Just a blog

This past Christmas my brother got the sweetest Whippet puppy named Slim. Little did he know that once Slim got a few months older, he’d be a Whippet with an overbite. I still think he’s the cutest Whippet in town, he’s just special . It turns out that because of his overbite, his bottom incisors were digging into his upper gums. To correct the problem a vet recommended that he get doggie braces. This would help the teeth to grow outwards a bit and not dig into his gums. The fortunate thing is that he only had to wear them a few months and when I saw him 2 days after it was done, he was bouncing around like a normal puppy. Well it turns out that because Slim had this procedure done he got some local TV time on our local CBS news (watch the video here)

Well the day finally came around where I got the puzzles for the final challenge. Too make a long story short, there’s no way that I came remotely close at winning the grand prize. I knew I wasn’t gonna as soon as I got to the first puzzle. It was the symbol challange but on a full sudoku layout (9×9 grid). It took me probably 20 minutes to get through that puzzle. Then it was on to the the restoration puzzle (swapping out sploches of paint until only one sploch was left), which I got through fairly quickly (less than 10 minutes). Then it was my demise.. the curator’s puzzle (hanging pictures on hooks when there are more hooks than pictures). Try as I may, and boy did I try and try and try… I had a hard time completing it. And in the weeee hours of the morning I gave up to try again in the morning. So I went to bed (see I knew I wasn’t going to win), thinking with a fresher perspective I’d be able to do it. So once I woke up, I continued on my quest. I was bound and determined to finish it…. just to say I finished. And finally…. I finished the curators challenge! Now on to the 4th (and I think the most evil), it was the chess challange (get to checkmate in 3 moves). Since I’m chess-impaired, I did it the best way I know how. Process of elimination… I tried every conceivable combo until I got through it (and it didn’t take me THAT long). Now on to the final puzzle, it was a 24-piece jigsaw puzzle with the picture being a video clip. It was fairly easy and only took me a few minutes to finish. And then I was DONE! FINISHED! I completed the final phase! I may have only won the cryptex… but I am a proud winner of the cryptex.

Just when you thought there couldn’t be anymore reality TV shows out there. Welll there is one more! Ever wonder what the cats do when there’s no one else at home? We’re about to find out. The cats will be residing in a posh residence on Manhatten Avenue in NY. We will be able to peer into their daily lives through the webcam on http://www.meowmixhouse.com.

The Cat Adoption Team is sponsoring a cat for the house and is allowing the public to vote for the lucky resident. Go and vote at: http://www.catadoptionteam.org/ I voted for Rockafeller because I’m partial to orange tabbies.

Just over 3 weeks ago in order to promote the upcoming movie Google and Sony Pictures launched the Da Vinci Code quest. The quest, over the course of 24 days, consisted of logic puzzles. As a fan of logic puzzles, I was eager to play and looked forward to each day’s puzzle. Some of puzzles I found easy (especially with using Google’s search for the answers) and there were some that were a bit more challenging. The game consisted of 2 phases. Phase I is open to anyone that has a Google ID. Then there’s Phase II (due to start in a few days) thats only open to first 10,000 that finish Phase I. The 10,000 finalists do get a prize with the winner of Phase II getting the Grand Prize (http://flash.sonypictures.com/movies/davincicodequest/us/prizing/).

Phase I was completed on May 10th and of course, the finalists wouldn’t be notified until May 15th. On May 10th, I anxiously awaited for the last puzzle to be activated so I could complete it. I kept refreshing screen and t my HORROR, I was getting a server busy page. THEN… the server thought I was a BOT! Oh MY! What to do.. I tried it with FF then IE… I finally got IE to work. I frantically watched the video to get the answers and completed the puzzle and registration as fast as possible.

Then I waited.. and waited (for a week!).. and let me tell you.. I don’t wait well . The rules said I should be notified on May 15th if I was a finalist. So all day long today, I kept periodically checking my email… and there was no email by the time I left the office at 6pm. I swore I finished the game within minutes…. but was that enough to be a finalist. Then when I got home today.. and saw a little white box! I tore open the box.. and what did I find…..

Then my email reaffirmed what the cryptex in the snail mail had indicated.

Least to say, I was quite happy and danced around with glee when I got my prize. This is what I really wanted when I started playing the game. Wish me luck in the finals!

I was excited to find out that Doctor Who was coming to America. My friend got me hooked on this show and now when I watch I sometimes have to hide behind the couch.  Now I don’t miss an episode.   I can’t wait for the DVDs to be released!

This morning I woke up to a chilly morning. As I was leaving to work I noticed this layer of frost on my car’s windshield and back window. My wipers took care of my windshield, but I had to scrape off thse stuff my back window.

thats basically it…

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The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases…Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s effort “vigorously.'’

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In a posting on Hacking Netflix it states:

We had the option to buy Netflix for$50 million and we didn’t do it. They were losing money. They came around a few times,” he recalls. Instead, in 2000, Blockbuster inked a 20-year exclusive video-on-demand pact with Enron as the energy conglom launched into telecom. Blockbuster canned the pact after nine months. Netflix is now worth $1.4 billion. Blockbuster’s market cap is about $850 million.

Its quite interesting to hear about what companies had the opportunity to do in the past. But I think overall it was better for the consumers that Blockbuster didn’t buy Netflix. With having more than one retailer in the market to offer online DVD rentals, its made the market more competitive. As a result, the consumer has choices where to go and it gets the companies to drop their monthly subscription prices to lure customers.

Ever wonder what your pets were doing while you were away. I did, so I set up this little petcam (check out the link on the right). My cats are a bit timid, especially when I’m dogsitting for my brother. So you’ll never know which pet you to take a peak at.