January 2007 Archives

Ok, so where much of my and other communities are Currently Cranky About^TM Flickr, I am Currently Cranky About^TM PHP.

Yes, PHP. In the past, I have scoffed PHP for being too easy compared to Javascript. PHP has lots of built in functions, PHP scripts are fairly lean and mean next to the intricate mazes of Javascript. But, no, I was/am wrong.

PHP is evil.

Javascript, God or gods bless its all over the place little client-side scripting soul, has very few official upgrades/updates/versions. I have been working with Javascript for over 7 years, and I *think* we are still on 1.5 or thereabouts and best of all, I haven't had to worry in 7 years which version I am working with. Ok, so we have AJAX now to complicate the works, but if you are a proud purveyor of the KISS design and development school, as I am, then AJAX is only used as absolutely necessary (unobtrusive AJAX at that).

PHP seems to have frequent version updates. Thanks, Zend, et al. PHP is now on version 5 and PHP folks are looking forward to 6. But my server and most of my clients' servers are still on PHP 4.3.1. And just like the jump from Flash Actionscript 1.0 to 2.0, there is a big difference between PHP 4 and PHP 5, what fucnctions and coded that will work in PHP 5 are not necessarily backwards compatible.

All my current reference books are for PHP 5. Very delicious ideas and scripts but not so delicious trying to implement them on servers with no immediate intentions on upgrading to PHP 5. My server allows one to append PHP 5 in the .htaccess file and call it in the file extension, but this is not a reliable fix. Add security on top of it... Grrr... Grrr... Grr...

It is enough to turn one back to Javascript and Perl on a regular basis...

Must improve my Perl fu.

Yes, I bought one.

Hola, sorry to be MIA around here, but I have been working on several freelance gigs and prepping for the launch of Barflies.net 4.0.

It has come to my attention via email from other friends and via a lack of spam (!!!!), that my personal, private earthlink email account is bouncing emails from sendees have been previously approved and whitelisted. I am not even getting any spam in the "Suspect Email" box...

Sorry. I am not sure why this is happening, but it appears to be random and without reason.

If this is you, PLEASE re-email me at my Gmail: blackphoebe@gmail.com.

The above letter was mailed on Jan. 11th from Dublin, arrived in California on Jan. 25th (today). Deadline for the Feb. 16th graduate commencement was Jan. 19th, exactly one week ago. I was told that we would have received our letters by mid-November and our class voted to graduate on Feb. 16th. Even if I were to Fed-ex the commencement application back this afternoon, it would be a week and a half late.

I guess I will have my own party here in Calif. on the 16th. Who wants to join me?

We can go over to the Chapman University chapel for the dark wood university chapel ambiance, we will need someone with gray hair in a black robe to intone in Latin, all at 8am (to be in time sync with the 4pm graduation in Dublin), and then we can go over to pub (O'Hara's?) and get drunk after.... Or maybe we can stay in bed and go to Walt's at 5pm for happy hour instead... ;oD

No, shoe shopping for Julie Wanda, after Day 1 of Punk Rock Bowling 2007, the Barflies.net One Pin team is #20 out of 168 teams!!!!!

Julie Wanda, Tink, Brian, and I will be in the finals Sunday at 1pm! Very exciting.

Hmph to Adam and Eve, I am switching religions. I am a descendant of the great Elm herself.

Thanks to Rebecca's Pocket's The Battle of Helm's Deep post, I have discovered my favorite new blog, Miss(ed) Manners. A genuinely funny blog. Go read it.

View from the 395 south of Lone Pine, looking at the Alabama Hills in the foreground and the "Big Boys" of the Sierra in the background.

Driving north on the 395 to Bishop.

My cousin Shannon arrives on an early morning flight at Ontario airport, I am picking her up and giving her a ride to Bishop today.

Every time I drive north on La Cienega Blvd., I see this chained up old gas station and I swear to myself that some day I will slow down and get a good photo of the skeleton Mobil horse. Today, I did.

02.19.05 - Ms. Jen and Jeremy Callis. I used to babysit Jeremy when I was in college. Now he bowls at Punk Rock Bowling. When did he get so old? Photo by Jenifer Hanen at Punk Rock Bowling 2005.

Part 1 of the two part "Make Hair Streak Purple Before Bowling" maneuver. Bleach this afternoon. Purple on Thursday. Then set in pin curls. Then good hair all weekend in Lost Wages.

Thank you, Arctic Cold Snap! You have brought real winter temperatures to SoCal for the first time in many years.

It is 9:20am and it is 42 degrees F in Huntington Beach and 39 degrees in downtown LA! Wahoo!

Too bad we don't have snow...

The Countdown to Punk Rock Bowling 2007... We are now 6 days away from Lost Wages and too much fun.

02.18.05 - Alex's Barrachos team members, Jason and John, at the Friday night Flock of Goo Goo show. Bless PRB.

The Countdown to Punk Rock Bowling 2007 begins. We are now 8 days away from Lost Wages. For the next 8 days, I will countdown with photos from PRB 2005.

02.18.05 - Bryan Bouncing Soul, friend, and Bucky Boston. Photo by Jen Hanen with her Casion Exlim Z40.

What George W. Bush could learn from Steve Jobs (via rebecca's pocket)

Apple announced the iPhone today. (via Engagdet)

My initial response is iDrool, iDrool, iDrool...

My second response is ... wait, only a 2 mega-pixel camera? Come on Apple, get a bigger mega-pixel camera... Nokia has 3 mega-pixles already released (i.e. Nokia N80) and the Koreans have 7-8 megapixels camera phones.

My third response is... but how will it moblog? Will it run Terminal or SSH? Can I add another browser, as I am not all to fond of Safari? What is its extensibility?

While the iPhone as displayed today is revolutionary for its gorgeous large screen on a small device and the finger touch pad screen UI, who wants to be locked into a two year Cingular contract with only 2 megapixels? Not me.

It would be lovely to have OS X natively running my mobile device for ease of use and transferring of files, but me, I am willing to purchase a pricey mobile device if the camera, UI, and data / internet features all add up to ease of blogging to this website directly from my phone.

Nokia, the gauntlet has been thrown down. I love your Karl Zeiss lenses, and multiple mega-pixel cameras, but the Nokia PC Suite and Lifeblog only interface with Windows OS. Nokia, it is time to come out and play with OS X* and keep up with the Jobs'.

Given that it is now official 3 days after "Little Christmas" it is time for Peek a Pooh, the mobile phone accessory, to take off his Xmas Yule Log decoration. Or maybe, I can go get a more seasonally appropriate Peek a Pooh, and then put Pooh back in his Yule Log and save him for next Christmas.

Yesterday, Thurs. Jan. 4, 2007, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was sworn in as Speaker of the House of Representatives for the United States of America.

A woman of my mother's generation, a woman who got married at 20, a woman who was a stay at home mom, a woman who entered the work world as a congresswoman at age 49, a woman who has been married for 43 years, that woman, this Nancy Pelosi is now second-in-line for the Presidency of the United States of America. The third most powerful person in our nation.

Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. The marble ceiling has been broken.

To my mother, the woman who in her twenties, in the early 1960s, was repeatedly told that women could only be teachers or nurses. To my mother, the woman who was denied entrance into the family business in any capacity other than a secretary due to her gender. To my mother, the woman who was born the same year as Nancy Pelosi. To my mother, the woman who has been a mother, a teacher, and a activist, I dedicate this post.

To all the women of my mother's and Nancy's generation, Thank You All for breaking the Glass and Marble ceilings!

A quote from Rep. Pelosi's acceptance speech from SFGate.com:

"And I thank my constituents in San Francisco and to the state of California for the privilege of representing them in Congress. Saint Francis of Assisi is our city's patron saint, and his song of St. Francis is our city's anthem: 'Lord, make me a channel of thy peace; where there is darkness may we bring light, where there is hatred, may we bring love, and where there is despair, may we bring hope.'

"Hope, hope, that is what America is about and it is in that spirit that I was sent to Congress.

"And today, I thank my colleagues. By electing me speaker, you have brought us closer to the ideal of equality that is America's heritage and America's hope.

"This is an historic moment -- and I thank the leader for acknowledging it. I think you Leader Boehner. It is an historic moment for the Congress, and an historic moment for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited over 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them.

The best record store in Orange County, Bionic Records (the Huntington store), has closed its doors today after many years of being the best light in otherwise dull North OC suburbia.

The lease on the space had come up for review the the landlords decided to raise the rent beyond what Bionic could afford. They have packed up, patched up, and moved lock, stock, and barrel to the Cypress store.

The manager, Mike (seen patching the wall above), assured me that all the staff would be working at the Cypress store.

Oh, the local neighborhood has now descended into blandness beyond repair. Danged landlords.

"Sorry, We Had To Lose The Stool For That One," were the last words out of Paul of the Harbortown Saints that I heard as I departed Alex's last night. The Harbortown Saints were on fire and are more amazing than ever. Hello SoCal, wake up! Best new band playing around in Long Beach.

Billy Burke has departed as guitarist for the Harbortown Saints and Roger Ramjet (formerly of the Humpers, the ADZ, and the Smut Peddlers) has come on board. With Billy departed the band's laconic blues punk style and with Roger the band has amped up to a ripping, searing jump blues punk. Hot diggity.

And Roger, sometime recently, probably coinciding with his marriage, has gotten smokin' hott. Yes, no longer the kinda cute, but really scary guitarist for the Peddlers, Mr. Ramjet has taken to marriage like a duck to water and is lookin' good. Good on Mrs. Ramjet for taking a diamond in the rough and giving it a good polish.... ;o)

The best outfit of the night goes to Max, of the Habortown Saints and Vooduo. Max was wearing a fabulous Teddy Boy suit coat with a red button up shirt, a string bowtie, black jeans, black electrician boots, and a porkpie hat. Now there is an ensemble! Max said that only one company is making Teddy Boy suit coats anymore and that he has 3 of them. Go Max Go! Please single handedly bring back good, adventurous male fashion.

Even better on the Harbortown Saints for the great music last night. Ok, gentlemen, when are you releasing a full album / CD? Inquiring listening ears want to know.

Elise picking a play fight, whilst wearing a pink sweater.

Why is it that my two favorite products, St. Ives Collagen Elastin lotion and KMS's Daily Shampoo, after years of excellent, consistent products, both decide to reformulate (for the worse in both cases) and repackage their products? On top of the fact that both St. Ives and KMS have replaced excellent lotion (SI) and shampoo (KMS) with gross, candy-esque smelling "New", "Improved" reformulations. Yuck.

Obviously, both companies have nose / smelling dead formulators. On top of the bizarre smells like fruity jolly rancher "New" "Improved" scents, both the lotion and the shampoo were repackaged into pearly organic shaped bottles that look just like Suave products but cost 2-5 times a much...

On top of the upgraded "Salon" pricing structure, KMS got rid of a daily shampoo for normal hair and now only has sickening jolly rancher cotton candy shampoo for Moist/damaged/repair, smoothing, straightening, and volume hair. I have plenty of volume, thank you. I do not want to straighten my hair, it has a nice wave, thank you. I do not want my hair oily within the hour from the Moist shampoo, thank you. KMS, I don't want to smell like a jolly rancher candy. Thank you, I will start buying Biolage or Whole Foods brand, half the KMS price, all the normal/daily shampooing with no extras.

KMS and St. Ives - Pass go, do not collect my $200, go straight to bad marketing / product design jail.

Mon. Jan. 1, 2007 - Karl Izumi tells us how folks who work in IT or the web are Satanists, as we drive to a New Year's Dim Sum brunch.

Happy New Year! Don't forget to watch The IT Crowd.