No Complaints

NOTE: All the whining and complaining below have no emotional component, and thus do not revoke my right to watch a movie today.

It's all been about Chinese the last few days; I've been neglecting pretty much everything else. It would seem that I would have some skills to show for the invested time, but as of now they are still wimpy at best.

I also spent some time fighting the new Flash format - "f4v" - but it is being a real 笨蛋 and refusing to do what I tell it.

Up until today I've been using McAfee Antivirus, but today there was some downsizing and McAfee took a hit. The complaints were numerous and all too valid to ignore. Here they are, in order of idiocy, from greatest to least:

1. You can't turn it off. Once it's installed, the only way to turn it off is to uninstall it. Otherwise, it runs whenever your computer is on. It's a program with no Exit feature! That's a little too versatile for me.
2. It scans. It constantly scans. I never know what it's thinking, it's always scanning. Is it scanning itself? I'd rather not know, so goodbye McAfee.
3. It updates itself every five minutes and then demands system restart. If you say "No, I'll restart later," it conveniently pops up reminders at 30 second intervals until you comply with its demands.
4. It's a whiny little bitch. If you change your settings to anything less than "Scan everything from files to family members' colons," it incessantly begs that you change them back, with the same patience as in complain #3. Well guess what happens to whiny little bitches in this family? They get uninstalled.

More wonderful Chinese:

留意 - to be mindful/careful

若要老婆留意自己所说的话，作丈夫的只要把话向其他女性说便成了。
If a man wants his wife to pay attention to what he says, he addresses his remarks to another woman.

Evil and wise, a dangerous combination.
It's World War III time.

棒 - stick (among other things)

示威者用棍棒和各种投掷物攻击警察。
Demonstrators attacked the police, using sticks and assorted missiles.
他们试图用一根铁棒撬开锁。
They tried to use an iron bar to pry open the lock.
侦探认为这根木棒和谋杀案有牵连。
The detective thought the stick was related to the murder case.
农夫拿著大棒追赶闯进来的人。
The farmer came after the intruder with a big stick.
我们接近她时, 她就挥棒乱打.
As we approached her, she laid about her with a stick.

So the movies are all true! They do beat the crap out of each other with sticks all day. It's probably a scheduled event:

Mr Li: honey! It's eight o'clock already. We're going to be late for the morning stick fight. It's the Zhang family's turn to take a beating, we don't want to miss it!
Mrs Li: crap! I haven't even finished sharpening my iron bar! And have you been going through my assorted missiles again? They're all out of order!
Mr Li: ah, sorry about that honey. We had a little impromptu fight yesterday after work. But good news, now there's no need to fire anyone.
Mrs Li: oh, wonderful! That's such good news! Ok, I think I'm ready. Iron bar - check, bamboo poles - check, flying daggers - check, missiles - check, dragon costume - check. Let's go!