Now, I realize that Mourgue is the designer’s last name… but I think I’d have trouble buying this bed:

I hear it’s to die for?

So I had this great idea of investing in New Zealand dollars a while back… spurred on by my co-workers. It seemed like a great idea at the time: 5+% interest, collapsing US dollar.

And it was a great idea… for a while. Until now.

Oh dear.

I might actually lose money on this CD when it matures next month.

Whoops.

So today I ended up seeing Star Wars twice - and both experiences are totally different.

The first time I saw it at a regular theatre on Shoreline courtesy of my employer at around noon. The second time it was with friends at a DLP theatre in the evening.

Wow. DLP rocks.

I had seen a movie on DLP before, but I guess I had never seen the same movie practically back to back to compare them. And this time, the difference was quite noticable.

The DLP had much richer colors (though sometimes looked a bit cartoony/cg because of it) and things just went smoother since they didn’t have to switch reels. There was also no dust, and the sound seemed better too.

Definitely cool.

And of course, the evening crowd was quite different than the afternoon crowd! A lot more laughing, a lot more fun. Unfortunately though we waited 2+ hours to get seats, we still sat like 4 rows from the front - compare that to getting to the theatre 25 minutes before at the noon showing and getting roughly the same seats!

Wow… I haven’t watched Conan in a while. Imagine my surprise when I check the PVR tonight and it turns out that it is now in HD!

Late Night w/ Conan O’Brien on NBC - Now in HDTV! - AVS Forum

The late-night conversion is scheduled to begin in April 2005 when NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” converts to HDTV. “Saturday Night Live” follows when the series returns for its 2005-06 season premiere in the Fall as will “Last Call with Carson Daly” which shares “SNL’s” studio - 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s legendary Studio 8H.

Neato! Now what about Letterman? Oh! Sony knows!

CBS’s ?LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN? READIES FOR HD FUTURE WITH STATE-OF-THE-ART SONY PRODUCTION SWITCHERS AND MONITORS

LAS VEGAS (NAB Booth SU6406), April 17, 2005 - CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” is preparing for its transition to HD with technology from Sony that will significantly advance its operations and pave the way for high-definition broadcasts from its iconic studio, The Ed Sullivan Theater.

Uh… date please?

In addition to supporting the SF Museum of Modern Art, I also support the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

I was at Costco this Saturday, and I ended up with an impulse purchase.

Now, some people buy candy or dvds as their impluse buys.

Me?

I bought a lamp.

Specifically, I bought this lamp: Lights of America Sun Light Desk Lamp with Fluorex Technology. 27 watts producing light at a nice 6500K color temperature. About $21. Here’s a picture of the box:

The fact is that I stare at computers and papers all day long. My eyes… well… they take a beating. And if things aren’t bright, high contrast, sharp, color corrected then my eyes hurt. And when my eyes hurt, my brain hurts. In fact, I do get headaches and other maladies from poor lighting or unfocused visuals.

So normally in my bedroom I use an energy saving compact flouresence light bulb that I got cheap from Ikea. It’s great: cool, saves energy - unfortunately it’s really warm (yellow) and all the colors in my room are washed out.

One problem is when I’m sorting socks! For the life of me I can’t figure out what color some of them are in that light - the shades are awfully close.

Here’s what they looked like under this lamp:

Wow, it was obvious under this light! (A lot more than this picture shows!)

Now if only I could find a bright, affordable (not $300) torchiere that had all of these same properties or better: 6500K, full spectrum, ~123812983718912 lumens or better.

5 years sure goes by fast - now it’s time for a change,
and change is good.

Alright, enough cliches.

It is with sincere regret that I
announce that I am no longer with the MacBU. My last day was Monday.

In my 5 (well, 4.9) years at the MacBU at Microsoft, I
helped ship a whole lot of products:

• Microsoft Entourage 2001 for Mac

• Microsoft Entourage X for Mac

• MSN for Mac

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac

• Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac

• PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004.

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 SP 2 for Mac (coming this
  year!)

I joined the MacBU right out of college, as a die hard
Mac fan. At first I was skeptical, figuring that the MacBU was part of some
secret Microsoft ploy to keep Apple down by… uh… producing bad software. Of
course, a lot of those feelings were after the infamous Word 6.0 days, so
looking back that is understandable - and to this day there are still many
Microsoft employees who are apologetic about the Word 6.0 fiasco. In fact, it is
because of the Word 6.0 experience that the MacBU was created! But enough trivia
for today.

Going back to my point, after joining the MacBU and
having been here for 5 years, it is quite obvious that there is no development
team more passionate and more dedicated to the Mac OS X platform outside of
Apple. These are people who truly want to produce great software for the Mac,
and do it with a fraction of the resources of Office for Windows . I am
exceptionally proud of the products we have shipped to date, and I have no
doubts that the products will continue to rock. As an example of Microsoft’s
continued commitment to meeting the business needs of Mac customers, check out
Entourage 2004 SP 2 ships later this year. That was the last thing I worked on before leaving, and I know it’s going delight Mac customers in Exchange environments.

Looking back at those 5 years, there sure were lots of
ups and downs. One major up was the fact that I never had to buy any Macs after
graduating because the MacBU made sure I had some great machines. One major down
was getting Mac OS X 10.0.0 - wow remember those days? And all those posts on
the various rumor sites speculating that it was because Apple had left in
debugging code? I must say, Tiger is pretty darn impressive - and just imagine
if that’s what they had shipped all the way back then (heck, or even Panther!).
Through the various WWDCs and MacWorld Expos that I attended (2 San Jose WWDCs,
2 San Francisco WWDCs, 6 MacWorld SF’s, 2 MacWorld NY’s) I made a lot of great
friends in the Mac community - Apple and elsewhere. And the level of customer
interaction that the MacBU afforded me enabled to meet many of you at demos
across the nation.

Without a doubt, it’s been a great 5 years.

So… why now? What’s going on? Why am I leaving, and
where am I going?

Today is my first day at my new job as a Program Manager
at MSN Search on the
MSN Search Toolbar. At Microsoft, changing
jobs is actually a fairly frequent event - so this isn’t exactly the first time
someone has done something like this before. That said, a lot of people do
associate me with Entourage - especially if you knew the volume of Entourage
support questions I get in my inbox! [BTW, a great resource for
Entourage-related questions is the EntourageTalk mailing list:

Entourage-Talk-On@lists.letterrip.com]. After 5 years, I thought I’d try
something new, something different - and something that’s still in Silicon
Valley. The folks at MSN Search Toolbar have the same level of commitment and
excitement  that I expect, and so I’m going to give this a try.
Fear not for the fate of Entourage and the MacBU - I am sure that innovative,
compelling, quality products will continue to ship. And if not, I’ll be sure to
let my roommate know — he’s a Program Manager on Entourage.

It’s not even midnight yet, and I’m super tired! And I didn’t even drink the Nyquil yet! This is not a good sign.

Speaking of being sleepy, here’s a picture of a re-enactment of what my 4 years at Hopkins looked like:

This is in the far corner of C-level at the library. (Our library was built underground, so C-level was about the 3rd floor below ground). I once saw the remnants of a birthday party on this floor too. There was a cake, some party hats, some plates, and a wilting balloon. It was sad. And yet, a very Hopkins-esque moment.