Month: April 2003

Brainbench HTML 4.0 Master

Ashley Bischoff6 Comments

On the advice of a recruiter, I took the certification exam for HTML at Brainbench (Brainbench is an online tech-testing company). The test was 40 multiple-choice questions (three minutes allowed per question) and it took me about an hour.

The test was $50 but I passed! They don’t reveal the actual score and instead give an aggregate score out of 5.0. They rate 2.75 or higher as passing while 4.0 or higher is passing at the Mastrer Level. I scored 4.53, which I’m very pleased with.

However, I’m not sure about how to integrate this into my resume. I could add it to the Educaion section, I could add it as a bullet to the Profession Profile section, or I could add a separate Certifications section. Any suggestions there? And, if the latter (adding a Certifications section), where would you add that in relation to the other sections?

Date Plate on Food Network

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

I’ve recently discovered Date Plate on Food Network. You can think of it as a cross between reality tv and a cooking show ;).

What do you get when you take 2 eligible bachelors (or bachelorettes), give each a $50 shopping budget, and ask them to plan and cook a romantic meal in hopes of winning over a blind date? Date Plate challenges two food-savvy contestants to do just that.

So, these two guys start the show by watching a short video clip of the date-girl that they’ll be cooking for. The clip typically doesn’t reveal her likes or dislikes in food, so the guys have to base their menu off their hunches from the video.

From there, each guy is paired with a professional chef and they go to the supermarket together to spend their allotted $50. The chefs are allowed to make small suggestions but the menu ideas (and cooking) are up to the guys. After the supermarket, they go the kitchen of a real restaurant to cook the meals (which is always empty, leading me to think that maybe the show is filmed on a night the restaurant is closed anyway).

After two hours cooking time, the dishes are served at the same time to the girl (presumably to give her the chance to try them back-and forth). And, after the main dish, their desserts are brought out. At the end of the show, the girl has to pick which guy she likes best based only on the meals he’s cooked for her.

If you like reality tv and cooking shows (or one of the two), you might just enjoy Date Plate. The show airs Wednesdays at 9:30pm/8:30c and 12:30am/11:30c on Food Network.

Pluckers – Not So Plucky

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

On a whim, Jason, Julie and I decided to order-out last night. They had already had pizza for lunch, so we decided to give Pluckers a try.

Perhaps I should have known better than to order beef from a wings-place, but the avocado burger looked tempting. So, I ordered that while Jason & Julie decided to split a 10-piece order of chicken tenders.

The food arrived a little while later (though I wasn’t paying attention to the time). Jason & Julie were enjoying their tenders before even sitting down. Meanwhile, I placed my burger (and waffle-fries) on a plate since I was concerned that the styrofoam tray might become unwieldy.

On paper, the burger had it all: bun, meat, lettuce, onions, cheddar and (of course) avocado. But, it was just stone-cold. It wasn’t actually chilly, but I couldn’t detect any remnants of heat. It took a 40-second nuke to bring the burger up to an acceptable temperature — and I shouldn’t have to do that. The waffle fries looked the part, but they were also cold and more soggy than crispy.

Perhaps it was just a fluke. Or maybe Pluckers doesn’t have an expertise in beef. Either way, I don’t think I’ll buy their hambugers again, but I'd be willing to give their chicken another chance sometime.

Masters Golf This Weekend

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The 2003 Masters at Augusta will be held this weekend. It looks like Woods is the favorite and a win would be his third in a row:

Will history once again be re-written as the 67th annual stroll down Magnolia Lane begins this week? Only time will tell, as two-time defending Masters champion Tiger Woods will try to become the first player in history to win this event three consecutive seasons.

Last year, Woods joined Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo as the only back-to-back victors in the Masters. Nicklaus turned the trick in 1965-66 and Faldo accomplished the feat in 1989-90. […]

I hope all the golfers play well, but it’d be more interesting to have a close game than a run-away win by Woods. Apparently, even what Woods will be wearing is news (yeesh, it’s like the Oscars).

Interestingly enough, there’ll be no commercials this time. With the controversy surrounding their male-only stance, Augusta National Golf Club didn’t want to harm any of their advertisers with a potential boycott.

I enjoy watching golf, and I’ll try to fit in some of the Masters this weekend. Watching golf is always more fun in a group, so feel free to invite yourself over for the final round ;).

MAD Winamp Plugin for Improved Audio

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

Josh passed this one along and I was going to e-mail Josh about it but I thought I’d post about it instead (don’t worry, they’re different Joshes).

At any rate, the MAD Plugin purports to offer improved audio decoding over Winamp’s default decoder. It works with Winamp 2.x at the moment, and they add that it doesn’t work with Winamp 3 yet. Their method is described like this:

Internally, MAD represents the decoded audio signal with high precision. Combined with a form of dither, this allows output samples to be calculated with less objectionable quantization noise and more audible dynamic range than most decoders produce today. The result is unusually high-quality output that is a more faithful reconstruction of the signal encoded in MPEG audio than you may have realized possible. […]

Hmm, that sounds a bit like upsampling to me (though I’m not really sure). Still, I don’t use Winamp when I need MP3/Ogg playback — I prefer Quintessential Player instead (its interface doesn’t become super-tiny at 1600x1200).