brian's blog

This blog has been near (or at) the top Google result for "brian glick" for a few years now - probably due more to link spam my blog used to get than due to any genuine online notoriety.

Now it's finally starting to get attention from other Brian Glicks (or in this case, a Bryan Glick) who are none-too-happy.

From The importance of the letter Y:

But from a personal point of view, it was slightly disconcerting to find that a search for 'Bryan Glick blog' brings up a top result of 'Brians blog' with the description 'Brian's rambling & insufferably self-indulgent blog of questionable value' !

Brian Glick is from Seattle, and says that he is 'fresh out of school' and 'naively dreams of changing the world for the better.'

There may be those who haven't noticed the difference, but rarely has the 'y' in the spelling of my Christian name been more important. We all vanity-surf at our peril.

To solve this problem, I hereby humbly suggest that all other Brian and Bryan Glicks change their names to something more unique.

There have been a few stories about the large number of so-called "geek" shows returning or premiering this fall on TV: Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Reaper, Heroes, Bionic Woman, and so on.

Not as much attention was paid to this potentially upcoming show, though, and it sounds like the geekiest one of all.

From ABC joins geek streak with office project:

[...] ABC has ordered a script for "Foobar," a one-hour ensemble set at a fictional software company.

"It's a show about a lot of very smart, highly verbal people who are relationship retards running one of the most admired companies in the world," said its creator, Alice Wu.

She knows those people well because she is one of them. Before venturing into filmmaking, Wu worked as a software developer at Microsoft.

After a couple of internships at the software company, Wu started there in 1992 after graduating from Stanford with a master's in computer science.

I don't think a show can have better nerd credentials than that.

And she worked at Microsoft to boot. Maybe it's time for a career change...

Got a chance to play around this weekend with Yahoo's invite-only beta of its new Mash social networking platform. Here are some of my quick first impressions.

Pros:

• Slick, clean, intuitive UI; it's a nice experience, especially for a V1 product.
• Promising to open up the platform to third-party developers soon - and looks like it was designed from the ground up with this in mind
• The Karl Marx Paddleball is the best launch module of all - very Monty Python-esque

Cons:

• A curious lack of structured "About Me" info - your job, your school, your favorite movies, etc
• The Mash blog points out the capability to edit almost any part of someone else's profile as their biggest differentiator, but I'm not convinced of the long-term appeal. How many times will I want to add a new joke line to someone's "About Me" module before it gets old - or let someone else do that to me? I'd rather whitelist modules my friends can edit (Guestbooks, graffiti boards, etc) rather than allow them free reign to everything by default (I even accidentally deleted someone else's "Blurt" module today with a single click while poking around).
• Some people ruin the UI with awful, static background images on their profiles...very similar to MySpace. At least you can disable them with a click.
• Why can't I search for friends?

Overall, Yahoo Mash shows promise, but is a little underwhelming right now. It feels like Yahoo's trying to straddle a line between MySpace (limitless UI customization, lots of silly quizzes and toys) and Facebook (plug-in modules / developer platform, news feed). Considering the firehose of traffic Yahoo can provide, it seems bound to find a substantial audience. It seems hard to imagine an audience not already aware of or using MySpace/Facebook, though; perhaps Yahoo Mash may do well with the older, less tech-savvy crowd?

This blog gets a lot of comment spam - over 600 attempts each day. By the time I'm done cleaning it up, I have no time to write actual posts. (Yes, that's the reason I'm offering for my lack of writing. Buying it?)

So I spent the past few days devising a solution to my comment spam problem: I added a spam trap to the perl scripts running my blog. There are now some hidden input fields on this site that a human with a modern web browser won't see, but a spam bot will happily fill out. If they do, message blocked. If they don't (and none have even gotten this far yet), the message is checked against a spam blacklist just in case.

The only downside is that legitimate users can no longer specify their email addresses or URLs. Emails I'm not worried about - no one wants to fill out their email address anyway. URLs, maybe. Eventually I'll upgrade my blog software to the latest version to offer a more robust solution and allow legitmate commenters (all two of them) to specify URLs.

In the meantime, not a single piece of spam has made it through in 3 days...hooray!

I was hospitalized two weekends ago, and one of my favorite restaurants is to blame.

On Saturday evening, my abdomen started aching, a feeling that slowly grew into an intense general pain. At the same time, I couldn't keep any liquids down. I could barely move, had a fever, and I was starting to feel dehydrated. As things got worse, I took a cab to the hospital. I was admitted and treated for most of the night with several bags of IV drip, narcotic painkillers, anti-nausea medication, etc. I felt much, much better once I left, though it took me a few days to get back to solid foods & a regular diet.

The suspected cause, of course, was food poisoning. And since I had eaten out earlier that day in Fremont for lunch, the restaurant there seemed like the likely target.

But when I returned to work, I learned that 5 of my co-workers also had come down with bad cases of food poisoning over the weekend - and all of us had eaten on Friday (in my case, Friday's lunch) or Saturday at a lunch spot our team often frequents, a Japanese sushi restaurant called Kikuya in Redmond. Those who hadn't eaten there weren't sick - ruling out anything else common like our local cafeteria, our admin's candy bowl, etc.

I loved Kikuya. Their udon soup is amazing. Almost as bad as the food poisoning experience was realizing that I can't ever eat there again.

I called them up the next week and told them our story. They didn't either express any sympathy or reject my claim; they simply said they hadn't heard of anyone else getting sick, then they took my number & promised to call me back. (Never happened.)

Another one of my sickened coworkers will be calling the Department of Health shortly to report them.

Why, Kikuya, why? We used to be so close.

The Xbox 360 Elite launched yesterday, and I waited for one in line at an EB Games for 3 hours before the store opened. Turned out it was unnecessary to line up; they had 5 systems, and by the time the store opened, there were only 4 of us in line.

The line for the latest batch of Wiis, on the other hand, had roughly 25 people in it, and most went home unhappy.

Phew! Now that all my blog readers are gone, I can start posting again.

Short story: I have a Wii - hooray!

Long story: Aside from the occasional round with Mario Party, Halo, or a handful of other titles, I've barely played a video game over the past two or three years. It's not that I don't enjoy them anymore, or that I feel I've outgrown them. I know I could spend hours playing them without a second thought. But that's exactly the problem - I mostly stopped because I knew it was just too easy for me to get sucked in for weeks at a time. Either that, or writing semi-professionally about them took all the fun out of it. I'm really not sure.

Either way, up until yesterday, I certainly didn't expect to find myself heading out at five-something AM this morning to wait in line for a Wii. I guess I got caught up in the positive pre-launch hype for the company that got me hooked in the first place. Then they threw in a true Zelda sequel, and I was sold.

I should have woken up a half hour earlier, though. I chose Target since they seemed to be off the "videogame retailer" beaten path, and they promised to hand out line tickets an hour before opening. But by the time I arrived, I was already about 70th in line, with only 60 systems available. I stuck it out, but only a few people ahead of me gave up hope, and an hour before opening, I was still only at spot 65. I was starting to lose hope that I would walk away with a system.

But then some kid came to the back of the line, and announced that he was selling his 11th place spot for $50. Fifty bucks! Intending to spend at least $450 on the system, games, and accessories, it seemed like a trivial markup. Others thought so too. But I took him up on it, and jumped to 11th. Turns out that he had been there since 2pm the previous day, and had camped out overnight. And for his trouble, for his whole 17 hours spent outside in the cold, he gave it up for $50, or less than $3 an hour. I think the sleep deprivation got to him, and I actually felt a little guilty afterwards, even though he was the one to make the offer.

Anyway, I should run - I need to waste a few weeks now.

I spent most of last week down in Los Angeles to spread the word about the cool products we're building (MSN TV, Soapbox, etc) with studio partners. It was pretty trippy being in the headquarters & at the lots of some of the biggest players in the Hollywood universe.

What was actually weirder, though, was realizing that this world actually exists. You see so much of it (the entertainment industry, the lifestyle) on TV & in the movies, yet those are medium for fictional stories. So, though it sounds strange, it never before seemed to me that it was real. For instance, we drove by a boutique home furnishing store with 30 or 40 paparazzi milling around outside, and knew an A-lister must have been inside.

Anyway, I had fun, and got to play wannabe Important Person for a few days, staying at a nice hotel, going out to some top bars, and eating at some great restaurants. Also got to cruise around in a red convertible Mustang. (I guess not owning a car & renting frequently with Avis has finally paid off.)

Here was the view of Santa Monica from my hotel:

And of the Pacific Ocean:

At the risk of sounding like a Microsoft shill, with the final release of IE7, I'm now switching from Firefox on my PC. Why? With most other features equal between the two browsers, there's only one relatively minor reason: The little "edge" beside each tab that, when clicked, opens a new tab.

I open new tabs frequently, and don't use keyboard shortcuts, so this saves me a whole second of clicking.

Moral of the story: Little things really matter in UI design. And for a UI designer, it's extremely difficult figuring out which little thing will matter most.

Okay. I'm getting a little sick of seeing these two dancing fools all over the web lately:

I ran those numbers through a mortgage calculator: In order to get a 30 year, $510,000 mortgage for under $1698 a month, you'd have to have a 1.25% interest rate - which no sane lender would ever give you. So, it's probably safe to conclude that this is a negative amortization loan, where you end up owing more each month because your monthly payment doesn't even cover interest.

A predatory mortgage broker with deceptive advertising on the Internet is hardly shocking - at least, not until you consider who actually owns LowerMyBills.com. Experian, one of the big three credit report agencies, acquired LowerMyBills.com last year.

So now you can ruin your credit and financial standing with a crippling mortgage arranged by Experian and pay them to find out just how bad you've got it! Brilliant!

MSN Soapbox, a new site we've been working on in MSN Entertainment, officially went into public beta today. It'll compete with YouTube and other user-uploaded video sites. All bias aside, I think it's an impressive product, especially for a pre-v1 beta.

Here's my test of the embedded player. Our team made this vid one recent afternoon:

The MS 150 ride was the weekend before the last - and what a ride. I'm still sore and numb.

Again, thank you so much to everyone who sponsored me & donated to the cause. I've been stunned by the response. My original fundraising goal was $1000, and as of right now, my personal fundraising page registers $1125. But, once I count a few pledges that are still incoming, plus the Microsoft matches (not yet in the system), we will have raised over $2000 to fight MS, more than double my original goal!

The ride itself was difficult, but a blast. It rained heavily the night before the first ride, making the ground a little tricky, but other than that, the weather was great & sunny most of the weekend. We were up & at the rider village in time for the 6:50am Microsoft team photo, and then ate breakfast before moving over to the start line in time for the 8:00am start. Since Team Microsoft raised more than any other team for last year's MS 150, we had the privilege of being the first riders out of the gate this year. Once the ride started (with over a thousand riders!), each of us mostly broke up to go at our own paces.

The first day, we had a choice of doing either the 50 mile or the 75 mile routes. Heather and I made the call 25 miles into the ride to take a shot at the 75 mile distance. We knew it'd be tough - especially since a) it was such a hilly ride, and b) we probably needed a bit more training - but we wanted the challenge. The ride was fantastic (the views, especially on the Deception Pass bridge, were incredible), even if it was tough to fight sore muscles & painful knees. In the end, though, we managed to pull into the finish line with just 10 minutes left before the mandatory 5:00pm stop time, which was a great feeling when we realized we had done it.

The second day was even more challenging - we were very, very sore, and getting back on the saddle was as challenging mentally as it was physically. The first few miles were the worst. It felt as though we hadn't had a night of rest, and were continuing on in the same condition that we finished the ride the night before. But we were determined to do it again for the cause. We chose the 50 mile route and got through the ride with the help of the provided rest stops, plus a little painkiller help. And the cheering crowd at the finish line was incredible. It really made us forget about the pain.

Here's a photo of me taken on the ride. This is the only version I could snag for now until the prints I ordered are delivered. I had the option of ordering fridge magnets, plaques, and more with my likeness on them, but I settled for a standard 5x7 photo. How boring.

As I've mentioned in passing a few times, I've been training this summer to participate in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's annual MS 150 bike ride. The ride takes place over this weekend in La Conner, WA to raise money to fight MS, a chronic disease of the central nervous system affecting the brain and spinal cord.

I'll be biking 150 miles over 2 days to raise money for this valuable cause. After training over the summer, I hope 75 miles each day is doable; I think the hardest part will be doing both days back to back.

My goal is to raise $1000, and I've been asking many people to sponsor me. I can't do it without everyone's help, and I've been very honored and thankful of all the donations I've had so far. (And it's nice to get off my lazy ass and do something for a great cause.)

As of right now, I still have some ways to go to reach my goal, and there's very little time left - I'll definitely be making a push tomorrow to try and gather some new donations (while trying, perhaps too hard, to not push people too much).

If you'd like to sponsor me, or track my fundraising progress, you can do so at a page I created on the MS Society's website. They take donations online via credit card (no fees, of course).

Alternatively, if you know of anyone that might want to pitch in and sponsor me, please pass this along.

Thank you!

Oh, and here I am trying to smile and look at the camera without falling off:

From CNet, Microsoft investigates leak of 'Office' videos:

"These videos were produced for internal use and were never intended to be viewed by the public," said the spokeswoman said. "We are actively working to investigate how and why they have appeared now."

I'm not sure why Microsoft seems so upset about these videos getting out. I hope it's due to some obscure legal reason - because the videos are hilarious and certainly do quite a bit to help improve our image as a Cool Company. (Well, at least Xbox, as a brand, has accomplished this, though one could say that's their job.)

Still, I'm glad to see that the awesome Ed Helms college recruiting video has finally been released to the public. People loved this video when we showed it at the info sessions on campus last year.

Remember when I last said that work was busy (oh, over two months ago)? It got worse. Much worse. I now have nightmares of little insect-like email icons flooding out of the cracks of every door, window, and faucet, each demanding I spend my undivided attention on it. Work's become almost like a game, seeing if I can delete more inbox emails in a day than I receive (current high score: 645 inbox emails).

So here are a few quick notes from the past 3 months:

• Been training most weekends for the MS 150 charity bike ride coming up in less than two weeks. Just rode 60 miles yesterday, doing a full loop around Lake Washington. More info coming soon.
• Flew to Toronto for the Canada Day / Fourth of July weekend, hanging out with a few friends at a cottage - went canoeing, hiking, and "treetop walking."
• Went to Minneapolis for a week-long software development conference. It was interesting, but about as exciting as it sounds.
• The American Dad interview still hasn't been posted. I stopped asking about it a while ago - it was too low interest versus all the other high priority features the site has. I need to find out whether anyone will mind (lawyers?) if I post it myself here...
• Saw Cirque de Soleil in Redmond; great show. Much more theatrical and colorful than I was expecting - the stunts themselves were almost secondary.
• My brother's now come and gone as a Microsoft intern. He started on his birthday - I took him go karting to celebrate both occasions.
• I mentored / managed my own intern at work. Woo boy. It was payback time for all the perceived slights I suffered as an intern! (Okay, fine, my internship was actually lots of fun.) Anyway, she did great, and it was a much bigger challenge to effectively manage someone than I was expecting.
• A design firm contacted me to license a few of my Fremont photos (here and here) for a law firm's website.
• Went sea kayaking around Alki peninsula in Seattle
• Went to Vancouver and saw the Mexican fireworks team perform at the Celebration of Light competition
• Just finished deleting thousands of spam comments from the blog...

And last, but certainly not least - congratulations to Markus and Colleen on their recent engagement. Best of luck to you for the next year up in far northern Quebec. You two are crazy. Crazier than foxes, actually - do they even live that far north?

Wow, talk about a busy past few weeks at work. I hope things are starting to level off now - though the work going on behind the scenes on MSN TV is getting exciting. There's a lot going on, and I wish our punchy little team was just a bit bigger so we could move faster.

And no, unfortunately, the American Dad interview hasn't yet gone live. Our A/V producer has been out of the office covering the Cannes Film Festival, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, and other events continuously for the past few months. My poor little interview is just too low a priority to get encoded. Worst comes to worst, I'll just encode and edit it myself!

Don't read this if you haven't already watched this evening's episode of Lost. Unless you don't care.

I can't believe they killed off Ana-Lucia and Libby! Wow!

Also, it seems clear that Michael likely did the deed because Walt's life has been threatened.

The title of the episode was "Two for the Road." I love it. So many possible meanings:

• Ana-Lucia's flashback has her and Jack's dad meeting in a bar, and flying together to Sydney. They're on the road together, and booze is always around them.
• Ana-Lucia and Libby are killed. Two killed for the road, as Henry escapes!
• Most likely: The actresses who play Ana-Lucia and Libby were both arrested for drunk driving in Hawaii after leaving a Lost cast party. It certainly seems like the two were dumped from the show for having a bit too many "for the road."

I also caught the Hanso Foundation ad during the commercials. 1-877-HANSORG. This is the start of the Lost Interactive Game announced a few days ago. I tried it out and "accidentally" managed to break into their communication director's voicemail.

Ah, Lost. How you've hooked me.

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