funny looking kid

Well, I don't feel so bad now. I guess times are tough all over.

Deposed Dictator Moves In With Mom

flk.

Thread on Kuro5hin of interest to me and possibly others out there than may need
to maintain software systems, web sites, etc... not originally created by them.

Saving the Project From Hell

Oh, and I've been enjoying the Daria reruns on Noggin, so I thought this was appropriate:

Like you didn't already know that ;-)

flk.

Thought-provoking article about 'Six Feet Under' on Slate:
Dropping the Ball: The Overrating of Six Feet Under. I don't necessarily agree
with everything Emily Nussbaum says, but she makes some valid points.

Is 'Mind Of The Married Man' edgier than 6FU? Are the characters just overextended
instances of soap opera stereotypes? What do you think?

flk.

From MSNBC.com: Hotmail Usage Policy Drives Users To Tears -- All sent mail
more than 30 days old in free accounts deleted

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal nice. As a dot-com survivor, one that
dealt with unified communications and as such one that would like to think he
understands this stuff to some extent, I can sort of understand the reasoning
behind this policy. However, the implementation leaves something to be desired.
And this is M1cro$0ft we're talking about here, not some bare-bones underfunded
Internet startup.

*sigh*

flk.

It's broken record time, kids :-)

I'm at home, waiting for replacement parts for the computer. Good thing I can expense
them for the project. Question is, is the time I'm spending waiting for UPS to call billable?

While I'm doing this I have Six Feet Under on. The most recent season finale. The
one where Brenda says, in that crazy high-pitched excited voice, "I'm going back to Austraaaaaaaaaaaaaalia!"
(Okay, she doesn't actually say that, but that scene just cries out for such a voice-over.)

Where's the weekend?

flk.

I need another break. I've been trying to figure out stuff like

status = pThisRecord->DoSomethingOrOtherWith(pRecordPool->getNextRecord(pCurr));

all morning. My head hurts.

Which Buffy Girl Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty

~ o ~

flk.

you're american beauty. you're full of hope and appreciate the beautiful things in life.

take the which prettie movie are you? quiz, a product of the slinkstercool community.

~ o ~

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The Completely Pointless Personality Quiz

~ o ~

is it just me or do these online quizzes get sillier and sillier?

well, it's friday.

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Friday five:
1. How long have you had a weblog?
Since Monday. Like, this Monday.

2. What was your first post about?
About not having accomplished much in the week prior to the post, and the frustration relating to that.

3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one?
None, really.

4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else?
I use Blogger.com. Seems to work pretty well. Bear with me; I'm new to this (though not to the web at large -- been at it since 1994)

5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place?
I like the centralized approach, although having tried to do that I understand that it's not always the easiest/most convenient approach to take.

flk.

And yet another hot July day, temps in the mid- to high-90s. (I'm starting to feel like
a broken record.)

The book club met today; it was a lively and interesting discussion about the
Anne Tyler book. We even had a new person show up, and it looks like
she's going to be a regular. Next month: Michael Cunningham's
The Hours

Anyway, lyrics for the day:

Indigo Girls - 'Galileo'
(E. Saliers)

Galileo's head was on the block
The crime was looking up the truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode,
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another
In another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo,
King of night vision
King of insight

I think about my fear of motion,
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years ago
Must have crashed his little airplane

How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo,
King of night vision
King of insight

I'm not making a joke you know me I take everything so seriously
If we wait for the time till all souls get it right
Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation... in my lifetime...
I'm still not right

I offer thanks to those before me,
that's all I've got to say
Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
Now I have to pay
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
Or she'll say,
"Look what I had to overcome from my last life --
I think I'll write a book."

How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach the highest light
Except for Galileo --
Rest his soul --
King of night vision
King of insight

How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the highest light)
How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the hightest light)
How long?

~ o ~

flk.

Tried to apply online for a job today and managed to get eliminated right off the bat
because my phone number isn't in a Bay Area area code. This annoys me to no end.
I'm trying to coordinate things so that I have a job to start at when I move back.
Now you're telling me I can't apply until I've moved back? There's no other method
listed for applying either. Grr.

flk.

One more:

Kid Ass Avenger
(Perverse Spoiled Functional Child)

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a gigantic flying perv! Yes, it's the inner child Kid Ass Avenger (PSFC). Your inner child runs amuck in the inner streets of your inner Mardis Gras. He, in fact, is the queen of the parade, and by the end of the night, or any night of your life, is always smothered in the finest beads.

He is also a child genius, but uses his powers to bizarre and ambiguous ends. He may give you the power to save the universe from total destruction one day and the next day save you from dipping a french fry in ketchup. Who knows what adventures lie in your unconscious future?

Be wary, though. It's all part of his master plan to make *you* the super-villian.

~ o ~

Whatever that means.

flk.

I took TheSpark.com's Famous Personality Test this morning. The results are in.

MENTOR
(Submissive Extrovert Abstract Thinker )

Like just 6% of the population you are a MENTOR (SEAT). Some would call you the most powerful and influential of all people. Those people are wrong.

The reality is that you DON'T really WANT to impose personal views or beliefs on others. Yet you are extroverted and intelligent, and you like to get involved. So you help others with the pursuit of knowledge.

You're the reason that people say "teachers are also students." You are as much a learner as a master, and this satisfies you.

You won't die a lonely death, but towards the end you'll grow introspective, wondering if your life meant anything. This will last for decades, and you'll die after your spouse.

flk.

Spent most of the day away from home, for a change. Struggled with hotsync issues. Argh.

Anyway, song lyrics for the day:

'Sparkle' by Rubyhorse

Through the clouds
A nice surprise
To see that twinkle
Return to your eyes
I searched my head
For some old spark
Been around this place
Stumbling in the dark
And when I feel the skies will never clear
You remind me that spring is near

How you sparkle
How you shine
How you rise above
The darkest skies

Through the crowd
I catch your eye
It takes me back again
When we were gettin' high
I search my head
For some old spark
Been around this place
Fumbling in the dark
And when I feel the skies will never clear
You remind me that spring is near

How you sparkle
How you shine
How you rise above
The darkest skies

Nothin' in this world
Could make me love you less
Shadows often leave perfection
In the best
Oh my love, oh my love
Oh my love, oh my love

How you sparkle
How you shine
How you rise above
The darkest skies

How you sparkle
How you shine
How you rise above
The darkness

~ o ~

Gotta go restore my firewall settings -- they seem to have been wiped out by the code I'm
analyzing. Argh.

flk.

Thanks, R.

flk.

Some days I love working with computers. Others I wonder how I ever got into this line
of work in the first place.

Today, I'm not so sure which of the above applies. I've been handed a big pile of C++
code, written for both Windows and PalmOS. I need to go through it and figure out
how it all works. It's an important project, and I pride myself on being able to do this
sort of stuff. I guess it's just a matter of getting back into the swing of things. I've
certainly had enough time off. It's always the first steps in mapping out the classes that
have me questioning my ability to do it. It's like detective work -- sometimes it's really
interesting, sometimes it's just plain tedious. I know once I get deep into it I'll be fine.
I've been working on the planning stages of this project for about four weeks. Today is
when the real interesting work for me begins.

Well, here I go.

flk.

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1. Where were you born?
Manila, Philippines

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there,
do you want to move back? Why or why not?
No, I haven't lived there in 15 years. If you asked me three or four years ago I'd have said
I don't want to move back because I've lost touch with just about everybody I knew there.
("Oh go tell them all to forget me / there's no love left in me for them /
something is stirring deep inside of me / and I'll never see them again" -- Marc Almond)
I've since gotten back in touch with some of my friends but it all feels like several lifetimes ago.
It's good to have those ties re-established, but I'm still not sure I'd want to move back.
Besides, a good number of them have also moved away, scattered to the four winds as it were.
I was ahead of my time.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest?
I like it here at home.

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled?
I traveled quite a bit growing up. More recently I haven't traveled as much. I'd like to travel more.
It's really a time/money issue.

5. Where is the most interesting place you've been?
New York City. I wouldn't want to live there, necessarily, but it's an interesting place to visit.
So many people, so many things to do/see, places to go...

flk.

Took a very strange survey from ClickIQ this morning. They asked about different
retailers -- if, for example, Amazon.com were a person, would it be male or female? How old?
What kind of car would it drive? If it were a super-hero, what would its super power be?
Definitely the most off-the-wall survey I've ever completed.

If you'd like to be referred to ClickIQ, where you can earn money for taking surveys,
email me and I'll refer you (that way we both get credit). Don't worry -- the surveys are,
for the most part, very conventional and easy to get through. This one was definitely
the exception.

flk.

okay, i'm going to bed now.

"dreams are my reality" - richard sanderson
(has anybody out there actually seen "la boum"?)

flk.

'Lovers' by Five Easy Pieces

Darling tie that bow tight in your hair
Pick out your nicest clothes to wear
Tonight we're going ot the city
of the stars that have vanished in the air
So lay your thoughts across the front seat
Strap that belt around you tight
We're doing ninety miles an hour
on a one hundred mile night.

Tonight I'm taking you to Hollywood
Tonight you're all I want to find
Tonight we don't make excuses
Gonna leave this whole world behind

Darling show the angels where your smiling
Don't you know they're out of time
Just pull your skirt a little higher
Show them all the meaning of sunshine
Down on us wistfully,
right up close to me
I whisper innuendo in your ear.
I'm gonna hold you like a baby
that's heard all there is to hear...

Tonight I'm taking you to Hollywood
Tonight you're all I want to find
Tonight we don't make excuses
Gonna leave this whole world behind

We don't need no t.v. or no light bulbs
Don't need no damn remote controls
Some things can't be taken lightly
we rock and we roll...
like lovers on parole

[bridge]

Perfectly asleep wish I could join you
Guess only dreams keep us apart
Your love I never take for granted
Where you finish is where I start

Tonight I'm taking you to Hollywood
Tonight you're all I want to find
Tonight we don't make excuses
Gonna leave this whole world behind

flk.

flk.

So I finally go and post the URL to this blog to some of the mailing lists
I'm on, and the server goes down. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.

flk.

Most people know her as the author of I Know What You Did Last Summer
and Stranger With My Face, but the only book of hers that I have read
is A Gift of Magic. I read it in seventh grade, but it's still one of my favorites.

flk.

I've been back from Arkansas for a week, and don't feel like I've accomplished much.
Okay, I've read Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grownups for the book club
(meeting Thursday), and Alisa Kwitney's The Dominant Blonde. But as far as getting
the move planned and started, not a whole lot.

This afternoon I went to Office Max with C. Bought a whole bunch of boxes to ship my
old school things to L.A. in. Talked with Mom and Dad on the phone for a while. Sounds like
they and Sis are going to be there until Sunday.

C. and I went to the local Borders store this evening. The parking lot was full --
quite surprising for 9:30 pm on a Monday. We had to park farther away from the entrance
than we usually do. Walking towards the entrance we saw an old Datsun hatchback
with an iced mocha from Starbucks melting away on its roof. No idea what it was doing there.
(Starbucks isn't exactly close to that store either.) The moon is just about full today, so that
may have something to do with it. I tried to find something like "Moving for Dummies", but
there doesn't appear to be such a book. Maybe I could write it and pitch it to IDG. G-d knows
I've moved enough in my life. ("Two moves equals a fire." - Mark Twain. Well, burn baby burn.)

Today's haul:

10 x CareMail shipping cartons (22"x14"x12)
1 roll CareMail packing tape
1 copy The Autobiography of Vivian by Sherrie Krantz
1 copy Lightning Field by Dana Spiotta
1 copy of the new Interview magazine (with Kate Bosworth on the cover!)

Arkansas story:

We went to Wiederkehr Wine Cellars for lunch (they have a good Swiss restaurant)
on the day of my cousin's wedding, and while we were waiting for Dad outside the restaurant
we saw these people who -- I kid you not -- looked like your stereotypical hillbillies, walk up from
the parking lot. Two men, a woman, and a boy that looked about thirteen or fourteen. One man walks
up to a spot maybe two feet from the sample menu display, looks at it for half a second and, with a
"I can't be bothered to do this" expression, pulls back and tells the woman to have a look at it. The
woman and the kid look at the menu, and the kid jumps back, excited. "Dad, dad, they got shrimp
cocktail! Can I have shrimp cocktail Dad?" His dad says, "We didn't drive all this way for you to eat
no shrimp cocktail, boy. You's eatin' German food!"

flk.