ShinyPlasticBag

Sigh. The last weekend before school is over.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to be resuming classes, because I really hate not learning, as lame as that sounds. Plus, I've had waaay too much free time this summer. Overall, it was a good time. I'll miss the sleeping, though.

Anyway, last night was fun. Janet, John, Mike, Pugs, Ryan, Steve, Tony and I gathered at Pugsley's house and watched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was lame but amusing.

School starts in less than 100 hours!

• Written on 31 August 2003 & posted at 10:06 PM.
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So tired...must...not...listen...to body...

Okay, Linkpool is so close to being done it's not even funny. I just wanted to ramble about that and how hard Taylor and I worked on it tonight. We've got some cool features, such as a bookmarklet (you add this to your favorites, and when you click it, it goes to the 'add to Linkpool' page with the title and URI of the site you were looking at already filled in), and a wicked, super customizable file that shows your the contents of the pools. With a little bit of CSS, you can make it fit in anywhere, and you just need to use PHP or Javascript includes. If you're really lazy, you can just shove it into an iframe...that's actually what it was originally intended for.

So much greatness will be had! This weekend is the weekend. We shall prevail.

• Written on 30 August 2003 & posted at 03:16 AM.
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Um. The global linkpool is almost ready. Code snippets and examples to show you how to shove it into your site will be available when it launches. We've got some cool stuff.

• Written on 29 August 2003 & posted at 07:44 PM.
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So. I'm at work. My brain isn't, though. Thanks to Taylor, my head won't stop thinking about Linkpool, or rather The Globally United Linkpool (GULP). For those who don't have to deal with my rambling on a face-to-face basis, GULP is an extension of Linkpool that I came up with about a month ago. Basically, it changes Linkpool from a ShinyPlasticBag-centric feature to something more global.

I re-wrote Linkpool from scratch, and I built it with sharing in mind. It's really easy to add Linkpool to any site now — just a bit of HTML for the add form, and a little bit of RSS reading for the links. There are a bunch of different pools (one for each category), and you just choose which one you want to add to your site. If you don't have an RSS reader, I'll be making one available (in PHP). And if you don't have PHP, there's a web page that you can put in an iframe that does the same thing.

Easy.

I really hope it catches on. If all goes well, I should be able to open it up next week. Anyone with a site interested in participating?

• Written on 27 August 2003 & posted at 09:13 PM.
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Americans really need to learn how to grow a brain. I can't believe how much news the removal of a stupid block of granite is causing (it's on wheels — does that make it a holy roller?).

Their constitution is the most important thing to them. All of it, that is, except for that little apart about separation of church and state. You cannot have a copy of the ten commandments displayed in a public building! Not on the walls, not on the floors, not on a big chunk of rock. Follow the Third Commandment of George Carlin, and keep thy religion to thyself.

On the bright side, we have a blissfully contradictory statement to enjoy.

“It's not about a monument,” he said. “It's not about religion. It's about the acknowledgment of almighty God.”
— (Suspended, hopefully former) Chief Justice Roy Moore

How is the acknowledgement of “almighty God” (capital G and everything) not about religion?

• Written on 27 August 2003 & posted at 11:22 AM.
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Bad news: I seem to have lost my bank card.
Good news: I have re-discovered the greatness of TClock on non-Windows XP computers.

I had a dream about driving to Washington last night. Hoozah.

• Written on 26 August 2003 & posted at 04:40 PM.
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I desperately need an idea for something to replace Voicemonkey on my sidebar. It has to be:

1. Compact enough to fit in the sidebar.
2. Interactive.

Voicemonkey was both of those things. The interactivity really helped make the site interesting. So, I want something new now that it's gone. I really miss it.

Please give me ideas!

• Written on 25 August 2003 & posted at 07:30 PM.
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Another thing I missed about this job was finding great songs on MP3.com. Check this one out.

• Written on 25 August 2003 & posted at 06:47 PM.
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Well, I'm back at work, at my old job in the emergency department. I really missed it. Don't get me wrong, I liked working in ultrasound. But with this job, I have my own office, can work pretty much whenever I want, and listen to music (or as the case may presently be, George Carlin & Robin Williams). It's great! I love it.

I'm feeling kinda crappy today, though, which sucks. I hate having a stuffed nose. Even worse than that is the runny stuffed nose. I have no idea how this works, but I have it now, and it's crap.

Download Robin William's “Scotsmen and Golf” skit off of KaZaa or whatever network you choose to use.

• Written on 25 August 2003 & posted at 05:06 PM.
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First of all, Mars is really starting to freak me out, man. It's right there — it gives me the creeps. Good thing it won't be like this for another 255 years (yay, 2^8 - 1).

This is a geeky post. You've been warned.

Continue reading “On Geekiness”...

• Written on 24 August 2003 & posted at 12:25 AM.
• There are 14 comments.
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I'm home, I'm alive, I'm not dead.

Here are all of the photos from the road trip:
Day One - August 17th, 2003
Day Two - August 18th, 2003
Day Three - August 19th, 2003
Day Four - August 20th, 2003
Day Five - August 21st, 2003
Day Six - August 22nd, 2003

Jenny recently conquered a bubble chair.

• Written on 23 August 2003 & posted at 08:02 PM.
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Here are photos from day one, day two, and day three of our roadtrip.

See you later.

• Written on 20 August 2003 & posted at 03:44 PM.
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Hello. I am alive and well, in an Internet cafe somewhere off of Rue St Catherine, which is not as prostitute-laden as one would think.

I can't get my USB drive to work, though, so I can't uplaod my pictures.

I'll work on it.

• Written on 20 August 2003 & posted at 03:30 PM.
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Montreal is very hot, very crowded, and very big. Mike and I split off from Janet, Ashley, and Simon to go for lunch. Of course, things never go smoothly and they ended up going in the opposite direction from us when they came to meet us. After many diversions, Mike and I split so I could get food and he could find them. So, I'm in one of the Burger King's on Rue St Catherine, waiting for them to arrive.

Burger King food is terrible, especially in Montreal.

It's an interesting city, though, and I like it a lot more than I would have ever imagined. It's a city that's big enough to actually deserve the label, unlike Halifax, which is a poor substitute. I don't know if I could ever live here (mainly due to the french and the fact that I can't speak it), but I wouldn't mind coming back someday.

We leave for Ottawa tomorrow. We only have one night there — basically, whatever we see tomorrow is all we get to see of it. I'm a bit sad that we don't have more time. Really, Ottawa shouldn't have been part of the plan at all, but that's the way things go.

• Written on 20 August 2003 & posted at 02:26 PM.
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Someday, I think we will look back on this trip and think of it as one of the defining moments of our youth. First roadtrip. First time away from home, completely independently (for myself, anyway).

Getting to really know each other by dealing with major issues and having no time alone. And getting to know Ashley, of course. I'm very glad we brought her. She has great taste in music, among other things. :)

We're on a road somewhere in Quebec, probably about 45 minutes away from our starting point. It's about seven and a half hours to get to Montreal from where we slept, so we've still got a lot of driving to do. But by the time I'm sleeping again, I'll be in Montreal! Wee! It's the city I swore I'd never visit. (I don't know why. I'm very close-minded about way too many things).

I'm having a lot more fun than I expected. And I only miss the Internet a little bit.

• Written on 18 August 2003 & posted at 02:26 PM.
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Well, we're in Montreal. This is good. The place we're staying is a two-star hotel (Econolodge) — classy, huh? It's near a big, crazy freeway, which should be called the free-for-all-way. Montrealers are absolutely insane when they get behind the wheel of car. It's sort of like when wrestlers get knocked out of the ring and use whatever they can to pretend to beat the snot out of their opponent, who is probably their best friend in real life.

Anyway, tomorrow should be a quite day. Now that we've actually gotten here (1700+ km on the tripometer), we can relax a bit and see the sights without being in such a mad rush.

I am personally having a blast, and I wish everyone else was too.

• Written on 18 August 2003 & posted at 02:26 PM.
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Day one is done. We're at a kinda cool, kinda tacky “castle” that the owner built with his father over the course of 20 years. The rooms are quite nice and it's only $20 per night, so I'm satisfied. We're just inside of Quebec — it's a 10 minute drive back to New Brunswick.

Anyway, very tired. Going to bed. Lot's of photos.

• Written on 17 August 2003 & posted at 02:25 PM.
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So, I leave for Montreal and Ottawa (not simulataneous destinations, by the way) tomorrow. Needless to say, this is my last post before I leave. Will you all miss me? Good. Allow me to lay down my ittinerary:

Sunday
8:00 am Get up. Get ready.
8:30 am Pack the van.
9:00 am Hit tha road!
1:00 pm Stop for lunch. At this point, we will be somewhere in New Brunswick (Moncton, maybe).
7:30 pm Stop for the night. We're staying in a hostel that's in a castle, just beyond the New Brunswick/Quebec border.

Continue reading “Most Popular Search Terms”...

• Written on 16 August 2003 & posted at 02:41 PM.
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First of all, I don't like Chantal Kreviazuk. Secondly, I've burned a CD for my road trip. Woo, less than 48 hours!

Continue reading “From A to B”...

• Written on 15 August 2003 & posted at 08:34 PM.
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Mike just almost slammed into the back of a Civic. His brakes didn't work, but he did an amazing swervy save at the last minue. Jeeeeeeesus.

• Written on 15 August 2003 & posted at 08:09 PM.
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Evanescence has a new song (Going Under). I wonder what this will get attached to that makes it be the most overplayed song of the fall. Anyway, remember this moment for posterity: I do not currently hate the song.

I will soon enough.

• Written on 14 August 2003 & posted at 07:05 PM.
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Holy crap.

• Written on 14 August 2003 & posted at 06:08 PM.
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I went kayaking yesterday.

Who thinks I enjoyed myself, and who thinks I had a miserable time? Place your bets!

Continue reading “Kayaking”...

• Written on 13 August 2003 & posted at 07:53 PM.
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Did you know Macs don't support drag and drop operations in form fields? How lame is that? I wish they had a single computer running OS X in the CS building (there are a few in the Killam Library, but who goes there?) just so I could get a more balanced perspective on it. This OS is ancient, of course it sucks.

I do have to say, however, that OS 9 feels considerably less polished than Windows 95 even — several years older. What the hell did Apple do with it's ten year lead on personal computer GUIs? Seriously. If they had progressed steadily, they really could have won, prices be damned. OS 9 would be awesome if it was 1993. But it's not.

• Written on 12 August 2003 & posted at 12:05 PM.
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There are few truths as truthfully truthie as this truth, which is quite truthful:

“Of the many things which I irrationally judge people on, I think the most justifiable is their laugh. Because if you don't like the way someone laughs, it makes everything funny around that person remind you of how much you really can't stand their laugh.”
- Adam Mathes

Well, I thought of a certain someone, anyway.

• Written on 12 August 2003 & posted at 11:31 AM.
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The following is a brief list of things that suck (in a bad way):

0. The Maury Povich Show
1. People with heavy, incomprehensible accents
2. Lil' hoochie mamas
3. Getting in crap for other people's mistakes
4. Having to pee
5. Not having any coffee
6. Today in general

ARG.

• Written on 12 August 2003 & posted at 09:55 AM.
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There's a woman on the Vicki Gabereau show (remember: I can't change the channel from my desk) cooking. And I think it might be Marilyn Manson in disguise.

• Written on 11 August 2003 & posted at 01:48 PM.
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I am in the CS building, but not on my beloved fast-ass-skizzle computer, because someone else is there (or rather was there and decided to leave their things behind and not log out).

I am on an iMac. I hate Macs, especially the old iMacs. This thing can't even run OS9 at a reasonable speed, and the hockey puck mouse is really pissing me off. Somehow, it always ends up sideways. So, here are ten things I hate about Macs.

0. The Apple menu.
1. No shortcut keys (or at least, none of my favorites).
2. Hockey puck mice (I realize they've been superceded by better mice, but I'm still bitter).
3. All in one design (upgrades, please).
4. OS 9 sucks, OS X is 98% eye candy.
5. The way the maximize button actually just moves the window over to the left a bit.
6. The stupid, stupid scroll bars.
7. The way the check boxes are raised instead of sunk.
8. All of the interface widgets, actually.
9. The Switch campaign.

I have to give them credit for one thing, however. The category list in the journal's admin area has a list of categories for both my journal and Ryan's journal. These are shown in a drop-down list. My computer shows them with big headers above the each list. This stupid Mac shows each one in a submenu. Which, I'm pretty sure, violates Apple's precious Human Interface Guidelines, but is pretty frickin' cool nonetheless (maybe more so due to this =).

That's enough. Did anyone sleep at all last night?

• Written on 11 August 2003 & posted at 12:04 PM.
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So.

I think I am addicted to CKY and Jackass. Why? Why now, like, two years after it was cool? I am so lagged. I don't think I will ever get sick of seeing people fly into bushes from shopping carts.

Anyway, it's beyond my current bedtime (full time work sucks!). Tomorrow is my last day to sleep in for a long time, since I have work all this week and I leave for Boston after that. So I'm going to go and enjoy the sleeposity while I still can.

• Written on 10 August 2003 & posted at 12:55 AM.
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I was sick of my old wallpaper (cool as it was), so I made a new one. I found some wicked satellite photos on Redtail Canyon, which led to the desktop you can see on my sidebar. If you want it for some weird reason, you can get it with or without the icon holder in the top left corner.

• Written on 09 August 2003 & posted at 09:47 AM.
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Wow. It's the last day of the second-last week of my summer job. I'm actually kinda sad. Even though ultrasound was way more stressful than emergency (for those who don't know me, don't be shocked — I just did data entry), I might actually miss all of the action. At least I can still visit the people there, since my office is right next door.

I just got back from a meeting with the Dalhousie CS undergraduate advisor, who1 conveniently enough happens to be my favorite professor, Art Sedgwick. He's informed me about the co-op program, which I am apparently a member of already, and told me what classes I need to take. Now I just have to sign up. As happy as I am to be going back to school, I still have the inevitable dread of the oncoming fall season. It's partially the weather we have in store, and partially the work load. But I think part of it is because I just realized that I'm halfway through my degree, and I don't really feel like I've learned a lot. Sure, I know Java now, but that's really something to be ashamed of more than proud of (Java sucks). Sigh.

In other news, the CS building has some new computers. In the Mac lab (the lab that actually has Macs, not the one that used to and has yet to be renamed), there are some new (non-Mac) computers. 2.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, with *really* nice HIDs. They have the incredibly-awesome Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard and a very responsive Microsoft optical mouse. The keyboard is interesting, though, because it has a pretty nice layout, and they've finally gotten rid of some of the useless buttons (ie scroll-lock). There are built in controls for all of the standard Windows features (Media Player, Messenger, etc) and media playback controls. It's nice. I bet it cost a fortune, but if I ever set up a desktop computer again, I'll be using this keyboard. As an added bonus, standard shortcut keys are labelled on the keyboard — for example, X has “* Cut” written on the front of it. It's a nice touch.

Enough product placement, though.

Continue reading “Public Class Blah Extends Lazy”...

• Written on 08 August 2003 & posted at 12:34 PM.
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Arg. My Internet connection (and thusly this web site) were down for two days for the stupidest of stupid reasons. On Monday, Simon and I replaced the power supply in the gateway server (Murray). When I plugged everything back together, I had no Internet connection. I assumed it was the server, since it does that sometimes (stops working after a reboot). After nagging Tony for a day and a bit, I decided to check the cabling. I tried three different cables going from the switch to the gateway, to no avail. On a whim, I decided to call my ISP and see if there was anything wrong my modem. It was fine, but he suggested I check the cable.

I hadn't even thought of checking the cable from the modem to the gateway. A . R .. G ...

You see, I hadn't done anything to the cable to make it break. The thought that it might be at fault hadn't even crossed my mind — what are the odds of it giving up the ghost exactly when I have the computer disconnected? To it's credit, it was four years old. But still, it was a stupid reason to be IP-free.

I missed the bag. And having a place to put the cool links I find at work. Check out what I posted today. Also, um...nothing. Bye!

• Written on 06 August 2003 & posted at 06:17 PM.
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Well, I'm back from the trip to Pugsley's cabin/cottage/house place in (on? For any other province, I'd say in — “...in New Brunswick.” — but I think the islandness requires on. So on it is.) Prince Edward Island, which is affectionately known as “PE1” by anyone who has had the misfortune of talking to an American tourist. Not that there's anything wrong with Americans, per se...it's just the Bostonites, I think.

Anyway, the trip was quite fun. Simon and I left on Friday around 6:00 PM and met up with Pugs around 9:30. Somewhere in between those two times, an 18-wheeler drove by and launched a rock in the general direction of our windshield, making this windshield number two for the Elantra that has suffered the blow of a rock. Hopefully, we'll get this one fixed right away so it doesn't annihilate the windshield like the last one did. The cabin was very, very nice, located outside of Kensington, a tiny one road town (Village! Settlement! Gathering of people!) about 25 km from Cavendish, the tourist-trap of Atlantic Canada. Kensington consists of the following: two (2) gas stations (Esso and Petro-Canada), one (1) liquor store, three (3) convenience stores, one (1) “Pizza Shack”, one (1) liquor store, and no grocery stores. (The guy in the Petro-Canada was a bit whooooo, I might add, if you know what I mean.) Sure, it was tiny, but it was right near a river and a lake, and the view from Pugsley's cabin/cottage/house place was super-great. At night time, you could see the three or four lights across the lake and listen to an abundance of crickets. I'm sure the stars would have looked great out there, but it was overcast for the entire weekend.

Continue reading “Journey to PE1”...

• Written on 04 August 2003 & posted at 01:47 AM.
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Well, I'm off to Prince Edward Island for the weekend. Needless to say, I won't be updating the site until I'm back on Sunday, barring some sort of bear/Pugsley-mauling. Indeed, the site may be offline for the weekend, depending on the perceived danger of Murray's Malfunctioning Fan (Murray being one of the servers in my basement).

I do plan on Voicemonkeying while I'm gone, so tune in.

Later.

• Written on 01 August 2003 & posted at 02:19 PM.
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