totally useless trivia (a.k.a. side effects of an MBA)

on math

• there are 65536 rows in an Excel worksheet.
• the last column is in an Excel worksheet is IV (not ZZ).

on music

• certain brands of water dispensers burst into a rousing honky-tonk chorus of (i swear it was Beethoven!) when they need refilling.

on geography

• there is a remote but quaint and picturesque village situated on the border of Negeri Sembilan and Selango. so do residents get to celebrate public holidays of both states? or do the holidaying people stand at the border marker and laugh at the people on the other side who are toiling away while the people on the holidaying side get to lie in? or maybe they just have houses/offices on both sides of the border so they can lay claim to both holidays.. ok this discussion has got to stop.

on systems integration

• if an organisation shifts premises, the new and old systems will not be integrated such that you get to print reams and reams of draft dissertations for free in the old campus [now wait a minute, this is NOT useless info!]

(by the way, yes, i'm still taking suggestions for the previous post on Flash ActionScript :))

MBA: Must Bind Already!

0000 hrs - falling asleep
0015 hrs - ok let's make a mug of hot milk (btw, coffee, milk, tea, it ain't got no difference to my system. yeah, i'm just kidding myself)
0100 hrs - falling asleep again
0130 hrs - OMIGOSH IT'S 1.30!!
0200 hrs - falling asleep again
0230 hrs - OMIGOSH IT'S 2.30!!
0300 hrs - need another mug of milk so i can look over the conclusion again
0330 hrs - aiee!! the conclusion ain't concluding!!
0400 hrs - i .. need .. to .. sleep ..
0410 hrs - set alarm at 0555 hrs, maximum volume.
0600 hrs - OMIGOSH! it's thursday! no wait, it was thursday long ago! duh!
0630 hrs - now WHAT was the last thing i looked at last night?
0700 hrs - edit edit edit
0800 hrs - edit edit edit
0900 hrs - no thanks, i'll just have milk for breakfast, edit edit edit
0930 hrs - OMIGOSH i need to PRINT!
0940 hrs - OMIGOSH the wordings on the chart din come out!
0941 hrs - OMIGOSH it's raining!
0945 hrs - hello ah, i'm the person who called yesterday about hard-cover binding for my thesis.. can wait a bit? maybe, er, half an hour... you see, i'm still printing, and it's just started to rain... (the quintessential Malaysian excuse)... sorry ah... i'm coming soon... thank you...
0950 hrs - OMIGOSH! i'm still PRINTING!
1000 hrs - count count count count
1005 hrs - where ARE my car keys?
1010 hrs - oh man, my car is ALL the way up the hill!
1020 hrs - why are all the traffic lights red when you need them green?
1025 hrs - a parking space! yess!!
1030 hrs - so, tomorrow still can ah, around 1pm? ok.. thank you, thank you..

pests

a PEST analysis of people who should be banned from Earth:

(PEST, in the context of business strategy, refers to Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. The acronym happens to be quite fitting of the topic!)

on Political factors:

- George W. Bush

on Economic factors:

- telemarketers who tell you they will only take 2 minutes of your time. [this results in misallocation of scarce resources (i.e. time)!]
- an extension of the above - telemarketers who call your home, find out that you're not in, and then coerce the poor person at home to giving away your mobile number by saying that they are your "friend".
- direct-selling salesmen who tell you they will only take 2 minutes of your time..
- come to think of it, any unsolicited salesperson (with apologies to all you irritating sales people).

on Social factors:

- it used to be people who asked when i would get married. it's somehow evolved to people who ask when i will convert the empty room in the house into a nursery. and by the way, i'm not even married yet.

on Technological factors:

- people who forward you a ludicrous virus warning (you know, the stuff that wipes out your entire C drive, deletes all dll files, the existence of which is confirmed by IBM, AOL, Intel, Netscape and Microsoft) and when gently told it's a hoax, indignantly reply "sure, that's what they say, but there is no harm in distributing these warnings - you NEVER know! better safe than sorry! prevention is better than cure!"
- people who forward you an email with six pages of old email headers and the long-awaited actual e-mail content reads "this is a good luck charm... "
- people (of any age) who refuse to touch a PC [if my once PC-illiterate retiree dad can now check stock quotes online and engage in online discussions with automobile interest groups, YOU have no excuse! ;-) ]
- the people who, when told "Help, MyDoom has infected this PC", reply, "Your what?" [i know i've repeated this too many times.. i guess i still haven't gotten over it ... :-D]