Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me....

Here's my gift to myself:

Tai

From the "we're all numbers" Dept.

Today I realised that my life can be deconstructed to a base of approximately 6 numbers.

I had to go and get a temporary drivers' license today, renew my OHIP card, and then pick up some trial contact lense from my optometrist.

I go to the Ministry of Transport Ontario Vehicle licensing office, I'm the third person there. They input my license number into the computer, verify my identity and check my license renewal. I retrieve my Temporary License.

Drive to the Ministry of Health Office. Wait in line for an hour to get a ticket to wait in a second line. Show the woman behind the counter my Drivers' License, my Social Insurance Number, and my Credit Card.

Take a picture, and will a get new OHIP card in 4-6 weeks.

Drive to the optometrist, show the receptionist my temporary OHIP card, she pulls my file, checks my prescription, gets some disposable contact lenses, I pay the fee with my debit card.

The numbers game that I played today include:

• Drivers' License
• OHIP
• Social Insurance Number
• Credit Card Number
• Debit Card Number
• PIN for Debit Card

Those six numbers determine where I can go, whether or not if I can recieve health care, whether or not if I can work, what I can buy, and access to my financial information.

Crazy.

Talk about "objectifying the self". Now I know what Sartre meant by Existential Angst.

-T

From the "I really don't think it's THAT useful" Dept.

I took the time lastnight and this morning to configure and setup an email form.

So for those of you who need to email me, but can't access your hotmail account (because of a firewall) and the computer that you're on doesn't have an email client....just visit my website and use the dropdown menu to navigate to INTERACT -> Email Me.

For those in the know, I used a publically available PERL-based script written by the London PERL Mongers called NMS-Formmail 2.13.

I would recommend this script over others as NMS-Formmail is mature, still actively developed, and promptly patched for security holes.

BTW, I'd like to apologize to users of Mozilla-based browsers: I used the style tag cursor:hand for the submit button in my email form (in IE 5+, this style tag makes makes the mouse pointer turn into a hand over the applied object). The style tag is not supported by Mozilla and its variants (Chimera, Galeon, Kmeleon, etc.). Sorry.

When I have time, I'll code in a link or a Javascript work around.

-T

From the "My site is starting to shape up" Dept.

Hey Guys,

I'd like to inform you of new content on my site:

• NEW!Added a Photos Section that details my April and August trips to Algonquin .
• Updated my Resume Section.
• NEW!Added a Portfolio section to some of my web work since 1999.

I'll try to be prompt with my photo section, but scanning is such a pain.

-T

From the "Life is passing me by" dept.

Hey guys,

Haven't been posting much. I've scanned in some picks from algonquin, and I'm organizing them in an album (still messing with a good layout). Here are some shots:

Samantha (my new cousin) took her first unassisted breaths of air today. That's a big step for such a small child. My uncle said that she actually lost weight, which is worrisome but not abnormal.

Wow, I can't get over the fact that she's only 2 lbs 3 oz. It boggles my mind that she's so small. I look around my room and there are so many objects that just dwarf her in size and weight. My beloved ET doll is so much larger than her.

Life never ceases to amaze me.

From the "Wrestling with my iBook" Dept."

So I put down $199 CDN for a new copy of Mac OS 10.2 Jaguar.

This is the actual packaging: Leopard print. How retro.

I actually pre-ordered and received my copy on August 23rd, however, I haven't had a chance to install it until a week ago.

I've been wrangling with it ever since.

The Good:

• It's way faster thatn 10.1.5 (the previous version). How's that for an OS upgrade; it actually improved speed on older hardware.
• The lots of UI enhancements, like a reasonable window switching system, better menus.
• It has an address book that I would actually consider using.
• Hand writing recognition.
• Updated UNIX Core.

The bad:

• My unix programs are broken [Just for the record, I'm not very good a compiling programs from source, and my favourite UNIX downloade manager, fink, is broken].
• Some idiot decided to make the default screen shot format PDF [Why would a person do this? What were they thinking?] rather than making it a more widely recognized format like JPEG or PNG [Tiff was the default format in OS 10.1.
• My UI hacks are broken [I use a lot of 3rd party shareware that improves the UI] so productivity is at a low.

All and all, I am very happy with Jaguar. Was it worth the 200 dollars? Yes, the speed improvement alone was worth it. There are so many new features I didn't even mention, nor am I going to elaborate about them.

For those who are interested, here are some useful links:

• ARStechnica Review of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar - A good starting point about Mac OS X 10.2 and some if it's new features.
• TIDbits thread :: "What's missing From OS 9 in Jaguar" - For those of you who use Mac OS 9.
• Macintouch Reader Reports for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar

Cheers,
-T

From the "Algonquin Review" Dept."

Hey guys,

My brother, Win, his girlfriend, Jean, and Jen and I were in Algonquin this Labour Day weekend.

We did a pretty easy hike of 23 Km over 3 days (two nights). Pretty relaxing.

Nothing like when I was there in April.

Probably the most interesting thing was that I was attacked by a very large and aggressive dragon-fly (about 10 cm long...).

I screamed like a little girl.

Photos are pending.

From a "New addition to the Toh Clan" Dept.

With the mention of the word "girl", I would like to inform you that I now have a new first cousin.

Samantha Hong Sum Toh was born Sunday, September 01, 2002 at 2:07 pm. She weighs in at a whopping 2 lbs 3 oz.

Yes, 2 lbs 3 oz.

She was over 2 months premature.

However, she has all 10 fingers and 10 toes.

She's also the first female cousin on my dad's side.

She's really, really tiny, has a whole bunch of tubes sticking out of her, and will be living in an incubator for the next 2 months, but after that, she should be fine and dandy.

Photos are pending.

Cheers,

Tai