my so-called blog (redux)

dear people of the internet:

mrg — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:51:55 +0000

please learn how to write using proper English grammar and punctuation. The Elements of Style is not an expensive book, nor is the Hacker Handbook. please, buy one, read it, and then post your blog entry. (yes, I’m quite aware about my lack of capitalization at the beginning of sentences. it’s the e. e. cummings thing i’m going for here, despite his actual use of proper capitalization. commas deserve to be used properly, however. they’ve suffered enough as it is.)

wafflecopters are efficient and delicious

mrg — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:20:36 +0000

So I’m pretty horrible about updating this.

So in the past month or so I’ve been sick, got mostly better, started doing more interesting stuff at job #2, and caused a whole buncha damage to my car (well, more than I was expecting) by hitting a curb. I can now put Web 2.0 experience on my résumé officially, as I’ve developed something that actually uses Ajax and all that handy spiffness in a pretty horrid way. ‘Course, now that I know how to do it, I can come up with a nice way to do it. The Ajax thing really wasn’t that hard (especially not with prototype) so, other than going back to the good ol’ days of beating my head against the wall because nothing ever renders the same way in more than one browser, it was pretty nice.

I’m really looking forward to getting the 7 back in the next month or so - I had the shop compile a laundry list of things to remedy when I had the 5 in for the damage I did, and there were some things on there that I need but probably can’t do myself, so it’ll be nice to have a car to drive in the meantime. Of course, I’m also tired of having it in someone else’s back yard.

I think I might gather up a whole buncha crap out of my room and have a firesale soon.. I can look around from my desk and see roughly 8 computers that I don’t need, and I’m sure there’s a whole bunch more crap in boxes I can get rid of too. One of these days I’ll take the minimization thing to heart and actually start doing it.

fake plastic anything

mrg — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:21:17 +0000

So I scored some new wheels and tires for the 7 off eBay.. actual BMW parts, even, which is nice. 15″ers with Michelin tires on them, so when they wear out it’ll be fairly cheap to replace ‘em. So, I should be able to get the thing home soon, and then start actually working on it. I think most of the things to do on it are cosmetic, so it won’t be too bad.

I actually manage to get on that there web 2.-oh bandwagon lately.. finally broke down and figured out how to work AJAX with prototype and PHP. I’m probably doing everything wrong, but it’s been an interesting learning experience. I’ve actually been thinking about getting Coda and using that - it’s got built-in JS desk references and all that stuff, and I really don’t have anything good for that right now.

success through failure

mrg — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:24:14 +0000

It lives! Now, to learn to drive a stick…

mmmhaley-bopp

mrg — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:40:26 +0000

yano, there’s something I really like about lights. man’s struggle to be one with the gods by creating itty bitty little incandescent bulbs to resemble the sun. who knows how we ended up exisitng on a planet that orbits the Sun — if anyone can explain that to me, they will become God, because they will have to be in order to answer the question. but, the lightbulb is Man’s answer to its eternal struggle to become the almighty. it’s all about getting brighter and containing more power than the Sun. because, what else can we look to? the vast expanse of night offers little beacons into the vast darkness. we cannot see beyond what offers itself to us. stars that have not supernova’ed are all we can see. it’s an immense system that we can barely understand, yet we try to, each in our own ways. (and I do mean each. neocons with their creation-is-Jesus and scientists with their systems. there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with either approach - it’s just the conviction behind them.) I applaud those that try to reach beyond - metaphysical or physical - because they themselves try to reach God. more can be said to those persons than to most of the human race as a whole. we were given (whether by a sentient god or scientific process) a reason to look beyond and only those deeply involved with science and religion have the guts to look beyond man’s limitations to find out what’s really beyond us. namasté.

harpo macphearson

mrg — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:52:34 +0000

so the iMac’s gone and i’ve been using my Mac mini for a while.. the Mini’s pretty nice - since I was kinda forced into a general cleanup, I’m benefitting a bunch from that - but it’s (again) not the drastic speed change that I was kinda sorta hoping for. it is faster - 2x 2.0GHz CPUs is faster than 1x 1.8, and especially when that 1.8 is 3yo tech - but everything’s still about as snappy. iTunes works a lot better, though, and the sticking with Apple software is going pretty well aside from Safari 3 being kinda crashprone with Flash.

think I might switch back to DSL - I have something called Simplify Media that basically works as a proxy for DAAP, so I can listen to my iTunes library from work. I can get through about 30s of song before their p2p elimination crap kills my connection. Speakeasy claims I can get 6.0/768k, so I may see about that, or try AT&T again. after I moved last, though, the DSL went from 3.0 to .2 so I’d be surprised if I can actually get 6.0 out here.

in other news, I got a MIDI controller the other day - an M-Audio KeyStation 49e. I have no idea how to play piano, but now I’m reasonably competent at hitting the keys for the notes I want and no others. small steps.

pog-form

mrg — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 05:58:40 +0000

few things:

1. Wendy’s at 12:30 = gross.
2. rollerderby is fun to watch and less violent than expected (which is just a bit disappointing).
3. I am now well on the way to being divested of my iMac. Nov 06-Sep 07 is a pretty good run for me.

moof

mrg — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 05:27:37 +0000

so, Wilco puts on a pretty damned good show.

wharf blaster

mrg — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:42:59 +0000

so it was recently brought to my attention that I never update this thing anymore. well, duh. so, in between the last entry in this one, I moved, went back to comcast (because 5 lots down evidently breaks the DSL), and stuff. I’m now rocking a Mac Mini in addition to the iMac temporarily (as of yesterday, even!) which is pretty nice - needs RAM but it’s nice to be able to run Windows and a real OS on one computer. just gotta decide if I wanna keep the printer.

I decided with this new machine to do three things to change my computing habits. first off, I’m gonna get rid of the iMac (usually the old machines linger around for awhile until they’re no longer really saleable). I’m going to be way more choosy about the cruft I move over from the old machine, and the cruft that does get moved is gonna get sorted so that it makes sense for a change. I also made the dubious decision to try to use Apple software where possible on the new machine - so that means I’m using Safari 3 instead of Firefox, and Mail.app instead of Entourage (not like I’d actually use that anyway, it being a piece) or Gmail. iWork has come around to a point where I really don’t need Office anymore - Numbers owns, and Pages has neat word processing modes now, and Keynote’s there if I want to make a slideshow about pandas. so far, I’m liking it - Safari 3 is pretty nice, as evidenced by my recently resized wordpress dialog thingy - but forcing myself to use Mail.app is showing me how craptastic Exchange is. as in, I’m just using the web mail because I can actually see my messages there. hurray Exchange.

I’ve also made an aquisition that’s decidedly non-computery: a 1984 BMW 733i. doesn’t really run now but shouldn’t be too hard to make go again, which is a goal since it’s not in the city. mine’s black with burgundy leather. I’m actually looking forward to having something big and mechanical to work on - it’ll be nerdy in its own ways but also quite a bit more physical. it’s also a stick, so it’ll mean I’ll havta relearn how to drive a bit.

dsl py-rate

mrg — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:08:39 +0000

So comcast sucks, and now I have DSL. Yay, 3mbit! I ordered 6. Interwebs suck.