Author: Adedeji Olowe

Happy new year to everyone out there. May the good Lord make 2006 a year of blessings and prosperity. Amen

But you got to play your part: BE GOOD TO EVERYONE!

When Flash forms were first released by on CFMX7 everyone hooed and haaed it as the best thing that ever happened to UI development since Berners-Lee invented HTML.

Like others, I quickly ported some applications to Flash forms and I was grinning from ear to ear like a hobbit but it didn’t take long before I was brought down to reality. Brought down hard.One, on the local intranet, Flash forms are terribly slower than the forms they replaced. And if you want to talk about their excellent validations as a reason, there other nifty JavaScripts outside that do the same thing with less bandwidth affinity. That is on the intranet; the internet experience is even worse.

Two, Flash forms don’t scale well as if a browser is missing Flash player 7, and if it is not in an environment where it can upgrade itself, the whole application falls apart. You don’t see anything except some wicked looking red X mark. Duh!

Three, Flash forms are pretty but a lot of other forms could be made prettier. You even run into a brick wall when you want to style Flash forms as it only supports inline CSS. Man am gripping!

I did an application for some dudes which we tested extensively. Along the line, the group office decided to upgrade to an Active Directory environment with new security policies. Lo and behold, my whole application fell apart. I had to go back and recode all the portions with Flash forms to normal HTML forms with JS validations.

May be I am not smart, but in this case, Flash forms whipped me silly. I have learnt my lessons

I don’t know if we have been cursed with the fire brigade spirit. I don’t know why it takes disasters to make our government to move. And even when they move, it is so so clumsy.The recent spate of air crashes has been so devastating to the psyche of some regular air men like me. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been near an air plane since October 22 but I don’t know how long I can stay away.

It is instructive to note that people have been talking about our flying coffins for so long and yet the govt never did anything until planes started falling out of the sky. In fact, we could apportion more blame to the Obasanjo govt because we elected them to be our voice. He was given the mandate to select good people for the aviation sector and also powers to remove them. If he now fails to do that until disasters came knocking despite all the noise made, then he could be counted as negligent.

Now we have lost people. We have lost good people. I still had a dinner with a family a week before the husband/father perished in the Bellview crash. Good family with great potentials. The wife is a young beautiful woman but now, she a widow to take care of her daughter alone.

Look at Pastor Bimbo ‘Bims’ Odukoya. Never known anyone speak evil of her. She’s touched more lives than Obasanjo could touch in a 100 lives times combined together. Now she’s gone. Who will take up her ministry? Who will counsel those in emotional pain? I know God has a lot of people that could take over but that is not a consolation for just losing great people carelessly like that.

I live around the airport and everyday, my fear is that a plane should not fall over my roof. I tried to get insurance but the insurance dudes won’t insure me against diving aircrafts.

Now, I ask, why don’t these aviation people themselves ever die in crashes? Wouldn’t it have been better if all the people that died are the bad and corrupt  politicians in Nigeria?

I still don’t know why angels die and the devils live for so long….

There was a man who really took care of his body. One day he took a look in the mirror and noticed that he was tan all over except for his penis. So he decided to do something about it.He went to the beach and got completely undressed and buried himself in the sand, except for his penis, which he left sticking out.

Two old ladies were strolling along the beach, one using a cane. Upon seeing the thing sticking up out of the sand, she began to move it around with her cane, remarking to the other lady, ”There is no justice in this world.” The other lady asked what she meant.

“Well, when I was 20, I was curious about it. When I was 30, I enjoyed it. When I was 40, I asked for it. When I was 50, I paid for it. When I was 60, I prayed for it. When I was 70, I forgot all about it. Now I’m 80 and the damn things are growing wild and I’m too old to squat!”

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak? 

Why do banks charge a fee on “insufficient funds” when they know  there is not enough? Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Why doesn’t glue stick to the bottle?

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?

Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose idea was it to put an “S” in the word “lisp”?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles  are always white?

Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their  vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down  to give the vacuum one more chance? 

Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end you first try? 

How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that’s  falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over? 

In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in  summer when we complained about the heat?

How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

If at first you don’t succeed, shouldn’t you try doing it like your  wife told you to do it? 

And finally,………… The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is  suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends,  if they are okay, then…