Wednesday 16 September 2009

Female Coworkers: Pain in the…

If you have read some of my previous and rather nonsensical blog posts, you might have discovered that I am an old fashioned heterosexual male who doesn’t need to brag about how straight he is.

I have been thinking about a certain issue lately, which I am sure has confronted many men in workforce out there. I am talking about female coworkers. I am not talking about authoritative, intimidating female bosses who look like early incarnations of anti-Christ or the old likes of mothers and grandmothers who have spent their entire life on the same desk and chair under the same roof. I am talking about smoking hot nymphets who despite being quite professional, and reasonably reserve and friendly at the same time can’t help but raise your heartbeat every time they are in closer than usual vicinity in office space.

At the beginning of your career together, you notice their alluring beauty which you find more tantalizing because of possible logistic convenience. You try to concentrate on your work and try to be more professional; partly you want to convince yourself that nothing is wrong and partly because you are afraid that you will get caught even though you did not do anything wrong.

Formal and rather limited conversation with your attractive female coworker can also be problematic on your psychological level. Since you are already charmed by her mesmerisms, you will be naturally compelled to find out if you have somehow the same alluring effect on her. After each conversation with her, you will probably spend hours scrutinizing every word of her mouth, every gesture of her limbs and every twitch of her visible skin to decode her thoughts about yourself and, unfortunately, it is very much possible that she is more indifferent about you than an ocean about the rain. Yet you will inadvertently bring about some odd statistics of her conversations with other male coworkers, her body language around your possible competitions and the number of times she smiled, said 'hello' or said 'goodmorning' to you compared to the others to prove to yourself that on some level she does find you enticing.

One day all of a sudden you’ll notice some most harmlessly common thing about her – it could be her bad mood because of an unrelated matter, her laughter with another coworker compared to her smile with you or her apparent indifference towards you (which could be the result of the change in her nature of work which involves you much less than before) – that you might start to feel rejected by her. You might even begin to blame yourself for being wrong from the very beginning, and reprimand yourself with a chronic guilt and resultant feeling of embarrassment for getting your hopes high on a semi-conscious level.

This, my reader, is unwanted sexual tension which can be very unproductive for your work and career. I have no ultimate solution for this as I have yet to find a 100% effective coping mechanism for such a lunacy which many men experience around the attractive members of fair sex.

I, however, have come to a result that may seem odd to you and can be wrong in some cases but, in my opinion, is true in most situations where romantic men find themselves stranded between love of the fair sex and the lust of the flesh.

My result is, in one way, a solution to most problems caused by sexual tension. There are some smaller points that you should think about before you get to know my final solution:

  • You should not avoid small talk.
  • Talk to her and think of your mother. This will keep you at ease, and keep your conversation normal and candid but within formal bounds.
  • Try to think of her as a brain and not the body, and a brain which might be superior to yours. This will bring you in a competitive mood which might help you focus on your work more.
  • If you are like me and believe in superiority of human race above all other creatures, then think of her as a sexless member a no-nonsense species of living organisms. I love science and philosophy but they keep me distracted from my more animalistic instincts.
  • This might offend some women and feminists, but think of her someone who needs your help and guidance and think of yourself somewhat of a mentor in a superior position. This sense of superiority might help you be more indifferent to her sex appeal and more focused on office work.
  • Let her talk when she wants to talk at length and of course time permitting. You might find out that she just finds you friendly as a human being and likes you to listen to her. Nothing less, nothing more.

And here is my final but rather crude solution. If you can tell your hot coworker a really dirty and vulgar joke and laugh with her without any fear of a formal complaint or lawsuit against you, then rest assured that, at least for you, she is a really hot man in woman’s disguise which nature gave her.

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Review: Stay away from Rock Mobile Disk

If you use "External Hard Drive" as keywords on eBay, you will find that an image that constantly appears in search results is following:


I bought two of those in 2007. One in May and second in June, 500GB each. I paid $140+ for each. The one that I bought in May, I used to store enormous amount of pictures which are inevitable in this day and age of digital cameras. I had to use ACDSee to regularly organize pictures on it.
In about May 2008, exactly after one year after its purchase, it completely gave up on me and I regularly began to hear the dreaded click of death whenever I tried to access it. I lost all of my pictures. I had no backup. In fact I was quite satisfied that now I had this mass storage which had sole purpose of storing images, I had nothing to worry about. Silly me.
It all happened when I used Windows Disk Defragmenter. So I figured maybe this was the culprit. I checked the second hard drive that I bought in June 2007. It had videos on it and I did not use it as often. It had huge number of bad sectors. I had not used Windows Disk Defragmenter on this one. It was slowly giving up on me. By experience, I estimated that it would completely give up in June 2008, if I accessed it a few more times. I bought a 1TB external hard drive from FutureShop and transfered all of my data on to the new one and never used Rock Mobile Disk again.
Now I noticed something else. External hard drive that I bought from FutureShop, hardly ever got even warm, whereas Rock Mobile Disk heated up so quickly and so much so that you could hardly touch it.
Then I decided to open the disk with click of death.
I removed all four tiny screws. Two at the top and two at the bottom; see picture (only top screws shown):

Then you can pull the covers sideways to remove them. Following is a picture of front of the disk with the cover removed:

Following is a picture of back of the disk with the cover removed:


See following two pictures and see how they fit the hard drive in the casing. They used pieces of cardboard:



Here's another picture. I have pulled out all the pieces of cardboard and put them beside the hard drive:


Here's how to pull the hard drive out of the casing:


Look at the following close-up of the hard drive, and the close-up after that. Try reading the label and pay attention to the condition of the lable:


In above two pictures, you can clearly see that the hard drive is manufactured by Western Digital. The seal has been deliberately damaged. I assume whoever is selling these hard drives has got a bulk of faulty hard drives which are doomed to fail after much shorter than normal use and he/she is selling them as external hard drives by enclosing them in cheap casings. The label of the hard drive clearly instructs not to cover any holes and the casing is essentially airtight with no possibility of ventilation for the hard drive whatsoever. An over heated hard drive is more easily prone to failure. Any quality external hard drive's casing should have a way of cooling for the hard drive. The hard drive that I bought from FutureShop is from a well known company and, as I said before, doesn't heat up like a Rock Mobile Disk.
If you do a Google search for Rock Mobile Disk, you'll never find the manufacturer's web site. The only web sites you'll find will be either auction web sites or the forums with heaps of complaints about this product. Here's another assumption for your thought: Rock Mobile Disk is a phony company which only manufactures or supplies cheap, low quality casings for the standard hard drives.
There is no question, these external hard drives sure look good on internet and cause a lot of bid wars which result in inflated prices. These external hard drives with added shipping & handling charges, cost more than a high quality product with same capacity bought from a well known retail store.
Here are some tips to keep yourself safe from rip-off known as Rock Mobile Disk:
  • If you are bidding online on one of these, stop. Pull out your bid if you can or hope someone outbids you. Alert the bidding site about the possible fraud.
  • Do a survey of your local computer retail stores and compare prices. I bet you'll find a better hard drive at much lower price.
  • If you are currently using a so-called Rock Mobile Disk, make a copy of all the data in it and to prevent any possibility of data loss, stop using it. You have been a victim of internet rip-off like me. Don't lament. Help prevent such frauds.
  • If you have won a bid on one of these disks and haven't paid yet, then don't pay. Negotiate with the bidding site and let them know about the situation involving possible fraud. I hope they'll understand.
If you have any further information, if you want more information added to this blog entry or if you have relevant links to share please feel free to leave a comment. You don't have to register to do so.
Be safe and prevent fraud!

Saturday 4 April 2009

Swat girl's public sexual exploitation

A video that has recently surfaced (kudos to Geo TV), has left Pakistan in shock. It shows a girl being beaten by a flog by a bearded man while others were holding her from arms, legs and sides of the chest, in the presence of dozens of onlookers, all men. This happened in Swat where Taliban are spreading like cancer.



I, myself, haven't been able to watch this video in its entirety. I have even seen beheadings of men on TV and internet without getting much disturbed but cannot bear to see this video. It's too much.

A point, that much of Pakistani media has largely ignored or has not dared to say given the unanimous support for censorship of sexual discussion on TV, is that at one point in the video, you can clearly see the girl being hit on her buttocks. Consequently, her posterior shook and moved as a perfectly natural reflex to sudden pain. The girl was fairly young, some media report her as 17-year-old, and this scene of her backside in that kind of environment was equivalent to a woman being publicly stripped to her undergarments in a western country.

This is obviously sexual exploitation if not rape. There is no denial that biologically a woman's posterior is a cause of sexual attraction for men and this girl's was hit publicly without any regard for her privacy and self-respect for a crime which was not proven by any law, Islamic or secular. (Most secular laws and procedures in the West are very similar to those in Islam.)

A human being's buttocks by any scale are a sexual part and violation of this part is sexual exploitation and abuse. These men should be arrested and tried under Pakistani laws for sexual abuse and believe me the punishment for sexual abuse in Pakistan is extremely harsh and even life threatening.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Thursday 8 January 2009

Israel and Anti-Semitism

Since the start of recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, I couldn't help but think why is West so adamant in supporting Israel and its "right to exist", against all reasons and logics or any political or diplomatic morality.
Right to Exist; it is a loaded phrase with multi-faceted explanation. The very use of the phrase "right to exist" implies that, although, the user of these three words knows that the existence of Israel is inherently wrong and illegal, however, s/he should support its existence to maintain status quo. Another explanation that entails its use is that the user of the phrase is saying, "Now that Israel has emerged on earth's map and we are not able to falsify this reality, although we don't like it, we will have to accept its existence and accept that Israel has raised its stakes so high which cannot be competed in order to diminish it."
Any student of history with a keen eye on the background of creation of this Jewish state knows that its creation was both morally and legally wrong, although many wouldn't admit it.
The question still remains unanswered: "Why is West so adamant in supporting Israel and its 'right to exist'?"
One explanation is the anti-Semitism in West which reached its culmination in the form of Hitler's Nazi ideology. West knows that cooking Jews like Hitler is no more an option; therefore, only workable way of getting rid of them is to send them some place where they would be more than happy to go and stay. Hence, the existence of Israel and its support. In my opinion, the very notion of supporting Israel is in itself deeply and inherently anti-Semitic. Many supporters of this country equate supporting Israel with supporting Jews, which is also a very misguided notion. Israel is the creation of a group of people comprised of Jews and Christians which completely ignored the war crimes against Jewish people in WWII. They had their own agenda and that was not the well being of Jewish people. Their agenda was to benefit a select group of people which did not represent all Jewish but a subgroup of Jews with extremist militant inclination called Zionists.
Flag waving support for Israel in West is instrumental in drawing idealistic picture of Israel as a land of Jews among young Jewish population. Engraving a utopian depiction of Israel in the young Jewish minds is essential to make sure that these young boys and girls will easily be brain washed into leaving West to permanently settle in Israel. The feud of Palestinians and other Middle Eastern countries with Israel is understandable as they have lost an entire country to aliens and they are left with two strips of land with overly congested population living in same conditions as Jews in European ghettos. When some misguided Arabs launch a couple of mostly ill-aimed rockets which land in Israel, they are not hurting Israeli people. They are hurting that utopian picture of Israel that is depicted for Jews living in West and the utopian ideology is to be protected at any cost even if it means obliterating the rest of Palestine.
Believe it or not, Israel is the foremost cause of anti-Semitism around the world. This country has done more harm than good for Jews. If you study the history of Jews, you will notice that they were one of the most oppressed people in Europe. Historically, whenever Jews suffered and were kicked out of their homes and land, the only place they found refuge and which served as sanctuary for them for centuries was Muslim empire. Many would argue against Muslims not giving Jews share in government or powerful government positions. That maybe so, however, there was no bar on Jews from getting into non-political or non-governmental jobs and they actually prospered under Muslim rulers. Others might argue about the status of Jews. It must be understood that every country has its laws and its citizens must abide by them if they want to live in that country. Laws in parts of Muslim empire required all non-Muslims to pay a certain protection tax which included Jews. It must be mentioned, however, that Jews and Christians enjoyed better status compared to other non-Muslims because they were (and still are) people of the book, followers of Islamic prophets. Muslim governments never discriminated against Jews and treated them same as any other non-Muslim citizens. Anti-Semitism in Muslim empire was non existent.
Now that same Muslim empire has divided into many countries and almost all of these countries have unfriendly stance towards Jews as they see them as the representatives of Israel, an oppressor which has captured Muslim land illegally and kills and is still killing thousands of Muslims.
History is the witness; there was zero anti-Semitism in Muslim countries before the creation of Israel. Now they are topping the list of anti-Jewish countries. Who is to blame?
In USA, conservative ideologists are the strongest supporters of Israel. Southern USA is famous for being conservative and following two videos are evidence of anti-Semitism in USA which is often not expressed as it is considered politically wrong:



Wednesday 7 January 2009

Stupid Men of Sitcoms

A couple days ago Mike Stafford of AM640 was ranting about how media portrays men as stupid goofs and women as the ones running the business of life. For the most part he was ok until he started to name the titles of sitcoms which depicted man of the house as an utter idiot and while wife was the one where all wisdom resided. Following four sitcoms were named often by Mike and by the callers who mostly agreed with him. Most caller know that if they disagree with The Holy Mike Stafford, they will be cut off then mocked and insulted without any chance of response from them. Here are the sitcoms that came up:

  1. King of Queens (Doug Heffernan)
  2. Everybody Loves Raymond (Raymond “Ray” Barone)
  3. Home Improvement (Tim Taylor)
  4. According to Jim (Jim)

Following is a brief sketch of these male characters:
Doug Haffernan
He is fat, loves to eat, loves to hang out with friends and he has no ambition what-so-ever. He is very well contended with his life and job; however, it does bother him occasionally when the circumstances force him to acknowledge that his wife makes more money than him. His wife, Carrie, is clearly much more intelligent than him; she is ambitious and always enthusiastic about progress in life. Doug is clumsy and often has hard time understanding often simple things. He is often childish and impulsive but not more than his father-in-law who lives with the couple and, simply put, is an adult baby, often tended by his daughter who acts more like a mother of her own father. Alright, Doug Haffernan is stupid.
Raymond “Ray” Barone
Raymond, mostly referred to as Ray, is clearly and utterly stupid but somehow a gifted sportswriter. He cannot pronounce many of the words properly and doesn’t seem to be very verbose. Yet he is a successful sportswriter. He often has problem understanding simplest of family issues. He doesn’t have any particular talent and is proudly clumsy. He has a relatively happy life and a strong financial position still he loves to complain. He has whiny nasal voice which becomes even more annoying when he slants single words to the length of half a sentences while acting like an adult child. He often argues with his hot (but not) wife on his self-centered non-issues. His wife, Debra, is perfect in every way except that she cannot often cope with the stupidity of his male in-laws and mischievousness of her only female in-law, Marie. In conclusion, yes, this sitcom’s got a lota stupid men.
Tim Taylor
I haven’t seen much of Home Improvement but I can tell that the man’s got a hot wife and he’s an idiot of sorts. However, his level of moronity (I am trying to invent a word here) is not as high as his friend’s, who is his co-host in a TV show titled Home Improvement (coincidence? Maybe.). In addition, he’s a got a shady neighbor who is always available when his wife needs to complain about her husband and seek advice. A wise man never lets his wife share her secrets and regrets with other men. Moral: Tim Taylor is not a wise man; he’s a stupid.
Jim
Also known as University of Jim, he looks stupid, acts stupid but is not stupid. Yeah, I know, this last sentence had a lot of stupid in it but Jim isn’t part of it. Despite his laziness and apparent clumsiness, Jim is one of the most intelligent characters in the sitcom. He runs his own construction company, keeps his business smooth and customers happy. This requires a lot of intelligence and leadership capabilities. At home, he lets the household business go by on its own and intervenes only when it’s needed. He often argues with his wife on seemingly petty issues, however, most male viewers would easily agree with his stance on household conflicts, which is just common male sense. On the other hand, his wife, Cheryl, is naive and impulsive. She is always trying and planning to outsmart Jim with the help of her conniving sister, Dana, and more than often she fails. Even when, Dana, who openly expresses her utter contempt for her brother-in-law, is rescued and comforted by Jim by his words of wisdom reflecting his profound understanding of life. Jim enjoys sincere respect of his wife’s brother and other co-workers. He, being deprived of father’s love at an early age, is very sensitive to his family’s needs and is often overprotective of his wife and children. It is his that kindness by which he has taken his wife’s siblings under his protective wing.
On the other hand, Jim likes and enjoys keeping his inner child happy as a result of which he often finds himself involved in unnecessary one-on-one fights. He doesn’t mind a happy night of roaming the streets while drunk along with intoxicated friends. He is always a ring leader and never stays behind when it comes to partying or music. In conclusion, with all of his humanly shortcomings, the character of Jim is different from all lead males from other three sitcoms. Jim is a character who acts stupid to get out of chores while other three are genuinely stupid. He is the most lovable character in all four sitcoms.

Friday 2 January 2009