New glasses are always good. Things are suddenly sharper again.

Oh, and my new glasses have a magnetic sunshade attachment. They make me look a bit like Tom Quinn in MI-5. No, I didn't pick them for that reason (I actually had the people at the shop pick them out for me).

One of the tires on my CR-V was looking a bit suspicious, so Tam and I used her Civic to get to work. Ah, excellent choice. On my way to get the glasses and lunch, it was so nice out I drove with the windows down and sunroof open, zipping along the roads and highways (which I can't exactly do in the CR-V). It's 60°F here today, and clear! In February! Yet there is still snow on the ground.

Very odd.

As for work... nothing to report. We're in limbo.

Thought for the day

In a lifetime, one will have his hopes dashed many times by others with malevolent intent.

Those who, in spite of this, persist in the pursuit of realising their hopes are the true lovers, geniuses, dreamers, and madmen.

I finally got so fed up with Sprint that I went and bought a new cell phone today on the Verizon network. It's shinier, has a much stronger connection, and I could talk to my parents for an hour on it without the battery level dropping noticably. I'm amazed that they were able to add processing power and lower power consumption.

Santa Barbara trip this past weekend, for a college friend's wedding reception (the wedding took place back around New Years, in Israel, which many -- myself included -- were unable to attend). I saw a lot of people from college whom I hadn't seen in years. It was quite a bit of fun, though far too short a visit (~36 hours) considering the travel time (~20 hours).

The travel time was grossly extended because our connecting flight to Chicago was delayed by a few hours, which put our Chicago-to-LA flight out of whack and bumped us off our LA-to-SB shuttle bus reservation. As Tamara can attest, I'm not a fun person to travel with when I am (a) sleep deprived and (b) annoyed at (my perceived) incompetence/unfriendliness of the airline staff.

Work is busy, as usual. Still no real clue as to what the heck is going on, but the rumours are flying. A few of us are in on a betting pool regarding when we'll be acquired, for how much, and some of the terms.

My bank now lets me click on a check number and see a scan of the front and back of each check I've written. That's quite cool.

's meme:
The Top 10 Things I Would Buy If I Did Not Need To Worry About Money

By which I do not mean what I would by if I had a million dollars. Because a million dollars gets smaller and smaller everyday (mentally, at least) and the amount of money you think you need to stay comfortable gets larger and larger. Also, with the endowment of a million or two million or three million dollars, you feel (or at least one feels) as if the money should be used toward something grand - a house, a charity, a life. I am suggesting that, more or less, your life continues as it is. Perhaps, yes, you stop this foolishness with school or work and you find your dream job. But I'm also suggesting that what Not Needing Money means, in this particular case, is that you no longer need to worry about rent. You can buy the name brand orange juice. You can call a cab home from the bar.

1. Window coverings for the house.
2. An extra monitor for work.
3. Electronics lab equipment so I could do all the random geeky stuff I used to sneak into the labs in the subbasement of Steele to do.
4. A snow plow attachment for my CRV. Then I'd go around plowing random roads and such when it snows. Uh, just because.
5. Lots of candles, tea, and Tim Tams to send to various people (you know who you are).
6. Dim sum every week. I wouldn't have thought of it, but others have mentioned it, and I like the idea.
7. A good chunk of Amazon's inventory.
8. The various paperwork filings needed to get kanga-da.org off the ground.
9. Ice skates. It's been far too long.
10. Gymnastics equipment for Tam.

The latest threat matrix:

al-Gebra

     At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual, later
discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to
board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set
square, and a calculator. Attorney General John Ashcroft believes
the man is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being
charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.
     Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average
solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent
in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy
figures, with names like "x" and "y," and although they are
frequently referred to as "unknowns," we know they really belong to
a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with
coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer
Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every angle, and if God
had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would
have given us more fingers and toes.
     Therefore, I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us
a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who
are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These
statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of
influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated
their root, made our point, and drew the line.
     Remember, these weapons of math instruction have the potential to
decimal everything in their math on a scale never before seen unless
we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random
facts of vertex. As our Great Leader would say, "Read my ellipse."
Here is one principle he is uncertainty of---though they continue to
multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten
around their necks.

Yeah, definitely getting bought. We have a guy examining our source code today. We *never* allow outsiders to see our source code.

Caution! Roads slippery when covered by whale entrails!

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

From the "How many furlongs per fortnight is that?" department:

"Now when I'm outside and it's -25 C (113 Fahrenheit), it's not really a big problem."

In other news, our main competitor was acquired by Synopsys today in what appears to be a fire sale. This makes it more likely that we will be acquired by Cadence, who is an investor in our company and Synopsys' main competitor.

Personally, I don't want to work for Cadence. However, if I want my stock options to be worth anything, I'll have to.

Then again, there's a moderate probability that I'd be laid off in any acquisition, and I'll end up with zero anyway. (You lose your options the moment you quit or are fired.)

Our forecast is calling for snow or a possible thunderstorm. Er... okay. That's an odd combo. Then again, the jet stream is running down to Texas and back up to southern Ontario. Commuting home tonight was ok, as long as you didn't need to see, steer, or brake; we got about 6 inches of snow last night, a quarter inch of ice during the day, and then freezing rain during the evening rush.

Ugh.

Watched Baz Luhrmann's adaption of Romeo and Juliet again. I love Shakespeare; as a result, I originally thought I'd hate Luhrmann's modernisation. Instead, I find it splendid. My high school Shakespeare teacher asserted that if the ol' Bard were around today, he'd smile and say, "It hasn't changed a bit." R&J proves this point well.

Actually, the one thing I don't care for is the way Luhrmann does some camera speedup tricks, accompanied with cartoonish sound effects, at the beginning of his films (he did this in Moulin Rouge, too). It doesn't add anything; it's just a mildly annoying distraction. Apparently, he or his editors must think so, too, because they're gone mid-feature.

Heh. People usually laugh when I talk about avocado rustlers. But they do exist, and they do make a fair bit of money.

Just finished watching the first series of Spooks/MI-5 on DVD. I hadn't seen them before (except episode 5); I mostly caught series 2 on A&E. If you don't have this already, get it now. I can't wait for the series 2 DVD; series 3 started filming this month.

Well, Tamara's skiing with her parents up in Banff, near Calgary, this week. Our house is too large for two people; with just me, it's downright empty. The only noises are the computers humming away and the click-clack of my keyboard. But, for a few days, I get to do the stuff that married guys don't normally get to do!

Stuff like sleeping in, leaving dishes in the sink, and eating stuff that I'm not supposed to eat. :-)

Captain Kangaroo, a.k.a. Bob Keeshan, died today. :-(
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040123/D808MQS00.html

In the men's restroom at work, the fan doesn't work, one sink fixture does not have hot water, the other's knob is broken. The faucet by the coffee maker drips. Various light fixtures have burned out bulbs. Our upcoming performance reviews will not include any adjustments to salaries. I am not permitted to attend short-courses or conferences related to my job.

All spending is on hold, or so I'm told.

Our top-of-the-line treadmill, however, is being replaced immediately because it started being flaky yesterday. Not broken -- just has a glitch every now and then. Why? Because our CEO likes to use it.

406 mph on the expressway, anyone?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004031766,00.html

One of the best things about Pittsburgh is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, which became the first American orchestra to perform at the Vatican yesterday in a program entitled the Papal Concert of Reconciliation. It was quite appropriate for a concert celebrating the 25th jubilee of John Paul II; in addition to the pope, the concert was attended by Emeritus Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff and Abdulawahab Hussein Gomaa, Imam of Rome's mosque.

I find this amusing and sad at the same time:

Got some minor satisfaction telling AT&T to piss off this morning. Well, ok, asking my local phone company to tell AT&T to piss off, which carries a lot more weight than me doing it. I dumped them as my long distance provider in October after four months of nonstop billing problems, yet they are still managing to put a $6 charge on my phone bill each month for their "AT&T One Rate Seven Cents" plan.

It is far too noisy at work. I've been having a hard time concentrating lately because the frequency and volume of conversations has been on the rise, and my headphones don't do a very good job of alleviating this.

Holy carp! It's -2°F up in Boston right now, and that's not even the overnight low. By comparison, it's a balmy 18°F here in Pittsburgh and 19°F in Minneapolis. What's up with that?

For those of you who like the NWS technical discussion: (emphasis mine)

Longer range (late Thursday through Tuesday)...

Record breaking cold along with dangerously cold wind chills remain on schedule for Thursday night and Friday...

Another round of arctic air arrives early in this period... with this airmass even colder than what we are experiencing this morning and likely colder than last Friday-Sat! Core of the arctic airmass moves over the region Thursday night and Friday... as polar vortex pentrates southeast as far as Gulf of ME/northwest portion of Georges Bank by 12z Friday (wow!). In the process of digging southeast... multiple polar vortices rotate through the region Thursday night and Friday. Thus... expect scattered snow showers and/or flurries to accompany these features. In addition... will likely see a period of ocean effect snow Thursday evening across the Cape and Nantucket. Although... appears to be short lived as winds quickly become west to northwest by midnight.

Compounding the severe cold will be dangerously cold wind chills of minus 25 to minus 45 Thursday night and Friday... in response to strong northwest winds of 25 to 35 miles per hour with gusts around 45 miles per hour. Given these wind speeds... as the event nears a Wind Advisory will likely be needed for at least a portion of the region Thursday night and Friday. In addition... will likely see wind chill warning values be met Thursday
night and early Friday. Would issue a wind chill watch... although with wind chill warnings and advisories already posted for this mornings cold... will address this next round of severe cold via special weather statement to minimize confusion.

Stay warm, kids!

That flushing sound you hear

We have flown everyone in the company in for an all-hands meeting tomorrow. Most people arrived yesterday. This has made my productivity drop to zero as I have had to deal with a constant barrage of questions and other mini-meetings.

Today, our CEO decided to cancel the meeting for nebulous reasons ("strategic issues under negotiation").

The amount of money this will cost is staggering, considering the air fares, hotels, rental cars, meals, and lost productivity.

Why don't we just take a big pile of cash and burn it? It'd be a lot more efficient and, given the cold temperatures here (~10F), would actually help keep the place warm.

I've had it!

In the last 24 hours, X Windows has crashed three times, twice taking substantial amounts of work with it. Windows Explorer has crashed once, luckily taking nothing.

There's no excuse for this, people! You developers are Lazy, with a capital laze! You're not checking for error conditions, not carefully tracking your memory usage -- stuff that could've been checked automatically if your overinflated egos didn't "force" you to program so close to the raw machine gears. You think that because your code compiles you're done, just like the first year college students who think they're done with their essays when they hit the 2000 word requirement.

You are not software engineers -- you don't deserve the title of engineer. You're not designers -- there's no evidence of any design in what you wrote. You are mere coders: creatures barely able to form coherent sentences, drooling and slobbering all over the place, with lines of C taking the place of words and saliva.

I love Bill Amend. (Sticks tongue out at , jokingly)