moment of truth

I think I'm addicted to pearl milk teas. Monday afternoon I helped a friend from work with a website she was working on for some organization she's in. So anyway, after spending a few hours in the UGL, she insisted on buying me dinner to thank me for my help (even though I didn't really do anything). After a few mins of trying to figure out where to go, she suggested Coco's, which is this little restaurant on the Drag that sells Taiwanese food. I've been there a couple times but never actually eaten there, so I was like ok, sure. Having never eaten there she ordered for me and got me some beef noodle soup, green onion pancakes, and a pearl milk tea. The green onion thing was pretty good, especially considering I can't stand green onions. While I honestly think that beef was actually deer, it was good anyway. It did make me kinda sick afterward, but it's all good. Anyway, I've been craving another milk tea big time since then. Maybe I'll go get one tomorrow. Although, now that I think about it, the other times I went there I got a milk tea and I got sick. Hmm. Surely it's a coincidence.

As I mentioned a post or two ago, my friend Annie seriously wants to start a T-Shirt business with me doing the shirt designs. It sounds like a fun side job, so we've been brainstorming possible shirt design ideas, even though the whole thing won't happen for a long time. The interesting thing is that Friday at work I was asked to design a shirt for our staff volleyball team. I personally wanted to do a bowling team, but volleyball was the only sport that garnered enough interest for a full team. We'll be competing in the intermurals next month. It should be fun. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that this T-shirt should be a great way to gain some experience for this possible T-shirt business. On top of that, it'll be so awesome to see people wearing a shirt I designed. I'm really excited about this shirt thing. I spent most of the weekend trying to get my ideas into Illustrator. I have 2 weeks to get this shirt done. I think that's when our first game is. Ooh the pressure!

Speaking of pressure, I was asked to design the new website for the new UT Billiards Club. While I love any opportunity for making a site, I think the projects are starting to pile up faster than I can get them out. I suppose it's my fault for taking on so many, but I see them all as great opportunities for experience. I really need to get moving on all these projects. As it stands now, I have to finish the control panel for Harry's site, Overhaul the IODINE site which is dire need of updating/repair and finish its control panel, finish up another friend's site, do the Billiards Club site, design a T-shirt, and sometime during all that make a real site for Antland. I suppose by the time everything is all said and done I'll have a decent portfolio. I might even have a life by then! Hey, I can dream.

While we're on the subject of billiards, I finally ordered a pool cue. I ended up going with this one, since it was the only design they had that didn't look stupid to me. It should ship within the next few days. I can't wait for it to get here.

And finally, for those paranoid about Big Brother, check this out. As you may or may not have heard, a portion of the Windows 2003 source code was leaked and is available for download all over the net. Apparently a guy at work heard about it and didn't believe it was true. So what did he do? To satisfy his curiosity, he decided to install Bit Torrent on one of the staff machines at work and proceeded to download the leaked code so he could see for himself that it was in fact real. Huge mistake. I don't know all the details, but from what I've heard so far, what happened next is kinda freaky. Apparently Micro$oft had been monitoring downloads of the leaked code and when they saw he had downloaded it, they notified UT's Internet Security department that a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) violation had been launched from our staff machine, at which point ITS contacted our managers. After a little investigation, my coworker came forward about what he had done. Once he had been discovered, M$ gave him a friendly cease and desist letter. After about a week of meetings and phone calls between my managers and the powers that be, they had to fire the guy, or "let him go" as they put it. It kinda sucks because he was a good worker and a crucial member of the Tech Team. Not only that, he's not even a Windows user. Macs are his thing. Kinda funny how things work out. It really makes you think though. You never know who could be monitoring your downloads. So watch out kids!