Ryu2.mind

The other day, I decided to swing by the Rivermark Shopping Center to grab some lunch. While driving there, I saw a guy standing outside on the street holding a sign for Quizno's subs, located within the center. He wasn't doing anything else, not talking with anyone nor passing out brochures or other literature. He was just rocking that sign gently back and forth.

I surmise that it is the waving of the sign that first visually draws you. If so, why have a guy stand there to do it? After all, in our society of pervasive automation, how could this simplest of actions not be similarly implemented? Why not devise some battery-powered contraption to move it in a suitable motion, maybe at most watched by someone to prevent vandalism? How much is that guy being paid, and what is the real efficacy of that rocking sign?

Regardless of the numbers, upon further reflection, for me, it was the sympathy for that poor guy, standing outside, with nothing better to do than to mindlessly wave that sign in front of passing traffic, that really caused me to pay close attention. I'd expect the sympathy card to be played in an ad for a group like a charity raising funds for impoverished Third World children, but not for Quizno's.

So, either this ad is very effective (but for me, through the wrong reason), because I've seen many similar sign guys -- usually advertising for restaurants or real estate -- while driving around the Bay Area, and/or the job market in the Bay Area sucks still. I certainly didn't see many of these guys during the dot-com era. Hmm...

I got this audio clip from my college fellowship's email list. Absolutely hilarious... LOL!

A deep thought will be soon forthcoming, but until then...

One of my favorite places to read is while sitting on the toilet doing my thing. Bathroom literature is unique in that it, for me, needs to take my mind off of my bodily functions, and so it should be more than just purely light reading such as the entertainment magazines.

At the same time, it's not something I can get too engrossed in, due to the fact that I usually have a limited amount of time I spend on the restroom, so no novels or other literary works. I want information that I can quickly pick up by reading, so something non-fiction is best.

As for the specific subject matter, I for one don't like to read Christian books in the bathroom. I don't like to read about my God while being surrounded by pungent odors -- it just doesn't evoke the right mood. =)

But other than that, I read almost everything, from textbooks (Math and CS theory books are good for me, because they get me thinking about them, and not what my body is doing... =) ) to dictionaries (relieve yourself while at the same time learning a few new words of Chinese or Japanese) to news magazines such as The Economist.

Currently, I've been reading a a commentary on the Linux source code -- little more than a listing of the core source files, and commentary. It's an perfect example of something that fits the criteria: something I can learn from quickly, but which I can take in in bite-sized chunks of 10 minutes or less, and yet is (somewhat) relevant for me, and also, a book that I can read in a non-linear fashion, for oftentimes I forget where I left off in my last restroom excursion.

So... anyone want to share their restroom reading picks? =)

At my company, we've arranged it so that two programmers share one office, without any walls or other barriers between them. Even though one might think it a lack of privacy, there really isn't much of that in the workplace to begin with, and I think that it's cool to just quickly ask your partner a programming or other question without having to walk to another room (am I lazy or what...?)

There are of course disadvantages, and as I write this entry while waiting for a full rebuild of my project to complete, my partner (a 40+ year old gentlemen) is singing rather loudly off-key, some freakish mutation of the 80s song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" -- a cross between the original lyrics, and his lyrics which go somewhat like this:

"I just wanna go home"
Cause girls just wanna have fun"
I wanna have fun
With girls that wanna have fun..."

His singing ability is slightly below that of William Hung with none of his young Asian boy charm. I could have asked him to politely stop, but for some reason, I'm finding some strange pleasure in the pain of listening to him unconciously expressing his inner musical child. I suppose it's the audio equivalent of self-flagellation practiced by zealous devotees in the early Christian church.

Yikes... =P

I usually don't repost outright other peoples' blog entries without adding at least some extra commentary of my own, but for those of you who don't read her blog, my friend from college, Connie, has a rather interesting latest entry. It's relevant for my church, GrX, especially because we're doing the same thing, and because we'll be having a time of sharing almost exactly like the one Connie described in a few weeks' time.

Thanks to Connie's astute sense of duty in posting her observations, I'll be sure to ensure that a repeat doesn't happen at GrX. Seeing that I know the guys responsible for the video/multimedia setup, I'll be sure to let 'em know NOT to film any extraneous people in the audience during our sharing time to avoid similar situations.

Hmm... Mike -- are you reading this?!

Of course, the "proper" solution would be to tell the pastors not to pick their noses, but I'm not sure how to express it diplomatically (tho' I've not yet observed a pastor here do such a thing... =P )

(The car depicted is a Lexus SUV.)

To me, this picture captures nicely some reasons why those in other lands often think negatively about Americans:

1. Rampant and conspicuous consumerism.
2. An inability to respect rules and boundaries set (even by themselves).
3. An inability to correct their own mistakes.

Anger.