citizen of the planet

What follows is just meant as a small note of etiquette on public transit.

When the car is packed with people invading each others’ public spaces, please please please do your utmost best to not pass gas. Yes, sometimes there are accidental leaks, but for the sake of others please make the effort. Clench! Do your kegels! Do what you must to prevent yourself from assaulting the olfactory systems of your fellow passengers.

Thank you for your attention.

No matter whether you’re on a diet or just attempting to eat healthy, I believe that just once in a while you should eat something totally tasty, yet quite nasty and very regrettable after the fact. These occasional planned lapses encourage you to refocus. They work as long as you make room for it and plan out how to recover.

For lunch, as I was walking down the stairs I thought, “man…I want to eat something really destructive.” So I walked to the local greasy spoon and ordered a lemon chicken and fried rice combo. Oh man, that was greasy. The chicken was battered and probably triple fried by the point it was served. The lemon sauce was thick and sweet. Yeah, it was good, but so unhealthy.

Well hey, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I won’t have to eat all nasty again for the next little while.
(Unless I really want to do so…in which case I’m quite screwed)

It turns out that the customer had a cached version of the old JavaScript file.  Clearing her cache fixed the issue.

Booyah!

How do you debug something that you can’t reproduce? It’s really difficult isn’t it? Someone is experiencing a JavaScript-related bug on the site that I thought I had fixed this past week. No one in my team can create it. No one on the client end can create it either. Maybe the customer has a cached file? I dunno.

This is just so frustrating. Having to work on the task is sort of making me feel useless. I know otherwise. I know I’m capable–it’s just the issue that’s being a stubborn pain in the ass, or rather: a PITA (I love that acronym!).

Well, originally the issue was that there was a JavaScript error that was happening early on in the page specific to an older version of IE. That was causing the rest of the JavaScript on the page from being processed, preventing the customer from ordering. I found an issue and fixed it. In the QA phase the error wasn’t happening any more so the fix was pushed live. Now though? I don’t get why it’s happening again for one or two people that had reported it in the past. That’s why I’m suspecting the cache is the culprit. I have confidence in my fix! Well, I’m going to continue investigating, but I really don’t want to spend my whole day on this phantom of an issue. It’s going to affect my sanity if I keep at it.

Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 22)
Though you may feel there are thousand things you wish you could alter, there are one or two little factors you would not want to change for all the world. Celebrate these. They are all that really matter.
-Phil Booth

Given yesterday’s conversations, this one is resonating with me.

Went out with Yuki this evening to Starbucks and a sushi place in Markham. It was fun to just chat and vent after many days of just holding in stress. During conversation, the topic of “letting go” sort of came up. It’s one thing to deal with rejection and to let those wounds heal. So why keep digging them open? For example, did I really need to read about how she’s finding that life is grand with her current flame? Blaaaaah. I’m as happy for her as I should be, yes? I was also talking about how there were also some people I haven’t spoken to in ages and was saying that any future chance encounters would simply be awkward. Truly.

Well, Yuki basically said that whatever happened in the past may have value, but all of that is firmly in the past. Why revisit it? The chapter is closed. If there are people I want to reconnect with, I’ll reach out. If there are others that want to reconnect with me, I’m very easily accessible (but it requires mild effort). It’s all complicated, isn’t it? Well, I’ve said it many times in this blog, but I haven’t done so lately: all I can do is live as best as I can in the present.

It was the last day of work for someone at my workplace. I wasn’t originally planning on saying goodbye, but something came over me and I stopped by his desk. We shook hands and simultaneously wished each other luck. After some brief pleasantries I left the office. As I walked down the street I was kind of overcome by a little bit of grossness–not physically, but as a feeling of not having being completely truthful to myself. See, deep down inside, I didn’t wish him luck. Heck no. For most of my time at work, he’s been an ass toward me. Somehow, through words and actions it felt like he was constantly looking down on me. I haven’t been impressed at all by him, which is unfortunate.

It is what it is.

So, alright, when I wished him luck my words were pretty hollow. I was honestly going through the motions out of politeness. Heheh. Interestingly, I got the same feeling of hollowness from him. What can you do, right? We do these things out decorum. It’s the way society is. I don’t think I’d ever be in a position where simply telling off that guy would be acceptable. You know what? That’s probably a good thing. It’s a matter of diplomacy. Without the filter, more battles would be fought. More wars would start! Still man, I didn’t like the feeling of being openly dishonest and having it accepted as it was.

I was really planning on writing about this around the beginning of the year, but never really got around to it. I suppose it shouldn’t really matter though, anyway because I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I mean, why put so much emphasis on a resolution that’s made at this time of year when really a person should be finding ways to better himself or herself all year round, know what I mean? Should a resolution made in the humidity of July have any less meaning than one now? Of course not!

Despite all of what I’ve just written, I’ve still come up with a goal that I’m striving to reach sometime during the year. I don’t label it as a New Year’s resolution, mind you. It just happens to be a goal I’ve set around the new year.

Blah blah…well inherently…blah blah blah.

(Yeah yeah yeah. Semantics.)

Anyway, so what have I resolved to do? Well, I don’t think it’s a secret I’ve been slowly trying to lose weight. There’s been a lot of fluctuation all over with the general trend being downward. That’s established. It’s only recently though that I’ve come to the realization that, whoa, I’m close to breaking that psychological barrier of 200 lbs. Damn, I don’t remember the last time I was under that number. You know, I accept that I’m always going to be a large guy–I’ve got a big frame with broad shoulders. Even so, I know that there’s nothing wrong with trying to be healthier: I could afford to lose some weight. So yes! I’m going to break 200.

Judging from the rate of loss last year, I know this is an attainable goal: I just need to put some work into it. I think this should be a fait accompli by the time I move into my condo.