I am having my lunchbreak and I feel like debunking some notebook computer (also read: laptop, portable) myths right now. Something that I can do for the society to reduce the level of retardation amongst the younger generation of smart alec yuppies. Read on if you want…

Myth#1: I can preserve my notebook battery’s life by disconnecting it from the system, stash it in a box somewhere and only use it when I really need to use it.

I guess if that’s true, we can do the same to our spouses, you know, stash him/her in a closet somewhere - heavily sedated of course - then only drag his/her ass out whenever we want sex. And if we were to do it at a really long interval (like once a year? the rest of the days can be sustained with ‘hand stimulations’), then we’d be fucking a really youthful spouse when we grow feeble and white [dumbfucked expression]

As you can probably tell, that shit is practically not possible. The same goes with your notebook battery. If you’re not already aware about this, then let me tell you - degradation of notebook batteries (as of now) is still absolute. That means, whether or not you use your notebook battery, it’s gonna fucking age and die. Pretty much like your spouse. The only thing that you can affect is, how not to degrade it prematurely through misuse and abuse.

If you’re keeping the thing somewhere with the degradation perpetually running, the hours-to-use ratio will drop and you’d get less worth out of the battery. So why the worry? Just fucking use the battery till it can’t be revived no more, and get yourself a new one. Batteries are cheaper than a night out boozing with your friends nowadays. (I have no comment about conjugal relationships though… I’ll let you guys figure that out)

But if you need to do that anyway (stash the batt), make sure your battery is stored with following conditions :
- 50% charged
- isolated in a non-flammable box/container (porcelain, glass)
- store in a cool and dry place (remember, moisture is bad for electronics)

My advice is, if you’re so dead worried about dying batteries, you should probably be using a desktop PC instead…

I’ll post more stuff like this in my future lunchbreaks… (been real busy at work lately)

It’s true, I tell you. If you haven’t actually seen one, well, you’re about to. It is this thing - Barney radio or something (picture left).

No I wasn’t the one who bought it. I wouldn’t even fucking THINK of buying anything that has to do with Barney for my Regine. It was a gift from my cousin. I never knew my cousin was that distasteful but, a gift is a gift. I can’t just tell my cousin that she’s distasteful and reject her ‘kindness’. That is why it is now stucked inside my apartment.

Now, you would probably ask, how evil can this cute little radio be? You have no idea people. You see, it has this small little ‘play’ button on its front panel - supposedly, when pressed, it’ll play up some gaudy tunes sung by this prehistoric purple buffoon. The play button, are painted in both striking green and blue color - as such so that kids will not be able to resist pressing them. Once pressed, it’ll be a journey of no return to the hapless soul (and his/her family) who got enticed to press the button out of curiosity’s sake.

The radio, though small, has the broadcasting power of no less than a high Q amplifier. Its deafening noise of distressing music are irritating to the bone (nothing can be worse than hearing Barney the motherfucking stuffed dinosaur sing) and one will immediately react by looking for any means to power the damn thing down. A power switch on it or something, which does not exist. There is only 1 button. The very same button that triggered the widespread chaos in the first place, one that is also painted with the red square symbol - a common sign of ’stop’ in any audio/video devices. The distressed hopeful will be deceived to press it again (hoping that it’ll be toggled off), only to realize that not only it does not stop the device, but will begin playing another tune - extending the suffering.

The victim will be rendered with no choice but to leave it alone. You know, wait until it finishes the already playing anthem of death and go static, which kinda works, but not before hearing Barney queerly yells out, almost in a yodelling manner, for 3 times in about 10 - 20 seconds interval, to “LET’s PLAY IT AGAIN!”… before the wretched thing rests in complete silence.

But it’s not over yet. For the button is not the only means to activate the radio. There is another infrared sensor triggered plastic roller that wickedly located beneath the radio which functions pretty much the same way a roller-ball mouse does - that triggers the radio on just like the evil button, i.e. Barney will sing again if you drag the radio on the floor.

So, in order not to subject yourself to more misery of hearing the radio wail like no tomorrow at the least expected times (like when the kid’s asleep and you’re doing toys-housekeeping), you’ll have to carefully store the radio on its back flat, face up. I saw my mom paying a dear price of making that mistake last night, she got jolted the daylights out of herself after accidentally activated the radio through that roller. Her reactions? She suffocated the Barney radio with a pillow.

Just, stay away from this piece of shit. (I’m gonna look for ways to effectively dispose this thing…)

continued from this post… this is gonna be long

So… the young and freshly graduated girl engineer was made to leave Company X last Friday, after only 2 months of working here (she was actually on contract, but my boss Paul decided not to renew/convert/confirm her employment). That has got to be a new record - I’ve never seen anyone got axed out from an organization in such a short period before. The previous record was held by a sleazebag manager. His record was 3 months.

Alright, you guys are probably wondering, what had she done to deserve such fate? Well, the answer is, nothing. She did nothing. We wanted her to do something, but she couldn’t pick it up fast enough and well enough. That’s what I told Paul a few weeks ago when he asked me if it’s ok to latch her up for the job. Little did I know that she’ll be booted out THAT soon (I expected like, 4 - 6 months or something).

Perhaps I should be feeling guilty about it, but I am not. Her incompetence isn’t my fault. It was her shy and softspoken characteristics that relinquished her from that job. I’m not trying to say that being a demure person is bad but, somehow, that characteristic doesn’t go quite well with positions like electronics engineer in Company X - which requires a great deal of enthusiasm and tenacity, which she grossly lacked of… and many other things.

You may say that this is unfair to her, because she was new and all that. But it’s the harsh reality of the working world. If you’re not right for the job, then you’re out. She was given the 2 months grace period to prove herself worthy, but she didn’t make it.

That’s why, I feel compelled to share something here in my blog, on what are the things that one should be looking out for when you’re in for a new engineer post at some corporation. Might be of use to some of you, I don’t know… (disclaimer: this is not a complete guide to success, but something derived from the mistakes that I’ve seen a lot of fresh grads committed - which I think is important enough for everyone to know)

- Be confident with yourself.
I’ve seen a lot of fresh grads having this problem - lack of self confidence. The new girl engineer was a perfect example (let’s call her ‘Ovum’ for convenience sake). Ovum could hardly look into my eyes when she speaks (my eyebags aren’t that scary, pardon me) and could not introduce herself properly. She sort of went like “Hi my name is Ovum and I am from [university]. I just graduated and I don’t know anything.[sheepish smile]“.
That’s so wrong, people… Never ever think yourself as inferior. Most management folks prefer someone who is independent and has the natural gumption to turn tables when deals go wrong. And you need lots of self confidence to do stuff like that. There’s a very fine line between being humble and a self deprecating retard, and you should know how to differentiate both. You’re an engineer, be proud of it and act like one. You need to convince your boss that he/she has hired the right person, not the opposite.

- Be interactive.
As I have hinted earlier on, Ovum is a very demure and quiet person. I once left her to handle an urgent (but simple) issue for me as I had to leave work to bring Regine to the doctor. She was with me throughout the whole technical experiment to troubleshoot an OS lock-up issue and I even briefed her on the details before I left - but she did not respond when some of the concerned parties started to ask about the details - which she was made well aware of. When I questioned her lack of response, she told me she was ‘freaked out’. o_O’
This can’t be right. You won’t learn a lot if your interaction with other fellow humans are limited to just getting ‘freaked out’ every now and then. You have to ditch that teenage Hello Kitty cutesy personality. This is business. An engineering job. People hired you here to solve problems, not to see you act cute like you’re in some pen-pal convention. Your engineering work will be useless if you are unable to effectively present your work to your partners/work-peers - doesn’t matter if you’re technically sound in knowledge. You need to keep your shits together and wake up.

- Have discipline.
Look, you’re new, inexperienced and you need people to train you up. The last thing that you should ever do, is to be a slack and convert everyone’s effort into waste. Be considerate, pay attention when others speak. Focus on your given goal. Work your ass hard to get into pace with your job. You should never get too engrossed with your personal stuff during work hours. They should needless to say, done only during your breaktime or at your own time. You should also never shirk. Shirking is for experienced vets that has everything under control (like me…). You don’t.
Ovum violated this over and over again. During the course of her on-job training, she must have sent like, literally thousands of emails and SMS’s to the outside world. Every 5 - 10 minutes, she’d either go to her ‘puter to reply an email or two… or whip out her cellphone and punch some keys. It’s fucking distracting and annoying. I don’t know what’s more important - her career? or some trivial banter she shares with her cronies through cellular network. Don’t be like Ovum. Be serious with your new found career.

- Eat the humble pie.
When you know you’re good at something, you don’t fucking brag or show it off by overcommitting your objectives. You ‘brag’ and ’show it off’ by delivering results. Sometimes, it also helps by lowering expectations for your objectives and only to easily achieve it later. Action speaks louder than words. Eat the humble pie, motherfucker.
This should not be misconstrued as a contradiction to point number 1 above. Being an arrogant bastard and having self confidence is entirely a different thing. Humility goes a long way in corporate worklife. It makes people feel comfortable to work with you and that makes it harder for them to turn you down. When that happens, you’ve already won the first half of the battle to get your job done. This is also something that I’m still learning myself till this day.

- Work with people.
If you’re a misanthrope or an anti-social, you should probably look for another job. Like maybe a janitor or something, where you can get as grumpy as you want and nobody would give a fuck about you.
Working as an EE engineer is different from studying. You can be a one man army Rambo in your studies and still get good grades. But an engineering job requires you to work with people. A lot. Your performance will be graded through feedbacks from your work-mates… and if you pisses them off, you’re fucked. And when I say you’re fucked, I do really mean it - that’s because your bonus, wage increment and future depends on this ‘performance review’… As you can see, this is much more critical than your stupid ass CGPA grading system. Just do it for the sake of survival… and you’ll be better off.

- Clean your mouth well.
Gargle, brush or chew. Whatever. Just keep it clean.
this is just a personal thing - Ovum has halitosis, and I got migraine almost everyday just by talking to her

Of course there are others like how to use that big piece of organ between your ears, etc. But I can’t be telling you everything, can I? Cheers.

The new female engineer has been down with gastric pain for 3 days since the beginning of the week. She didn’t turn up for work on Monday, but she showed up yesterday and today - looking lividly lethargic and all that. So I did a ‘concerned talk’ with her this morning.

Me : “So, you still have the gastric pain?”

No, she was feeling damn awesome. She intentionally put on some ghostly make up to freak everyone out - That was a fucking stupid question of course. I don’t know why I asked her that but it was my shtick to start a conversation.

Female engineer : “Yeah.”

She doesn’t talk a lot. At least to me. Maybe because of my reputation as a fearsome stud that rips uterus out of female engineers at my workplace.

Me : “I heard you’re a vegetarian of sorts?”

Female engineer : “Yeah. I don’t eat meat.”

Me : “Why? Are you going to get epileptic fit if you take meat? Or is this just a preference thing?”

Female engineer : “No specific reason. Just don’t like meat.”

Me : “Why? Is it because you hated the fact that animals have to be slaughtered for the meat? You’re feeling sorry for them?”

She gave out a sheepish smile and nodded. That was when I did the lecture…

Me : “You don’t have to feel sorry for them. They’re just our food. Just walk near any four legged animals and show some compassion, do you think they’re going to smile and thank you? Hell no. They won’t give a crap about your feelings. They’d move on like everyone else. So why bother? Just eat them. Your stomach needs proper protein-rich food like meat to digest. Otherwise, the digestive acid inside your stomach is going to get over-abundant and when there’s nothing else to digest, it’s gonna get piss mad and digest your own stomach. That was when you feel the pain. You get me so far?”

Female engineer : “Oh okay…”

I was just bullshitting of course. But it was kinda fun to see her freaked out like that. I continued even further anyway… for her own good…

Me : “And when the acid digested too much of your stomach, sooner or later it’s going to etch through it and you are going to get a hole inside your stomach. That’s when things will get much more complicated and you’d probably need to be hospitalized. And then we’ll all have to work like hell from the lack of your headcount, you see?”

Female engineer : “…”

Me : “So, you need to eat animals to get better. If you don’t, well, we’re gonna eat an extra 2 animals for every animal that you abstain from eating. How’s that? It’s going to work out worse for you… and the animals…”

That was borrowed from Maddox. I think the idea was an awesome one - so I cited his phrase to make my point clear.

She probably looked more dumbfucked than anything else after the ‘concerned talk’. But it’s all for her own good, you see. How can one survive without the protein and those mineral craps that can only be obtained from meat? Do you see tigers get gastritis or constipation? No right? (check with your local clinic for records). That means, to eat meat is good for your health.

I think I am an awesome mentor. I teach good stuff and I help people to get better - how often do you get that combination man?

Emily ‘celebrated’ her first Mother’s Day today. It was nothing sort of extraordinary. We didn’t have any special meals, nor did we go all out to hog the public road and wanting to be seen. It was just another normal day for her (us).

The lack of enthusiasm can be best attributed to this - we didn’t give a shit about it. And maybe part of it could also be due to the fact Regine was too little to acknowledge the significance of this day. But then, even if she does and chose to ‘didn’t give a shit about it’ (like me), it wouldn’t have mattered to us (me).

However, for some, stuff like this could mean a big difference between two different sides of the ‘filial piety’ line. Whatever that their children did for them on Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day), it would become the gating criteria between good and evil. They would overlook every other things, but hope on the big one - that their children would reciprocate their love through material means. To them, raising a family is like an investment. They think by sowing some shitty efforts to raise a child (whom they’d fondly refer as ’sacrifice’), they can get a guarantee of a good retirement (to improve the odds, they raise more children). And when they fail to get what they want eventually, they would whine and lament about their ill fated life and tell everyone about it.

Well, I don’t know if it’s just me but, I think that’s just plain wrong. In my opinion, the last thing you should ever expect, is your children reciprocating your love. Raising a child is not an investment or a ’sacrifice’ (sacrifice is WAY MUCH MORE than that). It’s something that we multi-celled organism do biologically to populate the world. The animals do it all the time, and do you see them sitting there waiting all day long for their offspring to feed their sorry ass? No. But we humans do it differently. We raise our children in hope that they’d repay what has been given to them. This is so fucking wrong.

To me, this is the kind of thought that makes us weak. People put too much hope on their children, that they start to disregard their own well being. They would settle comfortably at the shady illusion that the last of their days will seen off peacefully by their children. That’s bad judgment dude, as the saying goes - “don’t put all your eggs in the same basket”. That’s why we see so many old people end up finishing their days at old folks home (but then, not that it’s a bad thing when you get to hang out with people your age). They’re too dependent on their children. I think we should change that.

I raise my Regine without any expectations for her to repay what we have given to her. The only expectation I have, is to grow old feeding my own self and Emily. Of course, Regine can repay my love out of her own will, but that’s not really a requirement. To raise her as my child, is my responsibility. To lead an honest life without having her old parents encumber her from reaching her dreams, is her prerogative. I made the choice to bring her into this world through a spasm of orgasmic spurt, but she on the other hand, didn’t make that choice to be my child. That’s the raw deal. If you think that this is unfair and unjustified, well… fuck safe. Practice birth control. Wear a condom or something. Don’t fucking have any kids. If you want to have kids, you should raise them up unconditionally.

Just remember to think for yourself. Haul your lardy ass up from the couch and have a plan before you grow old.

Happy Mother’s Day people.