Sex sells pageviews but so does politics.

I've basically been working nonstop since Thursday morning, except Saturday which was all derby [which is a lot like working except I don't get paid for it]. We have a .NET web app that they're converting to use Windows domain accounts, and it's working about as well as an external combustion engine It sure seems like a good idea to apply a user's actual permissions to the files & processes in a web app, at least until you think about it, say, or try to do it.

Some scattered thoughts I haven't had time to write down:

- The roller derby scoreboard now posts live score updates via Twitter . This has cool implications for a distributed national roller derby score system [which is a lot more compelling than you might think]. If you didn't tune in on Saturday, sorry but you missed it.

- Those annoying video game machines they have at bars run Linux. Somebody managed to crash one at Ava's last week and I saw it rebooting. I always kind of figured they ran Windows but I guess it makes sense since Linux is so much cheaper.

- Salisbury steak!



- What's the difference between terrorists and dissident paramilitaries? Dissident paramilitaries are white. [No, really. Pay attention to the news, and keep in mind that the paramilitary Real IRA is about a hundred dudes with guns and no political connections whatsoever, while the terrorist Al-Qassam Brigades are 40,000 trained fighters with long-range rockets and guided missiles, affiliated with a majority political party.] The Northern Irish peace process has been long and difficult but ultimately quite successful, and we should avoid giving these nitwits legitimacy.

- Z

Also, a secret that web designers won't tell you: if you set your browser to 800px wide, the only thing you're missing is advertising.

- Z

OK poetry world, I'm sorry (e:zobar,47483). I like you again.

Bridal Shower
by George Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant cafe,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite cafe.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant cafe,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.

- Z

- Z

attempted not known

Thing three: we finally did get the Obama coins, ugh. (e:zobar,47301) They were addressed to 40 Hartford St, 14221, which I am told does not exist, so they sent it to us instead. I brought the package back to the post office and explained to the woman at the counter what happened. She put it in a stack and sent it back to 14221. As I was walking back home it occurred to me that we may be headed for a problem.



Sure enough, two days later we got the same package again. This time it said ANK, which is short for 'Attempted Not Known,' which itself is short for 'If this gets to its intended destination you owe the entire post office a beer.' (e:dragonlady7) said she'd try sending them back this time. I said the suspense was killing me and if we get them again I'm keeping those hokey-ass coins. [It's inexplicable why I want them.] So she went to the post office and told them the package just wasn't going to get through to Mary Sheehan, and they should probably just return to sender. The post officer told her that since they weren't the stated destination they weren't allowed to make that decision, and the only thing they could do is send it back to 14221. You can see where this is going.



But no, she blacked out the address, put a couple hundred stickers all over it, and finally got rid of it once and for all.

- Z

---

Deep thought: Transit Road is a perfectly straight line, thirty miles long. God will judge us by our works, and that's going to be a tough one to explain.

Google Image Search tells me this is a photograph of a 1981 Zenith television. Not so much 'steampunk' as 'we may as well have poured this one in concrete, cause it's not going anywhere.