Seemant Kulleen

From Sindhu:

Day 8 has been an intensely relaxing and stress free day. After all the focus and will power we had to employ this past week to keep on track, we felt a day of utter laziness was well deserved. Cleaning out the apartment from all junk food minimized the temptation for both of us. We literally spent the day reading, watching movies and playing video games. All things that kept us entertained and not thinking about food.The weather here was bitter cold so that kept us indoors all day. We've both decided that doing this cleansing together is probably what got us this far. Any time either one of us wanted to break the fast, the other was there to offer support. Now, we will be more cautious of what we put into our bodies. Our tongues are still fuzzy but it is getting easier to stay strong.

Sindhu:

Once again, salt water made me feel a little sick but once it ran through my system I felt fine. My body is still expelling toxins after 7 days. Wow. The laxative tea does a great job of loosening the toxins and my body now wakes up like clockwork every morning. I still wake up with some serious cramps because my system needs to get rid of all the waste. The rest of the day just sort of flies by now with very little thought of food. Every time I have a hankering for something warm to drink, I pour a cup of hot water or peppermint tea. The weekend is here which means I'll be home most of the time. I'm anxious to see if I'll be craving more now that I am home.

Bill:

It's Friday and the office ordered pizza for lunch. It felt like I was offered a slice twenty times. I made it though. Just chugged my lemonade (with a bit extra pepper today, maybe too much) and put my head down and did my work. I have tomorrow off and we've been asked to go over to a friends house for dinner. I said we'd join, but we wouldn't be eating. I expect that to be my hardest test of the week. We'll get some serious peer pressure then.

Sindhu:

Today was pretty uneventful although I have to voice how much I hate the salt water first thing in the morning. 32oz is quite a bit to chug down and I believe the worst part is drinking it warm. I've started a little more than the required cayenne pepper in the lemonade because I like the bite. It hasn't affected me internally. It's truly amazing how just drinking this lemonade is the only daily nutrition your bode needs. I am still in awe at how much energy I have considering I haven't had solid food in 6 whole days.

Bill:

An unforeseen benefit of this diet is the additional time that has been added to my day. No dishes, no time cooking and no time spent eating. Although I love to cook, it's nice to be able to unwind after work that much sooner. Six days in I also thought I'd be used to the salt water. Nope, still makes me gag a little. However I did think I'd be sick of drinking this lemonade. Quite the contrary, I actually enjoy the fact that I'm drinking something that's giving me energy, cleaning me out and not making me full.

Sindhu:

Day 5 is actually here and almost over. I didn't really crave any coffee today. I did have a cup of peppermint tea because my tongue is white and fuzzy and the peppermint is supposed to combat any odors. Plus it was kind of a relief to drink something different. The mint really does perk you up. My boss' brought in take out for lunch today from my favorite Chinese place but I didn't have the slightest hankering for it. I still can't believe that. I noticed today that I can get through about 25 mins of my workout before I need my inhaler where as before, I needed it 5-10 mins into my workout. That is very promising.

Bill:

Today started with as much promise of completion as any. I was focused, I'm half way through this thing (I hope). Without even realizing it I walk by a basket full of crackers and pick one up. As I put it hit my tough I snapped out of my daydream. So violently did I snap that my coworkers around me laughed, wondering if there was something wrong with the cracker. Of course, rather than look psycho, I tried to describe my situation. Of course, after describing everything, and showing them my urine yellow drink with floating red pepper (lol) I may still look a little off mentally in their eyes Anyway, I made it through today, one step closer. Time to sit down and have some laxitive tea..yum yum.

Sindhu:

I woke up at 6:00 this morning before my alarm clock went off full of energy and eager to get the salt water down as soon as possible. I'm giving myself 2 hours to do this before going to work. It's still the worst part of this cleansing. Today I actually felt lighter, my head was clearer and I was not feeling lethargic at work. I missed the cup of coffee by my side and I realized that I didn't miss the taste. What I missed was the smell and the comfort of knowing that the cup was there. I had my bottle of water next to me for the most part and it actually tasted really good! The greatest benefit of being at work is there is little or no time for my mind to wander and think about food. So, all in all it was a great day full of energy with virtually no cravings.

Bill:

Not such a bad day being that I had off from work. Sindhu got rid of all the junk food in the house so there's nothing to tempt me which kept me on track. The cravings started after 12:00pm so I had a glass of lemonade and that did satisfy me. I got a good solid hour workout in. This diet has made me feel stronger. Working out has helped me keep my mind strong on this diet. I'm enhancing the results I'm getting by burning more calories. Pretty good day, lost 4 lbs so far .

Sindhu:

Well, the worst part of today was drinking the salt water in the morning on an empty stomach. I still had a couple of cravings and felt like quitting, but Bill was my strength. More laxative tea and goodbye Day 2.

Bill:

I worked at the restaurant today and the tantalizing smells from the Sunday Brunch were agonizing. However, I am excited about losing weight and helping my kidneys. Doing the fast with a partner is definitely advisable as Sindhu was almost giving in to the cravings today. I am proud that I was able to chug lemonade and water and not put anything solid into my system.

Sindhu:

Day 1 went better than I expected. I started the day by drinking 32oz of un-iodized salt water, lukewarm. The rest of the day, I relaxed by indulging in some TV and a book. I didn't really suffer from major hunger pangs although I did crave a good cup of coffee and crackers. Other than that, I drank my lemonade and water. I worked out for 30 mins and actually had a lot of energy. It felt good. What kept me going was the idea that not only was my body undergoing some well deserved rest from constantly digesting solid food, but that my internal body is going through a rejuvenating cleanse. It's best to think one day at a time instead of looking 10 days forward. For now, I am going to enjoy a steaming cup of laxative tea and bid goodbye to Day 1.

Bill:

Working in a restaurant offers many opportunities to stray from a normal eating routine, even more so when you're drinking watered down lemonade. Smells of cinnamon raisin french toast in the morning, sauteed garlic during lunch and servers enjoying cappuccino and espresso was just killing me. This diet, for anyone, is certainly a test of ones willpower. In my case, adding the constant tease of walking into a restaurant for work is going to make it even harder.

Ha! It's not me this time. I'm done with the Master Cleanse for another couple of months. Aimee and I will be doing it in March at some point, or maybe April (when the weather is a lot warmer, anyway). In the meantime, however, my sister and her fiance are starting their master cleanse tomorrow (saturday). So tonight is their last meal for 10 days.

I'll let Sindhuja (that's my sister) explain:

We decided 2 days ago that our bodies were in dire need of a cleansing of all the holiday feasts this past season. I hope to achieve a healthy relationship with food at the conclusion of the fast and hopefully not give in to my sweet cravings too often. A reward now and then would be fine, but not everyday. Tonight however, I will be indulging in some pizza, coffee ice-cream and Dr. Pepper. It's an incredibly daunting thought of going 10 days (possibly more) without any solid food, so I figure I should give in to my cravings tonight.

My fiance hopes to lose some weight on the lemonade diet especially around his mid-section and the second chin. Two years ago, he was taken to the emergency room twice due to kidney stones so we're hoping the fast will provide a cure. Tonight though, pizza and doritos are on the menu....

Update: I hereby rescind the update I made in my Circuit City post: Office Depot has not pulled their creepy hand spots yet. Maybe they're taking the tack that any exposure is good exposure, in which case I feel sorry for them (but not enough to shop there )

Back when I was blogging about Gentoo being a development platform more than a user platform, I got an email from Stuart telling me about a book he'd read called The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. He was very sweet (Stuart, not Mr. Anderson, though he might be well be sweet, I just don't know him) and even offered to buy the book for me if I put it on my Amazon wishlist (no link, because I don't actually have one).

A few weeks later, I found it at a book fair where I used to work and picked it up. It took me a few more weeks to finish it, but I did finish it shortly before we left for Jamaica. I found the book to be quite interesting and compelling, and exactly in line with my own thoughts on where commerce is (or should be?) heading.

When we were looking into resorts and all-inclusives in the Caribbean last summer, we discovered a nice place in Ocho Rios, Jamaica that offered very decent rates. So basically, for the amount that we would've paid for a basic room in the Bahamas got us a fairly high-end room in Jamaica. So we decided to opt with Jamaica because we'd get more luxury for the buck. Boy were we in for a surprise. We thought we were getting a private type affair, with less people per pool, and a great view and location on the premises. Being an all-inclusive, food and tips were included. Drinks were also included. So at any bar, any restaurant at any time of day, you can get your favourite drink.

What we actually got, then, was all the stuff we expected -- the less populated chalet and more private pool, fantastic view, brilliant location, free food and drink, and then also a free minibar in the room. So we had champagne, red & white wines, rum, vodka, beer, a whole bunch of juices, ginger ale and bottled water. Every morning, they replenished it for us. We thought that was just what they did, but it turned out that our "level" of room came with that. And finally, we got concierge service. So, when we got off the bus at the hotel, we got whisked into a private office with champagne and plush chairs and they checked us in.etc. And for our tours and excursions etc, they made all the bookings for us and picked up the tickets etc. They also arranged our check-outs and all of that. Essentially, it was personalised service for maybe a hundred odd dollars more (total). For a few hundred dollars more we could have gotten butler service, but I shied away from that, because it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

In sum, it was a fantastic experience and well worth it. We'll do it again, but first we'll explore different places and different hotels in the coming years.

I noticed last night a new set of commercials for Progressive Insurance (which, by the way, doesn't even exist in this state, so totally not an option for us). They're offering concierge service there as well. Now, when you're in a car wreck, you call them. They'll pick you up and take care of getting your car towed to wherever and getting it fixed, yadayada.
The commercial spot was great -- everyone was whispering because they did not want to wake up the sleeping baby who slept through the accident. Quite well done, actually, but mostly because it's a service that the others don't advertise. In California, it turns out, they don't care for this.

And, on the theme of cars and being picked up, Enterprise car rentals has been doing it for years, where you call them and they'll pick you up. But for taking car rentals "out of the box" (someone shoot me now for that lingo), ZipCar is the best model I've seen. You get a membership, call them, and then go pick up your car at some predetermined location. You just wzve your credit card at it, and it unlocks. When you're done, you just bring it back to that spot or at some other predetermined spot and walk away. It's nice to dispense with going all the way out to the airport or whatever to return your car.

There's more to be said on this subject, so I'll continue that in the next article.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain the cryptic title of this post, which is all about concierge services. It turns out that The Concierge was the working title of that Michael J. Fox movie. I could probably dedicate an entire series of blog posts on Mr. Fox, who's simply fantastic, but I'll leave you with this: why isn't Family Ties on DVD yet?

Here's an update: Office Depot has actually pulled their ad spots with the disembodied hand. Seems like enough bloggers (including yours truly) called them out on its creepiness to have an effect.

More "me too" advertising, but this one has a couple of twists: it's a two-pronged "me too" approach. It was bound to happen, of course. Slowly but surely, more and more people know about the Firefox browser. Interestingly enough, though, I've found that the name Mozilla is not as widely known. Anyway, I guess Firefox has reached the "buzz" stage. You either know about it and use it (whenever possible) or are burning to know what it is and how you can maximise your productivity with it. Or something.

Anyway, given all the buzz and bally-hoo about Firefox, it was inevitable that someone in marketing would think "hey, how can we invoke something that sounds like firefox, for our product/service?" And that person, it turns out, works for Circuit City.

A little background, for those of you not overly familiar with this "Circuit City" thing. If you want circuit boards and resistors and stuff, you might instinctively think "Circuit City", but you'd be wrong. You'd have to think Radio Shack for that instead.

Circuit City is a chain electronics/entertainment store. You go there to buy CDs, DVDs, games, car audio, home audio, tv's, and so on. Best Buy is another such chain. And the reason I mention Best Buy is a simple one. A few years ago, a company called Geek Squad got acquired by Best Buy (b2evo won't let me link to it). The brand is marketed very well (I can not speak to the service provided, as I have no experience with it, nor do I know anyone who has). Essentially, they've taken the idea of geeks and brought it somewhat mainstream: geeks as heroes and saviours, if you will. They must be doing fairly well, because it's been at least 3 years, if not more, and the company is still around and still being marketed fairly aggressively. Here's the shtick: their army of geeks patrol around in black and white VW beetles and will fix your problems on any day at any time (they also have geeks at the ready in the store, I believe).

Circuit City, then, pulled off their double me-too whammy when they launched their Firedog service. Here's the shtick: their army of people patrol around in black and green Scion xB's to fix your problems. You can call them on any day at any time, and they probably also have, um, firedogs at the ready in the store. The fact that they're trying to associate it with dogs in firehouses doesn't even make sense, so let's dispense with that excuse right now.

You know, I don't necessarily hold copycatting against companies. If executed well and marketed well, I think they're fine. A good idea is a good idea, and if it works for you then kudos. So, I'm not against Circuit City offering this service. I'm just sickened by their marketing of it. The service is what it is: Geek Squad had a great idea and they capitalised on it. Circuit City saw that and decided to offer such a service to their customers as well. So far, so fine, so good. That Circuit City would then brand this service as "firedog" and then go "well, Geek Squad has VW's, we'll have xB's" and think that sets them apart is just laughable.

So, Circuit City, how many marketing droids got a raise out of this?

As for the commercials, they're just silly. It's full of people taking their pet dogs to be retrained, because said animals do not know what "Vista capable" means, or some other such nonsense. My advice: cut your losses on this ridiculous marketing campaign and get a new ad agency fire[dog] the old one. It's probably too late to rebrand firedog as something more sensible, but in that case take this gift: go with the whole fire/emergency motif and actual firedogs.

So, after about a year or so of using the various gtk2-based forks of XMMS, someone in #gentoo-dev recently recommended rhythmbox. This is a sucky post because I can not even remember why I was asking for alternatives in there. I think it was because I was lamenting that audacious doesn't play my last.fm streams.

Anyway, whoever that person was is now my hero. I love that it's a music management application as well. OK, I just went to my public last.fm page, as linked above, and um, wow. I did not realise I've listened to that much Michael Jackson lately. Actually, I did not realise that rhythmbox was interfacing with last.fm constantly to report that, either. So, in the few minutes it's taken to write this post, I like it even better.

I realise that rhythmbox is something to get used to (it took me a bit), and that it's not a straight up replacement for the xmms type applications (nor am I trying to sell it in this post as such). I'm only expressing my own appreciation for it. It also seems to be firmly a gnome application, so that limits the potential audience for it.

I'm filing this in the "me too" advertising section (when I get around to having such a section). So, there's some US wireless carrier called Alltel which launched this new cool feature that lets you call up to 5 of your friends/family on other networks for free. They call this feature "My Circle," which is nice and catchy.

And of course, within weeks, you can't walk through a mall without hearing about T-Mobile's response, which they've cleverly and originally dubbed "My Faves" which allows you to, guess what, call up to 5 of your friends/family on other networks for -- you guessed, free.

So here's a kudos to Alltel for calling out T-Mobile's "look mommy, I can do what he does" strategy. It's quite a hilarious response, actually, in that it shows how effortlessly they have the upper hand. My Circle has expanded to 10 of your friends. Just like that. And, their new advertising spots point this out.

Come on, T-Mobile. You guys came to the US a few years ago and took it by storm. You were the first widely known GSM networked wireless provider, you had cool phones, you put hottie Cathy Zeta-Jones in your advertising spots. They were edgy, you were set apart. And you know what? That got me: hook, line and sinker. Verizon was probably a cheaper option, but between the image I had of T-Mobile just being cool, man, and the fact that you offered GSM, Aimee and I signed up to your family plan (with a one year contract).

And I'll tell you why you're going to lose us soon. Our phones are fairly outdated, so we're looking for new phones. For starters, the current line up of phones is somewhat underwhelming. To be honest, I'm not sure if we can even renew our one-year-plan. We're basically "off-plan" at the moment, which actually suits us fine. However, if we're to get phones at good deals, we'd have to sign up for a plan. Except, we'd be locked in for two years.

So this gets me thinking. I like GSM, so Sprint/Nextel and Verizon are out. Alltel (see above) is definitely cool but they're CDMA as well (and they don't offer any plans in Massachusetts anyway). This leaves us with Cingular. For ten bucks a month more, we get a buttload of extra monthly minutes, with unused ones getting carried over into the next month. Yeah, we lose out on your original MyCircle (couldn't your marketing flunkies have at least thought up something original, for crying out loud? Did you give them a raise for the blatant copy-catting?). But that's ok, because most everyone we know is on Cingular, with a small minority on Verizon. And you know something? Cingular just has cooler phones.

That's just how we're inclined so far. If OpenMoko does actually get released in the next couple of months I'll pick one up (maybe two) and that criterion for carrier selection just goes away. Which leaves us with feature comparisons, and I think the minutes-carrying-over plus the lesser amount of dropped calls (this is actually claimed by everyone we know who's on cingular) will probably win us away.

In short, T-Mobile do a couple of things: get both your marketing and product planning/management departments to pull up their socks and start innovating again. Stop following (or at least don't be so bloody blatant about it) and start leading (again). We both know you're capable of it.

I've not blogged in a long time, I see. Forgive me, dear reader, for that. In fact, a lot has been happening in the week since my last post. In that time, I've been poring over the job boards, looking for something to do. I admit, I've felt a little discouraged and slightly dejected owing to the lay-off, but life, as they say, must go on.

So, I've been doing all sorts of keywords searches on those sites to find things that interest me, and discover how things I'm passionate about can become things that I can make a living out of. And, of course, I've been sending resumes out like mad (I've not had any callbacks or emailbacks yet). That is really why I haven't blogged, and why I haven't worked on any of the django websites, which really need to just get finished at this point. I'll tackle those this weekend and try to at least get 3crowns out of the door.

So, my passions. Funny (not in a ha-ha sense) story: Last summer, I googled around for some of my old high school chums. I'm sort of in touch with a few -- one (who I've known since 6th grade) directly and 3 indirectly. I had found that my friend Gordana is doing some cool and major stuff in the world of Art. I thought she'd be in the UN or in politics or something while we were in school, but I guess I'd just taken for granted how great she did in Art class. Well, we exchanged a couple of emails and we got to talking about being passionate about what you do. I never responded to her, because I hadn't figured out exactly what that is. So a four-month late reply is about to go out to her. Told you it wasn't funny.

It turns out that I am, apparently, one of those people-people. I said it, it's now out there: I'm a "people person." Once the shivers are gone when I say that, the truth begins to sink in. I joined gentoo and I became its evangelist not by technical achievements (there's no bit of programming that I can point to and say: "there, see that piece of genius? I did that."), but rather by softer means: I had some great ideas (cascading profiles and g-cpan come to mind). I didn't have the technical oompf to actually code those things up. However, when I found the right people who could, I knew I'd found them (that's an indirect shout out to Mike).

And I realised that that's what I'd been doing at Gentoo. I did it well enough, though I certainly stumbled quite a bit along the way. I'd been building teams. That's been my modus operandi: find a weakness, apply a band-aid, find specialist surgeons to fix it and strengthen it and build upon it. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, here, please understand that. I'm just airing my thoughts of the last few months. And then, there's the fact that my blood runs with devrel. That is to say, even though I'm not formally really a part of DevRel any more, I still do devrel type things (lately it's been talking developers out of leaving the project). That's just my nature, I can't help it. I'm not alone in that, mind you -- it takes that kind of person to be in devrel (which is a shout out to Bryan and to Ferris -- wasn't there some pop star named Bryan Ferris back in the day, by the way? Have I stumbled upon a conspiracy?).

And, of course, there were the linux world expos (though not really with the more recent ones) where I took the reins at interacting with booth visitors and attracting people to the booth. Some might remember me dragging some Malaysian television crew to the Gentoo booth to cover us.

So what does this all mean? All that stuff made me deliriously happy. Well, not all of it is happy (the leaving of devs, for example, sucks mostly), but it's all what I do. That's just who I am. That's what I need to be doing. I don't know if there are any corporate titles that cover that sort of thing (and pay well) or not. I don't know what those titles are, either.

So with this present job search, after the initial round of keyword searching, I decided to try and hone in on some of the industries I'd like to be working in. I don't think I want to work in the linux industry (such as it is), because Gentoo fulfills that need more than amply. But when I think about the kinds of products and services that excite me, then we start to see a picture forming.

Airlines, for example, I feel very strongly about. I love to fly. I love being on airplanes. I love everything about the flying experience, and on non-American carriers, I love the food. Airline food is probably my most favourite type of food. Too bad you can't really go out for that sort of thing. Or, heaven help you, order it in. Anyway, yeah, I love the boarding, the pushback, the taxiing, the sitting on the ground during delays, the line up, the take-off (I LOVE the take-off), the cruising, the drinks, the food (did I mention the food?), the movies and music, talking with fellow passengers and the cabin crew when they have some down time, the slowing down, the landing and touchdown (I LOVE the landing and touchdown, and pulling to the gate. I'm not so thrilled about the steps following that. This, after 32 and a half years of flying continually (my first airplane ride was at 6 months old). A relaxing time for me is watching the airplanes taking-off and landing. I love watching the approaches. A couple of years ago, there was an internet feed of KSFO airport and I used to have that as my background, er, music while doing Gentoo things. I didn't understand most of it, but it relaxed me to listen to the air traffic controllers interact with departing and approaching flights. I hate seeing people off (I love seeing them come in), but I think that's a tinge of jealousy that I'm not the one boarding the aircraft.

Needless to say, one of my categories for search is now Airlines/Aviation. Whether or not I can score a position there that is mutually suitable remains to be seen. And yes, I'm picky. I'd rather work for the cool airlines like Jet Blue and Southwest (if we're talking American carriers). Those have a people focus to the way go about things. They have a courtesy and general respect for their clientele, which is lacking in most of the other domestic carriers.

I'm not sure yet, which other products/services I feel strongly about, but I'll start noting them down as they occur to me. I know they are there, I just need to tap into my brain to get at them.

Ignoring, for a moment, the conjunction of those two words with respect to cults and organisations (and some fraternities), I'd like to share some thoughts about branding and loyalty in airlines. As you, my dear readers, might recall, Aimee and I had gone to Los Angeles and Oklahoma for Thanksgiving (late November), and then to Jamaica for Christmas.

Well, as it turned out, we had two starkly contrasting airline experiences. For the first trip, we booked all the flights on Southwest airlines. Southwest is well-known as a budget airline. On the flights you get pretzels and drinks galore, which is fine. You don't pay much, and you don't expect much. That, and when you get a boarding card, there are no seat numbers on it. You just board (at the right time, because passengers are placed in different zones) and then pick out a seat you might like. Aimee and I tend to prefer the rear of the aircraft, which is not a popular destination, but very very convenient (except if you're in a hurry to deboard at the end of the flight). Southwest, however, exceeded our expectations. Without exception, all the cabin crew members were friendly and happy and smiley. They were courteous and not once did I see even a hint of a frown. This, despite some of our flights being completely full. And, on another occasion, populated by a noisy bunch of high-schoolers (noisy being the keyword, because they were a very nice bunch of students -- headed to LA for a marching band competition (and by the way, some of them played bagpipes, which is simply the coolest thing I've ever heard)).

Anyway, the cabin crew: they were also really funny. The ones making announcements always had a funny quip like "if we expected a water landing, none of us would have shown up to work today." And one of them called the plane the "Love Chub" which is just hilarious.

While I'm gushing about Southwest, I just want to compliment them on their choice of new livery. That old brown/beige/orange scheme just had to go. It was ugly and made their planes look ancient and rickety. I can't wait for the rest of the fleet to be redone. We even saw Shamu at LAX, which was very cool.

Oh right, I have a point with all this. For Christmas, we booked our flights on the fairly pathetic USAir. The preflight experience (booking, check-in, boarding) was normal and fine. Friendly staff, quick service. Onboard, however, is a different world entirely. I believe one of the cabin crew members even had a scowl. For heaven's sake, it's a public facing job -- put on your public face! They just wanted people to sit in their seats and get ready to go, because we were running late. What they forgot was that it wasn't the passengers who caused the delay -- the aircraft arrived late. We, the passengers, were just working with what we had. So, lots of down-talking and PA announcements about "please don't waste time in the aisles -- place your bags away as quickly as possible and sit so that we can leave."

Once airborne on the 4 hour international flight, they serve the requisite peanuts and soft drinks. Here's the kicker: for lunch, you get a choice of a salad, or a sandwich or some sort of snack box. Now, Aimee and I had gotten up mega-early for this flight so we basically skipped breakfast, and the flight to Philly was too short to have anything to eat. It was that first flight that was late. So in Philly we had enough time to go into the next plane, and that's about it.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the snack box. All three items could be had at the, um "bargain basement" price gouging cost of 5 dollars. I get it, we're in the air, you have the monopoly, if not the sense of customer service. Fine, we think, we'll shell out the five bucks each for the salad, because we're basically starved. We're in the rear section (not the very back, but about 10 rows in front of it). By the time they get to us, the only thing left is this mysterious snackbox. We bought one, even though that was simply ridiculous. In it: a bar of candy, a breakfast bar, and nachos and processed cheese or something. Basically, nasty pre-packaged stuff that USAir probably gets for free to promote those products anyway -- they just have to provide the "box" part of the snack box.

So, you open your tray table and what do you see? Not a tray table, but a freaking advertisement for Verizon. I paid money to sit in a seat and look at advertisements (this, by the way, is also what disgusts me about movie theaters these days, but that's a different blog post) for four hours. Five dollars is a magic number on USAir: that's coincidentally how much the cheap ass earphones cost (we did not, don't worry).

So top it all off, they ended the flight on a very inappropriate note. The pilot, when announcing our imminent landing procedures, proceeded to inform us about what a great deal the USAir credit card is, and the number of miles that you get for signing up? Excuse me? How about you just fly the fucking plane, ok? Tell me the local time and temperature and other interesting tidbits I can't see out my window. Don't pimp.

Needless to say, I'm willing to now pay extra to explicitly not fly USAir. Air Jamaica feeds you well, I hear.

This was a pretty long rant: sorry about that.

Before we left for Christmas vacation, I found out from my boss that the Developer Relations Manager role that I'd been filling for the last few months was going to be dissolved. The reason for this is that the company's focus is shifting to be more in line with its revenue and other goals for this year.

Well, today (Jan 2) was the day that that happened, so as of this morning, I've been laid off. I wish I could say "easy come, easy go" but this one was not so easy to come by, so I'm pretty sad to have it go. I'll miss working there and I'll always wonder what would have happened to the DevZone and other outreach stuff that I planned for this quarter (like the 12 articles I'd been working on).

I'll say this: I enjoyed my experience in marketing, and I certainly hope that my next job opportunity will allow me to continue to grow in that direction.

Wish me luck.

For those of you not familiar with this, there are two major office supply chains in the US: Staples and Office Depot. They both stock pretty much the same stuff; they're both in strip malls all across this great land. And they're both Red. You know, the font, the entryway, the building's facade. Same shade of red. Oh yeah, there's also Office Max, but that's red too. Or it was, the last time I saw one, anyway.

So for the past 6 months or so, Staples has been airing television ads which purport to help you cut through the complexities of your life in your office or home office, thanks to the wide selection of stuff available. The central focus of these ads is something they call The Easy Button. It's a nice simple concept. Cut through the crap by pressing this Easy Button. And the ads have certainly gotten funnier and more clever over time -- so in other words, kudos to the team that conceptualised it and brought it to, er, life.

So Office Depot, not wanting to be left behind in the dust, struck back this week (or maybe earlier, I dunno, I only just saw the ads this week): they bring you Thing in a box. The idea is that some creepy disembodied hand in a box will guide you through the crap in your life by pointing out stuff at Office Depot that you can buy. What marketing genius idiot came up with this? Better yet what committee approved this? It's just creepy.

On the subject of creepy marketing: Zompit's rant had me rolling.

Remeber all those fasts I did last year?

Well, I had a final blood test (well, for the year, anyway) a few weeks ago -- right before Christmas vacation -- I also had an appointment with my doctor. Anyway, here's the long and short of it: my liver enzyme levels are completely normal now, as are my cholesterol levels. At some point, I'll scan in all my reports (the relevant sections) and put them up so that interested readers can actually trace the progress. Now, I've been feeling really good for a while, so I did drink just a little bit while we were in Jamaica.

Now, I know, there's a bit of interest about the Jamaican holiday: I promise I'll put up some photos and a more complete report of the vacation up, but I've got a few pressing things to take care of before that. While there, I did not take advantage of the business center (to be honest, I don't even know where it was located) so I was away from computers for an entire blissful week. I did blog, however: I did low-tech style. I pencilblogged! Or would it be waterlogged? I dunno, something. Anyway, I'll transcribe that up for your reading pleasure in a few days or a week or something.

Like I said, I have some other pressing matters to take care of, and I'll clue you all into that tomorrow at some point. Sorry to sound so mysterious, I'm not trying to, I just have a lot on my mind.

Here's a shout out to Vinanda and Ayona for getting back in touch with me (I grew up with them). All hail google, I suppose

I've been working with Marijn on a few bugs in preparation for a gnucash version bump. Phew, that's a lotta links. Anyway, for those of you who are waiting for the version bump, I'm sorry to take so long -- it's just that I want to get the guile/slib/g-wrap stuff bumped and sorted out as well, so that we can start the new version with fresh dependencies.

With Ferris' help, I will now also be maintaining sqlite in portage, seeing as how I use it extensively with both trac and django. There's a version bump pending there, so stay tuned for that one. I will be cleaning out a lot of the old crufty ebuilds for it, so if you have any pet versions you'd like to see stick around, please drop me a line or a comment.

The Boston Conspiracy has not met in a while -- the end of the year tends to be busy for pretty much everyone, I suppose. Dan's called for a Sunday lunch/brunch soon, so hopefully we'll all be getting together soon.

I do have a couple of other projects up my sleeve that I'll make public in the next few weeks