offensive language

...Superman can't be far behind.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/24/1215200

Yes, I'm in California. I've been here for a few weeks now. It is wonderful. I'm really enjoying getting to complain about it being cold when it gets into the low 50s, while my friends and family are forced to suffer single digit temperatures. (When being told of their single digit temperatures, my response is usually an invitation to visit.)

What else? I've started work. Monday will be my third week. I'm loving it. Lots to learn and some long hours, but in general it is very cool. Lots of very smart people, doing very interesting things.

I moved into my apartment yesterday. I had previously been staying in temporary housing in North San Jose. My apartment is in San Francisco. It will mean a longer daily commute, but I think living in the city will be worth it. This week will be slightly interesting as my stuff won't be delivered until next Tuesday.

Anyway, I'm alive and well. Happy, busy.

Thanks to everybody wishing me well in the new job! Much appreciated.

I'm now in Providence, preparing to pack up all of my stuff for the move. Who knew I had so much junk.

I know I'm a little late on the whole new year thing, but happy new year to one and all.

I'm in the middle of various movements at the moment: Chicago tomorrow, back to Providence Thursday to pack and then on to San Francisco the week after to look for an apartment. (I've taken a job with Google doing webapps, to start at the end of January--very exciting!)

Had a lovely holiday in the Caribbean over Christmas, and then attended a fun New Year's party, where we all dressed up like so:



(Me and my friend Ian, with the obligatory Champagne in cheap plastic glasses)

So I was playing poker tonight with a few Brown friends and friends of friends. During one of the hands I made some joke about wishing I could have the internet decide if I should fold or not. I said something like, "Dear Internet, should I fold..." and a player I didn't know was like, "oh my god are you one of the dearinter.net guys?!" and then proceeded to tell us that she used the site and liked it.

It made my night. Plus I won four dollars, that was cool too.

I went home for Thanksgiving break, as I'm sure many of you did. It was very fun. Lots of food, lots of friends, lots of drinks.

On Friday night we went out to the bars, which was an interesting experience. The bartenders were guys I went to school with, many of the other people in the bar were classmates of mine. It was fairly awkward as we all recognized each other but there was very little inter-group interaction. But my pool playing ability managed to improve as I drank more so that's something, plus it has remained better ever since. I had been in a little pool rut, but I guess drunken pool re-calibrated me or something.

Anyway, I'm back in Providence now, on the final march towards Christmas and the completion of my degree. Cool stuff has been happening on the job front but I'll wait to say anything until it is all official.

Finally, I just want to place my bet now for at least one of Starbucks, Banana Republic or J. Crew playing the Sufjan Stevens Christmas Album nonstop between now and the 25th.

I suppose I'm behind the times, but I've recently become addicted to Scrubs. Comedy Central is showing reruns of it every weeknight. The sad part is they're starting at a later season, so now I need to decide whether to buy the back seasons on DVD or to wait until Comedy Central shows them. Decisions decisions.

Let's see, other news. Well, I'm working on finishing up school (I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I've decided to stop with a MS degree.) I should be done after this semester, and then onto the world of jobs. I'm currently interviewing with several software companies, which has been a fun process so far.

Apart from that I'm not really enjoying this whole transition to winter thing. As I've gotten older I've become less tolerant of the cold. I used to really like winter, but now I'd rather just be warm.

Everybody else good?

So I haven't updated for a while. Lots of busyness and traveling lately, but overall life is good.

More importantly, everybody must checkout this dearinter.net question, which is quite possibly the best on the site.

Oh also, I finally got a chance to catch up on my tivo'd daily show and the conTROVersy sketch with Gorman and Oliver was amazing. How fun. Okay, going now.

Classes start on Tuesday. I'm excited.

So dearinter.net got dugg today. It is really exciting seeing it grow, and a (small) digging is wonderful.

I'm back in Providence after going home for a week to celebrate my sister's 12th birthday. She got a Macbook, making her (in my mind) the luckiest 12 year old this side of the Mississippi.

So I was doing my usual surfing of the internet, slashdot, fark, dearinter.net, macnn, etc, when I came across a link for TubeSock, a Mac App that downloads videos from YouTube and encodes them for iPod and PSP. My life may never be the same. Now I can watch not only the awesome treadmill video where ever I am, but such jewels as the tap dance and love games. Life is good.

My friend Ryan left this IM for me this morning (well, it was actually at 12:40 but I hadn't gotten up yet, so I'm counting it as morning). Anyway, it is amazing and because YouTube is amazing, I will share it here with you now.

Two of my favorite di questions in the last few days:
396
331

Also, I made a pasta sauce the other night with a habanero in it. I'm gonna eat it tonight, yum yum!

OMG Mac Pro, Xserve. Must find $3000 quickly.

And also, Leopard looks to be a genuinely useful update, looking forward to it.

So I'm back in Providence for a few weeks to begin work in earnest on my masters project/thesis/thing. I left the super heat of the midwest on Tuesday and arrived in the super heat of the east coast on Thursday. Yes, the heat followed me. Yes, it is personal (I'll get you, heat. One day, I'll get you.)

Anyway, had a bunch of fun listening to the audio book of the sixth Harry Potter on the drive. I had less fun, however, listening to the fire alarms that went off in my building at 6:30 this morning. Oh well.

Also, my little website is the second result when googling for dear internet. How cool is that!?

I'm not going to make it a habit to post about dearinter.net here (it has a blog of its very own), but as it was launched initially through my blog I thought I'd post a little update.

As of this post we have 11,541 votes on 92 questions from 116 registered users. This has been amazing progress and Chris and I are very pleased. We've mostly worked out the stability issues that caused a bunch of 500 errors on my birthday and now we're busy refining, refactoring and adding new features.

We've also gotten a bit of blog press.

Right, back to work :-)

Apart from a glorious trip to the UK, my summer has mostly been spent toiling away with nothing but some Python and a Macbook, and now I'm pleased to announce that my efforts (along with the efforts of my partner, Chris) have reached fruition (beta-level fruition anyway). Check it out at dearinter.net. It is a consensus coaching site. Do you need help deciding whether your boyfriend is cheating on you or if you should eat that three day old pizza in your fridge? Well, we're here for you. Join, vote, let us know what you think.

We're totally in early beta so we really want feedback.

I'm back home now after a wonderful trip. How can Scotland be so beautiful, and how can London be so cool?