ShinyPlasticBag

Well, if there's anyone in the world who's bothered to go to my archives at any point, ye might noticeth that the unusual December, 1969 section is gone. This originated when I imported all of my Blogger entries into Nucleus: everything showed up on Wednesday, December 31st, 1969. Weird. I guess the new rule of thumb for conversion programs is, if you want something done right, do it yourself. At any rate, I doubt anyone but me goes through those anyway. Most people (including myself) don't bother reading through all the old entries of random blogs.

Now that I have Pixel back, I've taken the time to make my layout validate (there were only a few issues, and most of them were just slip-ups). In addition to that, I've gotten rid of all <img> tags that were used in the layout, which means all of those decorative chevrons in the sidebar headers and menu items. I've moved them to the CSS background-image property of their respective <a> tags. True, this doesn't matter, but when browsing my site via Lynx — which I do more often than I'd like to admit — the images were annoying. Also, there were a few other details that needed to be fixed: Keddy's blog showed the wrong layout when you viewed the comments, there were some error messages at the bottom of the referers page, etc. It's hard being an anal retentive web guy.

Arg. I'm so bored. My networking class is not nearly as exciting as one would hope. Today, we're venturing into the land of FTP. This is not interesting at all. I had hoped that, when going into the details of such things, we might learn who invented it and what the hell port blah,blah,blah,blah means, since it scrolls by my CuteFTP log window so very often. But, no. He's demonstrating the funderful ftp.exe bult into Windows, and, yes....WS_FTP. The University of Ottawa has a tutorial online* that's pretty much sumarizing what this guy is talking about right now. It's like a horrible, horrible flashback to 1997 and my first few weeks on the Internet. Sigh.

Written in one of the bathrooms in the library:

This same bathroom also had most of the lyrics to Reconstruction Site by the Weakerthans written on the wall.

• Written on 30 January 2004 & posted at 11:59 AM.
• There are 16 comments.
• Permalink.

Hey, check out this cool link I found — oh, wait. No random Internet browsing for me, because my computer still has no power. Hey, what about this wicked song — oh, yeah. Ooh! Ooh! Funniest episode of South Park ever — dammit! I miss Pixel!

The electric umbilical for my beloved laptop has not yet arrived, despite a promise of it arriving yesterday. According to the unhelpful folks at Purolator, it should arrive tomorrow. Notice that was a should. You know, this company is Canadian. I'm sure they're used to the weather patterns we experience, and well beyond being able to use them as an excuse. My apologies. I am bitter.

Today, I had a rather interesting ethics class, beginning our conversation on so-called “cyber crime” and reminding me how much I dislike the word cyber. Very cheesy. However, it's better than the professional ethics we've been looking at thus far. My networking class was much worse, since we were discussing the subject matter I happened to read in my book yesterday. Yes, I realize it's not their fault that I read it, but the lectures don't add anything to the book, and in many cases, the slides are taken directly from the book. Even the sample IP addresses. Grr.

Moving along, this afternoon I have my Canadian politics class and then work from 4 - 11. I was originally scheduled for a backshift, but I have classes tomorrow. I didn't really notice that shift until the weekend, at which point I realized that I would never be able to go to school all day today, work all night, get four hours of sleep, and then be able to function in class on Thursday. I need my beauty sleep.

At any rate, things have worked out, and in addition to that, I officially got the time off for the trip to Austin in March (so I can go see some other site beat out mine in the Bloggies — by the way, voting closes on Saturday). Pugsley is just as happy as I am, since he's joining me. Now, all that remains is to book the flight, and I'll be all set. The mission: have some old American guy say “I thought I told you, boy!” at one point. Because you've got to have goals.

Well, I'm out of here. As a parting note, I'd like to point out that Tony has launched his site once again (with a real layout this time). Might I suggest, Tony, that you purchase whoopiedeedoo.com instead of unixmonkey.com when the time comes to renew? Oh, and fellow bloggers, when you're composing an entry, do you insert links as you go or go back and insert them later? Generally, I do it as I go, but today I'm planning on adding them once I finish this paragraph. I have a sneaking suspicion that Mike, too, adds his links after the fact. Go read about the phantom coffee.

PS: The “We Like the Moon” guys from RatherGood.com have sold out, and are now in Flash advertisements. I have no idea what Quiznos is, but they're selling it.

• Written on 28 January 2004 & posted at 01:23 PM.
• There are 22 comments.
• Permalink.

Well, life can be an inconvenient bitch sometimes, that's for sure. My lack of recent posts, bringing news of my non-exciting adventures on backshift, is explained by the most ridiculous catastrophe.

For all of the billions of dollars invested in computer technology, every machine has one fatal .Achilles' heel, something so simple that it barely registers as a technology in its own right.

And that, my friends, is the need for electricity. Power. Juice. This elan vital of the modern day has been denied me by the malfunction of my laptop's power adaptor. Although it usually happily eats AC power at sixty hertz and spits it back out as 15 volts of DC power at five amps, it is not proving my laptop with 15 volts of AC power at 1 hertz. For those of you who know nothing about this sort of stuff, don't feel bad, it's not important. Basically, AC power oscillates back and forth (from positive to negative and back again) about 60 times a second, whereas DC power stays at a particular strength. My power adaptor is not getting rid of all of these oscillations.

The point is, my beloved Pixel is now mired in a coma, and sadly, my new layout, which was only a few minutes from completion, is trapped somewhere within her unconscious, while she dreams electric dreams of digital sheep and I anxiously await a Purolator truck. Until my new power adaptor arrives tomorrow (free overnight delivery, score — $102 for a piece of black plastic with some coils of wire in it, boo), I am unfortunately offline. Life without Pixel sucks.

Update: Behold the new design. This one has been a long time coming — I generally do a new layout every two months, but it's been three since I had a new one. The February 2004 layout was worth the wait, in my opinion. Although I hadn't planned on putting it up just now, things change. Tada!

• Written on 26 January 2004 & posted at 12:38 PM.
• There are 32 comments.
• Permalink.

I just got back from seeing The Butterfly Effect with Janet, John, Pugsley, Russell, and Amanda. And Alexander/Kira, although he/she is still stuck in Amanda at this point. The movie was really great — I highly recommend it. Barring the annoyingly loud kids at the front of the theatre, it was a very enjoyable experience. The movie was very intense but demonstrated that Ashton Kutcher can actually act. As Janet said, I think we were all expecting “Dude, Where's My Memory?”.

Anyway, last night was my first backshift in the emergency room, and tonight is my second. It's not that bad, if one plans their sleep well. I got home at 7:30 this morning and slept until 2:45, and I feel fine. That's about as much sleep as I need to function for any purpose. However, last night I got to sleep in the evening, and tonight I actually did something. Who knows how this well end up?

Mid-blog entry humorous event:


Ah, it's like living in a sitcom sometimes. Anyway, to impress you all, I encourage you to check out the best optical illusion ever. After Googling for “best link ever”, I found that in the archives of Waxy.org. It is, indeed, accurate — the eyeball is a weird thing, I guess.

This same search lead me to Hello, Typepad, an absolutely great blog that I think I now love (here's the entry in question). Go forth, multiply if necessary, and read it — I think you'll be a fan. Maybe listen to some Busted while you do it, I don't know.

What's better: the spork, or the knork?

• Written on 24 January 2004 & posted at 09:20 PM.
• There are 10 comments.
• Permalink.

This entry is devoted entirely to those brave souls who see my site on Google and think that I might have what they're looking for.

• Mucklucks are a type of boot worn by the aboriginals in days gone by. You can now buy a tiny pair for your rearview mirror.
• The Bat the Penguin Flash game can be found here.
• I don't know anything about Windows drivers for the SoulMate MP3 player.
• I have no pictures of Carmen Electra in tight, shiny clothes, but Slice of the Day has some photos you might like.
• Locale AM has, unfortunately, broken up. Laugh six times and get over it.

Tada.

• Written on 23 January 2004 & posted at 11:41 AM.
• There are 15 comments.
• Permalink.

Arg. Ack. Splork, perhaps. I'm not sure. I work my first backshift in the emergency room tonight, and I'm a tad concerned. Although I got significantly more sleep last night than I usually do (nine hours, woo), I don't really know what to expect. I presence of a Tim Horton's with decent coffee thirty-seconds from my desk is a big bonus, but who knows how it will actually go?

In the meantime, I'm just busily getting my learn on and downloading some music. That music video that Keddy is so in love with is only a bit decent, although I do agree that it will become huge. There's another catchy new R&B type song making the rounds on C100, the world's worst radio station. It's by New School, and I can't remember the name of it (sorry). If you run across any songs by them, however, check it out.

Speaking of absolutely fantastic music, get yourself a copy of Somebody to Love by the Boogie Pimps. It's a fantastic, nay, amazing remix that everyone (especially Keddy) will love. This song will be huge — HUGE. Mind you, it's not exactly a radio song, so it might not get huge in the traditional ways. I, however, love it.

What's the best song of the last month, in your opinion? You can think on that for a minute whilst I sing my way out of this entry with a bit of a homage to the Spice Girls.

• Written on 23 January 2004 & posted at 11:12 AM.
• There are 8 comments.
• Permalink.

Oh, what a week, what a week. I've been uber busy with work and school and everything — not fun thus far. I have some good news, however: it looks like I will be going to Austin, Texas! I'll bet you never thought I'd write that sentence. Ever. (Yes, Self, I'm talking to you.) Pugsley will be accompanying me to SXSW from March 12th - 16th, 2004. The Bloggies award ceremony is being held on the 15th. I've never been to Texas before — my experience with America thus far has only included Maine and Florida. It'll be interesting to see whether or not they actually say “y'all” down there, or if they just put that on when they see a camera nearby.

I have some more exciting news: I've decided to switch my wallet from the traditional back right pocket to the more radical back left pocket. Truth be told, I prefer the left cargo pocket, but when the pants aren't appropriate, what can you do? Cargo pants, apparently, are no longer fashionable, which is sad for me, since I have so much crap that I carry around. Sigh. Not even twenty one yet and losing touch with the world.

The switch was precipitated by the worries of my ass becoming lopsided; after so many years of right-pocketedness, I've decided to balance it out on the left. Who knows how it will go? It feels odd right now, but after a few hours it stopped feeling as though someone was touching me. You know I'm not a fan.

I also have some actual exciting news; I received an email from a freelance journalist located in Ottawa (psst, ...that's in Ontario) who wants to interview the “Best Canadian Weblog” finalists. Score one for me! Hopefully, I'll be in touch with her tomorrow for a phone interview.

Oh, and did I tell you about the birds?

Continue reading “I Invented the “Save As” Option”...

• Written on 21 January 2004 & posted at 11:52 PM.
• There are 54 comments.
• Permalink.

Have you ever been walking down the street and had someone just come up to you and say “Hey, here's $50” and walk away? Neither have I. But I think I know what it might feel like.

In what is an incredibly unexpected turn of events, ShinyPlasticBag has been selected as one of five finalists for Best Canadian Weblog in the fourth annual Bloggies! I can't believe it. Taylor nominated me, and he himself is a finalist for best non-weblog content of a weblog site. Kitta snuck in through best-designed weblog. I guess this makes our little clique something like the B-List Bloggers or something along those lines.

I actually noticed that I had made the cut in the most ridiculous of ways: I got bored and decided to check out the most recent stupid searches. The list was almost empty. So, I looked at the referers list and saw that the list was just flooded with refers from — you guessed it — the Bloggies.

Anyway, the winners will be announced on Monday, March 15th, at SXSW in Austin, Texas. I'm seriously considering attending, because I've wanted to for the past few years and never had the money. According to Expedia, a flight from Halifax to Austin and four nights in a hotel (SXSW is quite long; I couldn't miss enough school to see the whole thing) is only about $950 or so. Is anyone else interested in attending? I'd hate to go by myself, but some company could make this into the best ShinyPlasticTrip ever. And a good time to rendezvous* with certain people. Come on B-List Bloggers. Taylor's ticket will be so cheap that he can help pay for yours, Kitta.

You may talk among yourselves.

Update: People really seem to be enamoured of those pictures composed entirely of CSS. I'm not all that impressed, but I whipped up a little program to do it automatically. Note that the files will be huge, and will probably crash your browser. I'd put the maximum safe image size at around 64x64. Anyway, here's a picture of me, and here's the program to do the translation. Just select an image file (JPEG, GIF, or BMP) in the first dialog box, and enter the output filename in the second. Easy. I'll probably do a version optimized for 256 color images, since that will cut down file sizes significantly.

Enjoy.

• Written on 19 January 2004 & posted at 07:15 PM.
• There are 109 comments.
• Permalink.

I'm not going to lie to you. These jokes are very accurate parodies of how life really is here. There is a Tim Horton's at every possible location, and two of them in the hospital I work at. It'd be sick if it wasn't so great.

Anyway, this entry was originally intended to hold a humorous conversational snippet, so here it is.


Oh, my life is a weird, weird place. Good night, folks.

• Written on 18 January 2004 & posted at 11:30 PM.
• There are 19 comments.
• Permalink.

Arg. I hate Mozilla so much. Firebird kicks more ass than can possibly be imagined, but Mozilla itself sucks. Maybe it's just the way it's configured on this computer — I'm at school, on a computer called Quimby. The computer next to me is called Scratchy, so I think I'm in the Simpsons area (every lab and cluster area has a theme — the Mac lab computers are named after Matrix characters).

Anyway, I'm on my lunch break at work (funny having lunch at 7:30) and having a mild day. Not too busy, but it's not exactly fun either. I have noticed, however, that emergency room visitors fall into one of four categories (cue Mark's infamous lists):

1. People who are distraught — ie, “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god”
2. People who are angry — I'm standing between their kid and medical attention
3. People who are in a daze — everything is happening to quickly for their liking.
4. People who are friendly — those people who appreciate the fact that the ER can be busy and understand the whole process.

By far, the fourth type of visitor is my favorite. I really hate people who fall into category two.

Anyway, I'm off to install Lynx on Trinity. Later.

• Written on 17 January 2004 & posted at 07:35 PM.
• There are 10 comments.
• Permalink.

Wow. The coldness continues. As Janet so eloquently put it last night, “The war cry of the Canadian is brrrrr.” According to CNN, it's the coldest winter that the so-called northeast (I believe Newfoundland has this cornered much more so than New England does) has seen since the early nineties. Since we generally get the weather of Boston the following day, that means that it's probably also the coldest winter we've had in a while too. It sure seems like it.

Oh, the benefits of getting Boston's TV channels. When I was a kid, I remember us having stations from Maine — channel four, PBS, was from Lewiston. Channel four is still PBS, but it's from Boston now, as is channel 12 (NBC). I'm pretty sure that channel's 31 and 32 (ABC and CBS) are also from Boston. Fox (channel 36), however, is from Rochester, New York. Weird. If we have to have channels from somewhere else, why not Toronto or Vancouver? Why the American channels? The worst part of it is a derivative of the dreaded Can-Con rule: all broadcasted media in Canada falls under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which requires that at least 17%* of said content be Canadian. What does this mean?

Well, on the radio, non-Canadian songs can only be played so many times a week. I remember hearing about Bryan Adams being pissed off that “When You're Gone” was not considered Canadian (because it was a duet with British Mel Chisholm). Its airplay was limited, and really shouldn't have been. He did most of the singing and wrote it. And it was on his album, not hers.

It is on television that the annoyance reaches its peak, however. If an American channel is showing the same show as one of the local channels — even if it's not the same episode — the Canadian channel can (and invariably does) take over that channel for the duration of the show. During the evenings, channel six (Global) will generally take over channel 12 (as stated above, NBC). It's very annoying — see the official Substituting TV Programming article on the CRTC site.. Also, we never see real commericals, because Eastlink, our cable provider, can and does take over all commercial breaks. They do it badly, too, because we either end up with ten seconds of nothing before a commercial break ends, or they cut back to the American signal halfway through the last commercial. It sucks.

Oh well. Being Canadian still beats being American. After all, we've got moose*. But seriously, though, how did I get on this topic? I think I have ADD.

• Written on 15 January 2004 & posted at 02:19 PM.
• There are 32 comments.
• Permalink.

Arg. Pixel* is acting really strange, and crawling in general lately. I think it's time to do the old format trick. Of course, formatting isn't like it used to be — those fancy rescue disks that come with 'pooters nowadays make everything so simple. I remember back in the day when I'd have to make a boot disk, go into DOS, and actually format the hard drive yourself. And inevitably, I'd forget to put CD-ROM drivers on the boot disk, and spend hours hunting around for someone who could help me out. Bah. Who needs the good old days?

I started my new job today. I'm the admitting clerk in the emergency room of the IWK . Fun as balls. I think I'll like the job once I get into the swing of it, but right now, with my crazy training schedule, it sucks. It's supposedly a two-shift-a-week job, but I've got about four per week until the middle of February. The extra money will be a bonus (should Mark buy an XBox?) but the lack of sleep will not be so much. My schedule today involved arriving at work for a 7:00 AM shift, working until 2:00 PM, going to class from 2:30 to 4:00, and getting home for supper sometime around 6:00.

Right now, I'm playing Burnout 2: Point of Impact for PS2 with Keddy and Janet*. Actually, to be totally accurate, I'm taking a break and watching them play while I write this entry. That, however, is pretty much common sense, so that's why I originally omitted it. Wow, I get sidetracked easily.

Anyway, I'm off to see the wizard, so have fun coming up with strange comment topics* for this entry.

• Written on 13 January 2004 & posted at 08:51 PM.
• There are 28 comments.
• Permalink.

I am not as ugly as a purple dog.
Castro: I just found a sunflower seed in my sock.

• Written on 11 January 2004 & posted at 11:06 PM.
• There are 26 comments.
• Permalink.

My final marks are finally in for the fall semester (the Dalhousie Gazette* — the student newspaper — had a good rant about how late the damn things were in showing up). Here's what it takes to get a semester GPA of 3.42:

Oral & Written Communication Skills: A-
Introduction to Algorithms: C+ (at least I passed)
Operating Systems: A-
Object-Oriented/Generic Programming: A

Score. I'm so happy. :) And in other great news, I got the job at the IWK (front desk in the emergency room). The training period sounds hellish, but hey, it's a job, and it pays something like $14 an hour. Woot.

Anyway, someone added Photometeo to Linkpool recently, and upon visiting, I noticed that Halifax wasn't there. I sent an email to the administrator, and he has replied:


So, who's up to the challenge? Who, from Halifax, wants to take up this bold task and create the photos necessary for Photometeo to rock a little bit more? Let me know and we'll set up some stuff.

• Written on 09 January 2004 & posted at 11:37 AM.
• There are 9 comments.
• Permalink.

There is but one word for weather like this: vicious. It's currently -37.9 C with the windchill (25 KM/h) — that's -36.2 F (wind at 15 MPH), for my American friends. It's pretty scary when it's so cold, celcius and fahrenheit start to have similar values. Ack.

• Written on 08 January 2004 & posted at 01:27 PM.
• There are 14 comments.
• Permalink.

You know I can change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

My mother, operating in her self-titled “White Tornado” mode, has been cleaning the bajesuz out of the house, the basement in particular. Once the primary domain of me and my friends, it has become little more than a trash heap over the last few years. She's uncovered some interesting things, most notably a CD case full of audio CDs that I had presumed lost. I am incredibly excited about this, not because of the music, really (come on, what can't you find online?), but because most of the albums were purchased during my great Scotland trip of 1999. This includes the Republica and Republica Live double disc, and the two disc Club Ibiza, worshipped most frequently by Ryan. Score. The Hackers soundtrack is in there too.

The crowning set of this CD case is an old Maxell CD-R that bears the label 1999-04. This means it was the fourth audio CD that I had burned in 1999, and for some reason, this one sticks out in my mind. I can perfectly remember the day I had Luke burn it, because I took it with me to the annual Greekfest that night. It's a strange blend of music, and for all the music critics out there, let me point out that a lot of the songs on there were just there because they were new and catchy. Either way, this CD is attached with one of the most romantic memories I have from my whole life*, so finding it was an amazing thing for me. But anyway.

Taylor made a happy Christmas package for me (and I think Tony got one too) that contained an audio CD that he burned (which is the coolest blank ever — it has the globe on it) and two mini CD-R's. I've wanted some of those for a while, but never bothered buying them, since they're more expensive than normal CDs and hold only about 25% as much data. Very cool, Tayhead, but you have to stop calling me Marky, damnit. I do have plans to send a package down there, but I am ridiculously broke at the moment, and I think postage will cost quite bit due to the size of the intended package (“Look at my package! It's huge!”). You'll get it someday, dude. :P

Anyway, that's it for me. Enjoy a track list of 1999-04.

Continue reading “Look at My Package (It's Huge)”...

• Written on 08 January 2004 & posted at 12:39 AM.
• There are 4 comments.
• Permalink.

It's been a while since I had a geeky entry, so I figured I'd fix that now.

While working on the new version of Linkpool, I discovered an almost-foolproof way for users to add the Linkpool sidebar. As it stands now, they can use an iFrame or PHP, or an RSS feed reader if they're more daring. However, it turns out that Javascript can also be used to do such things. Basically, you use the same code that you would use to include a normal .js file. Inside of this file, instead of normal Javascript, you just have , and it will insert whatever into the document. Wonderful! By including the HTML feed of the Linkpool (with a mode=javascript parameter to add the document.write part), I now have an effective Javascript include that, best of all, doesn't ruin the web site or bring it to a crawl when shinyplasticbag.com is down.

The issue here, of course, is that it doesn't work if the user doesn't have Javascript enabled. I have thought of a fix for this, and thought I'd share it with any other geeks who may read this.

A normal Javascript include would look like this:

However, if we're a bit clever and write it like this, we can inform the Javascript deficient that they're missing out:

Why would you do that, you ask? Because it makes sense. If we add the line to the version end of file_to_include-header.js, and to the very start of file_to_include-footer.js, Javascript users will see whatever content is included, and non-Javascript users will see ”Sorry, Javascript is required for this feature.". You might ask why we just don't use normal (X)HTML comments, and the reason is strange. Although this works fine in Internet Explorer, Mozilla will ignore the start of the comment and display everything. The div solution, while somewhat less elegant, works on both.

Don't care? Sorry about that. Interested? Try the Javascript warning demo.

• Written on 06 January 2004 & posted at 11:45 PM.
• There are 9 comments.
• Permalink.

Ahoy, there, maties: the new semester begins. Thus far, I'm only taking three courses, because I forgot to finish registering during the summer. I have since forgotten what classes I'm missing, so I have to go see my student advisor (and favorite professor) at some point today. The first class, which totalled 15 minutes, sounds like it will be interesting: computer ethics. It's a mandatory philosophy class, and quite easy, from what I hear. A large proportion of the students were in my communications class last semester, so at least I know a few faces.

I'm currently sitting in the waiting room of the Dalhousie student medical clinic. I need to see a nurse or something about a coldsore/rash thingie that mysteriously appeared on New Year's Day. There's a really weird guy here who's not wearing any underwear and has some ripped up jeans. You do the math. It's not a pretty sight.

Speaking of pretty sights, attractive girls and waiting rooms are not a good mix. I learned this when I worked in the ultrasound department: if you saw an attractive girl, she was either pregnant, or under the age of sixteen. No good. That's not a big issue at the moment, however: most of the people here either look homeless, or look like white trash that spent the last four weeks on a mad bender. Fun stuff. Oh, wait. A cute girl with a “Get Naked” pin on her bookbag came in. Score.

...

(The next day) Eep. I forgot about this entry. Time to post it.

• Written on 05 January 2004 & posted at 11:02 PM.
• There are 1 comments.
• Permalink.

Keddy and I are sitting in my living room, watching Driven — no, not the shitty VH1 show, the movie. Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds are a strange combination. It's a bit like “twice the crap for half the price”. Sigh. Anyway, tonight, Keddy, myself, Mom, and my attention-starved grandmother are going to see the new Peter Pan movie. Oh no, don't laugh. I really want to see it. Peter Pan kicks ass.

In other news, it seems like my music drought is over: Flogging Molly, Outkast, U2*, and the Strokes shave saved the day. A strange combination, sure, but there's no accounting for taste. I am, however, in a bit of a web site drought. People with good links should dutifully add them to the Linkpool, in particular, e/n sites*. All the great e/n sites I used to visit seem to have shut down. Damnit. On the bright side, ApeChild is still maintaining it's Olsen Twins countdown, so everyone desperately waiting for them to be 18 can plan in advance. By the way, the countdown now stands at 161 days.

Well, I'm off to watch the rest of the movie. Everyone have a funderful* day.

Quote of the day: “God was my co-pilot, but we crashed into a mountain and I had to eat him.” (December 8th, 2003 from Mowthy)

• Written on 04 January 2004 & posted at 05:06 PM.
• There are 4 comments.
• Permalink.

Well, what can I say. 2003 is over. I never got around to doing a “best of” piece, mainly because there weren't enough votes for various winners. What can you do? Maybe I'll put something together over the next few days, although I can't really say for sure.

At the suggestion of upper management*, I am officially updating the blog. With apologies to my future self (the only reader I can be assured of), I haven't had anything to say. New Year's was pretty boring, and I spent more than five hours watching the entire sixth season of South Park with Janet, Pugsley, Castro, and (eventually) Keddy. Fun stuff, and yes, I realize how sad it is to spend a Friday night doing that.

The remainder of the evening has been spent cruising various e/n sites for humorous items, many of which have been added to Linkpool. Also, I dropped a piece of chip under my CTRL key, and now it's acting a little shady. Damnit.

Taylor has an interesting piece up today, commenting on Wired's 101 Ways to Save the Internet. Regarding point 75, Tay, that can be done pretty easily: make an HTML page that has a meta-refresh which points to the page that you hate, and link to that. A better way — and by this, I mean one that would definitely not be seen by Google — would be to use a Javascript redirect:

That, of course, isn't a sensible, friendly answer, since it will break the user's Back (button). Just thought I'd point it out.


Anyway, school starts on Monday. This is good news for the bag, because I'm online more when I'm at school. Does the logic here confuse you? When I'm at home, I'm rarely just cruising around the Internet with nothing to do. I'm usually hanging around with various people. However, at school, I'm generally bored when I'm not in class, so blogging becomes my primary target of interest. I miss the interesting entries as much as everyone else, because I love the comments. So, let's make this one interesting. Hmm...how to do that...? Let's see. Everyone make a list of the top three worst web sites you've visited in the last week. Anyone with ShinyPlasticBag in these lists will be sacked.

• Written on 03 January 2004 & posted at 01:23 AM.
• There are 18 comments.
• Permalink.