I hate it when I do stupid things. I installed the latest version of SpamAssassin last night, and it (or something) geeked up some mail a little bit. Nothing much, just a missing "F" at the start of a message in the inbox, but it's enough, given the fairly simple mbox format, to mush two mail messages together. And I wouldn't much care, but it was personal mail that got mushed.
Anyway, the simple answer's to edit the mailbox, which requires shutting down sendmail. (Can't edit if there's inbound mail, and I get a lot of inbound mail...) So I did. All is well and good, but for the next hour I'm wondering why I'm not getting any mail. Is the DSL down? Is the nameservice down? Is my ISP blocking inbound port 25?
'Course not. I just forgot to restart sendmail. D'oh!
Picked up a digital camera at WalMart a little while ago. Nothing fancy, just a USB interface, simple lens, and viewfinder. (This thing is barely a step above a pinhole camera with a CCD behind it) A scant 640x480 resolution, but that's fine--for $42 I'm not expecting much. Just something dead-simple that I can use to send pictures back to the kids while I'm on the road. (Same reason I picked up a $30 USB microphone adapter)
And... It doesn't work. IPhoto has no idea that the damn thing even exists. While on the one hand I'm not hugely surprised, on the other I'm trying to figure out why the heck anyone would bother with any sort of custom firmware on this thing. That seems like an amazing waste of time.
Has come and gone. It's not a big deal for me, but the kids like it. This year, I got a canvas and rope swing chair for the upstairs porch, so I can work outside in comfort. Yay!
(And some guys get ties. Hah! ;-P)
Stumbled across a z-machine interpreter for OS X. That, of course, necessitated a web search to find data files for my (now unreadable) Amiga version of Lurking Horror. (Zork and Lovecraft--two great tastes that taste great together!)
Parrot will be able to execute zork code natively, dammit! It may be a crazy dream, but it's my crazy dream...
Watching an original Outer Limits at the moment. (And a pair of original Twilight Zone episodes before that) While the new episodes of both are fine, as far as they go, they can't hold a candle to the original, and it's not because of any quality issues. The new ones have superb casts, darned good writing, and appropriate effects. But... there's something lacking.
They're just not creepy. Sure, they're startling, and sometimes they make you think, but they just lack that creep factor.
It's more than just creepy, though. There's a certain art there too, and I think it's because of the black and white medium. I mean, take some photographers--Ansel Adams, or Robert Mapplethorpe. I've been to some of the places as Adams, and seen some of the same people as Mapplethorpe. It's not the same, though. There's a certain starkness, and cleanliness of form, that black and white brings. It's nice, and a shame that almost nobody does black and white movies or television.
Today was the Boston Perlmonger's June tech meeting. Since one of the presentations was on Parrot, a project I'm responsible for the design of, I decided to go. (It's only a couple of hours up to Boston from here)
Since I was going, and had some time to kill before the meeting (There is no way, short of dire emergency, that I'm driving in Boston any time near rush hour) I decided that a few side trips were in order. Specifically to Sasuga Books.
Now, I admit it, I'm a comic book junkie, and given the sorry state of comics in the US these days generally, Japanese manga's a terribly, terribly tempting thing. (Tempting enough that it was what finally pushed me over the edge into learing Japanese) And Sasuga's well stocked with it.
So, of course, they turn out to be closed on Tuesday. Argh!
And my second choice, since I like supporting small bookstores and it's close by South Station, was Calamus Books. Which closes at 7PM, 15 minutes before I got into South Station. Argh again!
Some days just work out for the best, and I hate days like that.
Took Peregrine to Quassy for a birthday surprise. It's a nice little amusement park. Nothing fancy, and none of the rides pull 4G or anything, but that's just fine. The kids had a grand time.
I, of course, remembered exactly why you don't eat hot dogs and cotton candy, then go on whirly rides. After I ate, naturally...
I've started yanking my schedule around so that I'm actually awake when I'm likely to get the most done (I'm feeling a bit unhappy about the progress of the book and Parrot) but that's leaving me pretty logy. I'll get used to it likely just in time to have to get a Real Job and shift back. (The world is not a kind place to night people) Ah, well, that's life. Maybe I'll be lucky and not have to get a Real Job for a while longer. (Anyone need contract programming/design or some perl training? Mail me!)
Today's Peregrine's birthday, too. We're off for lunch in a bit.
Last Sunday, Peregrine's drama class put on their play. Y'know, elementary-age drama's much more interesting when it's your kid in the thing. :)
Random's doing well. her CBC bottomed out and she was looking a bit pale for a little while, but the Calcium EDTA treatment (it chelates the zinc and helps get it excreted) seems to have helped drop her zinc levels to the point where new blood cell poduction's outstripping old blood cell death from the zinc. She's definitely perkier, and annoyed that we're not feeding her in the manner to which she could become accustomed. (My dog has plans of beachball-hood, which are forever being thwarted)