HarleyPig's Sty On The Web

So much for my new exercise plan ...

2008-06-22T14:22:00.001-06:00

Police arrest man running on trail in thong - Yahoo! News

Lincoln police have a message ... [t]he thong is wrong.

(Oops ... that's more than four words ...)

Anyway, I just had to share. And let's not forget about mesh speedos!

Life, My Universe and ...

2007-10-09T12:35:00.000-06:00

nothing.

I'm in a holding pattern for the moment. We have no idea what's wrong with my back ... just that it's getting worse and it's taking longer each day just to get to the point where I can stand up at all. And no one is willing to hire someone for minimum hours at a decent wage and allow telecomuting.

I have another two weeks before the divorce hearing and I find out whether or not my kids get to grow up in a decent environment or get to be raised by a psycho.

So to pass the time I've been straightening up my linode server and installing various applications. Will Smith's post this morning made me realize ... I could (some would say *should*) do the same thing. So, I'll start posting about the apps that I'm installing and my comments on the setup, configuration and experience with the app.

Warning: TMI!

2007-08-21T08:24:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile since my last post. I figured I'd use this method to let people know what's been up for the last few weeks.

WARNING: TOO MUCH INFORMATION

If you're not interested in a lot of personal details hit 'n' now (or whatever your method of moving on is).

As those few of you who read this blog may know, a few months ago I started having back problems. You may also know that I've been separated from my wife for the last year or so. I'll get to how these two things are related in a little bit.

A few weeks ago my back started getting worse. The pain increased sharply and I was unable to walk more than a few feet without the pain becoming blinding and debilitating. One of the things my doctor has wanted me to do is drop some weight. From the time I was weighed when I initially went to the hospital for the first back pains (431.9 lbs) to the time I'm talking about I had lost 32.9 pounds. A significant amount in that time frame.

As an aside, I don't recommend this method of weight loss. It requires so much pain that you can't even stand to eat. Also, unexplained nausea, reduced appetite and having to take massive amounts of prescription grade laxative just to stay regular, which means toilet visits are individual experiences to be forgotten as quickly as possible lest you put off the next visit until its too late.

So, anyway. My doctor decided at this point that he needed more information. I was scheduled for a cat scan that afternoon. He called me that night and asked me to come immediately so blood could be drawn for some tests. I may be slow on the uptake, but I knew this wasn't a good sign. It seems there was an "anomaly" on the cat scan. Wonderful.

The next morning (a Saturday) I get a call from my doctor again. He's been able to get someone to come in on the weekend to give me an mri and could I show up in a few hours. Hmmm ... I'm not liking this much, but what choice do I have.

Did I mention I have some back pain, and that it's been getting worse and worse? The freeway has some bumps on it that you just don't appreciate when you're healthy. And I will never think of going over a bumpy driveway the same way again.

And let's talk about cat scans and mri's! Why do they require you to lie down when you have back pain! For the cat scan the poor tech tried to help me up (if she weighed more than 120 lbs I wouldn't believe it) but all I could really do was throw myself into a sitting position. People came rushing from all directions to see what the screaming was about. I'm not kidding. All I could do for I don't know how long was sit there and cry until my back recuperated enough for me to think clearly again. At which point I asked for a wheelchair ride out to my car. I think they did it for me just to get me out. Poor ladies were fairly freaked I think.

The mri the next day was even worse. They told me it would be a 2 hour process, so I took my pain medication (with a little extra in anticipation of the troubles in getting up). Now ... I should clarify here ... I can lie down ok (getting into a prone position is painful, but doable). And, with the pain meds, I was able to relax enough to actually get some decent sleep during the scanning process. They woke me up a few times to get me to move my arms and legs a little, but for the majority of the time I got some real sleep for the first time in weeks.

I needed that sleep. The scan actually took longer than the original 2 hours told to me. They finished just as the pain meds wore off. So getting up was an adventuresome 5 minutes of excruciating pain. I barely remember getting home. I think I cried myself to sleep. I took my pain meds early.

Late afternoon that day my doctor calls me again. I need to check into the hospital. I'll post the rest tomorrow. I'm really tired and I still need to get this project done for a contract I'm trying to keep going along with everything else.

Not so new for most of you I think ...

2007-08-02T16:43:00.000-06:00

I know this probably isn't new to most of you, but I just found this and found it truly funny:

There seems to be a whole bunch of these mashups ... *sigh* ... another evening not doing what I'm supposed to be doing!

Truly Odd and Not So Odd News

2007-07-31T09:44:00.000-06:00

I noticed two entries in the Drudge Report. The first involves sound and youth (does anyone remember the report a few years ago that showed that people under 30 heard higher pitched sounds that people over 30 didn't?).

This not so odd news article says that Tacoma, WA officials are going to try scaring off the hoods with classical music. Interesting idea, and possibly ... probably better than the annoying pitch, since they don't want to send all kids packing, just the bad influences. One kid comments at the end of the article "The music isn't going to change the attitude of the kids." Well, no kidding. City officials just want the criminal element gone.

On the other hand, this article about "vegansexuals" is just plain bizarre. A vegansexual is a person who [does] not eat any meat or animal products, and who [chooses] not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies ... are made up of dead animals.

The following quote just made me sit back and say "Huh?"

I believe we are what we consume, so I really struggle with bodily fluids, especially sexually.

Of course, all of the vegan women I've known haven't exactly been the most exciting to be around ...

Odd News? No, Awesome News!

2007-07-04T16:18:00.000-06:00

I'm beginning to wonder about who is classifying the news at Yahoo. This arcticle about a 5 year old who protects his younger brother and other friends from a rabid fox isn't odd! It's a terrific bit of news.

It's becoming Yahoo Good News, not Yahoo Odd News!

Perl and Google Services

2007-07-03T07:54:00.000-06:00

I've noticed that people have been re-inventing the wheel with respect to communicating with Google services. They've been writing the basic communication over and over again.

I hope to take care of that with the Net::Google::GData module. I'll be releasing it to CPAN in a little while. Here's your chance to help shape this module before it becomes too set in its ways.

I *am* having some trouble deciding which is the best way to handle the atom feed. Obviously, the feed handler is going to need to be extended, but is it best to do it in the base GData package? or require each service module to handle it?

In any case, you can check it out here using either a browser or svn.

Let me know what you think. Patches definitely welcome.

Movies I Want To See: The Golden Compass

2007-07-02T00:30:00.000-06:00

The Golden Compass (trailer - IMDB - WikiPedia) looks like an interesting fantasy. I'm going to have to buy the books and see what they're like.

Why is this odd news?

2007-07-01T23:45:00.000-06:00

Yahoo found fit to report the following as 'Odd News':

Philippine driver returns lost money

Basically, a cabbie turns in $17K to the police that someone carelessly left in his cab. What makes it more odd, he had rent due and his wife had just gone into the hospital (it doesn't say for what). He is quoted as saying "It was not mine." How truly odd.

I was thinking to myself that, while this is impressive--and admirable--it just doesn't seem like that much money to make a big deal of.

At least he got a reward out of it. About seven times his average daily take--$32.

Huh? Wait a minute! This demands some examination. A quick google for 'average taxi driver salary' shows that taxi drivers in the US make roughly $30k/year.

Based on that final statement (seven times his daily take) the cabbie makes about $1670/year. The ratio here is staggering. What really happened, in language equivalent to living here in the US is that this cabbie turned in $95k (roughly). Holy cow! Now *that's* something to write about!

Rereading the article, I notice that he turned it in about the same time it was being reported by the person who left it. This means, most likely, that he didn't even take the time to think about it.

This isn't odd news, this is great news!

Movies I Want To See: Fido

2007-06-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

Did you ever wonder what happened after the zombie menace was over?

Well, here's an answer!

From the description:

Welcome to Willard, a small town lost in the idyllic world of the 50’s, where the sun shines every day, everybody knows their neighbor, and rotting zombies deliver the mail. Years ago, the earth passed through a cloud of space dust, causing the dead to rise with a craving for human flesh. A war began, pitting the living against the dead. In the ensuing revolution, a corporation was born: ZomCon, who defeated the legions of undead, and domesticated the zombies, making them our industrial workers, our domestic servants - a productive part of society. ZomCon would like the people of Willard to believe they have everything under control... but do they?

From the trailer it looks like a very good and funny take on the decade following the end of a zombie uprising. Looking forward to it!

Movies I'd Like To See: Stardust

2007-06-19T11:09:00.000-06:00

It seems Hollywood is beginning to see some value in creating decent fantastical movies. One I'm looking forward to is Stardust (trailer).

The site has a quote for which I cannot find any attribution. It may be original to the movie. I like it:

A philosopher once asked: Are we human because we gaze at the stars? Or do we gaze at them because we are human? Pointless really. Do the stars gaze back? Now that's a question.

Interesting.

The movie is written by Neil Gaiman which is would be good enough for me except that Hollywood has a tendency to really screw this kind of movie up. However, the trailer seems to indicate that this movie would be worth seeing. I hope it lives up to expectations. I also hope it actually makes it to God's backyard ... they have a tendency to not allow much of real entertainment here.

Meh.

2007-05-28T23:43:00.000-06:00

Why is it so hard to find the perfect blog/wiki app, huh? I mean, what's so difficult about making an app that knows when you want an entry to be a blog post and when you want it to be a wiki article and place it appropriately.

And what about parsing the entry for calendar and todo events! I mean, really, how hard can that be as well?

Sheesh!