Some people think that because I'm jaded and cynical that I do not know what happiness means. They could not be more wrong. For one, I am a big fan and practitioner of schadenfreude, or deriving happiness from the misfortune of others. For the moralists who would chastise me for doing so, I like to also ask them one question.
Are you a fan of jokes? Do you know that the premise of almost all jokes is to laugh at other people, to revel in their misfortune and stupidity? Hah. Hypocrite.
But in between moments where I revel in simply being, for lack of a better description, a "肛门" (a nickname that a friend gave me that literally translates from Chinese as "ass hole"), I also find that happiness is very much a personal responsibility. No one can make you happy, and similarly no one can make you unhappy, if you don't want them to.
Granted, often enough our problems seem huge, but over the years I've learnt that sometimes it is the way you look at things. And the most important thing I've learnt is that no matter how bad everything seems to be, you must never stop doing the basic things right.
The basic things are
1) Eat properly, aka don't skip meals don't overeat don't eat at weird hours don't eat junk
2) Sleep at least 7 hours a night
3) Exercise
I find that no matter how shit life is, I never feel worse after a good meal, a good sleep, or a good exercise session. You can't control your social life sometimes, because people can be busy, or they have just decided that they have more important things than you, but that is never an excuse to give up on yourself, because you have to keep yourself strong for the ones that do matter, and you have to look after yourself because no one is responsible for your well being. And you will often find that the friends that do matter, they will show you why they do in the long run.
If you think all this is weird coming from me, you can rest assured that the next time you slip and fall in the streets, I will still be the first one to laugh at you. Some things, they never change.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
jobception. again.
I received a call at work today, and it was really short. It went along the lines of "I have a writing assignment for you. It is on very short notice, but it pays very well. Do you want it?"
Obviously, an offer like this is a trap, because people like me never ever hear the catch in the sentence. All I hear is the part about it paying very well and I'm sold. I'm a whore that way.
So this was how I ended up trying to find 50 different ways to describe the same thing, because the client is paying me a good sum to take about 50 similar profiles and write them differently. Unfortunately, we are not like the eskimos who have a hundred words for snow. Even the best thesaurus you had would struggle to give you more than 15 alternative words for any one word you can think of.
Add that to the fact that I have a very short timeframe, this is really just a recipe for a huge headache, as well as trying to hide the fact that I am using my full time job to do my part time job. A job within a job. Jobception!
My colleague asked me what the pile of paper on my desk was and I told him it was some paperwork I brought from home. Like who the hell brings paperwork from home to work. My brain was so fried I was giving horrible excuses.
So I started writing it. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job, given the brief. You see, the client wants me to write profiles. Profiles are about people, and they are about quotes. But there was one major problem. All the information supplied to me consisted of third person testimonials and lists of achievements. Nowhere in those profiles was there a single quote from the subject at hand. Why did it not occur to their corp comms people to ask their subjects for quotes if they wanted first person profiles?
With what they are asking, it basically means that I'm supposed to take a statement like this "John is a model worker, always hardworking and ready to give his best..." and turn it into this "I have a real passion for my job, and it motivates me to do my best" knowing full well that my subjects are nowhere near likely to say things in that manner.
If the subjects read their own quotes I think they would cringe. No, actually it would be their friends and colleagues who would. And I feel sorry for them, because the people I am writing about seem to be genuinely nice people, based on their profiles. But I don't care enough because I'll be enjoying the payout by then. The sad truth about hiring disaffected freelancers/mercenaries to write your stuff for you.
Obviously, an offer like this is a trap, because people like me never ever hear the catch in the sentence. All I hear is the part about it paying very well and I'm sold. I'm a whore that way.
So this was how I ended up trying to find 50 different ways to describe the same thing, because the client is paying me a good sum to take about 50 similar profiles and write them differently. Unfortunately, we are not like the eskimos who have a hundred words for snow. Even the best thesaurus you had would struggle to give you more than 15 alternative words for any one word you can think of.
Add that to the fact that I have a very short timeframe, this is really just a recipe for a huge headache, as well as trying to hide the fact that I am using my full time job to do my part time job. A job within a job. Jobception!
My colleague asked me what the pile of paper on my desk was and I told him it was some paperwork I brought from home. Like who the hell brings paperwork from home to work. My brain was so fried I was giving horrible excuses.
So I started writing it. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job, given the brief. You see, the client wants me to write profiles. Profiles are about people, and they are about quotes. But there was one major problem. All the information supplied to me consisted of third person testimonials and lists of achievements. Nowhere in those profiles was there a single quote from the subject at hand. Why did it not occur to their corp comms people to ask their subjects for quotes if they wanted first person profiles?
With what they are asking, it basically means that I'm supposed to take a statement like this "John is a model worker, always hardworking and ready to give his best..." and turn it into this "I have a real passion for my job, and it motivates me to do my best" knowing full well that my subjects are nowhere near likely to say things in that manner.
If the subjects read their own quotes I think they would cringe. No, actually it would be their friends and colleagues who would. And I feel sorry for them, because the people I am writing about seem to be genuinely nice people, based on their profiles. But I don't care enough because I'll be enjoying the payout by then. The sad truth about hiring disaffected freelancers/mercenaries to write your stuff for you.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Malaysian paper made of win
No you did not just convert 50 Cent, and attach Reuters at the end to make it look like they did it. I'm pretty damn sure 50 Cent is not worth RM1.50. Maybe 50 sen is.
ooh. new blogger interface
One problem with technology is, it is in a neverending race to render you obsolete.
Just yesterday, I was blogging with the old format of blogger, which I have gotten to over the years. I have to admit, sometimes seeing the old load screen gives me a strange kind of comfort, like an old friend.
What Google does to old friends. Heartwarming stuff.
So suddenly, I'm blogging on this entirely new interface that looks like a word document. Or rather, like a google docs document. Wait, Google bought over this thing didn't it. Small wonder. Thank you Google, you big billionaire internet company swallowing up just about everything else. Could you try to buy up Temasek Holdings while you're at it, I hate that damned company. You know how those futuristic movies always have these shady agents wearing black working for some shady big government company where nothing is transparent. We have one growing right on our doorstep.
I hope Google will buy it up, liquidate it and return all that money they are keeping to us, before they throw away billions more at Chinese companies. If I suddenly disappear, you know what happened to me. I spoke up against the Company.
Spaeking of irrelevant, did you know Google works very well with Wikipedia? Most times when I surf Google it is really to try and find out what something means on Wikipedia. It makes me wonder sometimes why I don't just go to Wikipedia instead of typing Google.com. Oh wait, it's because Google has insidiously taken over my life before I knew it. My email, my blog, my street directory, my documents, my excel spreadsheets, all my rss feeds, my youtube subscriptions, all my search engine searches, soon Google will know what I want for lunch before I do, based on tracking my lunch habits over the last one month with all that information its collecting. Doesn't anybody think its scary that somewhere in this world, in a little metal box somewhere, is a virtual record of your life.
Just yesterday, I was blogging with the old format of blogger, which I have gotten to over the years. I have to admit, sometimes seeing the old load screen gives me a strange kind of comfort, like an old friend.
So suddenly, I'm blogging on this entirely new interface that looks like a word document. Or rather, like a google docs document. Wait, Google bought over this thing didn't it. Small wonder. Thank you Google, you big billionaire internet company swallowing up just about everything else. Could you try to buy up Temasek Holdings while you're at it, I hate that damned company. You know how those futuristic movies always have these shady agents wearing black working for some shady big government company where nothing is transparent. We have one growing right on our doorstep.
I hope Google will buy it up, liquidate it and return all that money they are keeping to us, before they throw away billions more at Chinese companies. If I suddenly disappear, you know what happened to me. I spoke up against the Company.
Spaeking of irrelevant, did you know Google works very well with Wikipedia? Most times when I surf Google it is really to try and find out what something means on Wikipedia. It makes me wonder sometimes why I don't just go to Wikipedia instead of typing Google.com. Oh wait, it's because Google has insidiously taken over my life before I knew it. My email, my blog, my street directory, my documents, my excel spreadsheets, all my rss feeds, my youtube subscriptions, all my search engine searches, soon Google will know what I want for lunch before I do, based on tracking my lunch habits over the last one month with all that information its collecting. Doesn't anybody think its scary that somewhere in this world, in a little metal box somewhere, is a virtual record of your life.
Click. Subject wants fast food for lunch today. Click. We just signed an ad deal with Macs. Click. Flash hundreds of frames of McAds subliminally. Free will is an illusion. Click.
Perhaps someday when your left brain has nothing right and your right brain has nothing left, you can use this hard drive to reformat yourself.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
One girl, 80 guys.
The news is rife with the story of a "hardcore" underaged prostitute who honeytrapped 80 men. The lawyers are saying that she does not deserve protection, but they probably do not realise that her identity is already all over the internet, courtesy of the ridiculously proficient CSI mob at hardwarezone. The dudes there can dig out anything and everything.
I was just looking at the pictures of this girl, and all I am wondering is, what on earth did 80 men see in her. Okay, C cup boobs and nice skin aside, she's not worth $500 an hour, getting your face and name splashed on the local papers, and a jail term to boot.
If you are wondering what this girl looks like, you can follow this link here.
It also makes me wonder why anyone would do this to themselves. Sure $500 or so an hour is a nice amount of cash, but have you seen some of the men she slept with? Maybe that's why she charged $500, the ick factor was just too much.
I was just looking at the pictures of this girl, and all I am wondering is, what on earth did 80 men see in her. Okay, C cup boobs and nice skin aside, she's not worth $500 an hour, getting your face and name splashed on the local papers, and a jail term to boot.
If you are wondering what this girl looks like, you can follow this link here.
It also makes me wonder why anyone would do this to themselves. Sure $500 or so an hour is a nice amount of cash, but have you seen some of the men she slept with? Maybe that's why she charged $500, the ick factor was just too much.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
A hug for a Coke
Somebody came up with the smart idea to put a hug me vending machine in NUS. Apparently here's how it works, you hug the machine and you get a Coke.
What if you did not give a shit?
"That's how life is played, a ten cent masquerade"
- "Street Life", by Randy Crawford and the Joe Sample Trio
There is a person in my office who is perpetually sick. It is very unusual actually, because by most counts, this person seems healthy. It's just that every few days, I will notice that this person is not at her desk. In fact, it seems to me that she is not at her desk for one day every week.
I belong to a group of people who would die before I take an MC. In fact, when my mom asks me to take an MC because I have a hacking cough so loud it scares the shit out of birds on my windowsill and more often than not, my mom, I simply tell her "MCs are for the weak!" and go to work anyway. My dad always says I'm going to cough my lungs out but so far he hasn't offered to pay for my MC, which is a good thing. It means he knows its not that serious, it's just a figure of speech. Tough love breeds tough people. I just coughed 3 times typing this paragraph.
MCs are FTW(eak). Should be my new slogan.
Actually, the reason I don't take MCs is more because I'm a miserly son of a bitch who refuses to pay $50 to some quack to give me a piece of paper that excuses me for 2-3 days of work. Do you know it is actually very easy to get a 2 day MC? Most GPs will err on the side of caution and give you two days if you go to them for a headache, stomachache, fatigue or diarrhea because these are almost impossible to diagnose with certainty, they will just take your word for it. And no matter what they prescribe, you don't have to eat it if you aren't sick. If you actually did yes you would be sick and you would actually need another MC. Damn, you could go on a roll!
Did you know you can also get a fever by eating milo powder out of the tin and not drinking water for several hours after that? And if you want diarrhea, just eat a whole box of Ricola or anything sweetened with aspartame in under an hour. The phenylalanine will give you a laxative effect worthy of the best you've ever had, but only for a short period. Perfect for MCs. Yes I just taught you how to cheat your way into MCs. So sue me. I'm also a pirate. Not exactly going to bother with covering myself in glory here.
Now, if somebody were to offer to pay for my MC, you would see me happily admitting that I am in fact, weak, and I will also be curled up nicely under my blanket sipping a hot drink and watching movies. In light of all the charitable causes out there, some more dubious than others, you could try donating to this one. At least you can see some tangible benefit to someone else's life. I will give you a big smile and two thumbs up. If you want I can also wiggle my toes to the tune of "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. I will also sincerely sing your praises and tell the world that kind hearted souls still exist on this planet. You have no idea how much I want time off work if I didn't have to pay for it. Actually, that's precisely what a beggar does, but I'm not that shabby because I just want a day off.
In most other causes, you donate because you feel it may buy you some good karma, but hell you don't even know where the money goes. You may say I'm a cynic but last I heard some of it went into a first-class air ticket somewhere. That dipshit could well take economy, and learning about such shit actually makes you sick. So, not only are you not alleviating someone's sick, you feel sick.
So, in many companies, you get 14 days of paid medical leave a year. At the rate this person I know goes through hers, I would think she would be out of the paid medical leave in 3 months. But that's the amazing thing. If you did not actually give a shit, you could take a hell lot of unpaid medical leave. Sure, you have less money to spend, and all those MCs will probably cost you a bomb after awhile, but it means you work a lot less than a workaholic like me.
While I don't advocate it, she actually teaches me a different way to live. If you really did not give a shit, and you were happy just taking a paycheck, you could get an extra 52 days of leave a year, 14 of them paid. Honestly, that's bloody genius. Sure, you would never get promoted, and some day you might get fired, but you could just go somewhere else and do the exact same thing. If you just did not give a shit.
Can someone teach me how not to give a shit? It doesn't actually sound half bad now that I look at it.
- "Street Life", by Randy Crawford and the Joe Sample Trio
There is a person in my office who is perpetually sick. It is very unusual actually, because by most counts, this person seems healthy. It's just that every few days, I will notice that this person is not at her desk. In fact, it seems to me that she is not at her desk for one day every week.
I belong to a group of people who would die before I take an MC. In fact, when my mom asks me to take an MC because I have a hacking cough so loud it scares the shit out of birds on my windowsill and more often than not, my mom, I simply tell her "MCs are for the weak!" and go to work anyway. My dad always says I'm going to cough my lungs out but so far he hasn't offered to pay for my MC, which is a good thing. It means he knows its not that serious, it's just a figure of speech. Tough love breeds tough people. I just coughed 3 times typing this paragraph.
MCs are FTW(eak). Should be my new slogan.
Actually, the reason I don't take MCs is more because I'm a miserly son of a bitch who refuses to pay $50 to some quack to give me a piece of paper that excuses me for 2-3 days of work. Do you know it is actually very easy to get a 2 day MC? Most GPs will err on the side of caution and give you two days if you go to them for a headache, stomachache, fatigue or diarrhea because these are almost impossible to diagnose with certainty, they will just take your word for it. And no matter what they prescribe, you don't have to eat it if you aren't sick. If you actually did yes you would be sick and you would actually need another MC. Damn, you could go on a roll!
Did you know you can also get a fever by eating milo powder out of the tin and not drinking water for several hours after that? And if you want diarrhea, just eat a whole box of Ricola or anything sweetened with aspartame in under an hour. The phenylalanine will give you a laxative effect worthy of the best you've ever had, but only for a short period. Perfect for MCs. Yes I just taught you how to cheat your way into MCs. So sue me. I'm also a pirate. Not exactly going to bother with covering myself in glory here.
Now, if somebody were to offer to pay for my MC, you would see me happily admitting that I am in fact, weak, and I will also be curled up nicely under my blanket sipping a hot drink and watching movies. In light of all the charitable causes out there, some more dubious than others, you could try donating to this one. At least you can see some tangible benefit to someone else's life. I will give you a big smile and two thumbs up. If you want I can also wiggle my toes to the tune of "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. I will also sincerely sing your praises and tell the world that kind hearted souls still exist on this planet. You have no idea how much I want time off work if I didn't have to pay for it. Actually, that's precisely what a beggar does, but I'm not that shabby because I just want a day off.
In most other causes, you donate because you feel it may buy you some good karma, but hell you don't even know where the money goes. You may say I'm a cynic but last I heard some of it went into a first-class air ticket somewhere. That dipshit could well take economy, and learning about such shit actually makes you sick. So, not only are you not alleviating someone's sick, you feel sick.
So, in many companies, you get 14 days of paid medical leave a year. At the rate this person I know goes through hers, I would think she would be out of the paid medical leave in 3 months. But that's the amazing thing. If you did not actually give a shit, you could take a hell lot of unpaid medical leave. Sure, you have less money to spend, and all those MCs will probably cost you a bomb after awhile, but it means you work a lot less than a workaholic like me.
While I don't advocate it, she actually teaches me a different way to live. If you really did not give a shit, and you were happy just taking a paycheck, you could get an extra 52 days of leave a year, 14 of them paid. Honestly, that's bloody genius. Sure, you would never get promoted, and some day you might get fired, but you could just go somewhere else and do the exact same thing. If you just did not give a shit.
Can someone teach me how not to give a shit? It doesn't actually sound half bad now that I look at it.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
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