April 30th 12:49AM
Well, shit
Excerpted from an e-mail I sent recently:
It has been my opinion that the Bush administration went into Iraq with good intentions, but through bungling efforts has botched the gig up.
Today, it comes out that US armed forces have been photographed humiliating and tormenting prisoners of war in Iraq. This is just too damn much. If overall public opinion was teetering on the brink of approval or disapproval, this bullshit will have drop-kicked the matter over the top, and into the realm of Totally Unacceptable Grabass-tic Horseshit. I still think of US troops as noble, brave defenders of the peace, but clearly there are a couple dozen real fuckups out there, ruining it for everybody.
I don't know just what our credibility in the world is worth, but it's sure as hell of a lot lower a figure today than yesterday. Nice going, dickheads. It doesn't necessarily break my heart that a couple of murderers, terrorists or even enemy soldiers were forced to rub peepees on a gag - at least they weren't burned, dismembered, drug thru the streets and hung like macabre piñatas - but it's certainly no way to run a military railroad. What the fuck happened to Honor and Discipline? We're supposed to be the mother-lovin' Good Guys, for cryin' out loud... It neutralizes the condemnation of mistreatment of our soldiers when this shit happens.
I hope they drop the hammer on every hammerhead responsible for this catastrophic embarrassment, including the bosses that allowed it to happen. There is talk that a lack of training was rampant. While any dumb fuck can figure out for himself that the Geneva convention probably disallows stacking jihadists up like a Gay Pride Pyramid (what kind of homosexual fantasy was this jarhead working out?), it shouldn't just be grunts that get whacked over this. The bosses need to be held to even higher standard, and be responsible for not only the training of troops, but the continued oversight of their behaviors.
April 29th 7:49AM
The weekend, the garage
I am considering picking up where we left off in the garage this weekend. Lots of painting to be done. We may have company, (I have to check with my brain/wife) and I certainly have homework to deal with, so it may not be possible. But it's an option.
April 28th 7:55PM
Graduation, here I come
It's nearly May, and my quizzes and tests are coming fast and furious. I dodged a bullet tonight - the last homework assignment got the better of me, and I showed up unprepared, and it was a quiz night. Lucky for me this one portion we covered didn't require a lot of memorization - just plug in the values and add it up. Pretty much. So, I feel like I did well, and must get serious this weekend to prepare for a test on Monday.
Semester nearly over. Must kick ass. Must get snooty GPA.
April 27th 12:55PM
DreamWeaver - redeemed?
Working with my video projects area recently (cough), I noted that as usual, the .WMV animations that play so well automatically in IE don't even appear in Mozilla Firefox, which I have adopted for use nearly exclusively at work. I knew it was this way, and just figured that Firefox didn't have the right plug-ins or other software hooked up the way it oughtta.
Goofing around in DreamWeaver, I added an ActiveX component, and DW slipped in the <embed> tag that I hadn't noticed was missing before (I'm not real sharp with the embed tag, obviously). Poof, the video appeared. A few more simple tweaks, and it works now in IE as well as FireFox, which ROCKS. I had tried it earlier on Mac OSX IE, and it didn't work there either. Now, IE prompts for a plug-in, which is leaps ahead of the blank stare I got earlier.
April 26th 7:49AM
Good weekend
Vying for Husband of the Year, I washed my wife's and mother-in-law's cars (while neglecting my Honda), then helped my wife with the painting of the baby's room. Had some wine & cheese w/ my mom-in-law, and chilled for the evening. Took a swim, did my homework.
There's a lot I wanted to do but didn't get done, but not for a lack of trying. My desires outnumbered the time alotted this weekend, so some had to wait. It is often this way.
April 25th 6:05AM
Yesterday's plans, fulfilled
We saw "Man on Fire," and liked it. I think it's the kind of movie Jeff would like, too.
I watched Vitaly Klitschko fight a lumbering South African white guy in a less than impressive display of boxing skills. He won, and picked up a vacant Heavyweight belt. I was rooting for him, but I was not astounded with his boxing prowess. Hopefully he will continue to improve before a devoted student of the sweet science cleans his clock.
DW MX: P.U.
Dreamweaver MX gave me a truckload of shit while I tried to update the templates my website uses. Since I put some PHP at the end of each file (so that if the PHP flakes for some reason, its crashing doesn't hamper the loading of the rest of the page), outside the HTML, DW MX rejects the inclusion of this block of code in the Template as an Editable content area. You would think that the newer MX would be more likely to accommodate PHP-type concerns, but DW4 was the more comfortable app thus far in this area, giving me zero problem, and doing just what I wanted. I'm sure I'll work through it. Eventually. Yesterday, I just had to back away from the PC before putting my foot in it. Breathe. Breathe.
April 24th 7:05AM
Ah, the weekend
We hope to see "Man on Fire" this weekend. Ebert gave it a middling 2.5 stars, but I didn't read the review. Sometimes his reviews are so thorough, they give away too much, so I refrained.
Also, Vladimir Klitschko is boxing on HBO tonight - I'm hoping to watch that too. His brother got his clock cleaned a few weekends ago by a guy that just would not go down. I hope big-bro Vladimir fares better. It would be encouraging to see a successful white boxer once in a while. You know, for diversity.
April 22nd 12:49PM
Finally, some sort of content
Added an e-Card animated GIF to my Home page. It felt good to put something of value in that right column. More to come.
April 22nd 6:13AM
Education frustration
Quiz last night, don't know how I did. I felt good about it, but I often surprise myself, and not in a good way.
School is beginning to wear on me. The class is noisy, the instructor is too rushed, and the material is starting to get ahead of me. I know if I studied a little harder, it would make a difference.
April 21st 12:49PM
Fixed up my e-Card application yesterday. Updated it to the new look, put some cards in there that actually work now. I feel good about it. I need to make some new cards. If you haven't seen the DI Hartman Get Well card, you really owe it to yourself. Not for kids. Send it to someone you know, whom isn't feeling too well. A little Tough Love.
April 20th 12:49PM
Big thanks to Big Joe for helping me realize why the DOCTYPE tag threw my design into a tizzy. The body tag's background attribute was missing the “#” symbol. Heh. I'm a dork.
April 19th 12:49PM
Called and confirmed that my fax confirmation to Delta College for graduation ceremonies was received and noted. Cool.
April 19th 12:47PM
Forgot to mention - today I learned that adding a DOCTYPE to your web page can really ass-hammer the way your site looks. I added an HTML Transitional tag to all my pages, and poof, the lower 2/3 of all these pages didn't properly display the blue background. So, standards-compliance will have to wait.
April 19th 12:47PM
Work today, school tonight.
I changed my PHP voting page to extend the "graph" of votes vertically, rather than horizontally, to accommodate this new design. I also imported the page into the template for this new design.
April 18th 3:43AM
Ach, what a day
If yesterday reminded me of the better bits of being on my own, today reminded of the worse. I got a lot of useful stuff done, but being alone with all this time and my thoughts to myself - wow. A real change, not entirely positive.
Chores
I got a lot done today though, including faxing in my acknowledgement that I want to be a part of the graduation ceremonies next month. I must follow up to confirm they received the thing.
Web crap
Yesterday I fixed my PHP voting page, which I didn't know was busted until I gave the sight a post-upgrade once-over. It still could use some prettifying, but at least it functions again. E-cards could use some attention, too. Oh, and the front page of this dump needs graphics, while I'm at it. Soon, soon.
Talking to myself
I considered lining up some beer-swilling company for this afternoon, but every option is too complicated. Hell with it, I'm drinkin' alone.
Musical diversity
Yesterday, I picked up some CDs that are wildly different. I got some Freddie Mercury, John Lee Hooker, some Georg Friedrich Händel. I promise, that's how it's spelled on the case. All of these were bought to satisfy musical curiosity - I doubt I'll be disappointed.
April 18th 8:30AM
Follow up
You can view the original information regarding the bridge incident below, including images and video, at http://www.aubonnebridge.net/. These nuts brought it on themselves, and their tactic to turn around and accuse the police of disregard for safety is the most laughable part of their account.
April 17th 9:30PM
Bachelor fantasy
My wife's away for the weekend, and I'm livin' it up. Runnin' around naked, prank calling the neighbors...
Okay, so I'm doing housework, and watching a lot of TV. There, ya happy? Killjoy.
I heard from The Mick today, that was a an unexpected pleasure. I gotta write him back.
Gravity - a global concern
I saw the funniest goddamned thing today on the Free Speech Channel (Channel 9415, Dish Network - they oughtta call it the Liberal, Pothead, AnyPointofViewExceptProBush Channel, to faithfully reflect the programming) - see there's these hippies - er, protesters - in Nice, France, and they're there last year to dick up traffic for the bigshots on their way to the G8 Summit.
Here's the plan: they set up two obstructions in the middle of a three-lane bridge highway; one made up of hippies holding banners, and the other down the road apiece. Here's the kicker: at this second road block, the plan is to block the road by stringing a rope across the bridge (blocking traffic, as if the protesters weren't enough), and dangle both ends of the rope over each side. At the bottom, a self-righteous fruitcake is gonna climb up from the shallow creek bed, over which this concrete highway runs.
I'm not sure what the point was, but it appears just to have them climb to around the middle, causing a consequence of threat to human life if anyone were to drive through the rope-block. This is supported by the fact that they hung a banner on the rope declaring that if you drive through the blockage, you'll kill two people. Since the two people in jeopardy are completely out of site, and the banner wasn't any more explanatory than that, I don't know how your average commuter was supposed to take it all in. I do know that if you pull that shit on the Altamont pass, or so much as drop below 50mph, you're taking your life in your hands, so don't try that shit on Americans with shit to do and places to be, Jerry, or they'll never find the body. Just a nickel's worth of free advice.
Everything's going according to plan, and the cops show up. Things get a little dicey, since the cops all speak French a lot better than I and most of the protesters do (Jesus, kids, do your homework - if you're gonna protest and break the law in another country, a) learn more of the language enough to say more than "call my lawyer," and "who's holding the weed?", and b) don't be surprised when the cops roll up and aren't mystified by your wide-eyed innocence and sanctimonious grasp of absolute right and wrong), but here's the short of it: Cop #1 one starts shoving around protester's and doing his best to restore some semblance of traffic flow, and tears down the murkily-phrased "kill two hippies" banner. Cop #2 wades in looking pretty goddamned impatient and may or may not have had a good grasp of the bigger picture, vis-a-vis the danglers, and quick as you kiss your mother, pulls a knife and slices the rope in two, send at least one sign-waver whistling like a high-velocity bag of dog shit to the jagged rocks below, fracturing a pelvis, some spinal material, and a foot. The other yo-yo on this string "is still recovering from post traumatic stress disorder," according to the narrative of this "documentary," which chided the cops for not taking proper safety precautions whilst breaking up this ill-advised circle jerk on a public freeway. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be the over-dramatic diagnosis for having the shit scared out of you while pulling an ill-advised stunt. She's lucky not to be recovering from being dead.
I haven't laughed that hard in months. I gotta watch this channel more often. Freedom of speech rocks.
April 16th 8:58PM
Whatta ya think?
I finally got around to slapping some perfume on this pig. It may not be much, but it's better than it was, I'm confident of that. I'm still stomping on bugs, and there's lots of details and room for improvement, but overall, I'm very happy with it.
I intend to keep after improving it, but don't be shy. If you have an opinion, share it by using that e-mail link at the lower left.
April 15th 12:57PM
School is cool
Forgot to mention - I got an 'A' on the quiz I got back this week. Took a test last night, and I feel good about the score on that one, too. We'll see.
Bizarre Bye Bye
Looks like John Bizarre's website (http://www.johnbizarre.com/) is gone for good. It's been down since the beginning of this year. Too bad, he is a funny fucker. Maybe it will live again someday.
April 13th 7:49AM
Good weekend
My 'to do' list got more attention than I thought it would over the weekend. I think blogging it into black & white helped me to arrange my priorities for a change. I did my schoolwork, had a few beers at home, and studied some French. I also helped my wife clear out the baby's new room. On Sunday afternoon, my wife and I enjoyed the perfect weather, had lunch in the front yard - the neighborhood was quiet as a guilty child. Got a lot of good stuff done, had a rewarding weekend. They should all be that good.
I'm a shitty penpal
My French penpal wrote me a very polite "why haven't you written me" letter, making me feel very bad, as I should. I banged out a reply this morning to try and exculpate my laziness. I enjoy reading and writing the language, but it takes me so damned long to do it. A letter I type in English in 5 minutes takes me half an hour en français. Alors! Getting the spelling right, getting the accents right, looking up words I either don't know, don't remember or don't remember perfectly, saying what I want to say in some understandable form. Maybe I should allow myself to be a little sloppier, fudging here and there, or settle for less densely-packed letters.
Yeah, that must be the right answer - just do a crappier, shorter job of it. I suck.
New design coming
Also this weekend (cough), I began putting together a new design for this site. The reason it looks butt-mangled and Frankenstein'ed now is that I had hoped that each portion of the website (personal, professional, etc.) would have a different style. Little did I plan that they would all suck, and that I would never get or make the time to develop them into something worthwhile. So much for that poorly implemented course of action.
Soon, the whole damn site will get an overhaul, with each page enjoying the same (hopefully appealing) design. I had hoped to use CSS like a real web design hotshot, but the last site I tried to develop with CSS nearly drove me mad with the layout concerns. So this new design will at least begin life table-dependent. It is my surrender to ignorance of CSS. As yet, although I understand a great deal of CSS and its application, I have not discovered the right instruction for wielding its layout power. Maybe someday.
April 9th 5:35PM
Home again
- Cracked a Beck's
- Cleaned up after the dogs
- Blogged
April 9th 12:49PM
Bleah
Today has been as fulfilling as a rice cake. And brother, that ain't good. By Monday, I wish that I would have:
- finished my Algebra homework, and studied the current chapter
- updated my website
- drunk too much at a local bar, especially with my wife or if I must settle, w/ my brother in law
- studied some French. It's been too long
Knowing myself as I do, I doubt any of that will get done, except for the Math homework.
April 7th 7:49AM
I don't understand anything anymore
The U.S. won't allow an airline to be more than 25% (as of now, possibly up to 49% in the future) foreign-owned, and won't allow foreign carriers to fly between U.S. cities. According to this CNN article: "U.S. airlines can fly passengers from one European country to another, although most leave such flights to their European alliance partners these days." So why not allow the reciprocal rights to our foreign competitors? I'm not particularly upset about it, but at this point, I am curious. I thought the point of capitalism was that the open market would provide the best product and price for the consumer. Competition is healthy. Right? No? If somebody has the other end of this argument, cast a few pearls before this swine, and enlighten me. I'd really like to know.
April 6th 7:49AM
"To be honest with you"
That's a phrase that is meant to imply some sort of increased level of honesty, a just-between-you-and-me frankness; but it really does just the opposite. Think about it. If someone says to you in conversation, "To be honest with you..." it really indicates that they've briefly considered doing the opposite - lying to you about whatever comes next, but concluded that in all likelihood you would have discovered this "revealed" tidbit of information eventually, so that they had better come clean up front. Rest assured, they'll lie to you later, when there's a firmer chance that they won't be caught. I'm always suspicious when I hear this expression. If you use this catchphrase, trying substituting "The truth is..." in its place. To me, it just seems a little less fishy.
April 4th 7:49AM
Something else I don't get
The purpose of spam e-mail is to sell you something, right? For example, Viagra or other drugs. So why dick up the subject line and obscure all the text in the body of the e-mail? If this is something a person wants, they wouldn't go to the trouble of screening out spam mail in the first place. They would leave the filters wide open, so that they receive as much spam as possible, keeping an eye out for the best price, a more reliable distributor, or some other aspect that makes a consumer buy from one pace over another. Obfuscating the whole purpose of the e-mail seems counterproductive to me.
Hell of a good time
Hellboy was worth seeing, but my hopes were a little higher than the movie's storyline turned out to warrant. Good, but not great, in my opinion. Maybe the sequel will be better.
April 3rd 7:05PM
Baby on board
We went and got a peek at our ankle-biter, and it really really looks like a boy. While taking measurements, the technician got some excellent, clear looks at our baby-to-be, but after all the important part was over, she was unable to get a decent angle for the photos she printed for us. They came out looking just as fuzzy and open to interpretation as everybody else's ultrasound shots, but the views before that seemed to clearly show a big baby willy. That's great!
Nuts in the family tree
Went and visited my uncle too. Nice to see him. Got caught up on some family tree business, learned some about my noble hick ancestry. Also great.
Penpal
Finally heard from my stylo-ami - I was beginning to think he gave up on me.
Aw, Hell
Went to go see Hellboy, but the timing got all fucked up, and we missed the start time. I hope to see it tomorrow.
April 2nd 7:49AM
Big weekend ahead
Taking my wife to the doctor, hoping to get an ultrasonic peek at my little crib-gnawer. Should be exciting.
Looking forward to seeing Hellboy, the movie. I don't follow the comic, but the trailer makes it look like a good time. Also, it got a good review from Ebert, so all systems are go.