Archive for the 'Rant' Category
Bullshit Flag
April 22
Have you guys seen the commerical for the movie Stick It (I’m not linking it ’cause it bugs me)? Have you noticed a shirt that one of the girls is wearing? You might not have ’cause it’s only on for a few seconds, maybe only one. I caught it, though, ’cause I’m all eagle-eyed ninja like that. It has me really pissed off, though, ’cause they fucking tried to pass something off. Here’s the shirt: 
I shouldn’t even have to point you to the fact that it’s a Black Flag shirt with the word “Flag” removed and the white lines between the black bars filled in.
You know, Henry Rollins was in Black Flag. I wouldn’t want him pissed off at me.
SOSOS
February 16
My God, this has been a horrible week for my web development work. Absolutely horrible…but only in two areas.
Well, not even two “areas”. Just two connected things that are driving me crazy.
In the development of Webpen, I’m using a wonderful little Rails mixin/gem (that’s basically a plugin to you non-Rails folk), to make objects taggable, like your photos on Flick or links in del.icio.us. Only two problems with it.
First, notice I haven’t provided any links to it? That’s ’cause there are none now. The developer’s site has gone AWOL and only the RubyForge page is still up, but that’s not the most helpful of sites when you have a problem like I do. What’s the problem? The freakin’ thing can’t use PostgreSQL, which is the database that I use here at home for my work. So I can’t test without uploading to the server. Which is a right pain in the ass since the server runs, rightly, in production mode. Which means I have to restart it for code changes to take effect. Which is more than I want to do.
This little problem leads me to the second one, MySQL. Now, I use an Apple iBook and it came with MySQL already installed. Which is fine and dandy at the beginning. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t bunged up their install of it and had to either reinstall or move on to something else. I moved on.
But now I need MySQL. Should be easy, I thought to myself this morning. I’ll just download the new package from mysql.com and upgrade. It’ll take all of 20 minutes and then I can get back to work.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. I did download the new binaries and I did upgrade, but the MySQL server wouldn’t start. I removed the old install and the new and installed again. No dice. I did this a few more times.
Then I tried installing from source. That didn’t work either. Don’t know why, but it didn’t. I nearly cried.
So furter removal, got rid of anything I could find, even removed /tmp/mysql.sock. Nothing, even though everything was returning as successful. Time to move to a better environment, I decided.
After SSH-ing into my Ubuntu box, I tried to install MySQL there. Well, that would have worked I think, but my apt-get can’t connect to the servers. So I download the Linux binary and try it. Nope, no go.
So now I’m waiting on the Linux source package to finish the make cycle. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably scrap the tags and find another way to represent abstract grouping.
Anyone have any ideas for either the server or the gem?
UPDATE
Well, something must have worked, ’cause MySQL is working now (which means tags are, woot!).
How Hard Is It To Read A Cue Card?
January 19
I don’t normally watch TRL or MTV, but I had a headache and was flipping around.
One of my favorite bands happened to be playing a live song on there today. Coheed and Cambria played the song “The Suffering”. Before they did, though, the silly bitch hosting it announced that they’d be playing “I’m Suffering”.
Now, I realize it’s one word. But “I’m Suffering” would be some shitty emo song. Coheed and Cambria is not a shitty emo band. They’re (by their own definition) progressive rock (think ’70s rock like Rush, Saga, and Yes). All of their songs relate to a story that Claudio is writing. I won’t go into the details, but it’s very convoluted and complex. Those who doubt me can read this and this.
Anyway. Do some research. Get the song name right. It’s on the fucking cue card in front of you, ya glassy-eyed whore.
They Should Have Named It “iDon’tFuckingWork”
December 28
I’m sure you’ve gone and read my account of Christmas over at the-loves.com, but even if you haven’t, this’ll make sense.
When we’re driving around, we like a little music to listen to. Since we were driving some 14 hours total, or so, we like a LOT of music to listen to. Elaine has an iPod Mini 6G which holds plenty of music for us. The only problem is listening to it. Sure, earphones work, but only for one person, and they’re kind of a distraction while driving. The tape-deck adapter either doesn’t like our car, or doesn’t work, ’cause that’s a no-go for us. So several months ago, we bought an iTrip Mini. I’m not linking to them ’cause they fucking suck.
When we first got it, it didn’t work well. The iTrip didn’t snap onto the Mini well enough to keep a strong signal; the non-plug end always had a small gap between it and the iPod. So you either have to hold it down or secure it in some other way. It got stashed in a box and forgotten about. But then this big ass trip comes up and I really didn’t want to carry lots of CDs with us. So I dug out the iTrip and decided to give it another go, after verifying that sliding the iPod’s belt clip up onto the iTrip helps hold it down. Not strong enough to make it perfect, but it helps. So we grab the iTrip and head out.
The drive to my parent’s went alright with it. Well, alright compared to the trip back. The iTrip requires a blank radio station to work. No interference or bleed-over from another station. Even in the barren musical wasteland of Oklahoma, that’s a rarity. We’d find one, drive fifteen minutes, and have to search again. Annoying, but not the end of the world.
The software, though, isn’t exactly perfect. You find the station on the radio, then find the corresponding track in the iTrip Stations playlist. Click the middle button. When the iTrip starts flashing like crazy, hit the pause button. Then it should blink slowly three times and you’re set. Or something like that. Elaine was having to set the station two or three times every time. But it did eventually work. Until we got to the next station, of course.
On the drive back to her mom’s house, the iTrip worked about the same. We didn’t use it as much (I was napping off and on in the passenger seat with a migraine), but what little we did use it worked, in between stations.
On Monday night, though, driving from Tulsa to here, the thing was complete shit.
I found beautiful empty stations (Elaine was driving again), but the iTrip would not set. The entire setting track would play through and start the next one before it was start crack-flashing. OK, fine, play it again. It starts flashing in the menu before I even choose the station. Unplug the iTrip to reset it and try one more time. Oh, now it flashes, great. Hit pause. One, two, three flashes. Wow, funny, the static on the radio goes quiet (a sign that that iTrip is working) between flashes, when it’s not working/on. Oh well, three flashes, should work, right?
Wrong.
Play something, anything, and hear static. Well, maybe I need to set it again. Repeat that paragraph up there. Same outcome (makes sense that you get the same outcome from the same process, huh?). Curse at the little plastic pill-shape and try a third time. Wave the iPod through the air (like I just don’t care) ’cause maybe the signal just isn’t reaching the antenna. No change. Curse some more and try a fourth time, complete with a second round of waving.
This went on for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. I’m a persistant bastard when something isn’t working. “I’m tempted to throw the fucker out of the window,” I tell Elaine.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
No, we didn’t throw it out, but it’s now sitting on my desk with a sticky note on it with the letters “POS” on it. Maybe I can get Elaine to smash it with our hammer. Or run over it with the car.
Quandry
August 31
Big happenings that I won’t tell you about. Well, not all of them. You’ll get a few good tidbits out of me, I guess. But only if you tickle the right spots.
So, what do you think of my recent habit of some stupid first paragraph? Does it actually get you to read the post? I hope so, otherwise there’s no point in even having it, now is there?
First off, the state of affairs here at EHZ. Yeah, the site is still alive. I’m still alive, even. I’ve just been busy and haven’t really had anything worth posting anyway, so that’s that. I don’t get the annoying family drama that Ray has to deal with and I don’t do anything interesting like Max so I have little to talk about.
But I do have some big news. I finally got a job! Well, a job since we’ve moved to Arkansas. I’m the head (only) developer for Sproutit.com and for their first project. I’ll tell more about it once I get more comfortable working on it and actually contribute some new code to it. I’m taking over for another developer who went on to a regular job after college. It’s gonna be hot shit, so pay attention.
Hey, if I don’t hype it, who will?
Anyway, other big news around the Love front, but those details will get discussed later on, too. It’s not that we don’t trust you, we just don’t like you. Really, it’s nothing personal. Besides, this would be better announced at the-loves.com anyway, and it won’t appear there for another couple of months. Yeah, you have to wait that long.
But, anyway, I wanted to talk about something serious.
Like I said, Ray has had some family posts over at his site that have kind of sparked a lot of mish-mash and drivel. The way I see it (and I know little/nothing of the total history), people are trying to get him and his parents all nice-nice again. And it’s kind of funny that a lot of their argument is that he’s posting his “dirty laundry” on the internet for all to see and that he shouldn’t let people interfere with his life in that way.
What exactly are they doing? They’re not Ray or his wife Amy, they’re not his parents. They’re a third party and they have as little right interfering as I do.
Less, even, since Ray is a friend and has unburdened himself to me a few times over this brouhaha. And if any of you are his family and want to talk to me, shove off. I’m not a part of this and don’t want to be except as a friend to Ray. That means I’m on his side, so I probably won’t get along with yours.
Anyway, that’s not my point (wow, I get off of it so easily). What I’m wanting to write about is privacy and…permission…on the web.
If I publish something here about a fight I had with Elaine (not that we had one or that I would post about it if we did), do you have the right to tell me, in detail, what you think of it? Or should you just read it, shrug and think Oh those kids!?
If you do feel that you have the right to tell me what you think, to offer your advice for my personal life, don’t I have the right to tell you to fuck off? I mean, in the end, it is my life. Granted some opinions (wife, parents, close friends) have more weight than others, but in the end mine is the only decision that gets acted on.
If you don’t tell me, I shouldn’t be surprised to see no comments in a post like that. And that kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a blog/diary where you expect and want feedback from your visitors/readers. So we have a quandry.
I expect that this is much like what Ray has been thinking about, and he’s handled it admirably on his site, I think. Comments from those he doesn’t want to see comments from, or comments not appropriate for his site, get deleted. Repeat offenders get their IPs blocked and all of that is his perogative.
I don’t block IPs here (well, MySpace is permenantly blocked, but that’s different) and I rarely delete comments (only 2 in the past 3 years). It’s just how I want to do it around here. I think you deserve to be able to say whatever you want in the United States of Kenneth, which is where EHZ is located, if you didn’t know. But if I posted something more personal, like Ray has done, would I be so cavalier to your comments?
Yeah, I’ve questioned myself around in circles and into a corner. Oh well.
Your Boat, My Berth
August 8
Alright, granted we live in a townhouse and have neighbors on both sides, with common walls. And granted the parking area out front isn’t that spacious. But should we really have to put up with someone from two houses down putting their landboat of a car in our slots? Too bad we’re out of eggs.