Badminton nets, face cream, pecan crusted tilapia, and code coverage

Badminton Net
Okay... looking for a good badminton net--anyone know what might be nice to find? I don't know if I want a set, one with posts, or stakes that go into the ground. Something portable would be nice.


New Chanel Face Cream?
Also, the Chanel lady told me about a new line of Chanel skincare coming out, called Sublimage.

Little did I know that it's $350 for 1.7 oz. Hehe, I think the $90 I pay for my Rectifiance night cream was a bit out there.

And, take a look at the first Chanel makeup studio in the OC--I wish I lived the the OC!


Pecan encrusted tilapia
Last night I made this great pecan encrusted tilapia, which was modified off of this food network recipe for pistachio crusted tilapia. Okay, I didn't follow the recipe AT ALL since I didn't have pistachios, but also... I wasn't fond of the heavy herbs put in the crust. Instead, I sprinkled salt and pepper on the tilapia, and then spread maple syrup on it. I then coated the fillets in pulverized pecans. Then, I fried up some slices of prosciutto so it was really thin and crispy and served that on top of the fish. The extra saltiness and flavor with the fish was really tasty!

Code Coverage and Unit Tests
I got unit tests and code coverage running in my project's build using JUnit (of course) and Coberatura. They are pretty cool, and describe the line coverage as well as branch coverage of unit tests. I've always had mixed feelings about unit testing... is there some magical sweet spot for unit testing? For instance, I don't want to spend 75% of my time writing unit tests, and have to change and manage unit tests whenever I touch any code (but if that's the case--I think that the unit tests weren't written properly or the functionality wasn't well understood in the first place). I am definitely NOT a test-first coder though. I do see the benefits, but it's just no fun writing unit tests. :) And, I have to add that I am extremely very proud of myself for actually getting this to work in the build considering how distracted I've been at work lately. :)

I won an award at work today!! :)

Wed Sep 22 16:20:02 EDT 2004
I won an award at work today!! :) It was for my contributions as project lead on the last release, on top of my other parallel development responsibilities. Whee--though, it took a lot of team work to accomplish everything--Go team! :)

Whattup ppl?

Sat May 22 10:52:31 EDT 2004
Whattup ppl? Has anyone seen the show Pimp My Ride on MTV? It is soooo awesome. They take crappy ass cars and pimp them out--to make them pimperish (ADJ. A quality or posession of or pertaining to that of a PIMP). Anyways, I was toying with the idea of getting a Vespa for my commute to work... but then Candy busted my bubble--noting that there are lots of hills. Then, I thought that MTV could maybe pimp my vespa... like, a vespa with 4 wheels and 20" chrome wheels and Pirelli tires. Sounds good, huh? And... well, I don't have a vespa, so they would have to buy me one as well. :)

Jeanie and Eva came over last night to watch the Lakers game because their cable broke (wah!). It was fun, except for the fact that J&E like the Lakers...

Back to the monitors are work... my manager said there might be a new monitor policy now--that they are going to buy developers bigger monitors. AND, that was my freaking original question!! I didn't want them to buy me a monitor specifically if everyone else wasn't getting one--so, I brought in my own monitor, and I got the quality that I wanted. So... now they might get developers monitors because of this whole movement I started--hehe. :) Always causin' trouble. Oh well, someone needs to stir things up. :p Yeah, I am such a geek princess.

Taking care of some kids today... the parents are going to a wedding, so I get to play with the kiddies! It's going to be so much fun. I imagine they are going to want to play xbox all night. But, maybe I'll just let them watch a movie for some downtime. :)

Had the most amazing Thai dinner last night--it was sooo yummy. This duck royale--boneless and super super crispy--it was awesome. And, beef yellow curry--we were commenting that the curry was not too thin and not too thick... just perfect. And, this noodle dish (pad seeoh or something), and it was fabulous too. YUM!

Hmm... started some monitor wars at work.

Wed May 19 23:00:20 EDT 2004
Hmm... started some monitor wars at work. I got a big flat panel for myself... and then other people have been buying themselves big 21 inch CRTs! Go people!

Whee, kiddies are coming to play with me tomorrow--I can't wait. :) It's going to be so much fun. Hmm... Wednesday is blogging day but I have nothing else to blog about... ok, buh bye. :)

Hello, everyone! It is finally Friday

Fri May 7 10:11:14 EDT 2004
Hello, everyone! It is finally Friday, and I am soooo excited. People say they like the nice weather and all that... but I think I am allergic to sunlight or something. Maybe I am used to dark rooms in front of computers, so real sunlight hurts my eyes. :p And, I do like nice weather! But, I think my favorite weather must be in the 60s. I was blowdrying my hair this morning and getting really hot... so it must have been too warm this morning.

I bought myself a 20-inch flat panel monitor at work... It's because I'm a major princess. I couldn't stand the 17-inch monitor I had. It's really ridiculous to give a developer a 17-inch monitor. I had to scroll across my src pane all the time in my IDE! That is just not acceptable. Ok... I am spoiled. :) But, hey, at least I didn't get a pink metallic monitor (even though it would have matched my iPod really nicely).

Candy found out that they have FREE watch band/link adjustment at the Movado store when you bring in your Movado or ESQ--all the more reason to get a Movado... but I don't usually wear a watch. Maybe that's why I have no sense of time...

Candy is soooo nice by the way and got me a Kate Spade messenger bag... don't know if we should keep it or not. Feel kind of bad getting that when I just got this Fendi purse a week ago. :) Hehe. I really should stop shopping.

MIT Robot Competition

Fri Jan 30 14:48:57 EST 2004
Went to the MIT Robot Competition last night--it was pretty cool. But, we had to leave early because Jordan was bored. Besides that, been good about finishing lots of work-work ahead of time. At lunch, I had a "business lunch" with a couple of my coworkers to just touch base on a startup. I hope something comes to fruition soon, since I think we would all be happier working on something that is ours.

Tonight, going out to dinner with Candy and her friend... a nice Indian place in Waltham, I think. Going to Minado (Japanese sushi buffet, in Natick) for Jeanie's birthday, wheee! We have a superbowl party on Sunday! Yay!! So, seems like a pretty packed weekend.

Also, getting geared up to look for new jobs now. I don't know how the job market is... I think that I definitely have time unless something catastrophic happens with the project/office/company. But, still, the hardest thing is finding out what I want to do and where I want to go.

source control system was down...

Mon Jan 26 10:01:52 EST 2004
Came in to work this morning to realize that our source control system was down... again. I woke up this morning at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep until 7am! :( Poor me. Well, nothing is going on today... I am at work... then, I have a KSquare lunch. My sister told me to behave myself, and she was going to sit me between herself and Philana, so I don't launch myself at people to beat them up. But, Philana isn't going... so if someone is annoying, I don't know what my sister will do. Hehe. :p

Yummm had Indian buffet for lunch...

Wed Jan 7 15:04:08 EST 2004
Yummm had Indian buffet for lunch... it was soooo good. Yay! Been a busy little bee at work today... doing some new graphing things (blah, I hate graphing). I think my major beef with doing user interface things is that it is so easy for other people to complain about them--because they see it. GRRRR. Also, at work, some guy's laptop broke, and they needed an XP cd, but no one in IS&T had one... hehehe, so I said I could make them one if they had a CD-R. Well, I don't know if they got one, or they couldn't find a CD-R (probably the latter)--but, they didn't get back to me. Ha ha, funny workplace.

Hmm, watched an episode of season 3, 24--I was a little confused. Started knitting a hat... I should really try to finish one knitting project before I start on another one. :p

Workplace communication

Thu Sep 25 11:53:36 EDT 2003
So, people often call me at work if they have a problem like, "I can't see the UI", "I can't login", "My server doesn't start up", and "I can't build." I've compiled a checklist of troubleshooting questions to ask people who call me, in this order:
(1) Is your computer on?
(2) Is your monitor on?
(3) Did you try to hit refresh on your browser?
(4) Do you have that file checked out?
Hehe... :p

So, I love it when Rob starts talking to me about some performance testing we need to do on our application, and then he just stops. He says he has too many parallel processes going, and I'm a suspended thread. Well, FINE.

And then, on the other hand, Sarkis was talking to me about something, and then he continues to talk to me... but the funny thing was, I wasn't there in my office.

So... this just goes to show you what kind of communication is going on at my workplace (or, lack thereof). :p