July, 2006: 16 posts.
Affirmation of the Day
I am endowed by my creator by the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Web Search EKG
I like these. It’s like reading an EKG or the waveforms from a ventilator. But for web seaches over time.
via robotwisdom
Mexican Flags Make Some People Crazy
What the heck is up with that? Confused? See: San Diego Blog: Del Mar Fair
Swing It Baby!!!
Hey dude, as usual when I don’t post much, there’s a bunch to say. But suffice to say, things are looking up. Life is good. Difficult in the margins, but the main score swings like Sinatra, baby.
Swing on!
Bitmasks
I’m doing work with bitmasks these days, working on system maintenance on a web application I had nothing to do with building. One of the things it does is use Bitmasks to keep track of some customer data states. I’m not sure I like it, but I can’t deny that it’s a way to preserve staus in a very compact way.
Mask (computing) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The most common mask used, also known as a bitmask, extracts the status of certain bits in a binary string or number. For example, if we have the binary string 100111010 and we want to extract the status of the fifth bit counting along from the most significant bit, we would use a bitmask such as 000010000 and use the bitwise AND operator. Recalling that 1 AND 1 = 1, with 0 otherwise, we find the status of the fifth bit.
Sign of the cross
You might find this interesting reading: Sign of the cross
Developing…
You know how Matt Drudge always posts his crap and rumors and when they’re half-baked or haven’t even hit the oven he ends them with “DEVELOPING…”
That’s how things are right now. Percolating. Toasting. Bubbling. Whatever developing metaphor you can think of, it’s that.
I know it’s not satisfying for me to post music lyrics, but tough luck, it’s great to work to New Order, and here’s the lyric infecting my head. Oblique, and not something I identify with this second, but it’s engaging music to work or drive by.
we’re like crystal (hey)
we break easy (hoo)
i’m a poor man (hey)
if you leave me (hoo)
i’m applauded (hey)
then forgotten
it was summer (hey)
now it’s autumn (hoo)i don’t know
what to say
you don’t care
anyway
i’m a man (just tell me what i’ve got to do)
in a rage
with a girl
i betrayedhere comes love
it’s like honey
you can’t buy
it with money
you’re not alone anymore (whenever you’re here with me)
you shock me to the core
you shock me to the core(hoo)
(hey)
we’re like crystal
it’s not easy (hoo)
with your love (hey)
you could feed me (hoo)
every man (every man)
and every woman (and every woman)
needs someone (hey)
so keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
keep it coming
When I was in high school I dug New Order. What a story. I’m sure I’ve blogged about that before, ah yes: “Eddie & Comic-Con“. Talked about my fetish for Ian Curtis and his suicide. Not my bag anymore. But the province of young men is to be entranced by angst and deify intense feelings. I’m a big fan of intense feeling myself, but not to the exclusion of rational self-examination.
It’s neat to rediscover a record (I still call them that, even when they’re digitized and stuffed into iTunes) I bought in 2001 — and about which I said the following, and I even mention unironically Joy Division:
The surprise for me was the new New Order record — Get Ready — listened to it at work and it’s nifty! Bit of a time warp to have a new NO record. Their best song is Turn The Heater On – a hauntingly beautiful song in a vast repetoire of haunting and beautiful work.
And I’m not even talking about the incomparable depths of beautiful despair that is – Joy Division.
I’ve been blogging for five years. Easy to forget posts. Easier to google for them and find little snippets of myself. Am I in pieces? Do I contradict myself? Very well I contradict myself.
I contain multitides and yet I am but one man. Truth. Beauty. Change. I embrace thee.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
In 2002 I wrote, in House-Sitting and Other Things (Long):
I’m trying to get my head screwed on straight. Quite a challenge these days, as I really feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.
It’s been a heckuva year so far. I hope so much that things settle down soon, but I think the stormy seas, for me, for my friends, for the country, for the world, will not abate anytime soon.
Still true. The nonsense in Isreal, when I can take a breath and not focus on dealing with the challenges and stressors in my own life, is galling. I hate the devastation. I hate the hipocrisy on all sides. I hate the contributions made to the Isrealis and to the Palestinians by us, by Syria, Iran, et. al.
What a stupid, stupid mess.
Do the hard work and deal with the reality of your conflicts! The world is totally worth living in.
On another note, one of the songs at Mass today was number 666. I chuckled a little, but in truth, it’s just a number. Just like 13. Or any other number. Numbers are numbers. Numbers can sometimes hurt (like being overdrawn) — but they’re not a measure of worth.
It seems like a lovely day. I have some work to do, but it sure seems lovely.
And to part, here are two recent photos of Leah and I you can enjoy:
Leah looks great, no? I look sort of pensive there, though I think that’s just me processing some French music when we went to a big free French festival yesterday in Santa Barbara. It was pretty cool. Very mellow vibe.
Here’s to more mellow-vibe-ing today.
Great San Diego Real Estate Post
Check it out on San Diego Blog :: My Real Estate Obsession
Excellent thoughts all ’round. Civil, passionate, informed discourse.
Rock!
Sassy Sassburton gets new blog software, and flickr too!
So my friend and colleague Sassy had his blog down for some weeks, his homebrew stuff wasn’t makin’ it. So he has new wordpress and even a flickr account!
Now he’ll have some RSS that works. Though I haven’t read my feeds in forever, maybe when I do, I can read him that way.
Welcome to the 21st Century Matt!
Busy + Hot
I’m busy, and I’m hot. This is my lunch hour. I’m in Ojai.
That is all.
Pax + Luv.
Crazy Tired
I’m so tired. Leah being gone at BlogHer has made my week a different kind of busy crazy than usual, but it’s all good.
Unrelated: Trying to catch up when you’re miles behind sucks.
I’m tired. This weekend will be the end of the project that’s been a damn anchor around my neck for months. And we need the money. NEED WITH A CAPITAL NEED.
Pioneer Children Walked and Walked
Sans-car, yesterday I walked 4.3 miles, this according to Google Maps Pedometer. My feet HATE me today. And my sandals are now broken, both of them. I slept well last night. I priced bicycles yesterday. Saw a cheapo for $99.99, and at a real bike shop the lowest bike I saw was at least $300. Feh. I coulda used a bike yesterday though.
BlogHer finished for Leah, and she comes home today. Godspeed, lp.
She’s in many photos tagged with blogher on flickr.
This one’s my favorite:
It looks like it was a good conference, and not just because my wife is lovely. There’s a liveblog of the panel Leah spoke on.
Next year’s will be in Chicago. I’ve never been to Chicago, so maybe it’ll time to go for me.
