Shopping Spree

So, in order to get the most out of my brand new TV (which I'm loving), I've gone out and purchased a few things.

X360 VGA Adapter - Now, games were looking quite fine with the stock component cables (good move on MS' part to include those in the box), but I was still getting 480p resolution on DVDs. My DVD player is about 6 years old and isn't capable of any form of upscaling, so I got the VGA cables for my X360 in order to get the purdy DVD resolution upscaling. Maybe it's just my eyes tricking me into thinking I made a good purchase (only $40 anyway), but the difference was immediately noticeable. The only thing that was a bit weird was having to readjust all the lighting levels, but I've got it set just right now.

HD Antenna - Haven't had a chance to check this out yet, but that's my goal for this evening. eingy and Seppo came over on Sunday (though the ever-present cat hair soon defeated Seppo) and recommended we pick one up. Seeing as we don't have cable and we get all of 2 channels on our cheap-ass antenna right now, I figured it couldn't hurt.


Speaking of Seppo any eingy... we ended up going out for a round of mini-golf. Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I generally suck at the mini-golf. My fiance has always been the one to carry us to victory every time we've played, but this time was different. As I stepped out onto the (fake) green, the shell of doubt and shroud of past defeats were cast from my shoulders, like a worn and tattered garment. I valiantly clasped my club in my hands knowing, nay - certain - that the gods shined down upon me that day. My aim was steady, and my heart was true. I was victorious! (been watching too much LOTR lately)

Okay, so my fiance still scored better than me, but I beat Seppo and eingy.
Oh glorious day!

A Deeper Connection

So, my brother and his girlfriend came up from LA over the weekend to just chill. We went to my mom's cousin's house for lunch on Saturday (he's actually closer to us in age, and we actually work at the same company), as we hadn't seen his little kid in about a year. She's about to turn 2. Adorable little moppet.

I was a little worried that she would have forgotten me, not having seen her in so long. But the moment we walked up to the house, she smiled and came right over when I called her. From that moment on, we just bonded. She would mimic everything I did, would drag me away from the table to come sit on the living room floor and draw with her. I spent the entire afternoon making scribbles on her notepad in the various colors that she demanded.

At one point, I stuck out my fist and said, "Respect knuckles." She looked at me curiously. I took her hand, and put her fist against mine. I put my hand down, then lifted it again, "Respect knuckles." This time, she raise her hand and gave me a hearty thump on the knuckles. She knew what to do. I continued to test this out all afternoon, and unfailingly, every time I raised up my hand, she greeted me with respect knuckles. Her dad was sad he had never tried that. I was victorious.

I even got her to do the chest thumping "peace out" thing.


In other news, I officially past the 20 lbs mark this morning. So, I am at -20.6 lbs from my starting point back on January 1st, which puts me at 190.7 lbs. While I may have lost the bet with Seppo, I'm not letting up on my diet. My new goal is now 185... maybe even 180. We'll see.

But I think I'm going to have to start calling all the local shops on a daily basis to find a goddamn Wii. I stop by stores in the evening every few days to see if shipments have arrived, and unfailingly, whenever they *do* get shipments in, they are all sold out by the time I get there. It's ridiculous. Don't worry, Seppo! I will have your Wii!

Daddy's got a brand new TV!

I finally did it... I got myself an HDTV!!!

It's a 37" LCD from Sharp (Aquos). Has 2 HDMI inputs, a VGA input, 2 component inputs, etc. It's got a great backlight that really makes the image pop, and the blacks are deeeeeep. It fits *perfectly* into my current entertainment stand and is a great size for the distance that we usually watch TV at. Given that we don't have cable, the already fuzzy image of regular TV comes in even fuzzier, but given the upscaling capabilities of the X360, DVDs look fantastic.

And all for the great price of $1,000!



In other news, just a bit of a work conundrum. So, we sell product, and one of the parts of the process for selling said product is the forecasting of sales. Guessing how much we will sell of a given product is a mixture of scientific observation, guesswork, and Voodoo. Naturally, sales and marketing guys want to stick to safe numbers. If the numbers are safe, it makes it easier for them to hit. On the other side, the finance guys want us to score *huge* on everything we do. This naturally creates a problem.

On one hand, market data shows that any given type of product generally can only sell so much. If all the data shows that X-type of product has never sold more than Y, it's hard to justify saying that we're going to sell more. On the flip side, if you don't *strive* to sell more than Y, you never, ever will. So, which is right? Should we be shooting for the moon, given that we have a very aggressive corporate goal to achieve in the next 3 years? Or do we keep things realistic, and hope that every one of our product sells as much as we think and our business continues to grow that way.

This came up during a forecasting meeting yesterday, when faced with certain products. Our forecasts were already somewhat aggressive - everyone felt happy that those figures were achievable. Not *easy*, per se, but achievable. On the flip side, should we be settling for that? If we have aggressive corporate goals, shouldn't we be saying, "We know we can sell X, but what can we do to sell Y?"

It was the cause of much heated debate yesterday (mainly targeted at me, since I was the one trying to get everyone to stop being so timid), so it's really been bothering me. It makes me wonder how the discussions at the upper levels at a company like Apple went when initially discussing the iPod. Did they *know* it was going to be such a huge success? Or did they try to plan *how* to make it a huge success? Granted, they certainly had the right product at the right time, but they did a lot to make the timing work for them.

When you're faced with hard numbers, it's hard to argue with anything other than, "But we have to be trying to do *better*." And when you're a manager trying to tell that to VPs who are almost twice your age, it makes it even harder. I'm at a loss...

Homeless Dude Fixed My Car

So, many years ago, I got into a small accident in college. I was driving down the street when the driver next to me (on a 1-way street) saw a parking spot on my side of the street and decided to go after it... ignoring the fact that I was between her and the spot. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of a move and despite having gotten her contact info, driver's license number, insurance number, etc, I didn't call the cops (was in a rush to get to a class), and then promptly lost all that info during the move. *sigh*

I've been stuck with the damage for a good... 7 or 8 years? Then suddenly on Tuesday night, as I'm filling up at the gas station down the street from work, a homeless guy walked up to my car with a tool kit and just starts going to work. He popped out the dent (mostly - it's not perfect... it's a dent that can't really be fixed) and then reattached the part where the bumper had come lose (I had tried to do it before, but couldn't get the clips to hold... he just put the clips in backwards and it worked o_O). While it's not perfect, it looks much better.

The man looked pretty wild and he was wielding a metal bar, so I wasn't sure what to do at first. But, it was still pretty busy around the area and lots of people were around, so I didn't think he'd try mugging me or anything. It took him about 10 minutes and I was a little leery at first, so tried to tell him that he didn't need to do that, but he just kept going and going and eventually got it fixed. I ended up giving him $5 because it was all the cash I had on me... I would have given him a $20 otherwise.

Thanks, anonymous homeless dude!

Bangladesh!

So, for Christmas, our neighbors introduced us to the interesting www.destinationdinners.com by way of a Christmas gift from said website. As you can see on the site, it's a gift site where you can purchase recipe packs of meals from various nations. We received the Bangladeshi pack and it comes with everything but the fresh ingredients. All the spices were included in cute little plastic boxes, neatly labeled, as was the long-grain rice. We supplied the veggies (peas, onions, and cauliflower), the chicken (all 3 pounds of it), and of all things - the ketchup.

As far as we could tell, the dish was fairly authentic. It smelled authentic, at least. The chicken had to simmer for about a total of 40-50 minutes, and with all the spices is was simmering in, the meat just began to fall apart. Good stuff.

I would have taken pictures, but since we were drinking wine the entire time we were cooking, by the time the food was ready, I was already too drunk to think of it :)

The website only has a limited selection of foods, but if you're looking for an interesting gift, well, there you go.

FTD = F*ck This Dreck?

So, I was in Japan over Valentine's Day. Sucked. The fiance was, of course, not overly joyed, but work called and there was about $40M at stake, so I had to go. Knowing I had to go, though, allowed me to make some preparations in advance. I purchased a card to leave for her the day I left (I left on Feb 13) so she would get it the evening before, and had made arrangements through FTD.com to have a very nice bouquet of flowers delivered to her at work on Valentine's Day. I know there are people who despise that day and say, "Why can't we show our love for each other every day?" I agree, but I also enjoy having *another* excuse to do a little extra sumpin' sumpin'.

I was taken in by the Vera Wang bouquet they were advertising - pink roses, and were arranged with a simple elegance. They were pricey, though. I figured I make enough money so I went for it and selected the option to have them delivered on February 14th.

So, I kept that all a secret from her and she didn't have a clue. I stay up late into the night and track the shipment to make sure it arrived on Feb 14th. According to UPS, the package arrived at the local distribution center at 8am that morning and it was mere miles from my fiance's work, so I went to sleep knowing that the flowers had arrived.

Or had they? When I woke up the next morning, I called her with a smile, expecting her to gush with joy over the beautiful flowers. She answers the phone, "Hello?" "Hey..." I say, nonchalantly. "What time is it over there?" she asks. Hm... doesn't sound very excited, "Uh... like 8:30 am. Hey wait, you don't sound very excited." "Why?" Not a good sign.

After some talking, I had to just let her in on it because it became painfully obvious that the flowers had not arrived yet. So, she waited at her work until around 6 pm, and nothing ever arrived. The flowers were, indeed, at the distribution center, but never left.

It wasn't until the following day at some point in the middle of the afternoon that the flowers arrived, slightly wilted. Having spent a pretty penny for those flowers, I was, naturally, upset that they were not delivered for the sole reason they were ordered. I wrote a polite email and expected a reasonable response. I received (what was likely) an automated response that assured me they would try to get back to me within 24 hours. I had had great experiences with FTD before, so I figured it would be no problem.

More than a week and several reminder emails later, I finally get a happy and bubbly response letting me know that they would be refunding me 20% of my purchase, which comes out to $14. I was not satisfied. And I was even less satisfied when I went to FTD.com to look up the customer service line and noticed that the same bouquet of flowers was *now* selling for $11 less than what I paid. That pretty much means I was receiving a $3 discount for a botched order. I responded politely, but sternly that I was offended and would be taking it up with a manager.

Haven't had a chance to call yet, but that simply is ridiculous. Will update when I hear back.