Archive for August, 2008
Maybe I’ll think differently later but…
August 31st, 2008 Uncategorized
From The Smart Set
People involved in the industry know exactly what they’re doing when they manipulate brides into a flurry of spending. Vows, the trade magazine for bridal retailers, tells salespeople, “Just when the bride thinks she’ll have to spend no more, it’s your job to remind her that her bridal image looks incomplete.” In reality, most of what we think of as traditional in wedding ceremonies is either the creation of Hollywood, or only goes back 50 years or so. Mead quickly debunks some of the more pervasive lies: The white poofy dresses? They only go back as far as Queen Victoria’s wedding day. The diamond engagement rings? A 1940s advertising campaign. The unity candle ritual that is showing up in more and more weddings these days? No one is quite sure where that came from, but it sure as hell is not Catholic. And the Apache wedding prayer that is now read at the weddings of white people everywhere is possibly Navajo, but it’s more likely that it came from a Jimmy Stewart Western and was mistaken by viewers as being something authentic.
How has it gotten to this point? If this were just a big birthday party, couples would not be willing to spend such a large part of their income on a long list of ridiculous expenses. (Two wedding dresses is now customary? Really?) There is something deeper – and more sinister – going on here, the idea that the effort and money and time you put into celebrating your love for another person will pay off after the wedding is over. Mead writes, “[T]he bride who has been convinced, in some barely articulated but nonetheless pervasive sense, that coordinating her ribbons and her envelopes will contribute to the future harmony of her marriage has been sold not just an expensive complement of stationery but a dangerous bill of goods.”
Most of these expensive weddings are at the bride’s requests and someone else’s money (the groom’s or the groom’s parents, or bride’s own parents) because if a bride has to blow her own $20k – $30 she would not do it without a lot of wincing and teeth gritting.
Shopping Advice for Men
August 30th, 2008 Uncategorized
From Zoedee.com
Men Buying For Ladies
The easiest way to determine the size for your ladyfriend is to have a look in her lingerie drawer at the sizes she is currently wearing. This may not always be possible and if the thought of being caught browsing through her lingerie drawer put you off there is another easier method which surprisingly works quite well. Think of her bust as a piece of fruit. The equivalent fruit size matches the cup size you should buy:
Fruit Cup Size
Lemon – A Cup
Orange – B Cup
Grapefruit - C Cup
Melon – D Cup
Collectivism and individualism
August 30th, 2008 elsewhere
Mr. Chen’s [Qigang] Chinese mind naturally combines Miaoke’s best appearance and Peiyi’s perfect voice in a coherent picture, along with the marching in of the other 56 children in minority costumes representing China’s 56 ethnic groups, carrying the Chinese flag, the context of the National Stadium and its ninety thousand strong audience.
On the other hand, Western viewers encode Lin Miaoke’s appearance and Yang Peiyi’s voice as discrete elements and mutually exclusive. They call it lipsyching and find it unacceptable.
These different perceptions arise from the difference between individualistic and collective cultures. The mind produced from Western individualistic culture is concerned with the unique contribution and responsibility of each person (Miaoke versus Peiyi), whereas the mind produced from a collectivist culture generates a gestalt with all the elements merged together.
ROD Mode
August 30th, 2008 atwork
From Michael Blowhards
Have you heard of the expression “short-timer”? A “short-timer” is someone who’s still at work even though he has already made other arrangements. [...] Being a short-timer is, in any case, a fun if exasperating experience. It’s fun because — although you’re still employed, still getting paid, and still showing up — you don’t really give a damn any longer. Why should you? Practically speaking, you’re just wiling away the time until your scheduled day of departure arrives. It’s exasperating because you still have to show up.[...]I found it completely bizarre that my bosses expected me not just to show up but to continue to perform. Had no one ever told them about the short-timer effect? I’d attend meetings, listen to plans, take note of orders — and think, “They have got to be kidding. They can’t expect me to care about any of this, can they?”
The term used locally is ‘ROD mode’ – also a military term. Although I’ve had a couple job changes, I’ve never experienced ROD mode (in fact, I would usually have to return after work hours to pack my box). I do remember, wondering aloud if I should be left out of meetings so that I don’t have to hand over too many things.
HODs or Team Leads do feel that they have to bend the exiting staffer to their will, yet is always grateful when the staffer exiting is still performing. Perhaps male TLs and HODs feel differently. When I was a TL, when a good staffer shows the white envelope, there is a little corner that is upset by the act of rejection, regardless of the thousands of compelling reasons for the person to join someplace else – did I do something wrong? As a staffer, I do feel some inexplicable guilt, as though I have betrayed someone or something. Concepts of loyalty and betrayal is at odds with a highly mobile workplace because first, this is not the army where you live and die with your TL and the other troops, second, business decisions don’t typically take into human sentiments into account. As staff would leave companies for better companies, companies would leave staff for better staff. Yet anyone who has to make these decisions feel guilt. ROD mode, which is the logical part of yourself, steps in to deal these feelings.
Insisting that you are hot won’t get you anywhere.
August 30th, 2008 Uncategorized
On the msn
Me: I think i look really good in The cheong sam. Almost hot…ya…
V.: You think you look hot in cheong sam?
V.: … …
Me: I DO. Seriously, just look at the pictures.
[later]
V.: Not bad. S. said you look v slim.
Me: I’M HOT MAMA. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
This girl doesn’t know her dress size
August 25th, 2008 Uncategorized
This article from NYTimes some years ago came up in my google for cheong sam and matching shoes.
Even though I was a thoroughly Americanized, third-generation Chinese-American, on that one day I was to slip into a cheongsam, the high-collared, snug, slit-skirted Chinese dress. I was to put on sheer stockings, precariously held up by a garter belt and slip my feet into Pappagallo shoes with two-inch heels.
It was an ill fit.
The cheongsam is not just a piece of clothing. It is a dress that demands an entire persona, a special way of walking, of holding the head high, of wearing your hair, crossing your legs and moving your arms. It is a hybrid of East and West, a garment that emerged in Shanghai in the 1930’s. When the Chinese bound women’s feet, they shrank the parameters of her world. And to a free-spirited American girl like me, the cheongsam did the same thing. It was silken bondage, a restriction of the mind and the body.
[...]
When I buttoned the collar of the cheongsam, I began to choke psychically. I could breathe, but I could scarcely move. I was pinned and trapped, like the African women who wear dozens of necklaces around their necks.
[...]
I held my head in the only position possible: straight up, perpendicular to the street. Slouching was out of the question. So was tossing the head back in a fit of spontaneous laughter.
[...]
The hem glided just past my knees. My arms, gently restricted, were caught in the vise of little cap sleeves set in small, round armholes. I couldn’t throw my arms up in the air like a cheerleader. I couldn’t do the twist on a dance floor. At best, I could use my hands and flutter a few fingers. Exuberance vanished, and a coerced daintiness took its place.
If any dress is so closely tailored that you can’t even laugh, it’s too small. If you can’t raise your arms, buy a bigger dress. If you can’t dance the twist, I can’t too, don’t fret. Cheong sam is just like any other outfit. Don’t have preconceived notions about being a lady and you will find the right dress size.
On the meaning of passion
August 13th, 2008 atwork
“Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn’t really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office – unless things have gone very wrong indeed. And yet passion is something that every employee must attest to in order to get through any selection process. Every one of the candidates in the final rounds of interview on the Apprentice solemnly declared that they were passionate about being Sir Alan’s Apprentice.”
Writing comedy is freaking hard
August 13th, 2008 Uncategorized
Just enjoy it.
Absolute Power by Mark Tavener.
Bernie Mac passed away at 50
August 10th, 2008 Obituaries
I’ve only seen his television/movie work. Have you seen his stand-ups?
Fooled by Randomness
August 10th, 2008 books
I remind myself of Einstein’s remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen. Furthermore, What sounds intelligent in a conversation or a meeting, or, particularly, in the media, is suspicious.
The risk manager’s job feels strange: As we said, the generator of reality is not observable. They are limited in their power to stop profitable traders from taking risks, given that they would, expost be accused by the George Wills around of costing the shareholder some precious opportunity shekels. On the other hand, the occurrence of a blow up would cause them to be responsible for it. What to do in such circumstances?
Their focus becomes to play politics, cover themselves by issuing vaguely phrased internal memoranda that warn against risk-taking activities yet stop short of completely codemning it, lest they lose their job.
He loves Graham Greene as well. Did I already mention I adore this chap?
