Building 20, Microsoft Campus, Redmond WA I can't believe this is the first time I've been in front of a computer since Monday morning. After two days of presenters and Powerpoint slides in the hotel conference rooms, it's great to be here in the labs. So what have I done so far? Eat. They've done nothing but feed us since we got here. I'm talking good stuff here. MS really knows how to put on a show. Tuesday night, they rented out Gameworks in downtown Seattle for a few hours of free games, food, and beer. Last night, we had a coctail hour with the Development Managers from MS Word. I was suprised when they told us that they saw a demo of our poduct a year earlier. Anyway, we're about to get started. I'll post more when I can.

Is it really "Just a Game"? So a coworker of mine wins the right to purchase two Superbowl tickets at $500 a piece. No brainer, right. Just out of curiousity, I checked out flights from Tampa to San Diego this weekend. The cheapest I found were $650/person. Now add on hotels and food, and you're looking at $2500 easily. On top of that, he had an offer for $5000 for the pair. Now, I like football, and I LOVE the Bucs. But, $5000 is a lot of money....

They fooled us again. Here's a funny article on how employers are installing fake thermostats so their employees will shut up about how hot or cold it is. This gets me thinking about what else around the office could be fake. I don't know, my phone looks a little suspicious.

Aggressive Marketing 101 The Bucs have won the Super Bowl!!! Order your sweatshirt here

Just say NO to crack I've become sort of a plummer recently. After months of nagging (the guy who knows) my landlord about my leaky bathroom sink and the absence of a stopper, I've gone ahead and braved the repairs with my own hands. Yeah, everyones asking my why the hell I'm doing repairs to property I don't own, but I see things a different way. I have no clue what I'm doing. They say we learn from our mistakes, I don't see why I should wait until I own my own place before I fuck things up. I can get pleny of practice here. Here's a small list of repairs I've taken care of for my landlord:

• The kitchen fan. The light socket was bad, so I replaced it. Nothing bad really happend except I wasn't sure which fuse box was mine, so I just guessed until I got it right. I'm sure my neighbors didn't mind.
• Fixed the side door lock. The lock was probably as old ad the house itself and they don't make that kind anymore. I got kinda inventive. I took a modern deadbolt and used the outside lock of the new lock with the inside part of the old one. Not too bad, eh? Well, the new outside part was a lot bigger than the old one, so my door really doesn't shut all the way, well it will if you force it hard enough. Oh, I also never gave my landlord a copy of the new key.
• Reattached the soap dish. I slipped in the shower and pulled the soap dish right off the wall. Told my landlord about it, she got pissed and said I had to hire someone to fix it. Hell with that. Not while I have a lot of learning to do. Actually, I just remortered it. It was perfect.
• Re-caulked the bathtub. Yeah, my ego was still soaring about the soap dish, so I decided to replace the rotting caulk that surrounded my bathtub. Well it took my a few times before I figured out that I needed to use caullk. The first time, I used the morter that I used to reapply the soapdish. Yeah, will the morter dissolves when it coms in contact with water. Ok, second try, I used straight silicone. As it turns out, silicon never really hardens, so it kept coming off when I cleaned the tub. Ok last time. I finally figured out to use caulk. Done. Finish. Hmm, I wonder how much water seeped through the cracks during the first two attempts and is now rotting the wood underneath?

So that concludes my list of self repairs. Learning is fun, especially when you're not ruining anything that's yours.

Joe Bankrupt

I finally caught Joe Millionaire last night. I haven't been watching it from the beginning, so I really don't have any favorites. Over all, I thought it was quite boring. I'm not just going off on an anit-pop culture, overdone stupid reality TV show rant here, I actually watched it and thought, "wow, I wonder if CSPAN is on." I guess this is why over the top sitcoms that are nothing like real life are so much better, as long as I'm entertained.

Happy New Year!! Note: This post was was written a while ago, but I had some problems with the site, so it's appearing now

Hey everyone, happy new year! This year I resolve to...umm...err...ah... I don't know. Why do people make new year's resolutions? My gym is going to be packed for the next three weeks. Of course after that it will go back to normal. Maybe I should just come up with one and use it every year like Rob does. Yes, I have to take his Body for Life pictures, again. There are plenty of things I could improve on in my life, like I could try to show up at work on time once in a while, or cut down on Fortunato's lunches, but c'mon, you might as well just shoot me. New Year's Eve was fun, except for the downpour. Didn't quite beat the bar, but if I combine this year and last year, I just might have.