Too much Tea can make you Sick

When I was sick, I used to drink lots of hot tea. Tea is a good drink as it is soothing and hot. That combination really alleviates all the symptoms related with sickness.

Yesterday, I was somewhat sick. However after drinking litres of tea, I felt great, and even in the evening, I was strong and confident enough to get out of home and hit a few golf balls. However after that, I had trouble sleeping. Too much tea = too much caffeine - which in turn made it difficult for me to sleep. At the end, I didn't catch a wink, and got sick again in the morning.

Careful, and don't end up sick like me by trying to get to smart for his own good.

Which Tarot Card are you?

Just did this for fun. You might enjoy it also!

You are The Chariot

Triumph, Victory, Overcoming Obstacles.

The chariot is one of the most complex cards to define. On its most basic level, it implies war, a struggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory. Either over enemies, obstacles, nature, the beasts inside you, or to just get what you want. But there is a great deal more to it. The charioteer wears emblems of the sun, yet the sign behind this card is the moon. The chariot is all about motion, and yet it is often shown as stationary. It is a union of opposites, like the black and white steeds. They pull in different directions, but must be (and can be!) made to go together in one direction. Control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs, people, circumstances; bring them together and give them a single direction, your direction. Confidence is also needed and, most especially, motivation. The card can, in fact, indicate new motivation or inspiration, which gets a stagnant situation moving again.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Need to Get GTR-Evolution

Just found out that in the new edition of GTR-Evolution, I'm actually one in the roster of drivers in the game :P

In the GP Club class, I'm in one of the teams. The details are as follows:

Car Model: Gillet Vertigo Streiff
Class: GT Club
Number: 101
Team: Sebastian Schillag & Pisal Setthawong
Sponsor: Ecurie Gillet

Now I just have to find a place that retails that game. Got to get to the licensed PC gameshop at Mahboonkrong. Hopefully they would have a copy of the game :P

Safe Internet on Public Terminals

Using public computers is a risky endeavor, and there are certainly numerous ways that you can easily get hacked. That is especially risky if you are logging to accounts that deal with money (e.g. credit card transaction and etc), in which you can easily get into alot of trouble.

Due to that, I would like to write just a few short tips that might help keep you save if you are planning to use the Internet on Public Terminals. I'll try to keep the guidelines short and easy :P

1) Don't use public terminals when on the go!
If it isn't necessary don't use public terminals if possible. If you don't expose yourself, you won't get into trouble. However this isn't quite possible is it?

2) Access only low priority accounts
If you really need to access your accounts on public terminals, it is also a good idea to access low priority accounts. In other words, access emails that are not critical to you. Don't access your bank online from public terminals! That is certainly a really dangerous thing to do.

3) Logout and Delete all Cookies and Caches from Your Browser after Finishing Usage
This is one method that has been highly touted as a way to keep yourself especially safe when you are logging into a public termainal. Though this method can prevent most kinds of unauthorized access to your site, certain programs embedded in public computers by hackers such as keyboard loggers can easily figure your account and password easily. Due to this, there is another precaution that could help.

4) Copy and Paste Passwords Letter by Letter
Here is one under-utilized technique that can easily prevent keyboard loggers from finding your account and password. Try opening up a random website and copy letters from the webpage to fill up your account and password when you want to log into any of your account. This can prevent simple keyboard loggers from knowning your password as all it can see is a series of copy and pastes without the letters saved.

These techniques discussed here is just a simple rudimentary way to protecting yourself when using Internet on public terminals. It still can't prevent from advanced forms of hacking from the most dedicated hackers, but at least it is a quick guideline to keep yourself safe. On a short note, this doesn't cover the proces of selecting good passwords or segregating your accounts to limit damage when a hack has occured :P

Unexpected Hero

Getting to my work place is quite a long transit. First of all I have to get from my home to the bus stop which is a 5 minute walk. The next step is to take a 20 Km trip accross the city on an express bus. This part of the journey is deceptionally fast, as going on the expressway literally on the opposite way of where must the traffic are, the trip takes usually only half an hour which is a short time compared to all the inner city traffic jam. After debarking from the bus, I have to cross the bridge, and walk another short transit to a shuttle bus (the red pickups) before I could reach my work place. This process usually takes me about an hour to complete a single trip.

In most of the cases, the trip here are usually uneventful. However a few days back, things weren't as simple as it turned out. As I got off the express bus, there were a few people that usually use the same route as I do. On this day, things were mostly the same, except that during my walk from the busstop to the shuttle bus - which was about 500 meters, I met this man that was dressed in short jeans, and a red shirt that didn't cover the waist. As seeing a somewhat odd fellow, my usual reaction is to take a long route around the person. As I was walking past him, he was muttering all sort of non-sense - in which I ignored, knowing that it is best to avoid these types of people. However as I walked past him, I heard a scream, and a young lady (probably a student in one of the schools close by) ran past me, and grabbed my hand, and told me that she was harassed. As I turned back, I could see that I was in between the crazy person I mentioned earlier and she was behind my back. As I looked at him and sized up, I could see he was mutting all sort of nonsense before turning sideways and shouting at a telephone booth. A few seconds later he walked back and shooted at a trashcan. As seeing he wasn't quite interest in us anymore, we decided to walk off.

As we briskly walked on, the young lady gave a call and quickly hopped on the cab while I continued my transit.

Afer all that has happened and as it sunk into me, I couldn't help by wonder how things could have been very very different. As in this case, I was lucky, as I was only confronted by a crazy person which in most cases were quite harmless. If the person was a stalker or a sick individual, I deduced that I might have been in serious trouble (e.g. been stabbed or stalked for helping another person out). The worst part about it is that in this case, I wasn't given the ability to choose whether to help or not. No matter the case, at the end of the day, I'm just glad everything turned out not too bad... At least I'm still around to tell this tale...

Blazing Red DS

The Nintendo DS Lite is probably one of the least sturdy portable game machines in the market. I broke my DS a few months ago after too many violet gaming sessions. The hinges between the top and bottom part of the DS just broke into two.

After trying to play the DS for a while by supporting the hinges with one of my hand, I decided I should get it repaired. I just got it back today, and now my DS is blazing RED! Hopefully it is faster by 3 times :P

Classical Music Etiquette for Dummies

As being in many classical music concerts, I somewhat get irritated when seeing a few members in the audience who haven't followed proper etiquette during the concert. Thinking about it, I thought it might be a good time to write a few things I've learnt over the years in simple words :P

1) Turn off your mobile phones (easy, but why can't people do it?)
2) Don't talk during the performance.
3) Don't applaud until the whole house does (so that you don't have to know the difference between movement and pieces)
4) Wear warm clothes (As most concert halls are cold this is recommended)
5) Don't make too much noise (e.g. eating)

Hmm.. well I hope I didn't forget to mention, enjoy the performance :P

Too Dedicated

I have a slight problem that I think that I need to fix. I have this nasty habit of working extremely hard in binges. When the going gets tough, and things need to get done, I find it very gratifying to roll up the sleeves of my shirt and press through the project until it is done with little regard of things around me. The problem is after being so dedicated to work, it is easy to get burnt out. After finishing work under such circumstances, somehow I like to revert to sleeping binges - in other words sleeping too much, before trying to get myself entertained - in some times, gaming binges that aren't that good for the health. It isn't easy to find an equilibrium where things don't get too crazy on one aspect of life, but at least I know I have to try and start sometime.

Maybe I'll start by sleeping early today :P

Gambling for Fun

A few days ago, I went to Vik's home for a party. Vikram and his extended family has just finished building their 8 story building that houses their family and relatives, and he wanted to invite a few close friends over to celebrate the occasion. Our group that went there were people who played sports together - namely we are on the same basketball league on Wednesday evenings.

During the party, we happen to meet up with Sumitr, Vik's elder brother who was a classmate of mines. What ended up was that we had a gambling game for laughs, each game was 10 baht which was a puny sum. After nearly 3 hours of playing, I ended up gaining nothing and losing nothing.

The point that I want to raise is that gambling isn't bad if you know how to control yourself. It is also pretty fun! For those who think they don't have the luck in these games, try to take classes on statistics. I will really help you out well here making you more aware of decisions you have to make. To be exact, I got much better in statistics when computing all the odds of popular games in the casino :P

Wired for Speech

I've just borrowed a very interesting book a few days back called "Wired for Speech - How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationships" by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave. This book basically explores how people react to voices both real and virtual people in different social circumstances. Though the book touches mainly on human/computer interaction, it does raises alot of ingrained social prejudice that is prevalent amoung lots of humans.

One of the issues that it raised was that people are generally quite evident on racial characteristics. If you have a face like a eastern asian, and have a western voice, it makes people view you in confused manner - as the conflict between the expected accent based on the facial features and the accent to be completely different. This can invoke either a suspicious, curious, or a bewildered response based on typical human behavior. Talking about it, I've noticed I belong to this category. Kind of interesting, I have to agree.