Raptor Fail

I made this for FAIL Blog. Original photo and explanation from the Telegraph here.

Volume out of control

This is possibly the dumbest-looking thing I have ever seen Windows do.
And yes, they're real windows. I thought it was going to take forever to close all of them until my sister suggested highlighting a bunch in Task Manager and seeing if I could "End Task" multiple ones.

Merry Christmas!

Wipe sweat from brow

When you were a child, didn't you think the worst words your father could say were "I want to talk to you in my office?"

From: El Jefe
Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 10:27 am
Subject: lab progress
To: Everybody in lab

Please prepare one-page report for me describing your lab progress. I need to prepare my annual activity report. This is also important in terms of research grades (students) and project evaluation (no students). Keep it simple. Describe in bullets what has gone really well, mas o menos (so so) and really bad. Need it by tomorrow am.

Having completely forgotten about it on Tuesday (because of having to pick up FlowerMoonFish at the airport in a heavy snowfall), I dashed off my progress report (good thing he specified 1 page and bullet points) and emailed it to the boss at 11:57 am.

To: El Jefe
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: lab progress


Hi boss, here's mine.

Xeno

We had the PBS (Dept. of Pathobiological Sciences) holiday party and then after lunch I met with Big Boss to talk about finishing up my MS next semester. And then this...

Subject: Re: lab progress
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:58:13 -0600
From: El Jefe
To: Xeno

I would like to meet with you to discuss your lab progress. Schedule time either Mon or Tue next week.

*big gulp* Oh no...what did I do now?

To: El Jefe
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: lab progress


Would Monday at 9am be OK?

Xeno

El Jefe wrote:
Sorry, you and I met today. I wrote this email prior to our meeting and I'm sending this email to everyone.

Hehe. I think I panic too easily.

Mongolia!

I read this mostly because the only 2 Mongolians I can name off-hand are a) Genghis Khan and b) Altantuya Shaariibuu. It's a fun travel story, but this following section made me chuckle:

Since we're talking about cowboys, I can't close this entry without tackling a somewhat sensitive topic: Asian manhood. There is a widely held stereotype that, samurais and Bruce Lee aside, East Asian men are not particularly masculine. I hate to admit it, but as with many stereotypes, there's some truth to this. Take my native Taiwan: Good food? Yes. Friendly? Yes. Macho? Not at all. Many Taiwanese men consider it perfectly normal to fill their cars with stuffed animals. More broadly, male pop stars across East Asia have a disturbing tendency to look exactly like the teenage girls who are their biggest fans.

Please don't get angry about this. It's true that Western popular culture tends to emasculate Asian men. I am also aware that cultural ideals of manhood vary, and that Taiwanese men are more likely to express their masculinity in other ways, like collecting tea pots or chewing on betel nuts. But rough and tough they aren't. And some of this gives Asian men outside Asia something of a complex.

The antidote to any idea that this might be a racial, as opposed to cultural, trait is a trip to Mongolia. Mongolian men in the countryside spend their time riding horses, killing animals, and breaking firewood. They tend to hold their face in a fixed grimace. At times, it is like a country of Daniel Craig impersonators.

Wireless rosak...?

So...my wireless randomly started working again. (It stopped yesterday afternoon).

At the time, I had actually gone and looked under Device Manager and it wasn't detecting the wireless card at all. Now it's back.

*scratches head*

What kind of thing causes that kind of thing?

Rubber band-powered telefon

I have a really annoying problem with my telephone. Some time ago the back cover cracked and won't hold the battery in place tightly. So I have to put a rubber band around it otherwise the phone doesn't work.

I don't have much money and I'm kind of [trying to be] anti-consumerist so I can't justify buying a new one for a trivial problem like this. I really REALLY wish something else would hurry up and break, but unfortunately it's a pretty reliable phone (Sony Ericsson T610, bought second-hand in 2006 at a shop in Low Yat).

I just ran out of rubber bands (the fat ones that bunches of broccoli come tied up in are so great, I always save them) so I cut open an old bicycle inner tube. I knew there was something that that would come in handy for.

*sigh* Stupid telephone.

Where germs live

Yes, they're everywhere; no, I couldn't be arsed; and I'm only doing this dumb survey (20 pages of questions about Lysol and Clorox) because I get $10 out of it.

Strep throat is not a virus you morons. It's caused by STREP. Duh.

In case you're wondering, "Strongly agree" is on the left and "Strongly disagree" is on the right.