OK, I got my archives up, I’m pretty sure I’ve settled on a theme, and there are only a few minor details that probably only I notice. I think my work here, for tonight anyway, is done. I wanna put some screencaps from my sordid WoW days up, but that can wait.

June 24, 2004 | Sweet Merciful Crap

So after succumbing to peer pressure, I posted a swap on gmail swap. Within the same minute my post went up, I got two takers on my offer. I offered some postcards for a gmail invite. Not magic postcards. Just regular postcards from this dull area in which I live. Within about 10 seconds, less time then it took for me to actually write and post the message, I got two takers. That’s something.

Ahh, the power of cheese.

I mean, ahh, the power of the Internet.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 07:40 PM

June 22, 2004 | Workplace Adventures

Today was a hell of a day at work. Parking was a goat-bastid today. They closed off one of the auxilary parking lots that we had access to. Normally, when I get there in the mornings, there’s still plenty of spots in the main lot. Today, it was jam packed, so I had to go to a secondary, offsite lot, wait for a shuttle bus in the rain, and take 10 minutes for a 5 minute ride. So I wound up being a total of 20 mins late, and had to stay to make up the time. My employer states they do not gaurantee parking. Well, I don’t gaurantee being here on time, if that’s the case. Strangely, my employer choose not to see it that way. That parking thing just made me twitchy the whole day, and I was an even bigger snot today than I normally am. Well, if they hadn’t forced me to change my schedule, maybe I wouldn’t have been a snot, but who can tell? Speaking of schedule changes, I hear through the rumor mill that I may soon return to my nighttime funtime schedule. Mayhaps there is a daytime replacement for me forthcoming. Goddamn, but do I hope that’s the case.

In other news, Sir Batcat is sleeping on my bookshelf again. I wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t been snoring. That’s right, she was snoring. It’s cause she’s sick. Poor kitty cat.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 06:56 PM

Fun and Suck

Fun:
I decided on my new color scheme, as you can see. I have to go through and do my comments and archives to match, but the main page is at least done.

Suck:
Someone I knew just lost their spouse. I’m going to the funeral services tomorrow morning.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 01:14 AM

June 20, 2004 | Work work!

I’m working on a new color scheme, so if things look like you dropped a few too many tabs of acid for a little while, it’s because I’m not done yet.

EDIT (11:28 PM): Rest assured, the zaniness you see here is not my final answer. There is still much work to be done. Why is most of my speach pop culture/geek references?

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 10:59 AM

MOTHERFUCKER HA!

I totally owned the One Pixel Problem™. It was the dumbest and stupidest fix ever, and I even contemplated it in the past, but dismissed it as being too simple. “That’ll never work!” I said. But tonight, I tried it anway, and guess what? IT WORKED. What did I do? Observe:

margin-left:-1px

That’s it. That’s all it took. Move that shit over one pixel in the other direction. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to work like that, but it does. Who’s the chump now, CSS? Huh? WHO’S THE CHUMP NOW?!

In unrelated news, I added a fun language filter to the site. Expect so see some weird fucking posts in the future.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 01:54 AM

pwn3d b1tc43s!!!1one.

WE GOT THAT SHIT OWNED, BITCHES! MT IS WORKING EXTREMELY WELL AND THIS MEANS GOODBYE TO HALF ASSED REPLACEMENTS!

Although that wierd permissions problem which I’ve made no reference to prior hasn’t been completely solved, it doesn’t need to be at this point, although I’d like it to be. So, we’re back. To quote a song from the Ghostbuster II soundtrack:

We’re back!
We’re back to fight the evil,
we will never decieve you.

Ahem. I’ll cross that off my list of obscure things to references. Maybe I should post my list of weird things I want to do, but I get the feeling that doing that will drive away visitors rather than attract them. Not that I care, but why shoot my site in the nads if I don’t need to. Besides, My Twisted Mind has had enough kicks to the junk today.

I am now at the point I was yesterday evening. I have some minor bugs to work out with my site layout to make everything happy, but mostly this shit is up and running, as is Mangonuts. I’m glad to be sticking with Movable Type, because I was getting seriously annoyed with the alternatives. They were by and large lame, and many were startalingly(sp?) insecure. My archives, as I’ve mentioned previously are currently not on my server, but I’ll see if I can get those back up, and fix my One Pixel Problem™. Don’t know what that is? WELL TOO BAD. Open your eyes and look around.

I’m a cranky whore. LIKE YOUR MOM!

And while I’m at it, hey workplace? Fuck you.

EDIT:
So, I had another WEIRD ASS PROBLEM. I don’t know if it’s the script or the server, but some shit is seriosuly stupid here. It’s all working again, though.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 12:22 AM

June 19, 2004 | Huh

So I don’t know what the hell happened, but I fixed it. Then something else happened. I’m still fixed, but Mangonuts is not. So yeah. That blows, but it’s being worked on. My archives are gone, but I have a copy of them. Maybe I’ll try to manually reupload them, but I doubt it will happen, mainly cause I’m lazy. I still have other things to fix, anyway. So, off to fuck with my site and stuff involving it.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 03:39 PM

Oops

We’re having some technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 01:07 PM

08.23.04 | Scientific Progress goes BOINC

I’ve been running SETI@home for years. For 5.270 years, according to my user statistics page. It’s been fun. I like aliens. So now, after a five year mission to hear (through radio telescopes) what no man has heard before, SETI@home (AKA seti 1) is drawing near its end.

OR IS IT?!

Much like a caterpiller that gets slimy and yucky for a while and then becomes a butterfly, SETI@home is changing from it’s “Classic” client to a NEW AND IMPROVED client. This client is called the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, or BOINC for short. It’s developed by Berkeley (obviously) and these are the same people who ran/developed seti 1. BOINC isn’t just a new way of running SETI@home, it’s a new way of running multiple distributed computing projects on the same machine. Right now, SETI@home (AKA S@H) is starting to run off of that (although you can still use the classic client as they iron the bugs out of the new system), as is Predictor@home (AKA P@H). P@H is kind of like folding@home in that it folds protiens. But while folding@home is examining existing protiens to determine their structure, P@H is trying to develop a new model for protien folding that will give us more accurate representations of how the entire protien folding thing works. Sounds like a lot of fun to me, but I’m a geek.

Now, on August 26th, Climatepredictor.net is set to launch a program to use distrubuted computing to attempt to predict world climate for this century for some reason or other. So that makes 3 different DC projects that you can run at once if you have the BOINC client. Personally, I’m not gonna bother with the climate stuff, cause that’s not as cool as aliens and protiens.

OK, I’ve clearly gone all over the place and am just ranting at this point. Here’s what I’m trying to say:
I like S@H. I like P@H. I want to run both. Before I couldn’t run 2 or more DC projects, but with the magic of BOINC, I now can. Therefore, I am giddy with delight. I encourage all of you to sign up and run this software. DC only uses resources on your computer that you do not. It harneses your computer’s power for the greater good. THE GREATER GOOD, DAMNIT!

And on that note, I’ll be going now.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 11:34 PM

09.0504 | Kittens. 🙁

I want my fucking kittens back. 🙁

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 02:18 PM

09.0304 | gmail, s0n

I don’t know what happened, but yesterday gmail gave me 6 invites. I didn’t find anything hilarious on gmailswap.com, so if there’s anyone who actually reads this and wants one, e-mail me and I’ll send it your way. But you have to promise to read this site once a month. Not that I have any way of enforcing such a rediculous demand, but what’s the fun of giving something away without making foolhardy demands. Or something.

Also, I’ll be changing my color scheme again. Assuming I have time, it may even be done within the next month! And if you don’t see the banner graphic at the top of the page, refresh the page. For whatever reason, it’s doing its stupid not showing up thing again. I’m gonna try to insert a bit of DHTML and see if I can’t get it to frontload. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe not.

In closing, I hate buying textbooks.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 10:57 PM

10.01.04 | Shiny…

I like my new colors. Amazingly, I actually met the time frame I mentioned in my September 3rd post. I said I’d do it within a month, and I actually did. Just 2 days short of the deadline, but its an improvement when you consider I usually do these things two months past my arbitrary deadlines.

And now I’m going to try to do the Comments and Archives sections too!

EDIT: It seems as if I have an RSS feed and an Atom feed for this site. Since I’m only vaguely familiar with RSS and have no clue what Atom is, I couldn’t begin to tell you how they got here. My only guess would be that Movable Type put them there, and that they’ve always been there, and I just didn’t know how to access them. Well, I still don’t know how to access them. What I do know is that if you’re using the Firefox browser (Preview Version 1.0), then you will see an RSS icon appear in the status bar in the lower right hand corner. Click on it, and you can subscribe to either the RSS or Atom feeds and read them straight out of Firefox. I don’t think it matter which one you choose, since they seem to be the same thing. However, the colors are all wacky on them. I may be able to fix that, if I knew where the hell it was.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 03:18 PM

12.16.04 | Froogle is Scary: Part 1

Welcome to the first installment of Froogle is Scary. For any of you sassy harlots that don’t know what it is by now, Froogle is Google’s shopping search engine. It compares prices across the web and displays them when you search for an item. On Froogle’s main page, it lists a bunch of recently searched for items. I happened to be at Froogle a little while ago and saw this:

(thumbnail removed due to retarded html issue)

(Click for a full size image)

I’ve numbered the things I’d like to talk about today.

1) Inflatable kayak? INFLATABLE FUCKING KAYAK?! Let me tell you, as someone who’s had INTIMATE FUCKING EXPERIENCE with the normal, full, non inflatable variety, AND BARELY LIVED TO TELL THE TALE, this is not something you want. That’s like saying “I’d like an express ticket to the afterlife please!” FUCK YOU KAYAKS. They are deathtraps and nothing more!

(TO BE CONTINUED SHORTLY)

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 10:59 PM

09.26.05 | There is only one true god…

…and he is noodly.

Behold the Flying Spaghetti Monster and see the truth! I have been touched by His Noodly Appendage and am now a Pastafarian.

RAmen!

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 04:46 PM

09.04.05 | I broke it again

I’ve been wanting to migrate this site over to WordPress for a good long time now. The first time I tried to do it, I got the install scripts from the WordPress site, tried to install it, and broke everything. You remember that huge blackout that affected a large part of the country a few years back? Yeah, sorry about that.

I tried it again some months later, with similar effect. Luckily, no blackout this time. Still no WordPress, however. I gave up for the time being and became sad that I’d have to live with this rebuilding nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, Movable Type is great, but the rebuilding and waiting and tomfoolery after each entry is just a pain. I pined away for a working WordPress, or something similar.

It would seem my pining would not be in vain. Dreamhost, the best goddamn website hosting company evar!!!1 decided that they would (once again) read my mind and give me what I want. They made some widgety doodad thing in their web admin control panel that let me install WordPress in one fucking click. Really, it was more like 4 clicks, but that’s a hell of a lot easier than CHMODing shit and causing massive blackouts cause you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

But alas! My short lived victory would be all for naught!

The first time I installed it through Dreamhost, I screwed up some database thing and WordPress died. The second time I installed it, I fucked up the templates so bad, I wish I didn’t fuck up the templates so bad. Of course I forgot to keep a spare. WordPress died. The third attempt had me set up WordPress and do everything right, but then I accidentally deleted a file in the FTP thing and guess what? It seems WordPress didn’t like that so much.

WordPress: 5 – Me: 0.

Then I installed it AGAIN, and got everything working just fine and all was good. I was just too lazy to fix the template how I wanted it right away. Then it started languishing, then I got hooked on WoW, and here we are, 49284 versions of WordPress later. So I figured, “Why not just start over with the latest version, since I didn’t really do anything with the older one.”

WHY THE FUCK WOULD I THINK THAT?!

Score so far? WordPress: 7 – Me: 0.

But goddamn you, I’ll not let you win. The NORN Collective beat back “Rhode Island” after many glorious battles and I’ll be damned if I let WordPress wtfpwn me. So I’m sitting pretty with a new database for the new WordPress install. It’s not quite ready yet, but it will be. And then I’ll install it, import my old entries, and then it WILL fucking work. Why? Because I’m The Imperious Leader of The NORN Collective. Furthermore, I’m The Enforcer. And most importantly, I’m The Chief. How can I lose when I’ve picked up that many aliases? It is completely unsuportable! Infamy in the highest order! WordPress will be my bitch!

I hope. 🙁

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 09:48 AM

09.03.05 | Music is Good 2: Electric Boogaloo

In the true style of World of Warcraft I embarked on a quest earlier today entitled [62+] Thorium Plated Aucostomatic Audioblastic Amplifier. The details of said quest can be found in my previous post. (Translation: I went to get a new car stereo for a variety of reasons.) I am happy to report that I completed my quest and recieved quite a fine quest reward. What was this illustrious quest reward, you ask? It was a this. I should note that I didn’t get any subs or amps installed, nor did I switch out my speakers for some sort of neon lighted monstrosities. I don’t need to rattle my brain, and honestly, I like my stock speakers. They have an impressive amount of power and they give me all the soundy goodness I want.

I could rant and rave about how the sound quality is markedly better, or how sweet it looks, or any number of things, but I shall instead give you a bullet point list of why this new stereo is teh r0x0r my s0x0rs.

* The old stereo has made this annoying fucking buzzing sound for years that the VW dealership claims they don’t hear, even though the higher you make the volume, the louder the buzz. This new stereo has eliminated that buzz completely.
* My CD changer, currently located in the trunk, does not support mp3 CDs. Nor does it work reliably more than 40% of the time. This new stereo is able to play 1 CD in dash and it can read mp3s. While this isn’t of the biggest use to me, its nice to have the option.
* Cars that don’t have the old skool 31″ metal antenna use a small amplifier to beef up the signal the stubby little antenna recieves so it doesnt suck. The new stereo comes with a MUCH better amp that seems to give me a clearer signal and is able to recieve signals better than my old stereo could, even with my antenna unscrewed!
* This is purely a nonfunctional thing, but this new hotness is all rounded and shit and compliments the curves of my Beetle quite nicely. I was a little worried about how it would look, but it looks great.
* It comes with a wire dealy that hooks straight into my iRiver with no fooling around with any excess wires/parts/etc. and plays it as an external audio source. As the kids say, that shit sounds tight. Or something. But really, it sounds excellent.
* If my new Sony stereo thing was a woman, I would probably marry it.

So there you have it. My new stereo is a resounding success. My commutes to school will be so much nicer now that I dont have to fiddle with the stupid super cheap FM transmitter I had. That shit was ok when it worked right, but it got really annoying at times with it just deciding to drift between frequencies. I should also be able to save an assload of battery now since I don’t have to crank the volume on my iRiver just to hear it.

Now I just need someplace to drive to.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 10:17 PM

Music >> You

So I enjoy music. Specifically, I’m into electronica, but I’ll listen to just about anything that’s good. Recently I heard about a radio station in Brooklyn that has a live feed here. It’s some crazy island music or something, and there’s some stuff on there that I really like. Some of it is kinda blah, but they’ll have these stretches where they play this crazy good stuff that I’m now realizing isn’t why I’m typing this shit.

So yeah, I like music. What I don’t like, is the craptastic radio station junk. I also don’t like my nearly non functional car cd changer. What does this leave me with? A car stereo that I don’t really use. So I had an idea. “Hey, I have an mp3 player,” I said. “Why don’t I get one of those radio transmitter things and listen to it in the car?” So I got one. And it was good… almost. There’s this annoying fucking buzzing sound that I can’t get rid of. Also, the signal from the transmitter seems to “drift” in that it’ll start getting more and more static till I readjust it, and then its ok. But even then, it’s not really ok. It just pretends, cause whenever there’s a hihat hit or a singer says something with an “s” sound in it, the high end range breaks up. Sometimes I can fix this by switching stations and settings, but usually this is a futile effort. Not only that, but it really is a pain in the ass to be messing with this while I’m driving.

And so it was that I came to a decision. In a few moments, I will be heading out to a car audio shop to see if they can jimmy my current car stereo to replace the CD input with a set of RCA inputs, so I can hook my iRiver H-340 (which has sadly been discontinued by the manufacturer) directly to it. Failing that, I’m gonna have them replace the head unit with something that had RCA jacks. I know such things exist, cause I’ve been in cars that have them. Nissan Sentras actually have a radio that does this that comes standard with the car. So this is my plan. I may not have the pimpingest stereo in the world, but goddamn, I’ll at least be able to listen to my music in a trouble free manner.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 10:13 AM

And the wheel keeps turning… (or, Froogle is Scary: Part 2)

So yeah. I wanna say that I don’t really know what happened, but we all know that’s a lie. I always update a few times over the course of 1-2 months, then completely forget about the site for a million years, only to later remember “Oh yeah, I have this website thing.” So that last entry… uh… well, i don’t really know what I was planning to write for it. But if I had to guess, I’d say this:

(Note that the numbers below corrsepond to the numbered items in the picture)

2 (paraglider): OK, come on now. WTF? Who buys a fucking paraglider? I see crazy fucks do this on their vacations, and I have to wonder if they’re just trying to commit suicide and don’t have the balls to do it the real way.
3 (food dehydrator): Are we fucking astronauts now? If you’re buying so much goddamn food that you need to dehydrate it to store it (as that’s one of only two possible uses I can think of for this thing), than you’re even more of a fatass than me, and I assure you, that is no easy feat. If you’re one of those filthy hippies that thinks food tastes better when dehydrated, then you just need to turn in your tastebuds, then lay down and die.
4 (sundial): I don’t even know what to say to this. Who buys sundials? Don’t we have digital watches now? I seem to recall reading somewhere that digital watches were the pinacle of human ingenuity. Its probably some asshole buying it as a lawn ornament. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate people?

Edit: Holy shit, it’s been almost a year since I updated. I don’t think I’ve ever gone that long before. It might have something to do with this abomination, who’s clutches I just recently freed myself from.

Posted by Daljit of NORN at 12:03 AM

I think this is as good as this is gonna get. I’m working on replacing this site style with one of my own devious making, but that will likely take some time. I haven’t put up the old archives yet, but that’s because I don’t even know how to begin to fix that mess.

UPDATE: I’ve started reconstructing the archives. They don’t look exactly like the way WordPress makes its archives but they’re close enough that I don’t care. Just about all of the links and pictures are gonna be gone from them, but once again, I’m not really in the caring mood. At least its getting done.

OK, so it seems like I have the hang of this, sorta. The pirate theme is gone. It was fun, but too busy for my taste. I’ve got this other theme that looks like a… thing thats nice looking. I’m using this until I find some better placeholder theme or come up with one of my own. This one is nice and all, but it gives me the impression that I’m not good enough to visit this site. And considering I’m like the only one who does, that’s probably not good. 🙁

So like, Movable Type totally ate itself. Fucken program is worthless. I’m using WordPress now and I HAVE A PIRATE THEME! There’s other themes too, so i’ll probably by swapping them around like a theme-whore or something. At least until I come up with my own design. If I stop being lazy. Maybe. I’m gonna try to make the archives be here somewhere, but really, I have no idea how this shit works.