Need a Torture Distraction
Bah! Motivation quotient has been gunning for all-time record low levels these past few days. Today I got tasked with creating more of those delicious directory ad banners, so my work ethic has officially been obliterated.
Over at Inside Firefox, the weblog of a Firefox developer, author Ben Goodger digs up some history on the old 4.x browsers buried in the Netscape source code. Ben reports that he has discovered a lot of references in the browser’s source code to a routine called “Cylon,” and after watching the new Battlestar Galactica series last month, he now understands why. “Cylon” was the name given to the routine that would draw the “undetermined” progress bar that we used to see in Netscape 4.x. In this routine, the progress meter would just wave back and forth ad infinitum (like a Cylon eye) when the browser had no idea what was going on. Funny stuff.
Tonight Apple and I are going for a brisk walk up to the town center to get the mail. Sounds like nothing very exciting, but I like taking evening walks with her. (At this point, my parents are falling off their chairs in astonishment at the idea that their son could possibly want to go for a walk.) In my high school days I was one of those “Walk? WTF, why should I do that when I have car keys in my pocket?” guys. But if you go a little further back, to my early childhood, I used to enjoy going for walks at night, waving a flashlight around like a dork. Perhaps it’s that part of me that enjoys walking in the evenings these days.
It will be even more fun when we get our new bikes. Our community has a double-wide “internal” sidewalk that runs around the complete perimeter of the man-made lakes at the center of the campus. Following these sidewalks, you can make a complete circuit of the community without interfering with road traffic—and, most nights, without seeing more than one or two other human beings. It’s really quite peaceful and relaxing after a day of ringing phones, chattering co-workers and that one guy behind me who WILL. NOT. STOP. SNEEZING.
Tomorrow, Series 4 of Red Dwarf will be landing, courtesy of Netflix. This gives me six episodes of the hilarious British comedy to busy myself with during mealtimes for the rest of the week and into the weekend. Then, on Friday, the final disc of Six Feet Under: Season 1 arrives, and of course Apple and I will be glued to the TV for four hours straight watching that thing. It’s that kind of original content that makes HBO actually worth having, but being able to get it from Netflix, why pay the cable company for their package deal of seven other channels of crap you’ll never watch?
I’m sure my friends will find this quite amazing, but there’s a story I’ve been working on for about, oh, seventy-eight years now which I have just finally finished. Yes, finished. As soon as I give the last bit a re-read to make sure it doesn’t royally blow (too badly, anyway), I’ll be shipping it off for their perusal. It’s hard to believe that I started this blessed thing in what—2002? Christ. It needs to be done and over with, now.
The hijinks continue in Detroit, this time with the police department, as the police chief herself sends a number of rookie cops back to the academy for a week because they were slow to salute her at their graduation. OHHHHHH KAY. Yes, this helps serve and protect the people of Detroit, doesn’t it? Perhaps while they’re there, the rookies can learn how to do the “Sieg Heil” salute—it looks like they’re going to need it!
Happened to be looking at a GTO message board recently, and the members there are getting together a group purchase of Holden Monaro exterior body panels from Australia! Apparently they, too, are really bored with the GTO’s exterior and want to swap out the front fascias and such for Holden’s much better-looking Monaro parts. One guy who replied apparently has a black-on-black 6-speed GTO right here in Naples. I think I’ve seen a car matching that description around here. Given the GTO’s sales figures, even though I’ve only seen one black/black GTO in town, statistically it was probably that guy!
I just want to get out of the office today. God, all the crap I have to do sucks intensely. Boring drivel. Whenever I have tasks to do for the directory department, this is how I wind up feeling. Doesn’t matter what it is. Because it’s for them, it blows. That department is like a scourge upon the earth, or at least upon employee morale.
Wow, my web server just totally failed. At first I freaked out because I thought they deleted my account, since when I tried to hit my domain it responded with a 403, and while I could access the FTP server, it wouldn’t let me login. Everything seems to be back to normal now, though. Seems like as good a time as any to sign off, though.
God…I’m going to have to sit through 40 minutes of seasonal traffic this evening before I can get home, and I’m looking forward to that like I look forward to getting kicked in the ass.
Categorized as Randomness