Dear Amazon,
I'm sorry for getting mad about the shipping thing last week. Really, I should have been grateful that you spared me the shopping mall parking madness and even with shipping, the gift was cheaper than standard retail price. Amazon is my favorite-est place to shop in the whole world.

(Now pretty pretty please can you pick me in the Wii raffle tonight?)

http://promotions.amazon.com:80/gp/holiday/cv/homepage/ref=amb_link_4088582_1/002-9444246-0011254

Date:	2006-12-15 12:34
Subject:	Amazon
Security:	Public
Mood:	grumpy

Mostly I love Amazon. They save me from the mall and let me browse lots of stuff and figure out what the difference is between two really similar KitchenAid food processors. But today they frustrated me.
I ordered Mom's Christmas gift on Wednesday. (Or was it Tuesday?) The system said it wouldn't even be shipped until Monday, and so free shipping might not get it there for Christmas. So I decided to pay for faster shipping. $17 (on a $50 gift, ouch!) to make sure the gift would get there in time. [I didn't ask for uber-fast shipping, it's just that the gift was heavy.] Out of idle curiosity, today I went to Amazon and asked "where's my stuff?" (I love the name of that link.) To my befuddlement, it tells me the package has not only been shipped, but was actually _delivered_ 2 hours ago. I should be grateful it got there early, but I almost feel like asking Amazon for my $17 back.

My grumpiness is probably inspired by how cranky our own customers are. We finally put our new app up for sale on Wednesday, and have since been flooded with users grumbling about our various discounts and rebates.

Another reason to be grateful: no power outage or any other major inconveniences for me because of the storm.

Date:	2006-08-24 17:05
Subject:	Enzo Ferrari
Security:	Public
Mood:	relaxed

We watched that movie last night. I enjoyed it (in spite of multiple interruptions to juggle laundry). It could have just glorified the man who created the fastest, prettiest cars in the world. Instead, it took a more realistic, personal look at his relationships and motivations.
I wish it had gone into a little more detail about the technical, car side of things, but half of that is probably trade secrets, and Daniel would have had to explain the other half if they did include it. I like learning new stuff though.
Also, early Formula One cars look kind of silly if you're used to seeing the current ones.

Date:	2006-07-06 18:55
Subject:	I am missing!
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

According to chemist4him, the Mudd alumni association has lost track of me. I feel rather accomplished.
But as you can see, the reports of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated.
So, if any of you want to dodge those 'please send money' mailings within 3 years, it's really quite simple:
1. Move at least 4 times (changing states at least once).
2. Change jobs at least once.
3. Get married.
4. Change your name.

A lovely little Italian diner on Pine (or was it Pike?).
Walking distance.
Very good prices.
No A/C, but even on a record hot day, fans kept the place comfortably cool.
The fettucini carbonara and spaghetti bolognese were both quite tasty. (And livejournal needs to add more Italian food words to its spell-checking dictionary.)
They serve Pepsi :( and Ginger Ale :)

Will we return? Yes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/
No geeky knowledge of motors required. A sweet movie about following one's dreams. I really appreciated the pacing of the film. I'd say it's the foreign film feel, but I think that's some over-stereotyping. I feel like all American films are action-packed or romantic comedy, each having a characteristic tempo. Foreign films tend to move more slowly, more descriptive than narrative, perhaps.

Omni just released this beta. I'm not just telling you to get people to buy OmniStuff. I'm telling you because OmniDazzle is lots of fun.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidazzle/

Today I discovered that Ginger Altoids taste somewhat like stoney tangawizi. Either these altoids are stronger than stoney, or I've become a wuss about that flavor, because I found one little candy hard to finish. I am now savoring the after-burn and taking a quick splash in nostalgia.

Date:	2006-04-04 11:42
Subject:	A weekend of people and food
Security:	Public
Mood:	bouncy

Saturday night we had people over. Yay! Unfortunately, some people tried to come, but were thwarted by not finding parking or not knocking loud enough/barging their way in to our condo. It's so much fun to make food and enjoy it with lots of other people. And to hear what's been going on with people (congrats on new jobs!).

Unfortunately, I didn't allow quite enough prep time, so I skipped the samosas. Since they were half-made already, we made them Sunday evening instead. It was a great opportunity to try out our new deep fat fryer and fun to get Daniel involved in the cooking process. And they were yummy. Maybe it's a good thing after all that we didn't make them Saturday night -- more for us. We ate a whole pound of ground beef between the two of us.

So once upon a time I was a CS major at Mudd and knew lots of unix magic beyond 'cd' and 'ls'. Then I wandered off into the windows world and forgot it all. And now I'm on a mac, and starting to do some light dev stuff. Is there any sort of ...

Epiphany!
I just remembered www.cs.hmc.edu/qref and am rereading that.

So um, if I want to go a baby step beyond there, where should I turn next?
Like right now, if I do something like 'man scp' it will appear to process the command, but not actually display anything. Something somewhere's goofed up, but what?

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060224.html

Kind of like the 3 S's (sleep, school, social)

I have to redesign my signature. This is very weird. I have to decide how I will probably sign my name for the rest of my life.

Development is not (should not be) a promotion from Testing.
You can have an awesome tester who'd suck as a dev, and vice versa. Looking strictly at payscale, development could be counted as a promotion. Also, development positions often require a CS degree, whereas testing does not -- though some stuff from Mudd has helped me tremendously at work.
I'm so tired of people who think they can get their foot in the door by testing, and then move to development. And I'm tired of the companies (not Omni, fortunately) that follow such a policy.

I read something very similar to this today:
"I'd like to join the company as a software tester, gain some experience, then be promoted to development."

Discuss.

If the store you want to register at allows it, set up the registry online first. Then you can add things directly from the website, or go select things in person. But set up the info online first. That way you can double-check the shipping address is correct and such easily. If you go into the store first, then you have to fill out a form, wait for the salesperson to type in all the info, then proofread a printout. At one store, we had to go through 3 rounds of corrections before she had our addresses and phone numbers right.

Hang a gift bag (not a plastic grocery bag) in your closet next to your wedding dress. Then as you find the accessories (garter, hair clips, etc.) to wear that day, just drop them in the bag. This reduces last minute stress and packing time.

Pottery Barn gives you great customer service when you're registered there. Example from today:

9:50 am
I have 3 sets of dishes which arrived broken, and no clue where 2 other sets went (they were shipped separately and never arrived?).

10:10 am
The salesperson has the broken dishes, and has arranged for merchandise certificates (basically gift certificates) to be mailed to us to cover the cost of all 5 sets.

Date:	2006-02-13 19:39
Subject:	THIS Saturday
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

I realized today, that for months now, when talking about stuff for the wedding, we've said things like "On Saturday morning, we'll do XY and Z" and known we were referencing Saturday, February 18th, not "this" Saturday (less than a week after the conversation). But now it is THIS Saturday. That's weird. But not at all bad.

http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

OK, everyone: I need suggestions. I want to be prepared to put our wedding photos easily available to friends and family on the internet.

1. I don't want people to have to log in or sign up for something -- just go to a URL and there are all the photos.
2. I would love it if people could then order print copies of these photos (and I totally understand if they have to register at the site for this part).
3. I want to be able to include a relatively simple URL on something everyone gets at the wedding reception, so they will know where to go to get photos.

A. Flickr seems to have no way to say "I want to see muddlizard's pictures."
B. Shutterfly seems to generate weird URLs and I don't know if they're persistent.
C. Creating my own set of pages would not be that hard, and I think work would host it for me, but that doesn't provide for people ordering prints. Also, I'm a little less likely to get around to it promptly, than if I teach a parent how to use the other website and give them the account login info.

Suggestions?

(Oh, yeah, and I've had this on my To Do list for weeks, and sort of had a deadline of a few hours ago for knowing what the URL would be!)