People And Insecurities

Insecurities are mostly illogical. One can be otherwise whole yet harbour fears that debilitate. We constantly worry about whether our boobs are large enough, dongs dangly enough, waist small enough, skin young enough, and all manner of unusual dysmorphic perceptions of our bodies. Society is a bad influence on people! In its quest to portray and promote the image of the perfect person, regular, imperfect people are being driven into the ground by self-esteem issues. It is time that people accepted that some imperfections are perfectly normal, and that it is not necessary that women stay young all through their lives, and that men stay fit and strong through theirs. I'd say that it is better to have small boobs and be cancer-free, for example.

Charger, Camera, Action!

I just bought an expensive battery charger for myself. It's the Sony 2700mAh NiMH battery charger. Well, it's really because I bought a digicam a couple days back. So far, the charger seems to be doing its work properly.

Products like these prove that looks do sell. I bought this because it is the only available charger in my area that handles 2700mAh batteries, has a graphical progress meter (big plus) and looks great (the deal clincher). Moreover, it's able to charge AA or AAA batteries in any combination.

I'm currently experimenting with charging batteries of different brands in the same charger. Sure, the user manual says that's a no-no, but I think physics will overrule sales gimmicks. I note that the batteries are charging as per normal and are not heating up more than they should. That's a good sign. The charger isn't malfunctioning either.

Product descriptions are deceptive! For one, most products have highly optimistic specifications on their product descriptions. They're technically true even though they usually don't work out on paper. People still buy these things because most don't bother to do their own information hunts, which may turn up information planted by people hired by the company concerned anyway.

Living On Borrowed Cultures

The world has a culture. Every culture extant in the world contributes towards this collective culture. One should avoid shunning every other culture just because one believes that one hails from a particular culture. To do so is limiting and often leads to negative discrimination. It is often this obsession with history that causes bigotry and cultural snobbery. If one has the discipline to do so, one should learn to take the best (according to one's gauge) out of every culture encountered and thus improve the culture one is in. Otherwise, the culture would stagnate within the confines it sets for itself and would have a hard time growing.

Adopting aspects of other cultures does not denote losing one's heritage. On the contrary, it adds to one's heritage, for this enables future generations to have more under them than merely what they, as a race, started off with.

One's self identification should not come from the mere sense of belonging to a "community". Chances are that this said "community" would constitute but a fraction of what the world has to offer. It is sad that one can feel lost, uprooted or aimless merely because one does not anchor oneself in the culture of one's ancestors. This is especially true given that the real "culture" in the world is world culture. The problem is that many people have a hard time perceiving this, and choose instead to segregate themselves into cultural cliques, attempting to preserve their cultural "heritage". While easy to maintain, this siege mentality can only lead to the establishment of an "us" and "them", possibly with an unhealthy focus on excluding the "other".

New Hairdo, Camera

I went to the hairdresser's and got myself a butch hairdo today. The weather is really too warm for anything else. Moreover, that hair trim was kinda necessary for other reasons. The hairdresser was really skilled when it came to getting the hair done properly, though.

Went shopping all afternoon just to get the digicam that I figured I could live with. It's harder than it seems, really. The first cam I saw in my (really tight budget) price range was this Panasonic Lumix LS2. I had this strange gut feeling that it was affordable, but not quite the best I could get at that price. I went along to another shopping center full of shops selling digital stuff. As I was browsing the wares of one shop, a particular acrylic signboard of a particular brand of camera came crashing down. Bad sign. I moved on and finally settled on the Lumix LZ3. I know it isn't the best, but at the price range, it's hard to find something that has a stabilizer, 6x zoom and 5 megapixel specs all in a single package.

A New Language

Communicating with humans is like speaking an alien language. Apparently, it isn't sufficient to merely say what one means. One needs to present that information in some pleasant-sounding phrasing, preferably with appropriate body language where applicable. So it is obviously necessary to include all sorts of verbal sugar coating and non-verbal cues to put a single fact across. It would appear that humans are incapable of logically extracting the facts out of the statement without trying to infer whether there's some ulterior motive, some ill will or whatever. Strange creatures, humans.

Knowledge And Wisdom

The trick to dealing with less enlightened mortals is to share just enough wisdom to quit amazing them and begin confusing them. Only then can they begin to consider things beyond what they think they know.

After living through enough incarnations, you quit losing knowledge, though no wisdom is lost. Strange as it may seem, the wisdom can and does carry over. Hard to quantify, wisdom, but it does lend clarity to thought where logical intellectual thinking doesn't always work out. Guess losing memories in the form of lost knowledge isn't entirely bad, since knowledge tends to burden more than it enlightens. After all, what one thinks one knows may restrict what one thinks one can do.

Shoes, Shoes

I can't believe it. After assuming that I had the correct shoe size all this while, I find myself wearing shoes a full size smaller than I had some years back. While I don't think I've actually shrunk, this is a strange implication that I may have been wearing oversized shoes all this while. I always thought the rule of thumb (or index finger) was that one should have a finger's clearance after putting on the shoe. It didn't really occur to me that that was really for when one wasn't wearing thick socks. Seriously whoa. Looks like I can wear smaller shoes after all. Well, that, or I've actually shrunk.

The Simpsonnnsss

I know I'm backdated. There. I've said it. But I've finally watched the first 15 seasons of The Simpsons. Quite a marathon. Unfortunately, it also means that I'll be mighty sad when I get to the end of the series and all that. It's like those times when friends don't talk to you as much once they have partners. Well that, or pardners, if you live on a mountain.

Aye aye. Pendants and no necklaces to go with them. I really can't stand silver, so I'll go for leather and/or other kinds of cord. Tribal, I do be.

Well anyway, I'm still a bit peeved that a certain storm arrived slightly off schedule. Oh why oh why did it not drench those people caught out there in the open. I suppose the skies are more forgiving than I am.

Pink Pearl, Black Rose

I went shopping today and bought myself a black rose pendant. I liked the pendant since some time back, and it was out of stock shortly after I went back again a couple days later. Note to Fenris: First rule of shopping! Anyway, this voucher came with the pendant. One free pearl! Well, like I got in line to claim this pearl, and it turns out that the pearl was to be freshly shucked from an oyster. Horror of horrors, a little creature perished to give me this pretty little pink pearl. The lady before me got a black pearl. Oh Jack Sparrow, how I have failed thee.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

I have been following Desperate Housewives for some seasons now, and I am increasingly feeling the TooMuchOfAGoodThing Syndrome. At first, the scandals and all were well and good. There's no place that doesn't have its share of secrets, even if they're dark ones. However, it becomes absurd when it's clear that almost everyone in the neighbourhood has some real deep, dark secret, and just about everyone involved seems to have some sort of violent and/or murderous solution to their problems. I mean seriously...how many murders can one expect in a community this small! Moreover, the solutions to some problems are plain overkill (pun intended). I think the producers are trying to stuff as many good ideas in to keep the show feeling fresh. Unfortunately, they're only succeeding in making the show increasingly absurd. I guess there's no real way to keep such a series going for long. Not unless you have great minds working on the scripts.

A Cracked Skull

There are some things in the universe that science is currently unable to disprove. People should avoid blinding themselves to the possibilities extant in this reality. Paranormal activities cannot be said to not exist merely because science is unable to find a way to detect their existence. They can be said to not exist only when science can prove without reasonable doubt their actual impossibility. If scientific attention were to be diverted entirely from "superstition", it becomes highly unlikely that such things are actually debunked by good scientific methods. It becomes such that they are assumed to be bunk merely because scientists assume so. Quite a good excuse for running away from a possible truth.

I was enroute home from grocery shopping when I saw an ambulance pull over just ahead. When paramedics came out and pulled on their rubber gloves, mom assumed that something was amiss. It turns out that an old man fell from the stairs some time back and he was lying in a pool of his own clotting blood. I could tell that he was still alive by the color of the body. Nonetheless, old blood is never tempting. Heh. As usual, mom went in for a closer look. I figured I'd just leave him to the paramedics.

Escort Duties

Woke up at 5.30am to escort dad to his medical checkup. That was the idea anyway. Turns out that he didn't want any of it, so I wound up at home wondering at what I should be doing that early in the morning. After a bit of chatting online, dad called back and asked me to go down to the hospital 'coz they may be using anaesthesia. Heh. Well anyway, I went down and waited till the procedure was done (with only local anaesthesia) and escorted him back. It would've probably been easier had I just followed him in the first place. Anyway, the tests turned out ok, so there's no real problem.

Therapy To The Masses

The tyranny of the masses is a strange phenomenon. Truth can be skewed by large numbers of misinformed people believing incorrect things. "Facts" can be blindly followed even though nobody really made an effort to verify them. Worst of all, some people like to believe that their beliefs engender the One Truth. Sometimes, it may be possible that the masses need re-education, not the oppressed minorities. Regular, otherwise potentially socially healthy people are being driven to the fringes on account of their differences. Gone are the days when being left-handed was a dreadful thing, yet negative discrimination still exists amongst the bearers of the "negative" attributes. How strange that some "legal adults" come of age at 18 in some places when they are taken to be adults only at 21 years of age in other places. To be sure, if societies cannot agree on the legal definition of such a simple matter, how can they be so sure that their individually held beliefs are truly appropriate?

A Voice From The Shadows

Sometimes, there are things around that one cannot see. How strangely limiting it is, even when one has eyes. They serve mainly to get people around without stumbling into holes. Anyway, feeling a spot of craving again. That's probably not a good thing, but I have decent self control.

Just a side note to self: Heard a loud explosive sound in the neighbourhood just now. Given that it sounded high up and I don't hear sirens, I figure it isn't anything really major. Perhaps someone's gas tank blew up. In the middle of the night. Whoopee.