Of Pokemon and animal lessons

WW learns his animals through Pokemon. For example, when I told him there were lots of World Cup mascots being sold in Sunshine, he said, "It's a Sandshrew, right?"

For comparison, here's the Brazilian mascot (an armadillo, it seems to be)

And here's a Sandshrew.

Similar, right? Though Sandshrew is supposed to be an ant-eater (pangolin, as stated on Bulbapedia), they are both scaly things that can roll up into a ball. :P


Then another day we were talking about something camouflaging itself on a surface. And WW said, like that Pokemon! Kecleon!

But he didn't know the name of the actual animal, that Kecleon is based on. (At least he knew the animal, just not its name...)

A chameleon. You knew that, right? :P

Of chocolate and penguins

We moved into our new office last Wednesday (not on Monday because Monday and Tuesday were holidays). So what can I say about Innoplex after a week?

Firstly, it's great that they are finally catering for chocolate-lovers and not only coffee-lovers. In Cyberplex, the coffee machine had five different types of coffee (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit; I didn't really count) and no chocolate drink. In Innoplex, they have Ricco (a kind of chocolate drink) and even teh tarik! (which is pretty good too, unlike the milk tea that they had in Cyber)

The only problem is that the chocolate powder seems to run out rather quickly. Or maybe they just haven't figured out when to refill the machine yet.

Secondly, I am turning into a penguin. A few days after we moved in, I posted on Facebook:

Did Motorola think that we would turn into polar bears and penguins after moving to Innoplex? Did they think that we would feel at home in the Arctic or Antarctic? *sweat* (cold sweat, I mean... or more appropriately: *shiver*)

And really, it got colder and colder... and finally I decided to bring a thicker jacket. If you don't already know, thick jackets obstruct movement. Now my jacket isn't that thick as to obstruct a lot of movement, but again if we move a bit into hyperbole, if the jacket is really thick, when you walk your arms will not swing back and forth; they will just stay at your sides (friction, ya know?) Then... penguin it is.
(As I said, my jacket is not thick enough to really stop my arms from moving when I walk... but during the coldest days I was tempted to walk like a penguin just because I was freezing!)

Luckily it looks like they reviewed the air-con setting (I know 'cause I sent them an e-mail and they replied saying they were holding a meeting to review it) and it is less cold these last two days. But it is still too cold to be comfortable, with or without a jacket! Today was rather strange because it actually alternated between hot and cold.

But then I heard people saying that the higher floors were colder. Being on the seventh floor (temporarily, since our floor is not ready yet), I guess this explains why it's so cold! When we move to the third floor, maybe it will be better. (Yup, we'll be on the third floor. Remember Pikachu Room?)

The illusion

You know how you sometimes notice a particular shape in an abstract pattern? And after that, every time you see the pattern, that particular shape will immediately jump out at you?

Well, that's what happened to me recently.

These are the tiles in the Mayang Mall bathrooms. Notice anything?

I've looked at this pattern before, actually looked at it. I remarked (to myself) that the tiles were exactly the same, but they were symmetrical and made a continual pattern that would be the same even if the tiles' edges were shifted, so that the current centre on the tiles become their edges instead. (get what I mean? It's kinda hard to explain in words) Anyway, that's not the main thing. The point I want to make is that one day, suddenly, inexplicably, I noticed a shape in the pattern. Something I had never noticed before.

Now, if you didn't notice the particular shape that I'm talking about, here is a close-up. Do you see it now?

If you still don't, it's a face. A woman's face. See it now? (I don't know how easy or how difficult it is to see, because I see it every time now!)

Actually, I probably didn't notice it before because the "face" really depends on the intersection of the tiles. At some intersections, the tiles are slightly closer together, making the woman\s face look more sunken and old. At others, they are either a little too close or a little too far apart to look like a face any more.

And now... I guess I will keep seeing it. Until we move to our new office!

Tales of the minority

Note: This post is an attempt at humour.

Note 2: Since it is only an attempt, you may not sue me if you do not laugh.

Now that the terms and conditions are out of the way, let's get started.

You see, at work I am part of the Accessory Software team. We are a sub-group of the software team, and at the same time a sub-group of the Accessory team. And when we move to Innoplex (the new building), these two teams are not moving at the same time.

So who do we follow? Initially we were supposed to follow the Accessory team, and move a week earlier than the rest of the software team. But due to some delays, we were informed that the Accessory team would not move till the 1st of August. So far, so good... everyone's happy with the delay because it means we can keep working close to food outlets, rather than close to other factories. (and that's very important! ;) )

But now the rest of the software team is set to stick to its original move date, the 11th of July. And they are taking the software servers with them. What?! And how about us? We need those servers too!

So for three weeks until our move with the Accessory team, we don't have to work? Nope, no such luck. The thought was to move together with the software team instead. But...turns out that our desks in the Accessory department will not be ready yet. Again, ... What?! Are we going to sit on the floor beside a LAN outlet, with our laptops on our laps? (by the way, we're not even sure whether the LAN outlets would be there yet)

As of now, the plans are either to squat in someone else's (furnished) cubicle, or hijack a meeting room in which to conduct our operations. I kinda prefer the latter. It sounds more classy and we can complain to everyone we meet about our mistreatment. :P

To be honest, there is also the plan to stay put in Cyberplex till the Accessory move date. But that sounds kinda boring, so I didn't include it above... even though it would be our first choice (remember the "very important" thing I mentioned above?)

Letter to the depressed

What can I say to you? What can I say when you are feeling down? What can I say that is not a lie, but which will not depress you further?

I know that you do not want to hear that things will be okay. How would I know that, anyway? You don't want me to tell you that things could be worse, or that some other people have it worse. That would be trivializing your pain. You don't want me to tell you that I know how you feel. How could I?

I guess what I can say is that this is not your fault. And that you are not alone. That this could have happened to anyone in the world, and there are other people in the world who have this kind of problem, even if they are few and far between. That I am lucky that it did not happen to me, for I would not know what to do if I were in your place. That I understand that it is a bad situation to be in, even though I cannot know how it really feels like.

And I guess I can say that this shall pass. Who knows whether what comes next will be better or worse. We hope it will be better. Who knows how long it will take for sorrow to pass. But it will, although we have no way of knowing what will replace it. Or what will dilute it, perhaps, for it will not disappear overnight.

And allowing it time to pass, even though not the most comforting of ideas, is something you can do. Sometimes maybe the only thing.

And I am here for you, if you need me. You just have to ask, for I do not want to intrude.

A short trip to SP and Bedong

So, as promised, here is the curry mee I mentioned in the previous post.

We went all the way to SP (Sungai Petani) for this!

Frankie had told us about this curry mee stall before...about how everyone would line up to buy it. He told us that the stall uses fish freshly caught from the sea (not even refrigerated, though I'm not sure how true that is... don't they refrigerate the fish on the boat when they catch them?) When we reached the food court (Eupe food court, if you want to know) at 9am, he said, "Eh? The stall isn't open?" because there was no queue. But it turned out that they were doing the preparations and just hadn't started selling the noodles yet. When we asked, they said that they would begin selling in 15 minutes. So Frankie and Philips lined up (and a queue formed later behind them) while Doris and I went to take a look at the other stalls.

After that we found a place to sit while waiting for the guys to bring our curry mee (this is the life, huh? lol) As they brought six bowls, the other two latecomers appeared (you'll see them below). What perfect timing!

The curry mee was good... and for RM5 you get plenty of slices of fish! You also get a slice of egg (with the yolk fallen out and needing to be fished out from the soup -_- ), a slice of tomato and a few chunks of lady's fingers. Basically I felt that it was a little like noodles added into a curry fish dish. But it was still good :) (though I'm not sure I would go specially to SP for it)

After the curry mee, we went to a durian farm owned by a friend of Frankie's. The farm is actually in Bedong, close to SP. It was quite a winding road to get to the farm...I wouldn't know how to go there again. This part of the trip is all theirs...as I am no durian-lover.

So I became the photographer as they ate their durians.

A stealthy hand plucking out the first piece of durian

Come have a taste!

I did eat a few pieces (three, to be exact), after checking with the others that they weren't bitter. They told me, "They're all sweet!" All of them preferred the bitter kind, so after that they asked the owner for a bitter durian. Even then, they said it wasn't that bitter... but I still said no, I didn't want any. lol 

Posing with the requested bitter durian

A change in colour

Buying breakfast this morning, I handed over a five-ringgit note and got a five-ringgit note plus a fifty-sen coin in return. When I said "Eh?" the seller said, "Three-fifty ma..."

"But I gave you five ringgit wor..."

He didn't even realise it when I first said "Eh?" Now that would have been a cheap hokkien mee. Buy one large hokkien mee and we will give you fifty sen!

Note: The hokkien mee was a big one, for WW, not for me. I had my curry mee! (Totally different from yesterday's curry mee... which I will post about later)

Edit: Oh yeah, the "colour" in the title refers to the green five-ringgit note and the blue one-ringgit note.

Of kindness

I came across this article today: The Critical Importance of Kindness

It's rather long, with descriptions of the studies that were carried out to arrive at their conclusions. But I wanted to save these bits here, some general truths, we could say.

Extract 1:

There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise.

Extract 2:

[...] in general, couples responded to each other’s good news in four different ways that they called: passive destructive, active destructive, passive constructive, and active constructive.

Let’s say that one partner had recently received the excellent news that she got into medical school. She would say something like “I got into my top choice med school!”

If her partner responded in a passive destructive manner, he would ignore the event. For example, he might say something like: “You wouldn’t believe the great news I got yesterday! I won a free t-shirt!”

If her partner responded in a passive constructive way, he would acknowledge the good news, but in a half-hearted, understated way. A typical passive constructive response is saying “That’s great, babe” as he texts his buddy on his phone.

In the third kind of response, active destructive, the partner would diminish the good news his partner just got: “Are you sure you can handle all the studying? And what about the cost? Med school is so expensive!”

Finally, there’s active constructive responding. If her partner responded in this way, he stopped what he was doing and engaged wholeheartedly with her: “That’s great! Congratulations! When did you find out? Did they call you? What classes will you take first semester?”

Among the four response styles, active constructive responding is the kindest. While the other response styles are joy-killers, active constructive responding allows the partner to savor her joy and gives the couple an opportunity to bond over the good news.

¡Tengo un nivel medio!

I found a vocabulary test through Vocabat. (Links to the tests are at the bottom of the post)

I first tried out the Spanish test, and ended up with 17%.

The result said "Este es el nivel de una persona no nativa con un nivel medio." This means that I have an intermediate level for a non-native Spanish speaker. Not bad, I would say...but I didn't exactly know those words...it went more like this: "Oh, I think I've seen this word before, it looks similar to this word in French/English, it should mean the same thing!" followed by pressing "J" for yes. (no, I don't call that cheating :P )

I next tried out the English test. Vocabat had mentioned that there was an English test, but I couldn't find it at first. Then I read through the result more carefully and found this line: "Si quieres participar en nuestro estudio en Inglés pincha aqui". (If you would like to participate in our study in English please click here. Or something to that effect.)

As I filled in my details for the English test, I realized that I might have been better off taking this one first. Because when I was filling in the Spanish form, I had to read each question slowly, trying to figure out what it meant! (but the silver lining is that I found out I could understand, albeit foggily :) )

Then on to the words. Unsurprisingly, I scored a lot better than in the Spanish test.

80%, and it says "You are at the top level!" So...what if I get higher than that? :P

I'm glad that I didn't get tricked by any of the fake words, be it in English or in Spanish. Yay! But I did get tricked in the opposite way... as in, I answered that "rememberable" was a non-word because I was afraid that it was a trap. :s The same goes for a few other words that sounded okay, but weren't widely used.

I wish they had a French test too. That would be interesting to take and compare against my English and my Spanish.

If you would like to try out the test, here are the links:
English: http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

Spanish: http://vocabulario.bcbl.eu/


Note: The title translates to "I have a medium level!" I decided not to take too many risks and keep it simple, reusing the words in the test result. And the inverted exclamation mark is used in Spanish; every exclamation (or question) starts with an inverted exclamation (or question) mark, and ends with a "normal" one. ¿Entendido? Understood?

A box tent can save your pizza

Some time ago, I said I was a logophile.

Today I received an e-mail from MentalFloss (which I have written about before) asking, "Fancy yourself a logophile ... and didn't have to look up "logophile"?" Thanks to Andrea, I didn't need to look it up! :)

The topic of the day was "enjoyable names for relatively common things". And from that e-mail, I found out what a "box tent" was.

The plastic table-like item found in pizza boxes is called a box tent and was patented in 1983. Most people in the biz now call it a pizza saver.

Sure, I had seen this thing in pizza boxes before, and the first time I saw it, I thought it was a great idea. But I had no idea it was patented!

Some other interesting words:

The string of typographical symbols comic strips use to indicate profanity ("$%@!") is called a grawlix.

It is likely that I will forget this word soon.

An agraffe is the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne.

The same with this one.

A single slice of bacon is called a rasher.

Now, a rasher of bacon is something I have heard of before. :) Did they come from an Enid Blyton book?

And now the last one I want to share:

The web between your thumb and forefinger is called the purlicue (and is pronounced just like "curlicue"). Acupuncturists say pinching it will make headaches go away.

I doubt I will remember what a purlicue is, but I sure hope I remember to pinch it when I have a headache. Do remind me if I've forgotten and am complaining about a headache!

And in case you don't know (I didn't), a curlicue is

a decorative curl or twist in calligraphy or in the design of an object.

Now that I see the definition, I think I've looked up this word before. :P

So there you go. Did you learn a few new words today?