I went to One Lounge yesterday because Kate was having a party there. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of that place. The music is too loud, the bartenders too rare, and the whole house-like architecture is a little weird. Plus it loses points for not having partitions between urinals in the bathroom.

My main story from the night is that there was some poor guy at the place trying to dance with any girl he could find. He'd just walked up to girls and asked them to dance, not taking no for an answer. I was just standing somewhat nearby and talking to another guy, and three times random girls either: started making frantic gestures like she wanted help, or she jumped over and just started talking to us, or in one case a girl grabbed my arm to start dancing with me instead.

So now I think that the ultimate wingman is probably a super persistent yet repellent guy. You just have to set him loose, give him about 10-20 seconds with a girl to creep her out, and then swoop in for the save. It almost sounds unethical.

(comments from a jpost article about Stuxnet)
Barak Bard: 2010 may be the first year for which the Israel Prize will be given to "Anonymous".
Stephen: 0010 0101 1001 0010 11001 Did you get it? Now if not, take PC and throw into a big fire. The virus comes and goes, it enters and exits without leaving a trace on your hard disk. As long as there is one infected computer in Iran it will quietly sit there awaiting instructions. When you change all the computers, that is into the great bonfire, the virus will return as the angel of death on those new computers. The G-d of Israel is on cyber attack to those that blaspheme his name and his chosen people. Read the Bible and how Pharaoh was taught a lesson. This a today's plague, no frogs, just viruses.

I bought a EEE PC netbook just before winter break and I'm not very happy with it. First, the keyboard is difficult to type on. It's a compact keyboard, but even more compact than the usual laptop keyboard, and it's not very sensitive. I had no trouble typing quickly on my old laptop, but on this thing I have to deliberately push every single button or it won't recognize the presses. Also the touch pad is way too sensitive and obtrusive. So I touch it all the time and it loves to click out of the field I'm typing in. Or it will click back to the beginning of the field and I'll find myself suddenly typing at the beginning again. Between making sure to press each key firmly and being careful not to touch the touchpad, my typing speed is down to like 10 words per minute.

It also has some major software problems, but those are my fault. And I could fix them, if only using the thing wasn't such a nightmare. Its wireless network seems slow too for some reason. That might be a software issue, though I've updated the drivers and windows thinks it's working fine. Other than that, it has some great hardware packed into it, and it rocks at performing tasks, so long as you don't actually have to type or interact with it. It's good at decoding videos and right now I'm mostly just using it as a server. It's not quite what I was hoping for it.

I got all dressed up and came into the office but the attorney I'm meeting with isn't until Wednesday. I had written the wrong date on my calendar somehow. Grr.

(Playing poker with some cousins. Someone called for a game of Screw Your Neighbor, which other players negatively characterized as not being a game of skill. It was a long game, and people sorta started to go their separate ways, getting food and watching tv, as they lost. At the end of the game there were only 3 people left at the table.)
Mike: So is that it? Did you ruin our game with your long-winded game of chance?

Tonight I sat through Mean Girls on TNT or USA or something, even though it was rife with commercials, was censored (probably not much because it's only PG-13 I think, but I'm sure they edited it for content/time), and I have the DVD of it somewhere in the apartment. Is it a new low in laziness? No surprise: I'm having a hard time getting back on work like I should be.

On the other hand I set up my laptop to serve videos to my ps3 which has proven to work well for watching small files. My network makes 720p stutter and I didn't even try anything bigger. I'll talk about the holiday break when I post photos from there.

I watched Mama Mia over at Rachel's new place. We were waiting for Verizon to show, but they apparently cancelled her appointment because someone had written that her building doesn't get FiOS. Mama Mia was better than I thought it'd be, but still not great. Too much Abba. And it's very broadway-ish but without great characters. Lots of daddy talk/drama that doesn't pay off into big drama. (Rachel hadn't seen this but somehow I did- Chris Klein Audition tape)

I have an annoying attorney interview at 1pm tomorrow. This guy loves to fly over from the west coast for some reason. Maybe he likes to get away from his family. It's like my fourth meeting with him and the case (surprise surprise) is going no where. I need to wear a tie, put on my polite face, and find us an office to meet in. Ugh. Office rooms are hard to come by these days.

I'm having a hard time sleeping. It's my guilty conscience.

(Whitney and Joe are visiting San Francisco)
me: The wax museum is great! I remember when I went it was a super hot day, which is rare in San Francisco, and most places don't AC, but then we went to the wax museum and it was nice and cool, and full of weird wax people.
Whitney: Yeah... Black people are weird.
(then I had to tell Whitney that she had in fact misheard my comment, and we weren't going to be getting into another one of those conversations)

I am quite busy. I'll be back on here in January.

(comments from an article about World of Warcraft)
For me WoW is not the girlfriend I never wished I met, but the one who I wish I could have just been good friends with. But I couldn't and I still can't. Now when I see her, I know I shouldn't get too friendly, because we'll get together again and we both know that won't end well.

4 layers of bubble wrap + a whole lot of masking tape. I am a MacGyver when it comes to insulating drafty AC window units.

Tonight at trivia there was a question "which law of physics is expressed I=V/R?" It was the engineers' moment to shine and we totally dropped the ball.

It looks easy when you see it written, but actually it was very hard to hear the announcer tonight because the bar was crowded and he gave the physics version first (current density = conductivity * electric field) before saying I=V/R. Peter, in his disdain for all things technical, was supplying sarcastic answers and Rachel was suggesting different laws of thermodynamics. They also give you no time to think, as I've complained before. The closest we got was Ampere's law, which is actually quite close because I is measured in amps. But no, it's Ohms law which really isn't at all the same as Ampere's law. So many weird names in physics that nobody cares whether you know.

Last week I was thinking about building a SATA switch for my media player (it has one SATA input but I have several drives I want to use) and was looking at datasheets for BJTs. I remember how everything works in theory, but the specific formulas and the math are nearly gone to me now. Maybe it's finally too late to go into mainstream engineering. My career path gets narrower every year.

(my nutella sandwich tasted weird, and the nutella itself was from a jar that I bought years ago, so I hunted around for expiration info and found a relevant forum)
Junior A: When does nutella expire? I bought some nutella like on april and wondering when do they expire. they been left in my room for like a month and opened already.
Simon T: read the label tells you everything you need to know
desdemon: It lasts forever. We had our jar for years after I remembered it and ate some. Look at the expiration date. You can easily add a year after it:)
Sylvester: Expiration dates only apply to food.

My paraphrasing and commentary of "5 tips for meeting women" by some dude bro.

1: Even if you're not confident, try to pretend to have some semblance of self esteem when introducing yourself.
- I guess this is a good point. Nobody feels comfortable talking to someone who is jittery and awkward and always trying to back out of a conversation. But if you're this way normally, putting up a good show is only going to get you through a single painful conversation. There's a long string of them ahead and the girl will figure you out eventually. Here's a better tip: wait until you're 4 drinks in and then the initial conversation won't be as bothersome. (Or if it is you won't care.) Then just make sure you show up early to each date thereafter and down a drink or three before she arrives. This carries the added bonus of knowing exactly why you later won't remember the details of what she said, as opposed to the mystery my memory sometimes is.

2: It's not about you.
- This lesson's title makes it sound like it's going to be about asking girls questions to move the conversation along, but instead the lesson is: things are easier if you have a buddy. This is obviously true. Lots of life is easier if you can find a friend to suffer through it with you. I don't know how you could even tolerate being in a bar or at a party with no friends.

3: Approach a group of girls.
- Because I guess a girl likes it when she isn't sure if you're hitting on her or her friend. Somehow the author thinks you can just swoop in and be friendly without hitting on or getting rejected by any specific girl. Yeah, right. What a weird, creepy idea. If I was hanging out with friends and a girl swooped in to be funny and friendly with all of us, we would probably think she was crazy. Or that she wanted all of us. I bet that's what the girls assume when a guy does it. And it's probably true because it sounds like the work of a man out looking for anything he can find. Mystery does this but he mixes in negs to keep the girls unsure of whether he wants them. That's probably a good tip if you're going to try to creep into a group this way. Also, I don't approve of sucking up to friends or the herd mentality to which it caters.

4: Beckon with your index finger for a girl across the room to come over.
- Dang, don't give away insider secrets! My trick is to do the index finger beckoning while slowly licking my lips, and then at the end I punctuate it with a pelvic thrust! It works every time. Either that or it's about as creepy as I imagine. A girl would have to be super cute in order for me to not feel weird about a predatory finger beckoning. (And she couldn't be at all sketchy in a dangerous way or I'm out of there. Girls with Russian accents: this move is not for you.) Responding to that beckon is a commitment and a half!

5: Don't worry about the rejections.
- This is decent advice, though its definitely easier said than done. And its common knowledge when you're selling anything door-to-door.

(Forum comments about the HP and the Deathly Hallows)
goodterling: More like Harry Potter and the Long Ass Camping Trip. This movie sucked!