After learning of the The Expendables movie that is releasing this week, the first thing I thought of was OMan. If you know OMan and do not know what The Expendables is, you must watch this and you will understand:

Notable quote:

“If testosterone could mate… with an explosion… this would be the offspring.”

So it was to much of my surprise that when we were purchasing tickets to the midnight showing, OMan said:

But after a few more emails saying how it would be a crime not to see this movie with OMan…

Yay!

This weekend kind of started with our BV quarterly all-hands on Thursday. This time we had it at the Austin Music Hall and I took a decent amount of pics (a bunch are of people singing to win ACL tickets):

More, as usual, are on flickr.

We also got Friday off, and I spent a lot of that time playing Starcraft 2. I finally finished the campaign today. It was enjoyable, but a bit on the easy side (I was playing on normal, though so I could speed through the plot). If I’m bored and have lots of free time, maybe I’ll try playing through on a harder setting.

A few other weekend events:

• Heather’s birthday dinner at Daily Grill (I wasn’t impressed by food - probably won’t return)


• Step Up 3D!!!!!


• Went to Austin Stone and saw Oriana, who ninja hugged me in the parking lot

Let’s see… what happened this weekend? I probably need to be more prompt with these weekend updates or else I forget. Saturday, we played ultimate which was pretty fun. I got new shoes that I think were much better at keeping me from injuring myself, but I felt slower. Not sure if that was due to the shoes or not though. I don’t remember what else happened on Saturday…

On Sunday, we went to the Quarries to watch fireworks at Andrew’s suggestion. I was very pleased since it was so close to my house and we didn’t have to fight a mad rush of people getting in and out. Here are some pics from that:

Melissa grew fangs and so I had to drive a stake into her heart. =(

… she might come back to life next week though.

On Monday, we played video games, cooked meat, and made chili. I forgot to take pictures.

Here are some pics!

“HDR” Bazaarvoice team in front of our new building signage:

And here’re some pics of my room… but Sam ruined one of them.

Today, I played ultimate which was awesome, but my toes hurt and it was hot. It was still awesome though. My face was really red for a while afterwards… I should probably put sunscreen on it next time. After that, we watched the USA/Ghana game and grilled steak (I should say Mark grilled the steak and we ate it). Then, there was a lot of UT2004’ing (I took a nap during a few rounds of that though).

Now, I’m just chilling to some Jars of Clay. Oh, I also did more work on Samitic.us, including an under-construction Sam Ni soundboard (“Samboard”) (warning: profanity).

Tata!

This weekend, I went up to Dallas to visit my sister, celebrate father’s day/my dad’s birthday, and to watch Wicked. Wicked was pretty entertaining. I had previously read the story on wikipedia, but I don’t think that ruined it for me. =p

I recently got the remaining batch of photos for my room which I would consider pretty much done at this point. I’ve finally finished replacing all of my pre-house furniture (aka old/cheap college stuff) with new stuff so it actually looks decent now. I’ll come back and post pics!

I’ve also developed a cough that is no fun at night. =( I think it’s allergy related, but for now, cough drops are sufficing…

I reserved an iPhone 4 at The Domain, but the line apparently has been 3+ hours for the entire day, so I think I’m going to hold off on getting one until it becomes more reasonably obtainable. Plus, I hear if you hold it wrong it drops your calls. =p

Oh, and I did a little work on the Sam Ni fan site. =)

I’ve been working on a Flickr to Facebook photo importer for a little bit and I’ve got something pretty functional now. If you’re my Facebook friend, you can give it a run through here. It’s not done, but it should work, I think… still a lot of cleanup to do and perhaps some better error handling, but we’ll see. =)

In a few hours the 2010 IPSC (Internet Problem Solving Contest) starts. We originally thought it was at noon, but after realizing we didn’t take into account time zones, we found out it starts at 5AM. I’m about to get a little bit of sleep because the thing lasts for five hours and I hope to make it through it…

The last time Andrew, Mark, and I competed was in 2006 and we did rather poorly. We’re all a bit rustier now, I think, so we don’t expect to do any better, but it was a lot of fun last time, so we’re going to give it another go. =)

I started my weekend early by taking Friday off and going to Six Flags over Texas with some peeps. That was about what I would expect from a day at the amusement park (generally amusing, but tiring and it leaves you feeling gross).

Saturday, I went to Oriana’s graduation:

Before dinner, I picked up Melissa and we made our way to Hot Topic as I prep for my next self portrait. I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I considered the trip successful. =)

Dinner was at Perla’s:

…after that, we scrolled South Congress a bit and there was cupcake eating:

Melissa made this face impersonating me… it’s awesome:

Sunday wasn’t too eventful… I attended Oriana’s senior banquet for a bit then headed to Central Market to prepare for our Memorial Day feast, which I decided was a good opportunity to take another stab at a suckling pig.

Monday was pig day. We named this one Piglet. =) IMO, I think it turned out better than the last time (or maybe I just had better cuts). There’s still a good deal left over, so if anyone wants some…

Night!

Congrats to Julie & Dean! This is another late weekend post, but hey… as long as I don’t wait until the following weekend, I figure I’m okay. =)

On Friday, we had a lot of people play tower defense (I think it was nine) which was pretty fun and we finally beat the map we were playing really late at night (2AM?). I hear the StarCraft 2 map editor is ridiculously powerful, so I’m somewhat anxious to see what people come up with with that. Maybe I should actually preorder a copy…

Saturday, Julie & Dean got married! Melissa came along which made this her first wedding. Sam officiated with the “powers invested in him.” Here are some pics:

The rest are on flickr as usual.

On Sunday, I finished setting up a photo book in Aperture and ordered it through Apple. It was a bit pricey, but it’ll probably be worth it if the quality is pretty good as it was pretty convenient and gives me a good way to get physical copies of my photos. I’m somewhat anxiously waiting for it to arrive…

Of course, we watched the Lost finale as well. I’m a bit tired of talking about it so I won’t really. I would say the finale didn’t ruin the series for me, but I wasn’t really impressed with it either. That’s all ya get!

As I’m sure many of you know, Bazaarvoice has a quarterly all-hands where we used to pile everyone into an Alamo Drafthouse, eat, drink, and listen to groups present on how they did during the quarter and what they plan to do in the next. This all-hands was special for a few reasons. One, it’s BV’s fifth anniversary and second, it was the first we had at the Salt Lick because we’ve grown too large for the Drafthouse. I thought this all-hands was particularly enjoyable with great presentations, cover songs by our tongue-in-cheek dubbed “BandVoice,” and topped off by our second Bazaarvoice Film Festival.

Here are a few pics from the today:

I got a new hat! This is good because my old Linux Tux one is a bit worn and it shrunk when I washed it (shouldn’t have machine dried it…) making it not as comfy. One good thing about BV is they don’t get skimpy on their free stuff - t-shirts and now, this cap, are of quality. =)

Tomorrow, more partying at Volente then I fly out to the Keys! Woooooo!

This following photo was from earlier this week on “crazy hat day.” Thanks to Eric for letting me borrow it!

So one day I go into work and the cube across from mine which was formerly empty now has someone in it. I remember Jason, our support manager, mentioning hiring a new intern. The cube desks face away from each other, so I only see her back and notice that she’s a girl and has black hair, but that’s about all I observe during the rush of the morning. I generally try to be friendly and introduce myself to new people around my vicinity, so I eventually I go over… “hello, I’m Oliver.” She turns around and it’s the first time I actually see her. I’m sure she said hello back, but I can’t really recall as I was likely too busy trying to mask my surprise at how cute I thought she was. I proceeded to make a fool of myself by finding out she went to UT then guessing every possible year but the right one. At that point, I either scuffled off to a meeting or got sucked back into the internets…

A few weeks go by and we interact a bit here and there (working late at the office, group lunches, etc.). She asks if I play Scrabble, so I download Words with Friends on my iPhone and we begin playing a game. I use all of my tiles in one play and I think I’m looking good with what I feel is a solid lead. The game nears its end and she teaches me a lesson in being confident by pulling ahead and beating me by 10 points. I realize this girl probably has brains.

One night, I join Steph, Ryan, Heather, and Jimmy at Jim’s and sometime during our conversations, Heather accuses me of liking our new intern (for reasons that, to me, seemed like a stretch). I hadn’t actually thought about it prior to this accusation, so I deny and give Heather strange looks. Soon, however, with the idea in my head, I realize that yes, I have totally developed a crush.

A few weeks go by, and things like this start to happen:

1:18:13 PM thealattack:
  Meagan Martin
    omg does Oliver have a gf?
  Alastair Wilkes
    no
    single
  Meagan Martin
    cause i just saw a new asian intern that is sooooo cute and adorable
1:18:21 PM Oliver: lol
1:19:01 PM thealattack: haha
1:19:12 PM Oliver: that was totally out of the blue?
1:19:43 PM thealattack: yep, totally out of the blue
…
1:31:30 PM thealattack: sounds like you have people working for you
1:31:39 PM thealattack:
  Meagan Martin
    back to Oliver’s new girlfriend
    how do i find out who she is and set them up on a DATE
    ?

Heather and Meagan soon come up with “project jack” that’s supposed to set us up on a date. I decide that there seem to be too may coincidences pushing me to ask this girl out, so I take that as a sign and with much encouragement, I finally work myself up to asking her to dinner myself. I’m not going to get into how I asked. :-) I feel a mix of happy/surprised when she says “sure” with a smile and I hurry off to do a code review in a little bit of a panic not knowing what to do next…

Our first date is on a Friday night. Usually, I go out with my group of friends to a new place in Austin we haven’t been before. In an email thread, I learn they plan on going to The Odd Duck, which I, of course, end up skipping out on. After dinner, I decide to take us to Gourdough’s for dessert. I pull up and realize that Gourdough’s is right next to The Odd Duck and they basically share the same parking lot and eating area. Oops. It’s too late to leave at this point, so I end up introducing her to a handful of my buddies and we all hang out for a little while. I take her home and apparently I haven’t scared her off by any of my antics (planned or unplanned) as she agrees to a second date.

It’s now been about a month since then and I must say that I’m a bit smitten. I like to joke that things aren’t official until they’re on Facebook… so…