Ben's Busy Blog

Nat and I went out to see a few possible reception sites this morning. That went well and we may have found the site we want. We came home and I crashed for a bit. Then it was out to show her mother her wedding dress. The wedding stuff took up a good bit of the day, and I'm kinda tired now, so I'm cutting this short :-p

Achievements:
+ Visited reception sites, have found choice
+ Went with Nat to wedding dress fitting
+ Talked with sister about ringbearers
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ No biking
+ Read Amber Spyglass until finished
+ Nap
Other:
+ Cooked spaghetti for late dinner

Today was mostly spent at home, slogging away at the intricacies of the intarwebs. I haven't got much interesting to say, and it's time for bed.

Achievements:
+ Biked the full 15
+ Web development (mostly research)
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Websurfing too much
+ Played Dragon Slime some
Other:
+ Upgraded Xbox HDD
+ Loaded daughter apps to XBMC
+ Loaded some media to Xbox

Well, I figured out something this morning, which was of mixed spirits. Biking today was again very difficult. I was finding myself out of breath and my legs felt like they were trying to turn into wood. I finally gave up, exhausted, at 13 minutes. At that point it hit me that this was something that couldn't have been brought on by being unhappy or depressed or something. I must have some sort of low-grade bug right now. I've been feeling irritation inside my head, around where I my Eustachian tubes must be. Although it sucks to be sick, I'm relieved, because I know how this will eventually pass. I was worried that I was suffering from the symptoms of an onsetting depression. The fact that I feel so relieved about possibly being ill shows how this must have been weighing on my mind.

Achievements:
+ Biked
+ Wedding dress & tux shopping
+ Some futzing with web design
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ To bed late, wake late
Other:
+ Cooked dinner. Spaghetti with leftover sauce = yummy

Today has been another poor-to-mediocre day for me. I'm very drained of late and having problems justifying effort. I did well this morning overcoming the apathy and woodeness of my body to last 15 minutes on the bike. I'm still having that thing with lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. Oh well, that's all I'll go into. I need to make this blog more private anyway. Yay...

Achievements:
+ Biked better than yesterday, but still not great
+ Cleaned geek room
+ Re-worked TrepAtlas art for site logo w/ respects to new design concept
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Late to bed, late to rise
+ Suffering from apathy or depression or something slowing me down
Other:
+ Grocery store
+ Laundry (mostly unfolded as of yet)

Today was depressed and confused. The menial labor of cleaning the geek room was a good thing, but there are many little things to sort. It's going to take some time to get it all straightened out, but I'll keep at it. I also spent some time on webdesign.

Achievements:
+ Biked, albeit very lamely
+ Worked at the nigh-Sisyphean challenge of cleaning/organizing the geek room
+ Explored options for unifying web design across blog and wiki
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Late to bed, late to rise
Other:
+ Who am I, what am I doing here?

I had trouble getting out of bed today, but it was for good reasons. After that though, I just never quite recovered today. There's another doctor's appointment tomorrow which is a little on the early side, so I should get to bed earlier tonight.

I really haven't got much to say about today. I don't know where my mind's been. I am just completely spaced out

Achievements:
+ 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ To bed late, got up late
+ Doctor's appointment w/ requisite travel time
+ playing Dragon Slime
+ Reading Amber Spyglass
Other:
+ Took out trash

I didn't bike today, essentially because I woke up 20 minutes before the Steelers game due to Dave's call. I'm not concerned about this at all, because I don't believe that it's the beginning of a bad habit. I'll be back on there tomorrow morning.

I haven't got much other comment to make, due to the volume of text that I just completed adding to here. Read away folks!

Goal: Load hack software to Xbox
Results: This took a lot of time, but I got it up and working. My old spare HDDs proved to not be up to the task, so I put out the $50 for shipping in a new 80 GB. This will be worthwhile, since I'm going to pollute it with all sorts of data as the Xbox is going to be connected to a wireless B bridge so streaming isn't going to work well if at all.
Review: Success! - it was a bitch and required a lot of internet legwork plus a lot of trial and error, but I made it work.

Goal: SurfBlinders 0.1 with basic URL detection & alerts
Results: I had a big breakthrough this week. I was goofing around this week adding a somewhat spurious addition to the wiki. It was responding point-by-point to a 100+ point checklist I'd found on a website. I had to clean it up in order to use it, so I wound up copying it over to Notepad++ and using regular expressions to wikify it properly. This gave me the insights I needed in order to regulate for Surfblinders. I laid out the basics for using regular expressions to convert the URLs, but I think I could have gotten more done if I'd tried.
Review: Failure - Despite making a breakthrough with the regular expressions, I still didn't get as much done if I'd thrown the hours at it.

Goal: Finish cleaning grout & seal
Results: I believe that the grout is as clean as it's going to get, but I still need to apply new grout and then seal.
Review: Failure - Mindnumbing, ache-inducing & uncomfortable, this job has languished

Goal: Hang bulletin board
Results: Hung it, after a snag, but one of the anchors might be slipping...
Review: Success! - But I need to keep an eye on it

Goal: Finalize reception sites
Results: Natty and I have narrowed locations to two. We like one site better, but it's victim to possible scheduling and decor issues. We're awaiting a callback about this. If this fails, we'll just resort to the Phipps entryway with a possible afterparty location
Review: Success! - Not as clear as I'd like, but narrowed down nicely.

Goal: Work with Natty on next phase of life
Results: This was put down in an optimistic fashion, but basically got hamstrung because everything hinges on the wedding, which hinges on the reception location.
Review: Success?

Goal: Discipline!!!!
Results: I followed through on everything successfully.
Review: Success!

New weekly goals:

• Surfblinders or Torque, just do it


• Create simple unifying design for website, wiki & blog


• Clean geek room


• Daily wedding time


• Discipline!

Achievements:
+ Hung bulletin board
+ Old weekly goals assessed, new weekly goals generated
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Steelers game
+ Shopping trip
+ Slashdot
+ Wiki
Other:
+ Replaced lightbulb in hall

Yay! I've got the Xbox working. That's one goal I completed well this week. The new HDD is on order, but it'll be a few days. Also, I haven't quite uploaded any games yet, but I'm working on that.

I also scoured the bathroom floor a bit. I'd say that I'm pretty much done with removing grout at this point, so I just need to add a little to replace what's been taken away, and then get some grout sealer on it. I also need to purchase said grout sealer first.

I dunno, I got some stuff done today, but it didn't feel too productive. Well, there's one more day to work on my goals. We'll have to see how it all falls out.

Achievements:
+ Beat 400 cals in 15 mins on bike
+ Got networking, Evolution-X and XBMC working on t3h xb0x3n, w00t
+ Took out my frustration on the bathroom grout
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Read Case of the Missile Crisis
+ Read some of the Amber Spyglass
+ Watched some of the Chronic(what!)cles of Narnia
+ Trip out to the South Hills for stuff
+ Played Mario Party with Natty
Other:
+ Got measured for Dom's wedding
+ Grocery store

I slept in a bit today. I woke up when my alarm went off, but then decided to stay in bed, aka the lair of the snuggles. I honestly enjoyed it a lot.

I dropped the OEM HDD back in the Xbox, and now it's booting happily again. It looks like I'm going to have to order an HDD for it. I can get 80 gigs shipped for $50 total, which seems somewhat reasonable, but it wasn't in the original plan.

I poked around with JavaScript a bit too. Also I took a while shopping on Amazon for books applicable to stuff we're working on here. I also helped Natty cook both dinner and a batch of chili afterwards. Anyway, it was a relaxed day, but I did stuff and now its time for bed

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
+ Fiddled with Xbox
+ Fiddled with JavaScript
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Slept in, but it was quite nice
+ Played Heroes Slime Rocket of Quest Dragon
Other:
+ Cooked dinner w/ Natty
+ Cooked chili w/ Natty
+ Visited the Frick

Hot damn and slap me on the ass! I actually got the basic url conversion and detection worked out for Surfblinders. It's relatively insignificant, but it's a milestone. I taught myself regular expressions, and then I figured out how to do the weird shit that I wanted to do: I used regular expressions to convert a URL with asterisk wildcards into a valid regular expression, and then used that new regular expression to successfully detect (compare against) specific URLs. Now I'm all sorts of proud of myself.

Next I'll get to find out if JavaScript barfs if you try to reuse the new RegExp() operator on an existing variable. Otherwise, I'm going to freaking need an array of RegExp's... and that's bound to blow up memory footprints.

I spent a bit of time working with the Xbox today. I might have to get a hard drive for t3h Xboxen. I haven't quite figured out how to install Evolution X on the OEM HDD yet either though. Damned thing won't read my CDRWs or DVD-Rs. Luckily I've still got FTP or USB thumbdrives available as options.

I also tried hanging the bulletin board today. I tried to hang it in the same manner as one would a picture: by connecting a wire across the length of the frame and putting it over a hook in the wall. Unfortunately, my lightweight board material is not stiff stuff, so it bowed inward due to the wire's tension. Back to the drawing board on that one.

Achievements:
+ Biked for 400 cals in 15 mins
+ Did some wiki work
+ Figured out regular expressions while screwing around
+ Fruitful Xbox research
+ JavaScript programming success!
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ played Mario Party with Nat
+ More fruitless Xbox hacking
Other:
+ Grocery store

Hi there. This here's a little extra post that I think would be good to fit in every once in a while. Basically I'm taking a quick review of how my goals for the week are progressing, and maybe that will shed some light on where I should allocate my labors next.

Load hack software to Xbox

Last night I spent an hour with a few failures at replacing the Xbox hard drive with a larger one. I've got one 40 GB HDD that the Xbox won't recognize, and a 2nd 30 GB HDD that it recognizes, but won't lock. I might have to be looking at investing in a recommended drive. Since any software loaded will be copied over to a new drive, I can move ahead in the Xbox upgrade without further distraction. I'll burn a DVD today in hopes that it'll work.

SurfBlinders 0.1 with basic URL detection & alerts

I haven't worked on this project at all so far this week. My initial reaction to this is to immediately start working, but I think some of the others are close to conclusion, so I think it would be more wise to finish them instead.

Finish cleaning grout & seal

I think I've cleaned all of the paint-stained grout as well as possible. THe next step will be to add a little fresh grout atop that, and then seal it. In order to do this though, I need to research grout sealing and then purchase whatever's recommended.

Hang bulletin board

I bought a set of hooks & wire for hanging this yesterday. I should be able to hang this today, and I like the idea of tackling this immediately after this post.

Finalize reception sites

We visited a few sites that looked promising. The Society for Contemporary Craft has a really nice space, but they don't remove the artwork. Also they weren't able to confirm whether or not they're free that night. So although we like the space, we don't know whether we might be rubbing elbows with an exhibition of Holocaust art, or even if it'll be available. We have confirmed that the Phipps entrance hall does have enough space for a reception, but we'd rather save that for worst case scenario. There's something more with the Frick art museum, but I'll have to check with Nattie to find out what's up in the air.

Work with Natty on next phase of life

I'm not sure what to say about this. We've been talking, but the wedding looms first when scrying the future

Discipline!!!!

I've been very good about not getting distracted by the things that I named earlier this week. No turning off Greasemonkey (and therefore iCloak or Webolodeon). No Dwarf Fortress ogling. And I've been getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier. The other distractions I've suffered have been spending too much time reading, and I just picked up Dragon Warrior Heroes Rocket Slime for the DS. That freaking title is 5 nouns in a row! I keep calling it "Dragon Slime" instead.

Overall, I feel satisfied with my innate sense of accomplishment this week, but at the same time, I am reviewing my progress right now and am very unhappy to not see more accomplished. The only resolution for this is to get my ass movin', so I'm off!

Today was a pretty good day. Again, it wasn't day full of impressive banner achievements, but I got some stuff done. I hope to continue this movement towards greater productivity.

Blog musing: I had to stop by Radio Shack today, and a hardware store in order to pick up bits and pieces for both the Xbox upgrade and for hanging the bulletin board. These trips took a little time from my day, so I feel like I should account them, but I don't know whether they count as time sinks, or achievements. Hmm, in a moment of confusion, I'll choose Other then.

Achievements:
+ Got up a little earlier than yesterday
+ Beat 400 cals in 15 mins on bike
+ Cleaned grout (weekly goal)
+ Got 120 GB drive setup as data drive
+ Worked on Xbox
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Doctor's appt w/ requisite travel times
+ Xbox won't boot with HDD upgrade
Other:
+ Spot-cleaned carpet some more
+ Stopped by Radio Shack for HDD power supply splitter
+ Stopped by hardware store for bulletin board hanging stuff

I woke up at about the same time today, despite hitting the pillow earlier last night. I carefully choose my words here, since I lay there half awake for a while. Oh well, it wasn't terribly long.

Today went pretty well, I think. I spent part of the evening messing up my systems. Hopefully tomorrow will see me sort it out.

Achievements:
+ Biked 400 cals in 15 mins
+ Unmounted and removed NTFS-formatted 120 GB drive from Ubuntu box
+ Started transferring data to 120 GB
+ Reviewed reception destinations
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Can't boot Ubuntu anymore, MBR might have been on other disk
+ Tried to close 53rd acct, but they can't for 2 days (wtf?)
Other:
+ Paid some bills

Today was a bit mixed, but overall it was an improvement from how I've been for the last two weeks. I hope to continue the building progress.

I spent a good deal of time trying to bring the Xbox forward. In the end, I didn't make any advances other than a healthy amount of research. After a couple failed attempts with a CDRW, I seem to be having issues with getting burnt media to read in the system. On the other hand, I learned that I have a dongle for adapting the controller ports to suit normal USB devices. Maybe I'll be able to load software from there, but that lead is problematic because I have had no luck pulling in other software. I think I'll try to spend tomorrow working on other weekly goals, but I might try doing the hard drive upgrade.

The Steelers game ate a good bit of my time this evening, but I'll definately make room for that. During the game, I wound up on Slashdot and Wiki, but it wasn't too bad. After the game ended, I kept on wiki'ing for another hour though. That wasn't too smart.

I'm going to sign off and work on getting some stuff lined up for tomorrow.

Achievements:
* Biked 400 cals in 15 mins
* Lots of time spent with Xbox, albeit fruitlessly
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
* Steelers game
* Wiki: Heroes for Hire article
* Failed at cooking strange fish without a recipe
Other:
* Spot cleaned carpet

I'm still sleeping in, but at least I've gotten started on the blog early today. That's especially helpful, what with this being the day to review last week's goals and the ones for the week upcoming.

I tried to go out to the South Hills area to get measured for my tux for Dom's wedding, but this turned into a complete waste of time due to a combination of procrastination, a panic attack, and mall employees being either completely clueless or assholes or both.

Okay, time to review last week's goals. I will preamble this section by saying that life has still been fucked up and off-kilter post-MoP. I honestly believe that the two weeks since MoP have been a personal lowpoint for productivity and creativity. At this point though, Natty and I have finally started getting on the same page about moving life forward again. We had a good talk about the wedding this weekend, and I think that might have helped us find focus again. Anyway enough putting a silk dress on a sow, time to face the music.

Goal: Hack XBox
Results: The modchip is installed in the Xbox. This was a massive pain in the ass which involved a bit of lip biting. The Xbox is booting successfully with the modchip installed, but I haven't set up anything extra on the system yet. The task has proven to be more time consuming than I initially anticipated, but I started it too late in the week to.
Review: Failed due to procrastination and underestimation

Goal: # Complete JavaScript URL comparison function using wildcards
Results: Failed. I can blame this in small part on trying to figure out regular expressions, but this again failed due to procrastination, which was rife this week.
Review: Failed: Procrastination & distraction

Goal: Repair grout in bathroom
Results: I did about 90% of this work in one go. After which, I ached like a motherfucker. There's still work left to do there, but mostly the floor looks great. I need to finish this job, refill anywhere that needs grout replaced, and then seal that shit.
Review: Failed

Goal: Buy dry-erase marker set for it then hang bulletin board
Results: I bought the markers and installed the dry-erase section of the board. It looks great. I held the board up against the wall while Natty used the level, and then made marks for drilling. Then I discovered that my brackets were too small. I have had ample opportunity to go back to Home Depot, but again, have procrastinated.
Review: Failed, procrastination

Well, didn't that just suck? Well, here's next week's goals:

• Load hack software to Xbox


• SurfBlinders 0.1 with basic URL detection & alerts


• Finish cleaning grout & seal


• Hang bulletin board


• Finalize reception sites


• Work with Natty on next phase of life


• Discipline!!!!

I like the weekly goals program. I am not a fan of this weekly goals list, but it's the best I can put together right now.

Discipline for this week means: No Dwarf Fortress ogling, don't waste time dloading album covers for iTunes, No turning off GreaseMonkey. I think this is reasonable.

Achievements:
+ Biked, but took it easy today
+ Formed weekly goals
+ Spent a lot of time working on Xbox
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Woke up late
+ Read the Dwarf Fortress wiki like it was pr0n
+ Abortive trip to South Hills
Other:
+ Spot-cleaned a few spots on the carpet
+ Cleaned Nonami... don't ask
+ Finished Golden Compass

I'm starting to get my act back together again today. It's a slow start, but I'm actually getting somewhere. Nat's still under heavy anxiety, which is problematic because it's not something resolvable. All I can do is spend time comforting.

Achievements:
+ 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
+ Wedding planning with Nat
+ Worked on modding Xbox
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Woke up late
+ Didn't do my blog earlier in the day
+ Stopped to read Kotaku in the middle of doing my blog
+ Mult trips to grocery store
+ Reading the Golden Compass
Other:
+ Emptied trashbins
+ Unloaded dishwasher
+ Vacuumed
+ Cleaned a few spots on the carpet
+ Cooked Natty's dinner for her :)
+ Spent some time researching celiac disease

It's a week after the MoP snafu, and I still haven't gotten my life back on track yet. This week has been a complete mess. I don't know how exactly to resolve it. I seem to have lost focus and drive.

Nat's also been very nervous, and that has also hindered and confused things also.

Achievements:
+ 400 cals in 15 on bike
+ Some wiki work
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Played Mario Party with Nat, that game takes forever
+ Watched Battlestar Galactica
Other:
+ nothing I can think of at the moment.

Am I wasting my time working on SurfBlinders? I spent a few hours trying to teach myself how to use regular expressions tonight, and was asked why I was spending so much time on something that isn't what I want to be a professional in. Am I committing a fault oft derided on Slashdot, that of trying to create a technological solution for a discipline issue?

I hate saying this. Especially because this also means that a weekly goal gets overturned. But if I'm not making a lot of headway in this, should I quit and go back to what I thought was right? What if I kind of enjoyed what I was doing though? The Torque programming was getting really fucking boring, given that the author tries to teach by giving pages of straight transcription. I am not interested in retyping bullshit. I am even less interested in wasting my time going back over the material and trying to find the single fucking typo which fucked up pages of code. This isn't learning! It's a time-sink. It's heartbreaking.

There's another Torque book out there, which has gotten more props. Ugh, unfortunately Amazon only accepts a single Borders gift card at a time, so I'd be out a few bones if the nice people at Borders don't figure out how to obtain it. Since the man in the store told me that I might as well buy it if I see it, it sounds like he's not too expectant of seeing this in there.

Achievements:
+ RegEx research
+ Broke 400 in 15 on bike again
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Trip to Nat's Mom, to give sister's birthday present
Other:
+ BK Angus burgers taste good, esp when you're starving and cave for one

This week is running anemic for productivity. Re-adjusting my sleep schedule has been very difficult, as Nat's been counter to it. Perhaps the incoming seasonal change is compounding the lack of light I'm getting? *shrugs* dunno. Natty's also been rather unsettled lately.

I'm just so tired tonight...

I finally have found how to remove the paint staining from the grout between the bathroom tiles. I just have to scrape every single damned inch of grout. This is going ot take forever.

Achievements:
+ Finished bulletin board assembly
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ To bed late, Slept in late again
+ Set up iPod for Nat's sister
+ Scrubbing/scraping grout
Other:
+ Took nat to post office
+ Took nat to bank

I don't even know what i did today. Such a waste. Such a waste. :(

I hope that there were useful things that I did today that I have forgotten about.

Achievements:
+ 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
+ Some RegEx studying at Borders
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Got to sleep late, woke up late
+ Trip to South Hills for Natty's new DS
+ Got caught up reading about Dwarf Fortress
Other:
+ Spent an hour composing analysis of various reception locations
+ Cleaned materials out of bathroom & re-org'd hall closet to store them
+ Cleaned entryway markerboard & made to-do list for Nattie
+ Put grout cleaning on hallway floor
+ upgraded iTunes
+ Setup N64 in bedroom for Nattie
+ Spent a lot of time with Natty since she was feeling nervous

Dammit! I totally forgot about this last night, but for a good reason. I was really making headway with Surfblinders 0.1.

This is going to be a rather weak post, unless I recall more information. I can't really think of everything right now.

Achievements:
+ Biked 400+ cals in 15 mins
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Doc's appt with requisite travel time
+ hit a couple stores after appt
+ Too much websurfing
+ Went to bed late, got up late
Other:
+ ???

Okay, it's a Sunday, and it's the beginning of a fresh week, with no movies to film. I hope to accomplish more this week.

My new weekly kick is in, and I've set some new weekly goals, but first let's see how I did for last week.

The first goal was a working Surfblinders v0.1 under Greasemonkey. As I worked on the project, I discovered that it was a lot more work than I had originally anticipated. I've revised my visions of progress and have become more organized. A portion of the project will be done this week.

The bulletin board got glued together today, because I had set it as a goal last week. It had been de-prioritized and procrastinated upon, but the weekly goals program was a success in that it got the project completed. On the other hand, I do have to confess that when I penned it last week, I was intending to just glue the damn thing together, not hang it, or buy the dry-erase marker set (with eraser) that I want for it. So by the letter of the law, I lost this point. By the spirit, I feel okay.

The touch up work in the bathroom is finished, and the finished paints are out. As a potential bonus project, I might try using the last of the white paint on the inside of the radiator somehow, so that can's still in there.

I bought the Torx drivers, but didn't dissect the XBox. I'd say that this is fair, because the modchip arrived and I promptly decided that the project should be started as a whole for the next week.

Well, I think the project was exploratory, but I think it was a success. I could be prosecuted on some of this, and I openly admit this, but I feel fine about the initial effort, given that I found out partway through the week about the MoP shooting, which really screwed up sleep schedules and the rest of it.

Weekly Goals:

• Hack Xbox


• Complete JavaScript URL comparison function using wildcards


• Repair grout in bathroom


• Buy dry-erase marker set for it then hang bulletin board

Achievements:
+ biking, some weak ass biking
+ Completed bulletin board
+ Composed weekly goals and reviewed last week's
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Slept in again, sleep schedule still messed up
+ Played Spider-Man 2 some more (ugh, stupid final boss)
+ Watched WTC documentary with Natty
Other:
+ Some HDD duplicate file cleanup

Well, I've sort of lost two days, since we had overnight shooting as extras for Mysteries of Pittsburgh. We didn't stick it out the whole time. I would have liked to stay longer, but it was tiring.

I was mentally wiped out today and just took it easy. I finished American Gods (not bad) and played a lot of Spider-Man 2 (I want to try 100%ing).

I've spent some time today working on Surfblinders also. It turns out that I might have put together a larger project for myself than I first suspected. I'll try to outline some of the stuff I'm hitting here.

Scope
SurfBlinders originally started out as a GreaseMonkey script, but grew beyond what GreaseMonkey could offer me. GreaseMonkey only let's a script have a list of websites where it's applied, and a whitelist of where it isn't. I wanted to have a list of sites that are affected 24-7, and a list of sites that were affected during work hours. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to note which of two different actions the script might take for each individual site. A website might appear on both lists too.
Solution: For the moment, I've worked around this by putting the list of sites inline of the JavaScript document. This means that I can still use the script inside of GreaseMonkey, simply by applying it to all websites. Once I have an operational JavaScript core running inside of GreaseMonkey, I'll graduate the script to becoming the core of a full-fledged FireFox plug-in.

JavaScript experience
I have played around with JavaScript in the past, but mainly just for minor affects. The most complex things I've done in the past were based upon your basic webpage functions, and were just canned reiterations of roads well-trodden. Now I'm veering off into more complex coding. Conceptually, it seems to translate well from my C/C++ experience, but the implementation proves to be more difficult.
Solution: There doesn't seem to be one aside from just grinding through it, while using the internet as reference. I've just begun looking for a good environment for testing it.

FireFox Plugin
There's a converter out there which will change GreaseMonkey scripts into actual FireFox extensions, but I would still have to figure out how to work out how to control the list of websites. I'm not even sure if the compiler leaves you with a basic GreaseMonkey black&whitelist control.
Solution: Research? Dunno. That's not part of Surfblinders 0.1 and I haven't spent time on it.

Achievements:
+ Biking, but just Saturday, and gimpy too
+ Lots of research into regular expressions for Surfblinders
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Sleeping issues from late night filming
+ Almost 4 hours reading
+ Played Spider-Man 2
+ MST3k's Hamlet
Other:
+ Kitten petting & not much else comes to mind

Shooting for Mysteries of Pittsburgh tonight. Am an extra and very tired. If our shot makes the cut, you'll see me steal Peter Sarsgaard's barstool.

Love,
Ben

Well, tonight's an exception night for me, since I'm staying up late to prepare for Friday night, when I'll be at the Mysteries of Pittsburgh filming from 7 PM to 7 AM. So tonight I'm staying up late in order to change my circadian rhythms.

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Watched Night Watch (needs to go back to Blockbuster) (hour)
+ Watched Steelers game (2 hours?)
+ Went out shopping for 2ndhand punk clothes for my big movie debut (hour)
Other:
+ Finished detail painting in bathroom, yay! (4 hours?)
+ Cooked up some breakfast pizza (hour)
+ Cleaned up after making breakfast pizza (half hour)
+ Ran dishwasher (part of cleaning)

I had a kitten who was very much in need of love today. I also had to deal with some stuff around the house. Ulff... This blog isn't getting written, for no lack of having the window open. It's time to put this one to bed as-is

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
+ A little SurfBlinders programming
+ A little work with the bulletin board
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ MUST PET ANYA! PET ANYA MORE! ANYA DEMANDS IT! IT IS HER DAY OF WORSHIP!
+ Trip to bank
+ Trip to Home Depot
+ Didn't get to sleep at right time
+ Calling around about a prescription issue
+ played Spider-Man 2
Other:
+ Loaded dishwasher, ran it, emptied it
+ Gathered and washed a load of laundry
+ Installed new tubing and apparati for aquarium bubbling

Well, today was mostly spent doing non-project things, but I did get a little work towards one of my project points for the week. Unfortunately, we're already at Wednesday, and I haven't made any progress with Surfblinders. I'm going to need to lay into this tomorrow. Luckily, there's no doctor's appointment tomorrow.

I should be pleased that I kept busy, but at the same time I didn't really work on any long term goals, or even the weekly goals. I'd castigate myself over this, but that's life. I guess I'm going to try to work on Surfblinders a little this hour.

BTW, Comcast is a bunch of twats. They cut off our cable and internet this morning because we hadn't paid August's bill. Now, I mean August's bill. Last month. The bill that we haven't received yet.

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals on bike again, might be making this a regular point
+ Got to bed at the right time, go discipline!
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Doctor's appointment with requisite travel time (~3 hrs total)
+ Lost an hour after wake-up to cuddling and cute-talk (oops! :) )
+ Made dinner (including trip to store) (2 hours?)
+ Shopping + errands w/ Nattie (1 hour?)
Other:
+ Spent a couple hours doing touch up in bathroom

Through the morning today, I've been really struggling to achieve a sense of direction. I don't seem to have any motivation today. I think I had the Labor Day malaise or something... :(

Well, at least I've decided to get to bed on time from here on out.

And I need to remember to call our officiant.... oh, and this was freaky

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals in 15 mins on bike again
+ Spent a little time programming
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Stayed up too late, got up late
+ Played Spiderman 2 (PS2)
+ Played Yoshi's Island (GBA)
+ Read American Gods (that's a book)
Other:
+ Dug through piled up paper around the house

So the centerpiece of the day was a lovely uncomfortable conversation with the Donald himself. At least it went over alright, but it did suck up a few hours of time.

I've decided to start trying to set weekly goals for myself, as part of my ongoing self-discipline experiment. My goals for this week are

• Create a running Surfblinders v0.1 under Greasemonkey


• Finish putting my bulletin board together


• Finish any remaining touch up work in the bathroom and clear out the paints


• Buy Torx drivers at local Home Depot and experimentally begin dissecting Xbox as I await mod chip's delivery

And now, a brief book review: I finally gave up on my re-reading of "The Dark is Rising" series. I just couldn't get through "The Grey King" again. I'm surprised to find so many good reviews of that on on Amazon. Quite frankly I found it to be the most boring slog of the series. It just sort of falls flat for me, kind of like how Taran Wanderer was a little flat. But where that book was a necessary character-building exercise in the Prydain Chronicles, this book muddles about towards the series prophesised goals.

On re-reading, I don't like the new character, Bran, who's introduced as such an unknown quantity that the character doesn't get much more flushing out than "unquieting" and being unique in ways that the reader is supposed to be envious of. True, he has tragedy in his past, but it doesn't feel like the character's motivation. I think I was just pretty much turned off on the character from the start when he appears and has already been conveniently tutored in the complex backstory of "The Dark is Rising" world. A little too conveniently for me...

Also I've come to dislike the magic of the series. Although I greatly appreciate the sense of weird unfathomableness that is conveyed, the same sense of otherworldly non-logic hurts it because of the missing sense of conflict. I do value that it's shamanistic atmosphere elevates itself above the mundanity of videogame magic points or Harry Potter's silly word mechanics, but at the same time you can't get a feel for what may happen when magic's set loose. Since you can't grasp it, you simply admire the special effects show while weighing the plot necessities to determine an outcome. Since you know that the character has to get the widget for the story to continue and you don't have any comprehension of what threat they're undergoing, tension never forms. The moment is deflated. Harry Potter's magic might not be it's strongest point, but at least you've got a sense of the conflict (although it doesn't hurt that J. K. Rowling is willing to kill someone off). Oh well, not every author can be as clever about magic as Zelazny in Madwand.

Anyway, I've started reading American Gods instead. I'm enjoying so far. Go Gaiman!

Achievements:
+ Broke 400 cals in 15 mins on the bike again
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Discussion with the Donald, w/ requisite travel time
+ Wrote a book review... why really?
Other:
+ Took out garbage and recycling
+ Scrubbed cat dish

So first off, I'm in Google News now. Whoo!

Honestly, I spent a decent day today, but I can't remember for the life of me where all the time went. It's late again, and I'm not doing well at composing this. I'm not going to fault the day, but I'll definately fault this effort at composition.

Achievements:
+ Biked
+ Worked on Surfblinders
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Watched some Trigun
+ Went out shopping for a bit
Other:
+ Spent a couple hours trying to remove paint from the bathroom floor's grout
+ Grocery store 2x

Erm, remind me to do these earlier, because then they'll be so much more interesting than when I'm tired.

Anyway, one of the big things we did today was that we registered at Macy's for our wedding. The other thing is that Bob O'Connor, mayor of Pittsburgh, died today. It was at UPMC Shadyside, which is just down the street from us. Having heard that someone was laying roses there, Nat proposed that we go take a look at what was going on outside. She wrote down a quote from Mr Rogers that she thought was appropriate, as something to add to the tributes. Unfortunately when we got there, nobody was there except for the news coverage. We got caught by a Tribune Review reporter, who wanted to ask us questions about why we were there and how we felt. Some dude with a camera also started taping us. It was pretty surreal. I had to turn my head and laugh at one point. Why were we getting any attention?

Anyway, keep your eye on the Trib on Saturday...

Achievements:
+ Gunpowder War updates on the wiki
+ Registered for the marriage
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Registering took a lot of time
Other:
+ Interviewed by a reporter
+ Did laundry
+ Picked up around the house
+ Sanded the slide bolt in bathroom, looks nice and shiny now