Family guy?

I hate this guy so much I feel like exploding. He embodies chaos, the thinking that you can get away with anything as long as your intentions are good. Or if you are completely oblivious to the evils of your actions. The "I don't think, I just do" kind of mentality. Essentially saying that its ok to act like a big baby even though you are 40 years old with kids. What makes its worse is that he is always forgiven no matter what he does. What the fuck is that about? People like him should be quartered, minced and fed to cockroaches.



I absolutely adore this kid. He has to be the cutest attempted dictator in the world. Mum walks up to new neighbour and introduces Stewie to the new guy on the block. Kid looks up at him and glares. "Bow before me!" You just have to love him.

How does one show have both the most despicable character in the history of cartoons and the most amusing little bugger ever?

The 9 types of intelligence.

While I don't consider Howard Gardner's theory to be totally accurate, it does make a certain amount of sense to me.

A quick Wiki of multiple intelligence theory tells us that Gardner believes that no one kind of intelligence is more important than the other. I find that belief a bit naive to be honest.

It might be an unnecessarily utilitarian way of looking at life, but having what it takes to carve out a living sure beats everything else. I would personally rank logical intelligence near the top simply because so many jobs in the world right now need exactly that.

But looking at the types of intelligence, I can't help but to think that one single type stands out well above the rest in terms of importance as a life survival tool - interpersonal intelligence. Remember how people always say that its not what you know anymore, its who you know? I think that nicely sums up why its so bloody important to have interpersonal intelligence. 'Young adults with this kind of intelligence are leaders among their peers, are good at communicating, and seem to understand others’ feelings and motives.' I got that from some random site. Screw the last two. Look at the first one. Want to enter the corporate world? Intend on getting far? If you don't have this form of intelligence, then don't count on it. Actually, I would go as far as to say that it extends to all professions. A char kuey tiow seller with good interpersonal skills build up customer rapport. The only time when this doesn't affect your career is if you really and truly work alone. Like as a lighthouse watchman or something. Even then, you are going to need that intelligence when you approach your boss for a raise. If you ever approach your boss for a raise...

And what would be the worst one to have career wise? I have to say intrapersonal intelligence. 'These young adults may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are self-motivated.' Who needs self motivation when you can make people believe that you are already self motivated? Personally, I think that shyness is a death sentence in the world. People tend to view shy people and wonder what is going on in their minds, and constantly trying to guess if that person means harm. Shy people constantly avert people's gaze. Do people assume that the reluctance to make eye contact is due to shyness? I think most take it as a sign that the person is an egoistical prick. Isolation from the rest of humanity is something that no amount of gardening (naturalist intelligence), tennis aces (bodily kinesthetic intelligence), or best selling novels (linguistic intelligence) will be able to compensate for.

At this point, I would like to borrow a phrase used by my friend once. 'Socially retarded at every level'. Its a brutally honest quip that explains everything. It is a form of retardation, bad enough, in my opinion to warrant a certain amount of medical attention. I find it amusing how much we fight for equality at the workplace when this fairly obvious shortcoming is not accounted for. Maybe its hard to classify and hard to determine, but since when has something being hard to do ever been an excuse for not doing it? As of now, we only treat severe shyness. Unless its really bad, its not even recognized as a problem. Thats like saying that we will help people who have lost their leg, but those that have lost their foot don't need our help; they can deal with the problem on their own.

I know I'm not making any sense. I know that what I'm proposing is insane and even if it were possible, we are 20 years away from it. And even if we do come close, there would be protests from Scientologists and other mental purists. But I think its a problem, and its one worth solving.

Kiam Siap.

The Chinese are scrooges. Thats the stereotype that has been perpetuated for generations, and I was a little skeptical about it. I figured times have changed, and so have people. Working has just shown me that old habits really do die hard.

For the first few weeks of work, I was content with taking orders and punching them in. Until the store manager decided that we need to make more money and told us all to push the average purchase of each customer up. There are a number of ways to do this, of which the easiest is to suggest extra cheese. Then we could ask if they would like some fries or some more bread or ice cream for dessert. RM15 per customer is supposed to be the target.

It was only when I made a conscious effort to see if I can sell more did I notice who were the people that usually do the buying. Customers coming in are split pretty even between the Chinese and the Malays. Indians show up only occasionally. Of the groups, this is how I would rank their tight-fistedness. The freest spenders are the middle easterners, (who thanks to MMU show up in respectable numbers) followed by the Malays, Indians and then the Chinese.

The middle easterners are not really open to suggestions. They typically know exactly what they want, and will order a lot of it. Screw combo meals, its ala carte all the way. And I never have to ask if they want extra cheese. They will ask for it right after making a pizza selection.

The Malays on the other hand, always seem to be looking for a good time and are normally quite happy to follow you as you lead them around the menu. "Nak extra cheese tak?" A lot of the time, the answer is "Boleh lah". They are also more likely to pander to their kid's request for a milkshake which would add substantially to the bill.

Now when I ask if a Chinese family if they want extra cheese, the person with the menu normally furrows his/her eyebrows and look at the rest of the family. The whole clan will then come to the conclusion that the extra expense is unnecessary and will politely decline. The Chinese are also much more likely to try and make the set meals work for them, adjusting preferences and decisions so that they may save RM14.50. And when I walk away from a table with a order for one set, and nothing else to go with it, you can bet that it was a Chinese family.

I think all this scrooginess is in the Chinese blood. Its been passed down from generations ago, and I think the position that the Chinese have in the economy right now can be credited to the kedekutness that they show. Its not really a bad thing actually. I think I have a bit of that streak as well. =)