In a stroke of dumb luck, I stumbled across a sweet sounding 3 bed 2 bath rental in Piedmont listed on craigslist. I was just tooling around and I noticed this listing that had been posted not 30 minutes ago. I showed it to Tam-ay and she declared that I needed to get off my duff and call for more details right away. Long story short, we visited the place about an hour later and rented it on the spot. While we were there, the lister’s phone was ringing off the hook and another couple showed up wanting to rent it. Had we shown up 10 minutes later, it would have been gone. Crazy, huh?

So we’re slated to move in mid-March to the ritz and glamour that is Piedmont.

There has been much kicking and thrashing this week.

Welcome to the Year of the Dog. Yes, that does mean Baby Shih will be a dog (ç‹—ç‹—!!!). The hilarious thing is that Tam loves dogs and wants one. Same thing for kids. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone!

According to the Chinese Culture Center of SF, this is what to expect from people born in the Year of the Dog:

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people’s confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.

We had a great time last night at my cousin’s apartment making and eating dumplings. Why dumplings? Because they symbolize wealth. Dumplings happen to be quite similar in shape to gold and silver ingots of China’s imperial past.

Let’s face it. My Gainward GeForce4 Ti 4200 video card is dragging. Time to upgrade to the current generation’s poor man’s hardware. So I hit up Newegg for an EVGA Geforce 6600GT based on the slew of positive reviews it’s received. The gripes were all about how hot the card runs and how crappy the stock fan is.

I’ve already had a great experience with an aftermarket CPU cooler from Zalman, so enter the Zalman VF700-CU to solve those problems. All you need to know is that a lot of copper died in the making of this VGA cooler.

Before

Hello, Zalman?

Belly button going from innie…to outie…

We got an iPod Nano today, and yes, it is insanely small. Everything down to the packaging was cool. I had to laugh when I saw what was printed on the protective wrapper…

Great thread on Slashdot today on why meetings are bad for you.

Though this is obvious to most of us, your PHB’s might benefit from knowing that meetings are bad for you. Two psychologists have found evidence that the number of and the time spent in meetings has a detrimental effect on mood. “…a general relationship between meeting load and the employee’s level of fatigue and subjective workload was found”, write the authors after conducting a diary study. Perhaps we should be more understanding with our moody bosses?

It’s a good thing there isn’t any latent hostility brewing in the tech workforce out there.

Photos from our trip to Maui are now up. Check ‘em out!

Sorry, we’re a bit late on the draw this week. Here’s the result of a few days of pineapple eatin’, humpback whale watchin’, nene huntin’, Avis rental car abusin’ madness.