Wednesday, August 26, 2009

modern-day helen of troy

niniane: are you coming to dinner?
Suz: No, we are working around the clock to push out new features.
Suz: We're launching a bunch of stuff this week.
niniane: oh cool.

... a couple days later ...

niniane: How are your many launches going?
niniane: You are the face that shipped a thousand launches.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Ent-spiration

Walking down the streets of Manhattan with my friend Andy, a couple weeks ago.

Me: "In the Lord of the Rings movie, I find it unrealistic that the Ents would change their minds about battle due to a single war cry. If I heard about the forest destruction, I'd want to go see it for myself first, instead of immediately declaring battle."



Andy: "And from an Ent perspective, you're very hasty."

Me: "Yeah, they should be even more hesitant! I wonder if the Ents are based on a real-life person that Tolkien knew."

Andy: "It was probably based on his tenure committee. [in Ent voice] 'I don't know, J.R.R. ...'"

Me: [lol]

Andy: [in Tolkien voice] "But I want tenure!" [in Ent voice] "Let's not be hasty now..."

Monday, August 24, 2009

soulmates explained

You know how sometimes you meet someone and feel as though you're already familiar with them? You feel a kinship to them, even though you've spent very little time together. The chinese people call this 缘份.

My new theory is that this happens because the new person reminds you of an old friend, and you project all your understanding and affection for your friend onto the stranger. You may not realize the connection consciously, so your immediate affinity mystifies you.

Unfortunately, if the other person didn't have a friend in the past who is similar to you, then there can result in an imbalance. They might find it TMI that you are confiding in them.

Maybe all this soulmate business of people immediately recognizing their "other half" is actually because the soulmates reminds them of someone else they already know well.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

bear hat

I saw a toddler wearing this bear hat, and it looked so great that I bought one for myself.



The bear looks like it's sleeping with its mouth open, rather than opening its mouth to eat you. I think I prefer this, for a soothing effect.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

four Wrights

Eating lunch in the American Wing Cafe at the Met Museum in New York:


Me: "Isn't it amazing how Frank Lloyd Wright is by far the most famous architect? I can't name a single architect besides him. Tom, can you?"

Tom: "I barely even knew Frank Lloyd Wright."

Me: "You hadn't heard of the Falling Water house?"



Tom: "I guess so. I barely knew his name. I just figured he wasn't the one who created the airplane."

...

Now that I think about it, the Wright line is very accomplished. The Wright Brothers, Frank Lloyd Wright, and now Will Wright.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

small avalanches prevent larger avalanches

Anon: "I think it's a good sign when couples bicker a little bit in public."

Me: "Really? Why?"

Anon: "Not angry arguing, but just a little bit of disagreement. Like, 'You always order this dish and can't finish it.' That means they can talk out their issues. What's dangerous is when people bottle up their frustrations."

Me: "That's true. When people can't talk about what's bothering them, until they erupt one day and argue all night long."

Anon: "Yeah. The marriage seems perfect, and one day suddenly it's 'I want to see other women.'"

Me: [nodding]

Anon: "And then the husband says, 'Wait, what?'"

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

eating contest photo



A photo from the eating contest party last Saturday. This was the taco contest: "Eat two Taco Bell tacos as fast as you can."

My time was 2:32. The winner finished in 32 seconds!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

analytics of love

At dinner with friends:

Me: "Moses planned to date a lot during his summer in New York. Afterwards, we asked him whether his plan worked. He dated one person per month. I said that sounded like less than he hoped. But he clarified that he saw each person a lot for that month."

Aron: [grinning] "It's the count of site visits versus unique users."

BD: "It's like launching a site. In the beginning, you tend to get more unique users. As time goes on, you want more repeat visitors."

Aron: "It's funny how in the end, you narrow to a single active user."

Me: "That's okay, because you have a high level of engagement."

Sunday, August 09, 2009

furniture loyalty

Last week, Tom bought an entire apartment's worth of furniture from a warehouse liquidation in San Francisco.

Most furniture in the warehouse is one-of-a-kind, so the first person to grab an employee gets the item. This resulted in pandemonium.

After five minutes of mob mentality, the warehouse manager decreed a line. We stood anxiously in line for 45 minutes, waiting to buy this coffee table for $97:



Me: "We're spending so much energy on this. It will be sad one day when you don't want the coffee table any more. I'll remember how much work went into getting it."

Tom: "There won't be a day that I don't want the coffee table. I'm taking it the grave."

Me: "Ha ha."

Tom: "Unless one day the coffee table doesn't want me any more."

(We managed to buy the coffee table in the end.)

Sunday, August 02, 2009

House of Wang no longer a literal house: my brother's new chapter

My brother is moving away.

After shipping Sims 3, he's been considering other job options. At one point, it looked like he would move to the East Coast.

This made me wistful. In the six years that we've been living in the Bay Area, we've gone to high tea many a time, helped each other move furniture, cooked together, and went to nice bistros together. Having him live in my townhouse during 2009 has been especially nice.

During Tom's job search, I was IM'ing with a friend:

me: but i will miss him so much!
xevirt: right, but you only met up every once in a while anyways while in MV
xevirt: it'll now make the meetups you do have so much more great!
me: i would be sad but consolable if he was moving to LA
me: that's only a 50-min flight
me: but east coast is like a 5 hr flight!
xevirt: if you're curious it's 5 hours because the planes go in the jet stream and speed up the flight west-east, going east-west it's often a 6 hour flight
me: omg

In the end, Tom decided to go to Blizzard. Monday is his last day at EA.

Prasanna: Maybe he'll code you into one of those games.
Prasanna: One which progresses from puma to sabertooth
niniane: lol

I am happy for Tom. Blizzard is a great place for him. He's going to do AI for a new game.

His friend asked him recently, "How is your apotheosis going?" He said, "What is that?" It turns out to mean "transition into a god".

:)

I will miss him a lot though. It's really nice to have my house be literally the House of Wang.



Tom in my living room, handing me a giant piece of cake.



The cake.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

starcraft result

We won our 2v3 starcraft challenge!

Tom is a stronger player, so we were concerned that our opponents would gang up on me, if they could figure out which color of starcraft player mapped to me.

To prevent this, Tom and I picked names that would be difficult to distinguish from each other.



blueLilly is a joke from the last time I played starcraft with these friends.

Avichal and I were on the same team. I convinced him to join the game as "blueLilly", and I joined as "Spartacus". Indeed, the other made assumptions about who was whom, which proved incorrect.