August 2004 Archives

so i'm riding and riding, doing an evening ride, sposed to be nice and leisurely... i'm hungry, only had a peach since lunch. i'm thinking "okay, as soon as i get to the big hill right before the gas station, i'll turn back, i don't want to push too hard, i squatted this morning"

then i see the gas station. wasn't there supposed to be a big hill right before it?

so on the way back i took another crack at AD, even though i said i wouldn't (don't want to push too hard) and i went past my last stopping point and up to the second car, nearly to the stop sign. that got a "ha!" and then a "holy crap!" when i turned around and saw how far i had climbed. not really that far, but it looks far from the top. ha!

so the one guy at work who knew c++ quit a couple of weeks ago.

since i expensed a couple of c++ books recently (to work on my resume, ha!) the boss says i'm the new c++ expert and i should ask c++ questions on upcoming interviews.

fine.

so i come up with a swell question. it's based on the c++ standard library's auto_ptr. "standard library" means if you want to call yourself a c++ expert, you know it. i.e. if you want to call yourself a chemist, you know at least some of the things that are on the periodic table of elements.

so first interview, some guy who says he taught beginning and advanced C++ at a major US university. i ask the question. he's never heard of auto_ptr. ooookay.

second time around, i get a guy who has heard of it, but when we walk through the question, i find out it really isn't a good question after all. doh!

new section (under "more stuff")

linky for your convenience, so you don't have to go to all the trouble of clicking a little further down and to the right.

Fruit of the Loom has now taken to branding their products FTL, which is why I couldn't find them when I went shopping for new underoos. Additionally, "Fruit of the Loom" is not the first thing that comes to mind when I'm digging through the undies drawer and see FTL.

but i suspect that's just me.

I figured out what GRJ is about.

Bad news! it's going to involve some heavy rewriting.

still, it's funny, imho

links to originals
linky


linky

[12:01] <_mook_> right
(12:02) <bigboote> right what
(12:02) <bigboote> look
(12:02) <bigboote> i say 400 lines of crap
(12:02) <bigboote> you can't just say "right"
(12:02) <bigboote> you have to address some of the individual points
[12:02] <_mook_> right

does that make me weird?

or just weird-er?

just took off my shirt and noticed that there's an inverted cross scratched into my skin, running between my belly button and my massive pecs. the rationalist in me say "meh. you did it while asleep scraching an itch."

the horror movie fan says "bleeeeeaaaauggh!! it's de debbul!!! de debbul!!!!"

boo!

GRJ has gotten to the point, which means I have to decide what it's about. up till now it was just easy breezy futuristic "look! shiny toys!" and self referential meta-whining, but before the story ends, something ought to happen. now i have to figure out what, and it's hard. boo!

dreamt last night that I was visiting my parents house (well, in the dream it was some kind of post-modern mansion with weird paneled rooms and outdoors bedrooms) and couldn't get any sleep. in my sleepless desperation, i checked out mefi and discovered that they'd linked to my blog. oh no! soon comcast would realize i was being naughty!

i crack me up.

linky

a whole new category for comments on my attempts at being a writer.

=> ?

okay, i think i may be finished with the longhair look. i have seen the way out and i dig it.

so, all interested parties, submit your comments. deadline is this saturday.

'nuff said.

i think...

looks like i've got a new neighbor or set of neighbors across the hall, in the recently vacated apartment of Ms. Monk. there are 3 guys doing the move-in, can't say how many will actually live there. i saw a ping-pong table in the moving van, and a giant winnie-the-pooh doll on top of the tv.

if i go introduce myself, i may find myself living in a sitcom.

i know what i'll be doing

linky

linky

and a challenge. now that the freeway is an attainable goal, i need a new challenge. i made it halfway up AD and let out a whoop. actually, it was more of a loud "har!"

next time, it's all the way and a real "whoop."

a new site for me to browse!

linky

linky

ho ho ho.

very cute.

so i'm listening to this mp3, "Qadukka-l-mayyas" by Jesse Cook. I must have gotten it from usenet because its album mates are mostly absent.

it's groovy; acoustic guitar music with a middle eastern beat and vocals. so I head on down to my favorite russian mafia website to see if I can find the album, and what do you know, they've got it.

and what do you know again, it's got a track called "leila". isn't that funny?

those javelin judges are nuts!

I wouldn't want to be standing out there in the target zone...

shouted the guy with the cut lip. it's an electric shaver, it's not sposed to do that!

east bay, spacious, tiled kitchen, and a nice back yard big enough for... whatever.

linky
(3rd photo)

"I have never, ever failed a drug test."

that's an interesting thing to say.

wtf?

after a day long bleach bath, the toilet-water doused TP dispensor mount is now the cleanest object in my apartment. i'm still not going to use it as a fork, though.

so much learning, so many new rules.

#1, of coure, is ALWAYS CALL AHEAD, DAMMIT.

#2 I have forgotten.

And #3, as of now: ALWAYS CLOSE THE LID ON THE TOILET.

Got out of the shower, grabbed my towel and whipped it around me, as is my habit. The end caught the toilet paper dispenser, ripped it clean off its mounting, and drove one of the mounts straight into the waiting toilet.

Now how am I supposed to get it out of there?

have left me with sore bew-tocks.

I could use a good massage.

ahem

the seed packet says cayenne, so those may be cayennes and not serranos.

on the other hand, it's been producing baby bells (not telcos, no) for the last couple of months, so they might just be serranos.

my serrano plants finally sprouted something that could potentially be serranos!

not the weird black/green/red bell peppers it's been sprouting for months now. maybe it's because i didn't water it for a week. that's it, no more water for you mr plant!

no, not your first guess, try a second guess.

that's right, the squats. it's a love-hate relationship, and i'm not sure who's doing the loving and who's doing the hating.

Asked about Patterson, Khorkina told the paper: "I've seen a much tougher opposition than her. Let's see how long she can remain on top. Can she keep going and compete in two more Olympics like myself?"

Patterson's reply: "She's probably just a sore loser. I don't really care what she says. I won."

dad: here's something that may interest you: grandparents' day is september 12.

me: you've got to give me more advance notice than that.

linky

wet paint ribbons in my way
you were there yesterday
by now the paint has gone and dried
you can't be wet, though I haven't tried
my hands are full so I can't cut you
I'll just have to run on through
I'll lift my laundry up in the air
and keep on going until you tear
with a smile and a laugh if I may be so bold
I think I just won olympic gold

linky

<pacino>just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in!</pacino>

pulled something in my back last night turning off the tv. it's the same thing i pulled several months ago unplugging something. it's the same something that gets sore when i bike or skate.

why's this in sleep? because it kept waking me up, dammit.

so, no bike today. sigh. and it's a perfect day for it. i'd better not end up playing ps2 all day like last time. that makes 2 days in a row with no exercise. yesterday, fine. but today? to borrow a phrase:

moo. but when i say it, it's true. moo!

(23:05) <bigboote> so
(23:05) <bigboote> critique
[23:06] <SpU> I like Reg
(23:06) <bigboote> hahaha
(23:06) <bigboote> i bet
[23:06] <SpU> i think you need to expand his character more
[23:06] <SpU> heh
(23:06) <bigboote> fuck reg, he's just there for me to beat up
[23:06] <SpU> that reminds me
(23:06) <bigboote> haha
[23:06] <SpU> i should get to kick your ass some more
(23:06) <bigboote> didn't you read it?
[23:06] <SpU> all i got to do was twist your arm
(23:06) <bigboote> you can't
(23:06) <bigboote> i'm a fargen wizard
(23:06) <bigboote> nobody beats the wiz!

one of my neighbors is smoking something. it's wafting into my apartment, but I can't figure out the entry point. it's either under my door into the hallway (don't think so, couldn't smell anything out there), through the central heating vents (also couldn't smell it there) or through my big wide open living room sliding glass door (no smell there either).

i'm stumped. stumped and annoyed.

and i don't think it's tobacco. someday, a jamaican will pass me some ganja and suddenly all the mysterious odors of the last 10 years will make sense to me.

i dig em, but i hate both of the two accepted grips. and i can't lift much so i feel weak. and then my legs hurt tomorrow and i feel weaker. argh!

but apparently that's not the pertinent requirement.

linky

when going on a dinner date with a really swell gal, reservations are nice, but even nicer is making sure the restaurant still exists.

coworker: you don't have long hair, you just never cut it.

me: um. riiiiiight.

= oooooh yeah!

haven't done deads in many months, it's nice to see that not only have i not entirely lost my touch, I can still do 'em even with blisters (which is actually a good form test, since I shouldn't be putting weight on the big toes (which I tend to do while squatting, bad me (which, incidentally, may be why I chose to DL instead of SQ today, again, bad me))).

The downside is, I guess I won't be wearing shorts today. Forgot my shin wraps.

= aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuurrrrrrghhh!!!!!!

but it beats gangrene, I reckon.

linky

linky

So, after reading all about how I'm no Ansel Adams, you still want to see the pics, eh?

Ok, fine.

those are the good ones, the bad ones are even worse.

1) I'm not quitting yet. But my time at you-know-where is limited.
1a) Reasons: Not quitting is easier. Not quitting means less uncertainty theh-fo it's less frightening. Not quitting means I can still collect a paycheck while I pursue the things that actually interest me.

2) I do not know now whether I'll be going to the central coast when the time comes to leave you-know-where.

3) I got really big blisters, dammit.

4) I still think too much. And when I don't think too much, I spout mystical sounding gibberish or play video games.

Unedited transcriptions of shoreline jottings taken from my beach walk notepad. Stuff that takes up 5 pages in a 7.75"x5" notepad only takes up 3 lines typed. Sitting on the beach, I thought I was prolific. Heh.

The objective, as distinct from the subjective, in no particular order.

linky to criteria

From Gillberg, I'm missing #2, and 4-6. I don't score any points on the DSMIV list.

I couldn't find DSMIV criteria for analysis paralysis.

Didn't sleep so well. Up early, yuck. Eager to get going, I spose. I told some chaches at work that I'd be gone this weekend to relax on the beach. (I didn't get all weird on them.) They wanted to know if I'd be visiting friends (nope, but thanks for asking), and why I had to drive so far just to go to the beach.

Set and setting, mon frere, set and setting.

No no no, I'm not going out on some semi-remote beach to drop acid. I don't have to. But still, set and setting.

Roasted up some Guatemala Antigua for the trip tomorrow. Silvia won't be coming along, but that doesn't mean I've got to settle for hotel swill.

Geez, I sound like some kinda metrosexual or something. No worries, if you've seen me dress you know I'm far more straight guy than queer eye. And if you know anything about me at all, you know I've not seen the show and am just talking out of me arse.

In any case, GA sure makes a lot of chaff. Chaff chaff chaff. It sounds like I'm trying to evade enemy radar. I bet I could, with all the chaff generated from 64gm of Guatemala Antigua. Enemy SAMs, you've got no chance!

that album is a lot like me. it takes a long long long time to say a whole lot of nothing. get to the point! still, i dig it.

analysis paralysis is my way of life. i can't leave it alone.

I'm not done spewing hokum about the beach walk.

A little history, a little mystery, and a great big dollop of hokum, with dressing on the side. coming right up.

Sulawesi Toraja Grade 1. Roasted on the weekend to my best approximation of a Vienna roast. A little underextracted, but still quite good. My first non-Peet's single origin espresso. I'm still working on building a "tasting vocabulary". With what I've got, I'd call this maybe "earthy" or "kind of flat", definitely syrupy, with a really thick crema. Kind of an earthy roasty aftertaste as well. Not as acidy as the espresso monkey. So far I'm 3 for 3.

Yesterday at lunch, my favorite Russian was on his 9 or 10th margarita and I told him that he was reinforcing our stereotypes of Russians. My boss the Aussie replied that I was reinforcing our stereotype of Americans.

Pow! Zing! Ouch!

you could be this

there's a visiting customer guy at work this week. he's about 6'6", maybe 350 pounds, and he used to play football.

i only had a year or two of martial arts, but i still feel pretty confident walking down the street sizing people up. "yeah, i could probably take that guy, and maybe his pal too. definitely if they came at me one at a time". this is probably typical of most males and probably about 80% incorrect.

this guy, on the other hand, i look at him and think: "i probably couldn't take that guy. not even with a baseball bat." And in this case, my estimation probably has more than just a 20% chance of being right.

I thought I could weasel out of doing my own line breaks by letting the OS do it.

once I got the implementation in place I realized, of course, that if I let the OS do the line breaks then I can't scroll anything.

I'm boned.

[22:22] <SpU> did i mention she works where i do
(22:22) <bigboote> i think so
[22:22] <SpU> ah
(22:22) <bigboote> wait
(22:22) <bigboote> are you trying to say i should give you my resume
(22:22) <bigboote> so i can work where you do
(22:22) <bigboote> and pick up chicks?

gotta write a scrolling text display.

the hard part is taking an input string and busting it down into lines that can fit in the scrollable display.

no, that's not even the hard part. the hard part is hyphenating words as needed. i gotta figure out some way to weasel out of that.

i've been using the phrase "i am" pretty frequently of late. as in, "i am a person who enjoys to ride the bike", only with less awkward english.

as you probably know, in exodus 3:14, God says to Moses, "I am that I am". As you also surely know, HYH (to be) is conjugated in the imperfect tense, which can also be translated "I will be" instead of "I am". "I will be so that I will be". Or even, "I am so that I will be".

So it is with me - I am so that I will be. What I am now is not what I will be, it is the foundation for what I will be, or the testing ground for what I could be. When I look in the mirror I don't see me now, I see what I intend to be some time from now. Any self descriptive sentences beginning with "I am" should be assumed to have an implicit "so that I will be" clause at the end.

When the student is ready, the master appears. Someone had to spell out for me what this meant, and when I got it, it hit like a ton of bricks. I can't see how I missed the obvious meaning before.

this is wrong.

do I really need to say that they've also got it wrong?

one of these day's i'll move past the high school philosophy and do something cool. but not tonight.

my cable modem's back up and I'm capable of working from home. which is a silly prospect because I live all of 10 minutes from work. but yesterday I had to lock myself - unannounced - in a lab to get 1 hour's work done. here, I don't have to lock myself in a lab OR comb my hair.

So while I did have to implement an iterative font sizing method, it wasn't as ugly as I thought it would be. And, since it's currently only used for button text, which is relatively static, it shouldn't be a horrific performance hit to run it only at startup (or when changing button labels).

so, as of this writing, wotsam's got buttons that change color when you click them, have rounded edges (though the edges don't look right and probably need to be investigated), and have a caption that automagically gets the right sized font.

and to think i'm not a ui programmer by trade. how can that be? oh, right, it's because i always come up with ugly uis.

memory is a funny thing. mine ties things to music. here i am chilling and wasting time on wotsam and on comes the theme to "Once Upon a Time in the West" and into my head pops the memory of when I got the Gaggia (don't tell Silvia) and listened to the OUATITW theme in a loop.

It's kind of neat, really. I used to use this for tests. I'd listen to a particular CD while studying, then on the test I'd recall the music and the subject matter would come along for the ride. Worked every time, except for calculus. The only thing that worked there was repetition. Of classes.

crud. say you've got a bounding rect

now, if you want to fit the string "bibble babble crunch" in there, obviously you're going to have to recalculate the font size because the font you're looking at now won't fit.

tragically, it seems on windows the way to do this is to guess and check until you get it right:

- do some crap to make a 12 point font
- ask windows if "bibble babble crunch" in 12 point fits in the rect
- yes? okay, try 18 point font
- ask windows if "bibble babble crunch" in 18 point fits in the rect
- no? okay, try 17 point font
- ask windows if "bibble babble crunch" in 17 point fits in the rect
- yes? okay, I guess we should use 17 point font

man, it's gonna look even worse in code. i hope i can think of a way out... i spose I won't if even the brainiacs at msft can't.

stupid windows apis need wchars and i don't want to convert all my existing strings to basic_string's? no problemo:

vector wcstr(str.begin(), str.end()) ;
_graphics->DrawString(&(wcstr[0]), wcstr.size(), &font, rc, &fmt, &br) ;

bam!

damn yous, gdi+! WCHAR * for Graphics::DrawString? Jebus... okay, I guess I could use basic_string<wchar_t>, but still. Yuck!

Ugh, okay, maybe I not only could but should use wchar_t. still, you're not my mother!

taped a "NOT NOW" sign to my headphones. it's viewable from behind as people enter my cubicle bent on disturbing my important work.

we'll see if it works. if it does, then I can.

me: this sucks, my cable modem is down. so is my tv so i know it's not my hardware.

coworker: so call comcast

me: yeah, if I do that they're going to want to make an appointment even though there's a 100% chance that the fault is in their hardware and a 95% chance that the fault is in their hardware outside my apartment. in other words, they don't need me, but they'll make me sit at home between 9am and 9pm.

coworker: ok, so do it. you always get more work done when you work from home.

me, slowly: yes, but ... my ... cable modem ... is ... out.

coworker: oh, right.

this morning's espresso monkey was ground too fine, i got barely an ounce after 32 seconds. i am constantly impressed by my ability to screw up so simple a procedure.

at the same time, I am constantly impressed by the ability of quality beans to mask almost any of my own bumbling. It came out intense (of course), sweet, and spicy with a killer afftertaste. Okay, now I'm making up terms but it sounds good, right? In any case, I don't think you can make a double ristretto, but if you can, that was it and I dug it.

almost sort of kinda done with the "button and a scrolling text box" app.

i mean, i've got a button and you can push it and a message box pops up and stuff. that's pretty good. yeah, it doesn't look or behave like a button, in fact it looks like an ugly green rectangle. but that's easy to fix.

nearly done!

[22:14] <mooook> yo
[22:14] <mooook> someone tell me again how to enable browsing accross a network on win xp
(22:14) <bigboote> it's like this and like that and like this
(22:14) <bigboote> and uh
(22:14) <bigboote> like this and like that and like this
(22:14) <bigboote> and uh
-22:14- Nick change: mooook => SamQuach
[22:14] <SamQuach> right
(22:15) <bigboote> like this and like that and like this
(22:15) <bigboote> and just chill
(22:15) <bigboote> to the next episode

me droogie at work brought me "hero" on dvd, out of the blue.

i figured since he's an abc who's been to hong kong more times than I've been out of CA, he'd have heard of leslie cheung.

i was wrong, so in to work goes my "a better tomorrow" dvd.

"why do you always say john woo movies are 'classic'?" he asks.

blasphemy! especially ABT #1!

how about P-ing me some IS for a change, eh?

jfc.

I need to finish reading this.

funny!

linky dink

hey, look, it's me in 10 years, with more pretentious vocabulary and a greater gift for gab.

I think I got a little carried away this weekend. Fueled by the novelty of recording my every thought, no matter how trite or ridiculous, it seems I went out of my way to have weird spooky crap to write about. I mean, come on: voices?

That's the sort of talk that lands you in the loony bin.

So, I'll probably post a couple more mumbo jumbo posts about my upcoming trip, and a couple of hokum posts thereafter, and then it's back to my rational life of not hearing voices on the weekend and programming computers - both activities which require a firm grasp on not-hearing-voices.

You're starting to frighten me. And me.

Silvia's got a name, and so does Rocky. And Rocky's name is even job-appropriate. True, I didn't name either of them, but that's no reason for my fresh roast+ 8 (seems a bit excessive to have a version number and a +, considering that they don't sell a non + version) to go nameless.

So, it's been named. Here's Smokey working his mojo on a batch of
Sulawesi Toraja Grade 1.

Jah's Music is on, and I forgot to tune in. Isn't it just like whitey
to forget about Jamaica?

i got smoked by a guy in spandex.

then i smoked a different spandex guy up a hill, but when i got to the top i was tired and he smoked me.

then i got smoked by an old guy in spandex.

after that, i got smoked by a whole team of spandex people.

with all that smoking, it was getting hard to breathe, so i turned around and smoked some SUVs down hill.

links are not highlited by default, you'll just have to discover them with mouse-over

similarly, some words have mouse-over jokes. for example, hover your mouse over "you'd better not fake it" on the comments form.

whoopie!

2 remembered dreams from last night:

sweetness blend espresso
barefoot coffee roasters

The quality of their beans makes up for a lot of slop in my technique.

Some kind of cool physics thing going on here, but i didn't see it until i looked at the photos. most of the cool physics things happen when the coffee contacts the tongue (and some more cool physics things when the caffeine enters the bloodstream).

I was thinking, sometimes a little genetic diversity is a good thing.

Me, on the other hand, I'm pure bred
corn fed
white bread.

No genetic diversity to see here. Move along.

Looks like I was wrong this morning when I predicted no partying tonight - well, as close as I get, at least.

I drove up Mt. Hamilton in search of photographs, according to my conscious mind. This was my 4th trip up the hill, my first in the evening. By the time I reached the telescope, entrance was closed to the public. I could have snuck in I guess but that's not my style. So I headed back down a couple yards to the first shoulder big enough to hold my car. Across the road from that was a ledge where I set up my tripod and went to work.

i'm clumsily photoshopping a pic, trying to erase some background.

why won't that clump of pixels go away?

erase, damn yous! something wrong with my photoshop?

oh, it's just a smudge on my monitor. heh.

made hotel reservations for next weekend down on the central coast. "weekend getaway" is not something I normally do, but lately i've been working on redefining the scope of things that I "normally do".

this is the kind of crap that makes me not want to leave my job.

on the other hand, my job is the kind of crap that makes me want to leave my job.

they could be working better, but good enough is good enough.

i'll smooth out the warts later on, perhaps.

i'm supposed to whip up some release notes to convince the customer that the crap we're giving them is actually roses.

normally, qa does the release notes for customer releases, but they refused this time on the grounds that they hadn't given it 3 days of testing. technically, the build we'll be releasing will have had about 0 days of testing. so it goes.

anyhow, writing relnotes beats doing actual work, i guess.

must every other word in a post be a link?

yes, it must. Now shut your bleeding hole, you scum!

had my first shot of home roasted espresso monkey. I dig it, oh yes. Kept it 3 days under lock and key before giving it a try, as instructed. It's not as outrageous as the moka kadir, it's more of a solid backup espresso when you don't want anything too exciting. Even so, it's dem fine, dem fine indeed. I'll be getting mo fo sho.

can't do much with MTSetVar/MTGetVar, like include complex statements with " marks (at least, I haven't figured out how to do it).

this limits code reuse unless I decide to hack up the MT scripts, which I really haven't got time to do.

is fun.

it means i can use a crappy email client like outlook but pre-screen suspicious looking stuff in mutt.

hooray.

though i didn't toss and turn (the squats guaranteed that), for some reason i woke up early, really early, despite the fact that i have nothing but the most tedius of tedium planned for today.

no late night partying for me tonight, I guess. I'll be zonked.

so i was planning to taper out on the lifting and the biking and the strictish eating next week because i felt like i needed to. after that, i was going to shuffle things around and try some new stuff because the current routine is getting a bit boring.

just as i had my mind made up i weighed myself and found i'd lost a couple of pounds this week. add to that the fact that I've done reasonably well
in the lifts this week (which almost never happens concurrently with weight loss in my experience) and now i'm inclined to stick with this a bit longer. can't argue with results, can you?

so far, this blogging thing has

+ made me late for work
- made me late for bed
- made me late for the gym
+ made me switch to firefox
+ given me the chance to play with CSS and HTML and perl and stuff
+ made me accidentally listen to the red elvises
- diverted my attention from wotsam
+ gotten me writing again, even if it's all crap so far
+- made me actually consider getting a pda so i can do this when i shouldn't be, like in meetings or while driving
- created more impetus to stay in and dink around on the puter
+ kept me from dinking around on the ps2

i'm too tired to check the score. am i winning?

she treated me bad
she tickled my tummy
she done me wrong
but at least she done me

Your Favorite Band

i'm enjoying setting this thing up, relearning css, fighting with browsers, squirting out some perl glue here and there, and so forth.

what i'm not doing is posting much of substance. once the layout is "finished" will I even come back here at all? I guess we'll find out.

movable type seems to be a really nice system for someone with html/css aptitude, and an even really nicer system for someone with some sort of web programming skill. but for the average journalist type person, I reckon they'd better find someone to set things up for them.

now i just need to find a journalist to fill mine up with interesting nuggets.

home made. cut thin and really dried out desert-style. too much soy sauce and not enough vinegar, but still better than the competition.

yum.

So I watched Fallen on DVD the other day, because when I saw it cheap at Target, I remembered that I dug it when it was in theaters. It's still a servicable film, and DW is always fun to watch. Especially when he goes over the top, as he does in this one.

About half way through the flick, we get a short speech from DW, where he says:

There are moments which mark your life. Moments
when you realize nothing will ever be the same.
And time is divided into two parts. Before this
and after this.

This has stuck in my craw (I think that's located near the cloaca) all week, partly because I've never really experienced such a moment. Indeed, for me it's quite the opposite: nearly every moment divides my life. Each moment brings a new revelation, a new viewpoint, a new way of doing the same old thing. And from then on, nothing is ever the same.

The intensity of the moment varies, and oddly enough, it seems like
the greatest pivotal moments come in clumps. When it rains, it pours, I guess. In great enough quantity, such moments can knock me out of a rut and into a new orbit (and often, a new rut). Two things are certain: I can look back into my past and identify plenty of pivot points where I changed direction and became something else (whether it was something better is subject to debate), not just a single such point as the DW character intimates. The second certainty: I'm currently about 2 or 3 such moments from a whole new trajectory. Stay tuned for "after this".

little doggie, don't you know
there's some restraint that you must show
to bark and bark the whole night through
is something that you oughtn't do
for although jebus tells me not to kill
i'm firing up my grill

As annoying as it is to deal with css implementation bugs, css really is pretty spiffy. it's a bummer that everyone uses ie and ms doesn't keep it up to date.

the swell thing about css is the c. I can set up a (dull) theme for the entire site and then override stuff like colors to customize certain parts of the site.

you may not think that's cool. trust me, it is.

i do not think it means what you think it means

split open another patch of finger again. i don't know the anatomical term for the part i injured. underknuckle?

note to self: apply tape BEFORE lifting to prevent splits. putting it on after the fingers are all split, sweaty, and chalky just makes the bar sticky. yeah, i could wear gloves, but i'd rather have tough skin. i keep hoping that with my deadlifting callouses, people will mistake me for someone who makes an honest living.

hasn't happened yet.

just so I could get that helmet in place

i dig arms and legs day. starts off real easy, with curls and triceps extensions and other such foofooery, and just when I'm thinking "hey, this ain't so bad," the curls are finished and it's time to squat, oh my. suddenly this feels like some kind of exercise or something.

i've set new PRs for the last 4 squat sessions, and the numbers are getting a bit closer to where one might think they should be from looking at me. In other words, I'm unlocking my potential, and I'm doing it my way.

now if only I could say the same of my bench press. sigh.

but i'm too dumb to tell for sure.

couldn't sleep last night. went to bed late and that didn't help. tossed and turned for a while before I realized it was kind of stuffy and I was wearing pants. so I removed the pants and immediately fell asleep.

i suspect many of life's problems could be solved by removing my pants.

so here I am, happily chugging away, supremely pleased with myself for getting a halfway decent website weblog dingus up in about 3 days, when suddenly I'm reminded why I'm glad I don't do this stuff for a living. Though, tangentially, I don't mind a little paid frustration, it's the hobbyist frustration that I suppose is the worst.

In any case, IE has bugs that cause the category archives to show up screwy if there aren't many long entries. I think it's the infamous "ie peekaboo bug". as if it weren't bad enough that ie, the most widely used browser, displays my pages wrong, firefox displays them slightly differently, which is nearly as bad as wrong. Bleh.

Collectively these two fields make up the body of your entry. You can use the two fields however you like: you could split up your entry over the two fields, or you could completely ignore the Extended Entry text and enter only the Entry Body text. Movable Type allows you to split up your entry for more flexibility in the display of that entry; for example, if you write very long entries, you may not want your entire entry on your index pages. You can use the two fields to control what gets displayed, and where.

$ !m
make -I ../../
cl /Zi /MDd /EHsc /W3 /WX /D_MT /LDd /GR -Iinc -I../../ -c src/buttonapp.cpp /F
obin/buttonapp.obj
Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 13.10.3077 for 80x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1984-2002. All rights reserved.

buttonapp.cpp
src\buttonapp.cpp(26) : error C2259: 'wotsam::Console' : cannot instantiate abst
ract class
due to following members:
'bool wotsam::Display::Contains(const wotsam::Point &) const' : pure vir
tual function was not defined
../../wotsam\display.h(50) : see declaration of 'wotsam::Display::Contai
ns'
src\buttonapp.cpp(28) : error C2259: 'wotsam::Button' : cannot instantiate abstr
act class
due to following members:
'bool wotsam::Display::Contains(const wotsam::Point &) const' : pure vir
tual function was not defined
../../wotsam\display.h(50) : see declaration of 'wotsam::Display::Contai
ns'
src\buttonapp.cpp(28) : error C2664: 'wotsam::Console::Add' : cannot convert par
ameter 1 from 'wotsam::Button' to 'wotsam::Display *'
No user-defined-conversion operator available that can perform this conv
ersion, or the operator cannot be called
make: *** [bin/buttonapp.obj] Error 2

And some more crap!

lifted my arse out of bed today

evidently has something to do with coffee

ain't this exciting?