inbetween

"Tonight on News-16: A fourth Harry Potter movie is in the works, featuring his first love" followed by a cut to a shot of Hagrid!

Mother's day. Blech. Why don't they just admit it and call it Hallmark Day #3? I've never liked holidays, and greeting cards make me angry. Who the hell needs a disposable greeting card to express feelings for someone? The Simpsons had "Love Day." The entire episode made me giddy with joy.

As I was driving Granny home from the ridiculous ordeal, she pointedly pointed out (while admitting that she shouldn't say anything) that my Mother didn't seem to have a good day. I should have gotten her something; I should have given her a card! Waking twice in the night to adjust her blankets isn't enough. Interrupting whatever I'm doing every twenty minutes to dial her phone, change the channel, or open a window for some air (only to close it ten minutes earlier) doesn't show enough of how I care. I must give her a wasted piece of paper expressing some strangers feelings for her.

I was angry.

So I came home. What else is one to do. Ben tried to console me, but it did little good. That angry, evil old woman upset me.

And just now, as I was adjusting the position of her hand for the second time tonight, mother said to me, "I hope your grandma didn't upset you." I could hear the lowercase usage of grandma in her voice. "She was upset that I didn't get anything, but I'm not. I know how much you do for me, and I know how important your presence is to me. I hope you know how glad I am that you are still here."

And now I feel better, except I'm even angrier at the meddling old crony.

Wired News: Designer Virus Stalks HIV

BERKELEY, California -- It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student to develop a potential treatment for AIDS. And that scares them.

It scares me too. Could a cure for one of the most frightening, incurable diseases possibly be that easy? Could it be that cheap?

Will a drug company charge $40,000/year for treatment? Probably.

Tuesday: A mash of images and sounds, lots of friends and Ben. And they all liked him more than me.
Wednesday: I was the richest man on Earth, took joy in firing people, but had an environmentally and socially sustainable company.
Thursday: More images mashing together, but just the sound of a dentist drill in the background. I woke in a cold sweat. There was lots of red.

I know it is an important event, both politically and socially. We got a lot of great press coverage (always nice to see my name in print) and things did go well.

But I'm unhappy about it and I don't know why. Shawna didn't like the music (if it was undanceable, why where people dancing?), and her boyfriend was bored. Fair enough, so was I at times.

Unfortunately, there was a fair bit more criticism from people who didn't help out. We got everything from, "There was too much drinking," to "There should have been an open bar," and "This is just too mainstream for my liking!" I don't get that last one. Stupid kids, get off my lawn.

Mostly, the kids were greatful for an event of its kind. There were of course those memorable few irresponsible miscrents breaking up the place, trying to catch the fish, feed the monkeys, and choke the flamingo. Why is basic respect such a foreign concept to so much of our youth these days?

I'm probably being too harsh on the Prom. There were some spectacular dresses, and it was genuinely a new experience for a few people. There were some very kind expressions of gratitude. All the volunteers were great and helpful.

His name is Dante. He is a red, male Beta.

He seems very happy, and is even a little hungry. Yay. Pictures to follow.

very technical. do you really want to read this?

I would like some sort of automatic trackback ping thingy to happen when someone creates a new post. That would make me very happy.

I would like some sort of "xmlrpc ping receiver" for movabletype. I might be able to create one, but I don't really know where to start in the documentation. The docs are not very clear on "xmlrpc ping" stuff.

I'm going to create a movabletype pluggin for counting visitors to a blog page. It should be easy enough. I figure I'll need two files. pagecounter.pl is the actual pluggin, which just inserts an SSI inplace of the eventual tags. The second file is a simple cgi which either counts the pages and stores the counts somehow, or spits up the page counts for all to see. Cool, eh?

Having figured out enough of the MT pluggin API, it shouldn't be too difficult to create some sort of author info pluggin page so that when a post says, "posted by ben" there is a link to some info about Ben. It isn't going to be as easy. There will need to be a way for Ben to edit the "about ben" information, and it will need to be occasionally rebuilt.

Then creating something to automagically add a copyright notice shouldn't be too difficult, although I should create a quick and dirty hack to get it done sooner, rather than later.

Then a contact pluggin, so that interested readers can send an email to the authors, without the authors email addresses appear in public.

That's a lot of stuff to do.

Sitting around somewhere in an office. A doctors office, and I am not sitting. I'm working. It is the doctors office I worked a summer in. Very busy. The doctor is really the vampire from Van Helsig and we are in a very large mansion. The stairs go everywhere and no where. I develop magical powers and the dream becomes lucid!

We fight with swords, then rope. I chase him. He chases me. I kill a bunch of his minions, all in tuxedos and each one a sexy bastard. In the background I hear the jaws theme, turn around and see him behind me, playing the cello.

I pick up the double bass behind me a play. We duel (like dueling banjos, but vampire vs. vampire killer instead of hillbillies), circling around each other. At first we're just playing simple melodies (and I can still remember the melodies. I actually heard them in the dream.) then harmonies. And soon were playing in running thirds and and full chords. The sweat falls from my brow as I play a long, running scale.

It sounds fantastic. There is an orchestra behind us, an audience in front of us. Hearts are pounding the music crescendos. The beat quickens. The concerto comes to a raging conclusion with a magnificent high note as I plunge my bow deep into the vampires heart. The audience leaps to its feet, applauding.

I wake in the dark and kiss Ben. My heart races as he lies next to me in blissful, peaceful slumber.

The more I blog about my dreams, the more I seem to remember. The dreams have been more vivid and a little more lucid. I especially like the flying through the mansion, chasing vampire bad-guys with a big sword. I don't wake up feeling as rested as usual, although I do think it is worth it.

I've decided to try a little experiment.

Anonymous comments are enabled for this post. Please use them. Post anonymously. Post anything you wish. Comment on the blog, the website, my hair colour, anything. I really would like to know what will happen.

Feel free to post a story about you, or me, or your favourite TV show.

Just promise that you'll be honest, ok?

This will suck if nobody comments. Make a comment, ok?

First day of work today: very long. I've grown accustomed to waking at eleven, and rising from bed at noon. The transition has not been an easy one. I plan to be asleep tonight by eleven, twlight be damned.

I'm happy to be working; the paycheck will be good.

I work for a small software company. I'm a software testing psuedo-coop student: the lowest of the low. Very fun and interesting people work there, which is always good. I wonder how long the bug-hunting will go before I grow weary of it.

The drive to work is ok. Its about 15 minutes to get there in the morning and a half hour to get back. I have an office that feels like a hallway/server room. The walls are painted baby blue. There is a very loud fan in one of the three computers.