Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

This Is Why, Folks
March 16, 2006

I don’t normally include profanity in my own postings, although there is sometimes some basic profanity in the comments. And I’m ok with that as long as it’s a relevant expression of feeling and not flagrant meaningless obscenity or name-calling. With that said, I hope you will excuse what I am about to post, which is actually a comment that I recently received, and not my words at all.

I suppose I need to provide a little background. Back in 2003, I enrolled in a basic writing class at West Chester University as part of my program of “taking random classes and learning things without an intention of earning a degree”. West Chester is a state school; your basic step above a community college. The writing program was very basic, and although the teacher was proficient, he expected a proportional amount of effort from a 100-level class at what amounts to a continuation of high school.

One of our assignments included choosing a character from the movie American History X, and profiling him in writing. It was to be a longer piece; a follow-up to a shorter assignment from earlier in the semester. Please note - If you read these posts, note that they were added to the site before I started using WordPress, and the automated reformatting from the old system may have produced errors. Also, as with anything I write on Asymptomatic in general, I didn’t really proof the “post” part of these, whereas the written piece itself should be in a relatively error-free form.

The salient point here, the one that is lost in the case of the comment to which I spoke earlier, is the one where this is “part 2″ of my exploration of American History X. This post does not represent an indication of a sequel to the original movie. That said, I present the comment that I recently recieved on the “part 2″ post, which I am posting again here rather than allowing it through moderation:

Lawyers Eat Trees
March 15, 2006

Things have been quiet around Asymptomatic this week because I have been spending entirely too much time playing catch-up with email and other tasks in the evening. Why haven’t I been doing this during the day when I would usually expect to be able to do it? I’ve been on jury duty.

As a jury member, I’m not supposed to discuss the case outside of the courtroom. I take this matter pretty seriously, and I fully intend to abide by the judge’s order on that matter, at least until the trial is over. At that time I should be able to say whatever I want and, really, I have a lot to say. But I did want to expound on another topic that is an adjunct to my court experiences this week:

The Social Wall
March 12, 2006

We were sitting in a booth in the Burger King rest stop on the turnpike when I was struck with oour situation’s coincidental similarity to japanese rice walls.

The couple in the booth behind us had three children, boys from what I could tell. The father was doing his best to keep the children at an even keel - something at which I have personally been doing a poor job during this excursion.

I forget exactly what he was doing, partially because I was staring off toward the restrooms, but he noticed my gaze and returned a look of “why are you staring at me?”

Two Dinky but Useful WordPress Plugins
March 10, 2006

I’ve been using these two plugins for a little while, and they seem to generate interest in people when I mention them, so I have decided to release them and see what happens.

The first plugin, Auth Only, allows only logged-in users to access your blog. It also allows you to customize your login page by adding a login.php template to your theme. Using a login template will allow you to create a customized experience for your registered users.

You will need to use a plugin like the Role Manager to edit the capabilities of roles to grant view_site capability to whichever users or Roles should have permission to view your site.