I love it when it gets to be fall. I really miss the fall in MN since it's always so beautiful there. But one thing that's universal about fall is the advent of more cheap candy. I can go buy entire bags of the stuff for like a dollar. Man, it doesn't get better than that. I think Republicans are exactly the same as Democrats currently. They're all a bunch of lying sacks of shit. Neither of the two candidates for the upcoming election deserve to be voted for. G W Bush is a flaming moron. The guy can't lead
September 2004 Archives
Outside my window, there are some white clouds. I wonder what they are hiding inside of them. They're so big and poofy, there could be entire civilizations living in those clouds and I'd never know it. My guess is that the only thing inside of the white clouds are more white clouds... Outside of my window there is a pretty green tree. It's green now because it's summer... but winter is around the corner and soon my pretty green tree will turn a pale brown. But don't be sad for the tree. It'll come back to life again once old
So I've been talking with one of our customers and we're going to start a new OSS project. Anyone who uses RB is welcome to participate. Basically, we're going to port the Win32 APIs straight into RB modules so you can do things like: User32.CreateWindowEx(...) Kernel32.OpenMutex(..) from within RB. This is a different project than the Win32 Declare Library (which I think is going to get a naming over-haul so the distinction is more clear; more on that later). The decl library is mostly a collection of useful utilities. It packages up multiple APIs to do something useful. The API
Our UDP sockets broke on Windows 98... again... today. So let me tell you exactly what makes Microsoft such a pain in the ass to deal with. Microsoft stole its networking stack from BSD ages ago and so the WinSock APIs are supposed to be Berkely Socket compatible (BSD sockets). This means that I should be able to write code that works on Windows, Linux and OS X without having to change a thing. Well... it comes close. The only problem is that Microsoft chose to leave some APIs out until WinSock 2.0 (and some APIs are still not there
So I released the latest version of the Win32 Declare Library (up to 1.7 now) tonight. I have the feeling it's going to be the last release for a while. Don't worry! I'll still be adding new features and doing bug fixes, etc. I just think it's being released too often. I have some very special plans for version 2.0 (that happen to coincide with some awesome new features of RB 6), so I don't want people to think v2.0 is just a natural extension of v1.9 ;-) I may just throw a monkeywrench in everyone's world and name the
So I realized over the weekend just why I hate web programming so much. It's because I tend to work on my webpage when it starts feeling outdated (which is about every year or two). When I make the web page, I try to use the latest technologies available to me which means I need to go out and learn new things. By doing so, I can have a modern looking, decent webpage. But web technologies change so damn much and are so fragile that every time I have to update my webpage to make it look like I'm not
Well, I spent my entire weekend doing almost nothing but web programming. And what do I have to show for it? A new homepage! I think I dumped a good 15-20 hours into the new site, but if you ask me, it looks much more professional now. Everything seems to be working out on it (aside from minor IE display glitches, but that's just one more reason to go get Firefox (since it is a far superior web browser). So let me know what you think of the new site. Also, be sure to report any problems with it to
So it ended up being a longer day that I had planned. Lis and I went out to the zoo she works at. It was a blast! I got to see the serval she's training... he's adorable! Servals are like big cats -- they're not big like tigers, but they're a lot larger than a house cat. Very tall, very skinny with long ears. Cute as hell! And I got to go see the emus, longhorns and other stuff that they don't really display to everyone. It was a blast, I got to feel like I was a zookeeper for
Well, today's another day. I guess I didn't sleep too well last night cuz I'm dragging ass this morning. I think today I'm going to work on a few projects. For example, I am sure I'll put another few hours into the new website design. Things are progressing nicely with it -- I have the programming section all taken care of. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the site and whether my design is correct. The other project I am thinking of working on is starting an automated GUI testing API. So
Well, it's been an interesting day so far. Yeesh! First off, I'd like to clarify a point I made in my last post. It seems that I used the word "jealous" a little too hastily. By jealous, I wasn't meaning "gee, I wish I was that lucky lad". It was meant more as a "I hope that lad realizes how lucky he is and treats her damn well". I am very happy dating Lis and have no interest in dating anyone else. I'm sorry if anyone took that post the wrong way -- it was just a poor choice of
I just noticed this morning that there's no humanly possible way for me to be anything but happy when there is a cat on my lap purring. I was trying to be angry just to see if I could do it... and I can't! Pixel's just too damn cute to ever be mad at when she's purring. So on the way into work today I stopped off at Rudy's to get some breakfast...and who do I run into? SMOKEY! Yup, that's right... everyone's favorite pothead, 12-minute date girl. And the thing I find the most funny about my little encounter
Whoever stole one of my girlfriend's cinder blocks -- give it back please. I mean...come on. Who the hell steals a cinder block from a college kid's apartment? It's a CINDER BLOCK!! They cost like a dollar from any home improvement store (Home Depot is the best, shop only there), so it's not like this should be a high-theft item. This just proves to me that I don't belong in a big city. Where people can steal freaking chunks of concrete from directly in front of someone's apartment... That just makes no sense to me. This is the second time
So I woke up this morning with a killer headache and a strange sense of vertigo. LoL, I think three hours straight of chasing that damned little blue ball must have sloshed my brain around a wee bit too much last night. After a breakfast of aspirin and breakfast croissants, I'm at least feeling a bit better -- the vertigo has gone away. Of course... my attention span is that of a 6 yr old after drinking a pint of mountain dew... Today's joy of work is finishing up another round of project manager fixes, and then probably going back
Oh! It was awful! There we were, at the zoo... and and and.. they were everywhere! With their huge claws and their beady eyes. Tortoises were swarming all over the place; attacking people left and right! It was utter carnage! I tried to run away, but there were so many people with the same idea. It was a mad rush for the only exit to the zoo. But everywhere the little green monsters were overtaking helpless victims and slaughtering them! You've never seen anything like it. I will try to describe one of the scenes that's still vivid in my
So after work tonight, I got together with Lis' little brother Lawrence to play some racquetball. We get together probably 2-3 times a week to play and we always have a blast. Well, tonight we started playing about 6:45, and got done playing about 9:00. Then Lis joined us and the three of us played until about 9:45. Hot damn am I tired and sore! I am usually pretty winded after playing, but tonight we played about an hour longer than usual and I can sure feel it. I must be getting old. ;-) Work went pretty well today --
So we use CodeWarrior here at work as our C/C++ dev IDE and it does some rather nasty things to you when you're not looking. I ran into one today: Boolean allowed = false; allowed = someFunc(); Boolean someFunc() { return true; } So you'd sure think that stepping thru this code in the debugger you'd see allowed = true after the call to someFunc. Well, a half-hour of head scratching later (because allowed was still reading false I finally realized what the issue was. About 20 lines further down from the someFunc call, we set allowed = false. CodeWarrior,
Well Lis and I celebrated one year together today. I ended up leaving work an hour early because I worked thru lunch -- so I wandered over to her place around 5ish. We hung out there for a little while and then went over to the Olive Garden for dinner. We had a very pleasant (and yummy!) dinner. We had plans of renting a movie and watching it, but Lis has a test to take tomorrow morning in stats. So we just hung out around the apt. After hanging out, Lis sat at my new kitchen "table" (that would be
So today is Elissa and my one year anniversary. And man, does time fly! I know I have a ton of good memories from dating Lis...and I'm pretty sure she has some good memories of dating me as well. ;-) I'd have to say the thing I appreciate most about Lis (as a girlfriend) is her seemingly infinite patience with me. I know I can be a stubborn ass some days, and I'm rather quirky in my life (who'da thunked it?) -- but she takes it all in stride and still cares for me in spite of my shortcomings. I
So I decided that I was sick of the sage-colored layout from before, and so I sunk a good few hours into making the new color scheme for Ramblings. I also changed the layout a little bit (such as removing the meta links from the menu on the sidebar) and rearranged stuff. A special thanks to Lis for taking time out of her busy studying schedule to help me pick colors! I am curious to know honest answers here -- what do you think of the new color scheme? Even if you've never seen it.. is it hideous? Do you
So I went back and read Classic Ramblings today while I was bored at work.. and I forgot just what a crackhead I was when I wrote those. LoL, they still make me laugh. Jon and I sat in the office and rolled while reading the ones about an intern we once had. LoL! I am thinking about whipping out the old templates and throwing together a couple of ramblings just to see. Anyone interested in the idea? I doubt it would be a regular thing as I just don't have the time (or the talent!) to do regular comic
So the weather is supposed to start getting better down here (read: I bought an OBD-II adapter so I can hook my laptop up to my trucks OBD interface, and I'm in the process of writing some software (using REALbasic) so that I can pull the diagnostic information. Basically, when the check engine light comes on, I want to be able to plug my laptop in and say "oh, this is the problem". The other cool feature is that it can tell me stats about how the engine is performing. It's just been too damn hot this summer for me
And so another Monday starts. The damn cat woke me up about 6am because she wanted some attention. And let me tell you… when I say “woke me up", I don’t mean a pleasant gentle shaking. And I don’t mean my body drifting awake to the smell of bacon cooking in the kitchen. No… I mean I wake up with a start because the little shit let out a blood curdling meow and then proceeded to tear throughout the house at top speeds – jolting me awake. If she wasn’t so adorable most of the time, she’d have my
Lis just left -- we spent the night reviewing for a genetics test she has to take tomorrow. It was rather quite fun. I like surprising her with the random facts that I know, and I know enough about genetics to keep her on her toes. I remember a lot of stuff from my GA and GP days, and I took a basic level biology course at SCSU that covered a lot of this stuff. She (obviously) knows it in much greater detail (being a biology major and all) than I do, but she's always shocked at the amount of
So I've been working on some new additions to the Win32 Declare Library, and I have some fairly grand plans for where to take the project when RBv6 comes out. But I find myself lacking in new ideas for things to implement. There are a few holes that I am trying to patch up in the current version of the library, and I'm starting to add more common controls that I run across -- but I'm really just looking for new ideas. So do you have any ideas on what to add? I must admit, I am a bit disappointed
As I am sure you are all painfully aware, my web programming skills are very blunt. I pretty much suck at making web pages (note the color scheme on my main page and the old ramblings page if you think I am joking). I am looking for someone who's willing to make the new blog site look prettier for about zero benefit. Basically, the whole site is setup using PHP (which I can read and understand somewhat) and I just need someone to go thru and make everything a little cleaner. For exampe, I hate the way the comments section
That's right, I finally decided that it was time to bring Ramblings back. Some of you may be disappointed to learn that the new Ramblings isn't going to focus on the web comic, but you'll also be the same losers who are over-joyed to hear that I will occasionally be posting some new comics. Hopefully everyone enjoys the new blogging format that I've chosen. I'm sure the look and feel of the website are going to change as I delve deeper and deeper into the blogging software that I have (or until I can find a friend awesome enough to
