How Does Isiah Thomas Keep His Job?

I thought Brian Cook must have dirty pictures on someone, but Isiah Thomas must have pictures of James Dolan killing someone because I have no idea how he keeps his job. Last night, the Knicks got killed by the Boston Celtics by almost fifty points, and it wasn't even that close. I don't know how much Isiah Thomas makes, but if he isn't paying the Knicks to be the coach and GM, he is being overpaid.

The Knicks seemed to forgive Thomas even though they lost a sexual harassment case earlier this year. This might be understandable if the Knicks were a good team since in sports, winning cures all. But they obviously suck. It might even make sense if the Knicks were just rebuilding because and had a bunch of young, cheap players. But the Knicks have the 2nd highest payroll in the league. This is the same guy who traded for Eddy Curry and who gave Jerome James a huge contract. So why oh why does Isiah get to keep his job?

Powergrid

Last night, I had some people over to play Powergrid. It's one of the things I will miss about Seattle, I love getting together with this group to play.

Powergrid is a board game by Friedemann Friese and distributed by Rio Grande Games. It is relatively simple game in theory. Buy Power plants, buy resources, power homes. Complexity is introduced by how turn order is determined (turn order is a big deal in this game) and by how power plants are purchased (through auctions).

Despite Jenny's fondness of games, I think she would hate this game because

1. The way we play it, people can take a very long time in there turns and I see Jenny getting impatient
2. I like it, and Jenny hates everything I like.

I hope that I can introduce some of my friends in California to the game because I like playing it and I would hate to not play it again just because I moved a few thousand miles. I've gotten pretty good at it, and I'm to the point where I can actually remember what power plants are what

Wii - Still Hard to Get

Not to make this the Wii-Blog since I talked about it last time, but the other thing I noticed was that it can still be relatively hard to find the Wii. And it isn't just because the Christmas Season started. I've noticed consistently throughout the year that stores do not have any Wii's in stock. How can it be that one year after this console has been released, they still can't keep in on the shelf? I find it really hard to believe that demand is so hi that supply has yet to be able to catch up. Is this a worldwide shortage? Maybe it is only local to Redmond. Anybody else notice this or has it been easy to get a Wii everywhere else?

Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii

I've been keeping my eye out for the Wii version of Guitar Hero III. I enjoyed the Guitar Hero II enough (on the Xbox 360) that I figured I would at least consider buying this game.

Of course, everywhere I go look for the game, they are sold out. I'm having more trouble finding this game than I am getting my Wii in the first place. I did happen to see a bunch of them at a Fry's when it first came out, but I didn't buy it then because I figured I would buy it later when I had more time to play. Little did I know it would be so hard to get later. Maybe it's the must have thing for Christmas.

I don't even want the game all that much. I think it is fun, but not great, and since it's more expensive than a normal game, since you have to buy it with the guitar, I'm more inclined to go buy a game like Super Mario Galaxy. But now I think it's the fact that I can't find it that makes me want it more. How come we always want things we can't have?

Marion Jones' Teammates - No Fair Outcome

Today, the IAFF announced that all results for Marion Jones would be annulled dating back to September 2000. Not only were all the results voided, she has been asked to return all of her prize money (I somehow doubt that will happen)

To exacerbate the situation, they have recommended that her teammates who won a medal along with her in the Olympics, also return their medals.

Now I 100% agree that all Jones' individual result be voided, but what is the fair thing to do for her relay teammates? In all likelihood, they did not know of her drug use, so should they be punished as well?

In the end, I think the only fair thing is to strip them of the medals. Relays are team sports, and the unfortunate reality of team sports is that you either win as a team or you lose as a team. There is no concept of "half the team wins, the other half loses". While that may seem harsh, it is equally unfair to let it stand. What if you were the 2nd place team? Wouldn't you feel cheated out of your gold medal? What if you were the 4th place team and didn't even get a medal?

So what is the fairest thing to do?

Riding the Elevator One Floor

Please, if you have two able legs, nothing to carry, and the stairs is right next to the elevator, please do not ride the elevator up one floor. It greatly annoys those who have multiple flights to go up.

Thank you


I originally wrote this post more than a year ago, as I was aggravated with all the people in my building that insisted on taking the elevator one floor. I wanted to scream at them to ask them if they realized how much they were inconveniencing everyone else, but I never did.

The funny thing about this, is that I would often think about ways that the elevator should really be optimized to shuttle traffic in my building. During the beginning of the day, it would wait on the bottom floor for people since most likely people would want to go up, the opposite would be true at the end of the day. All sorts of optimizations would pop up in my head.

And it actually came up in an interview I had the other day. The guy asked me how I would design an elevator algorithm, and I thought back to all those times I wanted to scream at those people that they were messing up my optimum strategy. Who knew it would pay off? I got a job offer from them.

Brian Cook Traded

Today is one of the happiest days on earth if you are a Laker fan. Today, the Lakers traded Brian Cook and Mo Evans for Trevor Ariza. Brian Cook was by far my least favorite Laker. He was horrible. The picture I put next to the post says it all. It is of Brian Cook "defending" another guy. I put "defending" in quotes because the next time Brian Cook defends someone, it will be his first time. You notice how the other player is going right by Cook and he seems to be jumping out of the way. You aren't imagining it, it is what he is doing.

The guy is horrible, and completely one dimensional, and he isn't even great in that one dimension. If the Lakers really wanted someone to just stand outside the three point line and occasionally hit one, I'm available. I may even be headed back to LA so it would be an easy transition.

They got back a Player in Trevor Ariza that is young, athletic, and a pretty decent defender. Not much of a scorer, but with Kobe Bryant (for now) do you really need someone who is a scorer. No, you need someone who can defend the other teams wing player, which is something I hope Ariza will bring. But for me, it really isn't the point. The Lakers could have traded Brian Cook for a bag of chips, yes a bag of chips, and I still think the Lakers would have gotten the better end of that deal. Talk about overpaid athletes, Cook is just stealing money from whichever team he is playing for.

Permanent Air Filters

Liz bought an air filter. It is supposed to be one of those "permanent" Hepa filters. But that's a big scam. We bought a Honeywell 50150. We bought it mainly because we don't want to be bothered buying new air filters every few months. Because we are both allergic to our cat, and dander is a big issue, we wanted to get a good air filter we could run pretty consistently.

However, this permanent air filter thing is a big scam. You see, while the "air filter" itself is permanent, they have a "pre filter" which is not. So you have to go and buy a new "pre filter" every six months or so.

So while technically they did not lie to me, I feel a little bit mislead.

Lasik update - Four years later

I have been really bad about going to the optometrist to get my eyes check since I have had Lasik. Really you should go every year just to be sure that your eyes are OK. I haven't been to the Optometrist in well over two years, and I was due to go.

Since my insurance was almost up, I decided to just go. Considering MS employees pay absolutely nothing to go to any doctor, you figure I would have done it sooner. Oh well. Turns out, I actually have a slight astigmatism now. I didn't have an astigmatism before Dr. Assil performed Lasik on me. It's small enough that I didn't end up filling my prescription for new eyeglasses, but I probably will as soon as I start a new job and get some insurance again. It only somewhat bothers me at night when I drive, but it's probably worth it for just that.

For the Full story you probably want to follow the following link:

All Lasik Post

Are Designer Jeans Worth It?

Someone found their way to my blog with a search on Google for Diesel Jeans worth it. This points to my post about if I thought the pair of Diesel Jeans I bought and if I thought they were worth the money. People find their way to this site in lots of different ways, the most popular by far being "should college athletes be paid". or "are athletes paid too much?"(quick side comment, I was shocked to see how many comments were on that post. People really do feel passionate about that don't they?) So with all the various reasons why people end up on my blog, why would I even post about this?

Well I just have an obvious weakness for designer jeans. And I'm oddly proud that somehow I made it to the top of the Google rankings for this search. Granted it's pretty specific, and it is basically the title of my post, but still, it was something I felt was pretty cool.

Quick update about the jeans by the way. I actually still own that pair of Diesel jeans, but I honestly don't wear them all that often. I now have several more pairs of designer jeans, but for the most part I don't buy Diesel, and haven't in many years. My favorite brand by far is Seven, and I own several pairs of them. I also did end up buying that $200 pair of Citizen for Humanity jeans. They are great as well, but I think I still prefer the Sevens. I ended up buying so many pairs because it literally has become all I wear. I get tremendous use from them, so in the end it became worth it to pay a little more for something I really like and use all the time.

I think what I like best about it is that I always get my jeans tailored to fit me, so the length is always perfect. I didn't know until my girlfriend pointed it out to me that Nordstrom tailors pants for free if you buy it from them. Ever since I found this out, and got my Jeans tailored by them, I haven't looked back.

By the way, as I finished writing this post, I felt very gay all of the sudden. Excuse me, I have to go kiss my girlfriend now.

More Blogging - Just maybe not here

Over the last two years, my blogging has dramatically tailed off in this blog. Much of that was on purpose, because I really didn't want to be blogging about things at work, and work consumed so much of my life. Now that I quit, I still haven't blogged all that often, but that's because I am starting a little something. Most of the people who actually know me, know what I'm up to, but I'm purposefully not talking about it here simply because I want to keep the two things separate.

I've done that on this blog for a reason. It actually paid off pretty well. You see, in this day and age, you can never really be sure who is going to want to know something about you and what they will do to find it. In my blog before this blog, I started getting an unusually high number of hits on my name, and that just bothered me. Who was searching for me? Why? So I stopped that blog and created this one, and have thus far tried to avoid being linked to this site by people randomly searching for me.

But in a job interview the other day, someone actually told me they "Googled" me. Of course, they didn't really find too many interesting things, but I was glad they didn't end up here. Not that I am ashamed of this site or anything, quite the contrary, but your employer really shouldn't know everything there is to know about you. And since I'm pretty open how I feel about various controversial topics, best to just play it safe.

I will probably, at least for the short term, pick the pace back up with my blogging efforts. It actually will help me in a number of ways with my other project. If you want to know what i'm up to, and just have no idea what I'm talking about, leave a comment or e-mail me. I'd be happy to tell you.