Category: Connections

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

November 14, 2003 /

Work has been a tomb this afternoon–those of the developers who aren’t out with new babies are out watching Master and Commander or just avoiding the gloomy weather. I, as one of those unfortunates who’s still paid by the hour, don’t get to sneak out early, and I can’t do anything else on my project right now until somebody who’s gone gets back to me.

I’m kind of stuck for content on here lately, because it’s a strongly routined November so far–time passes quickly, but there’s not a lot of excitement or danger to be had. At work I run queries, wait on those queries, try to fix those queries so they won’t fail again, and repeat; at school I learn useful things, but they’re about as enthralling as you’d expect from a graduate comp sci schedule that’s heavy on algorithms. (Well, I had fun with string search, but I’m not going to write an entry about it.) And on Wednesdays I play Grand Theft Auto.

When I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for mean ol’ queries to yell at me, though, I keep finding myself at William Wu’s Riddles (via vitanuova). A lot of the riddles there are the kinds of problems I was given as “fun” challenges at Gifted Student stuff when I was younger, and at which I was completely horrible. I find that now, at 22 (and without a competitive atmosphere), I actually consider them fun and worthwhile. I still expend lots of time and effort on solving even the stuff in the easy section, but it’s a great payoff when I get one. The only letdown is that I immediately want to show this off to somebody, but a) that’s lame, they’re easy and b) that kind of defeats the point of a riddle site.

If I get a little more motivation under me, though, I hopefully will be able to reuse some of this knowledge in the next six weeks, as I insanely try to design an RPG system. Those of you nerds who read this but not Crummy: want in?

October 25, 2003 /

I found this thread about messing up your child’s vocabulary a while ago, but I guess I never posted it. I think it’s great, because a) it uses the word “xorph” and b) I plan to do that stuff to my kids all the time.

Well, actually I plan to do that stuff to Jon and Amanda’s kids first. If necessary, I will create props.

Small Brasfield: Mommy, can we go to the store and get some more Super Snot? We used it all.
Amanda: Get some more what?
Small Brasfield: Super Snot! The stuff you use to stick things together.
Jon: You mean glue?
Small Brasfield: Uncle Brendan told me it’s really called Super Snot! He showed me in a book.
Amanda: Okay, listen carefully. From now on you can’t trust books Uncle Brendan gives you. Okay?
Small Brasfield: I can’t trust the Bible?
Amanda: (begins smoking from her ears)
Jon: Wait. How did you use up all your Sup–your glue?
Small Brasfield: Uncle Brendan showed me how to make Smaller Brasfield’s hair look really cool!

After that, Jon and Amanda should have the messing-up-my-kids part well in hand.

October 21, 2003 /

I’m glad I have a reason to talk about NewsBruiser again, because I’m on the front page! No, actually I want to talk about NewsBruiser because Leonard’s had version 2.0 (“Master Planarian”) out for weeks and I need to install it. Except I don’t want to install it, because a) NewsBruiser installations have traditionally been nightmarish for me (this is due to my hosts and my own incompetence, not NewsBruiser), and b) it has comments. NewsBruiser with comments! It’ll be anarchy!

Sumana and I had a conversation this morning about said comments, and about Leonard’s implementation of Bayesian heuristics in NewsBruiser. We agree that it’s capable of preventing comment spam, but I argued that it can’t entirely prevent tar pit syndrome, because it can’t filter out stupid. Sumana argued that it can. And then we jousted. No, actually we exchanged spam jokes.

(Yes, I know you can just turn off comments, I’m just whining. And yes, I do have a forum and am thus technically already sinking into a tar pit. However, you’ll note that the definition of the tar pit theory clearly states that “as long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe.” The only people who actually post there came from AZWP anyway, so I’m totally slopy.)

I do need to install 2.0, actually, so I can do trackbacks. I really don’t understand trackbacks, but they sound like they have something to do with RSS feeds or referrer logs, so I must consume them! Speaking of RSS feeds, I’m turning into an RSS evangelist like all the RSS early adopters, and I should be shot. And speaking of referrer logs, Cody Powell responded just as I planned to my goulash bait, and proceeded to write an entry about Cracked vs. MAD, which is a topic I was thinking about just this morning, during my pseudobreakfast. CODY POWELL CAN SEE INTO MY BRAIN.

October 18, 2003 /

I stood in the bathroom and I had to snap my fingers to get the automatic soap dispenser to ejaculate into my hand, and I was thinking about how the other people in the room all paid a thousand dollars to see this show, and I got in for free, and there we all were together, peeing.

I sat in row H of the lower balcony and watched the Gala Premier of The Lion King tour in Louisville, and it was really actually as good as it’s made out to be, even on tour. It’s stylistically and technically excellent, with the kind of transparency of production that I really admire and want to be able to do, someday.

I need to explain now how I got into this black-tie-only red-carpet Kentucky Center 20th Anniversary show, which is that I have Connections. And now I need to explain how I have said Connections, which is that I’ve been rehearsing for a few weeks with the Project Improv apprentices company (my life is filled with improv). I haven’t talked about it in here because I wasn’t really sure how far I wanted to go with it–acting’s not something in which I’m really interested at this point in my life, and I’ve never actually been very good at improv. Yet I keep coming back to rehearsals. I guess I’m kind of in.

The PI troupe proper, by and large, works in the Kentucky Center; their kindness and their comp tickets extend to their adopted apprentices, and so we ended up standing nervously and giggling in the middle of people with free food and champagne. I could have hit the mayor of Louisville (who currently wields considerably more power than, say, our governor) with a rock. I have no reason to hit him with anything, I’m just saying.

It was a good show, anyway, and I got to try out my fancy new black blazer for the first time. I didn’t really want to walk up the red carpet, lined with photographers and drummers and giant puppets, on the way in. But I did on the way out.

October 7, 2003 /

Dr. Imam has just mentioned that apparently, he knows “bishops” in chess as “elephants.”

I will never refer to them as “bishops” again.