Fact: If you know someone (including yourself) farted, and you smell that fart, immediately you will react as if you got a whiff of the Devil himself. Then you'd hold your breath and fan your hands in front of you until you thought it was safe.

Question: Have you ever smelt a fart (most likely your own) where you thought, "hmm... if I didn't know this was a fart, I would mistaken it for the smell of food."? I know I have.

I've been testing a design on our system lately. The physical test is to plug a microphone into one jack, speakers into another jack, and when you speak into microphone, you should hear your voice over the speakers (sparing the technical details).

Last week, I ran a couple test vectors on the design, and it looked like the results were correct. And then I did the physical test, plugging in my headset which has both mic and earphones. From that, I could only get noise out of the earphones. After some back and forth with the team in the US, and no obvious solution.

Today, with the US team here for meetings, we tried it again... same result. And then after some quick investigation, the problem was found. My microphone has a little volume and on/off switch. Umm... it was off. DAMN IT.

I bought a new pair of shoes last week. Merrells. I saw them on the display and I said, "Now THOSE look cool." That store, by default, has a 10% discount on everything. But, I decided to hold off that day. Checking the website, I can't even find my model of shoe.

Anyway, I went back a few days later. And originally 2980nt, it was 20% off, then I used 1700nt of gift certificates I got from work, and ended up paying 684nt (just under $30 cad). I so happy. :) Unfortunately, the box doesn't say what the model is... so I still don't know. But I still think they look pretty cool.

There's a question from waiter/waitresses common across western-styled restaurants. Usually it comes when they put down your meal:

"Would you like some pepper in your [salad/soup/pasta/what-have-you]?"

Of course, they always ask this before you've had a chance to taste your food. So, really, wouldn't the appropriate response be:

"I don't know, did the chef not put enough? Or can you wait until I've tried it?"

Along the same line, are you one of those people who would put salt or pepper in your food before taking a bite? Is it normal to just start shaking some pepper on your dish before knowing how much pepper is already there?

Comment.

Eddie Murphy's Coming To America is on TV right now. The funny thing is, a young Cuba Gooding Jr. is getting his haircut in the barbershop where Eddie plays three characters! He has no lines, and only nods his head like a dork, but looks like that's where you need to be before playing Oscar winning roles and giving long drawn out acceptance speeches.

All of Taiwan gets a typhoon day off. This is reportedly the largest typhoon in more than 5 years. Maybe we'll get 2 days off! Unfortunately, the direction of the typhoon has changed and now it's heading South instead of Westward towards China. I find walking outside during typhoons is actually quite a lot of fun. It's windy, it's rainy... but it's nothing compared to a tornado. I want to see a cow fly by.

I want one! I want one!
Having one makes you feel wanted and loved, cared for and adored.
Where can I apply to get one?

Read: CBC News Story

I'm aliiIIIVVVVE!!!

Installed MSN 7.0 at work. I'm re-connected.

My work is already taking a blow.

My blog counter is working again. This is the number on next to the blog name on your dashboard when you log into blogger.com. Since I first noticed that counter, it's been stuck at 78. And today, it jumped to 301. So, 302 including this post.

For better or worse...

Recent tragic events at my company have me questioning my loyalty. Our IT department has outsourced guys from another company to come in and help with support. At the same time, these so called "helpers" have installed "Websense Enterprise" over our network which is counteracting all extra-curricular attempts.

For example, if I try to go to www.friendster.com, I get an error:

Access to this web page is restricted at this time.

Reason: The Websense category "Personals and Dating" is filtered.

And I can't connect to MSN. I was able to use Trillian for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't really stable. It would crash about 10 times a day, but at least I would be able to connect and chat when needed. But it's worse now, because now it crashes as soon as I open the application. I've all but given up.

I tried to go online to the Trillian website for help, but...

Access to this web page is restricted at this time.

Reason: The Websense category "Instant Messaging" is filtered.

Son of a ... Does this mean I'm going to have to focus on my WORK from now on?