Pay Cheque

Yesterday I got an envelop from our office Administrator. It said Monazza T on it. I was asked to sign a small piece of paper before I was given possession of the envelop.

It was my first pay cheque at iEngineering. I hadn't realized and almost a whole month had passed. From 6th December 2004 to 29th December 2004. Time really flies!

When I was given the envelop I quietly took it, saying thanks, and then put it on my table right beside my handbag. Even though I knew what was in it and how much was it, I still wanted to take a look inside.

But just as I never liked opening birthday gifts in front of the guests, I never liked peeking at the pay cheque in front of my colleagues. So I patiently waited for the lunch hour when the office becomes empty.

Finally the lunch hour came and I quickly snatched the envelop and opened it. I was happy to see the amount of money on the cheque. But to my dismay the spellings of my name were wrong. Instead of "Monazza" it said "Monnaza". Most of you who are reading this would have even missed the difference. But since its my name, I never can.

So I had to go to the gentleman in the administration and ask him to amend the mistake. Now I have a cheque with my previous name crossed with a million crosses and my correctly spelled name on it.

Now I just hope that my bank accepts it and gives me my money as I am in no mood to pay yet another visit to the admin section. ;)

A 1000 Emails in my Bulk Mail Folder

A few days ago a strange thought came to my mind and I set out on a mission to collect 1000 junk emails in my Bulk mail folder in my Yahoo mail account. Every day I had been "emptying" my Bulk mail folder a couple of times a day so I thought lets see if I don't do that for a couple of days. I was pretty sure that at most in a week or two I will be able to achieve my task. Also with a 250 MB size of the mailbox, the storage space was not going to be a problem.

But alas! My wishes didn't come true. I started collecting the spam on 16th of December 2004 and today on the 28th, after 12 days, all I have in my Bulk mail folder are 204 mails, to be exact.

I suspected myself of secretly deleting a couple of emails from there. I even suspected that somehow the spammers came to know of my "plan" and they are conspiring against me. But the suspicion is not helping.

I guess the spam filter of Yahoo is too good to be breached by a ton of spam. Maybe now I should start the same experiment with Hotmail and compare the results. :-D

Why Blog?

If I am blogging too much, does that mean that I am a talkative person and blogging is its representation in the cyber world, or that I have too much to say. Or does it merely mean that I am the only person on the face of this planet who has got infinite time to spare. ;)

Or does it mean that I am addicted to blogging, or that I am blogging just for the sake of blogging. Or that I am a freeloader and cannot get enough of things that are free in the world . ;) Or am I too impressed with the idea of blogging and want to be a part of it.

I don't know. Maybe all the reasons are correct. So tell me my fellow bloggers, why do YOU blog? :-)

Basically Microsoft is Screwed !

After three day of trying to access my Hotmail account i was very mad. I thought Hotmail was screwed and even wrote a post about it. But turns out that not the creation but the creator is screwed. :-P

I was using Internet Explorer to acces my account, as i admit that i am used to it. But then i tried Netscape when somebody suggested. And Wallah!! The Hotmail account opened in front of me as a slave kneeling in front of his master. ;-)

So i wonder where the fault is. In Hotmail, in IE, in Microsoft, or in MYSELF. ;-)

Wanted: 'Gal Pals'

It might sound strange but I am really longing to have some gal pals around. Its not that I don't have any friends (who are girls), but its just that they are far away. No girls around where I spend a big chunk of my day. Waaahhhh :'(

In my office where I have to spend a really long time there is no girl but me. The place I was at before this one had a few girls around, but they too were in the next office, sort of.

Even when I was in UK there were no girls in my class. Oh how I had wished there would be some around, but there were none. [ Well come to think of it, there were not many students around in the class let alone girls ;) ]

It's not that I can't talk to boys or they are not good at conversing but sometimes girls really need to talk to girls. ;-)

I have no idea how the boys feel in the presence of girls or to be more specific one girl. [ My deepest sympathies with them if they feel uneasy. ;-) ] But I for one can't stand being the only girl around.

Help me out you girls out there. Apply for a job in iEngineering. ;-)

PS: Boys are free to express their feelings about having a 'snooping' girl around. ;-)

Hotmail is Screwed!

Its now the third day that i am unable to access my Hotmail account. At first i thought it is some browser problem, but soon i realised that its not. First my access to Hotmail was 'sort of' blocked at home, then at my office. And now there is not a single Hotmail account of mine that i can access.

This problem is like a virus that has spread all over Pakistan. Any family member or friend i talk to (who are in Pakistan) they complain of the same problem.

Maybe Hotmail people have quarantined Pakistan. They have blocked all traffic and requests coming from Pakistan. And i wonder why. Its been about 24 hours since i wrote to their support. They also have not replied back.

Can somebody tell what the hell is going on?

Installations

Today was the 10th day on my new job. Apart from doing tiny bits of other things i have been installing software as well.

Day 1:
- Installed Yahoo Toolbar

Day 2:
- Formatted the whole system and installed WIndows 2000 Professionsl & then SP3.
- Installed Office 2000
- Installed Partition Magic
- Insatlled Adobe Acrobat
- Installed Ultimate Zip
- Installed MSN MEssenger
- Installed Norton Anti virus

Day 7:
- Installed Internet Explorer 6 with service pack

Day 8:
- Installed Visual Studio 2000
- Installed MSDN July 2002
- Installed Top STyle Pro (Trial)
- Installed Adobe Photoshop

Day 9:
- Installed Visual Studio .NET
- Installed Dreamweaver MX
- Installed Visio Professional
- Installed MS SQL Server 2000
- Installed The Regulator (a regex generator utility for .NET)

Day 10:
- Planning to install MSDN for VS .NET if i can find the CDs.

That's why every time my sister comes online (she is in Sweden) and asks me what i am doing, all i can say is 'Installations'. ;-)

The wagon door ate my foot

After two weeks of a comfortable drive to work in a taxi and burning more than 2000 rupees I finally convinced myself to try my hand at the public transport. Even though I had tried to implement that plan a couple of times before, but somehow it never reached that stage. Most of the times my timing was the cause, as I would not be able to wake up as early as planned.

But finally today I did it. Woke up really early so that I could leave for office with ample time at my hands. I even left the house on time (oh well, 10 minutes later than planned.) After that my aim was to reach the wagon stop on time, so I paced forward quickly. But I had to come to a halt for a long time when I had to cross 'the road'. That road is one of the roads going into one of the busiest crossroads in my city Rawalpindi, the Chaklala Scheme 3 Chowk.

I stood there in hope that maybe I would be able to beat the next bunch of cars. But it never happened. Well not anytime soon. Took me around 4 minutes to cross one half of the double road, and another 3 to cross the next half. Finally I was on the other side. But that was not the end. I still had to walk a couple of minutes to reach my 'stop'. And finally I reached there too, only to wait for another couple of minutes.

I was loosing minutes on every nook, corner and crossroad. Time was running out and I was about to have a panic attack when I saw a wagon with empty front seats stopping. [Front seats (the seats beside the driver) are reserved for females and can be taken over my males if the males need those. :P ] I didn't even rush towards it as I could see two empty spaces but I was the only female there.
But then I hurried a bit in fear that the wagon might leave without me.

I reached it and asked the conductor if that wagon would go to 'secretariat'. At first he didn't understand but after I asked again he said it would go to 'sectrait'. I knew instantly that that was the right wagon regardless of the fact that the conductor's pronunciation was FAR different than mine. ;)

I was just climbing in with one foot in and one still on the footrest when that "@#$%'" conductor banged the door on it. I was going to scream but didn't. Instead I gave pushed the door, pulled my foot in and gave him an angry stare. But Mr. Conductor thought it was something fun. The instant I stared at him, his pearly whites came out and didn't go in until after a while.

God I was angry. Blood gushed to my eyes. I felt like killing that 'door slammer'. Anger built up in me like an atom bomb explosion. But then as quickly as it had built up, it fizzled out. I cooled down and forgave the offense. After all he didn't do that on purpose. At least that's what I think. ;)

Boring

Boring boring
It's so boring

Staring at the PC screen
Feeling bored, wanting to screem

Done with all the tasks at hand
My eyes so full with sandman's sand

For four more hours I have to stay
By then my mind would surely decay

Somebody come, sombody help
Set me free from a cruel hell

The Worst Thing....

The worst thing that can happen when ideas are gushing into your mind and you really want to blog is to be sitting on a fully functional PC with no Internet connection. :'(

Not only this but also you know that it is totally useless typing your precious words in notepad because there is also no way to copy the data from there. Because the computer would also not have a floppy drive, a CD writer or even a functional USB port. :'(

So what can you do in such a situation? Turn to the traditional ways and pick up a pen and paper? But you also know that once you write something on a piece of paper, it will be lost forever. Why? Because nobody will be able to read it, not even your own self.

Could try typing some of the stuff and taking a printout. Right? Wrong! Because the PC doesn't have any links with the outside world, be it the Internet, a removable storage device or even a printer. :'(

I guess by the time all these 'marvelous' facts are discovered, you feel like banging the head against a big hard surface. But whether you execute this 'head banging' plan or not your mind would be as empty as a container with vacuum in it. All the lovely or exciting ideas would have fizzled out.

Angry at the cruel world, beaten and torn, you would be back to square one, thinking maybe one day you can tell this tale of torture to the world, and maybe it can be food for your blog. One day. Someday. ;)