Month: August 2002

  • Weekly Recap III: The Search for Spawk.

    To begin this week’s Recap, I’ll point out a couple of changes to the Blogs of Note: I unlinked the Weblog Wannabe (more blog than journal, and I like journals) and added Dragon Ink and Blogatelle. There may be more additions over the course of the next week. Maybe I should change that to “Journals of Note.” Oh well.

    Also, there are a few MIAs this week. Argephontes, Phoemeister and Fluttergirl are all on trips of one sort or another. It saves me some time, I suppose, for which I ought to be grateful.

    • Leading off the roll-call, Jessy is finally packed and ready for her move (due to take place next Tuesday). We probably won’t hear from her for a while, but we know that she thinks Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” is the best rendition out there. I would beg to differ, but that’s a conversation for another day.
    • At debris.com we learned more about the pitfalls and excitement of buying (and selling) a home. “There’s just the matter of the carbon monoxide from the heater; that’s the SILENT KILLER, you know.” And Wendi wants to buy a house some day. *shudder*
    • One of our new entries, Blogatelle, presents us with an open letter to “compensating for something” drivers. We also get pictures of puppies, a very fine treatise on (part of) what’s wrong with major league baseball lately, and of course the Online Barcode Generator. Lots of good stuff, folks.
    • Jason of Q Daily News experienced the strange intersection of online existence and meatspace this week. He also revels, as do I, in the search for NEOs. His plans for after the weekend include moving from Manila to Moveable Type.
    • Captain Rooba wonders how cat food manufacturers know that a given product has a “superior new taste.” He also gave us a recap of last weekend, including sandcastle building and Godzilla time. And last but not least, Rooba’s Sister appears to be the queen of the Rooba’s Remix.
    • Emily got to drive the sexy bright red mustang convertible. She also stopped during a bike ride to experience some of the weirdness and wonder of nature, including the mortality of dragonflies. And we shouldn’t forget about the odd souvenir of her parents’ trip.
    • The everlovin’ Melpster is, according to one survey, a silkie chicken. You’re right, I don’t want to know either. She also learned of some new work-related stresses of the unusual kind. That is, unusual for those of us who don’t expect to deal with gun-toting looneys on a regular basis.
    • Apparently fully recovered, Snappy the Clam is making up for lost time. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s blog-related commentary, mostly about (against) Dave Winer, et al. Damned good reading, and I’m thrilled to see Snappy back in action once more after his very-serious hospital stay.
    • Sar of Dragon Ink had a Cheeto party of some sort, an Amy Grant moment, and a conversation about sex changes. We got to see photos from the ill-fated day at the waterfall. She also spends too much money on books and movies and posters and the like, but don’t we all?
  • Toys for rich weirdos

    I’m not sure what to think of this. I mean, on the one hand it’s hella cool and it’d be neat to have one. On the other hand, it’s scary to live in a world where this is the kind of thing someone would seriously buy.
    IBIS TEK Security Vehicle

  • Ethan Hawke. What a waste of material.

    Had a brief but shining chat with Jessy this afternoon…

    me: Ethan Hawke did a Hamlet? *shudder*
    Jessy: ewwww
    Jessy: yes it was HORRIBLE
    me: Oh gawd. That’s… okay, that does it. Between a bad Hamlet and pretending to be a writer, Ethan Hawke must die.
    Jessy: Ok, I read “The hottest state” and almost cried because it was SO bad.. horrible horrible book it was
    me: Too bad you can’t easily MSTie books. =)
    Jessy: lol
    me: “We’ve got Chapter Sign!”
    Jessy: lol
    me: must… resist… temptation…
    Jessy: Hehehe
    me: (not hard to resist, since I’d have to READ it to MSTie it.)
    Jessy: heh

    Well, alright, when you get right down to it I did most of the talking. What did you expect me to do? This website is all about me, showing off my own cleverness, or what passes for it.

    I was also given an ultimatum: I need to hurry up and get that oft-promised page done. The one with all the silly widgets and geegaws. You know, oral sex donations and things. So it’s done now, are you happy? 😉

  • Email Purge

    The time has come. (Insert “Rocky Horror” audience line here.) With an 18 gigabyte drive devoted solely to storing email, you’d think that a couple hundred Groupwise accounts could live comfortably, right?

    Wrong.

    No matter what or how I tell them, these people never… ever… delete anything. Ever. So today I take a drastic step: a purge of all email older than the first of this year. This time I received permission from the General Manager, so if anyone complains I can shrug my shoulders and say “Jack told me to.” It’s nice to have the bigwigs on your side for a change, wouldn’t you agree?

    This process is likely to take all day, if not part of tomorrow. Good thing I didn’t have anything exciting planned.

  • One step closer to the ideal

    After a couple of days spent tinkering, breaking, unbreaking and tinkering some more, I can happily display the new journal-entry layout I’ve devised. What’s so great about it, you ask? The most important breakthrough is something you can’t even see: no longer is the layout of journal entries done by table code. The only table left is the calendar.

    This is simply one more step along the path to a fully CSS-driven layout scheme. The page should also render just a little bit faster in most browsers. Not to mention that I just plain like the way this looks better than what I had before.

    Pardon me while I bask in the dubious glory of my own accomplishments. Thank you.

  • esreveR nI s’gnihtyrevE

    Thanks once again to the creator of Monaural Jerk for showing me how to reverse-sort the journal entries. Now the newest additions will always be at the top of the page so you don’t have to scroll down to see if there’s anything new on a given day. Hooray!

    I’ve also learned how to make the “synopsis” data appear. This means that all entries with synopses (which would be all of them, mind you) back to the beginning of the database will be shown with little parenthetical comments.

    My next goal is to completely redesign how individual journal entries are displayed. Wish me luck. Send me cocoa.