Just another WordPress site

Well, sambot.com got fixed. Mostly fixed, anyway. I rearranged some code and got things to look almost all better. I’m viewing this as a temporary solution. Hopefully Blogger will work some stuff out in the near future.

Anyway, my solution is a backassword workaround, but it does work. I was going to post the fix here, but I’m so annoyed by the whole thing that I really don’t want to think about it anymore.

Old post are still going to look funky… readable, but funky. The only other thing that is still wrong is the space directly underneath the post body. But, it’s a small annoyance… one that I’m willing to live with.

A few other things did come out of this ordeal… neither good nor bad, just things… barely worth mentioning really. But nevertheless, here they are: I learned a bit about some of the other blogging options: WordPress, Movable Type, etc… and discovered that Blogger is just so gosh darn easy to use. I hope that they get their act together fairly quickly because making the transition from Blogger to one of the other options seems… time consuming. The other thing that I learned is that sambot looks like ass on the PC. Well, maybe not entirely like ass. More like polished butt than full-fledged ass. The point is that the font treatment on the PC is way different than its Mac counterpart. I know that I double-checked sambot on the PC during the development stages. I must have just overlooked it or was willing to ignore it for a while and then forgot about it. Maybe I’ll fix it. Maybe you should just get Mac? Maybe I should end this post now… I’m starting to feel violent.

Oh… one more thing: if anything looks weird on your particular system, or if there’s something that I’ve overlooked, please let me know. Thanks!

“There’s not enough puppets on television trying to sell me things anymore.” – Mike

Ok… Sambot got funky. All by itself. I don’t have time to look into this now. I’ll fix it soon though. In the mean time, if anyone has any ideas as to what happened, you should run them by me. Did blogger change something?

UPDATE: Yep, Blogger changed something. This is a big annoying problem. Apparently, it’s affecting lots of Blogger users who use custom templates. The word on the street is, “Blogger’s working on it.” Right. Anyway, the problem has something to do with some extraneous code bits that Blogger is inserting at the beginning and end of each post body… this <div style="clear:both;"></div>, to be exact. There are a few workarounds floating around this here interweb… none of which fix sambot. I guess that I’ll just have to wait it out. In the mean time, sorry about the mess.

I found myself wandering around New Haven today… yes, again (this time however, I managed to suppress my inner trespasser). I went with an agenda, and time was short. Nevertheless, I found more cool stuff. This city (dare I say, “my new stomping grounds?”) continues to impress.

Apparently, on the last Friday of every month, there’s a gigantic critical mass (sponsored by The Devil’s Gear). Too bad Project Streetfighter Single Speed isn’t complete yet. She’ll be ready in the next few days. More on that later…

Also, down on the city green, there seems to be a permanent stage area for daily live music. I really don’t know what it’s all about, but every time I’ve been in New Haven there’s a live and free show. Nice!

Speaking of shows, Thurday, June 30, Toad’s Place is hosting the LOCAL METAL SHOWCASE! I wonder how the New Haven metal scene fares against that of Western Mass (couldn’t be any worse)? And, July 7 at Toad’s, Digable Planets. I had no idea those guys were still alive, let alone still a band. Anyway, I’ll be at both shows. And the critical mass. You should go. Come find me and say, “hi.” How will you know who I am? I’ll be the guy wearing the mesh shirt and speedo… and consequently, there’ll be a large radius of empty space encircling my person where no one dares to enter.

(I’m pretty sure that I just lost about half of my regular readers… as for the other half? Well, they’re probably telling their friends right now. Sambot.com reader attendance will quadruple by morning. I love the internet.)

Today can be considered my first true day of Connecticut urban exploration. I’m in New Haven, in a Starbucks. I’m in a Starbucks because the first coffee shop that I attempted to exploit had a problem with their free wifi. That being, they didn’t offer free wifi. I discovered this following the purchase of a coffee, of course. So, after inhaling the coffee (if there’s one thing that I cannot see go to waste, it’s a good cup of coffee), I found the nearest Starbucks. Another coffee was purchased. The laptop was opened. A wifi network was found. T-Mobile Hotspot. Please enter your username and password? What? Since when does Starbucks charge for their wifi? Grrr. Anyway…

I arrived here via Connecticut public transit. A.K.A. the bus. I’ve always said, “If you want to know the people, ride the bus.” After this afternoon’s experience however, I’m changing that adage to, “If you want to know the crazy people, ride the bus.” No, it was a good ride. I made a friend too. I never got her name (only a grunt-like approximation), but I did find out that one of her main interests is cutting herself so that later, she can be amused by picking at some really well developed scabs. Good to know. I’ll be sure to add her blood soaked business card to my roll-a-dex.

Downtown New Haven is a really interesting place. Home of Yale University. One of, if not the oldest university in the country. The architecture is phenomenal. It’s old and gothic and creepy. I sort of feel like the Yale campus could have easily been used to film parts of the Harry Potter movies. Its got that hidden-secret-satanist-society feel to it. There is stained glass and painted glass work everywhere, elaborate stone carvings, hidden alcoves and mysterious doors too.

I ventured onto campus through the first open gateway that I could find. The resulting courtyard was incredibly lavish. Ahhh… the decadence of the intellectual elite. It seemed that I had found a dormitory area. Most doors where locked (after all, it is the summer). However, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I found a building that seemed as though it was undergoing heavy internal reconstruction. The side door was completely unlocked. So, without hesitation, I went in.

My first impression of the interior of a ripped-up-for-construction Yale University dormitory was this: What the!? Even with this place, in its torn-to-pieces state, it is still way nicer than any spot on my undergrad college’s campus… by far. Don’t get me wrong, I value my undergraduate education, but my school’s architect had a little too much love for the right angle. It would have been nice to walk down halls like these on my way to class.

Goal Numero Uno for any urban spelunking adventure is to ascend to the highest point available. Climb baby, climb! The view is better, the area is less traveled, there is more to discover, and the air is thinner (I don’t know why this last one is a benefit, but I felt it worth mentioning). So, I found some stairs, and I climbed and climbed. Five flights up and the regular stairwell turned into three more flights of a spiral staircase. The climb concluded on the eighth floor with a locked door and this foreboding message, written in blood: CAUTION! Trap Door in floor. Clearly it was a ploy… like those beware of dog signs that mark houses where obviously no dog lives… only an old widowed woman who doesn’t believe in the banking system, so she hoards cash in used plastic shopping bags under her bed… not that I would know… but, anyway… The view was spectacular from up there. Each dorm room had its own fireplace too (like I said, straight out of Harry Potter).

The adventure was cut short by the sound of maintenance people doing that thing that they do… you know, maintaining stuff, yelling at trespassers, etc… I didn’t want to get caught and have to say something like, “Ummm… I think I’m a little lost. Is this the mall? I was trying to find Hot Topic.” Mainly though, I didn’t want my stuff confiscated. So, I hauled ass down many flights of stairs, made a lot of noise, was very un-ninja-like, and found the nearest exit.

And now, here I am… highly caffeinated and without internet.

It’s always a good thing to explore beyond the surface of a new environment (for me, anyway). I feel like it’s more my home now that I’ve dug into it a bit. We’ll see what else I discover in the next few months of exploration. For now though, I’m satisfied. And, I must say, I’m liking my new locale more and more as I explore deeper and deeper. And, one of these days, I will finish unpacking my stuff. Then, it will truly feel like home. Although, the bedroom full of boxes is a unique (lazy?) decorating element. Don’t you think?

Sambot.com’s three sentence review of The Running Man:

It’s Arnold in spandex. What’s not to like? Plus, more one-liners than you can shake your little, weakling, girly-man finger at.

Score: 10 out of 10

This is it… my last day here in Georgia with my little sister. She’s in a video conference meeting thingy, so guess what I’m doing? Yep, feeding the addiction. Coffee. Internet. Scone. (Yes, I know… “Scone” isn’t typically part of the addict’s holy trinity. But damn, that pastry looked so good. I couldn’t resist.)

I’ve taken ten bizillion photos this week. Most of which are of the puppy chewing on stuff… however, some are of me chewing on stuff. The photo’s are all nicely tucked away in iPhoto. During the ridiculously out of the way trip home (Jacksonville, FL to Detroit, MI to Hartford, CT), I’ll sort through them (and, with the help of this awesome and free little plugin for iPhoto, I might give flickr a once over).

So anyway, about Georgia… ummm… er, that’s about all I’ve got.

No, Georgia is a warm place full of rich culture and southern ideals. Lots of “y’all.” Lots of waffle restaurants. Oh… and vultures. I saw lots of vultures.

Could I live here? Probably not. I’ve lived in New England for the majority of my life. I’ve got too much New England blood flowing through my veins. The South (at least this part of Georgia (but I can stereotype the entire South based on one visit to one small corner, right?)) is the complete American antithesis of my New England experience. Life here is slow, the landscape is flat, the roads are all highways, and the peanuts are either boiled or fried prior to their consumption.

The Georgian folk are a kind lot though. Kind, friendly, generous… so much so, that upon first encounter, I assumed them all to be under the influence of some sort of mind-numbing medication… Soma, if you will. Of course, my next thought was, “where do I get some of this beautiful product? Do I have to be a Georgia citizen? ‘Cause, for the right meds, I could do that.” But no, as it turns out they are simply good-hearted people… who happen to boil peanuts. I don’t know. It’s just something they do. Odd at first, but soon it becomes an endearing part of the Georgian way of life.

It was wonderful to visit my sister, her fiance, and their puppy. It will however, be wonderful to return to civilization.

Oh… worth noting is that my sister’s next domicile will be Seattle, WA. No doubt a huge contrast to life in Georgia. She’ll be moving in October. I’ve never been to Seattle. Concerning the west coast, I’ve never passed Portland, OR as a northernly destination. I am excited for her to move, but my excitement is of a selfish nature. Her being in Seattle gives me a solid reason to visit and explore that city. Sweet. I’ll be sure to pack as many flannel shirts as my worn-in-just-the-right-places, purchased-at-the-army/navy-store, 100%-military-issue army bag will allow.

Grunge ground zero, here I come!

I was without internet for so long during the move. It was a sad, emotionally trying time for me. No email. No news. No connection with the outside world… unless I wanted to actually venture into the outside world (*shudder*). It was painful, especially considering the bombshell that Apple dropped on Monday at the WWDC. Intel processors in Macs by 2007? WTF? And I didn’t even find out until the following day. I’m slipping in my elder years. It’s tragic really. But, I digress…

How do I feel about this? I’m not really sure yet. Betrayed at first. Then confused… remember when Apple bombarded us with all of those megahertz myth stories? “A 1.2 ghz G4 is just as fast as a 3.6 ghz Pentium because… velocity engine, alti-vec, blah blah blah…” So, what does that mean now? Were you lying to us, Apple? No. I don’t think that I could believe that. The G3/G4/G5 versus a Pentium chip is like comparing Apples and oranges (I do have to say though, it seemed a little sketchy at the time. But, we all know about my unnatural and undying love for this product. And thus, I am more than willing to give my favorite hardware/software company the benefit of the doubt). Now that Apple machines and Windows machines will be running off of the same CPU, the playing field will be level. This will allow OS X to really shine without any uncertainty encouraged by hardware differences. Or, to be fair, maybe Windows will be the one to shine? Hahaha! Oh my… Hahaha!!! Ok, ok. Sorry… I couldn’t say that one with a straight face.

I guess, as far as the Mac as a product is concerned, I am pretty excited about this. The only thing that was holding back this entire computing experience, is speed. The OS rocks. The hardware rocks. But sometimes, during certain processor intensive tasks, this machine can be a slug. Conceivably, this processor switch will solve everything.

So, it’s all good, right? I’m not quite sold… yet.

Will we be able to run OS X on any ol’ beige PC box? Apple says no… but it will happen. Maybe it won’t be an Apple authorized thing, but it will happen. It’s just a matter of time. The main hurdle in the way of migrating OS X to the PC platform is the difference in processor architecture (from my understanding, anyway). If Apple does this for us, whatever transformation is left will be easily hacked….

And this, is what I’m frightened of.

One of my favorite things about the Mac, is that Apple is the hardware and the software manufacturer. They build their components with the entire package in mind. The hardware is made for the software, and vice versa. This is so important for what makes the Mac such a solid computer. This is what makes it such a good computing environment. Everything just works. There are no surprises because Apple knows what the machine is going to be. I never boot up my Mac and find that the sound card isn’t recognized, or that I don’t have the right drivers for some integral piece of the system. Again, to be fair, Windows has advanced by leaps and bounds in this category… but still, there are millions of components out there whose combination makes a functioning PC, capable (in theory) of running Windows. But will it successfully? Will this motherboard be happy with this video card running this version of Windows? When I buy a Mac from the Apple store, I don’t have to think about this.

I believe that this is one of the foremost contributing factors to the friendliness of the Apple experience… the idea that one buys a Mac, boots the Mac, and everything just works. I’m afraid that OS X on any self-built, beige box, PC is just going to dilute this ideal of quality.

Remember the clones (you may be too young… I am just barely old enough). For a few years in the mid-ninties, Apple licensed out their OS for use on clone computers (the companies that I can remember were called PowerComputing and Umax. This was during the time that our fearless leader, Steve Jobs, was away from Apple). Anyway, the clones sucked. They were buggy and suffered from constant driver mishaps. I remember updating the OS on a Umax machine from Mac OS 8.1 to 8.5 and rebooting only to find that NOTHING WORKED ANYMORE. The hard drives were not recognized, the cd-rom was not recognized, smoke was billowing from the back of the machine… the only thing that worked was the floppy drive. Yee-haw! I’m afraid that this is what our future will bring. (That and legions of cyborg zombies thriving in a post-apocalyptic nuclear winter… but that’s a different fear for a different future.)

It really doesn’t make sense for me to worry about something like this though. OS X on a generic PC box is not going to be Apple authorized… so why even fear its potential? I don’t know. I just don’t want my (future) Mac taken away from me.

Having said all of that foreboding doom stuff, I think (hope?) that this will actually be a good move for Apple. A faster Mac is a better Mac. If nothing else, Intel is dedicated to constantly making their chips faster and better. Apple having access to that can only be a good thing… right?

I’m curious to know what your thoughts are? Intel inside… a Mac? Good? Bad? Not really an issue?

(Also, If anyone wants to fact check this post, that would be awesome…)

Well, here I am. On a plane to Georgia. I’m off to visit my little sister, her fiance, and their puppy.

I do enjoy traveling and flying, however this morning’s events were just slightly off-putting. Apparently, I’m on the exclusive “National Do Not Fly List.” Or maybe one notch beneath that anyway. While detained at the baggage check, I was told that I’ve been flagged as a potential threat. Great.

How did I get on that list? Sambot.com perhaps? I know the controversial things we discuss here at sambot are… well, controversial. I mean things like footwear, coffee, audio cassettes… I knew my hard-hitting, muckraking, blog style would lead to my demise. From now on, it’s nothing but fluffy bunny blogging for me.

The rest of the morning was mostly uneventful. Aside from the stripping down to almost nothing for the amusement of the security/x-ray/metal detector people, the voyage has been smooth sailing.

Those who know me know how much of an utter necessity the burrito is to my livelihood. Next to coffee, it’s the substance that I can’t imagine living without. In fact, if I was Jesus Christ, and I died on a cross for your sins, you would be drinking coffee and eating a burrito in representation of the blood and body of Sam, your savior, during communion. Ok. That’s a little over the top. But I think that it illustrates the importance of burritos in my life.

The burrito. It’s the perfect food. Self-contained, packed with nutrients, made with love. This atrocity, is not a burrito. Nor was it made with anything even slightly resembling love. This, my friends, is a wad of wretchedness plopped in a styrofoam container.

This unholy beast came from Mexican 2000. No… not a burrito powered, millennium themed, giant robot wearing a sombrero (although, that would be pretty rad) whose mission is to destroy all who oppose. Nope. It came from a restaurant ambiguously named Mexican 2000. And pray tell, what did this abomination cost? Twelve fucking dollars. Yep. $12.00.

Living in Northampton, MA, I had access to three establishments where I could purchase a burrito (some more reasonably priced than others, but all were beautiful and delicious). All within walking distance too. Ahhh, it was like living in a dream. Here in Wallingford, CT, I was delighted to find Mexican 2000 well within walking distance. But what on earth am I to do with a twelve dollar burrito that looks like ass?

Snap photos, eat it, complain, and then blog about it… I guess.