Right. So THAT didn't work, but here's another shot at it... Exciting, no? I had the php function substr listed as merely str... which doesn't work...

I spent a good portion of today writing a RSS generating script in PHP. In theory this should provide a RSS feed to accompany my blogging software... In fact, this post should be the first post to automatically generate a RSS entry... Fingers crossed. You may see a lot of posts like this one.

Suddenly everyone in the family is getting sick, one after another. Luckily it seems to be a 24-hours-or-less affair... But still...

In other reports life's constant struggle to better oneself has been uphill as of late. I think my spelling and memory are both getting worse. But I'm keeping Webster's near, and I think writing thinks down weakens my memory. Maybe I need to spend more time absorbed in pure thought. Or reading.

Blogging may continue to be light throughout the week. I've got some work to do.

Beautiful use of sneer quotes here!

And sometimes ya gotta just bust out the top shelf stuff...

(It's the eighth down o nthe list, at least at the time of printing...)

Highland Park, Bicentenary 200 Golden Years, Tube, 21Y-1977.

This gracious lady made a present of it to me once upon a time, in exchange for some computer work...

Dig it.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

It starts off slow, and just builds up and builds up...

I found (and suprised) two spiders that were guarding the commode at 1700 hours. That's two more spiders who've gone to that great web in the sky. I have a feeling that the tide has turned, and that we are riding it all the way to victory! Die arachnids, die!

Sidenote: I've been inside too long.

A good rundown of the mp3 format and common players, with a caveat emptor about DRM'd music here.

"When I was your age, television was called books!"

- The Princess Bride

So the war against the spiders rages on. We made an attack on the "big momma," but it got away. Yesterday I killed a little one, but Little Brother Joe got a bite on his bum last night, so that makes us even with the spiders. Joe has now moved his bed six inches away from the wall, in hopes of preventing any further midnight attacks.

In lieu of actually blogging, I have spent quite a bit of time today working on the code behind my blogging program. It has gotten a lot closer to completion, and soon I will release it out into the wild...

Note the new functionality of the archives, categories, etc, on the side bar. --->>>

We are fighting a battle against spiders! Giant spiders!

You can tell I'm back into blogging (somewhat) because the entire front page of my site is taken up with posts from TWO days...

So much discussion of Thomas Aquinas College and drinking to be found here!

I don't know the person who pens that blog, and I must confess I didn't read the whole post - it felt tedious, but I certainly know about TAC and drinking. And in an old school way, related to the folks who are there now and who were expressing their sentiments on that post...

I visited UCLA and TAC for the first time on the same trip. I may be the only one to pound a fo'ty and hang out in the 400 one day, and then get sloppy at a UCLA frat party the next. That was more than six years ago.

Hey, why don't all you summer hooligans at That Arrogant College get together and form one SUPERBLOG where all of you can post as contributing authors!?

I think that would be WONDERFUL or THE BESTEST or AWESOME, or sumthing like that...

Then all of you LAZY CLOWNS struggling artistes who are only posting once a month can still be appreciated. And loved. And cherished. Or something like that.

Let me know.

We could call it... the TAC Summer Blog. Or the SuperSummerBlog. Or...or...

(sound of sedative/tranquilizer dart from concerned/nearby family member hitting Dz in the back of the neck, and shortly thereafter the sound of Dz's head hitting the keyboard)

bsjykdlo.khfs.

...

...is two trackballs, one on either side of the keyboard.

So, eight days ago (that would be last thursday) I had surgery to remove a mass of tissue from the right side of my chest. The offical, medical name of the condition that I had was "Woman-like breast", of the right side.

So anyways, that's why I've been "laying low" this past week, recovering. It was a full on, knock-you-all-the-way-out, insurance-is-paying-for-it affair. They removed a huge clump of hardened tissue, benign.

I a l m o s t just dropped down and did a set of thirty-five pushups - which tells you that I'm almost all the way recovered - but didn't, which is good because I'd proabably have ripped some stiches out or something.

Achilles thinks I should get a T-shirt that says "I had breast-reduction surgery!" on the front, and "No, really! I did!" on the back.

I find the whole thing hilarious.

I'll be back to full physical activity in another 2-3 weeks...

So I'm doing computer consulting from home, on the phone, and so forth...

It doesn't help when YOU have a computer in the office that you are playing support desk for... I mean ME... MY... Damn Microsoft!

Speaking of healthy eatin'... Southern style...

The pursuit of health in mind and body ought to comprehend the whole diet, both physical and psychological...

As a first step in eating healthy, one ought to eliminate candy, soda, white (non-nutritive) bread products, and other sources of excess sugar...

BAGELS ARE BAD FOR YOU!

At least most of them...

Well, I installed a 60-gig hard drive and another gig of ram into my tablet pc, reinstalled windows(xp pro tablet edition 2005), and it's finally running at a reasonable (warp) speed. A integrated bluetooth module, custom-designed for the tc1100, has been ordered and is enroute. So the tech-nightmare ofgetting it up to speed (now a 6-month process) is almost complete. and it's a great piece of hardware.

- Psalm A54

There are two settings you can change in WinAmp (at least in Version 5) that, when combined, allow you to experience true gapless play - all without the use of complicated 3rd party plugins.

Launch Winamp. Go to Options >>> Preferences >>> Plug-Ins >>> Output >>> Direct Sound Output >>> Configure.

On the Buffering tab, adjust the Buffer-Ahead on track changes to a higher value. Somewhere around 5000ms seems to work well for most people. You may have to adjust the Buffer Length to accomodate this setting (Buffer Length limits the maximum value of individual buffers).

On the Other tab, Click the remove silence at the beginning / end of track option.

This should establish true gapless play, sans additional plugins


Thanks to these guys.

We've always thought that the Turrentine name came from a mis-spelling of the Italian "Turrentino"... And all the records of the Turrentine Brothers were burnt in a fire in Cork County, Ireland, in the 18th century, which left us not knowing why we were here, in America, with Irish blood and an Italian last name.

But perhaps this will shed some light. Perhaps "Turkington" and "Turrentine" are related.

Were those guys Northern Irish, though?

We had General Interest, Major Ity, and missed Colonel Sanders (from JFK!) at dinner tonight.

What people don't understand by-and-large in Western medicine is that psychological things cause chemical changes in people's bodies, then people treat those chemical changes symptomatically, never striking at the core of the problem.

We all ate dinner as a family today, first time in a while...

I've been writing a lot and thinking a lot, but not sharing very much of it with you. For reasons that I will explain.

I know this is "a very controversial subject," but what is the definition of marriage that these people are proposing that will include same-sex relations within it?

The only definition of marriage that I know of is the commitment between a man a woman, to give their lives to each other for their own good and to raise and educate their children... This commitment is an act of love... And their union is one of love...

The reason that civilization is interested in marriage (as an institution) is because the civilization is interested in the (1) well-being of its citizens, and (2) their offspring (future citizens).

You should never let your dictionary gather dust. My trusty Websters sits ever-handy at my keyboard's side...

I think people ought to be apprenticed to a tradesman when they are 13 or 14 years old.

We could alleviate a lot of the misery of the unproductive teenage/high school years, as well as provide folks with an instruction in diligence and practice - skills and attitudes that people NEED desperately in the rest of their lives.

That is, if we could find enough honest, skilled tradesmen to apprentice the children to...

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

0% Yankee

At least I'm not a damn Yank. According to the internet.

Why don't I own a djembe?!!


I was shopping* for them a few months? years? ago...



*by shopping, of course, I mean sitting at the computer, and doing something other than blogging...

I haven't been doing a whole lot these last few days.

Staying at home, working from time to time, in little bursts - the odd phone call, tech support email, taking naps, reading... just generally taking it easy.

I've been reading quite a bit of Edward Abbey, and danger will robinson, I just ran across a website that *gasp* sells all his books. My bank account shudders.

Eighty bucks for a Front AUX in CD head unit with plenty of power.

That's pretty good. No mp3, though.

I want an old Martin guitar like this one, bad.

- Emmylou Harris, Someone like you

- Bob Dylan, Mixed Up Confusion

...so my brothers routinely hang out in my room, wander around, and inevitably, inexplicably leave their footwear somewhere in the room...

...this time it was a 5 minute visit, and a pair of socks...

Just remember children, cigarettes are an outdoor pest pet...

...at least except for 3 places in California, one of which is the F's house...

...the second is The Hilltop... your friendly Oak View bar...

...and the third is the "smoking room" at LAX...

GUI Design will find it's way into an Art Museum one day. Right next to C/C++ code. Mark my words.

...a pretty decent amount of functionality into a sexy body...

Oh. Blast. It's some sort of tech gadget. Damn.

I've been ... uh, augmenting ... my digital music collection over the last few days. (And it's PERFECTLY LEGAL to backup your cds to your computer, ya know...)

Here's a run down of the correct programs to use for this sort of endeavor.

First use Exact Audio Copy to rip a wav/cue image of the cd.

Then use Monkey's Audio to encode the wav file to a ape file. Rename the files and edit the cue file appropriately.

Use Winamp with the Monkey Audio Plugin (installed with the other Monkey software) and the CUE Player plugin.

Now some people have be touting FLAC as an alternative to Monkey's, with the added benefit that it is becoming play-able on mp3 players... I haven't looked into it, but you may want to, before you convert all of your cds into lossless...

And I'm renaming the album folders on my hard drive so they start with the year they were made...

In true Memorial Day fashion, my family is watching Patton.

The Random Englishman cycled over from the city to hang out for a bit. We grabbed lawn chairs and sat out front in the sun, talked, and had tea. A concerned little brother laughingly placed orange construction cones around the front of the driveway so that an unemployed little brother didn't kill us when he came roaring home in the blue Volvo.

"Do one thing everyday that scares you," turns out to be just stepping out of the house, sitting in the driveway. What is the world coming too, children?

All the things I'm good at I have PRACTICED doing for hours and hours.

You know how the blues start...

"Woke up this morning..."

What do these all have in common?


Beans
Blueberries
Broccoli
Oats
Oranges
Pumpkin
Salmon
Soy
Spinach
Tea (green or black)
Tomatoes
Turkey
Walnuts
Yogurt

This is beautiful.

So I've sat around all day either reading, perusing web pages, or napping... with an eight foot screen showing surfing videos.

I claim extenuating circumstances.

"I have not yet begun to blog."

- Don Turrentine, 2005

Check out Dax Montana's Redneck IQ Test.

Note to those attempting to destroy our country: You have a damned long way to go.

I. Am. Alive.

And doing just fine...

I went for a walk in the neighborhood just now...

"Hippies with a laptop are across the street attacking our wireless network."

Thus was the rumor, dispelled. But I still don't know what those crazy hippies were up to.

Aaah! This chap has called me out for a little bit 'o musical ... comparison.

I have 127 GB of music on the MUSIC hard drive that I mainly listen to. And I have not finished ripping my cd's yet either. A surprsingly large quantity of that is NOT legally questionable...

The last cd I bought was...

...well, the last one I bought at Amazon was Today is My Day by The Gadjits.

The song playing as I write this is Reanimator by Amon Tobin.

And then I'm supposed to list ten songs I listen too... the most. Hmm. I'm going to kind of fudge this one... Without giving it too much thought, here's some things I've been listening to recently...

Tangled up in Blue by Bob
some stuff by The Rentals

I decided July for Kings wasn't worth listening to... fans: defend them! I'd like to hear it...

Desmond Dekker sings The Israelites, classic Reggae...

Old Crow Medicine Show and Nancy Griffith...

And O C M S is playing in San Francisco on Friday!!!

So I've had about four people remark to me (one electronically, three via voice) that I "blog too much"!

OBIVOUSLY these folks weren't around for the "glory days" of blogging!

And, besides, who is more foolish, the blogging fool, or the fool who reads him?...

...

I went to the office and worked today!

Okay, so it was from 11:15 until 3:30... So what's your point?

For those who do not know...

Cigarette smoking makes the body metabolize Caffeine at twice the rate.

I feel a link to this guy is appropriate now.

Some dude is posting anonymously here, on WAVELET's excellant blog.

This aggression will not stand, man!

I don't want to reveal their identity through technological means, though it would be fairly easy to do so. I think the change must come from within them. What reason could they possibly have for posting anonymously?

Anyways, I don't care who they are. But they are making a lot of blanket statements which are wrong, and they offend me, particularly because Thomas Aquinas College is a delicate subject around me. I have a significant financial and emotional investment in the place.

This is my blog, and I do what I like here. That is not to say that what I do here does not have consequences. It does. Just like every other action that we do, and a man does something with the knowledge of probable and reasonable consequences taken into account.

I want to start doing "five minutes of photography a day"...

'course, I'll need a camera first...

Heard today at the doctor's office:

"I was sane 'til I had kids."

Still picking a little guitar... Feel like I'm getting sick... Must sleep...

Found this dude via this dude.

Gonna go pick a little guitar now...

This treatment is effective because depression is primarily a physical phenomenon - NOT!

Now this is good news for some of us...

So I just did some successful computer consulting for a client who is in Torino, Italy.

And I'm late for my brother's play.

This summer I'm going to...

- get my library card renewed
- fill in the gaps in my Bob Dylan collection
- read a ridiculous amount
- finish that coding I've been meaning to do for two years: the website photo album software
- pay at least $15 in late library fees
- try to explain to my family why my learning to play the fiddle is a good thing
- whittle the extent of my personal belongings down to what fits in my guitar case, and nothing else (except the 'Bullet)...

What's happening to our little world of bloggers?

First the Endless Approach stops posting, then Seldom Sober. I have a few weeks of mostly-dead days as well.

I think in some ways that this question is a rhetorical one. Things change over time. Life is a series of these changes... Change is better than stagnation, but also dangerous, unfriendly.

I know what I want to do in my life now. I am itching to do it, too, but it seems like mundane details get in the way. Well, best to slog through these in the best way possible, right? I'm trying to rid my life of junk and stuff, and it seems like even the very ridding my life of this stuff is an unncessary distraction caused by it. So I will use these activities as a meditation on something deeper, more complex, and beautiful.

While I attack this pile of crap that's in the middle of my room. The pile is diminishing, for now.

I was going to blog about this earlier, but in the name of good taste I skipped it.

So, if you have good taste... You may want to skip this as well...

Be forewarned, sometimes disgust and humor go hand-in-hand.

- - - - - - -

Let me paint the picture.

About 6 months ago I returned from an extended stay in Africa. After delaying several months, I went to a doctor in order to get checked out, healthwise, after my experiences.

The practical-minded doctor pointed out that rigorous testing was not necessary, as I was not experiencing any symptoms at all. So she ordered a few routine tests: TB, blood, stool, etc.

She gave me the injection under the skin for TB, drew the blood, and gave me the vials for the stool samples.

(You can see where this is going).

I had one more day before returning to school.

I had been at home for the last few days (it was Easter vacation), and my mother had provided me with, for the entire extent of this vacation, a constant supply of her homemade bran muffins, which I love so much. Simple, great taste, and so on and so forth.

In any case, I was not in any "condition" to produce the right "kind" of stool sample that day, for these obvious reasons.

However, I tried and tried, with varied messy and disappointing results. I was at work after this doctor's appointment, and I shelved the project, finished work, returned home, thinking nothing more of the stool samples...

Until two weeks ago, when I was cleaning out the car... And I found two vials of several week old samples, well-warmed by the sun for a couple of months. Have YOU ever found THAT in YOUR car?

Searching for a consistent, healthy, smoothie/milkshake type meal-thingie...

2 grody bananas, 1 orange (less a few wedges which I ate), a cup or two of plain yogurt, a handfull of carrots, a sprinkling of peanuts, some ice on the bottom, and a splash of milk. Tasted pretty good, but it wasn't sweet enough for Lil' Bro' #1. Which is fine...

Aah! What am I doing spending the morning inside?! There is a whole nest of baby red-headed woodpeckers inside the tree in my neighbor's yard. And they chirp like little chirp-machineguns.

I must be recovering from something massive. I got twelve hours of sleep last night, and I started going to bed tonight at ten.

I'll bet I averaged four hours of sleep a night and four pints of coffee a day for the last four weeks.

Yup, I'm recovering.

And we're partying with the Archbishop tomorrow, Archbishop Levada, who soon is the #2 man in the Catholic Church, and soon will be meeting on a daily basis with the Pope.

And then hopefully into the city to party with the Random Englishman.

This movie rocks.

Oh, and we beat the AAA man in opening Ben Turner's car door that was locked with the keys inside. At least time-wise.

I'll bet the AAA man never had seen four college grads trying to unlock the driver's side door with a pair of coat hangers after he had opened the passenger's side...

Good times in Napa...

There's a part of me that wants to like movies... But I just can't anymore. Life is too real...

Borrowed my brother's camera and stepped outside for a minute...

I'm feeling kind of vegatative right now. This is not how I usually feel.

The last month has been somewhat hectic. I have work coming up soon, and it feels good to sit around the house and drink tea and tie up loose ends. I will need activity soon, but for now...

Oh, and I have this bizarre desk chair that does not have a back that I obtained from a friend who friend who claims that it is, and I quote, "the new Swedish model," which comes without a back. I thought he was joking, but it seems that he wasn't. Either way, I keep almost falling off.

RR and I might watch a movie tonight... Maybe we'll go into the city... Or maybe I'll get caught up on sleep.

I've picked up an annoying habit from this fella I had in class...

...of saying...

"That's true."

Matter of factly, and after statements that obviously are. It annoys even me that I do it now.

Ex//

Someone else: "Ha, ha! That kid just got kicked in the balls!"
Me: "That's true."

Last Friday:

Yesterday morning I wake up somewhat, still asleep, but vaguely aware of my surroundings. I hear Ben Turner's voice upstairs, then in the room. I wake up to him jumping on me, saying

"You look even more feral than when I saw you last."

And I must admit, with the long hair and the unshaven aspect, I do.

So just now I'm driving back from dropping off some stuff for my brother, and I think

"Hey, I'll take an earlier exit off the freeway and skip some of this traffic."

I get a funny feeling that something's not quite right about it, but I do it anyway.

As I roll onto the off-ramp towards the light at the end, I hear the squeal of sirens: a LOT of sirens.

The light changes red, I roll to a stop.

Suddenly, two motorcycle policemen come, slowly, stately, around the corner, followed by a fire engine, lights flashing. Another fire engine follows it. And another, and another. I wait at the light while a parade of twenty fire engines, complete with police escort, meanders by. I sit at the light and laugh. Ya just can't get ahead...

News flash: Coffee kills cancer. Who knew? Better put a pot on.

This is good, because I've been living on coffee for at least three weeks straight. If you cut me right now, I'll probably bleed coffee.