For all the trolls

Without telling you who I am, this is who I am.

You are "Brian Griffin"!

The brain in your group, your politics are important to you - unless you have had too much to drink. You are fiercely loyal, almost to a fault since your friends are so screwed up. But hey, they're your friends and if you leave, who else is going to feed you?

Get a Life

While at work today, a light bulb hit me in the face. No not a real light bulb, but the ones that spark brilliant ideas (well brilliant for my standards). I only just realised that although my blog looks nice and tidy, most of my blogs are quite short.
Thats because of 2 reasons.
1) I'm too lazy
2) I don't have a patience to write for long periods

And apparently a picture is worth a thousand words. So today's blog is worth 1086 words and I'm going to start incorporating some pictures (when viable) to the blog.

Dennis Rodman Syndrome

There are many types of identity.
Work identity, dependable, comes in first in the morning, last to leave.
School identity, class clown, has potential to do very well if only he would commit to it.
Internet identity, whatever you are in real life you are the exact opposite here.

Identity is the make-up of what we are, who we are.
A topic I have read upon is personal identity, what is it that makes you, well.....you?
Are you you because you look a particular way. I know you are you because you have that crooked nose, that ungainly smile. If you suddenly have a face transplant...are you still you? I surely won't recognise you and it would take a great deal of convincing otherwise.
Or are you you because of what is in your mind. What you know is who you are, what you do and act upon is who you are. When you wake up in the morning, you don't have to open your eyes and check in the mirror to know you are you. You wake up and think...I need to do this today and why did I wake up so early...again.

Or do we have to be both. Do we have to look like ourselves and act like ourselves to be...us.

Are we still ourselves if we have Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia or bipolar?
Are we still ourselves if we have a horrible accident that disfigures us?
Are we still ourselves once we die?

Hippo in front of Campus

I had an idea for my blog today but as usual I did not note it down, and I have totally forgotten what it was about. I have had many distractions and somewhere in the chaos, I left my memory somewhere.

Memory is such a fragile thing. It is so important that we have memory. Without it, there would be no such thing as emotions and/or feelings. There can be no happiness and there cannot be sadness.

There are different types of memory. Those that make up who we are, we know our names our abilities, these are the things help to make up our identity.

Others such as muscle memory, which help us to do certain things with multiple exposures or after many practice sessions.

Of course there are other types of memories but I'm not a doctor and you did not come here for a lesson in how memory works.

While typing this blog out, I have actually remembered what I wanted to really blog about, but that will have to wait for tomorrow or perhaps another day. (p.s. this blog was a memory cue)

Don't take your memory for granted or you'll end up like Charlton Heston or HM (refer: http://ahsmail.uwaterloo.ca/kin356/ltm/declarative.htm) .

Remember to thank your memory before you go to bed tonight and any other night that you remember.

No such thing as a free lunch.

There are many ways companies try and entice us to buy there products. The most common of them all is sales. 20% off...50% off...one day only! Infomercials would use the classic line...and thats not all...if you call within the next 15 minutes we'll thrown in this hunk of junk...a $20 value...FREE! More recently with the failing economy, companies use the interest free lay-by to get sales.

Sometimes it's the small little details that people like, and what I like about when buying products is a 24 hour helpline. These are numbers you can ring at any time of the night and ask for help on your product. Now, let me ask you...when is this not a good thing?

New Zealand: 0800 2xx-xx6

After 3 automated questions, I get a person with an Indian accent. The line quality is really bad. The person on the end of the line asks all these questions that you know what you need to tell him before he asks the question. He doesn't fix your problem. You ring again, you get someone from Canada, who doesn't fix your problem. He gets his supervisor...he's from some other country.

Couldn't I just have told him my problem and he goes about the quickest way to fix my problem, and if he knew he couldn't do it, then he should have gotten someone who could have?

No...that would be too easy.

Reality 500km Ahead

Dreams. There are those that say that dreams have meaning. Perhaps they are our subconscious coming to life. Dreams are a place where they have the power to control, to bend our will to their liking.

Dreams can be very powerful, vivid. Nightmares are just unpleasant dreams. We can wake up screaming, drenched in sweat. So unpleasant was that dream, we perhaps refuse to go back to sleep and/or wake up our partner to confess the dealings we just had and for them to comfort us. Most of the time, the dreams or nightmares fade away very quickly unless we talk about them in great detail straight away.

However, when do dreams become reality? If I have a dream and I write it down for all to see? When it becomes a best selling book? or is it as simple as telling someone within earshot?

Maybe we should treat dreams like a favourite tv program with us as the main character or narrative.

Tune in next time, same Bat time, same Bat channel...same Bat dream?

Secret Shame

There are things people like to do. We like to go shopping with our friends, we eat out, we go and play sports. These things are all human nature and are considered normal.

There are other things that are part of everyday life that are considered normal, but because of how we go about doing them make them weird. It can be a daunting chore for most people but is considered enjoyable to you. It can be a time consuming task, and in this day and age where time is so precious why would you want to do it.

To me washing the dishes is a thankless chore, it is time consuming and really doesn't benefit us that much except to get dirty again, and yet we have to do it because of hygiene reasons. However one of my friends likes to wash the dishes because he said it relaxes him, he whistles when he does it and even volunteers to do my dishes.

Perhaps it isn't such a secret shame but to me it's filthy!

Magic Mix

"A friend in need is a friend indeed. "
- Placebo

Friends are normally made by a common interest. We go to school together, we work together. In this day and age, we are more likely to make friends outside of these interests, e.g. our hobbies, the gym, cooking classes. More than not, we probably won't have that much in common except for how we meet but...opposites attract right?

Are friendships better made when you don't have that something in common? When it is an act of selflessness or altruism? Wouldn't you feel very grateful that someone disadvantages themselves to help you out? Would you not feel compelled to better of those people, even if it is trivial like lending you a food processor when your blender is broken?

"A friend is someone you can use over and over and over and over and over..."
- Ancient coffee mug quote

Short Fat and Dumb

I was thinking that if I ever get the chance to choose a flatmate, I would definitely choose someone from overseas than choose someone from the local populace.

Local people are to me uncultured, demanding, inpatient and arrogant. Whereas people from overseas are having overseas experience (possible not the first time). Having learnt from other cultures their eyes are open to different perspectives. If you tell them something, they will stop and think about it before agreeing disagreeing or having no opinion to the matter.

People from overseas also have a high chance of speaking another language. Not only do they learn something from your culture, but you get to learn something from theirs. You can swap languages, music and probably most importantly, food.

Next time you get to choose a flatmate, choose the one with the cute accent.

Our own worst enemy

Being sick is horrible. You don't feel like yourself. You feel drained. You don't want to do much.

Thank Allah we have medicine to make life bearable.

I got to thinking however, there are many diseases and illness that are a natural progression. But how many illness are cause by us humans because of our ever expanding technology?

An example would be swimming pools. Public swimming pools are a great place, it is clean and fun. To keep it clean they need to put chlorine into the pool, but this can cause skin welts and rashes. So to combat this, we put on vaseline and wash with aqueous cream.
Another would be side effects to drugs e.g. the pill makes woman fat etc

How many other illnesses are caused by our need to have a better life, a more comfortable life.