2005 November

The Runaway Child

Back in July, I announced that a 12-year old girl was moving in with my roommate and I to temporarily care for while her father get back on his feet. Over the course of raising her in the months leading up to this day, we’ve found out she’s a problem child, a strong-willed one that doesn’t want to learn from the mistakes of others, but rather learn them herself the hard way. It has taught me many lessons that will be valuable for when I have my own kid(s) someday. Painful lessons, but necessary ones, regardless.

Here’s the things I learned:

• She’s boy crazy to the point that it is ridiculous
• Can and will talk on the phone for hours, neglecting homework, chores, and so on
• No interest in school at all, only wants to socialize and get in trouble
• Reported to smoke pot in the bathroom, and rumors that she took uppers
• Bad mouths teachers in the classroom to get supposed reputation with the kids
• Stole both my digital camera and iPod on seperate days to show off at school
• No respect for property, has broken glasses, my digital camera, my iPod, and many other objects
• Listens to gangsta rap with lyrics that have lewd content, and incessant swearing
• Swears constantly, and throws temper tantrums often, throwing objects around her room with abandon
• Repeatedly brags about how she kisses boys and likes to be a slut

There are a lot more I’m not listing, though. Repeated attempts to discipline her with chores, writing assignments, and taking away her possessions like the radio, CD’s, television, and worst of all, the phone, have all failed in curbing her enthusiasm for trouble. What she really needed was a spanking, but I wasn’t under any legal obligations to do so, and her father is a wimp and won’t spank her. She’s a spoiled rotten brat who wants her way, and when she didn’t, she would throw temper tantrums, scream, and pout.

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New Mashups Up, 419 Songs

Update: There are now 2,748 songs. As a thank you reward for a donation to help with bandwidth from sharing the whole collection, you get access to all of the songs, which totals 18GB. See the Tunes page for more details.

I’ve uploaded Volume 7, which includes 419 brand new mashups for you to enjoy on the Tunes page. If you haven’t checked out the mashup tunes, now’s a good time to do so. Donations aren’t required this time around to help out with bandwidth, as I feel this small collection shouldn’t pose a problem with the bandwidth.

If you’re not familiar with mashups, think of it as a bastard child of two songs, mixed in together. It can include totally different genres, tempos, and even alter the meaning of the two songs when combined. It’s quite neat, and has to be experienced to understand. Visit the Tunes page to start listening.

Ate Dinner Alone

Tonight, I made a really delicious meal that took me around 2 hours to prepare, cook, and serve. It consisted of a creamy asparagus soup, and a bok choy salad to go with the soup. I was in a vegetarian mood, so I went with these choices, mostly because I never had neither. I had bok choy for the first time, and it was awesome.

Unfortunately, I ate it all alone. It was a meal meant for 4 people. For one thing, the roommate while taking the trash out which I normally do but I was tied up cooking, was bitten by something. Since it was dark, she didn’t know what it was, but it was likely an insect as the bite mark wasn’t big. The skin around the bite started swelling up a little, and the roommate feared it was something poisonous, so she opted to use a taser to “stun and neutralize the poison.” Since I have no idea if this really works, I had qualms against it, but she went ahead and did it anyways. She stunned the bite mark, and professed that she can’t eat dinner, she’ll have to do it later and focus on healing.

That leaves the 12-year old and an 86-year old (the roommate’s mom.) The 12-year old hates all vegetables, so she feigned fatigue to skip the meal and opted not to get out of bed when I called her to the dinner table. She’ll be there for the rest of the night, and will get served her meal tomorrow night, as far as I’m concerned. As for the 86-year old, she ate a couple of bites, but isn’t in a mental frame of mind to really eat much these days (which is why she has a feeding tube going into her stomach.)

There you have it, I ate dinner alone tonight. And not just any dinner, but a real gourmet one that, if it didn’t taste so good, I’d be in a real sour frame of mind right now. The asparagus soup featured pureed asparagus and onions, plain yogurt, vegetable broth, and lemon juice. The bok choy had a homemade dressing made from soy sauce, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and sugar. Once the bok choy was chopped up, I tossed it with toasted ramen noodles and walnuts, and the dressing. It came out real marvelous. I just hate eating it all alone. That’s like creating a website and noone visits it.

Google Analytics

After checking out both Mint and MeasureMaps in this post, I figure I should check out the new Google Analytics, which is a rebranded Urchin software. Analytics, while not entirely similar to either Mint or MeasureMaps, still provides essential stats about your visitors to your site. Google bought up Urchin last year, and Analytics is the result. From what I can tell, it’s an older version of Urchin, possibly because it is the stablest for Google to work with.

Analytics is full of graphs, numbers, and options for you to choose from. In fact, it’s so loaded, that it would be easy to feel overwhelmed, which isn’t a problem with MeasureMaps or Mint. However, it is a good thing, as it covers just about everything you could possibly want to know about your site, and the visitors that come there. Installation is simple; just fill out a few details, and Google hands you a javascript code to put on your site, and 12 hours later, Google has all the information presented for you.

The Movies

Lionhead Studios has put out a game that I’ve been enjoying a lot lately, called The Movies. It allows you to build a Hollywood studio from scratch, and even create movies yourself. Although it is limiting when you start out, it gets better.

Unfortunately there are a lot of quirks that kind of ruin the whole movie-making process. When I read previews about the game, I expected it to have more freedom, but it is pretty restrictive. After playing the game for a few hours, you start seeing the same movies being made over and over again, just with different settings, backdrops, and costumes.

With that said, I’ve created a movie that you can download here (1.87MB) (right-click on link and choose Save As) called The Rake of Heroes. The backstory is that a father discovers his eldest son was killed in combat and his grief was so great, he couldn’t bear it.

The Blue Angels Air Show

The past weekend, I spent some time with my mom, little brothers, sister, and their friends while in Jacksonville. We decided to go check out the Blue Angels Air Show, as the day was beautiful and cool. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve been to an air show, and it was a real blast. The planes were loud and spectacular, and we even saw some monstrous military hovercrafts go from kicking up sand on the beach to kicking up sprays of water when it went out into the sea.

You can see the collection of photos I took on this Flickr page, which includes shots of my family, too.

The Latest Stat Tracking Services

As a web designer, I’m afforded one of the luxuries (read: addiction) of checking to see who visited my site, other sites that have linked to mine, and what search terms were used for search engines to refer traffic to the site. It’s always fascinating to see what other sites have to say about your site, or a particular topic you wrote about. Think of it as a mild ego boost, readily available at your command.

There are two new services that give you the power to track your stats; Mint from Shaun Inman, and Measure Map from the folks behind MovableType. They’re both a bit different, and don’t warrant a comparison. Mint costs $30 per site, and Measure Map, as far as I’m aware, is free. Mint is available now, while Measure Map is still in an alpha state and you need an invitation to try it out, which I did; hence this post.

Mint is for the hardcore stat junkie, as it has everything you could possibly want to know, and then some, thanks to the extensions known as Peppers (get it, Peppermint?) It is easy to use, features a great design, and presents all the infromation in a fluid way. Thanks to further support from other people out there, you can easily install a Pepper that adds even more functionality. While $30 is a bit steep if you just want to track stats on a simple blog or website, it’s worth it for larger sites. Not to mention it supports Shaun Inman, who deserves the support.

Measure Map, while not feature complete yet, is still quite nice. It features a simple, concise design that won’t confuse you. While the information could be presented better, it will be more user-friendly to those who haven’t jumped onto the stat tracking bandwagon yet. It also features some Flash goodness to give you a visual indication of how many people are using what browsers, what countries they’re from, and more. I can see Measure Map becoming a popular service, as long as they offer it for free.

Personally I plan on using both, as they complement each other, and well, I’m a stat junkie, too. Both are worth trying out.