07.31.08

Yahoo answers — the new addiction?

Posted in I.T, Uncategorized tagged at 1:57 am by kyrias

I realized I just spent an hour or so on Yahoo Answers, answering other people’s questions.

It’s really addictive, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Racking up those points, having other suggested questions that are similar to the one you answered — the whole “level” shtick — it seems pretty well designed to appeal to the whole capitalist meritocracy concept.

Snide remarks aside, I do think it’s a fairly brilliant concept. I’ve often found answers to my questions on Yahoo Answers and I think that since there’s a large window of opportunity for people to answer the question and there’s so many people providing answers, there’s a good chance of finding the answer you’re looking for.

Since, when I Google answers to a question, I usually try to find at least three or four source that corraborate each other — it’s been pretty useful to me in that regard. I can compare and contrast answers without opening a zillion Firefox tabs.

On the other hand, what really frightens me is the sheer number of people who aren’t using it as a resource, but seems to just be using it to fish for compliments. Also, people need to learn how to use Google themselves instead of asking patently obvious questions.

It’s the Internets, people, seriously.  Use it, love it, don’t obsess over it.

07.30.08

I’m a grinch — I’ll admit it

Posted in On cabbages and kings tagged at 1:14 am by kyrias

Stop, just stop asking people how they’re doing when they’re at work.

I hate it when someone comes up to me at work, grins, and asks me in this really cheerful voice: “So how are you doing today?”.

I’m at work.

It pays the bills, but even a retard should be able to see it’s hardly fulfilling and it’s a job, not even a career.

Besides, it’s not as if you’re not saying that only because you’re used to saying that to whomever you talk to so quit just parroting shit at me that forces me to either lie to you or give you a scowl and the truth.

On a more serious note, it’s interesting to wonder how that came about. I don’t think any other culture that I’ve read about has that particular greeting, or uses it in quite the same way the Americans do.

I’ve heard the French are not particularly enamored of this habit either, as read from “French or Foe“.  They complain that it’s not sincere when someone is walking towards you, blasts the question out at you, while simultaneously walking briskly away.

07.29.08

What is this retarded gimmick about anyways?

Posted in On cabbages and kings tagged at 12:38 pm by kyrias

I need to get a new cell phone plan when I move to Boston because I’ll want a local number. This, coupled with the idea of getting family plan with the friends I’m planning to live with means that I’ll have to switch providers. The kicker is that necessitates getting a new cell phone entirely.

I have to say I’m none too pleased with this turn of events. I like the style of my current cell phone and am loath to give it up. Not to mention that it seems horribly wasteful to just dump it for another one.

I’m not at all certain why the U.S doesn’t use SIM cards the way we did in China. With that, you could switch around cell phones if you liked, or you could keep the same cell phone for as long as you wanted. All your contact information and whatnot would be stored on that card.

It’s retarded to force customers to change cell phones every time they either want to change to another cell phone plan, even within the same provider, or when they change providers. It’s a waste, it’s inefficient, and I have no idea why they do it.

Is it so as to entice people to spend more money on a new cell phone? But there there are always the free options available. Or is it so you could charge the extra activation fee? Perhaps it’s because — policy is just frigging retarded here?

07.28.08

I think I just died a lot inside…

Posted in Cooking at 1:11 am by kyrias

Not even a little — I think an entire section of my foodie soul just shriveled up and died.

I was linked to a post by Eric Ripert which talks about how you often really only need salt and pepper to bring out the flavor in food. I was nodding along until he mentions that the difference between white and black pepper is so subtle that most recipes won’t be affected by substituting one for the other.

Uh, what?

Maybe it’s just because I’m Chinese and there’s so many Chinese recipes that deliberately and specifically call for white pepper — but I can’t imagine I just read that sentence on the blog of someone who wrote a cookbook.

Nor can I imagine using black pepper instead of white to season the many kinds of soup and stews that often call for a smattering of white pepper to bring out and accentuate the taste. In those cases, black pepper would definitely knock the balance off-kilter.

For me, white pepper has more of a sharp taste whereas black definitely has a heavier feel to it. Although, if asked, I would think that white pepper has a stronger and more assertive taste. In fact, there are some recipes that call for both kinds of pepper because they bring different such different flavor profiles to the table.

Feh, maybe it’s just a cultural thing.

07.27.08

Alpha in the kitchen?

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:58 am by kyrias

I’ll admit it.

I hate anyone messing around in my kitchen.

God forbid that someone might want to help me cook. That’s when I start racking my brain for the things that they can safely do without “ruining” my cooking.

I’m a frigging dictator in the kitchen. If it’s not done exactly the way I want it to be — I don’t it done by another person.

I also have no patience with teaching people how to cook. Cutting up meat and onions — how hard could that be — but omg why are you doing it so wrong?!

Let’s not go into dishes either. If someone else did the dishes — I have to re-rinse them. I don’t care if I stood there and watched you wash them; if I didn’t wash them, they’re not clean enough. Heck, sometimes I even re-wash dishes that I did, just five minutes ago.

I also tend to pick apart dishes. More often than not, I won’t be satisfied with whatever is put in front of me and start picking away at how it could be done better — even my own cooking. It’s not unusual for me to refuse to eat after cooking for four hours because “it doesn’t taste as good as it should”.

I suppose I’m just psychotic.

07.26.08

Were you just asleep, or what?

Posted in On cabbages and kings tagged , , at 4:50 pm by kyrias

A supervisor called me “X” the other day.

I was a bit appalled, because I would have hoped that he knew my name after two semesters of working with me.

What was more appalling for me was that “X” is the name of another Chinese student-worker.

Perhaps I over-reacted. But my gut reaction was to snarl at the phone after I hung up, “Wait, do all Chinese people look alike to you, is that why you called me by some other Chinese girl’s name?”

To be honest, I think that reaction was excessive. Maybe he just got confused, after all, my last name is “X”. Perhaps he was just tired and not thinking straight.

But that incident — which I never brought up with him by the way, because I didn’t think there was any graceful way to mention that “By the way, you called me by “X”.” — prompted me to start thinking about race again.

Race and its ramifications permeate my life, I can’t get away from it any easier than I can get away from my distinctly Asian features.

I think, to some extent, it’s a case of over-sensitization or even paranoia. Not everyone is out to get me, nor is everyone suspicious of my intent or ability just because I happen to look the way I do. Probably there are people who can interact with me without consciously thinking about what I must be like, just because I’m Asian.

However, there are snap judgments that some people make when they meet me, and it’s pretty obvious when they do.

People who, for example, come up to the library front desk and ask for something incoherently, and then think it’s because of my lack of English that’s causing the problem. Those are usually also the ones who start talking really slowly and loudly.

Then there’s the people who assume certain things just because I have an American boyfriend. For the record, I’m not dumb, or exotic, or submissive or a whole slew of other adjectives. Nor do I think that my boyfriend is dating me because of said adjectives.

After taking courses in psychology, I’m not even sure that my reactions are un-warranted. There are well-documented studies that show that race and judgments made because of it are mostly a sub-counsious thing for most people. Racism has been so beaten down by the politically-correct movement that it only lurks within the deep recesses of the mind now.

Much is the pity, in my opinion. Racism is so much easier to ferret out when it’s out in the open.

07.25.08

Economy slowing = more theft?

Posted in Job, Money, On cabbages and kings tagged at 10:50 am by kyrias

It seems that more shoplifting is a sign of how badly the economy is going.

Asides from shoplifting, apparently more and more people are “lifting” money from cashiers at work and other sorts of employee theft is also on the rise.

It may be that shoplifting and employee theft is increasing proportionally with how “squeezed” people feel by the current state of affairs, but what interests me is the mindset behind the theft.

Most people would agree that almost all people steal from the workplace at some point. Heck, even those fifteen minutes taken to complete a personal task could be defined as stealing if you really wanted to put a fine point on it.

I wonder why and when people cross the line from absent-mindedly swiping a pen from work and not bringing it back to actively doing things such as making long-distance phone calls from work or stealing entire reams of paper.

Surveys show that need is on the low end of reasons whereas vindictiveness and greed are bigger motivators.

I’m not really surprised.

I know people who deliberately do shoddier jobs for supervisors they dislike. Or takes longer breaks because they feel over-worked and under-appreciated. Or use their office hours to do work for a second job.

What’s even more interesting is the strategies that someone suggested for pinpointing theives. According to experts, people who seem like the most dedicated workers and who ask for raises should be raising red flags. Granted this article is more than a decade old at this point — but I wonder who else subscribes to this line of thought. It certainly seems like it would lead to more revenge from the employees.

The psychology behind theft is sometimes not even entirely clear cut for the thieves, it seems. Dan Ariely did a study in which he placed bottles of soda in dorm fridges and checked to see if they would be stolen. Not a one remained. Yet when he replaced the soda with their equivalent in money, it would sit there untouched.

This just convinces me that I need to draw up a list of how much money in food the thieves in my dorm have cost me. Maybe they’ll actually return the Pyrex that they took.

07.24.08

Revisiting old books is always an odd thing

Posted in Uncategorized tagged at 10:57 am by kyrias

I’ve always enjoyed the “Little House” series. In fact, I think I would have ranked them right behind the “Anne of Green Gables” series as my favorites.

However, it’s so very odd to go back to them, ten years later, and notice some things that I had never thought of before. Then, I’m also the person who didn’t realize that “The Lion, the Witch, and the wardrobe” was a poorly disguised story of Christ.

I re-read “Little town on the prarie” and “These happy golden years” and was struck both by how “dated” and “modern” they seemed.

As for “dated”, I can just see people rolling their eyes. Well, duh, they’re dated, they’re farking talking about pioneering out to the West, for crying out loud.

But I didn’t notice before this that there was so much mention of God and Christian beliefs in the books before. Not even just in day-to-day interaction between the Ingalls family, but the narrator sometimes also steps in and almost seems to sermonize. One particular incident that I recall was when Laura was having problems with the schoolteacher, Miss Wilder. The narrator refers to the Bible verse about the teacup that was dirty on the inside and clean without.

Also, it’s very odd to note that Laura doesn’t “want” woman’s rights. She doesn’t want to vote and she’s not part of the woman’s liberation movement.

It’s odd for me because she’s always came across as a fiercely independant person who was more than willing to think for herself. As such, it’s very strange that she would not want to participate in what was going on around her. She never struck me as the sort to meekly go along, noting how she told Almanzo that she didn’t want to promise to “obey” when they got married — yet, she has no interest in taking more control.

I truly wonder why.

Was it because women would not be welcome to talk about politics and so they would not have the chance to be exposed to such things and she didn’t want to stick her hand in something she would not be good at?

Or was it because of all the lessons about feminity that “Ma” drilled into her head?

Perhaps it was because she was content to affect change through influencing her husband — although I sincerely can’t see Laura as being quite that sneaky.

It really baffles me.

07.23.08

Why I’m in a huge pot of hot water

Posted in Money tagged , at 1:46 am by kyrias

I should not have credit card debt.

I was doing well my first year or so — I paid everything off on time and although things got tight once in a while, I never really had a problem with getting into debt.

Then sophomore year of college happened.

Caesura got a D in Chinese and got kicked out of college. I was depressed and going bonkers off the wall from stress, so he moved to Wooster to be with me.

Things were ok for a while after he got a job, although I had to lend him money a couple of times to cover rent and so such.

Then junior year happened.

I got a room with a roommate I didn’t know that had nearly no natural light even during the brightest time of day. In retrospect, I probably should have stuck it out, but instead I moved down to the apartment and started paying rent on it because I didn’t want to live on campus under those circumstances. I knew it was a bad idea, but since my paycheck covered it, I decided that I’d rather just pay for the peace of mind.

Then that summer I bought a 1.6k scooter because I was going to take summer courses at a college that was 16 miles away. The summer courses didn’t pan out — but the scooter, which wasn’t returnable, decimated my savings and whatever cushion I had between “impulse buys” and “going into debt”.

I slowly slid into debt that following year. It wasn’t a huge amount of debt to begin with — only a couple hundred at a time, easily gone by the next pay cycle, but it slowly grew as “life” happened.

What was the kicker was that I paid for Caesura’s plane ticket to China. My parents wanted to meet Caesura, and I didn’t want them to pay for his ticket because I thought that there would be some measure of inequality. I could have been wrong, but I just didn’t want them to pay because of pride. That was about 2k which I didn’t have. Looking back, I should have just let them pay for it — but then I guess we all get to be stupid and prideful once.

I thought that it would be easy to pay off, but then “stuff” happened. The most notable of which was nearly five months of Caesura being unemployed and where I was paying all the bills associated with the apartment.

Of course during this entire time, I was still paying for the odd pizza during all-nighters, books, and other sundries.

Needless to say, the debt just piled on.

At this point, I really want to hunt down the credit card statements of the past four years, none of which I have kept, of course, and see just where the money went.

I was stupid once, hopefully I can dig myself out of the hole I put myself in and endeavor to not be that stupid again.

07.22.08

Frustration with self and the world.

Posted in Money tagged , at 1:34 am by kyrias

I’ve been reading PF blogs for the past few days and I decided to take a small break because I’m sick and tired of it.

It’s so frustrating to be in my current situation — Caesura is unemployed at the moment because he’s been packing up in preparation for the move. I do wish that he’d get more done so he could get back to studying for the computer science certifications — but since he packed up the entire apartment, I’m not terribly upset at how slow it’s been going. I’m currently still working 40 hours a week — but that covers housing, credit card payments, loan payments, food and not much else.

I’m worried about how much money we’re going to be spending to get to Boston, not to mention the living costs of being there without a job. I’m not horribly optimistic about being able to find a good job immediately, considering the current economy. The last time we ran numbers, the bare minimum would be 2.2k a month for the both of us. I simply don’t have the savings to over that - it’s probably going to go straight to my credit card.

All those posts about cutting back, no spend days, etc might be all well and good for people who actually have salaried income or even just income — but when paying rent and utilities is going to be a problem with both people in the household unemployed in the near future, it’s like saying “let them eat cake”.

Right now my financial situation is enough to give me hives and shingles. Maybe even a rash.

Upcoming expenditures:

  • Summer housing (800)
  • Caesura’s student loan payments (300)
  • Rent (520)
  • Utilities and connecting fees (500???)
  • Monthly T-pass (120)
  • Love and gas money for friends driving us up to Boston - 600 ???
  • Credit card bills (100)

That’s 2940 right there, without even counting food or the furniture we need to get once we get there. Or the new cell phones that we’ll need to get so we’re not roaming all over the place. Flat-mates don’t want to talk about getting a family plan yet, so I guess either Caesura and I’ll have to bite the bullet by ourselves or we’ll have to play it by ear once we get there.

Cue panic attack.

Caesura has 30k in student loans, and I have about 5 K in credit card debt. I have 1.5 K in savings, 1 K in a CD with Pentagon Federal earmarked for emergencies, 1K in a ROTH IRA and nothing else to my name.

It’s incredibly frustrating, depressing, and stressful.

I have no idea how we’re going to handle these next few months.

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