all things me

These are wonderful!

• Fun Movie Quiz (score so far: 13. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to write for picture 27!)
• Fun Movie Quiz part 2 (score so far: 15)
• Intelligence Test, Part 1 (score so far: 10)
• Intelligence Test, Part 2

Yeah yeah, it’s ‘quizzes’ but it’s odd how the z doubles.

Intelligence test part 1:
7 days of the week
4 signs of the zodiac
32 is the temperature in degrees fahrenheit at which water freezes
100 cents in a dollar
12 months in a year
13 is unlucky for some
29 days in february in a leap year
365 days in a year
52 weeks in a year
60 minutes in an hour
1000 years in a millennium

After having been a project manager for a week now I’ve started to get annoyed by the technical people. I’m willing to work without a lunch break (let alone coffee or cigarette breaks (I do drink coffee, but I don’t smoke)) to get something urgent done — I did that on Friday — and in my naïvete I expect everyone else to do the same. I was furious when the person who was supposed to be working on an urgent project (deadline on Monday) was nowhere to be seen. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to do something snap, right there and then. I realise the work isn’t progressing, so I’ll probably have to do it myself on Monday. I can’t really tell the client that I couldn’t keep the deadline because the others weren’t doing their jobs, can I?

I know I’m horrible. I’m sure the others have lots and lots of more work to do than I — even if they have time to frolic and complain that they’re bored. On Friday I was panicking about the deadline and they laughed that I’ll probably throw something heavy at them. I couldn’t, I was too tired.

I’ll be very glad when this 2-week multiple personality disorder is over. I don’t mind doing the technical stuff and I don’t mind doing the project manager stuff (it’s been, despite everything I’ve just said, very interesting and refreshingly challenging). But I can’t do them both, full-time, simultaneously.

Despot — a person exercising power tyrannically

Picture of Mitler from South Park Create A Character

Nowadays I can’t help but feel like a procrastinator in everything else but work. The infamous magazine article is still waiting for a final glance which shouldn’t be such a big hurdle but in reality I’m terrified. An ontology is waiting to be built, an article waiting to be read, and I haven’t played in ages (except Minesweeper)!

Yesterday I did manage to finish something: a website for a relative, an entrepreneur. Usually I hate taking the smaller screens and Internet Explorers in consideration but this time I had to because of the target audience. It wasn’t so bad after all — no mysterious spaces after I put a doctype on the page. I even left the font size to default and it scales to humongous proportions (on Mozilla and Firefox). Then again, having the doctype in place, I couldn’t do trickery in order to get the smallish boxish page center vertically. Oh well, usability over looks — that’s the way to go. It’s valid XHTML and looks alright even when you remove all the images. No fancy-schmancy JavaScript either. I even made a special stylesheet for printing! Ah, gotta pat myself on the shoulder for once.

Here’s a little tasting. Nothing fancy.

This time next year I will be in Australia.

It’s weird to know that already but not be able to do much about it really. There are no flight schedules available yet and I have to double check how much information I’ll need for a visa application (possibly flight details). Hopefully I’m eligible for an ETA because I don’t want to mail (!!!) my precious passport to Berlin! I do have to get a new one — and photos for it, uhh — so there’s something to keep me occupied.

Yesterday I was browsing a little, checking the prices (ouch), flight times (gosh), and places where I’d need to change planes (yikes). It’s going to be wonderful, though, no matter the cost. I’ll be in Sydney for about 3 weeks. First for a friend’s wedding, then a week dog-sitting while the happy couple is on a honeymoon, and then a week doing touristy things.

I haven’t travelled abroad properly before. I was 4 days in Berlin with a school group (teacher + 4 students including myself) and “of course” I’ve been to Stockholm, Sweden quite a few times thanks to a childhood (onwards) friend and her mother’s job. Now, in addition to going very far I’ll be going by myself which is going to be stressful but I hope I’ll get back home in one piece (and I hope my luggage will, too).

For the whole story, see category Tourist of Oz.

Oi, how some people complain every time there’s a new .x upgrade to WordPress. “Why couldn’t they make it good enough the first time around?” “Upgrading is such a draaaaaag.” So, you’d rather have an upgrade every 2-5 years at most? You’d rather wait that long for a cool new tweak in a feature or a fix to a flaw? Why is it so difficult to grasp the concept of an on-going open source project where the users actually have a say in what the “product” is going to be like? (And at the same time everyone complains how Microsoft and Mr. Gates are so dictatorial.)

After theme structure was introduced to WP, upgrading changed from pretty simple to very simple. Unless you want to go hacky-hacky with the core code, I don’t see any problem with deleting a couple of files and uploading a couple. Sure, there are some files and folders you’re better off not deleting, but there aren’t so many you couldn’t remember them all. All the important stuff is in the database which you don’t touch during the upgrade.

Simple.

Or am I just too happy-go-lucky?

Well, I am happy and lucky at least: today I was asked if I’d be a project manager. I wouldn’t be full-time PM because I want and need to be able to do the technical stuff, too, but I wouldn’t necessarily have to do the mundane technical stuff. They want me to find someone to do that.

Why is it that when I ask a question to which I want an actual answer, it’s next to impossible to know if the answer can be taken seriously? Is it a Man Thing^TM to smirk while replying — always?

On my regular just-checking-out-the-prices trip to a couple of stores resulted this time in “Saw” DVD and a triple pack of CSI games (it was Winter-een-mas, so I guess that was allowed). I had read how horrible the first CSI game was but I wanted to try them out, nevertheless.

The first CSI reminded me of the X-Files game where you didn’t have much freedom of movement, you just needed to spot evidence on the screen, click it and use a proper tool, or go around asking questions in pre-set order. CSI didn’t offer much of an intellectual challenge in the figuring-out part but playing peek a boo with the drops of blood or tiny threads of fiber was difficult enough (although the hotspot cursor spoiled some of the fun, but also saved a couple of moments of frustration). Second CSI, Dark Motives, introduced difficulty levels which allowed me to turn off those active hotspots (cursor changes when there’s something to examine) and other help features. I played with “auto-evidence questions” off as long as I could stand the repetitive reply of “I don’t know anything about that” and “Why you asking me?” every time I dragged and dropped an evidence over a suspect to bring out new questions. In CSI:Miami (in progress), in addition to the continuing “why you asking me” torture, there are more puzzles with crypted emails and torn notes which is nicely refreshing after the first two just-drop-it-on-the-lab-guy games. Alas, it’s CSI:Miami with the Horrendous Horatio.

The characters don’t look much like the real actors but at least they’ve got real voices (I once heard a smile in Nick Stokes’s voice!) and there are too few cases to play but still I’ve enjoyed the brief moments of heureka I get — when active hotspots aren’t enabled.

As usual, a meme picked up at Jafer‘s.

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Office assistant
2. Sales assistant
3. Research assistant
4. CAT support
(I’m glad this is only a four meme )

Four movies you would watch over and over again:
1. Indiana Jones(es)
2. Matrix(es)
3. Moulin Rouge
4. something very very good that’s yet to come…? (aka I can’t think of any)

Four places you have lived:
1. Espoo
2. Helsinki
3. Kirkkonummi
4. Vantaa

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. The X-Files
2. Gilmore Girls
3. CSI
4. any scientific (or -ish) documentary

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Kuopio, Finland
2. Seinäjoki, Finland
3. Berlin, Germany (4 days)
4. Nummi-Pusula where we had a summer cottage

Four web-sites I visit daily:
1. University email
2. Homepage (to check mail + comments)
3. Ctrl-Alt-Del
4. Jay Is Games

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Feta-cheese and spinach pie
2. Noodles
3. Blue cheese
4. Pasta

Four places I’d rather be right now:
1. Next to a radiator
2. Sauna
3. Sleeping
4. Watching TV (gotta go!)

Four victims for this meme:
Nah, if someone wants to do this, let ’em.

Apparently I’ve been mistaken for an advertisement board. The phone I bought contained a pre-installed software for a wrong service provider. When I turn off the phone, it first displays this huge red logo for that wrong service provider and then Nokia (which I don’t mind). I guess when I turn on the phone it displays the same logo. The software is for easy-to-use WAP services which I wouldn’t mind, if they weren’t from the wrong service provider, thus unavailable to me. I wrote an angryish comment to the company (which sold the phone, not the wrong service provider) asking if the software could be removed, and the response was “the software must be updated, which costs 25 €”. So, I’ll just have to live with it. Perhaps one day I’ll make the wrong service provider a right one, if they offer good prices (I haven’t got a bill from my current provider yet — that’s how inexpensive they are), and can actually use the services already installed on my phone and flashing that annoying red logo in my face. Until then, I just have to keep my phone on all the time.

Hindsight is 20-20; I maybe should’ve asked if they had a phone without the darn pre-installed software. Or maybe I should’ve taken my money elsewhere. Agh, I’m so stupid. (But I still love my despite its huge red flaw!)

On January 22nd my domain’s been up for a year which means it’s expiring on that day. I just wrote an email to the hosting company, hoping to get a response that “yes, your site is not going to die”. I’m afraid, very afraid. I’ll have to back up everything by the end of this week — just in case. I don’t have much to complain about the company, but people haven’t been getting bills to pay. There has also been a couple of MySQL problems, but at least I haven’t bumped into one in a while. They now supposedly have servers in Europe which sounds good.

That’s all. Over and out.

Oh yeah, I love my !

[update Jan 19] They automatically continue the domain+”account” so I have nothing to worry about. [/update]