Add Another Entry For Ben Luc in the Hall of Shame

HALL OF SHAME
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1. SEC Logo Contest - December 2002
- Ben L - Most Artistic Mention
- Mike P - Honorable Mention

2. EA&C Logo Contest - April 2003
- Ben L - Honorable Mention
- Mike P - submitted three entries - Honorable Mention

3. SWTN Logo Contest
- Ben L - Only entry - DENIED

4. G2 Logo Contest - September 4, 2003
- Mike P - Only entry - DENIED (submitted two entries)

5. Annual Security Poster Contest October 2, 2003
- Ben L - *1st place winner
(*one of two total entries submitted)

6 - F22 Slogan Contest - June 11, 2004
- Ben L - submitted 7 entries - ALL DENIED

7. Annual Security Poster Contest - September 23, 2004
- Ben L - submitted two entries - ALL DENIED
- Mike P - DENIED

8. SWEC Year End Morale Event - PR Committee - December 2004
- Ben L - nearly rejected - showed SEC instead of SWEC
- Mike P - DENIED - one day late of submission

9. SWEC Advertising Poster Layout - December 2004
- Ben L and Mike P - DENIED OPPORTUNITY

10.SOAP - Logo Contest - March 22, 2005
- Ben L - Got $30.00 for his submission, but did not win.

11.ComAV Department Logo Contest - April 26th, 2005
- Mike P - One of only two entries - FIRST LOGO WIN!!!
(Took almost 1 month to tally votes from department)

12. Software Infrastructure Department Logo Content - May 26, 2005
-Ben L - Submitted 5 out of the 7 Logos competing. One of the other logos was a lame picture of a clipart computer with no text. Still came in second. The bitterness grows unbounded.

From Sudoku Champ to Sudoku Chump

I tweaked my Sudoku solver today when I found out it couldn't solve "Very Hard" level puzzles. After I found the logical mistake in my code, I was really happy with it although it took about 3 minutes to get the answer. So, I googled "Sudoku Solver Excel" to see just what an exclusive fraternity I have joined. Turns out it's not very exclusive at all. The first hit led to this page. I read up this guy's summary of his program and it seems he uses almost the identical algorithm I "thought up" except that his program can solve even the hardest of Sudoku puzzles in a matter of seconds. And to top it all off, he even uses "Solve It" for his solver button... the rogue! So to make myself feel better, the word I type in the next paragraph will be one that no man has seen before just so that I can feel capable of independent and original thought:

FrimpFrampFrumpFizzleShizzleGrizzleMumpBumpLumpIHateSudoku

I couldn't sleep tonight so I finished my Sudoku Solver! And it only took me five hours (plus the other 3 on Sunday...) 

This is a t-shirt you can buy from YIRMUMAH.NET, one of my favorite web comics. I'm pretty tempted to buy it. And oh, yeah, sorry, spoiler alert for the Harry Potter but if you haven't finished the book by now, it's your own damned fault. 

Brute Forcing Sudoku

The people in the labs that I work with have been playing a puzzle game called Sudoku to while away the time while we run tests. It's a simple number game that reminds me a lot of minesweeper. I had the bright idea to write an Excel spreadsheet with VBA macros to brute force the problem instead of slaving away with a pencil. However, I just realized that the straightforward, simple program I wrote cannot solve even a sample puzzle because it requires some speculation, guessing and backtracking. I can get all the low hanging fruit but the program hits a dead end when all the remaining cells have more than one possibility to branch off to. Then it goes on a one way trip to infinite loop city.

Hm... I'm going to have to rethink this one.

Ponderable of the Day

Which one of the following is smellier?

A) A trucker's 'roid cushion

B) A hot tray full of ass

Please keep all submissions to within 500 words. Reference and citation format must adhere to APA guidelines (I cannot stress this enough). Entries shall be judged by spelling (10%), grammar (15%), effectiveness of argument (25%), graphic imagery (25%), and formal method of mathematical proof (25%). Winner will receive one of the above aforementioned artifacts depending on side for which the entry argues.

Ostrich Land 

Solvang, Land of Windmills and Danishes 

Just about the only kind of house I can afford nowadays (it's made entirely of a living pussy willow tree) 

Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens 

I'm Taking Today Off...

...yet I still managed to work almost 12 hours of overtime. I've had many a strange dream this week but since I can't get to an unclassified computer much anymore, I've forgotten them all. I think I had a cool plot for a fantasy type movie two days ago but the world will be deprived of that box office gold because of this new killer work they've given me.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Slow and unexpectedly boring in the beginning and middle but the ending... wow! I sorta expected it but not in such a spectacular fashion. I'm just wondering how Rowling can wrap all the loose ends in the last book.

5 Year Work Anniversary

To commemorate Year Five of my lifetime sentence at R******, here's the story of my first day of work:

Work started that day at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM due to orientation. I got there a little early and went to a 7-eleven to get some eats and a newspaper to read. When I get to the orientation room, I realize they provided breakfast so I sit down in a corner to choke down my $3 breakfast sandwich and read some news. Some asian dude who bore absolutely no resemblance to Brad Pitt asked for the sports section while munching a free bagel. He seemed like a real stiff and since I wasn't out to make friends, I handed it over without a second glance. When we sat around the table to fill out paperwork, I happen to glance over to the stat sheet of that same dude and noticed that the fucker was being paid $50 more than I was each pay period. Oh the injustice! At the end of orientation I find out of course that my real work site was a mile down the street in a different building. When all of us walked out to the parking lot, the asian dude was like hey are you going to R1, hey me too, I took the train today so I need a ride... bla bla bla whatever overpaid-asian-dude-too-cheap-to-buy-his-own-newspaper, I'm anti-carpool so seeeee ya! Anyway, I get to RE/R1/6A22 first and scope out the sweet desk out on the corner away from prying eyes. I'm about to set my stuff down when my boss comes in and says come with me to our status meeting. I meet my other team members, shoot the shit, bla bla bla and walk back to my office and who the fuck do I see sitting on my desk wiping the bagel crumbs off his mouth and gloating over his $50-a-paycheck-more-than-mine-salary?!

The annoying asian dude, a.k.a., Matthew L. Tran.

Matt, you took my free breakfast, my sports section, my $50 extra biweekly pay and my desk but you are NOT going to take away my 5 year anniversary mention in the InVision Company Newsletter!

Should be there but isn't 

A Familiar Name in the 5 Year Anniversary Newsletter 

Dream Journal: Buffet in Las Vegas

I'm at the lobby of some hotel in Las Vegas. I find myself following a black family downstairs into the buffet area (oh man, this gets a little racist here...). I seem to know them on some level. The buffet is on the honor system so when I head towards the basket to put in my money, I am surprised to see the mother circumvent it. I point out the basket to her but she just rolls her eyes at me. I begin getting food and to my surprise I see my cousin Gale and my sister behind me. They are on a trip and tell me they just saw the movie "Minority Report". Gale tells me that she agreed with my review of it. I ask her what review she is referring to and she says the one on my blog. I then remember seeing that entry in my blog though I did not write it. I finish my plate and head back for seconds. On my second plate I put nothing but BBQ stuff on it like pork ribs, beef ribs, steak, tri tip, etc.

[Pyschoanalysis: I haven't finished that Sigmund Freud book yet but I can explain why individual elements of the dream appeared if not why. Earlier in the week, I heard a coworker make some disparaging remarks against a black family he saw in a buffet (that's right I'm trying to pass the racist buck onto him). I also recently have had dreams about buffets because a) I'm a pig and b) the last two family gatherings we had were at buffets. The Las Vegas thing I'm probably sure because I read an LA Times article about the new Wynn Casino that morning. The "Minority Report" thing I believe has more to do with the black family (minorities) than Tom Cruise. Finally the BBQ thing is probably due to a discussion we had that night on whether we should go out to eat or if I should fire up the Weber. I lost so I was still probably sore about that.]

Feng Zhu

I was reading an article about an XBOX2 game in development and I happened on a name I recognized, Feng Zhu. When I was in high school, this dude was known as THE MAN when it came to art design. My art teacher, Mrs. Lee, spoke glowingly of him but since I never interacted with him (losers like me keep to themselves) I never thought much of it. But today I googled him and DAMN, is he awesome. Star Wars Episode III, BloodRayne, Guild Wars, James Cameron... holy cow. He even has his own freelance design studio, Feng Zhu Design, in Santa Monica.

I can't help but feel like I've been wasting my life in comparison. Excuse me but I'm going to listen to depressing music and mope for a while.

Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud

I was browsing the Project Gutenberg (they offer e-text of public domain books) for some random stuff and happened on this little gem:

Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud


Yep, that's right. A soon to be new feature of this blog will be analyses of my weird dreams. I'm excited and frightened at the same time.

The Feeling of Power

This is a really good short story by Isaac Asimov that I read a couple of days ago. I thought about the kids I tutor at Eucalyptus Elementary School when I read it. I'd paste the text here but I'm not entirely sure his work should be in public domain. Instead I'll link to the website that carries it (let them worry about the copyright issues).

http://downlode.org/etext/power.html

Barbeque #3: Happy Independence Day

I had to make up for not having BBQ on Sunday. So from 3 to 7, we grilled potatoes, asparagus, bell peppers, turkey sausage, London broil, tri tip, chicken wings, pork spareribs, and corn. We had way too much food but that just means leftovers for the rest of the week.

By the way, illegal fireworks are so much better than the safe and sane ones. As long as you're not the one lighting them of course.

Fireworks At Almansor Park 

The Aftermath 

The Smirmoff Girls 

Wanker's BBQ London Broil 

Chicken Wings and Onion and Beer Tri-Tip 

Ngoc Grilling Some Bellpeppers 

...To Picnic Table for 9. 

From 9-year Old Ping Pong Table I Never Use... 

The Streak is Broken... No Barbeque Today

Just pancakes and leftover minestrone soup.

Nothing more to see here... move along now.

Dream Journal: Magic Numbers

Ngoc is getting an Infiniti G35 Coupe. She and I are haggling with the salesman over the price. After some time, the salesman hands back his final offer on a slip of paper. It reads very clearly to me: $33,725. Ngoc gets angry and then walks away. I follow her out and ask her why. She says that she didn't mean to buy the car but she just wanted to compare the price to the one she bought which was $2,000 more.

[Ed. Note: Strange that I should see that number so clearly. Most times, I have a hard time reading numbers, letters, or figures in my dreams because they shift everytime I read them. Looks like I'll be buying lottery tickets this week.]

I also had a dream about a game but the details are so fuzzy, I can't even say what kind of game it was.

Barbeque #2

Whew, close one today. A scheduled BBQ got moved to another day and I suddenly found my self BBQ-less! I looked up a Vodka-Citrus Salmon and hopped over to Vons to get some fixin's. It took us a while to peel off the skin and get all the pin bones. After mixing 1/2 cup of orange juice, a 50 ml bottle of Vodka, lime juice, whole mustard, rosemary, and basil, the salmon was marinated for 2 hours. They came out looking pretty good but it tasted pretty fishy. I'm not a big fan of fishy fish so I'm going to have to give this a thumbs down. I think it might be time to step up and buy seafood that costs more than $3.79 a pound.

The Cattlemen's BBQ sauce on the chicken was pretty good however. I also made a minestrone from the pork stock I had yesterday. A couple of cans of vegetables, beef stock, and stewed tomatoes later then its mmm mmm good.

Barbeque #2: Hickory Smoke Chicken and Vodka-Citrus Salmon 

Dream Journal: An RPG Game and a Bus Trip Through Downtown

I'm playing some kind of RPG game where a group consists of seven people. There are no graphics per se because what I am seeing is live action. The problem is that I have saved right before a critical encounter in the game but when I reload it seems that I have forgotten the name of the save file. I reload multiple save files but every one is wrong (and involve the group I'm restoring getting their butts kicked). I finally realize that each game I reload corrupts the save file set a little bit so I've lost my original save point by all that restoring I did.

Now Ngoc, her sister and I are at the Burger King at the corner of Sunset and Grand Ave. We're waiting for something or someone but they're late and we have time to kill. I suggest we go to a Walmart that is in the heart of downtown. The best way to get there quickly is with the bus. We get on one but it heads in the wrong direction. We try to get off but there are so many people on the bus we can't move.

The Barbeque Marathon Begins

My goal for the 4th of July break is to have or attend four consecutive barbeques from Friday to Monday. Monday is the main show while the previous three are the opening acts that warm up the audience (me and my gut). I get Tuesday off as well but that is not in the works for two reason. The first is out of respect for the Independence Day that has passed. The second is that the levels of carcinogens in my body would be right about critical mass and I'm not going to tempt fate!

So today is my usual Friday BBQ. Ngoc and I had gone to the Farmer's Market for breakfast so I stopped by Cost Plus World Market to pick up a bottle of Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Chicken marinade. I would not recommend it. I marinated some chicken thighs in the sauce for three and a half hours and then dabbed some more on during grilling but when I bit into the chicken it still tasted bland. It also has a weird sweet and sour/ginger aftertaste working against it and suprisingly is not spicy at all. Sorry three strikes, you're out.

I would however recommend trusty old K.C. Masterpiece Spicy Original for ribs though. I've tried many others before but so far it has been Ol' Dependable (my next bottle is a Cattlemen's Hickory Smoke so we'll see after if K.C. still retains the crown).

Barbeque #1 Menu: Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Grilled Asparagus, and BBQ Pork Spareribs 

Barbeque #1