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Have a Happy Non-Denominational Winter Holiday, unless you don’t have a winter holiday in your culture, in which case simply have a happy winter. I hope you . Uh yeah. So, be happy and stuff.

I’ve got a little wad of silly putty that sits on my desk, and I play with it constantly. All day while I’m at the computer, I’m just squishing squeezing it, stretching, twisting, smushing. Its very hypnotic, and very soothing. Well, yesterday Madalene got me a new egg of Silly Putty, but when I pulled it out of the egg, I realized something disgusting. My original putty had become so incredibly filthy that it looks brown and sickly next to the fresh putty. It truly freaks me out to see them next to each other. I knew my original putty was getting a bit old, but because it happened so slowly, I didn’t notice just how discolored it had become.

Its also changed properties in comparison to the new putty. It is squishier, yet also less fluid. It doesn’t flow as much as the new putty, though it feels softer to the touch. It doesn’t ‘break’ like the new putty does. Its very hard to snap by pulling it apart quickly, whereas the new putty snaps very easily. Also, I’ve noticed now just how full of tiny hairs the old putty is. Its so gross. I can’t believe I played with it for so long… But, its so fun… I contemplated mixing the old putty and the new putty, but I can’t bring myself to desecrate the new putty like that. Oh well… See for yourself.

The uber-beta web version of my Set Theory calculator program is up here. Its just running right off my Mac’s web server right now, so apologies if its slow or down or whatever. But its basically functional. You can enter in a set of notes, and it outputs some cheerfully done calculations! Of course, you can still enter invalid sets and it won’t warn you, the lookup mechanism to return what Allen Forte number your set it doesn’t work yet, and the output page isn’t very pretty. But those are all going to be fixed tomorrow hopefully.

The biggest question you’ll probably have is ‘so what’? Well, I can’t answer that for you. You need to talk to a musician. Preferably a composer or theorist. A performance musician might get it, but it won’t be very useful to them. Oh well, its fun to write, and fun for a few people out there!

Update: Fixed the URL!

So my court visit was a dud.. I woke up early, dressed nicely, braved the early morning downtown traffic, put a whole dollar into the parking meter, spread my arms and got swiped by a metal detector wielding police woman, sat in a stuffy courtroom, and then, after 30 minutes, was informed that the hearing wouldn’t be happening, because the sheriff ‘forgot’ to bring the defendant over from the workhouse. Thats what I get, after 8 months of waiting for this damn thing to go to trial. When I had my original meeting with a prosecutor 8 months ago, he said that things take a long time to go to trial because of all the crime they need to process. On one hand, thats very true. St. Louis was recently rated the most dangerous city in the US, so the courts sure have their work cut out for them. But on the other hand, little things like ‘forgetting’ to bring the defendant, of all people, makes me think that the lumbering bureaucracy has a few other problems besides a simple work overload.

Speaking of which, if you search for ‘bureaucracy’ on Google, this is what comes up as the first link. Beautiful.

My internal schedule has been turned totally upside down, and kicked around in a circle. I woke up at about 11pm last night, after having stayed up all night the night before so I could drink champagne with Dennis and then take him to the airport. I don’t know if its morning, afternoon, or evening. I can look at the clock, but its just numbers, and I can’t seem to tell if I’m awake or tired. When I woke up last night, I thought it was Monday, not realizing that I was a day ahead of the rest of the world. Tonight I’m going to push for a real bedtime. I aim to be in bed around 8pm, so I can get up tomorrow morning at 7:30am and go to court. Then I will do some studying through the day, and go to my C final that evening. I will live the day like a sane and rational human being would. But until that point, I feel quite ragged around the edges. Its freaky living like an animal, just waking and sleeping whenever the mood strikes you, but being forced to alter it constantly to keep up with the various things you have to do. I wanted to go to Radio Shack to pick up some adapters for the new TV, but I was shocked to realize that what was mid-morning for me was actually 2am for everyone else, and that Radio Shack would not be open… Pizza ordering was also out of the question, as was renting a video. What do nocturnal people do? Wait until its very late at night (morning for everyone else) and then trek to the store bleary eyed and confused.

Me in Radio Shack around noon. I pick up a few BNC to RCA adapters, a couple of RCA cables, and a 6 dollar ‘budget’ TV antenna. I needed the adapters to hook the VCR up to the new TV, and I decided that with a new 27” TV, that it was finally time to upgrade our antenna. The old one has just rabbit ears, and it fits into a little hole on the top of the old TV. There was no such hole on this new TV, so I figured I should get one of the set-top style, that has a little weighted base to it. It also comes with a UHF loop, for improved Simpsons reception. They had ones costing up to 40$, but they were all essentially the same design, some had little ‘tuning’ knobs, others had dish-like protrusions mounted on swiveling joints, etc. Frankly, all that is crap, an antenna is pretty simple in design, and a simple antenna will do the job happily. So 6 dollar antenna it is.

Bleary Eyed Me: Ok, thats all, I’m ready to check out.
Radio Shack Guy: Could I interest you in a cell phone or a satellite dish TV system? We have some excellent specials right now!
Bleary Eyed Me: What, you mean this antenna doesn’t pick up the satellite channels?!?
Radio Shack Guy: Um, no. No it doesn’t.. But we have some excellent systems that do!
Bleary Eyed Me: Oh I know, I was just jerking you around. Do you honestly believe that filthy people who have been up all night who are buying 6 dollar rabbit-ears have any need for satellite TV?
Radio Shack Guy: Its only 10 bucks a month for 50 channels!
Bleary Eyed Me; This is 6 bucks for life, for around 5 channels, which is about 5 more channels than I really need, and 4 more than I even remotely care about.
Radio Shack Guy: Uh, ok… No cell phone for you then either, I guess?

Tonight Madalene and I went out to dinner with Billy and Karen (Those websites are down at time of posting, Billy is working on the server). We had some OK Thai food. I’ve had better though.. But the evening was fun as always. Billy and I exchanged presents, which resulted in much oohing and ahing. Madalene and I made him a “Zoo Parent” for the Red Kangaroos at the zoo. The program involves you making a donation, in your name or in someone elses, to a specific animal in the zoo, allowing you to ‘adopt’ it, and your money goes to improving its facilities, paying for its food, etc. Billy is bonkers about Australia, and its flora and fauna, and he is certainly no need of regular ‘stuff’ so we thought this type of alternative gift was fun. He gets a certificate, and a nice little photograph of the animal he has adopted. How cute!

Billy gave me a 27” Sony Trinitron Monitor! Its a late 80’s era professional video monitor, salvaged from the university. It is monstrously heavy, but has a fabulous picture. When it was brand new, it was top of the line professional gear, and so is still pretty damn good by today’s standards. It has S-video inputs, an internal audio amplifier of decent quality, and even a computer input. Its pretty slick, and will be a welcome replacement to our ancient 13 inch “rabbit ears and knobs that you have to turn to U to get channels over 12” TV. It served many faithful years, but seems awful small and silly next to the big Sony. Its ok, everything’s time comes eventually.

Right now I’m going over to Dennis’s, as he is staying up all night before flying out to Colorado tomorrow morning, and I’m going to hang out with him for a while. Its not like I’m going to be going to bed any time soon, as I didn’t wake up until 4pm today. Oh yeah.

At the post office, there is a short strip of parallel parking spots directly in front. There are about 3 handicapped spots, and 3 regular spots. They aren’t marked off with white lines, so those 3 spots might fit 4 compact cars, or maybe only 2 big SUVs, and since the spots are highly coveted, cars are often crammed in very tightly. When I pulled up, there was a very small spot open. Not large enough for any cars, it was only 5 or 6 feet longer than my scooter. There was an old American car (a Buick or something) stopped in the street ahead of the spot, and a big SUV stopped behind her, partially obscuring the tiny parking spot. I ducked in between the SUV and the parked cars to park in the perfectly scooter-sized spot.

As I was putting the scooter up on its center stand, I heard a honk. The lady in the giant Buick was waving the people in the SUV back, and giving me a dirty look. I pointed at the parking spot, with a questioning look on my face, and she nodded vigorously. There was no way she was getting into that spot. I walk over to her window and say, “Uh, you want this spot?” and she said “Yes, of course, why do you think I was stopped here?!?” I told her, “All right, all right, I’ll give it too you, but next time put on your blinkers so people know what you are doing, k?” and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I pulled out of the spot, and went a few spots up the street, where I found another little mini-spot to put the scooter in. I looked over to see her attempt to make the spot. She failed, but tried again. Then again. Each time not realizing that her car was probably 6 feet too long. Finally she pulled away, defeated. I gave her a snide look and a big goofy shrug, putting my hands up in the ‘Oh well!’ stance. The SUV pulled past, and a young lady rolled down the window. A guy inside cheered at me, and the lady shouted, “Did she really think she was going to get IN there??”

A few minutes later, I saw the Buick lady in the post office, and gave her a big grin, while she skulked past. I suppose its not nice of me to be smug, but she was a bitch, and then got put in her place when her big American car couldn’t fit in the spot, even after she shouted out people who did fit. Typical.

But thats not all!

Once in the post office, I noticed that the machine that dispenses numbers (you know the kind “Please take a number and wait until your turn is called”) didn’t have a number sticking out of it. The office was still calling out numbers, but it seemed the last few people who had come in didn’t have numbers yet due to the malfunctioning machine. I walked up to it, peered inside, popped open a latch, lifted the lid, and extracted my number, 97. Upon seeing my discovery, 3 or 4 people walked over and got their numbers. My willingness to explore and manipulate my environment earned me the ability to jump ahead in line. Those who weren’t bold enough to go after the numbers were forced to follow in my footsteps.

Remember, the clever monkey gets the banana.

Sometimes I will literally sleep all day. The other day, I didn’t wake up until 7pm. My problem is that my internal schedule is several hours longer than the standard 24 hour day. I like to sleep for about 12 hours at a time, but I like to be awake for around 18 hours. Its a struggle for me to try to match my schedule to the rest of the world’s 24 hour cycle. When I don’t have anything like a job or school to force me into a schedule, then my circadian rhythm just wanders around aimlessly. Damn me!

I’m applying for a few jobs, hopefully something good comes through. We’ll see though. Right now I have to scoot over to the post office and Walgreens. Lucky me.

The switch to the new host is complete, and things should be rather transparent. I’ve sped the site up a bit, as well as converted all the pages to PHP. This lets me do more includes, and involve little random content here and there. The include system is more powerful than SSI, as well.

Also, as I was hipped to by Josh, this site is now compressed in gzip format prior to being sent out to you. That means the pages are about 30% the size that they were originally! There is a slight server overhead involved, but so what, I’m paying for their server time, so by god I’m gonna use it! Besides, its not like this site is getting thousands of hits per hour or anything. If you want to do this too, then you can! The only qualifications is that your server has PHP version 4.1 or better, and your pages are parsed by PHP. Most servers these days have a new enough version, and if your pages end in .php, then that means they are being parsed by PHP. If that is the case for your page, check out this link on Textism on how to set up compression. Its very easy, only one line of PHP needed.

If your site isn’t being parsed by PHP, because the extension is something ‘normal’ like .html or .shtml or .htm, and you are running the Apache web server, then here is a trick you can do to make your site parsed by PHP. This will increase server load a little bit, because all your pages will be parsed, even if they don’t have much php content, but if you want to compress them all, or use some of php’s other super-cool features, then its worth it.

Create a .htaccess file in the root directory of your webspace. If there is already a .htaccess file there, then we’ll just use it, leave anything else in there thats already there. .htaccess files allow you to override the Apache server settings to your specific needs. Most web servers allow .htaccess files, but some do not, so if this doesn’t work, then talk to your administrator.

In the .htaccess file, put a line like this:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

This will make Apache use the x-httpd-php application to parse anything that ends with .html! Your .html files have now become php files, but you didn’t have to go through and change all your links and filenames to .php! If you are using .shtml, like me, then you need to make two changes. First, simply change .html in the above example to .shtml, thats pretty obvious. The second is you need to add the following line ABOVE the line we specified above:

RemoveHandler .shtml

This line will make Apache NOT try to server-parse the .shtml files. .shtml files are usually used when you are using Server Side Includes to add things to your pages. A page cannot be parsed by both PHP and the server for SSI calls! You’ll need to remove any SSI you have in your page, and replace it with equivalent PHP. If you are just using the SSI include virtual call, then you can easily replace it with:

<?php include("filename.txt"); ?>

Pretty much anything you can do with SSIs, you can also do with PHP, so if you have a lot of complex stuff in there, you may need to do some research to figure out the best PHP way to do it.

Anyway, this is how my page is now PHP, yet is claiming to be .shtml. Through the magic of .htaccess and server-side scripting! Yay!

However, my elation is softened in the realization that despite all the momentous changes none of you will notice a functional difference in the page, except that it will load faster. Lucky you. If you don’t mind, just be a little bit proud of me, that I did all that codey stuff just for you!

Well, yesterday I found a host I liked, ECP Hosting and signed up for an account. The guy who I spoke to there was very friendly, they offered all the services I need, and the price was right. However, after signing up, I asked to have SSH access turned on, as their FAQ noted that SSH was included, but had to be requested. I got a reply that they had to stop offering that service, as it had become a security risk for them. The guy was sincerely regretful that the webpage hadn’t been updated, and offered me a full refund. I was bummed, because he had everything I needed, and most of all, he seemed like he genuinely cared about providing good service. They have a forum that was filled with helpful responses from him, his webpage was impeccably friendly, and he was very prompt with his email replies. Saddly, as an oldschooler, and a bit of a tinkerer, I can’t deal with just a web-based control panel, I need to be able to get into the shell.

After being rather distraught, as it had taken me months to decide on going with his service, I looked through my second and third choices, and ended up talking to a guy at Intense Servers who offered me a good plan, with everything I need. They seem to be pretty well rated, so hopefully this will work out. Its a multi-domain system, so both Flexistentialist.org and Cowboysofjustice.com will be hosted there. I’m moving Flex over first, so I can figure out how the email transfer will work out, and then I’ll move Cowboysofjustice.com. Hopefully with moving Flex as the ‘test run’, the cowboysofjustice.com transfer should be rather painless. I’ll send out emails letting people know what they should do, when it comes time to, uh, do stuff.

I don’t usually just hype up some other website here, but I thought this was deserving. BookCrossing.com is a fabulous new site dedicated to book sharing. It aims to make the world a big library, and encourage generosity. It is best explained by telling how you use it.

I have a book. Pollen, that was given to me by Josh. I log into the site, and create a profile for myself. You can see my bookshelf and profile here. I enter the ISBN number of my book (or just the Title and Author if it is very old, or independently published), and a short description of it. The book is then assigned a BCID (Book Crossing ID), this is called ‘registering’ a book. I print out labels from my computer, fill out the label with the BCID, my name, and the date, and affix the label to the inside of the book. Alternatively, a handwritten note will suffice, though its not as eye-catching as the label. Then, I ‘release’ the book into the wild. I leave it on a bench, donate it to charity, give it to a friend, leave it on the table in a coffee shop, etc. The label contains instructions for anyone who finds the book ‘makes a catch’ to log onto bookcrossing.com, and enter the BCID ID number. There they are asked to enter a journal entry. Do they plan to read the book? If so, what do they think of it? Have they already read it? Where did they find it? Etc. Just a little story of how they got the book, and what they are doing with it. When they are done with it, they simply re-release the book, hopefully to be found again. Each time anyone enters a journal entry for a book I released, or caught and re-released, I get informed. Your generosity gets a face put on it, as you hear the words of the people who you helped through your generosity. Who here hasn’t had their life changed by a fabulous book? Who wouldn’t want someone else to have the same experience?

So far I’ve only registered one book, Pollen, but I’m going to be doing more, and when the weather isn’t so bad, I’ll go out and release them into the wild. Currently about 15% of the books get ‘caught’ and get journal entries, but the site has only been around for 5 months. They now have over 60,000 members around the world, and over 170,000 books registered. And even if a book you release isn’t registered as ‘caught’, don’t worry. It may have been found by someone not fortunate enough to afford a computer, in which case you shouldn’t be disappointed, but even more pleased, for your donation may have reached someone for whom a book is even more valuable, maybe a few years from now they’ll finally have an opportunity to enter a journal entry, or someone they passed it onto will be able to.

So take all those extra books you have, register them, and release them! You might get into it! When you release a book, you can leave ‘release notes’ informing people of where you left it. You can check the website for ‘recently released’ books in your area if you are keen on going ‘hunting’ for some freshly released books! Sounds like fun.

There is finally snow on the ground here! It started coming down last night, and is now a reasonable pile on the ground. The outdoors looks nice, though the snow heralds a time when scooting will be an uncommon activity, which is unfortunate. The roads are currently clear of snow, they are just wet, so I could theoretically scoot around if I had to, but I try to avoid doing so in this sort of weather.

I had a C exam tonight, which I rocked on, if I do say so myself. However, it was very cold out, and I was nearly late to class, since I was rushing to do my homework in the few hours of electricity I had. The electrician had the power off most of the day, leaving me feeling very stranded. The house was cold, I had nowhere to go, the few things I needed to do, homework and study for my exam, I couldn’t do without power to the computers. I couldn’t watch a movie, I don’t have any books I’m reading right now and so I just went back to bed for most of the day. Finally he got power back on for the computer, and so I did homework in the cold, dark office (the rest of the lights weren’t on yet).

Our heater is sort of working now. It turns on, but only when the thermostat is set to its highest setting. The temperature meter reads 80 degrees (which is clearly incorrect, its more like 70 in here now), and the thermostat is set to its max, around 85, yet the heater isn’t running. Its like the two are very out of sync or something. But the heater guy is supposed to come by eventually to finish fixing it.

I went over to Billy’s after class, and met his new ‘friend’ Karen. She is moving in with him, which will be interesting given his poor relationship with his last roommate. However, I don’t think he ever wanted that first girl living with him in the first place, and him and Karen really seem to click. I’m not sure if they are dating or not though. Perhaps they don’t even know if they are dating or not… Anyway, she is a nice girl. I’m going to go hang out with them tomorrow evening.

On the way back from Billy’s, I was on my scooter at a red light, and a large Russian man was in the car next to me, he rolled down his window and started bellowing at me. He had long, frizzy grey/black hair, and a very thick grey/black beard. He looked very Russian, like Rade Serbedzija playing Ivan Tretiak in The Saint, only a bit more disheveled.

He shouted “I like!! I like!!” pointing at my scooter. “I am from Russia! I enjoy the looking of your motorbike!!” He proceeded to ask if I was cold (because it was dreadfully cold out). I showed him my high quality gloves, and he said “Oh!! I like your gloves!! We know good gloves in Russia!!” The light turned green, and I sped off. We met again at the next light, where we talked more. He told me he was a musician, and even waved a CD with his face on it. Apparently he writes traditional Russian music. Once again, the light turned green, and we sped off. I hoped to meet up again, to try to get him to give me a CD, but we got separated in traffic. All in all, though, it was an interesting interaction. It just continues to prove my theory that no one can resist a guy on a scooter! If you don’t believe me, just try. One listen to that throaty buzz, one look at that flash of color, one glance at my grin as I scoot happily to my destination.. And you’ll be hooked. Or your money back.

Well, I’m back from Colorado. The drive was nice, with good weather. When we got back in, the fishtank was making a terrible noise. Turns out the outboard filter had been emptied of water somehow, so the motor was just spinning and being loud. I filled it back up to prime it, and it started pumping like a champ again. It looks like we had a power outage around here, so that could explain how the pump didn’t have any water in it, its easy for it to get unprimed if its off for a while. But the fish are fine, even though their water was a touch murky.Our heater is STILL broken!! It broke on Monday night, and we called the landlord and told him about it, but when we came in tonight, our house is cold, and the heater is still broken. We have a little space heater though, so our room will be warm, but my hands are numb typing, and the mouse feels like a piece of ice. The computers probably enjoy it though, they like being cold.In our landlord’s defense however, it looks like he did work on the heater, there is a new thermostat, and tommorow morning an electrician and an HVAC guy are coming over. He also replaced our sink faucet, which was dripping, and put in a new sprayer thing.Arg, I just noticed a few other things. The DSL jack got kicked out while he was working on the sink, which is why I wasn’t able to ssh into my computer all week, which hampered my ability to do some of my homework! The computer is fine, but its network connection was down.

Also, the bathroom light doesn’t work! I just had to take a crap using a headlamp. The bulbs are fine (even tried a fresh one to make sure), but it still doesn’t come on. It has a bit of a quirk where in cold weather, it is slow to come on. Like, you flip the switch, and up to a second or two later, you hear a relay flip somewhere, and the lights come on. Its worse when its cold, so maybe without the heater on, it just won’t come on at all. Oh well, I guess I’ll just leave the headlamp by the bathroom door, so people can use it. Hopefully the the heater fixing will fix it, or maybe I can get the electrician tomorrow to take a look at it.