Interesting and appalling

I went to the library this morning. First book I saw on the shelf: The Power of Six Sigma.


Now a couple of weeks earlier that wouldn't have meant anything to me...but some time ago we were asked (at work) to go for a course in reliability in production and stuff, and the instructor mentioned three-sigma and six-sigma quite a bit. (a six-sigma process gives you 3.4 defects per million (I didn't remember that figure, I got it off the back of the book - though when I see it I do remember the instructor mentioning it :P ), so is supposedly very reliable)

So I picked up the book to take a look (coincidences are to be taken advantage of, aren't they? :P ). And it turned out that the book was a "fictionalised" way of explaining the six-sigma. So hey...I picked it up and brought it home. If it isn't interesting enough, I can always put it aside without finishing it.

That was the interesting part. Let's move on to the appalling. While browsing around for other books (pure fiction this time :P ), I saw this book (I can't remember the title...and I wanted to be discreet taking photos in the library, so I only took one).


Actually it was the front cover that caught my eye...it was a book for the literature component in school (Standard Five, I think). I picked it up to see what kind of story the students were being given, and reading the synopsis at the back, I came across this sentence:

As I expected, Angel did not approved of my plan.

That was the bottom line in the yellow box, which contained an excerpt from the story. It's supposed to be "approve"! I hope the actual story has it right...or else how are the students going to learn?

As for Cerdik Publications...they shouldn't be allowed to print any more textbooks. -_- (unless if it was the author's fault...in which case, I really don't know what to say)

Taylor Swift, you need to get more creative...

This morning I heard Speak Now on the radio. And it struck me how Taylor Swift's songs have about the same style. Well, for one, the music is about the same, but what I'm thinking of at the moment is more on the lyrics.

These three songs: Speak Now, Mine and Love Story all have a chorus that is modified at the end of the song to suit the guy's perspective.

In Speak Now, she says:

Don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out
Of the church at the back door

Don't wait or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
When they said "speak now"

And at the end of the song, he says:

[And you Say]
Let's run away now
I'll meet you when
I'm out of my tux at the back door

Baby, I didn't say my vows
So glad you were around when they said
"Speak now"

In Mine:

Do you remember we were sitting there by the water?
You put your arm around me for the first time
You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter
You are the best thing that's ever been mine

[You said] I remember how we felt sitting by the water
And every time I look at you, it's like the first time
I fell in love with a careless man's careful daughter
She is the best thing that's ever been mine

And in Love Story:

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story baby just say yes

[And said,] marry me Juliet
You'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story baby just say yes

This kind of lyrics was rather refreshing the first time (I remember noticing it in Love Story), but it's starting to get boring. These three songs are the ones I noticed it in, since I'm hearing Mine and Speak Now quite often on the radio nowadays. I wonder...are there any others?

(Speak Now was played on the radio again as I started writing this post...what a coincidence.)

A partial victory

I just realised, I've been the top-ranked Malaysian player in Minesweeper for more than three years now (most probably four, maybe five, six or possibly up to seven years actually) I can't remember when I knocked Khor Eng Tat off his first place (and I'm rather lazy to check), but I know that when I got that 52, I had already been at the top spot for some time. And I can't believe that it was back in 2007! Wow...I've been dormant for that long?!

So here's a screenshot, for posterity. Because you never know when I might lose that place to someone else ;)

These scores might seem a little confusing because they are "real" times, starting from zero instead of one, and not rounded up (bla-bla-bla, I didn't agree with this system but I was overruled -_- )
So my 1.20 up there is actually a 2 in "normal" score, and so on for the others.

However, from being in second place on the girls' ranking, I've been overtaken by five Chinese girls (just when I was about to beat the previous number one, too! -_- )

(Okay, I was overtaken by only one at the beginning, ages ago; the others came up later, I just noticed them :P )

For those who wonder why I'm suddenly posting about this, I saw an announcement about the next Minesweeper tournament (in Stirling, where unfortunately I won't be) and suddenly wondered, am I still number one on Malaysia's list?

(That screenshot is from The Authoritative Minesweeper.)

Lunch with the Js

At work I have lunch with three Js. Well, sometimes one (or two) can't make it, and sometimes someone else joins in, but most of the time it's the four of us.

And speech is a bit of a dilemma. You see, I speak to J1 in English. I speak to J2 and J3 in Hokkien. J1 speaks to J2 and J3 in Cantonese. J2 and J3 speak to each other in Mandarin.

So it's a melting pot of languages...unfortunately I'm only passable in two of them. :s

But I'm training my ears...I can already understand more Cantonese than I could before. (well, just a teeny bit more... :P )

Of all the books I've read

I just finished reading The Givenchy Code by Julie Kenner. Basically it's a chick lit version of the Da Vinci Code, with a girl cryptologist with a love for shoes as the main character. The book wasn't too bad...it was actually rather gripping; I had a really hard time putting it down! I started reading it last night, thinking that I would just read a little of it, but then I got stuck and read on and on, even while watching the American Idol results show (I've just started following it since it's down to the last four, and I was so happy that the screaming guy got voted out :P ). And even after that, I went on reading...till I finally forced myself to stop and go to sleep.

And this morning I finished it first thing in the morning, while and after eating breakfast.

But. It isn't that great a book. Entertaining, yes. And you just want to know what happens next. (a bit like the Da Vinci Code) But the story was totally far-fetched, and it was not wrapped up properly! It's such a disappointment when that happens with an entertaining book. I mean, you enjoy it while you read it...and at the end you find something missing.

Spoilers ahead! (or maybe not really...because you kinda know how it's going to end, just not how)

In The Givenchy Code, the girl is forced to play an online game in real life, a game where she has to solve a series of codes to get to a prize, and all the while being hunted by an assassin. (once she solves all the codes, the assassin is called off) And the codes are all somehow linked to her life, using the profile information she had submitted when she signed up to play the online game. At one moment, she mentioned that there was something too trivial for her to have put in her profile. So how did they (the mastermind behind the whole thing) find out about it? Question unanswered. :(

That's one thing...and another is that there were a lot of victims. She wasn't the only one being forced to play the game. But we never find out anything about the others...which is perhaps logical but quite disappointing.

Spoilers end

(Oh, and Ms. Kenner uses the omniscient-first-person-narrative (as I've complained about before). Grrr...just use the third person everywhere, won't you?!!!)

I think that of all the books I've read, there was one that really impressed me by the way it was wrapped up. There were totally no loose ends that I could notice, and even details that I wouldn't have bothered about were explained thoroughly at the ending. The book is Parce Que Je T'aime by Guillaume Musso (yes, it's a French book, unfortunately), and it made me totally go "wow" at the end.

I want some more good books!

A lesson on sociology

I got this from my father.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said: -

"OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.


"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931


Abraham Lincoln said the same as Dr. Rodgers when he proclaimed -

"You cannot make the weak strong by making the strong weak!"


I kinda thought about this before. I was thinking, there are people in the world who have more money than they need, and people in the world who don't have enough money. If everything were shared, everyone would have enough.

So I thought of an "ideal" world, where everything is shared - no monetary system, but everyone doing their own job, for whoever needs it (those who plant vegetables would share their crops, those who fish would share their catch, etc). But right away we can see a glaring flaw: would people do these things? Would someone go out to catch more fish than they need, if it were just to give it out to whoever wants it? No, they wouldn't. They would want something in return. And that is why, once possession was defined, nothing is free any longer. You've got to work for what you want.

(Which is why humanity has progressed so much, I guess. If possession had never been defined, we'd probably still be catching/plucking our own food or snatching them away from someone else (think animals))

Juggling work and...meals

It is SO HARD to buy food for one person. By food, here I mean veggies, especially. Because they are perishable and can't be frozen. (Well, technically they can, but at the risk of being completely mushy and soggy when you want to use them. So they can actually be used for soups or purées, but I don't make vegetable soups or purees.) Meat and fish can be frozen easily, so if I don't finish using any, I can just leave it for next week (or the next...)

So when I want to buy vegetables, first I have to think about when exactly I'm going to use them. (And if I happen to change my plans...then I'd better have a backup. -_- ) Because I don't have time to cook on weekdays, the only time I can cook is during the weekends. And I play badminton on Saturday morning, which means that I don't have time to cook lunch on Saturday either! Which makes the number of meals I can cook in a week a grand total of 3. (not very grand, huh?)

Today I was at the supermarket looking at the vegetables. (I hate it when I'm there...I'm staring at all the choices and wondering which I can manage to finish in the next few meals...and in the end I pick up a tiny bit. I always hope that no one's watching.) First I picked up a bunch of leafy veggies. Then I walked off and saw some brinjals. Then I changed my mind and took a brinjal instead. And with the brinjal, I wouldn't be able to finish the leafy veggies, so I went to put them back.

At the rack there was a lady looking at those same veggies...and she asked me whether those veggies needed to be weighed. (no, because they were sold per bunch) She took a bunch...and I put back mine. Then she asked, "Why aren't you taking those?" I replied that I had changed my mind and was taking the brinjal instead. But I think she was thinking, "What's wrong with these veggies? Should I be buying them?" :P

Haih, what a complicated veggie life. Suggestions are welcome...

Being killed slowly

Warning: Rant. Those who are easily offended by criticism should continue reading at their own risk.

I just saw this sentence on Facebook. "Is true of it."

What on earth does that mean?! Of course, being Malaysian and subjected to this kind of atrocities day in and day out, I know that it should be deciphered as "it's true". But for goodness' sake, why don't you just say "It's true", a simple (and CORRECT) enough sentence that I am sure you know? I suppose you think that placing the words "of it" at the end of your sentence makes it sound like you are learned? Well, NO IT DOESN'T! Use simple English correctly and people won't know you're dumb you don't know more than that. But try to use "bombastic" (in quote marks because "of it" is hardly bombastic) words and use them wrongly...that simply shows that you're just a wannabe.

(And please don't say that I'm over-reacting to this tiny sentence, because I've seen so many variations of these mistakes that if I were physically stabbed each time I saw one, I'd probably be dead by now (my wounds wouldn't heal before the next stabbing) )


At work I get this type of e-mails so often, sometimes it makes me wanna scream. This is one such example; an e-mail from the IT department about our internet connection. (in brackets are my modifications...'cos I don't really want to publish the whole e-mail exactly here)

Dear all,

As you aware on internet [...] unstable since last Thursday due to below reason, It's seem like back to normal stable condition since this morning. [We] have achieve this by thorough day and night coordination with international routing team (Telekom Malaysia) to get a better routing table even there is so many other Malaysian company's are facing the same issue.

We are expecting this achievement will be last long. Thank you very much for your kind cooperation.

Please do not to assist to contact me via [...] if any of you still facing issue on internet / network.

Regards,

The first time I read this e-mail, I went... ??? . There is ONE sentence that is correct in the whole e-mail. The worst part is "please do not to assist". Huh? Don't assist you? So I should just shut up if there are any problems? -_-

You know, when I see this kind of thing...I wonder whether I should have become a teacher instead. I am itching to give some people English lessons...

But then, rationality kicks in and I know that I am lucky not to have chosen that path. Because if I were to have students who wrote like this, I just might drop dead of a heart attack before I am 40.

For goodness' sake (and my heart's), please just use simple English! What IS wrong with that? Why must you choose to use "beautiful" sentence constructions and then mangle them?

I've got housemates!

There were lots of dead flies on the floor when I left home on Friday. (you know, those that are attracted to light) I didn't have time to sweep them up (and some of them were still alive anyway), so I thought, I'll settle that when I get back. But when I came back today, there wasn't a single fly on the floor...only wings. Conclusion? There must be lizards around...they probably threw a party when I was away :s

I have actually seen baby lizards in here before. Oh no...they're breeding! :(

The miracle

Going back to Kuantan, I made the (rather stupid) decision not to bring my lip balm. I was thinking, it's not that dry in Kuantan anyway. (it's drier in Penang) But I forgot that in the air-conditioned bus, it could get rather dry...

So I ended up with a split lip upon arriving in Kuantan. -_- And from my experience with split lips...it'd take days to heal...even using lip balm! (which I didn't have with me, remember?)

On Sunday I was out with a few friends, and we went into The Body Shop. Every time I asked for a moisturiser recommendation, a few people would recommend The Body Shop's body butter. Not that I ever bought it...it's just too expensive! But this time I noticed their lip butter, exactly the same as their body butter (except that it was for the lips, of course). There are tester containers for about every product in the shop...so I tried the shea lip butter. (from my "research", shea is the best thing for dry skin, apart from cocoa butter)

That was in the afternoon. And that night, I suddenly realised that I no longer had a split lip. A miracle!

I only wish I knew whether the lip butter really healed my split lip, or whether it was going to heal anyway...