One day only!

Last Friday I joined different people for lunch because all the Js were either not around or unavailable for lunch. Actually, I asked one of the guys (let's call him C) to call me along when he was going to the canteen. And he told everyone (okay, actually two people) who joined us that I was with them for "one day only!"

Then today the Js were all absent so I went to join them again. And C said, "I thought you said one day only?" -_-"

I didn't say that, you did! lol

By the way, when I wrote about the Js, I mentioned that sometimes some other people join us. One such person is P. He doesn't speak Hokkien, he speaks Cantonese. (so the medium of communication between the two of us is English) And today at lunch (he was there, need I say?) someone else spoke to me in Hokkien, with P just opposite us. After a while, I asked P whether he understood when we spoke Hokkien, and his reply was, "About 30% lah."

Hahaha...that's about the same as my Cantonese :P

So if I speak Hokkien and he speaks Cantonese...will it be like a chicken speaking with a duck? LOL

The journey: Year 1

I mentioned some posts back that I had something to blog about. I'm finally done choosing the necessary photos, so let's roll!

I wanted to document the places I've been during my stay in France...and that kind of post would be kinda "bland" without any photos, don't you think? ;)

So here are the places I discovered, with each town only being mentioned once, dated the first time I "discovered" it. (I'm breaking this down to seven posts, for the seven years I spent in France.)

September 2003: Angoulême


The town which became my home for two years. It might be small, but it's not that small...it's still the "head" of the department of Charente. And its bus service puts Malaysian towns to shame (yes, even KL).

October 2003: Bordeaux


We went to Bordeaux on a trip organised by Stéphane, our responsable (the person in charge of us in Angoulême). He got us an English-speaking tour guide, since we have just arrived and couldn't really understand "normal" French yet (only simple and very slow French :P ).

I can't remember much of Bordeaux... I wanted to visit it again later, but by then I was in Lyon and it was a little hard to get to Bordeaux (one's in the east and the other's in the west...)

October 2003: Tours


During our first one-week break, the whole lot of us from Angoulême went to Tours to visit the other half of our batch.

November 2003: La Rochelle


For Raya, the seniors in La Rochelle organised a gathering, which we as juniors duly attended :P I remember that it was very windy...and we did not get to really see La Rochelle's beauty until the second time we went there (for CNY), probably because the first time the weather wasn't so good (I can't really remember)

January 2004: Limoges


We went to Limoges to see Cécile, one of our French teachers. It's rather close to Angoulême. There wasn't that much to see...but well, it was fun ^_^

January 2004: St. Lary


Another trip organised for us, we were taken on a ski trip in the Pyrénées (and it was the first time we saw snow!)

February 2004: Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice (Italy)

This was our first ever "overseas" trip, with we four girls from Angoulême (Mimi, Hidayah, Maisarah and myself) together with Firdaus.

the Coliseum in Rome

My memory of Rome is of it being rather dirty, though I can't be sure that that is true :P I didn't look at the map at all during this first trip, but followed the others around.

David in Florence

I can't remember much of Florence at all. I didn't like it very much...maybe because I can't appreciate the art (like David here).

the leaning tower of Pisa...well, you know what it is

As for Pisa...well, there's nothing much to see other than this :P

gondolas (and snow) in Venice

It snowed when we were in Venice...which I will remember probably forever, because everyone told us that we were very lucky to see that, because it doesn't snow often in Venice. But that also meant that it was very cold! :P

April 2004: Futuroscope (Poitiers)


Another organised trip! Futuroscope is a science theme park in Poitiers.

Recap:
Sept 2003: Angoulême
Oct 2003: Bordeaux
Oct 2003: Tours
Nov 2003: La Rochelle
Jan 2004: Limoges
Jan 2004: St. Lary
Feb 2004: Rome
Feb 2004: Florence
Feb 2004: Pisa
Feb 2004: Venice
April 2004: Futuroscope (Poitiers)

(In italics are the places that are not in France)

Be patient, the rest will come...slowly, maybe, but surely :P

My mini Mini Cooper

Well, sorta. It is mini, at a 1:60 scale. And it was mine...for a few hours :P

We saw the KFC advertisement on TV about the Mini Cooper. I found it pretty nice, and WW was the "I want them all!" type. So one day I went to KFC with my colleagues for lunch to get a Mini Cooper.

Unfortunately it wasn't free...with the Olé meal (the Olé thing is a piece of (hot and spicy?) chicken in a tortilla with some exotic sauce and pineapple and tomato chunks) it costs RM5.50 and with any other purchase it costs RM8. I hesitated a bit when I saw the price...but I got one anyway...for WW (the car freak).

There were only four (out of six) types left...and there was no red one (the one I found nice on the TV ad) So I picked the nicest of the lot (in my opinion), and here it is:


Out of the box:


It even has a number plate (only a rear one though)



It is the pull-back kind...though without opening doors (I didn't even think about that till my mother asked, but WW said he "already checked")

Seeing double

When WW came visiting, he asked, "Why your computer so special, got 2 mouse one?"

When I had finished laughing, I showed him my wireless keyboard and asked him, "Why didn't you ask me why I had two keyboards as well?" He said "Yalah, I also wanted to ask."


Yup, that black "mouse" on the floor is actually the wireless adapter for my external keyboard.

Breaking news

I just realised that I haven't posted anything since two Saturdays ago. Which was when my visitors arrived, and they just left today.

I have a bunch of stuff I want to write about, but I feel so sleepy...so I guess I'll leave it for another day.

That's it for the 2-minute news today. :P

(I WILL post something else soon. Really.)

My before-travel list

I found this list of 10 foods to avoid if we have an overactive bladder. I used to have lots of problems when I was small...and it has gotten better as I grew up, but I still have to avoid liquids before making a long journey.

So I'm taking note of this. I have even made a condensed list (hey, I took notes! lol) because the "article" isn't really user-friendly (there is one tip per page, and you have to keep clicking "next") Though I feel that "10 things" is an exaggeration, because by saying "avoid liquids" or "avoid caffeine", there won't be that many items! Still...here's my list:

Avoid:
1. citrus fruits, even in juice form (oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes, tangerines, even pineapple)
2. chocolate
3. coffee and black tea (caffeine)
4. spicy food
5. sugar and honey
6. tomatoes/tomato sauce
7. alcohol
8. milk and cheese
9. energy drinks (caffeine)
10. carbonated drinks

What do you think? Anything you've tried-and-tested among all these?

Things people do to play with language

I got an inspiration for a blog post a few weeks back. And I started looking for the photos suitable for that post. Unfortunately, I am only partway through (waaay before the halfway point) and I have stopped for the time being. So I guess that'll have to wait.

Today I tried transferring photos from last weekend to my computer. Unfortunately the folder hung. This has happened several times, and by now I know that if the folder stops responding and I am forced to "kill" it via the Ctrl-Alt-Del deity, then I have no more chance of making it work without restarting my computer, however many times I try. So I'm letting it drop for today, and I'll try again tomorrow. (I don't want to restart my computer because it takes ages. Which also reminds me that I really really want a new computer.)

So. Not being able to transfer photos, I decided to blog. I have a few things to blog about...and it was then that I remembered the little "project" I had planned (see first paragraph). But I guess that one will have to take a back seat as I blog about more recent, um...discoveries.

Friedbeef's Tech had an article about how to generate lorem ipsum. "Generate what?" you might say. :P I had heard of lorem ipsum before, somewhere...but I had no idea what it was. Now I do. It is a filler text, used to display a typeface or layout, where you want people to be looking at the design rather than the content of the words. Lorem ipsum is (or more like was) usually passages in Latin, making it practically gibberish to almost everyone, so that they won't be distracted from what you want to show them. That sure makes sense to me...because I for one am a compulsive reader and I can't stop myself from reading anything I can read, be it billboards or people's T-shirts. (yes, that's right, if you're wearing a T-shirt with something lengthy written on it, be prepared to get some stares :P )

Oh, and I said it was usually in Latin because I found a generator that uses meaty words. And Friedbeef's article gives a gangster language generator.

From all that searvhing about lorem ipsum, I came across pangrams. So that's what you call the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

And I discovered the French equivalent: "Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume." (Take this old whisky to the blond judge who is smoking) There is also this second one which is almost the same: "Buvez de ce whisky que le patron juge fameux." (Drink this whisky which the boss finds very good) I guess both sentences could be common examples...while in English all the other sentences sound really forced - no one would ever use them! (check this page for what I'm talking about)

Some (crazy?) people even took the trouble devise sentences like

Only the fool would take trouble to verify that his sentence was composed of ten a's, three b's, four c's, four d's, forty-six e's, sixteen f's, four g's, thirteen h's, fifteen i's, two k's, nine l's, four m's, twenty-five n's, twenty-four o's, five p's, sixteen r's, forty-one s's, thirty-seven t's, ten u's, eight v's, eight w's, four x's, eleven y's, twenty-seven commas, twenty-three apostrophes, seven hyphens and, last but not least, a single !

and

This Pangram contains four as, one b, two cs, one d, thirty es, six fs, five gs, seven hs, eleven is, one j, one k, two ls, two ms, eighteen ns, fifteen os, two ps, one q, five rs, twenty-seven ss, eighteen ts, two us, seven vs, eight ws, two xs, three ys, & one z.

I guess linguists can have a lot of fun sometimes. :P

Sorry, Malaysia

There are so many posts these days about why people chose to leave/stay in Malaysia. All because the Malaysian Insider asked readers to contribute. I have read a bunch of these articles, in particular those about "why I stayed" (or "why I came back"), and I find them really...well, idealistic?

And I wonder, is this really true? I mean, what they are writing. Do they really mean exactly what they say? Do they really think that things will get better? (one article was "I believe in us", if I'm not mistaken) Do they really feel that strongly about contributing, giving back to the country?

I wonder because I would be unable to say truthfully that that is why I came back. Reading those articles led me to think about my own reasons for coming back. And it is plain and simple: this is home. Expand that if you must, because the fact that it is home means a lot more things. But I would be a hypocrite if I told you that I came back to make a difference, or that I want to give back to the country. These are good reasons, I will admit, but they are not my reasons. Even if I am not needed to make a difference, even if by staying away I would be doing the country a favour, I would still want to come back. Because this is home.

I'm not saying that the people who wrote those articles are hypocrites. Maybe this kind of people (by that I mean those who feel strongly about giving back, etc) are the only ones who would take the trouble to write articles about their motivations. I just wonder whether that is the case...or whether these are people like me, who came up with extra ideas to make a more lengthy article.

When price goes up

I usually buy bread to bring to work for breakfast. Yesterday I bought a packet of Daily Fresh buns. As I finished the packet I saw from inside the plastic (a transparent part), the price RM1.20 written on it. I had bought it for RM1.40. That's no mystery though, because there is a sticker stuck on top of the original price, giving the new price. (the sticker has the Daily Fresh logo on it, so it's not a rip-off by the seller :P )

Now what this got me wondering is, did they just raise the price? (I very seldom buy this brand) Or did they raise it some time ago, but have so many pre-printed packages that they still haven't finished using them? Hmm...

Okay, dumb post, I know. Just to write something. lol

The gadget era

iPhones. iPads. I don't really get the craze on gadgets these days.

Do most of these gadget-owners even use up to 10% of what their gadget can do?

As for me, I don't want an iPhone or an iPad. I admit, the iPad is tempting as an "all-books-in-one" thing. But reading while flipping the pages is more fun than reading off a screen. (a friend who's an Apple fan told me that the iPad has a page-flipping animation...but that's still not the same thing - we can't feel those pages, can we? :P )

I think I prefer to have my phone just do mostly what a phone is meant for: calling in and out. I guess sms was a good invention. And I really like having a camera integrated in my phone...for those times when I don't have my camera on me. But I still like to use my "real" camera when I actually want to take photos.

I don't want to go online with my phone...I prefer using a computer for that. Simply because of the screen size, actually. I want the font to be big, not tiny like in an sms.

Handphones have become like portable laptops these days. Wait, did I say portable laptops? Laptops are already portable. But yeah, a phone is even more portable than a laptop.

But you see, if you want to surf the 'net on your phone, it needs a bigger screen. Bigger than the old Nokia 4-lines-per-display (which led to lots of creative sms-es, actually). And that is why handphones are getting bigger and bigger (after getting smaller and smaller). I still prefer my phone to be compact. They're keeping phones thin, but the "area" size is really going up...the new "phone-computers" can't fit comfortably in your pocket any more (unless if you're wearing cargo pants).

I don't really like touchscreens, either. A lot of new phones have touchscreens, and I hope that they will continue making those with keypads, so that I won't need to switch to a touchscreen in the future.

I think I read an article once (I can't remember where) about phone manufacturers (or was it the manufacturers of some other item?) adding lots of features into their gadgets. Unnecessary features, actually, but that way they add "value" (albeit unwanted value) to their gadget, so they can sell it for more. And since consumers can't say they don't want those features (they aren't made optional, you see), they have to take them (and pay for them).

And I guess there's marketing as well. If you do your marketing right, you can convince consumers that they want something that they don't need (or even better, that they need something they don't need) I think that is how these new gadgets became to popular. Good marketing.