I'm finally getting around to reading Diesel Sweeties. The first panel of this cartoon begs to be an avatar for me.

/glares at Tenzing

/notes she's being ignored by the sleeping cat

Where Hitler finds out that Drupal 7 may release without panels. (Seen here.)

(Merlin, don't you feel loved now?)

Suzan told me a story tonight that was too fabulous not to be shared.

Friends of mine ran a pet store when I lived in Charleston. During Hurricane Hugo, they couldn't evacuate all of the animals in their store.  They knew the snakes would be okay, so long as they could get above the water level.  They turned all the snakes loose in the store, then proceeded to board up the windows and doors.  As they were finishing up, they decided to spray paint "Warning, loose snakes" on the front of the store.  They were the ONLY store in their shopping center to not get looted in the days following.  From what they could tell, no one even attempted to break in.

No words, just snickering.

Some of you knew about the full level of the shenanigans behind the giving of the quilt 'red shift.' For those of you who weren't there, feel the need to hear lots of truly gratuitous obscenities, or just want to giggle at 4x4 and Spitty getting their wedding present, I give you the videotaping of the giving of 'red shift,' videotaped by dear spousey Jeff.  Don't even try to pretend this is worksafe. Don't blame me if your ears bleed.

It was worth it.  Video (18M .mov file, alternate link here) after the jump.  Update:  Asai says no sound for her. It's playing fine for me. Anyone else having problems?

Extra notes:  no, you don't have to watch all the way through to the end.  I'm archiving the full thing for me; don't feel obligated to watch it all.

I shared this with a few people last night but it's worth re-linking here.  The Huntsville Times is running a tongue-in-cheek contest to provide new slogans for our sleepy, geeky city. The current suggestions are here.

My favorites:

From Scott Andrew:

I made one for myself, now you can get one too. All proceeds go to the “Buy Scott A New Soundcard For Recording” Charitable Fund.

See also.

 Scott's good peeps.  Not to mention, the shirt design?  Fabulous!  I'm taking it to drupalcon

An exchange of three emails this morning between me and one of our network admins:

To: Jay and Rich
Subject: Passing on a sitebanned IP (low-priority)

I don't know if [the network admin group for Alabama libraries] contacts ISPs when they see users nosing around for files they shouldn't, but if you do, I've got one for you. Check logs for the past six days for [redacted]

I'm seeing some nosing around for obvious cgi-bin / htaccess holes as well as an attempt to use a known pixelpost exploit on 24 December [exploit text redacted]

I've done the obvious .htaccess IP ban but thought I'd mention it to you guys.

Reply a few hours later: Read the rest »

This morning's topic of discussion in the sysadmin chatroom led me to If programming languages were religions

C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

...and it builds from there.  Normally I'd dish linkfood like this up at solecist.net, but y'know, sometimes I just like to keep you guys guessing.

Me, to the cat this morning:  "I think I left my socks in the sink."

After I said it, it occurred to me that there were several problems with this statement, and as a result it totally preoccupied me on the way to work today:

After nearly eight years of living here, it's rare now that I feel like a fish out of water, but there's one store left in this town that makes me self-conscious every time I enter it.

I heard that. You, you, and especially you, you dirty-minded little thing—I'll see you after class. Not everything in my life is about that.

Despite everything that's said on television and in those alluring ethnic cookbooks with their come-hither-and-eat-me covers, I've been wondering if I'm the only gaijin hitting up the pan-Oriental markets this side of the Mason-Dixon line. If the stunned and frankly nosy looks of the shopkeepers are any indication, my hair and eye color are either setting off warning bells or I've suddenly started looking like a shoplifter.