My web server now supports PHP! I'm not really sure what that means either, but now I can do stupid stuff like this.

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The other day I get this e-mail from the SJC news list. Some dude is selling his fridge. This is a common occurence, people move out and want to unload their fridge. Then, I read his e-mail. I was stunned. First, let's take a look at Fridgy McFridgerson's e-mail:

Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:07:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Henry Yuan
To: sjc-news@interchange.ubc.ca
Subject: [sjc-news] A fridge for sale

Dear all,

I have a small fridge for sale, LG GR-131R. With a capacity of just under 3.3 cu ft., It is
quite reliable, trouble-free, and very quiet. This fridge is not your regular half-height bar fridge.
It fits just underneath your counter, being spacious yet not bulky. It was only two years old. I
asked for $100. If you are interested in it, please reply by email or drop in Room 1112. ( Sorry I need it till the end of December.)

Cheers
Henry

Sounds fine right? Well, guess what? I sold my fridge last September as well. How did I advertise it? Through the news list as well. Take a gander at my e-mail. Note the sections highlighed in red:

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 01:38:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Erwin Tang
To: sjc-news@interchange.ubc.ca
Subject: resplendent fridge for sale

Hello all:

I am a former resident who is selling my LG GR-131R fridge. With a
capacity of just under 3.3 cu ft., this reliable, trouble-free, and quiet
fridge will serve all your food cooling needs while at St. John's
College.

This fridge is not your regular half-height bar fridge. It fits just
underneath your counter, being spacious yet not bulky. Capable of holding
an entire roast chicken, you'll have plenty of room left over for salads,
drinks, and much more. Also possessing a freezer compartment, you can
store leftovers or make ice cubes (be the life of the party!).

Styled in egg-shell white, the GR-131R will help accentuate your
room. Did I mention the door is reversible? Beauty and versatility all in
one.

The fridge has been recently defrosted and cleaned for your
convenience.

With such a feature-rich unit, you might be thinking you'll need to
arrange financing, but that won't be necessary. I'm asking for only
$100. If you act now, I'll even throw in an assortment of drinks to get
you started.

If you're still interested, take a look at the GR-131R on-line:

http://www.hemingwayagency.com/BrilliantRewards/Ruby/Products/241-GR-131R.html

The fridge is being stored at SJC, so I can arrange for a viewing at your
discretion. See before you buy!

Don't delay when you can be enjoying cold foods tomorrow!

Regards,

Erwin

Dude ripped off my copy! His ad has the Tang-meister written all over it. Here's another thing, it's been three months since I sent out that e-mail. Did he have it saved all this time, waiting for the day he'd sell his own fridge?

Look, I don't want to toot my own horn, but after I sent out that e-mail, I received a lot of positive comments about my ad. "Best fridge selling e-mail ever" comes to mind, but I won't bore you with what people told me. I appreciate that he found my e-mail good enough to copy, but still, where's the respect? I gladly would have written him his own kick-ass ad for a small nominal fee.

I should get a cut of his fridge money when he sells it.

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I blog every Greg Williams sighting that I make. This time, I saw Greg last week at One More Sushi.

Stay tuned to erwintang.com for all your Greg Williams news.

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According to the online shipment tracker at Purolator.com, my copy of Half-Life 2 was delivered to the front desk at Thunderbird. The package, no doubt, is now waiting for me in my mailbox. If I were smart, considering all that I have to do, I should leave it there. Alternatively, I could pick it up and then put it in dark corner of my apartment and not touch until I'm done my project.

What to do...

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As happens at the end of every academic term, I have entered a stage where I am desperately trying to finish asssignments and a project before I reach their fast-approaching deadlines.

This is the first term ever, where I don't have any final exams, yet at this point, I feel no less stressed. I hate doing term projects for grad classes. They seem to be a staple of most grad classes and I've done three of them. One was a group project, which I quite enjoyed. The other two I did by myself, which I did not enjoy. I find it always very difficult to produce "project" quality- and "project" quantity-type work in a short amount of time.

The project I'm working on now is quite ambitious, well at least for me, and if I get it done, I'll be quite happy. If I manage to pull it off, it will also be the first piece of software that I can and will want to share with you. I look forward to crashing all your computers.

I hope to be done the project by the middle of December. I just want to get this thing handed and then go see the next Lord of the Rings movie. Oh, wait...

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Erwin

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So, let me tell you a little story about when I was working at EA. It was my first project and I was testing NHL 2001 for PSX. EA was focusing all their energies that year on the first NHL game for PS2, so they decided to farm out development of the PSX version to an external dev team.

That year, they gave the job to an independent dev house in San Francisco. EA retained control in terms of production decisions and testing. Essentially, the external programmers did whatever EA told them to do.

Skip to the end of the project. We're in beta stage and the bug count is supposed to be dropping, not staying steady (and increasing on some days). At this rate, we are going to miss out ship date. This means the stock holders won't be happy. Then one day, we receive a new build of the game. Nearly all the bugs have been fixed. It is an incredible turn of events.

Though I don't have all the details, this is apparently what happened. The development director on our project told the external team of programmers to stop working on the code. The role of the DD is to keep the project on track and ensures the game gets made. The DD juggles deadlines, production's desire to put more features in the game, and the software engineers' ability to write the necessary code. Most DDs have MBAs as this is a management type position. Our DD, and let's call him KL, started out as a software engineer, but had somehow transitioned into a DD role.

So, KL re-wrote all the buggy code for our game single-handedly in a day or two. As I mentioned before, when the build came back, it was stellar. KL came down to our testing area the day we got the new fixes to see if everything was working ok. He came down with a baby in his arms, which I assumed to be his child. It was then that I first was told what KL had done and he'd done it all by himself. I was in awe as I watched KL bounce his baby in his arms, talking to the other testers about the fixes.

I saw KL maybe once or twice more since that time. Fast-forward to September of 2004. I arrive to the first class of my CS grad class on algorithmic animation. Who should walk in? KL himself. He even sat down next to me. I didn't have a chance to say anything to him until the end of the class. First, I had to ask him if it was really him. Of course it was. He told me he was starting a Master's degree. I inquired about EA. He told me he'd was "retired" and that he didn't need to go back to work for another "seven or eight" years if he wished. Wow. There was no reason that he would have remembered me, so I told him we had worked on a project together.

Over the course of the term, our prof has more than one occasion asked KL on his perspective on something as it relates to video game development. For a guy who knows a lot about game development, he's quite matter-of-fact about it. I don't detect any of ego from him at all. I'm always interested in hearing what he has to say. By now, the entire class knows KL is one experienced dude in the video game world.

Next Wednesday, our prof has twisted KL's arm into giving a guest lecture on video game development. It's a rare thing for a grad student to be given such an opportunity.

I know some of you out there know who KL is. So that's what he's up to now. Geez, I hope he doesn't read this.

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