An empty street, an empty house

Westlife has got a hold on me. Well, not a really tight one...but one that's just constantly there, and I feel it from time to time.

An empty street, an empty house, a hole inside my heart.

It's surprising how often these lyrics (from the song My Love) just pop into my head (with the tune). Why? I have no idea. It doesn't happen with any other song... Some songs pop into my head and I can't get them out for a few days, but they always end up leaving me alone.

But these few lines...they come, they leave...and they come again. Might they be friends? (constantly there, like in the quote I posted before)

Fun with hitting people in the eye

I saw this article that I really must store for keepsakes.

It seems that Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia has found a sentence that can be made to have eight different meanings by placing the word "only" in all possible positions in the sentence. The sentence is "I hit him in the eye yesterday."

Here are the sentences with "only" added in:

1. ONLY I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did.)

2. I ONLY hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him.)

3. I hit ONLY him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others.)

4. I hit him ONLY in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye.)

5. I hit him in ONLY the eye yesterday. (Not other organs.)

6. I hit him in the ONLY eye yesterday. (He doesn’t have another eye.)

7. I hit him in the eye ONLY yesterday. (Not today.)

8. I hit him in the eye yesterday ONLY. (Did not wait for today.)

Haha, I love these things :D

Though I think that the explanations in brackets for numbers 7 and 8 are a little off. For number 7 I would have put "Very recently" or "Not very long ago". And for number 8 I would prefer "Not on any other day" (not today, not the day before yesterday, etc). Does "Did not wait for today" come in in any way?

Of idiocy

I think I found one of the worstly-designed webpages today. Every link on the page leads to the home page of the company. What's the use, huh?

"LCD driver" leads to the home page. "LCD module" leads to the home page. "COB (mounting method)" leads to the home page. Just don't use links if they're not going to be any use! Or did you just see those blue words on some website and thought that it looked cool?

It reminded me about the website I found back during my 4th-year internship. (I blogged about it here) I guess poor website designing is pretty common.

(Psst. Do we say "worstly"? I wouldn't have had any doubts if Firefox hadn't underlined it in red... Or do we say "worst-designed" instead?)

A theory...proven?

I read this article by Marina Mahathir yesterday, and I immediately wanted to blog about it. Not so much about the article as a whole, even though it is rather good. It was a few paragraphs of the article that struck me:

I have a theory that everyone imposes on other people their own values, whether the others subscribe to them or not.

In other words, many people assume that everyone will act exactly like them if given the chance in any situation.

Therefore, one assumes that others will behave in a good or bad way because if put in the same situation, that’s exactly what one would do.

So what does it say about a person who assumes that if people of different faiths from them get together, they must surely be plotting something bad?

It means that if this person were in the same position, that is in a minority position facing much harassment from ruling authorities over one thing or another, then he would certainly be plotting to take over the country.

That was actually the point that I wanted to make in this post (wow, that was written over a year ago!), except that I couldn't find the words to explain it so well.

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one with that theory.

Any other believers?

Of quarter chickens

We went to Dave's Deli for lunch yesterday. I had only heard the name before, but never gone there, nor knew what kind of food they sold exactly. Turned out that it was a western food place.

The others (the Js!) took a quarter chicken set each, while I took fish and chips (just the week before, we had gone to Nando's and I had taken a quarter chicken which left me totally stuffed...I decided against repeating the experience so soon)

The fish and chips were nothing special...I liked that they threw in two squid rings (I love seafood! lol), but the batter (and the fish) wasn't that good. Just "okay". Ordinary.

And I found out that Dave's Deli doesn't know how to quarter a chicken. The first two quarters arrived and we were surprised at how big they were. At first we even thought that they had made a mistake and given us half-chickens! But then we noticed that the legs were missing, so they were quarter-chickens after all.

And then the third plate arrived...with a chicken leg on it.

That is really the craziest "quarter-chicken" portions I've ever seen... At first I thought that they used the legs in another dish (that was probably called "chicken leg set" or something like that lol), and so just used what was left for all the quarter sets. But...nope. Rather unfair for those big eaters who get the chicken leg...personally I wouldn't mind that much because that would be enough for me! :P

The fox and the raccoon

When I was in Kuantan for the Labour day weekend, we went to Parkson. And I saw some cuties...



There was also a bunny and another animal (I can't remember what...maybe a cow?), but these two were the cutest! (the green pouch is their "sleeping bag")


And look at their tails!! (think "squeal") *melts*

I wanted these two and the bunny (that's what I said to my little brother..."I want this one, and this one, and this one"), but they cost about 30 bucks each... (was it RM33?) so I had to leave them behind. :(

*sigh* Soft toys are so expensive.

But it's not like I have none :P And I just found a place for the lovely bear Hung Jen gave me a few years back. (okay, "just" was actually about two weeks ago...or maybe three)


So I can see it and touch it every day ;)

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 )