Archive for December, 2004

Problems are never good. I spent an hour trying to sort some JavaScript out this morning that still doesn’t work. I really hate JavaScript as you can copy and paste it from one idential location to another and it won’t work in the latter for no apparent reason. Annoying language.

Anyway the Linux server is getting DDOSed or something because both FTP and web have been at a crawl all day and I have had nothing to do all day but work in Linux server projects. Well I have other things though those were the things I wanted to get on to.

Right now I am trying post on the daily news sites though again they are on the Linux server so every other request is timing out. Most annoying. I wonder how I shall fair when I attempt to post this on Nerd Federation.

Of course part of the reason why it could be taking so long to load is that time has stopped. I need Christmas to arrive, it is holding my new guitar hostage! I have the bands website online and everything which I shall be launching soon. We have a practice on Wednesday which should be cool.

When the website does launch I will probably post on Nerd Federation first. Carefully co-ordinated ya know, it will go out here, on my site, on Worfolk Online then on the forums. Finally the search engines. A highly tuned process. Or I could just not bother, either way.

Ok, don’t get me wrong, free speech media is cool. I wasn’t implying that it is uncool, what I simply mean is that it isn’t, wow that is sooo cool like it was in the olden days. And will be in the future when we live in a totalitarian society and opinions are now allowed (I am thinking of Logan in Dark Angel here).

Back in the 50’s and 60’s free speech media was really cool because very few people did it and it was underground (The Lone Gunmen from the X-Files is a prime example) and the government controlled most of the media so free speech media was important. Now though everyone is doing it.

Not only are most media institutions but there is also the internet. On the net not only can every nerd around the globe post their opinion, but every nerd around the globe does post their opinion. And with the advent of blogs they do this several times a day. I mean, I am doing it now.

It isn’t that we don’t need free speech media. But today there is loads of it! That is why it doesn’t enjoy the cool underground reputation it used to do. Because  today, it is the mainstream media.

Normally that wouldn’t be particularly important although this year I have my electric guitar to wait for. Bah, I thought I can got past the years when time would literally stop. That said it is still not a patch on the time before my birthday.

My y key isn’t working properly. Anyway staying on topic, JD is also waiting on his X-Box which means that he can finally play the long awaited (for us anyway, I realise the game is out) Halo 2. That is the up side to Christmas though, and I have plenty of down side to go with it.

This year I decided it was maybe time I started hating Christmas. I mean, I am just too unmoved by the hole situation, usually I would be hating everything. There are so many reasons why I could hate Christmas that I am not really sure why I don’t. Well actually my official stance from now on is that I do.

The important thing is that ITV better be showing Zulu this year. They didn’t last year! It is a traditional it has been on for the last 20 years or something! I checked IMDb on the date to make sure that was possible ;). I didn’t realise how old it was though, it was made in 1964. But the important point is no Zulu this years equals lawsuit.

Designing advert creatives is quite fun. Recently it occured to me what
a shift there has been away from traditional banners to large
advertisements, most notably leaderboards. Even as I type this GameSpot
has a leaderboard ad at the top of the page for Java.com.

Looking at my own main ad server on Worfolk Online, it doesn’t even
have a traditional banner section. The only things on it are
leaderboards, skyscrapers and a few other select ads which are a wierd
size designed for specific sites. Which reminds me I should add
something new to Frinks.

My time at the moment is split between a few things though. Two of the
main ones being Gamer Forge which I am trying to keep up with writing
new content for and a new project that I have underway named Blair
Space. Ya know, I am going to start posting this on both my blogs, it
is long enough.

Anyway I spent some time this morning developing new advert creatives.
I finally got round to doing a leaderboard ad for Gamer Forge though
that was simple. My real work today was doing leaderboards for Judging
Amy .info and Resident Evil Now. Image blending and such always looks
good.

Wow, today was not what I was expecting. I headed into town to have a little look round and ended up coming home with my soon to be Christmas present in the back of the car. The aforementioned item being an electric guitar.

I have wanted one for a while (like 10 years though never enough to actually buy one) until now that it is, so in preparation for the holiday season which is quickly approaching, I settled on getting this Frontman pack thing from Music Ground.

The pack (which was £200 in total which is pretty good for store retail prices) comes with a Fender Squire guitar, 15 Watt amp (or so I think), strap, wires and some book and CD to teach you how to play. I also got an automatic tuner and soft carry case on top of that.

Now begins the random order spreeing for accessories. I ordered Guitar for Dummy’s from Amazon which was pretty cheap although I couldn’t get super saver deliver and I also ordered some rubber plectrums of eBay as they are superior apparently. Bah, looks like my shopping addiction is back.

By the way, the title of the post refers to another incident of todays town visit. While shopping for my mum, I went to get this bracelet. Which they had lost all copies of. So after an extensive search they took the one out of the display cabinet. Now began the search for a box for it. The best laid plans hu?

Oh yes! It has been months. It was May / June when the great server fell leaving many sites including Audio Senate without their databases. For months (literally 6 months) I tried to get them restored. Long story short it didn’t happen. But I did manage to get hold of the Audio Senate and the lyrics ones manually.

So after a few hours last night and a few more this morning I finally managed to fix the main Audio Senate one. There is still more database restoring to do but this is a great step forward.  Because I can sit back and tazer people if they fail to return.

Of course how Audio Senate will go remains a mystery. Chances are it is going to take a lot of work to get it going again although it already has 255 members so being the biggest forum on the Worfolk Online network (Buffy Talk is catching up though) it is good for making up numbers.

Speaking of stats and numbers, this changes the top 10 forums list. It pushes Gamer Forge off the list meaning that the bottom of the top 10 has over 10 members. Buffy Talk is now second and Fallen Nation is third. I need to publish a report about this.

Ok, even I didn’t know where I was going with this title. But there is an important point here. Ya see, even the most shallow low brow humour cartoons these days seem to have a deeper layer. I mean in Family Guy series 3 alone there are references to American Beauty and the Breakfast Club - how many kids are going to have seen those?

Another example is from the Simpsons, where Homer goes to buy illegal fireworks and tries to act cool (in the episode where he is staying that Ned Flander’s beach house). That quote is actually a reference.

"Let me have one of those porno magazines… large box of condoms… a bottle of Old Harper… a couple of those panty shields… and some illegal fireworks, and one of those disposable enemas. Eh, make it two."

The quote is a reference to American Graffiti which was releaded in 1973 (again how many kids are going to have seen that) directed by George Lucas - it was really his breakthrough movie, winning him his first Golden Globe. Anyway to compare quotes, the one from Toad in American Graffiti:

"ok yeah, let me have err, a Three Musketer’s and a ball point pen, one of those combs there, bottle of Old Harper, a couple of flashlight batteries and beef jerky."