programming
cobalt
The software that serves up content from this journal, “Debug,” is my hack (I will not go so far as to call it a branch) of mdxi’s serv.pl. He’s been working on the long-awaited follow-up, Cobalt, and has mostly finalized the markup and a basic parser for it.
vim
I’ve been working on syntax highlighting rules for it, which has been a strange process. “Programming” for Vim is just weird. I wish there was some kind of common scripting languages used by more than one or two free programs. I’ll acknowledge that embedding Perl is too heavy, but I’d be willing to learn S-Lang or the like if more software used it. Learning a different (and always bizarre) language to script every piece of software is a hassle. Microsoft really could’ve shown up “free software” if they’d just gotten that right: they have a common solution, but it’s painfully Wrong.
vim.org
The first set of changes to vim.org are mostly done and in testing, which is cool. It means that hopefully I can get to fixing the things that most annoy me, soon. I’ve been meaning to write down my ideas, but I haven’t had the time or energy yet. I’m hoping that tomorrow I can force them out.
the in-laws
Both of Gloria’s parents are in the area; they’re about two hours away, but that’s a lot closer than New Orleans. On Saturday, we were expecting them around 0800, but they didn’t show up until 1000 or so. We went for breakfast; since Hack’s was overcrowded, we hit the deli, where they were served some Cream Cheese Gone Wrong. Fortunately, it was identified early and replaced. Breakfast was good, otherwise, and we managed to waste enough time to go get ice cream. The Hedgehog had a good flavor out, “Coffee Break,” which was coffee with oreoes. Excellent!
After ice cream, we headed to Eagleville, which is basically part of King of Prussia, which is (in my little brain) basically the suburb north of Philly. The purpose of this expedition was to hang out with Gloria’s sister and her sons. That was odd.
Gloria and her sister (Jennifer) didn’t grow up together, and are not close the same way I am with my siblings. Example: she asked me what my name was. Everything was good, though. Her sons are, obviously, our nephews. She tried to explain to the elder of the two that we were Aunt Gloria and Uncle Rik. He didn’t seem to really understand or care, but we got hugs when we left, so I think it mostly sank in.
The boys were amazingly well-behaved little kids. I’m just about absolutely positive that there is no way I was even remotely that pleasant when I was three. The older brother, Keegan, is nuts about trains. He pointed out all the trains and tracks he saw, and kept asking when we’d pull over so we could wait to see some trains move. Fortunately, this never crossed over from cute to annoying. We saw Stuart Little 2, which was really bland, but not really bad.
On Friday, we’re all going to Hershey, but I’m not sure if we’ll see Jennifer’s brood until then. Monday, we’re heading to the “Garden” state to see one of my mother-in-law’s friends.
other movies
Unfortunately for us, we decided to rent some other movies to watch. Gloria picked “My New Best Friend,” the tale of a poor college girl who climbs the social ladder and nearly gets killed. It was pretty awful. I knew better, and picked a classic from the AFI’s top 100 list, “Easy Rider.” It’s the tale of a few free spirits riding across the western plains to get to Mardi Gras. It was just as bad.
I guess we have to be adventurous to see anything new though! Next time, I think we’ll get Death and the Maiden.