03.22.06
Posted in rants, life, celebrity, fame, guilt, katie holmes, mission impossible 3, movies, nbc11, p51 mustang, scientology, south park, terry semel, tom cruise, yahoo at 9:37 pm by admin
As a Yahoo! employee, I feel almost obligated to blog about the experience of having Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes here at the campus yesterday. All of my comments are purely my own opinion, and obviously don’t reflect the opinions of Yahoo!, any of my fellow Yahoos, or the Church of Scientology.
First, let me ‘fess up to something. I’m a total celebriwhore. If you don’t know what this word means, let me try to sum it up. A celebriwhore is someone who is interested in seeing a person solely for the sake of their fame. In terms of a celebrity like Tom Cruise, I can understand why someone might want to see him because he’s a good actor.
The truth is, I think I’ve only seen one of his movies in its entirety, War of the Worlds, and I really didn’t think it was even that good. No, I have not seen Top Gun. I walked out of Eyes Wide Shut. I don’t really understand why he wants the truth and Jack Nicholson tells him he can’t handle it. I don’t even know what movie that is.
That certainly didn’t stop me from going to sneak a peek at the circus.
Armed with my digital camera and telephoto lens, I got into the line that was stretching around the campus outside of our cafeteria, URL’s, and waited for about 30 minutes to get my spot in a very limited seating space. Little did I know that we would be waiting much longer.
My co-worker Jenny and I took our seats in the cafeteria, which was completely full of people. We were seated conveniently behind a giant gray pole that was directly blocking the stage, so some shifting would be necessary to actually be able to directly see the presentation without having to watch the giant projection screen.
While I snapped test photos to figure out the correct exposure settings for my camera, this endless loop of song clips played, cleverly featuring songs taken from Cruise’s movies. I would have to say that after hearing 30 seconds of Take My Breath Away no less than 72 times, I was a bit worn out. The presentation was supposed to start at 10:30. As 10:45 arrived, and then 11:00, something wasn’t right.
This perky lady (who was either one of Tom’s people or a Yahoo! person — I’m not sure) came out and said something to the effect of, “I know, I’m not Tom Cruise. [laughing to herself] Tom is *SO* cool that he flew his own small plane here, and he’s delayed by the weather! But he should be here shortly!”
At that point, a large crowd of people decided to walk out. After more waiting, our CEO Terry Semel came out to nervously explain the situation and keep us amused while we waited. We watched a dramatic 9-minute montage of Tom’s movies that was supposed to be what was playing when he made his entrance, and Mr. Semel continued to get messages in his earpiece about Tom’s status and whereabouts.
Everyone was excited when Tom finally arrived, in aviator glasses and all. Rather than trying to remember the event enough to give a play-by-play, let me share a few of the highlights:
- Tom flew a P51 Mustang WWII-era bomber plane into San Jose airport.
- He brought Katie Holmes with him. She is at least 13 months pregnant and looked like she was ready to burst. Had Tom flown commercially with her, he would have arrived on time.
- There was no mention of Scientology or South Park.
- Even in his women’s jeans, Tom did not set off my gaydar in the slightest.
- He jokingly stood on top of his chair to make fun of the controversy over his behavior on Oprah.
- He arm-wrestled Terry Semel in response to a (pre-submitted) question about which of them is more athletic.
- He presented the trailer for Mission Impossible 3, and two clips from the movie.
- After the event, Tom and Katie were escorted on a tour of the Yahoo! campus. They stayed on campus for several hours, actually.
NBC11 in San Francisco decided to use some of the photos I took during the event. You can see their write-up on the story, complete with my photos, here.
The only word I can use to describe how I felt after the event is: filthy.
Honestly, I couldn’t wash the stink off. It wasn’t because of anything Tom said or did. I felt slimy for taking pictures of the guy just because he’s a celebrity. I think I’ve discovered why I can’t live in L.A. When the entire thing was over, I felt incredibly drained. Tom was very polite, and seemed like a good guy overall, but the fuss that was made over his visit made me a little sick to my stomach. I guess the concept of “celebrity” is just so deeply burned into our collective American conscience that there’s not escaping the excitement of it.
Perhaps I learned an important lesson about the utter absurdity of fame: That several hundred very smart people could be turned into drooling zombies over the prospect of seeing a celebrity talk about his career.
You can see the original versions of the photos I took here, and photos taken by other Yahoos here.
UPDATE: Thanks to one of my favorite blogs, Defamer, for linking to my photo! [Link: Tom Cruise Goes Yahoo]
Tags: celebrity, fame, guilt, katie holmes, life, mission impossible 3, movies, nbc11, p51 mustang, scientology, south park, terry semel, tom cruise, yahoo
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03.14.06
Posted in rants, yahoo, rant, people, rudeness, food, dirty, gluttony, gross, nasty, onion rings, stealing, theft, unsanitary, urls at 1:29 am by admin
Today, I bring you a tale of horror from URL’s, the Yahoo! cafeteria.
Since I am attempting to eat more healthy things throughout the day, I decided to treat myself to an overpriced $3.25 chopped chicken breast at the grill at URL’s.
Mind you, it wasn’t exactly lunchtime, as it was 2:25, and the cafeteria was on the verge of closing. Because of this, the chef working at the grill was taking every spare moment he possibly could to clean up his workspace and take things to the back when necessary.
There was only one other person in front of me in line — we’ll call him “Tom” — who was waiting for the chef to finish cooking a chicken breast for him as well. Tom was standing there waiting patiently for his chicken to finish cooking, and while he was waiting, the chef had to step away for a minute.
And that’s when it happened.
Just after the chef was out of sight, Tom shamelessly reached his grubby little hand right into the onion ring vat under the sneeze guard, and grabbed an onion ring and ate it! I was absolutely stunned, and Tom didn’t even notice that anyone had seen him, nor did he bother to look around to make certain that his crime had not been witnessed.
There are people like Tom all over the place. There’s the lady who grabs a handful of cashews and eats them from the giant self-serve container at the grocery store. There’s the guy who takes a piece of candy from the self-serve candy and eats it like it’s his for the taking. There’s the woman who picks things out of the salad bar and eats them while she’s making her salad, all the while knowing that the clerk can’t charge her for salad that’s already in her stomach.
I’m still shocked that he had the nerve to do this right in front of me, for two very succinct reasons:
- It’s nasty and unsanitary. Why should anyone else get onion rings that his fingers may have touched?
- It’s STEALING.
I was too aghast to say anything to “Tom” and so I just let him walk away with his chopped chicken breast, like nothing had happened. The only thing that gave me the tiniest bit of satisfaction was knowing that I’m not so enchanted by fried foods that I can’t resist grabbing them when they don’t belong to me, like a dog or cat jumping onto the table to snatch a bite from your dinnerplate when you step away for a moment.
I, sir, am not an animal.
Tags: dirty, food, gluttony, gross, nasty, onion rings, people, rant, rudeness, stealing, theft, unsanitary, urls, yahoo, yahoo!
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02.15.06
Posted in yahoo, work, web development, ajax, calendar, css, flickr, javascript, web at 1:29 am by admin
All I can say is wow.
When I came to Yahoo! to work on the platform team, I knew that the things I’d be building would be used by sites all over the Yahoo! network, and that kind of exposure was something that both excited me and scared me a little. I’ve built things for people to use before, but never to be consumed by an audience as large as Yahoo!’s.
When I started development on the Calendar component, I had no idea that we were moving in the direction of open-sourcing our platform library. The idea of giving back to the community in this way is something that is personally very satisfying to me, and I think that it will probably help me become a better developer as people begin implementing the things we’ve been working on, and making suggestions that will help us improve them.
It still feels a little strange to me to be able to blog so openly about what I’ve been working on for the few months I’ve been at Yahoo! and reading the incredibly positive feedback that we’ve received from various bloggers is a really exciting and validating experience.
I’m so proud to be working with a team of geniuses that consistently and easily solve complex client-side development problems like they’re nothing. I knew when I came to Yahoo! that I’d be around a lot of really smart folks, but I’m still amazed every day by the people sitting in the cubicles around me, and I would like to take a moment to thank them publicly for continually working so hard to see this vision through.
Those fabulous people are Eric Miraglia, Thomas Sha, Nate Koechley, Matt Sweeney, Adam Moore, Jenny Han, and Todd Kloots — and while their combined knowledge overwhelms me on a regular basis, I don’t think there’s a single day that I don’t learn something from these gurus. Thanks also to Bill Scott, the coolest evangelist since Tammy Faye (with much less makeup).
I’ve posted my first Calendar example here on the site, using the Connection and Event utilities, the Calendar component, and the flickr api. You can check it out here.
Here’s to lots more great stuff to come! 
Tags: ajax, calendar, css, flickr, javascript, web, web development, work, yahoo
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02.01.06
Posted in gay, movies, yahoo, miscellaneous stuff, work, brokeback mountain at 12:47 am by admin
I’m excited that Yahoo! is going to be offering a free employee screening of Brokeback Mountain on Thursday in our company cafeteria. I imagine that they’ll roll out the big screen, and that the chances of getting my feet stuck to the floor on my way to my seat are extremely decreased.
The cost of the movie ticket? $0.
The cost of the snacks? $0.
Seeing which coworker cries first during a gay cowboy movie? Priceless.
Tags: brokeback mountain, gay, movies, work, yahoo, yahoo!
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01.28.06
Posted in life, yahoo, miscellaneous stuff, work, caffeine, coffee at 3:12 am by admin
I’ve had a lot of crappy jobs in the past. Moving to California at the end of last July to come to work for Yahoo! was a dream come true for me because I always thought that a job at one of the “big names” in Silicon Valley would be the “holy grail” of web development positions. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for.
This company really takes special care of its employees, and the industry is taking notice. Yahoo! has, for the first time, made Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, coming in at #73.
In honor of the special recognition Yahoo! received as being a great place to work, I thought I might, as an insider, share some of my favorite things about working here.
- All the espresso and lattes you can drink. How many shots do you want? One? Two? Eighteen? NO PROBLEM! They’re free, people. Not from some crappy machine that the office manager has to clean out every night, but from real baristas, like Starbucks, but organic (the coffee, not the baristas). And they have polystyrene cups! If you’ve never experienced polystyrene cups, let me tell you — they ROCK. Your hands never get hot, they’re more eco-friendly, and you don’t need those stupid corrugated java-jacket sleeves, so you have less moving parts with your coffee!
- Free valet parking. You can have someone park your car for you for free every single day, and the valet company doesn’t accept tips, so it really is free.
- Onsite haircuts available every Tuesday. And they’re decent haircuts! They’re affordable, and only 500 feet from my building, which is a big plus.
- A kick-ass free 24-hour gym. Sure, corporate gyms are plentiful. But the one at Yahoo! is open 24 hours daily, and it’s free! They have tons of equipment, much of which rivals the stuff at expensive gyms to which I’ve paid absurd amounts of money.
- An incredible holiday party. The Yahoo! 2005 Year End Party was amazing. Ice martini bars, a cajun buffet, and Earth, Wind & Fire. The most entertainment I’ve ever had at a holiday party at other jobs usually involved the boss’s Aunt Betty playing “Jingle Bells” on the piano.
- Tons of other perks. We have a whole directory of great things we get discounts on, from Apple, Dell, Office Depot, and we can also buy discount movie tickets! There’s onsite dental care, oil change & car wash, great health benefits, a subsidized public transit program, and a whole bunch more.
So, you may be asking, how can I work at Yahoo!? The answer is simple! Just check out careers.yahoo.com!
Link: 100 Best Companies to Work For: Yahoo!
Tags: caffeine, coffee, life, work, yahoo, yahoo!
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08.06.05
Posted in yahoo, geek at 2:30 am by admin
Having just started at Yahoo!, I’m particularly interested in all the new things that they’re releasing. Yahoo! Audio Search (link) is pretty cool. You can search music, podcasts, and other clips (some with transcripts). Check it out!
Yahoo! Audio Search : Lifehacker
Tag: yahoo!
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06.30.05
Posted in yahoo, geek at 7:45 am by admin
![Yahoo!]()
I’ve been looking for a job for about a month now, but so far few of the positions I’ve interviewed for really have caught my eye. Part of that has to do with the fact that New York City has a lot of financial jobs. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially since those jobs tend to pay a lot of money, but I have really been looking for something more creative — specifically a UI position.
So a few weeks ago, I mentioned to a co-worker that I might be interested in relocating to California if the right opportunity came up, and she told me that she knows someone who works at Yahoo!. She passed my resume along, and a few weeks (and hours of nail-biting) later, I’ve accepted an offer to relocate to Sunnyvale to work as a web developer for Yahoo!.
I don’t think I could possibly be more excited. It’s definitely going to be a little moving across the country to an unfamiliar place, but the benefits outweigh my apprehension by a million miles. Not only am I going to be working with some of the smartest people in the industry, but I’m going to be living somewhere where people are more laid back (and hopefully a bit nicer) than New York City.
I’ve only heard great things about the Yahoo! culture, and I can’t wait to be a part of it. Expect the theme of my blog to change over the course of the next month or so — from me ranting about useless crap — to me ranting about CSS, JavaScript, DOM, AJAX, and all the other really cool stuff that I’m going to be immersed in.
It’s still “squeaky toy”, but each time it squeaks, you just might learn something. 
Tag: yahoo!
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