Archives— September 2007

September 9—Site Problems

Anyone who's tried to visit my site within the last couple of days may have noticed it not working. This is because the new hosting company, Bluehost, was sucking and trying to charge extra. As with Hostway, this problem was resolved by simply changing hosts. The new host, GoDaddy, has a no-profanity clause—oops. So, if you discover the site not working again, it's probably because they actually read it.

Anyway, I haven't worked on the site over the last week since I was working at the Convention Center instead, for the Austin Game Developer's Conference. There was abundant eye candy there (apparently I'm attracted to fellow dorks); I would have been tempted to attend the conference purely to flirt had the cost and prospect of being expected to work not prevented me. I even proved myself a dork to the guy setting up the Microsoft booth when I joked about wanting to stop and check my email but then thoughtlessly added, "but it's been a while since I used a Qwerty keyboard." I don't think he heard me. Even if he did, he may not have caught my meaning since many don't know what a Dvorak keyboard is. Whatever.

Self-embarrassment aside, I did at least get plenty of overtime in, and the paycheck will likely prove larger than anticipated. I can take Freefall the cat to the vet for his shots.

Anyway. I've worked on style sheets for various sections of the site—after the various predictable disasters, it ended up going rather well—and I also added four new recipes: Beef Wellington, ratatouille, succotash, and tuxedo cake.

Now I'm going to work on cleaning up old files (I think I'm going to drastically alter the pix section) and create stuff for the new theatre section.

September 16—More Postponement on the Site

As the lack of updates would indicate, I've not been working on the site lately. After finishing the gaming conference call last week, I worked setting up for the Austin City Limits music festival in Zilker Park; the load out is tomorrow. I did not attend—aside from it being sold out and me needing to save my money for other things, I was also just plain worn out and spent the days of the festival at home sleeping . . . and nursing my shoulders, which were sore from a lot of lifting.

I managed to get in touch with the Williamson County Humane Society via phone tag (I don't think the person who left me a voice mail grasped that the cat needed neutering as well as shots, and thusly just attending the shot clinic wouldn't be enough), but at least I'm working positively toward taking Freefall the cat to the vet.

Speaking of the cat, I updated the pictures section—kind of. By that I mean I didn't change much that needed changing, but I did add some new pix of me and a page of pix of Freefall the cat.

Oh, and I also—instead of working on this site—set up a profile on OK Cupid for reasons now forgotten. I'm starting to realize that that was, bluntly, a fucking stupid idea. I've not had quite as many creepy old guys hitting on me there as I did on my ill-fated MySpace account, but still. I do not think I will last long there, but the prospect of shamelessly promoting this site on there is tempting.

September 23—So Much in Seven Days

I finished working the ACL fest, and in the days in between that and possibly loading in for Ballet Austin later this week (but that's somewhat doubtful), I took advantage of the opportunity to get some tedious work done on the site. I finally managed to get all my style sheets up, and I cleaned up the code in the quotes section, which has always been utter crap . . . and sort of still is, actually . . . well, the whole site sort of i—anyway. I changed a few minor things in the recipes section: I noticed that the code for the illustrated eggplant parmigiana was a mess and renamed all the files for the illustrated recipes so that instead of having worded titles they're numerical, which cuts down on confusion for editing (but not, apparently, for explaining). In the unlikely event that anyone actually had one of those pages bookmarked, you will need to change it. And let me know via my "contact me" button if you find a broken link or an error in the code or something.

And—I'm taking Freefall to the vet on Tuesday! I finally actually talked to the vet and arranged to bring him in for shots, neutering, and microchipping. Provided I survive the experience of traveling with him in the car, I will post the results of this catastrophe later in the week.

The move to Houston is looking more likely. My dad said the new business is looking to put people on the payroll by some time in October, and if he's among those put on the payroll, off we go. Or at least, off he goes. I'll likely be around here a while longer for several reasons: He may be staying here for at least a month or two before moving, this house will need someone living in it if it's not on the market (we can't put it on the market since it's also in my grandfather's name, so this will be tricky) and thusly I would stay behind, and also, my car won't make it to Houston, so I'll have to wait for some kind of solution to that.

Now. It's high time I did that enormous pile of laundry in the other room instead of goofing off on the Internet.

September 24—Freefall's Flea Bath

I gave Freefall a flea bath. What photographic evidence I could get in between the thrashing and yowling is now posted here. Poor cat: He got in a huge fight last night and lost; I knew his fight picking would lead to this. He's going to have to stay indoors for a while. He'd have to after his trip to the vet anyway, but I want to keep him inside for a while so his wounds can heal. And then I'm going to have to start keeping an ear out for cat fights again. The last couple of months have been quiet, so I foolishly assumed that meant he was keeping out of trouble. I better remember to leave my headphones off when he's outdoors . . . and also to keep the BB gun within easy reach. No, I am not going to shoot his rivals. Only a shot in the general direction so the noise frightens away the other cat. Unless it's not a cat. If I ever catch a person hurting him, I'll gut them like a fish with my flooring knife.