i've been updating the portal this weekend. i added a top ten list and a random weblog generator. i also added a dead weblog notifier so that people can easily let me know about them. in testing through the random generator, i'm realizing that there's a huge number of dead weblogs in the database. 01:37 am

i read an article about the Internet Archive Wayback Machine but it didn't include any url for the site. so i didn't link to either the article or the site. but, jason was kind enough to provide the link. 11:16 pm

WebAdverts is supposedly a good system for textads.

sanj got me to seriously reconsider my position on text ads by pointing out that the portal would be a good place to implement them. it made me wonder if it was feasible. 11:08 pm

Numbers Vary in Tallies of the Victims 01:16 pm

yay! the Effortmark site i've been working on sporadically since june has finally been launched. 09:29 am

ah. i guess it fell under the incredibly stupid category. 06:12 pm

MSN.com shuts out non-Microsoft browsers. how nice of them. i can't decide right now whether it's good tactics to force everyone to use your browser to view your site, or whether it's incredibly stupid to cut out that audience. 06:10 pm

textads are being hailed as the latest "miracle revenue" source for small sites. (micro-payments anyone?). it's a nice solution to create asthetically pleasing ads. and it takes away some of the sales effort. but they're still ads and people will still be blind to them.

everybody's raving over at mefi about how wonderful they are, how great the click-through is, and how much they love to click on them. um. that's novelty. it'll pass. banner ads were novel and fun to click on when they first came out too.

i hadn't even consciously noticed that google had textads because i'd taken about 5 seconds to register that the text on the right was advertising and therefore meaningless and never looked there again. i didn't even realize mefi had textads until i actually looked for them. i've already got textad blindness and i only heard the term today.

aside from the fact that they're no different (other than asthetically) from banner ads, they're not a viable income source for small sites anymore than banner ads are. mefi is averaging 100k page views a day. that's not a small site. if matt did regular banner ads, he'd probably make as much. on top of that, there's huge support for matt where people will buy ads just because they're cheap and it'll help him out. there's no way this could work for eatonweb when i'm only getting 6k page views.

i've forgotten what my point was now. so this is probably the point where i should just delete this without posting. i guess it was something along the lines of textads are just like banner ads except easier for the site owner to implement, easier for the advertiser to purchase and probably cheaper for them too. they're not gonna solve banner blindness. they're not gonna make people more likely to click on them. they're not going to cause people to start sending you lots of money so they can target your "niche" audience. now, if 50 people told me they would buy a textad on eatonweb, i might change my opinion on the whole thing :) 05:51 pm

my copy of Arcanum did show up yesterday. after playing for a couple of hours i realized two things. you really have to read the manual. despite the size. and i really have a hard time with open-ended games. i find myself doing stuff and realizing later that i wanted to do it differently. this makes it very tempting to use the strategy guide. something which tends to ruin games. 10:02 am

i'm not feeling too good today. i've increased my medication and i think it finally hit my system today. it's weird how taking more of a drug can sometimes make worse the very thing you're trying to stop. 06:34 pm

i feel like a kid in a candy store playing with b2. this morning i converted all my old blogger posts. no more flat files :) 01:48 pm

amazon is on crack. i just got notification that my arcanum order was shipped. the estimated delivery date being 10/29-11/2. but ups seems to think that it was shipped on 10/21 and will be delivered today. i think i trust ups more. 12:33 pm

i finally took the time to figure out url mapping. i probably should have done it a long time ago. it was much too easy. 07:17 pm

hmmm. i've transferred everything, and it seems to be working ok. let me know if you see any problems. 06:37 pm

i'm in the process of transferring the weblog to b2. it didn't take long for me to realize how nice it was to have a mysql/php combo. besides the fact that everything is in a database rather than a flat file, i can edit the code without learning perl. the ui is really clean and minimalistic. documentation is poor, but it's free so i can't complain. it's got the functions i need, and michel isn't sick of answering questions yet. it converted all my greymatter posts and it shouldn't take too much effort to convert my blogger posts as well. whee! 04:03 pm

for some reason i lost this link to b2. i think i'm going to test it and moveable type today. 11:52 am

How Tech Goes Pop. 11:31 am

got milk? this just adds evidence to my theory that dieticians have absolutely no clue what is or isn't good for you. basically, the key thing to losing weight is eating less. i mean, while it may not be good for you, anorexia really does work. just don't actually take it that extreme please. 11:20 am

at least someone survived. even if it was a cat and kittens.
12:25 am

worm game. just in case you needed a time waster.
12:24 am

Personal Web Logs Put a Face on a Faraway Disaster. not a bad article other than the irritation of having no links. i did find this quote amusing tho.

"Now it's not like, 'I'm so hip, I have a Web log.' Now it's, 'People who have Web logs have a duty in life.'"

maybe it's just really hip to feel like your weblog is so important that it's your duty in life to maintain it... i'll shut up now. i couldn't possibly come up with a more self-aggrandizing statement. now i know why i turned the interview down. thanks sanj. 11:47 pm

Anthrax Antibiotics May Trigger Seizures. trust me, it would suck. 09:39 am

i bought arcanum over the weekend. it just occurred to me that if i had gotten it shipped overnight i'd be able to play it next week during my enforced boredom. i just checked tho, it shipped yesterday so i can't change it. i just have to pray it arrives by friday. ups says it's scheduled to arrived on wed. arcanum is one of those games which are pretty open-ended. decisions you make actually effect the story and supposedly it's nearly impossible to play the same game twice. makes for ultimate replayability. if it lives up to the claims, i could be occupied for months.

there is no dsl connection at stanford which seemed kind of odd to me considering its location. but they do allow laptops. i think they can just use batteries tho. i'll have to charge all our batteries and get jason to recharge them every night.

i've come to the conclusion that info-mercials are bad for my health. and my wallet. every time i watch one i feel compelled to buy the product. which is why i ordered a cybersonic toothbrush this weekend. i managed to justify it with the fact that sonicare refills cost $25 for two. so in 15 months i'll have recovered the cost of the toothbrush. maybe i should have read some of the reviews before ordering tho. apparently, customer service is non-existent. 09:37 am

my dog crippled me yesterday. at first i just wanted to kill her. then i realized that wasn't painful enough. now i want to rip out her toenails one by one. she lunged for another dog while she was still on leash. the leash caught under my fingernail and bent it back half way up the nail bed. you're not supposed to see half your nail standing up in the air and half to flip it back down again. i couldn't decide whether to cry, puke or pass out. somehow i managed to avoid all three. it hurts less today. i think the blood managed to reseal the nail to the bed. at least temporarily. unfortunately, it's still painful to type with. maybe just one toenail would be sufficient. 09:20 am

NetSlaves -- Will Pay for Work: Salvation or Scam? elance and guru have been scams for years. guru was relatively decent for a while but went downhill when layoffs hit. come to think of it, the guy who stiffed us $25k was found through elance. he was looking for someone to build his app for free. excuse me, not free but for extremely valuable stock certificates. even tho he paid us for 3/4 of the work, i still wouldn't trust anyone from elance ever again. thanks sanj 09:11 am

just after writing my comment about there being a lot of sex in narcissus, i read this interview with laurell hamilton. she explains that she doesn't do gratuitous sex, if she writes it it has to satisfy several conditions. she certainly lived up to that statement, everyone of those sex scenes fits those conditions. 12:40 pm

i just finished Narcissus in Chains. i tore through it in about 8 hours. i think it's the best anita blake book i've read. enough killing, plot twists, and supernatural weirdness to keep one begging for more. it's too depressing to think about how long it's going to be until she publishes another one. i am beginning to wonder whether it should be categorized as erotica rather than horror tho. admittedly, it was integral to the plot, but it was excessive and rather descriptive. not that i mind. 12:10 pm

heh 12:04 pm

hmmm. 06:19 pm

How Safe Are Your Illegal Drugs? somehow i don't think the govt will care. 06:15 pm

Marijuana's Effects on Brain Are Reversible. phew. that's a load off my mind. 06:10 pm

it's always fun when you completely wipe out a database which you've already entered 60 items into. 12:22 pm

i go in for monitoring on the 29th. i'll be the privileged person who gets to wear an eeg for 24 hours a day. so with electrodes stuck to my head all the time i'm not going to be able to wash my hair. i'll be looking pretty gross when i walk out of there. at least they let you take showers. i also get to be on 24 hr camera surveillance at the same time. unfortunately, no computer, no dsl. i have a feeling that boring is not going to sufficiently describe my sojourn. 11:04 am

i'm concerned that someone actually thought this was a viable business plan. 10:22 am

i finally got around to putting together the database for my library. now i just have to find the time to insert the 500 or so books i have. ugh. 01:25 pm

so i ripped through king's dragon and prince of dogs this week. now i'm just starting in on the burning stone. i really like the books. my only complaint is that very few of the story lines get wrapped up. the books end with major events. but you're still left hanging on so many different unknowns. after two books, i'd like to have at least a few of those revealed. which leads me to wonder how many of these were actually submitted as a single book but have been split into many books. as opposed to them being actual sequels. i'm on the third, the fourth was recently released in hardback, and they're planning a fifth. i'll be really frustrated if none of these threads have been resolved by the end of the fourth. there's nothing worse than waiting a year for the next chapter of a book. 10:26 am

i've been slaving away at my dad's site, santacruzrealty.net for the past 2 weeks. it's finally done. dealing with family who can call you up every 5 minutes can get really tiresome. on the positive side however, he is paying me. 09:41 am

i had a doctor's appointment yesterday. a follow-up because i started taking a new drug (keppra) about 2 months ago to attempt to control my simple partials. unfortunately, it hasn't been working. they suggested that i go in to their epilepsy monitoring unit so that they can try to pinpoint the location of the seizures. since they don't know where the seizures are coming from, every new medication is just a guess. the main reason they put people in there is to determine if they're candidates for brain surgery. just the thought of brain surgery is scary. but the thought of no more epilepsy is very tempting. whether i even consider it, they'll at least have a lot more data about the seizures to prescribe medication. 09:38 am

ok, i want. 01:30 pm

wonderbum. you really need a before and after of someone who doesn't have a perfect body to decide whether it actually works. 02:05 pm

hee. i knew there were reasons why i don't usually drink. 06:58 pm

holographic ads? 06:54 pm

i suppose i should have noticed before now, but there seems to be a definite correlation between work avoidance and blogging. 06:38 pm

in my bout of maudlin self pity yesterday, i forgot to mention movable type. after reading the mefi thread on it, i'm tempted to give it a spin. i may even test b2 as well. 06:36 pm

while compiling the links to that huge list of books, i realized that amazon has dramatically changed their book description pages. they're tabbed now. i'm not sure whether i like it or not. right now i'm leaning towards not. 02:09 pm

i've been reading a lot lately, but, of course, i haven't been reviewing them. which is a shame, because i've enjoyed them all immensely. for some reason, probably the holdiay season timing, all the new books from my favorite authors are being released later this year. i have read neil gaiman's american gods, ursula le guin's the other wind and minette walters' the shape of snakes lately. and, i'm anxiously awaiting patricia cornwell's the isle of dogs, graham joyce's smoking poppy and laurell hamilton's narcissus in chains. i've mostly been going through book lists of authors that i've enjoyed but haven't read the complete collection yet.

so, i've been reading angus wells' exile's saga: exile's children and exile's challenge, yesterday's kings and the book of the kingdom's series: wrath of ashar, the usurper and the way beneath.

jennifer roberson's cheysuli chronicles: shapechanger's song, legacy of the wolf, and children of the lion (i'm still waiting for the last one the lion throne), and her tiger and del series: sword dancer , sword singer, sword maker, sword breaker and sword born.

last night i picked up the king's dragon the first in the crown of stars series and had to force myself to put it down so i could go to bed. the only book by kate elliott that i'd read was the golden key, a joint venture with jennifer roberson and melanie rawn. i guess i'm going to have to buy all her other books. sigh.

considering the list i just made, i think it's time to start thinking about resurrecting my old library. this time, i'll put it in a database tho. 01:58 pm

i just got back from walking the dogs. during that 30 min exodus, i managed to drive into the curb while parking. get the key stuck in the ignition. panic because not only was the key stuck but also the car would no longer start. leave the keys in the car because someone would be doing me a favor if they took it and besides, i couldn't get the key out anyway. wack a tennis ball across the field 50 times for junga while considering the ramifications of an unstartable car with the key stuck in it. return to that same car and figure out that the reason the car won't start is because it is in drive rather than park. get home and discover that the key has decided that it would like to come into the house with me rather than spend the night outside in the cold. and finally, while all that was happening, figure out why i'm feeling this sense of wrongness while looking at movable type and the other sites i linked to today.

i think i've reached the "been there, done that, seen that" point when it comes to weblogs. there's nothing new to be said about them. actually, let me rephrase that, there's nothing new *being* said about them. but more and more people are becoming "experts". more and more. more tools. guides. mailing lists. user groups. ad nauseum.

it's weird because i used to be so into the "weblog phenomenon". talking about them and pushing them to people who would just look at me strangely. people who now keep their own weblogs (*cough* liz *cough*). but, i just don't care anymore. although, i do catch myself occasionally pushing the use of a weblog on someone's site. old habits die hard.

this weblog has been many things over the last few years. oh god, in 3 months it will be 3 years old. it's been a link repository. it's been web focused. it's been weblog focused. it's been personal. it's been impersonal. it's been sparsely populated lately.

it's been redefined over the last 9 months or so because i've been redefined. it's been sparse because i've actually spent more time away from the computer than on it. hardly believable.

but what it comes down to is a place to pour my thoughts. undoubtedly, they will be immensely boring and tedious. but, if i don't put them here, nothing will get put here. as i've said many times before. if you find it boring, don't read it.

due to the fact that i've been contacted by 3 different journalists, i'm hazarding a guess that there will be a huge slew of articles on weblogging the wtc. i'm not sure why they contacted me tho. not only do i not have any insights into the phenomenon, i can't bring myself to see the newsworthy importance of it. then again, i was sitting in front of the tv watching cnn for days, not surfing the web, so it's hardly surprising. 06:48 pm

things like this make me feel old, and cynical, and jaded. The Complete Guide to Web Logs is just adding to my sense of *wrongness* today. that wrongness not being the sites themselves, but my reaction to them. 06:10 pm

i can't quite pinpoint what i find so disturbing about The Weblogger User Group. there's just something *wrong* about it. maybe it's the name. 05:57 pm

air hockey. definitely better than mini-golf. 03:23 pm

when i talk to kirsty, we talk about everyday things. that she'll be here in 10 days. how work is going. how she went to the yankee's game last weekend. who the date of the week is. but always something creeps into the conversation which reminds me. that new york has changed. that kirsty has changed.

little things. how she was at the yankee's game and realized that no one knew she was there and she felt she had to call someone. just so people would know. just because something might happen.

or the cute guy she met on the subway. going downtown. talking about his apt. building. how they won't let him out of his lease. even tho he lives in a war zone. even tho he has no power. even tho he has to walk 20 blocks to get groceries. even tho no transportation exists down there.

these little things prompt me to ask for news. not the "war on terrorism" news. or the "osama bin laden" news. but news of new york. the recovery. so i get what i asked for.

i get a conversation about pets that were left in apartments for weeks because their owners weren't allowed downtown to get them.

i get a story she heard from a friend who has a friend who works in the morgue. something about a man's body being brought in. someone who had lived for 10 days and destroyed his hands trying to dig his way out.

then i realize i didn't want to hear that news. i didn't want to cry. i didn't want to imagine. i didn't want to face the reality. avoidance is easy. denial is our way of hiding from the reality. our way of coping and returning to our mundane lives.

then i realize that i do want to hear that news. because it keeps me from returning to my boring life. because it reminds me.

remembering is hard.

hmmm. schlongville eh? 12:19 pm

A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again 12:15 pm

i'm finally emerging from my hole in the ground. mostly because i'm doing some web work for my dad. which means more time on the computer. life is amazingly uninteresting. but, i've got 2 leads for new work which is positive. 08:50 pm

i was checking the santacruzrealty.net server logs for my dad last week and was amazed at how failed requests had been generated by Code Red and Nimba. i'm afraid to look at the eatonweb error logs. thank god for apache. 06:24 pm

NewsIsFree. just another to add to the "could be interesting but i don't feel like taking a good look" list. 06:07 pm

Daypop is another popular link of the day list. i don't quite get the bar charts and symbols tho. i even read the explanation, but it still didn't make sense. 06:02 pm

i don't remember how long ago i heard about ( blogdex ). seems like weeks so it's probably more like months. at the time i couldn't get to it and promptly forgot. now i can and want to remember it. i'd say it's a pretty good replacement for beebo. jeez, i can't believe how unpopular i am! #209! how can that be? oh i see you actually need to write interesting stuff for people to link to you and the more people who link to you.... 06:00 pm