return void;

there was an ad this weekend in the newpaper for officedepot. 50 pack verbatim dvd+r for $55, buy one get one free. that’s 100 dvd+r’s for 55cents. that’s a pretty good deal in its own right.

i decided to go and buy some. accidentally went to an officemax and didn’t realize it until my retarded self read the clerk’s name tag. i stopped off at an actual officedepot further up the highway (bitters and 281). found 2 packs, and took em to the register.

they rang up at $37.17!!! im gonna try to go back tomorrow and see if i can rip them off again.

wow, ton of stuff went down this weekend.

friday and saturday were pretty lazy days. i enjoyed doing nothing.

sunday was busy. we started by harrassing my parents for some cash. we took that cash to Kerby Lane. this week, we sat at the “bar”. since we were somewhat limited in our funds, crystal bought a fullstack of buttermilk pancakes. i bought the sampler (pancakes, bacon and eggs). since i am trying to limit myself on my coffee intake, i only drank 3 cups of their everlasting bottomless “cup of brown love”. (inside joke)

we then went to the 14th annual austin chronicle hot sauce festival. we got there at around noon. there were about 20+ booths all serving free samples. there were beer booths and even a booth selling those peppers that are attached to a big thread.

we were there for 2 hours, and my tongue was begging to leave. well sorta. at around 1, we had to sit down in the shade (it was 90F in the shade). i was drinking large amount of water due to a couple stands that sold some serious firewater (winstons). that winston’s stuff made me choke. few others bit back pretty well. there were too many “jellies”. some were sweet, most were mild and all of them were terrible. after we got back up from the break, there weren’t too many decent sauces. we left at 2, my stomache had all the water it could hold.

got back and washed crystal’s car. i kinda wish i had a new car to be proud of.

come to find out, i received 6 gmail invites. if you want one, drop me a line. maybe i’ll be generous.

i also found a way to run through my netflix queue much faster. i dug up an old Win98 machine of crystals, cleaned up some disk space, and installed DVDShrink. works like a charm, a very slow charm. but now i dont have to wait till the weekend! perhaps its time to get some more dvd+r’s.

i must be slipping, i havent blogged in several days.

first, on the agenda. we officially started the poker night thing this week. the party consisted of josh, alan, ford and i. alex was scheduled to attend but had to bail because i apparently didn’t remind him in advance. that aside, it was a lot of fun. as usual, my winnings sky-rocketed and then plummeted (sp). ford hovered above being bought out, but ended up pulling some pretty decent hands near the end (he won the last all-in hand). alan did ok, pretty much broke even. josh was doing really bad early on, then started winning some big pots, and then started losing it again. he claims he had more than me before the last all-in, but i refute that. next time, we should count it before the all-in.

i also coined a new expression: the joshua effect. when we played texas hold’em, we started the big blind at $2. after a while, it became apparent that if josh didnt want to check, he’d lay down $2. this is apparently because when he played, $2 was the minimum bid (or something to that effect). after a while, i started givin him a hard time and called the $2 bet the “josh bet”. eventually it just took the name of the “joshua effect” whenever i wanted to check but wanted to keep everyone playing instead of fishing for cards and folding when someone layed out a measly $5.

im going to drive some more jettas this weekend, as well as some corrollas (sp). i had tossed around the idea of keeping le tank for a while. ever since i was a kid, i’ve always wanted a muscle car. i’ve been tossing around the idea of keeping the olds, and getting a vintage (early 70′s model) vette. it’d make sure the body needed little to no work aside from paint and that the engine would at least work. i dont want something i cant at least drive to the gas station. since i take pride in personal creations (ie code).

i found out last night what the maximum queue size on netflix is 500 dvds. bummer, maybe i should increase the number of dvds i can have out at once to 5.

/me wants coffee

ok so ADO.Net is garbage. in fact, its the perfect example of poor object orientation. The factory that exists for the current version is basically non-existant.

i have been working on writing generics for database INdependent code, which is more challenging than you might imagine. in ADO.Net 1.0/1.1, you have to create seperate DataStore provider objects for communicating with different databases. rather than having a decent factory with a good api, they allowed each provider to basically use a seperate api.

what’s microsoft’s suggestion? use an enum/switch technique, which would give Kay (robbins for you non-utsa cs grads) a heart attack.

so my work-around is to mask the Provider object’s type behind a wall of imported DLL code. that means that in a library that’s already being implemented, i keep track of said provider object by the aforementioned enum/switch technique. in doing so, it’s actually cleaner for me to hide the provider objects completely.

i have managed to squish the code needed to communicate with a provider down to a half-dozen lines of code. it can manage a pool of connections to multiple providers. it can also obscure the data access via IDataReader, IDbConnection, IDbCommand, IDbDataParameter, and IDbDataAdapter. pretty slick. i’d post an example, but im sure my employeer would be opposed to that.

on a more positive note, im starting a poker night. last week, everyone showed up sporatically. this week, i have more people showing up. there should be 6 people so far, not including myself. the only problem is i dont have enough room at my dining table for that many people….

what an exhausting day. we went test driving cars for the better portion of the morning.

first we went to a VW dealer. i wanted to drive an automatic to see how they handled. before we were even able to see their selection, a salesman came out to see what we wanted. i made it fairly clear from the get-go that i was not looking to buy today, hoping that he’d back off.

so i found a jetta that i was interested in, so i asked to take it for a spin. i was a lil worried cause the first thing the guy said was to keep the speed low due to local police. before i even made it out of the neighborhood, he was asking me “what it would take to get [me] into the car”. i repeated what i already told him. not once did he mention features or benifits. instead he hammered on and on about how i need to buy the car today, despite my telling him i wasnt wanting to buy today. i never got to take the car about above 40, and he had the nerve to ask me if i liked how it drove. we left, and i still feel that i never got to test drive a jetta.

next was the gunn honda dealer across the street. i was interested in checking out civics. they had some ’04 civics for $16k new. i decided i wanted to test drive one. this time, the guy focused on showing features and functionality. before he let me drive, he pulled into a car lot to show me everything about the car. the features were basically the same as the accord, so i was already pleased. i liked the vtech engine and the fact that it was a quiet ride. it had plenty of power even though it was low on the horse-power. the drive went well. i was able to take it to the highway, around some curves and punch it a lil. i liked the way it handled. smooth acceleration, responsive steering and braking. the salesman wasnt pushy. in fact, he said he was paid on salary. i walked away with a very positive feeling of the dealership and the car.

then we went to a ford dealer, northside ford, to test drive a focus. the kid who was took us on the test drive couldn’t have been older than us. the only thing i can say about the focus is that i didnt like it. it felt cheap. it drove cheap. i dont think i’d like driving it after a few years. it felt much like a car that crystal’s parents own and affectionatly refer to as “the pickle”. the kid was desperate to get me to like anything. he showed me a focus wagon, YELLOW! i don’t know what it is about me that says i would like a yellow stationwagon. they were apparently moving locations on monday, so they didn’t have much inventory. but the inventory they did have, which sucked ass, he was desperate to sell me. he even showed me a smelly altima with a big brown stain on the passenger seat. i wont be buying a ford.

that leaves me with a jetta, impreza, and a civic. i think the impreza’s will be out of my price range but im still very interested in them. i should prolly do some more research on these models’ consumer report.

woot, the weekend is finally here.

crystal is comin down this weekend, we’re going to do some relaxing, working out and relaxing some more. im thinkin i want to go try and drive some cars this weekend. specifically, i have my eyes on a focus, impreza (out of my price range mostly) and a jetta. we’ll go drive some and see what we can find.

im slowly reorganizing my music, one album at a time. i try to do a couple albums at night before i go to bed. i just have so many, it’s hard to organize them all properly. i’ve been contemplating whether or not to not collect live performances. “recorded live performance” kinda sounds like a paradox. most bands that play live play a pretty typical and boring set. few bands will branch off and play something you’ll never hear on their record(s).

i have been downloading a lot of anime off animesuki lately. i’ve recently snagged a copy of Madlax (eps 1 – 20), and Samurai 7 (eps 1-8), both are pretty good series. i’m glad alex snagged all the Shura No Toki before it was licensed. i don’t understand the ethics of fan subbing. they bootleg anime until it gets licensed. bootlegging is bootlegging, no need to be a bunch of ethical asshats about it. the nature of fansubbing alone violates the ethics they try to mandate.

anyhoo, im about to leave work, i’ll blog about my test drives later this weekend.

ok i’m a lil slow bloggin this, but last night i went to test drive cars. ford and i went to a mazda dealership and planned to visit the VW dealer nearby afterwards. we didn’t get time for the VW dealer, but the mazda dealership experience was rather interesting.

when we first get on the lot, they had very few used mazdas, as it seemed they specialized in new cars. this was ok, because they had 2 used mazda 6′s that i wanted to drive. they had a ’04 acura TSX that ford was interested in driving. so we went inside to ask about test driving it, and the guy they sent out to deal with us was a complete trip.

he couldn’t locate the keys to one the 6′s that i wanted to drive. he kinda wanted to push a new car on me, asked how much i wanted to spend and why i hadn’t considered a new car. eventually we agreed to just drive the other 6 after ford drove the TSX.

this man was large, i mean _large_. he had problems fitting in the acura. the drivers seat had to be back all the way when he drove it off the lot, and he had to sit VERY awkwardly in the backseat. ford seemed to feel comfortable in the driver seat of the TSX, punching it as soon as we left the parking lot. it was drove very smooth, and from what i get from it, he enjoyed driving it (even though it apparently didn’t live up to the hype).

when we got back, i got in the 6 and headed off the lot. mind you, i’ve driven an ’85 olds (Le Tank) for over 3 years now, so as soon as i hit the gas, it was a lil more responsive than i had expected. unfortunately it was still disappointing. transmission was decent, but it didn’t drive much better than Le Tank. it was still sluggish, and the brakes were far too sensitive for my liking.

next, i decided to drive a mazda 3 just for s&g. i had no intentions of buying one, just wanted to drive it. it was a lot more sporty than the 6. the transmission was smoother, and the acceleration was better. if i were to even go with a mazda (which i wont) i’d be a 3. the salesman said that they were selling like hot cakes, but i don’t really care (i’d wait till the ’05). ford drove the 3 next, cause i wanted to see him punch it better. it handled alright and he thought it wasn’t too far from how the TSX handled.

one thing i did like was the triptronic shifter. that is the most amazing thing i’ve seen in cars since OnStar. you can drive an automatic if you dont feel like being annoyed by the manual. or if you feel like driving the manual for the added performance, you can. it’s smart enough not to let you fuck it up, and easy enough anyone can do it. i really like that and if i get a more recent car, i really want the triptronic shifter.

the car salesman, what a hoot. he started with the verbal handjob, telling us he was an EE grad from georgia tech and that he drove a new ‘vette. EVERY drive we went on, the clown fell asleep in the backseat. i don’t mean dozed off, i mean “snoring loud and falling over into the seat next to you” kinda sleep. when we went in to exchange info, he pointed to a ‘vette in the service drive and said it was his. that was funny cause a mechanic had the keys and was moving the car. he then had the balls to say that he spent enough time driving with us that he felt he deserved my business!! what nerve!! if i decide to get a mazda (which i wont), i will make sure to buy from someone else.

all in all, i wasnt impressed with mazda. they weren’t worth the asking price in my opinion. next on the list is Civic and Jetta.