December 28, 1999

This is my Andy Warhol version of myself. Hope you like it!

So I had written this really long entry yesterday (the 28th) and somehow I saved over it and lost it. It was really stupid and I was mad that I did it, so I just gave up and uploaded the entry for the 27th. Anyway, now I shall try to recreate it, but I'm going to split it over 2 entries, because it was pretty long. I'm not sure why I had to tell you all of that, except to let you know why I've been running a few days behind.

OK, so it was the day after Christmas and Ken was supposed to arrive between noon and one, with Wing Chun and Glark arriving soon after that, depending on how long they got hung up at the border (they are from Toronto). I got up at a decent hour (for me) and was running around like a crazy person trying to get the house cleaned up. Jim was a great help, and I wanted to thank him. We have divided up the chores, and cleaning house falls in my category, but he was nice enough to help out. Right about then, Eric came by to pick up a tape he left here on Christmas and he decided to stick around to see Ken.

Meanwhile, I was running around in a hurricane of Formula 409 and paper towels, trying to get everything presentable. You know how sometimes you go on a cleaning frenzy and you just get to a point where you go, "What am I doing?" That point came for me when I found myself on my hands and knees, spot cleaning the kitchen floor. I realized that everyone was going to walk into the kitchen with snowy boots and get the floor dirty again anyway, and I needed to just give it up. So I hopped in the shower, and Ken arrived by the time I was finished getting ready.

We decided to order Chinese food for lunch, because we didn't know when Wing Chun and Glark were going to arrive and so we decided not to wait for them. Wing had told me that if all went really well at the border, they should arrive between noon and one, but we both figured with all of the terrorist threats and arrests being made, there would be a big holdup. We were wrong! They said things went very smoothly, and while we were eating our Chinese food, Wing called to tell me they had arrived at the hotel. She also reported that the hotel was really nice. I was glad because I recommended it solely based on proximity, and had never stayed there myself. Ken decided to go drop his stuff off at the hotel and show them how to get back here, as well as direct them to the nearest Wendy's for lunch. They soon arrived at our place.

I gave Wing and Glark the grand tour of our apartment, and they both expressed surprise at how big it is. It is pretty big, especially for what we pay. I tend to overlook that sometimes when I complain about how loud our neighbors are.

After everyone was done eating, it was gift-opening time. Wing and Glark had unwrapped all of our gifts in order to make the border-crossing easier, so Wing played Santa and just pulled them out of a bag. They gave us some really cool stuff, including a Buffy action figure for me and a Willow action figure for Jim. Ken got me a book from my Wish List and we both agreed on the coolness of Wish Lists in general for buying presents. Everyone seemed pleased with all of their gifts!

We showed off our digital cable. According to Wing and Glark, you only get 2 channels in Canada -- maybe 3 if the weather is right. So they were very jealous of our big, fat, American television. Wing also dug right into my collection of Real World books and we discussed how we are Bunim-Murray puppets -- anything they produce, we will watch.

Soon it was time for dinner and a trip to the Carousel Center. We thought about seeing a movie, but we were in that lull period where no movies are starting. We went to CompUSA and then wandered around a little bit, and ended up eating dinner at Mozzarella's. The manager there knows me from when I used to work at Borders (in the same mall) and gave us the mall employee discount even though I no longer work there. That was cool!

We came back to our place and watched "Run Lola Run", which we had rented. I really liked it! I knew I would though, having read so much about it. Then we enjoyed a special on The Learning Channel called "World's Worst Drivers", although it was mostly lame clips of people driving with an announcer saying "Imagine if this person got in a big accident!". We were all pretty sleepy at this point, so the guests left for their hotel and Jim and I went to sleep.

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See, all cool things come from Toronto. Wing, Glark and this television station modeled after a web page. It will be even cooler when it's interactive and you can just go and click on the weather or whatever. But I just asked Wing about it on ICQ and she said the channel sucks in reality, so there you go. [NY Times - registration required]

I agree with the idea that instead of complaining about the IT worker shortage, maybe companies should be a little more flexible in either training the workers they already have, or allowing creative job solutions, such as telecommuting or part-time work. Although the setup may be a pain, it seems cheaper in the long run than hiring headhunters or consultants to do the work.

Nielsen's predictions for the Web in 2000: I don't think micropayments will catch on with the masses for quite some time, honestly. I still know a lot of people who are loathe to use their credit card on the web, much less install automatic payment software. And it's still difficult to get people to pay for content. I would much rather look at (or ignore) banner ads than pay for content. I also disagree with his scenario about ordering a book online while in a bookstore. I don't think the average user would ever do that, at least not in the next 5 years.