Distanced Self

I'm feeling a bit weird these days. As if I was disjointed from my body and consciousness and am just as free as a bird. I can see myself from a third person's point of view, but more to the point, I've been imagining myself distancing from myself as a human.

Its a strange thought. Humanity has been differentiated from animals because we have the capacity to have self awareness. We can do abstraction, and apply different events and cases to ourselves based on other's experiences. And right now its the self awareness of thinking about life in general that has taken up residence in my head. Due to the third person and distanced perspective, all of these questions do not actually have a negative nuance. Its just general curiousity with a bit of expletives. These few questions are:

1. This is weird, why the hell am I alive?
2. This is amazing shit. I actually know I'm alive. Is there some sort of reason I'm given this consciousness, fulfill some sort of purpose maybe?
3. When I grow old and die, (or maybe be killed accidentally or murderously) does life end there? (i.e. Is there an afterlife? does a higher being exist?)
4. How would I know what that purpose (my life's purpose) is?
4. Is destiny for real? Or I'm just lucky to have been given this set of consciousness, and there's actually no purpose that im supposed to do, im just a lucky sonofabitch, and I'm left to do my "thang"?
5. Despite the fact that I live in fear, stress and anxiety with a 9 hour daily weekday job, I'm still rather conscious that I can do whatever I want. It feels rather nice. I wonder if i can do barbeque in the office for lunch?

This gives new meaning to the thought that "God has given man free will", and life is actually a God given blessing. No that i actually believe in a God though. But it still pises me off that's there's an idea floating around that we're destined do to something in our lives (predestiny), as well as leave fate to drive wherever we're going. I thought I was the one who's supposed to be behind the steering wheel? If everything is predestined, then I'm not exactly driving the wheel now, am i?

I shake the matter off, ignore the thought of predestiny and fate, and continue believing that I'm free to my own devices. Only because it agrees with me more and leaves me in a nice, cheery disposition.

I shall treat each day as a new one and have no responsibilities.

Now if I just try to map out what I want to do with my life. Most of them feels tasteless.. If there is no afterlife, and my life stops at death, then there is no point in worrying too much about the future. If there is an afterlife, I should probably be safe enough to at least do good deeds instead of robbing the bank and murdering annoying people. I am in the urge of experimenting with different things as of the moment.

Shaving my hair all off comes to mind. I shall have to make preparations for it soon.

Tech Day: Windows Short Cuts

I've had this pet peeve when working with computers over long periods, particularly when working. When you're job is IT related, and you work more than 8 hours a day staring and typing at the computer, you want to make the work as smooth as possible, without disruptions, particularly when you have the ball rolling faster and faster and you physical capabilities is trying hard to catch up with the ideas in your head.

I also like to have things MY way. This means that someone slightly obssessive compulsive as I am, (I am not yet clinically diagnosed with OCD) I DEFINITELY want things to go my way. If there was a technological mind reader that could translate thoughts into commands, then I would definitely be the first ones lining up for it.

Here are a couple of handy things that I've taken note of while forced to work with Windows. If i could get away with unix type systems, I would, hence I have cygwin installed to alleviate my grievances short term. But while Windows rule the system, I will have to bend a bit to be able to use it fruitfully and efficiently without having resorting to periodic tantrums of dissatisfaction.

One thing I hate the most about graphical based systems? The complete reliance of switches between your hand on the keyboard and on the mouse. It gets terribly tiresome, particularly when cutting and pasting between windows, selecting or highlighting objects/text, opening and closing programs, and the like.

Thus one of the handy things I like is the short cut keys you can enable in windows. This is _VERY_ important! It reduces the amount of time that you have to do with your hands from clicking/pointing and typing text/commands. When you're just surfing, you just hold on to the mouse, point and click away. But when you're doing serious business, you don't want to type something, switch to another program so then move you hand to the mouse to highlight a section, then click ctrl-C, and then back. To have this happening X number of times ticks one off. Thus these short cut keys are one of the more enjoyable alternatives to have.

Secondly, although Alt-Tab has been highlighted as a very important key to yuppies everywhere to hide that out-of-work funny business from the boss or supervisor, its also one of the very essential key combinations when you're working on several windows. It saves the trip from the keyboard to the mouse, and its readily accessible.

Another one is having to open windows explorer and not having it to greet you with nonsense like "My Computer" , "My Network Places" , "Control Panel" and other unimportant things. This is terribly irritating, and given the chance, I'd like to do away with them already. Completely useless. But since I still cant find a way to remove them, (yes i know some of these "My Documents" can be removed by tinkering with the control panel folder settings, but I cant get them all removed, and I frankly think its still not enough. Whatever happened to the explorer just showing the available drives only? now its just so cluttered.) Thus im pleased to find out about the switches explorer has available for users. Its not really advertised since Windows attempts to sneakily let users settle for point and mouse clicks and double clicks, but its not very robust either. Not unlike a lot of unix functionalities and switches, but, it gets the job done.

Customizing Windows Explorer
Source: Microsoft site

Command line call windows explorer with the ff switches (all first line commands starts with a slash):

switch - result
/n - new single pane window for default selection
/e[, object] - starts windows explorer using its default view [focus on specified folder]
/root, object - opens a window view of specified object
/select, object - opens window view with specified folder, file or program selected

Shortcut keys
right click program, select shortcut tab, enter key combination in shortcut box. NOTE! This does not work when the program resides in the quick launch bar.

Being a Parent

I just had a thought earlier today...

I wonder what kind of parent I would be when I become a mother?

I thought about being a parent; Would I grow up to become friends with my kids, or do I retain a certain distance from them? I started thinking about all the types of parents I've met.. my parents, uncles, my brothers, friends..

The first thing I thought about was one of my brothers. He's just had his first son, and the baby is just a few months old. My brother spends his days working on overtime for a IT firm and tends to come home at 8 or 9pm everyday when work is not loaded; if it is, then he comes home at 12 midnight. On weekends he spends his days playing computer games... I thought, how cool a dad would that be! You have a dad who's going to end up playing games with you.. multiplayer ones or play ps2 (or ps3 or ps4...) or xbox. That would be something I would've liked to have when I was growing up with my parents...

And then I thought of myself. Im the antisocial one, but then again, I love watching movies and tv shows. I even go watch in marathon-style. Wouldnt it be great to have a mother who loved watching the same shows as you? Watch the latest shows together, exchange theories? be a mother and son/daughter couch potato?

And then I thought about one of my uncles. He's always the "IN" one with us. Not that his values are in sync with us younger generations, but he enjoys a lot of the stuff that we get into. He knows about them,and doesnt really judge us so much. He gives us advice, but doesnt really force us to change our minds. He lets us make up our own minds.

Then there's my eldest brother. He's into scifi and loves photography and astronomy. Its nice to be able to take up your kid to watch meteor showers and spend time developing pictures in the darkroom. Every kid wants to see how things are done; they're naturally curious. Wouldn't it be just great to have a dad who could show these things to you?

And I have another really cool brother who's into cars. He's a sports fanatic, and one of those buffed up jock types you wished you were friends with when you were in high school. And he's great with kids too. He's probably going to end up being a cool dad.

And then I was thinking about my parents. I've never really bonded with them.. maybe our interests are just too different for my taste? We rarely do anything together... but then, i thought, maybe i just haven't tried hard enough to figure out what makes them click. We tried playing mahjong once, and it seems every body was enjoying..although im just not as interested about mahjong as I am about watching movies and tv shows.

mmm. Just as odd mumbo jumbo rambling here.

Ever wonder what kind of parents you'd be?

Conversation Overheard...

I was on my way to the airport one evening...

And I overheard this funny conversation between a Hong Kong and a Philippine businessman:

Phil man: Its no secret that I've fooled around with other girls, I mean, its normal a lot of people do it...
HK man: Yes its ok..
Phil man: I mean, its not really ok, and I know my wife knows that I do, but the thing is, you shouldn't be proud or brag about it. A lot of guys brag about cheating their wives, and that's wrong, that's really wrong.
HK man: Yes that's right...
Phil man: I don't throw it at my wife's face or brag to my friends about it, but my wife definitely knows i've slept with other girls.. but its just her suspicion, i dont really tell her about it...
HK man: Yeah, its really not nice to tell all people about sleeping with others... Some guys just tell their friends all about it, and its not nice..
Phil man: Yeah, i know.

Ohhhhkay. Its alright to sleep with other women just as long as you dont brag about it to other people and make your wife lose face..? I mean, is it really ok? And you talk about it in public, on a quiet carriage and let the rest of the passengers hear about your conversation.. I would've thought that there'd be a bit more discretion about this. Certainly not bragging. Oh no, of course not. Its not like I was straining to hear the conversation. I was just sitting there minding my own business and you can't help but hear this conversation.

Is that how businessmen talk to each other? Its not a heart to heart conversation, its just an idle conversation piece i suppose, but I cant help but be disturbed about this. It seems just wrong.

Hk man: So were will you be going once you get home?
Phil man: We have an old house in the city, I'll be going back there... Its actually big, several rooms, a lot of bathrooms installed.. I dont stay there a lot actually..
Hk man: Ah well, why don't you sell the place? You can get more money that way, rather than just let it sit idle?
Phil man: Its been with my family for a long time.. and I dont really like selling the property..its ok actually..
Hk man: Hahah.. too big that you get lost in the house, right?
Phil man: hahaha yes...

OMG, at this point my eyes were rolling. Is that bragging I hear???

Hk man: So in case you sell the place, will you be taxed by the government? like a profit tax or something? How much % is it?
Phil man: yes! that's a hassle.. because the tax is around 33% percent...
Hk man: whoa, 33%? that's a lot!
Phil man: yes, that's right.. i mean even the income tax is high.. I have a daughter who paid $250,000 alone for her income tax
HK man: whoaaa...the tax is so big!

Wow, his daughter seems to have a very big salary... I wonder what job she' s in? and in dollars??? that's definitely skyrocket-high salary!

Phil man: So do you play mahjong?
Hk man: No I dont.
Phil man: (pause).. I dont either.. I could never understand why a lot of people play them.. It seems like a tradition in chinese.. most of the chinese in the Philippines play mahjong on weekends.. and even in casinos, most of them are chinese.. I dont like gambling..
HK man: hahaha.. because the business itself is a gamble already!
Phil man: hahah yeah...
HK man: Well, you know some people want fast money.. what's faster to earn money than to gamble? People play because they want to get money fast.. unfortunately they also lose money fast..

MMmm.. Didnt know a lot of chinese play in the casinos.. and that its prevalent that chinese's play mahjong on weekends a lot.. but i just hate the fact that this part of the conversation was said in a bit of a condescending tone.

No wonder I dont like small talk.. especially in business. If i have to put up with something like that with a partner/would be partner, I'd just drop the partnership altogether. Ugh.

And no, honestly, I wasn't straining to hear their conversation.. Its just so loud, everyone can hear it. I just want to cry and squirm in my seat listening to those two having that kind of conversation. I was just thinking, the conversation seems sooooo loaded and awkward if i were in one of their shoes.

Thank god I have a job that doesn't require me to do small talk with anyone I dont know. I'll probably be ending up with a conversation like that (but without the cheating, bragging or gambling,.. hmm.. i guess that means my conversations would end up boring. Better not talk than to talk at all for me, i suppose.)

I should be counting my blessings.

Credit Card Freebies

One thing I like about Hong Kong are the credit card promotions.

I dont know about other places, but in the Philippines back when I was still there, having a credit card is a priviledge. You usually have to apply and pay for them for yourself. There's no such thing as a free gift back then. I dont know the state of credit card promotions now, although it might be taking off right now, but the thing with Hong Kong is the great promotions they have with credit card applications.

Lots of banks set up street boths to promote their cards. Hong Kong people are known to own several, ranging from 3-5 cards at any one time. (No there's no statistics that I can refer to right now, but all my officemates and friends have at least 2 in their wallets, and probably some others stashed at the house) Aside from each credit card having several type of discounts on retail shops and dining locales, which would really be convenient for shopping, (so handy since people here are also avid shoppers. It wouldn't be a great tourist destination without the loads of shopping malls with renowed brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton and the like) most of them also provide installments with 0% interest on selected shops. They even waive the annual fee for the first few years. So getting a credit card is generally cost free.

But the thing that gets people off to apply for them are the really great giveaways they include once your application is approved.

Some give away freebies upon the immediate approval of your application. Others require you spend a certain amount with your card to get the freebie. Needless to say, its one of the reasons you want to look out for seasonally when you're in dire need of a particular appliance.

This season, they're giving away lots of interesting things:
1. DVD players
2. Coupons to established supermarket chains (For the mommies who want to save the supermaket bills)
3. Digital Video recorders
4. Cameras
5. Heaters
6. Digital entertainment sound systems
7. Mp3 players
8. LCD monitors
9. And lots lots more!

Of course, most of these freebies are usually less well known brands. But then, if the generic or less well known brand works, why hold out on applying for a no cost credit credit card and get a branded one? You have to shell out a lot more money for the branded ones, and these banks rarely give away stuff like Sony or Samsung, so getting branded stuff ends you up spending more. So, why not, right?

I already have 3 cards on hand.. now I've applied for another one. Its really convenient cause I was planning to get an mp3 player (my old one is already dying on me). Now I have to option to get something else aside from the mp3. I can just use the newly card I applied for and get an mp3 player.

And its is an Ipod Shuffle 512MB no less. (retail price for a 512MB IPod shuffle is ~900HKD)

I just have to spend 4800HKD within the next 6 months of application approval, plus an added 298HKD to get the IPod. The credit card amount usage is nothing since that would mean an average usage of 800HKD per month; The food expense alone would be enough to cover that. An average meal here costs around 25HKD (Mcdonalds meal is generally between 20-25HKD per meal) and three meals a day would amount to more than enough. Plus the luxuries, 4800HKD expense in 6 months is a walk in the park. (Thank god I still have my job tho)

I have a couple of stuff I was planning to get, but since the mp3 player will come for free, that is one less expense to worry about. :)

I hope they would still have promotions on LCD monitors and cameras in the next few months. I was hoping to get those, too.

Man Thank goodness I'm living in HK. These HK credit card companies are great!

Limits of an OC and his Statistic Project

For weeks now I've been staring at the same numbers. To my dismay its been growing slowly ever since. I don't know when will it even stop, or when will be the next time that I "start over again". Every day it grows a little. I carry on doing more important things (for a most important person like me) and leave it alone for a while. When I come back to it, I decide that its not acceptable because its not up-to-date anymore, and besides, the more sample data, the better it is, the accurate it is, right? Its like limits and derivatives. Conjure up a formula, put an unknown variable and make the pompus sounding statement that "... if unknown variable in the formula approaches infiinity, the result will be so and so..." (Personally, I think one of the reasons calculus was conjured, particularly limits and derivatives, is to make people who use and study them feel smarter for using such words as "if and only if", "the function of x", "as n approaches infinity/0". I mean f(x)=x+1 where x->2 is just a fancy way of saying y=2+1=3, isnt it?)

Ah well, it is not up to me to understand the mysteries of calculus, the founding people who started it or the congregations of avid bunch of mathematicians, physicists, engineers... (and other collegiate majors that involve studying and loving calculus).

Back to my number crunching. Thus I live in a state of limbo. In one day, I partially finish 40% of the work, then something more important comes up, so leave it for a while, and then when I come back and look at the figures, I get this urge to increase the sample set ("because its more accurate that way") and recalculate everything all over again. Its tiring work, thanks to my obsessive compulsive nature. I been in this situation more than 5 times already. I've lost count.

FYI, I'm working on projecting server statistics. This includes lots of monitors and key figures that tell if the server is in a healthy shape and if it is still in a nice enough condition to handle a few more beating from the very well done application that we have. That includes lots of nice figures like IO, Real Memory, Swap memory, CPU, and on the db side, latches, waits , enqueues, parses, full scans, io rate blah blah blah... so many numbers... I can see them everywhere.. just everywhere.... weeeEEEeeee!

The numbers are driving me nuts. It just keeps on growing, and growing, and growing... even Excel can't handle it anymore. The whole PC just slloooooOOOooooOOOoooows down. Two months out, and I'm still working on this.

I should be determined. I should finish this whole thing by Monday. *determined nod*

(I hope this will be the last Monday deadline I've set myself to finish this damn thing.)

Statistics + OC = Death of me...

No wonder I never liked statistics when I was studying. I got a D.

Tech Day: Oracle V$FILESTAT continued

Oh great. Im getting two contradicting statements from official oracle documentation/notes on the time unit for the readtime/writetime columns in the V$FILESTAT. One says the column in measured in "milliseconds" the other says column is measured in "hundredth of a second" or centisecond.

UGH.

So much for partial stats submission before. It might be possible im missing a decimal place..

What a day....

Tech Day: Oracle Physical Reads on V$FILESTAT

When one says physical reads, does it really mean physical read?

Obviously not, in the case of working with an oracle database.

I've been working on compiling server statistics on our oracle database, and i hit upon the assessment of io usage. Thankfully, i've discovered a system table within the oracle database which seems to contain self described columns called readtim, writetim, phyblkrd, phyblkwrt and a whole other slew of columns which indicates physical reads and writes on each datafile component on the database.

I thought, "God sent, do i have my work cut out for me".

Upon closer query, i checked the documentation and it seems to confirm my assumptions of the names (the oracle documentations can be found in the official oracle website):

COLUMN - DESCRIPTION
PHYRDS - Number of physical reads done
PHYWRTS - Number of times DBWR is required to write
PHYBLKRD - Number of physical blocks read
PHYBLKWRT - Number of blocks written to disk; which may be the same as PHYWRTS if all writes are single blocks
READTIM - Time (in hundredths of a second) spent doing reads if the TIMED_STATISTICS parameter is TRUE; 0 if FALSE
WRITETIM - Time (in hundredths of a second) spent doing writes if the TIMED_STATISTICS parameter is TRUE; 0 if FALSE

Confirming my assumptions, i proceeded to collect and compile the data for proper io statistics evaluation and projection.

I pore over the numbers. I crunched them. I summed them up. I calculated, I analyzed, and finally, I conquered... NOT.

After going through loads of calculations, I find that the numbers dont seem right. I was ended up with a maximum io of 700MB/sec, which sounds suspiciously wrong. My PC at home has a 2 IDE 133 HDs and it takes loads of time to copy over a mere 300MB file. Asking me to believe that a io figure of 700MB/sec sounds incredulous. That would be like... Flash. I look up HD specs across the web to confirm this seemingly out of this world figure. Of course, If i had several top of the line SCSI disks, i suppose the io would be possible... but i just had to make sure.

And I just might have to possibly take a chance and make a fool out of myself.

I approached my supervisor, who also handles most of the network details. To confirm if this figure is remotely possible. I stood up. I approached, and I asked. Then finally, I squirmed.

Once a fool, always a fool, i suppose.

As you can probably tell, its not possible. Not even probable. The figures are most definitely defying the limits of our system. Unless a ghost popped up and suddenly decided to make things a hell of a lot faster, to save the company time and money.

I start hyperventilating. 2 month's statistics, and they might possibly go down the drain. I can't believe this. I have to get to the bottom of this. Owing to the my obsessive compulsive nature, I pore over the web. Read through documents, hoping something will explain this figure. I will not let 2 month's statistics go down the drain. I go through the official website. I messaged my friends, hoping against hope that I will be able to find a sane coworker Oracle DBA who can confirm the internal workings of the huge monster called an Oracle database.

I mean, physical reads are.. physical disk reads, right? IT norms usually refer to physical as disks, memory as real memory or cache, so the figures can't be wrong. And besides, oracle documentation says so. they say its "Physical" reads/writes. The only possible explanation is that the server is retrieving large chunks of free space from disk and passes them on as data.

Finally, after a gruelling day, I sat at my chair, resigned, and posted a message in the forum boards describing my situation. Hoping some oracle expert will explain this little conundrum of mine (and quell my ever growing fear and hyperventilation).

I got the answer this morning, from an Oracle employee. And im not very happy about it:

(Dear .. yada yada yada... bunch of formulas a bit of explanation... blah blah blah...)

Use OS specific tools when monitoring Disk I/O.An Oracle IO is a call to the Operating System to perform an IO operation and may not result in a physical disk IO .

(...yada yada.. thanks.. regard.. sincerely... blah blah blah)

Oh great. Talk about misleading. Physical doesnt really mean physical. Juuuust great. People, please take note, don't ever make this mistake. It will likely make you lose your job. Gawd. TWO MONTHS. io stats going down the drain!!!!

Now i have to figure out how to savage these statistics to make them usable. Otherwise, I may find myself bumming around the house all day, all week, really really soon.

ARGH!

Lost Series: The TV Show

Lost, The TV Show

(beware, this blog contains some spoilers on the tv show :) )

A TV show created by the same creator as Alias, starring Jennifer Garner. Plot revolves around the survivors of a Australia-headed-to-LA plane that crashed into a mysterious tropical island suspiciously infested with polar bears, strange unknown monsters and crazy, demented people. This excludes the suvivors who are not exactly far off from being mental themselves. Episodes includes backstories on the survivors of the plane crash, as well as little tidbits on the island itself. The show would not go far if the survivors were rescued, so the story has the convenient premise of having the plane going off course from its flight path, and search parties would be looking at the wrong place. No communication (so far) is available to contact rescuers. Besides, these survivors still had to manage adapting to their new surroundings and surviving lots of potential threats existing on the island. Keeps them, and the viewers busy. More importantly, there seems to be a common link to all the survivors, and the island itself. Crazy theories and speculation are loaded in the viewers forums.

Interesting show actually. Im hooked on it right now. There are wild theories that the survivors are actually dead and living in a purgatory. Others think that the survivors crash landed in a special island run by some first world government conducting experiments on people. Others are saying that the island is some sort of psychological ward for people with psychological problems and that the island would be the one great big experiment to cure these people of their head disease.

They also have one of the best looking survivors the world has even seen: lots of hunks and three pretty girls to go along with it. You have a korean couple, an Iraqi, Australians, African Americans and a Mexican (im not sure about the nationality of this one. I'm just guessing tho.) combination, as well as the typical Americans, to the demographic. Each has a different occupation/skill set: the lead one is a doctor, the African American is an engineer, the Iraqi from the Republican Guard, a mid forties looking bald man as a Box company operator with a fantastic future as a skilled hunter complete with a luggage set of hunting knives, one of the girls suspiciously has a shady background involving guns and CIA skill sets, a wedding coordinator,... my gawd, they even have a millionaire amongst their numbers! They could actually start building a society in that island!

Lets not forget the others - mysterious monster living on the island, boars, polar bears, Nigerian priests, crazy French women, whales, rogue unaccounted persons who abduct people, Earhart (dubbed as "Eve"), the"others" (ghosts maybe?) and a hatch that might likely contain more questions than answers. There's even a huge cabling running from the beach into the island that several people have commented might be leading to a secret internet cafe underground. Amazing.

It may sound incredulous to you, but its amazingly addicting when you start watching it. You definitely get caught up with the mystery.

Oh and lets not forget, unlike the typical JJ Abraams tv show like Alias, it looks like the people who die here stay dead. What a nice thing.

Otaku-san

As the day passes on, I realized that I've gotten more and more dependent on the existence of a home PC. After experiencing the run in last weekend with the faulty PC, and a three day reinstallation from ground up, during those days, I have found myself lying on my back, on my bed, wondering what I can do in my spare time.

That's the most unimaginable thing about it. I had spare time.

I've discovered that without a working PC, I had nothing much to do at home. Normally on weekdays, my routine consists of waking up from bed, taking a shower, scrambling to catch the ride to the office. After a 9 hour job, I come home, turn the pc on, put on some music, and proceed to surf around until dinner comes. Afterwards, I head off and surf some more, talk to my bf over the net, turn off the monitor and hit the sack. On weekends, I just perpetually turn on the pc and still surf the net, reading fanfictions of my favorite tv shows, read some blogs, check the news to see what's going on in the world, and check out the weather. Its funny because I check the weather, yet I seem to be eternally staying indoors. Before it was a ploy to get myself to spend less, but now, it seems to have evolved into something else. To my horror this weekend, I realized that have become a zombie - an original definition of otaku before "otaku" became synonymous to anime addict.

Never would I have imagined that I would come to the point of realizing that I had absolutely no idea what to do on my spare time. Even the experience of having some spare time was a revelation. I haven't been this free since... since.... I can't even remember anymore.

This is going to be a MAJOR problem.

Hmm....

For the Love of the PC

Ah well. As I've said. Its either cash registers, or something else, to get this PC to work. I'm glad to say that I am now writing this blog again from my home PC. As for the solution, read on:

I've finally made a list of possible problems for installation at the start of the day:
1. Something wrong with my memory already; need to get memory.
2. Bad sectors in the hard drive are affecting the installation process and causing the blue screen to appear; Need to get new HD.
3. BIOS is not compatible with the Windows XP installation. Need to get an updated BIOS from the motherboard manufacturer and flash the memory. I've never tried this before, and this point leaves me with a fluttery feeling of anticipation. I hope I get to do this. It'll give me an excuse to get a new system.
4. Need to get a working XP cd. One that works. The scratches must be causing the problem.

All except 1 of the options will have me taking money out of my pocket. I'm not exactly thrilled to do this. On the other hand, while the only one option that doesn't need money, excited the heck out of me, I also had to face the fact that if and when I screw this up (flashing the BIOS isnt really the hot thing to do to a motherboard. It could render the whole system useless) I'd end up having to get a new system. Directly or indirectly, I'd have to shelve out money if it doesn't work or something goes wrong.

By lunchtime, I rationalized that I needed to get a new hard drive. It will be a matter of time when those bad sectors from my old hard drive spreads across, and besides, I've been regularly running out of disk space for the past.. oh, I dont know, year? Out goes the money. I got a Maxtor 80GB 7200 IDE-133 8Mb drive. Thing is, I think I should've checked first how much 120GB cost before getting this one. I mean, if the price different is just by a bit, why not just get the 120GB rather than the 80GB one? Its really too bad I didn't think about this though. Well, tha HD is now paid for.

I also shelled out for a unbastastardized copy of the OS.

Once back home, I tried the new CD on the old HD.

Oh. Seems that it works now. The problem was just the CD. Aw shucks. No more prom flashing.

Sucks.

Well that's how I've gotten around to rebuilding the whole thing up. Its back to surfing and monitor staring business again.

Sunday Break

Desperately needing a break from _trying_ to resurrect my PC from the grave, I headed out at 9am and spent my Sunday out of the house.

Not that I have any plans.. I just needed to get out. Get some air. Breathing down on a naked, skeleton PC isnt what I would call healthly. We all know how all those dust accumulates inside the PC. Particularly the power supply. Last time I took my PC apart, I think I would've been able to plant seedlings inside.

I headed off to the nearest cinema to catch a movie by the same director as "Amelie", this one called "A Very Long Engagement".

Once I bought the tickets, got a wee bit of breakfast from the supermarket downstairs. Fresh Mango juice and a raisin bun.

For the first time, I sat beside a guy who seem to have gone stag to watch a movie. Not very usual. Most of the time, its either couples or families that go watch movie together. I end up being the one doing stag (I hate calling up people, I hate making appointments and make sure everyone's free, and I hate people talking to me when the film's showing) which is fine by me. Except sometimes I get stares. Cant' help but be a little self conscious about it, but hey, going stag doesn't mean I don't have friends that want to watch a movie with me. I just enjoy my independence. The guy also brought his breakfast: mcmuffin and coffee (or was that hot choco?) . I know I'm starting to sound nosy here, but he WAS placing them all into the cup holder as if it was a ritual that he always does when going to the movies.

Movie was pretty good. I'll tell you more about it in the future. I don't want to mix up a movie and my sunday break. All you need to know is that I left the movie house feeling satisfied and a money well spent. [You should go see it if you get the chance] Before heading off home, I couldn't help myself anymore and got a copy of Chris Heath's Feel. Its a biography of Robbie Williams. Was supposed to ask my boyfriend to get it for me, but I guess I suck at being patient. I figured, "That's alright, today's supposed to be a break, so its time to enjoy myself."

Spent the afternoon with a HS friend who's working@Guangdong. Came with a friend of his, from work. Met up with them, as well as a often MIA male friend who used to always be the one who'd get us together; the tables have turned, seems like getting a GF makes one do a 180 degree turn. Not that I'm complaining. But I'm just finding the circumstances strange.

Had a good time with them. Had an interesting observation how a certain type of Taiwanese accent (if there ever exists one, I'm not really sure about this) sounds extremely good for me. This friend-of-my-friend is from Taiwan, and I had the most strange experience of actually feeling pleasant when I hear him speak. Its not as if he's drop dead gorgeous, nor does he have charisma or some star quality physically or otherwise, but I found myself being more attentive than how I normally would be. Its very strange revelation. When he talks, he reminds me of one of my favorite chinese singer, Jay Chou. The singer is from Taiwan. This guy, I feel, talks in a modulated, sing songy kind of way. Definitely I like. :P

I left them and headed off home for dinner.

I tried several more times to install the OS. As expected, it didnt really go very well either. At least I've spent my Sunday enjoying rather than being stuck up at home working on the same thing over and over again ;)

Fixing my PC

As expected, I couldn't figure out why the CPU was hitting over the top just by playing an avi file. It must have something to do with the bad sectors that was reported when I scanned the disk with chkdsk. Some dlls "restored" and something like that. I tried the windows utility sfc /scannow option to update the lost dlls correctly, but yielded no improvements. The utility seems useful tho. For those who are interested, you can see a short description at this page.

To my irritance, I just didn't work. So I tried to build the OS from ground up. Problem is, after booting up from CD and as the installation starts loading the drivers into memory (or disk, im not sure which) and When the line "Windows starting up" show up, it hangs. Then I get a stop error blue screen. Great. I tried this like ... gazillions of times, but luck wasnt with me. I was reduced to a end user praying that everything would load up properly and I'd get past that stage... maybe It would work after that.

No such luck. The farthest I've gone is repartitioning the HD and formatting it. To my dismay, it will also hang somewhere in there.

Since I've already *partially* formatted by system drive, I wouldnt be able to revert back to being able to use my computer. At least before the formatting part, I would still be able to startup my old windows and surf, albeit it'd be very slow. Now I was committed already. I needed to install this properly before I'll be able to use my home computer again.

_JUST_MY_LUCK_.

I'll be trying to update the bios, get a new hd (the old drive will probably clunk out soon, I just rememebered the bad sectors have been around since like 2 years ago when i last reformatted by system disk).

We'll see what happens.

I think I can hear cash registers ringing and $$ disappearing in the next few days.

SLoooOOoooW PC issues

Discovered that my home PC drive is very defragmented. My brother has been complaining about how slow my pc is (Im supposed to be the PC acting as the server for Internet Sharing) which brought me to try and "fix" the situation.

I defragmented my HD first. It was bloody fragmented. I figured a couple of months ago everything seemed fine and running a-ok, so it cant be running out of memory. I barely installed anything since , oh, like whatever. My brother keeps saying im running out of memory, but the diagnostics doesn't seem to think so. So i figured, It could be the file page/swaps....

Afterwards I scanned the disk for bad sectors. Everything, from 10pm, all the way to 2am early this morning, no less.

I've also run the antivirus, several times, to boot.

Now my HD is not fragmented, ... Looks very clean. Added back the page files in again. Doesn't seem like there's any problems that'll crop up now.

Uh-oh. And now my CPU hits 100% when I run an avi file.

EgAd.

I hope I dont end up reinstalling the system from ground up... Its going to be a hell of a weekend if that pushes...

Nice Lunch

Mmm... Slightly cold weather on a Friday before a long weekend. Im in the mood for a warm Brie and Chicken Ciabatta from Starbucks coupled with a double shot Tall Capuccino. Once I stepped into Starbucks, finding that its not available today, I settled for the capuccino (@HK$28) and just-as-good (although to my disappointment, not warm) Pret-A-Manger Coronation Chicken Sandwich (Chicken Breast, Coronation Sauce, Mango Chutney, Toasted Almonds, Tomatoes and Lettuce@36HKD).

Coronation chicken indeed.

Loved the rockette lettuce, loved the coronation sauce (I suspect it having a touch of curry) and loved the coffee. Loved the cold weather. And I picked up HK Magazine (@no expense, its free!) to pass the lunch away.

Loved the lunch. Only occasionally do I allow myself to splurge like this for lunch. Today is a good day as any.

As thus... going back to work now.

A Good Morning

Today seems to have started off right. Morning was greeted with a nice fuzzy and snuggly feeling. What wonders an extra blanket can make to contribute to a good night's sleep. I managed to get to work a few minutes early, and my hair seems to be content in staying put just the way i like it before I went off for work this morning.

I'll think its a good time to be nice to my officemates today.

Aren't they lucky.