Rev Matt October, 2003 blog entries

Posts for October, 2003

There’s nothing like a catholic girl

This sort of thing doesn't happen often enough. It's not half what he deserved, but it's a step in the right direction.

Mooch is hanging in there so far. I just keep hoping for the best.

Posted on October 31, 2003 | 2 comments so far.

I can see the autumn leaves falling

Wind: From the South at 16 gusting to 28 mph

This is relevant. Yesterday, the Marginator stopped by after work and mentioned that our leaves were piling up and we should rake. I told her that I have a leaf blower, and will be blowing them all out to the street this weekend before leaf pickup. So today she came over and started raking. I just don't get it...

Posted on October 30, 2003 | 0 comments so far.

A cat's the only cat who knows where it's at

Sometimes having pets can be extremely difficult, as Jennifer will attest. We took the mooch in on Saturday to have a chronic sinus problem looked at. He was uncooperative, to say the least, and ended up needing to be sedated. The cat bags were insufficient. The vet gave him WAY too much tranquilizer, as he was trashed until Sunday evening. I think she overreacted because he was being difficult, and she admitted as much on Monday. She also gave him a corticosteroid shot because she was of the opinion that pills were not an option with him. He has not been able to keep any food down since Saturday as a result. The vet did not advise me of this possible side effect, even though I asked about side effects. So I'm not real thrilled at this point.

In my conversation with her yesterday, she advised getting baby food instead of cat food, chicken or turkey only with no vegetables in them. Target's selection was limited, so I went to Schnuck's (yes, I crossed the picket. My cat's health means more to me than the picket. Deal.) and their selection was extensive but everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, has vegetables in it. No wonder kids hate vegetables. They're sick of them. So I got toddler food that was just chunks of chicken and turkey in a broth. That came right back up too.

We tried soft cat food (which they only get on special occasions) and it seemed much better. The pureed stuff stayed down nicely. This morning I got up after a whopping 4.5 hours of sleep and cracked open another can (I'm sure Woem is going to gain 10 pounds if we need to do this much longer) but it was something like beef slices in gravy. That came back up. So we have an appointment today with a vet whom we met at a friends' house a few weeks ago.

I just want him to be able to eat again.

Posted on October 29, 2003 | 4 comments so far.

Give Me More Howard Stern

I used to listen to Howard every morning on the way to work. Since I take Metrolink now, I only listen on occasion (when I have to drive in to work). As a casual listener, I've been disappointed with the show over the past year. I found myself wondering if I was listening to Bill O'Reilly this morning. The show has become completely focused on Howard to the exclusion of almost all else. Howard is the only creative person left alive. Howard invented shock radio, Howard invented hit movies, Howard invented niche cable shows, Howard invented irreverence, anyone who does anything in media is an idiot and a copycat because Howard did everything first.

It's boring. Hot babes taking their clothes of makes for lousy radio, too. The only time the show is interesting anymore is when there is a guest on who actually has a personality. Otherwise it's a show about how Howard is the greatest person to ever live and everyone else in entertainment is trying to rip him off.

Posted on October 28, 2003 | 3 comments so far.

Singin a song for you

New reviews:

Posted on October 26, 2003 | 0 comments so far.

We're one within, we're one without

Lisa DeMoraes observes the demise of the Reality Show Awards.

In more sad news, ABC has had to kill the first annual trophy show celebrating the fabulousness that is reality TV, because the other networks refused to cooperate, saying that some of the categories, such as Hottest Hot Tub Scene, did not convey the proper sense of decorum.
Yes, "decorum" and "reality TV" just appeared in the same sentence. Go ahead, take a moment and reread it.

Posted on October 24, 2003 | 0 comments so far.

The upwardly mobile and the disenfranchised

Republicans are doing everything they can to make sure as few people as possible can vote. By the logic they use, military personnel shouldn't be allowed to vote either.

Posted on October 22, 2003 | 1 comment so far.

I didn't write these rules, I just follow them to a 't'

Reran across this Eric Raymond bit today, and it bears repeating:

Rule of Modularity: Write Simple Parts connected by clean interfaces.
Rule of Clarity: Clarity is better than cleverness.
Rule of Separation: Separate policy from mechanism; separate interfaces from engines.
Rule of Simplicity: Design for simplicity; add complexity only where you must
Rule of Parsimony: Write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
Rule of Transparency: Design for visibility to make inspection and debugging easier.
Rule Of Robustness: Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity.
Rule of Representation: Fold Knowledge into data, so program logic can be stupid and robust.
Rule of Least Surprise: In interface design, always do the least surprising thing.
Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
Rule of Repair: Repair what you can--but when you must fail, fail noisily and as soon as possible.
Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time.
Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can.
Rule of Optimization: Prototype before polishing. Get it working before you optimize it.
Rule of Diversity: Distrust all claims for one true way.
Rule of Extensibility: Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.

Posted on October 20, 2003 | 1 comment so far.

Words are never enough, just cheap tarnished glitter

The word 'extreme' has lost all meaning. I was shopping a week or so ago and noticed that th e peaches had stickers on them declaring them to be "Extreme California Peaches". What in the name of all that's real is an Extreme Peach? Marketing is destroying language. Not just in the US, and not just english. Marketing is destroying all language.

Words cease to have meaning when they've been so abused. Do your part. Do not use impact as a verb. Do not use words like "webinar" or "efrastructure". Stop saying paradigm unless you are actually talking about a model. Understand the words you use. If you use any of the words here regularly, please stop.

Have a good weekend.

Posted on October 17, 2003 | 3 comments so far.

Can'tcha Say (You Believe In Me)

Most of you don't care, but I do so I'd just like to point out that the Boston Globe is now using Zope. Note that Boston Globe is also owned by the New York Times. A lot of people in tech say "Why are you using Zope? No one uses Zope". Yea, no one but CBS, UPN, the US Navy, AARP, USDA, NATO, Duke University, Bank of America, GE Aircraft Engines, SGI, NASA, Verio, WebMD (I heard WebMD is moving to a Java solution, though), and the Marines. Just to name a few.

Posted on October 15, 2003 | 1 comment so far.

When I stood you up I thought that you'd give up

Back to the grind. I've hardly been online for a week, and I haven't thought about work once (except for Sunday when Sparks! emailed me to remind me not to come in on Monday since it was a federal holiday). No major events while I was away, plenty of email to catch up on and have to get back into the groove. It'll be at least a day before I'm really productive again I'm sure. Todo today: install WAS 5 Server on my machine to do some integration testing of Netegrity SiteMinder. Studlycaps should be outlawed. Though the proper technical term is Midcaps, I like Studlycaps better. That's just the way I am.

Cool tool of the day: Powertweak.

There are giant banners out front that declare "National Disabled Awareness Month - Oct 22nd - 24th". I didn't realize that the definition of "month" was so flexible. The disabled people are getting kinda screwed on this one. I also note that Hispanic Heritage Month isn't a calendar month, but rather Sept 15th-Oct 15th.

Posted on October 14, 2003 | 1 comment so far.

Status Back Baby

Do drugs get mentioned often in other workplaces? 12 mentions in 15 minutes. Generally in the context of "I don't know what drugs they're on". Maybe it's just today. Reminds me of a great joke though: "Drugs are doing what our schools never could. Teach kids the metric system."

We now have four managers in DC. And one non-manager employee. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Unrelated: Watch Joe Schmoe on the Spike (the network formerly known as TNN (I think)). It's the funniest thing going.

Posted on October 1, 2003 | 3 comments so far.