Cabbies

After a long day, I usually wish I didn’t have to drive home. I wish I could just hail a cab, sit and do nothing for 45 minutes. I mean, I'm already exhausted from dealing with pencil-pushing punks at the client site, and sitting in meetings that are always longer than what it should take because there is always at least 1 person in that room that is slow. So I dread the realization that now I have to battle it out in the streets of Manila for a grueling 45-minute drive.

I don’t remember how many times I was so tempted to leave my car in the garage. Of course the next morning, I don’t even know why I was actually considering a stupid thing like that, but it just seemed such a good idea at the time. And that's all because I was tired of course. And then there are days when you've been waiting for an hour or so and you still can't get a fucking cab... and then a new guy, or girl, or group of people that just came out of the building try to be a smart ass by moving up the road so they get the next cab first. Don't you just hate these fucking assholes? Makes you want to rebuke all the decency you learned in kindergarten and scream at them like junkyard dogs. And now you wish you had your car with you. Great. Just great.

So you finally get a cab, and then it turns out it isn’t so relaxing after all. To me, there are certain things that can really annoy me about a cab ride... some of them in fact are such deal breakers that have made me, in more than 1 occasion actually ask them to stop and let me out. Never mind the fact that the meter has already been running. Screw you, I'm not gonna pay for that.

They are:

1. When it's hotter inside, than it is outside. Normally, you ask them to move the A/C notch up a bit to make it at least a little cooler. Some cabbies make some lame excuse about the A/C being busted or how he just turned it on, or how they got no freon left in them but what really annoys me is... when they actually move it 1 notch up, and then move it back after 5 minutes or so. What the fuck? Really. I drive a car everyday too moron. I know what petrol products cost these days. But this ain't a free ride now is it? I am paying you, and at the end of the ride, ill most probably hand you a little more than what the meter says. Besides, you aren’t really saving anything with the A/C being 1 notch lower. As long as the compressor is running, IT'S RUNNING! I know you wouldn't dare to turn the whole thing off anyway, so what is the fucking deal here?

2. When they insist on listening to bad music on the radio. Jeezaz. I don't even have to explain myself here...

3. When they listen to AM radio commentators. Don't get me wrong here. There are probably certain times when I would switch to AM myself, but only for the news. Not during the time that these commentators are ranting about whatever social or political issues that takes their fancy, though. Fucking hypocrites masking themselves to sound like they care. Just give me the news. Don’t care about what you think.

4. When the cabbies switch from radio commentators, to radio evangelists. Good Lord. This is fucking torture. Don't make me listen to a preach yakking about what righteous people should do. What the fuck does it mean to be a righteous person anyways? I guess back then it was pretty obvious. There were laws (both moral and legal), and you follow them. If you sinned or went against the law, you just buy a couple of turtle doves and burn them at the temple. Absolved. But this isn't the way things work now do they? And it really fucking annoys me to hear them say how easy it is to deal with life's nuances and problems. Forget annoy, it pisses me off. As if there is a formulaic principle that can readily be applied to all of the woes of life. Really now? Get the fuck outta my face!

5. When the cabbies try to engage you in conversation. And I don’t mean 1 or 2 line exchanges here. I mean when they actually try to get a conversation going. Man, isn't it obvious enough that I reclined the backrest? Isn't it enough that you hear me making *sigh* sounds immediately after I sat down and in between your pauses? Isn't it enough that you see me massaging my forehead like I just survived an agonizing 4-hour meeting? Heck, isn't it enough that I don't respond to you? Christ!

I have already tried to be as polite as I can without actually berating you to just shut the fuck up. What does it take? I don’t wanna be a total jerk. I don’t want you to have the impression that all men in suits are condescending snobs... well, maybe most of them are. But not me. I just want to rest and get home fast, preferably in 1 piece. Maybe sleep for a minute or two along the way.

So don't tell me about what you think is the real reason why the country's economy is shit right now. Don't tell me why you are pissed off at your operator. Don't tell me why you think you are better than some of the senators. I know that on this point you are probably correct, but I just don’t care don't you see? And don't tell me why you're not staying with your wife because you 2 had a fight. And last of all, NO... I fucking don't want to join that stupid multi-level marketing scam... whatever it is they call it these days. And I don’t give a rat's ass how much money you say you made from it. Intiende puto?

Another Loser + Sam

Once in a while, I come across friendster testimonials that are so pathetic, I just gotta post them here. How the hell do these people continue to live their lives like this? Why dont they just shoot themselves in the face and get it over with?

well.. krystel alam mo sa tingin ko pa
ng picture mo. maganda ka at beautiful
face i have seen. you look gorgeous not
only that you are kind. yan ang nakikita
ko sa yo. kahit di pa tayo ngmeet in
personal 100% sinabi ko ay totoo. wala
halo biro at kaplastican thanks for being
a friend with me i hope na maging
success ang iyong career in life more
power. just believe in yourself kayan mo
yan krystel! god bless you!! have a nice
day!! i miss you so much!! ingatzz
palagi.. love jun...

Of course, I know this doesnt speak too well of what I am doing in my PC when I'm supposed to be working. But who cares? We are already billing the client for my chare-out daily rate anyways. Besides, I'm a Manager dammit... it's not like I have to fill out a daily accomplishment report to explain what I have been doing for the past 8 hours.

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Wouldn't you be curious to find out what the world's ugliest dog looks like? Check out "SAM" in all his ghorious splendor...

Cuddly isn't he? Read about his story here

No Pain, No Gain

Finally had a chance to stretch some muscles and burn some fat after a long hiatus. A friend sent me a message saying he booked a nearby gymnasium for 2 hours. I immediately grabbed the chance. After all, I have been wanting to get into any kind of strenuous exercise to trim my weight down. I haven’t really done anything remotely related to exercising in a long time. We did play basketball twice around 4 months ago. But before this, ages. Speaking of 4 months ago, I was actually so pumped up and determined to shed some pounds... and we had plans on playing every week. On the second consecutive game though, I ended up severely spraining my ankle.



I took this pic 2 days after. As you can see, this wasn't your regular sprain. People who saw this would say it looked like it came from a bloated guido, freshly fished out of a river, obviously silenced by the mob. It really was fucking freaky. Worse of all, it felt every bit as bad as it looked. I've had sprains before, but this was obviously the worst. I had it x-rayed and all that, thankfully no bone fractures of sort... just tendons and ligaments.

When I was nursing it, I would always feel a shooting pain for several minutes, or I simply couldn't feel anything at all. They could have chopped my foot off and I wouldn't have known. It took me 3 weeks before I could finally limp on it without grimacing. 3 fucking weeks!

Anyway, it's been several months now. I no longer have problems walking, running or even jumping, at least I think so. I do know that it hasn’t completely healed yet. But then again, it probably never will. So I finally went to the game and I had clear objectives. I'm not gonna play competitively. I will run with the group, maybe attempt to shoot some hoops, get some sweat going, and hopefully a good workout. After about 10 minutes into the game, I think I already used up about 70% of my energy. Am I really in such a bad shape? Back in the day, we used to practice for 4 hours alternately reviewing plays and actual games. And we did this 2 or 3 times a week. Of course back then, I was still so much into competitive basketball... and dammit I was a good player. A 5'8" playing forward is not an easy job, so when you can still score 20+ points in championship games... that's a motherfucking accomplishment.

And so the game continues to drag on. I keep thinking to myself, "Why don’t these little buggers just score some points and get this game over with"... besides, I didn’t really give a fuck if we won or lost... I just wanted to sweat it out. And I already got past that 10 minutes after we started. I wasn't even playing with seasoned players. Sure a couple of them could play a little bit, but not really the type I used to play with. If I were the way I was back then, I'd get bored playing with these people after about 2 minutes tops. And now I can’t even catch up with them. Fucking loser!

About halfway through, I was mostly walking and standing in place. I dreaded receiving the ball since it meant I would have to move my ass. I felt pathetic every time I remembered what I used to be able to do inside the blue paint... Oh well, I just reminded myself that I wasn’t here to win. I've already done my share anyways... I managed to block some shots despite the fact that I could only lift my body 2 cms off the ground and even scored some points from 15 footers and a couple of drives to the hoop. Not after missing a lot of attempts, but hey... its been a long time ok? Wait till I get my groove back... arrogant pricks.

I finally resigned after 1 game. Gave a silly alibi that I had to go somewhere. As if it wasn't obvious to everybody that I was panting like a motherfucker all through out the game. My body was already screaming from exhaustion, what could I do? Man, I have never been in such a bad shape before. And now my back is aching and I feel my calf muscles are an inch away from cramps. Fuck! What a work out... I’m gonna be sore all over tomorrow... in fact I’m already starting to.

Today, I am making a solemn promise to play every week. Maybe even go back to lifting weights at the gym. I intend to go back to the shape I was before... very athletic and with muscle definitions. I miss my six-pack abs. I miss bench pressing 200 lbs. I know I've said this before, God knows I've tried it before, but something tells me its different today. I actually fought the urge to eat several bars of chocolate that I saw in the fridge. What an achievement.. what an achievement indeed. Good thing the chocolate bar didn't have any almond nuts in them, cause that would've been a no contest.

There ya go again...

Last week I received an email from a client. Actually, it was addressed to the team in general, but all the other bosses were CCd, including mine. The email was sent by a SAVP who's in charge of the MIS department. The email read:

Hope we can finish this everything and get the users' sign-off (even just the verbal ok) within the day. WE could at least have half of a problem out of the way.

I am also very disappointed that we seem to be going at snail pace with regard to the [BUG] problem. We cancelled 2 telecons because we did not have anything substantial to report or even discuss with [VENDOR]. I hope we can change this trend.

[MY NAME], can you spend more time with [US, THE CLIENT] until the rest of the TO DO items are satisfactorily completed and we have some success? We need you on site for this. Having [SUPPORT ENGINEER] here is okey but there are some things which could be hastened with your inputs. The de-commissioning of [YOU COMPANY's] support network substantially hampered communications a good part of last week and previous one.

Thanks!
The SAVP

If I have learned anything from experience with this client, I know that if I replied to this, there is a big probability that the big boss himself will chime in next. The big boss is a SVP and is the CIO of the client group of companies. He owns the Project.

I am no longer a stranger to this. Whenever there is an issue, someone starts the fire... someone pours the fuel.. and someone fans the flame. By the time the CIO chimes in, everybody is already running around like jackrabbits on fire. It's actually very effective. Even fun to watch... if only I wasn't in the middle of it all. Everytime he bangs the table, they hear the sound in Melbourne, Singapore, HongKong, and NY. Sometimes there's really a problem, but sometimes its really just small issues. But big guns are big guns, and they always have the same effect.

"When you’re up to your nose, keep your mouth shut"

Experience in dealing with escalating issues has taught me that it’s more likely to get positive results if you do face-to-face discussions. Emails are a breeding ground for misunderstanding... specially when something is already starting to heat up. They simply do not convey the proper tone, facial expressions, and deliberate delays in the way you answer or ask questions, gestures, and other nuances of a dynamic conversation. Of course, there are times when this is impossible like when you need to discuss things with people from outside the country, but that's a separate thing.

The truth of the matter is, I have already been overstaying with this client for 7 or 8 months already. The Technical Support SLA (Service Level Agreement) specifically states that we are only required to place 1 support engineer onsite for a period of 12 months commencing after the stabilization period expires. We already have 1 engineer here but I have also been here all the time (well mostly) offering and sharing my expertise on site for free. Technically speaking, this is above and beyond what is required of me and what we had been hoping for them to understand is... this is value-added service. This is the partnership that we are talking about. This is us going the extra mile.

My continued presence is really overkill. Doing support work does not require a fulltime Project Manager on site. I am actually baby-sitting this thing until the new project finally kicks-off. In fact, if I were busy right now, this wouldn’t have been a real issue... but since nothing is really on my plate, it sort of is.

So I finally receive the email from my boss... and to make the long story short, he is asking about why I haven’t been reporting on-site a lot lately, hence the complaint from the client. I guess as far as perception goes, it really does look bad on me but the truth is I've got reasons and these are very good reasons.

The client support team has been involved with us throughout the entire lifetime of this project. This project took about 9 months to complete, plus another 8 or so months now doing post-implementation production support. So practically speaking, they have been immersed in the technology for over a year and a half now. We have gone through a lot, playing Sherlock Holmes investigating all sorts of things and because of all the customizations we did for them, we have been able to turn up 6 bugs from the product. The vendor actually had to release several major patches for these bugs. Now if you consider the fact that this is a big product from a big vendor that is being used worldwide by fortune 500 companies... 6 is a big fucking number! This isn't some small shit were talking about here...

Anyway the point is, you would've expected that the client team would be experts by now. But alas, my gargantuan efforts of knowledge transfer seem to have been worth naught. If you think about it, it is actually unbe-fucking-lievable. A lot of times, they seem to actually understand you... even nodding at you. It’s really convincing. There are times when I need to do something in the server room and protocol states that I be escorted and watched closely inside, lest I give in to my urge to fucking screw their servers to kingdom come. So every time I do this, they are always there watching over my shoulders and I even explain as I go.. even entertaining stupid questions about why I have to restart the services when I change something, etc.

My point is, there is simply no way to wean them off of me, if I continue to stay on site. They are fucking addicted to receiving directions from me that they can’t even tie their own shoes now. Even testing a patch like this one seems too daunting for them, never mind the fact that the patch readme file had step by step procedures in them. Never mind the fact, that the actual procedures are things we've actually done a thousand times before when we were investigating previous problems. Never mind the fact that I already did this in front of them before I went to Singapore this month. My God! There has to be some point where you should say enough is enough! Jeeezzaaaazzzz!!!


[Catching my breath]

Anyway, so I explain everything to my boss. I tried calling several times but couldn’t make contact. He is probably travelling, that guy is in and out of airports. So I sent him an email and haven’t received a reply for the past 2 days now. I got a sms from him this morning about something else and not about the complaint issue, so that usually means everything is ok and they understand my point. He's just not too big on saying.. "OK, OK I get it." But I forgive him since he makes up for it on other things =)

Giving more than 100%

What makes 100%?
What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?
Ever wonder about these people who say they are
giving more than 100%?
We have all been to these meetings where
someone wants you to give over 100%
How about achieving 103%? or 118%?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help
you answer these questions.

IF:

A B C D E F G H I ..... X Y Z is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ..... 24 25 26

Then:

S K I L L S

19+11+9+12+12+19 = 82%

H A R D W O R K

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

K N O W L E D G E

11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:

A T T I T U D E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And:

B U L L S H I T

2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, Look how far ass kissing will take you.

A S S K I S S I N G

1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while skills, hard work and knowledge will get you close, and attitude will get you there, it's the bullshit and ass kissing that will put you over the top.

As the old adage goes... a bureaucratic corporation is very much like a septic tank, the bigger the CHUNKS, the easier it floats to the top.

Packed like sardines...

I usually drive to work, and whenever I can't (because of the unified color coding scheme here in Manila), I have always taken a cab. Today however was different. Dunno why, but I just felt the urge to take the metro train to work. It's been a while since I've used any means of mass public transport here in Manila. The reason has always been its infamy for being uncomfortable. It maybe cheaper than taking a cab, but it's not necessarily faster (at least not to where I am going where I am required to transfer to another train).

So there I stood at the station waiting 15 minutes for the train to arrive. Already a big crowd has begun to congregate in the platforms. It's not even rush hour and yet I wasn't disappointed when the train finally arrived. As expected, it was already packed heavily with people... too tight I'm sure if you ask any female commuter or anyone else who cares not to catch a whiff of teen spirit in the air.

So the door finally swings open and the battle between people alighting and those of us sliding in violently rages on. It takes several warning buzzers before the door finally seals shut. Whew! I am glad that was over with. At least now the only thing I have to contend with is the non-existent air-conditioning inside the train cars. Gawd.. I really am back home in Manila!

Something tells me I'm taking a cab home...

The Battle for OS Supremacy

The Evil Empire has just recently announced the Beta 1 availability of the next generation operating system to replace Windows XP. Formerly code-named "Longhorn", it is now called Windows Vista and is set to be released by 2006.

What are we to expect from this but another batch of promises? Current reviews of Beta 1 have already been lukewarm. It seems that the only things that have changed are better icons and other eye-candy stuff, and some added searching features. Even IE7 looks almost exactly the same except for the tabbed browsing that they obviously got from Mozilla. As we speak.. hordes of internet users have been moving to Firefox because of security issues and the extra features. You would think that the Evil Empire would do more to combat this one right? Especially if you remember how they killed Netscape Navigator years ago when they bundled IE free of charge with their OS. I hear that there will be developments on Avalon and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) on IE7 though, so that's something to look forward to.

There are rumors that the hardware requirement would need a minimum of 512 DRAM, standalone graphics card with DirectX 9.0, plus all the eye-candy will need a lot of juice from a fast processor. Another rumor is that the installer itself will need to run on a DVD drive, as Vista will not ship in CD format. Getting more and more demanding aren’t we? With Linux, my old x486 DX4 could still be used as a mail server!

The corporate monkeys from the Evil Empire did however promise that most of the "new" power features would be included in Beta 2. I'm not holding my breath for that.

This comes interestingly in time with news also that hackers have recently been able to find a way to bypass the chip that prevents Mac OS from running on non-Apple PCs, or your regular garden variety Intel/AMD processors (which is a helluva lot cheaper btw).

Everybody knows that Mac has recently made OSx86 available to developers. OSx86 is a Mac OS version that is supposed to run on Apple's next generation hardware called "MacIntels" which will run on Intel Processors instead of PowerPC processors. The significance of the hack is that it raises the question... "Are MacIntels really any different from the regular PCs?"

What is more surprising is that the tweaked version of OSx86 seems to run faster on regular PCs than the hardware it was meant for. Looks like Steve Jobs is in for a very important decision in the near future. Will they finally make the Mac OS commercially available for regular PCs? If so, then Apple will have to drop the HW and simply go OS only. So will we finally be able to have Macs for the price of a regular PC? Only time will tell, but this is certainly worth the wait.

Somewhere in the audience, a penguin is watching smiling...

Your Boss Knows You're Reading This

For quite sometime now, I have been wanting to post something about this since it never ceases to amaze me how lay people are usually shocked to hear about this, so here goes.

Contrary to pop perception, the most powerful person in a company is not the president or CEO but the network administrator or whatever it is they call him/her that controls the network. This person is basically a GOD when it comes to accessing information. When we say God-mode in techie terms, we mean that no amount of average encryption or password protection can protect your files if they wish to see it. To paraphrase: "They giveth protection, and they taketh away."

We always see the usual email footers starting like this...

"The information in this email (and any attachments) is confidential and is the sole property of XYZ Company..."

It will do you well to heed this and understand that nothing you do, while using the corporate PC and internet access is ever private or personal. This includes websites, emails, IM's, and any other information that passes through the corporate network.

The lay person usually does not understand how easy it is for an administrator to track and log literally anything that you do in your PC, nor do they realize that according to Reuters, nearly 86% of all employers monitor these activities and can run audits on any given day. If that was a little hard to swallow.... let me repeat that... they can monitor everything!

A log usually consists of the URL of the site, the IP address of your PC that clearly and uniquely identifies you, and the time stamp... so don’t bother denying. This applies to IMs also like Yahoo or MSN (if they're not banned), and more easily for emails. Lets not forget those pics and videos you have been saving in your PC... no matter how much you hide it.

Companies usually have clauses in their technology policy about this... but we all know you barely read it let alone understood it right? So how exactly do you judge what is ok to view and what is not? Think about it like your boss or the geekie looking data center administrator being always constantly watching over your shoulders... would you be doing these things in front of them? I don’t think so. You have no idea what kind of snooping tools they have at their disposal... and these aren’t illegal tools. Scary? Abso-fucking-lutely!

This comes from the fact that they have completely good reasons for doing so, since also according to Reuters, an average of 8.5 hours per week are spent visiting non-work related sites, and online services like personal emails, instant messaging, chat, shopping, pornography, social services like friendster, etc. and not surprisingly job hunting.

So be warned! It is easy to get lost in the stuff you are doing and "think" that you are alone in the cubicle. Take it from a guy who knows this for a fact... don’t ask why =)

So before you can say.... They can’t do that?! .... believe it coz they already are!

Rasa Singapura

Just came back from another week-long training in Singapore. This time, we stayed in a hotel. Last month, our company still had the apartment in Geylang and colleagues from around the region would stay there whenever they had business to do in Singapore. The hotel was so-so. But I later found out that for the price they got it, it was actually a good deal. There were 7 of us this time, 3 from Malaysia, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Taiwan, and me from Manila. At least it was close to the Orchard malls, and stuff... unless of course you've gotten tired of walking around that place.

This was my 3rd time in Singapore this year, and my second time attending training for Product X, and I must say... best damn training I've ever attended anywhere (and I've been to a lot). What are the criteria you may ask? What else but the food! Why does IBM never serve lunch for their trainings eh? We had nice choices for lunch, free flowing beverages the whole week, pastries, cakes, fruits, candies, etc... you never got a chance to digest the food in your stomach. When I was also here last month, one of their staff even volunteered to buy me some meds when I complained of stomach pains. I later found out the drug store was 3 blocks away, 2nd floor up a building. Fucking great service right? Such a sweet girl. Cute too.

**********
One of my friends brought me to this place in Marina Bay where you could eat all you can for S$10. Really cheap coz even in Manila, decent buffet meals will run you around Php500 a piece or S$15. They had chicken, beef, pork, fish, crab, prawns, fried rice, noodles, pasta, dimsum, and boy did I eat. The next morning at training, I started to feel queasy. I helped myself to some green tea to try to calm things down there and boy was that a big mistake. Needless to say, I was experiencing one of my worst cases of diarrhea, and from 11AM to about 6PM - I think I shot some rockets 7 or 8 times... although it was more like spraying muddy water. I think you get the picture.

The worst part of it all was, there weren’t any water faucet or hose in the western toilet cubicles. The only one that had one was the oriental toilet. What's an oriental toilet? Its basically just a hole in the ground (no seats) and you squat like you would if you were relieving yourself in the middle of a grassy field... or so I would imagine. One time I was forced to shit in one of these and it was really grueling. I had to grab hold of the 2 walls on both side and fucking push like I was Samson in the epic story. And in my mind I kept hearing nurses saying.. Push! Push! I never knew it was so hard to do it without a seat to anchor on.. anyway.

What followed was a stunt that I would probably never try again. After wiping what I could... and flushing around 6 times to get rid of all the floaters, I had to quickly transfer to the oriental cubicle to access the golden faucet with the oh so valuable running water. The second time, it just wasn’t worth it so I just used the oriental one every time. I just didn’t care anymore.. and each time I did, I could hear angels singing "Hallelujah!"

I took a bus back to the hotel. My seat was beside a window glass that had a painted message that read EMERGENCY EXIT - BREAK GLASS TO EXIT THE BUS, I was like "What the Fuck?"

Around 6PM I finally got to take some meds but not after losing considerable liquids. By then my temp was already rising and I was starting to feel a fever coming on. I bought a couple of hydrites and paracetamol. Around 10:30 the next morning, I was ok. Thank God!

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This reminds me of a time when I was in Boracay with friends. Clean water was so scarce that bottled water was sold at preposterous rates. It was way cheaper to buy those purifying tablets and dissolve them in tap water from the villas. We were there for a week so we eventually tried to drink the tap water like all the locals do and voila... diarrhea! One time, both of us had to go and we both went to the public toilet that was the nearest. Our fucking jaw dropped when we saw that the toilet cubicles didn’t have any divisions except a wall that was at most 3 feet high. When you gotta go, you gotta go right? So in we went in all reckless care and abandon. After all, who gives a fucking shit about the fact that people who come in to piss will actually see you doing the most personal thing you can possibly do on earth right? Maybe we would care later, but not now. And I couldn’t just help but notice that we looked like 2 guys in a barbershop sitting side by side. You could hear it, and you could smell it. For some reason, a person usually has some degree of high tolerance from his or her own shit right? I mean you know it stinks... but you don’t really gawk in revulsion from the smell of your own shit right? But this was different... how the hell could you tell if it was his or mine? I mean we were just sitting beside each other like in a bus. And this isn't your normal shit either... its diarrhea remember.

And that's when I heard the most awful sound ever, which coincidentally made me look at my friend’s face. I guess he had it worse than me. The guy looked like all his energy just got sucked from under him and he literally collapsed in a slouching position.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!" I was screaming and laughing. Laughing at him and laughing at both of us. I couldn't believe we were in this predicament right here, right now. It took him a while before he finally started to laugh. And we were laughing about it the whole week... in fact every time we meet. Great stuff. Stories for grandkids when we are too old and the punk kids think you never did some stupid shit before.

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I have always loved the way people use the escalator in Singapore. Everybody who just wants to stand and wait for the ride will always stay on the left side, and those who are in a rush can pass on the right. Effective.