Hey!!! :)

Guess what?!

Hey!


Wow!


Look closer!

Yay! I have my Halloween makeup! ... j/k.

OK, so I caved. I have one of those newfangled iPods with video capability. I have to say, it's vewwwy nice. :) 60 GB to store just about anything and the integration with the iTunes suite. Videos look really crisp, audio is clean without much noise.

The bigger question is, why did I go with an iPod? Didn't I just get a Windows PDA that was supposed to be a music player too? Well...

A while ago when I was looking into PDAs and MP3 players I heard that there was this Windows PlaysForSure thing that was coming, a competing service to iTunes' FairPlay. I thought, "cool!", because most of the pricing I saw was reasonable and subscription services were relatively inexpensive. So I went ahead with the PDA (which is very nice too) and bought an SD card to store all the music on it. Everything was all ready until I checked with a friend about the DRM (Digital Rights Management) and he noted that the drawback to subscription services is that all licenses expire monthly.

WTF?

No, really, they do. So, if you don't connect back to the Internet and have a valid subscription account then you effectively lose access to your music. Therefore, you are technically renting music, not owning it. That's total bogus crap! I can forsee myself going a month or more inbetween syncs or maybe I'll cancel my subscription service some day. I don't want my media to suddenly expire! The nice thing about the Apple DRM is your licenses never expire once you've acquired them.

Now, services like Yahoo Music Unlimited do allow you to buy burnable downloads (which thusly don't have license expiration), but the cost is $0.99, which is the same as iTunes. And, personally, I like iTunes' integration between their store, their iTunes app, and the iPod a lot better. Plus, it's really easy to one-hand the iPod to select music while driving---it is virtually impossible to navigate my PDA on the road. So, my opinion was finally swayed and now I have an iPod.

The bigger question is why did I feel I wanted to get an iPod anyways? Well, I recently went to Tower Records and dropped some $90 on CDs. And I do this often. I didn't start buying CDs until more recently and I have hundreds now. And I don't always like all the songs. So, I figured the iPod/iTunes is actually the more economical way to go and I should break even in a year or so. The only advantages CDs have, IMO, are the cool liner notes and the raw CD quality---Apple's AAC codec is good, but not "all that". Still, I think the quality is generally acceptable and the price is right.

Bottom line: watching Pixar's "For The Birds" looks great. ;)

Holey rusted metal, Batman!

w00t.

Behold! The Pillow O' Crap:


What is this you ask? Ah, it is a "pillow" full of crap. Fabric crap to be exact. But why would this make me all excited? Well, friends, it is because this PoC was made by a sewing machine. And it is literally the very first thing I have ever done on a sewing machine.

Let me state that I have never used a sewing machine until today, so this is a monumental achievement. Yesterday I bought a Sewing 101 book and read through it before bed. Today I bought thread and a cheap sewing machine (Brother XL-2600). And after a very frustrating hour of trying to thread the dang thing, I finally got it to make its first stitch! Then I proceeded to cut up a spare piece of fabric which I then straight-stitched together!

My first attempts were horrible. I couldn't even sew in a straight line. The feed dogs (yes, I learned that term yesterday too) I thought would have given a little more resistance, but nooooooooo... Actually there's a lot of lateral movement in it so I ended up with this really weird wavy line. Then I played around with the controls and got a bunch of other interesting stitches out of the machine.

Next I cut off a larger piece of fabric and then sewed a 5/8" allowance (yay! another new term!) on 3 sides of the irregularly-shaped fabric. Then I decided what the heck, so I packed up all the little scraps of thread and pieces of cloth and shoved them inside the "pillow", then sewed the final seam shut. And observe the fine zigzag crapsmanship. Observe!


So, my very first "project" is complete! Yay!

But there's more!

I did another quick test run and figured out how to basically make the usual "knife edge pillow" by sewing the seam on the inside-out fabrics. And if you look closely you can actually see the original PoC stuffed inside this second pillow:


...

OK, I know you're not totally impressed here, but you'll see what will happen in 1 week from now if I can really get the hang of this machine!!!
Yayyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!! :)

Extreme team building from suburban office cubicle dwellers ... not

My company supposedly doesn't have a lot of spending money these days. We're a big fish, but the market downturns have left us hurting quite a bit. So, we have gotten used to tight budgets, no travelling, no perks, etc. The usual belt-tightening, right?

Well, this colleague from out of town tells me that while she's here their team actually got funding to do some team building exercises. (You know, the kind of activity that's supposed to get everyone in the team gelling and talking together?) So what better way than to do that with a ... corn maze?!

Firstly, where'd we get the budget? Secondly, where the heck are there any corn fields around here?

If you're familiar with San Francisco Bay Area geography, you know that we have very very few fields now because most everything is taken up by houses, Walmart, and office buildings. Well, it turns out that we really do have a corn maze around here. In Fremont. *gasp*


Yes, so my colleague (who happens to come from Boxborough, MA, where there's a maze 2 miles from her house) is coming all the way out here to go to another maize maze of genetically altered corn in a fake cornfield...

No matter which way you look at it ...

No matter how hard you try to make some things appealing, it just kinda comes out ... lame? And not to make fun of traditional garb, however, lederhosen is just one of those things that always brings a smile to my face. Observe:


Or, for your viewing pleasure:


Um. Yeah.

Spam! O' Wonderful Spam!

Most spam sells you the promise of a better sex life, or more money, or something you'd actually want. But, oh this is great:

XXXXXX@XXXX.ORG is your non-profit/charity contact email address right?

If so... WE WILL EMAIL YOUR WEB SITE TO 2,500,00 OPT-IN EMAILS FOR FREE

http://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.org

simply visit our company web site above for details on how it works, then send a letter to the mailing address on our company web site above with your non-profit and/or charity status and address in your country of origin enclosed, along with your email address and we will then send you all the specifications needed on how to receive this non-cost, non-commercial, non- transactional, non-relationship, charity/non-profit courtesy emailing.

Wow, really. I am not getting enough Vitamin "Spam" in diet.

Shake what yo' mama gave you

I was looking through the fitness class offerings at work and the usual ones for cardio kickboxing and step aerobics showed up. There's also a section for dance lessons, so they have salsa, hip-hop, belly dancing, and ... Bollywood Dance Aerobics?! No way!

Bollywood Dance Aerobics: A five week Indian influenced dance aerobics class featuring the latest beats in Bollywood Cinema. This class is a high energy, total body conditioning workout designed to emulate the classical dance styles from the historic Indian culture that blend with elements from the Western dance styles (modern pop and pure culture).

COOL!

Oh, Mom....!

OK, another funny story about Mom...

We're chit-chatting on the phone today and I ask her how her students are doing, and she tells me about how they're doing dance and how there's this one song she really likes. She tells me, "and the lyrics go something like 'Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me'...".

I paused.

"Mom?," I began, "have you even listened to the lyrics of that song?" And of course she says, "no, I can't really understand them ... but it's a good beat!" My Mom is sooooooo innocent. She thought when they talk about being a "freak" in the song just meant dressing funny too.

I just shook my head...

So, for the benefit of those who don't know this song it is "Don't Cha" by the Pussycat Dolls, and the lyrics go something like this...

I know you like me
I know you do
Thats why whenever I come around
She's all over you
I know you want it
Its easy to see
And in the back of your mind
I know you should be fucking me (Babe)

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

Keep in mind my Mom has been casually singing this song out loud.

*shakes head again*

Eight Ten guys in 1 night

NO.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

I went speed dating. :)

... and it was ... interesting. I mean, when Peanut told me about this and said, "hey, let's go!" I was like, ho-kay dokee, I'll try anything once. So we went tonight.

This one was in the format of four 8-minute dates, a break, then four more 8-minute dates. Some people were cool, some were not. Some were obsessed with their work, some really were not into conversation at all. (I almost started playing Tic-Tac-Toe with one guy. Seriously!) And some were just ... err ... different. (Another guy gave me a little plush mouse with his phone number on it. And I made it dance too. [And those who know me well know about my ability to make plush animals gyrate.])

Would I go again? Maybe, but not for a while. Though, it was fun and it was an experience. To that end, it met my expectation that this would be a different night...

Devilishly hot food...

Heh.


I love the menus at our local Malaysian restaurant. :) heheeee..e.e