All you need is ubuntu

BBC NEWS

When I first heard this on TV that Clinton was endorsing ubuntu, I thought he meant the Linux distro, ha!

Woman's 7.5 metre fingernails

Ananova

Take a look at the two pictures in the link above. The first one is of a lady whose nails are said to measure a combined 7.5 metres. But she says that she can do most house chores without problems. I wonder when she goes to the bathroom how does she wipe her ass? I can't imagine.

The second picture is of a guy whose hairstyle is said to measure 53 cm. I think he's kind of cool. But how did he put on that T-shirt without breaking that mohican? Does he get his hair done after getting dressed? Or perhaps his T-shirt can be unbuttonned or unzipped on the back!

Perfect timing?

Tonight almost as soon as I got home, it started to pour outside.  A few minutes later it had turned into an electric storm.  Good timing!  But then when I was about to switch on the rice cooker, the light went off and didn't come back for almost 90 minutes!  Oh man, I was starving!

Then when the electricity finally came back, horror, no cable TV!  Well, my building has a satellite dish anyway so I can still watch something, but no History Channel nor National Geographic, nor HBO.  After one hour wait, I call the cable company's help desk, and what a nice surprise to find a polite and knowledgeable guy at the other end of the line.  It must be the first time since I came to this country that I find customer service guy who's not freaking ignorant, nor arrogant to the degree of not listening to my problems, etc.  Nice.

Oh yeah, the electric storm damaged the cable, so it's just a matter of waiting.  I'm glad the cable box is not broken.

US Interstate Highways

How funny I just realized there're US Interstate highways even in Alaska and in Oahu.  So if you ride onto those roads, to which other state can you travel?

Crappy ADSL model cum wireless AP

The modem I use at home is Level One brand.  It's not even one year old, and the power button has already gone kaput.  It's just a bad contact.  If I press really hard with my finger, it'll stay powered on, for as long as I have my finger on it.  But it won't stay there on its own.  That sucks.  But tonight not even that.  I'm disappointed.  On the other hand, the other one, Linksys I'd been using for about three years now is still good as new.

I should point out that out of the box, this Level One piece of crap needed a firmware upgrade because otherwise it would disconnect me each two or three minutes.  It drove me nuts until we discovered that the problem would be solved by a simple software upgrade.  But come on, out of the box you already need such a thing otherwise you can't use it?  That's not right!  I'll never buy anything else from this brand.

Deep disgust in the train

Last night I was riding the train home, and at one point a young lady came on board with her son, a boy of perhaps three years of age.  From the very begining, this toddler was such a pain in the ass... anything he wanted to talk to his mom, he had to yell to the top of his lungs even though his mom's ear was a few inches away.

At one point this little devil decided he needed to pee.  He was yelling and started to take his dick out.  What did his mother do?  She took out a plastic bag, and let him take a leak into it.  Yeah, right in the middle of the train.  When he was done, she tied a knot on the bag, and then tossed it to one corner of the train.

What the fuck?  And all of the other, local, people were watching too, but from the look in their eyes, it looked like they thought that was cute!  Was that some sort of candid camera or something?

Robbie Williams' Depression Battle

contactmusic.com

I don't believe this. Last time I read something about his person (quite a long time ago indeed), he was saying something in the lines of he can't believe how fortunate he is since his carrer was in top shape, earning much more money than he had ever dreamt of, and even had a supermodel girlfriend. Maybe he has come to realize that Blair is a Bush puppet. That would explain it all.

Manholes of Japan

Manholes of Japan

This is a very nice collection of pictures of Japan. How cool to put some eye candy into something most people don't think about!

Ted Turner: Iraq war among history's 'dumbest'

CNN.com

Huh, so I'm not alone in the Western world with my opinion regarding nuclear weapons for Iran. Interesting.

Indonesian fried noodles

The other day I found in the supermarket some instant fried noodles made in Indonesia.  I think the name of the dish is Mi Goreng, but I don't remember the brand.  Out of curiosity, I bought a couple of those, and tried at home.

When I made it, I liked it!  It was a bit sweet, and very different than other instant fried noodles.  I appreciated the novelty, so I bought again several of the same to keep in my pantry.

Last night I didn't have much time to cook, so I figured I'd use one of those Mi Goreng packages.  First boil the water.  Then put the noodles into the water.  Aaahhh!  So many ants!

I was amazed.  It was not a swarm, but certainly many ants.  How come?  Those bugs were not there when I brought these packs from the supermaket.  Shit.  Then I went to check on the other two packs I had in my pantry, and these two were also invaded by plenty of ants.  What the fuck?

What's more, when I raised the pack that was at the bottom of the stack, I found like several mounds of some white powder resembling sugar that looked as if that had been spilling from some hole in the Mi Goreng package.  I don't know what that powder was cause when you open the bag of instant noodles, they don't come with sugar, only a bunch of mixed seasonings.

But man was I disappointed.  I haven't been keeping this Indonesian shit nearly as long as some other instant noodles in my pantry, and yet these become invaded while the others stay good.  I'm never ever gonna buy that crap again.

U.N. official: Bush, Iranian leader will avoid each other - Sep 18, 2006

CNN.com

This article comes with a picture that immediately caught my attention. Go ahead and take a look yourself.

Doesnt' it look like this composition is intentional? Doesn't it look like Bush is pushing and Ahmadinejad is retreating? Did this particular combination of pictures happen by chance? Oh yeah, sure! Is this 'Fair & Balanced'? Of course it is.

Lately I'm not watching much CNN, actually I rarely do now a days. I prefer BBC much better. The BBC guys won't marry to anybody, not even their own government who provides them with their funding. They are brave guys.

BBQ sauce

The other day I was in the supermarket I saw they were selling Heinz BBQ sauce at a discounted price.  I haven't had a barbecue for ages, and even though I don't have a grill, I thought, why not?  On the label it says that it's good for chicken and ribs.

Today I smothered some chicken meat in that sauce and let it stand for a couple of hours.  When I tried to fry it, the oil blew into all directions, cleaning was messiest than any other time I can remember... and the flavor of the chicken?  It was good, but not that great.  It was slightly sweet.

I think next time I'm gonna use it to give flavor to my ground meat patties.  But I'll make sure it's salty.

Lawmaker Admits He Took Illegal Gifts

New York Times

So this is how the politicians from the party of the Christian far right behave, huh? Shouldn't they observe conducts more in tune with the teachings of the Bible?

Nah, "Culture of Life" and all of that crappy discourse are just traps to raid gullible Christian voters. Dudes, do as I say, not as I do!

U.S. Report on Iran 'Dishonest'

ABC News

We have seen this kind of manipulation by US politicians before, haven't we? This really smells like a pre-Iraq war "I said, you said, he said".

It's cool outside but...

Today it's the first cool day in I don't remember how many moons.  I usually have to close the windows and turn on the aircon because it's so muggy... but today it's actually very nice.  Cloudy and damp, but nicely cool.  It's a bummer though that I still have to leave the windows closed cause there're two construction sites nearby and they're so damn noisy!  What a shame!

Disabled Burmese muse guides our superstitious PM

The Nation

Is this really the way they run Thailand in the 21rst century? No wonder it's intrinsically Third World.

US waging 'ideological struggle'

BBC NEWS

A "struggle for civilization"? Man, Bush makes me want to puke. What a moron. And he's talking hoping other morons will pick up his message. The scary thing is that a whole bunch of idiots who fall for this could be carried away into something resembling a modern day crusade. Do we need that? I think not.

Instead, why not try to understand what's what makes the terrorists and many non-terrorists around the world angry at the US; then we can do something to solve the problem, which could be either on their side or on the American side. Without understanding of the root cause of the problem we wouldn't really know where to implement the solution, would we?

Simply assuming that Americans are intrinsically good just because they're Christians and democratic... uhhh? And whoever is against America is evil no matter what... double uhhh?

In my humble opinion one of the most important reasons for this anger seen in the Arab world against the US is the US' unconditional support of Israel, even in times it's glaringly clear that Israel is doing wrong. This long history of one sidedness... wouldn't that create some degree of hurt feelings?

For example, we don't know for sure Iran really is developing nuclear weapons. Yet:
1. Israel has nuclear weapons. Oh, but Israel is a democracy so it's okay for them to have them?
2. Pakistan has nuclear weapons too, it is not a democracy, and the US is not complaining. Oh, but Pakistan is helping in the "war on terror", so it's better that freedom loving America supports the Pakistani dictatorship.
3. China is not a democracy either and has a much larger and proven nuclear arsenal, yet did anybody say anything?
4. North Korea has declared it's developing nuclear weapons and it's the proven brat of the neighborhood, yet there's not nearly as much fuss about it.

After reading the above points with a cool head, does that sound like an even handed approach to the Middle East?

And how about the lastest war between Israel and Hezbollah, in which the US and Britain refused to call for an immediate ceasefire just because "there's no permanent solution just yet"... and in effect saying, let the bombing and killing in Lebanon continue? Try to imagine the same situation happening in Israel or some American state. Can you? Neither can I. Yes, it happened that way because Lebanon is a mostly Muslim country, so who cares, right?

These things have to stop cause they just feed to the anger of people who don't know any better than joining terror organizations to fight against these injustices.

I think I ate less

Today I think I really ate less.

For breakfast I had one cup of coffee with one cheese sandwich.  Lately it had been two different sandwiches.

For lunch I only had a 30 gram bag of roasted sunflower kernels.

For dinner I had one cup of mashed potatoes, one small slice of grilled pork, one fried egg, a handfull of grilled mushrooms (it's less after grilling), three small pieces of fruit, and half cup of boiled soy beans.

Yeah, I think this is much less than my regular day.  I finished washing the dishes a while ago, and am I hungry?  No!  Actually, I'm kind of stuffed.  What's the trick?  Well, yesterday I was sniffing my vanilla and banana essence bottles only once in a while.  Today I just left them open on one corner of my desk all day long.  Hey, maybe this trick will work!

Sniff to slim experiment

I just finished my very first meal after starting this smell experiment.  I really sniffed a lot from that vanilla and banana essence bottles even before starting to cook and right before starting to eat.  They kind of reduced my appetite, but at the end I think that I ate as much as usual; maybe a bit more than usual.

Slimming down with smells

I forgot to mention that recently I'd read that some scientic experiments have shown that for some people, it helps to slim down if they smell certain aromas.  No, these aromas won't make you magically burn more calories.  The way they work is supposedly, they help control appetite.  The article specifically mentions banana, green apples, and peppermint for this purpose.  It also mentions vanilla to help control chocolate cravings.

So since I already was out shopping for the electric fan, I also dropped by the supermarket to find fruit essences.  I could only find vanilla and bananas.

When I came back to my apartment I was really hungry and took a few whiffs from the vanilla and banana bottles.  Then I proceeded to eat a small bag of pumpkin seed snacks.  Does it work?  Maybe.  Smelling those things surprisingly didn't make hungrier.  And right now I'm surprised I was satisfied with such a small serving of snacks.  Uh, I'll know if it really works perhaps within some six months.

My electric fan is broken

The electric fan my landlord had put in the apartment had been misbehaving since a few days ago, but today it's just unsufferable.

I decided to go buy one myself.  The landlord's is from a local brand, unknown to me but very easy to find in the stores.  As I had read in some website, the local brand is just a piece of crap.  I don't know how come it's so popular in this country.

Anyway, this afternoon I got myself a Toshiba electric fan.  It's an old model, so it was a bit cheaper than the other foreign brand, same category fans.  As soon as I came back to my apartment, I assembled it, turned it on, and was impressed with the difference.  So quiet and so powerful!  Even at the lowest speed I think it gives me a stronger breeze than the other one at middle speed.  The only thing I wish was different is that the power cable is short, and the neck is also short.  Hey, but this is a good deal anyway!

YouTube & Google Video

Not too long ago, perhaps a couple of weeks ago, I started checking once each couple of days YouTube and Google Video, especially since I hear the buzz about YouTube.  But I couldn't find so many interesting videos.

But today just by chance, I found one, which led me to another one, and then another one.  I got hooked, and time went flying.  This is nice!

Now, between YouTube (the most famous), and Google Video, for now I prefer Google Video just because I found the way to make it play continously.  In YouTube I have to click to see the next video.  Probably it has a switch or something to make it play automatically, but I haven't found it yet.

The stand-ins suck

There's a news program that I like which is specialized in interviews and investigative reports.  It's usually anchored by a lady but now-a-days she's on medical leave and instead of her they have put a guy and a gal.  Man, they suck!

The first day I saw them I thought maybe they're jetlagged or something, but I've seen them three times already, and they're still as bad as on the first day.  When they interview together some guest, one doesn't pay attention to the questions of the other, so they end up asking the same thing twice.  How moronic is that?

Proof that these folks are not that popular is the telephone poll they do everynight.  When the regular anchor is working, they manage to receive several thousand phone calls in reply.  But with these stand-ins, they get well below 1,000.  I think tonight it was less than 300 phone calls.

Dreadful quality lightning

In this country the lightbulbs are of such a poor quality that one has to see them to believe it.  And I'm not talking about some fake brand bought at a back alley.  I've experienced many times over that with Philips incandescent lightbulbs (made in Indonesia or China) bought at decent stores, I only get one month tops of regular use.  That's why I have changed many of the lightbulbs to the fluorescent type since they claim to last about six times as long.

Yesterday one of the incandescent lightbulbs in my small studio went out, so I replaced it with a spare I found when I moved in.  Since then, each time I turn on again that light after a few hours of being off, I need to slightly touch and screw tighter/unscrew the bulb to make it turn on.  That lightbulb socket is also a piece of crap!  How come these guys don't have pride in their own workmanship?

I hate cockroaches

I had thought that my tactic of spraying the lower side of my door from the outside twice weekly was working fine cause I hadn't seen a roach for a few months now.  But today I saw a big one inside my small studio, and it wasn't even dark outside yet!  I thought these guys only come out at night!

Arrrghhh!!! I can't stand them.  I grabbed my trusty can of Mortein, and it did the job really quick, but still, it shouldn't come into my apartment in the first place.

Steve Irwin's freak death filmed

The Australian

This is nothing short of astonishing. I'm in shock. This guy is always so cheerful and full of life. And since he's always in contact with nature, you expect him to live for a long long time. But now suddenly, he's gone forever!

Computer speakers

Tonight I went to a shopping center looking for some computer parts.  I don't really need to buy, but I thought it would be nice to get some decent external computer speakers too.  A long time ago I had found in this same place some really cheap speakers, at about USD 5.00.  But when I tried them at home, I repented because the quality is really, very, extremelly bad.  Gee, tonight all of the speakers I saw were at least three times as expensive.  I didn't buy.

But I did buy some headphone with microphone to use at home with Skype.  It's one of the cheapest models in sale, yet it works fine.  I'd bought one like this last year, but I keep it at the office.  I want another one for home.  Tonight I found the same model number (but this time with volume control) as last year, except that the price is about 33% lower!

Freebies at Pizza Hut

Tonight I walked past Pizza Hut and saw it was decorated with a poster featuring a girl dressed in Korean garb.  I was curious, so I came in for dinner and ordered one set of their small Bulgokki flavoured pizza with four pieces of fried chicken and two glasses of Pepsi.

The drinks came really quickly, and the chickens a few minutes later.  But the pizza was taking really long.  I took a look at the tab, and according to its timestamp, it was already about 20 minutes in the making.  Really long.  Then one of the servers noticed from the distance that something must be wrong with my order, so she came to take a look at my tab, and noticed the problem.

As an apology, while I waited for a few more minutes for my pizza, she brought me fried cheese fingers and a dish of some new concoction similar to french toasts but with sweet crumbs on top.

Gee, at the end I was so stuffed I didn't stop by Dunkin Donuts as I had originally planned.

By the way, regarding the Bulgokki flavoured pizza... next time I'll pass.

Bt15 to be the top fare for 10-line network

The Nation

Classic third world populism. It's astonishing that even in the 21rst century people would fall for this kind of speech.

Tonight's hamburger

Each time I fix a hamburger at home, I like experiment by making it slightly different than previous times.  I usually make it with minced pork meat cause that's the easiest to find, also, I put finely chopped onions and garlic.  From then on, it's an experiment.

Tonight, in order to make it salty and give it color I put oyster sauce.  Usually I would put paprika, cummin and oregano, but not tonight.  This time I also put some bread crumbs to make the patty softer, and one egg to hold everything together.

When I finished cooking this experiment, and gave it a bite, strange it wasn't salty.  It was kind of sweet!  It didnt' taste bad, but I'd been hoping for a salty hamburger!  Also, I'm not sure what happened this time that the meat felt kind of rubbery.  Did I put too much bread crumbs?  Or was it that I used meat from a different company than usual?  Other days when I open the meat pack, the meat looks like it's been poured directly from the meat grinder into the pack, but today it looked like it'd been mixed cause I couldn't see the extruded shapes.

I think this sweetish hamburger would appeal more to my Japanese friends.  As for myself, I'll stick with salty hamburgers.

My ADSL saves me money!

This afternoon I haven't got much to do.  I figured I might go out and take a look at the electronic shops to try to find the Skype wifi phone I'd seen on TV not so long ago.

Good thing I searched on Froogle first!  Netgear's wifi phone, which is the one I saw on TV, costs over USD 200.  Belkin's I don't know, but it just looks like an OEM from Netgear.  That price is too high for a non-essential toy.

So, thanks to that info, now I know better than to spend my afternoon in this sweltering heat trying to find something that is too expesive for now.

I think one of these days though I'll get myself a barcode reader cause it would be really neat to learn how to create programs that interface with that.