yahooza | blog

Kissing the bottle.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:46:07 PDT

I'm not into lyrics, but listening to this Jawbreaker song made me grin a little.

It gets loneliest at night
Down at the liquor store
Beneath the neon sky
Our moonlight
Six a.m. the floor comes alive with lice
The pan's dried up so tight
With hardened beans
We're hungry
So I lean on you sometimes
Just to see you're still there
Your feet can't take the weight of one
Much less two
We hit concrete
How were we born into this mess?
I know I painted you a prettier picture, baby
But we were run out on a rail
Fell from the wagon to the night train

I kissed the bottle
I should've been kissing you
You wake up to an empty night
With tears for two

Cigarettes they fill the gaps
In our empty days
In our broken teeth
We're jonesing
Say mister, can you spare a dime?
Some change could make a change
Could buy some time
Some freedom
Or an ear to hear my story
It's all I've got
My fiction beats the hell out of my truth
A palm upturned burnt blue
Don't call it sunburn
You've been shaking on the job
Just one drink ahead of your past
There's a white light coming up
You draw the blinds hoping it'll pass

I kissed the bottle
I should've been kissin you
You wake up to an empty night
With tears for two

Which Dollhouse Character Are You?

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:54:39 PDT

i know it's cheesy:
http://www.buddytv.com/closedquiz/closed-quiz.aspx?quiz=143

More on Dollhouse. Created by BuddyTV

friendly words.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:08:28 PDT

yeah, i know a lot of ppl and horde a plethora of Facebook friends, but the ones i trust and love most are the ones that would brawl with me even if i were wrong. i miss those wankers.

We just are.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:22:08 PDT

"I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."

—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Topless Robot presents: This Is Why No One Wants to Fight Dr. Manhattan

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:33:39 PDT

Too funny.

- http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/03/this_is_why_no_one_wants_to_fight_dr_manhattan.php

was Kovacs, now Rorschach

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:07:12 PST

Rorschach:

"Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.

This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.

Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world."

Quality, not quantity

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:35:57 PST

Caterina has a nice blog post on singletasking and work.

I am a big proponent of this philosophy. When you try to do everything, you accomplish 80% of you goals, because there is a finite amount of time and the ability to focus. Whether you're in a fast-paced startup or wading through the big-company project of fail, it's easy to lose focus on delivering something concisely awesome and over-deliver and overwhelm w/ lots of half-assed, hacked-up crap.

Scatterbrain process leads to scatterbrain products. It does a lot of a little for someone .... maybe.

Money tricks + $18 billion in bonuses to banking execs

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:20:27 PST

- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/nyregion/31bonuses.html?_r=1

"On Main Street, 'bonus' sounds like a gift," he said. "But it’s part of the compensation structure of Wall Street. Say I’m a banker and I created $30 million. I should get a part of that."

Do you mean the imaginary $30 million that evaporated w/ the bear market?

I've repeatedly advised friends: Until you're liquid and can spend to your delight, paper wealth is worth the crap it's printed on. After watching the dot-com bubble crash, real estate equity tank and now retirement accounts and the financial markets melt, I have the right to be cynical =)

everyone's just trying to get theirs? wouldn't you? shouldn't you?

Watchin' the Watchmen

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:13:21 PST

Coming soon. I can't wait.

My first job as a web developer

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:40:47 PST

I first worked as a web developer at Four Points Digital in Chicago.

Reminds me of the prom I never went to ....

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:20:08 PST

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Michelle Obama and Beyonce both looked gorgeous. Jungle fever, anyone?

I am reminded of how wonderful life can be. yay for humankind! The spirit of togetherness and empathy can triumph over greed and ideologies!

Smokin' secession

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:42:35 PST

A Raptr co-worker and I are beginning our "Biggest Loser Smoker" challenge next Monday.

Here's how the competition goes:

There's a central pot o' gold.
Everyone starts contributing to the pot on day one, starting at $7, decrementing each day. At the end of 7 days, contributions are nil.
If a participant falls off the wagon, he pays $5 to the pot and resets to the $7 contribution, decrementing $1 each day as before.
Winner takes all at the end (whenever that may be)

Bring it!

Looking back, resolutions and all that malarcky

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:08:48 PST

2008 has been a darlin' year. As I continue the journey to middle age, the number of look-back regrets has dropped to zero. That's a good thing, as it's a personal barometer of success—less failures.

The best time is the eight weeks time-off in the early spring. I flew to Chicago for a week, relying on m' legs, friends' generosity and public transportation, including the train and BART to and from the airport. Kind of a hassle, yet really fun. I'm planning to do the same in spring 2009, after all that snow melts.

In the same period, I exercised daily—shooting hoops and swimming—and letting go a little of the Silicon Valley Developer Bee madness; it's a bipolar thing: I love the excitement of new technologies, but I hate it for consuming / absorbing a lot of everything else.

This year, I completed six months of independent consulting (actually four: see aforementioned time-off above), before joining Raptr in July. Contracting was fun, but not my cup of tea. The jobs are transient and the benefits are lacking—almost ten whole months w/o health insurance, can you believe it?

Another '08 mark of success has to be m' relationship w/ mom. We didn't fight as much nor did we engage in an epic battle. It has taken five years of progressive patience and understanding and it's a whole better =)

This year also marked a big milestone in m' arch-nemesis, the Big Bad Mortgage Monster, as I've broken the $300k barrier (owing less than that). Since winter 2004, I've cut ~23% of mortgage debt. Yes, I vehemently hate owing money and paying interest.

So let's press onwards towards 2009! Resolutions begin!

Quit smoking. Like many years before, it hasn't gone well
Get me a woman. Right now, if it happens, it will.
Exercise more and not just on the weekends. Growing old means one's health needs a bit more TLC.
Lower the mortgage loan by $25k
Cut down on fast food indulgences to twice a month. Man, I love buffalo wings, french fries and Popeye's fried chicken.

So there, there's enough for a year-long party for yours truly.

Also, I'm gonna hit Comic-Con in San Diego and thinking about taking a legitimate vacation to a resort w/ white sandy beaches and pina coladas .... these are worth mentioning but not within the context of a resolution list =)

So, cheers to a new year, to our new President Barack Obama and to mankind for not (yet) bringing the apocalypse! 2009: bring it on!

Post 666

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:57:13 PST

yes, this is number six hundred sixty-six. frighteningly spooky.

A Peek into Raptr

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:52:14 PST

A couple of Raptr-lings cobbled these videos together ....

Welcome to the Raptr Office

The Raptr Now and Then Slideshow

silly raptr, tricks are for kids! errr, yeah.

Placemarks + Locations

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:34:36 PST

I've created a Places feed that journals the daily happenings of yours truly. It has the location and an associated photo. Sah-WEET!

Supplied by Brightkite, you can view it as a web page or consume it via RSS.

Check it out!

Y! Answerspedia?

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:59:33 PST

Yesterday, Techcrunch posted an article on a defunct Y! Social Search product, Answerspedia. Slated as a spin-off to Answers (Angel to Buffy), It provided a repository for extraordinary answers from the parent property. Though, an interesting concept project, it closed down a few months after the first prototype. I had personal doubts of its success, but you never know ....

The TC news team appropriately asked a question on Y! Answers: What was Answerpedia and why did it never launch?. I answered politely and am now mentioned in the article as an update =) yay!

I reckon, it's as close as I'll get to being on Techcrunch. Whew! =P

Testing rebuild of the blog

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:51:48 PST

Nothing special. Carry on. Go on. Shoo, shoo.

Behind the political curtain

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:02:56 PST

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581

Newsweek has a nice one on the "little things" that happened during the recent Presidential run. There will be more juicy bits disclosed in future Newsweek publications ....

A few interesting ones:

The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that the crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle Obama said to a top campaign aide.

On the night she officially lost the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain. Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama. Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow.

Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

One aide estimated that she [Gov. Sarah Palin] spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Congratulations President-elect Barack Obama

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:54:26 PST

some people have "it" and he's got it.

i've met and befriended plenty of characters in m' life (as witness by m' 500+ friends on Facebook) and i can only recall a handful of friends who have touched m' life and shaped my being. among them, only a single person has that exceptional quality, the unequivocal balance of brilliance and humility, a blend of toughness and harmony, a person that seems to occlude the darkness and ease any anxiety .... i miss that friend.

not many people have "it", but the next President of the United States does.

Vote.

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:42:23 PST

Tomorrow, you should vote. Vote, vote, vote if you haven't yet. If you are at the polls and are still undecided, then, golly geez whiz, stick that pencil up your caboose and squeeze really hard just like if you were constipated. you might experience an epiphany.

Tiny and Amy on SNL (yet another web reprint)

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:38:25 PDT

Ya gotta love it.

What's a flurge?

Raptr!

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:35:05 PDT

Raptr.com. It's alive!

Oh boy. it's finally living and breathing, hatched from countless hours of heads-down hacking and numerous weekends. It now stands tall and proud, roaring w/ excitement! Woo hoo!

Take it for a spin and leave feedback. Let us know how it does or doesn't work for you. And take a peek at the Raptr minions that produced this Frankenstein beast.

Check out the Raptr Card on my dashboard page. YOU can get one too!

I'm looking forward to building cool, new features and rocking the world. Let the games begin! (no pun intended)

Dash updates

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:49:20 PDT

It's mellowed out a little this afternoon as work and the public beta nears fruition. Soon, kids, soon.

I had some free time to update my Dashboard, changing the layout and decorating the page w/ my latest Flickr photos. I need to paste some Twitter updates too.

So take a gander.

Where's Wally?

noreply@blogger.com (yahooza) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:06:31 PDT

I've updated m' dashboard page w/ a geolocation display, Google Map that displays a Fireeagle-laced geo feed from eaglefeed.me. I've always wanted to surface m' Fireeagle data on this page, but could not, for the life of me, figure how to set up oAuth correctly. eaglefeed.me does all that for me and publishes m' geo data via RSS. yay!

Now, I can update via Dopplr or Brightkite and y'all can find me from here ;)