On The Verge Of Happiness

Bye, bye, Blogspot

Now blogging at http://imoxyz.livejournal.com.

I want to be able to lock entries if needed.

posted by imo @ 10:46 AM Comments: 0

Gobbledygook

We are going to be supporting the customer service for a certain game in Spain (I won't say the game name because it isn't in full effect yet, maybe, so confidentiality issues and all that).

Consequently, my company has hired 15 Spanish-speaking agents. Interestingly, some of them are not very fluent in English or Filipino.

So they all sit around gabbling to each other in rapid-fire Spanish, with the slurring and words tumbling over each other that you hear from people speaking in their native tongue.

Ugh.

I'm not even sure whether to say, "Excuse me," when I squeeze past them in the aisle, or perhaps some bastardized version of that in Spanish.

Pardonez-moi, as my friend used to say. Oh, wait, that's pidgin French.

Puppies

My landlady's annoying yap-at-five-AM-daily dogs have had puppies.

They're actually not pretty puppies, since you can tell they're going to be ugly long-snouted nondescript mongrels like their parents when they grow up.

But right now, they're round-bellied and waddle around sniffing at my toes, wagging their stubby tails. Pretty cute.

Pity they can't stay that way.

posted by imo @ 2:15 PM Comments: 3

Old Internet Problems

Office memo:

This is to inform everyone that we are experiencing slow internet connection here, specifically web browsing like reaching yahoo.com, google.com and other international websites. I already informed our Internet Provider since last night and I am still checking if there were changes done on their end. From our network side, there were no changes done on our routers. The problem lies on our International Gateway routing on PLDT side. I’ve made several testing and I forwarded it already to PLDT and I’m waiting for their reports. I will do necessary follow up and coordination in order to solve this issue as soon as possible.

With this problem, our international players are affected. They will experience slow request connecting to our servers and most of the time they will receive connection timed out. However the local players won’t be affected. Smooth game time will be observed as they are connected to our local peering.

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.
- Edith Wharton

posted by imo @ 1:03 PM Comments: 0

Books!

Looky, looky!

I found this interesting site. (Actually, my friend invited me, but it sounds more enterprising if I pretend I found it myself.) You basically get a virtual bookshelf of your own and add books to it that you like, and you get to look at your friends' bookshelves, too.

And of course, if you click on the books, you'll get to see (and write, if you want) reviews of the books by other members. It looks pretty fun, anyway.

Here's my shelf:

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

* * *

I went crazy and bid on a ton of books in Ebay, at about P50 - P100 each (P50 = 1 USD). Hey, they were cheap! I've bid on too many, of course, but I will have a satisfying reading orgy when they arrive (I think I have, um, 18 books to be delivered).

posted by imo @ 4:04 PM Comments: 0

Outcasts

I feel sorry for this guy in my guild in WoW.

He's a braggart and something of an ass, and has an annoying voice to boot (although this isn't really his fault, but just adds to his annoyance factor).

Nobody likes him, but he doesn't seem to know.

I've met various people like that. They're always the outcasts that nobody likes--who don't get invited to parties, have no one to study with for tests, who have no one to sit with in class, who don't get any response when they call out for a partner for a project. Etc.

But they keep trying. They don't stop looking publicly for someone to help them out with whatever it is they're trying to do, regardless of the shame of dead silence following.

Does it mean they're oblivious? Or just extraordinarily brave? Or tough and used to it?

I have to admire them, in a way. It takes guts to keep setting yourself up for a fall, on the off chance someone will catch you, one time.

And I suppose, what else can they do? If they were created that way? We can't all have been made to be likeable people. There must be some pissants somewhere.

So I feel pity, dislike, and admiration for this guy, and all the others like him.

And you can't help wondering...what if, you're him and you don't know it? People secretly dislike you and haven't told you? And all those little things that you brushed off really mean something? How would you know?

posted by imo @ 2:16 PM Comments: 1

Rant

Ok, I just have to get this off my chest.

Will the frigging ebook sellers get the hell off Ebay?

Ebay.ph is pretty sloppy in that it doesn't have a separate category for ebooks and books, so whenever you try to look at books, there are millions of ebooks smack in there, cluttering up the pages. (Plus they raise my hopes when I see a book priced at P20--what was that? Oh, bah, it's an ebook.)

Get real. Nobody is going to buy your ebooks, especially in the Philippines.

Hello? We're one of the foremost countries in piracy, and you actually think people are going to shell out cash for something they can download for free with exactly the same quality?

Now get the hell off Ebay so I can see the real books.

posted by imo @ 10:05 AM Comments: 0

Carpal Tunnel

I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome, or am about to get it.

Or maybe I'm a hypochondriac, which roughly amounts to the same thing.

So I've been surreptitiously trying to do these little exercises.

They're kind of hard to do inconspicuously, really, due to the volume of nosy people passing back and forth.

But, hey, my wrists are tingling now. That has to mean something.

posted by imo @ 12:12 PM Comments: 6

Crepe Epiphany

I discovered something earlier.

We have eaten at Crepes 'n Cream several times before. (Yes, the restaurant is exactly as its name sounds like.)

I wondered why, even though the crepe wasn't huge, I'd always be full by the time I had eaten just half of it.

Now I know.

I ordered a corned beef crepe earlier, which the attendant told me was filled with corned beef and Japanese mayonnaise (which, by the way, tasted just like good old local mayonnaise).

While I was eating it, I found it had corned beef and Japanese mayo, and cheese as well. But the big factor was...bread cubes!

Cubes of white bread stuffed here and there inside the crepe. Cheap, unnoticeable, and extremely filling.

So that by the time you finish your crepe, you feel like barfing from being so full.

This was a very interesting concept, to say the least. How ingenious, really, to make it so your customers feel extremely full, and therefore believe they received more than their money's worth.

posted by imo @ 12:06 PM Comments: 2