Jul 28, 2004

Motorola Mediacenter - Press Releases: Ok, the MPx-220 has been officially announced, again.

Jul 26, 2004

Department of Licensing - Personalized Plate Query: Just in case someone wants to check if a WA personalized plate is available.

Jul 23, 2004

Sigh, I hate moving. Russ gave me not quite enough notice to find a roommate so I'm moving out. I even paid the entire rent plus the month-to-month penalty plus the extra parking spot for a month hoping I would find someone. No such luck.


Katherine has graciously offered living with her for a short while until I find someone else to room with. I am going to move the majority of my stuff into a storage unit and move the necessities over to her townhome. Actually, I've already moved most of my hanged clothes and shoes. Over the weekend, I hope to pack up everything so that I can get a mover next week to bring it all to a storage unit. No way am I going to try to move my couch, queen bed, bookshelves et cetera by myself.


The real kicker here is that I didn't give my apartment enough notice that I was leaving. When I went from the year lease to a month-to-month lease, they never said anything about a "twenty day notice". On a month-to-month, that's a huge amount of notice! I wanted to move out at the end of July but they are so graciously allowing me to pay $1470 for all of August. They said that if someone moves into the apartment, they will pro-rate the amount and pay me back. I somehow doubt that is going to happen! Sigh.

Jul 20, 2004

Ok, really weird dream. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Set in a time where USA and the Soviet Union are at a full-on war.
  • The first part of the dream sees me running across an American battlefield, trying to avoid bullets, mines, bombs, missiles and just about every other type of munition.
  • I saw a very large passenger jet, presumably American, get hit by a missle and then crash into the sea. This jet was filled with Olympic athletes.
  • At this point, the dream becomes more of a movie and I am delegated to observer status.
  • A rag-tag group of Americans decide that the only way to stop the Soviet Union is to infiltrate their country and kill their leader. The group of Americans consist of a female Olympic judge, a 12-year-old girl and an older guy that looks like James Earl Jones.
  • This group has to train to be able to infiltrate the country. Instead of learning military techniques, they learn how to train water snakes.
  • I don't remember how, but all of a sudden the entire group is in the heart of the Soviet Union. The unnamed leader is hiding out in a rural town in a boarding house.
  • The little girl sneaks upstairs, undetected, to find the leader sleeping amongst 15 other people from the town. The girl places a rag of some sort of chemical over the leaders mouth, knocking him out. Instead of just killing him, the girl saws off his head with a dull machete and puts it into a burlap bag. No one has yet noticed anything has happened. She sneaks downstairs and runs outside.
  • Just as she joins the rest of her group hiding behind a bush outside, there is a sound much like the sharpening of a machete. From an open window upstairs, the now-dead body of the leader with a ghostly head starts to appear in the window. At first, it's safe to assume he is about to brandish a machete when instead he pulls out a .50 cal machine gun (the type that is normally truck mounted). Before he can fire, the James Earl Jones character grabs a gun from the ground and sprays the leader with bullets.
  • The end.

Jul 19, 2004

Quick post again.


I went to a RallyCross on Sunday (pictures).  It was fairly interesting, but I'm not subjecting my only car to that treatment.  Today I got my new Microsoft Prime card (discount card for restaurants, hotels, etc).  The old design was fairly metrosexual (polka dots and all) but the new one takes the cake!




Jul 16, 2004

Just in case I decide to care about this crap later, my car is #761 out of 1978 built and was built on 07Jan2004.

Jul 13, 2004

I've removed the links to my Gallery as I haven't had time to repopulate it since it was destroyed. I have added a new album though!


SVT Focus 07.11.2004


Jeff complained that I used a Microsoft building as my background and not Mt. Rainier. I knew that this parking garage would be in full sunlight and completely open. I can take pictures just about wherever I want and he's a negative fuck anyway!

Jul 12, 2004

Now that I have the SVT Focus, I've put the Camaro up for sale. I have so far only posted it in the Microsoft classifieds but anyone in the Puget Sound area can take a look at these. I put the car up two weeks ago and I got a phone call last Wednesday:


Her: I'm calling about the Camaro.

Me: Ok, it's still available.

Her: Can I come see it?

Me: Sure, when works for you.

Her: How about this weekend?

Me: Ok, when?

Her: Oh, I don't know, lunchtime?


At this point, I got a little bit frustrated. I dont want to hear "lunchtime", I want a specific time and date. Anyway, I finally got her to decide on Saturday at noon. She calls me Friday morning (a call I missed since I was in the parking garage) and says that she can't do it on Saturday and that Sunday at 5 PM would work better. Ok, that is fine. I get a voicemail Sunday at roughly 4 PM to say she can't make it at 5 PM and would Monday work. I call her back, no answer, so I left a voicemail saying that Monday would be fine if she would please tell me a specific time. She emails me this morning to say that either 6 or 7 PM would work. I told her to give me a specific time and if she was going to change that time to tell me by 2 PM. She writes back, saying 7 PM would be fine. Here we are, 5:30 PM and she calls:


Her: Hi Mike, I just wanted to see if we could meet earlier.

Me: Well, we decided on 7 PM.

Her: I know, but I was wondering if we could meet at 6 or 6:30 PM.

Me: I already said that I would need to know by 2 PM if you were going to change the time.

Her: I know, I was just wondering if you could get off work early.

Me: No, but 7 PM works for me.

Her: Ok.

Me: (Cutting her off) Bye. ::CLICK::

Holy cow. I bet you $100 that she is going to show up 15 minutes late and then not know how to drive a manual transmission. Just wait.

UPDATE: She can't drive a manual! But, this is a car for her (I think) younger brother so I will give her a little slack.

Jul 9, 2004

Haha, I love this. Posting to blogger on my laptop that is connected to my Smartphone through Bluetooth while the Smartphone has internet access through GPRS. Isn't technology wonderful?

Jul 6, 2004

So little time or energy to post! Suppa happy fun bullets are all you get.

  • Kat and I didn't do much this Fourth of July weekend. We both had difficult weeks (especially the night where I left work at 12:45 AM and then was up for the next day before 7 AM) so we just took it easy. Her parents backyard overlooks much of Seattle so we were able to see four different fireworks displays at once (Elliot Bay, Gasworks, Yarrow Bay and Kirkland).
  • Tonight was the second game of the summer FloorBurn season. I'm captain already and I've already made a mistake. I didn't inform everyone we had a game this week (assuming that the manager would take care of that like last season) and only 4 people showed up. A couple people subbed for us and we ended up winning 3-1! I almost had a hat trick but the pass I got right in front of the goal was actually about to go into the goal so I just let it go by!
  • I've spent about eight hours working on my yearly review for Microsoft and I'm only about a third of the way completed. It is important but not that important. I just want a fatty raise so I can afford my new car and my $1,570/month rent.
  • This happened two weekends ago, but Eric of Jenn&Eric fame was in town so Kat, Eric and I grabbed some dinner and dessert. We had a good time, but it didn't last long enough. I had an early morning appointment so I had to call the night around 9 PM.
  • The new car is still super sweet. To measure how sweet it is, I picked up a G-Tech Performance Meter Pro. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Well, I haven't had a piece of flat, dry, non-cop-infested road to really wring out the car and measure with it yet. In time.
  • While the car is still super sweet, the oh-so-smooth shifter is becoming less smooth. There is some hesitation as the shifter returns to neutral on the way to the next gear. It almost seems like the linkage is jammed. Oh well, it should work itself out in time otherwise it is going to the dealer! I didn't drive this car hard at all yet and I haven't had a gear grind nor have I missed a shift. If there is a problem, it wasn't my fault.
  • I've been playing a ton of GT3 lately, now that Russ has moved out. I can play the really long races or long sets of races and just leave the PS2 running while I go to work. I can play a bit, do something else then go back to an unmolested PS2. I've already won an F1 car so now it's basically a game of "How many times can I pass everyone before I win!". I love that game.

Jul 2, 2004

Remeber how I said I almost bought an Evo? Looks like it was a good cal! All the bad news about Mitsu has caused their sales to plummet almost FIFTY PERCENT this month and 27% for the year. Yikes. Adios, muchachos.