evanroberts.com

Have you ever been so tired that you were somewhat energised, yet you knew it could fail at any moment?

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t a normal case of dropping off around 2am or 2:30am. No, this was something altogether different. I recall seeing 4am before finally passing out. I distinctly remember thinking that I should just forgo sleep, as I would more than likely be tired in the morning, and waking up would be a pain in the ass. This was not an issue this morning, however, as I woke with a start, and have been going strong since.

I’m not one who usually drinks coffee or tea with any regularity, so I know that if I were to have a cup of either, I’d be flying on the caffeine for a few hours at most, and then crash hard. And then there’s always the chance I’d have an anxiety attack, which was the entire reason I stopped drinking coffee and tea in the first place.

Anyway, I think my lack of slumber was due to my excitement for what an awesome weekend this promises to be. Usually when I have something planned that I am looking forward to more than anything else, I can’t sleep. I believe that is the same with everyone, so I’m not sure why I mentioned it. Yet again, fatigue is making me ramble.

I’ll stop now before I say something REALLY dumb.

Back when my site used to be run by the Postnuke CMS (content management system), I used to be able to assign an avatar for each category. For example, on drunken rants (which were occasional back then), I had an image of me slamming a beer. Basically, it was a setup similar to Slashdot, and I kinda liked it.

When I finally had enough of Postnuke, as it seemed that the CMS was going no where and support for plugins was minimal at best (I don’t know if this is still the case), I switched to Wordpress, and never looked back. However, I didn’t know how to easily assign an image to each category, and truthfully, I was hoping to have something different for each post this time.

Ironically, one of the web comics I read every week, Ctrl+Alt+Del, has a setup sort of like how I wanted. Tim Buckley, the creator, draws his avatars, and sometimes has different ones depending on the post. For my posts, I sort of want to have a mix of either a snapshot of myself if I’m in a weird mood or desire to display my mood for the post, or even just a run-of-the-mill graphic. Basically, a mix of Ctrl+Alt+Del and Slashdot.

After a bit of searching, the plugin that I found that would let me do this is “Post Avatar” (original name, eh?!). You have the option of including the avatar within the post, or if you wish to use CSS, you can specify the CSS class name you’d want to use, and then configure that class within your style sheet. I opted for the latter, and knowing very little about CSS, I had the avatar popping up all over the place within the post, until I came across someone else who was doing sort of the same thing, but for putting avatars next to comments. Using Firebug, I was able to see the CSS class he used, and nab it. Applying it to my site too a bit to figure out, and also determine what size of avatar would be best, but again, Firebug helped me out with this, and so far, it looks pretty good (in my opinion, of course).

I don’t think I’m going to go back and update EVERY past post with an avatar, because even though I only have 105 posts (including this one), I’m quite lazy at heart… even if this endeavour did take a bit to put together. Slightly hypocritical, eh?

Anyway, hope you like these as much as I do.

Throughout the day, I am lucky enough to listen to music while I answer the emails our customers send in with queries about our service, how to make something work, or just to ask what the hell it is that we do. It also serves as a comfortable barrier in a noisy room, so I can focus on what I’m doing and not be distracted with the happenings of the office, or by any other loud conversations that occur from time to time.

As with most people, I have my own collection of music that I have gathered over the years, but once in a while it’s nice to listen to the radio to hear some music that I haven’t heard, or have a copy of that I would play over and over and over again. Rather than have a radio at my already-cluttered desk, I’m one of those guys that prefers to listen to Internet Radio, and I do so via iTunes.

There are an absolute TON of stations to choose from, but I only have a few I listen to, with one that I recently tried out today, and have since added to my playlist. As well, I tend to only listen to radio stations that stream at a minimum of 128 kbps, as that ensures you get some decent sound.

For those of you interested in my playlist, here they are:

• Bassdrive - Drum & Bass
  
• Groove Salad - Ambient beats
  
• Pure.FM Radio - House
• Big R Radio - 90s Alternative Rock
  

There are a few radio stations in the Toronto area that I wish had an Internet Radio presence, but it’s understandable that with the bandwidth costs that they wouldn’t. As well, I’m sure there are licensing agreements about how the music has to be played within a certain area or region, and with Internet Radio, that’s almost impossible to ensure.

One thing I do love about Internet Radio is that most of the stations will list the tracks that they are playing, so if you want to see about getting a copy of what you’re listening to, you can easily jot down the name of the track, and go about searching for it. Very neat.

For the last year and a bit, at the recommendation of Owen, I’ve been reading a series known as The Sword of Truth. Written by Terry Goodkind, this is one of the best series of books I have ever read, which may or may not be saying much, as I don’t read books all that often. Even when I do, I take forever to read them, as I usually have something going on, or just don’t have the time to plop down and read my book… and quite honestly, I like savouring the story when I find a good one.

Anyway, there were rumours that Sam Raimi was interested in making a film to do with the Sword of Truth series, and it appears that this is finally coming together. ABC and Disney have become involved, and hope to turn the first book, Wizard’s First Rule, into a 22 hour-long episodes, which is both good and bad in my opinion… good since they’re going to be bringing the story to the screen, and it won’t be crammed into a two hour movie which wouldn’t be able to portray the story properly, but bad since it means that this might be a flop and not go further than a few episodes (like how Firefly was amazing yet Fox canceled it), and also that since this is Disney, and also it’ll be on TV, it won’t be as violent as the books are. I mean, come on… this is taking place in a setting like medieval times, so there would be sword slicing people in half, etc. None of that if this is going to be in prime time TV. Ah well.

Still, Terry Goodkind is excited, and he is going to be completely involved with the project, so that will hopefully mean that he’ll have the power to ensure that the corporate executives don’t fuck up the story TOO much; let’s be honest here, they’re going to insist on some changes.

Personally, I can’t wait to see what happens. Scheduled for this Fall, it should be a hit. Sam Raimi and Terry Goodkind working together? This’ll be awesome.

I wonder whom they’ll cast…

I just came across this web comic entitled Dueling Analogs. While looking through the various post comics, I found myself laughing at the absurdity of the humour, and this one was the best so far:

http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2008/02/28/this-is-portal/

I’m definitely going to check all of them out when I have the time, and in the meantime I’ve added them to my list of comic links. Web comics rock.

So, I recently upgraded my Wordpress install to the latest version (something that should NEVER be done while hungover, but I digress) and sure enough, something went wrong. Good thing I backed up my site files and database content prior to doing thing, even if I didn’t need it to fix the issue; it’s nice to have the option of reverting everything back to how it was before you started fucking around…

Anyway, a plugin known as “Category Visibility-iPeat Rev” that I rely on to hide my “Sustenance” category from the main page, the category I use for my Meals & Activity section, failed to work with the new upgraded Wordpress. Instead of just hiding one category from the front page, it decided to hide them all. Sort of a big deal, seeing as how my main page was stating “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria”.

It’s not really the fault of the author of the plugin, as it did say that it was tested up to Wordpress v2.3.3, and I was surprised it worked for v2.5 at all, seeing as how many people were having issues with it. But, sure enough, testing fate I upgraded to v2.5.1, and it broke. Naturally, looking through the code didn’t lead me anywhere; let’s face it, I’m not an expert on PHP, and this is even more apparent when I’m hungover. As well, there aren’t many plugins out there for hiding categories, and v2.5.1 is pretty new… as in, released yesterday. So, I was faced with a decision: revert my site back to v2.5 (easy), or try to find another plugin that does the same job (be a stubborn bastard).

I opted for the latter.

With my last Wordpress site, I wanted to exclude the “Skate” category from the main page, so it could have it’s own section, and be mostly separate from the main site. I used a plugin known as “Advanced Category Excluder” and sure enough, after a bit of searching I found it again. While it also says it was tested up to Wordpress v2.3.3, I installed it, and hoped for the best. Sure enough, it did the trick, and my site is working properly again.

Long story short? When installing an upgrade, always do so when you’re NOT hungover, as it takes a bit to figure out what the hell is wrong, and also find a solution.

For some reason, and I have a good idea of what (but I’m not telling), it seemed as though a particular element of nature wanted to make sure I suffered. Not earth. Not fire. Not water… even though it rained pretty hard today. The element out to get me this afternoon was wind. And let me tell ya, it GOT me.

I don’t know if it was the extra exercise routine I performed during my lunch break, where I went out for a bike ride rather than play a video game, read, or just surf the ‘net, but I wasn’t in my usual energetic pumped up mood to ride home after work. Of course, the wind didn’t help matters either.

It seemed that no matter which direction I traveled, the wind was in my face. STRONG wind too. Heading east to Dominion, the wind was blowing west. Coming out of Dominion and heading west and down to the lake front bike path, the wind was blowing east. Going down the hill towards the Boulevard Club, the wind was so strong that I had to peddle down the hill to keep the motion going. As soon as I turned up north to ride through High Park, the wind was blowing south, and continued to gust harder when I was going up the semi-mountain at the southern entrance. Even when I turned off the road to go into my building’s parking lot, the wind suddenly switched direction to make sure it was in my face. Something larger than myself was at work here.

And, it seemed to only affect me. Sure, the people passing me on bikes seemed to feel the wind a bit, I could see their clothes rippling. Yet, that didn’t seem to slow them down. A dude on rollerblades passed me as I descended the hill towards the Boulevard Club… how the hell was that possible if I wasn’t the sole target of the wind?

But it didn’t stop there. No. I had to wait for about 10 minutes at the elevators to finally get on one that wasn’t full of people and would allow for room for my bike. The elevators took their sweet time, which ensured there would be a steady stream of people waiting with me. I bet the wind bribed them into giving me one last bit of hassling for the night. I was even tempted to take my bike up the stairs, but I wasn’t about to give in THAT easily.

Still, the joke is on the wind and the elevators. I got one HELL of a workout for my trouble, and my steak and veggies tasted AWESOME. In the end, I paid my dues, and it was worth it.

The digital scale I’ve had for months is one that I got at Walmart for about $20, and I recently became convinced that it is a piece of shit. Its not completely inaccurate, but it does have some oddities when it comes to giving consistent numbers.

In the mornings, I weigh myself first thing out of bed. Well, second thing out of bed; don’t need the excess weight (yes, that’s disgusting for me to say, but you all do it, so quit your whining). Anyway, the first number I see is the one that I add to the graph that is on the left sidebar of my site, and also keep track of in my Meals & Activity section. However, I recently found out that if I were to weigh myself again while holding onto my change jar (thus increasing my weight), and weigh myself once more without the change jar, the digital scale would give me a different, and increased, weight. Call me crazy, but that’s not right.

So, today, I finally bit the bullet, and decided to get a new digital scale. Problem is, where the hell in Toronto could I get a decent digital scale? Seems quite impossible, and I had originally happened upon the digital scale I got at Walmart by chance. In the end, I realised that a health store would be the best bet, and the only one that came to mind was GNC. As well, I knew they would have a site with some prices and all that, so I checked it out. I originally opted to get a cheaper scale, as I was of the mindset that this is a scale, it shouldn’t be that fancy, I don’t need a BMI computed (because I’m still not even sure what a “BMI” is), yet it should be able to store at least two user profiles. At lunch, I headed up to the GNC at Dufferin Mall, and all they had was this one:

http://www.conaircanada.ca/en/en_index.html?/en/scales_ww71c.html

It was going for $99.99, but gold members got it for $79.99, and I figured I might as well become a gold member since I’ll more than likely be buying more stuff from GNC (whey powder, etc). Membership cost $10, so after taxes, it all cost me $95. A little steep for a scale, but in the end, worth it as I saw it as an investment to ensure I keep on track with this… as if this site isn’t incentive enough.

Anyway, I was initially worried that my crappy digital scale had been giving me false numbers all this time as I weighed myself at work and I was 191lbs. It wasn’t until I got home with the new scale (which was a bitch to get home as it was too big to fit into my backpack, so I had to tie the GNC bag to the outside of the backpack and look like an idiot riding home) that I realised that the one from Walmart wasn’t that far off… perhaps half a pound or so… on the plus side. So, all this time, my crappy scale was giving me a slightly larger number than it should have. Bonus! The investment is already paying itself off!

My Dad dropped by this evening and I showed him the scale. Now he wants one. It’ll be my treat.

…they will sometimes resort to Photoshop, and usually with hilarious results:

Thanks for the laugh, Mike!