Assembly Day

Today I bought furniture–table, chairs and a sofabed.

I can’t help but be impressed by the engineering that goes into Ikea furniture. They’re able to design and build something that’s not only functional & inexpensive, but can also be easily assembled by somebody with no mechanical ability. All that’s required to put it together are tools that they provide with every item (allen key(s), wrench) and a page or two of instructions (purely pictoral–language free). It might be just me, but that seems an impressive feat.

As a side note, for anybody who plans on visiting me in California and doubts my ability to assemble Ikea furniture–you can sleep on the floor, or find a hotel.

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Small World Weekend

So, yesterday I was informed that an old friend, who I’ve been out of touch with since undergrad (haven’t even seen in passing since Christmas of ‘02), is also living/working in the Bay Area. What are the odds? (really, if someone can actually compute them, I’d be interested). I met up with this friend for hapy hour last night, which was good.

Also, I get to see Lori tonight & tommorow, while she’s in San Francisco.

In other news, I got my apartment today, photos are in my gallery.

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Oscar Aftermath

So, last night was Oscar night, and as an avid movie-goer, I have to watch them. (But it’s a lot easier in this timezone, as they were over around 8:30pm)

I, for one, think Jon Stewart did a good job hosting. He may not have been at the top of his game for the entire night, but the few high points make up for that. The cheap Cheney joke was good, and I thought the bit about making Russell Crowe look like he had been into a fight was great.

As for the movies and awards, I’m not sure. Although I did see most of the contenders, there were a few I missed (such as Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck), that I now have to watch.

The one thing I took issue with, was Dan Glickman’s speech. It’s fine to say that movies are better in the theatre, and that’s the way they were meant to be seen. But to say that the film industry is rebuilding New Orleans I think is a lame attempt to shame people into going to the theatre. If they want more people to go to the movies, they have to make better movies… make movies worth going to see… like the ones that win these awards.

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Big Move

OK, it’s been a long time since I last posted… again. My one post a week goal has taken quite a hit lately, but I have an excuse… I’m settling in to my new job (Cluster Systems Administrator for Google), and attempting to adjust my internal clock for 4.5 hour time difference. Although the time difference meant that I had no trouble waking up and getting to work in time for breakfast.
I’m currently living in temporary housing, and can’t buy my new car until I get some paperwork taken care of, so there are no picutres of my new place or my new car yet. Hopefully all that will go through in the next couple of weeks.

Google seems to be a fun place to work, with plenty of interesting and intelligent people. I highly reccomend it.

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