Thursday: I accomplished things at work, even though I spent far too much time wondering what the point of the horribly obfuscated code was.

I have a running theory that people who are actual computer programmers make their code intentionally impossible to maintain, because they see this as a way towards job security.  Most of the scientist-programmers make things work in a generally simple way that doesn't use a million redirections or API layers.  There are exceptions to both sets, but this seems to generally hold true.

Remember last week when I mentioned the farmer's market by work has a pop-up Indian place?  I finally tried it today:

Chicken saag and chana masala with rice.

Yeah.  Turns out I probably won't be going back.  They claimed to have a chicken curry, but that was a lie, so I ended up with the chana.  I'm not a big fan of that.  Also: no naan.  Kind of bland as well, which is kind of not what Indian is known for.  I guess I will just wish that instead of Subway, we had a Masala Wok.

Then I saw one of the stray kitties while leaving work.

Since lunch was disappointing, and I was super hungry by the end of the day, I decided to get pancakes for dinner.

Chocolate chip pancakes.

Also a pork chop.

Today's Drawlloween theme is candy.

Which is convenient, since getting pancakes for dinner means going to Nijiya Market to pick up Japanese snack foods.

Did you know that they make individually wrapped Takenoko no Seto and Kinoko no Yama?  Neither did I.  This is apparently for trick or treaters.  Or me.  For me.  Also, I'm glad that TのS and KのY can get along enough to have a shared package.

Remember these candies that I didn't take any pictures of from that sushi restaurant in Alameda?  Yeah, so now I have a bag to put into my candy dish at the office.

• "Many people have written in, asking me “please don’t let the ghost cat die…” but… She’s a ghost. We knew she was a ghost when we fell in love with her." LOL.
• Everything I've seen about this hearing leads me to believe it was hilarious.
• And in case you were wondering if they trick or treat in Japan, the answer is yes.  Except less so this year, because the yakuza aren't handing out treats.
• Yes, those yakuza.  The criminal ones.
• Animals and pancakes.
• Halloween jokes.

Tuesday: Some food, and some links

Noble Pig, yesterday.  There's a new location that's larger and closer to the rest of things.

Sandra Lee sells a super thin frying pan just for grilled cheese.  I can't imagine this works well.

Masala Wok.  Mmmmm...chicken tikka masala.

Then some frozen yogurt.  Because healthy.

• Mega Slowbro.
• A.
• B.
• C.
• Comic books.
• Spider-Man.
• A.
• B.
• She-Hulk.
• That guy from last week is not being dumb now.
• Other stuff.
• College Jello.
• Sean Bean.
• Hawaii primary elections.

Saturday: Grocery shopping on Saturday is crazy.

People don't know how to use parking lots, they blocked half of the entrance with a charity booth, and people always think that blocking an aisle with a cart is totally fine.

Also, I suspect my car's battery is dying.  For the past day or so, every time I try to start it, it hesitates and eventually starts, but in a grumpy fashion.  I think I can just go to the place, and have them replace it, but it's kind of annoying.  Better now than in the middle of winter, though.

I thought Julie had gone to Masala Wok.  So I went to a casual Indian place.  It's by Target, and has excellent garlic naan.  I could have had a bit more spice in the tikka, but it was a good lunch.

• This is beyond stupid.  How are people this stupid?
• Bear repair.
• Millennials.
• I donated to this.  Not because I'm trying to bribe anyone, but because Susan Collins is a soulless monster devoid of morals, and her blight on government should be cleansed.

Thursday: Apparently my recent posts have been "bad"

That's largely been due to the fact that I've been travelling, and on vacation, and not having consistent internet access such that I can read the internet, filter it down to a select set of links, and compile that into a post.

I now have caught up on the majority of the internets, so I can clear out the backlog of links I've been saving.

Masala Wok.  Why isn't this everywhere?  It's currently only in Texas and Virginia.  That's fucking bullshit.  Tasty Indian food should be omnipresent.

• Pokemon.
• Ash's Mom.
• You're an idiot, Ash.
• I would totally watch this show.  I've added the youtube link to my ever-growing pile of unwatched youtube videos.
• Squirrels.
• Education squirrel.
• Fuck you, cat.  Just straight up fuck you.
• Cartoons and comics.
• Finn and Jake's treehouse as seen by a real estate blog.
• What the fuck, the 60s?  
• DC.  Still fucked up.
• Economics.
• Here's an additional explanation on "a tax deduction is much more valuable to someone who makes a lot of money than someone who makes little".  Looking up the tax table for 2012 (filing singly), and taking two potential taxpayers who make $100k (lot of money) and $20k (little money), a $7500 tax credit (which is an "above the line" kind of thing) cuts the tax on the lot of money case by $2086, compared to $1117 for the little money case.  "But that's still a reduction!" Sure, but if you're assuming that the $7500 number arises because that's how much the insurance costs, this means that the final cost of insurance for the wealthy case is ~$5400 and ~$6400 for the poor case.  How is this supposed to be helping?  Ignore for the moment that this is like 1/3 of the total income for the poor case.
• So, you know, just never go to Papa John's pizza ever again.  If I could bankrupt someone with my mind, he'd be at the top of the list.
• Because fuck you, hungry people.  Maybe if you weren't so damn poor, you could buy giant agricultural subsidies to keep you from going to bed with that dull, endless gnawing in your tummy.  Maybe a little bit of malnutrition will teach you that being poor isn't cool, you hipsters.
• Appropriate historical considerations on libertarianism.
• Christ, what an asshole.  
• Other stuff.
• Degas.  That was what I was expecting up until that point.
• Cushy government jobs.
• Reference for above.
• Advertisements.
• "I'm high as a fucking kite!"
• What the absolute fuck?
• "I will murder you in your sleep.  With vinegar!"
• "I will murder you in your sleep.  Just regular murder."
• "It's made with only the finest cocaine and laudanum!"

I honestly did not expect this post to take so long to put together.

Tuesday: Back to work.

And it was cold.  And I had a bunch of work stuff to do.  And some of that work stuff was just being a jerk all day until I finally tracked down the issue.  And I kind of with I solved math problems more formally than "I'm pretty sure it's doing this, and so I think your fitting code is essentially fitting 'linear' segments to the curve, with the slope of each linear segment equal to the maximum gradient of the fitting curve, which you can calculate by setting the second derivative equal to zero."

I ordered Indian take out for dinner, because I really wanted Masala Wok, but that isn't an option, but at least I have lunch for tomorrow.

• I'm not sure if I'm still hungry or what, but that ehomaki looks good.
• Mascot drama.
• Spider-Man for Planned Parenthood.