Santa Ana Winds

Santa Ana winds on Halloween. Doesn't get any better than this. The next couple days are going to be a real test of my mood and spirit.

Redesign Complete

Again wasting time trying to layout my blog without tables -- when tables are obviously the most natural framework.

Tried to make this as clean simple as possible. Hopefully it will serve as a good template for future pages.

Not displeased with the result.

Blogger Archiver

Woke up this morning and decided I needed to come up with some sort of page scraper that could create a saved archive of my blog on my hard drive. So that gets thrown in the inbox. Here's a start:

PHP Scraper

Also need to update Project Patriot Tax. Will be much more motivated once Kerry wins.

Note to self

I really need to redesign this page. I'm thinking something minimalist.

AAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Had just put the finishing touches on a perfectly worded email. Then tried to make one unnecessary adjustment. And lost everything! And it was nobody fault but mine. I had saved about a third of it -- but lost the rest. So I had to go back and Thomas Carlysle the whole thing. Which is probably a good mental exercise -- but annoying as hell. And no way it was as well written the second time as the first time.

I can't just let it go. Hopefully this will help...

Great Moments in Sunset

Just stepped out back -- breathtaking sunset. Smoky billowing clouds fringed orange against a sky so blue and translucent that it was like looking into the deepest reaches of a universe as blue as the ocean. Makes me wish I had a camera on my cell phone or some ability with watercolours.

Outside just now: it's perfectly sunny and raining at the same time. Always trips me out when that happens.

Get Out the Vote Posters

Just heard about this project on NPR. Of course, like thousands of others, as soon as I heard it, I tried to go to the website and couldn't get in. Happily, some of the posters are posted on the NPR site:

Political Design: Graphic Artists Urge Voter Turnout

My favorite (by the aptly named Tom Hope.)

Music History

Listening to a song from Liz Phair's whitechocolatespaceegg album just now and it spurred that strange sensation that's half-memory, have gut-wrenching reflex in the way that certain songs will do. They become epochal, able to represent in a kind of emotional shorthand the texture and taste of a whole period of time. Not just songs you like, songs that fuck with your head. Anyway, it got me thinking of the songs or albums that do that to me and the different periods of my life they embody:

1st or 2nd grade : Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
3rd or 4th grade : Rolling Stones' Tattoo You
5th or 6th grade : Come on Aileen by those weirdos in the overalls
Onset of puberty : soundtrack to Valley Girl
Post-parents' divorce : The Who's Better You Bet
Senior year of high school : Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti
First year out of college : U2's Joshua Tree
Last year at Disney : Tobin Sprout's Moonflower Plastic
MA program : Liz Phair's whitechocolatespaceegg and those raggae and Filipino folk songs my Marxist roommate used to always listen to

I suspect the current period is going to be defined by The Polyphonic Spree's album. But who knows? Could be surprised.

Blogit

every time someone reads your blog, they pay you

Interesting idea. Will it work? I kinda doubt it. I'll be curious to see how long it lasts, however.

Tom Tomorrow Has a Website

Cool.

Oxford Manuscript Site

In the event you wanted to look at a collection of old manuscripts, like I did.

Code to Check If Javascript Enabled

Pretty simple. This site covers it:

http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/javascript/supportdetection.html

Also see {noscript} tag:

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_noscript.asp

New Google HD Search Tool

in a word: ROCKS!

I didn't get the impression from the clickthroughs to set it up that your data wouldn't be archived somewhere on Google servers. But an article I read somewhere stated that Google claimed no private data would be sent over the Internet.

Just started playing with it, but already impressed.

Panda Cam

Didn't see any pandas in China. But that's ok because now there's the San Diego Zoo Panda cam.

Electoral College Graph

Interesting, if discouraging and somewhat meaningless (at this point) information.

Writers and Rockers on the Campaign Trail

From today's New York Times:

Rockers Open Tour in Support of Kerry

Trolling the Campuses for Swing-State Votes

Meanwhile, Ted Nugent hunts dove and I clean my room.