Aglaonema

I have a potted plant sitting behind me, by the window (I have a window now!). It is some kind of house fern. My Boss named it Sherman because I am my brother's keeper.

I use one glass per week for all the drinks that I drink during the workdays, be they breakfast beverages or simply water.

Sometimes I get more water than I want. The next day, that water goes to Sherman.

There is a large jug of water that someone left at a softball game one day that I kept in my trunk for a good 5 months. It now sits under my desk and I use it to water the plant.

My life is average.

Breakfast Beverage

I don't like to use mugs, so I always take one of the tall glasses at the office. They have some nice octagonal ones. I also don't like to pull out spoons for stirring, which leads to the following.

How I Make My Daily Breakfast Beverage

1. Grab the tall octagonal glass
2. Pour some sugar from the container into the glass by visual approximation (1-2 tsps)
3. Pour about 2 fingers of coffee over the sugar and swirl the glass to dissolve the sugar
4. Add 2-3 fingers of milk and swirl again to mix
5. Fill glass with tea
6. Enjoy

The Milk:Coffee:Tea ratio is about 4:3:10, which gives it a creaminess and an aromatic tea flavour with a hint of coffee.

Charts and graphs that should finally make it clear

blasé, but accurate-ish.

(via Holy Taco)

Better Breakfast Tea

Last night, I got a green apple green tea with tapioca from Go For Tea. It was huge.

So I got them to put it into a take-out cup and promptly left it in the cupholder in the car overnight.

This morning, I had tea for breakfast. Green apple green tea, of course.

I did it last night

I did it. The way kids in the schoolyard mean it.
I didn't really know what to expect.

I wasn't scared. Honestly, I was a little bit excited. Okay, fine, a lot excited.

I should've taken pictures.

Good thing other people did. I had a McGangbang.

For the uninitiated, this is a combination burger consisting of a McChicken sandwiched between the patties of a double cheeseburger. In certain McDonald's locations, the fame of the McGangbang as reached even the ears of the employees, to the point where you can order it by name.

There are variations of the McGangbang based on the variety in the McDonald's menu. Any chicken burger can be used: Jr. Chicken, McChicken, Crispy Chicken, Spicy Chicken, Chicken McGrill, etc. Any beef patty burger with two (or more) patties can be used for the sandwichers: Double Cheeseburger, Double Quarter Pounder (w/ cheese), Big Mac, etc.

In my haste to taste a McGangbang, I ordered whatever I could see: A McChicken meal (fries and Coke) plus a Double Quarter Pounder (w/ cheese) a la carte. It came out to a little over $12 CAN. Ridiculous. So worth it.

McDonald's Calorie Chart

Item	Calories	Fat (g)
Medium Fries	350	11
Medium Coke	210	0
Medium Coke (refill)	210	0
McChicken Burger	420	23
Double Quarter Pounder (w/ cheese)	730	25
TOTAL	1920	59

For your reference: the recommended daily intake of calories and fat for a male my size is 2400 to 2700 calories and less than 75 g of fat. In one sitting, I consumed 80% of my recommended daily caloric and fat intake.

The Writing of "Porcelain Philosophy 16: Irrational"

[28/05/09 13:45]
Got back on the writing horse. Now fleshing out the ideas. What tone should I use?

[16/05/09 10:52]
I should probably get back to finishing this piece. I was sidetracked by starting up Pokemon Platinum.

[05/05/09 15:30]
I have decided to make this a companion piece to the actual Porcelain Philosophy post, whereby I log changes I make to the actual post here. As it stands, that post currently does not exist. I should also reverse the order of these updates to make it easier for me.

[05/05/09 15:21]
I'm adding timestamps for those that are less steadfast in their clicking of refresh (use F5). As you can see, I am hard at work. Wait, that came out wrong.

[05/05/09 15:18]
[Links to be referenced:]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Are_From_Mars,_Women_Are_From_Venus

[05/05/09 15:09]
For nothing more than fun, I thought I'd publish this post instead of saving drafts so anyone logging lots of time on this blog can sort of see my writing in action. Also because I accidentally posted this placemarker post empty. This might also break the RSS feed readers.

Let's get crazy. [Cheesy intro]


[05/05/09 15:09]
armpit!

Fog

It was nearly 2 AM, so I decided to take the back roads home in order to avoid the RIDE police (or else it would be revealed how much pie I had eaten). For a winter night, it was balmy; where there is balm there is fog.

I've driven through fog before, but not like this. It was so thick I couldn't see more than 3 metres ahead of me. The suspended droplets of moisture refracted and reflected most of my headlights into a halo of diffuse light against a backdrop of pitch black. Good thing I decided to take the roads with no streetlights and sparse residences, eh?

During driving lessons, I would pretty much zone out about situational driving. It was boring, irrelevant and not applicable at the time. Fast forward to the present and even snippets of those memories become lifelines to grasp and clutch when just such a situation arises.

For the briefest moment, I felt a twinge of fear. It was dark out there (you know how Canadians are afraid of the dark). In that briefest moment, my fear took hold of my imagination and all the what-ifs bubbled into my consciousness. What if someone crashed in front of me? What if an axe-murderer jumped out from the ditch? What if the fog was actually a poisonous, sentient cloud of gas hellbent on destroying human life?


We fear the dark for the same reason we fear change: it is unknown. Not knowing what comes next bogs us down with possibilities. For whatever reason, most of the possibilities that spring to mind first are the bad things.

I'm in a big foggy patch of change at the moment. I don't feel well-equipped to handle this uncertainty, or the possibilities. There are days that I am scared into inaction. Driving home on a foggy winter night is a walk in the park by comparison; I have taken that road many times before, be it under bright skies or heavy rains. Did I zone out earlier during this particular life lesson?

I drove slowly, making sure I did not outpace the visibility my headlights afforded, careful to watch out for things on the road so that I wouldn't hit anything, or anyone. Driving through the fog, I hung on to the certainty that I knew my way home and that the fog would not last forever. The sun will rise and the road will become clear.

I wake up every morning cautious of what the day might bring, careful to not push too far forward too fast, dreading the possibility that I might get hurt -- or worse, hurt someone else. But even in the midst of this uncertainty, I know my way home and this uncertainty will not last forever. The Son has risen and the road is clear.

Frank Lee's Peking Duck

Quack.
I'm feeling oronymical.
My Chinese math teacher always laughed when he assigned us question 6c.

Porcelain Philosophy 13: Branding

I came across an article on marketing that raised some very poignant insights about company branding, as well as reputation building. The article is about how some companies run themselves into the ground by overextending their brand (e.g. if Nike started to sell photocopiers).

It was something I only noticed implicitly; seen in the light, it makes a lot of sense. The most powerful brands become synonymous to their products. What do you think of when you hear the word Google, or Kleenex, or Xerox, or Febreeze? If I were in charge of a company, I'd love for the brand to one day become a verb the way Google has.

But that's not the point of the post. Below is the pertinent excerpt.

If you're working in a job, [...] be known as a genius for something. Know how several things work. But branding yourself in one skill makes you the expert. Every time the company has a fire in that section, you will be known for your fire-fighting skills.

On an ordinary basis, most employees are not known for any particular skill and wonder why they are on top of the redundancy list. Bosses don't know what you do and why you're special, because you haven't been doing the 'branding bit'. It's better to be a specialist than the 'safe unknown.'

The author recommends committing to a specialty to help you stand out from the crowd if you're vying for marketshare.

This got me thinking: what am I known for? What am I known for at work? At school in class? At home? What immediately comes to mind when you think of me?

At St. Florence, I was the guy who handled miscellaneous problems, particularly technology-related ones. I visited the school last winter just before Christmas holidays fired up; after making my rounds visiting teachers and students, I was paged by the office. It turned out that they were gearing up for an afternoon of watching a movie in the gym and the principal needed assistance with the computer and projector. Now, at work, I'm paid to be that guy. At church, I am that guy. Pretty much everywhere I go, I seem to become that guy, even if he is not exactly who I am. I wonder sometimes if this label was just some niche I slipped into because it was open.

But all of that is meaningless because it is temporary.

Let me put it this way: if the Bible were still being written today, what would I be known for? Would I be a hero like Joshua, or would I be a cautionary tale like Saul? Would I even be mentioned? I don't ask this because I want to be recognized or revered; I ask myself this because I know what I've been given and I want to know how to pass it on.

On Lemons and Other Tropical Fruits

You know that saying?

If life gives you lemons,
Make lemonade.

It's a pithy saying that's supposed to be a glass half-full outlook on life that will get you through the sour times.

The lemons are a metaphor; e.g. lemons are the orphan babies that American football couples adopt from Asia (Author's note: balderdash).

Lemons also refer to products that are duds, primarily vehicles or electronics. These are products that made it through the manufacturing processes, the quality assurance tests and ended up in the hands of a consumer, only to have him or her discover that the end product leaves a lot to be desired. Any large batch of products will inevitably yield a percentage of lemons. Exercise your warranty.

Funny thing: I like lemons.

Funnier thing: I like grapefruit even more. It is arguably worse metaphorically, being both bigger and more bitter. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to throw a grapefruit before, but let me tell you, it's downright fun. Grapefruit have a heft that is reminiscent of softballs. In fact, softball designs were based on grapefruits (Author's note: absolute habberdashery).

If life were to throw grapefruit instead, life would probably take some measure of sadistic pleasure in doing so.

Approach at the Plate

When stepping up to the plate for an at bat, many things go through a hitter's mind; for the most part, the hitter will be thinking of what kind of pitch to look for and where to try to place the hit.

Successful hitters will not go up to the plate aiming for a home run every time. When a hitter starts to think home run, things fall apart. He will swing harder and more often, becoming very susceptible to deceptive pitches.

Instead, successful hitters focus on simply making good contact, and not try to force the ball into any particular direction. Strikeouts and bad pop-flies happen when hitters overthink at the plate, and try to swing for the fences. It takes a lot of patience and maturity to hold back that eagerness to go for one glorious swing. It is all about making the right swing at the right time.

I've been looking for a softball bat for next season. Knowing very little about bats, and having little opportunity to try different ones out makes it very difficult to find the right one. I've been researching and reading reviews to try to determine the best choice at my price range. Initially, I searched only with my eyes, focusing on things like the design, the colour scheme and how cool the name was -- shallow things.

There is more to a bat than that though. The reputation of the maker, the feel of the grip, the balance of the weight, the flex of the barrel and the durability of the construction are all important factors -- factors that must be tested through experience. The reviews only tell you as much as the reviewers know to tell, and even then, it is only their opinion. All the discernment and wisdom in the world cannot tell you how the bat will fare until you take the risk, pay the price and live with it.

On Tuesday, I found the one that I had been eying. It's not a very well recognized model, but those that know it recommend it highly. I gave it a good hefting, but decided to put it back on the rack in the end. It felt very nice, and the price was reasonable (20% off), but the timing wasn't right.

The softball season just finished, and every year, a new class of bats are forbidden. How silly would I feel if I ponied up the cash for something I thought was right, only to be told I cannot use it come game time? Not only that, I would have spent this year babying it, playing with it and growing attached to it, only to have it taken away from me in the end.

So I will continue to wait. Summer will come around again; by that time, the signs will be very clear about which bats are allowed. If it is still on the market, that bat might go up in price as more people discover how good it is. I'm not worried; I will likely have more income down the road.

Now You Know: Words I Didn't Know How to Say When I was 5

Well, there are a lot of words I didn't know when I was 5, but that was because I was ignorant of their existence. Instead, I will just give a short list of the words that I thought I knew how to say, but did not. Let's see if you can determine their real-world analogs.

Make-Be-Leaf

Bagina

Porcelain Philosophy 12: On Handling Frustration

Part of a larger collection of peer-contributed devotional writings.

The best laid plans of mice and men
often go awry.

Frustration is the feeling you get when your plans just don’t seem to work out.
There is little doubt that you will face frustration and worry during this trip, be it finances, or rejection from the very people you seek to bring to Christ. Plans are the structures that we build to give us something to fall back on when things go bad. When your plans fail, the frustration often is debilitating.

But wait! There is hope!

Haven’t our sinful selves been crucified at the cross? Haven’t we been raised again anew in Christ? When we go forth to proclaim the Good News, it is not our plan, but God’s. In all things, God will provide; “consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them” (Luke 12:24). If God takes such meticulous care for the creatures of the Earth, why should we, His beloved Children and Bride of His Son, ever worry about anything?

The frustration of rejection need not bother us either. When Jesus sent His disciples out to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven’s dawn, He instructed them to “shake the dust from their feet” as they left the house or city that chose not to receive the News (Matthew 10:14). When you go forth to proclaim the Good News, you are to be like the voice and breath of God. What obstacle can bar the way of the wind?

Limerence

I thought I had a notion
of all the words regarding emotion;
but then -- anon --
I happened upon
one that looked a lot like Limerick.

I just want to tell you how I'm feeling

Everytime I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong. So I'll have to say, "I love you," in a song.

i'm a waiter

that is to say i am the type of person that waits. i try to arrive at events or appointments or classes 30 minutes early so that i can get a lay of the land and gather my thoughts. it's like swimming after eating. you'd be doing yourself a favour by waiting the half hour.

i hate being rushed. there are situations in life that you should get pumped up for, like watching your wife-to-be walk down the aisle, or lunging out to catch an egg from falling. getting to class should not be one of those situations.

waiting is not about killing time (take that, clock!). waiting is about preparing yourself, your attitude and your mindset before said event, appointment or class. with the right attitude, you'll be equipped to handle whatever comes your way. say the event goes bust because something catches on fire and there is panic at the disco. because you were there half an hour early, you had time to scope out all the fire exits, alarms and extinguishers, thus saving the day by directing everyone to the exits and defeating the blaze with your arrayment of extinguishers.

as illustrated by the above example, waiting is not a passive activity (oxymoron!). waiting implies future decision, or action. it is the calm before the storm, the shoring of armaments before battle, the inhalation before the exhalation. waiting is doing something.

it's been a long wait; many months of nothing. but now it is done. Avatar has wrapped up it's third and final season in epic fashion. it was well worth the wait.

Porcelain Philosophy 11: The Space Between

Mental exercise: pick your favourite song, or piece, and play it in your head. Now strip out all the pauses and breaks and rests in the music and play it again. How does that sound? Now take all the notes and tones and sounds and play them all at once. Correct, that sounds terrifically cacophonous. It's like eating a whole steak all in one go; it does not taste any good and will cause you to retch. The music happens in the space between the notes. Enjoyment of a steak happens within each bite. The pause is where the tension and drama happens. It is all about the anticipation.

In recent days I have been doing some research into web design principles. One oft-overlooked component of good web layouts is white space (or negative space). White space is any part of the layout that does not have any content. In a book, this would generally be the margins, where your fingers can grasp the pages. In a newspaper, there is white space between columns to give them separation and consolidation. On a web page, white space can break the content into manageable chunks for absorption, as most content on web pages is simply scanned, rather than pored over. White space helps focus the reader's attention on the content that matters.

Good web page designs will employ the Law of Closure, a specific manifestation of Gestalt perception. People are naturally inclined to mentally 'fill-in-the-blanks' when presented with incomplete images because the mind strives for structure, regularity and logic. Your brain anticipates what ought to be there in the image, and your perception is informed thusly. The image on the left is not of a morning star, but merely some black near-triangles with one curved side. The notion that white space makes things simple for the viewer and, at the same time, makes him think unknowingly is deliciously ironic.

In our own times of rest and respite are usually when life is simplified; they are also the times when we tend to think the most, focusing on what is truly important. In the second book of his Elegies, Sextus Propertius, coined the well known phrase,

Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes,

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. While this phrase has been overused to the point of becoming cheese, the sentiment remains true. One of the signs of love is the anxiety and preoccupation of the mind that comes with separation and distance. Not having something (or someone) will make you want it (or him/her) even more.

This goes beyond emotional attachments and personal interaction; this is a philosophy. If you are living your life constantly on the go, meeting the bottom lines, pushing ahead and striving to achieve, you are not living and you sure as cheesecake are not growing. Your bank account may be swelling, or your trophy shelf caving, but when time runs out, you will have nothing. Take the time to enjoy, to cherish, and to share. If something wonderful comes your way, you have every right to pause and savour it. As the venerable late George Carlin (and Hitch) so aptly put it,

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.

"I can tell it's gonna be a good day"

i drove to work this morning to this song: A Good Day, by Priscilla Ahn (click her name; the song is playing on her website). it's a nice, slow, gradually-waking-up song -- the kind of song that brings to mind opening your eyes to a sunbeam dancing over the hair of the pretty girl who was peeking through the curtains to see if the dog next door was up and playing yet. as i drove in silent reverie, i thought to myself, i think i will strive to have a good day today.

the work day started out well enough. i received notification that an employee had some difficulty retrieving an attachment he opened directly in Outlook and saved to the temporary folder and i was asked to document the retrieval procedure. it took about half an hour of research and drafting and screenshotting -- about 2 times faster than most procedures i've been documenting lately. it was that quick because most of the process was documented in a previous write up about managing the OLK temporary folder.

an hour later, my supervisor asked me to write up some alternative methods that did not involve the registry editor, which is understandably daunting for most users. so i dug up some alternative methods and documented those.

towards the end of the day, i receive an email that was sent to me and my supervisor saying, "Regarding Herman's response to this issue, please review our concerns with him. I do not think he understands that it was not that simple."

i'm not one to get mad easily, especially at work, but i was quietly livid.

i was angry not so much that the document was not to his satisfaction, even though i take great pride in writing as concisely and as clearly as possible, but at the fact he wrote as if i was not even there, all the while including me in the email.

i toyed with the idea of writing a magnanimously patient response asking him for clarification about which specific part of the document he did not understand and would like addressed, but my suspicion is that the document was not actually read. i held my tongue, as it were, and just went to see my boss about it. she has far more experience dealing with this sort of thing, and her insight into the matter was that they just wanted to have their hands held.

i wasted the rest of the work day taking step-by-step screenshots of how to use Windows' Search function, and how to search for hidden files and folders. it was brutal. but i promised myself i would have a good day.

---

i sat in on a Hosanna cell group program tonight, filling in for our pastor who was away at a General Meeting in Ottawa. so with half a dozen high school guys, we watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. yeah, the movie about to guys pretending to be gay. definitely some strong discussion questions that could have arisen from that movie, especially pertaining to male self-image and doing what's right, even when it hurts.

as i was about to go home, i discovered that my car had been scraped up while it was parked at the side of the street. the driver side mirror was folded in, the mirror jarred loose and the corner shattered from the impact against the car door. the bumper under the headlight was where the scrape occured. there was no note, and the fact that the mirror was still folded was evidence that whoever hit my car did not even bother to get out and check what he, or she, hit.

for the second time in one day, i was incensed.

i had a passenger to drive back, so i let that fleeting flash of fury pass and approached the situation as objectively as i could. i considered Encylopedia Browning the matter, and i actually talked to the guy in the house i parked outside of to see if he saw or heard anything (or looked guilty). i was too tired to care any further than that. on the way home, i mused about and i promised myself i would have a good day.

everytime i insist on having a good day, some woe befalls me. then again, it could be that i am prompted by God to strive for a positive day when woe is scheduled to befall me, so i am pre-emptively prepared for disasters that would normally derail me.

Why We Write

on wednesday, i was linked an awesome blog; one particular post caught my eye.
for the first time since Opera 9.5 came out, i was happy that the internet was invented and that it has evolved towards user-generated content, rather than commercial fluff. there are some really excellent writers out there who wouldn't have had even the remotest chance of making it into my brain if it weren't for the internet.

of course, the internet is not all good and gravy. the gold is hidden in the dross and muck and refuse and detritus; it takes a good deal of work and luck to find a nugget worth holding on to. it's the same with life and love and work and everything else. there will be good times and bad times; sweet moments that you wish could last forever and painful moments that you wish would go away; days when the productivity is peaking and days when you just want to switch all the keys on the keyboard with someone else's.

what i really like about this example is that he writes the way i want to be writing 10 years from now. it's like looking into the future. i've found a few similar writers who have travelled down the same path i'm on now. they write down their memories, experiences and insights for their own reasons (like i'm doing now); somewhere down the road, it helps someone else understand his or her own world in a different perspective.

while most of my writings have been frivolous, whimsical or downright awkward, i do hope some of them turn out to be someone's gold one day.

how to seduce a hoimin

if you've ever thought to yourself, "hoimin's so dense; how can i ever get him to notice me?" this post is here to help.

Primary Seduction Vectors

do you know the 5 Love Languages? well, now you do. if you're looking to seduce me, you have to speak to me in the langauges of love that i understand. the following are the angles of attack that are most effective against me. we're talking about a 74% success rate of getting me smitten if half of these methods are used -- even accidentally.

Proximity - if you're in my field of vision, or simply sitting near me consistently, i will notice you. the key is being consistent for a few times, and then playing hard-to-get, so that i'll wonder, "hey, i wonder why she doesn't sit nearby anymore." i am highly susceptible to psychological manipulation. this method appeals to my first love language: quality time.

Conversation - let's me get to know you. usually, the more i get to know someone, the easier it is for me to notice how awesome she is. i can't converse very well, so if you're looking to use conversation as a seduction vector, you'll have to do most of the talking. conversation will also allow you to show off how smart, clever and funny you can be. wordplay is an underrated point of attraction. this method appeals to my first love language.

Let Me Get That For You - you can make me feel really pleased with myself by walking around with something awkward-heavy and letting me carry it for you when i ask. same goes for door-opening, shoelace-tying and getting hair out of your eyes when you're up to your elbows in random muck. this method appeals to my second love language: acts of service.

Punching/Slapping/Shin-Kicking/Tripping - just like grade school. i'm sure you remember how. this appeals to my third love language: physical touch.

Secondary Seduction Vectors

the Observer Effect - start some rumours. if everyone starts talking about us even when i've never spoken to you before, it will cause me to start thinking about you.

Special Powers - i'm a big sucker for ladies that have special powers and know how to use them. examples of special powers include: crossword puzzle solving, singing, catching flying objects, making babies do funny things, laughing, eating and communicating with animals.