Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

February 23, 2004 03:11 +0000 | Geek Stuff 0

the one big impediment to publishing the source for this blogger is finally fixt. the theme manager seemed to work properly, but in reality, i was just faking it to make it work while i figured out what to do. the problem had less to do with a bug, and more to do with how to write the theme manager properly, but now it's actually fixt... which means i'll be able to publish the source code within a week or so.

February 22, 2004 20:29 +0000 | Miscellaneous 0

i finally saw it today on ctv.

what a stupid movie.

February 22, 2004 07:59 +0000 | Personal Life 1

angela's in town for the weekend. she'd planned this trip weeks in advance, the big deal being a curling game with some local friends. i was originally part of the plan, but obviously that's out now. she wanted to meet face to face though, bring this whole thing to a close in person -- putting a personal face on things that had previously been left to a phone call.

in short, things didn't go well -- though they didn't go badly either. we each said some things that i've had to think about since then, but i think i understand enough now that i can put this all behind me. whether or not we'll be able to be friends after all this remains at her discretion, but after the text-message i recieved tonight, i'm wondering if i even want that. ...maybe she was just being spiteful. maybe i should cut her some slack. lavendarglass says that i should have faith though, so i'm going to do just that.

February 22, 2004 07:44 +0000 | Geek Stuff 0

i took a trip to the w3c's validator today and was really surprised at how badly my blogger failed the tests. apparently attributes like "border" are deprecated for html 4 and are supposed to be replaced with stylesheets. so i killed an hour or so today going through the site nuking all occurences of the attribute and replacing it with a single, global entry in style.css for each type i'd applied it to (<table> and <img>). not big news if you're not a geek, but interesting to me.

February 20, 2004 16:02 +0000 | Miscellaneous Nifty Links 1

courtesy of angela. maybe i should read this one.

You're Les Mis�ables!

by Victor Hugo

One of the best known people in your community, you have become something of a phenomenon. People have sung about you, danced in your honor, created all manner of art in your name. And yet your story is one of failure and despair, with a few brief exceptions. A hopeless romantic, you'll never stop hoping that more good will come from your failings than is ever possible. Beware detectives and prison guards bearing vendettas.

Take the Book Quiz.

and i found this one on the same site.

You're The United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go. You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.

Take the Country Quiz.

February 18, 2004 00:27 +0000 | Society & Culture 2

i have a theory about this whole "lets cancel angel and firefly, but keep crappy shows like charmed and fear factor going" thing: tv stations are afraid of producing intelligent content. that's the only line that works. sure angel was dark, and firefly was odd, but have you looked at those other two shows? the only definitive difference here is that the people who watch the shows that got cancelled are people who like intelligent humour and plots that actually require thought to follow.

"but why would broadcasters want to do such a thing?" you might ask. it's all about lowering the bar my friends. producing crap like fear factor is cheap and easy, but writing a show that keeps people coming back is much, much harder and therefore, more expensive.

now we've seen intelligent tv survive in the past, but shows like csi and star trek appeal to a different audience: 30+. angel and firefly (and going further back, babylon 5 and farscape) all appeal to the 20+ group, a market much larger and heavily leaning toward an iq roughly resembling that of a turnip. how else can you explain why charmed is still around? and survivor? broadcasters can't let intelligent shows survive, lest they risk raising the bar and widening the audience for talented entertainment... and if that happened, the crap they're pushing now just might flunk out and they'd lose that cash cow started by "who wants to be a millionaire".

man i'd be happy to pay $40/mo for just three shows: angel, startrek & the monday report. screw the rest of the garbage. but if that were possible, they'd never make any more pacifying the idiot nation.

here endeth the rant.

February 17, 2004 04:40 +0000 | Personal Life 0

i all too often forget that i have people out there who care about me. but on days like this i'm reminded of how lucky i am. lavendarglass, the sage that she is, read my blog not 20min after everything with angela fell apart and contacted me over icq. we talked over the phone for half and hour and when we were done, i talked to paula. chrystal & chris rhodes called today as well.

but the important thing -- the (unfortunately) sad thing, is that i was surprised by the outpouring of support i still have -- even from as far away as vancouver. thanks everyone. i really appreciate it.

February 17, 2004 04:07 +0000 | Miscellaneous Society & Culture 0

they've cancelled yet another good show. yet another joss show. this will be the last season of angel, so a big "lick me today" goes out to the buttholes at the wb who for some reason decided that the show, their second-highest rated show had to die. i would really appreciate an email from the morons who did the math here and decided that "charmed" should live (ew) and angel must die. i guess it's just another example of good programming that gets replaced with crap as a matter of course. it would seem that the gaping void for intelligent entertainment is going to swallow the lot of us.

February 16, 2004 04:00 +0000 | Personal Life 1

angela and i are over. hence the removal of the "time until i see angela" module on the left panel. (noreen noticed not 10minutes after i did it and upon checking her blog, called me. man the web does interesting things to a person's social life). it just seemed kinda odd to have a countdown to seeing someone who has no intention of seeing you. the code has however been preserved, and if anyone is interested, it'll be posted along with the rest of the blogger code "soon".

about the breakup itself though. i've never been a public person about such things, so i'll leave it with "it didn't work, but i wish it had." and if you want more information, please call or email me. such things are not for public forums.

February 15, 2004 06:02 +0000 | Society & Culture Why I'm Here 0

anger, tears and goosebumps. this could possibly be the most important movie you'll ever see. it's well written, historically accurate and features some of the most important minds on the issue of globalisation. but sensationalism aside, seriously, see this movie. and here's why:

globalisation is a really big subject. so big that it's literally impossible to understand when concerning yourself with the entire concept all at once. you have to take it apart into smaller pieces: sweatshops, economies of scale, terrorism and at the root of it all: the corporation.

as citizens of a democracy, we can't sit by anymore and assume that stuff like this doesn't apply to us. the world is broken, our assumption of "truth" is flawed, and if we are to survive as a free and healthy people, we have to begin to understand why constructs like the corporation are unhealthy for us.

i can't go on into more detail without either boring you with facts and figures or somehow dulling the importance of this film's message, so i'll just leave you with what i hope will be enough to convince you to see this movie:

if you're american, your milk is poisoned. but more importantly, your milk was allowed to be poisoned because someone paid to make it this way. and what's more, you were prevented from hearing about it because people were paid to kill news stories about it
privatisation of breatheable air, as ridiculous as it sounds, is not a foreign concept to modern supporters of the corporation. it's right up there with monsanto's seeds that self-destruct after one crop, and a bechtel's ownership of the water of cochabamba, bolivia -- even the water falls from the sky
not only did ibm supply the nazis with the technology required to manage their jewish problem, but they personally serviced the machines that were used to process the men, women, and children into the gas chambers and death camps. i even saw a picture of the ceo of ibm having lunch with adolph himself.
there is hope. the ceo of interface flooring systems has publically decided to make his company completely sustainable by the year 2020. no bullshit. read the details here.