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Bathed In Pink

An entry from November 1, 2007

Inspired by Blueprint Issue 07

This is precisely what I love about Martha Stewart -- she and her people know great color! I received my second issue of Blueprint Magazine (Issue #07) in the mail this afternoon and I'm in love with the pink color scheme and photography of the Sugar Cookies article beginning on page 42.

Doug and I have been brainstorming for a suitable color scheme for a developing web project and we haven't felt inspired with any of the colors we've put together. Sugar Cookies has changed all that. Bravo! The website shall be bathed in pink!

Bathed In Pink

(Images courtesy of Blueprint Magazine, pgs. 42, 44, 46, 48)

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Level 7

An entry from November 2, 2007
"That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction, on this side of which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before."
-- The Energies of Men by William James

I began the day on the wrong side of the bed and though it's already 10:15 pm and though I'm a still few hours from retiring, today turned out to be quite liberating.

I've been going to college part time and working 25-30 hours a week for several YEARS now and I only began to loose motivation several weeks ago. I began to abhor everything: my classes, the campus, my teachers, my classmates, the whole routine of working then heading straight to school afterwards, yada yada yada... I got sick of EVERYTHING. I began to find the entire process nauseating, frankly. So much so that even though I'm only 3 classes shy of graduating, I seriously contemplated quitting. "Fuck fucking computer science!", I thought. I envisioned the whole thing: I'd quit and then I'd get knee deep in crafts. I'd learn how to crochet and knit like no other and sell super scarves and shawls on Etsy... I imagined how delightful and fun that would be.

As the day progressed, however, I regained my sanity. As Doug listened to me vent about everything during our therapeutic walk with Mojo, it dawned on me that although I would feel immediate relief from dropping out, in the long run, I would regret it. I would regret it eventually because of the sobering fact that I'm only 3 classes shy of a Computer Science degree -- granted 2/3 of which are a ton of work -- but the magic number was 3. If I was able to ace 12/13 of my computer science courses so far, two physics classes would be DO-able no doubt!

I once read somewhere that when doing any sort of cardiovascular exercise, one should always do so for at least 45 minutes to an hour non-stop. More importantly, when doing this cardiovascular exercise, one should always workout at Level 7. What's level 7? It's different for everyone, but here's the key: Level 7 is that stage in a good, long work out when you feel the intense need to stop. But you don't... you press on, you keep going. You keep going until the time remaining in your workout is 00:00.

Recognizing where I am is liberating. Hello, Level 7.

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reCAPTCHA

An entry from November 3, 2007

ReCaptcha

Tired of receiving PuglyFeet form mail about "One XXX Night in Paris", dicks, and blowjobs, I've been aggressively on the prowl for a Movable Type captcha plugin. I tried the following to no avail:

  • Captcha by Hirotaka Ogawa
  • MT-Scode by James Seng
  • Scode by Arvind Satyanarayan

Each claimed *ease of use* liberally. Uh-huh. Right. Since the thought of writing my own captcha was out of the question, I persisted and persistence sure has paid off. I thank my guardian angel, Saint Google, for leading me to reCaptcha and the author of the MovableType plugin for it, Josh Carter.

ReCaptcha

Okay, I encountered a minor bump in the road: After I rebuilt the site, the "Show Settings" option was not available from the settings page. I thought, "Shit -- another lousy plugin." Before giving up completely, however, I inspected Carter's Recaptcha.pl file and learned that the default setting for the plugin's enable value was 0 (or false). I then set it to 1 (true), rebuilt the site and lo and behold, the sweetest feeling of joy came to me thereafter. It worked -- the "Show Settings" option became viewable from the reCaptcha plugins page!

So, if you're looking for a captcha plugin for MT, go to Carter's page: http://multipart-mixed.com/software/recaptcha.html and follow all the instructions before proceeding further. If you 're unable to see Recaptcha.pl's "Show Settings" from the MT Plugins' Settings page, do the following:

  1. Open MT/plugins/Recaptcha.pl
  2. Go to Line 64 and change the hash value for settings[enabled] from 0 to 1
  3. Rebuild your site
  4. Now you can enter the public/private keys into Recaptcha's settings
  5. Refresh your comments page
  6. Voila, you're done and beaming with rapturous joy

Fun fact:
CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". If you're unfamiliar with Alan Turing, the father of computer science, you owe it to yourself to get acquainted with his life and his work. If it weren't for Alan Turing, the landscape of our world would be very different -- it'd be ruled by the Nazis.

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I Heart Gavin Newsom

An entry from November 4, 2007

Katrina's SF Ballot

After reading only a few lines of this article at sfgate.com, I flared into full fledged panic. SHIT SHIT SHIT!! Did I miss Election Day? SHIIIIIIIIIT!!! November 6? Okay, good. But where's my absentee ballot? Don't worry, Gavin! I didn't forget, Gavin, see?!!! Like that scene from the Fellowship of the Ring, when Bilbo panicked about having misplaced the Precious, I unearthed piles of paper work and effing homework on my desk and ravaged for that damn ballot that I could've sworn I just saw recently... somewhere. Then, AHA! Thank God! There it was, hidden underneath a mountain of scrap paper...

First Choice = Second Choice = Third Choice = Gavin Newsom all the way, baby!

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That Wicked Skirt

An entry from November 5, 2007

JCrew Window Fall 2007

Right after my work out at the gym, which is conveniently right smack inside the mall, I stopped by Starbucks for a small (or *Tall*, as they call it) cup of coffee and embarked on a little window shopping. Working out early in the morning has its benefits -- although the retail stores are still closed for business, short of the people who work there, I practically have the entire mall to myself.

So I passed by JCrew's window display and was enamored by the cutest outfit: a mustard 'n black plaid mini-skirt topped by a lovely cozy green sweater over a blazing red shirt. The outfit would look really fantastic with opaque tights and dark mary janes. So cute...

Call me strange or whatever, but knowing myself -- or my history, rather -- as much as I can see that it's an outfit that I absolutely adore, I also know it's an outfit that I wouldn't actually wear. It's not so much the entire outfit, really. Quite frankly, it's the mini-skirt. I love the mini-skirt but wouldn't be so inclined as to wear it or to even try it on. I can easily shirk off such feelings by calling it too *girly*, or go so far as to say that "It's just not me." But, don't I define *me* and can I not change that definition any time I see fit? Perhaps it's because the mini-skirt resides a bit beyond my cute outfit comfort zone or maybe perhaps it's simply because I'm afraid to try new things or what if these feelings of discomfort arise from my ever so butch tomboy inner child who is just gagging from nausea at the mere sight of that mini-skirt... AAAAh!!

Oh hell, whatever the case may be, that's one wicked skirt!

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