Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I just gave an overview of the twisted, convoluted payments infrastructure at Amazon to my new manager.

He almost ran away screaming. :-)

Friday, January 26, 2007

Andy Roddick interview

Andy Roddick got his ass handed to him by Roger Federer in the Australian Open, 6-4, 6-0, 6-2. His performance at the press conference afterwards, though, was awesome.

Selected quotes:

Q. What was it like for you just being there at the end of that?
ANDY RODDICK: It was frustrating. You know, it was miserable. It sucked. It was terrible. Besides that, it was fine.

Q. How much would you have paid in order not to come too this press conference tonight?
RODDICK: That's about the best question that's been asked.
     Well, I mean, I can't really say an amount because I would have gotten fined, what, 20 grand. Obviously, it would have to be less than that, right, if we're thinking logically? It really wouldn't be about the money; it would be about running away and not facing it.
     I would pay a lot of money if everyone would just make up stuff that I said and pretend like I was actually here. That would be fine. My dad didn't raise me to run away from it, so here I am.

Q. What did Jimmy say? US Open final experience, you played him tough, got on a roll. Did you talk about that before the match, if Roger gets on a roll, try to do X, Y or Z, slow it down?
RODDICK: Yeah, there's a lot of strategy talk. It's not so much like, If you're down 6‑4, 6‑0, 2‑0. We didn't really talk about that. Oops.

Q. After a night like this, do you sleep well?
RODDICK: Do I sleep well?
Q. Yes.
RODDICK: It depends on how much I drink tonight.
Happy Australia Day!

Monday, January 8, 2007

In stranger news...

In stranger news, one of the tempered glass doors on our shower randomly exploded.

This happened while nobody was in the shower, thankfully. I had left the light on in there -- it's right above the door -- and there was probably a 10°F difference from top to bottom. That alone wouldn't explain why a door would shatter; I'm guessing there was a latent issue (manufacturing defect, improper installation, damage in transport or during installation, etc.) which, combined with the temperature gradient, shattered it.

Weird, though. Took us a few minutes to identify where the sound came from.
Caltech -- the site of my undergrad edumacashion -- snapped its 207 game NCAA basketball losing streak.

To be honest, I wasn't aware we ever had a basketball team.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Ill conceived item #5734: Kellogg's Fudge Ripple Mini Swirlz.

Friday, January 5, 2007

I might end up as background scenery in Grey's Anatomy. They were filming some stock footage around town, and caught the ferry I was on as it was docking. If I do end up in the shot, I'm one of the folks on the starboard side passenger deck with an expression on my face which says, "Why the heck are all those people standing around on the dock with cameras pointed at us?"