Baked egg with tomato.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's NYTimes recipe.

Baked Egg with Tomato

1 egg

tops of 1 pint of cherry tomatoes

dash olive oil, salt, pepper

1. Oil the dish. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Line the dish with the cherry tomato tops.

3. Salt and pepper the tomatoes.

4. Crack the egg over the tomatoes.

5. Bake, uncovered, for at least 12 minutes. The egg doesn't look done, but believe me, it is. It gets a rubbery layer over the top if you let it go too long. The good news is despite the layer, the yolk turns out almost perfect, which is tough to do in a frying pan. At least it's tough for me.

Note: make sure you use an adorable dish that looks like a tomato. It will take your mind off the fact that you're eating a gazillion cherry tomato tops instead of a proper slice of tomato.

Question of the day.

Have you tried WD-40?

Gingerbread Cookies

Adapted from the recipe on the back of my molasses bottle. This recipe results in cookies that are fairly toothsome. They're not crisp, nor are they soft. If you roll them out fairly thin they start to resemble soft ginger snaps. If you roll them out on the thicker side, they can be a little bit difficult to bite into. However, the result is still not sturdy enough for gingerbread houses.

Well, I like them anyway. They have a black licorice flavor that is not too sweet. If you like sweet, they will take well to icing without becoming overly sweet.

0.75 c each dark molasses, light brown sugar (packed), and butter (1.5 sticks)
1 egg
3 2/3 c flour
1 tbl ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp each allspice and baking soda

1. Boil the molasses, sugar, and butter on medium heat. While the mixture cools, measure and blend the dry ingredients.
2. Add the beaten egg to the molasses mixture. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined.
3. Wrap and chill the dough at least 1 hour.
4. My dough needed additional massaging to become pliable and cohesive enough to roll. Roll it out 1/8" to 1/4" thick and go nuts with the cookie cutter.
5. Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes, until the edges start to brown. That is, they turn browner than the dough already is.

Makes 32 large bears, 12 large stars, 15 small stars, and one round splodge.

Mmm...

Cheese lasagna freezes beautifully. Sliced portions reheat to an unattractive puddle of sauce, noodles, and cheese, but then, all lasagna does that, except for the comercially made ones. It tastes just fine. If you're hungry enough, it really doesn't matter what it looks like, now, does it?

Here's my recipe. It comes courtesy of Cook's Illustrated. Note the emphasis on where I shop.

Cheese Lasagna (billed as Simple Cheese Lasagna, but I never ever go for complicated recipes)

15 oz ricotta cheese = 1 tub from Trader Joe's.
1.25 c grated parmesan cheese. I use preshredded.
0.5 c basil, minced
1 egg, beaten
0.5 tsp each salt, pepper
2 jars marinara sauce. I use the no-salt added kind from TJ.
12 no-boil lasagna noodles. Thank goodness TJ started carrying these.
1 lb shredded mozzarella = 1 bag preshredded.

1. Set oven to 375F with rack in the middle.
2. Mix ricotta, 1 c parmesan, basil, egg, salt, and pepper until it forms a squidgy mass.
3. First layer: 0.25 c sauce in your 9x13 baking dish, then 3 noodles, then 1 spoon of ricotta onto each noodle. Smoosh out the cheese over the noodle. Scatter 1/4 of the mozzarella over everything.
4. Second and third layers: 1.5 c sauce, 3 noodles, 1 spoon ricotta smooshed on each noodle, 1/4 of the mozzarella. This uses up all the ricotta.
5. Fourth layer: noodles first, then rest of the sauce, then last of the mozzarella, then last of the parmesan.
6. Oil a sheet of foil and use to cover the pan tightly. Bake, covered, 15 minutes.
7. Uncover and bake 25 minutes more.
8. Let sit a few minutes then eat.

Weekend recap.

The long-rise, no-knead bread has a nice crust but a dense interior which is not to my liking. After reading Cook's Illustrated revision of the NY Times no-knead recipe, I think the dense interior could be rectified with a little kneading, a hotter baking method, more yeast, and a warmer rise cycle. I won't be revisiting this, because I abhor kneading (why else would I go for a no-knead recipe), don't have a Dutch oven suitable for the hotter baking method, and am unwilling to crank up the heat anywhere in my kitchen for a warmer rise.

I did not bake the gingerbread after all. Instead, I went for a modification of the gingerbread cookie recipe printed on the back of the molasses bottle. Instead of 1/4 tsp nutmeg, I used 1/2 tsp allspice, because I refuse to buy yet another bottle of rarely-used spice. Also, I used butter instead of margarine, because margarine is evil. I like the cookies and hope the stars stay fresh until C's birthday on Sunday. I don't know if other people will like the cookies. I used the dark molasses, which gives the cookies a Black Vine licorice flavor. I like Black Vines, but not everybody does. Also, the cookies must remain uniced. After spending the time to massage the dough into something more pliable, I didn't feel like making and applying a glaze.

In the non-baking department, I also made braised Chinese mustard greens. Mostly because I needed a vegetable and those were on sale.

My fridge is wonky and I don't know how to fix it. The main cabin is the correct temperature. However, all of the drawers are at or below freezing temperature. Cranking up the temperature using the little buttons causes everything to get warmer, so much so that the main cabin approaches an unsafe temperature. In the meantime, the drawers stay a good five degrees colder. Sigh.

But will it insure accurate service?

I started a subscription to the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago because it's required reading for my next class. Normally I prefer to read my news online and I strongly prefer not to have to pay for access, which is why I didn't have a subscription earlier.

In Saturday's paper my delivery man included a card asking for his annual tip. I've never known anybody who tips their delivery man, partly because I know very few people who actually get a newspaper delivered.

I don't know what the protocol is. A couple bucks? What if you've only been getting the paper a couple weeks, and only intend to for another quarter?

And what if during those couple of weeks, I haven't actually received my own newspaper? On the days when I received the WSJ, I received my neighbors'. Or rather, somebody in my neighborhood. I didn't actually go to their houses to try to swap the papers, because the odds were good that 1) they weren't home and 2) they hadn't received my paper. It's not like I can call the WSJ to complain, as they have no control over the delivery man.

Over the weekend, I received both the WSJ and the Mercury News. This is baffling because I never ordered the Mercury News. The MN doesn't have address labels so I don't know if I'm getting a neighbor's paper or a surplus. It's not like I can call the MN to complain, because they probably don't know I'm receiving their paper in the first place.

Today, I got the MN only. This is a pity, because I really only want the WSJ.

I could send in the card with a note, but then, I might as well ask the delivery man to put more dents in my garage door while he's at it.

Question of the day.

Dear Guy In the Next Cube,

Would you like a lozenge? You've been clearing your throat and sniffling for the last hour.

Weekend Recap

* Tried two new-to-me Korean places, both fabulous. One makes its own tofu, the other has fantastic fried chicken. No more Popeye's for me. The combination of fried chicken and pickled daikon is fantastic--the vinegar cuts through the oil nicely.

* Nice surprise with the buttermilk pancakes. Turns out I really did have two cups of buttermilk left over from the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I prefer a runnier batter, though. The pancakes are wonderfully thick, but I prefer a thinner pancake, and one that cooks a little faster so as to make heat management a little easier.

* The cheese lasagna was blissfully easy and tasty. The most difficult part was mincing the entire pack of basil, 2/3 of which went into an ice cube tray into the freezer. The resulting lasagna was full of hot molten cheese and bubbly rich tomato sauce punctuated by fragrant basil bits.

* No bread this weekend. There wasn't enough time given the long rise required and the fact that I had a week's worth of pancakes made up already.

* No gingerbread mix, boo-hoo. Everyone else loves this mix as much as I do.

* Chinese broccoli for the first time in a quarter. It looks tough but is an exciting prospect nevertheless.

Next weekend: gingerbread and bread (hopefully). If eggplants are cheap, eggplant pasta. If not, will consider Pasta Puttanesca, assuming I locate the recipe and have the energy to mince an entire pack of parsley.

Post Office 5, Me 1

I don't understand how I'm supposed to buy stamps. Obviously I'm missing something.

They took out the vending machine in this building, instructing us to purchase stamps at the ATM. Like hell I'm paying the ATM stamp service fee.

To purchase online, you need a printer. Presumably you'd need special paper. I'd imagine you can have the stamps shipped to you too. Like hell I'm buying a printer, toner, and special paper, or waiting for my stamps.

The post office with the special package machine that takes credit cards normally dispenses stamps, except for when I actually want to buy stamps. In the same post office, there were two cash machines. One was out of order, the other was not accepting bills of any sort. Like hell I have $8.20 in loose change on me.

The other post office closer to my house has two cash machines and no package machine. One refused to take any bills. The other would take only my crispest bills. Or rather, bill. The first $5 went in all right, but it refused to acknowledge any subsequent bills. And it would not dispense more than $5 in change, so a $20 was out of the question. Like hell I'm buying two books of stamps, even if the machine let me (which it didn't).

I suppose I could return during operating hours. But they open after I get to work and close before they leave. The only branch that's open on Saturday is about 5 miles out of the way. Like hell I'm dashing out of work just to buy stamps.

So there you have it. The solution was to have enough cash on hand to pay for my groceries, thereby breaking the $20s into $10 or smaller, and using a $10 in the machine that only accepts one bill at a time. Because like hell it's going to accept *two* crisp $5s.

TGIF. Question of the day.

Stuff I want to cook this weekend:

* simple cheese lasagna
* bread (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2007/11/28/easy-slow-rise-no-knead-light-wheat-or-white-bread/)
* french toast made from aforementioned bread
* Chinese greens (it's been a while since I've eaten those)
* gingerbread cookies (mix is fine)
* something with phyllo dough to use up the roll that's left over
* buttermilk pancakes

How will I be able to eat all of that?

Stuffed.

Everything turned out delicious. The verdict?

Turkey: buying kosher results in a moist bird, but salty leftovers. A leave-in probe thermometer is a great investment. Get one now.

Cranberry sauce: 1 bag berries boiled with 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup water, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 tsp zest, and with 2 tsp triple sec stirred in after cooking. A hit, and surprisingly fresh-tasting given that there was no orange juice involved.

Buttermilk mashed potatoes: buttermilk gives a nice tang, but makes for watery leftovers.

Green beans: surprisingly, doesn't need oil. Sliced almonds were a welcome addition.

Pie: Trader Joe's crust from the frozen case was a little thick for my liking, but shattered satisfyingly on first slice. The apples took an awfully long time to slice up.

Doing it right this time.

It's week two of living in my new cubicle. I still believe I am facing the wrong direction, even though it is technically facing the same way as my old cube. The reason is my old cube faced the window (not that you could actually see out the window), whereas my new one does not. The new one is significantly warmer than the old one and has far more interesting neighbors.

I am determined to setup this cube right. This meant scrubbing down all horizontal (and most vertical) surfaces with disinfecting wipes. Also, this has meant setting up the books properly on shelves and not hiding stuff behind cabinet doors wherever permissible. And acquiring hanging folders, so papers remain properly sorted.

The Lego set shall live on an open shelf, not on the desk proper. The desk shall remain as clear as possible. I'm hoping there's enough space in the overhead cabinet to leave my toothbrush in a non-disgusting spot.

Annoyingly enough, one cabinet is not hospitable to standard sized hanging folders. It may fit legal sized, assuming I can find some.

Food shall remain on the desk. It shall not be hidden amongst the books. If it were in the overhead cabinet, it would warm up because of the lights.

I still have not figured out how to hang up the plaques without killing anybody. Will have to check the neighbors' cubes when they go home.

And I never thought I would ever find this line of discussion particularly facsinating.

Can't wait! Ramblings from a rumbling tummy.

For the first time in two years, I'm actually having a real Thanksgiving, hopefully one as enjoyable as six years ago when we had an all-girls dinner. The negotiations class is all but done--all that needs to be done is to print out the project writeup, reformat the diary, and read the last articles and case. The marketing class is also all but done--all that needs to be done is present the project and read three more articles for the final.

No accounting project to stress over.

No management paper to stress over.

No marketing project to stress over.

Only one final. You either know it or you don't.

So I get to cook a lovely meal for three dear friends. Two girls and a guy who's recovering from Lasik surgery, so it's almost an all-girls dinner. I'm truly excited about the prospect of cooking a full menu.

• green salad (from a bag of course)
• either mango-shrimp or potato salad (C's secret recipe)
• roast turkey breast (hope there's enough meat; Trader Joe's didn't sell the full breast)
• cranberry-orange sauce (orange = triple sec, not juice)
• buttermilk mashed potatoes
• green beans
• corn
• pumpkin pie (C's secret recipe)
• apple-cranberry pie

I am debating whether to make the sauce as is, or do a cranberry-orange relish with the addition of triple sec. After all, I was rather proud of myself for finding the triple sec, so I might as well use it. I am secretly hoping B will bring cranberry juice just so we can have a mixer.

As for green beans and corn...I wonder if there is anything else that should be done with them besides a little dab of butter. Green bean casserole is evil and unhealthy anyways.

Also, there is no bread. I figure we don't need it, what with the potatoes and pie and the fact that there are only four of us.

It sounds like a lot, but the more I think about it, the more I realize the most involved dish will be the pie.

Question of the day.

Why is corn considered to be a strange pizza topping, but potatoes are not?

Eeeeeewwwww.

I moved into my new cubicle today. Previously it was filled with old equipment and was configured as a two-person cube.

The previous owner left:

• one reusable heating pack in a thin pseudo-cloth sleeve
• one wooden pencil with a broken lead
• one retractable red pen with about 1/3 of the ink left
• one container paper clips
• one ancient KVM switch, the kind that requires a power supply (power supply not included)
• two power cables
• one paper holder
• two very dusty cubicle coat hooks
• one dusty can Dr. Pepper, about 1/3 full, on the far top corner of the overhead bin
• one dusty can Dr. Pepper, unopened, next to the other can (but still in a location that I could barely reach even while kneeling on the desk)
• one cable lock with no key

I have gone over the desk six times with Clorox Disinfecting wipes. It is now to the point where you can barely make out the perfect brown handprint on the wipe.

The cabinet still has sticky splotches on the vertical surfaces. I found these on the desk drawers too, and was stymied until I discovered the previous owner's affinity for Dr. Pepper.

Question of the day.

You know what Nickelodeon needs? A cooking show.

Question of the day.

Dear Lysol,

When has anybody gotten sick because their toilet bowl cleaner didn't cling to the u-bend?

Sincerely,

Question of the day.

What is wrong with a night of fun and candy? A Halloween featuring only healthy treats is just plain wrong.

(Remember, fruit is nature's candy.)

Dear Escalade Owner,

Just because your tires would fit within the lines had you parked properly doesn't mean your car is a compact car. It's incredible to think that walking the extra 20 feet from the parking spot that would fit your car would actually kill you. Actually, you might have been better off taking two compact spaces; that way you could have saved an additional 20 feet.

Question of the day.

How do you get rid of the crud in your shower head?

I think it's from the hard water. I tried soaking it in bleach, then poking at the little rubbery holes with a toothpick, but the crud is still there. It only partially comes off when you dig your fingernail into the holes, but that takes a long time and sends little bits of hard water crud into your eyes.

Question of the day.

Dear Clothing Manufacturers,

Why can't you standardize your sizing and let women's egos fall where they may? I am sure many women are pleased to remain the same numeric size for years on end. However, I am not one of them. If sizes are any indication, I seem to be shrinking as I get older, whereas I would be perfectly willing to accept increasing girth as a byproduct of age.

Sincerely,

Things I want to accomplish this quarter.

• Swept floor.
• Clean toilet.
• Apple-cranberry pie, even if it's made with store-bought pie dough.
• Mashed potatoes with root vegetables, even if there is only one root vegetable, and it's carrots.
• Finish Christmas shopping early.
• Get a little something for myself for Christmas without making it seem totally selfish.
• Transfer rest of CD collection to iPod.
• Smooth job transition.
• Check up on my pal B, who is supposed to take GMATs this weekend. Either that or she took it last weekend. I can't remember.
• Get more sleep.

Oddly enough, none of these are "study hard and pass this quarter".

Every blog comment ever, summarized for your convenience.

• X is right, Y is wrong.
• Y is right, X is wrong.
• I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
• I'm right and you're stupid.
• No, I'm right and you're stupid.
• I'm educated and you're not.
• I'm not educated, but your point is wrong anyway.
• I'm right and you're not, and by inference, you were raised by wolves.
• (plagarize favorite news article here)
• It sucks to be you, and I'm great!
• *burp*
• Let's stop beating this dead horse.

Things I wish I could fix.

1. Hands that freeze easily despite gloves, hot water, pockets, or hand warmers
2. Feet that freeze easily despite thick socks.
3. Sweaty palms, which makes gloves rather miserable.
4. Two left feet.
5. Being tone-deaf.
6. Being half deaf.
7. Dry skin.
8. Tenderfeet.

Question of the day.

Where have all my ideas gone?

How to make vending machine trail mix healthier.

The vending machine trail mix is unsalted, but a tiny packet contains two servings, each of which sports 120 calories and 6 grams fat. Here's how I made it healthier:

1. Open packet.
2. Dump packet contents into a clean styrofoam cup.
3. Discard packet so I won't read the nutrition label.
4. Enjoy!

Back in the USA.

Harry Potter is a horrible book to travel with. I managed to get halfway through with hardly any effort. His only redeeming quality is he can keep your immigration/customs declarations forms uncrinkled.

小笼包 is not something that should be eaten every day.

HK has fewer opportunities these days.

There is no food in the fridge.

The guy who was supposed to be my boss left the company during my absence. Interestingly, the offer letter still went through. Fortunately, my previous colleagues still seem to love me and are calling for my return.

Seoul was the cleanest city visited on this trip and filled with incredibly polite and helpful people, even if we didn't speak the same language. It's too bad the food is so expensive.

I have no idea what horrors lie in my mailbox.

There was a giant cobweb stretching across the second floor. I walked right into it.

I dozed off this afternoon, which was a very bad thing to do. On the other hand, driving to the grocery store in a fog isn't such a great idea either.

The Curse of the Harry Potter.

The first book was great. I looked forward to reading every book...until this one. The last one looks thick, heavy, and even less well crafted than the others of late. It will take up a ton of space in my backpack. It's hardcover to boot.

Question of the day.

If people are drinking more soda and bottled water, are taking these with their meals and are getting obese as a result, is milk really the staple they say it is, and is the increase in price of milk really such a cause for concern?

Why I love my job. A rant.

I love my job because my coworkers and I all know how to write. We don't turn out finely tuned prose like J and Z, but what we write gets the job done. It may be riddled with grammatical inconsistencies, but our peer review process quickly irons those out. And I don't see the problem with starting sentences with conjunctions in a blog.

When I studied for the GMAT, many test questions contained many examples of God-awful phrases and sentences. I used to wonder, "Isn't this obvious? Who on earth would write like that?"

My classmates, that's who. They really do write that poorly, when they can be bothered to write at all. I am not just talking about the engineers. The ones who majored in other things, the ones who really *should* know about writing because they would have taken several writing courses in college, these are the people churning out documents that would have made me blush in middle school.

If these are the college-educated, how are the high schoolers writing?

I am generally willing to give some leeway to those who do not speak English as a first language. I'm impressed at how Z writes so well (and how I write so poorly) considering.

But this quarter's project took the cake. There were four people on my team. The Girl (as in the other female besides me) just sat and nodded her head. She kept saying she understood things conceptually, but couldn't put the numbers to them, and that she was going to study how to do the numbers in detail. I wanted to scream, "You keep saying that, but wouldn't it be easier just to do your homework?"

The First Guy was a little lazy at first, but eventually came through. At least he checked all of my numbers (and by God there were a lot), helped conduct the final analysis, and actually read through and critiqued my argument.

The Second Guy was a moron, almost as bad as the Girl. His major contributions were the templates for the slides and the report. He simply believed all of my numbers. At first glance you'd think he was simply an agreeable, happy guy. It turned out he was just believing everything. Every modification he made to the report I had to undo. His grammar was terrible, and he couldn't decide between past and present tense, very often in the same sentence. His last significant contribution to the report was to move our assumptions from the start of the document to the very end, after our recommendations.

I had to point out to him that it is traditional to end reports with your conclusions, not the assumptions you made while crunching the data. Call me old-fashioned, but I firmly believe reports should end with conclusions.

I downloaded the report at midnight Saturday night. Up until then, I had not been able to look at it, because I did all the numbers for the project. I did all the numbers because FG was checking my numbers, SG was too stupid to replicate the formulas, and the Girl had no idea what was going on. I expected to find a decent argument, to which FG and I needed only to add figures, reference to figures, and analysis of the figures.

Boy, was I wrong. The last time I saw a report this bad was in middle school.

It took me half an hour to adjust the page numbers so the cover page wasn't page 1. He reverted that, at which point I decided I didn't have half an hour to change it back.

He kept losing my tables and figures, substituting his own captions instead. Around version 7 I practically screamed at the group to make damn sure they didn't lose the figures. This was at 5AM Sunday morning.

I wanted to spend Sunday cramming for the final. Instead I was updating the report because SG kept screwing it up. I think I failed the exam as a result.

Now how can I make this known to the professor without sounding whiny?

Five minutes: a study of the mundane.

I bought an electric kettle. It cost $20 plus tax.

It has nearly paid for itself. Here's why: it has given back five minutes of my time every morning. This is because I can boil water while showering, leaving the tea bag to steep while the toast goes. That's five minutes that can now run in parallel with the rest of breakfast assembly time.

Told you it was a study of the mundane.

Musings.

I am coveting an ice cream maker. Either that or a mandolin. The ice cream maker would be much safer. Less chance of taking a finger off.

Do I really need an ice cream maker? Couldn't I rig up something that works equally well? Here is what I am thinking:

* big metal bowl filled with ice cubes and salt
* smaller metal bowl that has been frozen overnight
* hand mixer blades frozen overnight
* sherbet/sorbet/ice cream mixture refrigerated overnight

Would this be sufficient to freeze the mixture while beating air into it? After all, with the ice cream maker, I would still need to freeze the bowl overnight. The ice cream maker would probably be more convenient (only 1 thing to freeze, no need to hold the mixer) but would also take up cabinet space when not in use. The advantages of the rig are it uses things I already own, and by proxy, it would take up less space. Also, the rig wouldn't cost me anything extra.

Question of the day.

How did I get an A- on the midterm? I had the world's biggest cramp that day combined with a nasty headache.

Reasons to be happy despite being in a fog, however mundane they are.

1. The Saturday midterm was tough but didn't go as badly as thought. At least I hope it went well. I am sure I bombed one of the cash flow problems but accidentally got the future value one correct.

2. The professor complimented me on my use of notes during the exam. (It was an open-book, open-note exam. The only reason it was tough was it involved a lot of computation that can be very time-consuming.)

3. I have now replaced everything about my work laptop except the power brick. The new 6 hour mega-battery is fantastic. Much better than the wimpy old 2 hour one. Even better, I can claim in jest my mega-battery was swiped off an intern.

4. I did quite well on the first Thurdsay midterm.

5. I believe I have made some inroads with the Dean and our invited guest that evening, a professor from a local university.

6. The new Trader Joe's has opened.

7. They will be opening a new Costco in a month. It will be very close to a rather decent 99 Ranch, assuming they didn't build on the 99 Ranch site. The 99 Ranch is in the same plaza as a lovely dessert place that sells one of the more passable mango desserts you can find in the states. It's not mango pudding, but then, hardly anybody does mango pudding for some reason.

8. I had a coupon for the pizza.

9. I haven't had ribs in a long time.

10. The weather is nice and mild.

11. The ancient water filter still works.

12. Dried black currants are surprisingly tasty.

13. The Harry Potter book arrived. If I had checked my mailbox earlier, I would have received it on the day it was released. It's not like I have any time at the moment to read it. Pity it's so thick. I will be rather grumpy when I lug the thing on my next plane trip. But it's here! And it's an easier read than 99% of the other books on my to-read pile! So it will fly by quickly and weigh a ton.

14. 247 people registered so far.

15. Dark chocolate mints, with the gooey center.

16. The grapes from two weeks ago haven't molded over. They are a little shriveled, but that's to be expected.

17. Slightly molten peanut butter cups.

18. Clean dishes.

More to do.

1. Wednesday's conference. The joy of trying to assemble a decorative rig in high heels.

2. Midterm Thursday. Can't remember if I included it last time.

To do.

1. Research a language horribly unsuited to the goals of my group, and present interesting discussion topics about the language. Research done (took all of yesterday), presentation in 15 minutes.

2. Fix my code so it builds with the new toolset.

3. Finish adapting my code to the new specs. Which would be done now, except migrating to the new toolset was higher priority. At this point having things running with the new tools is completely useless because it's not like anybody else is using the code. Which is why I wanted to finish the adaptation before migrating. But nooooo, satisfying the boss' ego is more important, which is why the code is now broken in two different ways.

4. Run statistics on the unbroken code. Again, to satisfy the boss' ego. Nobody else is interested in performance, because we're all too busy trying to fix the code.

5. Class. Tonight and tomorrow night.

6. Midterm. Saturday.

7. Problem set. Tuesday.

8. Project. Next Saturday.

9. Midterm. Week after. Thursday, I think.

10. Book report. By the end of month.

Question of the day.

Where am I going to find free zip ties by next week?

Question of the day.

Are you aware you're wearing your polo shirt inside-out?

Annoyed

Midterm tomorrow. We just learned the last of the material for the midterm last night, which leaves tonight to cram, practice, and write up the cheat sheet.

The midterm was originally called "quiz/exam" because the professor wanted to put us at ease. Bullspit. It's a midterm. What is more, it is the first of two midterms in a compressed quarter. We already know that professors who have two midterms plus a required final in a normal quarter are insane.

The midterm requires a scantron and a bluebook, both of which I have to dash out and purchase today.

The bookstore opens late (8:30) and closes early (6:00). It is also not open during the weekends this month and you can be sure they won't mail me the scantrons and bluebooks.

Also there is a midterm for the other class next week, which I am not prepared for because I have been catching up for tomorrow's exam.

I got home late from class last night, mostly because the class ends late. I have not had enough sleep for over a quarter now. As a result I am halfway through a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi, and it's only the third week of the quarter. This is in addition to the usual tea habit.

The study abroad book report is due at the end of this month. While it is mercifully short (800-1000 words) and the book is a fast read, I am only 70 pages into the book, and have zero time to actually read it. This is because I have to spend all the other nights of the week studying for the two classes.

Having classes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday has turned out most inconvenient. At first I enjoyed having half my Saturday back. Now I'm rethinking that. Not only do you lose Tuesday and Thursday as study days, you have effectively locked in Monday and Wednesday (prep for Thursday's session) and Friday (prep for Saturday's session). So that leaves only Saturday and Sunday as flexible days wherein you can choose to study more for the class you're weaker at.

I quit my job. More specifically, I am transferring to a job in another department. It turns out that quitting mid-project makes you Loved, more Loved than you would be at review time, and so Old Boss and New Boss are negotiating the transfer date and the details of the transfer. I am waiting, just waiting, for them to each take an arm and make a wish. At least that would settle things very quickly. In the meantime, I am trying to be very discreet while at the same time divesting myself of all kinds of administrivia junk that, if left unattended, would eat up tons of time just when I need to deliver on my technical promises.

This means transferring ownership of many, many machines to the guy in the organization (okay, one of two) whose job it is to take care of the machines. He asked me why I was transferring everything to him, then said he didn't want the machines. Well, hell. I haven't wanted them for several years either. It sounds petty, but it's one reason I wanted the transfer in the first place.

The department that is supposed to pickup unwanted, unused, and decrepit machines is being stubborn. I want to get rid of an ancient, decrepit machine that I inherited during my first year. It was ancient and decrepit by the time I inherited it. Anyway, the serial number no longer seems to be registered anywhere, which is bad, because you need a record in the database to submit the request to have it collected. They keep insisting I need to give them the record, and I keep insisting there is no record.

Oh, and I found out you can stuff a lot of junk in the cabinet in your cubicle. This will make moving an all-day ordeal, even if I just dump the lot into the moving boxes without sorting or winnowing.

Question of the day.

What's wrong with skim milk?

Condensed milk in ice coffee cracked.

The trick is to warm your coffee gently (about 1 minute) in the microwave so it's still cool, but just warm enough to allow the condensed milk to integrate. Stir well, and add a couple ice cubes to help dilute the solution and bring down the temperature.

It helps if you've made the coffee and ice with pristine water, and not the stuff from my tap that tastes like a swimming pool and appears to have floaties in it.

How MBA school is like Harry Potter.

More specifically, MBA school is a lot like Hogwarts.

Although there is a degree of specialization, it is not nearly to the same degree as an undergraduate education. You learn about a lot of different subjects, not all of which are necessarily directly related to each other, but which somehow manage to come in handy in a later class.

Your classmates are all over the map, some academically inclined, others less so.

Your instructors are also all over the map, some competent, some less so, some seeking fame.

Your magic wand is your financial calculator. It is a bit mysterious at first, but then later becomes nearly indispensible.

The ghosts of more famous alumni haunt the halls.

Okay, we don't wear robes and hats. I suppose if we all wore suits, that would count.

Question of the day.

To all of you who object to the Nathan's hot dog eating contest because it glorifies binge eating in an already obese society.

Shall we ban NASCAR too because it glorifies speeding?

Crimes against coffee.

I am a convert to cold-brewed coffee.

Z will roll her eyes because she believes coffee must always be drunk hot, never cold, and by proxy, coffee must always be brewed hot at the optimal temperature.

J will roll her eyes because, despite growing up in the Seattle area, she has managed to avoid becoming half the coffee fiend that Z and I are. (Which must be commended; that's an incredibly difficult thing to master in Seattle.)

I followed the NY Times recipe: steep 1/3 cup medium-grind coffee in 1.5 cups water for 12 hours at room temperature. Strain twice: first through a sieve, second through a coffee filter. The sieves, bowl, measuring cup, and steamer (improvised coffee filter rig) are much easier to clean than the french press.

I'll admit to using decaf instead of regular, but in my defense, I used Peet's. I don't agree with the description in the article. I couldn't taste caramel notes anywhere, although the resulting brew was definitely less harsh than iced coffee made with hot-brewed coffee. Also, this iced coffee definitely needed milk and sugar, and the recipe made too little coffee for my taste.

It tastes wonderful with condensed milk, although I have yet to figure out how to dissolve the condensed milk in cold liquid.

Things I am coveting at the moment.

* Water boiler.
* Mango splitter.
* New music.
* Garlic press.
* Wii.
* Ice cream machine.

Question of the day.

How difficult can it be to fill out a form?

After last week, let's just say I do not envy the DMV. Sample registration responses I have received:

* Reason for attending: not attending. (Why fill out the registration form then?)
* Business group: respect. (I didn't know we sold that.)
* How you heard about us: newsletter. (Written in when Newsletter was already an option.)
* When presented with parallel sessions, choosing both. (I am obviously behind as I have not perfected the art of being in two places at once.)

Noting this is a professional, well-educated (possibly distracted) set of respondents. The only questions that haven't gotten messed up are the ones for which you're not allowed to fill in answers.

Question of the day.

If your reason for attending the event is "not attending", why bother to register in the first place? After all you are not attending.

I don't get it. A rant.

Quite a large number of my classmates are incredibly insecure about professor selection, despite there being many reviews about many of the more common classes posted online. To their credit, a few actually check the posted reviews before asking the list for feedback. Many don't, and I would like to slap them silly.

"Appreciate any feedback about Prof. F, who teaches this entry-level class, and has done so about a million times." Don't you know any classmates whom you could ask in person? Why do you trust the opinion of a total stranger but not the professor, who is also a total stranger?

If the class is a prerequisite, do you really have a choice? Don't you think some of your classmates would have warned you off by now if Prof. F was really bad?

Isn't dealing with the occasional bad professor all part of the schooling experience? Maturity in general? And isn't the point of continuing your education enjoying the experience of learning, regardless of the professor? You only cheapen your experience by demanding "value for your money".

Armchair entertainment.

There is a feud going on between two of my neighbors.

Q: Who has the right to the guest parking space immediately next door to your house, you, your neighbor in the next house, or the neighbor across the alley?
A: None of the above. They are guest parking spaces and not intended for residents.

Q: Where should you park your car?
A: In the guest parking space. If you park your car in your own garage, you are a chump. You are supposed to use your garage for all the crap you can't otherwise fit in the house.

Bonus A, for the record: I am a chump. I don't have enough crap to evict my own car from my garage. Also, I don't like cleaning tree sap from my finish and scraping the ice off the windscreen on certain mornings.

There are two spaces next to my house. Technically one is next to my house, and the other is next to Next Door Neighbor. Across the Alley Neighbor has permanently parked his car in my spot.

The other day, Across the Alley Neighbor was working on one of his cars in the other spot. Across the Alley Neighbor has four cars (for four adults in his house) and two motorcycles. Apparently this pissed off Next Door Neighbor, who technically has two spaces, and who has two cars for four adults in his house but is too lazy to unload the moving boxes from his garage.

So Next Door neighbor has parked his backup car in the spot nearest my house and went away for the weekend in his SUV, leaving the spot right next to his house open.

I am tempted to park my car in that spot just to teach him a lesson. But then I would have to remove the tree sap from my car.

The mango pudding code and lessons learned.

I am getting bolder in my experiments on my friends. Last night marked the first time in which every dish except one was an experiment. (If you has been counting, all of them were experiments in some form or another, but at least I'd made the pasta before.)

Phyllo dough cups: they really are as easy to make as they look, and they turn out nice and light. We discovered that while they are nice filled with tapenade, they are equally nice filled with spinach salad.

Salad: the baby spinach turned out okay, despite the need to wash the greens before using. Julienned basil tastes great in any salad. Everybody seemed receptive to the idea of spooning on their choice of toppings, a nice alternative to tossing the entire salad beforehand. When toasting pecans on the stove, you should watch the pan carefully--if you smell toasted nuts, it's too late (but they make the house smell nice). Bacon is always a hit.

Stuffed chicken breasts: next time, halve the amount of chicken but keep the amount of tomatoes the same. The tomatoes were a hit.

Pasta puttanesca: next time, reduce the amount of red pepper flakes.

Cupcakes: liked the cake mix with its flecks of vanilla, liked the frosting with its rich smoothness, but for some reason they didn't taste very good together. Next time, bake the cake at a lower temperature than specified on the box and make a light lemon glaze.

Mango pudding: terrible. Robertson's brand mix tastes like crayons. Unfortunately, this means the search for the elusive Perfect Mango Pudding Recipe continues.

Question of the day.

Why have people been asking me stupid questions all week?

Q: Do you have a cart so I can haul my machines to the lab?
A: No, I am not the tech. I get paid to do other work.

Q: Can you let me into the lab so I can put my machines there?
A: Yes, but your badge should work too. If it doesn't, we have a tech who can help you.

Q: Can you help me move my machines to the lab?
A: No, I'm not the tech. I have other work to do.

Q: Chassis #2 of 4 never came up. Did you want 12 cpus?
A: No, I want all 16. If I wanted 12, do you think I would have taken out a chassis that way, in the middle?

Q: What is the textbook for the class?
A: It is the one in the bookstore. You can call them yourself, lazy.

Opinion of the day.

Proper carnivores are willing to eat every bit of the animal as long as it's safe to do so (no trichinosis, no sun-baked fish, and no fugu poison bladders), and not just the bits that resemble steak.

Yes, intestines. Deep-fried pork intestines are wonderful, as are fish intestines steamed in egg with tangerine peel.

Question of the day.

A's soon-to-be 3 year old son is having a birthday party tomorrow, and A has invited several of us adults to join in on the fun, mostly because A would like to spend at least part of the time conversing with actual adults. Keeping in mind we have been encouraged to wear socks in case we'd like to climb on the jungle gym.

A's son apparently loves Disney and cars (and probably Cars by inference). I'm not so sure I want to schlep all the way to the mall this evening, which leaves tomorrow morning to obtain a gift. Furthermore, I intend to spend tomorrow morning at several grocery stores because I would really like to eat Chinese vegetables this week instead of pasta. Oh, and it's the Dragon Boat holiday and my only opportunity this year to get the really good, Cantonese-style rice tamales with the fatty pork. They freeze really well. The rest of the year, they tend to sell only the Taiwanese and Shanghainese styles, which are tasty, but not the same.

(The reason for visiting several grocery stores is one sells the Chinese vegetables, another sells frozen phyllo dough, the third is Trader Joe's, and yet another is a new Japanese one and therefore is totally unexplored territory. Well, that's assuming the Japanese one is where I think it is.)

Considering the boy loves cars, would it be inappropriate to buy him an air freshener?

Reasons why I could never voluntarily become a vegetarian.

• Bacon.
• Wine gums. (The really good ones contain gelatin.)
• Mango pudding.
• Steamed spot shrimp, heads on, with a soy and green onion dipping sauce.
• Hainan chicken rice, the proper kind, with the coconutty rice.
• Raw geoduck, sliced paper-thin, eaten after being dunked in hot soup or congee.
• Flash stir-fried geoduck with ginger and green onion.
• Clams in black bean sauce.
• Pork ribs with bitter melon in black bean sauce.
• Oysters steamed with ginger, black beans, and green onion.
• Copper River King salmon.
• Rock cod.
• Char siu. But only the end bit that's just a little fatty and has the burnt edges.
• Real Peking duck, the kind where the fat is perfectly clear, you can read through the pancakes, and all you need is hoisin sauce and not that silly dish of sugar.
• Barbequed goose.
• Chicken feet.
• Fish intestines in egg.

Statement of the day.

"Mythbusters" explosions always cheer me up.

To whoever is pooting next to my cubicle at about this time every afternoon,

Please eat something different for lunch. Please.

Question of the day.

Which is worse--the fact that I had to ask whether today is Monday, or the fact that he had to think about it before replying?

Question of the day.

Which is worse--the fact that I had to ask whether today is Monday, or the fact that he had to think about it before replying?

Question of the day.

Did I hear the morning news correctly? The Caltrain representative they interviewed actually suggested that if you're going to commit suicide, you should take pills from the drugstore instead of jumping in front of a Caltrain.

He didn't mention anything about how life is precious.

He didn't mention anything about getting help.

He didn't mention anything about how jumping in front of a train is an incredibly painful way to go.

No, he's pissed off that you'd delay thousands of commuters by stopping the trains and gumming up the tracks.

I wish it were a cold and not hayfever.

Because then I could look forward to getting better. And I wouldn't have to explain to people that I am not contagious.

Questions of the day.

Does the train ever really hit the car? Isn't more along the lines of the car gets in the way of the train?

Weekend Accomplishments

1. Finished "Winning the Loser's Game", which is actually a fantastic read and would have gone much faster had it not been required for this quarter's class.
2. Discovered that while you can caramelize sugar in the microwave, you probably should not. The reason being that microwave-safe bowls do not heat to the same temperature as the sugar, making pouring the stuff out onto the cooling sheet surprisingly difficult.
3. Spent a pleasant hour unsticking the sugar from my teeth. Happy memories of taffy. Would have been a happy memory of peanut brittle, except the store-bought brittle isn't quite so tough.
4. Shopped while fried. Apparently looked so pathetic several women offered to help me on two occasions, both time to take the shopping cart away from me.
5. Sent an electronic birthday card. Added an extra year to the recipient's age because I thought it was 2008 when I computed the difference.

One holiday I dislike...

...is Mothers' Day. Not because I disagree with honoring my mother, but because I disagree with the marketing tactics. If they're right, I'm supposed to indulge my mother with chocolate, chicken, and salmon (to name a few things), and she would very much like flowers, jewelry, chocolate, and electronics (cellphone, not a big-screen TV). And I can call her for free, but only if she's in India.

Maybe I'll get her that big-screen TV after all.

The hunt for the best gift.

In my opinion, the best gifts are "brilliantly useless". When you first take them out of the box, they seem pretty useless. They might waste your time, take up space, or go in the gift closet. They bear no resemblance to anything the recipient had on his/her wish list or registry. Their true value becomes apparent over time (which is why you should never, ever, clear out the gift closet). When they become valuable, they become really valuable. Not necessarily as valuable as, say, a bottle of water would be to you in the middle of the desert, but certainly valuable.

The best example of this I've received is probably a set of coasters. When I received them, I didn't have my own place, and we were inclined to set drinks directly on the furniture anyway. Now that I have my own place, they've become incredibly useful. They even match the decor, which is amazing, because I don't really have much of a decor, but they match what little there is. They get used quite often (although by the end of the evening we usually set the drinks directly on the furniture anyway; it's all in the company you keep).

I'm not sure what would be the best example of a brilliantly useless gift I've given. Possibly "The Field Guide to Stains", because I imagine it probably used up a significant amount of the recipient's time when first received (just flipping through the thing). As the years passed, it probably took up a significant amount of shelf space (it's rather thick). And eventually it because useful for obvious reasons.

For the next gift I give, I'm determined to make it as brilliantly useless as possible. I have already scrapped the first two ideas. The first because the technology is still rather new, and there's a good chance the item will become just useless in a short amount of time. The second I've almost scrapped, but not quite, because I haven't decided just how briliantly useless it will be. On the one hand, the recipient could be so incredibly well-organized and endowed with the right capacity that the item will never, ever achieve its full brilliantly useless potential. On the other hand, it could turn out to be as brilliantly useless as I think it could.

Life's a gamble, isn't it?

Chassis #5

I have replaced everything on this notebook except for the battery.
Let me tell you about chassis #5.
Chassis #5 is almost as lovely as chassis #1. It's clean, except for a bit of dirt on the F3 key. The keys are barely sweated on. There's hardly any hair in the keyboard.
Let's see how long chassis #5 survives.

Question of the day.

You mean, they didn't tattoo that on your rear end when you joined?

Answer of the day.

No.

Question of the day.

Am I studying hard enough for Saturday's midterm?

The best investment advice.

After years of research, trial, and error, I have determined that the best way to build your portfolio is to write a best-selling book about investment advice.

Question of the day.

The press asks a candidate for political office if he/she knows the price of milk to demonstrate said candidate is out of touch with average people.

What would happen if the candidate replied that he/she doesn't know because they're lactose intolerant?

Quiz Time!

You've driven up to the bottom leg of a T intersection. Cross traffic does not stop. You have a stop sign. You normally turn right to get to Safeway. You want to go to Safeway. But today, they've closed the right arm and put up cones and signs to that effect. What do you do?

A) Turn left, go around the block, and turn into Safeway using another driveway.
B) Turn right and mow down the cones in front of the police station. Ignore the shouts of the other drivers as they tell you you're going the wrong way. (It's OK. You're in a minivan, so the laws of physics and the road don't apply to you.)
C) Make a U-turn into oncoming traffic in front of the police station and go back the way you came. (It's OK. You're in an SUV, so the laws of physics and the road don't apply to you.)

Question of the day.

Isn't it silly that trans fats have turned saturated fats from evil to good?

It's delicious.

J should be getting her birthday gift soon. It will probably arrive a few days after the actual date. This is fine. This will be the closest I've gotten it in years.

How much did it cost to send it? $6.66. Will it arrive on time and intact? With a price like that, does it really matter?

Question of the day.

Where are my grades?

Question of the day.

What are chocolate covered strawberries but a race against time?

Statement of the day.

Isn't that the definition of insanity?

It's a website. I am trying to update something on it. It takes a long time to come back with a non-error. That is, it's an error and the thing didn't go through, but the page telling me that doesn't exist, so I get a page not found error. There are no other buttons, like "save" or "modify" that are relevant to my desired action. So I keep clicking the same button, "update", expecting something different will happen.

I'd stop clicking "update", except when I was clicking the other button for a different action, it also kept failing until it finally went through.

Things I didn't need this week because finals are on Saturday.

Team member bailing out of doing the presentation, even though he insisted all day that he was up to the task.

Kitchen flooding. The drain pipe thingy has decided it doesn't want to drain into the sewer line anymore. It has decided the floor is a much better place.

The knowledge that if I didn't have finals, I'd probably diagnose and fix the drain problem myself. It would just take a few hours and a trip to the hardware store. Instead, I have what looks like an expensive date with the plumber and no sense of accomplishment.

Sending e-mail to the wrong disti list.

Report, due Saturday, in less than decent shape, given all the questions we have for one of the teammates.

The real possibility that this quarter's projects could be rendered null and void for want of real communication.

Another Comment.

As fun as it is to bash PowerPoint, it makes me sad to think about all the hours people have spent deliberately defeating PowerPoint's default layouts, only to end up with the results they ended up with. Well, except for the ones who insisted on foils. We may not agree with the colors or layouts PowerPoint chose, but there really are times users can't do better than the designers.

Cataloging the Worst Presentations Ever (rankings and better names to follow sometime later).

Picture Guy:

He was an avid lover of nature and decided to incorporate photos of nature from his state into his presentation. These weren't his photos; he used some from a professional photographer. He spent a significant amount of time describing the picture instead of describing his work. Normal people would have dropped the photo into the side or the middle of the slide. He made the photo the background and changed the font color to match. I have yet to decide whether the white text on yellow grass (yes grass), green text on green grass, or the black text on snow and deep red grass was the least legible.

The Paper Might Have Been Shorter:

She recognized her accent was somewhat thick and the audience may have a tough time understanding her. That was no excuse for pasting entire paragaphs (probably from her paper) into the slides. The text became so dense and small as to be difficult to read, so she had to recolor some of the text to highlight the salient points. She failed to recognize that we couldn't read her slides because of the text size, not the color. She also spent too many slides defining her terms and not enough on actual analysis, a fatal flaw for a 20-minute presentation.

Imagine That:

He failed to recognize why much of the world moved to Excel and PowerPoint a decade ago. His foils required spending 20 minutes tracking down a light projector. Because he didn't completely understand how his mathematics package worked, he hadn't resized the fonts before printing and he couldn't properly plot one of his performance graphs. He told us to imagine the line shifted upward because his performance was really better than that shown. I wished I'd thought to do that during my own presentation: "Imagine these numbers, but 20% better."

Why Bother:

Like Imagine That, he also failed to recognize the brave new world of the 90's. His foils contained numerous paragaphs and quotations clipped from his favorite authors. He didn't expect us to actually read the slides, he just put them up to impress upon us that he knew about these authors. His foils also demonstrated the limitations of foils. Namely, that if you forget to add something, you have to write it in with Sharpie, which doesn't work so well if your Sharpie is wearing down, you have terrible handwriting, and the thing you want to add is another paragraph.

(In fact, I would like to flog anybody who pastes paragaphs into their slides, but I saw so many of those on Saturday that I realized it would take too long to take care of all the offenders.)

(Also, after The Paper Might Have Been Shorter, I realized that pasting in paragraphs from other authors' papers is slightly less egregious than pasting in paragraphs from your own paper, which forced about a dozen presentations off this list.)

Exhaust Them so They Don't Ask Questions:

She shrank the margins and line spacing, but not the font size as much, so she could fit more text on the slide. The result was the first and only presentation I'd ever attended where I actually got tired reading the slide. If she hadn't worked for a government agency and could productize this, she could put all those sleeping pill manufacturers out of business.

Why I'll never be a TV chef.

Ingredients
1 lb. spiral pasta
~2 pints grape tomatoes (purchased from Costco, where pints have no meaning)
8, possibly 10 medium to large mini sweet peppers (lost count)
1 normal can diced tomatoes
1 to 2 tsp. each dried basil, roasted garlic flakes (they had shaker tops)
pinch salt
black pepper
7.5 oz. part-skim ricotta (1/2 the 15 oz. tub) (it might have been 2/3 of the tub)
splash vodka
olive oil

Method
1. Boil water for pasta. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a pan. A wok will do, but I guess normal people use a skillet or saute pan.
2. Add raw tomatoes and peppers to the oil. Cover and bring heat down to medium. Stir once in a while, until some of the tomatoes burst.
3. Add canned tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper to the vegetables. Heat through and keep at a simmer.
4. Stir in ricotta. The mixture will turn pink. Turn heat down to keep at a simmer.
5. Cook pasta. Stir vodka into the sauce.
6. Drain pasta, dump the pasta into the sauce. This is why a wok works well.
7. Serve with parmesan.

Ideas for what to name this dish?

Question of the day.

How effective can the traffic reports on the news really be if the backup just keeps getting worse?

Question of the day.

Don't people pee in the river?

It sucks.

Both projects suck.
The team sucks.
The inability to add alternate paths to the diagram sucks.
This cramp sucks.
The lack of sleep sucks.

Question of the day.

What's wrong with the West Coast?

Question of the day.

Where's Z?

Answer of the day.

"Gift closet."

Question of the day.

Why does there need to be a law about that?

Question of the day.

Do you suppose J knows the scripts on her blog are broken for some users?

Question of the day.

At what point did they decide Valentine's Day should be more like Christmas and gifts, gifts, gifts all the time?

Question of the day.

Why don't they make learners and new drivers in the US display a red "L" on their bumpers like they do in the UK and HK and possibly other locations?

chassis #4, disk #2, battery #1

It took three sanitizing wipes to get chassis #4 up to speed. The wipes came up disturbingly yellow after sweeping between the keys. I think #3 only required two wipes, but #2 required many more. Many, many more. The previous owner of #4 was hairy and balding, but not as badly as #2. #4 is clearly Asian, probably male, and did not like pastry. Still undecided about whether #4 will require vacuuming.

Which leads me to the following questions.

1. What is the TCO of Apple notebooks? What would be the IT implications?
2. Most of my coworkers have lush heads of hair. So why do I keep getting the chassis that belonged to the balding ones?
3. How has my battery managed to stay intact while everything else has broken down at least once?

Aw hell. #4's display has the flickering lines problem. Not as bad as #2, but #3 managed not to have it. This is a bad omen.

Question of the day.

Dear IT,

How can you put "use your network cable" as an option for when you can't make the wireless work if you don't make sure the network drops actually work in the conference rooms?

rambling about winter

Winter quarter has always been my worst quarter. I feel a compelling need to nap all day long for no apparent reason. It's not like I'm getting less sleep (if anything, I sleep less in the summer), or I'm not sleeping as well (sleeping is more difficult in warm weather). It's not the weather, since I feel this urge to nap even in sunny weather. Even more disturbing is the lack of tolerance to cold. The weather is downright balmy compared to the winters I grew up with, and yet it's freezing. Or I think it's freezing. Other people are out in t-shirts and shorts. Not me. The only reason I'm not in the wooly sweaters is it would just look strange next to the t-shirts. I wonder if we'd be more productive if we could figure out a way to relocate everybody to Australia during the winter months.

The magic of books

I am eagerly awaiting delivery of a couple books. They are for a class. I would like to start procrastinating as soon as possible. Therefore I have been tracking the progress of the package online. They are shown below. Keep in mind, the top record is actually the most recent one. This means, amazingly enough, my books have the ability to go back in time, even before their publish date.

December 31, 1969
03:59:59 PM
US
Arrival Scan

January 31, 2007
05:39:00 PM
RICHMOND CA US
In transit

January 30, 2007
---
US
Carrier notified to pick up package

Question of the day.

Why can't I set a breakpoint where I want to?

Question of the day.

If the nude jogger were physically attractive, would there be as many complaints?

Question of the day.

What would the world look like if everybody were an engineer?

Question of the day.

Will they ever run out of people willing to appear on reality TV and the likes of American Idol?

Question of the day.

****. What's the password for the class ERES site?

Question of the day.

What would you do if you had one extra hour every day?

Question of the day.

You call that washing your hands? A quick spritz with cold water followed by a brief shake?

Question of the day.

In light of the iPhone, could new consumer hardware have the power to transform the business policies of the network it uses? Because my phone already offers a lot of features, most of which I don't care to use because I don't like being charged for each message, byte of data transferred, etc.