Rubenerd

I’ve been officially tagged in a list of questions blog post, so performing my civic duty this evening at a Starbucks in town and responding!

Worst thing you’ve ever eaten?

My pride, when university tutors and/or work require it.

Name your first crush/girlfriend/boyfriend

If crush refers to romantic interest, then it would be Jae Yun. Lovely Korean girl who went to my school in Singapore. If crush refers to being squished, then it would be when an elephant trod on me at a zoo in primary school. My foot go boom.

What was your worst experience with a teacher?

When my mum’s new chemo treatment sent her into cardiac arrest, I took a week of school to stay by her bed side in the ICU, which prompted Ms Samuels to call me a “part time student”. My year 10 computing teacher also made me use Visual Basic.

Name one thing that annoys you about the Internet

Not enough people know that The Bird is The Word.

Have you ever half-arsed a piece of homework or assignment and done really well?

Nah, I always use my full arse.

What is your earliest memory?

A 2MiB SIMM for our 486SX. I kid, my first memory was when my mum brought home my sister after she was born. I was 3.

What is something (anything) that you like that you are embarrassed to tell people about?

Cute guys, and microwaved breakfast cereal.

What is your favourite sport?

Extreme programming. To the extreme. Also badminton, though I suck.

Who is your idol and why?

I have a laundry list (many of whom inexplicably died recently) in the tech scene, but #1 is Jim Kloss from the former Whole Wheat Radio in Talkeetna, Alaska. If I turned out with even half his talent, humility, comedic flair and his sense of morals and convictions, I’d know I’m on the right track. Which reminds me, I need to post him another letter.

If you had to lose one of your senses (taste, touch, hearing, seeing, smelling), which would it be?

Sense of direction isn’t one? I barely have that anyway.

Have you ever had a nosebleed?

Only in certain situations.

Why is it that I have two heads?

I am not an acting physician, neurosurgeon or biologist, so I am not qualified to answer this question.

Oh, okay then. Can I buy your TARDIS?

Nah, I use it a lot. Plus it wouldn’t fit on the train.

I’ve now been instructed to tag other people in this list, so I nominate Senjougahara Hitagi, Kotobuki Tsumugi, Mizuno Ami, Teppelin Nia, Shigure Asa, Asahina Mikuru, Merry, Koyomi Araragi and our new official mascot Ruby-Tan. I eagerly await their responses.

If you haven’t been tagged by The Georgina, I also encourage you to answer these questions on your own blog. You… you do have your own blog, right?

Being a hopeless nerd, whenever I’m on a medication of some description for an illness, I look it up on Wikipedia, the Book of Knowledge. Remind me not to have the cops give me a urine test!

The chemical diagram

I did Chemistry for my senior years of high school, and my father is a chemical scientist. Still, the most complicated diagram we ever had to draw was for polyurethane polymer chains XD.

And if you think that's complicated, check out the systematic name:

(3R,4S,5S,6R,7R,9R,11S,12R,13S,14S)-6-{[(2S,3R,4S,6R) -4-(dimethylamino)-3-hydroxy-6-methyloxan-2-yl]oxy} -14-ethyl-12,13-dihydroxy-4-{[(2R,4S,5S,6S)-5-hydroxy -4-methoxy-4,6-dimethyloxan-2-yl]oxy}-7 -methoxy-3,5,7,9,11,13-hexamethyl -1-oxacyclotetradecane-2,10-dione

Would make a great name for a band.

Japanese FTW

This is really cool, clarithromycin was developed in Japan.

Clarithromycin was invented by researchers at the Japanese drug company Taisho Pharmaceutical in the 1970s. The product emerged through efforts to develop a version of the antibiotic erythromycin that did not experience acid instability in the digestive tract, causing side effects, such as nausea and stomach ache. Taisho filed for patent protection for the drug around 1980 and subsequently introduced a branded version of its drug, called Clarith, to the Japanese market in 1991.

For this reason, I like to think the medication capsule is releasing millions of kickarse little moe soldiers to fight this illness. That reminds me, I still haven't seen Tiger and Bunny.

Cocaine… dun dun dun dun… dun ♫

But now we come to reason why I had JJ Cale as the first image on this here post thingy.

Clarithromycin may cause false positives on urine drug screens for cocaine.

Hi there Mr Police Officer, I'm on Clarithromycin. Yeah, that must be it.

Less common side-effects include headaches, hallucinations (auditory and visual), dizziness/motion sickness, rashes, alteration in senses of smell and taste, including a metallic taste that lasts the entire time one takes it.

I suppose only having everything tasting like metal is the most agreeable of those to have! Then again, I have been hearing more voices lately… what's that? You want me to sing The Bird is The Word in public? I dunno, my throat is probably still too sore for that!

For what it's worth though, I was as sick as a dog yesterday morning, but I'm already on the mend since taking this stuff. Ain't medical science great? ^_^

Makes sense, it's not as though Kindles have titles on them or anything.

Lawmakers propose back-up capital in Osaka in case of quake

TOKYO – Japan’s government should turn Osaka’s old airport into a site to handle administrative functions and economic activities in the event an earthquake, or other disaster, knocks out Tokyo, according to a group of lawmakers.

I would have thought Kyoto would be a more fitting locale given it's the historical centre of Japan, but I suppose refurbishing an existing site makes sense.

In any case, having a backup is a great idea. The USS Enterprise D had an auxiliary "battle" bridge, and Australia has Canberra.

While searching for CSS this evening, I stumbled across a Twitter account for Singaporean fans of Supernova, the Korean boy band I'm sure SBS PopAsia have played extensively. Looking at their profiles, they're my age!

I have to say, their poses, expressions, hair styles and suits are rather fetching. They're giving me ideas.

Normally I wouldn't blog about such stuff, but with the sudden reversal of Sydney's weather, it seems inventions like this might be a great idea for those with more fashion taste than common sense.

That’s no heels

While sneezing my arse off from an impending flu this morning, I was reading The Guardian. For those not in the know, while also being the technical term for a legal caregiver, as well as a chain of highly successful Singaporean pharmacies (erroneously referred ton as Chemists in Australia), The Guardian is also a British newspaper that has an excellently designed site. Not that I'd usually know, for I read their RSS feeds, or Atom feeds, or whatever feeds they have.

Isn't it funny we still call them newspapers even when they're online? I suppose one could print them to keep the term from becoming archaic. But I digress

What should appear on the sidebar than an offer for Mighty Ice Grips:

Mighty Ice Grips for high-heels provide truly effective traction on ice and packed snow. Made of strong rubber, Mighty Ice Grips for high heels simple stretch over the toe of your shoe. Small non-slip studs for great grip. One size fits all. Don’t let the fear of slipping keep you indoors this winter.

Certainly, the thought that most preoccupies me is being stuck inside given I can't wear my high heels in snow. But what would they most be useful for?

Ideal for emergencies, walking to work in snow or ice, or shopping.

But of course! Nothing says stylish practicality and emergency preparedness like high heels in snow.

And short skirts, allegedly

Ah Yuki, as a computerised entity I would have thought you'd have more common sense than to wear such garb in those conditions. Even Haruhi and Mikuru realised sometimes you need longer socks. But I digress.

My head hurts. Not from the content of this post, but from this flu. Perhaps it's time to make like a pair of ice shoes and skate. Hah, get it? I thought it was funny.

Everyone else already made their eels days ago, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to create a severely sleep deprived one for myself. I haven't uploaded it yet, what you see here is a photo of me taken mere minutes ago.

Of course, one would risk churlishness if the the opportunity to quote Ogden Nash were not seized here. Like a… senior manager.

I don’t mind eels
Except as meals
And the way they feels

This site design post is even more fractured than usual, owing to continued sleep deprivation. As such, you shouldn't read it, other than to read the tweets from other people.

The @hanezawakirika observational observation

Something entirely unexpected, from hanezawakirika on Twitter:

hanezawakirika: Though I don’t have @Rubenerd ‘s CSS skill, and I can’t find any templates I’m happy with either. I usually edit templates. ==a””

And this when I replied with exclaimed surprise:

hanezawakirika: Well, your blog looks good anyway. :< RT @Rubenerd: I have CSS skills? This is news to me!

This is quite possibly the first time anyone has complimented my CSS skills on Twitter, perhaps ever! Assuming you're not reading this through RSS and are seeing this post on the original site, you can probably see why!

Alas, as owning an easel and some tubes of paint don't make you an artist, my perhaps above-average knowledge of CSS doesn't make me a designer. Still, given my ridiculous workload over the last few days and my ensuing lack of sleep, I appreciated the ego stroking XD.

Now we just need a certain person to start blogging again themselves. Imajustsaying.

The @Sebasu_tan conspiracy

For those who either don't remember or have the attention span of an Antarctic Newt (wait, are there newts in Antarctica? What about Gingriches?), last week I blogged about A Lonely September, the blog site of our close friend Sebastian from the UTS Anime club. I lamented the fact fewer people seem to be blogging now, and celebrated the fact he was bucking the trend. Like the proud Antarctic Newt.

Despite this glowing endorsement however, Seb was quick to mess with our minds. No sooner had I blogged about his blog (yo dawg, I heard you like…) than he changed his site theme. He timed it eerily well, leading me to believe he has hidden cameras installed in my place of residence, or has access to my MySQL tables and was able to see my draft posts. Is it weird to admit I'd be more terrified of the latter?

But I digress. To further mess with our minds, Seb claims to have changed his blog theme again.

Sebasu_tan: Changed blog layout… AGAIN. We’ll see how I feel about this one in the coming days…

And now, in the time it took me to quote that tweet, he's announced that he may scrap all these changes and move back to TwentyTen:

Sebasu_tan: I’m tempted to go back to twentyten, to be honest… >.>

We'll be following this story as it develops.

Guilty Crown has copped flack (even from me) as sounding rather like a Code Geass clone, though already they can boast having two things the other series didn't: an epic logo, and an entirely useless post written by Ruben on the train in a half-asleep daze.

I did logo programming back in the day

As is evidenced by the images in my sidebar (which are being replaced soon!) and various other posts on the subject, I am somewhat enamored with logos. Particularly ones that show my allegiances, such as Houkago Tea Time, the now infamously retro SOS-Dan, the Federation's Starfleet Planetary Sciences Division, and presumably many more.

Having only seen Guilty Crown in passing in the UTS Anime club (I was too busy transferring legitimately purchased content across laptops to watch), I can't be sure whether this logo is their official one or not. For all I know, someone on one of the larger image boards could be having a lend of me, which I thought only libraries could do. Bad pun sorry, I could have done better.

My other point

Point is, several in the aforementioned club have heaped nothing but praise, and I have every intention of watching it. Especially if the logo is that cool. I'm sorry, but it has that retro futuristic vibe, the shape is eerily Star Trek-esque in it's appearance and… wait, hold on a minute. Of course a shape is something in appearance, shapes have nothing but appearance!

See what happens when I go for two nights with 4 hours sleep?

Oh yeah that reminds me

Are you still following this fractured post? If you're not, that's okay, fractured posts sound rather painful. The only time I've ever broken a bone was in high school when a friend of mine inadvertently whacked me in the foot with a hockey stick. I earned new found respect for Canadian athletes that day.

So I was doing a Google search for Guilty Crown to get a feel for the art style, and one of the first results I got was this:

While the colour in this image is rather nice, and the house it depicts looks perfectly hospitable, unfortunately it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Judging from the text that accompanied the photo it was easy to see why I was directed to this post:

AND a big head from the Crown Royal. AND a guilty conscience […]

While I believe they may have a point regarding nice colours in Guilty Crown's art and character designs, I hardly think the characters have big heads. Impossible clothing maybe, but not big heads.

Which reminds me, Talking Heads is an awesome band. David Byrne should have learned Japanese and sung the opening theme.

Thank you, and goodnight.