Too Much To Dream

Okay

Back to Trebuchet MS. I was getting a headache reading my own blog.

Christmas is over

Hence the change. Say it to yourselves: "change is good." Don't say it seven times in the mirror, though.

Site news

I have updated the site to Movable Type version 2.65.

Blatant Blegging Bash

It's that time of year again! I've updated the Paypal code (I noticed it didn't have a working email address anymore). Help keep Spleenville going; hit that tip jar! (There are alternatives on the page if you are having some sort of feud with Paypal. I think my Amazon wish list is working; other people have had trouble with theirs.)

Hey, if Andrew Sullivan can do it, why not me? I'm almost as good-looking! I've just gone and dyed my hair too.

Blogchange

Okay, okay, due to popular demand (okay, due to the plea of one of my six readers) I have put this blog back in weblog format, instead of single entry format. Anyway, I find that I come across too many things to just put in one blog post. The restriction to post just one entry per day (or, well, no more than) intimidated me so that I had to force myself to write anything. Also, I have decided that you all suck, you lazy readers you, you are addicted to the index page, you wouldn't click on the "previous" link if your dying mother begged you to. Let's see if you've got the balls to scroll down. {Insane glare.}

Hem. Anyway, I'll post more soon. Maybe short little entries as I come across things. Maybe big long entries that I won't even bother to put in the "extended entries" box. Who knows. Stay tuned...

By the way, the "donate" link isn't broken. It leads to something. Hinty hinty. Xmas and all that. (Well, if Treacher can beg, why can't I? After all, Treacher is my hero!)

Memo

Greetings.

You see before you the skeleton of the new blog. I'm too tired to go into lengthy explanations; suffice it to say I have been needing a change for some time and this is the beginning. I'll give out a hint: simplify.

I won't be keeping this exact style sheet, of course; it's just based on Movable Type's dull-but-safe "Clean" template. I have decided to take a one-post-per-page approach to the blog; I have never really been happy with the multi-entry, weblog-type look. I started doing a hand-coded diary-like thing back in 2000 (no link; it's on a Geocities site and that has long since gotten frooked up; besides, I can't remember the password) where I had a more Bleat-like format, and I'm going to try to go back to that to see if I like it better. Links to previous posts are either in "entries" to the left or you can click on "previous" at the bottom to navigate to the last post.

Also, I have closed all comments on my blog (you can read the ones that have already been posted, there just isn't an entry form to add any new ones); I am not at this stage sure whether or not I will bring them back. I have been in a bad mood for a variety of reasons, and I find that the usual snarky give-and-take has been more irritating lately than enlightening. Either the entire Blogospherical thing has jumped the shark, or the solar flares did something to everyone's brain. Or maybe I have had it up to here with everyone and everything. The latest blogfight, for instance, struck me as most ridiculous, but I was apparently in the minority. (However, I may just send that email to Du Toit yet. But that is for another entry.) In any case, when one is weary of being drawn into can-you-top-this-right-back-atcha-I'm-rubber-you're-glue comment wars, it behooves one to not provide an arena for this sort of thing to go on. So until (and if) I reopen commenting, if you really have some burning need to express to me your opinion on something I said, use the email address provided. (You know what to do with the "-at-" so don't even complain. I refuse to provide a clickable link so a zillion spammers can fill my email folders with spam.)

Coming soon: an "about" page, as soon as I decide what I want to say on it; improved formatting, etc. In the meantime, Good night.

Hostmatters matters

Yeah, I couldn't get to my own blogs because of this either. My email and ftp service was also unreachable; it was as if the entire server had vanished. I was pissed, but I figured either it was some sort of DOS attack (as dipnut says) or a power outage of some sort. There was nothing to do about it but go to sleep, so I did.

Update: apparently it was a DOS attack, on a pro-Israel weblog hosted on this service. Well well well.

Update to update: more on this.

Crap

Well that fizzled. I didn't see anything in the MT-Blacklist documentation about not being able to post an entry once it's implemented. The "rebuilding your site" message just sat there and sat there. It was like posting on fucking Blogspot. I can't figure this out, and I'm too tired to try. I guess I'll just stick with closing comments after fifteen days and deleting stupid viagggggraa spam by hand.

test 3

oh yeah, another test

Testing

Test post, please ignore.

test 2

Destroy all spam

Well, some spambeast left some crap in the comments on one of the blogs here at Spleenville, so MT-Blacklist has been applied, and I have also added Kevin's lists of spammer websites to the configuration. We'll see if this stops the junk.

Some cautions

I've been getting comment spam. Since I will be deleting the spam as soon as I am able to, it would probably be a good idea to refrain from commenting on it ("Why is that stuff about phenylatylalinineketomine here?" Ugh, spam" -- and so on).

Also, there is a nasty little troll who signs himself "A-V," or "Analogue Voter," who has just accused me of supporting dictators because I refused to get into some sort of tedious argument with him on his chosen topic. I will be deleting this person's further comments as soon as they appear (and I am sure they will -- he's too cowardly to post from a static IP address so banning his ass is not an option) so don't bother replying to any of his droppings.

Domainatrix

Well. That was an odd and rather upsetting email to receive: someone I have never heard of who happened to have as their email name (the first part of a yahoo.com email name) the same combo of words that I used a couple of months ago to register as a domain name (for a site not currently for public consumption) sent me an alternately wheedling and snippy missive complaining about the fact that I had done so before this person thought of it.

Strange. Back when I was trying to think of a domain name for my bit of internet real estate, I naturally searched first for my own name. At the time I found that most combinations of "Andrea Harris" that I wanted were already taken. It never occurred to me to send these people an email berating them for registering the "andreaharris" combo before I was able to. In any case, I sent a reply to this person. I was polite, I think, but I also made it clear that I was not about to "give" my domain name to this person because they had an email address using the same word combination, and because, apparently, they felt that I had registered the domain as some sort of personal attack on them.

PS: It seems that now most combos of my name are free, except for .com. Anyway, this isn't me -- my painting style is somewhat different. And I'm not her either.

Please stand by

I had a silly post up here but I decided that I was too pissed off to leave it up so it's gone to draft status for now. My apologies to the person I trackbacked; the post will be back later.

Color suggestions

Note to self: perhaps I should go back to black; apparently that color scheme is a pest deterrent.

Well that looks like crap

No, I don't like it, but I am too tired to futz with this thing any more tonight. The background image is okay, but I am really dissatisfied with this color scheme. I hate "web safe" colors.

Colors clash collide

Don't mind me, I'm just futzing around with the look again. Today was the first day that the weather had that autumnal feel (or as much of one as Central Florida gets): the sunlight had that certain silvery cast, the lower temps are down in the low seventies instead of the mid-seventies... and so on. Time for some changes.

Work notes

Okay, the php randomizer script works just fine. That's one task down. (I wanted to find a really simple php randomizer script for loading random images or text. See the line at the top of the page; refresh a few times and you should get a new one.)

Gather, darkness!

Okay, that's all for now. Yes, I know it's dark. I feel like dark. Go here for blinding white light. More changes coming soon -- there might even be content!

Do not adjust your screen

Ooh, yes, I am once again in the mood for a site redesign. And later I'll be working on some other sites around here too. Oh yes, I will. You can't stop me! Bwahahaahahaaaa!

An MT question

Does anyone know of a script or plugin that can implement something for Movable Type like the member registration capability that Pmachine uses? So far the closest plugin (or hack, or whatever it is) that I have found for MT is one which puts new comments on hold until the blog owner can review them. I'm more interested in something that makes people have to register in order to comment -- and that needs a real email address so the password can be sent to them. In other words, I am sick of pseudonymous posters who use fake email addresses to troll the blogs I run, and I'd rather not switch the site over to Pmachine (which I'd have to pay for if I wanted to run more than one blog from it) unless I absolutely have to.

PS: in other site news, I have made the individual comments linkable from the individual entry pages.

And that's that

Okay, I have decided to close comments on all the posts until further notice. I just don't have time for either trollfights or normal discussion right now. I may not be posting here much from now on; this journal will be closed down or something close to that state very shortly. I thought I could make it last out the year but now the concept feels stale and I am getting that cramped feeling that is the equivalent of running out of pages in a diary and having to cram the last few entries on the endpaper.

Don't worry, when the new journal site is ready (yeah, I'm not about to stop writing, so you trolls can put the champagne back in the fridge) I will be putting up the announcement.

Don't even bother

Whoever "yabba@hotmail.com" at IP address 210.50.216.165 is, your comment has been deleted and this IP banned. Yes, I get all my comments emailed to me automatically. I don't know who you are and I don't trust people who leave comments consisting solely of the word "test" in old posts on my blog. Also, your IP is too much like that of some joker I banned yesterday. If you keep it up, I'll ban your access to this entire domain. (That's in case you are the shithead who has been making an ass out of yourself over on Tim Blair's blog.)

Just so you know.

Update: yes, I was serious. (The relevant comments have been deleted. Don't worry, they weren't at all interesting, and the commenter knows what he/she said.)

Heh. Now anyone banned from the site -- the entire domain, mind -- will get redirected to this page. It's not much now, but I'll be dressing it up some later.

Weirdness

Okay, that was weird. I just tried to post an entry with a trackback to someone and links and stuff and I got a "index.php parse error on line 92" code where my blog used to be. I was able to get into the management area just fine, I deleted the offending post and rebuilt the site, and everything was back to normal. Whatever. I think that this blog might be getting to "full" -- in any case, I may have to unveil my "surprise" earlier than I meant. Stay tuned...

What's going on

Changes a-comin'. Stay tuned.

Now that's what I call service

Wow. All I did was send a note to Hostmatters help desk saying I couldn't get my web protect utility to work, and they promptly set me up with a whole new control panel with more functionality! Kewl.

Addition to the site

If you look over to the left you'll see I've added a little blogroll. This has samples from my Top Secret Blogroll™, chosen at random. I will be changing the links from time to time, for no particular reason.

Site stuffage

The "closecomments" script (found here if you want to play with it) has been re-implemented. Now I can close comments on all my blogs at once. (It's been set to close comment threads older than 15 days.)

The ping's the thing

Okay, I've decided to manually ping for now, because I'm tired of all the pinging errors I'd get when I'd post from my site with auto-ping on, and also my new posts load faster if they don't have to ping every time. Weblogs.com's ping form seems to be having problems, but blo.gs and blogrolling.com's ping forms worked just fine. Now you'll see a little sign in your blogroll, if I remember to ping, anyway.

Donation updates

Someone donated to me through Yahoo! PayDirect, so I had to set up an account. The person who donated said that it was easier than Paypal for people who don't want to give all their bank info (I have never tried it myself) so I've added a link for people who'd rather not use PayPal.

Site fix

I've gone and reinstalled Textile, so now the old entries have the proper formatting.

Links problem

Aargh! Something I didn't expect to happen, and can't really figure out either, but importing all my Movable Type entries from the old site to the new site somehow changed all the filenames. (What was "http://www.spleenville.com/journal/archives/004067.php" is now apparently "http://spleenville.com/journal/archives/001865.php." I had no idea this would happen, but I did a fresh install of MT and imported the entries instead of just gzipping the files and moving them over, because I thought it would be easier. Oy. Sorry, guys.

Update: And any images I had loaded with popups don't work now. The thumbnails work, but the popup scripts don't. I may reload them one by one, or I may not.

Site announcement

Okay, the spleenville.com domain is now resolving to the new site. Reset your bookmarks.

PS: I haven't re-selected the weblogs.com or the blo.gs pinging utility. I may not do so; I have noticed that posts load up much faster if each one doesn't have to ping. But you all visit my site religiously every hour, right?

Things

I just realized why none of my imported posts have "convert line breaks" on; because they weren't saved that way, I had Textile installed on the other server. I haven't re-installed the plugin yet here. D'oh!

I meant to sleep all day, but I was awakened around 9am by some moron sounding their car horn over and over. Whoever it was is lucky I can't function without a pot of coffee in me. I was going for a walk, but the temperature is now in the nineties, so there is no way I'm leaving the house unless it is to get into my airconditioned car and drive somewhere else airconditioned.

First new entry on the new site

Okay, that was fun. I reinstalled MT from scratch, imported my entries (old and new -- I also copied the ones from the old Spleenville World Domination HQ blog over, into its own site) and Tim Blair's as well. I redirected the domain name but it will take a day or two to resolve to the new nameservers so my blog is here (http://63.247.131.180/~lilith33/journal/) and Tim's is here (http://63.247.131.180/~lilith33/timblair/).

Further changes: I am not sure I'm going to keep the webmistress-at-spleenville.com address; for now just use my main Earthlink one (it's on the sidebar). I also changed my primary address on Paypal to the Earthlink address, so I updated the donation code.

Another thing: I was going to keep this particular blog for a year, but I have been experimenting with different blogging software, ones built with php, and I might open a new blog in a new folder. We'll see.

I still have to install my plugins and the close-multiple comment script and a few other things. I am doing all of this for fun, right? ;P

Oops, forgot: all the images I had on the other server are still sitting on my hardrive, I have to upload them, right now my old entries that had pictures with them will show pathetic broken image links. Oh well.

Moving site

Okay, folks, I'll be moving the site tonight. If you get some weird messages just or the site won't load or a demon possesses your computer briefly and causes it to levitate, don't worry, all will be well eventually.

As the blog turns

I just wanted to send a brief thanks to everyone who is sending me advice, suggestions, hosting offers, and donations -- thank you thank you thank you!

I have already set up compression on the site's main index page using the php thing from this site, and the leknor site confirms that it is now gzipped, so that should help. The spambot/spider/etc. usage is under investigation as we speak. I am still shopping possible new hosts. Repeat after me: chaos is our friend, chaos is our friend, chaos is our friend...

Bandwidth problems

I need some help here: I just got a notification from my web administrator that this site is pulling 1 GB of bandwidth per day. My account allows 3 GB per month -- I can't afford this sort of thing. I will probably be moving the site soon, but even the plan I found only allows a little under 15 GB of bandwidth usage a month. Any suggestions of what could be causing this (beyond the rampant popularity of Tim Blair's site). I was thinking DNS attacks and things liket that; also is there anything I can do to make this site not so resource-intensive, if that will do anything about this problem.

Update: I took a look at the logfile for Tim's site for just today and one thing I did notice what that something called QuepasaCreep v0.9.14 hit the site hundreds of times just today. (I lost count after 110, and I was only a fraction into the logfile.) It seems to be some sort of search engine for Spanish websites -- I don't know why it's hitting this site, since it is not in Spanish. I found instances of other search engines hitting the site today, but they only seemed to do it once or twice. I wonder if that could be the culprit.

Update 2: this is another interesting page full of info. I need to learn how to set up an .htaccess file or edit my robots.txt or something, that is for sure.

Update 3: I've had a communiqué (I use that term 'cos it's neat) with the web administrator over at Cornerhost. He set up a bad bot-blocking thing on the .htaccess file, so maybe that will help; I also cut down the amount of entries showing on Tim Blair's main page, because it was getting pretty huge and just viewing it was sucking bandwidth. Question: would it help if I put some sort of file compression on the blog? Something like the various methods described on this site. I saw the magic phrase "curb your bandwidth usage," so I think I will try out one or the other of these.

Possible future site changes?

I could take this site completely dynamic, completely php. It worked for Erica. But it would be a big step to take -- it would mean bye-bye MT tags, hello total dependence on the efficient working of my mysql database. Dare I mess around? Maybe someday, when I get up the nerve...

Update: well, it worked on my test blog -- kinda. There are still some kinks to work out, but they (and all other site tinkering) will have to wait until I take care of some other business.

Now where was I?

Well, the so-far-unexplained site downage is now apparently over. So far.

Changes to the comments

Note to all commenters to this blog, past, present, and future: I have added the MT tag that shows commenters' ISPs in the "posted by" line to the comments template. If you are nervous about revealing your IP, don't comment here, or use Anonymizer or something to read this site.

Update: if you would like to comment but don't want your IP to show, just email the comment to me (webmistress-at-spleenville.com) and I will add your comment to the discussion at my end. At my discretion, of course.

This is, by the way, part of my anti-troll policy.

Comment tard

I deleted a comment to the post below because I decided that it had fuckall to do with the subject, which was -- to review -- "Harry Potter vs. the Fundies." Also, I do not plan to have any "random comment" posts, or anything like that. My blog, my rules, etc.

Oh -- and using a cutesy fake email address that says "foundyou@hidingplace.com" because you followed me from some other site's comments just makes you look like a total twat, because I put my URL into the "your site" field wherever I comment, so yeah, duh, you "found" me. Wooh! You're a regular Sherlock Holmes, you know how to click a couple of links; give yourself a gold star.

The poster in question has clarified his comment, so the above post can now be considered defunct.

Just fooling around

I'm just fooling with the site and the image and everything. Frodo was getting a little tired of holding that sword. As you can see he's got a headache right now. My stylesheet is a mess. But the site is readable in Lynx (text only browser, see the handy link at the bottom of the menu, or just telnet or something into your shell access and start Lynx from there), so just about anyone should be able to read my site now. I'm all about the readability, me.

Some cosmetic enhancements

There, I think setting the main blog font as a sans-serif makes it easier to read. I have also set the print-friendly page to a serif font, since according to design manuals serif is easier to read in print.

Site changes and stuff

I'm going to be doing some changes to the site. One major change: I am taking down my blog roll. I will still have a blog roll, but it will be private, accessible only to me from my browser. I admit I had it available on my web page so I could read blogs during down times at work. Anyway, it's not going to be available from the website anymore. No one needs to see who I am linking or not linking too. What I will have instead (eventually) is a small list of links on the side, of blogs or other sites I feel like featuring.

Also, I may take the hatemail page down. It was a bit of a fun joke, but now I'm kind of bored with it. We'll see.

I also have another personal project I am working on. I am still tweaking it and trying to decide what I want it to be. Stay tuned. If you happen to have come across it, kindly refrain from mentioning it (such as its url) until I announce it.

And now to bed

Oh, one final thing: the comments should remember your posting info now. Nitey-nite, all.

Site stuff

Yes it looks different, no I'm not doing it to torment you. I had to go back to a standard MT stylesheet and template setup to solve the comments info problem. It's a temporary fix -- when I have more time (hah) I will try to figure out what they changed in the templates that caused my cookies or something to go belly-up.

Also, I now have a new comment troll policy. Trolls will not be banned and their comments will not be deleted. Instead, all trollish commentary will be changed to slavish praise of myself. For example, "Mork" left the following comments in this post:

What I don't understand, Andrea, is this: why do you keep linking to pages on which you've been slapped down like a two-bit crack whore?

Can it really be that you imagine that your back-of-the-third-grade-classroom insults pass as witty repartee in any company but your own?

I mean, I had been chortling away to myself that you seemed to have fifty different ways of saying "I know you are, but what am I", and then on this thread you come right out and say it . . . seriously!

Wetherall had one thing right: you're not in his league.

And:

Gee, Andrea, posting comments under other people's names.

That, as we say here, is as weak as piss.

As you can see, I changed each to:

What I don't understand, Andrea, is this: why do these silly people keep coming back for more?

Can it really be that they imagine that their back-of-the-short-bus insults pass as witty repartee in any company but their own?

I mean, I had been chortling away to myself that they seemed to have only one way of saying "I am an idiot, but I can't help proving it to the world over and over", and they keep on commenting!

Wetherall had one thing right: you're not in his league. You're actually the most intelligent, sexy, amazing woman on the internet! I want to be your body slave!

And

Gee, Andrea, posting comments under other people's names.

That, as we say here, is a brilliant idea!

That will be the comment troll policy from now on, or until I get bored. If you don't want your witty, devastating putdown to be changed to pathetic praise of me, then I suggest you don't post here.

Stupid template problem

Yes, my comments aren't remembering anyone's info. No, I can't figure out why. The "var HOST" line says "www.spleenville.com" like it should. This isn't a problem on Tim Blair's site. I am exhausted, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so I will look into it further sometime over the weekend.

Site downage

Yikes! Sorry, my loyal readers, the site was down for a bit. (As was Tim's.) Well, it's back. I hope that the problem is solved. Stay tuned!

Blegging

As you can see, I've decided to be more crass. What can I say -- I was inspired by Da Man. And the irritation it apparently causes many people is always an added bonus.

How to freak me out

I love waking up with a splitting headache, then trying to comment on my own blog and getting an error:

(Got an error: Connection error: Access denied for user: 'myusername@my.server.ip' (Using password: YES)

Then trying to log in and getting the same freaking error. (With my actual user ID and server IP, not the aliases I put in their place.) Anyway, I was just able to sign into my database control panel and everything seemed fine to my inexperienced eyes, and here I am able to make a post. Right?

Updates to the site

I just upgraded the site to version 2.64. (Tim Blair's blog as well.)

Movable Headache

Dang, I forgot how much of a pain in the ass setting up a separate MT blog is. I should have just made a spin-off from my set. Anyway, stay tuned for something spiffy.

Blogrollup

I have had to cut down on the number of blogs on my blogroll. If your blog has vanished from the list, it doesn't mean that I don't love you or anything like that. I just had to get rid of some of the sites that hadn't been updated in a while, or that for some reason or other I had stopped reading, or had linked to on a whim and become disinterested in -- or just plain had no time to read! This way maybe I won't be so intimidated into reading some of the remaining seldom-read (by me, anyway) blogs that are still on it. The roll had just become too huge for me to deal with.

Two things

One: It took nearly twenty minutes for this site to do a complete rebuild. I had the same problem last night.

Two: I've reset the size of the titles to each post. Now to figure out how I want the dates to look.

New site look

Right now I've set the site up using this template from Empty Pages. I'll be fiddling with it, but I think that I have at last broken free of divs. Now to test in other browsers...

Okay, it works in Mozilla and Opera 7. By the way, text is resizable.

Irritation threshold reached

An announcement: from now on I will be deleting any comment that mentions the Dixie Chicks. I am so sick of those boring women, the Wilson-Phillips of the country scene. From now on this is a Dixie Chicks-free blog.

And I don't care who you are or what your subject is. Pick another entertainer/set thereof to use to illustrate your point. I do mean this.

PS: the comment that inspired this has been deleted. I do have it saved elsewhere (not on my server space) and I emailed the commenter's words to him so he would not have his First Amendment Rights to be a smug asshole breached by a fascist nazi bitch like me. I would never want to abridge anyone's rights to spread their smarm all over someone else's web space. 'Cos that's what my comments section is for, right? It's like a toilet that all of humanity can use and they don't even have to flush or clean up.

Nothing's wrong with your browser

You know, me and my site changes. But don't worry -- no matter what this place looks like, it will always be mine. The look might change but the content stays the same.

Gripe

One of these days I'm going to sort my blogroll out. And I will have two blogrolls: one called Spiffy Movable Type (or Other Blogging Software That Works Like Pmachine) Blogs, and the other called Still Stuck on Lameass Blogspot Blogs.

Stepping out

Okay, folks -- I've finally got AIM installed (I tried Trillian, but that program is just whacked for me for some reason). You'll see my AIM ID over on the sidebar. So if you want to chat, and you aren't a freak, I'll add you to my buddy list. (Freak = I decide who is a freak. You'll know if I decide you are a freak, believe me.)

How to make a link

Guys, I haven't put my handy formatting buttons back on the comments form, and I have noticed that some people are having trouble making links. Here is how to do it:

<a href="puttheURLhere.com">Link text</a>

There.

Comments tidiness

Well okay! I used this nifty little script to close all my comments on both blogs that are older than thirty days. So don't try posting to something from back in February, because you won't be able to. I am debating, actually, whether or not to set the comments to close at fifteen days, or maybe even a week. It's not as if many people are posting to anything that runs off the main page; but at least this will cut down on any possible future troll fights. (You need your blog set up to use the mysql database to use the script, and also your server must have php installed.)

Oh look, the site is different again

Dark, light, dark, light -- can't she make up her effing mind?

No. Shut up.

Jebus

Okay, that's an hour without a site. I don't know what happened (I am waiting on an email) but it happened while I was converting this thing's database to MySql. I did that because I have read that it is more stable than the Berkeley Database MT starts out with, and the script they provide to change it isn't too nerve-wracking, though it is somewhat hands-on. I always get the heebee geebees when I have to edit one of my config files. But it all seemed to go fine -- probably because my database lives on a different server than my main site. Anyway, now I will see if I can set up some of those MT hacks you can only use with a MySql database.

Aaagghh! Part 2

Don't worry, peeps, this is just temporary. I just really screwed up my template last night, so I went and grabbed one of the templates over at MT at random. Also, I was feeling a little... dark. But it probably won't stay like this. Intention: to provide at least two choices of skins (light and dark) for people with various needs. I'm trying to do it the most cross-platform way I can. But I can't please everyone. If you are really having trouble, you have two other ways to read the main blog: the print-friendly page, and the PDA version.

PS: sorry for the excess medical detail for you sissies extra-sensitive folks. What I meant by the reference was that I shouldn't play with my templates when I am not feeling well, not that I was bleeding on the keyboards or anything.

Aaaarrrggghhhh

Back to square one. I really shouldn't play around with my blog while I have my period.

No, your eyes aren't bleeding

Yes, I know it's hideous, but I'm tired, and I have to get some sleep. Don't worry, I'll be working on the site tomorrow, or maybe next week.

Changes to comments

One of the things I have decided to do is to strip down this blog and speed it up as much as possible. Inspired by this post on SgtStryker.com, I have set the comments to open only on the individual entry page for the post. (I am leaving the ability to read the comments inline on the main page, since that doesn't depend on the same script and doesn't seem to slow the site. We'll see.)

Oh that's funny

Not. I post a message saying my site "might hang or look funny" 'cos I'm going to be working on it, I go into the other room for a bit -- and when I come back I can't get on my site. At all. And it is still effing slow.

Site changes

I'll be working on the site tonight so if it seems to hang or look funny, it's just construction dust. Hah hah, I make 1997-era web joke.

The skull beneath the skin

My skull, that is. I know I said I was going to provide different skins for this here blog. I'll get around to it... Really! For now, continue enjoying Bag End.

I can see!

There. I got tired of the hover-color-same-as-background-color disappearing links thing.

I don't like spam

This is just an announcement to everyone that comment spam will be deleted and the IPs of the senders banned. I have seen it on other blogs, and today I noticed that someone named CmK, email galileo60@aol.com, IP address 192.67.48.23, left this in a post of mine:

I am developing a new marketing system that will be on sale to the public
soon - complete with casette tapes, several short booklets and an endless
list of success stories - to be marketed on late night infomertials for 3
easy payments of $ 99.99 on how I created fantastic personal wealth by
handling confidential financial transactions for defrocked government
ministers and princes of third world countries ..... IT REALLY WORKS!!!

Now, considering the subject of the post, this may have been a joke, but it looked like spam to me.

Okay, I'm gonna do it

I'm gonna try to skin the blog. First, I have to make skins. Ooh, I have ideas...

Stay tuned.

Eye relief

Oh by the way, I've mocked up a print-friendly page for you fancy-design-hating folk. It's just the main page; archives and individual links are still colored whatever I fancy. I hope one day to set up a more sohpisticated system of print-only pages using CSS and all that fancy jazz, but for now this will have to do.

Artistic or Autistic?

Yes, I'm fooling around with the blog, thanks for asking. [Gee, you, uh, sound a little bad tempered there, um... well -- carry on!]

I can't get things quite right here. I've had one complaint about the orangey, but I was tired of white. I hope I have picked a light enough color to read against. I kind of like the color scheme, but I am still tweaking the layout. The new title graphic was made with the Gimp for Windows. That program is still a little buggy, but I'm too lazy to re-install my copy of Photoshop, which is out of date anyway. I'll get around to it... I need it to make gifs -- the guys who make the Gimp are all "you need to get the gif license first." Feh.

An Announcement

Hey people. Here's a new rule: you will not get into circular arguments on my blog, with me or with anyone else. I will simply turn off comments to that post, and if you try to take the arguments to another post, I will ban your IP.

Also, you do NOT take it upon yourselves to tell me that I am not seeing what I am seeing, or reading what I am reading, or whatever, merely because YOU have interpreted that thing differently, or have some sort of expertise in some related field. Unless you are the actual photographer, writer, whatever, of the thing in question, all you have is an opinion, just like me. You repeating your opinion over and over will only irritate me.

This is MY GODDAMN BLOG MY GODDAMN WEBSPACE I PAY FOR IT. You don't. There is a reason I took down my Paypal account. I did not want to be beholden to anyone -- I do not provide this blog as a service to anyone but ME. This is a place for me to post my own opinions and thoughts. I don't mind the comments, as long as you don't stroll into my personal space as though you owned the place. Here is a place where you can get your own personal space and fulminate and show off. This is MINE.

No, I am not in a very good mood at all, thanks for asking.

Who's bad?

Frodo would like to know. (He's ba-aaack...)

Style change

Don't worry, folks -- this is only temporary. I just needed to start from a new base; my previous style sheet had become tedious to futz around with.

Blog blahs

I'm going to be doing a site redesign over the next few days. What else is new!

Update: um, it kind of helps to leave the $MTEntryBody$ tag up...

Fun with Movable Type

Okay, I fixed the problem that was causing my posting times to be incorrect -- I was showing the time on my computer (and I guess, you would see the time on your computer) instead of the time each entry was posted -- I used the "MTDate" tag instead of the "MTEntryDate" tag. ("MTEntryDate" is what you need to use to -- duh -- show the entry date.)

Sour times

Yes, I'm changing the site around again. Just deal with it. I'm not in a good mood, so it will be gray for now, to match my current migraine.

Sometimes the human race is too disappointing for words.

Fun with my site

Okay folks, some of you may have noticed that my site was unavailable for a few minutes a little while ago. That was because I was fooling around with the templates again. First, you will notice that I have moved the Category link up to right under the title of each post. That way you'll be able to decide whether or not you want to keep reading (that is, if you can decipher my somewhat cryptic category names; one day I will find a way to make the descriptions of each category available). Second, I have added a php script to change the dates on the posts showing on the main page to "Shire reckoning." This is just another step in the Tolkienization of my blog. (Don't worry, hobbit-haters -- you can still see the normal date of each post if you click on the link, which has now been separated from the date and is helpfully labelled "link.") I got the script, which you can get here, via Solonor. He is the one who came up with the idea. "Never trust an elf!" Heh heh.

Update: in case I wasn't entirely clear, and I see that I wasn't, Sue Bailey was the one who actually wrote and supplied the script. Solonor had been trying to do something like it, which is what I meant by "he came up with the idea." No neglect, script-stealing, or misapplication of credit was meant.

Final update: never mind. I have taken the script down as of 10:30pm, March 11th, 2003. That makes my use of the script about one full day, give or take a few hours. It worked fine; that wasn't the problem.

My new web toy

The simplest things make me happy. If you'll look over to the left and down, you'll see my new translation toy. (You can get one of your own here.) I usually eschew things from other servers -- I've had the Weather Pixie, the Amazon.com donate thing, the Blogchalking thing, and so on, and they all at one time or another cacked up my page when their server went down. I am sure that this little program will be no different, but for as long as I can stand it, enjoy. Here are the results for Chinese (I make no guarantee as to the coherency of the actual results, since I neither read nor speak Chinese; I just think it's kinda neat) -- click for larger:

Update: of course, it will not translate the gif images that I use as drop-caps, so some coherency is lost there.

A new feature

Check out the side, underneath the Frodo pick: now you can see the last five comments made on the blog. It's a little script I got here.

Hatebots

Well, well, sorry if anyone happened upon some obscene comments left by some enema calling itself "killjlo." I have deleted the comments. If "killjlo" didn't spend so much time making protein paintings in his underwear, he'd realize that he can't hide behind a fake name and email.

However, I am not an internet expert. I know how to look up an IP with whois, but beyond that I am stymied. Anyone who can further decipher these results from inputting IP address 207.6.147.104 into the search field at whois feel free to email me at webmistressATspleenvilleDOTcom:

OrgName: TELUS Communications Inc.
OrgID: TACE
Address: #2600 4720 Kingsway Avenue
City: Burnaby
StateProv: BC
PostalCode: V5N-4N2
Country: CA

NetRange: 207.6.0.0 - 207.6.255.255
CIDR: 207.6.0.0/16
NetName: TELUS-207-6-0-0
NetHandle: NET-207-6-0-0-1
Parent: NET-207-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: PRI3.DNS.CA.TELUS.COM
NameServer: PRI4.DNS.CA.TELUS.COM
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated: 2002-04-08

TechHandle: PSINET-CA-ARIN
TechName: TELUS Communications Inc.
TechPhone: +1-613-780-2200
TechEmail: swip@swip.ca.telus.com

OrgAbuseHandle: AAT-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Abuse at TELUS
OrgAbusePhone: +1-604-444-5791
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@telus.com

OrgTechHandle: IA86-ARIN
OrgTechName: IP Admin, IP
OrgTechPhone: +1-403-503-3800
OrgTechEmail: add-req.tac@telus.com

OrgTechHandle: PSINET-CA-ARIN
OrgTechName: TELUS Communications Inc.
OrgTechPhone: +1-613-780-2200
OrgTechEmail: swip@swip.ca.telus.com

OrgTechHandle: TBOTP-ARIN
OrgTechName: TELUS BC ORG TECH POC
OrgTechPhone: +1-604-444-5791
OrgTechEmail: IPadmin@telus.com

More changes

I kind of like how I've redone the front page. Nice, clean, simple. Next project: to redo the Library. And maybe even finish those stories, though I can't remember when I have felt less motivated to do anything. I have been feeling just blah for months, it seems; it's never enough to be labelled a full-blown sickness, but I really don't feel healthy. I am trying to eat better, and force myself to get up every now and then and walk. But I am afraid that my malaise has trashed this semester for me. I might be able to pull a couple of the classes I am taking out of the trash-bin. Friday is the last day to withdraw; one class is going for sure, and maybe two. I think I will be taking some sort of summer semester class this year. I am hoping that there will be classes I can take; last year it was all freshman-year stuff.

Site deletions

I finally deleted the long-neglected phpbb forum, in order to free up some webspace; if anyone has http://spleenville.com/forum/ still bookmarked, that is a broken link. I have saved the entries as html pages, if anyone who posted there in the past still wants their posts for future reference.

No, you aren't going crazy

I just found a picture of Killer Hobbit that I liked better. It's a little more... well, it's bigger.

Banned list addition

Bored now. The latest troll to bother this site, "Horatio," has had both his/her IPs banned. So she/he'll just have to find another IP. Which I will ban.

The IPs are: 129.42.208.139, and 32.97.110.142.

Aaand... 32.97.110.70. Moron.

Site business

If the site gets a little wacky, that's because I'm fooling around with it. The main index page will be appearing/disappearing too. Patience...

Update: I tried to install Textpattern, which is in beta. A cute little program, not difficult to install, but I can't get the site index page to show. Sigh.

I'm just fooling around with different blogging software. I am way overdue in setting up a journal for my writing classes, and I've been trying to kick-start myself into doing it by this roundabout method. (I have all sorts of scribbled notes, but I want to put them in some kind of organized form that wasn't boring old Word docs.) Maybe I'll try pMachine. I've got a MySql database that's just sitting there, not getting used properly by the Textpattern software that won't work.

Email woes

My spleenville.com email is acting weird. If you want to contact me by email, use my regular address, harrisandrea(at)earthlink(dot)net until further notice. You know what to change the stuff in the parentheses to.

Also, I have updated the FAQ.

Textile

I have installed the Textile plugin.

It is pretty cool ®.

You can _{take it} ^{from me}!

It sure will save me some keystrokes anyway.

Banned list update

Now IP address 64.105.100.81 will have to find someone else's comments to troll. I did not put up this blog so snowbound bored high school students could play games.

Update: go ahead, bitch. Keep changing your IP. I'll keep banning you. Tonight's my night off.

MT users alert

There's already an upgrade and a bug fix available for version 2.6. Since it's to fix a security bug, you may want to upgrade pronto.

Formatting follies

I am slow -- I just noticed that for some reason italics were not showing up in the comments. I went around frenziedly replacing templates and things, wondering what the heck? and then I realized that for some reason the default allowed formatting code has "em" for italics but no "i." Who the heck uses "em" anymore? So I went and changed the Sanitize settings to use my defaults, if you please. "i" and also "s" (strikeout) are now allowed in comments, though I haven't set up any more handy formatting buttons for the rest of the codes, only "a href," "b," and "i."

Does the fun ever start?

I have closed the comments in the old blog for July 2002, and for January 1, 2003 in the new blog. I didn't realize just how many posts I make per day. My plan is to leave comments for blog posts open no longer than thirty days, unless an argument gets out of hand. Ah, site maintenance. It's such a joy.

Update: the comments entry and preview windows now have formatting buttons for bold, italics, and links. Please, people, when putting a link in the comments, use the "url" button to make a link! It's the easy way.

The upgrade has landed

Movable Type has released version 2.6. Get it while it's hot. (There was the usual nerve-wracking "did I just overwrite the wrong file?" sweats, but this upgrade went smoother than others have.) And now Sanitize is automatically installed. Here are the new allowed tags (they are the defaults, and the ones people use most anyway): a href, b, br, p, strong, em, ul, li, blockquote. If you want to know how to make them work, here is a good site. I also have the ability to close comments for older entries. That should cut down on the comment wars.

I've invented a new word!

That word is "scrool." It means: the phenomenon of websites that are so wide that a horizontal scrolling bar appears at the bottom of your browser, and you have to move it back and forth to see the content.

And I have just noticed that for some odd reason my blog "scrools." What's that all about... I'm still tweaking. I'll get this thing set up properly some day...

Kheled-zâram

I've added a new Terragen-rendered image to the art gallery.

Still tweaking

Ooh, fadey links. (I got it here by the way. It's easy as pie to implement. Really.)

Fun with the site

Ah, back to the white. And now I have lovely graphical drop-caps instead of line-height dependant ones. I'm still tweaking.

Color me some other color

I'm already sick of this green thingy. I'm going to try to work on the site at some point today, maybe I'll even (gasp!) have it skinnable, eventually. Stay tuned.

A belated thank you

Goes to Dave, who created a new button for my site to go with my new greenery. (Right-click and save to your own server.)

Browser bake-off

If there is to be a contest between browser versions, I am afraid I have to stick with Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla. Why? Well, for one thing, in my MT maintenance site, my formatting buttons are nowhere to be found in Mozilla. Even though I often forget to use them and just hand-code anyway, I like my formatting buttons to be there if I want them. Maybe this bug will be worked out in the next version of MT, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh yeah: and for some reason, this entry was saved when I entered it using Mozilla, but it would not appear on the blog. I had to re-save it using IE. Weird.

Quatloos, anyone?

I've had a few questions on the subject of quatloos; specifically, on what the heck I mean by that. Well, fans of Star Trek OS (the Original Series) would know that it was a reference to classic take-Kirk's-shirt-off-and-beat-him-up episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion."

"All right, which one of you is Spock's brain?"

Headed off at the pass

You know, one day I should really learn to use this copy of Photoshop 5 that I have owned for about four years now. I can't seem to figure out how to make a header that is transparent-background gif with a bevelled, embossed font, aaargh... I should have used Steve H.'s Naked Hippy Font, but it doesn't go with my new Killer Hobbit motif. Oh well. Perhaps if I ever learn to skin the site, I'll make a Stupid Naked Antiwar Protestor skin. Skin -- get it? Heh heh heh.

I really shouldn't drink so much coffee this late.

I really hope my new computer gets delivered tomorrow.

I just realized I used the wrong version of "too." Kill kill kill--!

Update: there, dammit.

Scarey hobbit

Um... yeah. Frodo's back, and he's kind of pissed at being replaced by a coffee cup. Those tea-drinkers have a mean streak....

I can't wait

...for Movable Type 2.6 to be released. They are going to have more comment options -- such as the ability to close the comments after a certain amount of time. I think that is something my blogs, the old one and the new one, need. Now.

Everything's gone green

No, nothing is wrong with your eyes: I'm just fooling around with the look. This may change periodically throughout the day (though I have to go to work, so this green stuff may stay for a few hours). This is a modification of a stylesheet I got here, by the way; it seems to be free for use, though there are nicer layouts available for a small fee.

Color changes

I am changing a few colors now. I feel somewhat less gray. I also can't think of anything intelligent to say. My brain is empty. I'm fit only for staring into space, so I guess I'll go to bed.

Site stuff

If the blog looks funny today, it's because I am attempting to set it up to be skinnable. So far I haven't had much luck. I am trying to do it with php, but I'm pretty new to that stuff. Also, I have come down with a bout of stomach thing, so I'm going to miss yet another class. I can't seem to shake the disease, man.

Also: I have nixed the idea of enabling comment smiley images, because I remembered I have disabled images in the comments with a script. (That was because some nolifeshitbucket left uglyporn jpegs in my comments one day.) So no smileys for now. I'm sure you can live with that.

Update: guhhh... forget it for now. I can't stand the slow load times on my computer. Waiting for the screen to sloooowly redraw, hearing my elderly hard drive go ek-ek-ek-ek-ek... it just isn't worth it. Also, I am not feeling particularly well. The new machine is coming in sometime next week; I'll get back to extensive site management then.

Neat MT hack

Damn, it works. This could come in handy. Via the Passionate Ailurophile.

Further plans for the blog: smilies for comments, formatting buttons for comments (maybe), show/hide inline comments (maybe), show/hide extended blog entries, skins to change the blog look. Real Soon Now.

Update: now you can see the comments on the same page as the entries (click on "display the quatloos" below each entry), do the same with extended entries, and there are simplified formatting links for links, italics, and bolding in the comments box. (Just follow the directions -- this does not work in Mozilla, by the way, and I'm not so sure about any other browser than IE.)

All these scripts except the first one are from Scriptygoddess.

HTML help

Guys, if you are not sure how to use a tag, the instructions I have in the comments are not going to help you; they are there only to let you know which ones I will permit. Here is a good resource for basic HTML formatting. Go there if you aren't sure how to use a formatting tag before trying to use them in the comments. I use very simple tags, nothing up-to-date or fancy. Bold, italics, underline, strikeout, blockquote, and "a href" for linking to a URL are the tags I allow. Do not use "strong" or "em" instead of "b" for bold, and use "blockquote" instead of "q." Important: make a link like this: <a href="some.url">link word</a>. (Do not copy and paste this.)

Limited html now on

I have finally gotten around to implementing the limited html controls in the comments, so now you can use italics, bold, underline, and so forth. However, I do not allow images to be posted in comments, so the "img src" tag is turned off. Note: if you ignore my instructions and use the "img src" tag anyway, you'll be fooled by the fact that your image will show up if you preview your post, but you'll just have blank space when you do post. Just so's you know. (I am not sure if adding the tag to the Comments Preview template will prevent this. Anyone else who uses Brad Choate's HTML Sanitizer script feel free to drop me a line.)

Meet the new blog, same as the old blog

Welcome, Meiner Damen und Herren, to the new Spleenville Journal! It's time to present: The New Blog Faq. I don't think I ever got around to writing a faq for my previous blog. But anyway. Here it is:

Q: Why on earth did you change your blog?
A: Because I wanted to. All the pages were full. (Beat.) A new year, a new blog. That sort of thing.

Q: That is so inconvenient for me.
A: Allow me to extend my sympathies -- oops, sorry, fresh out of sympathies! Oh all right -- here: open your blogroll editing function, or go into your html template and change where it says "blog" in the URL to "journal." Without the quotation marks. Everything else stays the same. See how easy? No, I can't help you if you don't remember your password. Wait -- better yet, do you have a child in the household? Get them to do it.

Q: Why is the name of your blog "Too Much to Dream"? Are you going all soft and girly?
A: Bog forbid. I just happened to have that song in my head for the past three days. Therefore: the name of my new blog. You must all suffer for my psychological aberrancies.

Q: Where is all the warmongering? Will there still be spleen-venting and ranting? Will choppin' dude ever be seen again?
A: I am as bloodthirsty and spleen-filled as ever. I will probably not be posting much about politics (as if I ever did), but that is what other blogs are for. As for choppin' dude, he is on a secret mission. He may make an appearance from time to time, as his assignments allow. Try to be patient. We are at war, you know.

Q: That's what the Orcs say.
A: You are banned.

Q: Can you (make the background color/font color brighter/darker, make the text larger/sans-serif/a different font, make it look perfect in my weird arcane browser that only people in downtown Tallinn use)?
A: No.

Q: ::Wail:: My eyes!
A: Oh, okay -- I plan to make a "printer friendly" version available very soon. In the meantime, turn off stylesheets and so forth in your browser.

Q: Why won't you post about (insert subject)?
A: My blog, my interests. Don't like it? Consult my ass Google.

Q: What's with all the Tolkien crap? Are you some kind of geek?
A: A sphincter says what?

Brought to you by Written While Drunk®.

Addendum the first to the FAQ: Guys, try to keep in mind -- at the end of the day, the entire freakin' Internet is all a giant waste of time. We should all be Out There making money or babies or something. So if I seem to get all worked up about some silly thing or other, just remember that I could be using my powers for evil. Keep me blogging. Do it for the Children™.

Addendum the second: anyone who sends me particularly amusing (as in, stupid, retarded attempt to flame or intimidate) email will have their email, with address links, posted and mocked. So far I haven't had one of these in a good long time; most blogroaches -- you know who you are -- seem content to infest the comments. But I thought I would add this little warning just in case. Oh -- and re comments: I will be closing comments to posts after a certain length of time arbitrarily chosen by me.