We Have No Beef

I was stunned when I heard Bush say the words "We have no beef with Iran." on CNN Live. The president of the United States of America said "we have no beef"? At least Tony Blair is a little more eloquent when he answered the press with "We have no quarrels.. ".

I don't know whether to applaud Mr. Bush for speaking his mind or say "for shame!" for speaking like that on an issue watched closely by the world.

Well have to give it to Bush. He's probably the first president in American history who has ever used the words "we have no beef".

Clouds & Music - Balm for the Soul

I think we all have one of those days that started out great and then out of nowhere, a mood killer event happens and the day just turned into crap.

Today was one of those days. So like the typical me, I retreated back to my invisible shell and shut the door tightly behind me. I might have even used some duct tape today.

I wonder if turtles ever wished they can have an extra flap? So that after they withdrew their head, from the inside they can push like this little flap of skeleton door and shut the hole so that pesky humans would not be able to poke them with various items. Perhaps.

After a good nap in the Element, by the way for those of you Element owners out there that haven't tried putting all the seats down flat and sleeping in the back, try it! The seats are amazingly comfortable. Prop open the skylight (so I won't run out of air), lay down and look up at the moving clouds, with the sun gently blanketing me with warmth - divine. Moments like this, what more can I ask for? Some people love chocolate, I love resting in my Element. Each to his own. Anyways, I digress. So, I was saying, after a good nap, I felt much more de-stressed.

Then came the discovery of AOL Radio with XM that came with the new AIM Triton. Pretty cool I have to admit. I was surprised there is a Movie Scores station. I guess music scores are more popular than I thought. I love music scores. Found a new album tonight - Veronica Guerin. I have not seen the movie but the station played the track "Conversations". It was hauntingly beautiful.

Music to my ears and clouds for my sore eyes. Maybe the turtle will come out tomorrow.

First Step

This morning, and literally this morning, 3:25 AM to be precise, I submitted my first resume to an employment agency after 6+ years out of college.

Whohooo! The feeling after finally pressing that Submit trigger came close to euphoric, as happy one can be at 3 in the morning. It was such a relief! More like I did it step! Well so far no response yet, but at least I didn't get one of those standard - "Thank you for your interest in our company. We have kept your resume in our system and will be contacting you if there are any openings that fit your profit."

So there's hope!

Import Planning Manager, that was the job title. The job description sounded pretty cool. Actually, I am quite excited by the prospect of working with home decor items and use my Chinese background to my advantage. Although, I have a feeling that one day I'll need to go back and learn how to write Chinese, esp Simplified Chinese instead of the Traditional words.

Just another job seeker in Monster, but one big step for little me.

人情

Mommy 說的對, 人情很難還.

佛言: 欲知前世因,今天受者是. 欲知來世果,今生作者是.

如果今世身邊得人都對你很好, 是因你前生修來的福, 還是他們欠你的?


I think it was this morning that I had one of those toilet dreams again. The toilets haven't came back to haunt my dream realm for a long time now. Not once in Taiwan. A long line, I was waiting in a long line outside of a bathroom in a public place. By the time I finally moved up to the front of the line, taking a look at the dirty toilets I decided to forfeit my position and say "Oh, forget it!" What was differen this time is that there weere probably 1 or 2 people ahead of me, but I gave up the chance to relieve my bladder even before I got to position number 1. So what does this mean? That I am giving up too early? That I am giving up without really making an attempt? Or is this about sex somehow? Freud says everything is about some unconscious notion leaning towards some sexual feelings. Something like that right?

VOIP - Voiceral

Voiceral should give me a free month of service for the free advertisement I am about to write for them.

Several days after getting back to the States, along with the dreadful thought of going back to work, a more imminent problem was at hand - phone service.

Including me, there are now 3 people in this house working from home and there's only 1 phone line. That won't do. So the search begins for a cheap but good VOIP solution. There was no way I am going to spend precious celly minutes for conf calls. Scouring over the sites and forums for reviews, finally found one that sounded like a good fit for me - Voiceral. The biggest draw for me was their $14.99 plan with unlimited calling to US, Canada + calls to landlines in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. So I figured, what the heck, doesn't hurt to try. Plus they have a 30 day guarantee right?


Shipping & Equipment
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Online, I ordered the service on 5/10/2006. On 5/15/2006 (there was 2 weekend days) I got the adapter kit consisting of a little silver plastic covered thing (about 3"x2.5"), a short telephone cable, a short Ethernet cable, 2 pieces of paper (directions and features) and the power supply. Following the simple directions, viola! Plugged that sucker in and hey look at that I can make calls!! Very portable.

Voice Quality
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Get to the point right? How's the voice quality? Not bad actually. Some of the calls I made sounded to the others like I am in a conf room, a little bit of echo. But that was about it. Other calls sounded perfectly clear to me, very little breakups. I do notice a little here and there, but it's fine with me. Not too distracting at all. I've made local and long distances calls in the US and also calls to Taiwan. Pretty satisfied with the service so far.

Customer Support
----------------
How's customer support? I called the tech support on the first day when I thought there's something that's preventing my phone ringer to go on mute. Turns out that I dind't check the obvious - dam ringer volume was turne off on my phone itself - Doh, don't I feel like an idiot afterwards. Anyways, although no one answered when I called, I was able to leave a message. The tech support called me back within 2 hours. The response time is something Voiceral can improve in the future, but the tech calling back was pretty courteous so at least that's nice. Under normal circumstances, one probably wouldn't really need to call the tech support too often.

Summary
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So overall summary - for my first VOIP service provider, I am pretty happy with Voiceral so far. Hopefully what they advertise is accurate and that I do not incur any extra charges for making calls over to Taiwan, China, or Hong Kong.

By the way there is a $29 one-time setup fee and a $9.99 shipping/handling fee. I didn't see the one time fee until after I placed the order, but it's still cheaper than going with local phone carriers.

Hey if anyone is going to try Voiceral, I can refer you! I get a free month for referals. Of course, this is not the main reason I am writing a review on Voiceral. Just thought I share my experiences :)

Power to the blogs!

So Flat

"So flat", I thought to myself as I looked out my window down at Seattle.

As we fly closer to the Seattle airport, I can't help thinking about the difference between United States and China. If Seattle was in China, the housing around the water would certainly be at least 20 stories instead of the single family homes.

I am back.

The Day I Walked/Slammed My Head Into An Electrical Pole

If anyone asks me, "Name one of the stupidest things you have ever done.", I would answer right away with, "I walked/slammed my head against an electrical pole.".

Yes, I think all of us walked into things before. But when it's my turn to become a klutz, I do it 100%.

So the story goes.. after guma, guchung, and I got dropped off from the Karoke Bus at the corner of the street, we started walking home. It's a short walk, but the night was dark already. As we were walking, I see that guma had a bunch of our shopping bags in her hands. Turning towards her while continuing walking forward, I bent down to take some bags off her hands. Little did I know, the evil electrical pole was approaching fast. That sneaky thing. Continuing to walk forward, I turned while straightening and "KAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNGGGG!!!!" was the next thing I heard.

Houston, we have contact!

Here's an accurate portrayal, anatomically correct pictorial drawing for those who can't read good:



What I felt was my head bouncing away from a very hard thing. I didn't know what happened at that second for all I can see is black. Well cuz it's dark out AND also cuz the force at which I slammed my head into the pole severely bent my newly adjusted glasses, smushing it against my oily face.

Guchung who was at least 30 feet ahead of us, briskly came back after he heard the "KAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!" When questioned if I was okay, I was like "yah, I am fine."

My guma then sheepishly laughed and said "That was loud." Hahahaha...

Well I wasn't laughing when I felt that large egg hatching underneath the impact point later that night. No break of the skin, but the scalp was definitely red and it started to hurt.

"Dooh!!!!" Well, I've always had a thick skull. Hopefully no permanent damage was done, but it sure feels like I cracked it and indented it at the same time.

My brain!! My brain!!!

That night guma and I griped about the local government and their stupidity for placing an electrical pole in the middle (fine!) towards the middle left of a pedestrian walkway, esp with no lights. The discussion got even more heated when guma mentioned that electrical pole is no longer in service because they moved all the wires underground.

There was talk about filing a complaint with the local government by the time we headed to sleep.

Stupid pole!!