Shortly after posting that last tip, I received intel on an impending new policy at our workplace.
Starting next month, MSN and all IM programs will be banned at work. Those requiring MSN for work can apply for it (on a yearly basis). MSN usage and content will be monitored and submitted to your manager each month.
How's that for shutting off any connection to the outside world....
Now I realise that this measure is taken in the interest of productivity, but seriously if there were any way to make your employees feel imprisoned at work, this would be near the top of the list.
I also hear that some floors have already started adhering to another impending policy: no meals taken at your desk. Well, that just sounds absurd. Many employees eat meals at their desk so they can work or nap, or maybe they bring lunch from home. Unless this is only about preventing food spills on $$$$ equipment (sounds more like a high school policy), I don't see their purpose for this one....
What's next, timed bathroom trips? (I do know of one company that restricts employees to 48 minutes per day. Not kidding.)
Just break out the orange jumpsuits....
2007-11-17
2007-11-11
E-moting
After last month's viral attack, I recovered my laptop computer and painstakingly went through all the installations and uninstallations to restore Toshy to his former glory.
As I logged into the newly upgraded Windows Live Messenger, however, it dawned on me how much I relied on my accumulated collection of dancing moo cows and twirling penguins and the like. The clean emoticon slate left me feeling inarticulate and unexpressive.
This was unacceptable. I would have to rebuild my gallery of expressions.
I nearly drove my coworker nuts as I bugged her to send me emoticons from work and from home, so I could add them again, one by one. I finally decided this was ridiculous, and turned to the wonderful WWW. Sure enough,I found this helpful tidbit:
The custom emoticons are stored in:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger\<account#>\CustomEmoticons\
I just copied the entire CustomEmoticons folder and then plopped it into the corresponding directory at home, and - presto! - all my lovely emoticons were once again at my fingertips! Yay!
I read that this only works for copying emoticons from an account to the same account on another computer. I haven't tried otherwise, so I can't verify this.
Apparently you can also do the same for display pictures; they're stored in the UserTile folder.
As I logged into the newly upgraded Windows Live Messenger, however, it dawned on me how much I relied on my accumulated collection of dancing moo cows and twirling penguins and the like. The clean emoticon slate left me feeling inarticulate and unexpressive.
This was unacceptable. I would have to rebuild my gallery of expressions.
I nearly drove my coworker nuts as I bugged her to send me emoticons from work and from home, so I could add them again, one by one. I finally decided this was ridiculous, and turned to the wonderful WWW. Sure enough,I found this helpful tidbit:
The custom emoticons are stored in:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger\<account#>\CustomEmoticons\
I just copied the entire CustomEmoticons folder and then plopped it into the corresponding directory at home, and - presto! - all my lovely emoticons were once again at my fingertips! Yay!
I read that this only works for copying emoticons from an account to the same account on another computer. I haven't tried otherwise, so I can't verify this.
Apparently you can also do the same for display pictures; they're stored in the UserTile folder.
2007-11-03
Complete bust
Well. I don't know what to say. My weekend was a complete bust. I had a full weekend all planned out - fun filled up to the brim. And not one of those plans panned out.
Friday night I went wall-climbing, and then had a night snack with the gang. I was going to go on a mini nocturnal adventure (just out wandering at night) but couldn't get a hold of my friends. I was a bit bummed out, so my coworker and I grabbed a drink from the 7-Eleven, chatted at the local basketball court until it started to rain at 03:30. When I got home I replied to a sad e-mail, almost fell asleep. My night adventure friend logged on, and we MSNed. Of course it was 06:00 by the time I really couldn't stay awake, and of course, my plans for the following day started at 06:50.
Saturday was a day in Lugang (鹿港). My coworker (different one) was going with a photography club to take pictures, and since I'd never been, I'd asked to tag along for the day.
But Saturday morning, I woke to a mobile phone displaying 07:10. I hurried out the door, but the bus was nowhere in sight, and that one person I knew going on this photography outing wasn't answering his mobile phone. I gave up at nearly 08:00 and went home, slept until 14:00. And when I woke up, in an equally blah mood... I went to work. But the not-rainy-as-anticipated weather and the nice walk to the office helped my mood immensely. I decided to help the trend by going for teppanyaki for dinner. =)
My coworker wanted to go climbing, so I went to belay for him. The climbing gang was going KTVing (or karaokeing) at midnight and then 4 of us were going to head straight to Longdong (龍洞) for some outdoor climbing. I chose to miss the first half of KTVing to pack my gear and get some work done, but when I eventually got there, I was told that there'd been a little incident and my friend (one of the 4 going to Longdong) had drowned himself in a bottle of vodka. When I left the KTV over an hour later, he was still sleeping it off.... In fact, he was in the washroom the entire time I was there; I didn't even see him. =(
And so here I am, blogging at 05:40 on Sunday morning, after the last of my highly anticipated plans got cancelled. Rightly cancelled, but still, I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't a little disappointed.
I think I'll sleep in until noon and then go to work. Work rarely disappoints.
[Editor's note: We'd been praying all week that the rain wouldn't wash away our Longdong plans. Right now, 11:51, the weather is gorgeous.... *sigh*]
Friday night I went wall-climbing, and then had a night snack with the gang. I was going to go on a mini nocturnal adventure (just out wandering at night) but couldn't get a hold of my friends. I was a bit bummed out, so my coworker and I grabbed a drink from the 7-Eleven, chatted at the local basketball court until it started to rain at 03:30. When I got home I replied to a sad e-mail, almost fell asleep. My night adventure friend logged on, and we MSNed. Of course it was 06:00 by the time I really couldn't stay awake, and of course, my plans for the following day started at 06:50.
Saturday was a day in Lugang (鹿港). My coworker (different one) was going with a photography club to take pictures, and since I'd never been, I'd asked to tag along for the day.
But Saturday morning, I woke to a mobile phone displaying 07:10. I hurried out the door, but the bus was nowhere in sight, and that one person I knew going on this photography outing wasn't answering his mobile phone. I gave up at nearly 08:00 and went home, slept until 14:00. And when I woke up, in an equally blah mood... I went to work. But the not-rainy-as-anticipated weather and the nice walk to the office helped my mood immensely. I decided to help the trend by going for teppanyaki for dinner. =)
My coworker wanted to go climbing, so I went to belay for him. The climbing gang was going KTVing (or karaokeing) at midnight and then 4 of us were going to head straight to Longdong (龍洞) for some outdoor climbing. I chose to miss the first half of KTVing to pack my gear and get some work done, but when I eventually got there, I was told that there'd been a little incident and my friend (one of the 4 going to Longdong) had drowned himself in a bottle of vodka. When I left the KTV over an hour later, he was still sleeping it off.... In fact, he was in the washroom the entire time I was there; I didn't even see him. =(
And so here I am, blogging at 05:40 on Sunday morning, after the last of my highly anticipated plans got cancelled. Rightly cancelled, but still, I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't a little disappointed.
I think I'll sleep in until noon and then go to work. Work rarely disappoints.
[Editor's note: We'd been praying all week that the rain wouldn't wash away our Longdong plans. Right now, 11:51, the weather is gorgeous.... *sigh*]
2007-10-14
Here's a short one....
Oh boy. Looks like my blog posts are getting a little long.
It's great to have stuff to talk about. =)
Or maybe I'm just too wordy. Verbal diarrhea, as my elementary school classmate once said. =P
It's great to have stuff to talk about. =)
Or maybe I'm just too wordy. Verbal diarrhea, as my elementary school classmate once said. =P
2007-10-13
Now THAT's a good day of fun.
I signed up for another riversourcing activity. Riversourcing is when you follow a river or creek upstream, crossing it or climbing to get to the source. It's also a term I coined, because I honestly don't know the actual name of the activity. If anyone knows, do tell me.
Anyhow, the organisation hosting the activity was iClimb, the wall-climbing centre I kind of frequent. I already knew and liked the instructors, so, short of a disaster, the day was guaranteed to be fun-filled. I had pulled two coworkers along, and one brought his girlfriend and 3 of her friends, too. The two on-line registrants had cancelled (probably figuring it'd be too cold), so it turned out to be a private outing. =D
We set out at 08:40. Last week's typhoon had engorged the rivers and washed out some of the roads, let loose a few rock slides, so getting to creek was a heart-stopping event in itself. For non-off-roading vehicles, the typhoon water runoff trickling over sloped roads made some segments challenging, quite reminiscent of driving in snow back home. A few undercarriage scraps and heart attacks later, we unloaded equipment and trekked down to the waterside.
This creek was a little less "exciting" than the one I was at in mid-September. The terrain had more climbing, a bit less river-crossing. The increased water flow made it more dangerous to cross, too, though. But still it was fun, and as anticipated, there was lots of egging on and horsing around. I was the target of plenty of it, but it was all in good fun.
I was also the crazy one, the only one to play in the cold water at our lunch stop. The 10m waterfall, normally only 2m wide, had widened to 5 or 6m, and the pool at the bottom had overflowed. I jumped in (with life-jacket) and swam in a relative calm area of the pool, but as I got a little nearer the waterfall, I realised that I wasn't moving forward. I was swimming on the spot. I was being sucked in by the waterfall. I like a bit of excitement, but I'm no fool. I yelped. And someone threw me a towline and reeled me in.
Of course that didn't stop me. I continued to frolic happily (and alone) in the water with my umbilical lifeline. They (the instructors) "made" me swim out and be carried away by the current. I climbed a little segment of rock (a couple of meters high, just a mini rock-climbing challenge), and they "made" me jump off.
Anyway, it was fun. Fun fun fun. And yet, while I yawned on the ride back, I wasn't that tired. So when we arrived back at the climbing centre around 19:00... I climbed. Except for a dinner break, I climbed and belayed until 22:30.
Then I got a shoulder massage. One of the instructors there had taken a class in sport massage therapy, so I plunked down in front of him and he proceeded to tell me how stiff all my shoulder and neck muscles were while he rubbed out a lot of knots. I must've yelped more than I had all day - it hurt - and yet those 15 minutes felt great. Or maybe it was the end of the 15 minutes that felt great, ha. I asked him for his work shift schedule so I could show up whenever he was there. XD (Yes, I was kidding.)
That did it, though. A day of riversourcing, extra hours of climbing and a shoulder massage. Guaranteed recipe for fun. I got home, took a hot shower, and I was out like a light. My shoulders are still sore today, but a good sore.
And best of all, I really want to get back into climbing. =)
Photos:
- 10/13: Pinjing Creek (小錦屏溪)
- 09/15: Taigang Creek (泰崗溪)
[Editor's note: my coworker informs me it's called river trekking. Wikipedia also offers "river tracing".]
Anyhow, the organisation hosting the activity was iClimb, the wall-climbing centre I kind of frequent. I already knew and liked the instructors, so, short of a disaster, the day was guaranteed to be fun-filled. I had pulled two coworkers along, and one brought his girlfriend and 3 of her friends, too. The two on-line registrants had cancelled (probably figuring it'd be too cold), so it turned out to be a private outing. =D
We set out at 08:40. Last week's typhoon had engorged the rivers and washed out some of the roads, let loose a few rock slides, so getting to creek was a heart-stopping event in itself. For non-off-roading vehicles, the typhoon water runoff trickling over sloped roads made some segments challenging, quite reminiscent of driving in snow back home. A few undercarriage scraps and heart attacks later, we unloaded equipment and trekked down to the waterside.
This creek was a little less "exciting" than the one I was at in mid-September. The terrain had more climbing, a bit less river-crossing. The increased water flow made it more dangerous to cross, too, though. But still it was fun, and as anticipated, there was lots of egging on and horsing around. I was the target of plenty of it, but it was all in good fun.
I was also the crazy one, the only one to play in the cold water at our lunch stop. The 10m waterfall, normally only 2m wide, had widened to 5 or 6m, and the pool at the bottom had overflowed. I jumped in (with life-jacket) and swam in a relative calm area of the pool, but as I got a little nearer the waterfall, I realised that I wasn't moving forward. I was swimming on the spot. I was being sucked in by the waterfall. I like a bit of excitement, but I'm no fool. I yelped. And someone threw me a towline and reeled me in.
Of course that didn't stop me. I continued to frolic happily (and alone) in the water with my umbilical lifeline. They (the instructors) "made" me swim out and be carried away by the current. I climbed a little segment of rock (a couple of meters high, just a mini rock-climbing challenge), and they "made" me jump off.
Anyway, it was fun. Fun fun fun. And yet, while I yawned on the ride back, I wasn't that tired. So when we arrived back at the climbing centre around 19:00... I climbed. Except for a dinner break, I climbed and belayed until 22:30.
Then I got a shoulder massage. One of the instructors there had taken a class in sport massage therapy, so I plunked down in front of him and he proceeded to tell me how stiff all my shoulder and neck muscles were while he rubbed out a lot of knots. I must've yelped more than I had all day - it hurt - and yet those 15 minutes felt great. Or maybe it was the end of the 15 minutes that felt great, ha. I asked him for his work shift schedule so I could show up whenever he was there. XD (Yes, I was kidding.)
That did it, though. A day of riversourcing, extra hours of climbing and a shoulder massage. Guaranteed recipe for fun. I got home, took a hot shower, and I was out like a light. My shoulders are still sore today, but a good sore.
And best of all, I really want to get back into climbing. =)
Photos:
- 10/13: Pinjing Creek (小錦屏溪)
- 09/15: Taigang Creek (泰崗溪)
[Editor's note: my coworker informs me it's called river trekking. Wikipedia also offers "river tracing".]
2007-10-10
Home sweet home, The End.
The journey back to Taiwan, dreaded and loathed as it was, was inescapable. Yet, dreaded and loathed as it was, my return to normal life with an abnormal work schedule didn't seem so bad. Because I already knew.
I started packing on the last day. All the souvenir shopping and the more-than-usual clothes shopping and the Costco runs had created a build up of plastic bags around my suitcase, but still I was only bringing back 1/3 the amount I'd brought over (and only 1/3 of which was actually mine...), so I nested the smaller suitcase within the larger one. The more "fragile" items - like cartons of Tazo chai tea mix (from Costco, nummy, can't wait to try that out) and some bottles of maple syrup - were wrapped in clothes and additionally padded by the suitcase buffer.
After my boyfriend drove me around collecting last minute purchases, I zipped up my suitcase (with an itty bit of difficulty), locked it, stowed my laptop into my carry-on pack, and off we went to the airport.
Finally making it to the baggage check-in counter, the attendant informed me that my suitcase was 2kg overweight. Doh. She told me to just remove 1kg and it'd be okay, so off to the side I went to see what I could take out.
Except that I couldn't find the lock key.
I tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock with a hair pin (it looks so easy in the movies), and about 15 minutes of panic later, I sheepishly went back to the attendant and asked her where I could get my lock cut off. I also asked what the fine for overweight luggage was. A whopping $600. Yes, Canadian dollars. Ouch.
After pleading with her that I just couldn't get into my luggage case, she took pity on me and said she would tag the suitcase "heavy", meaning it would be at the bottom of the luggage dogpile, and anything I had inside would risk getting squashed. I hesitated, but having faith in my double-baggaging (and opting not to pay the 600.00CAD fine), I accepted.
The rest of the way home wasn't very eventful. Admittedly, I didn't feel well-rested after my trip home, trying to visit friends, pick up souvenirs and stuff; but work was relatively peaceful. Because I was half asleep most of the day. And then under the quite-valid excuse of jet lag, I left shortly after dinner. I managed to borrow a metal saw from my company's "building maintenance" group, and in a short 10 minutes, freed my suitcase contents.
Oh, and on the following weekend, I was up in Taipei at my brother's place. And while getting cleaned up for the night, in my toiletries pouch, I found... the lock keys. I knew I had packed them! Ah well, too late now.
I started packing on the last day. All the souvenir shopping and the more-than-usual clothes shopping and the Costco runs had created a build up of plastic bags around my suitcase, but still I was only bringing back 1/3 the amount I'd brought over (and only 1/3 of which was actually mine...), so I nested the smaller suitcase within the larger one. The more "fragile" items - like cartons of Tazo chai tea mix (from Costco, nummy, can't wait to try that out) and some bottles of maple syrup - were wrapped in clothes and additionally padded by the suitcase buffer.
After my boyfriend drove me around collecting last minute purchases, I zipped up my suitcase (with an itty bit of difficulty), locked it, stowed my laptop into my carry-on pack, and off we went to the airport.
Finally making it to the baggage check-in counter, the attendant informed me that my suitcase was 2kg overweight. Doh. She told me to just remove 1kg and it'd be okay, so off to the side I went to see what I could take out.
Except that I couldn't find the lock key.
I tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock with a hair pin (it looks so easy in the movies), and about 15 minutes of panic later, I sheepishly went back to the attendant and asked her where I could get my lock cut off. I also asked what the fine for overweight luggage was. A whopping $600. Yes, Canadian dollars. Ouch.
After pleading with her that I just couldn't get into my luggage case, she took pity on me and said she would tag the suitcase "heavy", meaning it would be at the bottom of the luggage dogpile, and anything I had inside would risk getting squashed. I hesitated, but having faith in my double-baggaging (and opting not to pay the 600.00CAD fine), I accepted.
The rest of the way home wasn't very eventful. Admittedly, I didn't feel well-rested after my trip home, trying to visit friends, pick up souvenirs and stuff; but work was relatively peaceful. Because I was half asleep most of the day. And then under the quite-valid excuse of jet lag, I left shortly after dinner. I managed to borrow a metal saw from my company's "building maintenance" group, and in a short 10 minutes, freed my suitcase contents.
Oh, and on the following weekend, I was up in Taipei at my brother's place. And while getting cleaned up for the night, in my toiletries pouch, I found... the lock keys. I knew I had packed them! Ah well, too late now.
2007-10-08
Select the least incorrect answer
Being a native English speaker, I was originally exempt from taking the TOEIC exam at work, but this morning I received an e-mail from my two-up manager saying that everyone in our department had to sit the exam after all, and so I arranged with HR to let me into the examination room.
The listening section was... slightly boring. To the point that my mind started wandering, hahaha. Oops.
And the reading section was... perplexing. The written questions had errors in them. Not just the "choose what's wrong" type of questions, I'm referring to the fill-in-the-blank questions and others, too. I started chuckling, which probably didn't help relax the other colleague in the room.
Let me give you an example of how ridiculous it was; I copied this down from the exam. Multiple choice question, choose one part of the sentence that should be corrected or rewritten:
The listening section was... slightly boring. To the point that my mind started wandering, hahaha. Oops.
And the reading section was... perplexing. The written questions had errors in them. Not just the "choose what's wrong" type of questions, I'm referring to the fill-in-the-blank questions and others, too. I started chuckling, which probably didn't help relax the other colleague in the room.
Let me give you an example of how ridiculous it was; I copied this down from the exam. Multiple choice question, choose one part of the sentence that should be corrected or rewritten:
(A) There's at least several of reasons that (B) explained why the sales manager (C) has quitted his job that (D) is envied by most people in the office.Gee, can I select (A), (C), and other errors not listed in the choices?!
2007-10-06
SOS, computer down!
GameSetup.exe
W32.Fujacks.D worm virus.
Norton AntiVirus 2004.
Expired licence.
Panda icons everywhere.
F&#@$^%*) sh!t.
W32.Fujacks.D worm virus.
Norton AntiVirus 2004.
Expired licence.
Panda icons everywhere.
F&#@$^%*) sh!t.
2007-10-05
Coming out of the closet
I was cleaning out my wardrobe last night (a rare event in itself) and came across a "new" jacket. The past came back to me....
We had put up the little Christmas tree, my brothers and I. Having traded down from the 6-foot tree to a little 3.5-footer whitey, we'd moved the tree upstairs, and loaded it up with as many decorations as was tastefully possible and strung lights upon the fake-snow-covered branches. We finished it all with a tree skirt around the base.
And then someone came up with a creative decorating idea: slipping the Christmas lights under the skirt, creating cool and colourful glow spots. A brilliant touch.
Come Christmas morning, the usual excitement brought us all together around the teeny tree. We passed out the presents and tore through pretty wrapping paper. (Okay, no, who am I kidding. We're Chinese, so we carefully peeled the tape off and folded the wrapping paper up neatly for reuse.)
Now, my mom, unarguably, knows how to dress. And though I'm usually more casual and conservative in my style, Mom is pretty good at getting me clothes that are great for occasions outside of my usual repertoire. I guess that's the fun in having a daughter; you get to dress them up - sometimes even when they're well into their twenties.... But, I digress.
My Christmas gift was a blazer jacket. Midnight blue with bits of white thread, knit, almost like low-pile carpeting. Obviously my mom's shopping.
And then we saw it.
Near the bottom of the buttons, the size of a cherry tomato. A burn mark.
Mom was not happy. She quickly isolated the cause of the burn. In the corner, by the tree, was a matching burn mark in the carpet. My brother and I inhaled sharply.
You see, the offending tungsten Christmas lightbulb, unseen under the tree skirt when the lights were off, became imprisoned between Christmas gift and carpet. After being lit overnight, the bulb eventually burnt right through the tree skirt and gift box, scorching my Christmas present. We're lucky it didn't start a fire.
My poor mom spent an hour picking and scraping away the traces of the burn as best she could, and colouring over with blue marker to make it less obvious.
That jacket has never been worn.
Perhaps I noticed the scorch every time I looked at it, or maybe I really never had that occasion outside my usual repertoire, but I think I might have worn it out once, at most.
As I removed the coat from my wardrobe last night, it saddened me to realise that my mom's care in choosing a gift for me spent over 6 years entirely in the closet. =(
But I'm going to start appreciating. Better late than never. <=)
We had put up the little Christmas tree, my brothers and I. Having traded down from the 6-foot tree to a little 3.5-footer whitey, we'd moved the tree upstairs, and loaded it up with as many decorations as was tastefully possible and strung lights upon the fake-snow-covered branches. We finished it all with a tree skirt around the base.
And then someone came up with a creative decorating idea: slipping the Christmas lights under the skirt, creating cool and colourful glow spots. A brilliant touch.
Come Christmas morning, the usual excitement brought us all together around the teeny tree. We passed out the presents and tore through pretty wrapping paper. (Okay, no, who am I kidding. We're Chinese, so we carefully peeled the tape off and folded the wrapping paper up neatly for reuse.)
Now, my mom, unarguably, knows how to dress. And though I'm usually more casual and conservative in my style, Mom is pretty good at getting me clothes that are great for occasions outside of my usual repertoire. I guess that's the fun in having a daughter; you get to dress them up - sometimes even when they're well into their twenties.... But, I digress.
My Christmas gift was a blazer jacket. Midnight blue with bits of white thread, knit, almost like low-pile carpeting. Obviously my mom's shopping.
And then we saw it.
Near the bottom of the buttons, the size of a cherry tomato. A burn mark.
Mom was not happy. She quickly isolated the cause of the burn. In the corner, by the tree, was a matching burn mark in the carpet. My brother and I inhaled sharply.
You see, the offending tungsten Christmas lightbulb, unseen under the tree skirt when the lights were off, became imprisoned between Christmas gift and carpet. After being lit overnight, the bulb eventually burnt right through the tree skirt and gift box, scorching my Christmas present. We're lucky it didn't start a fire.
My poor mom spent an hour picking and scraping away the traces of the burn as best she could, and colouring over with blue marker to make it less obvious.
That jacket has never been worn.
Perhaps I noticed the scorch every time I looked at it, or maybe I really never had that occasion outside my usual repertoire, but I think I might have worn it out once, at most.
As I removed the coat from my wardrobe last night, it saddened me to realise that my mom's care in choosing a gift for me spent over 6 years entirely in the closet. =(
But I'm going to start appreciating. Better late than never. <=)
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