PSA:  So sunyata__ and I have the plague (mine started Sunday morning and hers kicked in sometime Monday afternoon).  Symptoms are a really really bad sore throat and a fever (mine's been between 99 and 102, depending on how recently I've taken Advil) with the attendant body aches, pains, and chills you'd excpect from a fever.

We'll likely be laying low and trying to get better for the next few days.

*sigh*

This is why the Internet was invented: The Only GRINDHOUSE Review You Ever Need To Read

I present to you the best birthday boquet of flowers a man has ever received (yes, those are white flowers and beer-colored glass "rocks" in the water):



Thank you, gorgeous!!

(14:56:43) Nate: what do elephants and milk have in common?
(14:57:16) Nater: both come in gallons
15:01
(15:04:07) djdigit: What do me and your dad have in common?
(15:04:23) Nate: gee, I dunno
(15:04:41) djdigitl: We both like elephants

(That was actually Belden typing at Nate's desk.)

I recently wanted to know to which security filters my historical entries were locked... but LJ doesn't expose this kind of view. The best you can do is visit each entry and check its permissions via its "edit" page. I looked for an existing tool to give me what I wanted, but couldn't find one... so I did what any self-respecting geek would do and wrote my own :) The generated HTML file has links for navigation (which, as klrmn points out, take up too much vertical space) through sections for each filter you have defined. Within each filter section, all posts restricted to that filter appear in ascending chronological order with links to (in order) the monthly calendar page containing that entry, the entry itself, and the edit page for the entry. There's also 200 bytes of the entry to help you identify them if your subjects sometimes don't make sense or are missing. That's the extent of the current functionality.

If you trust me and have a Windows box, you can get a stand-alone executable version of the perl script here: lj_by_filter.exe [2.1 MB]

If you don't trust me, want to see the source code, or want to run it on a unix-y machine, check out the script itself: lj_by_filter.pl The raw script requires the HTML::Template and LJ::Simple modules from CPAN.

In either case, the basic way to run it is:

lj_by_filter.exe -u <username> -p <lj_password>
or
perl lj_by_filter.pl -u <username> -p <lj_password>

After downloading all your journal entries, a file, lj_by_filter.html, should get created... open it in a web browser and you're good to go.

I've had at least one report of an error that looks like "Client error: Invalid text encoding: Cannot display this post. Please see http://www.livejournal.com/support/encodings.bml for more information." I believe the fix is to visit this page and change your old encoding from None to "Western European (Windows)" (assuming you write your journal in English). But I'm not sure that fixes the problem, as sunyata__ didn't get a chance today to try again after tweaking that setting.

Game trailer or music video? (Extended version)

Wow.

Last time I tried embedding a video, it didn't work, but here goes nothing:

So from reading two of his books (The Selfish Gene and Unweaving the Rainbow), I thought Richard Dawkins was smart and articulate and most importantly, pretty much correct. After hearing him read excerpts from his most recent book, The God Delusion and hearing him answer questions afterward, I'm absolutely convinced. Damn! It's like hearing the best revival preacher in the world preach, only he's a highly intelligent, rational, caring, and articulate scientist. His skill, wit, consistency, and wisdom when answering questions is amazing. (In a fit of coincidence, I was just mentioning Dawkins to laughingstone tonight, though I don't exactly remember in what context... we were talking about religion and atheism vs. agnosticism, perhaps?)

I highly recommend watching him read some excerpts (part 1) and answer questions (part 2), many of which are from religious "Liberty University" students (and faculty). Just, wow.

(via integreillumine's journal--thanks!)

Finally, and unrelated, what the hell am I doing still awake??

P.S. Hope you're voting tomorrow :)

Okay, we're moved in now. All done. Heh... With the bed and couch moved and teh Internets established, Simian Vineyard is off to the races. It's starting to feel like Home. This will be my first night sleeping here.

*purr*

Another office quote:
The best part of being "hopped up on Jesus" is when you kill your stash, it's allright... you just wait three days and it comes back again.
--Sam

Google counts for "hopped up on ..."
goofballs 15,400
herioin 14,000 [misspelled here, but must have spelled it right in the query]
caffeine 11,400
crack 3,670
speed 3,350
jesus 584
holy spirit 225
twinkies 56

And in unrelated news: Steve, Don't Eat It! Vol. 8: Prison Wine
"Then there was the 'white' wine. This one's aroma was slightly more earthy. Do you know that smell of grass right after it's cut? That's nice. I was just making chit-chat, because this smelled like rotten eggs tucked into the anus of a dead cat."

Nate: So you're going to Vegas?
Me: Yup.
Nate: Do you have a "system?"
Me: The system is, "Drink a lot."
Nate: That's a dangerous system.

"now thats quality programming right there, well tamed pussy and some semi-raw meat. i haven't seen that on the internet since, oh, yesterday.."

(Linked from number 9, here.)

(via plantgirl)

So I know I haven't posted about Burning Man yet... there's still a lot jumbling around in my head about that, but expect something soon. In the MEANTIME, I give you a report on Qoöl tonight:

Ohmygodsogoodsqueeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! At work, I talked bmills into wearing one of his Burning Man costumes to Qoöl tonight since I was planning on wearing what I wore the night of the Burn (there's also long silver gloves that go with it). I figured that the first Qoöl after Burning Man would be filled with crazy burners still reveling in their crazy outfits. Turns out it was just the two of us, but we rocked the fuck out! His outfit was a red and black leopard print smoking jacket, mesh shirt, some kind of pants, and a three-muskateers-style hat which has little rings around the rim allowing you to attach a necklace glow-stick thingie rimming the hat with glowy-shiny!! It looked stellar! I think he also had his dusty goggles around his neck. He brought two glow-stick bracelets for me, so we were both lighting up the place which ended up being pretty dark... NICE! I danced pretty much non-stop from 7:30 to 10:00 and bmills danced most of the time but had to take overheating breaks, given his jacket... Mmmmmmm...

[Edit: I also saw djmermaid and jovino briefly before they had to run and get food. Mermaid's Nifer-made pink playa dreads were beautiful! So bmills and I weren't the only crazy ones there ;)]

We've decided to dress up crazy every Qoöl. Next week, I think I'm going to wear my Trauma Team (bright yellow) suit with the biohazard goggles I picked up at a thrift store with sunyata__ and eots shortly before Burning Man. I didn't wear it on the playa and I'm still dying to wear it out somewhere. Dressing up crazy at Qoöl will be good motivation to continually get good party/burning-man outfits throughout the year instead of waiting until the last minute like I'm prone to doing. Oh, and incidentally, next week's Qoöl will feature Brass Tax DJs which will be really good! So if you're interested in going, let me know (laughingstone and traumentwerfer, I'm looking at you)!!

*purr*

I'm currently making 18 hard-boiled eggs to take to burning man. I've been food shopping, organizing, packing, moving gear-containers, etc. all day and I'm pretty tired. BUT, I'm totally excited and in 24 hours we'll be on our way to another world.

Now I give you (via boingboing) Louis Armstrong vs. Method Man -- The Meth Comes Marching In (by dj BC). (Grab it quick, a cease-and-desist is surely on its way.)