some q&a with steve and me

A PR firm, Schwartz Communications, asked us to participate in a podcast -- no, a Schwartzcast -- a little while back.

They definitely did their homework (the first interviewers we've had who knew our usernames) and he definitely slipped in a few references to my blog.

(A great way to score easy points with me. A harder way is to bake muffins.)

If you're curious about that quote from Thomas Jefferson, you can find it on spreddit (not as obscene as it sounds).

Alas, they edited out most of my obscenities, but most of the meat is still there. Here's the mp3.

what reddit taught me about startups: fuck facebook, make real friends

I've already explained how fortunate we were to get that email from Kourosh back in Feb 2006, but I'm often asked how that email ever made it into my inbox.

Was it some savvy marketing? Advertising trick? PR scheme? Pure business acumen? Illicit activity?

None of them (although some days I wish my life were interesting enough to include illicit activity for the purpose of increasing business).

Through another YC startup founder, I became friends with a NYTimes reporter. She was this founder's guest to a Halloween party we threw that first Halloween. I was just sober enough to make a good impression. We hit it off and although she never wrote about reddit, she did me the much bigger favor of lending her sofa whenever I'd visit New York (I had a small rotation of very understanding friends whose sofas I slept on; I haven't forgotten their generosity -- a gentle reminder to all those friends of startup-founders-needing-a-place-to-crash).

On one of those Fung Wah journeys to NY, she introduced me to a freelance tech reporter who I met for coffee and cannoli one night in Little Italy. We became friends too, and it didn't seem right to write an article on reddit since we were friends. Understandable. But unbeknownst to me, she mentioned a cool site called reddit to one of her editors. This editor happened to work at Wired. And go figure, she was also Kourosh's wife.

So it wasn't long before the director of CondeNet biz dev was hearing from both this freelancer and his own wife that a certain social news site with an alien mascot might be worth contacting. And we know how persuasive women can be (see: MacBeth).

Then this showed up in my Gmail:

I'm a friend of [aforementioned freelancer]. I'm also the director of biz dev for CondeNet, the internet arm of Conde Nast [...] I'm intrigued with your technology and was hoping to set up a time to talk about possibly working together. I'm open the rest of the day today and Thursday, but will be traveling for a week starting Friday. Do you have time for a phone call? Also, are you based in Boston?

Go ahead and make a few new friendships (read: not facebook friends). Just don't think about these relationships through the lens of "what can you do for me?" -- not only will it doom you from the start, you'd never even guess what might happen anyway.


*Updated to add some more detail to the story. And link to a photo of Steve and me that first Halloween. He's the one dressed as Paul Graham.

the breadpig is back

Back when we were trying to come up with domains for reddit, we were running searches on an expired domain site. The name escapes me now, but it seemed like a good place to find a domain, since all of them had at one point -- presumably -- been selected by a human being.

We knew the site we'd later call reddit would involve lots of reading, we tried searching for "read." Somewhere in those search results was breadpig.

Sprawled on one of our battered recliners, my voice buckled with laughter as I read aloud "Breadpig!"

Steve also found it quite amusing. To think that someone registered breadpig.com with the hope of doing something with it. Just imagine what kind of startup that would have been...

It just so happened that a friend of mine from Hong Kong was also in the room with us. She didn't find it nearly as funny. I tried explaining it to her:

"You don't understand, it's a breadpig."

"Why is that funny?"

"Imagine a bread-pig, you know, bread and a pig."

"I understand. That's not funny."

It must have been a cultural thing. She probably left our place that night thinking I was an idiot.

But it didn't matter, I registered the domain and it became a running gag around reddit HQ. Steve eventually described his vision of the breadpig, a pig with bread wings, and I drew it. We've since printed exactly three shirts featuring this mythical beast that always elicit confused looks and even the occasional "Umm... What is a breadpig?"

So imagine how upset we were to learn that thanks to the horrendous UI of registerfly.com, our precious domain didn't get auto-renewed.

I've been living the last year or so with a gaping void in my soul. The spammy landing page the new owner put up just twisted the knife in a bit deeper -- it was advertising bread makers.

On a whim, I checked the WHOIS tonight and found an orphaned domain. I've warmly welcomed breadpig back to my bosom and am pleased to announce the relaunch of breadpig.com as it was meant to be.

Internet, you're welcome.

what reddit taught me about startups: making money (really?)

WARNING: I have a distorted perspective on startups, as I've only started one, and it happened to do well. Everything you're about to read is probably hogwash. So please don't go around saying "Alexis from reddit says we don't need to make money."

Say Steve told you.

It's been said before (although I wonder how encouraging it is to the new YCers who hear it) but here I go again: we didn't start reddit worrying about how to make money. Those first three months, Steve and I were in that Medford apartment just trying to build a good website; if it were popular enough, we'd be able to make money from it.

This refrain worked for a while, especially once we'd secured angel funding (all in all, we took less than $100,000) and we knew how little we spent every month in rent, food, and servers (in that order).

In January '06, Bill at Federated Media emailed Steve and me about selling banner ads for reddit (see how I wish I could take credit for generating this business connection?). At the time, the Google and AdBrite text ads we'd been half-heartedly running were bringing in literally a couple dollars every month. But we were always insistent on keeping the front page free of ads, so we'd always kept ads on the less-trafficked comments pages. Sure, it meant significantly fewer pageviews; we wanted the best user experience.

So we agreed to run skinny 120x600 skyscrapers (about as low-rate as a banner ad gets) on our comments pages. It was the smallest, most discrete ad we could run. I had a nifty admin tool to approve/reject any banner ad and before long we were getting a steady stream of new campaigns they'd sold.

To the credit of FM, checks in the hundreds started arriving (I know, as handler-of-things-non-technical, I kept the books). The final check we received from FM (we let the splendid Wired ad sales team take over post-acquisition) was for just over $4,000 -- that's a lot of Sam Adams.

Keep in mind that those comment pages got only a small fraction of reddit's traffic. When we finally put 300x250s on the entire site, we were pleased to see very little negative feedback. Most redditors probably have ad-block on anyway, heh.

I didn't intend for this to sound like an FM fluff piece, but they really did do us a solid. Then again, we never got offered a FashionBug ad campaign ;-)

And it was shortly after this relationship got started that another fortuitous email appeared in my inbox, this one from Condé Nast...

what reddit taught me about startups: "because it's your damn job"

WARNING: I've learned everything I know from 16 months at a startup and HBO miniseries. Trust nothing.

Why do I look back so fondly on startup life? Selective memory? Nah, then I wouldn't be able to write an entire blog entry on it -- there must be more to it.

Don't get me wrong, life at Condé Nast has been extremely accommodating, but there's something special about a small team in a cramped apartment living room. Then again, my previous job was manning the booth in a parking garage, so even the smells-like-dude living room was an upgrade.

It's not the body odor I miss, but the startup mentality. No salary? No insurance? No weekends off? No problem.

At a startup, no one needs motivational posters*. You work because it's your damn job and you don't want to let down the person at the desk beside you.

There was never an instance where the site went down or a bug turned up, that Steve said "You know what, it's late and Friends** is on, so I'll get around to it tomorrow." He fixed it. He may have cursed a lot while doing it, but it got done.

If we needed some stats from Chris to send off to a potential partner, you could always count on him to say yes -- and actually do it. Still working on his PhD during the day and pounding the keyboard for reddit at night, he basically just made us feel guilty for needing to sleep.

That's not to say it's radically changed since joining CN (and this isn't a passive-aggressive rant against some of my co-workers) it's just inherently different. In fact, Jeremy didn't even get the chance to share an intimate workspace with us, he joined us after we got our airy Wired office. But he hasn't had any trouble fitting in -- even if Steve has had to shovel him a bunch of grunt work while this rewrite gets pushed online (really, it's happening this week). It just gets done.

Yes, I think I've nailed the root of my nostalgia: There's something special about being in that always-sinking-boat of a startup and being able to count on all the folks sinking with you. I'm purposefully avoiding the "like a squad at war" analogy because I'm not audacious (or stupid) enough to directly compare startup life to combat; sinking boats are much more appropriate for a lifelong civilian like me.

But if Band of Brothers has shown me anything about real warfare, it's the remarkable camaraderie -- something that even the very metaphorical "life & death" nature of a startup faintly echoes.

And hopefully it'll be the closest any of us ever get to the battlefield variety.


*We now have this poster on the wall of our Wired office. Heh.
**Fact-check: Friends was no longer on television when we started reddit in June 2005. This quote is obviously fake.

getting at&t/cingular to unlock your cellphone (a howto)

First rule: Don't tell them you're doing it to switch carriers.

I made this mistake on my first call. Heh.

The reply I got was a curt, "In that case, we cannot unlock your phone for you."

Barring the conundrum that I evidently don't really own the phone I've already purchased from them, this gave me hope. There must be some cases where they "can" unlock it.

A quick Google search revealed that they're happy to oblige if it means you're traveling abroad and want your hardware to mingle with some foreign SIM cards. Called back, mentioned a pending trip abroad, and now I'm getting emailed that unlock code. Phew. Fortunately I didn't have to list my reasons for travel, destinations, and window/aisle-seat preference.

And if you're looking for some strategies to get refunded on those overage charges, I even photoshopped the Cingular logo for that entry.

Incidentally, here's today's header! (click for the explanation)

public service announcement

A friend of mine, Carl Tashian, was sympathetic to my health insurance plight after quitting his job to begin his own startup -- now he's written a great blog post about getting some protection in the Commonwealth.

I also feel compelled to mention the 2006 Wikimania awards and suggest that you nominate something. As if you needed any more incentive ;-) Xeni Jardin agreed to be an offsite judge for the contest.

some things i've noticed

So we've been doing this startup for a little over a year now. Steve and I had just graduated from college when we moved up to Boston (Medford, to be precise) to start reddit. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, we thought we did, but we didn't. In fact, we still don't. But we did have a great group of folks to learn from and learn with.

Oh right, and we also had some rather smart, experienced, and helpful investors.

We've learned quite a bit over the last year. There's a new batch of summer founders now and we try to be the ones with A's to their Q's. Having started a year earlier, we certainly had our share of advantages; once Web 2.0 was on the cover of Newsweek, it was clear that things were going to get crowded fast.

So I suppose this is for those summer founders (who I'll inevitably spam with six emails telling them to read this) or anyone else interested in starting a startup.

Unless you're going to create a reddit-killer. If so, you'd better just move along.

For those of you who don't know, let me preface this by warning you that the following is coming from someone who is neither the hacker behind reddit, nor the co-author of RSS, nor a frigging experimental atomic physicist -- I draw the aliens and do the things hackers shouldn't have to think about (like writing frivolous blog entries about startup life). As a naive 23 year old, I probably have no right to be giving advice.

With that out of the way, here's some unsolicited advice:

Karma exists (not just on reddit)
With a startup, I think there's a tendency to cultivate the "us vs. the world" mentality. Fact is, people -- especially in the geek community -- are incredibly helpful, so try and be even more helpful.

Gut check
Figure out early what you're in it for and have a chat with your co-founders about it. You're going to need that motivation when things get difficult (and they will) because you'll rely on one another to push on. No matter how much your mother loves you, you're married now -- only there's no sex.*

Listen to your users
Granted, a site like reddit facilitates this sort of thing, but I think it could be applied to plenty of others. Respond to every feedback email, especially early on. There will be good suggestions and bad suggestions, but the final decision needs to be your own -- just always be respectful to whomever you're dealing with.

Don't hawk snake oil
It's just not safe. It's also a terrible startup idea.

Wake up every morning to your competition
It helps to know what's going on with all of your competitors, try to learn from their mistakes and keep track of their successes. Google news alerts are great for this.

Lame companies exist, and will continue to, despite being lame
Verizon, the Cingular Store @ Porter Square, AOL, Bank of America, Surehealthplans.com, have all done really lame things to us (and likely others) yet don't suffer the kind of wrath a startup would. Get over it. Keep a list, but get over it.

<3 Bloggers
This is where your early traffic is likely to come from (no, not just TechCrunch). Courting mainstream media publications probably isn't going to bring you the traffic you want, either in quantity or in quality. Most of the early adopters you're looking for don't read technology sections for the latest and greatest innovations. It wouldn't hurt to monitor a feed from a blog search of your website. Ask for more feedback from bloggers who've trashed you and try even harder to get it from the bloggers who've praised you. It also helps if you get Paul Graham to mention your site in his essays.

Everyone is going to give you advice
See? Always be open to it, but never take it as dogma.

None of this really matters
Ultimately, there are more important things in life than your startup.


*I realized later that this isn't necessarily the case, but the sentence just didn't read as well. After writing that sentence, I realized that it's actually just like a marriage, precisely because there is no sex.

cingular: lowering the bill (a howto)

This is something I else I learned from my father that I've had to call upon (pun not intended) more times than I'd like to admit ever since I started paying for my own cellphone bill.

Growing up, my mother had lots of family back home in Germany who -- despite the stereotypical German fondness for succinctness -- loved to chat. Every now and then (during particularly eventful months, or uneventful depending on how you look at it) a particularly high phone bill would send my father to the phone. He'd explain to whomever was on the other end that we'd gone over what we'd expected for the month and a "please" and "thank you" later we'd be credited a nice chunk of cash.

He told me that phone companies were adamant about keeping customers and would be willing to shave off a few bucks if it meant retaining a client (presumably because the cost to get a new one is higher than the cost to reimburse? I didn't figure that part out until I was older).

Today, we don't have a landline. We haven't had one since we started (there was a brief period at the outset when we were forced to use AOL in lieu of a real internet connection). We do have cell phones, though, and a family talk plan with Cingular. We started with the most basic plan they had because we had few people to be talking to (Steve's girlfriend is also a Cingular user, so her calls were free) and we could let the rollover minutes pile up.

Last year, we weren't spending any time on the phone with companies and individuals who operated during the typical workday -- now that we are, we've drained the reserves. Our first overage cost a little over $150. That's a lot of pizza.

Of that, we got about $100 credited back using the same technique explained earlier, which was employed just a couple days ago to remove another overage fee (about $54).

Once you've navigated through the push-a-button menu (mashing 0 until you're connected with a human usually works for me) and are speaking with a billing agent. Simply explain your surprise with your most recent bill and ask if he/she would please credit the overage back (if you've been good about paying regularly it wouldn't hurt to bring that up, too). You should only be a thank you away from getting reimbursed.

On this most recent attempt, I was told that "it was already in the system and there's nothing we can do". Curious, especially because I'd just asked to upgrade the plan by an extra two hundred minutes. Maybe they'd caught on? Undeterred, I called back and found myself speaking with another agent. It was credited within a few minutes.

Nothing fancy here, no lines or strategies, all that's required is politeness and a few minutes of your time. Don't let the wireless carriers win, especially not Cingular.

usability testing & soy lattes

As far as I can tell (and I've done extensive research) they have nothing in common.

However, for a startup that hasn't accepted VC funding, the thought of two-way-mirror focus group research may seem both frivolous and needlessly expensive (but mostly the latter). That's certainly what I thought. It was in a conversation on the T with Aaron that he suggested some kind of testing to observe how new users interacted with the site. The lightbulb flickered.

We're coming up on reddit's one year anniversary and we hadn't once watched -- literally watched -- someone use our site for the first time. Sure, we'd been in the presence of friends who were checking up on new links, but they'd all done it many times before.

I'm talking about watching total strangers, most of whom are frank enough to tell you what's wrong (alcohol would guarantee near-absolute candor, but at the cost of some accuracy). This is where the soy latte comes in. Incidentally, latte is Italian for bribe.

It started at Starbucks, looking for users who'd be our target market for lipstick, reddit with the cherry-flavored gloss of celebrity gossip. After that, I went to Diesel (the green mermaid's foil across the street) to seek out future redditors.

With Powerbook in hand, it was just a matter of approaching subjects with a smile and the offer of a free coffee, pastry, or anything (really, startup founders don't have the same inhibitions most people do) to get them to try out a new website. Most people turned down the coffee, of those that didn't, none ordered a soy latte.

Caffeinated or not, they sat down and diligently tinkered with the site (all the while thinking aloud as I'd instructed). What we learned was quite interesting and my only regret is that we hadn't done it sooner, but hopefully we can make good use of what we discovered.

the view from up here

A few more pics, just because I'm so stoked about the roof:

That's Davis Square you're looking at.

The roof itself is a charming blend of decrepitude (a funny word) and rust.

I'm going to write something tomorrow that may actually add some value to your life, thanks for bearing with me.

new headquarters

Did we finally cave in, take VC funding, and move to the Valley? Or just get evicted?

Actually, neither. Our lease was coming to an end and we found another place in Somerville. There are some important differences between our old and new apartment that should be noted:

• Now, we each have our own bedroom.
  
• Our new apartment is on Davis Square --really, it's smack in the middle of it-- which means we only have to stumble a few feet to find hearty and cheap portions of Kung Pao chicken and free large pizza Mondays (with the purchase of another large).
  
• The old apartment had a scary basement, the new apartment has a scary basement AND roof access.
  
• Somehow, despite the superiority of the new apartment, it is $100 a month cheaper than the old one and that includes heat. The place must be cursed.
  

Aaron is already enjoying the advantages of a new apartment, he gets a bedroom. Not that there was anything wrong with the old setup.

Apparently living in the kitchen --with such a close proximity to food-- isn't as great as it might seem.

The new room certainly has advantages, namely light (and natural to boot) and a desk. We're still working on furnishing the rest, but there's a bed in there, it's just out of frame, trust me...

toppling a tshirt tyranny and taking a trip to california

(sorry for the alliteration, it's a shame we're not flying to Texas or Tulsa)

It's been a while, I know, but even I couldn't find anything to blog about. That's not to say that I've found something worth writing about (or more importantly, written something worth reading), but it's about time I updated this thing.

First, it's worth mentioning that we've broken the oppressive chains of CafePress by printing our own reddit Tshirts. After spending way too much time folding them all (I still can't do this) it seemed appropriate to capture the image for posterity, so that my progeny could see how their father spent his "startup days."

If you'd like to take one (or twenty) of these off our hands, look no further. We also couldn't afford real models... so we had to improvise.

Second, (if my the shirts were "worth mentioning," than I suppose this would be, too) it looks like we're heading out to Startup School 2006 at Stanford (although Aaron was only there for a year, he's assured us that he can still get around campus). If you missed the first one, you can find most of the presentations online, but the mp3 of Steve Wozniak doesn't really do him justice. Apparently, there's a petition to get him to speak this time around, but there are plenty of great speakers already on the official list.

So if you're in the area (or are making the trip -- yes, it's that worth it, especially considering it's free), just fill out this form.

startups are hard, let's buy something

I'd been meaning to write this entry for quite some time, but a submission on reddit today encouraged me to finally get this online.

Like many people, I'd heard about the less-than-inspiring Teen Talk Barbie doll that encouraged a generation of young girls to avoid the rigors of math class in favor of shopping. "Math class is tough" and "Let's go shopping" were two individual phrases that when paired together in quick succession, produced hilarious results (in hindsight, at the time a number of parents complained to Mattel). Nevertheless, it's not as though Barbie hadn't already done a remarkable job reinforcing stifling gender roles (and stifling body types -- seriously, judging from Barbie's inhuman proportions, she didn't even need to open her mouth).

This quote came up during a conversation I was having with Aaron a little while back and he pointed me to the accomplishments of the BLO (Barbie Liberation Organization).

I needed one for myself.

With that, I scoured eBay for a version of the doll and a week and $20 later, I had my very own Teen Talk Barbie.

She needed new batteries. The free ones included with the doll were leaking a white powder and Aaron suggested that I buy new ones, as well as wash my hands before making myself lunch.

The day finally came. With trembling fingers I fiddled with the back of her shirt (how cliche) until I found what I was looking for...

"Meet me at the mall."

That's right, c'mon Barbie...

"I love to dance."

OK. A bit random, but that's fine, you'd rather be dancing than learning in math class, right?

"Wanna have a pizza party?"

No, Barbie, I don't, I want you to tell me how tough math class is.

"School friends are the best."

She's been hacked!

It turns out that with a little research, I would have learned that the offending Barbie phrase(s) were replaced with others (presumably with obviously fake phrases like "School friends are the best").

Oh well. Now that I had bought a doll (not my first), I needed to do something with it, so I played with my Predator action figure (does not talk).

aluminum bundles of joy

Want to see what freedom looks like? Look no further. It's the feeling you get after cutting the umbilical cord connecting you to your abomination of a hosting company and installing some fresh servers of your own in a nearby datacenter.

how to feed a startup

There are plenty of great, well-respected resources on the subject of starting a startup and this blog is not one of them. Some of the best writers not only address important topics, but also offer solutions in easily digestible "how to" form. Crucial issues like how to fund a startup are often addressed, but other less glamorous issues are often neglected and left for hacks like me.

And with that, I present "how to feed a startup."

My friends from Maryland will remember latenight drives to our local Royal Farms convenience store where we first discovered what happens to all the unpurchased Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They are carefully inventoried and then violently dumped into a garbage bag that ends up in the back of a truck. I couldn't let this massacre continue -- unlike the U.N.'s treatment of genocide in Darfur -- I felt obligated to immediately intervene. This is how a half-full (note: not half-empty) sack of slightly-misshapen doughnuts ended up on my backseat.

I soon learned that doughnuts (esp. the jelly variety) do not keep well, despite my best efforts to resurrect them (microwave). However, I'd learned an important lesson (not about microwaving doughnuts, but about how to get free food).

Tonight, when I walked passed our local cafe/bakery after-hours, I noticed the two remaining employees emptying all of the day's baked goods into a trashbag. Deja vu. A glitch in the Matrix, whatever. I frantically tapped on the glass and employed a well-honed strategy that I'm sharing with you, dear reader:

Puppy eyes. The more pathetic/hungry you look, the better.

I told them about the undernourished programmers back at the apartment and they acquiesed -- no one wants that weighing on their conscience. By the time they handed me the second baguette, I insisted that I couldn't carry any more and would gladly keep returning at closing time to horde the day's leftovers.

This is routine at just about any establishment that bakes its own food and adheres to its "baked fresh daily" policy. Just remember to look pitiful, be polite, and enjoy the spoils. Now that you know my secret, use it wisely. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

--

Some of you may also be wondering why all this food is going to waste and not being dropped off at a local soup kitchen, for instance. I've inquired about this, and although there are some exceptions, most owners told me that it would either be too much of a hassle or that the local charity organizations simply don't want it. Food for thought.

i miss health insurance

It's one of those things you take for granted when you're in college and still covered by your parents' plan. Without it, you find yourself walking a bit more gingerly over patches of ice and taking a couple extra looks before stepping out into traffic. Lately, my parents have begun to really insist that I get some health insurance, after all, I'd been going without any for a while now (even though I still carry around the expired card, hoping that I can keep up the ruse in the emergency room for just long enough to get treated).

When you're young, fairly healthy (despite a limited diet and even more limited exercise) and a non-smoker, you'd expect this process to be fairly smooth (after all, we're the low-risk customers that these insurance companies love to draw their monthly fees from). Given this, the appropriate plan would cover a couple routine doctor's visits and some kind of coverage for the "get hit by a bus" scenario. Oh, and it'd be cheap, too (it's kind of depressing thinking about the cost of your health care in the number of servers it could buy).

Before long, I found myself on the phone with a sales agent for [unnamed insurance agency] who had a great quote for me that appeared to meet all of my requirements. In fact, the image of that incoming bus was in my head when I asked, "This plan will cover a catastrophic event, like me getting hit by a bus, right? That's a big deal to me. I need those emergency room bills to be covered." The voice assured me, "Yes. You'll be covered."

With that, I handed over my credit card information and looked forward to getting my new insurance card in the mail (I was given a choice between laminated and glossy, I went with laminated for the extra durability).

The next day, I was suddenly struck with what I believe is known as "buyer's remorse," which you'd think -- as an American -- I'd be used to by now. Nevertheless, I felt the urge to call and cancel my new plan. The woman I spoke with insisted that I'd need to fax over a termination & refund request, which I had no problem doing, but I had one more question to ask before I hung up:

"So, on this insurance policy that I'm cancelling, what would have happened if I'd been hit by a bus?"

"Well, this policy doesn't cover that."

"What do you mean? What if I got hit by a truck? Would it cover that?"

"No, no. This policy doesn't cover emergency room bills."

"Are you kidding me?! I explicitly asked for that coverage and was told I was getting it."

"Well, you would be entitled to a semi-private room at the hospital."

*laughing, in a Galgenhumor sort of way* "A semi-private room? Ma'am, a semi-private room isn't going to put my body back together. I asked for insurance that would pay for putting me back together."

"I'm sorry, I know you're cancelling this plan, but we do have some great plans that would cover emergency room expenses, like..."

"Ma'am, again, I'm sorry, but you can't honestly think I'm going to buy insurance from your company again?"

"... the ChoiceCare 1000..."

"Thanks for your help, I'm going to fax this out today."

*click*

The search continues...

p.s. If you're curious to know the name of this "health insurance company," I'm not going to name names, but I will say that they sure didn't provide adequate healthplans.com

smile... because java loves you?

The folks over at Sun decided to give away "Java mugs" via their website, probably with the hope of generating some goodwill. Instead, they've only generated scorn. Why would anyone want such a mug in the first place? Granted, I consume more java than I program, but the idea of a getting anything for free (let alone something I could actually use on a semi-daily basis) is too alluring to ignore. At the very least, I figured I could give it to Steve has a gift -- it would be doubly ironic: he hates coffee & he hates Java.

Despite Sun's apparent benevolence, they evidently filled the box with generosity instead of packing material. The result was a shattered mug. DOA.

Steve never got his gift, but now I've got a pen/pushpin/business card holder. I think there also might be some symbolism here, but I'm not sure.

office with a view

Steve got to put his desk on the side of the living room with the windows, but I don't think he did it for the view.

phone call? must be a free recliner

Some days, you're being called by a Haitian woman looking for her Friday night dancing partner. Other days, you're getting harassed by a legal-sounding-type about someone named Alejandro. There are even days that you wish you're being called by anyone.

Today was a day that featured a phone call from our roommate, Chris, who told us about a recently- (and hastily-) vacated apartment next door. Our landlord offered us any and all of the furniture that we could carry. Steve and I hesitated only long enough to pause iTunes and get our jackets. The only trick would be carrying said furniture down three flights of the neighboring apartment and up three flights of our own building -- no small feat for two guys whose typical exercise regiment consists of a walk to and from the kitchen.

Needless to say, we got it home. It was only then that we found the instructions for "how to disassemble for easy and safe transportation." We also hadn't taken into consideration the general lack of space in our apartment, which was only highlighted by the massive grey recliner occupying a third of Steve's bedroom (and his is the big one...). There's also a degree of karmic justice at work here (yes, of course we believe in karmic justice) since Steve's beloved grey recliner from college was irreparably destroyed during our senior year. I believe the death knell sounded a lot like the vomiting of a drunk girl... no, in fact that's what caused its demise -- the vomit of a drunk girl.

The slightly soiled futon is hardly worth mentioning, let alone photographing. Fortunately, we don't get many overnight guests -- or guests, for that matter.

You never know what you're going to get when you pick up the phone, today we adopted an orphaned recliner, tomorrow... who knows?

** Note: title edited because I caught myself using a brand name -- Marketers: 1 Alexis: 0