Computers v. Cars
This is one of my favorites ... makes me laugh every time! :)

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.


2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.


3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.


4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.


5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.


6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.


7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.


8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.


9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.


10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Picker-upper
Something in the stars today just didn't feel quite right. Ran into my lunch buddy this afternoon and he said I was rather subdued (he also warned me not to park next to his car in case I jinxed his car, bah, which I did.), came home and met up with a even quieter southern boy, he barely said twenty words the entire night, found out that yoshi is in the same boat too - being all melancholy and down.

Went to Shuncks to get some groceries for tonight's dinner. Ended up getting two pint-size Godiva ice-cream: Chocolate Raspberry Truffles and Chocolate Cheesecake. Man, they are to die for, and they're on special: 2 for $5!!!. I downed 1/2 of the Chocolate Cheesecake after dinner, and decided I should stop before my tummy starts rebelling.

I was wishing the Godiva Ice-Cream could be the perfect picker-upper, but now I am all subdue again. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

360º
I thought this work week is going to end well.

On tuesday, I found out that the desktop migration scheduled for wednesday had been put off, meaning that I don't have to clean up my emails from 1.2 GB to 100 MB till next week.

On wednesday, lunch with lunch buddy was great. We went to this new restaurant at Gravois Bluffs called Smokey Bones. Pretty good barbecue if you ask me. We both had the exact same thing, sweet tea, pulled pork plate with fries and slaws. For 7 bucks, it was a really good meal. He just flew back in from LA and had a bunch of stuff to bitch about, so we ended up having a long relaxing lunch, just yapping away.

Then after work, Darren (with his SUV) helped me haul a used Ikea TV stand that I bought from a co-worker. My old TV stand was just bricks and planks, so it was nice to have the new Ikea stand in my apt, plus, it goes with all my existing Ikea furniture. I was really excited for the entire night.

Then come Thursday (today). It was suppose to be a good day, lunch out with Jana and Erin at Nippon Tei on Manchester Rd. Apparently, the map on their website was wrong, which caused me to make a west on manchester instead of east. By the time I realized I was going the wrong direction, I was running really late, so I drove a little faster. Got pulled over doing 52 on a 40. *F@#&* I am pissed! Although, lunch with the girls did managed to calm me down quite a bit, which was good. Because otherwise I would've been fuming. I think intead of TLC, I'm gonna try this new place www.PulledOver.com, a friend of mine did their website a few years ago and thus recommended me this. We'll see how that turned out. I think I just jinxed myself (see my post on tuesday). *sigh*

Hopefully the rest of the week, or whatever's left, will be better.

2003 - Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.
SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.
GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.
OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.
CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING

I'm taking suggestions, please.
Was browsing the web when I stumble across the new Adobe Photoshop Album. I've been wanting a software that will do all the cataloging, arranging, and archiving of my digital photos. Usually, after I downloaded my photos from the camera, I'll upload the ones I like to Ofoto and share the album with my friends. But all my hi-res photos resides in folders within folders on my C:\ drive. Sometimes it takes ages to dig through the old photos when I'm looking for something specific.

I'm excited that Adobe is finally coming out with a product that'll meet my extremely anal retentive cataloging needs, plus it has received good reviews on Cnet and Tech TV. However, I was wondering if there are any other software other than Adobe's that does the same thing (on a PC)? If you know of any, please let me know via comments. Thanks!!

Kentucky Fried Gators
3-point shots ... 39%
Field goals ... 48%
Free throws ... 100%
Total score ... 70
UK beating the #1 team in the USA ... priceless

Inner thoughts
Southern boy and I had dinner with 4 other friends last night at The Mansion. As we all gather around the kitchen where the chef was preparing our dinner I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, wow, I never thought I'll be doing this with my friends ..." Something about this reminds me of how home is, mom and dad always have people over at our house, and they will prepare some dishes, and the other guests will bring dessert. It all seemed so deja vu, maybe I do miss home more than I think. Hmm.

Something also tells me that I'm past my prime. No more crazy drinking, smoking, and all nighter parties. Just having nice dinners and movie nights with my friends are so much more relaxing than getting my own head pounded by alcohol and techno beats.

Oh yes, I'm getting old.

But just this morning I acted like an 18 year old idiot. I was driving casually down I270 when a black Prelude pulled up behind me, then zoomed by next to me, and then we took off, somewhere along the highway we managed to pick up another V8 Grand Cherokee, and the three of us literally kicked the traffic's ass, doing 3 digits at 8.15 in the morning.

I swear, one of these days I'm gonna grow up before the law enforcers get a hold of me.

Most Recalled Superbowl Ads
After all the hoo-haas from last week's Superbowl ads, Adage finally released the survey done by Intermedia Advertising Group to see which ads are most recalled, and most liked.

Not surprisingly, the Pepsi Twist featuring Ozzy having nightmares ranked #1. However, I was rather surprised that my absolute favorite, the Budweiser ad featuring the clydesdales' replay and the zebra referee, only made it to #13 on the recall rank.

Charts from IAG on the Superbowl Ads:
1. Brand Recall Index
2. Likeability Index
3. Recall Split By Gender
4. Likeability Split By Gender

My time, my way
I'm notorious for being late. Everybody that knows me well enough knows that. But I didn't care quite enough to correct my time management. When I was living at home, mom made sure that my sister and I get up in time so that we won't miss the school bus; when I was in college I have Elaine and Holly to bang down my door if they find me snoring at 7.45am (we all had 8am classes then); but now that I have my own place, and no one to wake me up in the morning, I have to find a way to help myself.

In my apartment I have a square wall clock from Target, a cube Old Navy clock on the toilet, an alarm clock on the nightstand, two watches, a microwave, a computer, and a cellphone that all show time. Only my cellphone tells the real time because it's reflecting time beamed from the satellite, and I can't change the settings on it. But since it's a flip phone, I seldom use it as a time-telling device. The rest, they all range from being 5 minutes fast to probably 45 minutes fast.

The reason I say probably is because I have no idea which one is 9 minutes fast, which one is 27 minutes fast... etc. All I know is that I set them faster that the actual time with my eyes close, and every month (or whenever I feel like it) I either reset them or add a couple of minutes to them randomly so that even I can't keep track of how much faster they are. Therefore, in order to avoid running late, I have to make sure I am up and ready dang early. As early as the slowest clock in the apartment, which could potentially be only 3-4 minutes fast.

Everything was going great, my method had been working for a year now, until the power went out one day and southern boy decided that he's tired of being in a time warp and reset the wall clock that I always look at before I leave for work in the morning. I've been late to work for almost a week now. And, the saddest part is, I didn't even realize that I was late because of the clock till today, which is a week later. *sigh*