The Internet is broken at work. Gmail works semi-okay, but I am having trouble with LiveJournal, Netflix, Blogspot, and several other sites that I know should be up. So I’m posting via email from my Sidekick instead. The hunt board is abuzz with people looking for my piece, it’s great fun to watch them! I can’t even get connected to my shell account to get on MOO. Oh wait, I think I have some games on my thumb drive! That will have to do.

I heard the song “Christmas Wrapping” (by The Waitresses) on the radio the other day, and I wanted to download it. I searched the web and couldn’t find it, and I didn’t feel like using a torrent or something like that. So I was about to open up iTunes and just buy it, but then in my search results I came across AllofMP3. They have songs cheap! “Christmas Wrapping” was something like 20 cents, and I also picked up Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas” from Band Aid. I was a bit skeptical about ordering at first, because AllofMP3 is a Russian site, making their downloads of dubious legality. But this TechCrunch post made me feel much better, so I went to pay - but credit card balance refills weren’t available. I checked back at the TechCrunch post, and a lot of commenters said that refilling their balances through XROST was okay too, so I added the minimum ($10) to my account.

I also did a bit more searching around, I added a few Michael Jackson songs I didn’t already have, and I added the entire original 1982 soundtrack album for Cats. All this for only $6.61! Plus, because I signed up through XROST I got a 10% bonus, and AllofMP3 has a 20% holiday bonus for a few more weeks, so I ended up with a balance of $13 total. Woo!

PS: The download speed is pretty fast, too.

I finally watched an episode of PPP’s reality show, RockStartup. It was okay…it was about 10 minutes long, you can watch it below. I did learn a bit about the company, like in addition to having a Director of Customer Love (who owes me $5!) they also have a Director of Coding Stuff. It really feels like they’re trying to hark back to 2000, though - oh look at us, we have big expensive equipment, we’re moving into a big fancy office, we are this hot new company and everybody’s going to love us! Maybe I’m just not drinking the kool-aid, but I see PayPerPost as a temporary thing. Too many dot-coms have tread upon similar ground, and they’re all in the graveyard now. Maybe that’s why I’m getting in on it as much as I can now…because I don’t see them lasting forever. But hey, at least now I know that the girl who did the HP camera video is named Veronique. I’m also considering dropping the admin types a line to ask if they would consider captioning their videos. Phone calls get subtitled, why not the whole thing? They offer a bunch of different formats for download, why not a captioned version? Just a thought.

I got my DVD recorder and video stabilizer and set them up. I managed to get them working, but I didn’t have the remote control for the DVD recorder. It was mentioned in the auction as being missing, so that was fine, but it turns out a lot of the features are only accessible through the remote. I called up Panasonic to find out the part number, and with shipping it would be about $20 to have it sent. I said I’d think about it and order online. I finally decided I wanted it after all, so I can create chapter stops, etc. So just now I went to the Panasonic parts ordering site, and I selected the right remote and added it to my cart. I could see it in the cart, but in place of a “Proceed to Checkout” button was the following message in bold red text.

Parts and accessories may be ordered over the Internet Monday thru Saturday 6:00 am to 1:00 am EST. This site is currently available for Parts Pricing only. Please return during our normal business hours to place an order.

So do the tubes get clogged on Sundays? Is the Internet at church? WTF?

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Today started out bright and early with a woot-off! Normally Woot has one item per day, but during a woot-off they post a new item as soon as the previous one sells out. I had actually dreamed about a woot-off last night (seriously) and I woke up this morning to find they were having one! I actually did end up buying something: a USB 802.11g wifi adapter for $18 incl s/h, to replace the one I swear my brother-in-law broke because he is a big oaf. Anyway, I spent much of the day refreshing at woot.com, it was fun. I also got a couple of 1GB thumb drives for $16 each, one for me and one for A - that was a “side deal” though, not part of the woot-off.

I printed out all of my directions, notes, and cache pages for Philadelphia, and left at a little after 4:30. I hit some really bad traffic starting around Central Ave on the Beltway and continuing all the way to Route 1, which is pretty bad and it put me quite a bit behind schedule - maybe about an hour. I just happened to need to use the bathroom right when I was passing Chesapeake House, which is a rest area with a geocache, so I got out to look and pee. I didn’t find the cache - third time’s gotta be the charm, right? next time? - but I did get a yogurt and a little package of mini Triscuit crackers with mini cut-up cheese squares. Once I took the exit for 495 in Delaware I was in unfamiliar territory, and of course it was dark by the time I was hitting the outskirts of downtown Philadelphia. I managed to find the hotel, but I wasn’t about to pay $36.80/nt for valet parking so I drove around having no idea where I was and just looking for the nearest open parking I could find. I had a map with parking lots and garages marked, but I couldn’t figure out where I was, let alone where the garages were. I ended up parking in a garage at 12th and Filbert, and when I emerged laden with bags (computer bag, clothing/stuff bag, cooler with food, and purse) I was surprised to find my hotel was just across the street! So I had ended up going in almost a complete circle, apparently.

I set up in the room, turned on the TV, and opened up my laptop. I tried using their ethernet cable to hook up to the iBahn free system…and it didn’t work. There was a wifi network called “topofthetower” that I could access, but I couldn’t get any websites from it. I was able to determine from my Sidekick that the entire Wireless Philadelphia website is down, so I guess that’s affecting the connectivity for users, too. It would have been nice to have wifi so I could sit in bed, but I got out my ethernet cable and tried that one. How the heck did I end up in a room with a broken modem? Argh! I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with the iBahn tech support, and he was able to reset my modem - I saw the lights blinking - but I still couldn’t access anything. So I’m typing this in Notepad at 10:30 at night, waiting for the technician to come by. I wonder if they’ll come at a reasonable hour? Meanwhile I have the TV on, my Sidekick in my lap, and Dopewars open. (I’m tempted to just switch to another room, but I won’t go that far - yet.)

Added: It’s 12:20am. After waiting two hours for a tech to show up, I got them to switch me to another room. Guess what? Same problem. Which is weird, because it should be working, I see the lights blinking on the back of my computer where the network cable plugs in, but it still says a network cable is unplugged. I just want to go to sleep, but I need to get directions for going to the workshop tomorrow - the one thing I forgot to do before leaving. So I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel with my wifi working beautifully as it always does. But fuck if I know what’s wrong with the damn ethernet port. I’m going to get my directions and go to bed; I’ll just have to use my Sidekick otherwise. Maybe tomorrow after the workshop I’ll come back down here…or go geocaching…or to Passional. Something. But damn.

This link on Metafilter directed me to the online collection of exhibits from the Moussaoui trial. I was browsing the prosecution exhibits and I found the list of e-mails rather interesting; in them Moussaoui attempts to wheedle training materials from major aerospace companies. I clicked on the link for exhibit number FO05521.54, which was described as “E-mail” and in a listing of other e-mails. I was quite shocked to find myself on the page for exhibit number P200098 which is described on that page as follows:

Photo of Firefighter D.S. on 9/11/01
[Viewer discretion is advised]

Holy shit. It was graphic. It was not pretty. It was the kind of stuff you see on Rotten.com and Ogrish.com, two shock sites. And I had clicked on it unwittingly. Somebody seriously screwed up the code somewhere.

The only e-mail address I could find on the www.vaed.uscourts.gov website was for a financial clerk who works in Alexandria. I e-mailed her and explained that I couldn’t find any contact information for a webmaster, but that there was a graphic and upsetting image improperly labeled, and I asked her to please pass the information along to the webmaster if she could. Because…that’s just wrong. It’s unlikely that children would be looking at the exhibits from the Moussaoui trial, but if other exhibits were properly labeled on the exhibit list, then they obviously have concern for their sensitive viewers, and that one should have been properly labeled too.

I need to go wash my eyeballs now.

Edit: It was fixed within an hour after I sent the e-mail, but I’m browsing other exhibits and finding some labeled as graphic when they’re not, so I suspect the whole list is risky. Also, I removed the firefighter’s name because I don’t care to have this entry come up when somebody Googles him.

I am finally fed up enough with the usual Friday chattering and slacking at work that I have turned on Launchcast to try to tune them out. Music is not a major part of my life, so I almost never do this; I also have it incredibly low - I almost can’t hear it when I’m typing on my clickety keyboard. And yes, I am aware that I am sucking bandwidth, but they’re all just gabbing anyway rather than using their computers.

I am disappointed, because I forgot that the PHP editor I was using was not shareware - it expired after 30 days. I liked it because it was almost an IDE - it had a web server built in, so all I had to do was install PHP on my machine and I could view my work right in the program. It’s 35 euros ($41), though, and I’m not at a point where I can justify that. I do occasionally buy software, and if I were really skilled with PHP I would purchase this editor, but I’m still messing around with it. So now I can use either HTML-Kit or TextEdit and upload work to my site to test it, or I can just edit the stuff right on the site (I use a locally-installed version of net2ftp), but that would be bad because there would be no syntax highlighting. And I like syntax highlighting! PHP Expert Editor’s was the best, but the other two at least have it as an option. But oh hey, I just looked at the HTML-Kit plugins - there’s a whole lot that make PHP development easier. Okay, so I will probably use HTML-Kit even though I find all the buttons and menus somewhat overwhelming. Still doesn’t have a webserver, but it’ll have to do.

My net access has sucked all day at work. When I got here it wasn’t running at all - the DNS was down, something I deduced myself by successfully reaching imdb.com and a couple of other places but not getting anywhere useful. I was also able to ssh, so I got to use Lynx and goof off on LambdaMOO a bit. The rest came up around 10:00. I did fine for a couple of hours, and I was able to get all caught up on e-mail. Just after lunch, though, it went kaboom again. It works a little bit - if I reload a page 75 times, I can get it to process. Leaving comments on LiveJournal isn’t working at all, which means I might as well not catch up on the 300 messages I have to catch up on because I won’t be able to leave any comments. I’m trying to upload a couple of images to one of my Photobucket accounts but that’s being balky too.

Tonight is the quarterly staff meeting for my agency, which is in Silver Spring at the AFI theater. This means I have to get from 6:00 on a clock to 12:00 on a clock (the clock being the DC beltway), which is going to be very tough; I am routinely late for these meetings but there’s nothing I can do about it. I earn three hours of vacation just for showing up, though. My client left early today so technically I can leave whenever I want…but I am not actually too inclined to get to the meeting on time because it will be really boring. I won’t get home until about 9:30, ugh. That’s a long day.

A bit of musing even though it’s 1:00 in the morning…and then I shall go to bed.

Most venues for online interaction have a way of keeping a user’s input from reaching your screen. Many forums have an Ignore List feature, LambdaMOO has @gagging, instant messaging services offer block lists, LiveJournal has comment banning, and so forth. I don’t use any of these. My way is actually not recommended, as it requires familiarity with a wide variety of types of online discourse, and a skin that is somewhat thickened. I used to let all kinds of crap affect me online. People would post anonymous comments about me - or even attributed ones - and I’d let it get right to me. I could have used ignoring features, but I didn’t because I was afraid of missing something. Now, it’s more a personal philosophy, and I’ve learned to deal with these comments. I don’t have anyone on my @gaglist or any Ignore Lists, only anonymous comments are blocked on LJ to reduce spam, and I use the blocking feature for IMs only for genuine spammers. It’s not easy learning to deal with those who would annoy you and piss you off. For those who aren’t directing anything specific at you but are just being asshats in general, you have to tune them out. They’re not worth your time. If you read their posts at all, rather than just skimming over them, you can laugh at their idiocy but you have to move on. If someone is attacking you personally, consider the source. The anonymous comments on LambdaMOO bothered me because I thought it might be someone I knew…but I decided it was more likely that they were comments from people who didn’t know me - and if they didn’t know me, they were obviously talking out of their asses and not worth paying any mind.

My personal philosophy of not ignoring anyone isn’t for everybody, and I am vulnerable too. I don’t usually get caught up in flame wars (I’m not the flaming type) or heated debates because I am willing to concede points fairly easily. But things people say to me are still hurtful at times, more so if it’s from an acquaintance who I thought I didn’t have any problems with. (Needless to say, friends don’t do this kind of thing.) I am a peacemaker, and that means trying to make peace with others and also making peace within myself. I don’t need to respond to idiots. I don’t need to listen to jerks. Much of what I read online is from strangers, and I am free to scroll on by.

Incidentally, I don’t think my way is better than using ignore features. If you are willing to use them, and if they help you drown out some of the noise or keep you from getting upset, then by all means use them and they are serving you well. Because I personally choose to not use them doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re a wonderful invention for those who like them.