every word of it.

I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a long time. Anyways…

So, how /do/ you throw a successful BBQ for 55 people? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall – practice.

The BBQ I had on Memorial Day was #3. BBQ #1 was a small affair – 10 people at the most. And to be honest was just a BLC Happening. BBQ #2 doubled in size, but there were still mistakes. We overestimated the food and probably could have fed 50 people easy.

BBQ #3

People

You need guests at your BBQ. You have to invite people and give them enough notice so it doesn’t seem you sprung something on them last minute. But then you can’t invite people months in advance, because no one knows what they’re doing a month from now. I ended up inviting people 2 weeks before. I figured that would be a good balance. Not too far, not too soon.

But don’t forget, people are bums. The invited will take their time responding, and you’ll be wondering – is no one going to show/is this going to get out of control/does everyone hate me? And it’ll drive you crazy. Because if you don’t have an accurate guest list, how are you going to know how much food to buy? How much drinks? How much plates? How much chairs? All these things and more depend on an accurate guest list. And don’t forget to account for extra. People will bring friends.

So for BBQ #3, 91 people were invited. (Wow, that is a lot!)

Let’s go to the breakdown

So I could’ve theoretically had (52 + 20) 72 people showing up plus any additions. But the actual count was 55.

Food

So how do you feed all these people? With lots of meat

20 lbs of Chicken (Drumsticks + Wings)
20 lbs of Lamb
6 lbs of Ground Turkey
4 packs of Turkey Bratwurst
2 packs of Turkey Dogs (24/pack)

Also on my receipts

1 Bag of Rolls
2 Bags (Costco) of Hamburger Buns
2 Bags (Costco) of Hot Dog Buns
1 Bag of Chips
Ketchup
Mustard
BBQ Sauce

People also brought

Cheese & Crackers
Eggrolls
Corn
Bratwurst
Salad
Lemon Bar Cake (Extra Delicious)
Cookies
Pies

And I had my mom make

Fried Rice
Potato Salad

Drink

To wash all that down, you need lots of beer. Surren and I decided it might be more cost effective to just get a keg. And you also need beer for beer pong. In addition you need coke.

So all together, we had

1 Keg of Shiner
1 Case of Keystone
3 Cases of Coke
3 Bottles of Wine

People also brought more beer and coke.

But, sadly we didn’t finish the keg. We did come close, but in the end I did have to empty it out down the drain. I think if we used the Keg for the beer pong, it would’ve finished.

Entertainment

If you put people together with food and drink, they’ll find a way to entertain themselves. But to get that started, you need music. It’s there to fill the silence.

For BBQ #1, I ended up buying an iPod boom box. I’m really happy with it. It’s able to produce a nice sound at a loud volume without too much distortion. I could’ve just stuck my iPod in there and considered ‘music’ taken care of, but I wanted to try something different.

Apple has a program for the iPhone – Remote. It allows you to use your iPhone as a remote for iTunes. Apple also has a router/print server called an AirPort Express that has a speaker jack on it. It’ll let you remotely connect speakers to your computer. So if you add all these things together, you can wirelessly stream music from your pc to a remote pair of speakers and let your guests control/vote for music. It’s a great idea.

And my execution was almost perfect. I had a spare AirPort Express that I decided to use. It would create a network, and I would have people connect to that – isolated from my main network. Well, the AirPort Express ended up choking. It couldn’t handle the number of clients. So I had to have it connect to my main network, and have everyone connect to my main network as well.

I also had this bright idea of outdoor Wii/movies. I bought a projector. I made a screen. And I was ready to impress. But, by the time it was dark enough to use the projector, I was too drunk/tired to be bothered to set it up. And I think that if I did, it would have detracted from the atmosphere.

Post Mortem

So what did I learn from BBQ #3?

I should stop worrying so much. I freaked out about chairs. I had 18 chairs, and I ended up borrowing a few. And I think it was the perfect amount.

Do as much setup as possible before. I should’ve put the tiki torches up beforehand.

I needed one more table. The food table kept on running out of space.

Bugs are everywhere, and there is nothing you can do about it. Buy a can of Off and put it out.

It’s a lot of work.

It’s also a lot of fun.

Another semester is finished. And just like that, I have my nights and weekends back.

This last semester I took CSE 5324 – Software Engineering I. And at the end of the semester, I have to say I did like the course. I didn’t agree with the professor on some things, and I didn’t like the way he treated the students on the distance education section (me and most of my team). But I did like the term project, mainly because my team was amazing. It was definitely the best team I’ve worked with in my graduate career. Compared to the other teams in the class, we were giants. The team experience just made the class better.

But it’s tough. Working full time and going to school. I don’t know how much longer I can last. It feels like my soul is being scooped out. Like I know it’s the responsible thing to do. But all through out this semester, I felt like ‘Why am I doing this?’. I know that if I quit, I’ll never return. So I keep on. Though I am taking this summer off. I need it to recharge.

It’s true. They know they have the best product available. And they know that they will really, really, really, really have to piss me off before I switch to another service.

My Residential Gateway has been resetting sporadically for the past 2 months. Note the word sporadically.

sporadic |spəˈradik|adjectiveoccurring at irregular intervals or only in a few places; scattered or isolated

UVerse phone support seem to have trouble with this word.

I’ve called UVerse an innumerable amount of times complaining about this problem. And the tech on the line will rattle off the same steps – have you checked the power cable/have you reset the residential gateway/is the problem occurring now. And I indulge them. After all, I did the same job. And I know they’re just referring to a knowledge base. Sometimes this will result in an offer for a call back. This is when I have to explain to them the meaning of the word sporadic – “Yes, you can call back tomorrow. But it might be fine tomorrow and the next day, and the next, but then it’ll reset. Anyways yes, you can call me back.” Because really, it’s a very rare occurrence if they do follow up.

Twice now I’ve had a technician make a house call. The first time was a few weeks ago. That guy said it was a problem with the line and he’d schedule a line tech. I don’t know if that happened. But I do know that after his visit, I was fine for some time.

Yesterday, I had another visit. This visit was primarily to replace my DVR. Last week it deleted all my recordings and refused to record anything afterwards. I mentioned the RG problem to this guy, and he said it was a problem with the “bridge tap on my line”. And he would schedule a line tech to remove that. I don’t know if that happened. But a half hour ago, my RG reset.

UVerse is now up to “really, really, really”. I’ve started logging everything now. I know I should’ve started keeping track weeks ago.

UVerse, don’t make me switch to Road Runner or Dish or DirecTV – I love the guide too much.

Remember Spring Break?

For Spring Break I flew to Washington, D.C and drove to Boston. Driving music was required. So I made a playlist.

The only requirement was that I fill an 80 minute cd. With rental cars, you never know if you’re getting one with an AUX input.

So here it is.

1. The Proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)
2. The Jam – Town Called Malice
   
3. The Coral – Dreaming of You
   
4. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – The Impression That I Get
   
5. The Muslims – Extinction
   
6. Fear of Pop – In Love
   
7. Mystery Jets – Two Doors Down
   
8. Shout Out Louds – Hard Rain
   
9. The New Pornographers – Use It
   
10. The Pipettes – Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me
    
11. The Rumble Strips – Time
    
12. Jens Lekman – Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo
    
13. TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me
    
14. Ted Leo – Since U Been Gone
    
15. The Libertines – Horror Show
    
16. Ben Folds – Such Great Heights
    
17. Arctic Monkeys – Fluorescent Adolescent
    
18. Maxïmo Park – Our Velocity
    
19. Pete and the Pirates – Mr Understanding
    
20. Those Dancing Days – Those Dancing Days (Radio LXMBRG Remix)
    
21. Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position
    

The rental car was a Dodge Avenger, and what an unsatisfactory car. My biggest issues, poor visibility and terrible turn stalk. Though it did have an AUX input.

I received Where Did It All Go Right by Andrew Collins in the mail today.

It’s a book. All you really need to do to send it in the mail is stick it in an envelope, padded if you feel like splurging.

That is pre 4/7 thinking.

What you need to do, is stick it in a padded box and roll it 3 sheets of bubble wrap.

Are you getting errors like ‘A Volume Failed To Mount’ after you upgrade Netatalk?

Delete the .AppleD* folders at the root of your shares. Or just mv them to a backup if you don’t trust me.

.AppleDB/ .AppleDesktop/ .AppleDouble/

The next challenge – the official Jack Donaghy Psyche Yourself Up Mix.

This was a difficult one to compile. I had no clue what I wanted. Originally I was just putting together songs that were fast and loud. But late last week, I think it sort of clicked. I can be proud of this one I think. Unlike the previous Wake Up Mix. That one was horrible.

Are you going to step up?

1. Ash – Kung Fu
2. Bloc Party – The Prayer
3. Superchunk – Hyper Enough
4. Elvis Costello – No Action
5. Hard-Fi – Hard To Beat
6. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – Saturday Night
7. Manic Street Preachers – Stay Beautiful
8. The Jam – Going Underground
9. ¡Forward, Russia! – Eighteen
10. The Hives – Die, All Right
11. Longwave – Everywhere You Turn
12. Heartless Bastards – All This Time

People love twitter.

Some of those people love radiohead.

And of those people who love twitter and radiohead, they also like woot.

The Evidence:

Today’s Woot is a radiohead box set. As of 9:51AM CST, it’s sold out.

Head on over to TwitterSheep and search for radiohead

These are the results

As an aside – I didn’t purchase this, because I have all of the albums offered in the box set.

I have the special editions of Amnesiac (Library Book), Hail to the Thief (Road Map), and In Rainbows (Awesome). And my non special edition of Kid A has a hidden booklet.

My one regret in life is not purchasing the special edition version of Kid A when it came out. But I was in high school and didn’t have $30 to spend on a cd.

The next theme in the Playlist Challenge – a morning wake up mix.

1. iLiKETRAiNS – Joshua
2. Múm – Green Grass of Tunnel
   
3. The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo!
   
4. British Sea Power – Waving Flags (Wandering Horn Instrumental)
   
5. El Guincho – Antillas
   
6. HALFBY – Man & Air
   
7. The Smiths – Asleep

This was the hardest. Because not only did it have to be good, it also had to serve a purpose – getting you out of bed.

So for one, it couldn’t be too long. It’s about 30 minutes long, which is usually how much time I spend in bed before getting up (I’m lazy).

My reasoning – I wanted something gentle, yet strong enough to wake me up. That’s why I started with Joshua, an instrumental track that is all build up. Then I cool things down with Múm. It’s the next track that I use as my alarm tone – Wake Up Boo!. Waving Flags through Man & Air, is my final attempt to get myself out of bed. And then I end things with Asleep. Because at this point, just stay in bed.

Who likes terrible covers?

No one.

So why do bands release them?

They need filler for singles.

Here is a terrible cover of Road to Nowhere by the Editors that manages to suck the life and energy out of the original.

Cover: Editors – Road to Nowhere

Original: Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere