Author: Andy Scheffler

Even though I can do this with more customization through my own scripts, this is me posting on my phone, the official way.

When I was a kid, Stevie Nicks’s voice reminded me of Pidge from Voltron for some reason.

That is all.

So, this last week I was “unemployed.” I used this time to relax, play video games, and finally get around to switching the office and my bedroom. The subject of this entry refers to the old “hobby” I had when I was in college: Increasing and decreasing the potential energy of heavy objects. (Because I lived at the top of campus, I was always lugging textbooks and other heavy objects up and down.) This week gave me a chance to experience that again, as I lugged such objects as books, boxes, televisions, dressers, mattresses and clothes up and down two sets of stairs. The big day was Thursday, where I started at 10 a.m., and barring a break for lunch, moved things continuously until 1 a.m., when I was finally able to sleep on the bed in its new home, the master bedroom.

After that ordeal, I once again drove up to Berkeley on Friday, with the main intention of seeing Bubba Ho-tep with Luke and Dom, but otherwise just to hang out with CAA people again. On the way to the movie, I had the pleasure of freaking Danny out* and after the movie, I made the previous entry on my cell phone.

Saturday, not much happened, I managed to sit around most of the day at Luke’s doing nothing, basically waiting for things to happen that never did until way too late, was freaked out by Luke**, went to the mall, then saw Kill Bill. I ended up staying Sat. night as well, and went to karaoke on Sun., then drove home.

Yesterday, I went in to Yahoo! in the afternoon to discuss with the various groups vying for my time. Tried my computer setup in my new cube, found it not quite working, then left. Today I wasn’t needed, but I’m going in tomorrow and should be up and running by then.

*Danny has a habit of listening to J-Pop music on his headphones constantly. While we were waiting to leave, he started to sing along with the music. I managed to catch the beat and started air drumming along with him. After a bit, I freaked him out by drumming along to the drum solo at the same time as it actually occurred, and when he asked me how I did it, I just said “well, you stopped singing…”

**Luke freaked me out once again by displaying psychic powers. While reading Cannon God Exaxxion, he commented “I didn’t know Adam Warren did that,” when I flashed the cover to him. We both wondered where he got that from, as his name isn’t anywhere on the cover. A short while later, I was looking at the credits page, and, sure enough, Adam Warren was a translation advisor on the book. This freaked both of us out, as there was no way Luke should have known that, and gotten that from a brief flash of the cover.

On the front of the Taco Bell in Berkeley.

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Whenever I’m in the mood to write, I’m not in front of my computer… and vice versa. Because it’s been so long, I’m forcing myself to write, so there!

The main reason why I haven’t written is because I was waiting for formal confirmation of my work situation. But, even though there is no written contract in place, it looks very certain that I will be going back to Yahoo! Monday as a contractor. The first department is in line, setting me up, and the other department is in communication with them to get billing issues set up.

And now, something completely random. Because I never wrote an entry on my Indiana trip, I never got to comment on Microserfs, which I read while I was there. Yes, I’m a bit behind on the times, it seems. What was cool was reading about all the places, and knowing exactly where they were.

And now, something topical. I can’t believe that Arnold is leading the polls, likely to be the next Governor of California. I mean, I knew the whole country was populated by idiots, but I thought that, perhaps, California was immune. I was wrong. SHEEP! You awful, gullible SHEEP! Baaaaaaa! Baaaaaa!

Moving to Canada keeps looking better and better.

I’ve been slowly telling people these last few days, but since it’s been finalized, I can at least put this in a public entry. I gave my two weeks notice at work today. Then, found out they only need me for one, so Friday, October 3rd will be my last day at Yahoo!.

Why? It’s a long story. The short version is that I was not doing my job well — I wasn’t in a position that was a good fit for me. Unfortunately, it was a position I was more or less forced into… and I didn’t explore my options for transferring out until it was too late.

I’ve been gradually telling people here at work, and working with my boss at trying to tie up loose ends, of which there are many. It’s been a long, weird five years. I’m definitely not leaving the same company I joined, that’s for sure.

Once again, I drove up to Berkeley on Friday night, this time because of the Mirrodin prerelease on Sat. (New M:tG release). Hung out with the CAA folks again, played some Mah Jong… in which I won a decent amount of hands, but all for piddly amounts, and ended up having to pay 128 out on the last hand, only having about 14 left. (They play starting with 200 “chips”… thankfully not dollars.)

Once again, I was also up in Berkeley past midnight, and stayed at Luke’s overnight. This time, I actually planned for that and brought two changes of clothes. I took a picture of the crowed room of Magic players and would have moblogged it, but I *gasp* got no reception in the room. In the middle of downtown Oakland, for crying out loud. This whole AT&T GSM network is really starting to suck…

Sunday, drove back (after watching the Conan O’Brien 10th anniversary show), played some DDR 4th Mix…

Wait? What’s that? I played DDR 4th Mix? Why yes, I did! It is back in my possession! After being left in my Japanese PS2 when I lent it to AX2002 (that’s almost a year and a half ago, for those of you keeping track), being stuck in the possession of pyee (who was in charge of the video gaming that year and never remembered to bring it anywhere I was), being handed off to bigdumbthing after I actually made an effort to reclaim it last weekend, making pyee actually get off his rear and take action… then being lost by bigdumbthing (in a move characteristic of his username, I suppose… *whistle*) at the CAA showing last Monday, claimed by another of the CAA people, handed back to bigdumbthing, and finally claimed by me this morning. So where was I? Oh, that’s right…

Went to dinner with the majority of the local gang, to honor oldcrow and mariarider‘s (and Jason, of course) appearance in the Bay Area, and got home and sorted the Mirrodin cards we got yesterday.

On a side note, now that Friendster seems to have cooled down, and most of the people who were going to get on it, have already… I can start to see a mental image of how the different social groups are oriented. I may even draw a chart… depending on how bored I get.

Oh man, it’s midnight already? Time to go to sleep…

…except that I haven’t been in Berkeley for a long long time, let alone actually stayed the night there.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I already knew I was going to be driving up on Saturday to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles with bigdumbthing, Dom, and Co. (and also get my DDR 4th mix from that pyee bastard), but Friday during work, bigdumbthing convinced me to drive up that evening, so I ran home after work, grabbed my stuff and drove up. So there ended up being a whole lot of CAA people in bigdumbthing‘s house (and his housemates were gone most of the time). I got in some FF:CC time, and then ended up staying up awfully late.

Saturday, we woke up and drive into the city for the JTAF. I didn’t see everyone I knew there, because we didn’t stick around that long. I didn’t even get around to taking any pictures. Then we drove back to Dom’s place and played some more FF:CC, this time taking screen shots, as Dom mentions. (Side note: most likely, when the article is written, there should be screen shots that have our character names in them. Look for “ハムスター”. Heh heh heh.)

I then got dragged along to the midnight show of Raiders of the Lost Ark at Act I/Act II. It was late again, so I crashed at bigdumbthing‘s again and then drove up Sunday morning.

Sunday I just watched some more SG-1, and didn’t move furniture like I planned (which will have to get put off at least two weeks now from lack of free time), and discovered that the Bluetooth dongle I bought from Apple will not work with my PC, because when you buy it from Apple, it doesn’t come with a software license for use on other platforms… or something equally annoying like that. So, I copied all my MIDIs from my PC to my Mac, and chose a few ones to upload to my phone for use as ring tones. My new ring tone is much cooler than anything that the phone came with. 10 Bonus points for recognizing it. (So far no one has any points around here. You people aren’t trying very hard.)

So, as you may have guessed from the change in my mobile user pic (which doesn’t seem to be working right now), or from my last post, I bought a new cell phone.

It’s a Sony Ericcson T616, which is apparently the phone that all geeks are lusting after nowadays. I love the phone, and I can do all sorts of things on it that make me even more connected. Once I get my Bluetooth adapter for my laptop, I will be even more empowered.

There’s just one small problem: AT&T’s GSM network doesn’t reach into my house except on the top floor. The TDMA network that my previous phone used at least got 1 bar in my basement, 2 on the middle floor, and 3 on the top. Now, I get 0, 0 and 1 or 2, respectively. So I have to keep my phone in the office now when I’m not using it.

Ironically, this silly little bit of technological aggravation may be the impetus that gets me to finally switch the office and my bedroom, moving into the master and making the bottom room the office. That in itself means I’d have to a) move the DSL modem, linux machine, airport base station and printer downstairs (as well as my two roommates moving their stuff as well) and then either setting up a desk down there for my gaming pc (which I doubt would fit) or getting a wireless ethernet card for it and leaving it in my room (more likely). I’d also have to move up my bed, shelves, dressers and clothes. (But I think I’d leave my boxes down there… at least the heavy ones fully of comics and Magic cards.

So, a bunch of furniture would have to move, Hank and Leon should still have the same amount of space, and both bathrooms could be fully utilized. The only thing that would change is that I don’t think there’s a cable TV hookup downstairs… I’ll have to check… so no more cable tv in the “office”. I’d also have to buy a third handset for my cordless phone base station.

I’d also lose the 216 day uptime on my linux box. *sniff*

On a completely unrelated note, yes, I know I’ve not written a post about my trip to Indiana. But… look! pictures!

If this works, (and it should) then my new phone + updated scripts now allow me to not only update my journal with emails that are longer than 140 characters, but to also attach photos to them.
Yes, it’s true. I have become more geeky.

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