| Bay to Breakers |
[May. 18th, 2008|09:27 pm] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nick and Paula came into town Friday night for the weekend, mostly for Bay to Breaker's. We went with Nick's friends on their Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure float. Poor photo from 7am this morning, during assembly:
(not pictured: Circle K and Wild Stallyns stenciling)
I was Socrates (online toga generator!). Nick was Billy the Kid. Paula was a princess. We had Bill & Ted, Rufus, ... just about everybody but Abraham Lincoln. I was totally into our Joan of Arc (so cute and feisty) but Nick said she was engaged, only to later tell me she wasn't. But by then she was making out with some dude in a tree. Oh well.
The booth included two kegs, a pitcher of jungle juice, a generator, and a ridiculous speaker on top that pretty much won the most fucking loud thing on wheels contest.
Here's Nick getting almost arrested by a very pissed off Officer John Ruggeiro for violating "417 of the Penal Code". Which turns out to be about brandishing firearms, whereas Nick actually brandished his middle finger. Towards the cop. In any case, Dan Bernards and I were pretty sure the cop was full of shit making up numbers (which he was: including "418 lying to a cop! He said he didn't flip me off!" ... My thought at the time: "Really? 417 and 418? They're contiguous? That's a coincidence!" ... taking notes while Nick's on the ground) The cop called Dan "Mr. Lawyer" for asking questions.
Too much sun & beer.
Good times.
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| Das deutsches Wort des Tages |
[May. 1st, 2008|12:58 am] |
Geschlechtsverkehr
Aw, German compounds, how I love thee.
(learned from watching The Lives of Others, with Dan. good movie.) |
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| C++ |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|11:37 pm] |
I've been writing a bunch of C++ lately, both inside and outside of work. Really, once you learn what the gcc error messages actually mean, then it's smooth sailing. My mean time between bugging evan continues to drop ... a little.
I regularly bounce now between C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Perl, and Sawzall. I wish I could say something more profound than that they all suck in their own special ways. (I suppose the cheery angle is that they're all beautiful snowflakes too, but...)
Actually JavaScript is almost the least annoying, from a language perspective. JavaScript with the whole DOM and browser crap is a whole different story ... but embedded JavaScript is great.
I wrote something in plain C the other day and besides being kinda nostalgically quaint, it kinda blew. I eagerly await rewriting it in C++.
Back to C++ fun.... |
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| I remember back when gas was only a nickel... |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|09:40 am] |
Fortunately I don't really drive often, having the 3x better gas mileage with the motorcycle.
That was the first time I ever typed nickel, too, and I misspelled it as "nickle". Who knew? |
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| Silly Sign |
[Mar. 23rd, 2008|04:22 pm] |
Walking on 24th today between Mimosa stop #1 and Mimosa stop #2 with Nick and Rebecca, I saw a sign that said:"50% off all lingerie & home decor." Heh. |
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| Leveraging core competencies |
[Mar. 23rd, 2008|04:19 pm] |
My neighbor works in software to teach "business English". I made some joke about only needing to know phrases like, "Our value-add is leveraging your core-competencies."
For fun, I threw some stupid words into Google Sets and got this. Love it. Wtf is "outfrastructure"? |
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| Random Poll |
[Mar. 12th, 2008|09:50 pm] |
Possibly-inebriated people at dinner just requested I post a poll:
Poll #1153379
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllWhich is better?
(Seriously, don't even ask me how they got there.)
Update: The drunk people are not happy with the current 5-13 results in favor of an AIDS vaccine and would like to remind you that:- sliced bread includes toast
- bagels were inspired from sliced bread (and are, in fact, bread that is sliced)
- and that you may change your vote
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| Another Neighbor |
[Mar. 9th, 2008|06:03 pm] |
This is another meet-a-neighbor story.
*doorbell rings*
(Shit, I'm not expecting anybody... must be a charity wanting money or signatures or something.)
I open the door...Her: "Hi, I'm Inna. I'm Ukrainian and live across the street. I met your parents a few weeks ago and thought I'd stop by and say hi. I rent from Steve."
Me: "I don't know Steve. Which one? Oh, that house. Hi. Nice to meet you. I have parties here. You should come. I'll add you to the mailing list.."
.... etc, etc So, yeah, much better than a door-to-door charity/political person.
My parents, visiting from Portland, stayed in my house while I was in Belize. Apparently they met this neighbor and forgot to tell me.
Between Christian and Inna, I think the next Wednesday night Cooking-at-Brad's party should be Mr. Roger's themed. Everybody must wear cheesy cardigans. |
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| Gas |
[Mar. 8th, 2008|06:28 pm] |
I don't drive my car often, so I don't buy gas often, but I had to fill up the other day.... $76.00
At $3.99/gallon.
I'm enjoying this rise. The sooner it gets to $5 or $10, the sooner people might care? |
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| Vodka, Lacrosse, Neighbors, Hookups, ... small world |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|04:29 pm] |
Last night I was providing post-drinking, post-movie taxi service for Becky and Dima (both of whom had fallen asleep on the couch during a movie after Zeitgeist).
As Becky and I are leaving the garage, two people stumble across the street towards me, a guy holding the hugest bottle of Belvedere Vodka I'd ever seen, and a girl carrying two lacrosse sticks.
Him: "Hi neighbor! I'm your neighbor! Want some vodka?"
Her: "I'm a professional Lacrosse player... see?"
Him: "Do you live here? I'm your neighbor."
Her: "I partied at your house, remember? I was here for Beau's 30th birthday party."
Him: "Yeah, she says she partied here... I'm your neighbor. Want some vodka?"
Her: "I had to get my lacrosse sticks."
Him: "What's your name? Let me get your number, I'm not gay or anything. I'm your neighbor. Let me just get your number. HEY!!! YOU HAVE AN iPHONE TOO!"
Him: "Yeah, so I just met this girl tonight and we hit it off so I'm taking her home."
Him: "Hey, who owns this place? You? Oh cool. And you're the one with the motorcycle too?"
Her: "We have to go play lacrosse now."
Me: "Indoors? Impressive. Goodnight. We'll have to party sometime. I'll call you guys next time we have a party here."
etc, etc...
In conclusion:
- It's a small world.
- Seems like I have a cool neighbor, Christian, that I never knew about. I like meeting my neighbors.
- There might be a huge bottle of vodka still sitting on my steps, if he forgot to pick it up. I should go look.
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| Not Danga |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|02:49 pm] |
I love the Internet and its people. Like this person:Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 15:10:49 +0900
From: Rhythm & Beats <info@skihirejapan.com>
To: brad@danga.com
Subject: not danga
Danga is not the crap you say it is. Danga is a word used to describe a round object when you cant think of it's [sic] real name...
Idiot...
Um, okay? I can't disagree with you. I'm sure it means something in some language.
But let's see what Google thinks: [define: danga]. Oh, snap... nothing.
And what about Danga by itself? [danga]. Yeah, that's right.
I know where you can stick that round object. |
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| Safety Information |
[Jan. 15th, 2008|03:10 pm] |
Sitting on the shuttle last night, the girl next to me was on the phone speaking every other sentence/phrase/word in English vs. Russian, switching to English for technical things and certain idiomatic expressions.
Normally I'd just put on my headphones and listen to music but a) the English/Russian thing was amusing and b) she had a cute voice as well, so "eavesdropping" (if you can call it that when the person's directly beside you) was quite bearable.
Her phone call involved discussing sorting strategies for a toy website she made as a Ruby learning excercise:
http://safetyinformation.org/
Quite amusing.
I almost forgot to write about it, but then I saw this on reddit today:
:-) |
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| Mystery |
[Nov. 6th, 2007|12:01 am] |
There is candle wax all over the back of my shirt.
If I was recently leaning against a candle, was I just close enough to not catch on fire? Wtf? Where did this come from? |
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| Motorcycle Gas Mileage |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|04:09 pm] |
I had a meeting down the peninsula today, so I took my motorcycle, not having done 101 on it for any notable distance before.
On the way back I had to get gas, so I did an experiment: noted mileage, filled gas to the brim, then did the same once I was back in the city, 30 miles and 0.536 gallons later... so just under 60 mpg.
If I did that ride daily, I guess I'd have to fill up once or twice a week, since I only have a 4 gallon tank (but "you need gas!" light turns on at 1 gallon remaining, which is only gauge). And I guess it'd then cost $3.50 - $4.00 per day in gas, round trip.
But the wind, man... holy shit. Throwing me all over the place. |
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| hardcore linguist |
[Aug. 8th, 2007|05:54 pm] |
In addition to watching about 6 episodes of Entourage last night before going to bed at 3:30 am or so, I read the entire Wikipedia article on the Voynich Manuscript, following dozens of links in the process.
The coolest part was reading about this dude who theorizes it's in an artificial alphabet representing the Manchu language, and went on to decode the first page, constructing this amazing table [mirror] in the process. Fucking crazy. |
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| Stereo in the bathroom |
[Aug. 8th, 2007|05:46 pm] |
I bought an Airport Express recently, not so much for wireless (I already have wireless in the house), but for the AirTunes. (and also now I can have my "FitzPrivate" ESSID, in addition to the existing "FitzPublic"...)
Anyway, now I just regularly play all music on all house speakers from iTunes, playing off mt-daapd on my server.
So when I was in the bathroom just now, listening to the music which followed me from the office, I was trying to remember how I'd hooked up the left & right channels in the bathroom ceiling speakers (2) from my HTD MA-1235 ...
I seem to recall I positioned left & right for the sitter, not the stander, figuring the sitter is going to be there longer and would more appreciate the stereo not being backwards.
</random> |
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| Fight, 911.... |
[May. 17th, 2007|05:18 pm] |
I live in a pretty nice, quiet, safe neighborhood. So it was a bit unexpected today to crest the hill right before my house and land right in the middle of a pretty awesome fight currently in progress...
One guy with a stick, the other with a glass bottle.
Both with bloodied faces.
I park my motorcycle and go to dismount when I notice one guy has flocked to my side for protection, and the other guy is on the other side of my motorcycle, me stuck in the middle still on my motorcycle while they yell "Punto!" and such across from me, holding their respective stick & glass bottle up, ready to strike.
I quickly turn the motorcycle back on and pull away (into the middle of the street) and dismount, just as the one guy throws a glass bottle and it explodes all around us, and into my driveway. One guy's yelling for me to call 911. My cellphone doesn't work in my house, so I stand out in the street, in the middle of this all, and try to hear the phone (it's really windy out... hard to hear).
911 sucks & takes forever ("All operators are currently busy.... Todos los operadors estan occupado...") etc, etc.
Finally I give one person the address and they transfer me. More delays & busy operator messages. I give up and hang up, since it looks like the fight is over and the men are walking away. But then the little guy runs up to the other and hits him in the back of the head or something and the fight resumes in earnest.
I was starting to feel guilty for hanging up on 911 but then police start arriving, and the angry man with the glass bottles (it turns out there were several, since I can now see them exploded up & down the street in several locations...) is fighting back, this time with the police. (the guy who'd asked me to call 911 is sitting on the ground recovering, letting the police take care of crazy man who they're trying to get into the back seat...)
It took awhile to clean up all the glass so I could move the motorcycle into the garage, but at least I could watch the increasing number of police deal with the situation.
Good times. |
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| Seattle, Home, Running, etc... |
[Apr. 30th, 2007|10:21 pm] |
Seattle was great. As much as I anticipate how pretty Seattle (or Portland) is before I fly in, it still always shocks me... love the green/nature/water/cleanliness. It was nice seeing hellarad, bostonsteamer, their crazy kids, jope, boonedog (thanks again for letting me crash there!), and marcuso, who introduced me to a cool venue with a cool show (although the opener, Hardnphirm was almost cooler... go watch their videos).
LinuxFest NW was good. Well-organized, nice little city (Bellingham), friendly people. Nice seeing the SiMech folk again (who paid for my trip), as well as Brian Aker (krow), and chromatic and Allison Randal (Perl/Parrot people), who I ate with back in Seattle (at Cedars, in the U District). Oh, I also spent Saturday night in Bellingham drinking with blythe who was in town visiting her family, who now live there. (heh, I love how family is singular: "her family lives...", but the relative pronoun "who" there is plural: "family, who live". Tangent.)
Oh, and props to jope for introducing me to a cute-as-hell Internet reporter, Mónica Guzmán, whom Marcus tried valiantly to get to join us at the show but failed. :)
Woke up at 6:30 am today at Marcus' place, drove to airport, flew back to SFO, took (free) BART to 24th/Mission, and walked home (still hating cabs). After some deliveries/appts at 1:30, I promptly fell asleep around 3:00 pm and slept until 8:30 pm. I win!
Just got done with a 5 km run, ~26 minutes. I think my goal is to do Bay to Breakers (12km) in an hour. Seems quite doable.
Time to catch up on email & hack. |
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| Katakana Calligraphy Master! |
[Apr. 7th, 2007|11:00 pm] |
ハシカープラネツト
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