Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Nosebleed

I'm left with a sore throat (no problem), a blocked nose (manageable), a cough (NOOOOOO), a sore lung (PPPFFTTTTT) and a nose bleed (WHATTTTTTTTTTTT). I'd happily trade the fever and headache for all that though.

Ok you know what probably is going to give me a worse nosebleed?

"How to bootlick your professor"
Some idiot stumbled onto my blog with THESE search words.
Fella, if you're still here, my advice is: have a very strong tongue because licking a boot is going to make all your taste buds sore.

Jesus. What is this. Background preparation to enter a university life?
Ask your professor to wear golf shoes, see how you're gonna lick THAT. Lick boot my arse.

Anyway. I was down at the embassy again to pick up my stuff. A friend of mine asked me to pick hers up while I was at it.

R: Collected your passport and visa today
Qt:ahh thanks a lot, is the visa not stuck to the passport?

And really. I couldn't help but laugh. Nosebleed and all.

Grinning Goat at 5/28/2008 09:14:00 PM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Monday, May 26, 2008

Bomb exploding right out of my ear

I swear in one of my feverish nights I had a nice post written in my head but the severe pounding at the back of my head just wouldn't let up so I didn't get to write it and now I forgot what it was all about.

I didn't know a human being can sleep so much, short of being in a comma. I've gone what 12 hours straight? but on those days if you add them up it'll beat my 2.4km timing times a hundred (don't bother calculating, my maths isn't that terrific; I just pull figures out of thin air). But the other day when I was forced to clean up my desk (forced being having all the stuff in my drawer taken out and put on the floor), I discovered to my horror (to my envy, really) that I actually was a BRONZE certificate holder. Which was wowww. At least I was that fit at some point in my life. Something to show my grand-daughters.

I'm here because my headache is a little better. It's just my nose you know. It's been running non stop. If this country has as much water as my nose, it wouldn't have to worry about reverse osmosis, new water and the lot. Ok, maybe it still needs the reverse osmosis bit to separate the icky bit. I was out at the embassy today and goshh I practically held a tissue in my hand, because having to keep taking it out costs energy, energy that's currently being spent solely on breathing alone and it blistered my hand.

It's just bleeding embarrassing (it was 4 packets by the way. Buika bet that 4 packets wouldn't be enough. And she's right; if I didn't get home straight, it wouldn't have been. Oh but I know my limits)
All those people looking at you when it should've been between you and your nose alone (Ok I had this conversation with Wedgie once about how she refused to blow her nose while on the train because it would disgust other people) now that I'm in her position I see her point. Except that my waterfall is a different sort from hers and if I had to back THAT up in my throat I'd suffocate which means I'd have to swallow them and if I swallowed them I might get a diarrhoea. Ok as a life science GRADUATE now, I should probably tell you the truth: it wouldn't cause diarrhoea but still why would I wanna swallow all that junk.

The fact still remains that it was embarrassing. Nope, nobody's looking my way though. But still. They're disgusted. I know. I can read minds.

Grinning Goat at 5/26/2008 10:47:00 PM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

the burden of sin

My student has a stubborn streak in her. I can imagine that it is precisely this kind of mule-headedness that makes me particularly hard to teach. It is, how shall I put this, endearingly familiar and familiarly frustrating.

In response to her incessant "but I remember it clearly, it is this way", short of pulling my hair, my response to her (and yes, this is most unteacherly of me - but I suppose all my students have had a fair share of this) was an unbelieving, "well can't you remember things wrongly?"

And she does, remember things wrongly by the way.

On a good day, this is kind of fun. And it invigorates the session because when you're in a heated argument, you can hardly be sleepy can you? And she does sincerely want to learn, although this includes challenging every notion I bring up if it doesn't agree with her pre-conceived ideas.
On a bad day, this is just downright annoying and it tests my patience.

Anyway today was a good day. I was in the middle of convincing her that acceleration of a free falling object is constant because of gravity when I paused to take a sip and after a hesitant pause, she proclaimed with a chuckle that I just drank from her cup.

Oh but no, she didn't have any contagious disease she said.

There goes the water down my throat, carrying my pride along with it. Down below.

PFftttt.

Anyway I didn't come here to talk about that. I've been watching Dicey business recently (one place had the show in its original canto sound with a chinese subtitle -which makes the show totally useless to me; it'd be like watching Charlie Chaplin- and the other had the show dubbed in Khmer language but with an english subtitle).
The Khmer dubbing was SO disturbing my friend opted to watch in silence. But the silence eventually killed me and I decided to play both. I would LOOK at the english subtitle and LISTEN to the original soundtrack. Which means I have to synchronise the two videos for every single episode I watched. Which made me rather dizzy.

What struck me, as I watched was how your character plays no small part in the decisions you make and the actions you take. I believe in conscience as a moral guide (as opposed to religious teachings but I suppose the two overlap at some point, I'm just not enlightened enough to tell where exactly it is that they do). If I were to take this to the extreme, I could say oh I don't feel guilty doing that so it must not have been anything wrong or immoral. Then Mark Twain must have had a stroke of brilliant inspiration when he said, "good friends, good book and a sleepy conscience; that's the ideal life".

Because then people with a sleepy conscience would have it easy. How fair is it then to have a principle that applies to different people differently? It's like having a law enforced with double standards.

If I were to mathematically calculate the burden of sin, surely an accurate measurement would require me to factor in the element of character? Call it "mitigating circumstances" if you will. I believe some part of our characters are innate. God-given. Inborn. We have no choice in the matter, in the same manner we have no choice over our own blood type. Some people are more hot-headed than others. Some more stubborn. More reckless. These people are BOUND to get involved in more arguments than other and more likely to do things they regret than others.

This is not to say that they are entirely relieved of the burden of sin, but rather the extent to which they lose self control should be commensurate with the burden of character which increases their likelihood to lose the control in the first place.

Perhaps I have been too scientific in my uptake of such an abstract subject.

Steven Weinberg mentioned once that the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. I think he has a point.

Grinning Goat at 5/21/2008 02:26:00 AM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Saturday, May 17, 2008

douche bag

R: Pein, did I or did I not get pissed easily?
Pein: sometimes
R: Is that more of a yes or a no?
Pein: more of a yes
R: how do I prevent myself from getting pissed easily?
Pein: stop talking to me hahahaha

::

R: NO STUPID PEIN I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU PISSING ME OFF
Pein: Don't get your period?
R: don't get my period? that's as good as sterelising myself you moron

Ok so my fuse is a lil short but can you blame me? his suggestions are all crap.

::

R: I wonder how orange chicken tastes like
Pein: like chicken, with orange flavour
R: chicken that tastes like fruit? doesn't sound so tasty to me
Pein: no, I was being funny, it tastes really good
R: so how does it taste like REALLY?
Pein: really good
R: you're not answering my question stupid pein. Oh, I know it tastes like lemon huh, sour but spicy?
Pein: no. Yuck. It tastes like REALLY GOOD
R: DESCRIBE IT PEIN, GOOD DOESN'T SAY MUCH
Pein: uhm it's really really good
R: ok now I know how crappy it is
Pein: whaatttt

So. Not only is his suggestion crap. His description is too.

Pein: go to sleep. GO
R: trying to cover up for yr stupid chicken huh
Pein: don't diss my yummy food. What's wrong with you. Shame on you

Grinning Goat at 5/17/2008 01:26:00 AM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Friday, May 16, 2008

A penny's worth

I remember it being said once that a good leader understands that not making a decision is a decision in itself.

Something which is brilliant in its simplicity. Because, who said you can't be guilty of an inaction? Failure to act, say to save someone who can be saved can be as good as killing him. In fact, deliberately standing still when you could've saved a life, in my opinion is worse than you unintentionally chopping someone to death.

I think neutrality a tricky business too because I think that sometimes by not taking a side, people are taking sides. The way our gender is determined.

Do you want a Y?
Yea I want a Y --> you'll be a male
Nahh I'll pass on the Y --> you'll be a female
Errr I don't want to have to choose --> by default, you'll be an XX, that makes you a female.

This is exactly what I mean. When by not taking a side, you end up taking a side. In fact, this is the most irresponsible decision making ever.

Saying "yeah whatever" actually gets you somewhere. Just not anywhere good.

Take global warming. Doesn't everybody just get all hyped up about it now? (to the point of being eager enough to boost biofuel production but stupid enough not to realise it until it's too late that the course of producing biofuel contributes to the very problem it is trying to solve)

Deciding not to do anything at the moment actually DECIDES that global warming progresses according to agenda. Whose rate, if Al Gore isn't wrong is alarming. I'm not an environmentalist (and for a very selfish reason neither would I ever be vegetarian). But I'm just tired of all this gallivanting around, pretending to resolve issues, deciding everything by deciding nothing at all.

And that's just an example. Feel free to extrapolate to other instances where decision is made without a decision being made. Hiding beneath the pretext of non-involvement. Courageously cowardly. The marvel of human nature.

Grinning Goat at 5/16/2008 08:48:00 PM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Friday, May 09, 2008

Desperate measures for desperate times

R: Pein, I got banned playing gb. Can we play some other games?
Pein: But you suck at other games. You're decent at gb
R: you're so freaking honest

::

Pein: why don't you just play from your room in your laptop?
R: because there's no table in my room, moving the mouse is gonna be a problem and I hate using touchpad
Pein: geez just because there's no table
R: not really
Pein: so picky
R: my laptop is slow and I'm using wireless, the connection is usually bad from my room
Pein: oh don't d/c me or I'll call your mom and tell her to ban you more
R: stupid ass
Pein: since you suck at any other online games, gb is your last hope of having fun.

And so the conversation came back full circle.

Gunbound is my LAST hope of having fun. Hear hear. I shouldn't be banned. Life's too short for that.

Grinning Goat at 5/09/2008 12:51:00 AM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Back in business

I think I owe this place a little touching up.

My last paper was to put it mildly horrific. It's the epitome of a crash and burn.

Anyway I haven't gunbound in a while and boy didn't the admin guys get creative.
(right this entry is probably going to bore the shite out of you so don't say I didn't warn you). We now have new elements.

A black light that reduced damage by 50%, I find this to be rather well cute, if that's an apt description because this is probably the first element ever to actually be detrimental rather than beneficial.

Then there's the mirror which reflects whatever shot you shoot.

Which brings into the picture the slot they have now for item 2. Moon allows us to bypass elements now, which is an interesting concept and it's a pity they didn't come up with this in the old days.

And the concept of an avatar that increases your item slot. Like a treasure box.

Of course, what all these mean eventually is to get us to spend more. But well, I let Pein do all the spending hauahhahaa. Fantastic.

Grinning Goat at 5/06/2008 02:41:00 AM pontificated

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{buzzz out}