about how she only lived "a couple blocks" away from the restaurant, I kept on asking for directions on which way to go. AE started talking about "Clark-y" when we turned onto Ashland, because she thought it was Clark. She told me to cut over whenever, and I did, while she continued talking. But she neglected to tell me to turn on Clark.
Thinking that she only lived "a couple blocks" away, I thought it wouldn't hurt to go on down the side street, and turn into the alley and drive the "couple blocks" to her street. When I got through the first alley, and began to turn into the second alley, she yelled at me with, "What are you doing?!?"
Mind you, during this whole time, she did not give me any directions as to which way to turn. Turned out, now that I've looked at Google Maps, we were nine blocks away from her street!
So, after lunch, without asking, my friends got in my car, assuming I would give them a ride home. True, I was happy to do so without being asked. But I did not need to be yelled at when I was lost. Worse, after explaining that I wanted to go through the second alley to get to her street in the next block (which was really nine blocks away), she kept on yelling at me with nonsense such as, "Why did you want to turn that way," and "Well, that's not the way to go to my place." Instead of yelling, maybe she should've given me directions?
What really pissed me off was that we were driving in a car. In her neighborhood. If we had turned the wrong way, what's the worst that could happen? Take an extra 23 seconds and 0.05 miles out of my way to get to her house, right? Did it warrant the yelling, and the continued badgering like a grumpy mother who is never satisfied with her children's accomplishments of an A- grade point average?
Seriously, it was a shitty weekend. Shitty, shitty, shitty.
But I did 44:44 in the 8K race, which netted an average of 8:59 pace. Not bad after being sick and injured, and not running for a while now. At least that, I'm happy about, despite not being anywhere close to last year's 39:01 finish.
Let's hope this new week gets better.
Labels: life
Saturday, March 21, 2009
You Think You Can Dance?
Well, judging by the video, I don't know if Anna Kasprzak can dance or not, given the incomplete video. But one thing's for sure though: She definitely can't measure her sense of depth perception. Ouch...
I'm surprised that the producers of American Idol have not followed suit with such a stage design, what with the pit and all. You would think that the pit would be a great defense system against angry contestants who choose to storm towards Simon Cowell...
Labels: dance, funny, reality tv
Robert's Rules of Order Neglected This...
Not too long ago, I wrote about a close encounter of the gassy kind with my boss, and how I was utterly unprepared of the rules of conduct in such a situation. I mean, Emily Post left this one out of the books, I think.
Well... Apparently, city council members of Medina, Ohio, had a similar situation. Almost, that is. Whereas my encounter was all in private, their encounter was in public. What does Robert's Rules of Order state when someone farts in a meeting?
Click here for the news article. Below is the video recording of the council session.
So what does that say about Ohio, a former fattest state in the union? Tee hee...
Labels: flatulence, funny, stupidity
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Reason Why I Hate Apple
When the car was invented, one of the first interfaces between man and machine was the steering device. The original cars came with tillers, but it was quickly replaced by a steering wheel. This basic method of interface revolutionized the entire automotive industry.
Imagine if the very simple steering wheel was patented. Or worse yet, the whole concept of an adjustable direction wheels in a vehicle was patented. If that had happened, there won't be as many automotive manufacturers out there today as there are, simply because someone patented those and hampered innovation. But the means of achieving automotive steering has always been patented, such as worm and sector, recirculating ball, rack and pinion, and variable rack and pinion. In fact, if either the steering wheel or the whole concept of adjustable direction wheels were patented, all these innovative ways of doing the same thing will never come to fruition, and we will be so far behind the technological curve as it stands today.
Now, think of that analogy, and apply that to Apple's interim CEO Tim Cook and his recent hint towards possibly suing companies that produce multi-touch screens. In my point of view, that is akin to patenting the steering wheel, or the whole adjustable direction wheel concept.
Seriously? Yes, Apple can patent, as they did, how the multi-touch works, and its approach. But simply calling other companies who happened to have multi-touch behavior a rip-off? That's going slightly too far. I am pretty sure that the Palm Pre has totally different ways of achieving human-machine interaction with its multi-touch screen than Apple's iPhone, despite having the very basic conceptual idea. The same is probably true with Samsung's TouchWiz system.
I think the whole idea of calling others ripping off Apple's multi-touch system is completely out of line. If they truly believe that, then the first company who came up with gestures should sue Apple for stealing that idea. If that were the case, I'm sure Apple will fight back with something like, "Well, the logic and magic behind how it translates from physical to system interaction movement is totally different." And that would be acceptable, and Apple can rest easy.
In my analogy, the multi-touch input is the steering wheel input. The different mechanisms that allow the multi-touch in the iPhone is the underlying software, and its counterpart in the analogy is the different steering mechanisms such as the worm and sector, recirculating ball, rack and pinion, and variable rack and pinion steering methods.
Bottom line? Apple's got to stop being a greedy little bitch and stop making all these outlandish threats. If they decide to sue others for emulating multi-touch interface, albeit in different methodologies as Apple's, then I sure hope that this silly pursuit of greed will bankrupt their tight asses. (The tight asses reference will be discussed more later with another reason why I hate Apple blog entry.)
And thus my one reason why I hate Apple.
Labels: Apple, iPhone, stupidity, technology
Monday, February 16, 2009
Both Emily and HR Neglected This...
I don't proclaim to know everything that Emily Post had written, but I can say with 90 percent certainty that Emily Post failed to mention how to handle one particular scenario for which I desperately needed to know earlier today. And I know with a 100 percent certainty that the employee handbook didn't cover this either...
What do you do when you are greeted with a foul smelling air lingering in the restroom when all you needed to do was tingle; and while you make audible gagging sounds and hurry through your tingle, the toilet flushes in a stall and out comes someone you work with? And what do you do when you go to wash your hands and you realize it was your boss's turd aroma responsible for the stench, and he asks, "How's it going, John?" while he dries his hands with paper towels?
Do you make short little acknowledgments? Or do you try to carry a normal conversation pretending you're in his office? And do you keep eye contact at all, or focus on the lather on your hands? Or is it simply best to look at him through the mirror?
Help?
Labels: advice, biology, disgusting
Who's the Wuss Now, Huh???
2009 had been kind of strange for me so far. In a good way, that is. When I went in to renew my driver's license with the state of Illinois back in January, I thought long and hard about some of my life choices in the past while waiting in line. No, not my choice in sexual orientation, but something profoundly deeper.
For the longest time since being licensed by Pennsylvania, Missouri and Illinois, I had always left that little checkbox that read "organ donor" blank. My thought process was that if it was time for one to leave the world of the living, then it was time. Why should some doctor get to play a higher form of deity and take one of my organs to extend the life of another?
Well, suffice to say, I decided to check that "organ donor" box this past January. Change of heart? Possibly. I realized that playing a form of deity was not a problem of mine in this whole thing. I also realized that it was entirely selfish of me to take my healthy organs to the grave should I be lucky enough to become brain dead in some kind of a freak accident. (Preferably involving two hot naked chicks...)
In that same train of thought, I decided without hesitation to give blood when my company sent out an email informing us of an employee blood drive. The 10th of February is now forever sketched into my electronic calendar as the day I first gave blood for the very first time in my life.
The reading materials warning me of the gazillion reasons why I may or may not be a suitable candidate as a blood donor? No big deal. The 369 questions (or so I thought) in the questionnaire regarding my history, such as if I had ever slept with a person who received or made payment for sexual favors? Believe it or not, I actually struggled with this questionnaire. I thought, what about one night stands, and I had worn protection? Was that any less critical than being in sexual cahoots with a "person who received or made payment for sexual acts?" LOL
Okay, so I wasn't really struggling with the questionnaire, but I did chuckle to myself with ethical minefields I was conjuring up in my wickedly twisted mind. After all that hustle, I finally sat in the waiting area for a free lawn chair that looked like the ones the American Red Cross had stolen from the poolside of some imitation swanky hotel pools. Except these came with the hooks to hang your blood bag with.
As an athlete, I am always subconsciously competitive with most trivial things. I had overheard the big guy who had already started giving blood that it wasn't his first time. Again, in my twisted mind, I created a little competition to see if I could give a pint of my blood close to the time this big guy got done.
Unfortunately, the competition quickly faded because suddenly all my manhood momentarily seeped away when the nurse took out this ginormous needle with a needle hole large enough to fit a Tic Tac! "This will only sting a little," was all I could hear before I thought I was going to pass out. Remember, I'm the kind of guy who enjoys watching the needle pierce my skin and muscles. Like I said, I'm kind of twisted.
Thankfully, the sting was indeed little, even though it lasted a good second too long. And before long, I was focusing back on the competition. I don't remember how many times I must've done this, but I turned my head to look at the big man in the eyes, followed by looking deeply into his pint bag. If only I could see what he was thinking every time I did that. But soon enough, my pint bag was bursting in the seams before the big guy gave a pint. Ding Ding! I had won. In fact, I even had enough time to get the nurse to take pictures of me before the big guy finished.
As I proudly walked over to the snack table, I read over the list of things to do or not do in the five hours after giving blood. I sat down to chug two boxes of apple juice, and that's when the big guy came over. He drank some orange juice, and we both snacked away. The guy kept on sitting there, eating slowly, and taking his sweet ass time. I thought I could copy that, because what can possibly be better than to waste productivity on company initiatives, especially when free food was involved?
But before long, the moral person in me whispered in my ears, "Get your ass going! You have a couple things you have to do before you leave for work!" So I did. As I left, I snickered to myself thinking of the big guy still sitting there snacking away slowly, What a wuss! Big giant guy can't take it like a man for just a pint of blood?
Of course, after walking back hurriedly to my desk, I started feeling dizzy and wobbly. Turned out that yeah, you really need to take your time to recover after giving blood. So who was the wuss now?
Damn!
Labels: American Red Cross, giving blood, philantrophy, stupidity
Hello, 2009!
It sure has been a long time since I last updated my blog, hasn't it? To be accurate, it has been 225 days and some change since I last updated my blog. I guess it is a good thing that I am unlike most other bloggers who tried to bank on blogosphere, eh?
Admittedly, my last entry was somewhat boring in nature. I was taking a little break to go to the west coast to see my new niece and family, and since my dad had passed my blog address out, I thought it would be fitting to update family members new to my blog with a diary journal of sorts to highlight my father-and-son trip up and down the western seaboard.
So why did I stop writing in the midst of the trip? Well, you should know that the whole journaling during the trip was all done retroactively. So by the time I wasn't on the train anymore, I stopped writing. I mean, if you're in Seattle, would you rather go out and have fun, or stay in and write? =) As you can tell, being cooped up in a train car for days on end without much mobility really made a dent on my humorous writing. Okay, maybe I wasn't humorous, but it sure got less humorous right after I started the train ride.
By the time I got back to Chicago, I had to catch up with so many things. The most important of all, which is in the order of livelihood, not personal passion ruler, was work. August 17, 2008 was the date for which all the hard work I had been putting in ever since starting at the hospital hinged on: Go-live date. And of course, once we successfully went live on IBM servers, it was a bit of hell to take on full responsibilities for the daily operations, when pressure type changed from ensuring project progress toward maintenance so that the systems don't go down.
Next up: The 2008 Chicago Marathon training. Seeing how I had missed the first, fourth and fifth week of the marathon training for being out of town, I thought it would be best that I finally get into the thick of things. I mean, that was my first ever to volunteer as a group leader for CARA, and I had close to 30 runners I'm responsible for. And naturally, as the weeks go by, the higher the mileage of the runs. So more running meant less personal time. This in turn meant no time to blog for me.
Of course, you can ask me why I didn't get back into it once I have completed the Chicago Marathon. Well... I went and ran the Seattle Marathon afterwards, followed by falling almost deadly ill for three weeks straight. Since then, I have yet to stop my lazy ass from becoming a total couch potato.
But no more of that! It took seven weeks of 2009 for me to finally realize that I got to get my lardy ass and second-trimester belly with A-cup manboops in some sort of a shape and get back into my normal routines.
Ta-dah! Here I am! (Only because blogging is hell of a lot easier than running...)
Disclaimer: Despite declaring my return to normal routines in such a transparent media, I sure as hell am not guaranteeing that I'll eat my own boxers if I fail to update this blog as often as when I was traveling for work. =)