Then and now

I can't believe it's almost 6 months since I left CDWS and came here to work in Korea. Seems like time just flies by but things are pretty much same just like T-mac led team failing to advance past the first round of playoffs again.

But there are definitely some minor details that changed.

For once, I used to wake up around 8:30 am and drove to work for 30 minutes and made my grand entrance to office around 9ish. Usually Jason would be only one in the office early enough and would look at me with a frown as I disrupt his peaceful morning time.

Now I wake up at 6:30 am and commute by urban subway system, sometimes suffocated between mob of people and make my grand entrance to office around 8ish. But then I would be always the tardy one and other coworkers are always there earlier than me.

Work seems very similar except my current job is no where near research oriented as the one before. A lot more troubleshooting and reporting compare to old job.

I really wanted a change and having ventured into different place (quite literally) I still am not sure what I want to do.

I will be starting series of projects near future and hopefully that will give me some insights into what I really want to do.

Until then, maybe I should start exercising more cuz it seems like everyone in Orlando has been biten by exercise bug or something (My sis, Kitzzy and Jason...)

Oh yeah, thanks for Jessica for encouraging me to blog more and thanks for giving me a huge headache before my birthday, if you know what I mean :)

Give up now

(9:58:22 AM) solaratypej: he looks bored
(9:59:01 AM) mrcoreyreece: your mom always looks bored
(9:59:08 AM) solaratypej: ouch
(9:59:18 AM) solaratypej: i left that door wide open for that one
(10:05:49 AM) mrcoreyreece: your mom's door was wide open

Sorry I am

For being complacent.

For being indifferent.

For not saying in your face how lousy you are.

Tru Fan

UCF did not pull out a victory but a new Bright house stadium was a huge success! People would not leave the stadium even after UCF suffered a defeat on the very first game in the new stadium. It is a beautiful stadium after all... I mean I don't know, I didn't go to the game.

I don't quite understand people who went to the game on saturday to support UCF football just to see the stadium. In fact, even people who didn't go to the game and had never been following UCF college football are talking about the game on saturday. If having a multi-million dollar stadium can turn non-believers into a loyal fans, I don't think they are Tru Fans.

So it's not a bad thing that local people are showing a support for local school football team. Geographical relevance is probably one of the most common reasons people use to justify a lot of their actions ("I will vote for this guy for president cuz he is from my hometown").

But it's just so silly to see how people are lust for big, shiny and brand spanking new building rather than be a Tru Fans because they really care about the actual game.

Jinxed - labor day edition

Who would have thought an innocent holiday would turn into a day of series of unlucky events. Unlucky might not be the proper term to describe today, Jinxed would do more justice on what I went through.

Obviously, 24 hours is too long for a day. Because there is still 50+ minutes or so left before midnight where things could go wrong, if it hasn't gone wrong already without me noticing it.

Let me put the events on the record so I will at least get some condolences from fellow Netizens.

I needed 3 Warsong medals and I only got 1 extra because my internet kept going in and out.

Then I wanted to cook salmon dish based on the recipe (grilled salmon with asian dijon mustard sauce) I saw on food network. But Salmon was sold out everywhere (ended up cooking chicken instead).

I locked myself out of house when I was emptying the vacuum cleaner outside the garage (only one in my house was my sis who took a long nap before unlocking door for me, I managed to wash my car in a direct sunlight meanwhile but there are more water spots on it now than before).

I broke a lamp in my room while reaching behind my desk to grab some cable.

My I-trigue L3800 2.1 speaker system went "Poof!" and died just as I plugged everything back (Warranty expired about 15 days ago).

I scratched my desk while moving the scanner around but ended up putting it at same place as it was.

Hurted my back while moving chairs to garage and I feel sharp pain at the slightest movement.

Ok, maybe it could be a lot worse but still I felt like I was jinxed for a day.

Beautifying MySpace profile with simple CSS

I abhor MySpace because of lack of taste of people who customize it with horrible color schemes and because of how even the default profile page looks cluttered with ugly advertisements.

But sometimes when you are doing prank website for fun, they provide needed webspace and unique url that I can link. So I was there on MySpace page, registering with shivering hands and trying not to think about how I was in the middle of trash dumps of internet. Their user interface is such a hack job and everything is just thrown in together last minute without the sense of any cohesiveness. How can people use this junk? I was tempted but I didn't flee in a hope to play prank on my coworker. There are worse people than who uses Myspace. That's the people who uses MySpace to play prank on others.

In my attempt to beautify MySpace default page to suite my taste (they don't even provide separate CSS only textarea, you have to enter your CSS in about me textarea. ). I came up with simple CSS that EVERY PROFILE page should include!

Before: with ugly ads and disclaimer on the bottom

Now Add below CSS on top of your about me textarea in edit profile view:


<style type="text/css">
table.navigationBar, table.navigationBar table {
display: block !important;
}
div table {
display: none;
}
table.userProfileURL div
{
display: block !important;
}
table div {
display: none;
}
</style>


After: without ugly ads and disclaimers but still ugly...

Now you have somewhat ordinary looking site you can further customize. :)

Although you have to repeat above step for different sections ... argh.. what happened to global CSS include!

ELLEGARDEN : Riot on the grill

I always loved korean pop music (k-pop in short) regardless of how "manufactured" they are. I mostly listen to music while I am driving and they make a good driving music. However, I always thought one genre was lacking in k-pop: a rock/punk. Most of the k-pops nowadays are either R&B or Hip Hop (or really really sad ballad that makes you cry). From the breadth of musics I listen to (which is pretty small selection), Seo Taiji is only korean rock/punk artist who I like and succeeded playing rock/punk genre.

On the other hands, Japan seems to have an abundance of rock/punk bands. There are plenty of people who likes J-rock bands and some are really getting noticed even at overseas market. One of them is ELLEGARDEN and I got their CD "Riot on the Grill" last week and hasn't stopped listening to it since.

It is truly impressive compilation of songs that features both English and Japanese lyrics but honestly I wouldn't have cared if it was sang in Martian. I liked the song "Missing" before I bought this CD and it is still my favorite. But there are many other songs that surpassed my expectations and provide very upbeat punk sound. For some reason, my head feels clearer and I gain concentration when I listen to busy background music and shouting. It might be because their music is very bright and youthful too. Anyway, I highly recommend their CD to anyone who are curious on what rock/punk sounds like in the hands of Japanese musician.

I hope more artists from Korea would experiment with rock/punk instead of playing "manufactured" music.