¹ We won’t even have working Internet service at the house until Tuesday at the earliest.

Moving Day © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I’ve never realized how much stuff a couple like Manzabar and myself have collected over the past years. There is stuff everywhere imaginable in the apartment. Things that were conveniently put into places until we could find a location for them. This is going to be a big move!! We will probably spend more than the one weekend taking stuff to and fro. The major packing day is really for the furniture if anything else.

Manzabar and I did get a really cool refrigerator. I can’t wait to have my very own laundry utility area with our brand new washer and dryer. I will no longer have to tolerate others for them and also the people who keep taking out others laundry.…Don’t get me started on that one.

I LOVE my new home. It is double the size of the apartment. It is very unique and in a great location. Trust me the taxes show that we are in a great location. But it was what we were searching for. We couldn’t believe that we could get this nice of a home without major work being needed.

Ariesna

Collecting :) Whew!!!!!!!! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I was still mighty tired the next day. Every time I had turned over in my sleep; I was half awakened by pain in my back. But awake eventually I was and into the shower I went. I’d just finished my shower and was drying off when another spasm ripped through my back. This one was much worse and nearly sent me to my knees. Ariesna came back and helped me. Then she called the doctor’s office and made an appointment to get me checked out. I spent the rest of the day lying down on a heating pad.

Monday, the doctor checked me out. He prescribed some pain killers and a muscle relaxant. He also set up an appointment for me to visit a physical therapist. That appointment was earlier today. The therapist was a really nice lady. She had me describe my problem. She then had me go through a series of stretches and movements to help her figure out exactly what is wrong. She told me she believes one of the discs in my spine (in the border area between the lumbar and thoracic) has a small tear.

She immediately moved to reassure me this is not something that will require surgery. I don’t think I was looking at her nervously, so I’m not entirely sure why she leaped to get that bit of information out. Though if I were to guess, I would say most of her patients are considerably older than I am and they do not like even the hint of possible surgery.

Anyway, she instructed me in doing a couple of light exercises designed to ease the tension in my back and which should improved the blood flow along the damaged area. She said these exercises should be enough for my back to heal itself correctly. Provided I keep in mind for my back to heal properly, I have to be extra cautious about it for a couple of months. She recommended I think about the damage like it was a broken bone. Even if I am feeling 100% in a few days or a week, I’m still to take it easy on my back.

Whee, such fun. Ah well, at least I haven’t promised to help anybody moving anytime soon. :p

Yeeouch © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

This change over will be happening sometime in the next few days and may cause some temporary interrupt in our daily waste of your time. We apologize for any extra work that you may have to do as a result of this interruption and appreciate your patience.

Update [05 June 2005, 12:46 (-06:00 GMT)]: The move to the new webhost has been completed and everything (except for the SSGSPDS pages) appears to be working correctly. I’m working on getting that last bit setup correctly on the new host, but it might be a couple of days yet before it’s functional. If you do encounter any problems with CoffeeBear.net; let me know. Thanks!

Update [07 June 2005, 22:19 (-06:00 GMT)]: the SSGSPDS pages are now up and running again. All praise WKD for their assistance in this matter! :)

Changing Webhosts © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Initially, it acted as though I was attaching a new iPod, but then it was able to see all my playlists and other songs on it. As an added bonus, iTunes also automatically forwarded me to page where I could download a free music sampler. Most likely, you too can get the album by going to: iTunes New Music Sampler (Atlantic/Lava Edition)

More iPod/iTunes Fun © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Mind you, those plans were nothing exciting. Well, kind of exciting to me but boring as all get out to my two faithful readers. I’ve been a long time Linux user and for quite a while now; I’ve been running SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro. I’ve been happy with it, particularly since I’d discovered APT and tricked it out a bit beyond the basic install. However, since I’d bought my copy SuSE had released 9.1 and then 9.2. 9.2 runs on the 2.6.x series of Linux kernels and that’s something I’d been wanting to play around⁴. So I’ve been burning my most valuable data to disc and moving other files to my server; so I wouldn’t lose any data during the new install.

Yes, I did say new install. In part, I choose to do a a complete wipe because I have psychological scaring left from my usage of M$ Windows and in part because I’d partially broken something⁵, somewhere in KDE and I wanted to make sure that issue was killed with this new version. Once I was sure everything was backed up; I popped the new install disc in and rebooted.

Oh, I should probably mention that the install disc was a burned copy of the DVD iso; which SuSE released earlier this month. It doesn’t have everything on it that the purchased version does (mostly missing development/server stuff ) but it’s enough to install it and many of the packages without resorting to downloading packages via ftp.

Anyhoo, the installer popped up and I got right into it. Unfortunately, the default new install was trying to partition my hard drive wrong. I’ve got multiple drives in my computer attached to different controllers and then each drive is partitioned to seperate out different things. I.e.
/dev/hda1 is my WinXP install (I likes my Half-Life2 too much to give this up).
/dev/hda2 held my SuSE 9.0’s root mount point
/dev/hda3 was my old /home
/dev/hda4 was the old swap
/dev/hdc is my CD burner/DVD reader
/dev/hdd is my DVD burner

Note for the non-techies: /dev/hda means the first hard drive on the first IDE controller in the system. /dev/hda# indicates a specific partition on that drive.

There’s one other drive in my system connected to a RAID controller on my mobo but none of my Linux installs has been able to see it. Though I heard from a friend that Alan Cox has a patch for the 2.6.x kernel to add support for it. I use that last drive for all the video games that I play under Windows; so I don’t really need to see it under Linux but it would be nice to be able to. Getting back to what I was talking about SuSE 9.2’s default partition setup would have left rewrote /dev/hda3 as the new / mount point, leaving /dev/hda2 umounted (wasting that space). So I reset it to reclaim that space for the new Linux install. Then I went through the package selection to make sure all the apps I wanted would be installed. Though because this isn’t the purchased version; I’m still missing some stuff but that’s what APT is for. :D

The actual install ran for about 25–30 minutes and then I spent the rest of the night copying all my data files back into place and setting up my email⁶. I ended up going to bed; leaving my computer to finish copying all my files back over and I still don’t have everything tweaked just so yet, but I’m getting close. I still need to setup a couple of apps (i.e. Bluefish, BitTorrent, etc…), figure out why SuSE isn’t seeing my iPod (9.0 detected it w/out a problem) and see if YaST still has a tool for forcing my optical drives to use DMA.

¹ This part is going to be somewhat vague as I’m pretty sure our new employment agreement doesn’t allow me to give specifics and in any case, I’m not interested in being fired over making a comment on this site.
² Like an idiot, only not that bright.
³ No, they’re not a sponsor (CB.net doesn’t have any sponsors). This is just the only frickin’ medicine on the market that does anything for my sinus headaches. Every other medicine that has worked for me has been pulled from the market and replaced with “safer” version that doesn’t do jack. *grumpf*
⁴ I’d heard it performs a bit better (but there’s more on that later in the post) and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to compile my own kernel.
⁵ Every time I was opening a new Konqueror window or a native KDE app or trying to open a file from within an app; Konqueror would pop-up an error about some mime type/octet stream being missing. *shrug*
⁶ A big shout out to the KDE developers for making such a wonderful environment. A double, big shout to the Kontact developers for making a great app!

Yesterday © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously, I live in Iowa. The last couple of years we’ve had cold winters but haven’t really had that much snow. Apparently, Mother Nature was feeling it’s time to rectify that situation and we’ve been having quite the snowstorm. Seeing how I like taking pictures and dislike getting cold; here’s a quick shot I took out my bedroom window. I apologize for the grainess of the image, but I took the picture during my lunch hour and I didn’t have enough time to try removing the window screen before taking it. That and I didn’t want to stand around outside in the cold taking photos; unlike some people I’m not all that eager to suffer for my art. :D

Lovely Weather © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Unfortunately, the arrival of the book happened at something of a bad time for me. I was busy with work getting things filed away and ready for me to take my 2 week trip to Japan. I’d started to read the book and was interested to see where it was going; as none of it looked familar to me. Alas in my hurry to pack, I forgot to stick the book in my bag. So for two weeks, I had to wait to finish the last half of the book. I was busy enough during those weeks to not particularly mind the delay but when I got back; I was busy for a while and didn’t immediately pick it back up. When I finally did; I remembered enough of the story that I could continue without starting over but my interest in the book had waned somewhat in the interval.¹ After finishing it, I realized that wasn’t really a fair reading of the book and decided to set it aside for a time to let my memories of the book drain away to give it a fairer reading.

This review is based on that 2nd reading.

In 193 pages, Clifton appears to be trying to tell 3 seperate stories. That of Dr. Brian McKart, a scientist who believes a friend of his may dead and another is in danger while the mysterious Soo pushes him to solve a mystery. That of Sharon LaSalle, a woman who was attacked and was taken away under odd circumstances. And finally, that of Special Agent Grace Rainwater who was investigating Sharon’s disappearance. Dr. McKart’s story is the central one to this novella and it is interesting to see how Clifton twists and turns McKart’s view of reality until the man isn’t sure if he’s experiencing something truly beyond his understanding or whether he’s trapped in an ultimate virtual realty game. Clifton tries really hard to blur the line between reality and virtuality for Brian but upon multiple rereadings this seems to fall a bit flat. Maybe I am just not clicking with the metaphysicalness of the story but while Brian seems to be struggling to remain sane; I’m finding it difficult to believe he let himself get into the situation to begin with.

Sharon LaSalle’s story seems to be marginally more interesting as her disappearance from the normal world can be explained as either: being killed, being kidnapped & hooked to a VR simulator or as simply moving to an alternative plane of existance. Which really happened? You’ll need to read the book and judge for yourself; as I’m still puzzling it out. Sharon’s story doesn’t receive quite as many pages as Brian did and that’s a shame because these sections of the book seem more interesting to me.

Lastly there’s the story of Special Agent Grace Rainwater. Her story is the least fleshed out of all and boils down to a simple investigation of a complex matter but there’s several unanswered questions here (e.g. why does she work so hard at the case) that the novella would have really benefited from having answered.

Overall, I give this book 3.75 stars out of 5. Again given my background with the novella, my issues with the story might be just that. MY ISSUES. To know for sure, you’ll need to read it yourself. It’s an interesting premise but but the more I read it; the less I can sympathize with the main characters. For a first effort, I’d say it’s good work but I’d like to see more depth to the characters and something that would allow me to sympathize with them better.

This book is available from Lulu.com (more money goes to the author) and Amazon.com (CB.net gets a cut).

¹ Sorry, Clif but them’s the breaks.

Review: Twilightners © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Done a striptease

11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars

21. Changed a baby’s diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Gotten drunk on champagne
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse
30. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
40. Seen a total eclipse

41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run I never got into baseball, but I used to be able to kick a soccer ball from one end of the field to the other. Does that count?
43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day Arrgh!
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
48. Had two hard drives for your computer. Only 2?
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job for all accounts

51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends Over the years, I’ve been blessed with several of them.
54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice

61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan Just this past summer
67. Benchpressed your own weight Came awfully close a couple of times
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records
70. Pretended to be a superhero

71. Sung karaoke I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I sing like a dog gargling with rocks but Japanese-style karaoke rocks!
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it.

81. Visited the Great Wall of China
82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog
83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better Currently using SuSE 9.0 Pro, but thinking about upgrading to 9.2 once it hits the stores
84. Started a business Not yet, but I think about this every once in a while. Particularly as some days I loathe the idea of going to work
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites I saw some beautiful temples in Japan
87. Taken a martial arts class Not yet, but I’ve thought about doing so in order to get into shape.
88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman Does offering to thrash somebody who hurt the feelings of a female friend count? Particularly if you have swords and would have used them given the opportunity?
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
90. Gotten married Not yet, but May’s coming up fast

91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice

101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an “expert“
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place
107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything Not that I can recall…
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug
109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas

111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live Never heard of them
116. Bought a house Not yet, but I really want to.
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship

121. Spoken more than one language fluently Nope, but I’d like to and I did receive several compliments on my Japanese while I was over in Japan (though I think they were just being nice to me)
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check But it wasn’t my fault. I sent a $50 check to my credit card company and they processed it as though it was $500.
124. Performed in Rocky Horror
125. Read — and understood — your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country

131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
134. — More than once? — More than thrice?
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery
139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
140. Wrote articles for a large publication

141. Lost over 100 pounds
142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane This is something that I’d like to do someday
144. Petted a stingray
145. Broken someone’s heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone An arm and a leg. Fortunately, it wasn’t at the same time.
150. Killed a human being

151. Gone on an African photo safari
152. Ridden a motorcycle
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph No, but I’ve come close to it
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery
159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet

161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days (Rafting, but close enough)
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground
169. Been a sperm or egg donor
170. Eaten sushi

171. Had your picture in the newspaper
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime
173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
176. Parasailed
177. Changed your name
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad

181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them.
183. — and gotten 86’ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
184. Taught yourself an art from scratch
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions. They lost track of me and I never get invited. Then again, I didn’t like high school all that much, so I might not have gone even if they hadn’t.
188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language

191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
195. Had a booth at a street fair
196: Dyed your hair
197: Been a DJ
198: Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal
199: Written your own role playing game Close. I was helping a friend write one; once upon a time.
200: Been arrested

200 Things About Me © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I’ve had this domain for a short time now and finally plunked down the moolah to get a proper host for it (thank you Digital Sense Hosting).

I imagine if you’ve probably got some questions about the who/what/why of CoffeeBear.net, so here are some of the answers. If you have a question that’s not answered in this post; contact me and I’ll reply. Though if your question is too personal, then the reply might be no more than “I’m not going to answer that.“

Who?

As I said my name is Mark (aka Manzabar). The domain name came about from several nights spent trying to come up with a name for my blog that wasn’t already being used 40 million times over and that somewhat reflected my interests…

• While I don’t drink as much coffee as I used; I still drink it fairly often and frankly, I’m something of a coffee-snob. I can’t stand that instant crap or that sludge that my office claims is coffee. I’ve got my own 4 cup coffee pot at my desk and my current favortie coffee is the Mocha brew from Gevalia. Or rather I should say that’s my favorite coffee when I’m making it myself. When I want some exceptional coffee; I run over to my local coffeehouse, the Terrapin and order a Grand Canyon (2 shots of espresso, steamed milk, 1 shot chocolate sryup & 1 shot mango syrup). *yum!*
• For my computing needs, I lust after the Apple’s 15inch G4 Powerbook but it’s currently out of my price range; so I use a home-built PC running SuSE Linux Pro 9.0 but occassionally boot into Windows XP Pro for the absolutely necessary items (e.g. certain video games & downloading new/free songs from iTunes).

With those 2 items in mind, I first thought a domain name of lizardcofffee.something would be brilliant. Except, somebody else had taken lizardcofffee.org, lizardcofffee.net & lizardcofffee.com. I know there are other .somethings out there but none appealed to me. So I started looking around for other ideas. Another one that came to me was minion.org² but it too was taken. Then I started thinking harder. I knew I wanted to incorporate my love of coffee into the domain name and I liked the idea of using the name of an animal. I don’t much care for dogs, so that was out. CoffeeCat just sounds weird. CoffeePenguin sounds weird and is a trifle long. Then inspiration hit me and CoffeeBear.net was born (.com was already taken and .org just didn’t sound right for what I had in mind).

What?

CoffeeBear.net is my personal domain. Currently, I’m working on setting up this blog to talk about whatever happens to strike my fancy. I got into the blogging scene because I work on computers, alot. While I’d had personal website before; it was a hassle to maintain it and I’d lost interest in it for a long time. Then I changed ISPs a few times and once I’d gotten my cable modem; I got involved with a project with some people scattered across the planet for a while. They needed a place to be able to store large files that everybody could access. My ISP at the time was running DHCP but my IP address never changed unless something got really screwed up (e.g. bad firmware upgrade to my router).

Since I effectively had a static IP; we setup a small www & ftp server on a spare machine in my place. Since it was my machine, I figured I’d start a new website for myself on the side. When I did this; I’d just found out about PHPNuke and was playing with that for the main site. But it was big, buggy and really more than I wanted for my personal site; however it show me how powerful a CMS is and made me want something for myself.

So I did some searching around, found MT and was initially awed by how perfect it was for what I wanted to do. I loaded a copy of MT on my server and musings³ was born. I’ll admit it wasn’t the most original name, but I didn’t care as I didn’t really advertize that blog and only a few people even knew it existed. After I’d been using MT for a while; I noticed something that really annoyed me about it, rebuilds⁴. *ugh*

Eventually this started irrating me like sand in your shorts after a day at the beach and I started looking around at alternative systems. Some of the ones I considered were:

• Drupal
• GeekLog
• WordPress

But Drupal looked too complicated and Geeklog resembled PHPNuke too much; so I went with WordPress and I’ve been using it ever since.

So where are all my old posts?

I’ve learned in playing with the backup/restore plugin for wordpress that it really doesn’t like you to backup the data from a log on one host and restoring it to another. So I plan on manually moving the old posts over (and trimming out some of the dead wood as I go).

Will CB.net be just your blog or will other stuff go up here?

Once I’ve got my blog up and running smoothly (right now I’m still waiting for the DNS changes to go through); I plan on do my own style/theme for the site. After that I want to integrate some sort of photoblog. As for other kinds of content, well… that’s something we’ll have to wait and see on.

Where’d you get your style for WordPress? The default install doesn’t look like that!

Currently, I’m using the dots style by Alex King. It’s simple & clean but doesn’t exactly match what I want; so when I’ve got some more time I’ll be working on rebuilding my own custom style.

Why?

I’m writing this blog: in part because it’s a trendy thing to do, in part because I want to work on my web design skills and in part to let my friends/family know what I’m up to. I’m absolutely wretched at keeping in touch with them either by phone or by writing letters. I can talk for hours to a buddy of mine when he calls or reply at length to any letters I receive, but calling/sending letters to other people is just something I don’t see to have any skill for. *shrugh* Go figure⁵. So now that I’ve got a my own domain and a proper host; I’ll start telling more of my friends/family about this blog and encourage them to visit it for the lastest news in my world.

Footnotes

¹ I’ve been using Manzabar for a pseudonym/alias for a long time now. The name comes from one of my old D&D characters that I came up with in high school. Yes, I am a geek. Get over it. Anyway, in every RPG that I’ve ever played, I’ve had a hard time coming up with good character names, except for this one wizard that I created back in high school. That wizard is Manzabar and that’s where the name came from. It had such a since ring to it that I’ve continued to use the name to this very day.
² During my college years, I went to a local sci-fi con dressed as a Faceless Minion. It was a popular idea with that crowd and I still have the robe that I used for the costume (and still where it most times I go to that con). If you’re not familar with the idea of a Faceless Minion; then just take a moment to reflect on the most minor of characters in your favorite book/play/radio show/tv show/movie. Some of those characters are so minor they have no names, but they still perform some necessary function to the plot. Those characters are Faceless Minions. I thought about doing something like facelessminion.org but that just seemed too long a name.
³ musings has been offline for a while now. Originally because there was some problems renewing the domain name but now it also appears that my ISP is blocking inbound traffic on port 80.
⁴ MT is only partially a dynamic system. It builds static pages for all your content but when you update existing content; then you have to rebuild your pages. Something as simple as getting a comment posted on your blog could cause MT to rebuild a dozen pages or so. This ends up eating a lot of disk space and depending on the number of pages needing to be rebuilt; it can take a looooong time. Rebuilds are MT’s worst enemy. WordPress on the other hand trades rebuilds in for eating up server processing power. All of WP’s pages are built on the fly based on the content stored in a set of mysql tables. Less diskspace is used but more processing power is required to display the pages.
⁵ It just occured to me that the reason I’m likely so bad at talking to my friends/family about wht I’m up to is that for the most part; I think my life consists of long periods of boredom intertwined with the good stuff. The boring stuff is something that nobody wants to hear and the good stuff isn’t necessarily something that I want to share. So I don’t tell them about my life because I can’t image that they’d really want to hear about it. But if I write about it here; they can always stop reading any given post and come back later when I’ve updated again.

Welcome to CB.net! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.