March 5, 2008
reason number #487 i prefer to work from home

all of a sudden, the wireless network i've been using since i started here was not listed in my network list. i stumbled out of my cube, bleary eyed, and noticed there was a man. a man on a ladder. with a screwdriver in one hand. and a base station in the other. there was a cable on the floor.

oh, no. that network's down permanently, said the man.

it was straight out of the beginning of hitchhiker's guide; apparently it had been scheduled for decommissioning for weeks, "why didn't you get an email about this?" he asked. that is a good question, i mumbled.

< joe> well
< joe> if you had no reason to go to the office before
< joe> you definitely don't now that you need a VPN in the office

well said.

March 7, 2008
people like us

this week i passed another milestone in my journey to being thirty: i pledged to pbs.

March 7, 2008
shaver made me do it

if you ever find yourself running fusion on your router, and need to use a use a bridged connection to the local network, well, that is how you do it.

March 9, 2008
and now i do wish i had my camera

after some good progress this weekend, i've decided to make the second release of Gom.

What is Gom?

Gom allows you to write GTK applications using JavaScript and an HTML-like widget layout syntax.

Gom is on the Web: http://ilovegom.googlecode.com/!

this release has a huge number of improvements, but i will focus on the most exciting, and perhaps the most surprising: the beginnings of jQuery support.

last night after adding local-only support for the src attribute of script tags, i implemented a rudimentary window.navigator object. after a few more small bug fixes, jquery-1.2.3.js loads without errors into console.gom. some selectors even work:

for at least tonight, i can actually be satisfied, and consider Gom somewhat of a success: being able to write GTK+ apps using jQuery was one of the main goals when i started Gom about five months ago.

March 10, 2008
tivo better record the news hour tomorrow

congrats to my friends for their latest. i guess i have been using ffx 3 betas now for 2 weeks, and i'm starting to get hooked on some of the new stuff.

i spent tonight in xml hell, but at least i have compact relax-ng files for Gom's core and its Gtk+ support.

i have a new goal of eating one banana each day this week.

March 12, 2008
rubbed raw

i went into the bathroom to put my contacts in for my morning run, but to my horror the contacts container was empty. I put my glasses on, and could definitely see, so the contacts weren't in my eyes. but where were they? i have been wearing contacts on and off for about ten years, and i have never simply lost a pair of contacts. did they roll up behind my eyes? i take my glasses off, and massage my eyelids trying to get the contacts out. was i even wearing my contacts last night? i have no idea. i find this even more alarming. first i lose contacts, now i can't even remember if i was wearing them yesterday? what's next? am i going to find myself stepping off a commuter rail train in worcester with no idea why i was going there, and without a wallet or keys? will i even remember my name? i can't find any dried up contacts in my bed. how do contacts disappear? i keep going intto the bathroom, massaging my eyelids. there is a soreness now, from all the rubbing. but still no discomfort from a misplaced lens. fortunately i have one pair left, but it's my last pair and now i have to go back to the eye doctor. why can't i just buy them from amazon? my doctor is already mad at me for using one pair for 18 months, and now this? she is going to want to use those yellow drops again, i'm sure of it.

March 14, 2008
great success

i step out of the bart station, ready to take in a new city! but what's the first thing i see?

this picture was actually from the third or fourth time i saw this trolley. i walked around for hours this afternoon, and without fail, whenever i turned onto market there it was.

-- b3co.com

hopefully tomorrow i can ride some muni trains. i was disappointed that the one lrv i saw today did not look like it was in service; they seem to have these new cars instead. they looks a little like the new blue line cars (which i rode for the first time this morning).

March 19, 2008
an inauspicious start

finally, march was rolling around, and i'd get to see some shows. but then the krief show was canceled due to border problems, or something and well the holy fuck show at the middle east is sold out. and i haven't seen jsb since august. is radiohead really going to be the only band i see this year? i may need to comprimise my principles. and fast.

March 20, 2008
a boring post

at some point between january and now, apple updated their airport express to n. i hadn't seen anything about this anywhere.

my reusable grocery bags from wgbh arrived yesterday. they were supposed to send me two but i received three, so even when i pledge, i am still a thief. they are made from (some) recycled materials, which is nice, but still made in china. anyway, they are about the same size as the wfm bag - a little wider, a little shorter. their handles are shorter, but still just a little too long to comfortable carry at my sides by the handle, while being almost too short to go over the shoulder like a purse. they have a sturdyish piece to support the bottom, but that just makes it more difficult to fold up while you're walking there and in your basket.

but at least they don't have any lame puns on them.

March 22, 2008
guitar hero withdrawl

it had been going so well... i hadn't played any video games in quite a while. but then i accidentally turned on my wii, and got blades of steel from the wii shop, and, well. i guess i miss guitar hero.

this morning i had a dream where i was watching a film (on vinyl? they kept having to flip sides) of the two beastie boys shows here last summer. as the second show started, most people who had been watching were leaving, but as the music started, it occurred to me why the second show may have been so awesome: they started the show with a spinal tap cover. if only they actually had.

this morning i was pleased to find that google had upgraded their hosted apps to the gmail that had been deployed months ago.

March 27, 2008
where did march go

while paying my ridiculous gas bill, i noticed a charge made to my account by the evil people at norton. while the reasons for my non-use of their software are best kept for another day, if they aren't already plainly obvious, there was an amusing exchange near the end of the call, where they wanted to do a small survey before giving me an incident code:

Norton Rep: and what OS are you running on your computer, XP, or Vista?
me: mac os.
NR: umm, ok. and what do you use for Internet access, DSL, or cable?
me: oh, i use a municipal wireless network.
NR: ok, wireless.

i'm imagining some meeting where they're looking at some graph of the results, and there's a little bar way in the corner, maybe four standard deviations away. someone notices it, and asks, and the guy replies that they're not sure about that one, but "we have our best men on the case."

sometimes i like to think that i have a pretty good imagination.