Old Winyards

Friday, February 24, 2006

Wha' Happen?

So recently my laptop's been having problems connecting to the wireless network. After unsuccessfully trying to troubleshoot my router and DSL modem yesterday, I took my laptop to work to see if I could isolate the problem to my wireless network card. Sure enough, I discovered that somehow, the radio on the wireless card had been turned off, mostly likely by pressing Fn-F2. Now who would have done that?

Na na, na na na na. Way-hay, good bye.

As Susie and I were leaving good ol' #8 this morning, we discovered to our great surprise and delight that our nemesis in apt. #4 (We'll call him H. You know, for Herschel.) was moving out.

Instantly, my day went from average to superb.

H. has been a near-constant annoyance since he moved in a year ago. He's rude, loud, and unstable.

Encounter A: We hear music blasting from downstairs. We can recognize the tunes and hear the words. After pounding on his door for a couple of minutes, we discover that H. has been blasting his music in the living room while he was in the shower. He is unapologetic.

Encounter B: 11:00 am on Sunday. Susie's string trio is rehearsing. Herschel knocks on our door, asking us not to play before noon on Sundays because it's his girlfriend's only day to sleep in. WTF?

Encounter C: 2:00 AM. Susie and I are asleep. Phone rings. H. asks us to turn down the TV. After receiving a groggy explanation that we were asleep, he hangs up without apology.

Encounter D: Another instance of extremely loud music. Floor stomped, door pounded to no avail. Police called. At first we think he has just left with the music on, but then we discover he is lurking in his kitchen staring at the policeman and me through the window. He does not respond, so policeman has to leave. Encounters A-D reported to landlord. H. claims that his computer was set to play music as it finished downloading while he was out... which doesn't explain the volume or staring presence.

You can see why we are so jubilant at his departure. Maybe my new amp had something to do with it? Now we can only pray for quiet, polite downstairs neighbors.

Good riddance!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Tax Time!

Tax talk, eh? What a boring blog, you say? Hey, I'm not making you read it. Well, I just finished our taxes (yes, while I was at work), and to my great relief we owe a lot less than I feared. Aren't you all relieved? Since I executed a bunch of stock options, did some freelance work, and didn't pay taxes on unemployment, I was afraid tax season would take a big chunk out of our savings. I guess being unemployed for a few months really helped out. And now we have money to buy that sweet hybrid....

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day!

Susie and I aren't doing anything special today, just choral rehearsal. Whee. Instead, we had a fun and relaxing getaway over the weekend. We drove down to Costanoa for a little R&R amongst nature. On Saturday we went on a nice three hour hike through the redwoods and had a picnic lunch. It wasn't all roughing it though -- far from it, in fact. Upon our arrival, we were greeted with champagne and chocolates. We also got massages and had a pretty tasty prix fixe meal. Not bad for those Santa Cruz hippies!

We spotted some nice wildlife as well: many quail, hawks, newts, and banana slugs. And Susie got to use her cat-befriending skills on two fine specimens.

Sadly, though, our camera batteries died after two pictures. It was my fault; I hadn't charged the battery. I imagined the following exchange:
Jack Bauer: (shouting) IS THE CAMERA BATTERY CHARGED?
Me: N...n...
J.B.: IS THE CAMERA BATTERY CHARGED?
Me: N... no, sir! But the camera doesn't show the low battery sign. There's got to be plenty of charge le--
J.B.: CHARGE IT ANYWAY!
Me: What?
J.B.: CHARGE IT ANYWAY! THE TERRORISTS MIGHT HAVE DISABLED THE LOW BATTERY LIGHT!
Me: Uh... y-yes, sir.
Or maybe we've been watching too much 24.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Beat That, Suckah!

Thanks to Sherwin for passing on this wretched little web game and making me waste several minutes perfecting my score (3.985, by the way).

Monday, February 06, 2006

Jack Bauer Power Hour

Susie and I finished season four of 24 on Sunday and started on the first six hours of season five that we have on Tivo. My favorite quote:
"The only reason you're still conscious is that I don't want to carry you." - Jack Bauer (who else?)

Friday, February 03, 2006

How Much For That MP3???

I'm sure this is just another one of the things that the hip young folks have known about for years, but I just heard through the grapevine (read: Sherwin) about http://www.allofmp3.com. Apparently it's some shady Russian website that sells MP3s for literally pennies on iTunes' dollar. Songs average between 10 and 15 cents. Albums are around $1.25. A DOLLAR TWENTY-FIVE FOR AN ALBUM! Christ, even if you could download a particular song for free somewhere else, it might be worth paying a dime just to not have to search for it. Hell, it might be worth paying a dime for a song you already own just so you wouldn't have to go over to the CD rack, find the CD, pop it in the computer, and rip the song. Time is money, peeps.

How is all this possible, you might ask? It seems like it's either:
a.) That the going rate for music in Russia is just that low, for currency-related and other socio-economic (what a great word... or is it two?) reasons.
b.) In no way legal, and will soon be shut down.

Either way, get your MP3s while they're hot, and before America's record labels force the US governement to shut http://www.allofmp3.com.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

EA Layoffs

No, I'm not leaking any internal information. In fact, I'll link to a public article here.

Interesting quote: "You realign your resources to figure out what your priorities are and then figure out how to execute them most efficiently."

That's funny; it seems like you would want to figure out what your priorities were before aligning your resources. Maybe that's EA's problem: management does everything backwards.

A friend pointed out that the quote also sounds suspiciously like:
  • Step 1: Line up people on wall.

  • Step 2: Put important ones at front of line.

  • Step 3: Open fire.