Month: October 2006

  • I No Longer Seek You

    Well, now. The IM system I’ve used the longest, ICQ, has locked me out of my account. Apparently there’s an ongoing (and officially unacknowledged) problem with hackers getting into their database, resetting passwords and removing associated email addresses, especially on older accounts (like mine, a seven-digit account number). I’ve only ever had a small handful of email addresses over the years, and none of them are working to do password recovery.

    ICQ’s support stance on this problem is, basically, “You’re screwed. Here, have a new ICQ number!” Thanks, but no thanks. It’s not like I was using the thing all that much. I’m just annoyed, not horribly inconvenienced. I suppose I could start using that Microsoft system a bit more, if necessary. (I know. I wasn’t going to create an account there, but it sort of came in really handy for my new job. My shame runs deep, I assure you.)

    So, any of you who might still have had me on your ICQ buddy lists… take me off and block that user ID. I can’t use that account anymore, and anyone who can is a hacker.

    (Before anyone chimes in with the snark: I don’t use the official ICQ client, my computer is squeaky clean, and there’s a history of this sort of thing happening at the server side. My geek cred is fine, thankyouverymuch.)

    Adding to the joys (ha ha) of Friday the 13th, I’m also home sick today. Either I caught a bug somewhere, or the mongolian grill did something to my innards. Whee.

  • Please Spay Or Neuter Your Jackasses

    Those who know me are aware that I’m not exactly the world’s biggest animal lover. That said, I’d like some time alone with a blunt/spiky implement and the raging nitwits who broke into a Seattle-area pet shelter and beat the hell out of a bunch of helpless animals.

    Words fail me. Others have some eloquence handy, though.

  • BlogDesk: Useful, Perhaps

    Yesterday’s post and this entry appear thanks to an interesting little piece of software called BlogDesk, which may provide a convenient enough posting interface that I’ll have an easier time updating this here journal.

    Maybe.

    The product, while generally nifty, sports a few interesting quirks. For instance, if (like me) you tend to insert HTML as you go, you’re going to be unpleasantly surprised by your post. BlogDesk tends to turn angle brackets into, well, angle brackets. You have to toggle over to “source” view to do anything meaningful in that regard, or use the “Insert HTML” command.

    On the upside, it uses the <em> tag for italics and <strong> for bold face, thus supporting the recommended deprecation of <i> and <b>. (The basic idea is that you can and should decree via stylesheet what emphasized and/or strong text should look like instead of being restricted to simply italics and bold face. Never mind that almost nobody does this; it’s the principle of the thing, don’t you see?)

    (Anyway. Ahem. Moving right along…)

    BlogDesk is worth trying out, especially if you find yourself stuck sometimes feeling like you ought to post something but don’t feel like going to the trouble of firing up the browser and signing into your site’s administrative interface. It’ll post to WordPress and MovableType (among others), and will import your categories as well as allow you to set comment and trackback enabling on a post. I recommend giving it a whirl.

  • It’s more than I ever wanted.

    Imagine my surprise when I opened the following email message this morning:

    You have been chosen to test the new email service at AnimeMusicVideos.org. You now have an email account of [address removed] to use if you wish.

    Well, that’s very nice… but, what? I don’t need another email address! Sure, I’d love to have an excuse to use such an address, but I just don’t have such an excuse, and there’s no way I’m going to take the time to watch over yet another email account if there’s no need to do so.

    This would barely be worth remarking upon, of course, but for the fact that I have a very, very, very hard time letting something like this pass me by. It’s going to take a fair bit of willpower to resist activating that account, just on general principles. Sad, isn’t it?

    (For the story behind why I was offered my “very own” email account, see this forum thread.)

  • Might As Well, Eh?

    So, since I’m stuck with this navigation menu bar thing at the top of the page, I might as well update the contents of those pages, huh?

    Consider it done. And yes, by “done” I mean “done just enough so I don’t cringe when I read my bio or the cast page.” For instance, my biography page no longer lists anything about my former place of employment. I suppose I could have kept a lot of the material about the good parts of that gig, but right now I can’t really begin to care about that organization, if you’ll pardon my use of the word. So be it.

    Anyway. The pages listed above are mostly current, now… though I should probably update the webcomics page some time this week…

  • Naming Meme

    Nayad posted her rendition of this (at a friend-locked LiveJournal post, unfortunately), and I was amused enough to go ahead and do the deed. It’s all her fault, right down to convincing me not to weasel out of it on account of not having actual/current names for some of the entries. So, here goes nothing.

    1. YOUR SPY NAME: (middle name and current street name)
    Peter San Rafael It could’ve been worse, I suppose. In the old house? Peter Long.

    2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your dad’s side, your favorite candy)
    Frederick Tootsie Roll Note to self, never become a movie star. And I want the Internet to know that I thought about fudging this answer… ha ha… and picking either Whopper or York (for the Peppermint Patties). Frederick York wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?

    3. YOUR RAP NAME (first initial of first name, first three or four letters of your last name)
    K Kere Okay, whatever.

    4. YOUR GAMER TAG: (a favorite color, a favorite animal)
    Grey Duck Wow. I bet you’re all shocked by this one.

    5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
    Peter Ketchikan

    6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother’s maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet’s Name)
    Ker Kel Pie Righto. For the record: The last time I owned a pet, it was a cat named Piemur. Go ahead and laugh if you must. And, yes, I was am an Anne McCaffrey fanboy.

    7. JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom’s maiden name spelled backwards)
    Retep Yeslek It’s almost as good as my first and last names spelled backwards…

    8. PORN STAR NAME: (first pet’s name, the street you grew up on)
    Trouble Keller Let’s be clear about something: If you’ve paid attention to my journal recently, you know that I grew up on many streets. This one happens to be the location of the little white house in Brewster, WA in which Mom landed us after moving us out of her mother’s place up in Indian Dan Canyon. So… it’ll do, even though we weren’t there very long. Somehow I don’t think “Trouble Highway 173” would roll off the tongue quite as well. Oh, yes, Trouble was the name of our cat in the second apartment in The Bronx when I was a wee lad. (See? I can remember some stuff!)

    9. SUPERHERO NAME: (“The”, your favorite color, the automobile your dad drives)
    The Grey Schwinn Because, you know, I’m pretty sure a Schwinn bicycle is the closest thing to a personal vehicle that my dad could be associated with, at least in my mind. That said, though, this is an atrocious superhero name. I should know.

    10. YOUR ACTION HERO NAME: (first name of the main character in the last film you watched, last food you ate)
    Lupin Donut It took me a minute to remember that the kids and I watched “Castle of Cagliostro” a week or so back. I suppose it could’ve been worse, since my heroine addiction means a good chance I’d have watched “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind” more recently… if I’d ever gotten around to it. Whew!