What a great weekend! Hung out with Schaeffer for dinner on Saturday, and afterwards I finally convinced
Saw Jackass Number Two tonight, and holy shit was it great. It was everything I expected times 10. I wanted to watch it a second time as soon as I left the theatre.
I saw this little nugget buried toward the end of an article on Al over at Idolator.
And really, how can you not root for someone who sees the blinding absurdity in R. Kelly’s serial song poem “Trapped in the Closet”–and raises it by turning it into an 11-minute song about two people going to the drive-thru for some burgers? We can’t wait to see the video for that one.
For the best send-up of “Trapped in the Closet” ever, check the MP3 link at the bottom of that article.
After ten years of popular demand, The State is available again! The
first season of the critically acclaimed 1993-95 MTV Series will be
released on iTunes Music Store, starting Tuesday, September 26th.
Depending on how many people download, MTV will release subsequent
seasons, and then eventually, hopefully, a DVD.The first season includes introductions of favorite State characters
Doug, Louie, Barry & Levon. From the minds that brought you RENO 911!,
WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, and STELLA: Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black,
Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Michael Patrick Jann, Kerri Kenney, Thomas
Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter and David Wain.
http://www.youtube.com/v/-xEzGIuY7kw
It’s amazing how much easier it is to drag yourself to work in the morning when you are dreading a 30 mile commute and 8 hours of work you are totally disinterested in. The first week and change of work have been great, and while all “honeymoon period” disclaimers apply, the new environment seems much more conducive to happiness and productivity than my previous situation. Things weren’t horrible at Goodrich, but they weren’t great either, and that commute started each day on a pretty down note.
I walked to and from work the last three days of this week… I drove on Monday and Tuesday, partly because I had packages to pick up from UPS and partly because it’s tough to break out of the car commute mindset. Now that I’ve walked a few times, I’ve found a pretty good route, turning a 3 mile commute according to Google Maps to a 2.25 mile commute. It takes about 40 minutes at my current pace, but that will improve a bit once I get a bit more in shape.
The actual work is great, some of my code is already in customer hands (or at least, will be real soon now). So far they have me cleaning up the sample apps built upon our RasterMaster SDK, all of which were created some time ago and hadn’t been maintained in awhile. So I’ve been giving them some TLC, updating several of them to the Java 1.1 event model as well as letting Eclipse loose on them reformatting them and making them conform to the style of the rest of Snowbound’s Java code. I have a few new sample to write before I really start digging into my “primary” work, the FlexSnap code. I’m starting to finally remember why I got into programming initially, which is a very, very good thing.
I had to exchange my RAZR for the second time this week. The first phone I got shut itself off randomly, and I swapped that one out about a month after receiving it in April. The replacement for that one had this annoying static noise, similar to when you have a cell too close to a computer speaker, but it was ignorable at first, and I figured it was a tower problem. But when I went to Jersey recently, it still kept at it, and seemed to be getting worse, so I called Cingular this week. They overnighted me a replacement for free, and the new phone seems to be good so far. The customer service rep asked me if I wanted to swap it for a different phone, and I considered it, but I am giving the RAZR one more shot. If this one acts up, it is gonna get the boot.
http://www.youtube.com/v/zMQ91oJS5t8
I had a great time in Rochester for the CSH Welcome Back Party, but I think I might be skipping future Welcome Back parties… More and more of my friends are leaving Rochester, and I know fewer and fewer people who live at CSH. I think this realization comes to all alumni, but I guess I finally hit the sweet spot. It seems that each year I spend more time in Rochester catching up with my friends who are visiting from out of town, and less time doing anything with the house. It occured to us that if all we are going to do is hang out with each other, we can pick a place that’s a bit more fun than Rochester… :P This decision doesn’t effect Fucked Up Movie Night, however, so I still plan on being at CSH once or twice a year.. Of course, it’s very possible that next September I will change my mind and end up in Rochester anyway, so this could all be bullshit.
I have had great warranty luck lately… First off, Apple recalled both of the batteries I have for my Powerbook. This worked out fantastically, because I was just getting annoyed by the diminished capacity of the two recalled batteries. Around the same time, I got an email from Sirius saying that due to supply shortages, my warranty exchange on my Starmate Replay (for a scratchy 1/8″ audio jack) was being upgraded to a brand new Sportster 4, which is a much nicer radio. I got that in the mail the other day, the only sucky thing is that I have to send back all of the original equipment for the Starmate, so I had to rip out the old antenna and install the new. I had the Antenna wire hid very nicely through the trunk, and under the molding on the passenger side of the car, so I had to reproduce all of that again. Also, the Starmate ran on 12V DC so lopped off the lighter adaptor that came with it and hardwired it into the cars power inside the dash. I can’t exactly return that, and the new radio runs on 5V DC, so I will take some kind of hit on that..
A discussion of Mike Patton on the Soap Opera “All My Children”???
http://www.youtube.com/v/inQlkhZr0ec
This is a pretty sketchy sign, doesn’t really make you want to “eat” at this “establishment”.
I was scheduled to start the new job this morning at 9am, so I hung around the house, listened to Howard Stern, and got my things together. I was planning on driving in this first day so I could unload all of the books/manuals in my trunk as well as the box of desk effluvia. But when I got out to my car, it wouldn’t start. The battery was drained, and probably needs to be replaced. I don’t think any drains were left on overnight, but I didn’t have time to diagnose. I ended up taking a cab to work since I didn’t have enough time to take the bus.
But aside from that nuisance this morning, everything here has been great. I decided that I have no interest in working for anything other than a software company again. One of my biggest problems at the last job is that I felt that the company considered software (consiously or otherwise) as an afterthought; They made cameras, not software. Even though I’ve only been here for a day, it is already clear to me that not only is this company a software company (That’s pretty easy to say, since they have no other products), but the team here is serious about writing software. I’m going to be focusing most of my time on their Java Applet, FlexSnap, but I have spent most of today getting my workstation set up and filling out HR forms.
One clear and present danger: Free snacks and soda are available. I am going to try and eat healthier while I’m here, but they sure aren’t making it easy. One thing is certain though, it is awesome working in the city again (well, technically not in in the city, but close and within the confines of the MBTA).
