06:45 pm - Quantum Programming
Quantum Programming: When the simple act of observing something in the debugger causes the program to behave differently.

a.k.a. "It works when I look at it."

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

04:59 pm - How was your day?
There are a few metrics I can use to determine how well my day is going.

The first is how many IM conversation windows I end up with at the end of the day. Today I'm at 6, which is pretty high.

Another is at what point I've finished the bugs which I was supposed to have finished yesterday and can start working on today's bugs. By this measure, 5 p.m. is pretty awful, especially since we consider a working day to have eight hours in it.

This leads into the last one: what time I get home in the evening.

*headdesk*

Edit: Salmoned!

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

01:21 pm - Oh man, I forgot...
This post should have been on June 29th, but I spaced and missed it. But on June 29, ten years ago I first started working at Yahoo!. Four jobs, five managers, three computers, three phone numbers, nine christmas gifts, ten year-end parties, ten oktoberfest mugs, eleven stuffed hamsters, and probably close to twenty cubicles later, I'm still here.

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

01:26 pm - ATTN: Internet
It is spelled "Sneak Peek". Not "Sneak Peak".

On a related note, something "piques" your interest, not "peeks" or "peaks".

(19 comments | Leave a comment)

11:03 am - Power outage!
The power just went out here.

Posting on laptop, and for some reason the wireless access points are on the emergency circuit. (Gotta love a company with priorities.)

At least we weren't the folks who were stuck on the rollercoasters next door.

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

05:18 pm - And I'm done
I finally got Captain rank in FFXI (took a screenshot but forgot to upload it).

With this, I am done with FFXI. I have posted a (rather length) goodbye post in my linkshell's forums explaining my reasons for leaving in probably way more detail than anyone cares, but it feels good to actually say it.

The most important part is that I kept playing FFXI for the people, but my (sometimes more than) full time job kept me from playing enough and at the same times as most of them, so I lost that connection, and therefore my real reason for sticking around.

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

02:52 pm - Emotional responses to non-emotional events
If Yahoo! were a person, it would totally have its feelings hurt right now.

<Yahoo!> I'm not merging with Microsoft! For reals this time!
<StockMarket> We don't like you! Down 10%!
<Yahoo!> What, I'm no good to you by myself? You only liked me for my potentially cheap post-merger Microsoft stock?
<StockMarket> Yeah, duh!
<Yahoo!> /wrists

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

03:05 pm - Delicious Library 2.0
I want to get Delicious Library 2.0, but I don't have Leopard yet and it requires it. Curse their monstery hides!

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

03:25 pm - Small updates
I finally finished Picross DS.

I found someone (via Facebook) who works at Yahoo! who also went to my High School (two years ahead of me), but I didn't know her then and I don't know her now.

I have saved approximately $140 so far in the last three months because of the increased mileage from my Prius.

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

01:53 pm
It smells like smoke here, even in the office a little bit.

(For those of you not in the area, there's a forest fire going on about 40 miles from here.)

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

02:09 pm - Absence of posting
Just because I'm not posting doesn't mean things aren't happening.

• I went down to SoCal for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah last weekend. It's scary that he's 13 already, because I remember him being born. I also think I impressed him by "fixing" their TV to make the Wii work by changing it to the right input with a single button press.
  
• I'm trying to lose weight again, although I haven't introduced more exercise into the equation yet, I am back to eating less. I know it's not enough yet, but I'm still trying to work out my routine.
  
• I'm also in the process of examining my budget, after realizing that I'm probably spending more on random per-month things than I really need to. Scarily, the money I spend on FFXI each month is starting to seem like it would be better spent elsewhere. I'm also going to try to look into possibly refinancing to lock into a nice low rate, even though my ARM is going to be coming back down because it's a 12 month moving average. My mortgage payment is about 130% of what it was when I first started, and that extra money every month really starts to hurt.
  
• My room is probably the cleanest its ever been since I moved in. I've been working on the various regions of it, and I just managed to get my desk mostly cleared this weekend. The last few steps were amazingly noticeable -- sections of carpet that hadn't seen the light of day in years were now visible. Seeing each part by itself was already pretty amazing, once I managed to get it all done at once, I'm going to have to take pictures as historical proof.
  
• My Prius didn't get as good mileage as I thought it would have when I drove down to SoCal. I suppose it makes sense: when you're driving at a constant speed on a flat road, a hybrid doesn't really get much benefit. I was "only" getting 38-40 mpg on I-5. But then when I hit LA, and I was driving up and down hills, slowing down and speeding up, it went back up to 50. I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't make it on one tank of gas (it's a smaller tank than my last car, which could barely make it on one tank), but I managed with miles to spare.

Back to work...

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

09:40 am - The pitter patter of little feet
I'm at my Mom's house again, waiting for everyone to get ready for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. Another set of cousins from Indiana are also with us, and they brought their 1 year old and 4 year old with them. Unfortunately, the 1 year old has an ear infection, so he is prone to start crying for what appears to be no reason.

I brought my Wii and some of my old Legos. The Legos were for the 4 year old, and the Wii was mostly for the parents and my brother. It's funny, the Legos are still in this old case which has "property of Andy Scheffler" and the old address in Yorba Linda on it that we haven't lived in since I was in second grade.

My suit no longer fits. I mean, I can barely fit into it, but I can't do things like sit up straight or put a wallet in the back pocket. I need to lose weight or buy a new suit, and buying a new suit seems like admitting defeat.

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

06:24 pm - Starting to get annoying
So this LiveJournal embedded media bug that's been plaguing me forever has hit a new low point. It seems that for some reason, whenever someone embeds media in a post in my friends list, I usually get some previously viewed embedded media instead of the one they posted.

This wouldn't be so annoying except that, since last week, every embedded media on my friends list has been the Mario Paint version of "Never Gonna Give You Up."

(11 comments | Leave a comment)

05:23 pm - Nutrition and the practical applications thereof
Passover always does a number on me. I'm just not eating the food I need to be eating, and I lack carbs or something and so I'm always tired, hungry and I get headaches. At least I only have four days at work this year. Because of the working over the weekend thing, I got to work from home on Monday.

I think I need some caffeine. And more water.

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

11:13 am - Happy time fun time!
I've just worked my first weekend. This is not a milestone I'm proud of.

I also just received my first piece of spam in Japanese. This is something I'm indifferent about.

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

10:49 am - It's Friday, why am I so sad?
I'm sad because I was at work until 11pm last night getting ready for a demo today. (Although other people stayed until 1 a.m., it seems).

I'm sad because I owe money to the gov'm't. (But I should be happy -- it's because my investments actually made a nice chunk of money.)

I'm sad because, once again, as I get out of my car and walk through the parking lot, the rollercoasters are going and people are screaming and having a good time and I know I have to go inside and work for another eight hours.

I'm sad because, even though I've been taking medication for the last two months, that stupid cough is still not really gone, it's just masked.
Current Mood: tired

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

12:14 pm - Once again, Spring.
Nature is an amazing thing. Birds have the ability to navigate while migrating south for the winter, finding the same nest in the same tree that they used the year before. Then they fly north again and find the same tree and the same window and run into it over and over JUST LIKE LAST YEAR.

The bird is back. Neil Patrick Harris, however is not.

(7 comments | Leave a comment)

02:50 pm - Number four
Yes, I know I'm not posting much, I promise to do real posts. I swear! I'm not just saying that and I swear this post isn't automatically generated. To prove it:


I'm a real Dark Knight now!

Unlike the other four jobs I have at AF levels, I think Dark Knight might get put on hold at 60 while I do other things. I'm normally single-minded about the jobs I level in FFXI, so this is a new thing for me.

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

05:12 pm - [Title]
[Obligatory "I'm not dead, I'm just bored" post]

Got my Powerbook back, with no cost to me. Yay AppleCare.

We had to mail off our XBox 360, stupid red rings of death. So no DMC4 for Hung and no Lost Odyssey for me (which I haven't even bought because it came out after the rings showed up). We did, of course, get Smash Bros. I keep forgetting to look up the friend code when I'm at home, though.

I finally used up my 7 day trial of Lord of the Rings Online. It took a bit to get into it, but I think it could have been a game I could play, if I knew anyone else who played and I had the free time to do so. It has a system that is dangerous for obsessive compulsive collectors: the Deed system. They're like quests in WoW that you don't have to sign up for, and when you're done you get a slight upgrade to your character; cosmetic or functional. So you have to go around and do things like kill 60 spiders in the Bree-lands or visit all nine ruins in the Shire, or use a certain ability 350 times, and each one is tracked separately. It's a smart way to keep people playing and to give them a real incentive to do things instead of just grinding through monsters for experience points. All in all, though, the game felt like a less-polished version of WoW, but with hobbits.

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

11:15 am
Happy Leap Day!

Or as I usually call it, "Hope That All of My Date Based Calculations in Programs I Wrote Still Work" Day!

(Leave a comment)