Produced miraculous results, recovering data that was previously deemed unrecoverable. Check.

Worked my ass off to produce said results (100+ hour workweeks). Check.

Had to pick up a lot of new technology expertise with no notice. Check.

Got bitched out by VP early on, when I'd been part of the project for a few hours, about why I didn't already have someone on a plane. When it was my idea and my work that got us that possibility in the first place. Check.

Got any comp time for my slavery. (crickets)

Got any bonus for my slavery. (crickets)

Got a thank you from anyone other than my immediate boss (who wasn't even involved), and a director in a completely different division. (crickets)
.
.
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Why the fuck do I even bother?

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091117/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_t_mobile_sidekick.

Specifically, the 'most of the data was recovered'.

They're not being generous with their definition of most.

That sounds... familiar somehow.

Slimy the snail shows up on the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Seriously, the snail hand-puppet gets the opening monologue. And speaks French. With a Scottish accent.

http://www.spinalcordresources.com/2009/11/enzyme-found-to-help-formation-of-new-axons/.

I wonder who's going to license or turn this one into something useful.

Someday, maybe I'll be allowed to talk about it all.

Suffice it to say, it's been rather too long running on empty and I need some time off after this particularly monstrous screwjob.

For those interested, go look up news from the past month or so on Sidekick and Outage and you'll understand more of exactly what I was involved in.

I finally had a workday of under 14 hours.

Sadly, this was cause for some measure of celebration.

In Hell, you don't get to rest on the seventh day.

So far, the only time in the last 7 days I worked under a 14 hour day, was Sunday. I only worked around 8.

There will be some stories someday that I can actually tell.

I went on vacation. That was nice. I came back refreshed and ready to face the world again.

And the world in the form of work has smacked me hard in the face for the past week, taking revenge on me for my vacation. But I'm still smiling and feeling better about that than I have in quite a while.

Only other major update? You must see Zombieland. I liked it even more than Shaun of the Dead. Might have been because I'd just pulled multiple 14 hours days, but that movie made me laugh my ass off. Woody Harrelson was just brilliant. I can't think of anyone else who could've pulled that role off that well.

It's a little graphic in parts. The movie didn't need that and could've stood on its own with a little less gore, but that's a minor flaw in a movie I otherwise enjoyed immensely.

Overall rating: 8.5/10, 10/10 if you already like zombie movies.

Some overdue, some less so.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Want. More. Snape. It was probably the most challenging of the books to turn into a useful movie, and it shows. This movie's strength was about what was going on when it *wasn't* plot driven. The little moments here and there, the throwaway stuff make it entirely watchable, but the main plotline isn't as memorable as the oddball little gems here and there, of which there were a bunch.

District 9 - I'm one of the minority who didn't really enjoy this one much. At the beginning, it's slow and ponderous. The characters are pretty thoroughly unlikeable. The movie takes a long time to move anywhere. And while I can certainly see the symbolism and such which is going on, and it's a good story of the human condition writ large, there's also plot holes you can drive a spaceship through, and ultimately the first hour+ is just too dull and it mutes the impact of the last hour or so, which is really the meat of the movie.

Ponyo - It's not one of Miyazaki's best. I was more fond of Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Mononoke, for example. That said, it strikes me as a nice movie for children, and in much the same vein as Totoro. It's a story about innocence in my mind, more than anything. And 'not one of Miyazaki's best' translates to 'still in the 10% of Sturgeon's Law which isn't crap'. I enjoyed it.

Best argument I've seen against abstinence-only sex ed.

In other news, my back has been full of suck, but appears to be back on the mend again.

The new job has its share of stress, but at least it's interesting, and it's something that'll keep me on my toes. Someday I will figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Still hasn't happened quite yet.

I need a vacation - more on that later.

My dear wife convinced me to look over some car information, it being a pretty good time to buy, with the '09 models on their way out the door. So, weekend before last, I went test driving with her. I expected I'd be interested in the Honda Insight (Prius competitor), Honda Fit, Toyota Prius, and the Scion xD. In the back of my mind, I was also considering the Mazda-3 Hatchback, and the Toyota Matrix.

Long and short of it, the Matrix had a good deal, and I couldn't justify an awful lot more money for the Prius. The Insight had a disappointing ride, engine and lack of headroom. The Fit had a rough ride and really didn't have much in the way of acceleration - quite possibly less than my bottom end Saturn. So, I have a shiny red Matrix now.

Friday, there was some epic rocking out with tersa and company. It was Rock Band, it was the Endless Setlist. Fifty-eight (58!) songs of endurance testing, carpel-tunnel inducing, guitar-wailing, drum-bashing, voice-killing rock.

We got past Green Grass and High Tides, the 10+ minute Southern Rock epic that Wil Wheaton still calls his nemesis. He put it best - you don't so much pass that song, as survive it. We were on the home stretch, just TWO songs remaining: Run to the Hills (Iron Maiden), and Won't Get Fooled Again (The Who). Midway through Run to the Hills, we see the briefest flash on screen of 'your controller has been disconnected'. One of the wireless controllers on the PS3 died mid-song, the one 'attached' to the mic. All it required was one person hitting the green key before we could see anything, and it exited back out of the Endless Setlist.

Ruined by failed battery, and a moron programmer who said 'gee, let's have it so that one disconnected controller, and a single button press can exit you out, in a 4-player rhythm game.' The Endless Setlist remains Endless. Boo on you bad UI programmer. Boo on you.

Saturday involved a nice evening spent up in Albany, wherein there were exquisitely good lamb bits, a honey saffron aioli, and my first attempt back into gourmet cooking in quite some time. There were fresh cherries. Somehow it came out that one of our hosts had a serious weak spot for Bananas Foster, which I've made before in my way distant past. One good poke onto the Internet, one recipe for Cherries Jubilee, and I'm in the kitchen going to town. Came out famously well, even if my flambe was mostly a failure. I couldn't get it to catch and stay caught - probably not enough kirsch, or slightly too high a temp on the gas stove to keep it lit up.

I'm tired, and I'm in information-overload at work as I try to come up to speed on a complex architecture, knowing just this side of none of the people involved and having to network across 1000 miles with people I've never even met, much less know their names to know exactly what they do and why they're important to what I'm doing.

</deepbreath>

I think I need the weekend to be here sooner than in 90 minutes. I also need the bursitis in my hip to stop flaring up on me and go back under control, and my recurring back pain to give me a few days off for good behavior. There's other unlisted frustrations that have nothing to do with work, which are still not blog-fodder. Those of you who want to email me are free to do so, and I may or may not be willing to discuss.

Anyone who's bored this evening, I might be up for something.

I'm so geeky, it's a crime.

As part of my job, I signed up for Facebook and Twitter (you can do the math to conclude what you think my job has to do with either of these, and I'll neither confirm nor deny your conclusions).

dnasquared on Twitter
dnasquared on Facebook

I make no guarantees that I'll be paying a damn whit of attention to either. You have been warned.

Started new job last Monday. Found a minefield worth of problems, making me wish I'd been around 3 months ago when I could've sidestepped it, but there's really nothing for it.

Given that I'm still at Microsoft (albeit at Danger, a wholly owned subsidiary based in Palo Alto), I still have access to the company store, which resets on June 30th my allocation of stuff I can buy for the year.

So if you want MS stuff, find me soon so I can fit it into this year instead of next.

On the silly WOW front, killed Yogg-10 a couple weeks back, Yogg-25 remains old instead of dead. Done a few hard modes in 10's (2 tower Flame Leviathan, quick Ignis kill, quick Razorscale kill, heartbreaker kill on deconstructor, quick kill on Hodir, Sif on Thorim).

Feeling relieved about having a job, feeling meh in general and still somewhat overstressed by other things I'm not discussing here just yet. If you want to visit me for lunch near Palo Alto, drop me a line. Cho's is within walking distance.

For posting this (XKCD for the remarkably bad pun):

It's out on DVD.

You don't have to buy it. In fact, you probably shouldn't buy it. It's like a couple of drunk drama/music students in college got together on a drug-fueled binge of bad music, worse lyrics, and a plot that the average 12-year old would find offensively bad.

And I never thought I'd say this: Tony Head cannot save this movie.

It fails even on the Rocky Horror unintentional comedy scale, because it fails to find the camp where it desperately needs it. Apparently there are special features. And a stage version of this. And a sequel in the works, without Tony Head, who was the one redeeming thing about the movie.

Le sigh. I had such high hopes, and they were dashed so viciously. Perhaps with the right group of friends, enough booze, and enough time to consider how to properly MST3K the movie, it might be entertainment.

But I doubt it.

Read this. Using cellulose as the feedstock instead of corn/starch/sugar, and getting a net of nearly 57% of the theoretical conversion from cellulose to a feedstock which is suitable for making plastics and the like, in a single step, with basically reusable materials.

I want stock in the company that leverages this, as it looks like a winner. It's not a fuel substitute, but it is a substitute for using petroleum in plastics manufacture.