Month: March 2008

Another meme stolen from Ginny…

D'Arque Bishop

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Wizard (4th Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-14
Constitution-17
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-12
Charisma-14

Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

That dog is turning out to be even more of a handful than we thought.

D'Arque Bishop

I think my coworker Cherry now has carte blanche to say, “I told you so.”

This morning, after I got up from bed and started going downstairs for breakfast, Mom caught up with me on the stairs and said, “Let me get ahead of you. I want to show you something.” That’s never a good sign, but I let her pass me and we headed downstairs, and we went past the gate at the bottom of the stairs and went to the gate at the entrance to the kitchen.

Before I continue, I should explain the gates to those who haven’t heard me mention them before. When we got Star back in 2004, we didn’t realize at the time that she was not cat-friendly. As a result, we ended up putting child gates at the entrances to the kitchen and at the bottom of the stairs so that she couldn’t get upstairs and harm or kill Gus and Ringo. The gates have been pretty effective in maintaining order.

Anyway, Mom and I get to the entrance to the kitchen, and we saw Taz laying on Chase’s bed. Upon seeing us, Taz and Star both got up from where they were resting and came to the gate, with both standing up and putting their front paws on the top of it. Mom frowned and said, “I guess she’s not going to do it this time…”

At that point, Taz steeled herself and jumped over the gate to us.

Mom then opened the gate and ushered Taz back in. I asked Mom if she had done it before this morning, and she said that she had done it last night as well. In fact, Mom was surprised this morning because she had expected to see Taz in the living room. Instead, she was in the kitchen quietly laying down, but as soon as she saw Mom she leapt over the fence to be with her.

The funny thing is, Cherry had said this would probably happen when I first told her about Taz. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her about what happened. The only worry I have now is whether she’s going to pull the same stunt to get past the fence at the bottom of the stairs…

I have to admit, this video made me chuckle.

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

I originally saw this posted over on Jenn’s LiveJournal, where she put the subject line as, “For people who like the 80s, or like logo design. It’s orgasmic if you love both.” It’s a music video by a band called Justice, for a song called “DVNO”. I figure that at the very least, Louie will get a kick out of it; he loves collecting bumpers, and this is made up entirely of parodies/homages of 80’s logos and bumpers. :-)

All right, Apple… what the hell?

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9900456-7.html?tag=nefd.top

Apple has started offering Windows users its Safari 3.1 Web browser through the same online updater it utilizes for iTunes and the QuickTime video player.

With the release of Safari 3.1 on Tuesday, Apple started giving Windows users the option of downloading Safari via the Apple Software Update pop-up.

“Safari for Windows is the fastest and easiest-to-use web browser for the PC. It displays web pages faster than any other browser and is filled with innovative features — all delivered in an efficient and elegant user interface,” states Apple’s message in the pop-up screen.

The move is a more aggressive play by Apple to snatch browser market share from Microsoft.

In February, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had a 74.9 percent share of the browser market in terms of usage, while Firefox had 17.3 percent, and Safari had 5.7 percent, according to figures from Net Applications, which measures Web traffic and market share.

Now, granted, I don’t have a problem with Safari. Hell, on my PowerBook, it’s actually my web browser of choice. The thing is, I expect Apple Software Update to be providing updates to already-installed software, not trying to install NEW software and pass iit off as an update. That just comes off as too damn sneaky, in my opinion, not to mention slightly dishonest. I’ve even seen people notice it without seeing the news stories on CNet and Slashdot.

On the bright side, Apple Software Update gives one the option to opt-out (even though it should have been opt-in in the first place). I decided to opt-out; on Windows, my web browser of choice is still Firefox. It should be interesting to see if Apple Software Update tries to foist Safari on me again in the future, though.

I have heard it all now.

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5639212.html

LA JOYA — Authorities suspect a 2-year-old boy who died with a fractured skull was accidentally crushed by a morbidly obese relative.

Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Bobby Contreras, who pronounced the child dead Tuesday night, said that investigators believe the woman fell on the child.

“It didn’t look like there was any foul play from what I saw,” he said.

Jesus… all I can think of to say is that it’s both sad and horrific at the same time.

Am I the only one not working today?

D'Arque Bishop

This is weird. My employer gives us Good Friday off. I admit, I’m thankful for the three-day weekend. However, it seems like of all of my friends, I’m the only one who gets today off. (Those teacher friends who have Spring Break this week don’t count.) Even Misty, who works for the state of Mississippi, doesn’t get today off. So, while everyone else gets to work today, I got to sleep in and not worry too much about work. Just in case, though, I have my work laptop up and running in case I DO need to log in remotely and fix something.

On a brighter note, I did weigh myself this morning. For some reason I was worried I wouldn’t have lost any weight. I certainly didn’t feel like I had. In retrospect I shouldn’t have been worried, especially as I had to miss lunch Wednesday and I had been good about what I ate otherwise. I lost four pounds this past week. In total, I’ve lost 13 pounds. I think I’m doing well. :-)

I don’t really have much planned for this weekend, either. In about an hour or so, I’ll be going with Dad to DSW to get new shoes for work, and then Dad wants to go into Hobby Lobby. Mom’s working today, so we’ll go to the Red Robin by her office for my splurge meal. I’ll take the rest of the weekend as it comes, though I will probably wash my car tomorrow as it’s still covered in mud from the rain storms earlier this week.

Ah, well… for now, though, I’m going to just relax and enjoy not having to do anything for a while. This should be a good weekend. :-)

My God, it’s full of stars…

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5630362.html

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — An aide said science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Rohan De Silva says Clarke died early Wednesday after suffering from breathing problems. He was 90.

Clarke is the author of more than 100 books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Well… damn. I knew he was getting quite up there in age, but still this is something of a sad day. I’ve read a few of his books, including all four Space Odyssey books, Rendezvous With Rama, and The Songs of Distant Earth. What isn’t as well known is that he is credited for inventing the communications satellite. So, in several ways, the world owes quite a bit to Mr. Clarke.

Ah, well… may he rest well after such a long and productive life.

In times of troubleshooting, it’s usually the little and obvious things.

D'Arque Bishop

Yesterday I decided to try something new for the website. I had been meaning to have my blog cross-post over to my MySpace as well as over to my LiveJournal for a while now. So, I finally decided to take a look for a MySpace cross-post plugin for WordPress. I managed to find Roderick Russell’s MySpace cross-post plugin, and went ahead and installed it. However, on my first try to get something crossed over, the plugin died with a error saying curl_init was not defined. I did some looking, and found that the plugin required curl support in PHP. So, I went ahead and recompiled PHP with curl support, and tried again.

The same thing happened.

Obviously I was a bit confused. I checked the configure logs, and the configure script DID find my server’s curl install. I tried recompiling again, and the same thing happened. I even deleted the source code from the server, reunpacked it, and recompiled with no effect. Nothing I found on Google helped me, either. I even asked twice on #php in Freenode, and was completely ignored.

Later in the evening, I was talking to ShoeUnited, and decided to take another look at it. I wrote a quickie phpinfo page so he and I could see the built-in support, when I noticed something. The PHP plugin Apache was using was compiled/installed in December. My install hadn’t been updating the plugin file. So, I moved the plugin filename, and reinstalled. No effect; the plugin wasn’t there. So, I manually copied the plugin from the source code directory to the Apache plugin directory. Still no go, as it came up with an error. I was stumped.

Finally, I looked through one of the logs, and I saw what the problem was. I double-checked against another log, and I suddenly felt like an idiot. I had two separate Apache builds on the server: one was an Apache 1.3 install that was in use, and the other was an Apache 2.2 install that had issues and never went into production. I was compiling the source code against the latter.

Once I recompiled the source code against the correct Apache build, the plugin started working properly. So, now whenever I make a post on here, a notification is posted on my MySpace blog. It’s not something I NEEDED to do, but it was a good exercise. :-)

Now I just need to sit down and figure out at some point why my Apache 2.2 install wasn’t working properly. It’s not a priority, of course, as I have a working Apache install (and the 1.3 branch is still getting security updates), but it would be nice to figure out where I went wrong… :-)

Another week gone by…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, I went ahead and weighed myself yesterday morning.

Before I continue, I should mention that I wasn’t expecting to lose weight this week, really. I had gone to Cheesecake Factory on Wednesday with my boss Scot, and Thursday night I went and had sushi with Brent. Though, when I ordered at Cheesecake Factory, Scot was a bit surprised when I ordered a Miller Lite instead of a Shiner Bock. Then, when it came time to order the actual entree, he expected me to order my usual double barbecue bacon cheeseburger. Instead, to his greater surprise, I ordered a barbecue ranch chicken salad. He gave me a weird look when the waiter left, and I replied, “Dude, I AM on a diet…” On the other hand, at Tosa Thursday night, I ordered enough sushi where Brent laughed and said, “Hey, I thought you were on a diet…”

According to the scale, I lost three pounds. In other words, my overall change is that I’m down nine pounds.

My coworkers Lettye and Cherry have been noticing the change in me, especially as I’ve not been at the office too much the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, I made my first observation as to my weight loss; normally my Bluetooth earpiece’s microphone rests against my cheek. Yesterday I noticed it no longer did so. So, there is a difference so far… I’m looking forward to the bigger signs of slimming down. :-)

On another front, it looks like Taz is here to stay. Mom took her to the vet on Tuesday to have her checked over. While there, we found even more evidence she was abandoned. What we had thought was a collar was in fact a portion of leash tied around her neck. According to the vet she’s in good health, and approximately one to two years old. She’s also not spayed yet, which will be taken care of in a couple of weeks.

She’s been a real handful. She’s still in the very needy stage, which means she takes every opportunity to jump up at us. Normally we’d tell her “no”, and pull her off. The problem, though, is that she is EXTREMELY strong for her size and it takes quite a bit of effort to pull her off. Also, when I got up this morning and made my way downstairs, I entered the kitchen to see Dad working on putting what was left of Chase’s bed into a trash bag. Apparently Taz had destroyed it during the night. He was NOT a happy camper.

Taz and Gus finally realized each other existed last night. I heard Taz going berzerk barking, with Star joining in. I left my room and went downstairs to check on what was going on. From what I could tell, Gus had started being vocal and Taz realized there was someone up there. :-) Gus obviously didn’t miss the fact that there was a new bark, as well… heh.

Anyway, I don’t have too much planned for the rest of this weekend. I’ll likely go to the mall tomorrow to buy a couple of things, and then hit Baker St. for my splurge meal. Otherwise, I don’t think I have too much planned. Also, this coming week is a short week (we get Good Friday off), so that’s always welcome. Ah, well…

For now, though, I’m just going to finish this bottle of water and wait a bit before going to do my aerobic exercise. Fun fun…

I’ve heard of stupid criminals, but this takes the cake.

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.winknews.com/news/weird/16651076.html

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (AP) – Two teenage boys are under arrest after they attempted to rob a police station.

Port St. Lucie police say the two boys – ages 12 and 14 – walked into the lobby of a regional station Wednesday afternoon and demanded money from an aide behind the glass enclosure.

Police say the 12-year-old hid one hand under his jacket as if he had a gun. Another aide ran into the back screaming for help.

Within minutes, a half dozen officers, some with guns drawn, burst into the lobby and arrested the boys. Both are charged with attempted armed robbery.

It’s stories like this that make me wish America’s Dumbest Criminals was still on the air. :-)