Doomsday device

Finally it is going to be a quiet weekend. Woke up at 7am, and one of the first things I did was to keep myself updated on the latest Canadian Tire flyer.

I was idly flipping the pages then suddenly I found myself puzzled by an odd item on the flyer. According to the description, it was a fancy upright vacuum cleaner. But judging by the picture, it looked like Megatron from the Transformers movie had angry sex with a regular upright vacuum cleaner, and the poor vacuum cleaner was officially f**ked "transformed."

It must have taken an inventor with a disturbed mind to make this piece of work. I could almost imagine what that inventor would look like: A hunch-back old guy wearing a mono-cal working in a damp and dimly lit basement underneath a lighthouse somewhere in Newfoundland, and accompanied by his assistant who was a square-headed giant with two bolts protruding from his temples.

This mad Canadian inventor would then market his invention to a Canadian Tire merchandiser, calling this a "household vacuum cleaner." He was hoping the "futuristic" look and the ultra low sticker price (for only $130) it would quickly infiltrate many Canadian households. When the time was right, he would flip a switch and turned all those "vacuum cleaners" into doomsday devices. Every one of them was capable of creating a minuscule singularity, or otherwise commonly known as a blackhole...

And that, my friend, is how Canada can partake in an universe-ending plot. Mwah, ha ha...

(SWINE) Flu attack!

[Trumpet]

[Drum roll]

I am now part of the official and historical statistic. I am one of the people who is affected in this H1N1 pandemic.

But to be precise, not even my doctor knew for sure if I got H1N1 because labs have stopped testing and confirming H1N1 cases. Doctors are now treating all flu cases as if they are H1N1, hence my name goes into the record.

In order to qualify to take part in this event, I had to endure 3 feverish days and nights plus non-stop headache that has lasted for over 48 hours. And now that I have made it to the record, I have to continue to suffer through days of coughing and runny nose, all of which happen weeks before a product launch; and days before my business trip.

This morning, a killer headache woke me up and kept my eyes open. At the end, I had no choice but to come down to the kitchen and took some Advil. Under my doctor's instruction, I have been taking both Advil and Tylenol to the maximum daily dosage in order to control the headache, which made me feel like I was a pain-killer junkie or something.

Who cares, I am now quietly waiting for those two blue gel caps to do it job and take the edge off the headache.

Nope, no deep thoughts today. I think between headache and fever, most of my brain cells are dead already. All I want to do is to go back to sleep, if my body lets me...

Too dumb, or too smart for our own good?

I have been following some IT news related to technology patents lawsuits. For your information, reading about the way patents are being awarded and some of patents that were granted are actually great sources of entertainment, it actually borderline on being comical.

But it is not the point of this blog.

The point is, all too often I would come across a comment expressed by people in the online community, “the existing patent law is faulty because most technologies are highly complicated, how can you trust the outcome of a multi-million law suit to a bunch of guys who are too stupid to weasel out of the jury duty?”

I am really not a big fan of that idea that people are dumb if they get selected for the juror duty. What happen to fulfilling ones civil duties? I remember the movie “Runaway Jury”, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were experts in juror selection and manipulation, and the same ill  idea was spoken by Gene’s character earlier on in the movie.

I would approach it from another angle. God forbid if one day you are the defendant or the plaintiff, do you rather have someone knowledgeable and logical to be in the juror box? In another word, do you want someone like yourself to be sitting in that box? If you do, then I will suggest that you stop dodging this responsibility.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Fall. Falling. Fallen

It is the time of the year. Nope, I am not talking about the flu season, we have enough people in the world talking about it already. Nope is it not about winter season, simply because we are not there yet. It is not time for Christmas shopping either, not for me at least. For the longest time, Costco, Walmart and Sears has been trying to attract me with Christmas-themed merchandises and discounts, they are still unable to pry open my deadly grip over my wallet.

I am referring to the Fall season. I would like to believe that I am one of the top leave rakers in the neighborhood, producing more bags of leaves than average, year after year.

Not that I love raking leaves, don't get me wrong. All I am trying to do is to be a responsible neighbor in my area. Surely, leaves got blown around, and the later you rake it the less leaves you will have remaining on your lawn. But unfortunate for my back, that is not the way I operate. Exactly because leaves got blown around, if I don't do my part of reducing the amount of leaves on the ground, someone else will have to pick up my slack, and that is something that I cannot live with.


I started raking my front lawn this afternoon and in less than an hour I used up all 5 bags that I have, and only managed to take care of half of the lawn. I guess the battle continues tomorrow. But at least, I know I have made a difference, and I am happy that I have performed my civil duty.

[UPDATE] The final tally was 15 bags. 15 bags of leaves that I raked up from my front and backyard and I have a picture to prove. Take a look at the background. Do notice that my neighbor has also done their fall duty and they came up with 3 bags of leaves... hardly seemed fair :(