Wednesday, April 24, 2002
I just read that Jesse Helms is going to have open-heart surgery. There goes one of my theories.
posted by Scott |
10:16 AM
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
"My old man worked hard and all they gave him was more work"
Larry, Weekend at Bernie's
I'm so freaking tired! I accomplished herculean amounts of work today, and yet every time I check our teams collective progress towards tomorrow night's goal we seem to be going backwards. Its like everyone went on strike and forgot to tell me... or decided not two. Did I mention I was tired?
*Non Sequiter*
I really love Kellogg's Special K. I have a bowl just about every morning. However, I'm a little irritated at what a girlie cereal it is. All the little offers on the back of the box are aimed at women (cosmetics, etc). Would it kill them to make a version of this cereal for men? They don't have to change the cereal at all: just the box. All the'd have to do is get rid of all the little "Fat Free" and "Nutritious" referenced everywhere, and then swap out the lipstick add for an add for something like a socket wrench set.
posted by Scott |
10:50 PM
Monday, April 22, 2002
"Step Three:
Instead of 'Bitch' drop the 't'
'Cause 'Bich' is Latin for generosity"
Mr. Mackey, It's Easy M'Kay
My Weekend Part 3 of 3
This morning I had brunch with my friend Julia whom I would ask out in a heartbeat if she were not 1) Moving to Nashville, TN in six weeks and 2) Already dating someone else. *SIGH* This is my curse: I meet all these fabulous girls who aside for being all attractive and fun are usually brilliant and talented to boot. Does it ever work out though? NOOOooo. I'm convinced this is just life's way of saying: See this? This is what you CAN'T have. HA! HA! HA! Anyway, we ate at this little cafe downtown that looks out over the sound. It was nice. I'll miss her terribly when she leaves.
I also helped my (soon to be Ex) roommate Susan move some things over to her new house. House is kind of a strong word for it. Her Fiance, Scott, bought this totally rundown piece of shit house on an amazing lot in eastern Redmond. He's completely remodeling the house ALL BY HIMSELF, and he is not a carpenter by trade. Currently there are only a few furnished rooms in the basement of the house. The entire upstairs is basically a skeleton. Currently they're running all the wiring. I estimate they'll be done in about... four years. The wedding's in two weeks.
To be fair I think they've done wonders so far, and I'm quite certain that the finished product will be nothing short of spectacular.
That's the news that's fit to print. You might find all this boring, but then I'm not writing this for you, am I? :-)
posted by Scott |
9:33 PM
Sunday, April 21, 2002
"Step Two:
Instead of 'Shit' say 'Poo'
As in 'Bull-poo', 'Poo-head', and 'This Poo is cold'
Mr. Mackey, It's Easy, M'Kay
My Weekend Part 2 of 3
Saturday I mowed the lawn. As I have been living in dorms and apratments for the last six years I had forgotten how much... fun this task was. My overall enjoyment was also helped along by the fact that our lawn mower is electric, no one had mowed our yard since last summer, and the fact that our lawn is composed of the following: - 7% Dandelions
- 8% Crab Grass
- 20% Normal Grass
- 65% Moss
For the most part moss is a nice thing to have in your yard: its thick, soft, green, and from a distance looks remarkably like grass. The downside of moss it that its so thick it woill choke a normal mower (let alone an electric one). Its slow going when you have to give the mower the heimlich manuever every few feet.
Even so Saturday was probably the most memorable day of the entire year so far. I went downtown with three guys I worked with (Matt, Dave, and Tiger) in the afternoon. We met at Matt's apartment in Belltown (North end of downtown) and proceeded to pub crawl to Safeco Field for the Mariner's game (South end of town: Sodo Mojo!). We didn't bother to buy ticket's in advance because Matt (Chicago native) claimed we could talk the scalpers down and get 'em really cheap. So many blocks and several drinks later we were wandering around the perimeter of the ballpark trying to buy tickets. The scalpers weren't really willing to negotioate and we soon learned why: the game was sold out. This plus the fact that it was a gorgeous day meant everyone wanted to go the game.
So we wound up in a bar just accross the street from Safeco having dinner and drinks. I'm not much of a baseball fan so it was nice. I got to talk at length with Tiger, an Excel dev from China, about his family, his girlfriend, the differences in eastern and western culture, etc. It was nice.
A few hours later we're done eating and the ballgame is in the ninth inning. The Mariner's are down by one, but they manage to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Everyone it the bar is really getting into the game, when Dave suggests that we might actually be able to see the game from some of the gates around the field. Since we all needed to stretch out legs anyway we decided to give it a shot.
Now all the gates to the ballpark have guards stationed at them to keep people from sneaking in. We really just wanted to try and watch through the bars, but as we were walking past the Home Plate gate and gnarled old dwarf of a guard screeches 'Ya can't get in widout a ticket!' at us. Now we had just been walking by on our way to the centerfield gate, but after we had a good laugh at what a bastard he was we decided that sneaking in was a damn good idea.
By now its the middle of the tenth inning and everyone in the stadium is on their feet. We get to the back gates and even though we can see the field we can't tell what's going on because of all the standing people. The gate we're at consists of a series of vertical bars with a pushbar on the opposite side to open it and some locks on the bottom. We notice that the locks aren't engaged so Dave reaches through the bars and tries the pushbar. It opens. Now there are security guards giving us nasty looks so we don't actually open the gate: we just leave it adjar a little. I was feeling very bad about the whole idea when Matt point's out that the worst thing they can do is kick us out. So we wait for the next really exciting moment in the game and just wander on it (along with several other people who were nearby). We duck inside (I take off my coat & hat just in case any of the guards remembers seeing us out there), and we wander over to the standing area just behind center field.
It was AWESOME! The game continued for another inning and a half with the Mariner's winning in the bottom of the 11th. From watching most of the game in the bar we knew that nothing had really happened before the ninth inning so we really got to see the best parts of the game. Afterwards we were all filled with a bizarre sense of accomplishment. Matt, who had been going to see the Chicago Cubs play at Wrigley for years, tried to explain to Tiger the signifigance of sneaking into baseball games (which Matt had never pulled off before). To be honest I don't think either Tiger or I really understood Matt's whole argument about "tradition" and "something to tell your grandkids about", but we all still felt pretty pumped about the whole episode. It made for goode conversation in the bar afterwards.
We rounded out the night drinking coffee on the roof of Matt's building back in Belltown. It was a very Seattle ending to a very Seattle day.
posted by Scott |
7:35 PM
"Step One:
Instead of 'Ass' say 'buns'
Like 'Kiss my buns' or 'You're a buns-hole'..."
Mr. Mackey, It's Easy, M'Kay
My Weekend Part 1 of 3
Friday would be one of the reasons I had to come into work today (Sunday) because I accomplished sweet fuck all at work. (That means 'Nothing' for those of you who don't speak Newfie). It was so bad that I didn't even bother coming back to work after my lesson at 5:00pm.
Tim, Julia, Matt, Michelle, and I did go out to see some so-so improv at a cool little place off of Post Alley underneath the Pike's Place Market. Slightly more interesting than the show itself was the alley outside the theatre. One wall was covered with more chewing gum than you could possibly imagine. The other side was covered with posters for show's featuring "Trance" DJs ("Give Trance A Chance") The posters were a sight to behold and the names were priceless. Matt had actually heard of one of them: "Steamin' Poo" Okenfold.
posted by Scott |
3:51 PM
Friday, April 19, 2002
The Friday Five
- What's your favorite TV show and why?
I don't watch TV anymore. If I see a half hour of TV in a week its unusual, but my favorite all-time show would have to be Animaniacs - Who is your favorite television star?
Alyson Hannigan ("Willow", Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and Bruce Campbell ("Autolokis, King of Thieves" (sp?), Xena: Warrior Princess - What was your favorite TV show as a child?
I loved game shows. Wanted to be a game show host when I grew up. - What show do you think should have been cancelled by now?
MTV. The whole channel. - What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season?
I couldn't even name one new show.
On a related note: what's with all the sex? A few months ago I came home and my roommate was watching Buffy The Vampire Salyer. Now I had watched that show religeously through its frist two seasons (due mostly to Miss Hannigan) so I was pretty excited to see it was still on.
I plop down to watch it, and it seems to be full of the same old sensless violence and hot young people that I remembered. Then it comes to the end and Buffy is fighting this English Vampire. They're kicking the crap out of each other when suddenly he grapples her against the wall and they start kissing. Fine. Typically soap opera-ish enough turn of events. Then you see her hand move down towards was level and you hear *ZIP*. I'll spare you the additional details.
Now friends... I'm not going to lie to you and say I got all prudish and offended, but I was sort of curious when this sort of thing became sort of run-of-the-mill occurance on primetime. Kids these days... Its like Dennis Miller says: "The purpose of each generation is to irk the shit out of the one that preceded it."
posted by Scott |
4:42 PM
Thursday, April 18, 2002
"...can't think of anything to do
my left brain knows that
all love is fleeting
she's just looking for something new
and I said it once before
but it bears repeating"
The White Stripes, Fell In Love With A Girl
God it was so gorgeous today. Sunny and low sixties. I fought an excruciating battle all day, and finally at 4:00pm I gave in, rounded up six other people and played volleyball. There are some addictions you just never lose I guess. To be fair my body has been screaming for some kind of physical exertion lately so I've been doing my best to oblige it. In the last twenty-four hours I have run four miles, danced for two and a half hours, played 18 holes of golf, played an hour and a half of volleyball, and still managed to work over nine hours. I feel so pumped!
I missed a hole in one by six inches today. If I had made it I probably would have died. Not because I would have been excited (cosmic rays from Venus have more control over my golf game than I do), but because my friend Matt has been golfing for over ten years, has never had an Ace, and probably would have killed me.
Sadly this orgy of fun can't continue. I've got to take some time off in May, and if I don't start getting ahead in my work I think my team lead will kill me.
I also participated in a "focus group" today. I guess the management wants to know how the Rank & File feel about the current release of office. The consensus seems to be that people have sort of low moral, feel disconnected due to working on small teams, and do not have a good grasp of the overal vision and mission for this realease. This is mostly because the vision keeps changing. I summed up my own situation by saying that I love my group, my features, and my work, but if management could somehow get me excited about this release of office (Office.NET) as a whole then I would be totally stoked and could really get behind the overall effort. That being said: I think my job is awsome, and now that I'm getting caught up on things I'm so happy I could crap.
Hope yall can say the same or something similar.
posted by Scott |
6:39 PM
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
"Cheny has a heart attack like every other day. If you think about it, the Speaker of the House is really only a pretzel and a microwave away from the presidency."
-????
I am crazy tired. Here's a brief synopsis of the day that was:
On the downside: - I'm having a lot of trouble with my ______, which I hope to get sorted out over the next few weeks. Its cause me to add four names to my list of people and companies that I hope die of excruciatingly painful and embarassing venereal diseases. (Don't ask me what '______' is because I won't tell you. I'm just writing this so I'll remember it.)
On the upside:- I'm totally finished with all my feature work for Access and Excel! All I have to do now is fix bugs till we ship (whenever that is).
- My team lead is in europe for the week so I can actually keep the candy in my office without him coming and eating it all.
- My manager came buy to tell me he thought I was doing a good job and that he hoped I wasn't feeling overloaded by working on both Access and Excel. He also said that if I needed to have some of my areas of responsibility shifted to another dev if things get to crazy to just speak up. He's such a nice guy.
- I discoverd on Tuesdays you can get all you can eat tacos for $2.00 at a little Mexican place just off campus.
Bug day tomorrow. We need to bring our team bug count down by 117 before 9:00pm tomorrow or I can't go dancing. Motivation is a very personal thing. :-)
posted by Scott |
9:55 PM
Monday, April 15, 2002
"First they tell you you can't sleep alone in a strange place
Then they tell you you can't sleep with somebody else
Ah, but sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way its OK: you wake up with yourself."
Billy Joel, My Life
Or perhaps a cat or two. Carl and I are preparing to audition for a new roommate so our house is uncommonly clean. I lead the rather prolonged Vacuum campaign that raged all over the house including the uncharted continents of Under the Couch and The Laundry Room Downstairs while Carl lead a crack special forces until in a suicidal assault on The Refridgerator. There were heavy casualties, and the battle was (litereally) a bloody one, but in the end we won the day.
Not much else to tell really. Had a good weekend: golfed in the rain (actually managed to skip a ball accross a 150 yard water hazard), had a fantastic Sushi dinner with some friends down near Pike's Place Market in downtown Seattle, and went dancing. Thursday I saw this crazy little Foreign Film with Julia (Supergirl from The Century): Y Tu Mama, Tambien!. Something like a Spanish version of Mallrats with a lot of sex. Hey it was her idea. Why the hell couldn't she be single and staying in Seattle? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
I've decided that I cannot wait until all these darn portable electronic devices finally just get their collective act together and consolidate. I want a combined cell phone-Digital Camera-MP3 Player-Garage Door Opener-PDA-Water pick-Back Massager-Lighter-Toenail clipper that fits in my pocket and has a single button on it labled <Patrick Stewart>"Make it so"</Patrick Stewart>.\
Is that too much to ask?
posted by Scott |
11:06 PM
Monday, April 08, 2002
"Even in the future nothing works!"
Dark Helmut, Space Balls
Today could definitly have been filed under the heading: Better Off Amish. Let's just say that if computer's could talk then there would have been several conversations in my office that went something like this:
Me: Okay... I've got all the latest changes, this time the build's gonna work!
Computer1: *Pssst!* hey Computer 2, chucklehead there thinks this build's gonna pass!
Computer2: Well why shouldn't it?
Computer1: Oh I don't know... maybe he made a mistake, or maybe the person who's changes he just picked up made a mistake, or maybe I just feel like screwing with his head.
Computer2: Isn't that a little immature?
Computer1: Yeah, but you should see the look on his face when he sees that the build was almost perfect and then BLAM! FAILURE! HA! HA! HA! HA!
Computer2: That good, huh?
Computer1: Hell, it just keeps getting funnier.
Computer2: Hey! He just started an Excel build on me too! What should I do?
Computer1: Hmmm... the funniest thing ever would be it you let all the build succeed, but then fail on the BVTs for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Computer2: Hee hee, yah that's a good one
Computer1: Human's are so dumb
Computer2: Yeah... let's got download a virus!
posted by Scott |
10:44 PM
Friday, April 05, 2002
"Woke up
fell out of bed
Dragged a comb accross my head
Found my way downstairs an drank a cup
And looking up
I noticed I was late..."
The Beatles A Day in the Life
Taking a cue from Gwen here are the Friday Five: - What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day?
Wake up, turn off my fountain, shave, shower, dress, and go. The first words I speak are either the lyrics to a sing I decided to sing along to or obscenities shouted at AM DJs who talk to much. At work I have a bowl of Special K while reading my email, the news headlines, and people Blogs. - What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed?
Brush, floss, turn on my fountian, and read. - What daily routine have you recently added to your day?
The ritualistic sacrafice of a goat at dusk. - What routine do you wish you get rid of?
Probably the goat thing. - What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day?
Making passionate love to Katherine Zeta-Jones. That's probably while I've been feeling "a little off" for the last 24 years.
posted by Scott |
7:14 PM
Thursday, April 04, 2002
"Back on the ranch and everything's normal
Beach Blanket Bingo comes on the TV
We talk in our sleep, and then the next morning
I ask her 'Who's Dan?' and she says, 'Who's Marie?'"
Jimmy Buffet, Who's the Blonde Stranger?
Its really tragic the things you sometimes take for granted. North Carolina and Florida had just about spoiled me with sunshine. However, its only taken on Seattle winter to teach me the error of my ways. Today was the first really nice sunny day we've had, and I was floored. I walked around the campus just taking deep breaths and looking at the sun, sky, and the mountains like I didn't know what they were. My kingdom for a game of sand volleyball!
posted by Scott |
7:26 PM
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
"I'm working on a shpeedboat aht the moment."
Noah (Who is Sean Connery) in respose to God's command to build an ark.(Eddie Izzard)
So I have a new theory: your diet is essentially affected by three major things - How hungry you are at any given moment
- What's available at any given moment
- What book you are reading
Its true. You read Hemmingway and all you can think about is bread and cheese. You read Raymond Chandler and you just want to get drunk. You read Alive and suddenly the guy in the next office starts looking mighty tasty. Currently I'm reading Shogun and I have the most annoying craving for Sushi. I even ate the nasty pre-packaged referidgerated stuff they have in our cafeteria. Books are dangerous things.
So I helped someone set up a dev machine today so that they could work on the Access source code. As soon as we had him set up he asked me to show him how to change some of the text that gets displayed on the screem. The first thing everyone always wants to do is just to make a visual change in the product. I remember my first week here I figured out where all the text that appears in Access is stored, and I amused myself for a good hour by changing the text of all the menus to various obscenities.
If only we could still put Easter Eggs in the apps... I missed the boat on that one.
posted by Scott |
8:02 PM
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