February 21st, 2012 at 8:46:56 PM
The good, the bad and the questionable
Today began with a visit to the doctor. While my weight didn't go down, the blood pressure was nice and low. After a quick errand to pick up some snacks for later, we got lunch from Subway to celebrate.
During the afternoon I fussed over the code to the new blog system, and while I made a little progress I discovered some major problems that are going to require redoing large portions of it. All things considered, I'm tired out, and so I opted to close everything down and just chill for the evening.
I'm also going to go to bed here in just a bit, despite it being rather early.
The link for the day is a short video about a shark and a new meaning to stomach pains.
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| February 21st, 2012 at 12:24:00 AM More writing, less gaming Like the past few days, today was largely spent working on the new version of the blog scripts. I've redone a lot of it already, and added a few new features to make it easier to work with. Oddly, this resulted in its benchmarks improving. You'd think more features would result in slower performance, but it's actually increased the response per second speed by 10 to 20 responses per second. The other thing I did today was work on the fanfic a bit. It's now in the 1,400 word range, or about half of what EqD requires. I'm attempting to provide some backstory without making it too boring or bogging things down, so I hope it's turning out alright. Tomorrow will feature a lovely visit to the doctors; more follow up the weight and blood pressure issues. If everything goes well, we'll see about grabbing lunch while we're out. For the link of the day, try this MLP fanvideo. The voices are spot-on. Except for Applejack. |
 | February 20th, 2012 at 2:28:55 AM Beyond the Code Last night as I got ready to go to bed I had a sudden burst of inspiration about how the template system should work in the new blog code. Most of the day was spent getting this new system written, tested and implemented. Even with the alterations today, the blog project is still on target to debut on the weekend. This evening I worked on the fanfic for a little bit, adding about 210 words. I also spent some time working on stuff for DBHL, but didn't finish it. I ran into trouble describing what I was doing, as usual. The other news of the day is that I issued a challenge to DeviantArt: Are you up for it? So that was pretty much my day. And now for the link of the day I bring you a silly animation about a Reading Rainbow. |
 | February 19th, 2012 at 2:33:09 AM Work continues Most of my day was spent working on the new version of the blog code. Lots of improvements, lots of tweaks, and a heck of a lot of benchmark tests. So overall, it's coming together quickly. On the downside, I discovered this evening that someone has been leeching my bandwidth since about January 28th. To combat this, I've blocked hotlinking until I have a suitable solution. I use hotlinking a lot, so I need to find a way to enable it selectively. My prior attempt resulted in it blacklisting sites I wanted it to whitelist, so I've just left it down for everyone. Lastly, the link of the day is another hit by Woodentoaster: Beyond Her Garden. |
| February 18th, 2012 at 2:24:22 AM Reworking things Most of the day was spent poking at things. I've been fussing over what font to use for Background Service's relaunch, and this round I went to see what other people thought of the fonts I've singled out. Amusingly, the one that's the most popular is the one I used originally, so nothing really changed there. Another interesting thing that happened was that I answered a question about what blog software to use with a glib suggestion to write it themselves like I had done. Long story short, this started a small conversation about possibly releasing my blog's code as Open Source. It's incredibly small ( 617 lines, 17 KB ), so novices could manage it easily or integrate it with their existing sites. I hadn't thought of releasing the code at all, and once I did I didn't see a reason not to do so. So I've added another project to my plate; namely making a GPL version of the code that's easy for other people to use. I made good headway on it this evening; it can't yet interact with a database, but the templating code is working properly and benchmarks are roughly the same as the original code. The link for the day is a short video of Princess Luna trying to get some R&R. |
 | February 17th, 2012 at 1:29:24 AM Ask not for whom the ban falls... Wow. Today was a bit of a shocker online. There was a bad fight over on UF that resulted in several temporary bans and one of the core members getting perma-banned. Add to that many protested by silencing their voice on the board today. Quite a shock coming from that group. I basically came to this after we'd spent the morning running some errands we didn't finish yesterday. I was already in a mood to just lose myself in my thoughts, and this cemented it. Aside from the errands, the only productive thing I did today was update the category info for the new programming project (ie, the one that the Notebook is about) on Sourceforge. Most of the day was spent sort of numb; the news from UF kinda put a black cloud over the day. I idled the day away playing old games like Jigsaws Galore or The Cube while thinking about different things (mostly pony related things). I did manage a very pleasant surprise: I've been randomly checking Hasbro's store to see if they will ever restock the blind bag set and the figures I can't find locally. Today I checked and they were all in stock! $75 down the drain, but that's not bad considering it would probably have cost close to $90 or so to buy them locally. That's 24 blind bag ponies and the three figures I was looking for. Naturally I also alerted EqD about this. AFTER placing my order. Most of the last hour was spent attempting to locate a specific MLP fic I read last summer. In the end I found two *similar* fics, but not it. The link for the day is a simple short video of a dancing cat. |
 | February 16th, 2012 at 3:32:49 AM Groceries and more Yep, it was time to do the shopping today. As usual, this took the majority of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon. The rest of my day was spent working on the fanfic. It's now at close to 900 words, and does a decent job of building up tension. The folks at EqD also got back to me with some answers to my questions, so I know were that is going now. While the rule I was concerned about is still in force, it won't apply to this story. That's pretty much all of the news from my end today. Yesterday though I discovered a new My Little Pony musician. The link for the day is one of his more upbeat tunes: Love Me Cheerilee |
 | February 15th, 2012 at 3:19:37 AM Pizza movie night Today really didn't go as I'd expected. In a nutshell, my parents decided to make tonight a pizza movie night. So most of the evening was spent watching a movie while consuming jos, pizza and root beer. The rest of my day was spent quietly poking at things. During the afternoon I did a little valentine doodle and stuck it on my DA. During the evening I worked on the fan fic. This revision is about 500 words, and is leaning towards chill-down-the-spine scary. Which is pretty appropriate, as it starts with a nightmare. It's supposed to be frightening. Anywho, I wasn't planning on being up this late. I spent the last 45 minutes writing and editing an email to EqD about the fan fic. Now that I've done some work on it I'm not sure how to categorize it and I'm also not sure it'll be allowed due to one of their rules. So I figured I'd ask about it now before I worry about making it fit the submission requirements. Lastly, the link for today is a short Pony fanvideo to make you d'awwww this Valentine's Day. |
 | February 14th, 2012 at 1:05:25 AM Visiting hours are over Today was rather different; mom's quilting friend stopped over for a long time, helping mom get some answers and instructions on making her quilt. Things got a bit unsettling at lunch when she choked a little, but fortunately that resolved itself without the Heimlich being used. Anywho, most of my day was spent puttering about doing little. This was largely because I didn't know if I'd be needed to help move stuff, so I didn't want to start anything I couldn't put down. The evening was spent doing a few odds and ends. I did more work on the fic, which is progressing much better. The other major thing I did was play around with a method of coloring art I ran across a few days ago. It's not complex and is surprisingly quick, so perhaps I'll use it for something in the future. Note that I didn't keep any of the scribbled I did -- none were worth saving. The link for the day is some cute if bizarre animation. |
| February 13th, 2012 at 1:54:55 AM Well, that was a fight The majority of the day was spent working on the updates for DBHL. It turned out to be a real fight to get that done; if it wasn't one thing it was another. I ended up re-drawing things a few times, editing pages several times and even re-uploading things more than once. It was quite a tangled mess. The rest of the evening was spent working on the fic. The new direction seems to be helping, though it's obviously just a draft at the moment. Lots of work to be done there, though it's going better than before. It's 467 words long so far. Part of the time spent on the fic was just doing some quick research to flesh out the new character a bit. Nothing terribly major, but it's important to know this stuff beforehand. The link of the day is a sad follow up to yesterday's news about Whitney Huston. People think she was Oprah. |
