Good things: calls to Andrew and Joy, watching movies with Jeff, cuddle time with the cats, and oh yeah, code-fu.

Notice I didn't say that it was my code-fu. In today's case, it isn't. More correctly, it would be a large bit of whimpering on my part and twenty minutes' worth of code-fu on Gareth's part. Never mind thef act that I spent multiple hours tracking down a code problem that turned out to be a correctly named variable in the wrong scope.

It's the kind of thing that'll drive you to drink. Questing for missing parentheses I can deal with, but this was sheer and utter madness—and all this for multiple log files! Oi, the things I do…

So what got accomplished today? Not much, in truth. The big part was getting the pesky variable problem solved (and, as I check the scoreboard, I see that the current score is Gareth 347, domesticats zero). I did, however, finish up my first full page of the admin section today.

If you've ever had any doubts about the varied and magnificent species that is Homo sapiens, might I suggest you head to your nearest movie theater? There, even the most casual of viewer can meet many of our species' most colorful and interesting specimens…

…and want to kill them all.Some anthropological notes from our previous expeditions follow. Some of these breeds are flighty, rarely seen, and must be observed with the greatest of care.

Captain and Mrs. Obvious

I am very, very tired of sending out variations on these emails. At least they're already written, and I don't have to try to write them from scratch each time. Option #1 is for the first-time offenders:

Dear [you]:

I've just received [number of] emails in quick succession that appear to be virus-generated emails from you. They look like emails generated by the Klez virus. The emails match viral patterns, include random images from my site, and are addressed to email addresses that are only available in the 'skin your website' tutorial that's available on my site (domesticat.net).

I checked your site, and you've recently posted that you plan on skinning your site, which probably means you've read the tutorial. The Klez virus (among others) scans files contained on your computer (including common web page extensions) and fires emails out to the email addresses it finds on the page.

Righto.  So let's take a moment out from the coding and talk Quarto for a minute or two.

Geof likes to remind me that all journeys begin with a single step. 

"The books we love do ruthlessly disclose something about us, as do the books we do not. And despite everything above, I am not certain I want to know what exactly my inability to read some great writers says about me."
- Tom Bissell, 'I'd prefer not to,' an essay published for Salon.com

I honestly thought I was the only one.I found the list of what someone, somewhere, decided was the 'hundred greatest books of the twentieth century' and, like the dutiful child I am, set out to 'better myself.'