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Checked in on Spot, he is getting too fat. Not enough exercise. He's not happy being shut in alone, but that's the way it goes. When I opened the door, Spook was there. She ran away.
She continues to use the litterbox now that it's in the livingroom. She also is back to sitting on the floor in front of me when I watch TV.
Went to the MV 99Ranch and bought all the things. They had lamyay and ngaw and frozen ha gow. I had them steam a small Maine lobster for me, while that was being cooked I bought half a roast duck and a half pound of honey BQ pork. Looked for cans of Thai tea but did not find any. Bought three sesame balls (aka fat bombs).
Home, lobster for lunch. Spook stared at me, so I gave her a small piece. She won't take it out of my hand but as soon as I put it on the floor she vacuums it up.
Logged onto eBay and put my Huawei Honor 8 and Samsung Galaxy S8 phones up for sale. They've been on my desk for 6 months.
5:30, drove to the Sunnyvale theater, Janice showed up at 6, we walked to the Bon Chon Korean place and had their excellent fried chicken. 15 minute wait for a table.
Back to the theater, they wouldn't let us wait in the lobby before 7:30. No reason for that. Especially with the smoke and the cold.
Their production of Cabaret was whacked. They cast a woman as the MC but kept the lyrics the same (the lyrics make the MC very male, very hetero). They cut one number and added one from the movie. Instead of the band being on stage and mostly women plus men in drag, they were behind a screen, so the "even the orchestra is beautiful" line made no sense. They replaced the on stage band with a troop of dancers who can't sing. As usual, the set was static, minimum bits of furniture were taken on and off. The telephone scene was done with a single table, and two callers sitting on the steps.
The choreography was horrible. Sally's voice was so bad I thought her mic was malfunctioning, but it was her. Her Schultz sang in a forced operatic voice - beautiful voice but not for a musicals character part. Fraulein Schneider, who is IRL an old friend from theater and sci-fi fandom, knocked it out of the park.
The second act was all scare tactics. The production was all about making Hitler's rise look like Trump's. The MC even read a message to that effect after the curtain call. I did not appreciate the misplaced fear tactics. The director added a lot of angst which was not in the script.
Janice left at intermission. I wanted to, but needed to talk to three friends in the cast after the show who had done well.
Home, finished the chicken wings I hadn't eaten at the restaurant. Polished off about half a pound of lamyay.
Watched a short teaser from the Oak Island series, where they are told their 2 rubies are garnet and glass. But old garnet and glass.
Plans for tomorrow:
Drop off #73's package
Watch football
Take out the garbage
Sick Transit Monday
Nov. 6th, 2018 01:43 amThe time change messed me up. I miscalculated that there would be more sunlight at the end of the day, but it's at the start of the day. Woke up at 4, then 5:30, then 7. Did stuff on the tablet till the alarm at 7:30, and it was normal time from there.
AG also was affected, he rang me at 8:15, I called him back at 8:30. He has started working with his new team but he spent half the call complaining about his previous boss. He is still waiting for an offer from the small IPO-ed company.
Got to work 15 minutes early, but spent it talking the AG, telling him about Saturday's Celebration of Life.
Called the local Ford shop, they called back and made an appointment for me for tomorrow at 10 am.
Got a call from a recruiter for a contract at Samsung, testing voice recognition. I have most of the qualifications. Could hardly hear him, because he was on speakerphone, probably holding his phone like a pizza. Irony is this was for an audio testing job.
Lunch was a Safeway chef's salad, again a challenge opening the well-sealed tiny container of sliced black olives. Mango cobbler did not turn out as good as the peach cobbler did, and neither of them was a proper cobbler. The topping for this one turned out like cake - I mixed it too well. So what I got was a delicious mango upside-down cake. Lovely, but not what I was aiming for. I have peaches, and will try again with a real crunchy top recipe.
Late in the day they finally gave me the new build for the soundbar, and miracle of miracles, all the audio artifacts have been cured. Well, I still have a few more tests to run, but I think they are all related. It did not fix a couple of other issues, but those are more about the test being wrong for a soundbar.
Stayed a few minutes late to finish a failing test, which got me to my manicure appointment right on time, but she was still working with a customer so it was a 10 minute wait. Two weeks she already had someone booked so we'll do it 2 weeks from tomorrow. One more session and I'll be done at Google and probably will go back to someplace closer to home. Or my new job if I have one. Traffic in the area is too miserable to go there during rush hour unless it's on the way home.
Traffic home was bad, first thing I did was put all the stuff in the hatchback into the grocery divider unit and park it in the shed. And then grab my lunchbox & tablet out. Windexed the inside and outside of the windshield and hatchback glass, something I keep putting off. The residue finally got to me. The sun is low in the sky, so it shows up more.
In the mail was my annual insurance statement for the house, which is paid out of escrow. So are my property taxes. Also under separate cover was my completed refinance paperwork, which was supposed to have been sent to me a month ago.
Delivered at the front door was the new microwave and a very heavy box from Amazon with Grinch advertising. I hate those movies, they send the wrong message. Christmas is a lie. I hate all of those Christmassy plays. Though I get a kick out of knowing that a Jew wrote White Christmas. The box contained half a dozen bottles of Old Spice body wash. I tried Irish Spring, but it was a FAIL.
Also at the front door was the package OnTrac was supposed to pick up from the steps and deliver to #73. I'll call them again tomorrow.
Unplugged the current microwave and set it aside - it will be recycled at the SmartStation along with an old Cuisinart base, an electric knife sharpener and a lot of dead batteries. Saturday probably. Had to removed the four slices of rye bread first.
Made up two chopped liver and carbonized onion sandwiches with too much schmaltz, and heated those in the new microwave. It was a chore unpacking the thing - box within a box within a box. It's the same volume as the old one, but the turntable is a lot smaller. Maybe the chamber is taller. It has a weird blue LED light when you open it.
One feature I don't like is the 1-3 buttons are express 1, 2 and 3-minute buttons, it's an extra step to do a 1:30 2:45 or 3:15 timed cook. It does have sensor reheat, my favorite. It's black instead of white so won't show dirt as much.
Caught the last 3 minutes of MNF. Not a game I was interested in, but a cliffhanger ending.
Watched PTI and Doctor Who. I am liking the latter less and less. The writing is getting worse, as is the directing and acting. They finally chose a non-USA-centric theme, but their pro-feminist message was close to over the top. It's great that they are finally giving women major roles, but the pregnant man was a bit much.
As I write this, Spot is on top of the office cat tree and Spook is on top of the kitchen one. Spook pooped on the teleporter rug again, so I pulled it away and put the piano room litterbox there. It needed changing anyway. I hope she uses it this time. Speaking of teleporters, Spot seems to have one. He was asleep in the office one second and before I got to the laundry room to get out another litterbox cartridge he was by the door yelling to get out. Which he doesn't get to.
I streamed my ride home, the audio was a lot better. I'm streaming now but nobody stayed long enough to chat.
Plans for tomorrow:
Vote
Ford
Lunch
Work
Home
Restore my Facebook account after the CA polls close.
Can't believe it's only Tuesday
Oct. 31st, 2018 10:54 pmI thought about dressing up for Halloween, I have enough costumes. But in my little lab nobody sees me. That was my excuse till I realized how many pee breaks I take, and that's a walk halfway across the building. There were a lot of costumes, some of them pretty racy. There seemed to be an informal trick or treat going on amongst the Google buildings nearby. Slender women in catsuits and other skin-tight clothes.
Ironically, tomorrow HR has declared an 11:11 am walk-out to support Google's way too little too late purging of sexual harassment. I will not be participating. It's a blatantly hypocritical PR move. And I have work to do. Finally.
Emailed the park asking them to check out the cracks in my driveway, and manager said to call him, so I did. He said the park only is responsible for the first 40' from the road, and the big crack is farther than that, and the small crack isn't a tripping hazard and they only formally inspect and repair driveways once a year anyway, and only fix the ones that are safety issues.
Tried again to lower my Comcast bill, but they want to charge me $15 for a DYI kit, which I'm pretty sure I don't need. Chat guy said I need the new Tivo card. I don't remember having to do that when I upgraded.
Boss alerted me there was finally a build for the soundbar which was supposed to Fix Everything™. She gave me 4 audio tests to start with which had been targeted by the genius Chinese engineers. All 4 failed. Chinese engineers poured into my lab with Tall Manager, wanting to hear the audio pops for themselves. They did. I told Boss I had played pop music to them. She chuckled.
I will be very happy to walk away from this marketing-driven QA process. I'm grateful that Boss and Boss2 are pushing back against the junk makers, and are trying to get things fixed, but this part of Google is inept at the concept of Process.
Lunch was the Piazza's salmon salad. The salmon fillet with capers and pickle slices was wonderful, and there was a whole hard-boiled egg which should have been sliced, and some beans and three slices of a vegetable I did not recognize but enjoyed. The vinaigrette was pretty good, but the box was 3/4 spring salad, way too much to eat. It's on the way to compost land. Peach cobbler for dessert.
And ngaw for an afternoon snack.
Plugged the car in at 4:30, receptionist had done skeletal face make-up which looked fantastic, and had been a lot of work.
Streamed my ride home because I have the unlimited plan till mid-November, may as well use it. But my settings are all wrong, the finished video looks horrible.
Delivered was a pair of boxes, one for me and one for #73. I called OnTrac and told them to pick up the second box and deliver it to the right place. They were thrilled. Legally I think I could have kept it. But it was from some women's boutique. In the other box was a Bob Dylan CD with Make You Feel My Love, four wind-up mouse toys, and a USB-C wireless charging stand. Which was DOA. I have a working stand, but it has an older USB connector, I wanted C. Because I have a long C-to-C cable.
In the background I am copying my music to my phone. No idea why, I am rarely plugged in to music. I probably should be. Except I'll sing along, or cry. But I do have expensive BT headphones. Probably should use them more.
Today is Spook's birthday, so I gave her an extra handful of kibble and treats, and chased the bully away.
Watched PTI and Long Lost Lives. LLL was interesting. One woman didn't discover she was adopted till she was 37, the woman she thought was her biological mother was dying, and the paperwork said "no live births". The other was a young man who knew everything about his adoption except the last names and location of his parents. They had split up 20 years before but kept in touch, so he got to be re-united with both of them. Both his biological and adoptive dads are named Chuck. His biological mom & dad are both lookers, as is he.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
More audio testing
TGIT
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