Uploading a few more things to the server, getting more domains up as I go. Why the delay? I'm also job hunting at the same time.

Anyway, some of you may or may not know, I wrote a small image hosting website, Saucepls. ( http://saucepls.info/ ) Basically web based upload, no-bullshit hosting of images. No account to sign up, no bandwidth limits, no hot linking issues. The name "Saucepls" is Candy's idea.

In a nutshell, its meant for people to drop an image onto, and toss to a friend in a chat window or something. Anyway, that is back up. I don't track anything, I make no guarantees that the files will live there forever, I don't promise that I won't lock it down hard if someone tries to get me in trouble for just trying to toss a freebie to the world. The files will continue to exist as long as I reasonably can keep them there. Which may be a good while, given the new drive space I have free.

I also sat down last night and wrote a Windows Shell Extension bit that adds a "Upload to Saucepls.info" You have an image on your computer to upload? right click it, pick "upload to saucepls.info" and away it goes. (the one f'ing downside is that you might need IE7 or 8, I haven't worked out what parts of windows that wscript pulls things from. Yes, it uses IE, I ain't the most tickled on it, but hey, when I get a better solution, I'll use it.)

http://saucepls.info/saucepls.exe <- Installer. Nothing fancy, and since I've never written an installer, no real uninstaller. But there's only two files and one registry entry to remove, so no giant issue) Free, totally.

Now, I've only tested this in Windows XP. And I make no guarantees other than I ran it on my own systems while developing it. Hell, I even leave the .reg file there so you can examine it and see what I added.

I do not have a MacOS equivalent, because I don't have a Mac to develop on. I haven't done a Linux one, because I haven't had time to make one.

Share and Enjoy.

We were watching "Sesame Street: Old School" Episode 1, for nostalgia sake.

One of the animated sections came up, and she starts singing "The Liberty Bell March" She gets so many nerd points for that.

(The animation of course reminding her of the Terry Gilliam style of Monty Python, hence the song...)

Oogh... Just was heading to bed, went to check her one last time, and she's gone. I knew it would be soon, wasn't expecting it to be this soon... She was laying on her side, not far from where I left her. At least she went with her eyes closed.

Kittens went off to join their mother with their new adoptive family. They spent the day racing around here like little tiny fluffballs of high energy. I've been letting them wander the house, let them socialize and explore under their own terms. One thing that Blitz and Surprise noticed? "I can run -REALLY- fast!" Without a 10x10 room as their whole world, bolting down the hallway, hanging a right, and bolting across the living room lets them get a good on sprint going.

*Invader Zim quote* Gir: "WHEEEEEEE I'm Running! I'm Running!"

But they're off with their new family now.

On the sad side, Kitty Hospice. Pinot Noir, alias Ribsy, is not doing good. She's lying around constantly now, I don't see her moving much. She's lost even more weight, and I've been giving her subcutaneous fluids to help combat dehydration. Tonight gave her about a tablespoon of this high-caloric energy "goo" that is pretty much "Survival Food". In a nutshell, enough calories in a mouthfull to survive for a day, in easy to digest form.

But she's 18, a rather -long- lifespan for a cat. Just doing what little I can to help.

She's our "hospice" patient. Were she in the shelter, she'd be probably ignored. We brought her here so she'd have a loving home for the rest of her days. Every time I get up, or come home, I hunt her down, make sure she's still with us. But it looks to be that she may have made peace, and is just letting things happen.

Its a heart aching thing, knowing I'll find her lifeless body, sadly, possibly soon. But until then, she's getting what care we can give her.

Okay, so it may not be impressive to many people, but it is awesome to us.

I don't know who is on Candy's filter for this one thing, but just a little update. Everything is Okay. She'll update again when she gets a chance.

Started reloading into accounts the backups I have, and set up the what accounts that I've had people e-mail me info on.

Site update;
Wrote code, nearly ready for public launch of comichammer.

For those of you who aren't F5 junkies. I put the strips back up. The entire system is not 100% perfect, but this is the new framework engine.

But take a look:
http://www.pholph.com Jack is online, missing the Side Arcs for right now. Side Arcs are not up yet. "Chicks" pages are not up. Dave's Newsbox, as you can tell, needs to be edited. All in due time kids, all in due time.

http://www.vincifruit.com/ Vinci & Arty is back up and live.
http://www.sixpackofotters/ Six Pack of Otters is up as well.

Dume (http://www.otterdude.com/) Is remaining offline at the creator's request.

The forum will direct you to http://www.comichammer.com/forum/ I am not changing this, since that is the location I intend to keep it. always log in there, so your cookies settle there. There will be more as the time goes by.

(And yes, its the same engine and templating/infrastructure running all three strips. I wasn't planning on releasing this project This -YEAR- due to the fact I've got several hundred more hours of work to go to complete it. But well, the crash of the server presented an opportunity.)

If I host your comic, and haven't talked to you, please contact me.

"Jack" comic uploaded in a locked site for Dave to peruse.
V&A uploaded and just needs some cleanup.
6Pack uploaded, just doing some last formatting of the pages.

Dume... Has anyone seen Jonas?

Whole Arc viewer and Arc List pages have been ported to the new code base. I think that's about it for all the "Custom" code that I had on Jack. And since "Jack" had really all the custom work, I can focus tomorrow on porting everything over and move towards a reasonable launch soon.

Forum is up, in its usual place. You'll notice it goes to http://www.comichammer.com/forum/ well, there is a reason for that, and you'll have to bear with me if I'm vague and don't tell you. Just yet.

Working on getting some issues solved before I finish re-importing the comics. Once they're in and tested, I'll push them live and let the owners see how horribly I've mauled things. Show them how to maintain them in the new engine, and then go from there.

No additional ETA just yet. Still working out a few kinks.

Forum is up.

Thanks to GeneCatlow, I got a monitor to use for the hour I needed to install the OS on the -old- server. Its sitting quietly under my desk right now doing the initial rsync with the current server. Backup Process #2 complete, Backup #1 still needs work.

Strips for the comics are being uploaded to the server as I go.

More later.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for patience in the downtime.
Also I'd like to thank everyone who's sent in donations to help offset the costs in getting back here.

The forum is up first-most, as I said it would be. I've upgraded and up-ported all the discussions from v2 to v3 of the phpBB software. I've made some minor re-arrangements, and I will be adding more to the site as the days go by. "Jack" has been narrowed into a single forum with several subforums

THIS IS IMPORTANT. Because the forum isn't just for Jack, but for all the comics I host, as for why I'm doing this, there will be more upcoming information soon. The "Comichammer" project that you will see referenced is about 90% complete. Be patient. It will be released fully when it is ready.

No, I am not moving back to the phpBB version 2 code. This is not for discussion. I know there are many people who Hate Change, but this is a decision that was made to bring more utility and robustness to the site. Moderators are who they used to be. Dave, Katie, Vinci and I are the sole Admins. There will be room for more moderators as we go, but -NOT- for more administrators.

There will be more. But for now, the forum.

Any posts not visible, were lost. I only cleaned out the Admin discussion forums, to start anew.

On Spammers; There will always be spammers, Even kittenauth didn't prevent this. If you see one, pm me, and two-mouse-clicks later, and the results are as if the person never arrived.

Anyway, welcome back to the forum.

New forum is in place. Going to clean a few things up on it before I re-open it. But it should be up sometime later today.

The Jack comic will be up hopefully a few hours after that, or failing that tomorrow sometime.

Okay seems a lot of people actually used and liked the Whole Arc Viewer. I'll put that in the list of things to port over before I launch. Shouldn't take more than an hour to re-code it.

Status: Recompiling and Abusing php.
If only the configuration and compiling of php was smoother under FreeBSD, this would have been over and done with. As it sits, I'm abusing command line options to get it working. Recompile #6.

Other Updates:
Got the -Old- machine in the mail, a nice little desktop motherboard with some nice little mods, 1u case. bit on the "Well, nothing fancy" side of things. Now if I had a monitor here at the house (We use laptops...) I could install bsd on it and make the mirror copy of what I want for the secondary backup system. It runs -quite- quiet, may replace the cpu fan with a much quieter one, and just leave it on under the desk.

Forum:
Will be launched as soon as I get php properly installed and locked down, the old posts moved and cleaned up, and so on and so forth. "It'll be launched when its ready"

I'd update more, but I'm exhausted.

Sort-of-Nightly Update on the site.

Arc List code is complete. While not that interesting for many people, since "Jack" has a -large- number of story arcs (108 Arcs and Shorts as of this writing) There's no real simple way to handle it. I wrote a rather nice bit of custom code for it last time, but this is different.

Did anyone use the "Whole Arc Viewer" bit? Where you could click on an Arc, and read the -whole- thing at once, in one big page?

Forum Update;

Jack forum is cleaned up, organized how I like it. Going to archive off a few other forums first (Well, going to clean out the Admin forums) Once that's done, I'll let D&K look it over.

Oh yeah, I'm having a pain in the ass getting all the parts of php5 to compile. Fucking hell. That's another slow down. FreeBSD is nice and cleaned up and locked pretty tight now.

Must check with the ISP, I ran an NMAP scan on it and the thing lit up like a star. Wonder if they have anything automatically showing open ports or something. I -know- the box itself doesn't have most of those ports open.. feh.

Until next time true believers...

Walked into Candy's art-emporium, and she's on the couch with two of the cats. Sherman, taking up more space on the couch than she does, and Rogue.

I notice Rogue is trying to get across, but he's just gently putting his paw on her waistband, as if to step down.

me: "Awwww, Rogue is teaching the offspring how to high-five..."

Its either that, or he's getting a head start on the "I'm not touching you!" games..

Guy I'm contracting for this week, has need of a short-term contract programmer who is versed in Flash. This is outside of my normal skillset, and while I could learn it in a month, I don't have a month.

Job would be in downtown SanFran, most likely a one to two week project.

Any interest, send me an e-mail (rdewalt at gmail dot com) and I'll pass it along.

Hey all, Trying to keep the server updates moving along daily here.

Forum; (Jack Forum, V&A Forum, etc.) 99% ready to go. Converted all the posts from phpBB2 to phpBB3, Going to clean up the way things are, set up a few "subforums" to clean up the look and feel, move some things off to "only here for historical completeness" and generally get everything a bit better.

Yes, I'm going to have one "big" forum for all the comics I host. Reason for this will be more apparent soon. Moderators will be more important than usual, and each comic will have its own set of moderators. There is still possible spammers, but every thing I've seen so far has been a person manually going in and posting spam. However, deleting all of that spamming user's posts? Trivial, two clicks, and the failure was never there.

Comics: Jack comic has been imported into the new framework. Initial re-do of the front page is done. This is a big step, there's nearly 1400 strips.

New Framework?

As a few dozen people know, I've been working on a definite upgrade to the comic engine that runs Jack, Vinci & Arty, SixPackOfOtters, and many, many more. (about a dozen or two actually)

Since the site was about 60% complete, enough to run the comics but not quite ready for full public beta, I'm going ahead with part of the design to stress-test the system by running Jack/V&A/Others on it. Locking off all the parts not ready for public, and I'll release them as I see fit to. It -will- be well worth it. Yes Gene.. -That- project.

I'll update more later. Thanks for the continuing donations guys, Look for the return of the sites sometime this week. No ETA other than "when it is -ready-" I'd rather delay it a week, than launch crap.

Hey gang, update time.

Have nearly complete copies of the Jack site, V&A, and Dume. Going to start testing out the server, make sure its solid before I start rolling out the comics. I won't have it -ready- for "resume normal behavior" for a few days at least, but hey, there's a lot to do, and upgrades are involved as well as rolling out new backups and, oh yeah, remembering to eat.

Many thanks to everyone who's pitched in and donated so far. Help rebuilding the coffers to keep the sites paid for, bandwidth wise once we are fully launched.

If anyone would like to donate, even a couple of bucks, send it to paypal @ solfire.com via paypal. Heck, you can even mark it "for coffee". I worked out how to get donations onto my "starbucks" gift card, so hey, awesome. (I have stupid taste buds, I really can't tell the difference between starbucks and peets and a "we roasted this right over there, steve here picked the beans, and larry's a priest, he blessed them too." coffee. Starbucks just happens to have A: an online form to recharge the card. b: a store in every town I work at. c: food, so I can actually buy lunch with it too.)

Anyway, I'll -hopefully- have the prototypes up for Dave/Katie and Candy's approval/perusal tomorrow, once they've green lighted it, then the sites go live.

Thanks everyone for patience, and making this problem as financially painless as possible.

It will be worth it.

Server update;

Initial install of the software is complete, just doing some lockdowns of the system. Server runs a little faster, upgraded from a 1.8ghz to a 2.0ghz cpu, doubled the ram. bumped up the swap space from 3 to 6gb (Never hit the ceiling on the old server, but with 500gb drive space to play on, an extra 3gb is easy to justify.) Repartitioned the drives so the system and "data" are on two differing partitions. Gives a little more robustness if the system partition fails Second HD is in the system running as a mirror, so there is even -more- resiliency.

Backup System;
System 1) Installing and testing using Tarsnap to backup the data using hourly snapshots. This will shove a copy of things, encrypted, over to the Amazon S3 cloud. (Recurring cost; $0.30 per Gigabyte + $0.30/month/Gigabyte storage (Estimated usage is less than $2 a month, but only an estimate))
System 2) The old server hardware, was destined for the scrap pile by the datacenter. Donations allowed me to aquire the old hardware (for basically a pittance, shipping it, was the expensive part) I will be looking at getting a drive or two to place into it, install it in the closet at my home, and have it do a daily rsync. (Unless its a small/quiet box, then it'll go under my desk on a shelf.)

Still to do;
Restore from Backups - I've gotten in contact with several people who have large collections of the strips, I'll be gathering from them this weekend, doing merges and compares.
Site Re-Build - I've discussed with Dave/Candy and a few others I host. I will be rolling out a locked-down copy of a "nearly ready for public consumption" site, that was slated for "Upgrade path into"
Forum - I'm going to go ahead with the upgrade into the latest version of phpBB (I'd been running v2.x on Jack, and v3.x on Vinci & Arty.) I'm looking for an equivalent to Kittenauth for v3, but as things sit, v3 is -relatively- bot resistant. We will never, ever, truly get rid of spammers, and I'm not going to let a spammer prevent me from doing what I think is best.
Forum Unification- As with the above two, I'm going to do a bit more work with "subforum-ing" things out, so that all comics I host, use one forum, as well as allows expansion for future work. Latest uncorrupted Jack forum backup is from May 13. Posts after that are lost...

Which means;
1: Things will be different. But this is for the better. I've shown Dave/Candy/several others, the New Project. Everyone is happy so far.
2: Not all the custom code is in place. For the "Jack" site, I wrote a lot of custom code, and while it did inspire parts for the New Project, it isn't -all- there yet. (No Chicks page yet, nor any of the custom Arc pages, for example.)
3: Patience will be required. I have a day job, but will be working on this in my spare time, what there is of it. I ask that everyone understand that the site is Priority 3 in my life right now. (1 is family, 2 is my job-that-pays-the-bills)
4: I am -not- looking for a programmer to help with the coding. This is not meant to sound like arrogance, but, this is my beast to tame. I may have need of a css Igor, but nothing beyond that just yet.

Donations; The site is not meant to be "powered by donations", but donations -definitely- help offset the cost. Without donations, I wouldn't have been able to even -start- until tomorrow, let alone get almost 30 hours work into it. I'll be re-setting-up the donations page. I'll be rolling out a better way to show appreciations towards the supporters. If you've been a donor in this little "rush to get things back" I thank you from the bottom of my little nerdy heart. If you'd like to donate, even a buck, send to paypal @ solfire.com

There's still a lot to do.

Hey, I know there are many of you out there that right-click-save-as every V&A/Jack/Etcetera strip that comes by. Anyone out there that has a decent sized collection of the strips? Contact me privately please.

Backup update.

Scanned over two of the drives, the one that had the mid-may backup is, having issues. Windows XP machine is going "I don't see a drive." Linux laptop is going "I see a drive... but the files are not right."

looks like the NTFS thingy shat itself. Using a 500gb drive from an old computer, unknown amount of spindle time on it. Running a few utilities on it, but seems that June is the month of Hard Drives That Hate.

Found a -not- corrupted backup.

from 6/3/2008

Yes, a year old. shit, it was around then I switched to the 'newer' drive, just due to the storage requirement for the backup.

At least I have an idea of how many people were hosted.

More update later. And one about The Big News I hinted at a few days ago.

Hey gang, just answering a few questions here that came in e-mail;

Q1) What's the hold up?
A)I could just throw the server up online and be done with it, but who knows if we'd get 0wned in a day or two. I'm doing this as I can, as fast as I reasonably can. I do have a full time job and an epic commute.

Q2) Can we help?
A) Honestly, the only real help right now is patience, and donations. It was only due to a "putting us over the top" donation from Gavin that let me get the server up as fast. Otherwise it would be four or five more days from now before I'd even get it rolling. Donations -would- be nice, allow me to invest in a full backup system for the server, plus the bill is going to be a bit more every month.

Donations go towards:
*100GB online backup via Amazon S3/Dropbox (Estimated cost; $200/year)
*Purchasing the old hardware, and giving it a good "burial" as well as ensuring the data is disposed of properly. We've been leasing the server from the hosting place for over seven years. I asked them to set aside the old drive, so I could have it shipped and sent to me for "Proper Disposal". I'm waiting on a quote for it, as well as the actual hardware box, since they are retiring the server.
*Building back up the server bankroll. I had some padding in the paypal, to keep no less than an additional month of service in the coffer. The additional hardware cost to get the mirroring and so forth ate that away, as well as the setup fees and so on to get it done.
*Coffee. (Hey, the computer runs on electricity, I, do not.)

But in all seriousness, this will come out of my pocket. I'll get the sites back as best I can.

Q3) Why was the server backed up so infrequently?
A) Because when I initially got the server leased, I was told by the sales engineer the drive was mirrored. In case of failure, they pop a new drive in, and the raid rebuilds. I made backups, but not as often as I would have liked, since there was not enough space on the server itself to make a backup file, and I had to do it all separately. This was not the case, the drive failed, things fell apart. This was my fault for not doing a weekly backup.

So... thats the update.

Server has been assembled at the DataCenter, and I've gotten into it. It is a better box, 2ghz HT CPU vs 1.6 Celeron, dual 500gb drives in software mirrored raid-1.

I personally set up the software RAID this time.(because there is no hardware raid *sadface*) Just waiting for that to finish processing before the next step.

Steps;
1: CVS the /src tree to -STABLE, makeworld, and recompile the kernel from .GENERIC to the custom load.
2: install and lock down Apache+MySQL+PHP+(the hardened php project patches)
3: Setup a "status page" on the root.
4: dig through the various HD's I have here for all the various backups, plot out best way to proceed.

If I host your domain, or you have webspace from me, contact me in e-mail. (rdewalt at gmail dot com) I'll need your username, and a new password. No, I do not keep passwords.

Step at a time.

Oh what a week. 8)

Server is currently under construction at the Data Center. Gavyn hunted me down on IRC and asked me how much it would be to get the ball rolling now. And well, I'm giving him the credit, and public thanks for his aid.

We'll get things on the server rolling as soon as the Datacenter gives me the thumbs up.

Drive is dead, ain't coming back.

I have some backups, haven't dug into them to find out how bad it is. Some are a few months old, some are sort of recent.

Getting updated at the hosting place to a more modern server. Bigger CPU, more ram, $5 month more.

Option A: Same setup, better backup procedure.
Option B: Mirror drive, better backup procedure.

Oogh, down side is its going to take a few days to get the $ together. The server funds that have come in have been enough to pay the monthly bill, but it'll have to wait until my next paycheck before I can afford the "fix it" fee to get the server running again.

After that, its about a day to -get- the server, and a day for me to configure and lock it down properly. From then on, I'll have status updates on the site itself.

With luck, I'll post Jack/V&A strips on the front page, and get the Jack Forum framework back up, for the time being, since those are the biggest hitting spots.

Solfire.com server, and all domains it hosts, is offline.

I do not have an ETA on when it will return, there is trouble with the hard drive. I do have backups, but they are a: not complete, and b: not recent.

I was lax in my backup process due to incorrect information from the hosting location. Rather than a RAID-1 setup(Mirrored drives), the system was not in any RAID configuration at all. So "Drive Failure" means "Oh fuck" rather than "Oh dear, refresh the backups now, replace the failing drive"

So, things -may- be bad, things may be -quite- bad.

If you have hosting on the server, and you haven't updated in 3 months, odds are I've got you backed up fine.

Vinci&Arty, Jack, Beanie's comics, all their forums, all the bits that update regularly, are going to be hit a lot harder.

saucepls.info has never been backed up. I never meant for it to be permanent storage anyway. Hell, the site is 40 lines of php.

Spread the word, if I host it, its offline until I can fix it. and I -do not know- how long that will take. V&A/Jack and the other higher-traffic sites will be up first, since they are enjoyed by more people. Route comments here so I can answer questions.

And if anyone other than me says something about the site, check here. I've had people spread rumors, and I don't need it.

Nngh. Loving my job, but man, its 10pm, and my feet are tired and the rest of me isn't far behind.
----
Potentially awesome news on the horizon. Some of you might even go "Wait, are you sure its the same guy?"
----
Contract job in SF is doing okay. Client threw a curveball today at 2 right after we left the office. Going to trash a day's worth of programming and require another day or two to adapt for it, presuming we can even get them to agree to the limitations that their new design is going to need. Crossing my fingers that after we tell them tomorrow at 9, they get back to us far faster than the "Approve the designs?" from monday... they took nearly three days to say "er... no, do it this way."

Love the job, same building as "Wired" in downtown SF, next door to my old office where "Twitter Inc." is, down the block from both Ubisoft and Livejournal's offices, and heaven-knows-how-many-other-companies-I-haven't-noticed...
----
After this contract, looks like I may or may not have a contract/job with a location that I won't discuss until it is official. I will not say more on it now, this -is- the internet, and you never know who is listening. The job looks to be right up my style, well within my skill-sets, and looks to be a great place as well. I'm excited, and I'll know more -probably- by the weekend.
----

Been using "Dropbox" lately. Free online web storage/folders thing. You get two gig, plus a bit more if you get in via referral, as well. Sure you can pay for a pro account and get 50 or 100, but I don't know if I need that much just yet. Will know after the next personal project rollout happens.

So, anyone wants to try it, please use this url; https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEwNjM2OTk5

If you do, you get 256meg additional free, and so do I. There are mac/windows/linux clients so the web share is synched with a Folder On Your Computer. its so extra awesome that I'm even telling you guys this, and how often do I tell y'all about software? So, click that link pretty please?

----
Possible photography one-off gig, Might be doing a small photo shoot for a .mil family, the mom(+young son) wants to send a few photos to dad who's deployed. She asked me how much, and I told her that .mil family is a 100% discount where I come from, and by golly I won't accept a dime. Personal um, reasons.
----

Um...

So how is everything with you Internet?

Okay, so I've been lax in posting to my journal. I think I really should try and get back to posting more regularly.

Well, lets give this a try then.

Hi Internet. Happy sexy tuesday.

As those of you who follow Candy's journal know, RedDog died in her arms on the way to the vet last night. He was crashing, and we felt he was going to be suffering if we didn't do something.

Candy put up a video tribute she did tonight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A4MPLNVAIs

Red was quite a piece of work. Sure, we got to be with him the last two years of his life, but we'd like to think he was happy in those years.

I must admit, anyone who dedicates himself to my wife like that, is okay in my book.

Red, I know you disliked me for being the guy with the needles, pills, etcetera, but I'd rather you be mad at me for the shots and meds these past two months, than be mad at Candy.

Red Dog... proof that charisma isn't a dump stat.
To the cat who could weld steel with a burp,

Took FoxPunch to the vet on Monday. He said "She's about two weeks along."

Must have been one of those Movie/Sitcom pregnancies. Candy went in to check on her tonight and *bing* two fluffy balls of kitten. We were in her room last night, and she was definitely not "popped" then...

( Did I take pics? With the cuteness power of sub-day old kittens in my house? Of course I did silly. They're under here. )

Candy; Broken foot/toe. As of this morning, she was heading to the doc today to get a second opinion of how bad it is, and get, we hope, it cared for.

Cat; ~2 weeks pregnant, ~1 year old, in perfect heath. Possibly already has a home once she's clear.
----
Watched "Wanted" last night while Candy slept up on the bed near me. From the trailer I knew this movie wasn't going to be an epic action movie.

It was a tolerably groovy popcorn movie. I guess if I was eight, it would have been awesome. But I'm not eight. Got this as my monday night free rental from redbox. Still felt ripped off.
----

Watchmen;
Watched it this weekend. Everyone who, when the movie is mentioned, can only use the words "BLUE PENIS" needs to just... shake their fist at their brain for making that the sole impression of that film. Fucking hell, Blue Peen was barely on the screen, I was expecting a giant todger filling the screen and shaking all about... meanwhile all I got a was a medium shot of a nude guy.

Conversion from the graphic novel; Fair. Skimmed over the origin stories, mostly to worthless. Rorschach's origin was slimmed down to "his mom was a whore, she hated him, he got beat up as a child" ? The angle grinder instead of arc weilder in the escape? The second session with the psychiatrist and what he really saw in the blots?

Things that were missed, or "don't blink, you'll miss it." Night Owl's drinking buddy, was the Original Night Owl.

Thoughts on the changed ending;
It was -tolerable-. Honestly? I don't mind the "Dr. Manhattan went ape shit and blew up NYC." it certainly worked better for me than 'We genetically engineered a creature to die upon arrival, its telepathic scream will kill half of NYC, and oh, humans will unite for fear of ALIENS not OMG MANHATTAN HATES US.

Rorschach was, by far, the absolute -best- character in the movie. He had the character -nailed- good and hard. In the book, He faces John/Manhattan alone. NightOwl isn't near. Additionally, why did he want to die? Because to Rorshie, the world is black or white, there is no grey.

Ozy was very well done, He had no powers other than being "Peak Human". and in the comic even says 'I always wondered if I could catch a bullet.'
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There's kittens on the horizon, as well as a momma cat that will need a good home once all is said and done.

( Pics under the cut. )

Candy and I, after running errands, went up to the Merced area to check out the animal shelter there. And while exploring, found this little quaint zoo.

( pictures under here )

Anyone out there an OpenVPN guru / or at least has set it up properly?

I've got an issue here, where I've got

[intranet] <- xl0 interface [FreeBSD box] fpx0 interface -> ((Internet)) <- OpenVPN Client

I can't get the openvpn instance to route traffic that comes in the vpn install off fxp0 to xl0.

Anyone out there thats done this that can help?

I will say, I was stunned when I logged in over lunch and saw the news.

I confess, I did not know him well enough to know who "Patrick" was when everyone mentioned it. He was -always- "Furp" in my headspace.

I remember swapping "IT/Infosec War Stories" about our jobs. But in so very many ways, I was the dull one. His commute included a war zone.

When I heard of the method of his death, part of me pictured Robin Williams in "What Dreams May Come", and how his character, rushes to someone's aid, gets killed in an accident trying to help someone else.

Patrick was one of a a sadly tiny population of people, who had you told me he was a Tzadikim, I would have agreed without flinching.

I have no conclusion here... no mere words would make even a passing summing up of things.

I'm glad I knew him.

Made you look...

Actually, went to Ikea with my lovely Mrs last night. Which for us now is this mildly epic road trip. Sort of like a PseudoHomo Hajj in its own little way, being now a two hour drive.

Got the desk/loft bed combo. Bed took ~2h to set up last night, desk is getting built today. Let me tell you, a loft bed, while F'ing cool as a kid, becomes a -big- different thing at 35 when you're on the wrong side of 240# I'm going to need to be careful sitting up, or I'll smash my everything on the ceiling. This is not a bed for "leaping quickly out of" this is a bed for slowly contemplating the meaning of gravity.

I ponder leaving black shirts up there, so the cats get summoned atop the bed, just to see if they make it.

Anyway, just a quick note. Oh, and while I'm here, Candy's birthday is friday. I have things planned, and things in progress. But just in case any of our relatively evil minded friends want to plot a dastardly evil attempt to take over the world in her name, Friday's the day.

Oh, Happy Wednesday to y'all.

Candy whirlwinded art supplies into order today, getting her art room done,

( Images under here... and maybe more. )

Suki and RedDog, our four year old polydactyl, and our 15 year old siamese... She loves older men, what can I say.

Did some more work on the place today, Candy's been a little tornado of... well, if a tornado spins through and tosses things everywhere, what would a small little whirlwind who puts things in orderly places be? Er... She's one of those.

From TheNewPlace

So... is that really RedDog, or no?

( More under here. )

Today, if you read my wife's journal... We moved big heaping bags of clothes from one house to the new one. Another moment in my life I'm glad I own a truck.

Well, one goal today was the acquisition, assembly, and installation of a new garage door with Cat Door. Our intent is to furnish the entire garage for the cats, but have a cat door so that they can have full access to their entire domain.

Getting a door? Not a problem. Lowes/HomeDepot has plenty. Even "Pre-hung" doors that all you do is shove the frame in place and add a lock. We picked a plain, generic "Interior Door", a "Fat Cat" door flap, and went in search of a sales bloke to see if they'd help us intersect them.

Nope

Well bother. Ah! I'll bet I can be Good With Tools, and do the job. Look at the list... need a drill, and a jigsaw. Darn, don't have either. jigsaws, not too expensive for the lowest end one, but I'd probably only use it for this task... Ah! Handsaw, that'll do, only couple-a bucks.. Drill.. Well, why not get this B&D cordless drill/screwdriver? Not like I'd never use that ever again.

So we headed home, and I remove the old door while Candy does closet organizing.... Bloody hell, that's a solid wood door... Move it, and start working on the cat door.. Drill drill drill, cut cut cut, saw saw saw, ponder, measure, think, Ah, there we go, got the box to the parts open... No I jest. Drill four holes, cut four lines, fine tune it a little, four screws in the two part door, and hey... door, in a door.

Now, hanging the door... ah fuck, the other door was.. hung upside down? its handle was up here. Oh shit, is mine upside down? Did I cut the wrong side? Um... Oh wait the other doors are all with their knobs at this high.. that one must have been backwards and.. Oh yes, there's the thingy that the door thingy goes into. Cake Pieces.

I hang the door... Anyone who's ever done this, can tell you its a strange, perhaps rubik-like puzzling act. You have to hang something so that when it closes, its in a space with very fine tolerances.. I Unhung, and rehung it a couple of times, eventually gnawing on the doorframe and pulling off a bit of moulding on the part where the hinges go to get the right fit. Done! Install door lock/knob. *Click* holy shit, that worked first time...

And... I have a door, that cats can egress.

Candy did a great job on the closets, even my minor little assortment of clothing. Its strange, I have either T-shirts, or work clothes... and the occasional shorts. But she just coughed, and there they were, on the hangars, sorted...

Anyone want a quarter ton of cement? I seem to have eight, 95# bags of it, now correct me if I'm wrong, isn't cement rather...granular? Because the eight bags, were all -solid- like rocks, and I swear, they weren't 95 pounds... 95 kilograms, yes, that I could believe... I think they got wet, and turned into blocks. So, I struggled through and moved them all.. My everything aches.

But... I actually did a Cat Door.

-----

I love this new place. Sure, its a bit further away from Silicon Valley... but well. That Is Fine. I work tomorrow, then have the rest of the year off... And The Big Move will be awesome.

Here's to 2009 being awesome.

Last night, Candy and I stopped by TownCats, the shelter we sporadically volunteer at, for some socializing-with-the-kitties time. Yes, after a weekend of Being Santa, and other Adventure Time, it was needed.

As I was walking around, We saw one orange-ish cat hissing, and generally giving "FUCK OFF" faces to any cat that got near. We were nearby, in case we needed to break up a fight. But generally, this male cat wandered in, and asserted himself, and wanted to be left alone.

Along comes Bruiser. Bruiser, is one of the Alpha Cats of the shelter. Now, for the handful of you who've seen the place, its a relatively easily split place. there's a front office, and two sides. Most of the cats stay on one side or the other, with sporadic venturing between. In many cases, its rather thoroughly bisected demography.

Bruiser, is one of, if not the Alpha Cat of the "main" side. He's not a gigantic cat like Tugrik's "Batou" is, but let me tell you, he's not a tiny kitten. (I remember Batou and Bruiser meeting. Batou was going on wander around the shelter and Bruiser came up with "Yo, this is my side, be cool or I will kick your... holy shit there's a lot of you.")

This cat, who's name I don't know, was playing anti social funbag. Hissing, swatting at any cat that came by, generally giving the "Okay, escape route there and there... but fuck you all" ready to bolt if pushed.

Bruiser watched this, and lept in a singular predatory bound, tackling the orange cat, four no-claws *WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP* smacks to the cat's sides and head, and bit him on the back of the neck, pulling a bundle of fur free in his jaws. He got back on his feet, eyes not leaving the orange cat before walking a yard away before turning his back on the orange cat in a -dare-.

Now, in the shelter, if a cat causes fights, or is blatantly hostile, we pretty much always put the cat in an isolation cage for a time out. So, most of the cats were watching me going "Dood, bruiser's getting a time out." I stepped over to the big gray-white cat and he gave me this -look- that said;

"Look, the dude was causing shit on my turf. I ain't trying to blame someone else, I've got his neckfur still in my mouth, and you saw me do it. Home-toast over there needed to be put back in line, and this is -my- house. If you're going to cage me, you go right ahead. You gotta do what you have to, I did what I had to."

Most cats run away from me after something like that, they know what's coming. But Bruiser didn't... Something in his eyes said he knew what he did had a consequence, but it was worth it. Just like that orange cat knew that brusier could have used his claws, and made spinal salsa before the orange cat had even known the air turbine was being hit by fecal matter...

Anyone who thinks cats have no personality, should take the time to actually live with a few cats. They're as unique as people.

Candy and I were at Chuck E Cheese, when I spotted this. Yes, Cell Phone Camera LOL.

From Misc Photography

A big arcade racing game with a BIG Windows "An error has occured in arcade.exe and must close" error popup.

Yay for Fail.

So...

As Candy pointed out, its been a full year, plus or minus a few days, since That Moment, when life changed. I've not had a single drop of booze since then. Not looked back, not been tempted.

I don't think I could have done it this... "easily" without her. I put that in quotes, because calling it easy, just cheapens a lot of things.

Do I miss it? Eh. No. I've found far more valuable-to-me things.

Lets not forget a priceless someone. Its been a long road up. But its been -UP-.

One year... I feel -good-.

Love you hon.

Anyone in San Jose/SanFran area want to hook up at the Isobune sushi place in Burlingame? For say dinner at 5-6ish?

We elected a new Commander in Chief tonight. Lets hope the "Yes We Can" turns into as much effort as meme/rhetoric.

A wise person pointed out to me that there's one party in majority in all three branches of power, executive, house, senate... Dangerous, or "required to prevent stalemate in a time when we need co-operation"... I don't know.

Candy and I voted on Paper Ballots tonight. Odds are ours won't get counted into the official totals for days. I have slips that have serial numbers on them. I'll bet I could, in a few month, with proper channels -find- my ballot again.

Prop 8 is so very close, but looks like it will pass. To my friends who were married before "Prop 8" I believe that Ex-post-facto law means y'all are still legally married. However, I am not a lawyer, nor do I even play one on the internet.

If 8 had failed, it would only be one small election cycle before another attempt to push the same hit the ballots again. This time it would be "Protect Marriage and KITTENS" I am saddened that my state enacted a law to amend the constitution of the state to contain the words "Deny the right" And in effect legalized discrimination. (I'm sure that'll stand for long)

----

I voted. I also chewed my brother out for not (its his birthday today)

me: So did you go vote today.
him: Nah, just kind of... Eh.
me: Our grandfathers did not go to war so you could go "Eh."
him: ...you make a very good point.

My brother and I are the first two in our family tree not to be called to serve our country, in a very, very long time. We've got family tree branches that are military-traceable clear back into the civil war, if not further.
----

Cue conspiracy funbags in 3...2...1...

Saturday Evening Post...

Attempting to do the NaNoWriMo this year. But with so many things planned for November, not going to kill myself to do it.

----

Saw a lot of people standing in the rain, showing their support for "8"... the "We eliminate rights from people we don't like" thing.

I guess its a good sign that they're afraid of their side losing so strongly, they'll stand out in the rain in hope that someone falls for it.

As tugrik pointed out, to me, if 8 -does- pass. This will backfire on them horridly. Because it'll be challenged at the State Supreme Court level. Which... will pass it along to the OMG US Supreme Court. Both courts having tried really hard not to vote on anything like this.

Once it would hit the US Supreme Court, and they're pulled into action, it'll get overturned. And the Supreme court will say "Hey look, this is flat out trying to legalize discrimination. Sorry, we can't do that."

And suddenly, the whole US gets Marriage for Everyone.

Still. hope Prop 8 dies in a fire. So that their "OMG WILL OF THE PEOPLE IS NO MARRIAGE FOR HOMOS" turns into "No, the people really don't care if you're gay or straight, marriage is fine"

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And now... have a cat video.

Hey look, a rare post. A long one, did most if it over lunch, lots of it while on hold on the phone...

Let me start off by saying a simple truism.

( Life is awesome. )

but this guy takes the cake.

From BigCat

Meet... er.. "Big Grey" his current name until a proper name for him is found. Candy and I are calling him "Dragon" after the cat from "The Secret of NIMH.

How big is this cat? I mean, Yeah, I'm no small guy.

( More pictures under the cut. )