Safe from the Losing Fight

[Note: I should mention the joke here is on me. The strings were in fact in little endian format. I just don’t know how to read a debugger.]

Its time for my geek humor corner. Technically this entire blog could be considered geek humor (sans the humor), but bear with me now. This is quite amusing, I assure you. Assuming, of course, you have a CS or EE degree and you are easily amused. I know for one that I fall into that catagory.

If you don’t, I’m sure its ok. God probably still loves you anyway.

Anyway, I’m working on porting a Mac/PowerPC application to Mac/Intel. As any geek worth his weight in Cheetos knows, that means dealing with big endian vs little endian issues. The problem I was looking at had to deal with strings of text. I’m looking at the string in the debugger, and everything looks fine. So I decide to actually to view the string as raw memory.

Well now. That’s funny. In a “that’s going to ruin my entire day” sort of way.

Silly me, here I was on a little-endian machine thinking I’d see little-endian string. But that’s where I’d be wrong. I was now staring at a big-endian string (a string literal built by the compiler, no less).

BUHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

I guess you had to be there.

My business partners and I were reviewing an NDA for a potential contract today. We were marveling at the dense prose used in it. I mean, the lawyers really earned their keep on this one. No one with a soul was going to understand it.

Anyway, that got us to thinking about NDA’s in general. I suggested that NDA’s should be written in a lighthearted poem format. My suggestion was:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Please work for us
But don’t tell anyone you knew

Its a good thing I’m an engineer.

The other guys tried, but they were even less successful than I was. I mean theirs didn’t even rhyme. psh. Whoever heard of a poem that didn’t rhyme?

After coming to the realization that we weren’t poets, we started talking about how much we should charge this sucker. I mean mark. I mean customer. Customer. Whatever.

Its always a delicate balance. If you charge too much, they assume you’re trying to rob them outright. But you charge too little, they assume you’re going to steal something on the way out. So you have aim for the price range that says “I’m probably not a thief.”

Regardless, I’m pretty excited about this. Its always good to have new suckers come in. I mean customers.

I got an IM from an acquaintance today. He works for Apple these days and was asking me if I was interested in a job. It would involve me moving back to California, but I would get to work for the Mothership.

I told him no, there’s only one reason why I’d move back to California at this point.

Although I wasn’t interested in the offer, its always nice to hear things like this. Its good to know someone’s keeping you in mind, and it definitely helps the ‘ol ego.

Mmmm. Listening to Ten Shekel Shirt right now. “Healer”. Good stuff. I’ve had the album for a while but just recently started listening to it frequently. I also like “Ocean” and “Unashamed Love”.

And as Pat Robertson would say “If you’re not listening to Ten Shekel Shirt right now, you’re going to Hell.”

I’m getting old. Well, not right this minute. Its going to take a while. Like about a week. I think Sunday will work well for me.

As I get older, I’ve decided I’m going to become grumpy. Not because I have reason to, but just because it looks fun. I mean, what other reason would you have to beat innocent people with a walker? Or play with false teeth? Or lose all your hair? Or wear diapers? I tell you what, old people have it figured out.

Supposedly you get that “wisdom” thing too, but that doesn’t sound as entertaining. Besides, I had my wisdom teeth cut out, so I think I’m exempt.

Anyway, Elaine is going to be coming out to visit me for this momentous occasion. Its mainly momentous because I plan to wear pants that day, not for the birthday or anything. I’m pretty excited about it (Elaine visiting, not me wearing pants) but I’m a bit anxious a few of our activities.

We’re having lunch with some of her friends who live in the Dallas metroplex. They’re apparently geeks too, so we should get along fine. But meeting people is always interesting for me. Namely because I tend to clamp my mouth shut and try not to make any noise. I think my mind is too busy processing the new people and what they’re saying to come up with any original thoughts to say. The one time I was dumb enough to open my mouth in such a situation, I said something like “Weasels taste great stewed”. Or something equally captivating.

When I met Elaine’s parents for the first time, all I could do was grin nod my head stupidly like one of those bobble-head dolls. Oh well. Hopefully they thought I was just stoned out of my mind.

Afterwards I think we’re going to go check out the Fort Worth zoo. I keep have visions of me going in with Elaine, getting lost, and Elaine leaving with some chimp (other than me).

Chimp/Andy-Impersonator: Ooo-ooo-ahh-ahh!

Elaine: Oh wow, you look a lot better than usual. Did you get a haircut or something?

Chimp/Andy-Impersonator: AHH-AHH-AHH!

Elaine: Wow, you’re even more well spoken than usual.

She’d figure it out though when they got home and the chimp burned the stew. No one can burn stew like me. Water catches fire.

Did I mention that sometimes my thoughts aren’t human?