Author: jae

http://c.cxc.cc/mars/

i am so behind. my grandfather takes 2 or 3 hours just to read and reply to an email, then my good friend Trav calls from Tampa, says his ex Krista left their son Gavin (8 years) alone all week while she was at work, and so he mentioned that he might like to take on Gavin full-time in Tampa and his wife says she’s “just isn’t into kids” – good fucking god! and then the computer crashes, and then my ISP sucks ass because these days it takes like 44 attempts just to freakin’ connect – at consistently less-than-optimal speed no less…

so i may not get around to replying anywhere. sorry. got too much to catch up on now.

ROCK: got my car back today. it was only $420-some bucks. which ain’t too bad, considering that i was convinced that it (the much contra-ballyhooed “pop und lurch“) was either a suspension or transmission problem. turns out that it was only the engine coil. and yes, i punched it on the way home, and no problems. Houston, we have rock and roll.

also: passenger-side wiper, stalling, and even the heater blower fixed. bonus.

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also, have been working on the reorganisation of the mars site templating system‘s directory structure, and it’s going good. i’m maybe about 80-90% done with that, although the last bit is going to be the hard part. after that, a little more hard stuff, and then i’m going to finish the new skins, and i’ve got a done system, ready for use. bonus.

transmothra gets out of line on LJ

(cross-posted the boxed art spam-attack post on )

drfardook sez:

transmothra replies:

just an FYI:
BoxedArt.com is under spam attack. apparently a number of template sites have been under this attack, whereby someone is sending out malicious email all over the internet. if you get an email that appears to be from Boxed Art, chances are VERY likely it’s really not. it’s just some lame-o trying to hurt the business of their competitors. more info here.

i’m not affiliated with Boxed Art, but i know the guy who runs it from HTMLForums, and he’s just a great, great guy who would never do anything of the sort.

also, i’m not personally real active in very many communities, particularly outside of the time- and soul-sucking LiveJournal (god bless bradfitz‘s pointy little head!), so if anyone else is, and would care to pass this info on, it would be much appreciated!

this is now your bible, you half-cocked Geek-of-the-Week.

i’m late, so everybody go to my friends page and click on all the links that each other has posted.

1) realization: she’s the meat and potatoes (the heavy stuff that makes you go VROOM! – to put it another way, the sexy side). i’ll be the gravy sloshed on top (i’ll go along with anything – or, the lighter, more sensual half (also, i’m made with grease)). i’m not great gravy though. not like your mother makes. you know… with the bits of sausage and all that.

2) heard her voice today for the first time (is that weird? considering how sort of fast things are going?). it was not at all like i imagined it. that’s not a bad thing by any means. i just had a different timbre, a different sort of tone in mind. only in my version, i didn’t do the real version any justice. not by a long shot.

3) somebody really should tell this poor girl that i’m not all that, because she apparently does not believe me when i say to her, “i’m not all that.” which i am most assuredly not, as a few of you know. beyond a shadow of a doubt, i should think. so please, for the sake of Truth, and yes even Justice, those of you who actually do in fact know me in real life, and especially anyone who has ever dated me, or even just witnessed me in the throes of actual dating, get in contact with her and let her know the honest truth. i’m okay with that. Truth is ALWAYS the best thing, and i will believe that until my dying day.

4) awwwww Lisa :(

5) awwwww Megan :(

6) awwwww Star :(

7) everything gets better in time. everything.

8) i love everybody!

9.3) good night….

LVX,
The Germ
a.k.a.,
Germ X

me being an asshole to a cracker

the Corinthian? gay??

Invisible Fence™ people came out today. fuck i just want it to end.

i am seriously thinking about starting to actually work on recoding all the changed URIs in the mars program. i am really actually considering it. yes, i am. i might even begin work on it.

i am hungry. i have a giant fucking submarine sandwich in the fridge out in the garage. i want to eat this giant fucking submarine sandwich that is in the fridge out in the garage. but it is much too large of a giant fucking submarine sandwich. ergo, i drink Slim*Fast™

in the future, the answers to every game show question will be brand names. the answers to academic tests will also be brand names. there will be so many brand names in circulation at that point that there will have to be a global brand name repository. recycling brand names will also be an issue.

from now on, i would like to be known by my new Real Name: x jeremy jarratt&trade brand organism. not quite as strong as Brand X, but twice as absorbent.

i want to live in San Francisco. or Berkeley. somewhere that i can fit in by not fitting in. i need an ocean, a city, and countryside nearby. and freaks. lots and lots of beautiful freaks.

i just heard Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough.” i melt everytime i hear that song. i hated her before that song came out. now? i would kill a man for that woman. it is Jewel who should be dragged out back and shot. honestly! why in the hell do people still allow that utterly talentless, snaggle-toothed hack to squirm and squeak around on FM Radio™ on the budget of a gargantuan record contract? boycott that awful bitch and get her over with. more Sheryl, less Jewel.

and now, for the Public Service Announcement™ portion of tonight’s metacast:
BoxedArt.com is not sending you those emails. they are from a competitor of theirs. trust me when i say this, and pass it on if you can – please.

i juss wanna pimp dis crazy bizjh…

thee_kaos_child fucking rocks. check out her bio. what a mad, mad genius. and lookit her art. fuck!

pure. fucking. genius. one of the most interesting and amazing people on the internet today.

ok, so now i’ve just moved all these files and all these folders and even renamed a few things and now i have to go and redo all the code that calls for these things. all the code that calls for these things.

all the code that calls for these.

THINGS!

in high school, i took a class called “data processing.” that’s one of the classes that aimercat and i had.

they handed us a packet. in this… class. in it were such bleeding edge novelties as punch cards.

punch.

…cards.

punch cards, people.

i think there MAY have been a mock-up of an artist’s rendering of a storage device then known in computer parlance among the truly elite as a <airquotes>“floppy disc.”</airquotes>

we never used those things. whatever they were.

mainly what they taught in that class was fucking typing, and how to fucking take jesus christing dictation.

so yeah, i’m computer literate.

LIKE AN ASS–CHIMP.

i’m going to take a backup and then i have zero excuses for not doing that massive reorganisation i mentioned earlier.

*shivers*

hahaha… best possible links i ever got!
one
two

DAMMIT! …i just checked, and that stupid code STILL hasn’t written itself!

grrrrrrrrrrr!

1. i lost my auto registration while cleaning out my car. or sometime before.
2. it’s still in The Shop. no idea when, what, why, or how much.
3. Paxity is going to be here on Friday the 13th!! it’s only two days before my granddad’s friend arrives, but that’s okay. whatever works for her. am happy :)

how stupid of me! all this time, it was right under my nose! i have this file, see? and the purpose of it is to sniff out the user’s platform and send the appropriate CSS for certain variables that are called in the dynamic CSS files for the various templates. so, for instance (and this is what it’s almost exclusively used for), if you were on Browser X, in Operating System Y (heh… “OS X” is already taken… stupid Apple), and looking at the “moon surface” template, the background for the text and menu blocks would be maybe a GIF, or a PNG, or an alpha filter… well, the problem is that to do this, i have a loop, and lots of things going on inside that loop.

i thought that i would have a separate include file for each of the several variations that i’m shooting for, that would be injected by the template detector… but this would have to be handled by logic within logic, which works, but isn’t the prettiest thing in the world to try and debug.

but it just now came to me that what i need to do is just have several of these sniffer files… one for each template… and the template detector would then pick up the correct one and use that… one shot, no mess! bonus! this would also decrease the size of the loops, since each one currently has the various code for several templates all at once… $tcss1a through $tcss9d (granted, with some gaping holes in between, but you get the idea). but this new way would have only the relevant code for the current template, and that’s it. simple, clean, and best of all, efficient!

sometimes things are a whole lot less complicated than they seem.

now, to get back to staring at the screen and waiting for code to write itself….

i’ve been staring at the computer screen all. day. long.

i know what i need to do, i just can’t do it. or maybe i just think i know what i’m doing, and really, i know that i only think that i know what i’m doing, and i don’t want to fuck anything up because i only thought i knew what i was doing but really didn’t know at all.

i just need to set some variables in a config file, include the config file, and call the variables as needed. i think.

crap. i hate computers.

and now, what started as a simple statement of fact, but quickly turned into a rather unintendedly antisocial rant about being tethered like a gimp to hitech communication software:

i’ve been on YM most of the night. right now i’m invisible, because i honestly fookin’ hate instant messaging. so don’t message me, unless there’s something we need to talk about, or you’re someone who i’m real interested in talking to anyway. no offense. i just hate instant messaging, that’s all. i don’t have the first iota of dislike for any person who’s ever messaged me. it’s the damn typing and feeling obligated to think of clever things to say to keep people interested, when i’m not even interested myself and honestly don’t care whether someone else is interested. give me a call if you want to talk to me. that way, much more will be said in far less time, and then we can both go about our lives. it’s the medium i can’t stand, not you. getting messages that demand my attention just grates on my nerves. i’m not a multitasker, regardless of what my resume claims. unless you’re hiring, in which case that’s only a lie i use to keep myself productive and happy and unaware of what’s going on in the great big scary world outside of my warm, safe cubicle. there’s a couple of exceptions… and if you think you might be one of them, then you are. if you think you’re probably not, then you’re also correct. if you really want to talk badly, and i’m online, message me. otherwise, i’ll assume that you’re already busy with something and i’ll never ever message you, because even if i’d like to talk to you, i still hate instant messaging, and i also hate bugging people who don’t really feel like talking to me, which is also why i will never ever pick up a telephone and make a phone call.

also, i will never let you know when i am going to drop by your apartment, either. i just show up, because i’m lazy and selfish and i think the world revolves around me. but don’t be afraid to turn me away like a sick wet three-legged dog, either. i don’t want to be around you when you don’t want to be around me. and when you want to come over, don’t call first if you don’t need to. you are always welcome at my house.

if you ever send me a letter i will not open it unless it has a funny stamp, or a quick sketch on it; plus the name “Buster Brown” must be in the return address. otherwise, how do i know it’s really you sending it? and i never, ever open emails that don’t have all of my email addresses CC’d (@Hotmail must be BCC’d however), and the subject line must include the word “forbidden”. but if you email me regarding any sort of upcoming even you’d like for me to attend, then you must change your reply-to address so that it looks like it came from some celebrity (any one will do – just make up something, but make it look believable!). if it’s a thursday afternoon, be forewarned: none of these things matter and i will hang up, shut the door, log off, delete, or otherwise ignore you completely.

if these simple rules are not followed to the letter, i will quickly lose interest and experience an onslaught of narcolepsy, which i otherwise don’t suffer from.

jesus christ… i’m so picky about protocol it’s actually kind of funny, except that it’s really sad and pathetic.

ok, look, i’m not really this antisocial… i just hate instant messaging. it just bugs me, that’s all. that’s all!

this whole mars thing is becoming really really complicated. and in a way, i feel sort of shameful that all the work is being done on the backend, so that you can’t even tell there’s any difference at all. of course, that’s also a really good thing.

right now i’m working on a method of telling the thing what to do in case of any special requirements a template might have, such as the extra content it serves up in the case of a template that uses CSS alpha filters, viewed via Internet Explorer, which causes text to appear dim, owing to shitty inheritance control on behalf of Microsoft… which requires that a separate layer of opaque content be layered exactly on top of the original content.

that’s just one example. in the past, i had it set up so that the browser was detected, then the routine checked a set of predefined variables and determined whether or not to perform a certain action. this relied on the template names to be hard-coded into the script… which works fine, except that adding new themes requires the admin to edit files, which is not what i want. i wanted it to be easier than that.

so right now, all themes are detected via reading from a directory to see what folders there are, and whatever those folders are named, no matter how many there are, are what gets inserted into much of the system’s scripts.

it’s going rather splendidly, actually, except that it’s slow going. but so far things seem to work just fine.

there are two other issues, however, that i need to address.

one- cookies store the name of the template. when the template name changes, which is the case with “mars” becoming “mars_surface”, and “lair” becoming “the_mantis-_lair” (a move i made to make it easier to prettify the names for output into, say, the skin selector jumpbox), the system doesn’t know what to do, and loads of errors result… because there IS no longer a file or folder with the old names.

at first, i tried to code a routine that would set and check the value of a cookie’s version #. this was a little unneccessarily awkward. so i have now decided that i will simply rename (delete and reset, actually) the damn cookie, and change all the scripts that call for the cookie to be read. and that’s that. i don’t foresee any problems with doing things that way whatsoever.

two- because this bugger is becoming so fucking complicated, there are now config folders, image folders with thematic subfolders, includes folders, et cetera… and i am now considering how much work it would take to just lump all of the template shit into one big damn folder with all the subfolders it could ever need or want.

meat-thing.com/marsdev (not real up-to-date, but again, the differences aren’t noticeable anyway)

so i can’t in good conscience encourage flooding to come down here because 1) she’s broke, 2) she’s got little to no long-distance solo driving experience, and 3) her car is sketchy at best, needs at least one new tire, and she has no tools or spare parts.

as much as i’d love to see my old friend, it just can’t happen until she’s better prepared.

i was totally going to mack on her, too… but that’s not a great idea at this point. heh. i don’t want to now anyway (for obvious reasons), so that’s ai’ight.

i do wish we could hang out and i could show her Yellow Springs, but not if it’s just a bad idea all the way round. foo!

i just wish that i hadn’t gotten all excited about the prospects of seeing my old friend. i hadn’t properly considered practical logistics. and i swear i had no idea how broke she was until just recently.

i just sent her an email telling her to save her money for tools and spare parts, and to go to Texas instead, where she will no doubt have a far better time anyway… i’m not worth coming to Ohio for, but down in Texas there is somebody who is worth a long drive for. for her anyway. am a little sad, but such is life.

and it wasn’t great timing on my part anyway… there’s going to be my uncle in town in a couple of weeks, and also my grandfather’s friend Mary around the same time. and i gotta have time for Paxity, too, at some point.

i definitely feel like i’ve been/am being selfish. i mean, wanting her to spend all her time and money just to come here and see stupid old me. and also because it must really look like i’m blowing her off to be with Pax, even though we already had plans before she came along. what else can i say or do, though? i mean, in good conscience? but for whatever reasons, good or bad, that Lisa will think i have, and whatever reasons i may actually have in fact, conscious or subconscious, the bottom line is no.

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and Matty, the puppydog, is velcro on me. she’s my grandfather’s puppydog. so i have to shut her out, too. which ALSO breaks my heart.

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my whole life has just been one caustic irony after another. i guess that’s what i get for signing a deal with a treacherous, no-good bastard like Cthulhu.

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so that’s that. i’m off to go scour through yet another sundayful of terrible Daytonian classified ads.

you should see her. she is so beautiful that sometimes i just want to cry in her lap. she’s bold and brave and intelligent and strange… i think that this is the first time in a while that i have really honestly looked forward to the Future. we’ll probably have to start a band or something… or become nomadic monk-poets… is there an entrance exam for becoming a sufi clown-mystic? (and is there such a thing as a sufi who is NOT a clown-mystic anyway?) i want to explore her deeply and passionately. i want to become her philonaut. i drink in every picture she sends and seeing the smiles pile up in Her folder just makes me shiver with delight. if i were a monkey, i’d be squealing, but i’m not so i sit here and count the hours and sigh. i breathe in the Pax-less air and accumulate wishes and hopes that she will come to me soon… yet even soon seems so distant, so far away. the number of laws i would willingly break for this woman is growing daily, although i’ll admit that i started out practically a felon in the first place.

someday i will hold her in my arms and we will read each other’s poetry and coo and smoke cigarettes lustily and play with our hands and after a while, make sick, perverted love all over the place.

i better buy some roses, and some plastic sheeting… and band-aids.