Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Stardust
July 29, 2004

Last night, in the middle of watching Amish in the City, I read the last of Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. I had started this book a long time ago, but at the time I was so stinking sick of fairies and the fae that I couldn’t get past the second chapter. Honestly, the word “fae” invokes such distaste for me and yet does not jibe with how I feel about the actual topic. It’s absurd.

Anyway, the book is not about the guy that you meet in the first chapter, but rather about his son, who was born to a cat-person (another thing I find distastefully commonly desirable - plushie folk) and promised that he would fetch a fallen star for the woman that he loves.

I, Robot
July 28, 2004

Over the weekend instead of playing our usual D&D with too many missing players, we checked out the new movie, I, Robot, starring Will Smith. Maybe I was in the right frame of mind for this movie, because it met my expectations well.

In the film, Will Smith stars as Detective Del Spooner, a cop whose bad memories of robots in his past has left him bitter toward them. The movie centers around Spooner’s investigation of the death of Alfred Lanning, played by James Cromwell (The Green Mile), who was thrown out the window of his locked room, the contents of which seem to be devoid of human life. Of course, there are robots involved, and Spooner is put in the cliche position of working against his own personality and placing trust (warranted or not) in the ability of robots.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Release
July 28, 2004

I’m sure that I’m the last tech-savvy person to notice that there is a date set for the FireFox 1.0 release.

If you’re not using FireFox now, the only reason you shouldn’t is if you’re so tied to Microsoft’s web development platform that you can’t escape.

MySQL Issues
July 27, 2004

Sometime this afternoon the wp-posts table on the MySQL server got corrupted somehow. Pat seems to think it was a hacker, but I think it’s just normal wear and tear. Perhaps I should schedule a regular backup instead of doing it all manually, eh?

Water Fountain Survey
July 27, 2004

Here is another one of the strange things I’ve found in the garage – placards for a waterfountain survey.

I wish I could remember what the heck these were for. I do recall only vague sensations regarding these little signs. I remember that they were attached to several water fountains at school, though whether it was in junior high or senior high, I can’t say. I also remember being someone annoyed by them. Whether this was because they would not stay affixed to the fountains, or because I wasn’t looked upon favorably for having affixed them, or because it was some school project I was forced into, I can’t say.