So Tracy’s mom got me Halo, Sarah McLachlan’s Afterglow, and a book for Christmas. As usual, I didn’t give or get any gifts from my family. We’re too practical for that I guess.

So as the year ends, I look back and figure out what were the best and

worst for me this year…

Best:

Tracy

Cats

California Half-Ironman

Lance Armstrong

World Poker Tour

Worst:

Losing my job

George Bush

SCO

SARS

Media fascination with troubled celebrities Martha Stewart, Kobe Bryant,

Michael Jackson

So an aunt sends me a check and a note for Christmas saying don’t forget to go to some Christian church services. I haven’t been to church in about 15 years, but if there’s one thing that’s sure to make me restore my faith in Jesus, then it’s money.

So a friend who works at Proofpoint is now using their product to filter my email. It works pretty well, it’s by far the best I’ve seen for a system that doesn’t require user configuration or training. My trusty old Bogofilter worked pretty well, but this is better. The disadvantage is that if I actually want to look at my spam, I have to reply to the daily spam summary email I get and release those messages I actually want to read. That system is better for most users because they won’t set off viruses or webbugs, but it’s bad for me because I never worry about those things because I read my email as text with mutt. I haven’t tried any of the major competitors, like Brightmail, ActiveState, or MailFrontier.

I had the worst interview experience of my life today, though there was some setup that led to it. The company shall remain nameless, but if you are particularly curious, you can email me and I’ll tell you. It’s a small startup so you almost certainly haven’t heard of it anyways.

On Friday, a company wanted me to take a test to fill their position. I had seen the job posting online and a friend had recommended the company as someplace to look at. So I went in to the test, and it was a timed technical test. They put 4 candidates in the same room, doing the same test I presume. That was an odd way to start off. It was an 1.5 hr test, asking mostly reasonable questions. I thought the test went ok. It was a handwritten test, so I was surprised when they called me back that day asking to schedule an interview, presumably having looked at the answers and found them satisfactory. So we scheduled it for 1pm Monday. When I asked how long it would take he said it would take 2 hours if it went well and less if it didn’t. Well that’s direct if not very courteous I thought.

So I show up today about 10 minutes early as you would expect and I check in with the receptionist. I wait patiently and I consider how I am already not too pleased with how their interview process has progressed. 20 minutes after my scheduled interview time, he shows up with a slight apology about being on the phone. The interviewer shows up with my technical test and resume and one of the first things he says is, “well you rated yourself a 9 in Java, but based on this test you’re not a 9.” So I ask him, “Well then why did you bring me in?” And his response is that he wants to confirm his opinion. At this point, I don’t really care that much any more. He obviously doesn’t think I’m worthy, but I continue on and try to make a good impression. I do an excellent job of confirming his opinion by screwing up every question he asks me, despite the fact that I’m actually trying to show that I’m not an idiot. After 40 minutes talking with him(but 1 hr after my interview was supposed to start), we give up and he says he’s going to go look for someone else for me to talk to. It’s clear to me that even if there was someone else available, he wouldn’t pain them with talking to me and I wouldn’t really care anyways. But before I can tell him not to bother finding another interviewer he leaves the room. He quickly returns and apologizes that everyone else is out of the office for the interview. Which leaves it at that. Of course I don’t expect/want them to really call me back. I admit that I looked very poor in the interview. But this company set a new low in how to treat a prospective candidate.

Crap. It turns out that Battlestar Galactica was only a 2 episode mini-series, so it’s already over. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Hopefully they’ll make a full show out of it.

I normally won’t advertise blatantly but this offer is too good to pass up. At least it is for me. Ultimate Bet is offering a deal where if I Refer a Friend, I’ll get up to $100, and you’ll get up to $50 bonus. Don’t worry, I can cut you a deal of some sort, just email me and we’ll work out something. So if you’ve ever thought about buying into a poker site, then this is a really good opportunity for it. I’ll be honest, the action at ultimatebet isn’t quite as good as it used to be, but it’s not bad. I expect it’ll get really good once the World Poker Tour Ultimate Bet episode airs next month or so.

Speaking of deals, I saw some pretty tempting deals on plasma tv’s. 42 inch HDTV ready tv’s can be had for under $3000. I’m not going to get one until I get a job.

Kojo and I did our first 3 mile time trial run today, that actually went pretty well. I ran it in about 23:20, and Kojo was about 10 seconds behind. Sub 8 minute pace is very respectable for our first one.

I just saw the new Battlestar Galactica remake on The Sci-Fi Channel and I have to say wow. It was excellent. Better than the original, better than a lot of recent movies I’ve seen. I am hooked after one episode.

Celebrity Poker Showdown is the new poker show this season. It’s not great, in fact some of the players are downright bad. But I’ll still watch it. On the first show, it was clear that only Ben Affleck knew how to play. David Schwimmer maybe some truly horrible plays. This week the cast of the West Wing is on and Kojo has put up $2 on Martin Sheen, I am giving him 4-1 odds(table is 5 handed). Oh and I finally found a place to play Chinese Poker online. Superior Poker has it, and as a bonus, they have the extremely silly game of guts too.

Oh and the phone switchover went seamlessly. It took overnight, but everything worked great. I still sometimes drop into roaming mode when I’m at home, which is an annoyance, but that happened with sprint as well. I might try getting a Nokia phone. The LG phone I bought is the cheapest one verizon sells, and the Nokia is supposed to have better reception. I’m still well within my 15 day trial period where I can easily change my contract or phone which is nice.

It seems like everytime I have a conversation with someone, they always want to ask me about poker. This is of course fine with me because I love it. I just can’t explain why it’s so popular right now. The first thing they say when I ask if they’d like to play or they just like to watch is: “I don’t think I’d be very good because I’m not good at reading tells”. Beginning poker has very little to do with reading bluff tells. When playing low limit hold’em, someone with patience and a basic understanding of odds is going to be much more successful than an impatient player who can read a bluff. If you are an expert at making or picking off a bluff at the right time, then you’re going to be successful at a different type of poker(heads up no limit hold’em comes to mind, but even pros don’t play it often).

Also I bit the bullet and I transferred my number from Sprint PCS to Verizon Wireless number. They claim it’ll take 24-48 hrs and everything will be done. We’ll see how good their information systems are. We got the cheapest phones possible an LG VX3100. We’ll see how it goes. We expect to save about $25/mo. On a somewhat comparable plan, the big difference being that we’ll have 100 less minutes, but tons of mobile-to-mobile and unlimited night and weekend minutes, and also I’m signing a 2 year contract instead of on a month to month contract with Sprint. I think Sprint charges me a about $5-8/mo for not having a contract.

A friend was talking about getting a phone which has the Bluetooth earpiece. This earpiece uses the Bluetooth short range wireless protocol to talk to the cellular handset. It sounds kind of neat, but I’m sure it’s a bit expensive right now, and I don’t use a cellular phone enough to justify it. I probably talk less than 50 minutes a month on my phone. This feels like the first in a wave of products which are going to have neat technology integration features. I expect that in the next few years, we’ll see some other cool things. I’m still waiting for someone to make a Bluetooth house or car key.

So I was thinking about buying some Tivo stock because I love the service so much, and the day after I start looking at it, Comcast announces that they are going to produce a similar product for their customers. This causes Tivo’s stock to drop %12.5 in one day. It’s gotta be some sort of sign, but I can’t tell what it means. Either I should see it as a buying opportunity, or as a warning to avoid it. On the one hand Tivo won’t be able to match the distribution channel that Comcast has, but on the other Tivo has a great product, loyal customers and a pretty strong brand. As one analyst said, Tivo is in danger of becoming the next Apple. This wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but it would limit them to a niche market, which isn’t necessarily what you look for in a stock pick. The most likely outcome for Tivo is for them to be bought out by DirecTV who they have a strong partnership with. The only obstacle to that are persistent rumors that Sony News corp which is buying DirecTV has their own similar product and would kill the partnership. I’ll think about it a few more days and see if the price drops more.