journal for 2003-09-07
coding
Work on rewriting Debug continues. I finally got around to changing the name of the software, because Debug sounds too much like it’s used for, well, debugging stuff. My journal is now powered by Life::Story. Isn’t that swell?
It’s had some significant advances since my last entry, but it’s still not really more featuriffic than the previous version was. It can handle multipart entries, again, which is good. I think it handles them much more nicely now, largely because the code has been modularized. It doesn’t do images, yet, which I should really fix.
What I really would like to get working is non-journal-based pages. I’d like to put in “anecdotes.” That’s one of the things I’d most wanted to do with my journal software since the beginning. I’d also like to get better formatting in place so that I need little-to-no inline HTML. I’m not sure if I want to implement a full coff-parser; I may continue to pester mdxi about it, but more likely I’ll figure out what subset I require and just do that. It’s pluggable, so I should be OK. I’ve considered using POD, too. I need to think more about that. I think POD has everything I need.
movies
Gloria and I are pretty close to done with our trek through the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies. We’ve watched through Nightmare 6 (of seven) and Friday 8 (of 10). The problem is Friday the 13th Part 9. No one seems to have it! We’ve tried our local 48 Hours, Hollywood, and Blockbuster. We also tried a 48 Hours on the south side. So far, no luck. We can try the other places up on Stefko later, I suppose.
Freddy’s Dead (Nightmare 6) was a lot better than I had expected. I think it had some big problems, but it wasn’t so bad. Its use of special effects was dumb, especially the 3-D. The story wasn’t terrible, though. I think that I’d really enjoy seeing a slasher movie that is more serious about dealing with the weird ramifications on the town. Both Nightmare 6 and Friday VI tried to do it, but neither was committed enough. Freddy vs. Jason also made a decent attempt. It would be cool, I think, to see someone really make that the point of the movie.
I also read an interesting suggestion written in an IMDB comment. Someone said something like, “Dear Studio: If you make a Nightmare on Elm Street prequel, people will go watch it!” Too true! Gloria and I agreed that it would have to be a real horror or suspense movie. The snippets of Freddy Before Death in Nightmare 6 and Freddy vs. Jason made it seem like he was plenty creepy to begin with. It could be somewhere between (or beyond, maybe) Se7en and Silence of the Lambs.
We also watched Kiki’s Delivery Service, last night. It was plenty fun, despite problems with the recording. We got it on DVD, but it was scratched and skipped. We returned that for VHS, and that had tracking issues. Still, it was good. Gloria and I watched it with my mom; we went over to her place to do our laundry and eat dinner. We brought dinner from Tulum, so it was tasty.
the car
After much deliberation, we’ve decided to head down Florida way to pick up a free car from Gloria’s parents. The drive back will day about two days, about eighteen hours of which will be on the road. It’s a long drive, but we’ve done worse. We picked up another car from them in the past and drove it from New Orleans to Boston. Hopefully we can find a good book on tape.
games
After enjoying Mario Golf so much, I decided to buy it. I also bought Soul Calibur II and F-Zero GX. All three are totally awesome, although I’ve devoted the most time by far to Soul Calibur 2. It is really fun, even though I know that I’ll never be very good at it. I’m good enough to beat first-time players and to beat the computer when it’s set to Easy. Good enough for me!
I also bid on a cheap used copy of Front Mission 3, which mdxi told me was something I really, really needed to try. I’m going to try to prepare for it by giving Final Fantasy Tactics another try. I enjoyed FFT, but I don’t think I made it past the second battle. I hope I’m not just too lame.
I have felt too lame to play any chess lately, which is a shame. I need to get in the habit of playing a game against Chessmaster every now and then.
apple stuff
I had my first problem with knave! It kept losing power. Even after spending hours plugged in, it would be unable to start from battery power. It would refuse to acknowledge that the battery was in it. It would show “fully charged” and then lose power if I pulled the plug. It sucked!
I looked at apple.com, which had an article suggesting I reset the onboard PMU. I did this, and it seemed to work for a few hours, then all failed again. I called Apple, and they had me do the same thing (but in more states) and it failed again. I called them later and they sent me a new battery. So far, the new battery is working like a charm. So, my brief frustration was abated by excellent customer service. Oh, joy!
I got my copy of Keynote, and I’ve been playing around a bit with Omnigraffle and Keynote. It’s killer fun; I need to find a reason to use them! I also got a copy of Entourage, which is absolute crap. Fortunately, I got it dirt cheap ($20) and it means that I can now use knave to do pretty much everything I need to at work. Once Apple’s wireless mouse is out (and the OS supports it), I’m set! I just need to get an iCurve and some flat panels or something.