I should give my car more credit

I always thought it was a "smart" feature of my car that when I started the car, it would put the side mirrors back in their proper position after someone knocked them out of place. Well, I was right about it being smart... I just didn't know exactly how smart it was.

Yesterday morning, when I started my car, the side mirrors moved to the closed position (I mean "closed" as in folded against the car). So I slid down the windows and pushed them back into place.

The same thing happened as I was leaving work. (yesterday) I was thinking, what are the chances that someone would knock my side mirrors twice in a row?

It happened again this morning. But this time, as I pushed (manually) the mirrors back to the "open" position, I noticed something: There was no click to hold them in place. Which was why each time they automatically folded back in the next time I started the car.

I was looking at the mirror controls wondering whether there was something I could do there... then I pressed a button. And the mirrors clicked into position (I had already pushed them open, you see). Then that light bulb went off in my head, and I tried pushing the button again. The mirrors closed in. Another push. Open. Ohhhhhh....

How stupid was I? Very. Such a useful feature that I never knew to use. The thing is, I always thought that this feature was only available in expensive cars. "Smart" cars. But hey, my car's smart too. It's "full spec", for goodness' sake! I should give it more credit.

It's been a long time since I've written a post like this. And you know what? This is definitely going to make me smile (if not laugh) when I read it back a few years from now. :D

Edit: Oh yeah, I must have hit the button by mistake one day, making the mirrors close in.

Paula Abdul

A few days ago I heard someone request the song Straight Up by Paula Abdul on the radio. (Lite.fm, if you must know) I've always heard that song without knowing either the title or the singer.



As I was searching for the song on Youtube, I found another one of her songs. I've heard this song, a duet called Opposites Attract, many times on the radio, but never knew who sang it either.

The video is quite nice; check it out (it's the same as the link):

Unhyphenated is unhyphenated

I am currently subscribed to Mental Floss's Watercooler Ammo newsletter (it comes to your e-mail; you can sign up on their website if you want). Sometimes the stuff is rather interesting, sometimes not so much, and sometimes I come across this kind of thing that I really like.

Yup, words! They sent us sixteen words that describe themselves. Check them out:

,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_ .-:*'``'*:-.,_

Most words have a rather abstract connection to the things they describe. The word "yellow" is not actually yellow. The word "square" is not a square. Nor do we expect them to be. But some words do embody the properties they denote. We call them autological words, and they are a self-centered, self-referential bunch. Here are 16 of them.

1. Word

Yup, that's what it is.

2. English

Well, it ain't French.

3. Erudite

It is a very scholarly word, this word that means scholarly.

4. Noun

Verb, adjective, and adverb are nouns too.

5. Buzzword

Been hearing this everywhere.

6. Cutesy

Barfsy.

7. Polysyllabic

Lots of syllables in this one.

8. Sesquipedalian

A term for "long word" from the Latin for "a foot and a half long."

9. Unhyphenated

And should remain so.

10. Magniloquent

Grandiose and pompous indeed.

11. Recherché

Rarified? Affected? Pretentious? Mais, bien sûr, my dear.

12. Proparoxytone

Meaning stressed on the antepenultimate, or third-to-last syllable. Pronounced pro-par-OX-y-tone

13. Hellenic

Of Greek origin. From ancient Greek (ellhnikos).

14. Obfuscatory

Do you want to be straightforward and easy to understand? Then don't use this obfuscatory word.

15. Suffixed

Now that you mention it, "prefix" works too.

And what's that word to describe a one-word sentence? Oh right!

16. Monepic.

For more word nerdery, check out this one: 14 Words That Are Their Own Opposites.

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That was what I got in the e-mail. I can't find a direct link to those sixteen words, though. The fourteen words which are their own opposites is interesting, too, but I don't like it as much...because sometimes it isn't the complete opposite, it's just a different meaning if used in a totally different context. It still helps your vocabulary to know all that, though.

When one of your favourite authors leaves you disappointed

For once Jeffrey Archer has let me down. I'm talking about his novel False Impressions. On the whole it is still a good book, and I enjoyed reading it. But I found at least two discrepancies that are really annoying, especially since I have always found his books well-written with neatly tied up endings.

The first problem is that he seems to have written the same scene twice. On page 330 (by the way, this is an omnibus edition with two novels in one, so the page numbers are definitely different from the original edition) he describes this scene:

pg 330

Then he switches to another scene about another person, and two pages later, when he has switched back to the earlier person, he describes the same scene again, just using different words. Oh no...who proofread this thing?

pg 332

The second thing is a scene where a bad guy is trying to trap someone in his office. He enters a wrong code to trigger the alarm. But this is where it gets weird...maybe you'd like to read it first and see?

pg 379

So you see, he first enters the correct alarm code, which triggers the alarm. Why would the correct code trigger the alarm? And then he enters the wrong code after the security grilles have been slammed closed. Huh??

Not only that, but there was another problem that is really strange. It is related to the last scene above. The bad guy traps the other guy in his office, but what was he planning to do after that? We don't have any idea... because the other guy conveniently gets a stress attack (or something like that) and isn't rescued till several hours later (the bad guy asked the security company not to rush it because it was not urgent), and he lost his ability to speak. But what if he hadn't had a stress attack? What then? There was no mention of the bad guy's plans in that case.

I might have missed the explanation for this part of the plot, but I'm pretty sure I didn't, because when I was reading the rest of the book, I really wanted to know! If anyone finds the reason behind it, please let me know.

Four plush dogs

I just saw a car with four (yes, FOUR) dogs in the rear window (plush ones, I mean). I'm sure I saw three pairs of eyes, but I'm also pretty sure there was a fourth one, I just didn't manage to see it properly because another car came in between us. Not to mention that the car was a little way ahead. Four identical dogs. And I thought, why would anyone buy four identical plush dogs to put in their car? (because I don't think someone would give four dogs as a gift) If I had four identical plush dogs, I'd put one in my car, one in my office, one in my living room, and one in my bedroom! One to cuddle at any time! lol

Another example of wanting to be classy

I remember writing about this when I was still working in IQ Group. Not that changing companies will change anything, though. I certainly did not expect much change.

We received an e-mail saying:

Should anyone of you has borrowed the "something" from me, please let me know.

Wrong. It should be "Should any of you have borrowed..." or "If any/anyone of you has borrowed...".

(not sure whether "anyone" works with "should", but it just doesn't sound right)

Why didn't this person just use "if"? Because they had heard the sentence beginning with "should" before, and thought that it sounded classy, no doubt. -_-

But in that case, learn it properly before using it!

Okay, end of rant.

Makes me smile

On the way home from work, I was stuck in a short bottleneck jam (very very short, as in I couldn't pass a narrow area before the car on the opposite lane moved forward). A woman on motorbike, with a little girl sitting in front of her, stopped behind me, unable to pass. As I was looking at them in my rear-view mirror, the little girl reached up and tapped her mother's cheek, and then pointed in front of her. To the Snow White teddy bear in my rear window, I'd guess. Makes me smile. :)

Musim kemarau

Almost. It hasn't rained in ages, I believe. (or if it has, it has been very short and slight)

There are some plants outside my apartment, and they have been dry twigs for more than a week (or maybe two, I didn't really keep track).

In the park opposite, the grass is all dried up, too. The same with the other park near the market.

(Photos taken from my balcony. My camera has a nice zoom feature, doesn't it? :P )

Kippers

I just read a book set in the '60s, and came across the word "kippers". (A Matter of Honour by Jeffrey Archer; it's great, you should try it too!) I've known for a long time that kippers are fish (from Enid Blyton's children books), but I suddenly thought, "Hey, how come I don't hear about this fish when reading books in a contemporary setting?"

So I decided to find out exactly what kind of fish kippers were. Did they go extinct or something? Why don't people eat them any more? And where better to turn to than the Internet?

I found an article in the Guardian from 2012 which perfectly suited my needs. Even the title itself told me that I was on the right track, referring to kippers as "the breakfast dish that fell out of favour". It says that "Kippers, along with other traditionally popular oily fish such as mackerel and sardines suffered from a culinary prejudice by younger people who considered them old-fashioned and the kind of food eaten by their grandparents."

So what exactly is a kipper? Here's the answer:
"A kipper is a whole herring that has been sliced in half from head to tail, gutted, salted or pickled, then smoked – a process is known as "kippering". Fish have been smoked and salted for centuries, but kippering was popularized in 1843 by John Woodger, a Northumberland fish processor. Oily, plump and pungent, the kipper was popular on Victorian and Edwardian breakfast tables. It has been a permanent fixture on the Savoy's breakfast menu since the hotel opened in 1889. Technically a kipper is any fish that has been through the kippering process."

Sounds good to me... where can I try some?

The article also says that "Kippers were the quintessential British breakfast food", which explains why Enid Blyton mentioned them all the time!

Eggs on rice

This has to be one of the best cooking tips I have ever received. Since Rohijah told me about it less than a year ago, I have tried it out and then continued to use it several times.

Don't get the wrong idea, this isn't a recipe! The eggs are just cooked together with the rice. That is perfect for someone lazy like me, because it eliminates the need to boil a separate pot of water for the eggs, and then washing an extra pot later. :P

Anyway, back to the start. Rohijah was actually telling me about how to "save" rice when you have put in too much water to cook it. Just wash an egg, and put it into the rice when the water starts to bubble! The rice and the egg will be cooked perfectly.

Intrigued, I tried it out the next time I had the chance. And to try it out, I had to put extra water into my rice on purpose! It turned out great, so now this is my preferred method of making boiled eggs. Anytime I'm missing a little something to go with my rice, add an egg! (the eggs will be cooked just nice, so it doesn't work if you like eggs to be cooked extra hard)

But then...this makes me even lazier. I used to fry an egg when I needed to add something to my meal. Now I won't even fry it any more, because cooking eggs this way is much easier!