Monthly archives of “February 2011”

February 27, 2011

It’s Not On Me, It’s Not On You, It’s On Both of Us

One of a few things I hate about visits from friends and family is the nonsense that everyone blurts out about not wanting to trouble the other party. Simple example: paying for dinner.

Honestly, I’m not gonna pay for your dinner if I don’t feel like it. You should do the same.

I am not one who likes to take advantage of friends or family. But here’s the thing: if you said you wanted to pay for dinner, I take it that you really do want to pay for dinner and not just being nice for the sake of maintaining a good relationship. A good friendship is not measured in how fancy a dinner you could buy me. Heck, we could share a bowl of instant noodles for all I care.

So don’t offer to pay for dinner unless you mean it, because I won’t hesitate to accept the offer. And when I say I want to pay for dinner, please just let me do it because I feel like doing it. If we both feel like paying for it, we should simply split the bill. Frankly, if you don’t want to trouble me, don’t come visit me.

I don’t know about you guys, but to me it’s that simple.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a rant about a friend’s visit that went sour. My good friend Andy treated me to a lot of fancy dishes these last two days, and I gotta tell you I enjoyed every one of them! He does, too, because he values the quality of our conversations more than any dish. And I know for a fact that he’s not a pretentious person.

February 12, 2011

Ambidextrous No More

So I’ve been visiting RTC Denpasar twice, annoying my friend about twice a week for three weeks, and scouring the interwebs to get a hold of this:

Logitech Attack 3
Logitech Attack 3

Sadly, nobody had it. Word is that the supply was halted from I don’t know where. Bottom line is that there is no telling when a resupply would take place.

A couple of friends suggested some other series that I might be interested in, particularly from Genius. I wasn’t interested, because I had no knowledge of the product quality. Yokes from Saitek were also offered, but they were way beyond my price range. A few days later I found Attack 3 at an online store and I immediately ordered it. Sadly, it was out of stock, too, and the warehouse admin probably forgot to update its status on the page. The sales guy offered to bump it up a class and I only had to add about $16 for it, so I said sure. So this is what I got:

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro

This baby fails in one requirement I made for myself: it is not ambidextrous. I thought I was gonna have some problems flying with my right hand, because (1) I’m left-handed and (2) I couldn’t access the mouse while I played. As it turns out, my right hand works just fine. I guess the same thing happened when I first learned to use the mouse with my right hand, to save everybody the trouble of providing a left-handed mouse. And the mouse, it turns out I didn’t need it so bad, and whenever I needed it I could always revert to using the trackpad with my left hand, which was free anyway.

So there you have it, my new joystick. I’ve flown a couple of times using it on 737s, 747s, Cessnas, various vintage planes, and even an F-14. I’ve also managed to land a 737 manually in a crosswind, not to mention F-14 night landings (which were particularly hard because of the high approach speed). I’m overall satisfied, and although I do hope that someday I’ll have my own virtual cockpit, this little guy is more than enough for now.

February 6, 2011

The Pursuit of Perfection

Perfection is an elusive goal. In some cases, it is practically impossible to achieve perfection. Take a simple example: finding a perfect boarding house. Now, this is a true story, my story.

When I first came to Bali, a new friend of mine took me to see a potential boarding house. I immediately took it, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s logical. I’m a new guy, I have to find a place to live, pronto. As it turns out, it was a great boarding house. The owners (and their kids) were all smiles and happy to welcome me, neighbors minded their own business and for the most part didn’t cause any trouble, the cost is affordable, and the room’s got quite some space. I got used to the dogs barking their heads off in the middle of the night. But later on, after the owner’s mom got sick — mind you, she’s a 98-year-old grandma with a case of a never-healing-broken-arm — things got a bit complicated.

How would you like to wake up hearing a very old lady moaning and calling out someone’s name, while trying to scrape pieces of plastic off of her broken arm, plus the family’s helper dragging an empty bucket just outside your front door? Add to that the setting: 2 a.m., in the middle of a thunderstorm and a soundtrack of dogs whimpering, while the smell of burnt incense from the day’s evening prayers hasn’t gone away.

I do not want to be there when she passes away. (not that I want her to, but you know… it’s frickin’ eerie!)

I was lucky enough that a friend offered me a vacant room at her boarding house, one that I’ve had my eyes on since a few months back. So I immediately took the opportunity. I was delighted. The room was bigger and had better flooring and walls, air circulation was much better, and best of all I had no worries about midnight wake-up calls from any dogs. Oh, and of course I was excited to finally have neighbors that I actually know. Little did I know…

I got me lots of new neighbors. But this one right next door… oh man… I still wake up at 2 a.m. sometimes, not because of dogs barking or old ladies moaning, but because of the fights they have. She’d yell and scream and cry at the same time and he’d just rub it in her face. And then she’d hurl a cellphone to my wall and it breaks to pieces. And the words… oh, the words just couldn’t get any harsher.

I could handle the noises just fine, I just thought of them as wild dogs barking their heads off and biting each other. But the harsh words, they get me tense every time. There were times when I really wanted to come out with my broom and just knock her out (and then deal with her boyfriend).

But she’s the owner’s niece. I strike her and I’m out.

So there you have it. The pursuit of a perfect place to live. I’m not talking about a huge palace with a swimming pool and jacuzzi (although it wouldn’t hurt if I could afford such a place), but a place where I can just live peacefully in a community where everybody has good manners and are thoughtful enough to minimize disturbance to everybody else.

Quite impossible, it seems.

UPDATE: It turns out that as I was writing this post, the now 99-year-old lady really passed away. My sincere condolences for the kind family that looked after me for that wonderful year.