A long, loooong hiatus

After what seems like ages, I'm finally back at it.

I generally take a walk after lunch every day, and right next to the Altera campus, nestled snugly between a large swank apartment complex, my work campus, and surrounded by the juggernaut that is Cisco, is this half block that is one half orange tree grove and one half grass. Once a year we see them truck in day workers to pick the oranges, and a couple times a month we see the grass get cut and baled. I often joke that we should pool our money and buy that plot of land. And guess what...I knew it!


From Wall Street Journal:

College tuition and fees: 248.4%

Cigarettes & other tobacco products: 246.5%

Elementary & high school tuition and fees: 234.5% (see yesterday’s WSJ story)

Household fuel oil: 227.0%

Hospital services, nursing homes, adult day care: 222.6%

Educational books & supplies: 182.5%

Motor oil, coolant & fluids: 170.7%

Oranges and tangerines: 157.6%

And although the most things have become more expensive, some goods have gotten cheaper since 1990:
Personal computers & other information processing equipment: -89.4%

Televisions: -83.0%

Audio equipment: -45.4%

Toys: -43.4%

Photographic equipment & supplies: -41.0%

I'm in the wrong field dammit.

In other news, my evil twin is hispanic...
http://thewiii.blogspot.com/

What a job

Is that what you call it?

Allergies

I thought that for the most part allergy season is almost over. If you've seen me lately you would probably think quite the opposite. It got so bad that I've made 2 trips to the doctor in the past week, and have another appointment this friday. The first appointment was horribly informative. The doctor told me I had allergies, and that I should take antihistamines and decongestants, and get some eye drops. Wow. She told me that I should stay off the antihistamines for the rest of the week so my test results (I was getting tested for which allergens I reacted to) would be accurate.

On friday I went to the doctor. They did the skin prick test on me to determine which allergens I reacted to. 30 little needles, all over both arms. They told me not to move my arms too much, and not to scratch. So, by this point I'd been off medicines for a whole week. My eyes were red and itchy, my nose was stuffy and runny, and on top of that, several spots on my arms were swelling up and itching like crazy. Those next 15 minutes were torture. When they finally took me in and looked at my arms, the worst culprit by far was.... OLIVE TREE POLLEN.

Fuck you Caltech.

Coffee room etiquette

Improper etiquette in the coffee room just pisses me off. Here's a top 10 list of my worst peeves.

10) Overfilling the pot. The pot doesn't over-fill itself. Someone actually needs to try to do that. I've seen many an occasion where people brew a new pot without emptying the one before. This leads overflowing and coffee everywhere. Oh yeah, and some people don't even take out the old, used filter/coffee and put in a new packet. That's just gross, but at least they're brewing more coffee.

9) Taking more than an adequate share of hot water/coffee. Some people have retardedly big mugs. Have mercy, please.

8) Bitching about the coffee someone else made while not making any yourself. These coffee snobs walk in as if they own the place, fill their mugs, taste the coffee and proceed to make comments on how bad the stuff is, and walk back out. If the coffee is so bad, leave it for other people who will drink it.

7) Not shaking the creamer. I think this has to be a personal peeve. There was an occasion when I was pouring the coffeemate creamer into my coffee and it wasn't cooperating. I turned it almost upside down, and what looked like a white slug fell into my mug. We now refer to that as "sluggies".

6) Not closing the creamer cap. Some people semi-close the cap. The result is that when you shake it, you get creamer all over you. Why have a cap if you're not gonna use it?

5) Finishing the coffee and not bothering to make more. Common sense, really.

4) Complaining about anything and everything in the coffee room. I'm not naming names. Really. But the coffee room is a place where lots of people gather to hang out for a bit and chat. I can understand about how they're not restocking the sugar or how the water's sometimes not hot, but I don't wanna hear that every day.

3) People running into the coffee room right after a pot has been set to brew, saying "ohhh man..." because they couldn't get their tea, when the people making coffee had been waiting patiently for the water to get hot to do so.

2) Taking the hot water while the coffee is brewing. There are about 15 people who are gonna drink from that pot of coffee. 1 person is gonna touch your tea. Wait your damn turn.

1) While there are people clearly waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, people walking in and taking the
stronger coffee before the batch is even done dripping. Those people took the time to make coffee, and are waiting there for it to finish, and someone decides they're gonna take the good stuff?

I'm sure I've missed some stuff. Care to share your pet peeves?

The Dark Knight (Take 1)

I went and saw the midnight showing of The Dark Knight last night. For all of you still on the fence about seeing it, or you're not planning on seeing it: go watch it. Now.

The movie was everything I expected of it, and the acting was superb. To the credit of the casting crew, they picked actors/actresses who actually act, and who are not merely big names in the field. I don't care how famous Bruce Willis and Nicolas Cage get. I can ALWAYS think of a better person to cast than them. I know there will be the naysayers, as Maggie Gyllenhaal isn't the hottest actress you can find. But more believable than Katie Holmes? That goes without saying. Maybe even more fitting than the original Batman love interest: Kim Basinger. Also, I have to say that after Aaron Eckhart's performance in "Thank You for Smoking", I already gave him a lot of credit. It was no different here, although a lot less tongue-in-cheek, pun intended.

I know I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this, but I fell asleep during the movie. There was hardly a dull moment in the 2 and a half hours, but I was just too dead tired.




Still... even with all that talk about the good casting, I can't help but wonder. Wouldn't it be awesome if Kate Beckinsale was the heroine instead? Batman and leather-clad vampires...together at last! And if she bit Bruce Wayne, then we'd have VAMPIRE BATMAN. YEAAAUUGHH!! I'm such a genius that they should just let me write the script for the next movie.

Teh car

I've been putting it off for a while, and I guess I should post it for all of you who haven't seen it. And for those of you who have, well, you get to see it in all it's freshly waxed glory. I present you... my car.




These were taken after my "friends" showed me how to wax my car. Afterwards we had dinner at this hole in the wall place called "top cafe". 5 dollar shrink and pork wonton noodle soup. Mmmmmm. That is also where we ran into the BIGGEST asian dude I've ever seen. He's even a little bigger than me. But seriously. After he left and walked across the plaza from the restaurant, I saw him, and that's when he looked about normal size.

We were all leaving the place and AJ just had to say it: "see you guys in 12 hours." foooock...

Oh ZAP!

AJ spoke of this elusive feat in scrabble once: placing a high point letter on a triple letter spot, to be used both horizontally and vertically. Here it is:






My work here is done.