Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Mice with balls (It’s not what you think)
Indeed, it seems that technology advancements have pampered us all too much.
Take the optical mouse, for instance. Now, you can move that little cursor on your screen so freely, without the need to yank out the balls (har har har) of your mouse ever so often to get rid of the dust within.
I salute the optical mouse. It’s made my life so much easier ever since I got my first one in … 2005. Suddenly, Photoshop seemed three times easier to use, especially since I don’t have to CTRL-Z as many times when I do my illustrations and whatnot because that stupid ball within the mouse refuses to move again.
Perhaps this perfectly explains why I was practically tearing my hair out at Sakae Sushi this evening.
Some background knowledge. Sakae Sushi is a chain of restaurants located predominantly in Asia, serving sushi of all sorts at cheap prices. (At least, they claim to make sushi affordable – but with the recent price hike, I am starting to have my qualms.) The outlets provide computer screens with an attached mouse at every table from which you place your orders.
Apart from having to deal with the occasional soy sauce soaked mouse, and perhaps the mouse which has had its inner mechanisms completely whacked out by the previous occupant (most probably a kid!) spilling water all over it which I encounter ever so often – I also have to deal with the old, traditional wheel mouse.
Yes, the wheel mouse.
With the ball within.
I am guessing that they chose to stick with the wheel mouse because the mouse was in the shape of an adorable green frog which matched the restaurant chain’s logo really closely, and perhaps there was no optical mouse in a similar design.
But what’s the point of having an aesthetically pleasing wheel mouse, especially when the ball within simply REFUSES. TO. MOVE?!?
That wheel mouse was practically as useful as … a male mouse without any balls. (Err, okay. Corny, I know. I couldn’t think of anything better, considering all that is in my head now is nothing but mice, mice, mice.)
Oh, and the frog-shaped wheel mouse had two big eyes – which were actually the control buttons. And I found it extremely disconcerting to punch my fingers directly into the eyeball of a frog, real frog or not.
In a nutshell – placing one order of salmon sushi involved twenty slams of the mouse on the table (to dislodge the ball from it’s stuck position), another twenty attempts to move the mouse at least one centimetre (that’s the maximum the mouse will move before it gets jammed again) and countless frantic punching of the eyes … err, buttons.
–Facepalm.
Someone should declare the wheel mouse a lethal weapon. It drives people mad.
Blast from the past
We were childhood friends waaaay back in Kindergarten. Her parents knew my parents, and that was how I got to know her for the first time.
We even travelled to Genting Highlands together in July 1991, along with her little brother.
During one particular day of the trip, we were even decked out in similar sailor outfits with red jackets. And on the first day of the trip, we both wore dresses. Plus, I could also remember vividly a certain incident where she got locked in the hotel room by accident, and I was standing outside wailing at the adults to help her get out.
Boy, fun times!
Then, we somehow lost touch. Although we were both still aware of each other’s existence.
Only today, 26th August 2008 – did I realize … that for my past three years in SMU, she and I were in the same course, taking the same modules and even shared classes together quite a few times.
Only that she knew that it was me and I didn’t – and she didn’t bring it up because she thought I’d forgotten.
Ohmygoodnessgolly.
How could I? HOW COULD I? How. Could. I?
Plus, I also discovered that we were in the same Secondary School for three years without realizing it. Maybe it was because we were in different levels. But still … how can one tide through four years of Secondary education without recognizing an old friend from there?
I seem to be walking through life in a daze, aren’t I?
Want some swimming lessons?
Spotted this sign by the roadside this evening and was a little amused by it.
Swimming lessons, you say?
I hope it’s not conducted in that drain it’s attached to. :P
I doubt the sign’s owner realized his little folly there – that his sign may drive home the wrong message. But I thank him for that little laugh I got anyway.
———————–
Ah, well. Should be heading off to lala-land soon since it’d be another early day for me tomorrow as my family and I make another twice-yearly venture to the unknown terrain (HA. HA. HA.) of Genting Highlands.
Me, my heavy (full of rocks?!?) baggage, sunburn (ouch!) and rashes (developed an allergic reaction to the groundwater showers at Pulau Sibu – delayed reaction but heck, still as itchy as ever!) are all ready and raring to go!
Find Me
