Jay McGavren’s Journal

I find I’m making a *lot* of typos and grammatical errors the last week or so. I never even used to have to proofread my work. Yesterday I did almost nothing useful, because I couldn’t concentrate enough to plan my new project.

Nothing is so worrying as not being able to trust your own mind anymore. I hope this is temporary.

There is no feeling on Earth like knowing you’ve had a really productive day. I really gotta quit reading news sites and checking my e-mail every five minutes, so I can have more days like this.

I just got informed that later stages of my current project will be scrapped, and I have to come up with a way for my system to talk to a third-party company’s database (a company who has consistently failed to deliver usable solutions in my experience).

If this succeeds, we’ll have stopped multiple customers from leaving us due to unfulfilled contractual obligations, and I’ll be a hero. If this fails, it could end my fledgling career. No pressure.

But I make an exception for those where you share a few things about yourself. Josh Pang sent this one to me, and since I took the time to fill it out, I may as well share it here…

>> Seven things you like:
-Programming.
-Video games.
-Anime.
-Manga.
-Electronic music.
-Pixar movies.
-Whose Line is it Anyway.

>> Seven things you hate:
-Rude drivers.
-Badly designed Web sites.
-Starcraft (love/hate, actually).
-Babysitting.
-Liars.
-Management who doesn’t know their job as well as I do.
-Long commutes.

>> Seven things in your room:
-Game Boy Advance.
-Aging PC.
-Baby monitor.
-Real estate guidebooks.
-A Christmas card from the breeder we bought our dog from.
-Portrait of me with my two brothers.
-Books on Java.

>> Seven random facts about you:
-I’ve been in two auto accidents with moving vehicles that were not my fault.
-I’ve also been in two accidents with stationary objects that WERE my fault.
-I have gained 30 pounds in the last year.
-I am currently subscribed to 30 different RSS newsfeeds.
-I am a college dropout employed in a position normally reserved for those with a 4-year degree.
-I own three Swiss Army knives, and almost never use any of them.
-I have over 17,000 image files saved on my PC.

>> Seven things you plan to do before you die:
-Write an application that I hope will transform the way the world discovers, shares, and buys music, movies, and images.
-Marry my fiance.
-See Alaska.
-Pay for my stepson’s college in its entirety.
-Return to Japan.
-Go into business for myself.
-Design a fully-automated home.

>> Seven things you can do:
-Beat Halo on the highest difficulty setting (still working on Halo 2).
-Retouch photos to near-professional quality.
-Read Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks beginning to end faster than anyone I know.
-Reverse-engineer a network protocol.
-Fold a shirt like on howtofoldashirt.net.
-Read first-grade-level Japanese.
-Page my cell phone from my PC command prompt.

>> Seven Things You Can’t Do:
-Do a cookie with my car.
-50 pushups in a row (gotta work on that).
-Read (most) Chinese characters.
-Gymnastics of any kind.
-Remember things without a notepad.
-Touch my toes.
-Read a novel cover to cover (can’t make the time).

>> Seven songs people should listen to:
-Barenaked Ladies - Call and Answer
-Aphex Twin - Boy/Girl Song
-Arovane - Cry Osaka Cry
-U.N.K.L.E. - What Are You to Me
-Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
-Boards of Canada - Music is Math
-Royksopp - Remind Me

>> Seven things that attract you to someone:
-Smile
-Cleavage
-Wide eyes
-Intellect
-Sensitivity
-Legs
-Fashion sense

>> Seven things you say the most:
-”roight.” (Did I steal this from Josh, or he from me?)
-”…stuff.” (Just by itself. Indicates a brain fart in progress.)
-”Dagnabbit!”
-”Shoot.” (I have a kid and a job, and I try to avoid swearing. You wouldn’t know it if you ever played XBox Live with me, though.)
-”Hoo-ah!”
-”This will generate buy-in from them.” (Work phrase.)
-”We’re looking at X hours’ effort here.” (Another work phrase.)

In my performance review at work, one objective for the year that my boss gave me was to get certified in Java. Well, if I’m going to get certified, I’d better start writing Java programs.

Happily coinciding with this is Tivo’s release of their Home Media Engine, the libraries for which are in - you guessed it - Java. You can’t do anything *too* fancy with it, but you can display pictures, play MP3s and (eventually) video, and write simple games.

My first project will be a simple slideshow/music player, after which I’ll tackle a port of Robots. Nothing too ambitious, but I’ll learn a whole lot of Java along the way.

I just realized my work e-mail’s Deleted Items archive is over 11,000 items (none of them spam). Sent Items isn’t too far behind at over 8,500. :P

I just proposed to Diana. She said yes. :)

I hadn’t figured on being able to introduce Lenny to anime (Hayao Miyazaki, no less) at two and a half years old, but lo and behold, there he was this evening, holding the DVD of Panda Kopanda and asking to see it. It’s about right for his age, so I popped it in. He’s sitting in front of the TV right now, transfixed.

Got to bed early last night and had Diana get up with me this morning to get Lenny dressed, all so I could be on time for my “Performance and Development Review”. Just got an e-mail from my boss telling me she’s going to be late. :P

Oh, well, I appreciate the laid-back environment around here.

Just grabbed new albums from Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, and The Prodigy, and I have to say I’m really disappointed. These people all used to be gods in my eyes: makers of the loudest, angriest, most addictive music I’ve ever heard. But on each of their latest releases, maybe one or two songs are enjoyable, a handful more are tolerable, and the rest is cliched or unlistenable crap that makes me reach for the “next track” button almost immediately. Add this to Orbital’s dismal Blue Album (reported to be their last), and it’s shaping up to be a sad year for electronic music.