Victor Frankl Example?

Amazing guy, amazing experience.

Perfect Work Day

(sing to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head")

Marbles are rolling in my head,
But that doesn't mean that I'll soon be turning dead,
Swell as I can be,
And that's fine, cause I'm never gonna stop the complaining,
because I'm free,
And everyone else's f***ing with meeeee.....



You can tell I'm very... lively today. :) Had a rough patch with XXX coworkers... and XXX manager.

One thing I can say for each:

XXX coworkers - very sloppy sloppy sloppy with installation documentation. Whoever have heard of documentation that missed stating required patches? (and loads and loads and loads of other stuff that made following the documentation and setting an environment unreasonably difficult as compared to... well reading the official software documentation.)

XXX manager - scan through emails and pretends to understand the whole picture. Complete information is all there... you just didn't read it. Fine, I may have been sloppy with a sentence on the latest reply, but if a person read the whole email trail, I would've thought it clear enough. Everyone else seems to have understood what I was saying. You didn't have to BLOW up on me.

Gym Progress Week 10 (and those stupid sales pitches)

Two things: Sales Pitches, and a one day free trial account at a competitor gym, Physical.

----------------------------------------
Sales Pitches:
Added in another schedule this week for my gym schedule. Finally. After a lot of "misunderstandings" and inquiries.

I currently hold a Platinum California Fitness membership, which gives me access to "all California Fitness center branches in Hong Kong, all hours". But there was a launch for the new Jackie Chan California Fitness Gym in Tsim Sha Tsui(TST) a few months ago... since the original condition states that I had full access to all facilities in Hong Kong, I thought I could, and was supposed to attend a class there. Until, well, a week before I attended the TST class, a California Fitness sales person stopped me (in another of the branches) and tried to convince me to upgrade my current Platinum membership to a Diamond one, and I quote " ... it will also give you access to the gym Jackie Chan Gym in Tsim Sha Tsui if you upgrade...", leaving me the impression that my current membership level prohibits me from being able to access any facilities in Tsim Sha Tsui. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding (or not).

Anyways, I finally started to ask around after chatting with some fellow Xgroup (class) attenders, and realized that what that ******* salesperson was previously blabbering about may not be true. Darn stupid sales pitches, probably. After a few inquiries with the actual California staff, turns out, I CAN.

But still in much doubt, I headed off to the Tsim Sha Tsui branch with the possibility of being turned away... and was not. Crazy sales people, the lot. Especially the ones in California Fitness here in Hong Kong. They're notorious for backing you in a corner, and getting you to sign a contract, so a lot of people are actually turned off by the thought of inquiring ANYTHING from them.

A trial at one of California Fitness' competitor, Physical:
Have a friend that's constantly been going to this gym. They have several branches all over the city too, but mostly they have more competitive prices. Which is to say, sometimes they overacquire clients, and their gyms are so very packed on peak times (not to say California Fitness doesn't get packed, but this one is _REALLY_ packed the last time I had a chance to drop by at one of their branches)

I went to the Causeway Bay branch at Lee Theater, near Times Square, last Friday with my friend, Ping. This branch is specifically ladies only, although other branches cater to both genders. The ladies only-branch explains the setup: Big lounges, bars, less machines, more aerobics space, almost no free weights area. I had a go with their machines, which is just adequate for first time body toner, but could be severely lacking for a gym buff. The machines themselves are also old at this branch.

The aerobics class is a change from the usual classes I attend at California. Their intermediate classes are none short of hard-it packs quite a punch even for someone like me who's attended intermediate step aerobics classes in California Fitness for several months already. The instructor was basically going into a higher, faster beat (extremely fast, actually) and the blocks expect more trots than high impact jumps - not something I'm really used to. So I was left standing in confusion while the others keep their consistent form :) Hahaha, so in a sense, I looked like I was a bad apple :) I could barely follow, but managed as much as I can. I could see why my friend attended these classes (with the same instructor) with religious fervor :)

It was also nice seeing that there was some sort of organization when attending the classes... You're supposed to pick up a number before the class to get a slot, and you're not allowed to get numbers for friends. So you're sure that if you're the first one in line, you're going to be the first one to get into the class. No way your going to run out of steps or risers. (Unlike California... where you line up 40 minutes before the actual class, and 5 minutes before the class starts, you find the line growing longer , and longer and longer.... IN FRONT OF YOU. Pisses the hell out of me.)

But I also found out there are perks having a California Fitness membership. Was surprised pair of gym towels in Physical are not free ( HK$10 per pair, actually) and there are no extra amenities (ear buds, cotton swabs, tissue papers) in the vanity area... just the hair blower.

All in all, it was an interesting experience and comparison between 2 gyms... I'm planning to get a free one day trial at Fitness First one of these days too... but maybe some time later :)
----------------------------------------

So, well, I'll leave this gym roundup short and sweet, just a simple breakdown of what I did this week and the respective instructors:
Tues (BP,ISM) : Elizabeth, Maggie
Thurs (Free Weights, ISM) : Me!, Frankie
Fri (AERO, weights): Physical
Sun (ISM,BP): Mike T, Elizabeth

Installing Linux (Slackware this time)

I got Linux running.. sort of.

Well, I did get the console running ok. There's some problems with X windows though. I'm not quite sure, but its possible that there are hardware driver and configuration problems related to it.

Action 1: I get to the GDM or KDE login screen at first, but the whole screen hangs. Can't even move the mouse or type anything.
Action 2: Afterwards I tried running it with startx, and out pops the KDE configuration screen, but at least the mouse is working and it doesn't hang anymore. Right where I finished the KDE configuration, a lot of pop ups come out complaining about artsd receiving an abort signal so I terminated it eventually via console.
Action 3: I attempted to restart gdm this time, and it seems to have entered Gnome, albeit still receiving error messages regarding sound, but otherwise, everything seemed ok.

Once I had a half baked Desktop Environment coming along, I tried setting up the DSL connection and connnected to the net. Test installed a couple of programs (Skype etc) and played around with a trillian-like net messenger client called Gaim (pretty good too)

Wow its wonderful... I loved it!

Now I just need to fix the sound errors and adjust the monitor settings so I can have a smaller resolution :) But its wonderful...!!!!! Now all I need to worry about are linux app compatibility to Slackware.. or maybe I should switch to Debian. There seems to be more apps designed for Debian (there's more Fedora Core, but as I've mentioned previously, the installation procedure crashes on my old PC). Think think...

A Hunting We Will Go... (for an Air Conditioner)

So to end my troubles... I've made several round trips to big electronic/applicance chain stores in Hong Kong, Broadway and Fortress. Looking for the right air conditioner. Of course, there were also trips on the web to check out air conditioner buying guides... just to help me not to sound daft when talking to the sales persons in actual stores. (Amazing how much the Internet can help you... or how little.)

• First thing in buying air conditioners: Size of room.

It seems that buying an air conditioner inappropriately sized for your room with be the first of your problems. We all know about getting undersized air cons: You don't want to get "steamed" in your room, but I was also surprised to find out oversized air cons isn't the best thing to decide on either. Aside from the difference in monetary value, there's also a matter of the fans within the air cons overperforming, cycling on and off too quickly, and resulting in a poor job dehumidifying the air, as well as waste of power.. and in effect, bigger, unnecessary electricity bills, and dehimidifying less. (Well, it might be obvious for some people, but it ain't for me :) )

• Second thing: Decide on how much air con capacity you need based on 1.

These things are either measured in BTU/h (I believe this one stands for British Thermal Unit per hour), or Horsepower. Lots of BTU calculators out there on the net to help the helpless buying to calculate their air conditioner needs. Unfortunately once I calculate my requirements.. it seems to pop out with 5500 BTU, but going over to the appliance store, they say i need 7000 BTU. I'm not quite sure if there is a discrepancy in the calculation. A BTU is a BTU is a BTU, isn't it? Its like saying a car can run 1000km in HK, but the same car can run 500km in the States. Or am I missing something? Either way, I decided to take the sales person's advice. Besides, the lowest being sold in HK is around 7000BTU :)

(Sometimes its also referred to as the cooling capacity, and can be measured in kW.)

• Third thing: Previous air conditioner window/platform size.
  

Do you want it reinstalled for a bigger/smaller sized air conditioner? This is actually something that depends on the buyer. Usually there are extra changes for reinstalling the air conditioner platform size .. to make the air con fit. Either that, or your choices are cut down by the airconditioner sizes available in the market. If you had an oddly sized air conditioner for the existing (and about to be replaced) one, then, too bad for you. Additional installation expenses will have to do. Well, at least you get to have wide range of choices :P

• Fourth Thing: Energy Saving, Dehumidifying, Circulating and Cooling Features (and all other specialized stuff)

This is the bulk of the air conditioner specs. You'll find that they all sound the same. Marketing tries to fadoodle with your mind by having different units to measure all these different specs, and it will probably drive you crazy like how it did to me. I almost just wanted to go to the store, and flip a coin and let fate decide. But a little patience would help here. There are lots of resources out there that will help you compare air conditioner specs side by side. Unfortunately, I felt most of them were U.S based sites, so some models in Asia do not exist in their site. I had to do it the hard way... research about each feature, what good they do, how they're measured, standardize them to see which one really IS better. (Oh and I did a spreadsheet on that... and on OpenOffice too!)

In short descriptions:
* Energy Saving - basically says how efficient the air conditioner is in using electricity. Usually measured in EER ratings, I believe. The higher number, the better. (measured in BTU/hr/W)
&COP or Coefficient of Power - the higher the better. This seems to be the
efficiency of power usage... but seems dissimilar to EER. Measured in W/W
&Electrical Data - Voltage, Running Current, Power Input Consumption
* Dehumidifying - something that I was surprised to find out. I've suspected air conditioners do dehumidify, but this confirms it. Take note to buy one with a decent dehumidifying spec, esp in places where its very humid (like Hong Kong :) ) Measured in L/hr or Pt/h
* Circulating - have something to do with the fans. If an auto-louvre is installed, it means that there's windows inside that go left and right, or up and down. This is ideal so it can cover more space. As the first two, the higher, the better. Measured in m3/min, ft3/min
* Cooling - well, you know. The temp :) How much the air conditioner can convert warm air to cold air.
* Noise - some are really loud, so beware. Take note of this, especially when you're installing it in a room where you have a baby :) For me I dont really mind, because my new PC is already loud enough as it is :P
*Others - blue fins, compressor, warranty. Warranty on parts, and compressor.

There's also a point to take note of. There are a couple of brands in the market... that are exactly similar, but with just different brands, it seems. It means that the manufacturer is the same, and sometimes, the actual model is also exactly the same. I've heard this from several friends: Condura is same as Carrier, Panasonic is same as Rasonic, Fortress brand is manufactured by the same manufacturer as Hitachi (although the models are different... but at least you know the reliability based on the manufacturing company). So take note of this when looking for one.

I ended up deciding to get a Rasonic (not Panasonic :) just because its cheaper) because their specs look exactly the same, the salesperson said so, and models side by side.. they look identical, except for the small tag that has their brands on.

Initially I was thinking of the Fortress brand, but had second thought when i realized the aircon depth was suspiciously short (only 52cm compared to others which are normally 58cm, or occasionally 53cm, but NEVER 52cm) and did the math on the specs. If my calculations are right, turns out that its less energy efficient (only 9 compared to others with 9.5 or 10 rating) the dehumidifying specs is less by 2 pts, and the aircirculation is not as good either (it doesnt have a auto-louvre maybe) . Anyways, a Rasonic 3/4 Horsepower no Remote Control (its a difference of 400-600HKD.. ugh, never mind.) 7000 BTU/h aircon. (RC-C72J).

Well,... I'll have it installed next Saturday. Can't wait to sleep well again....

Oh and the Rasonic air conditioner included 24 free cans of Coke. :) So weird. But weird in a good way :P

How about "Air Conditioner Woes"?

Have you ever tried sleeping on summer days without an aircon?

I just realized how much of a slave of the air conditioner technology I am when mine broke down last Sunday. Alongside with the humid Hong Kong weather, my room wasn't really getting any decent circulation. And I couldn't open my windows because its been raining countinuously for the past few weeks.

And I had to keep my new PC on... now that's generating a lot of heat. Amazing what the difference between the old and the new PC is. I have my old PC on for the whole day, and the case doesn't feel as hot.. maybe just a bit warm. In comparison, the dsl modem feels hotter. The new PC, after running for 2-3 hours, will feel somewhere between uncomfortably warm to bordering on slightly hot to touch. And that's already adding an additional fan to blow out the hot air inside the casing. And I have it on the whole night, for several reasons. (read: I'm lazy to get down from my bunk bed, I'm acting as the ICS server for my brother's computer, I'm downloading the latest copy of Debian.)

So my room's steaming hot at the moment, for the past week. I've added in an electric fan to alleviate the situation, but it doesnt help overall to circulate the air and dehumidify the room as an aircon can. Plus, have you ever tried spraying air from the electric fan, frozen in front of your face, the whole night? I made that mistake the first 3 nights and I definitely paid for it dearly... 3 nights of horrible nightmares. Being half awake/half asleep althroughout. 10 Hour sleeps felt like 3 hour rest. Still terribly groggy when you wake up. The first day I felt so sick I had to call in sick and slept.. for 4 more hours. That's about 13 hours total. And I still felt groggy waking up.

Then I stopped doing that and had the rotary engine on so its not concentrated on my face. Its a bit better, but I'm still left with the feeling of not having enough sleep the whole night. Nightmares still come, but only occasionally. Don't ever make the mistake of sleeping with the electric fan in front of your face and... well, not rotating. Now I know what the rotating function is for :P (Seemed like a useless feature before.. you just want the air to blow steady on you rather than rotating everywhere.)

Ah well, I guess this is a good opportunity as any to start researching on air conditioners and buy myself a new one.

Installing Linux (Fedora Core 4) Woes

Days and days and weeks gone by, and I've been submerged into the world of Oracle and Linux all at the same time.

I can barely keep everything in my head.

Tried installing Fedora Core 4 a couple of times.. once with my supervisor's CD, next with my own CD (figuring out maybe my supervisor's CD was faulty) and finally with a DVD copy of Fedora 4. All have gone down the drain. Installing is no problem, but when the process hits the post installation stage, I get the following traceback/dump every time:

File "/usr/lib/anaconda/gui.py", line 1137, in handleRenderCallback
self.currentWindow.renderCallback()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/iw/progress_gui.py", line 244, in renderCallback
self.intf.icw.nextClicked()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/gui.py", line 873, in nextClicked
self.dispatch.gotoNext()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/dispatch.py", line 174, in gotoNext
self.moveStep()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/dispatch.py", line 242, in moveStep
rc = apply(func, self.bindArgs(args))
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/packages.py", line 1204, in doPostInstall
stdout = devnull)
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/iutil.py", line 53, in execWithRedirect
raise RuntimeError, command + " can not be run"
RuntimeError: /usr/sbin/kudzu can not be run

Horrible. Found out the same error has been happening to some users, and a bug listed in the RedHat site.

I figured i might as well upgrade from FedoraCore 3, but realized that it had the same problem, albeit some people posted solutions concerning microcodes.

Uhm, no.

Not yet anyway. Not microcodes. Not yet.

So I moved on to finding another Linux distribution that would work....

Gym Progress Week 9

Oh well, its the nineth week. Have no idea if there are any obvious changes physically. There's certainly something with the shoulders and the biceps... with I just get the feeling everything else is the same. Would've been fine if the triceps are also toned... but with big shoulder and bicep muscles, and also large, fatty triceps.. ooohhh. Its so ugly. The only time it'll look good is when I have my arms up... which we never really get to do unless we work as box-moving-boys/girls. Oh well.

Tues (BP,ISM): They've just renamed the Bodypump class as Bodypump 55. It didnt seem like there was any difference, except for the songs being played during the class. Maybe that was it. Weird.

Sat (ISM): Ehhhm... today seemed exceptionally difficult for a intermediate class... :\ I could barely catch up. Maybe next time I better ask the instructor whether he was doing intermediate or advanced-every saturday he sees all these familiar faces, sometimes I get the funny feeling that he's inching over advanced level already.

Sun (ISM, BP): Eh nothing much... We had a redo of the 3rd block today.. last week it was a killer.. nobody could catch up :P But finally the whole class got to the third block. Eh, BP was ok...

I'm starting to get "bored" with the classes.. normally I'd go there religiously.. e.g. with excitement, but these days, I'd have to convince myself to get myself off the chair and leave for gym. But it could just be the weather... although I had the same feeling last Saturday..

What a Long, Wet, Rainy Saturday

I don't know what's up with the weather, but its been raining continuously since last night, I think. Its been raining on and off like this for a couple of days. Normally the sky will let out a huge rain, but stop after like 20 minutes. And there's not much wind so its just huge huge water drops. But today its just been like energizer bunny... its been going, and going, and going, and going....

Got to the point where I was forced to take the subway to get to anywhere. And I DONT LIKE taking the subways. I get the feeling that its boring, and there's nothing to see outside the windows (at least my route doesn't), and I always like to see what's happening outside. Makes the trip more entertaining. Well, there I was, in the morning, went to Times Square to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then went home and back again for gym.

Errhhhmm... I can't believe there's THAT much water in the sky. Like a faucet turned on. Its so strange.

Movie Review: Ah-Sou

I saw this movie last Thursday, starring Karena Lam, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Alex Fong and several other well known actors.

But this movie doesn't need a review. Its a 90 minute movie, and I felt like I was sitting through a 3 hour montage of scenes. It was THAT agonizing, I'm sorry to say. And to think I was kind of anticipating this movie for some time already.

I dont know what the heck the director was thinking, but I'm sure he must've been high on booze and nicotine when he edited this movie. It had useless, non continuous and indecipherable flashbacks, ( I cant even tell between what's happening real time and flashbacks) a sketch dream sequence that supposed to be better off in a 1 minute music anime video, and a lot of loooooOOOOoong fade in and fade outs conventionally used to represent passage of time, but instead he's using this technique to cross between cuts and point of views. Yes, this is what made the movie feel so long. And you can tell he did it very liberally all throughout the movie, making it feel like a 3 hour movie instead on 90 minutes.

And the dialogue. Lets not forget the dialogue.

There WAS NONE.

The first 5 minutes started out fine, but went straight downhill from there. Lots of nice picture-poses, nice 3 second "grand" sweeping shots, lots of useless, senseless crying, some dialogue, and a whole lot of B.S. Characters that were never fully developed (what the heck is the guy with the red cap supposed to signify? Who the heck is the bodyguard and what the heck did he have to do with the overall storyline?) story lines that could've made the movie better but never will be, many of the good actors whose talents were never used.... think of a movie failure reason, I'm sure this movie would be applicable to all of them.

This is the worst movie I've ever seen in my whole life. Nobody could get THIS low and still release it to the public. My grandmother can make a better movie than this.

@#$@#$%@#$^!!!

What's the Point?

Here I am minding my own business, and something like this pops up.

Is this some sort of marketing ploy? Not a lot of people even read this blog in the first place, so I find it funny that someone would just put something like this in. I was tempted to delete it in the trash, but this would make an interesting entry for the blog.

They have bots to do this, don't they?

Amazing, Google cant even get their crawler to come to my blog frequent enough, and these bots/guys can. :P

Gym Progress Week 8

Wow... 8 weeks! I just passed by my previous gym workout duration! *whistle* No wonder I was starting to get tired going to the gym the other day :P

Tues (BP, ISM): Some guy... the schedule said Elizabeth, but its someone else. Seems like these non-attending, last minute backing intructors are happening more often than usual. There's a consipracy happening, I'm sure.* Anyway, this one seems like a newbie instructor. But still, not bad if he's a newbie. He's definitely trying. Afterwards had ISM with Michelle (yes the tv instructor star .. i think the show's name was something like "Morning Aerobics: Oz Style" or something like that. I'm almost sure that there's the word "Oz" somewhere in the show's name.) unfortunately did only 3 blocks.. but still tiring nonetheless. Still did the ISM with 1 raisers. I think I'll adopt adding 1 raiser from now on.

Sat (ISM): Steve leads... as usual, it leaves me breathless. :) I was just about to skip this class cause I had to go out with some friends during the morning for dimsum, and Starbucks for a bit of coffee, leaving me seriously stuffed and burping the whole morning, but I figured, I'm feeling sluggish enough already.. I shouldn't miss this class. It turned out great thank you. Second time (first time was last week) I just couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't follow through... doing it with 1 set of raisers leaves me breathless :P

Sun (ISM,BP): Well, just went through the usual motions... only had three blocks with ISM today.. seems everyone was kinda slow to catch on today. It was an embarrassment for everyone in the class :P BP was ooohhhh-kay.

Old Toy New Toy

I suppose this is what people mean when they say one mans trash is another man's treasure. I was ready to sell off my old PC but I suddenly figured its time to follow through on that long considered and often mentioned but never really done task of having a linux-based desktop.

Usually there's not much use for PC specs, invoices and manuals once the first week is out. So normally we tuck all the warranty cards, manuals and boxes in a safe storage for future use, in case one of them breaks down or goes amiss. I still have all the specifications for my old PC - its stored in an makeshift overhead compartment in my room, together with winter clothes and lots of odd end stuff that I think will only be used seasonally.

And I've thought that I'm never going to need them again.. until I decided to try out installing some sort of linux distribution. I've heard about needing to be aware of your PC configuration clearly to install linux, so I definitely needed to get those specs out. Just the thought of having a linux based PC just gives me the giddies, for some strange reason. It must be all the nice customizations I've been putting on in my office pc, and missing them out when I get home to my Windows desktop every night.

First thing though, I'd have to get out the ladder. Yes, the makeshift compartment is way up there. I placed everything in my altec lansing 2.1 2ftx1.5ft box. Needless to say, its big , its filled, and its heavy. I'd have to muster all my shoulder weight training to get it to balance on top of my head before slowing coming down from the ladder while balancing it, hoping against hope that it doesnt lose balance and fall all over the floor with a huge and messy thud. Never happened so far, and I dont want it ever happening to me.

And I've been doing this several times over the week. Not a fun thing to do.

So I decided to just post the specs here... for my reference. Its fun to find out that generally a linux installation will take considerably less minimum requirements than a windows OS, so your old PC doesn't go off to the junkyard too soon. Plus I needed to stop doing those irritating up and down the ladder trips to my overhead compartment.


Without much further delay:

Motherboard: PCchips M920 Socket 423 ATX Motherboard. Northbridge: . Southbridge: . 400Mhz/256 KB L2 Cache. Complete documentation here. (Strangely enough, I cant find the documentation in the PCChips site already. Good thing I saved a documentation copy in my office PC.)
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 1.4 Ghz
Memory: 256M PC-133 SD Ram (brand?)
Harddrive: Seagate ATA-100 20gb
Drives: (1) LiteOn Combo Drive (2) Asus CD+W 48x (3) 1.44 floppy drive
Network: (1) On board 10/100Mbps Lan card (2) 56K AMR Modem
Videocard: AGP Geforce2 MX200 32MB AGP
Audio: On board Ac97 Audio Codec 3D Sound

Campbell's Soup Lunch II

I felt I had to come back and comment about the rest of the Campbell soup line (I've been having them for lunch almost always, when I don't have to go out with my officemates for lunch - generally my officemates are ok, its the lunch prices that extremely tick me off)

I realized I may have been adding in too little water to the condensed Campbell's soup, so I ended up previously with something too strong for my taste. This time around, I've added more water in, and the soup tastes smoother. For the insanely curious (only an insane person would read about a similarly insane and bored person's adventures with trying out different Campbell soup flavors) The first part of the same topic can be found here.

Here are the latest list of flavors I've tried:

• Chicken and Wintermelon Soup - Asian Edition - Pretty good, definitely different from the western style soups. Its more starched based, so it has this thick consistency without being creamy (Western soups seem to always use milk, cheese and other daily products to "thicken" the cream based soups) so its actually something you can drink by itself. Pretty good.
  
• Ox Tail - not bad either. Doesn't top the chicken vegetable. The chicken vegetable taste like its a manangerie or flavors, this one tastes like... tasteful tomato based soup. Must be because of the Ox tail, but I can't be too sure. It could've been the length of time all these Campbell contents have been hanging around with the same can... so it tastes... aluminum-y. :P But .... still good.
• Vegetarian Vegetable - its bit on the bland side, but you can tell its different. Maybe I was expecting it to have the same strong and wide flavor that comes with Chicken Vegetable. The picture on the can is almost similar too (notice how there seems to be only 1 picture for tomato based soups, and another one of the cream of X section.. no I'm just joking, they're different.. but you know what I mean, they all seem the same except Cream of Mushroom has pictures of mushroom beside the soup, and corn for Cream of Corn... yadayadayada)Must be because there's no animal based product in this. First time feels like its not so good, but a person grows to like it. Feels like it has less/more salt. I cant tell with my taste buds at the moment.
• Cream of Corn and Mushroom - Well this IS a cream of X soup. I dont particularly like cream soups so i'm a bit biased. But nevertheless, its not bad, not bad.
  

I still have pumpkin somewhere here that I haven't tried. This one looks like you need to add milk instead of water... a bit different from the others. HEh. I'm sure I'll get bored again one of these days, and write up Part 3. Maybe it won't be just Campbells anymore..... :P

Home PC is FaaaaaaAAAaaaster

Much much MUCH faster!

Java loads faster (I used to wait for a few seconds to a minute just for java to load properly.) , PC startup is extremely fast (I'm getting so spoiled.. not its so easy to just restart...) and things are still ok despite having installed Oracle10g on my machine.

Extremely statisfied :)

Spreading Yourself Too Thin

Ugh... and thus, I remember Gollum. :)

Last night I met up with friends haven't seen for a quite a while, more than 10 of them. One of our friends came back from an immersion on Mandarin language, and was just passing by Hong Kong this time around before heading back for good to the Philippines. It was nice to see everybody again... We had dinner at Tony Roma's, enjoyed a full meal of mozarella sticks, onion rings (facinatingly reminding me of a Borg cube), hearty helpings of salads, ribs and fries while catching up on what's happening with each other.

At the end of the day though, I can't help but be a bit frustrated.I realized that I wasn't even able to talk to anyone enough. In fact, I wasn't even able to talk to everyone.

There's such a thing as spreading yourself too thin, just like the dinner I just had last night. So many people, so little time. And then you try to spread your time around so you at least get to talk to everyone at least once, but even if you manage to successfully pull that off, you get a sickening feeling in your stomach. 10 minute talks with each person isn't going to solidify your friendship. In fact, you end up with the feeling of being superficial. You just skimmed the surface of a chance experience. Shouldn't friends mean more than that?

I've always been envious of people who can pull it off with large crowds of people. They make it seem so effortless. Usually these guys are the leaders of the crowd; they glue each person together with a single experience. I'd love to learn to be like that-these people make a large group of people feel special in the short amount of time given, and learn to connect with each person individually at the same time. I'm more optimal on a one-on-one encounter, so I prefer meeting people individually. But trying to stay concerned, updated and have a solid friendship to each and everyone of my friends spreads me thin, just like this dinner.Its not that you're superficial... You're really concerned about what they're up to these days. You're interested. You care. But there's just not enough time to go around.

This dinner is just a microcosm of a bigger problem. How many people in the world want to do so many things in the short amount of time? I spend my days between work, going to the gym, enjoying time with my family. I want to spend time with my friends, to take a road trip to China, Egypt, England, Australia and the United States. I want to learn to sing, to play the guitar, to learn Japanese, Cantonese and speak fluent Mandarin, to be an expert on Oracle databases. My Firefox browser in the office says it all: 20 or more tabs open daily, all interesting Oracle articles, waiting to be read and digested, but never really being read. I'd begrudgingly close Firefox because I realized that all these links have been sitting around for more than 2 weeks, and never really went back to read them. Weeks pass by before meeting with friends again. Books borrowed from the library that would sit around my room until it reaches the maximum renewal limit, and realizing that I never flipped open a page.

So many things to do, so little time. Spreading yourself thin. It may not be an exact appropriate comparison, but the spirit is definitely willing, but the body is weak. It can only take so much.

There's a hint of depression there. You feel overwhelmed, but not because of the things that are forced on you by other people, but of the things forced by yourself. The things you need to do. The things that you want to do. The things that you care about. The things that will make you happy.

Its never occurred to me that I'd encounter something like this. We've all been commanded to study well, get good grades, do the right thing. Taking orders is so much easier than making them. When you realize what you want, it seems so much more easier AND harder at the same time.
Similarly, there was this past week. I’ve been coming home late almost everyday… Its not like I want to bunch everything up in one week, or come home late, but first off, there was the voice lessons on Thursday. Then there was a 5-year colleague leaving the company, so the CEO held a bash on Friday. Afterwards, on Saturday, the dinner with ex-IT colleagues whom 2 of them coincidentally came home from Shanghai and England just for this week and one will be leaving a few days after. And then there was yesterday’s dinner with my friends.

Just for those alone I’ve already occupied my evenings the past week when I could’ve done all the things I wanted to do, but can’t, because they’re more urgent/important.

So now what’s left? I’m sure a lot of people out there would say, prioritization. Goodness knows almost everyone I know would have told me that, but even with prioritization… well there’s only so much you can prioritize, right? You’d have to put up with entirely accepting the fact that a lot of those “want-to-do” items in your list would end up in the junkyard even if you lived to be 100 years old. Just seems unfair though, and the whole thing seems so wrong.

There’s not much to say, and not much that can be done. Everyone needs to hit the right balance of public and private space, without risking burning oneself out. I may just need a vacation soon, and hopefully I get to do the things I want and still read up some of the many webpages tabbed in my Firefox. Stretching yourself thin is tiring, and frustrating. Its almost like trying for quantity rather than quality, but in your mind, you desperately want both. No, there’s really no reason for me to put this entry in my blog, I have not discovered the key to effective and efficient multitasking (We’re actually much less efficient when multitasking, however you insist that we're more efficient multitasking than not.) nor have I found a way to lengthen human life spans. Its just an entry people. I dont need couselling, and I don't have any bright ideas. Just ideas :) To end this entry, I'd like to same something really quick (relative to whole entry, anyway): This entry started out with a bit of a gloom to begin with, but there’s always a “bright” side to everything.

Forget about what we want for our lives for a while. Forget about how little time we have. Forget about how much we try to make all things work much like cuckoo clocks in a clock store when time hits the hour. When you stop to think about it, just like I had, I realized that this is what it meant when they say life is a blessing. We’re actually given the choices to do all the stuff we want to do. And despite the frustration... the lack of time makes it all the more sweeter.

But first, I have got to get me a vacation. :)

Star Wars: Backstroke of the West

Hilarious subtitles for Star Wars III... a few of my friends forwarded me this link.


A trip to Shenzhen from HK? ... HKD$30.
A visa into China? ... HKD$150.
A DVD bought in one of those many DVD shops? ... RMB8.

The fits and giggles you get after watching the RMB8 Star Wars Revenge of the Sith DVD with English subtitles? ...

Priceless!

Screwed Up Links

Here I was... drafting and publishing different backtracking dates.. and I just realized I've completely messed up my links. I guess that's what happens when you don't publish your entries sequentially.

Case in point: I cant find my July 24 2005 entry on Gym Progress Week 5 if I click on links from Back log (2005/07) Part 1(written on July 26, 2005). If you peek at the "Previous Posts" section, ideally since the missing entry was written on July 24, 2005, It should come up... but it doesn't :P

I wonder if I should republish the whole site again... I dont like doing that either, I also messes up the links in a different way.

I think I should do posts sequentially from now on.........

Gym Progress Week 7

WOW its my 7th week! Just one more week and then I pass my previous gym record :P

Wed: (Powerstep, BP) Suzette, Lorenzo. Starting to like how Lorenzo handles the class... sort of. Eating bubblegum while lifting weights and doing step aerobics. It ain't easy to try and catch your breath, chew and jump at the same time :P waiting for Ann. Did ok for BP. Had ff weights (all in lbs):

• Warm up 3.5 each side
• Squats 4.5 each side
• Bench press 2 each side
• Back 3.5, tricep 2.5
• Lunges 4.5,
• Shoulders side (is that 1.5 or 2.5? dumbbels) pullup bar 1 each side
• situps

Sat: (ISM) First time I attempted Steve's class with 1 level raiser. Normally for beginners you'd just use a step. You can add more raisers to increase the height of the step. This in turn increases the impact of the aerobic class - you need to jump with more effort to get on the step with raisers. The maximum additional raisers I've seen so far is 2. Well, back to what I was saying. Its not as easy as I'd thought it would be, considering his classes involve lots of twisting and turning and spinning (its supposed to be an intermediate level class, but I have this funny feeling its already advanced. Either that, or I can't fanthom how his advanced classes are like. Maybe it involves flying?) I almost slipped on my raiser twice just trying to catch up with the class.. that would've been a sight though if I did fell though. I made enough noise almost tripping to get noticed (And not in a good way i suppose. I have to admit, it WAS embarrassing. Everyone else didn't seem to have any problem following the choreography) and called out a "Are you ok??" from him (and I always stay at the back of the class... good thing, phew.) But all in all, it was good.

The class was also packed.. as always. People just line up 30-40 minutes before the class to get good steps, raisers, as well as enough space to maneuver around. Since I always stay at the back corner of the class, I'm always in line with the Schwinn class Bicycles. Patsy helped me to move them to a more strategic position so there'll be more space... man those bicycles are heavy. But nevertheless, I got them moved away, so had enough space to jump all I want :P

Sun: (ISM,BP) This is probably the 3 or 4th time in a row I've seen the same guy who's always around on Steve's Sat ISM class in Causeway Bay. He's pretty good, which is also the reason why I choose the leftmost back corner during Saturdays. The back corner is hidden, makes me less conspicuous when I make a mistake, and have the tendency to disturb the least amount of people when I'm in my stationary what-the-heck-is-everybody-doing-I-really-dont-follow-I-just-stare-and-stare-at everyone-but-I-still-dont-get-it state. But also cause this guy is always somewhere in the leftmost midsection of the class, and he can catch up with Steve pretty well. Instead of actually looking at Steve's moves when he heads the class, (which is hard to do because there are almost 10-20 people between my line of sight and Steve) I follow this guy in front of me.

I barely know this guy, I don’t even know his name. He's just a familiar face, but for some strange reason I feel much better when he's around… hahah otherwise I'd be lost. But in Suzette's class she has less twist and turns. (She tries to tire you out... my personal opinion, of course) I can follow her lead relatively quicker compared to Steve's. Anyway, so this guy, I've been thinking of talking to him just like Patsy, meet new friends I suppose, blah blah blah.. well, just because he seems like an interesting person. I thought I was the only one who goes to these classes 2 days continuously, but it seems this guy also does it. I always wonder how often he goes to attend these ISM classes.

Anyway, interesting to see him there. The class was ok, and I've also added raisers for today. I figured, I wasn't probably burning enough calories with just one step and no raisers.. Its time to play the stakes up :) Strangely enough, right after the ISM class, although I've never really talked to Suzette, she actually recognized me (Well, I did attend her classes 6 months ago when she was still teaching beginners :D ) Well so much for being inconspicuous. I'm not saying its a bad thing however. I was a bit surprised, but more of pleasantly surprised. I'm so obssessed with being invisible. argh.

Well, still the same weights for BP.... And at the moment even after 7 weeks of working out, my muscles still hurt. Weird. Last time I remembered on my 7th week I've seemed to have already reached a plateau. Nothing was happening. Hmm. *ponder ponder*

*This post has been updated on 2006-01-14 for a referencing topic of a post on the same current day (2006-01-14)

Blogger Is Weird

Hmm.. what's wrong with this?

Here I am posting entries for my blog, and suddenly, my blog main screen pops up like this.

I tried logging in and out again, but I still get the same screen. It occasionally happens, but it still isn't a pretty sight, that's all. Maybe my PC configuration?

Or maybe my PC gets bouts of tantrums on occasions and decides to make my life a bit more colorful. :
Oh you can tell what my links are now :P Too lazy to edit the screenshot :) And there is also a google search for "vain".........

Reinstalling OS, Reconfiguring Everything

Managed to install Windows XP on the new PC last night. Also finished installing the all the drivers and basic tools I need for everyday use. I just realized how much of a hassle reinstalling is; the actual installation isnt the problem, its the customized configurations that make it a bit irritating.

For example, for Firefox, there are certain extensions that I just can't live without, one of them is Tab Mix. The extension basically configures tab functionalities so that each action results in a specific tab action. With Tab Mix, as with other Firefox extensions, there are so many customizable options, it really helps make surfing and navigating easier... and unfortunately, since I reinstalled, all my configurations just went down the drain, all back to default settings. Of course, I didnt realize this until I installed the extension and started using Firefox; to my irritation, each bookmark that I tried to open resulted in loading links in the same tab, overwriting the previous page that I was looking at. I had to create a new tab and then call up the bookmark. It might be a small thing, but nevertheless, it is irritating. Of course, as I've mentioned so many times, I AM somewhat obssessive compulsive.

It is a good thing I managed to save most of my frequently used tools in my hard drive. It was just a matter of moving my old drive to the new PC, (which I needed to do anyway, because it was just a few months back when I bought it) and I needn't even go online and search for each any every little tool. Eh of course, there's a the matter of updated releases of the tools I use, but then I could do that after. At least this is one pet peeve over with, now I'd go on to dealing with the above mentioned "reconfiguration". I did think about burning the software in CDs instead of just leaving it in the hard disk, but some of them are huge (like Cygwin), and I also hate having multiple CDs laying about.. then trying to figure out which one is more "updated". Maybe this time around, with my new DVD writer, I can do something about that...

*sigh* Even the thought of reconfiguring my Outlook is irritating me right now. hmph.

Well, I'd have to do a bit of research on this, especially with the Firefox extensions. I think most (or maybe even all) of them are xpi's. Maybe you know how them works? I'd sure use some help.

I remember I had a friend who wanted to make a CD so that all he had to do was pop the CD into the CD drive and it'll autonrun and install, customize all his favorite tools by itself. Not really sure if he managed to pull it off, but I hope I can do something similar. Reinstalling is such a bore....

New PC: I Can't Wait! I Can't Wait!

I just decided to get a new pc. The reason being, my old clunker, although is still good for browsing, watching DVDs, mpgs and simple wordprocessing, is also serving as a ICS with my brother's computer, and he's constantly complaining that the connection is slooOOOOooW. At first I wanted to just get an additional memory .. hopefully that will alleviate the situation. I bought a 512MB DDR (my current PC has 2 slots for SDRAM, and 2 slots of DDR) but ended up finding out that.. well, the DDR slot doesn't seem to be working. I tried, my brother tried, and I tried again.

Perfectly good way to waste money. My brother picked up the DDR instead.. at least its not a TOTAL waste, one of us is happy.

Well, there you go. Can't expand memory. Plus I'm considering taking up the OCP Oracle 10g certification/exam without taking those preposterous, over priced Oracle classes, and I won't be able to self learn without a Oracle10g running. And I _DEFINITELY_ need memory for that.

So after 3 days of looking (Sunday-Monday-Tuesday) and with my brother, officemates and friends' input, I found my "ideal" PC configuration morphing.. and morphing and morphing..:

Sunday:
1. Motherboard: Intel, as long as it supports 533Mhz DDR, have PCI-ExpressX16, PCI-ExpressX1 slots.
2. CPU: Higher L2 cache (this means the Intel6xx series, which boasts a 2MB L2 Cache)
3. Memory: 512MB DDR, any brand
4. Harddisk: None, I intend to use the HD i bought a few months ago and using in my current PC
5. Videocard: On board or PCI-E. No AGP Video cards anymore.
6. Sounds: On board is fine, as long as it supports 5.1
7. Lan card
8. No keyboard, mouse, floppy

Monday:
1. Motherboard: Intel, as long as it supports 667Mhz DDR2, have as much PCI-Ex16, PCI-Ex1, and PCI slots (I realized I need to reuse my old Lan card so I can still do ICS with my brother) My officemate Patrick keeps on looking at ASUS motherboards though, so I end up researching on ASUS motherboards. Hmm. Seems not bad either. Now seriously thinking of getting 945 chipset instead of 915.
2. CPU: Due to my officemate's insistence, said I really don't need a 2MB L2 Cache, Oracle is not really THAT CPU intensive. He's right though, I'm not going to make a production server out of my PC in the first place. So I settled for a IntelPrescott 531 (3.0Ghz) 1MB L2 Cache 800 FSB.
3. Memory: Now its up to 1GB. 2 533Mhz DDR2 512x2pcs
4. Harddisk: Officemate insisted S-ATA harddrive are lots faster than the old clunker IDE-ATA that I have. Better to get it instead.
5. Videocard: Onboard is fine. Upgrade later if you want.
6. Sounds: Onboard is fine, as long as it supports 5.1
7. Lan Card: on board is fine.
8. No keyboard, mouse, floppy.

Tuesday (Deposit day):
1. Motherboard: Asus P5LD2-VM (MicroATX) 945G chipset

• LGA 775 Socket
• Can support Intel CPU 8xx Dual Core series, as well as normal P4 CPUs, including 5xx, 6xx.
  
• Video: On board Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
• Audio: On board Realtek ALC 882, 8-ch High-Definition Audio CODECS/PDIF out interface
• Memory slots can accommodate DDR2 667/533/400,
  
• Intel Gb LAN: Intel 82573V Gb LAN
• 64-bit CPU support
  
• Sytem Bus can support FSB speeds up to 1066MHz.
  
• Serial ATA II connection
  
• Support 8 USB 2.0 ports
  
• 1 PCI-Ex16, 1PCI-Ex1, 2 PCI
• Storage: Intel ICH7 South Bridge
• Here's another spec page. And here's the spec sheet for the asus board. Its in PDF format.

2. CPU: Intel Pentium 4 531 (3.0 Ghz) FSB 800 1 MB L2 Cache (3 yr)
3. Memory: Corsair DDR2-533 512MBx2 (Corsair seemed to be a good brand, so they say.. lftme)
4. Harddisk: Seagate S-ATA 7200rpm 120GB 8MB cache (I'm so impressed with my officemate with this... I was only going to get a 80GB harddrive, but he bargained so hard, that the difference adjustment is "small" enough not to hurt my pocket, but still enough to get this 60GB diskspace upgrade.
5. Videocard: On board Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
6. Audio: Realtek ALC 882, 8-ch High-Definition Audio CODECS/PDIF out
7. Lan: Intel 82573V Gb LAN
8. No keyboard Mouse Floppy.
9. Drive: DVD Pioneer DVR-109 (12 mo). See specs here.

You can tell I'm so excited, can't you? I'm getting the PC tomorrow lunchtime... oh oh oh.. I dont think I can sleep! :P What a huge upgrade from my Intel P4 1.4Ghz , Pcchips motherboard. At the moment I can only dream how fast the whole thing will be. I hope I wont be disapppointed!!!! EEeeeek!

What's the Deal?

IT Certifications are meant to reward the people who have taken the classes and exams identifying them as people who have a good hold of the technology they hold certificates in. These certifications are taken as a measure and proof of the proficiency of the holder; people who have taken their toil understanding the technology, have a clear, working knowledge of real world solutions and applying practical and logical solutions to them. They're supposed to be given sparingly, and they're supposed to be difficult.

So tell me, what gives? Oracle has previously required its participants to take at least 4 exams to receive an Oracle Certified Professional merit with its Oracle 9i Database; now, with the introduction of Oracle's latest 10g database technology, the number of tests has been reduced to only 2. Don't get me wrong, this would be good thing, especially for people who do not have the means and financial resources to get 4 separate exams. But I would've expected something more than being able to pass the first exam by taking a "Oracle Database 10g: 2 Day DBA" class. Two Days??? two days to learn Oracle??? Stop. Oh, puuuh-leeeaaze.

I guess I veer towards the traditional view of "time spent is equivalent to knowledge and experience earned". We know that there are simply people who can learn things faster than others, and I admit, I feel a slight resentment when it comes to that inequality. I know friends who can simply digest something in days what will take me a week to accomplish. And for that fact, I admit it is simply a reality in life. But for a technology that has hundreds of pages of documentation, so many different aspects and facets to its functionality, 2 days is simply preposterous.

Don't mind me though, I just can't believe it. Instead of attending the class to see for myself (and not to mention cash out some bucks just for this) I'll probably just self learn this whole thing by myself. In case anyone out there has attended this class, I'd sure like to get their feedbacks how the classes came along. I still can't believe 2 days is enough to prepare a person for a Oracle database administrator certification, but maybe, that's just me.

...

I still think its preposterous, though. :)