Rubik's Cubicle

More vacation pictures are still on the way, but this was too good to pass up.

At work there is a tradition of playing a prank with somebody's office when they go on vacation. So it wasn't a total surprise that when I got back to work, I discovered that my co-workers had transformed my office into a "Rubik's Cubicle":

Rubik's Cubicle 1

Rubik's Cubicle 2

It's quite an elaborate construction job, with 4 double-sided walls and a "door" to go in and out.

Rubik's Cubicle Desk

Even the desk is covered in hundreds of stickers to make Rubik's Cube-like patterns. I'm sure they will be lots of fun to peel off..

Posted on March 31, 2009
Filed under: General, Humor Comments


Made it eventually. Badly, badly tired though... even though I slept through most of the day. Hangzhou is a great "little" city - and it gets even nicer on sunny days, so all the more reason to go back 🙂

China & Japan

Update: I've written up more detailed posts about the trip: Beijing Day 1, 2, 3, 4-5, Shanghai, and Tokyo.
I haven't posted for a few weeks because I've been on a trip to China and Japan. I got back today but I'm still on Tokyo time and pretty tired and jetlagged. I'll write up some much more detailed posts later, but in the meantime here are a few pretty pictures to look at:

Mao Zedong

The omnipresent portrait of Mao

Beijing Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is no longer forbidden under the communists. I wish I could say that this is just a bad picture, but it really looked this bad (or worse) around Beijing due to the pollution.

Olympic Stadium

The "bird's nest" Olympic stadium - again the pollution is so bad that you can see it even in the stadium.

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is up in the hills, so it's a little bit clearer.

Shanghai Pudong Skyline

One morning in Shanghai was actually very clear and we were able to snap this nice pic of the modern skyline.

Shanghai Bund

The buildings on the opposite side of the river are all left over from British colonialism, which creates a strange juxtaposition.

Tokyo Imperial Palace

In Tokyo the Imperial Palace is still off-limits, but you can sort of peek in.

Tokyo night scene

Nighttime in Tokyo is a sea of neon light.

Japanese Toilet

Japanese toilets take a little getting used to. This one in our hotel was a simple model that only had two water jets and a pressure control (no aim control, heated seats or blow-dryer).

Japanese Netbook

Netbooks in Japan are even smaller and crazier than in the US - this one has a touch screen, swivels into a Tablet PC, has an antenna for watching TV, a GPS, and a dual-core processor.

Posted on March 29, 2009
Filed under: General, Travel Comments


Congrats on making the Tokyo to Seattle flight - our plane was 20 minutes late, so I am now going through the pleasures of an involuntary reroute...


Hey there cousin, just at grandmas and grandpa looking you up! you should come over, the wall still has you as a 10 yr in height!

Staff Favorite

My parents noticed this today on iTunes and sent it along:

CubeCheater is a Staff Favorite on the iTunes iPhone App Store

CubeCheater is a Staff Favorite today (and maybe all week - I'm not sure how this process works yet)! An unknown Apple employee has smiled upon my app, which is exciting (it's tempting to assume it's Steve Jobs himself, but that's of course extremely unlikely).

It'll be interesting to see how this affects sales. For the most part, I personally get apps directly on my phone rather than through iTunes on the computer, so I'm not browsing the Staff Favorites very often. Getting onto the "Featured" or "What's Hot" lists would probably be more beneficial since those lists are browsable on the device itself.

Posted on March 3, 2009


Staff Favorite on iTunes!
   

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