The Blame Game

I just gotta say and it will be redundant as ever. The blame game is NOT fun for anybody, especially if you're on the shit end of the stick. Why is it that we always feel the need to blame someone else just because our day's gone bad? Or by some stroke of bad luck things did not go the right way? EVEN if that's piled on top of a very bad day, a regular old hissy fit, being grouchy, all that is fine and dandy. It's only normal. We are human. Why dear god why do we have to start firing guns at everybody that crosses our paths? Not just to dump on them because we know that's unjustified, so we hafta dig for reasons even if they are not logical.

I usually just end up crying either way but I guess that ain't healthy either. Fuck man...high EQ people (myself included) are just...arrrrrrrrggg!!!

Well that's it. I might as well be dead now. As a result of fearing getting yelled at for no reason, I avoided doing something which turned out to worsen another unrelated situation and now I will be blamed for all that as well. So fine, I deserve it. Somebody just kill me now.

OMG wi-fi good on HTC621

this is the longest i have been able to stay connected and actually surf and blog (!!!) on my smartphone super chistmas present from my beloved. this is great! now if only there was wi-fi at both of the places i worked...

today by the way was the absolute-test fucking sickeningly boring day at work ever where i think i did less than a full hours worth of real work in an 8 hour work day. sweet coz i'm getting paid for every minute "wasted" on surfing the net but fuck i wished i would plop over on my keyboard and just died right there...

Offended

You know, honestly there are times when I do not have a "FULL" day's work but often times I do enough. I waste some time here and there, while I work at the same time to keep myself sane because I am a little ADD. But when the work is there, I can always handle it and do it in 8 hours time because i prioritize and organize. Just because I am more efficient, and am not being managed well, it is no fault of mine.

To be accused of being "idle" shows exactly how little my manager knows about what his workers ought to be doing to do their job right. Instead of just piling on the work saying it needs to be handled now, forcing them to constantly start and not finish anything, which ultimately creates more backlog later on. Why not just make and let them finish it through to the end? It's as if I am not already maintaining and constantly adding items to existing PO's (these are tasks he is never even aware of!) OR helping A/P with all the problems that he and his department are dodging phonecalls from. It's not even just that he said I was idle because there are odd times when I am. But at this time when he said he had to keep me busy by bringing me another pile of invoices, even though I told him I only entered a bunch of PR's which need to be followed up on, that's when he said I was idle and I said well no I have to do work on them. He said, come on, be honest with me. Meaning what? That i am lying and saying I have work when I have nothing? It's a slap in the face that's what.

I mean, fuck sticking around just to help him out, why should I? He already screwed my chances of having a forward momentum in this job by not releasing me to A/P just because he could not manage the extra work by NOT having me here. You know, if I am so idle, why don't I just quit and they can do the rest of this on their own. I am hopping mad right now but look at me, here I am working and chugging away. Screw this bullshit, I'm finding a job closer to home.

So grey

Wowee it is depressing outside...and inside at work. It's cold, grey and absolutely dreary. Also my not having worked out in a week is making my joints aching for movement. Damn I shouldn't have been lazy. Must stretch tonight and thank god tomorrow night is yoga class. Still another 2 hours before home time, arg. I started yesterday, first day back from the long weekend, oh so well. How quickly it has turned ugly on me!

Ready for Hibernation

You know how your body temperature drops when you go to sleep? Right now, the office feels just cool enough not to be cold, but enough to make me want to be warm and toasty, curl into a blanket and sleep forever. Damn these hibernation temperatures, makes it so difficult to concentrate!

Yoga classes start tonight! First in a series of 9 and it'll be just me tonight. Starting next week my mom will be going with me. I'm feeling a wee bit of excitement.

Foolishly I agreed to work the Chinese News broadcast every Tuesday night. There's a little bit of regret and kicking myself there, but I suppose at the end of the month I will be $100 richer.

...yay...

mmm...Watermelon...

It's been awhile since I posted here. I guess I have actually been concentrating on work for a bit since I started listening to audiobooks of The Wheel of Time series. I read through 5 and a half books of the series way back when, during the last years of highschool. Everyone was reading them, I just kind of jumped on the bandwagon. They were an enjoyable series with engaging characters but there was so much going on, especially certain side stories that were of less interest to me than others. I honestly probably skimmed through a good quarter of what I read. Listening to the first few chapters of Book 4 right now and there are some sections I don't remember at all, not that it mattered much to the overall plot progression.

The good thing about the audiobook is if I start "skimming" I can just pause it, go back a minute, 10 minutes, a few chapters or wherever and re-absorb it all. It also helps me focus on work as it plays in the background. It's quite efficient, like eavesdropping on a nearby conversation except it's not some inane banter or useless gossip! It was difficult at first to get used to the 2 voice actors. I really rejected it in the beginning and felt terrible to have their voices read what I had imagined but eventually my voice merged with theirs and they do a much better job than me in emoting the characters' dialogue.

I only wonder what I would do when I finish all 11 audiobooks. Work will return to the old days of ho-hum-dom that I dread. The onset of winter is fast approaching with bleak, dreary and grey days that barely motivates me to roll out of bed let alone get myself to work. I must find another diversion to ease me through the days. If only I had 4 arms and a remote camera sending a feed to a pair of video goggles that look like regular glasses. 2 arms to work under the table, knitting away while the camera shows me what I am knitting, my other 2 arms will type away on the computer and me, looking ever more concentrated with my new specs and all.

Where oh where is the technological future we were promised?

I quote Chris Willman in his review Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight at Entertainment Weekly's site.

"Next time, guys, embrace your outmoded identity, throw cred or caution to the wind, and let your rap-rock freak flag fly. "

Taken out of context, it's actually a pretty good motto for life in general and the last bit just sounds funny so it's a bonus. Fly you rap rocking freak flag, FLYYY~!

To those of you actually interested in the review, it is interesting to see the complete divide of LP fans on their latest album. They are polar opposites. I've never been a LP die-hard myself but I've liked most of their singles from before. "Faint" being a favourite club anthem that just pumps you up and starts you off to one rocking night. I agree that from Meteora on, even the singles were starting to be weak and a mere rehashing of old material. When the first single "What I've Done" came out for this one, I was very disappointed. That's why the second single "Bleed It Out" completely took me by surprise and I thought I had prematurely judged them and perhaps I should make the effort to give the whole album a listen. After reading more articles, I think I'll just get the other Mike Shinoda rapping track "Hands Held High".

Shape-shifter

I woke up early one morning
bawling my eyes out
silently screaming.
Strange, cathartic & disturbing all at once.

I tried to find reasons
as to why I would cry
literally in my sleep.
Justified though it may be
It makes little sense none the less.

I shudder at the thought of that moment
In my half dream/half conscious state
when I realized the wet tears pouring down my cheeks,
a waterfall of emotions pooling on my pillow.

Blips from my dream flashes in my mind.
Accusations piercing my just healed wounds,
humiliating words fly my way.
There I had no room to dodge.
There I had no control, no escape.

A child walked clumsily towards me,
followed by that shape-shifting monster.
He chomped down on my chains,
barely taking off my foot.
He told me I am free to come along.

My heart ached to follow and embrace the beast,
but instinct made me want to run.
The child stared at me with innocent eyes, pleading for me to come.
What would you have done?

I was paralyzed for a while
but the monster began to taunt me.
The same thoughts pounded through my mind
over and over.
Until finally I just flailed my arms
Running in circles,
screaming, crying at the top of my lungs.

Then I woke.

What's really "Green"?

Renewable Energy Wrecks Environment, According To Researcher
Science Daily — Renewable does not mean green. That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University in New York. Writing in Inderscience's International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Ausubel explains that building enough wind farms, damming enough rivers, and growing enough biomass to meet global energy demands will wreck the environment.

I'm not saying this guy is 100% right but it does make sense. I have to find the original article and do more research. Here's another article along those lines:

Bioenergy Could Do More Harm Than Good
Science Daily — Leading environmental groups are making an urgent plea to government not to downgrade other environmental concerns in promoting bioenergy to help tackle climate change.

Looks like it's back to the old drawing board before new policies are made based on the "green"-ness of renewable energy sources. It's about time for articles like this to surface as the US elections are coming right up and there will heated debates between the new & renewable energy supporters vs. the traditional & established energy titans.

Here's where it gets a little preachy...

No regrets.

There are always ups and downs in life but for a long time I have tried to make this my mantra. The reasoning is logical. At any given point in your life, you make decisions based on what you feel is best. The result may not always turn out the way you hoped or things change along the way and your decision from before does not appear so wise now. However you do the best with what information you have. That is why it is important to have trustworthy friends to talk things over, mentors to give advice and loved ones to give moral support.

After having a talk with the roommate last night about his current dilemmas, I realize that my mantra needs to be expanded upon. It's not enough just to have no regrets because in some ways you can assume that every decision you made was right. Alternatively, even if your decisions are wrong and in turn you suffer the consequences, by simply having no regrets, it somewhat waives your responsibilities for the situation, putting the blame on an outside force. One can then easily be trapped in a vortex of complaints and dread for the unfairness of life, allowing himself to be victim to everything that ever goes wrong. The "victim" can then digress even further, withdrawing from healthy interaction with all situations and people. Essentially giving up because what is the point in trying? The unfairness of the world will ultimately put him in his place despite his best efforts. But it's okay as long as it's not his fault, he will never have to admit his wrongs to feel guilt or see the truth behind his choices, yet he will never be happy either.

No regrets. No complaints. No excuses.

Here is the addition which I believe completes this mantra. The first part remains the same but the second and last part kind of go together. Aside from not regretting the choices in the past, one must be grateful for what you have now. You must not complain and put the blame on others for your misfortunes because you are the single most powerful force in your universe. Sometimes those outside forces are pretty strong too but you alone can change how you interact, deal with or shape your future. To achieve that, you must not make excuses for why you cannot change your ways. You cannot make excuses to relieve responsibility of yourself. To have no regrets means to understand and admit your mistakes, then take matters into your own hands and change how it's done in the future. This makes for a true learning experience that will ultimately improve life and open doors for opporunity.

6 months

Yesterday was the 6 month luniversary(?) of starting work at this company as a temp. I'm still at temp status but have been asked several times to stay and take on a full time permanent position, on salary, benefits, etc. but it's like a part of me does not want to accept the fact that this is it. It just seems so final, to admit defeat, to accept that I am only as good as this. This should be a reminder to me to actively look for other employment or concede to taking the permanent position. It's not as if I can't quit and go to something else if I have the opportunity, right?

The mother of all curses

Someone must be cursing something nasty about me. For the past hour, I've been getting involuntary left eye twitching and hiccups. Well, it's either that or my strange sleeping patterns. Also, the past two days I've been getting itchy bumps on my legs, at first they did not look like mosquito bites so it made me think my dog contracted fleas and infested our bed. Luckily I found a mosquito buzzing around in our room this morning so thank god it's not a curse of boils or something.

Wishing luck is on my side today...

Well, in about half an hour I'll be skipping out from work and going to a job interview. If the job would actually pay an acceptable rate, I am pretty excited. Even though it would mean going downtown everyday, it's something related to what I did before and I get to be techie / customer service. I just think it has more potential for me and it seems to be a good compromise. We shall see what comes of my meeting.

Webcomics are great

It's so easy now to have everyone and anyone see your work online. There are so many blogs, comics, so much opinion just floating around out there. Mine is quite insignificant compared to everything else but I love the idea that my thoughts here (if there was anything influential) could spark debate in others. I know there are countries who prosecute citizens for speaking their mind about their governing officials or public policies, but the internet has given us the gift of free-speech. Because of the fact that there is so much superfluous information available, everything becomes lost in the noise.

Imagine you standing on your soapbox, raving like a lunatic about something that may or may not be important, anyone walking by would think you a madman or report you to the authorities. Your presence would be detected right away. The internet allows us to hide, forces us to write semi-cohesive articles and subversively broadcast our views to the world, to anybody who looked. The trick is you have to be looking in order to find it. True, there're a lot of "questionable" material being published too and it's hard to seperate fact from fiction in a lot of cases but it's really up to the individual to validate the source, somehow, some way. If you cared enough, go to it, right? You can't blindly accept something you read, or even see with your own eyes as truth.

Anyways, enough of my ranting, this comic was the original purpose of this posting.

Politics - Science - Pop Culture

Here's a tidbit of political humor utilizing scientific theories as a commentary. I found it from a link in the Scientific American blog. Amusing.

This Modern World - by Tom Tomorrow
A brief explanation of the Cheneyverse.

After seeing that comic, I decided to pass some time researching into the controversy that is Dick Cheney's career. Amongst other articles and blogs, apparently The Washington Post just did a series of articles on that subject in the past week. I am still reading it right now but thought I'd share. It's an interesting read.

Foiled! by Websense

The constant pain in my side at work, aside from my back pain inducing slouching and unending boredom, is Websense. It blocks me from all the truly entertaining websites. Sure I'm supposed to be working but there's no work to be done. What else can I do other than surf? That and email filtering. If anyone in the company cared to check the logs for email and Websense, they would think I was a perverted racist extremist. I just tried to look at Sinfest (the comic) and it is classified as Adult Content. What the?!

Numb is my brain & body

What a brutal day at work! I am falling asleep here. Even with music in my ears, I thought it would save me but it does nothing. I stopped looking up creative/hobby stuff and tried to read more science articles. Some are interesting but something's still making me drowsy. Maybe it's my pork chop lunch causing this itus. Yeah, it's probably the pork.

I shouldn't have agreed to help out at the TV station. Now after hours of doing nothing, I have to show up, wait and do nothing for another 2 hours there before the news broadcast actually starts. Today is driving me nuts. My last email received was 10:58 this morning! There were only a total of 7 emails before that. Where the hell IS everybody? I thought maybe my mailbox was full and I wasn't getting emails, but I just sent one to myself, no problems or error messages popping up. That's the true mark of a bored person there, sending messages to yourself.

Anyways, maybe trying to write lyrics to a song not yet written will help pass some time. The first verse of this I thought of driving home last week.

This is a dedication to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
The ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, the best opportunities,
The best of you and the best of me.

We give without wanting, they'll dazzle before us.
The way of the world, that's how it is.
Can it be changed, can it be different?
Do you really care? I'm kinda distant.

If I get what I need when I need it.
Why expend energy for naught?
Looking out for number one is the only mandate.
I can do it too and won't be caught.

Like steps on a mayan pyramid,
We'll stomp on you to reach the top.
Suppress the ego to nourish the id,
Steep is the climb but it'll never stop.

If you fall behind, bottom of the barrel,
the rat race continues to the high holy shrine.
We'll do it together, a team, no quarrels.
I'll scratch your back then you can scratch mine.

This is dedicated to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
the ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, best opportunities,
awaiting you, awaiting me.

He works hard for his money!

Not much to report on. Work is boring but busy enough obviously because I haven't been able to surf and find interesting things to talk about. Or perhaps it's been a slow week in terms of procrastination and idling thoughts.

There was a water salesman who came in this morning. He had so much gusto and umpgh! He was pitching in the boss's office and from out here I can hear and "feel" that the water system he represents is the bestest damned water system in the world. I still felt sorry for him though. People in general now are just immune to hardcore sales pitches. We can easily turn a blind eye/deaf ear nowadays. It definitely takes a certain amount of talent and charm to be a good salesman. There are too many of them, pushed out into the world with nothing but a pamphlet and a promise of commissions, to do a job they are bound to fail at. It's a sad depressing world but kudos to him for trying so hard.

New Digs

So here's the old "temporary" office... It was all open, rows of people like a computer lab.
As compared to the new office I was move to today, still under rennovations. It doesn't look like much but considering that it's a dinky little old building in an industrial area, they spent a lot of time & money on making this place nice.

All the offices are fairly large with windows from ceiling to about 2 feet off the ground. Hardwood floor for all the manager's offices and the rest is tile. It may just be that linoleum stuff but they really made a point of making this a comfortable space.


Here's my temporary desk, right by the window. Someone else is supposed to have this seat, when she comes I will have to move. Hopefully NOT into the offices in the back or in the boardroom because I like the sunlight. Another good thing is, even if I feel like being a workaholic, I can't. The guy who locks up leaves at 5pm everyday. I can't hold up the poor guy who's been their since 7:30 now can I?

God damn!

As soon as I finished my last blog @ 4:30pm, someone sitting behind me announces that the system's back up and the chump from A/P starts emailing me with stuff to do. OOOH, how does the Man always know how to get you?! Just at the right time too! arrrgh...