Just wanted to say happy birthday to my buddy Mechy!

teapot cake (image from lsiymle)

Wanted to post more, my queue of blog entries is at 6 partially written, but I’m too tired today so g’nite (^_^x)zzZZ

Microsoft’s CSD (Connected Systems Division) held their annual Christmas Party today. Attire was formal, though we did see some people with sweaters and jeans, but I guess that’s just Microsoft or programmers in general. I was told the minimum I could wear was at least a jacket or tie, so I went for the cheaper route, the tie. While I started my laundry today (I was out of pants to wear), I went to Ross stores and picked up a tie. I was expecting to pay more, but the tie only cost $10. w00t! Also picked up a belt cause I can’t find my old one either for yet another whopping $10. Haha. I already had plenty of dress shirts and slacks and a pair of dress shoes, so that was taken care of. The final outcome:

I actually forgot how to tie a tie, and after googling it, the first linke was: Learn How to Tie a Tie. The instructions were pretty clear, but my first attempt ended up with the tail being longer than the head (tail = narrow end and head = wide end). But my 2nd attempt is what you see above. I went with the easy Windsor Knot. Hehe.

I was going to take pictures at the party, but I got lazy and I didn’t really know a lot of people there. Guess I just didn’t get comfortable enough to start shooting, but Asaf took a lot pictures. The food was pretty good. We had tons of weird stuff like crab cakes and shrimp paste cream puffs and salmon pieces and honey ham and different cheese sampling and etc etc. Of course they had better names than that, but I don’t really remember them. Got to see Vani, Tekman and his wife Angel, Derek and his wife Shanna, Jeremy, Rakesh, Asaf and his wife, Eric and his wife, Mark, let’s see… Oh yah Don and his wife. I think that’s how you spell his name, such a cool name though!

The party was held at Museum of Flight, right smack in the middle of the Boeing fields. It was really neat. We got to check the exhibitions for free. Even got to ride on the flight simulators and virtual reality things for free. There was pool tables and ice hockey tables. They also hired professional casino people to host and there was poker, black jack, pai gow, craps, roulette, etc etc. Each person started off with $2000 (fake money). I think I left the poker table with $3000 (with my peak around $5000). When you’re playing with fake money, it’s so much easier to make calls. Hehe. Back to the museum, they had exhibitions like the Blackbird. X-Men had a plane called the Blackbird and it actually resembles this quite a bit, so I’m thinking they got their idea from here. I didn’t even know it was a real airplane! Also the ex-Air Force One is supposedly here too, but I didn’t get to check it out. So if you’re in Seattle and interested in airplanes, the Museum of Flight is definitely a place to visit.

Since it was open bar, and there wasn’t anything besides coffee and water and soda to drink, I ended up getting 2 drinks. I got a Screwdriver followed by a Whiskey Sour. Both were bleh. After my 2nd drink, I decided that bottle water was the way to go. Plus I needed to drive home later that night. I could’ve gotten a taxi voucher, but would need a way to come back tomorrow to pick up my car.

All in all, I had a great time. Everyone got to dress up fancy, for a change (We are Microsoftites, and rumor is we don’t know how to dress). Vani actually came in a Sari (Saree) which was really pretty. Jeremy joked beforehand when we went to The Keg earlier this week (or was it last week) that he would wear one too. Tekman said it would be too terrified to see, but I chimed in and said I’d like to see it. The guys that work around me are so cool!

What shocked all of us was the number of Lambourghinis and Ferraris that parked there tonight. Although, the CSD probably contains about 800 or so people with several high executives, the number of fancy cars were beyond my expectation. The group of us joked that either there are many high level executives here tonight or they aren’t paying us enough. Hehe. On our way out, Derek joked and asked me which Ferrari did I drive here with today. I replied the Ferrari that looks like a Civic.

San Francisco police suspended over video sketch – San Francisco is suspending 20 police officers who participated in video sketches portraying police ogling women, ducking emergency calls and going to a massage parlor on duty. I really wanted to see the videos, but they were already taken down from InsideTheSFPD.com by the time I found the site. Google nor any search engine had a cache on it either. Right now all the site has is a statement of thanking support.

After searching the web for a while, I did fine some of the videos, but they were videos of videos (meaning someone took a camera and shot at the computer screen):

Producer Responds To SFPD Video Scandal
SFPD Officers Suspended over Online Video

There seems to be 6 videos in all and several clips and several news stories and interviews with Daniel Horowitz, Andrew Cohen’s lawyer. Andrew Cohen was the person who filmed it. During the interview with Horowitz, lots of stuff he was arguing about didn’t really make sense and seemed actually more like stretching the truth. You should watch the interview and let me know what you think. I personally think the videos were in bad taste, although I agree there were some funny parts. But one of the stupidest arguments Horowitz was defending was the fact that Cohen did not distribute it publically and it was the mayor and police chief’s fault for blowing this beyond proportions. But all these videos were posted on a website and ONLY some of the police officers knew the web address. Personally, anything published on the world wide web that doesn’t require authentication should be considered releasing to public, even IF the search engines haven’t crawled to it yet. I actually found Horowitz trying to make his point a lot funnier than the videos themselves.

If anyone has access to the real video files or know where to get them, please let me know (by leaving a comment).

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Random Crap:

Tortoise Adopts Baby Hippo (from deadlock) – I posted this story from Yahoo! some time back but this one has more cute pictures so I thought I’d share again.

The top 10 weirdest USB drives ever (from /.) – I’m actually not too satisfied with this list. Most of the items listed were just USB jump drives in weird shapes. I’d rather see the top 10 weirdest groups of USB devices, so usb storage may be one group and usb lamps or fans or phone chargers could be other groups. There was this really tiny USB flash drive that was interesting: iDisk Diamond, even in your ear. It’s so tiny, it smaller than my finger print! Quite easy to lose also I presume.

Car crash, heavy traffic turn out Christmas light show (from deadlock) – Sheriff’s deputies asked the owner who lit up his house with 25,000 Christmas lights synched to music to turn off the display after a traffic accident Tuesday night. Deerfield Twp. resident Carson Williams agreed to shut down his holiday decorations indefinitely. Too bad the musical christmas lights are no longer up for display. The display caught attention across the nation on network TV and on the Internet because the lights on the Williams house and filling their yard are synchronized by computer with music broadcast to car radios. There are three songs in the 12-minute display: Frosty the Snowman by the Jackson 5; God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood and Wizards of Winter by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Does anyone know if the other 2 songs have been captured and placed online? I’d really like to see it.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (押忍！闘え！応援団) (from Microsoft Newsgroup) – It appears to be a new game for the Nintendo DS that seems to be a cheerleading game. You can read IGN’s review on it. Check out this video of the gameplay. At first I thought this was another one of those DDR spin offs like what they have for drums and guitars and dancing nowadays, but once I figured it was for the DS, the video made a lot more sense when those bubbles and arrows popped out. Not exactly sure how drawing those lines and connecting those dots really reflect cheerleading, but I heard it was a lot of fun. The song they’re using in the video is actually Full Metal Alchemist opening.

Got this from a Microsoft newsgroup:

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.

Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring…

Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen had to be a girl. We should have known…

Only women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost!

I learn this fact from Jeremy, a friend from work. Lymph Nodes are like white blood cell graveyards, which I found fascinating. That’s why they swell up when you get really sick. Dead white blood cells accumulate there and when you’re really sick, a lot of white blood cells die. What’s worse is that white blood cells takes germ and disease cells with them to the grave, so you end up with a big hodgepot of diseases and germs. Interesting right?

Speaking of which, deadlock gave me this video today: Mechanism of action for new cancer therapy. It’s quite a fascinating new way to treat cancer cells. Even though it can only kill 2/3 of the cancerous cells, that can easily reduce a stage 3 or 4 cancer to stage 1 or 2. You can find more 3d animations here: BioDigital Systems 3D Animation Gallery.

This entry should’ve been written several days ago, but I just got side-tracked. My officemate and neighbors who worked on Windows Server 2003 R2 shipped earlier this week and decided to celebrate. I didn’t really ship yet, but I joined in the fun with Derek, Jeremy, Tekman, and Vani. We went to The Keg Steakhouse & Bar in Kirkland and it was a mighty fancy place. To give you a perspective how how fancy this place is, it’s rated a 9.0 while the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Seattle is rated a 9.2. However rumor is the best, but also the most expensive steak house around here, is most definitely the Metropolitan Grill, which recieved a score of 9.7. The food was delicious, but I think steak houses have a tendancy of undercooking their meat. I ordered a medium rare prime rib, which was really delicious, but it was awfully pink. We had a great time. What was neat is that first time comers get a free shrimp cocktail appetizer and the manager himself comes to your table thanking you and asking what brings us to The Keg today. The service was awesome also. One way to tell how good the service is how many times your glass of water becomes empty. I don’t think my glass of water ever became empty that night.

Speaking of food, here’s a word of advice, DO NOT BOIL YOUR EGGS STARTING WITH BOILING WATER. I was boiling some yam tonight and halfway through, I thought I’d dump in 2 eggs so I can have boiled eggs too. BAD MISTAKE. Almost immediately upon impact with the boiling water, the eggs cracked and started leaking white goo. So yah.. that’s my advice for today.