I am not an MS-basher.
The MS money-making juggernaut has one simple but effective formula – make a software full of holes and performance issues and sell it
to the consumer; then make another set of software to fix the issues of the original software and sell it to the same set of consumers for more money. Don’t worry if they complain, what arethey gonna do? Start using Apple MAC or Linux? Whinnying pushovers and ninnies all!

And talking of performance, all good system users at my end realised long ago the mirage that is the Microsoft Vista Welcome screen
when the system is powered on. It seems since MS knows that one of the criteria for judging how responsive a system is – is how fast
it boots up, they decided to just put up the welcome screen up there as fast as possible, then continue the boot up process in the
background for another 2 minutes or so, during which time the unsuspecting but surprised users make many attempts to login by pressing
CTRL+ALT+DEL only to wonder why the “keyboard appears to be dead”. Now I just chill for some time after the initial welcome screen is
displayed before attempting to logging. Why punish the HP hardware for Microsoft’s sins. On the other hand, since there is a conspiracy
between all of the hardware OEMs and MS to rip off the consumer, I think I should go right ahead, but then who comes out the winner
when I have to replace the keyboard on my laptop – it’s a lose-lose situation for the consumer.
Then there is always Linux, or $30 Mac OSX on a regular PC (“Hackintosh” 🙂

And since I am not an MS basher, I wont encourage you to go to annoyances.org to see what other disgruntled users are up to.

Try vlite – though not recommended by MS, it may just help you to trim some but not all the fat off the bloatware that is Vista.

I suddenly found myself on the deck of a ship, with the sea a raging cauldron with the feeling
of everything being enclosed in some finite space possibly bounded by glass.
My mum was there, so was a sibling. As soon as was onboard, I noticed a couple of guys that
appear at ease on the deck. One short, one tall and I soon recognised them as two classmates who
moved together back in my secondary school days. They recognised me at about the same time.
I could vaguely recall their names.
I drifted to my mum with the enclosed sea continuing to rage, and water breaking regularly
over the sides of the vessel. People were being swept out to sea, and others were jumping in
trying to safe them. My mum was of course distraught to notice the number of people on the sea
and the fact that some were being swept under the waves.
Some were saved from the black foaming see. My sibling was on the other side of the boat and
for some reason had a single cross-eye about which my mum observed that if what medicine she
has doesnt not cure her, she would have to send for help from her friend (a nurse also) in
the U.S. …

Can’t still shake the closeness (claustrophobic-ness) of the vessel/enclosed sea even after I
woke up.

Happy Birthday Yetunde Fasipebi.

I started doing situps last week – or should I say I did it for 2 days. By the 3rd day, I started having this pain in my lower abdomen. Then
I caught the cough that’s been going round (probably due to the weather)  and the pain really started – I started to dread the cough as it was
really bad down there at my waist line whenever i coughed. In fact, I thought I must have ruptured something! The pain gradually eased off
some days later. I think I will start again 2moro. Can’t be a superhero without plenty of exercise huh?

I don’t watch football much, but it seems the argument between fans after the games is much more enjoyable – especially when all the fans
support the same team – like Nigeria’s loss tonight to Ivory Coast. Nigeria’s population is about 160million. If we take away 20million
representing the under-5s who are not yet sure what the hoola-baloo is all about plus yours truly, the remaining 140million less one are
all world-class coaches/technical advisers (or wanna-bes) who in their own eyes are as qualified as the next man for the job and would give
Westerhof (or whoever is currently taking away the foreign exchange) a run for “our” money anyday. There is likely to be some truth in there,
but how do you wittle down 140million to the 50 or so who might actually deserve a shot at the position? – a real needle in a haystack dilema 🙂
21/01/2008

Sometimes I think I almost “came” as a Caucasian. Not that I am unhappy with my colour but some of the stuff that “my people” seem to enjoy gives me nothing but palpitations. Going by the classifications taught by Lionel (one of my coaches) – we are definitely “party asses.” Take weddings for example, just the thought of being teh subject of attention of 500 people, more or less puts me off the whole thing (chicken u!) I had rather go with fifty people or thereabouts – that should fulfill the legal bit about witnesses and also cover the necessary family and friends that would be present whether invited or not.

I think worse than that is the big burial bash that’s so common around these parts. It’s not about the gone but not forgotten – but an excuse to do what we do best – get together and be party asses. Common! I was still teething when Elvis left the building:-) Of course being man and of like-flesh, afflicted with ego in more or less the same proportion as other specimens of the specie, I am given to flights of fancy where I see myself giving an award-wining performance, but it never lasts – the palpitations – oh! How relentless they are – never letting up even for a minute.

It’s so easy to make it hell. Take the 2 opposite ends of the spectrum – that’s the “I am a hunk” spectrum. As I was saying, the lower end of the spectrum seems to be overly crowded with the guys spending their time wishing they were on the opposite end – that’s when they are not wishing they could hook up with the beaut just a couple of seats away. Now, its so easy to fantasize about that beaut that it’s a natural progression to start fantasizing about every beauty that the guy comes across. The hunks have got their own issues. It’s not easy to maintain the I-am-35-in-my-prime-a-stud-able-to-party-all-night-past-the-break-of-dawn persona. The body gets tired at some point. While the oogly ones are fantasizing, these guys are being literarily assaulted by the opposite sex – especially in the developed countries where its not exactly a taboo for a lady to take the initiative. Every one has his/her cross to bear.

It’s the little things about Windows that get my goat. Those little things can be real frustrating if they happen at certain times. Internet Explorer has got a nice feature which allows you to save a webpage as a compiled file with the “.mht” extension. The problem is that sometimes it takes a very long time for the save procedure to complete. So say, you change your mind and decide that you don’t want the page saved again and you click the “cancel” button – well nothing happens. So you click a few times more, then some more clicks … The problem is that the save dialog box has locked I.E. such that you cant do anything else with it. I was hoping this issue would have been corrected long ago but no such luck. From M$ point of view: “what you gonna now? Go ahead and be a b..ch about it. Raise your blood pressure a notch, throw a tantrum, add an ulcer on top of that. You are out of luck s..ker. We own your computer (R)”

Some other unrelated musings:
I see some women who look like they carry their fat well – but do they die well as well – when all the complications develop at some point? It’s been politically unacceptable for a while to refer to anybody as being fat – the more politically correct references include “big boned”, “muscled”, etc. So I see some women and I am tempted to go “Hi dear, you look smashing, but I think you should: throttle the beetle, stopper the mopper – I am sure you catch my drift!”

Connoisseurs come in various forms – some are fascinated with road kill (I am not but I know at least one woman who is). I saw a dog on the road on the way to the airport yesterday. It looked as if it had been well-quartered, piled up with the head placed almost upright on top. It had this half-faced death grin. It’s almost as if someone went to the pains of rigging up the gory sight right in the middle of the road for maximum impact on oncoming motorists..

My favorite bank is charging for printing account statement online. Get this – charging me for printing the statement from the comfort of my home; using my own printer and paper; on my laptop (pc). Yet the bank does not charge for viewing the statement online. But once you press the print button you activate the shylock in the banking application. Consider that the statement is already on my screen and technically already downloaded to my PC and that I can find myriad other ways to print it instead of using their print button. The bank should rather consider it as a VAS (Value Added Service) or state explicitly that they will be charging for it (it’s possibly stated in some obscure brochure which no one has a copy of anymore). And come to that, sometimes a service provider needs to look beyond immediate gratification i.e., the potential returns (after some sort of research to find out how many customers actually use the service – in this case the “print” option) to the amount of goodwill/free adverts via the happy customer exercising their bragging rights by telling friends and colleagues alike about the VASes offered by his/her bank at no extra costs to the customer. This will utlimately bring the bank more returns than the paltry hackle-raising sum they are likely to arm-twist from a few disgruntled customers who have no choice but to have the said amount debited from their accounts.

Paid good money last week to learn to drive (at a driving school). Yeah I know – I see the shock on your face – after what – years on earth? I must say it felt too much like work! Luckily I didn’t run into anyone through out the 5-day course 🙂 Reversing still has lots of kinks but I am sure with practice it will all get straightened out.

I wonder when we as a people will make great progress. Today I watched a man move his vehicle to block the tiny space between his car and the one in front of his in a bumper-to-bumper hold-up just so that according to him “why should only the bikes continue to move when others are stuck in th hold-up” – talk about twisted logic. What he seemed not to realise is that by moving forward he created space between him and the car behind him – so the bikes just had to do a little detour. Until we are happy at other’s progress (or at least accept it) we wont go far in this country – same probably goes for a lot of Africans 🙁

I believe the saying that prayer does not change God but us (neither does fasting) may be true. I have come to understand accept Psalm 115 verse 3 “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” No amount of crying, not any other means of blackmail will change God. He is afterall not variable. Because in the grand scheme of things – whether we believe it or not; whether we accept it or not – each of us is just one of the uncountable billions of His creation. That does not mean he pays no heed to us or that we are negligible – it just means that our wants are our wants; our desires and lastly our needs – the “our”, the “I”, the “we” makes it almost certainly selfish in intent (whether wholly or partially)

The nice people at the US embassy refused to grant me a visiting NIV. No strong family ties in Nigeria. How absurd! But at least the officer said I am young and single (maybe that was a come-on?). Geez! And I didn’t catch on!

Is it not strange that all the actual officers that review applications are whites and the black-americans just do the initial document checking? BFR!

I was in what looked like an office. At first I thought I was sitting up, but later I was definitely lying down on my back on a bed or surfer. There was a semi-partition in the room.
Soon, 4 Asians (Chinese I think) – one lady and 3 men came into the room – all leather-jacketed and looking like they mean business. Two of the men sat down while the  lady and the 3rd man ll flirty-like made their way behind the partial partition. From the angle where I was, I couldn’t quite see what they were up to, but the way the other two looked at me persuaded me to mind by own business.
Soon the girl moved out into the open and it was clear the 3rd guy was dead behind the partition. She stood over me with the knife in her hands looking all mean and just about ready to add me to the tally.  After a brief pause, she placed the knife in my hands and they all left. May be it was the paranoia that arises from watching too many films,  but the next thing I did was to grab a piece of clothing and carefully wipe my fingerprints off the knife.

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