Back!

I decided rather than mobile blog, I'd just turn off my Blackberry for the week, it was nice not to have any calls or email. So much for mobile blogging. :) Hawaii was great as usual, a little rainy but otherwise still fun.


Picked up the new Stephen King book, Cell. Starts out promising, but I haven't had much of a chance to read since I got back, so I'll have to dig into it some this weekend and see.

Other than being back to the grind, nothing much new except that I need to post some pics of the Hawaii trip tomorrow. We got to spy on "Lost" filming while we were there, but didn't see anyone famous, just saw the Base Camp several times.

BTW, move date's set for the last week of February, and I'm available for work on March 1st. I shudder to think at the sheer volume of packing that has to be done between now and then. *shudder*

Set Your Blog to Roam

Cause I'll be out of town starting tomorrow morning for the rest of the week, and back in Tulsa on Sunday. Visiting family in Hawaii since we didn't get to see them for Christmas. Yes, Chuck's coming along again. I hear an attempt to teach him to surf is in the works for this trip, as well as some great hikes along Waimea Falls and Diamond Head Crater. And of course, CRAB POKE!!



I've got a full load of movies that I haven't seen yet, and a bunch of classic music videos all stashed in my new ipod video, so I'm ready for the plane trip. That and the stack of books I'm bringing to crank through reading-wise should keep me from getting bored. :) If not, then there's always Sudoku.

I'm looking forward to being somewhere that's not 30 degrees in the morning. Blech! Of course, that will be fixed in less than a month. Then later this summer I'll be saying, "I just want to be somewhere where it's not 120 in the morning!" (Ha ha, just kidding. Heat rules.)

And I will have my BlackBerry, so don't expect any pics this week, but I'll definitely be able to blog on the run. Then next week will be the fun beach pics. Stay warm!

Bollywood FTW!

I discovered that WinAmp has a bunch of streaming radio stations for the taking. I was getting a little stale with my own mixes, so thought I'd stream something off the wall for awhile. I found the Bollywood Mix radio station. For those unfamiliar with Bollywood, it's basically the pop-Indian films filmed in Bombay (Mumbai) and churned out by the dozens. You'll know you're watching a Bollywood movie if it's in Hindi, has overly dramatic moments, and then all of a sudden they all break into song and start dancing around, with every color of the spectrum clothing-wise. It's great happy stuff, and amusing and fun to watch. The Indians make good movies!



Other than that I'm just writing some code today and working on some more ASP.NET 2.0 stuff. This weekend's plans are to finish some last minute shopping, do a bit of packing, a bit of gaming, and hopefully a bit of tinkering with my new iPod Video that should be in today (if I'm lucky).

Oh and Overstock FINALLY shipped the lost item that I'd ordered. And in one piece. Have a great weekend everyone, enjoy the time off if ya have it and have fun!

Caught up with Lost

Finally! It's taken getting every Season 2 episode from iTunes via download but I'm finally caught up. I was a little disappointed with last night's episode, I thought the episode from the week before was more intense than last night. The smoky, monsterish looking thing that came out at Mr. Eko; now THAT was scary! I'm beginning to wish they'd move along a little faster now though. It's like a tease every single week anymore.

Packing begins. I'm only a few boxes in. Blech. The job hunt begins as well, and prospects look excellent. I'm looking forward to it with anticipation. I've also figured that I'll probably get lost on the way to work at least once. That's part of the allure, I like to think. ;-)



Oh! Currently reading on audiobook: Forever Odd by Dean Koontz. I thought "Odd Thomas" was one of his best works to date. I'm listening with full attention at his latest Odd book.

Oversuck.com

In doing a little Christmas shopping online, I placed an order with Overstock.com. It was placed WAAAAAAAY back on December 14th, with what I thought was plenty of time to receive and wrap before heading home to Hawaii laden with presents.



Three of the four things I order arrive around the 22nd. The final item? Well, after waiting until January 9th, I complained severely to them and said "Where the heck is it?" Of course they tell me, "It could take anywhere from 2-15 business days to get to you."

I reply with, "Okay, so do you have an explanation as to why it's been eighteen?"

And of course it's a help desk script they read, which takes all the innovation of a barn rat to read. But I made them investigate the missing item. Then they say they "reshipped" the item on January 10th, and it'll arrive in 2-15 business days. I go track the package, and indeed it wasn't shipped on January 10th, instead they shipped it on January 12th. Still no package, but I suppose it's in their "2-15 business days" so we'll see if I even get it before leaving for Hawaii next Tuesday.

Needless to say, this was my first and last order with Overstock.com. Competition's far too heavy online shopping these days to put up with extraordinarily pathetic customer service.

Paste Eaters?

I read like a fiend on Saturday, until mid-afternoon. Read an entire novel in one sitting, talk about a nice splurge of a way to spend a Saturday! Anyway, I was cleaning last night *shock! Awe* and saw that we still had one of my backpacks packed from the Arizona trip over Thanksgiving! I found a treat in it, a book that I'd bought while doing the Phoenix Barnes and Noble bookstore tour, one that I put on my "To Read" list and completely forgot about.



So I got a few pages into it last night. I enjoy the humorous memoir books, a la David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Laurie Notaro, etc. We'll see if this one reads well. I remember reading her first novel, "Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs" and it was quite funny.

Million Little Fibs?

I'd posted a few months back on my impressions of James Frey's "Million Little Pieces". It was originally marketed at a "novel" to a dozen publishers and declined. Then his agent suggested to market it as a "memoir" and suddenly it's snapped up and is the talk of the town -- especially after Oprah adds it to her golden Book Club.

Now it looks like there were a few fabrications in the book, as exposed by TSG (The Smoking Gun) website. And an interview on Larry King live as well, recently, alleging that he's not as "bad" as he wrote himself to be.

So here's the question. When a writer is telling a "memoir", how many little embellishments is too many? Writers embellish. They dress up boring, cold-hardened facts. They're the storytellers. Do I think all of David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day" is Bible-swearin' God-honest truth? Naw, probably not. Same for Augusten Burroughs's "Running with Scissors". In fact he's being sued for libel and fraud for his.



I think it takes a little of the romance and fun out of a book by going down the line and stating "Well this was fact, this was not, this didn't *quite* happen that way."... and so on. Writers aren't journalists. They're writers. Especially in the novelist/memoir genre. I think there's a few things from my growing up that would be made much more hilarious with a few nifty twists. I would think it's a little naive to assume that the memoir you're enjoying while drinking cocoa on a Saturday morning is going to be as factual as the Newsweek sitting in your mailbox.

No Mayo!

And yet I still keep going back. Sucker. Guess that proves if you're hungry enough, you'll eat anything.

There's a little deli across the street from where I work, and on the days I want to work straight through so I can get out, I run there to grab a sandwich. The woman that makes the sandwiches, bless her heart. EVERY TIME without fail, I say "no mayo, please." I happen to fall into the camp that says, "Hey, this egg salad sandwich is MADE with mayonnaise, why would I need to add more?" Same for the tuna salad sandwich. Don't give me any more mayo than already comes with it! It's not like it's dry or anything.

And without fail, every time I say this, and many times she even repeats it back to me: "No mayo?" And I answer "No mayo, thanks." Without fail, the sandwich has mayo. It has become so amusing to me that I've started counting with tick marks on a post-it every time I get back to my desk with a mayo-creamed sandwich. We're up to seven now. And six prior times I said, "That's it, I'm never going back." Then my stomach gets the better of me and skipping lunch suddenly becomes less attractive.

I've begun to like mayo. :P

Google Employees

If anyone out there works for Google and I'm incorrect, please set me straight, but I found this VERY interesting about the Google culture. Today I went to lunch with someone today who has a friend that works for Google in San Francisco. He said the hiring and interview process took over a YEAR. Your final interview is with the two heads of Google. Wow.

At Google you're expected to work 50 hours a week. Flex time of course. The 30 hours are for whatever Google project you're tasked to. And the other 20, you say? To code and develop WHATEVER YOU WANT. That sounds too good to be true. What a dream, to sit there, get paid, and code whatever you want! The guy who did Google Earth got paid over a million dollars by Google for his program. Imagine coding what you want, on "work" time, and then getting paid extra royalties for it!



Of course, you have to also pass the GLAT (Google Labs Aptitude test). That probably rules me out. Those questions are hard! (I'm kidding on the GLAT, I don't think they actually test with that).

New Gadget Alert!

I am the best-treated and most spoiled girl on the planet. Chuck ordered me an Apple 60gb Video ipod yesterday out of the blue and surprised me with the news last night! So now I'll finally be able to be caught up with Lost episodes right on my ipod, without missing a beat while I'm stuck in the 15-item line at Albertson's. :)



Not to mention being able to bore people to death with all the pictures I plan to store on there... let's see, there's the Hawaii trip, the Arizona trip, the old gig pics...aah the new-found possibilities to run people off at an alarming rate!

Seriously though, I'm really looking forward to it, I am indeed a lucky (read: blessed) girl.

A New Week

Nice having my first NO MORE BANDS weekend off. I got to go raid Barnes and Noble for books on Friday night, do coffee, eat dinner at home, and then game LATE! Saturday was a great three mile walk through La Fortune Park, this time I wasn't miserable like I was months ago when we tried it the first time, heh. Then it was GAME! Sunday made it to church, then a splurge at Red Robin (my mouth still waters now thinking about that chocolate shake), and then off to burn the calories ice skating. And then of course.... GAME! :)

Back to work today, it's even going fairly smoothly for a Monday, despite the Oracle DB being down.

Oh check THIS out: Woman Weds Dolphin



HUH??

The Daily WTF

Allow me to introduce my latest snicker. It's called The Daily WTF and is a conglomeration of some pretty humorous "stupid coworker learning programming" code.



There are some special gems like:
Nathan: Steve, you know how ++ will increment, right?
Steve: Right ....
Nathan: Okay, so how do you increment by 11?

Also some classics like:
ExitFunction:
If Not objConn Is Nothing Then Set objConn = Nothing
If Not objCmd Is Nothing Then Set objCmd = Nothing
Exit Function

Geek humor, really. But so on target. Unfortunately sometimes I'm that geek asking the rather wtf question. ;-)

Dit Di Deee

And the Dit Di Deee award for the week goes to 26 year old Trevor Corneliusien, who locked up his legs on purpose while drawing in a mine, and uhm.....lost the key. He proceeded to hop for 12 hours through the desert.

That's no jack rabbit ... it's an artist in chains
Man has to hop 12 hours across desert after binding legs for realistic picture

Updated: 12:00 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2006

BAKER, Calif. - An artist who chained his legs together so that he could accurately render a picture of his legs wrapped in chains hopped 12 hours through the desert after realizing he lost the key and couldn’t unlock the restraints, authorities said.

Trevor Corneliusien, 26, wrapped and locked a chain around his bare ankles Tuesday while camping in an abandoned mine shaft about 5 miles north of Baker, San Bernardino County sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Ford said.

Corneliusien often sketches inside mines in the Southwest.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

When he finished his chain drawing, he realized he had lost the key to his shackles and would have to seek help in Baker, the deputy said Wednesday.

“It took him over 12 hours because he had to hop through boulders and sand,” Ford said. “He did put on his shoes before hopping.”

Corneliusien finally made it to a gas station on the edge of Baker. He called the sheriff’s department, which sent paramedics and deputies with bolt cutters.

Corneliusien’s legs were bruised, but he was otherwise in good health, Ford said. The artist did not have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment.

And the drawing?

“He brought it down with him,” Ford said. “It was a pretty good depiction of how a chain would look wrapped around your legs.”

===========================================

And I thought I had problems finding my keys.

On Moleskine

I've been trying to get into the habit of writing every day. From a creativity standpoint it can only be beneficial. Cathartic even. My most favorite mode is surprisingly (for a geek girl) not on a computer. I am in love with Moleskine notebooks.



My favorite is the tiniest one that is ruled. I use that as my journal, and carry it with me in my purse almost everywhere. The blog is for public consumption, my journal is the more private version. It can be as boring as, "I hate waiting in line at Walgreens because they're so incompetent" or as curious as "one day I'm going to quit my job and...".

They make wonderful presents for me, as I go crazy over a new journal. So I got another pocket one for Christmas this year from Chuck, as well as a slightly larger version of the same pocket Moleskine he's seen me carry around all year. The larger version will hold my creative writing exercises, since I think they might be something I'd like to have twenty years from now, and in a better preserved format. That way I can look back at how much I've improved, from the hilarious drivel that I wrote in 2006 to the prosaic wonder of my writing in 2026. (Ha ha).

But of course the blog will still get updated. I've begun archiving my blog entries since I've had this blog since 2003. One day I'll look back at this and laugh too.

First Post of the New Year!

And it didn't happen on January 1, so you can just assume I've spent up until now gaming. I think the only reason I came in to work today was to turn in my timesheet and because it's a patch day for WoW and the game will be down for about 6 hours through this morning. May as well write some code then! *grins*

Looks like about T minus one month and counting until we move to Phoenix. Somehow it doesn't seem like we're going to get everything done in time. But it always seems to wrap itself up I suppose. The new condo has been found, the U-Haul's have been priced (ouch), and the boxes have been bought. Time to gooooooo!

First day back to work after holidays always seems so hectic. Like suddenly you have to catch up from your last two weeks of playtime. The New Year's Eve gig was relatively innocuous, borderline boring. Had more fun eating sushi with Chuck at Fuji on New Year's Day. MAN that place was crowded! I've never seen Fuji run outta sushi rice, but they did, and it was sashimi from then on, lol!