When the songbird sings

Does the image below rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise? It actually goes either way, depending on which side of your brain you are using.

Click here for what it means.

I was still reeling with a rude treatment that I had to deal with lately when I came across this interesting post from Pick the Brain:

“…let rejection roll off your back. The key to this is not taking it personally.

“At least 95% of the time when a person reacts negatively to you it has absolutely nothing to do with you personally. Most likely they’re having a bad day or you caught them at the wrong moment. Maybe they’ve been harassed by people before and assume you have bad intentions. Or maybe they’re just not that cool and you wouldn’t gain much from knowing them anyways.”

Emphasis is mine. The last reason struck a chord simply because there are people who are just plain rude and crude, and associating with them will never be beneficial to you in any way. Let the rude treatment slide, but remember that there are other ways to get even, such as dissociation, indifference, or not patronizing their business (and if you care about your friends–tell them how bad the rude dude’s business’ service is). See, unless you have reached Steve Jobs’ mythical status, there is absolutely no reason to be a jerk.

I normally hit my bed at 3 AM on weeknights and 5.30AM on weekends. Somehow, tonight, I think I have to sleep earlier than usual. I’ve just consumed my second mug of coffee to no avail. Words wouldn’t come out of my head, I can’t focus and I’m just very very tired. I’ll hold off writing about nerdy bits of my geeky world until tomorrow.

I have been playing in the past 3 Saturdays with “the other group” due to the fact that Titans hasn’t had it’s Saturday games in 6 weeks now. I’m about as sure that the next Saturday games will be canceled again. I don’t think the group is going to survive, given that in spite of a number of people’s request for games, we haven’t had one in over a month. Also, membership in the games have dwindled in the past four months because (1) there was no website and therefore no way to gather its remaining members in one place, and (2) game schedules have been unpredictable. I have had an experience when I went to The Zone only to find out that the games for that Saturday were canceled. After that experience, I have been forced to text the organizers each time I planned to attend the games. I can’t blame the organizers, of course; making court reservations and providing shuttles for the games are already a stretch on their part. Still, something’s gotta be done if the group is to survive for, say, another year.

I really feel sad about Titans, and it feels worse when people ask if the group still exists or if we’d have Saturday games because they want to play, and I can’t give them a 100% yes. I miss the old days too–the friendship (real and imagined), the chika, the out-of-town trips, the gimmicks, the after-games dinners.

For now, I’m playing Thursdays and holidays at BCMI with the Baddicts group, PowerSmash on most Saturdays, Blu Rackets with Headstrong on Mondays. I just got invited to join two badminton groups, so I’m trying one out this Monday at Powersmash and another, which plays at 9PM onwards on Wednesdays, at The Zone. Let’s see where the next few weeks will take this badminton stuff.

Hmmm…somehow being just an ordinary player allows for more options. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again, somehow.

I have been dealing with Microsoft Sharepoint a lot lately, so the latest team collaboration tool that Google recently released, aptly named Google Sites, is somewhat interesting, if only I would be able to use it in managing any project with a group of like-minded/geek-inclined people. Not that most of those I need to work with are not uber-techie, of course.

Similar to Sharepoint, a Sites admin can manage users and provide various levels of access to the project space. Another way by which it is similar to SP is its integration with Google Docs, Calendar, and Gmail; therefore, users who are already familiar with these applications or services should not have a hard time working with Sites as an extension of the said productivity and communication tools. Oh and one more thing, a Sites space is highly customizable.

Groups can develop their own intranet sites or publish webpages easily with Google Pages, which is integrated in the application and provides a WYSIWYG interface. A 10-gigabyte standard team package is free. Sweet! Actually, if you are familiar with the way Sharepoint works, then it should be easy for you to use Sites.

Now if only I could remember my domain account info….