Notes for 10/10/2005

Dickson and I spent many hours trying to solve a programming challenge (there are no problems or impossibilities, only challenges!) last night, part of the 14 hour marathon of work that was my Sunday. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to post my weekly notes, so here they are on a holiday Monday instead!

• Happy Thanksgiving!
• Congratulations to Violet & Vincent on your engagement! Pictures from the ceremony are now up on Flickr. Also congrats to Mark & Kim (also recently engaged), my new favorite couple to photograph – they are just so photogenic!
• I tried the new Starbucks Maple Macchiato yesterday, and I must say it’s pretty good. I don’t think it’ll replace my favorite (Caramel baby!) but it’s very good. And very Canadian now that I think about it. Yep, just checked, it’s not on the lineup on the American site.
• This Microsoft job posting sounds like my ideal job! I would be quite happy doing what Scoble does!
• Found this quote from Larry’s blog today – Google’s Sergey Brin: “The No. 1 factor that contributed to our success over the past seven years is luck.” There’s some more good quotes from his talk here.
• I missed my SOC 300 class last Thursday morning as I took my Grandma to the hospital (she’s fine!) but I talked to some classmates later that day. Apparently the entire class did very poorly on the midterm and there was a big discussion. At one point, the entire class of 400 students was booing and the prof got quite agitated, as you can imagine. I’ve never heard of a class booing the teacher before! I guess I’ll find out more tomorrow morning. For the record, his exam was terrible. Multiple choice questions with answers A through H for some, recorded on a scantron (which only goes to E) and on paper for the others. Ridiculous options too – “all of the above”, “none of the above”, “only a, b, and f” (where F is “none of the above”), etc.
• Here’s the website for the Toyota Echo’s replacement, the Yaris. Dickson and I decided it looks like a mix of the Echo Hatchback, the Prius, and the Matrix.
• I’m really digging the new Ricky Martin song “I Don’t Care” which features Fat Joe and Amerie. Maybe it’s just because I love Amerie! She can definitely sing, and let’s face it, she’s beautiful. Ricky Martin and Amerie performed the song on Oprah today.