RandomFailure

What an unbelievable clusterfuck of a computing evening this has turned out to be. First, my computer kept crashing, and crashing, and crashing. (You get the idea.) I’m not sure which of these rather trite sayings would be more appropriate here:

1. My computer crashed more often than Stevie Wonder driving drunk downhill during an ice storm.

or

2. I rebooted more than a whorehouse full of cowboys.

And on top of that, when I finally stopped the crashes, Blogger went ape-shit nutzoid on me. Published the previous post over 40 times! I had to go in and delete each one, one at a time (no mass deletions)! It took almost as long to clean up the mess as it did to write the previous post!

And then I noticed that the e-mail post link wasn’t showing. So I had to go in and modify the code in the template (not for the squeamish).

Finally, after looking at this blog for the umpteenth time, I realize that I’m not all that wild about the template. So I think I’m going to choose a new one. Stay tuned. (I know I could write my own, but my CSS skills aren’t even remotely close to being able to do so.)

Collect the set!

• These posts will now have an icon link (a little envelope with an arrow at the bottom of the post) which will allow you to send a link to the post to others who might enjoy this stuff.
• I’m finally recovering from vacation last week. Yes, I know it’s odd to have to recover from a vacation, but trying to get caught up on all the mundane domestic stuff (laundry, mail, paying bills) took until Wednesday.

  Oh, I went to Colorado for vacation to visit some friends, do some hiking, and generally relax. I did see a rattlesnake while hiking, and took a few pictures which I’ll get around to posting eventually. But it wasn’t until after I returned that I realized I should have taken a movie of the rattlesnake with my digital camera. That way you could have heard it, since I didn’t get close enough to see it all that well without digitally zooming the picture to maximum, and hearing it was much more creepy than just seeing it sit there coiled up.

• And to top that off, I was scheduled for jury duty this morning. So I show up on time, and manage to get lucky. More people were called than were needed, and since I hadn’t checked in, I had the option of being excused and having it count as a day served. Of course, I took this option, but went to work instead of goofing off. If you’re a lawyer with a billable hour requirement, you’d understand. Let’s just say it’s better than having to work weekends to make up hours.
• We’re #91! According to Sports Illustrated (sorry, but I can’t find a link to the article), Duke football is listed as the #91 of out 117 Division I-A football programs in the country. Sure beats being #117!
• Fairly old (since I don’t regularly read Wired News), but still interesting (I read about it in the July 2004 Macworld). If you’ve ever played one of those classic text adventure games (and if you have, you are pretty much by definition a geek/long time computer user like me, since they were superseded a long time ago), you can now play them via AOL Instant Messenger. Send an IM to: InfocomBot, InfocomBot2, or InfocomBot3. You can then select a game to play, and go from there. Warning: these are highly addictive and can chew up insane amounts of your time. If you want to read about the guy responsible for this, click here. If you want to rehash the past, check an unofficial Infocom site or a second unofficial site. If you’ve never played one of these games, do yourself a favor and at least check it out.