A String Of Useless Quizzes

Which OS are You?

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Needless to say, these quizzes are…. very insightful!

The Ghost In The Other Room

First of all, I like the mornings.

The mornings are usually devoid of her, and for at least an hour I’m by myself, enjoying my music, and sitting there. Waiting for her.

I like the way that the door kind of announces her arrival; how the fingerprint machine ultimately refuses to read her thumbprint, and always protests. I hear the protestation. Then I hear when the finger machine gives up and lets her in.

I like the way she never does anything with her hair until she arrives, and after passing by me and saying a small hello with her nose and a small wave, she hurries into her room and starts her ritual.

I like the way she spends at least half an hour with her hair, doing whatever it is she does, and it always comes out great. Usually women are worried that people see them when their hair is half-done, but she never minds me knocking and coming in to chat while she does her ritual. I like that too.

After that, I like how she checks her make up to the mirror than could never be placed right, forcing the user to bend over a bit to get a closer look.

I like how I tease her ritual by just smiling at the door, and she always says “well, you know me.”

If I don’t tease her, I like how she calls me on the intercom (when she can actually yell) to ask if I have had breakfast or not. And I like going to breakfast with her. I wait until 10 o’clock to have breakfast with her, because that’s usually when the ritual finishes.

I like how she’s never fussy of what to eat, so usually I can choose what I want; although most of the time I’m also indecisive of what to eat anyway.

I like how her room smells after she has put on her cologne, which frankly can sometimes be smelled from just outside the door as well.

I like how we always try to go to lunch together, and always tell each other if either of us is going out for lunch elsewhere.

I’m not much of a talkative person, so I like to listen to her talk about anything, even though sometimes I think it could be bullshit or wishful thinking.

I like how she talks, and how it always grabs your attention, even though it could be something boring, or just plainly talking about herself.

I like how she shares such unecessarily intimate things, like how successful or how long her latest toilet visit was.

I like it when we walk together, she always walks close to me and sometimes our hands brush together, and how she always walks as fast as I do and never asking me to slow down; to the point that if we chat while we talk she sometimes loses her breath, then I slow down.

I like how we make-believe any single topic of discussion, expanding the possible stories from the mundane to the ridiculous. Any small topic will do.

I like it how she’s usually hungry in the afternoon, so we go for a quick snack break to the store below. Well, not only in the afternoon, for that matter.

I like it when she seems so helpless with her computer, and always asking me to come to aid.

I like the fact that she’s gadget-concious, but sometimes not knowing of the more specific information, which she always ask me. Always. And I like how she sometimes envies my gadgets.

I also like daydreaming with her of what we’ll do when we’re rich, what we’ll buy, what we’d be doing to get that rich, and what we do with all that money.

I like it how from the moment I knew her, she has always talked about some scheme on how to make a profitable business or simply make money, that it was at first irritating, and now adorable.

I like it that although she seems like a well-to-do person, she values hard work and the value of money itself (maybe thus her love of it).

I like it that apparently money isn’t really everything to her, that apparently there are more things that are important. She just doesn’t show it much.

I like it at the end of the day, we usually try to go home together on the bus, if not going somewhere for dinner and window shopping.

I like it when she sends an sms at an unexpected hour about something insignificant. Then I reply something insignificant as well.

If there’s one thing I don’t like… I don’t like that I don’t know how long it will last.

[PS to readers: think what you want.]

Addictions

Hi, my name is Barijoe, and I am an addict.

To many things, that is; I am such an addict to technology some people call me a technosexual (a person who derives pleasure from getting the latest and most state-of-the-art in technology).

I am an acute addict to sambal, chili sauce, Tabasco and the like.

I am right now eating chocolate, another one of my uncured addictions.

Of course, there’s my addiction to the internet, including surfing, email, chatting, peer-to-peer downloading, blogging… and of course, pornography. Ha ha.

I am addicted to music, to the point I seriously considered purchasing an MP3 player, I specially bought Altec Lansing speakers with subwoofer for my Mac, and the hours I spend in a CD store.

I have one more addiction, one I think is truly bad for me sometimes: an addiction to a person. At least, spending time with that person.

Now how do I weasel myself out of this one?

Shuffling Priorities

Since my post about gadgets, apparently the hype surrounding the Ipod Shuffle has raised somewhat, inducing me to make a special post about it.

Now, here’s my take on the latest jazz of the fazz:

the Ipod Shuffle, coming in 2 different memory sizes, 512 MB and 1 GB, is decidedly a good product with a comparatively good price. We’ve seen many flash-based MP3 players in the market, and when the largest size they come in so far is 256 MB with about a Rp 2 million price tag, the 1 GB Ipod Shuffle comes in at about Rp 1.7 million. So for under-1-GB MP3 players, you get value for money, and perhaps, if important to you, the prestige of owning an Apple product (apparently).

This product makes accessible a product once only belonging to those who could afford it, since the cheapest Ipod, the Ipod mini, still comes at a price of around Rp 2.4 million; a pretty hefty price for something not necessarily a daily need. So those longing for an Apple product, perhaps even specifically an Ipod, can get their own affordable version (with prices comparable to a mid to low-end cellphone). And due to the distinctively different design, and even marketing approach, those already owning a larger-sized Ipod would not lose prestige; I think even they would buy a second Ipod in the form of the Ipod Shuffle for just the fun of it.

So Apple has finally released products for the budget-concious, but not letting go of style and prestige, in which Apple has put in huge efforts in building since the advent of iMac.

Now, the downturn is, as mentioned above, you can get a 4 GB Ipod for double the price of a 512 MB Ipod, and even a 20 GB Ipod for triple the price. See? For those who don’t understand the technology behind these MP3 players, the math doesn’t add up. The Ipod Shuffle, and other similar-sized MP3 players use flash-based memory, which is typically a computer chip. Every time you want to increase the memory size, you have to double the miniaturization and thus almost double the cost; hence, if you notice, flash-based memory always comes in factors of 2 (16,32,64,128,256,512 and the 1 GB Ipod Shuffle should be acutally 1028 MB). The larger Ipods use more or less the same technology as computer harddisks, hence the capability for storage space up to 60 GB in the latest Ipod Photo. It just costs a bit more expensive than your usual computer harddisk, even a harddisk for a laptop, because it’s even smaller than standard harddisks, and you also have to consider the hardware and software for running the Ipod itself (notice that it took a while for other electronic vendors to make a harddisk-based MP3 player).

So, if you just want an MP3 player, and you’re not too worried about storage space, get the Ipod Shuffle. You get value for money. But if you need the extra space, forget about it and save up for at least a 20 GB Ipod. Both have the same functions; it’s all a matter of storage and budget.

You choose;… for now, I’m putting my lust for the Shuffle on hold, as I already have a flash disk, and an MP3 player on my P900. We’ll see lah…

What Planet Are You From?

This is from a quiz i tried out a while back, but didn’t have time to upload to the blog…

You Are From Neptune

You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability. You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea. Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion. You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone. If you don’t get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.

What Planet Are You From?

Um…. I don’t even know what to comment on this one. Just try it out.

Off To The Battleground!

Today, I got together with my former high school friends and went to a place called Brigade 3234 in the Gunung Putri area, West Java. What is this place? It’s a battleground. A battleground for paintball games; and we sure had a lot of fun!

After a briefing on how to use the weapons, basic rules of the game and so on, and divided us into 2 teams, we were given uniforms, masks, helmets, and our weapons… and off to the battleground we went! The first session was ‘take the enemy’s flag’; and after a brief strategy session, our team effectively took the enemy flag with the home base safe from attack. The second session, there was no flag-taking, just basic kill-em-all, with anybody with the paintmarks having to get out of the game. I took a hit early, and got out of the arena, but apparently there was no paintmark, so I went back in, unfortunately for an early demise as well. Oh well, so much for playing soldier.

After that, some of us went for a swim at the pool in the complex, and then we all ate sate kambing at Sentul, before heading home. I crashed by Yadi’s place, as my friends dropped me off near his house, and quickly dozed off before tagging along him and a roomate for some dinner. I didn’t eat, as I had so much sate kambing.

I must say, the paintball game was really fun, and I’d love to do it again sometime. All in all, I had a pretty refreshing weekend. Tomorrow, back to the boredom… or hecticness.

Gadgeters

After spending Idul Adha with my parents, I hitched a ride back to my place Saturday noon, and not 5 minutes upon arriving, I put everything down and went to Vira’s place, because I had to transfer some old data from my Palm Desktop program to my Outlook program, and I had to use her PDA to do that. Her PDA, which is still technically mine :D.

So yes, over the process of the last 2 weeks, I sold my trusty Palm m515 to Vira, and finally got a second-hand Sony Ericsson P900. Why second-hand, do you ask? I got a good deal, the condition was still good, and I got a bonus of 2 memory cards and the card reader. These things have been very useful so far; in fact, the photos on the previous post about my trip to Bali were taken by the P900. To top things up, my ancient digital camera, which is cumbersome to carry around practically… has the same picture resolution as my new phone. So… perhaps, once I get the CF card reader from Sacha, which she has been borrowing for some time, I am going to give the camera to my parents (which should be easier for them to use, as Dad now has a computer running Windows XP). Which brings us back to the main story.

So afterwards, I had lunch with Vira, then went to Sacha’s place, as we planned to go to Ambassador Mall, a mall filled with stores selling virtually everything, and with 2 floors with lots of electronics and handphone stores. As you might gather, a favorite place for me. Sacha wanted to upgrade her phone firmware, but as it took a while, we had a few hours to wander around. So, we thought it would be best if she started to ask around about memory card prices, for use with her PDA, a palmOne Zire 72 (one of my favorites). Eventually, she bought a 256 MB SD card with the card reader, so she could use the memory card both as external memory for her PDA (for listening to MP3s, for instance) and a USB flash drive; thus making her use of the CF card and card reader she borrowed from me useless, and returnable to the owner. Afterwards, her phone was ready with the new firmware, and then we went to her office so I could see what was wrong with her Palm Desktop program (which I fixed in about 5 minutes).

I’m pretty happy and satisfied with my phone, albeit that I seem to have some trouble transferring the Palm Desktop data to Outlook, with the issue unresolved until now. I still have some backup data on the Mac, as the data on the laptop seems to have disappeared, but I’ll deal with that later. I can always grab the data from the office computer anyway. Otherwise, it’s a good phone, with all the uses I need, and I just need a to work out a few quirks.

Vira is getting along fine with her PDA, which I have already given to her awaiting payment, as I wanted to detach my dependence on it, and Sacha is entering deeper into the world of gadgets. I’ll be teaching Bluetooth uses soon to Vira. Looks like the PDA, or gadgets in general, has become more popular and acceptable in today’s world, whereas when I first used a PDA, a Palm m100, in 2001, hardly anybody knew about PDAs, and tended to be a ‘geekish’ or ‘male’ trend or interest.

Now…. I’m setting my sights on a simple Ipod Shuffle.

A Furlough To Paradise (Or Something Like It), Part 2

It’s been a really crazy 2 weeks, and I have not been able to update my blog; now it’s a long weekend, and finally I have time to breathe… so here it is:

I went to Bali for a business matter, a partner company launching a product, and so me and a couple of other friends from other companies were also there. As the event was only on Friday afternoon, we had the whole Friday night and Saturday to go around Bali, sightseeing and shopping (not that I bought much).

A much-needed break from routine.

A Furlough To Paradise (Or Something Like It), Part 1

It’s been almost a week since my last post. Earlier in my blogging days (which was only about 3 months ago), that would have been strange. Now, work at the office is really picking up speed, especially last week, where I had to chase a lot of stuff to the finish, and didn’t have time for updating my blog; and I was too tired when I finally got home to post something from home. You see, it’s not that I’m spending tons of time at the office, but last week was filled with a lot of get-togethers and the sort, leaving me with hardly any time to update the blog.

Now that I’m feeling the usual “holiday lag” or “Monday laziness syndrome”, I thought I might as well post something to clean up the information overload in my brain.

So, last week, everything was a little bit more hectic than usual because I had to finish everything by Thursday. Because, on Friday, I had to go to Bali! Finally, a chance to go to the so-called “Island of Paradise” or “Island Of The Gods”. And what a fun trip it was…

More on the trip later, maybe later today or tomorrow morning.

Breaking Promises

I broke a long-standing promise last week. I promised something to someone, which in the end I gave to someone else. The decision was more based on practical purposes, as the second person involved needed the object in dispute more. But still, the first party was pretty pissed, as the first party wanted it more than mere practical values.

I guess that makes me a bad person.

But you know what I think? It’s about time I did something bad. Trying to be a good person all the time tires the heart. Because you can never make everybody happy.