Wiki-monkey
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Kicks
Finally have enough shoes to do the "niketalk" pose.
Ok so the IV's are my lil bro's. But they were in MY closet. ¶ 6:03 PM 0 comments
Finally have enough shoes to do the "niketalk" pose.
Ok so the IV's are my lil bro's. But they were in MY closet. ¶ 6:03 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
CVS2
new team, K-Kyo/Cammy/Sagat.
After seeing Otaku OCV so many peeps with K-kyo, decided to give it a try. K-groove is fun with run and Just Defend. Kyo is good for pressuring with the rekka combos and mixups. Although I have yet to land his super in a combo. Cammy can s.HK all day, with Sagat, c.HP.
Picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, installed it and .... played two seconds then quit cuz it was too aliased (my video card settings had AA disabled). Haven't been back since, I want to get some studying done before taking on a game of that magnitude. ¶ 9:06 PM 0 comments
After seeing Otaku OCV so many peeps with K-kyo, decided to give it a try. K-groove is fun with run and Just Defend. Kyo is good for pressuring with the rekka combos and mixups. Although I have yet to land his super in a combo. Cammy can s.HK all day, with Sagat, c.HP.
Picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, installed it and .... played two seconds then quit cuz it was too aliased (my video card settings had AA disabled). Haven't been back since, I want to get some studying done before taking on a game of that magnitude. ¶ 9:06 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Night from hell ....
The recap.
Friday - I wake up at 7:00am then go back to sleep until 8:50 (class starts at 9). Attempting to shower, dress, and drive to class in 5 minutes goes awry. I now know how that one baseball player burned himself by ironing his shirt while he was wearing it. Must have been late for something.
Class went oh so slowly. I was falling asleep the entire day. It didn't help that I'd stayed up til near 2am playing poker the previous day.
Quick recap on poker night: Had no trouble finding my way to Newton, then got completely lost on the small roads (this will be a recurring theme). Ordered 4 chinese takeout dinners (which may get audited :/ ), then watched NBA for most the night. Lost $10 when I sat in for a short time, then at the end got 2nd place in a no limit tourney. Which netted me the buy-in, $5. At least I got to chill with some EMC buddies.
During a break I decided to call my cousin's friend, to see if she wanted to grab dinner. We end up playing phone tag but the wheels were in motion. Class ends, people bolt out the door. I relax at the hotel until around 7 or so, then head out. Two things.
Questionable decisions: even though I'm low on gas, I drive out to Cambridge anyways. By luck I manage to get on some of the streets I'm supposed to be on. Here's a sample:
This would be ok, if there were actually readable street signs in Boston. Even my cousin's friend was having a hard time making out the signs, and she's an optometrist!
Note to google/yahoo/mapquest. What we really need are directions that go [Turn right at Joe's Pizza (iconic / landmark directions!) Then make a left at street X cuz its going to turn into street Y even though it's never noted on the directions and you'd never know to turn off here.] Directions that take into account of street naming stupidity! Woot!
It takes me 30 minutes from the time I get off the supposed "correct exit" to find her place. Then after we head out to Legal Seafood, which is 15 minutes away, we promptly get lost and don't make it there for another HOUR. Yeeeeeahhh. The night is going real smooth. (She's driving btw, not me) I think we made it over the Charles River about five times before finally figuring out where the hell we are. Not that getting back was any easier.
Aside from that dinner was good. Crab cakes, clam chowdah. The grilled scallops were sumptuous. Yummy. Conversation wasn't bad either. She didn't agree with my plan of shipping clam chowder from Boston to California.
We leave the restaurant knowing that we do NOT want to go across the Charles River. And what happens? One way street after one way street, over the Charles River and lost again. Anyways, she finds some familiar freeway and we get back. Then she wants me to go inside so we can "map out" my return to Marlborough. Which I felt was unnecessary given that I'd get lost regardless but she insisted. So it was decided that I would disregard mapquest and take the 95 to the 90.
Somehow I make it all the way to the 95S freeway entrance without getting lost. Unfortunately it was blocked off. I had to figure out a way to reroute to it. Then going through the Ted Williams tunnel I catch a glimpse of a sign that says the 90 onramp is closed. !!!!!!!!!! I exit somewhere, drive around a ton until I see the 90W onramp right in front of some bridge.
My gas is dwindling all the while, and I was forced to resort to "easing up on the accelerator to save gas" tactics.The needle is west of the orange, meaning that I'm damn low on gas. My last moment of idiocy was trying to save gas by taking a short cut rather than take the 495N back home. Another thing I hate about MA. The dearth of 24 hour gas stations. Here I am, desperately low on gas, willing to pay $100 a gallon and every damn gas station is closed! Killing me. It really is a miracle that I made it back to the hotel instead of having to camp out in my rental car.
Obviously I didn't learn my lesson because the next day I headed down to the outlet malls and almost missed my flight back to San Jose. The reason I was late was because I was mixing and matching all the Lebron II shoes to find ones with the least flaws. I'd rather scuff up the shoes myself then buy them janky. I also got some shirts for August, when I head to NY for my cousin's big wedding. Woo-hoo.
P.S. yeah the possibility exist that I'm simply a moron. But I hate driving in Boston. Portable GPS is the way to go. ¶ 9:14 PM 0 comments
Friday - I wake up at 7:00am then go back to sleep until 8:50 (class starts at 9). Attempting to shower, dress, and drive to class in 5 minutes goes awry. I now know how that one baseball player burned himself by ironing his shirt while he was wearing it. Must have been late for something.
Class went oh so slowly. I was falling asleep the entire day. It didn't help that I'd stayed up til near 2am playing poker the previous day.
Quick recap on poker night: Had no trouble finding my way to Newton, then got completely lost on the small roads (this will be a recurring theme). Ordered 4 chinese takeout dinners (which may get audited :/ ), then watched NBA for most the night. Lost $10 when I sat in for a short time, then at the end got 2nd place in a no limit tourney. Which netted me the buy-in, $5. At least I got to chill with some EMC buddies.
During a break I decided to call my cousin's friend, to see if she wanted to grab dinner. We end up playing phone tag but the wheels were in motion. Class ends, people bolt out the door. I relax at the hotel until around 7 or so, then head out. Two things.
1) Mapquest totally sucks.
2) I could have perfect directions and still get completely lost. Driving in Boston is the worst.
Questionable decisions: even though I'm low on gas, I drive out to Cambridge anyways. By luck I manage to get on some of the streets I'm supposed to be on. Here's a sample:
turn right on road A
go straight on road A, turns into road B
road B turns into road A
slight right on road C
road C turns into road A
This would be ok, if there were actually readable street signs in Boston. Even my cousin's friend was having a hard time making out the signs, and she's an optometrist!
Note to google/yahoo/mapquest. What we really need are directions that go [Turn right at Joe's Pizza (iconic / landmark directions!) Then make a left at street X cuz its going to turn into street Y even though it's never noted on the directions and you'd never know to turn off here.] Directions that take into account of street naming stupidity! Woot!
It takes me 30 minutes from the time I get off the supposed "correct exit" to find her place. Then after we head out to Legal Seafood, which is 15 minutes away, we promptly get lost and don't make it there for another HOUR. Yeeeeeahhh. The night is going real smooth. (She's driving btw, not me) I think we made it over the Charles River about five times before finally figuring out where the hell we are. Not that getting back was any easier.
Aside from that dinner was good. Crab cakes, clam chowdah. The grilled scallops were sumptuous. Yummy. Conversation wasn't bad either. She didn't agree with my plan of shipping clam chowder from Boston to California.
We leave the restaurant knowing that we do NOT want to go across the Charles River. And what happens? One way street after one way street, over the Charles River and lost again. Anyways, she finds some familiar freeway and we get back. Then she wants me to go inside so we can "map out" my return to Marlborough. Which I felt was unnecessary given that I'd get lost regardless but she insisted. So it was decided that I would disregard mapquest and take the 95 to the 90.
Somehow I make it all the way to the 95S freeway entrance without getting lost. Unfortunately it was blocked off. I had to figure out a way to reroute to it. Then going through the Ted Williams tunnel I catch a glimpse of a sign that says the 90 onramp is closed. !!!!!!!!!! I exit somewhere, drive around a ton until I see the 90W onramp right in front of some bridge.
My gas is dwindling all the while, and I was forced to resort to "easing up on the accelerator to save gas" tactics.The needle is west of the orange, meaning that I'm damn low on gas. My last moment of idiocy was trying to save gas by taking a short cut rather than take the 495N back home. Another thing I hate about MA. The dearth of 24 hour gas stations. Here I am, desperately low on gas, willing to pay $100 a gallon and every damn gas station is closed! Killing me. It really is a miracle that I made it back to the hotel instead of having to camp out in my rental car.
Obviously I didn't learn my lesson because the next day I headed down to the outlet malls and almost missed my flight back to San Jose. The reason I was late was because I was mixing and matching all the Lebron II shoes to find ones with the least flaws. I'd rather scuff up the shoes myself then buy them janky. I also got some shirts for August, when I head to NY for my cousin's big wedding. Woo-hoo.
P.S. yeah the possibility exist that I'm simply a moron. But I hate driving in Boston. Portable GPS is the way to go. ¶ 9:14 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Back to Boston
Boston isn't a cold siberia all year round. I had asked my friends how the weather was, and still semi-doubted them. It's as nice as it is in California.
Things are going fairly smoothly for my first business trip. The plane flight was pretty uneventful, and I slept most of the way from DC to Boston. At first Alamo gave me this janky car with a weird smell (I felt like Seinfeld in The Smelly Car episode). They were nice enough to swap it for a pontiac grand prix with 2000 miles on it. Acceleration and handling sux but at least it has a new car smell. The hotel room is decent, but the Hawthorne blows it away. The good thing is that it's only 5 minutes from the training facility and closer to my favorite restaurants on the 9. Wired internet blows but better than dialup.
Driving down the 495 brought back memories... yeah I know it hasn't been that long. But it's still cool! I'm semi-familiar with south MA now, didn't get lost. I actually drove by the Hawthorne to get a reuben sandwich from Cracker Barrel. The sandwich was incredibly good, however the service there was horrible. Delayed me at least 20 minutes and I missed the first quarter of game 6 as a result. I think I'll head down to the outlets Saturday morning and have a look around.
Training is a lot different this time around, there's way less pressure than bootcamp. Which makes it more fun. The class I'm taking is interesting (Legato clustering software) and the instructor is hilarious. He even offered me his season tickets to the Giants when he's not going (pity they sux this year). The cool thing is I work in the Legato building and the two instructors there are in Santa Clara (our future digs). So I can ping them anytime in the future.
Hopefully tomorrow my friends will be free and we can all go out to dinner and drinks. I spent way too much on sushi today trying to max out my $50 dinner expense. It didn't help that the sake and maguro weren't as soft as I'd remembered. I gotta get some chowDAH.
PS. I bought some gummy worms, left them in the car, and after class found out they had MELTED together. Wow this ain't January anymore, where you could leave leftovers in your car and have it stay good for ... well.. forever. ¶ 9:15 PM 1 comments
Things are going fairly smoothly for my first business trip. The plane flight was pretty uneventful, and I slept most of the way from DC to Boston. At first Alamo gave me this janky car with a weird smell (I felt like Seinfeld in The Smelly Car episode). They were nice enough to swap it for a pontiac grand prix with 2000 miles on it. Acceleration and handling sux but at least it has a new car smell. The hotel room is decent, but the Hawthorne blows it away. The good thing is that it's only 5 minutes from the training facility and closer to my favorite restaurants on the 9. Wired internet blows but better than dialup.
Driving down the 495 brought back memories... yeah I know it hasn't been that long. But it's still cool! I'm semi-familiar with south MA now, didn't get lost. I actually drove by the Hawthorne to get a reuben sandwich from Cracker Barrel. The sandwich was incredibly good, however the service there was horrible. Delayed me at least 20 minutes and I missed the first quarter of game 6 as a result. I think I'll head down to the outlets Saturday morning and have a look around.
Training is a lot different this time around, there's way less pressure than bootcamp. Which makes it more fun. The class I'm taking is interesting (Legato clustering software) and the instructor is hilarious. He even offered me his season tickets to the Giants when he's not going (pity they sux this year). The cool thing is I work in the Legato building and the two instructors there are in Santa Clara (our future digs). So I can ping them anytime in the future.
Hopefully tomorrow my friends will be free and we can all go out to dinner and drinks. I spent way too much on sushi today trying to max out my $50 dinner expense. It didn't help that the sake and maguro weren't as soft as I'd remembered. I gotta get some chowDAH.
PS. I bought some gummy worms, left them in the car, and after class found out they had MELTED together. Wow this ain't January anymore, where you could leave leftovers in your car and have it stay good for ... well.. forever. ¶ 9:15 PM 1 comments
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Calender-ster!!!!
Recently I had to look through some PHP code done by some contractors in India for a friend of mine. I think he paid too much for it ... plus the code was all uncommented and it was difficult to understand the design choices. Anyways that brings me to reminiscing about an old programming project.
My friends and I were working on something really similar a year ago to this. Seriously. I have the code on my computer on a zip file. Plus Tomcat, Mysql, and JDeveloper sitting around on my computer not being utilized.
Of course their UI is much cleaner. But maybe we should have kept working on it. Our own little coding project. Maybe it ain't too late ... if only we had VC funding. It would be cool to finish what we had started. Now it seems that it might be a lucrative market.
Ken I'm game if you are! Let's do it and get bought out! =)
¶ 5:51 AM 0 comments
My friends and I were working on something really similar a year ago to this. Seriously. I have the code on my computer on a zip file. Plus Tomcat, Mysql, and JDeveloper sitting around on my computer not being utilized.
Of course their UI is much cleaner. But maybe we should have kept working on it. Our own little coding project. Maybe it ain't too late ... if only we had VC funding. It would be cool to finish what we had started. Now it seems that it might be a lucrative market.
Ken I'm game if you are! Let's do it and get bought out! =)
¶ 5:51 AM 0 comments
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Batman Begins
Batman Begins rox!
Best movie of the summer so far.
EDIT: I felt the need to expound. Christopher Nolan has crafted one of the best superheroes films ever. Devoting the first act entirely to the origins of Batman was risky, but it makes the payoff that much better. As a fan of the animated series, I was glad to see them pursue the darker, grittier detective Batman route. There are no mysteries, all of Batman's technology is explained through fuzzy science. Which some fans may object to, but I found it more interesting and certainly helps humanizes the character. One plothole stuck out in my mind though. Wouldn't antidote to fear gas be something handy to carry around? That would negate the big batmobile chase though... Gotham City looks fairly ordinary at this point, basically Chicago with a monorail system. Hopefully the sequels will have more varied architecture.
In line with keeping the aesthetics grounded, the acting lack any of the bombastic performances featured in the previous Batmans. As the series got more and more popular, the villains became higher and higher profile "guest stars," with free reign to overact. Although Begins has one of the largest roster of movie stars, each of them knows their place in movie. Christian Bale has unseated Michael Keaton as the best Batman. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman provide the quality character acting that bring validity to the film. The villains are not yet too over the top, lending credence to the notion that this is a prequel. Liam Neeson really stood out in this film as well.
Being a huge fan of the Elfman score for the Burton movies, I was naturally slightly disappointed that they were dropping Elfman and the main theme for the new movies. After viewing the movie, it's clear that they were going for something different entirely. Gone is the operatic, theme-heavy style. In its place is a relentless, pounding score fused together by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. The main two-note theme pulsates throughout the entire movie. With JNH handling the quiet piano cues and Zimmer destroying the sound system with his typical synth action cues, the collaboration works better than I'd thought it would. ¶ 3:05 AM 0 comments
Best movie of the summer so far.
EDIT: I felt the need to expound. Christopher Nolan has crafted one of the best superheroes films ever. Devoting the first act entirely to the origins of Batman was risky, but it makes the payoff that much better. As a fan of the animated series, I was glad to see them pursue the darker, grittier detective Batman route. There are no mysteries, all of Batman's technology is explained through fuzzy science. Which some fans may object to, but I found it more interesting and certainly helps humanizes the character. One plothole stuck out in my mind though. Wouldn't antidote to fear gas be something handy to carry around? That would negate the big batmobile chase though... Gotham City looks fairly ordinary at this point, basically Chicago with a monorail system. Hopefully the sequels will have more varied architecture.
In line with keeping the aesthetics grounded, the acting lack any of the bombastic performances featured in the previous Batmans. As the series got more and more popular, the villains became higher and higher profile "guest stars," with free reign to overact. Although Begins has one of the largest roster of movie stars, each of them knows their place in movie. Christian Bale has unseated Michael Keaton as the best Batman. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman provide the quality character acting that bring validity to the film. The villains are not yet too over the top, lending credence to the notion that this is a prequel. Liam Neeson really stood out in this film as well.
Being a huge fan of the Elfman score for the Burton movies, I was naturally slightly disappointed that they were dropping Elfman and the main theme for the new movies. After viewing the movie, it's clear that they were going for something different entirely. Gone is the operatic, theme-heavy style. In its place is a relentless, pounding score fused together by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. The main two-note theme pulsates throughout the entire movie. With JNH handling the quiet piano cues and Zimmer destroying the sound system with his typical synth action cues, the collaboration works better than I'd thought it would. ¶ 3:05 AM 0 comments
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Another day ....
Another free lunch at Palomino's in SF. Tough job huh. It's a trendy Italian restaurant right across the way from GAP. I ordered the tombo tuna special without knowing how it would be prepared. Turns out to be grilled on the sides and raw in the middle. Served with an avocado salad. Definitely one of the finest things I have ever tasted. The raw part was uber soft and chewy.
[The good thing about business lunches]
"What would you like to drink?"
"strawberry lemonade please"
[minutes later]
"Would you like a refill?"
"hellz yeah" (instead of screaming "are you out of your mind, that thing was $3.50!!!!")
The strawberry lemonades are awesome! (That was for you C) Today was another good day of work, I stayed until around 5:30 which is late for me. My boss also called me up in the morning asking whether I'd be interested in flying out to Boston next week to take a three day class. I jumped at the chance. More learning good, business trip fun. The rest of June is pretty much mapped out for me.
[The good thing about business lunches]
"What would you like to drink?"
"strawberry lemonade please"
[minutes later]
"Would you like a refill?"
"hellz yeah" (instead of screaming "are you out of your mind, that thing was $3.50!!!!")
The strawberry lemonades are awesome! (That was for you C) Today was another good day of work, I stayed until around 5:30 which is late for me. My boss also called me up in the morning asking whether I'd be interested in flying out to Boston next week to take a three day class. I jumped at the chance. More learning good, business trip fun. The rest of June is pretty much mapped out for me.
Monday, June 13, 2005
:)
Productive day. Okay, "semi-productive" but none the less ... Seriously, this beats sitting on my ass doing nothing, no matter what you guys think. Me do work - good. I'm pretty comfortable with the customer's infrastructure now so yippee. Getting a pretty good tutorial on IBM HS20/40 blade management as well.
Why is it each time I return to GAP the girls get hotter and hotter? Today was ridiculous, no less than 9763052350 model-types walking around, sharing elevators with me, etc. Hot. I also got to visit their PhotoStudio warehouse where they photograph the models and clothes for their web sites. No shoot going on when I went but it was still neat to get the tour.
Man I love working in San Francisco (stated for the umpteenth time) :p
My left knee is improving, the torn cartilage must be healing. It's been insufferably hot lately. I like how the spurs are playing but if detroit doesn't make a strong comeback ... Zzzzzzzzzz. I want it to go 6 or 7. ¶ 10:36 PM 0 comments
Why is it each time I return to GAP the girls get hotter and hotter? Today was ridiculous, no less than 9763052350 model-types walking around, sharing elevators with me, etc. Hot. I also got to visit their PhotoStudio warehouse where they photograph the models and clothes for their web sites. No shoot going on when I went but it was still neat to get the tour.
Man I love working in San Francisco (stated for the umpteenth time) :p
My left knee is improving, the torn cartilage must be healing. It's been insufferably hot lately. I like how the spurs are playing but if detroit doesn't make a strong comeback ... Zzzzzzzzzz. I want it to go 6 or 7. ¶ 10:36 PM 0 comments
Friday, June 10, 2005
:)
Simpsons Season 5 DVD set. Mmmmm. Joey Jojo Jr. Shabadoo.
Conan was still writing I believe, and the show was still at or near its peak. Sure the recent seasons have been mediocre, and Family Guy has won a lot of fans. But watch season 3-5 and this show destroys Family Guy. Plus its clear where Family Guy took their flashback sequences from. The earlier Simpsons used them frequently and to good effect.
Even that prolonged bit with Peter fighting the guy in the chicken suit is taken from the Simpsons episode where Homer evades the Bible-spouting Flanders's. ¶ 2:19 PM 0 comments
Conan was still writing I believe, and the show was still at or near its peak. Sure the recent seasons have been mediocre, and Family Guy has won a lot of fans. But watch season 3-5 and this show destroys Family Guy. Plus its clear where Family Guy took their flashback sequences from. The earlier Simpsons used them frequently and to good effect.
Even that prolonged bit with Peter fighting the guy in the chicken suit is taken from the Simpsons episode where Homer evades the Bible-spouting Flanders's. ¶ 2:19 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
nice try
Microsoft has finally added tabs to IE6 as part of it's MSN toolbar kit. The implemention is fairly rudimentary, and there is improvement to be had. The memory footprint for the multiple tabs can get quite large. When a link is not a text hyperlink, the ability to "open tab" is missing, probably an oversight. Also, if you change the toolbar settings in one tab, they don't propagate to the other tabs. Shows that the way MS did tabs isn't as cohesive as firefox.
My main beef is that IE flashes when you switch over to another tab. Rather annoying. Plus I need my all-in-one-gestures, which is now indispensable.
After further analysis, firefox doesn't seem to immediately release the memory used for multiple tabs after you close them down. However, if you minimize firefox then maximize it, that seems to release the memory. Same for IE.
It's a good start at least. Sticking with firefox as my main, but will use IE as well.
P.S. my blog is nice but I miss having my own website to mess around with. Time to brainstorm ... ¶ 11:00 PM 0 comments
My main beef is that IE flashes when you switch over to another tab. Rather annoying. Plus I need my all-in-one-gestures, which is now indispensable.
After further analysis, firefox doesn't seem to immediately release the memory used for multiple tabs after you close them down. However, if you minimize firefox then maximize it, that seems to release the memory. Same for IE.
It's a good start at least. Sticking with firefox as my main, but will use IE as well.
P.S. my blog is nice but I miss having my own website to mess around with. Time to brainstorm ... ¶ 11:00 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
:(
Left knee is still f--ked up. Damn you hennessy. I can barely walk now.
The one thing I could count on was being able to run. What happens if I'm chased by angry dogs? (which actually occurred when I was in Taiwan studying abroad) ¶ 10:41 PM 0 comments
The one thing I could count on was being able to run. What happens if I'm chased by angry dogs? (which actually occurred when I was in Taiwan studying abroad) ¶ 10:41 PM 0 comments
Friday, June 03, 2005
I've heard this argument before..
Another round of "my job sucks more than yours" with my buddy.
Of course I got out of work at 2pm today so my hands are tied ...
Now listening to: old school rap, Ice Cube, Snoop, Tupac. Reminds me of junior high when this g-funk would always be blaring. ¶ 9:50 PM 1 comments
Of course I got out of work at 2pm today so my hands are tied ...
Now listening to: old school rap, Ice Cube, Snoop, Tupac. Reminds me of junior high when this g-funk would always be blaring. ¶ 9:50 PM 1 comments
