Month: May 2009

Categories
Cooking With Code Home Base

Plague update

Excuse me, I seem to have died!A little update from the plague house: my diagnosis was a nasty sinus infection …plus strep throat. This basically translates to “get the toddler and anyone else who isn’t a cat way the hell away from me.” The “alpha site” has turned out to be the in-laws’ place, so I’m sitting here with Olivia and Oberon, with occasional visits from the dog during bad weather. Supposedly we get a break from that weather over the next week – a pity I don’t feel like getting back out there and tackling the lawn (on the other hand, when I still have no appetite and my body temperature fluctuates between freezing and a brain-boiling near-104-degree fever, I’m not sure how trying to mow could actually significantly increase my physical discomfort).

For some reason I’m totally jonesing for Dr. Pepper right now. Not sugar free, not caffiene free, just good old Dr. Pepper, that same stuff that’s two molecular bonds away from being antifreeze. It’s the only thing that tastes “right” to me right now.

I really miss my kid, but I understand he’s having a blast at his grandparents’ place, and can already call all of their kitties by name (and they have twice as many kitties as we do here, and many more doggies!). He’s being a little angel over there. But I’ll be more than happy to have him back over here.

I completely skipped one week’s worth of update on theLogBook this week because I’ve been going around and hack-proofing – to the best of my ability – the various WordPress installs that make up the site. I’ve really about had it up to here with the explots and script hacks – I keep my WP isntalls up to date, but sometimes it just seems to have the security coverage of a mesh shirt from the ’70s. WordPress is becoming common/popular enough to be the de facto hack magnet – a position shared by phpBB and Windows/Internet Explorer. I’m not sure I’m crazy about that. I spent most of last night un-junking Phil’s 365 Films A Year blog after getting a Google warning about it via e-mail, and most of that “most of last night” was trying to unbreak the damage I did trying to fix it. :embarrassed: (Sorry, Phil.)

I’ll see if I can get it back in gear for an update on time this week. It seems like any time I put my foot down and say “this is the month where theLogBook.com is going to start kicking ass again” is precisely when it manages to avoid happening at all costs.

Back to the doctor’s office: my wife got us both in for appointments at a new doctor’s office, and apparently we’ve both been thinking the same thing without discussing it: we need a new “doctor of record.” With no disrespect intended toward the doctor we have been seeing for the past 2-3 years, because it’s someone who has put in their time over the years, but it seemed increasingly as though our old doctor was more interested in the golf course of late. Appointments were hard to get, and sometimes, it seemed, only begrudgingly given. This is why I’d been avoiding seeing that doctor for the past year-and-a-half and going instead to a walk-in clinic where one of the staff doctors is one of my best friends from elementary school (!). So finally it seems that we’re looking at this place as the new home base for medical needs…which suits me just fine, because the nurses are just hellaciously cute. Even the one who gave me shots in my butt, including one with a huge needle that was left in for so long that I thought she was drilling for core samples of ancient Antarctic ass-tundra or something. (But I kid – I’m sure having to stick needles in my fat butt was hardly the highlight of her day.)

Anyway, I’m on a whole cocktail of meds right now, including, for the first time in my life, an inhaler. I’m feeling kind of woozy, but a little bit better. I found out very early on that taking all of the meds right on top of each other was a very bad idea – we’re talking hearing-the-soundtrack-from-Heavy-Metal-inside-your-brain, effed-up bad idea. (And no, it didn’t work like “cheesing” on that South Park episode, else I’d be taking the meds like that all the time!)

That’s all I have to report. I have to go break up a fight between the only other two living creatures in the house. Bye bye.… Read more

Categories
Home Base

Ick…sick

This explains how my head feels:

I’ve got a hellaciously nasty “machine gun cough” that kicks in at random, even if I’m asleep, and keeps going until I can get control, or until I start to black out.  Either way, my head hurts like hell afterward.  Evan spent several nights over at his grandparents’ house (being a perfectly behaved angel if their reports are to be believed) because my wife and I both have this and it is not pleasant.  I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to get this looked out – we’ll see what it is, if there’s a cure, or if they’re just going to put me down because it’s the humane thing to do.

I hate feeling like this.  Ugh.… Read more

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3 Television & Movies

Snotty, I need those engines working

Scene cut from the new Star Trek movie: Spock doing jazz fingersI dragged little E to the pediatrician today, where we learned he’s got a garden-variety cold that’s being made that much more miserable by an ear infection. So no Trekking for me this weekend, barring some unusual incident where I’m able to step into an alternate timeline where the boy’s healthy enough to leave with his grandparents so we can go to a movie. 😛

While I’m waiting though, I wanted to give a hearty recommendation to a blog called My Star Trek Scrapbook, run by a fellow named Frederick who I’d swear is kind of like my slightly older self from an alternate timeline – think of him as Earl Prime, maybe: works in the media, has a love for Star Trek, and has occasionally-mentioned step-parent-from-hell issues. Anyone else a little bit spooked out by this yet? Anyway, his blog concentrates on news clippings, merchandise and other minutiae from the “lost years” between the original Star Trek’s syndicated success and the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And even though there hasn’t quite been the ten-year wait between the last Trek to hit our screens and the latest movie, there are some definite similarities at play. His captions and mini-articles are a joy to read, and really recapture what it was like to be excited about Trek’s return in 1979, as well as what it was like to be a Trek fan during that strange period during which the show had never been more popular or more ingrained in pop culture, and yet wasn’t being currently produced. The merchandise is curiously barely-related to Trek – i.e. disc guns with a picture of Kirk and Spock on the box, and other curiosities from the age when reprints of the old Gold Key comics were manna from heaven. The current spate of Burger King ads with “the Kling” cheerfully put me in mind of this period of Trek history – the studio wasn’t being so precious about whether or not it was pissing off the entrenched fan base, and maybe that was a good thing. Frederick is one of the few random folks I’ve stumbled across on the ‘net where I think, after reading his blog for a bit, “Man, I’d like to meet this guy, because he sounds just like me.” If you have even the slightest interest in Star Trek, check his blog out. Be prepared to spend hours there gawking and stuff and going “Oh. My. God. I remember that!”

I also wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Anthony, with whom I worked for many years in the teevee nooz trenches, and now has his own blog where he can be as opinionated as he likes without worrying about it violating some vaguely-worded clause in the employee handbook (like me, Anthony is also a refugee from the teevee nooz wars, and I think he’s discovering, as I’ve done over the past two years, that it’s nicer on the outside). His observations are funny as hell, and yet he can be pretty topical too, and doesn’t hew to either extreme of the political spectrum. It’s refreshing, funny, and makes you think too. Not bad reading at all.

Okay, that’s all the plugging-other-people’s-blogs I’ll do for now – I’m just gonna sit here and cry in my Dr. Pepper, which is swirling slowly in a plastic Star Trek cup from Burger King which, for the record, I plan to display next to my vintage 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture happy meals.

In the meantime, I’m preparing for a gap of – in all likelihood – weeks before I get to see the movie, because I’m also developing a runny nose and a scratchy throat since little E is wallowing all over me – he wants me to hold him, or hold his hand, or let him sit in my lap. I’m sure I’m getting quite an exposure to what he’s got, and I have a feeling that all the Zicam I’m talking isn’t going to make a dent in that. Maybe we need to page Dr. McCoy…… Read more

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3 Gadgetology

Come fail away with me

To boldly go...nuts.I know, everyone reading this is wondering what I thought of the new Star Trek movie…well, I think it’ll be great if I even get to see it this weekend. Evan’s come down with something (yet again) that includes a really nasty hacking cough (again), so our chances of making it to the theater anytime soon just kinda dropped to roughly nil for this weekend. I’m really worried about the little guy – the cough just sounds nasty. I’m more worried about him than I am about missing the movie.

Dave recently asked what I thought of the Star Trek: Countdown comic miniseries – it’s kinda cool. It’s kinda like your last familiar exit before you enter completely unknown territory. I’ll probably do a book review later this month, though it’s been a long-standing not-quite-a-policy-but-more-of-a-tendency here at theLogBook to wait until there’s a trade paperback (a.k.a. TPB, FYI) to do a comic review. This one, though, may be worth making the exception.

Much of my day Thursday, aside from trying to entertain a sick toddler, consisted of trying to get a media center PC installed in the living room for my wife in time for Mother’s Day. Before you go rolling your eyes and saying “How romantic” with sarcasm dripping from every syllable, keep in mind that she’s a fellow geek – and one who has been without a computer to call her own since shortly before Evan was born. This machine has full DVR capabilities, and replaces the CD player, DVD player and VCR that were sitting there (though the VCR is still present as a less-complicated means of channel-surfing). By cobbling the thing together from bits and pieces, I’ve also augured this unlikely machine in for a landing for under $300. There are still a few bugs to be ironed out – namely a stubborn wireless keyboard that seems to hate me – but it may actually be online for the weekend. Considering that it’s looking like a miserably rainy weekend, maybe that’s good timing.

One thing I’ve done with the new box – and every other PC in the house – is ditch Internet Explorer. I don’t have anything against open source software, but for a few years now the smug evangelizing going on from the Firefox crowd has put me off of checking that particular browser out. I’m finding that this might just have been my loss. I’m still not crazy about the grass-roots PR – it reminds me of the South Park episode where a cloud of “smug” was generated by hybrid cars – but I’m impressed with the browser. I’ve added a handful of security add-ons, and I’m well pleased – with just a few add-ons, it’s a damned handy diagnostic tool for someone whose website is under near-constant attack. Not that I’m gonna name any names there. I wish there was a way to remap CTRL+A to open bookmarks, as I have years of deeply-ingrained hotkey sequences burned into my head that are completely thrown off by CTRL+B. Hopefully before long I’ll resume the whole punching-stuff-in-like-a-concert-pianist routine.

Hopefully Evan will be back to his happy old self soon too. He’s been learning at least a word a day, and is rapidly approaching the point where you can have a whole conversation with him about important topics like dinner, kitties, doggy, and bed (nap is a very dirty word, FYI). Once we can talk about poop…well, you know what comes after that.… Read more

Categories
Funny Stuff Spamatozoa

Remind me to let Inspector Javert check my inbox

Victor Hugo! NOOOOOOO!Remember “Alien Nation“, where all of the aliens had the names of famous dead people? Maybe this gem from my inbox this morning is kinda like that.

If you’re interested in showing up as a first page result for more search terms on google and yahoo, reply back with all addresses you’re looking to promote and the best number to contact you with details.

Sincerely,

Victor Hugo

Wow, Victor, that’s quite a generous offer. I suppose that you’re saying that if I took you up on that, I might be… well… less miserable?… Read more

Categories
Funny Stuff Television & Movies ToyBox

The Hedgerow Of Fear

I hang out over on doctorwhoforum.com quite a bit, and a good deal of that time is spent not gleaning spoilers and vague hints about upcoming episodes, but instead in the toy collecting & customizing subforum (aka the Celestial Toyroom). I don’t have nearly the budget that I used to for the ol’ action figure shelf (and yet I realize that I have more of a budget than some folks do), but I love hanging around there and seeing other people’s vast collections, and marveling at the custom jobs that others cook up either from scratch, or by sanding down, resculpting and repainting existing figures (hey, all those action figures from “Primeval” have to be good for something!). The amount of talent and manual dexterity on display by the customizers floors me. I wish I could do that sort of stuff. But by golly, I can at least offer a laugh to the ones who do. Forum member “morethanatimelord” posted some color and B&W photos of his new, made-from-scratch model TARDIS, scaled to match the 12″ figures (think old-school ’70s G.I. Joe sized) – this thing is just beautiful. A few folks joked about it being photographed rather obviously in his yard and suggested a 1960s-style “Next episode” title…which I then obligingly added to one of his photos, along with some effects to suggest the scratchy “taken off the TV screen” photos that were so common back in the day.

Next time on Doctor Who...

Fortunately, “morethanatimelord” has a sense of humor and we’re already plotting future joint ventures to knock the sheen of seriousness off of the forums. Suits me fine – there can never be too many photos of that beautifully-crafted model. Good times!… Read more

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3

Letters from Evan

I can do it, yes I can read!Evan’s been wound up and ready to play all day…so of course, it’s been a miserable rainy day. I was playing with him today in his room when he looked at the brand name on his crib and started reading off the letters to me. I didn’t ask him to (we spend a lot of car rides going through the ABCs and 1 through 10), he just looked, pointed at each letter, and started reading them off – until about halfway through. He’s not as well acquainted with the alphabet past, say, P.

Not sure what the average age for this sort of thing is, but he’s just over two weeks away from 20 months.

How much of this can be attributed to his day care, or to the combined forces of Sesame Street and They Might Be Giants, or to dear old dad, I don’t know. But I’m still very proud of him. He’s growing blindingly fast, and I like to occasionally entertain the illusion that maybe, just maybe, I’m getting this parenting thing right.… Read more