Tag: MT

 

Oh boy

I wanted to upgrade Stonegauge’s theme today. Or at least work on a new concept. The theme currently employed is not widgetized and — well, for the uninitiated, widgets are fancy thingamabobs and doohickies (dare I call them watchamacallits) that you can place in a sidebar on WordPress and they can do various things aor let you re-arrange the sidebar with ease.

That’s besides the point…

So I went to my Happy Five years Hosting Me Now webhost and went to their one click install area and…

Well, to put it lightly, I fucked up.

I accidentally deleted Stonegauge from the Interweb.

It was just one simple miscue and yet everything I have ever uploaded to Stonegauge.com (the domain) was sent to a digital grave, to rot along with billions and billions of 1’s and 0’s. Every POST I ever made on WordPress (and a few dozen from my former MT and HTML based sites) were safe in a database but immediately after this deletion had happened, I feared the worst.

And as the afternoon progressed, the worst got worse.

I couldn’t gain access to five years of inane blog posts and personal shit that I have rambled about on thsi Interweb and this site. I mean the information was there but WordPress — the software I use to run Stonegauge — wouldn’t even look at it. It refused to acknowledge it.

I can’t send software to the corner for a timeout, can I?

I could barely figure out MySQL (database language) and contacted the Happy Web Hosting Overworked-and-Underappreciated Tech Support team. I laid out everything that happened in 2 different support tickets and chronicled all of my screw ups attempts to make things work.

But having not hear back from them by 7 in the PM, I decided to try to take things into my own hands — post another blog site just to see if I can rescue the database and then import an upgraded version of that DB to Stonegauge.com.

Well, I was in the middle of all that crazy shit when I get a little letter from a member of Tech Support. Everythign was fixed adn fine and back to normal.

MY BABY’S ALIVE! Try as I may to screw everything up to end all means fof ever restoring the site, it’s live and kicking again. Seems I screwed up a setting or three.

Local WiFi meeting places?

I’m looking for local Wi-Fi establishments in the Tampa Bay area (specifically Tampa, St. Pete or Clearwater).  Mind you, when I ask, I do not mean franchise establishments such as McDonalds, Starbucks or the UPS Store…  I mean restaurants, Café’s, bas, etc.

There is one place I know of for sure, and it is a good place at that — but well away from the population center of the Bay area.

There is a method to my madness, so I encourage anyone who comes across this post (on Tampa Blab or one of my friends browsing my site) to give input through comments.  Everything shall be revealed soon enough….

Just how far would you go to defend your beliefs?

Just out of curiosity, just out of wanting to know how strongly people stand behind their ideals —

would you stand up militarily for your beliefs? I don’t mean support the troops being sent to a foreign land… I’m saying that if you stand on different political sides here int he country — would you take up arms agaisnt the other side if the cross the line with their acts?

Case in point right nwo is the power grab by the president — at what point, with lack of checks and balances in play, do the people of the United States start reacting physically to the injustic3s going on?

Conversely, when does the RIght start physically reacting to judicial decisions they on’t approve of that doe snot let them push their moral beliefs on the rest of the masses?

Just when and where is the boiling point? Unfortunately, it’s getitng close right now. With goverment corruption at an all time high, with the country divided like never before and with the Executive Branch grabbing all the powers that are possible to grab – damning the United States Constitution along the way…. Soemthing’s got to give. And I don’t know if it will simply be difused with an election.

Movie Trivia – round one

OK, I want to try to do a weekly thing that will at least keep me from being entirely bored with der Stonegauge…. It’s soemthign that I usually reserve for Internet Message boards and the like. So I figure it can’t hurt to try it here on the site.

OK, what will happen is eithe ri post a quote or a question concerning films. Just answer the question and presto. You can eithe rask me a question to follow up or you can post a quote and ask me what movie it’s from.

Anyone willing to play? I’ll make the first one easy:

What was the phrase that is inscribed in black-speech on the One Ring in Lord of the Rings?

The people and things….

I got nostalgic yesterday a bit not just because of where I was and who I was with, but also someoen I ended up talking to via email….

Eric Rosell, one of my best friends growing up – the kid aroudn the corner – got married in a small ceremony at a local church. It was the first time I had seen his parents in a few months, the first time I had seen his brother in a few years and the first time I had seen his sister in more years. It was amazing I was attending Eric’s wedding, surreal even. (sidenote – is it bad luck if a Catholic is married on teh day the Pope dies? I hope not)

I grew up playing or hanging out at Eric’s house. I was the one that was first notably enamoured with someone of the opposite sex… Or at least the first to make a big deal otu of love and romance and stuff like that. This, that and the other thing – I saw my childhood before me — even as it disappeared further.

The nostalgia didn’t end there as I heard from Danae – the girl who live ddownt eh block for a time who I was flipped out for. I had sent her an email wishing her a happy birthday — strange how sometimes you feel like it’s not yoru place to say soemthing like that and yet you have no problem with doing so with other people who are almost complete strangers. She got to breaking me the news her grandmother – who lives down the block – had passed away at Christmas (which I wasn’t aware of) and other things. I remembered being smitten with the saphire-eyed girl who lived at the corner… I thought of the memory of the past – and the awkwardness and malignance the relationship had in general.

But of all negatives in the past – they’ve been forgiven. If not forgotten by me.

Those pesky 404's

Due to spam problems and people not being directed to the Stonegauge’s active setup, I did something I really shouldn’t have and deleted every MT file I had in the Archives…

That being said, if you are looking for something on the web and got a error message on my site, type it in on the left-hand Search menu and look there. It might just come up.

Ya down with ODP — DMOZ Posse

I might have already mentioned this somewhere but if I didn’t, I am back in action with the Open Source Directory Project with a couple of categories here and there.

Click here to view my Profile on there. Not much but it shows you what I edit…

If you’ve ever been interested in teh Search Engines and web directories, becomign an ODP editor is soemthing you ought to look into.

Surviving Jeanne

It’s Tuesday while I write this and it will be Wednesday afternoon when I finally get around to finishing and I have to tell you — I’m thankful… I’m greatly thankful.

It’s been two days since Hurricane Jeanne went through Florida… Two days or an eternity for those who lost power during the storm and haven’t gotten it back. It feels like an eternity because, in the Florida sun, the warmth gives away to the uncomfortable humidity and makes living feel attrocious. At least for the non-outdoors person like myself.

The storm went through Sunday and I lost power around 11:45 in the morning. Soon after my text messenger stopped working properly and I was cut off from friends who would later tell me they didn’t lose power or cable over the duration of Jeanne’s lashing of the Tampa Bay area..

It didn’t tkae long for food to spoil, or my parents to insit we gobble up ice cream and what not before it went bad. Outside, the wind howeled and I waited patiently for one of the trees in our yard to give-way to the relentless wind torrent and snap or tip over. Fortunately that never happened. Or unfortuantely? The thing si a very ratty Indian Rosewood that we would probably be better off without in our yard with it’s adventurous roots.

Time inched on and all you could do was try to read in poor light conditions or watch the storm. I kept thinking back to the fact we are so dependant on electricity that it isn’t even funny. Television? Computers? Even cell phones that worked, appliances, etc… This dependance is compounded in the Sunshine state because of the need for the ever-present air-conditioning if you are going to get through on hot and humid day.

By six or seven in the evening, the wind and rain had relented enough to venture outside. I honestly NEEDED to be outside at this point. Cabin fever not only was driving me nuts, but being stuck with my parents and older brother — I felt cramped. I felt stuck. Of course, I wasn’t leaving the yard as the wind still gusted to 50 MPH at times, but it was better than being on the inside — starring otu into the overcast and blustery conditions.

We got power back around 11:45 Sunday night (miraculously). The only reason we had it is because our house is on the same power circit, it would seem, as the stop light at the intersection several blocks away. It was a relief to get cold again from the AC… not just cold but drier than it had been with the windows open and the humid air flowing through the house.

Yet there are neighbors still without power. WIthout cable… And it could very well have been me and my family still trying to get by without power… so like I said, I’m thankful…

And I’m rambling without even putitng up something of substance.

Comments

A lot of people might be noticing and wondering why most of the comment sections aren’t open on some of my posts on here lately. The reason isn’t because I don’t want to hear from people — though I have to be honest, you kids bragging about High School Football is something I can live without. It’s because of SPAM. Lots of spam. Spam spam spam spam spam eggs and spam… Without the comments, there is less of an opportunity for spammers to spam.

Yes, those who are on MT will tell me to use the MT blacklist… I already have it in place. Still, I’d like another anti-spam buffer I guess. Either I stick with this or perchance I convert to WordPress and fight spam through that. Oh well.

Pathetic…

FOXNews.com – Foxlife – TV Viewer Sues Over Janet Bra-Ha-Ha

Bank worker Terri Carlin (search) wants compensation for herself and millions of viewers “injured” by the lewd behavior of Jackson and fellow performer Justin Timberlake (search) during Sunday’s Super Bowl coverage.

On Wednesday Carlin filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in federal court in Knoxville, Tenn., against Jackson, Timberlake, broadcasters MTV and CBS and their parent company, Viacom.

Give me a break… This woman is just as pathetic – an opportunist – as a lawyer who chases after Ambulances in search of clients, or a hot woman who mariries a rich guy just before his death to inherit cash (hi Anna Nicole!)….

Thinking of taking a (hockey) Dive….

I used to write, a long long time ago, for a hockey publication.. A local one… One that had a good little mix of local readers and local fans talking it up and hanging out on the site…

This of course was a crappy Rivals.com site but it worked. It had a dedicated owner, a dedicated set of fans and a couple of kids (including me) who wanted to do what they could to get noticed and get published and what not….

I’d like to try setting something like that up again…. But an MT version of it… (meaning a journal report on the Lightning if it’s possible).

It IS possible, the thing is I am not a great writer — well, it’s not exactly writing as so much reporting and I am a worse reporter than I am a writer… Why? I can’t get to locations to report… Not only hat but when I DO report, I get the information wrong…

I’d love to have a site, though, dedicated to one of the local sports teams and with a team of fans to help report on the team…. The Lightning is the best team to achieve that with, as the Buccaneers want to keep everything in house and the Devil Rays happen to resent their fans with a vengence….

A Tampa Bay Lightning fan site while the Lightning are getting ready for their next playoff push might be fantastic to launch… Though it also might be suicide seeing the NHL is on a collision course with the Apocalypse.

Search Engine Fun

The Stonegauge has about 300 entries since I switched to Movable Type (this includes entries from my old journal that I switched to the MT Journal) which is pretty cool. in that time I’ve used a lot of different phrases and different word combinations in every one of those journal entries…

Which leads to the Search Engines….

Using any one of the popular search engines (I can’t pick out which ones in particular give which search results), some of the past entries on The Stonegauge will come up under strange phrases. Here are some of the example phrases, linked to the articles that inspired the search engines to believe that these posts were relevant tot he search phrase:

antonio bandaras free nude pictures

take a turd

pie fucker

learn voo doo

OK, these aren’t the meatiest / juiciest phrases that have come up when I view my web site logs — but these are just in the last few days….

Blog / Newsfeed Recommendations

I cleared out some of my News / RSS feeds on Trillian Pro 2.0 the other day because the sites in general weren’t getting updated much and basically waiting another few months for a new story on a site like Bush / Orwell ’04 was lame.

SO what doe sthat mean?

It means I am running out of sites and blogs that amuse me. Damnit, that isn’t a good thing.

Now, for my blogdrive friends and livejournal friends as well — I’m sorry but this doesn’t apply to you when I complain about needing new and more newsfeeds. This mainly goes out to news sites and MT type blogs because they can generate newsfeeds through their software (I am NOT going to explain what the hell RSS is :tongue).

I am looiking for more sites to add and read daily… ANy suggesitons out there?

I mean, one of the sites I subscribe to is Howard Dean’s blog — http://blogforamerica.com. Another is Defective Yeti which tends to be amusing more often than not… another great blog is Lies.com… It’s after those three that I have problems finding something entertaining.

Oh well, enough of this ramble. I don’t think anyone will have feedback on my problem but I appreciate it if you could suggest valuable newsfeeds or sites you believe are worthy newsfeeds.

Tis the Season – ho ho ho – help me out here…

So this is Christmas, and what have I done?
I’ve been newly cut open, now living as a bum…
So this is Christmas, and what do I get?
Another day older and leaning towards debt….

It’s Christmastime ladies and gentlemen if you have been living under a rock the past few weeks. Tis the season to spread jolly good vibes towards your fellow man and all that good stuff.

Personally I am a little perplexed this year as to what to get my family for Christmas. Specifically my older brother who I really want to slay with a gift — slay in a good way. I don’t mean overspend for a Christmas gift, I mean give him something sentimental that he will cherish.

See, Mike is someone who flaunts capitalism and debt in how he operates. He is already going to be giving several thousand dollars worth of gifts jointly in my name to people this year. That tweaks me because I really feel like an invalid shit not being able to pay my own way with certain gifts.

At the same time, it’s nice someone else is picking up the tab of course…

But the thing is, I want to show him that I care. I can’t buy something that will make him say “Oh wow, thanks!” unless I find something that he really wouldn’t have thought he would like. I can’t MAKE him something he would admire, in my humble opinion, because Mike has always given me a tough time with things I do as not being good enough or not as good as it COULD be.

I have the thought of buying him a domain name — as he is currently running a blog on http://foreverlad.diaryland.com — and giving him an MT treatment and web space of his very own, but he doesn’t want to be COMMITTED to anything. I got a bit of shit from him recently because of my birthday gift to him, and Ecosphere, and the fact he doesn’t want to be responsible for these living creatures inside the sphere (feels guilty when they thing doesn’t get proper light, etc).

Should I just say “The hell with it?” and get him a card? What are some of your off-the-cuff ideas for Christmas gifts? Input would be nice here…

Anecdotes from a hospital-based boytoy

Ah, the journal… Now if only I could start writing like a human being again. I’ve found out that I am typing mistakes more often and using incomplete sentences more often because I’ve been stuck on the T900 pager the last week and keeping things tied into my friends online through that.

There’s so much I can say here and so much I want to say – stuff still going on and stuff that I want to talk about to specific people but the time isn’t right.

My hospital stay started with a bang – well not really, it was more like an “Oh shit!” when I forced myself to look at the clock besides my bed and see that it was 6 Am. I was due at the hospital at 5:45… Crap. I jumped, got dressed and got the hell out of dodge… Didn’t get tied up in traffic and actually got to the Hospital before my scheduled operation time… Not just that, was only a few minutes late going into the OR.

Was it scary? Going under the knife is always scary but it wasn’t scary like last year. There was something still sitting with me that was scarier and I was trying to accept things as moving on because of it. O course, waking up and having a mask put on me again didn’t make me feel comfortable either but then again – blacking out and waking up in post-op was about what I expected next.

Though I did dream. Of what, I don’t recall, but I am certain I dreamt this time I was under. I don’t usually dream. Last time I dreamt anything, it was of green clouds during my first operation.

ANYWAY, I wake up in the Post-op/recovery center and I’m watching the clock, of all things, because I was hoping to catch someone on a TV Talk show at 12:30. Of course it’s around 2 at the time and my priorities are out of whack but then again – I guess this also showed my confidence now. Oh sure, I was in pain, I was in a neck brace, and I had little movement in my legs (Muscle relaxants) but I was ready to start recovery.

I’ll tell more soon, other things take precedence now – like sleep.

Dejà-VooDoo than I Do

DejÃ-Vu.

Very, very dejÃ-vu…

See, about a year ago I had some things happening to me that made life a big worry… A worry much bigger than your day to day but not so incomprehensible that you would think I’m an alien or something like that (though the Men In Black would argue that)… It’s just something that hung over me much like a new job, moving, or some other great unknown worry would have this feeling of heaviness over you. There’s anxiousness and anxiety to go along with it and a question of just where this will take you.

That was a year ago and I’m repeating it this year.

Yep, John’s got a scheduled date for surgery now – Wednesday, August 20th at Tampa General Hospital. Pre-op on Monday the 18th. I’m thinking of other odd things going on — Bill’s sister is due to have her 2nd kid about that time and — it’s SO STRANGE because that is what happened last year while I was in the hospital.

Very strange, very deja-vu.

Of course this year I won’t be writing to anyone on the pager, telling them soemthing I should have told them the night before I had the operation…

…Nor do I think I’m going to be out of the hospital in 3 days. Hell, I don’t even know if I will be back to walking anytime soon after surgery. I’ve talked about my legs being weak as is right now – I got to imagine if everything goes fine I’m still going to have weak legs and on top of it I might have to “learn” how to use them again.

I don’t know if I will need rehab or what… I don’t know if I should be looking intot he ibot or the Segway because of future lack of mobility… (then again, I want to look into the Segway no matter what so that whole point is moot).

At any rate, after a night off from the computer, I’m writing again with another story… Maybe assignment 4, I didn’t look at the assignment as much yet but I’m writing with constraints just because. Sort of good story but I think it’s been done before…

Also, Melanie will be glad to hear that John got disc 5 of 24 season 1 in the mail. I may very well have that watched by the end of the day… God I love that fucking show