I hope everyone has a safe and pleasant night. In honor of the night I coerced my lovely black cat Helza for a brief (she doesn’t like being held long) photoshoot. She was more interested in looking around than looking at the camera, so here’s what came out. Besides, would this be a blog without at least one cat picture? Her full name is Helza Poppins, which we named her because when she first joined our household she would hide behind everything and jump out when you least expect it. I’ve seen some pretty interesting costumes today, and of course the decorations are always fun.

I took a long rest earlier because I had a terrible migraine. Why am I so tired now? Too tired to read, too tired to talk, and too tired to work on the code I wanted to get to this evening. I think it’s time to try that sleep thing out again.

Happiness is thinking you forgot your umbrella, then spotting it in your backpack and walking through the pouring rain dry.

Well I’ve found a few more I plan to check out, and I’m going to give each at least a day’s worth of heavy coding, then narrow it down progressively until I finally decide on one. The non-free fonts that don’t look terribly promising I’m going to try and test drive online, but MyFonts anti-aliases things pretty heavily and indiscriminately, which makes it hard to tell how fonts work at smaller sizes. The new entrants in the contest are:

• MPW
• Monaco
• Profont and Sheldon
• Pica
• Pragmata
• Jet Jane Mono

Several of these font suggestions come via Aaron Swartz’s favorite fonts list. Personally I’d like to see more lists like this, perhaps in a semantically meaningful way that could be indexed and presented in different ways. Any format come to mind? I know I’ve read a couple of similar lists before, so I’ll try and dig up some more links.

I’ve been looking for a nice monospaced font to replace Courier New in my code editing programs. Several people suggested Andale Mono, so I decided to check it out. Unfortunately, I don’t have it on any of my machine, so I decided to hit up Google to see where it would be available. I went on a goose chase through MyFonts that led me to a dead end when I saw that Andale Mono was part of Microsoft’s TrueType core fonts for the web, which were available for free, but now aren’t offered for download from Microsoft. However, it looks like the original license the fonts were released under is broad enough to allow third parties to continue to offer the fonts for download, which led me to the Core Fonts Sourceforge project which on their download page had exactly what I needed. Ahhhhh.

However my search is far from over, in the larger sense. Andale Mono is working out great so far, but I’m not sure if I like the feel of it yet, and so I’m going to test out some commercial fonts to see if any of them suit me better. I’ll post the final decision once I make it.

Today I plan to do some major reorganizing in my room. There is art to go up, there are books to be put on shelves, there are way too many clothes. After that (assuming there is an after that) I have some major client work to catch up with. So I’m probably not going to be around here much today, but during the commercial break you should go check out the beautiful redesign at Zeldman. Absolutely gorgeous.

Those of you who have lived with me before know that sometimes I have trouble waking up. Anyway it what may be the biggest waste of sophisticated hardware ever, my fancy desktop machine has graduated from playing music to also being an alarm. This works on a number of levels, because I can wake up to the music I want to rather than whatever is on the radio. Also while my normal stereo can do an alarm, I was having to change it every night because my schedule is different on Tuesdays and Thursdays than the rest of the week, and I would often forget to set it to the earlier time. The stereo being by my bed was also a problem because sometimes I would just hit the power button without even opening an eye. I found a nice plugin for Winamp 2 that does just what I need, although it looks like it is going to bug me to pay for it in a bit. It has all the features I need, and doesn’t look to bad either.

Well I’ve gotten a copy of the 3.1 beta I mentioned in the previous post and I’m going to be doing a review of it for the Web Tech SIG sometime within the next couple of months. My initial impressions of the program are very good. The user interface is really well done. I’m going to start putting it through the heavy paces later tonight. My approach to reviewing this product is going to be to just throw my self into it, so I’m associating it with all the files it can possibly edit, I’ve edited the registry to make it the default source view for Internet Explorer, and I’m going to be using it for all the coding I’m going to be doing. I’ve found in the past that this is the best way to really get to know a product and its quirks. Wish me luck :).

There’s a new feature on the scripts section of the site where if you’re using a particular script or code snippet you can post your site. It’s stark empty now, so please try it out! It’s called “Celebrity Endorsements” :).

I just found a list that summarizes everything I possibly wanted circa 1997.

• U2 CDs
• 64 megs of memory
• Awe 64 Sound card or USB speakers
• Mark 6 alto saxophone
• Stereo:
  • Radio turner and mixer
  • CD Changer
  • Turntable with stereo output
  • Double tape deck
• Books: anything by Isaac Asimov
• Cool mousepad
• Flatbed color scanner
• 3D video card
• Computer games
  • Quake II
  • Starcraft
  • Command and Conquer II: Red Alert
• Fast CD-ROM with digital support
• Cool speakers for Dolby 4-channel surround sound
• Big Monitor
• Caller ID
• USB Port

By the metric of this list, I’ve achieved almost 100% success. It’s remarkable how the material things we want can change so much over the years, and how material things in and of themselves can become so much less important. I wonder if I made a list now, how would I look at it in five years?

I’m cleaning up my room, as I always do when the weather starts to get cold, and going through a drawer I found the most remarkable piece of paper. Apparently I had made a bet with my friend Lucas that George W. Bush was going to run for President. For posterity, here’s the entire text of the letter:

On 11-20-98 [we weren’t Y2K compatible] in World Geography with Mista [sic] Molloy, Lucas and Matthew made a $2 bet that George Bush Jr. will run for president.

[signature] Matthew Mullenweg | [signature] Lucas Spath

Matthew says he will
Lucas says he won’t

The person who is right gets the two dollars ($2)

We must have been quite bored to make the language that specific, but I guess next time I see Lucas I should hit him up for the money. I need to make more bets . . .

Just got back from Cue and Cushion, a nice pool hall on Shepard. Tonight was especially nice because I actually won. The music was good, thanks to Jaime, and everything was fun. Alex was making some really nice shots, but luck seemed to turn in my favor towards the end of every game. I’ve put some cool pictures from the pool hall, as well as a frog that lives at my house that I see sometimes. I’ve always heard stories about how my grandfather was very good at billiards and played it all throughout college, and part of me wants to emulate him and get really good at it. This night was definitely a big improvement, but I haven’t quite nailed down what I was doing different. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

A lady was filling her tank at a gas station, smoking a cigarette, even though all the signs say not to. The fumes that came out of the gas tank ignited, severely burning her hands, and the fire
crawled up her arm. Instead of rolling on the ground to put it out, she panicked and took off
running down the street! A police car was at the intersection where it happened and he tried to stop
her to put out her arm, but she just kept running and screaming. So the officer shot her. This took everyone by surprise. The officer ran over to her and put the fire out, then called for an ambulance. When questioned about his course of action to stop her the officer said, “My only thought was for everyone’s safety. After all, she was waving a fire-arm.”

I have many wonderful things to post, exciting things to talk about, places to be, but unfortunately my life has grinded to a halt due to Service Pack 1 for Windows XP wiping my bootloader and corrupting everything. It actually gives a screen that’s very scary when I try to boot, which I took a picture and video of and will post as soon as I get my MemoryStick reader (laptop) back. So once everything is back up I’ll post what I think caused this, and how I (if I can) fix it. It looks like I’m going to have to reinstall all my software too, so maybe I talk about that to, try and turn this into something positive. Macs are looking mighty nice right now.

I feel like I’ve had a very productive day, espescially compared to yesterday when it felt like I did nothing. Here’s a summary of the day thus far, with the boring parts (and classes) taken out:

• Good breakfast
• Human Situation Discussion class
• Re-printed some business cards for a client, had to tweak design
• Took David his graphics card
• Checked if David’s processor was just underclocked or if they actually sent him the wrong one (wrong one)
• Filled tank
• Deposited some checks
• Made some important phone calls, did email
• Installed my $7 copy of Windows XP Professional bought using UH’s new site liscene (more on this later)
• Had long lunch with Kel at a nice deli whose name escapes me, oogled at his iPod
• Picked up Kel’s grandmother’s ten-year-old computer, which she’d like me to fix. We’ll see; I’m not a miracle worker 🙂
• Took client her new business cards, decided on another change, talked about website
• Spent too long in traffic, but it’s okay because I made a new mix disc
• Finally arrived home at around 4:15 PM

Whew! I think now I could crash for the next week or so, but I’m waiting for a call from someone . . .

From Christine: I was a little shocked when I first read this but after reading the articles I feel better about it. The Yahoo article presented the information strangely, highlighting a string of statistics and records, and I got the impression it sounded like the Pope is trying to make a name for himself.

I think the NYTimes article portrays things more accurately, and more importantly it also said what the changes would be, which I didn’t get from the first article. For more information you can go straight to the source, or here are some quotes that detail the changes

CNN—Until now the Rosary’s five joyful mysteries were recited on Mondays and Thursdays, the five sorrowful mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the five glorious mysteries on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The five new mysteries will be used on Saturdays, according to reports quoted by The Associated Press.

ABC—The rosary beads, which Catholics use to keep track of the prayers, will not change. The rosary will still consist of a cross and about 60 beads since only one set of mysteries is contemplated at a time and usually on different days of the week.

Irish Times—The Rosary developed in the Middle Ages from the Psalter of Mary, which consisted of 150 Avés (Hail Marys) said by those who did not have time to recite the psalms in full. Avés took the place of psalms and became a symbol of roses which the faithful wished to offer to Mary. This later became the Rosary.

Sante Fe—Each set of mysteries is dedicated to five particular episodes in the life of Jesus. According to the rosary Web site, the five episodes in the luminous mysteries will be the baptism in the Jordan River, the temptation in the desert, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the transfiguration, and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem.