Topher's Self-Prognosis

Annoying Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:13:00 +0000

Let he who has an ear to hear listen to my words that they may not be scattered by the winds before they can take root in fertile ground. Advertisers, read:

I have nothing against advertising on web-sites. In fact, I think it's a Very Good thing. It allows web-sites to be supported by chosen sponsors, or even a big group of sponsors. Great, that! It encourages people to build web-sites that provide real value. I'm all about real value.

Thus I do not arbitrarily block ads. I do not seek to eliminate all advertising from my web experience. But I do use selective ad blockers.

There is one thing and one thing only that causes me to add a new rule to my ad blocker. ANNOYANCE.

If your ad prohibits me from seeing the web page I'm trying to view until I pay attention to it, I'll block it.

If your ad blinks or flashes in a epileptic-enducing pattern, I'll block it.

If your ad pops up another window that I then have to manually close, I'll block it.

These are a few examples, and the most common causes of blockage. But that doesn't preclude other annoyances from winning an ad a slot on my block list. And one single ad can cause me to axe an entire ad service.

I don't relish my ad blocking capabilities. I don't flaunt them or swing them around my head like a morning star ready to take out any who come within arms-reach. I'm just a bit selfish. I just want to be able to get at the web-sites I'm trying to get at. Is that so wrong?

. Topher

Angel's Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 01:02:00 +0000

A few weeks back we wandered up to Calevaras County with my parents. We stayed in a nice little time-share condo in Angel's Camp. It was pretty nice, that time-share thingy. Better than I expected anyhow.

Samual Clemens (nom de plum, Mark Twain, yes that guy who wrote about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn) apparently stayed in Angel's Camp for a few months on a personal pocket-mining adventure. He wrote a story about a jumping frog which was based in Angel's Camp. Now the town is a living, breathing tourist shrine to Mark Twain and the Jumping Frog's he made so famous.

There's even now an annual Frog Jumping Contest. Yap. They call it the Frog Jumping Jubilee. They put the frogs on a launch pad in a circle, then try to get them to jump in any direction. The one that jumps the farthest wins. I'm not making this up!

All in all, we had a good time. We went up to the Big Trees forest. We went to the Stanislaus river. We wandered around Angel's Camp and Murphy's and Columbia. We saw a play. We went wine tasting. We descended into the Moaning Cavern. We ate, drank and were merry.

Pictures ensue:

The Pine Cone of DOOM!

Big Pine Cone, Big Pine Cone Maker

Topher Viewing Trees

Mom Hiding in Trees

Serene Making the River Look Good

Father and Son Getting Ready To Empty Them Barrels

Mom and Dad Slightly Tipsy

Serene in My Hat Va-Va-Va-Voom!

"Video Games Ate My ..."

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 22:37:00 +0000

Last weekend I accidentally gave a chubby Mexican kid who couldn't put more than 2 words together at a time $10 in quarters to play a video game in a laundrymat because his curvacious mom was wearing a low-cut top. It's ok because the quarters weren't mine.

Serene laughed for about 20 minutes then gave me a big snuggling hug that made me blush all the way up to the top of my bald head. I think she likes doing that, but I haven't figured out if it's because of the bright red blush or the snuggling.

. Topher

Whiteboards Whiteboards Everywhere But All "Do Not Erase"

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:45:00 +0000

Ight, this just kills me. Are you ready for this? Heh heh.

Yeah, so, in this one building I frequent there is a conference room with a VLW (Very Large Whiteboard). On that whiteboard are all kinds of boxes and squiggles with little blurbs that must be significant to somebody scrawled near, around and over them. Standard fare for a VLW, don't you think?

Yeah, so, splattered over all of this scrawling are 20 or 30 post-it notes stuck to the whiteboard with more scrawlings on them. Yes, post-it notes stuck to the whiteboard.

And of course, just to add that finishing touch, a nice "Do Not Erase" in the middle.

Ha! That kills me.

JUMP!

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:41:00 +0000

So, Leigh had an "Oh My God I Get To Go To Singapore For A Whole Month" party a few weeks back. As usual, she was in hot pursuit of jumping pictures of all sorts.

She's there now. In Singapore, I mean, wandering around, taking pictures, I dunno what all.

It seems I can't jump without making a really dorky face.

My Superman Moment. I FLEW! For about 1/3rd of a second.

Katie and Serene performing the Kick Out and Bonk Heads Amidst Raucous Laughter Jump.

"Yeah. I'm coo. So coo. I'm gonna land right here."

Cutest. Thing. EVAR!

This Honky White Boy

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:17:00 +0000

I often refer to myself as a "Honky White Boy." Thus, my ass is, quite understandably, often quiped as my "Honky White Ass."

I attribute my fond embracement of my Honkiness to my father. See, my dad was born a poor white boy in Texas, working the farms and praising the Lord. I guess you learn to value those unique qualities that get you razed in some circles, because no matter how much we teased him, he has never lost his fondness for cowboy boots. (Though we have managed to get them gallon hats toned down to a fedora or a John Deere cap.) And he often referred to himself as "just a poor honky white boy."

So there I am, thirty-something years along in life, thinking I'm the definition of "Honkiness." I'm sitting in some cheesey rice place (that is to say, a place which serves rice covered in cheese) under the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, a happy honky white boy. My oh-so-lovely girlfriend, a Chinese-Malaysian who speaks English better than many Americans, points out a table of rather loud and racous Chinese and says, "See them, they're all Honky's."

"Ruhr?" I elloquently grunted. "They're what?"

She giggled, "We call them Honky's because they're from Hong Kong."

And there I was, amazed again at how ego-centric I so often am, and realizing that Americans often are. Which, of course, made me realize that I'm the definition of "American." ... Woe.

Yeah. For those of you thinking about elk, burritos and other such things, just keep on thinking.

Smile :) Summarized

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:21:00 +0000

Alright. Enough of my babbling. The short of this whole smile business: The single, most impactful, most significant thing you can do to make you a better person is to smile. Smile to be pretty, smile to be smart, smile to get girls and smile for your heart.

Smile :) part seven: Live

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:14:00 +0000

They say laughter is the best medicine. Well it may not be the best, we have some pretty good stuff these days, but still. Did you know that laughter actually boosts the human immune system?

After exposure to humor, there is a general increase in activity within the immune system, including an increase in the number and activity level of natural killer cells that attack viral infected cells and some types of cancer and tumor cells, an increase in activated T cells (T lymphocytes) [...], an increase in the antibody IgA (immunoglobulin A), which fights upper respiratory tract insults and infections, [... and it keeps going!]

[ source: Holistic Online ]

The Archives of Internal Medicine recently published a study by a team of Dutch researches which found that being optimistic significantly reduced the risk of demise by heart disease in men. A blurb from a brief of the report:

Among men ages 64 to 84 who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer, those who consistently looked at the bright side of life and had generally positive expectations had a 55% lower risk for cardiovascular mortality compared with gloomy pessimistic men.

[ source: MedPage Today ]

"Just the facts, Ma'am."

How To Be A Sexy Man

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:33:00 +0000

Gentlemen, I've learned a secret. Not just any secret. I've learned a secret that gets girls HOT. There's no ingestion of any pharmecueticals of any sort involved here and no shrubries, herberies or highly concentrated powders. It has nothing to do with chocolate or diamonds, the number of cylinders your truck has, or the size of your... hands.

Girls LOVE it, they actually think it's SEXY (I'm not exaggerating here) when a guy washes their dishes!

So there we were at this party in Seattle this past weekend. There were several women there. One particular guy, a guest, kept ending up in the kitchen washing dishes. I said, "You know, I've heard that girls think one of the sexiest things a guy can do is her dishes."

The girlfriend of this guy suddenly appeared at his elbow, "Oh no," she said, "Don't you go doing my dishes for me. Those are my dishes."

I gotta admit, I was a bit confused. So out I went to the main room. In a nice loud voice I said, "I've heard that girls like it when a guy does the dishes for her. Is that true?"

Every woman in that room got all bright-eyed and perky. "Oh that's so hot," they said. One girl piped in, "Oh, and mowing the lawn... soooo hot!"

I know what you think. You think maybe they were just using a nice little psychological trick to get their guys to do a few chores around the house, right? Heh. Yeah maybe, but I'd bet if you were to conduct your own little empiricle study you will find a direct correlation between doing the dishes and doing the girl.

I accept PayPal donations.

Smile :) part six: Toothy Dating

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 31 May 2006 23:52:00 +0000

Again, the most consistent advice given by guys who are good with women to guys who aren't: relax and smile. Oh, but what's more: make her smile.

Don Diebel, publisher of a self-proclaiming newletter on dating, says, "Single women love a man with a good sense of humor. If you can make her laugh, she will really be attracted to you."

Tip #3 in the Top 6 Dating Tips To Help You Date Women And Succeed At It! at EzineArticles quips, "If you can make her laugh half your battle is already won."

I think there's really no mystery here: People like to laugh. Not only that but they like to share their laughter too. In a dating environment, these two things work together quite well to form and strengthen attractions. Of course having a good sense of humor in dating is no guarantee of anything, but if things don't work out at least you got a laugh out of it.

I almost stepped on a hummingbird!

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:52:00 +0000

I was just walking around the building in which I work. It's something I do sometimes on nice days to keep my brain from getting too irradiated from the 3 monitors which bombard it with all those speeding photons throughout the day.

Walking through the foliage between the one parking lot and the other, there was suddenly something flopping around right where I was about to plunk my foot. I'm proud to say that I didn't scream like a girl! It was really more of a man's scream.

Anyhow, so there was this cute little green hummingbird flopping around like it had a broken wing. I crouched down and looked at it. It looked at me, then flopped again.

I'm sure there's something sage to say about this little incident, but the thing my simple little mind keeps spiraling back on is: I almost stepped on a hummingbird!

I'm pretty sure it didn't really have a broken wing. I could be wrong, in which case I must wonder if the beak would irritate the cat's stomach. At any rate, I left it there to flop for the next poor soul to wander through.

. Topher

Smile :) part five: Smiling for Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 17 May 2006 17:22:00 +0000

The most consistent advice given by self-help professionals around the world on how to interact with other people in any given situation is to smile.

A great quote by Henry Miller:

When you speak to people -- smile. It is a wonderful thing when you meet someone and they just instinctively smile and say "I am mighty glad to know you." There is power in a smile. It is one of the best relaxation exercises of which I know.

"Mighty glad!" Love that.

Go to any career advising site and look up their interviewing tips and tricks or whatever similar. They'll have it listed right there, just like CareerOne in Australia:

On the way to the interview, walk tall and smile. Strangers will smile back at you and the receptionist at the interview firm will be nice to you. By the time you hit the interview, you'll feel good.

The short of it: It is profitable to smile.

Smile :) part four: Pictures Don't Lie

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 10 May 2006 23:15:00 +0000

Say, "Cheeeeeeeeze."

Yes, it's true! You can be more photogenic just by smiling. Look at this:

Now look at this:

I think the evidence speaks for itself on this one.

The Ghost In The Men's Room

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 08 May 2006 18:47:00 +0000

The building in which I work has all automatic bathrooms. Like at the airport. You walk up to the toilet, do your thing and walk away. It flushes after you. You walk up to the sink, wave your hands under the faucet and it turns on. Wave your hands under the soap thingy, wave them again with a flourish and you might get some soap out.

Of course, then you have to touch the door handle to get out, spreading germs and contamination to every single person in one foul step. How can we live in such filth?! But nevermind that for now.

So, there I was just this very morning, standing there doing my thing all alone. Suddenly the urinal next to me flushed. I looked over wide-eyed as it drained it's contents and refilled. Then one of the sink faucets turned on. I looked behind me at the sink; nobody was there. I finished up quickly, took my own turn at the sink and headed back to my cubical muttering under my breath about haunted office buildings and bathroom necromancy.

. Topher

Smile :) part three: Sing-along

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 03 May 2006 00:50:00 +0000

Alright, so enough with my antics already. Let's get down to business. I think you've already figured out what I'm trying to say, "Smile." The defiant among you might respond with a flippant, "Why should I?"

I could just say it makes me feel good if you smile, but we all know that Copernicus was wrong, that each of our respective universes really does center upon ourselves. So what I think really isn't much of a motivator for you. Instead, let me ask you a few questions. We can all sing-along the answer.

Do you want to be more photogenic? Smile.
Do you want to get a new job? Smile.
Do you want to better success in your dating life? Smile.
Do you want to be healthier? Smile.

Smile :) part two: Attitude Is To The Bone

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:24:00 +0000

I have this particular friend. He was always willing to appreciate the beauty around us in all shapes and sizes, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

He had a rare and peculiar wisdom. One might even call it obscure at times. But on one particular day when his wisdom was more obvious, a woman passed him by. The woman was gorgeous by our American standards. Lovely eyes... blond hair styled oh-so-right... with those well-proportioned... hands! (What did you think I was going to say?!) But she had this scowl on her face that could crack open a bank vault. This wise man turned to another friend of mine and said, "Beauty is skin deep; Attitude is to the bone."

Personally, I think he was quoting a song.

Smile :) part one: A Better Me

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:37:00 +0000

I'm not a bad person. Really. Well, ok, I might have a few moments of evil chuckling at the sight of a cat being chased by a cute little rotweiler, but that's only because I know the cat won't get caught. Probably.

But I want to be better. I want to be one of those people who everybody is happy to see. I want to be one of those people who light up the room when they walk in, one of those people who looks happy even in those strangely lit surprise pictures. You know the ones I mean, those pictures taken when you were busy minding your own business picking the nuts out of a brownie, pretending you understand what auntie Jane is blabbing on about when you mother suddenly yells your name causing you to look around only to be blinded by the flash of her camera as she memorializes that precious moment for all eternity.

And I think I've found the secret. It's almost too slight a thing to believe it could be so key. In fact, it almost feels like one of those dream ideas that seems so great while you're asleep... but no, this one is real. I've tried it, tested it, proved it. It's surprising sometimes, but it works.

Just smile.

Mango Tortilla Chips: Huh?!

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:03:00 +0000

We're a small crew at the place I'm working nowadays. There are only 8 of us on the R & D team. We sit in a sort of bull-pen type area, all around the edges.

In the middle of our bull-pen is a table with a bunch of snacks on it. We buy bags of chips and crackers and trail mixes and what-have-you and throw them all on the table to share.

At some point over the weekend a bag of Mango Tortilla Chips has magically appeared. Yes, you heard me correctly, Magically appeared. It must have been magical because nobody is admitting to bringing them. And yes, you heard me correctly, Mango Tortilla Chips.

It was a few hours before anybody got up the nerve to open the bag.

If I can take a moment here to reflect: After spending some time in Southeast Asia I can honestly say I've had some very delicious savory mango-based dishes, like chicken in a mango sauce, and a fantastic mango chutney. And I can certainly imagine a yummy mango salsa type dish. Mmm. This is making my mouth water.

But mango corn tortilla chips just sounds wrong. Wrong. Indeed, it tastes wrong too. It's a strange combination of undefined sweet overlaying otherwise plain corn tortillas. Even as a novelty, it's pretty weak.

The Dog in the Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:09:00 +0000

There we were strolling along the bay at Seal Point Park. There was a couple down by the water with their 2 black labrador retrievers. The man was throwing a big honking stick out into the bay, and one of the dogs was plunging into the water after it, swimming all the way out to it and dragging it all the way back to shore.

For those of you who don't know I have a dog, a cross between a black lab and a boxer. Chip is a beautiful mutt with a fantastic temperment. He's a mid-sized dog but he's a bit on the beefy side, weighing in at about 70 pounds. He still thinks he can fit in my lap. And he loves to chase down thrown tennis balls.

But I'm pretty sure that if I threw a tennis ball into the bay he'd look up at me with those big brown doggie eyes and say, "Now what'd you go and do that for?"

He'd try to find a way, though, because... well... he's a dog. He'd go right up to the edge of the water and look at it, maybe test it to see if it really was wet. Then he'd run over to another spot and check there. And after a few times he'd look up at me and say, "I can't get to it. It's out there in all that water."

And after a while, I think we'd go home sans one tennis ball.

One

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:15:00 +0000

We had just finished polishing off a stir-fry dish with some rice. We have rice a lot these days. I guess that happens when you live with an Asian woman.

"Is there any more rice?" I asked hopefully.

"Yes," she answered without hesitation, "One."

"One?" I echoed, not quite sure I'd heard correctly.

"One," she repeated looking intently at a single grain of rice on her plate.

The Bondage of Thought

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:12:00 +0000

I ran across this phrase in a book the other day:

The funniest thing about time is when it doesn't.

I must have re-read that line 20 times. It's on of those linquistical twists which feel good to say, have an elloquent flavor and even sound like they must be profound... but just elude the grasp of the brain like a squirmy, wiggly, slimy fish flopping around trying to get back into the water.

In fact, I don't think that phrase even belongs in a brain. It's a phrase which cannot be contained. It cannot be confined to the prison cell of one's limited rationalizing ego-centric intellect. It blongs out there, in the free, in the wild, where no constraints of comprehension can bind it to reality.

Because to comprehend something is to shackle it to this world. Take a thought, formulate a phrase that describes that thought, conscribe that phrase to paper, and you have just chained that thought. Everytime somebody reads those glyphs and comprehends the thought they represent, they reinforce the bonds which cleave that thought to us. They enforce the bondage of thought.

And that's my thought for the day.

. Topher

PS: The book was Yendi by Steven Brust, a fun read for those who enjoy a good sarcastic fantasy.

So Much So Much -- The Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 05:50:00 +0000

Oy! So much has happened! Of course, it's been so long, so I guess that's only to be expected.

Ok, so a quick synopsis:

I moved to Malaysia. (Actually, all yall should already know this since I was writing about it for a while.) I had a great time living there, and really enjoyed the local culture. I lived in Kuala Lumpur, which is a nice big city. I lived in a high-rise building, on the 20th floor. To go to work I walked through 2 malls and an underground light-rail station, then went up in another high-rise building to the 34th floor.

You remember that movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones (drool) and that guy where they jumped off the top of these two huge towers and parachutted down, as part of some grander scheme of course... That was Kuala Lumpur. Those towers are the Petronas Twin Towers. I could see those from my living room window.

Over time, my job degraded me into a puddle of drooling stress. So, about eight months later I moved back to California. It wasn't my choice, but it was by far the best possibile thing for me right then. Well, getting out of that cesspool of a job was, anyhow. I do miss Malaysia, though.

And here we are today! That wasn't so bad, huh? Yeah, ok, I glossed over all kinds of good stuff, but maybe that will just have to be fodder for a future post! Cheers.

. Topher

Liza

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 13 May 2005 00:52:00 +0000

You have not lived until you've seen a Malay Liza Minnelli Look-Alike.

. Topher

Napkins

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 12 May 2005 00:09:00 +0000

It seems that Malaysians are afraid of napkins. Almost every non-western influenced resturant (which means any place with Good Food) does not provide napkins or tissues with the meal. Perhaps they think that their country will become a swampland of partially used servlets, with bits of thin white paper smudged with greasey lip marks being blown around the palm oil plantations by a brisk tropical breeze.

I have learned to carry a little pocket pouch of tissues with me everywhere I go. What insanity!

. Topher

Malaysian Pizza

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:49:00 +0000

You know that jarring stumble that happens when you get to the bottom of the stairs one step sooner than you expected? Yeah, so...

There's this little stall place nearby that makes pizza. It's a nice looking place in a mall, not like the roadside stalls, or the car trunk stalls. And they make the dough right there in front of you, so you can see that it should be good.

After passing by it several times in favor of more local cuisine, I finally tried it. I ordered a chicken sausage pizza with pineapple on it. Apparently all their pizzas have pineapple on them.

The faltering step, though? The "chicken sausage" turned out to be balogne.

I staggered for a moment.