For years, Brown Cow yogurt was my favorite. Saint Benoit definitely rivals the top spot in my books as the best yogurt you can buy at your local overpriced organic mart.
Plus, you get cash back by returning the sturdy ceramic container. However, even with the rebate, it’ll still be one of the most expensive yogurts on the shelf.
After a few dozen stir frys, my wok has a nice dark coating of goodness which will add to the flavor of each new dish. If you have a carbon steel wok, you need to season it before your first fry. I found these directions at About.com to work just fine.
It’s been a long time since my last post.
I was thinking about what could spur me on to write again. And, what better way than starting with food.
Tonight on my plate is Chicken with Green and White Beans, stir fried in a searing hot wok with black bean sauce, sambal oelek, and soy sauce. I finished this by doing the “lazy guy’s fried rice” by just putting some freshly made rice in at the end.
Nice and simple: perfect for a cold Wednesday night.
I’ve recently discovered the Perry Bible Fellowship. It’s a brilliantly illustrated comic with a twisted sense of humor and cute imagery. I love combinations like that. It’s definitely worth checking out for it’s sheer creativity.
Plus, for the fact that it is most definitely NOT a Perry Bible Fellowship.
It’s been over a month now, and I thought I would officially announce that I’ve quit my job at Dolby and have joined the team at Scribd. The decision was decidedly bittersweet, since I’ll be leaving a rockstar team at Dolby. But, in the end, I realized that I already made the decision to be in the web industry the day I got into web design, blogging, and the social web phenomenon.
Since Scribd’s team is small (7 people at the moment), I’ve been keen on helping out wherever my skill set is valuable, ranging from coding, designing, and product developing. The role that I see myself playing in the long term is product development, which is something I’ve been wanting to get into for a long time.
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my aspirations in the past few months. I started my college life as a traditional electrical engineer–or, transistor jockey. After a short stint at Intel, I realized that placing transistors on a silicon wafer bored me to death. So, I decided to shift my focus to signal processing, which eventually led me down the road as an audio codec engineer. At the same time, I was also getting heavily involved in web design, blogging, and graphic design.
There was a phase when I was hot on pursuing a career as a professor–a life of research. Now, I’m doing product development at a consumer focused startup. How did I get from there to here? Obviously, each step in the progression was gradual, but, thinking about it all at once, I’m still bewildered about the magnitude of the change. Early in my college career, I naively thought that what I was learning at that point was going to be my final intellectual destination. Boy, was I wrong.
In any case, I’m very happy with the changes that are happening. The best thing about it is that I’m being exposed to so many different elements of business and technical skills that I’ve never touched on before. Switching gears is a good thing.
UPDATE: Apparently, you can enter the SSN 141-11-1111 to bypass all the crap that I had to go through.
I bought Om Malik’s phone a few days ago, and, after some delibration, decided that prepaid was the way to go. Given the plan I was choosing, it would only be $5 more, but with no contract. Little did I know that I was embarking on a 24 hours of AT&T, Verizon, and Apple customer support hell trying to get my iPhone on a prepaid account. I now finally got it on a prepaid account, with my old Verizon number successfully transferred over.
It appears that the AT&T system has changed slightly, and the previous guides out there might be outdated. So, here’s the scoop on what happened, and how I finally got my iPhone activated with a prepaid account.
First Attempt: Try an invalid SS#
I followed this straightforward guide on TUAW. I put in a fake SS# and name, but I did put in my real credit card information into my iTunes account. I also put in my old Verizon number that I wanted ported over.
I hit the submit button on the 2 year contract plan, and expected to be rejected, so that I could choose a prepaid account. However, AT&T actually accepted my information and activated my iPhone! I was now the proud owner of an iPhone under the account name of “Wireless Person.” I was aghast, because now I was bound to the 2 year contract under a false name, but with my credit card.
I called up AT&T and explained the situation, and they immediately canceled my account with no repercussion. I was relieved.
Second Attempt: Try an invalid SS#, but this time, with an invalid credit card
After canceling my account, I discovered I needed to go to the AT&T store to get a new SIM card, since the one I had was burned. My iPhone was left in a zombie state where it could not be activated again.
Apparently, this happens often. I was actually charged $25 for a new SIM, but you’re NOT supposed to be charged. So, the next time you’re asked to pay for a SIM card for your iPhone, challenge them.
I returned home and decided to do the same steps, but this time, putting in an invalid credit card number. However, you can’t just choose any number, since CC numbers must satisfy the Luhn Algorithm. iTunes will check this, and will reject any number that doesn’t satisfy this constraint. Basically, look on this page to find a generated credit card number (I won’t provide this).
So, I went ahead with the same steps, but now with an invalid credit card number that would be rejected. I submitted my information again, and waited. And waited. Finally, a screen came up that told me that my activiation would require more time, and an email would be sent. Again, I was surprised, since I was expecting to be rejected immediately.
I called AT&T again, and told them my situation. The next few hours were spent trying to get another representative out of my account (presumebly, they were going to approve my credit?? Which is ridiculous). Finally, my account was rejected. I reconnected my iPhone, and chose a prepaid account. And I click submit. And, I waited. And, waited.
By this time, my patience was running out. I called AT&T again. Apparently, they were having trouble porting my number over from Verizon. The next few hours were spent talking to porting department. Apparently, since I had tried to port my number over earlier, it was conflicting with the current port. I had to actually wait until the next day to get this resolved.
Finally, after more chats with several AT&T reps, I was able to get my number ported, and my iPhone activated with a prepaid account. In total, it was about 25 hours after my initial attempt.
Summary of Steps to Prepaid Account
With respect to the original tutorial, this has become more complicated. The main reason is that AT&T seems to be more lax about the credit check, which in turn, will make it harder for people to get a prepaid account. Following the steps above, you should be able to get your iPhone activated within a few hours. In my case, it was worse, because I had created another false account, and my old number was being ported too many times in a day.
Alternate option with porting
Another option, if you don’t want to deal with all the porting issues while setting up a prepaid account, is to simply get a new number with the iPhone. Then, after you’ve activated your phone, you can call AT&T and port the number at a later time, which may be easier.
It looks like VH1 had Tay Zonday make a Summer Break version of Chocolate Rain. It looks like Tay may be making it big. We’ll know it when he finally gets his own Wikipedia page.
The Flying Steps have a video that poignantly shows the life of a breakdance troupe on tour. The Flying Steps are renown bboy group from Europe. I remember watching their videos back in 2000, when they won 1st place at Battle of the Year, one of the world’s largest breakdancing competitions.
The life of a breaker is hard, both financially and physically. Most breakers dance because they’re passionate. It’s just not an easy way to make money or become famous.
This video is a small glimpse into the life of the street dancers you see on urban corners.
Apparently this is the new viral video that’s spreading. It’s Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday, and he states two things that people always say about him: his voice is low, and he looks young (he’s 25). There’s already too many remixes to count on one hand: Sung by McGruff the Crime Dog, Vanilla Snow, Sung by Darth Vader, Animated, and Music Video-ized.
Already at 844,559 views at the time of this post.