Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Best. Excuse. Ever.

BBC Sports
North Korea's coach blamed his side's 2-0 loss to the United States on his players getting struck by lightning in the build up to the Women's World Cup.

North Korea - the youngest team in the tournament by average age - started well in Dresden, but eventually conceded when Lauren Cheney completed a swift move with a well-timed header before Rachel Buehler converted with 14 minutes remaining.

"When we stayed in Pyongyang during training our players were hit by lightning, and more than five of them were hospitalised," said coach Kim, without naming the affected players specifically.

"Some stayed in hospital and then came to Germany later than the rest of us. The goalkeeper and the four defenders were most affected, and some midfielders as well. The physicians said the players were not capable of participating in the tournament.

"But World Cup football is the most important and significant event for a footballer, so they don't want to think about anything but football.

"The fact that they played could be called abnormal, the result of very strong will."

Sports events are inherently unpredictable. Otherwise, we should award championships based on rankings and forget about the actual competition. Instead of congratulating the winning team, the NK coach has to come up with some BS excuse to save their own ass. Lame.

Administrator Rights

Arg. They didn't give me administrator rights on my new laptop at work so I can't install (some) new software nor update old versions. Especially frustrating is that I was able to install Firefox and Chrome but can't install/update Adobe Flash so I can't play Flash content unless I use Internet Explorer... just like my iPad except I don't have the IE option!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

iPad2

Despite my intense dislike of Steve Jobs, I still ended up buying an iPad. I had it sent to my sister in Portland to avoid CA sales tax and she just handed it to me this morning. It's a pretty amazing piece of technology. I got the basic wifi model since my Android phone can use my data plan as a mobile AP... unless I lose that when AT&T buys out T-mobile. :(

I typed this up on the iPad2 using the built-in Safari browser.

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Oh yeah, the iPad2 doesn't support Adobe Flash either. Steve Jobs is such an ass.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

New Job: day 2

Since I had a 9:30am meeting this morning, I decided to leave the house around 7am to see what traffic was like at that hour. I ended up leaving at 7:20am and didn't get to the office until 8:20am. Since it was before 9am, I decided to try and park on the 3rd floor parking lot. You basically have to drive up a huge ramp at the side of the building and there is indoor parking above the offices. Cool, right?

Well, when I sat down at my cubicle, I noticed the walls and ceiling was creaking and shaking each time a car drove overhead (I'm on the 2nd floor). The noise is actually quite loud and disconcerting. Maybe that's why everyone is wearing headphones in the office.

Monday, June 20, 2011

New Job: day 1

Don't worry, I'm not going to live-blog my new job everyday. Unfortunately, I can't post any pics since we're not allowed to take any photos inside the building at all. So I can't show you my little cubicle... but I can show you my empty old office.


Sigh... I miss being able to talk semi-loudly on the phone. :(


Nearest freeway exit... so the neighborhood around new job is not as nice as old job (Irvine).

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Two More Days

Actually it's more like one more day of work since I don't have anything to do on Friday except for lunch, exit interview, and a company sponsored happy hour at 4pm. However, I do have many meetings tomorrow for some reason. I would think they wouldn't want me to lead any meetings on my last real day of work.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

3 Novels

I just read three Kindle novels in 4 nights on my PC and I can barely see straight. The three books are the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The books were originally written in Swedish then translated to English. The story is set in Sweden so there are lots of weird names and locations. I really enjoyed the story (that's why I read for 4 nights straight); too bad the author passed away in 2004.

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Ooh, a movie!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

New Job

I turned in my two week notice today, after working for the same company for the past 11.5 years. It's the longest period of time that I've been associated with something.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Sony PlayStation Network

I haven't used my PS3 that much since I bought my new Windows PC for games. However, I did get an email today promising two free games if I logged back in. Sony has been having problems with hackers getting access to user accounts lately. Anyway, out of the five games, I already have the best two: LittleBigPlanet and InFamous.

I tried logging in to download the free games but kept getting an error code 80710D36. Looks like too many people are on PSN trying to download. Way to go Sony!