Revjim XML Parser

.

Revjim’s XML parser for PHP looks potentially useful, especially since I want to do a hypertext art thesis using blogs and their RSS feeds. I’ll definitely give this thing a spin — as soon as I can decipher that struct output. Nested hashes always confound me.

Of Evlovers and Pyrafans

.

Ever since Blogger got famous, and more so when they broke up and Jack Saturn wrote his letter, I’ve been curious about the politics, personalities, romance, and drama behind the whole Pyra affair. I briefly IM’d with Matt about it once, but I certainly didn’t want to seem like I was prying for gossip.

Today, this Blogroots thread offered up a link to a good bit of old history from Rebecca Mead. Mention of a “Pyra Shrine” in that article led me to, um, EvLover, formerly the Pyra Shrine. (Okay, unless it’s a joke, this old site borders on the obsessive, which I find a bit scary.)

The pioneers of Blogger have become celebrities and idols in their own ongoing soap operas, and to most of us the upheavals consist largely of words on a screen. These people’s lives and struggles are known by so many, even as they retain their private person-on-the-street profiles. (Simulacra, anyone?) It says a lot for how hypertext — and blogging in particular — has so effectively blurred the distinction between public and private space. I doubt that any online medium illustrates that postmodern phenomenon more tangibly than the blog. Are these the baby steps on the path to the utopian hyperreality posited by Baudrillaird and other postructuralists, or are we just rubbernecking journals on the web for juicy personal tidbits?

(My apologies to Ev, Meg, Jason, Matt, and all the other old guard for my being a nosy neighbor. I don’t mean to be such an A-list usisero.)

Heh. Now wouldn’t that make an interesting movie. Think Pirates of Silicon Valley. I volunteer my “voice of God” accent for the movie trailer. “In a world…”

Chronicles of George

.

Chronicles of George: a compilation of helpdesk tickets from what will probably go down in history as the worst — yet funniest — tech support the world has ever seen from a single person. Start here, with the “anti norton virus,” then keep going. Hope you’re havening fun.

Treo or Sidekick?

.

I called the cab company, and no one has turned in the phone. Since it’s prepaid GSM, anyone can just take out the old SIM and replace with his own, so I suppose it’s as good as gone.

Which leaves me with just one question: should I get a Treo, Sidekick, or just stick with the N3390 I was on before?

Lost Cellphone

.

No one call me or text me; I left my cellphone in a taxi last night. Stupid loose slacks pockets.

A Trip

.

I took a rather nasty spill two nights ago, the devious doing of a small, severed tree stump which jutted from the soil where my foot happened to land as I ran to meet the Light Rail at Mt. Royal. Said stump twisted my right ankle and sent me sprawling onto the pavement, bouncing on my left knee before I finally landed hard on my right arm.

I haven’t had a fall like that since I was a boy. My breath was seriously knocked out of me, and I had to roll over on my back and stare up at the cold night sky for a few seconds before getting up. But get up I did, with no serious damage beyond a skinned knee, cut palms, and a painful twinge in my right shoulder, which took most of the impact. It took the rest of the light rail ride downtown for the adrenaline to drain out of my system.

Late nights, long train rides, and lost love are taking their toll, I suppose. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and am taken aback by the sad weariness etched into the face that stares back at me. But I plod on. This is the long road to manhood, and He who leads me knows my limits; He will not test me beyond what I can endure.

I’ve taken some nasty, heartbreaking falls, and in many ways I am still lying on the pavement, still wondering if anything is broken. But I will stand up, and I will take His hand anew. As King David charged Solomon his son, “Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn…”

“Show yourself the man!” I find that counsel strangely inspiring. A large part of my goal in all this is to emerge as a “real man” — whatever that may mean — to be able to bear, by God’s grace, the burdens and challenges of life with maturity and responsibility, and to always rest upon His strength. Then perhaps one day in the future, I will hear Him say…

“You’re The Man Now, Dawg!”

Shuttlecam Quicktime Movie

.

Go here for downloadable movies from the shuttle launch camera, in Quicktime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media formats. Unfortunately they only show up till the SRB separation, at which point the view got all misted up by debris and condensation.