Author: F C

Long time no blog. The revolutionary change in the household is the Time Warner DVR. This combines the better of New York’s 2 cable companies with digital recording. They’ve even solved the problem of what to do if there are 2 shows head-to-head – 2 tuners that can both record at the same time. While this maximizes the value of cable, it is guaranteed to kill any remaining free time that I might have.

P & I are adjusting to life together. Did a whole lot of grocery shopping that should keep us. We had the plumbing fixed — the water flow wasn’t right. YC came by the house to relive one of our marathon chat fests, going until 3 in the morning. He returned back to Taipei on Sunday. We’re going to have to try to do it again via Skype.

I’m travelling to Chicago for another conference on Wednesday. More blogging opportunities, but I have to fix my wireless internet on my laptop.

NY Times’ “How did house bands become a Filipino export?”: yes, it’s true. I saw it myself at YC’s wedding hotel in Ipoh.

Andersen Reversal: P’s sister used to work for Arthur Andersen before she was laid off post-9/11. It’s unlikely she’s going to get back the last 3 years; will prosecutors go for the do-over?

Didn’t win Mega Millions last night. My mom had a premonition to look out for the number 42, so I played it. P’s and I’s sushi bill turned out to be $42, and our supermarket shopping totaled $41.22. Not exactly the link to $92 million.

YC is still MIA. His mom was going to be discharged today. He was supposed to meet up with me on Monday, but it didn’t happen. I also lost his phone number when I switched my phone from AT&T to Cingular, which wiped out my voice mail and call logs. Anyhoo, I’ll wait to hear back from him.

I’m writing from the new bedroom — actually the old bedroom nee walkin closet. P’s bed just barely fit in the back end of the room, and I have my computer now installed in a computer desk that is so much better than the old setup. Boxes are still piled wall to ceiling, but at least paths of travel are now making themselves known.

Had lunch with YC yesterday. His mom did ok, and is returning to NJ to continue rehab. Sprouted about a number of new tech, including iSCSI – which let you hook up hard drives virtually to your computer through the network; Asterisk, which is a do it yourself open source phone PBX system, and CentOS, which is a free clone of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.

The other thing we tossed around was trying to do a podcast using Skype along the lines of a roundtable talk-show format. Let’s see what happens.

Tomorrow: starting to get the kitchen and living room together….

P’s finally moving out/in today. I’m going to miss the place that she has been in Sheepshead Bay — it’s really a nice neighborhood in a quiet location. Made two runs with the Zipcar (the Toyota Matrix is a great car for cargo).

YC’s mom is going for surgery today, so we’re praying that everything works out well.

Busy weekend. Saw Star Wars 3 on Friday night in digital projection. It really makes a big difference. Trying to say this in a non-spoiler way, but things could have been so different if just Sam Jackson would just let Anikin just tag along — or to put it in another way, Anikin just has no business pulling off a temper tantrum. In any case, the special effects were just wonderful. In the light saber battles, the digital camera’s light beams would make their glows extend into the audience. Wow!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, we were refinishing the wood floor of my apartment. The previous tenant spilt latex paint all over the floor, and back in 1999, there was no tech that could remove it. Today, several companies sell products that can soften latex paint, which work really well after scrubbing. After the floors were cleaned off, a polyurothane product called Renewal really improved the sorry condition of the floor into a rich reddish brown. Really amazing!

I did the 5k race today……. more exactly quickly walked it. It went to all four courners of Prospect Park along Olmstead’s famously curvey road. The main pack broke away out of sight in the first 10 minutes, and a coworker from the 2nd floor and I made up the vanguard of whatever you call the opposite of the vanguard. It was a very nice walk — we crossed the finish line 2 seconds over 50 minutes.

I haven’t been able to see all of the final episodes of Enterprise, but I’m really down on the Dallas ending — like JR’s dream, Enterprise turns out to be Riker’s holograph fantasy. Why don’t I dress up like a chef and have all of the cast members do my bidding in the kitchen? Done.

This past weekend at the alumni weekend, I met a host of journalists with an affiliation with my university. Ray Suarez from the PBS NewsHour, Pete Hamil from the Post and the News, and Lynda Vaquero, the WNBC news anchor. An interesting theme is the myth of heroism. Hamil says a society should not depend on heroes. Suarez and Vaquero named a number of them.

Was cold called today by a consulting company. How is this for BS (this is actual text from the website, my annotations in brackets]:

“Our mission is to empower our clients to create a sales and marketing operation at least as good as the best so that they can meet and exceed their revenue plan.

[What the hell do they mean by “at least as good as the best”?]

In practical terms we deal with client issues such as:

Defining the core offers, particularly where there is a high service content

[Figure out where we can bill the client up the wazoo]

Creating valuable customer propositions

[Make an offer you can’t refuse]

Installing an end-to-end sales and marketing process

[Which end? The rear?]

Formal and informal training for professionals and managers

[Your place or mine?]

Coaching individuals for better performance

[We are not amused]

Mentoring managers to exploit the opportunities created

[Exploit is the operative word]

Supplying critical skills on a short-term basis to support change”

[Sending in security staff to get rid of the compentent workers and outsourcing the rest]

To top it all off, they appeared in F**d Company for 3 years running. Just say no.

Have you noticed how grocery prices have jumped up recently? Your average 2 liter soda went from .99-1.09 to 1.39-1.59. New 1.5 liter soda bottles are now being offered in the $1 price point. Manufactures are afraid of losing market share if people perceive that prices are going up, so they will slightly reduce the size of the product. For example, typical bags of potato chips have been reduced from 5 oz to 3 oz for the same price.

Some things just don’t make sense. I happen to like Shredded Wheat. The full size is like 16 oz for like $5. The mini Shredded Wheat is like about $4.79 for 15 oz. However, the frosted mini Shredded Wheat version is $2.79 for 19 oz. Triscuits, essentially the same product as Shredded Wheat, is about $3 for 12 oz. Go figure.

It took me exactly 30 minutes to jet from the end of exams to a waiting B23 bus to Flatbush, then yet another perfectly connecting B train to Sheepshead Bay, and then a mad 3 block run to catch the second half of the Amazing Race finale. I thought it was really great that they got in some Carribean islands into the race — the race has been to India 3 times, the West Indes zero before this.

The general consensus was that Team Pink Slip (the Africian American couple were Enron and Worldcom castoffs) were the more “deserving” of the final teams, but others declared shannagans on how they managed to get on board an American Airlines plane that had already pulled back the gate. It’s actually not that rare — it happened to me when I was coming back from Washington, DC. They had closed up, but after a few minutes realizing that the next planes were totally full, they put back the gate and let me on.

I’m going to be in a 5K charity walk/run (believe me, I’m walking) 7 PM next Tuesday at Prospect Park beginning at 15th Avenue (Prospect Park station on the F line). A lot of the exam officials are participating too – we’re going to wear striped referee shirts and our exam gear.