www.ofhills.com

Servers, Forums, Web Publishing Around Here

Things have been very busy around ofhills.com, and even though many of them have been computer-related, I have not had time to write them up. Several people have asked me to weigh in on the MovableType flap as though I might have a worthwhile opinion on the matter. I think by now that we have all read the posts by the usual gang of alpha bloggers, and I could not say any of that any better, assuming for the moment that I could have thought of any of it to begin with.

What I would like to do is to give you a little different perspective on the whole thing, though, and that is my personal perspective. In case it hasn't been clear here at the High Intensity Time Wasting site, I love toys and gadgets, virtual and otherwise. I downloaded MT 3.0D and Expression Engine on the same day. The first thing I did was to pay for each of them. I like to fertilize these fields of beautiful software liberally, and I feel that this kind of expenditure pays off for me in the long run. I haven't achieved what I have in this life by being stingy or small-minded.

With that said, I felt that the upgrade to MT 3 was going to cost money and time, and as long as I was investing those two things, I might as well re-evaluate the landscape and see what had arisen since I last looked. I had already installed the MT3 beta and thrown in my two cents in the alpha and beta testing. I hadn't found all that much that encouraged me to go to all the effort to upgrade my site to MT 3.0D. I decided to try the EE trial version, but my Interland Virtual Server's version of PHP was too old, and upgrading it myself on this server seemed like a lot of work for something that should already be available.

So, I signed on for a GlobalServers VPS, a Linux virtual machine. Ahhh, much better. I installed the latest Zend Optimizer myself, tarballed my InterLand site along with a mySQL dump, and ftp'd them over to the GlobalServers VPS. After a fair amount of tweaking, everything was back up and running, and I like the GlobalServers platform much much better. I installed the full version of Expression Engine and I have been messing around with it extensively. Also, GlobalServers had PHPBB2 available as a one-click install. What was I supposed to do??? NOT install it??? So, now, even though there is absolutely no need for Forums at this site, HERE they are anyway! Almost a blog within a blog ... time wasting at its best.

And, I will be moving the site to Expression Engine as soon as I bumble into a design I like. That may take a long time, since I am a little short on time these days. We'll see ...

But, here's the thing, see. I was not in the least angry at Interland for their servers not meeting my needs. They were incredibly friendly, pleasant, fun, responsive, and helpful, right up to and including when I called to say I was leaving. They run an incredible service. I think they are just trapped by their investment and cannot re-tool so easily, even though I think they are pedaling as fast as they can. GlobalServers has been responsive, pleasant, helpful and all that too. They're just great. I suppose it's a buyer's market these days.

This brings me to MovableType. I think this is wonderful software, and I had no problem with Ben and Mena's licensing scheme. I am lucky to have a little capital to invest in such things. I have always liked their product and the camaraderie among users. For me, though, once I was going to spend a lot of time upgrading, I was compelled to look for the most bang for my buck - time and money, and at the moment, EE appears to have more to offer more easily than MT. I may switch back and forth over time, as I have with many platforms and apps - until I settle into what I like best. And what I like best usually means what fits my immediate needs and what will absorb the energy I have to bring to it.

That's all there is to it. I HATE to leave MT - I really do. I'm a loyal person, and I kinda like to stick with what I'm attached to - maybe a little too long in some cases. And, I'm a little hurt and angered by those souls who just dropped MT in a heartbeat, out of what appears to have been some sense of entitlement and deprivation, but, so be it - market forces prevail. And for me, hot apps always prevail - no matter how loyal I am. EE is a hot app. But I hope Ben and Mena, et. al. manage to salvage this one - I hope to see their work evolve into its best niche. While it remains a mainstream blogging tool, btw, I will continue to support my MT plugins.

Anyway, those are my site doings these days, and I hope I will soon be able to add a little more content, rather than obsessing too much over the infrastructure - but, hey, that's what we do ... snatching at the best tools wherever we can find them along the way.

P4C800-E Deluxe: Broken Promises

So a friend moving back to the area from another state asked me what the best computer she could get for the money was - oh, and by the way, her ex had made her have a Mac with System 8.x on it, so she'll be having none of that. Naturally, I was forced to tell her that her best bet was to give me an upper price limit, and I would build her the best possible machine. I won't reveal that limit, but suffice to say, I was thrilled at the prospect of putting this machine together.

Read more below the fold to see how I wasted a significant percentage of my adult life fighting with the Promise Fasttrack 378 ATA RAID driver, and how I learned to love the Intel ICH5-R RAID Controller. Read the whole frustrating story, read the solution to the problems, see pics of one ass-kicking computer in its final form!

Mac users note: I have taken no end of shit from many of you about my passion for this machine. I love technology, and computers especially. I appreciate beauty of all kinds, and this even includes MicroSoft Windows XP Pro. But, at the end of the day, my financial records, my Perl scripts, all my music and photos - they're all on my 17" PowerBook, which accompanies me everywhere I go, and there they'll stay.
]]> So, to build this super machine, I did a little research and then ordered the parts from far and wide. Over the week, they started showing up in all kinds of boxes and packages, and I stacked them in a room. Then came the day when a) all the parts had arrived, and b) I had a few extra hours free, or at least free enough. I tore open all the packages, creating a mountain of debris almost up to the ceiling. I unscrewed the case, bolted the motherboard with memory in, and then the power supply, and then set about the tedious business of securing all the drives.

I had that thing built in under an hour and a half - record time for me. Then I unpacked the monitor and keyboard and mouse, strung it all together and powered it up. As though under the sway of a miraculous anti-Murphy's law, I saw the Asus boot screen! I had hooked the two SATA drives to the Promise RAID Controller, so I furiously jumped to the RAID building utility and created a striped array which looked to the computer to be a 320 GB drive - ohhh yes! I then configured the BIOS to kick some ass. That was followed by a trip downstairs to my dedicated flight simulator machine (okay, and poker playing), where I made a floppy with the RAID Promise drivers off of the ASUS CD.

Then, I loaded in the Windows XP CD, F6'd in the drivers, saw the huge RAID disk, clicked Enter and installed Windows. Reboot! Wow! Turn on firewall, add wireless driver - I'm on the internet - everything works! Where's Murphy this time?? (you know where this is going, right?) Anyway, I do all my updates, including a BIOS flash, then install the Graphics card drivers and then the Audigy sound drivers. Another hour and a half has passed, and the machine has proved that all its parts work, and all the basic software is installed. Oh, what a gorgeous creature - working flawlessly. My friend will be lucky ever to see this machine, especially as I'm seriously considering running off with it, and perhaps marrying it (is that legal yet)?

Okay, enough for one day. Feeling good. Shut down the machine. Go live life for a day or two. Return. Boot machine to install MicroSoft Office. Boots to black screen. No action!!! A few three finger salutes and finally there is white type on the black screen and it says "c:\windows\system32\config\system file is missing or corrupt" and the installation is dead!

Shit! Okay, google, google, here's all ya gotta do to fix that: big pain in the ass use of repair console. Screw it. Reformat, reinstall Windows XP Professional, reupdate, take a serious look at BIOS settings and hardware connections. Install several applications, flawless! WTF? Oh well ... onwards and upwards. Install MicroSoft Office. Reboot. Perfection! Shut down. Reboot. Black screen. Unrecoverable. Google, google ... BIOS settings, hardware, try everything. Reinstall 3 more times. Same error. Consider leaping out third floor window - think better of that - consider defenestrating gorgeous looking computer - shit, forget it - just go to bed.

Imagine several more days of this, with about twelve full re-installs of XP Pro from scratch. I install DriveImage 7, and manage to save an image after all my updates, and before the corruption creeps in. At least now all my reinstalls are quicker, but what the hell IS it???

Well, I finally take note of the fact that the corruption generally (but not always, of course), happens after an actual shutdown, and not so much on reboot. I speculate that there is a disk drive cache that is not getting written to the disk on shutdown. I take to yanking out the power cord when I want to shut down - didn't see that in the manual. Guess what? No loss of data at all. No corruption. But I can't turn the machine over over to my friend and say "it's the greatest computer you ever saw!!! oh, and, btw, when you want to shut down - don't bother with that pesky menu item, just yank the power cord out of the back - and if you forget, and use the shutdown menu, well you'll just crash the whole thing and lose everything, and it will never reboot." No, you see, that's not going to go over well at all. Damned women - have no understanding of these kinds of things. No grasp of phrases like "It's FINE, don't worry about it."

So, with that charming thought, I set to googling up a storm ... phrases like "disk cache corrupt shutdown xp powerdown" and eventually I unearthed this ghastly thread. I mean, some of these people had returned their hardware one piece at a time, and still had no joy with this problem, and of course many of them didn't have exactly this problem - just something close. BTW, the Oscar in that thread is not me, but some other poor guy. Anyway, that thread lead me, EVENTUALLY, to this fine MicroSoft page: Hard Disk May Become Corrupted When Entering Standby or Hibernation or When Writing a Memory Dump. Well, I'll be a mother fucker! It sez, and I quote:

"If your computer has an ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) hard disk that is larger than 137 gigabytes (GB), you may experience any of the following symptoms:
� Your computer may restart instead of resuming from hibernation.
� You may experience hard disk corruption when your computer enters either standby or hibernation.
� You may experience hard disk corruption when Windows XP writes a memory dump file as a result of an unrecoverable Windows error (or Stop error)".

Why??? You ask? Here's why: "The ATAPI driver for Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) does not use 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) when it writes memory dump files or hibernation files. Additionally, the flush cache command is not issued to a large hard disk that has 48-bit LBA enabled when Windows XP enters standby or hibernation." Well, fuck me! Woulda been nice to have any idea of that. Or for them to have patched that in the regular Windows Updates! Sons of god damned bitches! Then, of course, I started to worry that this wasn't the answer anyway. But, MicroSoft DID have a link to a patch:

They even gave it a helpful name: The Q331958_WXP_SP2_x86_ENU.exe package. Again, Bill, many thanks.

So, I downloaded the ... FUCKING ... "Q331958_WXP_SP2_x86_ENU.exe package" and installed it. It wanted to reboot afterwards. I'm thinkin' if it needs to reboot, it isn't functional yet, and it will corrupt the disk YET again. So, I yanked the powercord. Then I booted it up, and I have installed 20 GB's worth of software with NO problems!!! Once again, I have a gorgeous machine that achieves perfection!!! Thank God! Brought it in just under the snapping point.

But wait, there's more! Is the Promise Controller using atapi.sys? Is this really helping? Install Roxio stuff, still working - shutdown - boot - shutdown - boot - oh YES! All is well. Install Sony Clie software - all is well. Shutdown for night. In AM, restart - DEAD INSTALL! Corrupted. Google away - nothing. Restore earlier image. Install HP Printer drivers instead of Clie, just to change it up. Dead after shutdown. FUCK!!! My life is slipping away from me.

NOW, in sheer desperation, I went and did the one thing that geeks are most loathe to do in this world. I talked to a real human being, an IT guy, a true expert. He knew the P4C800-E Deluxe and said he'd never had the courage to put the boot partition on the Promise RAID. He said essentially, "Save yourself - buy a 120GB drive and throw it on the first IDE controller - use that to boot Windows XP Pro and use the RAID for storage." There is absolutely no question that this is the smart thing to do. In fact, with the price of drives these days, and the colossal amount of time already wasted, only an idiot would take any other course of action.

Returning to geek mode after talking to him, I did the only thing I could.

I didn't listen to him.

But, I did decide, upon hearing without listening (a technique I perfected through 18 years on the psychoanalysts couch), to say "fuck the Promise controller - God damned piece of shit." So, I hooked the drives up to the Intel Controller, downloaded the newest drivers, used the Intel utility to create a RAID drive, F6'd the drivers in, and re-fucking-installed everything once again from scratch - including the Q331958_WXP_SP2_x86_ENU.exe package, just for good measure.

I have walked through each piece of software, one installation at a time, shutting down and rebooting every time. Each black screen of more than 100 milliseconds duration fills my heart with a fear as dark and bleak as the screen itself! But guess what - it works! Even faster than the Promise controller. And I even hosed the disk accidentally, forcing a chkdsk with sector recovery while GoBack was installed, but it was an easy full recovery. Oh, I am one happy man! And, after this post, I am going to stay up all night playing my free copy of TRAOD.

To the left is a closeup of the beast itself. My friend has never owned a serious computer, and I can only imagine what her image of a homebrew is - probably something like a 1950's HeathKit Stereo, or should I say Hi-Fi. I don't think she'll be expecting this nitro burner, nor, of course, have the slightest idea what to do with it. Hmmm, maybe I should keep it.

To the right is where I pulled out the control rods. Let's just say, I skipped the next three day's visits to the tanning booth. As you can imagine, I could strip the paint off the attic walls this way. This is almost as good as George Gobel's lighting his grill with 3 gallons of liquid oxygen! But let me tell you, this machine will read a PDF file and write a PowerPoint presentation like nobody's business - my friend will be pleased.

To the left, I leaned the nitro mixture a bit and shoved a couple of control rods back in, the flames died down, and the thing became downright civilized.

Then, to the right, I turned the overhead lights on, and the beast became almost docile - playing nicely with the Printer, Scanner, Clie, and even the Apple Base Station (which, up there on the third floor, provides a pleasant surprise for war drivers dumb enough to be in my rural neighborhood).

And here's the whole attic room, lights on, junk everywhere, but that computer looks like it just wants to live there, and I haven't even begun to play the TRAOD that came with the graphics card. In fact it came with something else too, so I have two copies. Well, my old pal arrives in mid-June, so we'll just see who's getting this computer by then. Trouble is, my credit card bills will be rolling in by thenm, and that will probably clinch the deal in her favor.

Well, it's been fun while it's lasted, and my only advice to anyone wanting to build this machine: stay the hell away from the Promise RAID Controller!

Here are the parts you need:

Lian Li PC-65B Case
480W Thermaltake Butterfly Power Supply
P4C800-E-Deluxe Motherboard
P4/3.4CGHz 800M CPU
TwinX1024 1GB Memory
Pioneer DVD R/RW
Pioneer DVD R/O Drive
Barracuda SATA Drives 160 GB x 2
Samsung Floppy Drive ($6.78 phew! I spent more at McDonalds)
Sapphire ATI Radeon Card
Wireless PCI Card
Audigy 2ZS Platinum Sound Card
Xenix Multimedia Keyboard
Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse
BlackDiamondTron Monitor
Inspire 7.1 Speakers
WindowsXP Pro
HP Deskjet 6122 Printer
HP ScanJet Scanner
Sony Clie TJ37 Handheld

ShoutBox Spam Pissing Me Off - Here's A Fix

I usually deal with assholes be reminding myself that they have to spend every waking minute with the biggest jerk of all, but ShoutBox Spammers - people worse than those scumbags who throw McDonalds bags out the car window in my rural neighborhood - are just pissing me off.

So, I've decided to take a few minutes to doctor up my ShoutBox to use a mini-blacklist.

If you don't mind a little, um, language, try sending me a shout with the word "teenz" in your url ... heh heh heh ...

This takes about two minutes to accomplish, so I highly recommend taking these steps if you use ShoutBox:

1) Open the file "shoutbox_langpack_english.php" in a text editor. On or about line #31, paste in the following definition.

define("_SPAM_MAN","Fuck You And Your Spam - Asshole.");

I'd suggest a different phrase between the second set of quotes, so as not to antagonize anyone - perhaps "Thank you for attempting to post, but we are declining such messages"

2) Open the file "shoutbox.php" in a text editor. Go to around line # 116, and find this:

if (isFlooding() >= 3) {
$error .= _PROCESS_FLOODING;
}

Add a few spaces after that "if" statement so you can paste in another one. Paste this "if" statement after (below) the one above:

if (preg_match ("/teenz|rape|maturex|mt-forum|xbig|naturals|logos-sonnerie|xsonnerie|pantyhose|seduces|beastiality|webcams|insest|seex4u|ayke|logos|cumfiesta|xanal|sex|boys-1-time |cock|teen|tits|member|incsx|full-access|anti-trust|inc-diary|qooqle|milf|nigritude|romance|onzin|gay|violent|penis|bestiality|satisfaction|incest/i", $url)) {
$error = _SPAM_MAN;
}

Note: I will try, for awhile, to keep the above statement up to date with the phrases in urls that have been posted here by spammers. Feel free to make me aware of other offending urls.

The words between the pipes are found in the urls that the spammers are leaving. You can add as many more as necessary.

So, that's it. Easy, eh? I'd advise you to implement this today, because I still think the ShoutBox is kinda fun, and the spammers have been wrecking it!

Wedding Gown Model

I am greatly indebted to the person who brought this to my awareness:

Man Auctions Ex's Wedding Gown on Ebay

Nets Win!

Not that I'm particularly a Nets fan, but I was convinced by feminine forces beyond my control that I wanted to spend Easter Sunday driving over the George Washington Bridge and hanging out at a sporting event. I figured setting myself up as a little terrorist bait sounded pretty good, and, you know, you just gotta love what those NBA fellas can do with a basketball. As it happened:

Nets Eliminate Sixers From Playoff Race

It wasn't looking at all good for the Nets at first - they just couldn't hit a shot. They were trailing at halftime, but then Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson opened up on the Sixers in the third quarter, leading the Nets to an 89-75 win over Philadelphia. The Nets will be the Number 2 seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

Now, I truly hate to say anything like this, but if you compare an Easter Sunday of sitting around with relatives, beloved as they might be, well, you know, this day wasn't half bad - especially if you ignore the damage that five 3rd row seats does to the bank account. Back to the poker tables, so I can afford my next sporting event!

Procrastinate Later

People have been on my ass about posting something, so I figured I'd better do it. I have been killing myself getting all kinds of real life stuff done, but it is too boring to really post about it here. I have also been trying to keep up with my plugins and help people out with them, but that has threatened to take up all my time.

Nonetheless, I figured I'd better post something if I want anyone to ever stop by here again, so I signed on, and lo, I found this thing below, half finished. This was the "kinda" meme where people were firing up their iTunes to play random tunes, and listing the first 25, no matter how embarrassing. Can't remember where I saw this. Probably Tien's (nice new favicon by the way Tien!).

Anyway, here's mine (see table below ...), from a little bit ago. As for other things, I have some new musical stuff to post, if I can ever get the time to record it. And some updates to the plugins, if I can ever get to that!

Now, when I feel totally overwhelmed by work and computer obligations (like I'm supposed to test a bunch of new software, help some people with my plugins, build a computer for a friend, work for a living, cover for some colleagues who are away, etc. ...), well that's when I finally just say "to total fucking hell with it ..." and play hour after hour of poker online ... much to the irritation of almost everyone around me, except for the few denizens of the poker rooms skilled enough to take my money.

So, if you think I should be helping you out or that I have welched on some promise I made to you, why don't you drop by the online poker room and put a coupla bad beats on my ass to drive me back to proper work where I'll get your thing done. Unfortunately, I'm just about burned out with bug hunting and testing, hence the online poker (not gambling, poker - there's a big difference ... okay, there's a difference ...). Anyway, for your information, here are the online poker rooms I love best:

UltimateBet
ParadisePoker
RoyalVegasPoker
PartyPoker
PokerStars

You'll find me playing mostly No Limit Hold Em in both ring games and tournaments. I'll be going by either "oscarf" or else "geekbus" ... see you there ...

Oh, yeah, and here's my iTunes ...

Cakewalk Into Town	Taj Mahal	The Best of Taj Mahal Volume 1
In A Sentimental Mood	Steven King	Fingers & Strings
Don't You Think It's Time	J Mascis	Grace Of My Heart-Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
New Island Midnight	Dr. John	Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack
Tupelo Mississippi Flash	Jerry Reed	Guitar Man
Wild thang	Tone Loc
Something in The Way She Moves	Taylor, James	Greatest Hits
The Nearness Of You	Norah Jones	Come Away With Me
Oh, Atlanta	Bad Company	Desolation Angels
Decision At Glady Fork	Bryan Sutton	Ready To Go
Businessmen	George Carlin	You Are All Diseased
Dante's Prayer	Loreena McKennitt	The Book of Secrets
A Little Mark Musik	Chet Atkins	Almost Alone
Mood Indigo	Charles Mingus	The Definitive Charles Mingus from Ken Burns Jazz
Waitin' For The Bus	ZZ Top	The Best of Z Z Top
Don't Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim	Willis, Kelly	Easy
There's A Rugged Road	Shawn Colvin	Cover Girl
I'm All Smiles	Earl Klugh	Solo Guitar
I Scare Myself	Dan Hicks And The Hot Licks	Beatin' The Heat
Leather Britches	Kessinger/Cosgrove	Hot & Spicy
(Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night	Shawn Colvin	Cover Girl
When Yuppies Go To Hell	Frank Zappa	Make A Jazz Noise Here, Disc 1
Cat in the Bag	Mark O' Connor	The New Nashville Cats
Big Mon	Tony Rice	The Bluegrass Guitar Collection
A Fine Romance	Marian McPartland	Live At Maybeck Recital Hall - Volume 9

If It's Not Oscar Mayer Weiner

My search strings file tells me I'm #2 on Google for "what time does the oscar 2004 starts?"

Somehow I'm thinking that the hapless Googler will have no joy clicking on my link. And, starts what, btw? Well, whatever it is, Oscar usually starts 2004 in earnest somewhere around July or August, if you must know.

Shit, alright, alright - the public servant in my genes requires me to say -> Sunday, February 29, 2004 8/7c on ABC ... y'all come back now ...

Evolution

Email attachment from a fellow acoustic musician ...

(found here)

For the real original artwork click here

Comment Spam and Low IQ

You know what one of my favorite expressions is besides "Kiss My Ass" (btw, thanks to Rori for reminding me of that fact by her recent use of it)?

It's "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"

Well, both expressions apply to this (below) newsgroup discussion on comment spamming by people seeming to be pretending to be adults (without much education, it also seems) and exchanging information on spamming techniques as though somehow they're going to prosper from this. I say you guys ought to get out more!

Here's the link: Usenet thread by spammers on blog comment spamming [via waxy.org]

NOTE: Every time I tell people that the "If you're so smart ..." expression is one of my favorites, I'm treated to a long lecture about how it's always been one of their least favorite expressions and how untrue it is. So, I offer these guidelines for understanding its use:

FACTS:
1) There are lots of rich people who, while smart, have many other highly undesirable characteristics adding up to being people you don't want to emulate.
2) There are lots of very smart people who don't have a pot to piss in, for one reason or another.
3) If you're stupid and rich, you are probably beautiful.*

GUIDELINES:
1) Do not use this expression when a tenured MIT physics professor is explaining super string theory to you (unlikely anyway if you're reading this blog).
2) Do use this expression when some snot-nosed kid is getting on your last nerve explaining how his enlightened worldview makes him better than everybody else.

*Note on #3 above (besides the fact that it is gratuitous):
Remember that nerdy little toad in the seventh grade who was always at the top of the class and you used to torture in gym class? You don't? Well, maybe you should, since (s)he is your boss now. Anyway, generations ago, a guy (or gal) like that figured out how to make an absolute shitload of money, and then married a beautiful person who used looks alone to sponge up the money. That money was big enough to last for generations, and thus the family continued to breed for looks over brains. The result is a collection of rich, beautiful, um, dimwits. Don't believe it? I could take you to some parties (we'd have to crash them) in my home state that would clinch it. (Thanks to an anonymous acquaintance of mine for this theory).

Heard enough from me today already? I thought as much ...

Bloggers Mount Assault On 2004

Through the awesome power of the internet, the brain trust that is the blogosphere was born. After a number of years of evolution and maturation, bloggers have reached such a peak of self realization and actualized mastery of their destinies that we may now behold the true creative and generative power of our mighty medium and salute those go-getters who labor tirelessly to sustain its vitality.

"Early Monday morning and here I sit. I�ve done absolutely jackshit this weekend." - InfinitePink.com
"How pathetic do I feel right now? ... I've been back for 4 days and haven't done jack shit." - Playing To The Firmament
" I have been doing absolutely jack shit with this journal" - livejournal IconAttack
"i didn't do jack shit today other than class really. just slept, went to class, then watched tv and ate." the Life or NOT
"I just want to relax and do jack shit. Maybe play videogames....brb" - vanlandw.com
"friday i didn't do jack shit... so that sucked big huge freakin ass" - mindsay demolition
"Today felt like a fucking waste, i didn't do jack shit all day" - don't ever fucking question that
"The last few days I haven�t done jack shit. I pretty much just sleep all day and then eat and watch a few hockey games." - ComA: me tired, you bored ...
"today was kinda pointless. I didn't learn a damn thing today." - Zippy's New Record
"We didn't accomplish a damn thing today." - Drowning Pool - Journal
"I haven't done a damn thing today ..." - Beautiful Mistake
" I *really* didn't do a damn thing today." - Planet Crimson
"I haven't done a damn thing today." - Blonde and Confused
"Since i didn't do a DAMN thing today except hit walmart..." - Viva La Blog
"I'ts 10am and I don't feel like doing a damn thing today." - As My World Turns
"i am not going to do a damn thing today at work." - Larryville
"I haven't done a damn thing today except sit around on my butt and yap on the phone." - JustOrb
"didn't do a damn thing today" - Soul Of A Cherry Blossom
"I did shit today. Yep, truly." - cocokat in slumberland
"I did shit today. I woke up at 3 p.m. and did nothing." - hybridion
"I absolutely did shit today." - let it snow

Yes ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. And having sensed that this is my kind of niche, I toiled relentlessly on this post, and I do believe that that in and of itself puts me in some damned fine company!

Men, Romance, and Hahn Beer

I'm one of the many who loved this, but I ~~haven't been able to see "Bean Bomb" yet~~ (thanks Greg! and also to Chris!). The SuperBowl is putting me in the mood for these things (which things, you might ask ...)

"LION Nathan this (ed note: last) weekend launches the follow up to its popular ad for its key brand Hahn Premium Light as it aims to strengthen its hold on the top light beer position. Its �Sex Bomb� TVC (video at left) featuring a man leaping into a spa occupied by a gorgeous woman was voted the funniest ad of the year taking out the prize for Outstanding Funny TV Commercial at the 2003 Australian Comedy Awards. It also contributed to major market share growth for the brand, according to Lion Nathan. The next instalment �Bean Bomb� (video at right), launching on Sunday, is along the same humorous lines. It features another good-looking couple but this time shows the bloke leaping from a balcony onto a bean bag, propelling the woman sitting in it into the pool. Lion Nathan Australia national marketing director Margaret Zabel said last year�s ad had delivered strong results for the brand. �We really tapped into something unique with �Sex Bomb.� People just loved seeing the ad over and over again,� Zabel said. Developed by Clemenger BBDO Sydney, the ad was created at a time when Hahn Premium Light was facing significant competitive pressures, according to Zabel. She said that while Hahn Premium Light was the clear segment leader in the light beer category it needed to �step up and assert its authority�. �A major packaging re-stage combined with the launch of �Sex Bomb� took the brand to a new level. Hahn Premium Light picked up almost four share points in nine months and increased brand health measures across the board.� �With the launch of the next TVC in the campaign, we believe the brand will continue to strengthen its position as Australia�s leading light beer,� said Ms. Zabel. Launched in 1998, Hahn Premium Light became Australia�s leading light beer within 12 months of launch." [via bandt.com.au]

Hope Hahn doesn't make me unpublish my free advertising for them. And thanks to Greg for pointing me to the second (downloadable) one ... 2/14/04.

On Comment Spam

I get the same feeling about comment spam as I do when I see someone throw a bag of fast food empties out of a car window, and I suppose in the interest of civility, I won't articulate exactly what that feeling is.

In any case, this post at the MT Forums on comment spam attack, and my own recent frustrations with comment spammers, have led me to reflect a little on this (though none of these thoughts are new).

I think that registering one's users before they can comment is the only way to eliminate comment spam (but who wants to do that?). Otherwise, as long as anyone can post a comment, then someone can easily write a script to automate the process and bombard a site. Hiding the script names and all only makes it harder for people to do this across a wide spectrum of sites using the same cms (a good intervention). But, not if they are targeting any one site. As long as there's a keyhole, someone can pick the lock, and in these cases, all that is really necessary is a rudimentary knowledge of computer programming.

Efforts such as MT-Blacklist make it more difficult for people to employ comment spam in the service of advertising, and while the blacklist approach has all the earmarks of an arms race, it does help to maintain order to some extent. But, this is of little value in stopping people who are just wreckers. I suppose these posts are not really spam, but just vandalism.

I think most of us who have achieved any degree of maturity, or at least age, have figured out that breaking things is easy, but in the long run it is a hollow sense of power and fails to pay off much in this life.

The trouble is that maturity has never been anything to rely upon in building civilized interaction - especially since all of us are capable of abandoning it in a heartbeat under a variety of circumstances.

The next logical step, after installing the best possible locks, is to enact legislation that will identify, investigate, and punish web vandalism. We are in the wild west phase of that process, and whether it is really possible and, more importantly, desirable, is open to question. I commend World of Ends to anyone who has not read it. I think it broadens one's perspective on the state and nature of the web.

So, with all that said, it is my judgment that locking things up too tight leads to an isolation and constriction that eviscerates what personal websites are all about. On the other hand, a complete absence of control leads to congestion that also strangles the life out of our efforts at free expression.

Where does that leave us? Right where we are in the rest of society. We need to build structures (locks and laws) to deter wreckers, but we also need to take a reading of what the wreckers are trying to tell us and use it to reflect upon our motivations, procedures, and ends. The word responsible includes the capacity to be responsive - we cannot live in an interpersonal vacuum. We cannot afford to become alienated. I think that a personal effort to provide forward thinking web content and to take in and metabolize the variety of responses it engenders from the readership is a sign of living well.

When I suffer an attack of any kind, I try to channel my rage into figuring out how to integrate myself better with my environment. Sometimes the struggle is with the attacker, and usually it is at least in part, within myself. What I try not to do is to feel sorry for myself for too long nor to indulge it's close cousin, feeling entitled.

The internet allows us to generate our own ripples in the pond without leaving the house - how cool is that? But ripples encounter other ripples and sometimes the seas get rough. Ahoy there, matey!

Happy New Year And Many Thanks

I have been on the internet since before the days of Mosaic, and when what few web pages there were had grey backgrounds, black type, and blue links. I soon decided I needed a "home page" and not long after that, I created a page for my banjo and guitar downloads, when they were .au files, considerably larger than mp3's and generally accessible with very modest bandwidth.

For a number of years, I pretty much just let that thing sit there. I never looked at it or updated it. About once a year, someone would email me about something they liked there. Then in the last few years, I became aware of blogs, but paid them very little mind.

Then one day, MovableType came across my radar screen, and my greatest interest became seeing whether I could actually install it myself and get it running. That turned out to be pretty easy, but then I had to figure out what it did. When I got that just barely sorted out, I realized that I needed to use it to make a much more accessible and updateable site for my music.

After awhile, I couldn't resist adding a few posts about various matters. And doing a whole lot of cussing and opining about this and that. And I added a bunch more of my music. And, I generally just started having a blast with the stupid thing.

Then, as has been my habit with computers, I became more and more interested in the nuts and bolts of MT, and found myself writing a few scripts and plugins. These brought even more traffic to my site.

So, almost exactly one year after I launched this site, I have had a multitude of visitors, with myriad interests, and between comments and private emails, I have had a huge number of very gratifying exchanges with people I never would have known about otherwise.

I would just like to thank all of you for your friendship, and your support of my musical and programming efforts (not to mention my general carrying on). I think the musicians tend to email and the computer folks tend to comment. Both communications are always welcome, but I encourage lurkers to speak up! In any case, I hope I will be able to continue to provide enough content that the place remains worth the visit.

Of course, if you look at the search strings in the left sidebar, you will see that my having once mentioned that I was in love with a certain gorgeous CNN newscaster has probably led to more hits than anything else (and, oddly, they're not looking for me), but I haven't mentioned her in months! You'd think they'd stop looking for her here. But, maybe she'll stop by here herself, and recognize what a great guy I am - I mean, people like her are probably up late reading blogs every night, right?

Anyway, thanks again everyone, and I wish you all peace and happiness in the new year!

Bang!

How fast can you upgrade to MovableType 2.65?

I just

LLL                  OOOOOOOO       VV                VV   EEEEEEEEEE
LLL                OOOOOOOOOO    VV                VV   EEEEEEEEEE
LLL                OO             OO     VV               VV    EE
LLL                OO             OO     VV               VV    EE
LLL                OO             OO     VV              VV     EEEEEEE
LLL                OO             OO       VV           VV      EE
LLL                OO             OO         VV       VV        EE
LLLLLLLLLL     OOOOOOOOOO            VV VV           EEEEEEEEEE
LLLLLLLLLL       OOOOOOOO                  V             EEEEEEEEEE

upgrading!

What does it do? How the hell should I know, RTFM . I say upgrade first, ask questions later.

Liquor In Front, Poker In The Rear

I try to keep my posts on task around here. Task? You ask. Yeah, High Intensity Time Wasting! Let's not forget! So, if you were a busy guy, working three jobs, playing around with computers hour after hour writing scripts and hacks, providing after-hours coverage for work, flying airplanes, playing the guitar, snowblowing the yard, managing incorrigible puppies ... well, anyway, what would you feel your next move should be?

Well, I think it pretty much goes without saying. You would endeavor to become the world's greatest poker player! And to win the WSOP - now well known to ESPN fans as The World Series of Poker! You've watched this, right? If you're a guy, you have not watched this for very long, if your wife or girlfriend was watching with you. People of that nature tend to say things like, "that is the most disgusting group of people I have ever seen in my life." With which, smart fellas like me hastily agree, but secretly think, "but aren't they great!"

So, I grew up playing poker in my household, and then throughout school for many many years. But that was then, and this is NOW! No more Five Card Stud, or Lowball, or Baseball, or Seven Stud High-Low Roll Em which we affectionately referred to as Tit In The Wringer. Nope, now it's Texas Hold 'em! Period.

Why? 1) It's faster. You can play 40 hands an hour. 2) the pots are much bigger than in stud or draw, 3) it's vastly more competitve, since 5/7 of everyone's hand is the same. This makes for hot contests! This game is great!

Yeah, but how do you build up to world class play? Back in my younger days, this would have required my going to the casino (now in abundance in the great State of Connecticut) for hours and hours every week and playing against the big boys (and girls!), and probably losing a fair amount of cash. And there are a number of other hazards there, to almost all of which I would be highly likely to fall victim.

But, now, thanks to my favorite invention, the computer, that is all a thing of the past in the early stages of Poker Playing Development. Enter, Turbo Texas Hold 'em, from Wilson Software. You will not be finding this item at the Eltronics Boutique. This is software for the serious gambler. And it teaches you how to play correctly, and for another 19 bucks, you can enable Sidewinder Sid, a guy (well, a cartoon guy actually) who will analyze your every move after a game, and critique your play. I enabled him immediately. This software cranks up your level of play in a big hurry, and I think it might be the most addictive game I've ever played (and that's saying something).

Now, I personally stay away from online poker playing. No reason really (except that they'd probably have to haul me out of my office in a straightjacket), but also, part of the skill of poker is being able to maintain grace under pressure (can the words grace and poker be used in the same sentence? Ah, fuck yeah), and I like to be able to hold my own (so to speak) in the presence of other real live people.

So, will you see me in the World Series of Poker anytime soon? Probably not, but if you come by my office waiting room, you are almost certain to hear a smarmy computerized poker dealer's voice saying "It's Been Raised ..."