Sympathy busy

This weekend I went to Santa Rosa to see some people who were in town for a wedding. I didn't know the bride or groom but it was fun seeing all those people who are friends of theirs :)

Other than that, it's just been work. I refuse to tell this internet audience how much I've been working, because everytime I tell someone they become sympathy busy. This is a term I just made up addressing a reaction I get from this hypothetical situation: "Hi how are you doing?" "I'm doing great! I've just been lying out by the pool all day and taking these summer classes. How are you doing?" "I am also doing well, except I've been working x hours a week" "Oh man I totally know what you're talking about. Last weekend I had a paper due in my online class and it took me 30 hours to finish!!! And then I had to go see my friends in the Camen Islands and I had to spend ALL day at the beach and when I got back my boss totally expected me to work 16 hours IN ONE WEEK!!!..." etc.

We all do it of course. When I want to connect with someone who has had a rough day I'll tell them my troubles. But I hate when people play the competition game. Go ahead and tell me how you spent 4 hours counting to 1 million or that you slept till noon for the 3rd time this week. I value you as a person even if you can't relate to my workload.

light-gineer

Well it's Friday night, 10:30 and I'm at home. Am I a geek? Not for that reason alone, because I just now walked in the door from work. And I got there at 9:30 this morning. And every day this week has been 12+ hours. And I'm working this weekend too :) Don't feel bad for me, I'm bragging. Although I do have a lot of energy and nobody to hang out with so that kinda sucks. I'm half tempted to walk down to the bar and see who I can meet, but in this town I'm not so sure I want to know (hint, it rhymes with gineer. (What is light-gineer? (for the SNL fans out there)))

Movie review

Pirates of the Caribbean was crap. That's my review.

It's not the rehashed jokes, I wouldn't have minded that since they were thoroughly enjoyable the first time. Or the CG being a little over done, that is expected from a movie based on a ride where fire is created by shining a light on a sheet with a fan behind it. Even the obligatory whoring out the end with an unsolved mystery to get people to see the third movie would be okay, as long as they gave me a full movie worth the price of admission. Instead, they had one movie idea and decided to make two movies out of it.

I'm not against sequels, I think Spiderman, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Toy Story got it right, just to name a few off my bookshelf here. Pirates however, took the Matrix approach -- sacrifice the second movie for a decent third (well, I certainly hope the third is better ;). Lord of the rings arguably falls prey to this too, being one nine-hour movie. But each one has a proper story, a villain who rises to power and then falls, and a resolution.

Watch this episode of Ask A Ninja for a good review of the movie.

Car washes

Californians love car washes. Not just getting their car cleaned, but super expensive, wait in line forever until four guys scrub it down car washes. They love it so much that I've been stuck behind the line they create out into the regular traffic twice in the last 3 days. It's not even like Colorado where it's dry and dusty in the summer or slushy and magnesium chloride-y in the winter. This does, however create a noticeable difference between people like me me and people who give a crap about their cars, so maybe it's a social thing.

Today's music is Jale (pronounced jalay? jail? halay? English is fun!) If you're looking for some good down tempo electro-guitar girl rock, check them out.

It's superficial update time, because I get better response from it :) So much for the idealistic dream that I could influence people on the web ;)

Work's kicking my ass, but I'm still enjoying it. It's fun being the center of so many secret projects at Apple. No, I can't tell you about them, but some of these things are going to be totally sweet. Today, I'm getting things done around the house including cutting my hair, mopping the floors and scrubbing the sinks and tub. Then I get to go to the beach :)

Music: Hot Hot Heat. They've got a funny name, but a really fun sound :) My favorite song is "Talk to me, Dance with me"

Cars!

I saw Cars last night and Pixar has done it again! It was a great movie and the animation was fantastic. A movie like cars wouldn't have been possible a couple years ago, because the time spent rendering would have out lasted the time spent writing and modeling. What's the difference in this movie? Rendering reflections requires Ray-tracing meaning you take a ray from your eyes (the camera) and follow what it sees after bouncing off various objects. The time it takes to do this is huge, as I have discovered while rendering my own projects.

Also, I wouldn't have noticed if Jessie hadn't said she heard somewhere that the last couple were not Lasseter projects, but I could tell the humor in this was more adult themed, in line with Bugs Life and Toy Story. Just think about Woody and Little Bo Peep as opposed to Sully and Boo or Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and you'll know what I mean. I would be fun to be a kid and watch these, then grow up and watch them again because the delivery of the adult jokes is so subtle that kids never even realize they're being left out of the fun. I'll be glad to see the movie again because there were things even I missed that we discussed at dinner afterwards.

Disney products

At first glance, I looked at this and thought "WOW That's cool!" But then I looked again and realized, without much imagination that looks a little goatse to me :-/ Disney, Disney, Disney... so out of touch with reality.

Tool - 10,000 Days

This post brought to you by Tool - 10,000 Days. Quite literally, I mean I posted yesterday and my track record isn't that great for posting twice in two days. The music on this disk is pretty good. I like Tool, but it's never been anything too special to me and this album is just slightly better so I like it.

I didn't start this post to write about above average music, I wrote it to tell everyone about the FREEKIN' AWESOME BOX!!! It's so cool! There's a flap, with two plastic lenses and each page of the booklet has double images on it. When viewed through the lenses, everything is in 3D! it's so cool! The images are creepy but just fascinating to look at. This is the first CD I've bought in a while because my co-worker was raving about the box. THIS is what's going to stop me from downloading :)

meetup.com

Last night I went down to San Jose to have some drinks with other "New in San Jose" people I met off of meetup.com. It was a pretty normal group of people. I guess there's not much to say about the event itself, because it was so utterly normal.

Although cool people I did meet, the end goal of my visit to meetup.com was not met. I sent an email to my oldest friend and it bounced so I googled his name. One of the many hits led to that site, so I signed up to send him a message. I'm assuming he used the same email to sign up as I had in my address book, because I haven't heard back from him.

The "rest of the story" I'd like to leave you with is the whole ordeal made me think a lot about meeting people and making friends. The guy I've known longer than anyone has led me to meet new (hopefully) friends. Also that making friends is easier when you have friends, and when you have none it's easier to relax and watch a DVD on Friday night than try to do something about it.

This post is brought to you by "Kaiser Chiefs" album, "Employment". It Rocks! By the way, if you would like to send me an email, I may be able to let you *coughste*alcough* any of these tunes.

I give them props

Is it wrong to envy Microsoft... BECAUSE they have cool Mac equipment? Now honestly, the MBU has always done great work. Everyone who has used both knows that Word for Mac is better than word for Windows. But our team finally got a new intel mini this week for reproducing bugs, and they've got 64 of 'em :P

Music for the moment is Snow Patrol - Final Straw. Like many of you I downloaded the song "Run" off iTunes when it was free. Like some of you, I then lied when a girl said she liked the band and said I was totally into them, then went to buy the album that evening. Girl is gone, but the music still rocks :)

Creative day

Today was a good day. First, a friend of mine ran out of gas last night so she stayed at my apartment to figure out the car problem later. In the morning, we walked to the gas station and asked for a gas can so we could take it back and start her car. The gas can was, in a word, stupid. The spout leaked when you tried to pour it and we got more on the ground than in her car. But after constructing a rudimentary funnel by cutting off the top part of a plastic bottle at an angle it made a perfect extension to the spout. In hindsight, the formulation of the idea never had it's usual progression. I was clueless thinking about how I could syphon the gas with some rubber tubing and suddenly I had the great idea of constructing a funnel. It reminded me of the movie "Bishop's Wife" where Cary Grant told the little girl that angles put good ideas in people's heads.

The second bit of creativity probably had nothing to do with angels. I made a pizza tonight with red onion, KC bbq sauce, spicy red sauce, Pecans and a little bit of fresh rosemary I'm growing on my deck. It was quite delicious, though more rosemary and less bbq would have been a better balance of flavors.

The album for today is: Creative Kings - Riot on an Empty street. It's very chill; It makes me want to buy a record player so I can listen to it in front of a fire with friends. There, in the flickering light, I sip herbal tea and contemplate what they think about time travel, salvation, and memories. We have nothing but fond memories, lively debate, and completely original hypotheses that verge on absurd, but contain enough truth to merit discussion. Furthermore, we have no apprehension that this blissful moment will slip from our grasp because this night will last halfway to eternity; the other half being the rosy dawn, when we prepare a fine breakfast and retreat to an isolated meadow to waste the day watching clouds pass. What I'm trying to say here is, I recommend this album.

I didn't know if you wanted to
But I came to pick you up
You didn't even hesitate
And now you and me are on our way
I think I've bought everything we need
Don't look back, don't think of the
All the places we should've been
It's a good thing that you came along with me