Sunday, September 30, 2007
E. Olah Virus
I tried to resist it as much as I could, even sleeping for 12 hours on friday night hoping to fight off it's unwavering hold. Too bad all that sleep was just setting me up for the all nighter that was to follow. My friend Norm was back in Houston for a couple days attending his 10 year HS reunion...(Has it been THAT long already???!!!!!). He had some spare time on saturday and much like old times, we decided to spend that time catching up. I brought the E. Olah virus along, thinking maybe we can just spend a little bit of time playing it before his reunion. Well....the virus was much more infectious that I thought and even with reunion time coming around, Norm only took a brief moment to get dressed...before coming back for more. It didn't end there, as after his reunion, he came over at 2 am in the morning, and Catnipped, he, and I tried a couple of more rounds. Catnipped couldn't handle it and had to sleep. This would have been a good time to stop, but we kept going until 7:30 am....then I woke up at 11:30 and kept going. Damn you Bungie and MS!!!!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Almost as good
While the winners of the tailgate contest got these nice shiny trophies, I got something infinitely more practical. The CIO was so impressed by our performance, that he decided to buy all team members a $15 Starbucks certificate... Seeing as how I don't drink coffee, I am not particularly sure what I will get. Even if I did drink it, I don't think $15 is enough to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. What's it at now? Your left kidney for a coffee?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tired? Sleepy? Grab yourself some PowerMax®
Today was the tailgating contest and Team PowerMax totally dominated.
Our food menu consisted of steak fajitas, chicken taquitos, and cream cheese tortilla rolls. The gimic was the meat and tortillas were all red in color to match our theme. Our secret weapon was PowerMax® brand drink. It was this awesome mysterious red drink which we claimed "Gives you energy for the whole day." We used plastic shot glasses with the selling slogan being "Here, Give it a Shot!" Some common questions asked when approached to try out PowerMax®.
Q: What is this stuff?
A: It's PowerMax®
Q: What is in it?
A: Power to the Max
Q: No really, what's in it?
A: Some Brazillian stuff.
At this point, usually they get curious and take a drink. I was manning the PowerMax® station and noticed several people sneaking multiple shots. Alas, we did not win. We lost the food contest to this team that had shrimp cocktail and a chocolate fountain. Who the heck brings a chocolate fountain to a TAILGATING party!!!?? On the plus side, they did have this really cute asian girl in a referee costume... We lost the theme contest to people dressed like pirates. Well, the costumes really weren't pirate costumes. They basically wore something more like linen with cutlass props. They didn't EVEN talk like pirates. But today being National Talk like a Pirate Day, I suppose it was destiny or something.
I think next year, our theme will be ninjas, and we will just eliminate all the other teams before the competition begins. We can claim it was merely "following our theme" Our food can consist of rice balls that poison people, leading to easy stealth kills.
Our food menu consisted of steak fajitas, chicken taquitos, and cream cheese tortilla rolls. The gimic was the meat and tortillas were all red in color to match our theme. Our secret weapon was PowerMax® brand drink. It was this awesome mysterious red drink which we claimed "Gives you energy for the whole day." We used plastic shot glasses with the selling slogan being "Here, Give it a Shot!" Some common questions asked when approached to try out PowerMax®.
Q: What is this stuff?
A: It's PowerMax®
Q: What is in it?
A: Power to the Max
Q: No really, what's in it?
A: Some Brazillian stuff.
At this point, usually they get curious and take a drink. I was manning the PowerMax® station and noticed several people sneaking multiple shots. Alas, we did not win. We lost the food contest to this team that had shrimp cocktail and a chocolate fountain. Who the heck brings a chocolate fountain to a TAILGATING party!!!?? On the plus side, they did have this really cute asian girl in a referee costume... We lost the theme contest to people dressed like pirates. Well, the costumes really weren't pirate costumes. They basically wore something more like linen with cutlass props. They didn't EVEN talk like pirates. But today being National Talk like a Pirate Day, I suppose it was destiny or something.
I think next year, our theme will be ninjas, and we will just eliminate all the other teams before the competition begins. We can claim it was merely "following our theme" Our food can consist of rice balls that poison people, leading to easy stealth kills.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Tech discussion?
Had a Tech discussion session today as a part of some requirement. I thought it was one of these serious talks where someone actually has a presentation about data security or some stuff like that. I was about to take my portfolio, since it was padded and could masquerade as a pillow in that darkened room. When I got there, there wasn't a discussion at all... Just a bunch of ice cream lying around for people to eat. So everyone just grabbed some ice cream, chatted about the Texans/life/kids/etc etc, and went back to their offices. Dang, why can't all meetings just turn out to be excuses for everyone to eat ice cream.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Team PowerMax
Next Wednesday, the company is having a Tailgating competition. While traditionally, this is an activity conducted outdoors involving numerous BBQ pits, the tailgating for this event will be done indoors. Our team was "voluntarily" signed up by the new team lead who believes this is an excellent teambuilding event. Apparently, he and some other team members agnonized for weeks to come up with a name and appropriate theme. One especially interesting one was team Hurricane. We planned to have giant fans and mist machines to simulate a small hurricane at our booth. Someone also suggested we all dress up like Katrina refugees....Luckily, that idea fell through in favor of a more politically correct, yet equally as "interesting" concept. Our new team name?? Team PowerMax. I should have suggest Team: Solarixx or something...Did I mention that our official decal is going to be this tachometer displaying the needle in the red section with a motto : To The Max!!!
Our theme color is Red because it's totally to the max. I mockingly suggested I should bring in some pig's blood with tofu since it's also red, but they took me seriously!! After convincing them that I actually had no clue how to make it, I was given the task of buying enough red tortillas to feed 300 people. Totally to the max.
Our theme color is Red because it's totally to the max. I mockingly suggested I should bring in some pig's blood with tofu since it's also red, but they took me seriously!! After convincing them that I actually had no clue how to make it, I was given the task of buying enough red tortillas to feed 300 people. Totally to the max.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Upgrading
While I wish I could have just awakened my old computer to make it more powerful, the prospect of its wanting to eat human guts outweighed the benefits. So, I got a new computer. Most of you already know, but for those who don't, here are the specs:
CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz: Pretty good CPU, not the top of the line, but it's pretty close.
Motherboard: EVGA 122-CK-NF67-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI: Originally, I had chosen an Intel board, but it does not support SLI (does support crossfire).
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800: My previous machine only had 1 gig of ram. It took forever to "verify client data' during BF2 matches, easily meaning the difference between successfully taking airfield and being farmed by J-10s. This deal was too good to pass up, 2 gigs of ram for $71.00 ($40 mail in rebate)!!
Video Cards: 2x MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600GTS 256MB: This is probably going overboard, but I just wanted to try out SLI. Ever since I heard about it, I was curious as to how much better it was over 1 card. Time to find out!
Hard Drive: SAMSUNG SpinPoint 400GB 7200RPM SATA: 400 gigs should be more than enough for whatever I need.
Case: Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX: I originally had chosen a Lian-Li case but Lemon had some doubts as to if there was enough room in it to fit 2 video cards so I upgraded. I really like this case, it comes with screwless drive rails, and backplates. Almost every part detaches for ease of installation. On nitpick is that the motherboard tray doesn't come out but it didn't make the installation any tougher.
Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W PS: With SLI, I was pretty sure I needed something greater than 500. This one wasn't as expensive as the other power supplies, but it received very favorable reviews.
Monitors: 2x ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q20WB Black 20" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD: While I may have had a semi-legitimate reason for SLI, these 2 monitors were just completely frivolous. I really have no excuse as to why I got 2, other than the fact that I like 2 monitors.
Other random stuff: Generic Floppy, Black NEC DVDR
The total price tag including shipping came out to be just a bit under $1,700. Assuming I get all my mail in rebates ($200), the total price is: $1,500. I probably could have gotten some items cheaper if I shopped around a bit more, but I think it's not too bad. My hope is that this computer will last another 4 years or so like my last one.
CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz: Pretty good CPU, not the top of the line, but it's pretty close.
Motherboard: EVGA 122-CK-NF67-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI: Originally, I had chosen an Intel board, but it does not support SLI (does support crossfire).
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800: My previous machine only had 1 gig of ram. It took forever to "verify client data' during BF2 matches, easily meaning the difference between successfully taking airfield and being farmed by J-10s. This deal was too good to pass up, 2 gigs of ram for $71.00 ($40 mail in rebate)!!
Video Cards: 2x MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600GTS 256MB: This is probably going overboard, but I just wanted to try out SLI. Ever since I heard about it, I was curious as to how much better it was over 1 card. Time to find out!
Hard Drive: SAMSUNG SpinPoint 400GB 7200RPM SATA: 400 gigs should be more than enough for whatever I need.
Case: Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX: I originally had chosen a Lian-Li case but Lemon had some doubts as to if there was enough room in it to fit 2 video cards so I upgraded. I really like this case, it comes with screwless drive rails, and backplates. Almost every part detaches for ease of installation. On nitpick is that the motherboard tray doesn't come out but it didn't make the installation any tougher.
Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W PS: With SLI, I was pretty sure I needed something greater than 500. This one wasn't as expensive as the other power supplies, but it received very favorable reviews.
Monitors: 2x ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q20WB Black 20" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD: While I may have had a semi-legitimate reason for SLI, these 2 monitors were just completely frivolous. I really have no excuse as to why I got 2, other than the fact that I like 2 monitors.
Other random stuff: Generic Floppy, Black NEC DVDR
The total price tag including shipping came out to be just a bit under $1,700. Assuming I get all my mail in rebates ($200), the total price is: $1,500. I probably could have gotten some items cheaper if I shopped around a bit more, but I think it's not too bad. My hope is that this computer will last another 4 years or so like my last one.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The only truly effective weapon against Chopperwhores
SRAW? Stinger? IGLA? These are merely distracts for the dedicated BF2 chopperwhore. How can these fiendish beings be stopped? Is there no hope for the ground-pounders? Our wishes have come true!!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Only you can prevent maximo fires
To the smart aleck who designed Maximo and made the field sizes non-editable without some use of an expensive tool. I hope you spend an eternity in hell trying to resize a stupid window from 8 to 15 characters!!!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Take me out to the Ballgame
Take me out to the fire? Today was supposed to be the company Astros game. Dynegy bought out this huge section of tickets and we were all supposed to leave at 12 noon to go to the game. We did a password change on our main production server last night, simple right? Nope, some morons who wrote the reports decided to hardcode in the passwords because apparently, passwords NEVER change. Long story short, about 90% of the reports (~320) stopped working and our team has to spend rest of day removing all of the hardcoded passwords while the rest of the office heads out to the game. Woot!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Veg Out 2 Final
Day 5: Monday
Relaxed for the first half of the day and ate the leftovers from SiChuan and Purple Dot for lunch. We then went out to the Locks to observe some of the history of Seattle, however, we also learned some intimate details about the migratory habits of salmon. Normally, salmon have to jump out of the water upstream in order to reach their spawning grounds. Apparently, these domesticated salmon have grown lazy and are now spoiled by a series of fish ladders that serve as an escalator of sorts to help the salmon reach the top.
After a dinner of Korean BBQ with Snoopy, our newly dubbed "Asian Persuasion" team participated in Trivia night at a local Irish/Cajun Pub. The categories ranged form Tom Hanks to animals that start with "I" (I'll never forget Night of the Iguana for sure...). I swear "Who killed Grandma" is just a synonym for "The Ladykillers!!!" They even had a question about the song "Me and Bobby McGee," a song that we NEVER EVER sang but just so happened to be on Karaoke Revolution. I remember BluPnuMM making some snide remark when she got that song for her random last performance during a knockout round. Can't believe that came back to haunt us. Asian Persuasion sadly came in second to last. Some guy played a one man team and got last place JUST to deny us of our $1 pitcher of beer.
Overall Veg Out II was an awesome experience. We even managed to plan out Veg Out III. A New Years rendezvous in Whistler, BC, CAN for some skiing. This time round, Grapes, mysteriously absent from Veg Outs I and II, will be joining us as well as Catnipped's friend Snoopy.
Relaxed for the first half of the day and ate the leftovers from SiChuan and Purple Dot for lunch. We then went out to the Locks to observe some of the history of Seattle, however, we also learned some intimate details about the migratory habits of salmon. Normally, salmon have to jump out of the water upstream in order to reach their spawning grounds. Apparently, these domesticated salmon have grown lazy and are now spoiled by a series of fish ladders that serve as an escalator of sorts to help the salmon reach the top.
After a dinner of Korean BBQ with Snoopy, our newly dubbed "Asian Persuasion" team participated in Trivia night at a local Irish/Cajun Pub. The categories ranged form Tom Hanks to animals that start with "I" (I'll never forget Night of the Iguana for sure...). I swear "Who killed Grandma" is just a synonym for "The Ladykillers!!!" They even had a question about the song "Me and Bobby McGee," a song that we NEVER EVER sang but just so happened to be on Karaoke Revolution. I remember BluPnuMM making some snide remark when she got that song for her random last performance during a knockout round. Can't believe that came back to haunt us. Asian Persuasion sadly came in second to last. Some guy played a one man team and got last place JUST to deny us of our $1 pitcher of beer.
Overall Veg Out II was an awesome experience. We even managed to plan out Veg Out III. A New Years rendezvous in Whistler, BC, CAN for some skiing. This time round, Grapes, mysteriously absent from Veg Outs I and II, will be joining us as well as Catnipped's friend Snoopy.
Veg Out 2 Cont.
Day 3: Saturday
Saturday started with our going on the Experience Music Project (EMP). They had special stations where you could learn to play different instruments, mix in your own effects, and even create your own music CD. My awesome hip-hop version of Chopsticks will surely live forever in the annals of music history. They also had this exhibit where you pretend that you are a band and played on stage in front of a huge audience. Our song of choice was Wild Thing. I feel we roxxored their boxxors and made the $60 admission fee well worth it for the audience. After a quick lunch of mostly fish and chips, we made our way back to PAX for Lemon's Guitar Hero 2 tournament. Apparently, this tournament was huge as they probably had 225 people signed up to play in it. Lemon had to wait in a huge long line just to play. While Lemon waited, the rest of us decided to check out some more of the booths in the exhibition hall. I had a small run-in with a lady at the American Army booth, so we decided to wait in the Rock Band line to get a shot at playing on stage. We were almost at the end of the line when we got a call from Lemon saying he was knocked out of the tournament. This ended up being a good thing, as without Lemon, our performance would have been lackluster at best. Our rendition of Wanted: Dead or Alive was so awesome that we got the entire crowd singing along! This is mostly because Lemon was totally awesome and carried the whole band with his singing!! After our second performance of the day, they Veggie crew took in some random PC free-play (World in Conflict seems really fun) and also learned that the BF2 team that had beaten us the previous night came in second place. After Lemon owned us all at Castle Crashers and took our Axes AND the Princess, we retired from PAX to have dinner at Z'Tejas. This place has the best corn bread and I think our entire dinner consisted of 3 appetizers and about 4 whole cornbread cakes. I actually ordered a fifth one just to take home! I think there was also some wailing to Karaoke Revolution afterwards, leading to no sleep for the neighbors, I am sure.
Day 4: Sunday
Today was a relax day. In the morning, we played some 2v3 tennis. Lemon seemed to have a strange affinity for the tennis ball as no matter where he stood, the ball just had a knack of finding him. Afterwards, we had lunch at a SiChuan Chinese place specializing in spicy cuisine. We ordered 4 spicy dishes at medium spice, and 1 non-spicy vegetable dish. Even at medium, the food still required the consumption of massive amounts of rice to drown out the spiciness. The food was very good although we ended up with a lot of leftovers again. After lunch, there was a visit to Sees Candies where jOrange picked up some boxed chocolates, and both Catnipped and Kira joined the "Dark Side." jOrange had to leave to go back home later in the afternoon.
Later that night, we hosted a poker night since Lemon had brought a nice poker set with real ceramic chips and all. Catnipped invited 3 of her friends to join but one of them had to work because deadlines were coming up. Min's friend, Snoopy, was incredibly lucky thanks to a fortune cookie that said something like "Good fortune will find you, a promotion will follow." She was absolutely ruthless and after proclaiming to Catnipped that she "helped her with everything," she took all of Catnipped's chips! Yes...helped myself to her chips is more like it! It was just downhill from there as the Veggies were knocked out one after another with Lemon making a valiant last stand.
Saturday started with our going on the Experience Music Project (EMP). They had special stations where you could learn to play different instruments, mix in your own effects, and even create your own music CD. My awesome hip-hop version of Chopsticks will surely live forever in the annals of music history. They also had this exhibit where you pretend that you are a band and played on stage in front of a huge audience. Our song of choice was Wild Thing. I feel we roxxored their boxxors and made the $60 admission fee well worth it for the audience. After a quick lunch of mostly fish and chips, we made our way back to PAX for Lemon's Guitar Hero 2 tournament. Apparently, this tournament was huge as they probably had 225 people signed up to play in it. Lemon had to wait in a huge long line just to play. While Lemon waited, the rest of us decided to check out some more of the booths in the exhibition hall. I had a small run-in with a lady at the American Army booth, so we decided to wait in the Rock Band line to get a shot at playing on stage. We were almost at the end of the line when we got a call from Lemon saying he was knocked out of the tournament. This ended up being a good thing, as without Lemon, our performance would have been lackluster at best. Our rendition of Wanted: Dead or Alive was so awesome that we got the entire crowd singing along! This is mostly because Lemon was totally awesome and carried the whole band with his singing!! After our second performance of the day, they Veggie crew took in some random PC free-play (World in Conflict seems really fun) and also learned that the BF2 team that had beaten us the previous night came in second place. After Lemon owned us all at Castle Crashers and took our Axes AND the Princess, we retired from PAX to have dinner at Z'Tejas. This place has the best corn bread and I think our entire dinner consisted of 3 appetizers and about 4 whole cornbread cakes. I actually ordered a fifth one just to take home! I think there was also some wailing to Karaoke Revolution afterwards, leading to no sleep for the neighbors, I am sure.
Day 4: Sunday
Today was a relax day. In the morning, we played some 2v3 tennis. Lemon seemed to have a strange affinity for the tennis ball as no matter where he stood, the ball just had a knack of finding him. Afterwards, we had lunch at a SiChuan Chinese place specializing in spicy cuisine. We ordered 4 spicy dishes at medium spice, and 1 non-spicy vegetable dish. Even at medium, the food still required the consumption of massive amounts of rice to drown out the spiciness. The food was very good although we ended up with a lot of leftovers again. After lunch, there was a visit to Sees Candies where jOrange picked up some boxed chocolates, and both Catnipped and Kira joined the "Dark Side." jOrange had to leave to go back home later in the afternoon.
Later that night, we hosted a poker night since Lemon had brought a nice poker set with real ceramic chips and all. Catnipped invited 3 of her friends to join but one of them had to work because deadlines were coming up. Min's friend, Snoopy, was incredibly lucky thanks to a fortune cookie that said something like "Good fortune will find you, a promotion will follow." She was absolutely ruthless and after proclaiming to Catnipped that she "helped her with everything," she took all of Catnipped's chips! Yes...helped myself to her chips is more like it! It was just downhill from there as the Veggies were knocked out one after another with Lemon making a valiant last stand.
Veg Out 2
Veg Out 2 was awesome. We did a smorgasbord of different activities and had a great time.
Day 1: Thursday
Today, Kira and I flew into Seattle. Lemon and Jorange went camping earlier and so were already at Catnipped's house. After a conveyor sushi lunch, we proceeded to the Underground Tour and Pike's Fish Market. It didn't really seem like many people were actually buying fish; rather, they were all doing touristy things. One rogue crawfish managed to give his own rendition of Homeward Bound, but he was quickly snatched up by a worker and returned to the holding pen. Dinner was at Saltys, a pretty upscale seafood restaurant with an awesome view. The waiter there seemed not so attentive and tried to mask his ineptitude by giving a long, bloated description of what they had on the menu even though by this time, we had all made our choices. I also almost choked to death on a seed in the lemonade. Good times!
Day 2: Friday
First day of PAX! Catnipped had to drop off M at the airport. M was evicted by Catnipped for the weekend so there would be enough space around the house for us to board. Afterwards, we hurried to PAX. We caught a quick lunch at Subway and picked up our PAX gift bags. Our first order of duty afterwards was to sign up for the two tournaments we would partake in: 6v6 Battlefield 2 and Guitar Hero 2 solo play. Guitar Hero 2 was done very easily as they started the console sign-ups about 15 min before they opened the doors to the public. The PC sign-up proved much more difficult because for some reason, we had to gain entrance to PAX first before we could sign up. We eventually had to wait in the LONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG line of about 30,000 people to get into PAX. The theme of PAX seemed to be waiting in line as most of the good booths/panels had huge long lines. The sign-up for the BF2 tournament required full 6-member teams but we only had 4. Luckily, we found two people who were also looking to participate (Thank you Mike and Brian!) and signed up with them as Team Um... We were able to sign up for our tournament, take in a bit of the exhibition hall, check out the keynote speaker, and take in the Tycho/Gabe panel. The keynote speaker was Wil Wheaton and he had an amazing speech that got the whole crowd of about 8,000 people cheering. We wanted to get some pizza for dinner, but because of the vast amount of people, the restaurant had no pizza left by the time we were in line. Luckily, there was a little cafe around the corner with some fresh sandwiches. The time for the BF2 tournament came around and after a delay of about 1.5 hours to get everyone situated and Ventrilo working, the tournament finally started. The first map up was 16-player Dragon Valley After an intense first battle with our first opponent (W17-0), we completely steamrolled them the second game (W81-0). Second map was 16-player Dalian plant. This totally sucked for us as we ran into the team that had won the event the past 2 years AND we had no reliable chopper team. We lost both games rather embarrassingly without even pushing them the slightest bit. However, we can extrapolate and say that since we made the semi-quarter finals, we were at least better than half the people in the whole world at BF2!!
The day ended with our dining at a Chinese restaurant called Purple Dot. Catnipped referred to this place as having a picture of "Yoshi" on the front although it looked nothing like it. They gave out rather large portions, and we had a huge amount of leftovers. All in all, a great day!
Day 1: Thursday
Today, Kira and I flew into Seattle. Lemon and Jorange went camping earlier and so were already at Catnipped's house. After a conveyor sushi lunch, we proceeded to the Underground Tour and Pike's Fish Market. It didn't really seem like many people were actually buying fish; rather, they were all doing touristy things. One rogue crawfish managed to give his own rendition of Homeward Bound, but he was quickly snatched up by a worker and returned to the holding pen. Dinner was at Saltys, a pretty upscale seafood restaurant with an awesome view. The waiter there seemed not so attentive and tried to mask his ineptitude by giving a long, bloated description of what they had on the menu even though by this time, we had all made our choices. I also almost choked to death on a seed in the lemonade. Good times!
Day 2: Friday
First day of PAX! Catnipped had to drop off M at the airport. M was evicted by Catnipped for the weekend so there would be enough space around the house for us to board. Afterwards, we hurried to PAX. We caught a quick lunch at Subway and picked up our PAX gift bags. Our first order of duty afterwards was to sign up for the two tournaments we would partake in: 6v6 Battlefield 2 and Guitar Hero 2 solo play. Guitar Hero 2 was done very easily as they started the console sign-ups about 15 min before they opened the doors to the public. The PC sign-up proved much more difficult because for some reason, we had to gain entrance to PAX first before we could sign up. We eventually had to wait in the LONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG line of about 30,000 people to get into PAX. The theme of PAX seemed to be waiting in line as most of the good booths/panels had huge long lines. The sign-up for the BF2 tournament required full 6-member teams but we only had 4. Luckily, we found two people who were also looking to participate (Thank you Mike and Brian!) and signed up with them as Team Um... We were able to sign up for our tournament, take in a bit of the exhibition hall, check out the keynote speaker, and take in the Tycho/Gabe panel. The keynote speaker was Wil Wheaton and he had an amazing speech that got the whole crowd of about 8,000 people cheering. We wanted to get some pizza for dinner, but because of the vast amount of people, the restaurant had no pizza left by the time we were in line. Luckily, there was a little cafe around the corner with some fresh sandwiches. The time for the BF2 tournament came around and after a delay of about 1.5 hours to get everyone situated and Ventrilo working, the tournament finally started. The first map up was 16-player Dragon Valley After an intense first battle with our first opponent (W17-0), we completely steamrolled them the second game (W81-0). Second map was 16-player Dalian plant. This totally sucked for us as we ran into the team that had won the event the past 2 years AND we had no reliable chopper team. We lost both games rather embarrassingly without even pushing them the slightest bit. However, we can extrapolate and say that since we made the semi-quarter finals, we were at least better than half the people in the whole world at BF2!!
The day ended with our dining at a Chinese restaurant called Purple Dot. Catnipped referred to this place as having a picture of "Yoshi" on the front although it looked nothing like it. They gave out rather large portions, and we had a huge amount of leftovers. All in all, a great day!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Best Place Evah!!!
Today saw the demonstration of Accenture's 6 core values. The presenters today were a lot more energetic than the ones yesterday, and there were many more group activities which made the day pass by much faster. The first presenter set the stage by going over One Global Network and explained how he has worked at many places including Da Lian. Ahh, the joys of Dalian Plant in BF2. So many tanks, annoying jets, helicopters...a great place for infantry. That set the tone for the rest of the day.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Accenture is the Best Place
Today was the first day of Accenture Orientation. I went in with the sense that perhaps there would be some corporate coercion afoot but I wasn't fully prepared for it all. First sign was that all the books and periodicals available for reading in the waiting room were all Accenturefied. They had the annotated history of Accenture, Accenture stock reports, and some other magazines. I finally see a copy of Newsweek, ah, something pure. But I notice that the cover is conveniently covered up by a special Accenture cover featuring Tiger Woods. I flip through it and every other page was an ad for Accenture. The orientation lady came in and I halfway expected her to ask "So, How Awesome is Accenture??"
We went into the conference room and they started going over all the important stuff like the history of Accenture and how awesome the founders were followed by a description of Accenture's Vision and Mission. It would have been all over for me, except I noticed the presenter's name was Hyman! Instantly I started thinking about BF2 and assaulting the TV station on Sharqi Peninsula with the overpowered MEC chopper. Ahh, good old BF2, you came through again!
The rest of the day passed by with various presentations on benefits/PTO/401K/Business Ethics. The ethics part was the best as they presented us with several ludicrously easy scenarios to discuss. I suggested taking the bribe, double charging the plane ticket, and making illegal stock transactions but was shouted down by my fellow coworkers. Obviously, they need to play more BF2!!!!
Overall, Accenture seems like a very good company to work at and despite the sarcastic post, I think it's a good fit.
We went into the conference room and they started going over all the important stuff like the history of Accenture and how awesome the founders were followed by a description of Accenture's Vision and Mission. It would have been all over for me, except I noticed the presenter's name was Hyman! Instantly I started thinking about BF2 and assaulting the TV station on Sharqi Peninsula with the overpowered MEC chopper. Ahh, good old BF2, you came through again!
The rest of the day passed by with various presentations on benefits/PTO/401K/Business Ethics. The ethics part was the best as they presented us with several ludicrously easy scenarios to discuss. I suggested taking the bribe, double charging the plane ticket, and making illegal stock transactions but was shouted down by my fellow coworkers. Obviously, they need to play more BF2!!!!
Overall, Accenture seems like a very good company to work at and despite the sarcastic post, I think it's a good fit.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Politics
At my old company, there was no such thing as office politics or office drama because well...there were only 5 people there in total. My team here already has 8 people and another 5 or 6 supporting people. Recently, we got two new people. The first one is a ex-marine who tells all kinds of stories about his time travelling in multiple different countries. For instance, he told us about his travels in Nigeria with his own roving band of bodyguards.
These Nigerian bodyguards were merciless. Supposedly, once when he was stuck in traffic, his bodyguards got out, ran to the front to see what the problem was, and very soon after, traffic was moving quickly again. How did they get the traffic moving? According to the marine, they had went to the front, found out who was causing it, shot the people responsible, then directed the traffic to get it moving again. Also, arguments don't end until one of the parties is dead. That's how they settled things in Nigeria. He was also showing us videos of this minigun mount on the back of a suburban. Just imagine how much less annoying morning rush hour would be.
The second guy is totally different. He's just this normal guy, mostly an intellectual and not at all as outspoken as the ex-marine. These two have basically by jostling all week and sizing each other up. Office drama, here we come!!
These Nigerian bodyguards were merciless. Supposedly, once when he was stuck in traffic, his bodyguards got out, ran to the front to see what the problem was, and very soon after, traffic was moving quickly again. How did they get the traffic moving? According to the marine, they had went to the front, found out who was causing it, shot the people responsible, then directed the traffic to get it moving again. Also, arguments don't end until one of the parties is dead. That's how they settled things in Nigeria. He was also showing us videos of this minigun mount on the back of a suburban. Just imagine how much less annoying morning rush hour would be.
The second guy is totally different. He's just this normal guy, mostly an intellectual and not at all as outspoken as the ex-marine. These two have basically by jostling all week and sizing each other up. Office drama, here we come!!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Office Birthdays Part: 2
Today was the monthly birthday celebration here. Remember that last time, it was pretty cheesy with only a handful of people showing up to get some pretzels. Well, this time, the head HR person decided that instead of providing the food, they would hold a dessert taste-off. Basically, anyone who wanted to enter would bring their favorite dessert to share while 3 mysterious judges would decide on who wins. The first thought in my mind was, dang, they are so cheap, instead of providing the food for the birthday, they will just make the office people bring in food in the disguise of some contest.
2 o'clock rolled around and I head to the room not really expecting to be surprised. Well...I was totally surprised. There were SOOOO many yummy dessert things on display. From bite-sized chocolates, to custard pie, to strawberry cheesecake, to this strange cottage cheese mix, everything was home made! There were enough desserts to fill up an entire conference table. HR provided some default chocolate cake and some rice crispies squares just in case no one brought anything. My personal favorite has to be the bite sized pretzels. They had a little bit of caramel used to hold a chocolate covered pecan in place on the pretzel. The biggest question running through my head was, how would Faalena's cookies stack up to these others?? I have tasted the rest, but the taste of the cookies seem to be fading from my mind. I think I need a refresher!! Shameless attempt to extort some cookies!!!
Update: Seems like the chocolate cheesecake was the winner. The pretzel things (known as Poor man's Turtle) was a runner up.
2 o'clock rolled around and I head to the room not really expecting to be surprised. Well...I was totally surprised. There were SOOOO many yummy dessert things on display. From bite-sized chocolates, to custard pie, to strawberry cheesecake, to this strange cottage cheese mix, everything was home made! There were enough desserts to fill up an entire conference table. HR provided some default chocolate cake and some rice crispies squares just in case no one brought anything. My personal favorite has to be the bite sized pretzels. They had a little bit of caramel used to hold a chocolate covered pecan in place on the pretzel. The biggest question running through my head was, how would Faalena's cookies stack up to these others?? I have tasted the rest, but the taste of the cookies seem to be fading from my mind. I think I need a refresher!! Shameless attempt to extort some cookies!!!
Update: Seems like the chocolate cheesecake was the winner. The pretzel things (known as Poor man's Turtle) was a runner up.
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