Friday, August 17, 2007

INSOMNIA ATTACT

When you talk about insomnia, you think of haggard looking folks with their swollen eyes and tired faces trudging along to the routine of their daily lives except when it comes to the time to sleep. Try as they might, they just cannot fall asleep and build castles in the sky or run away from monsters of the world (which when you come to think of it, is not that bad at all)

I used to face the problem at a certain time, when my mind will be racing through thoughts and memories, and music, and movies or ideas for stories deep in the night when everyone else was fast asleep. Since I never went to see any doctor about the issue, I was never really diagnosed with insomnia, and as my mind/body has it's own way to deal with the so-called problem with the ever famous 'pay back sleep' scheme, it has never been a major problem.

But what's happening now, is I find myself self inducing insomnia, where I refuse to try and sleep regardless of how tired (and sleepy) I actually am. It's quite easy, really... I just drink a cup of coffee during lunch, and another cup of tea in the late evening. To avoid sleeping, I sit up and watch mindless stuff on tv, listen to music and try to sing along, and when entertainment is scarce, I read whatever falls into my hands. By doing this, I'm happy that even though I'd spent about 12 to 13 hours working, at least I used a few hours doing something I really like although I might no necessarily enjoy it at the moment. (And it's also not that I don't like working - I do... I might be bored to death otherwise) In my defence, however, after a certain hour, the so-called sleepiness disappears... which makes it hard to actually fall asleep.

I wonder when will the body start demanding the replacement sleep....

Thursday, August 09, 2007

CRAZY LIL THING CALLED TECHNOLOGY


OK. I'm officially annoyed with this thing called technology. And everything connected to it!
It seems to have formed a club where the main aim is to gang up on me and cause me sleepless nights, small little heart attacks and have me singing the chorus of Blur's Tender to those so called tech equipment to get things going.
Here's the story....
You could say that it all began somewhere in February when I saw that (insert laptop brand name) were having a promotion via (insert bank name) Very well knowing that I've been intending to get a laptop ever since Penti3's soundcard crashed I decided to get that laptop, because:
i. The favourite sibling has used hers of the same brand and says it's pretty good
ii. Yours truly is too lazy does not have the time to get it from a shop
iii. Talking to sales people in computer shops can be very confusing
Now so far, the laptop itself has no major issues with the exception of the (drum rolls please) Operating system. Which has been a big fat bummer thing of course, because the operating system is still in its infancy and is not compatible with everything else.
Me: Can't you give me the other operating system?
Salesperson (on phone): I'm sorry, we have phased out that particular system.
Me: But your advertisement says...
Salesperson (on phone): Yes, but the advertisement was released in January. Now it's the end of February, and we have phased out the old operating system.
Me: Fine, whatever...
So at this moment several months later, I'm using a mega *hebat Operating system which
i. Prevents every other program from executing.
ii. Does not allow me to install games like Sims 2 which I've been dying to play (according to a colleague, however, I need to upgrade my graphic card, and just my luck, I had other pressing issues to attend to the last weekend when the pc fair was going on. Besides, I'd have been severely clueless about the graphic card and knowing me, I'd have got something which will not be compatible)
iii. It does however, support games which were published back in 1998. How?
iv. The new printer is uninstallable because the installation CD does not cater for this hebat Operating system. I have to download the installation program via the internet. That itself is another problem, because although my bandwith is 512MBPS, the program decided to download at 9 - 15 kbps. Based on calculation, I'd need 10 hours to download the program! Grrrr
v. It nearly killed my 3 day old mp3 player. First the player just jammed up while I continuously pressed the next button. In it's hanged state, I did the only thing possible that is allowing the battery to die out. The next day, while I was charging the thing, it jammed up again and was totally undetected by the laptop. (I later learned very valuable lessons: a) Do not keep on pressing the next button on this particular brand of mp3 player because it will hang, and b) My laptop's usb port may not be powerful enough to recharge the battery, therefore while I was busy thinking that the player's being charged, the battery power was actually being used up!)
vi. Talking about the internet, I'm unfortunately disallowed from watching movies online... DivX played once and then totally stopped working. Software from a reputable company is (surprise, surprise) detected as a Trojan horse! What the hell?
vii. The saddest tale of all belongs to the old mp3 player... firstly I bought it without reading up on it, therefore the software to transfer music from the computer to the player created havoc... Penti3 looked like it was gonna die, my sis laughed at me, etc. But Penti3 survived and I could transfer my music at the rate of 1 song at a time. But now, with the laptop, the software worked for one day after I convinced it that I was the administrator, and then it too decided to leave me in a lurch. It says something is wrong with the system and suggested that I reboot my system. No way, Jose! No amount of uninstalling and reinstalling helped in any way..
Why, oh why do these things happen to me?
The only thing I'm glad is I didn't get the other type of pc/laptop... you know the one with the forbidden fruit? Had I done that, and with the wonderful support this place on earth has, I'm guessing I would have had to climb on the sunset thieves' balcony and thrown it down onto the road!

*hebat ~ wonderful

Friday, August 03, 2007

ITEM BY GENDER



Via e-mail:

You've might not known these philosophy, but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female.

Here are some examples:

FREEZER BAGS: They are male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.
PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm them up again.
They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong buttons.
TIRE: Tire are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated.
HOT AIR BALLOONS: Also a male object, because to get them to go
anywhere, you have to light a fire under their arce
SPONGES: These are female, because they are soft, squeezable and retain water.
WEB PAGES:
Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.
TRAINS: Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.
EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female because, over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom.
HAMMERS: Male, because in the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.
THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would
be male, but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...