Gecko Bloggle

Alive in Joburg is a short film done with some beautiful ComputerGenerated/Film combinations, set in South Africa. Topic is alien invasion. Freaky. Beautiful (cept the rubber-suit stuff).

Requires Quicktime and broadband (and audio, of course).

I’m trying out the LiveJournal Crossposter, but if I post using w.Bloggar client (which I usually do), does it autosync to LJ?

Let’s find out, shall we?

[Edit: Nope, not so much, but if I add something via the front-end in WordPress, I bet it updates.]

Trying out Deepest Sender, which is made for LiveJournal with FireFox, but works with WordPress too…  Neato.

Okay, so anyone who’s ever worked with me, listened to me talk about work, or just stood next to me when there’s a decision to be made will know that I’m not the sort of person who usually Reads The Fine Manual when it comes to a lot of things. I tend to just sorta pile on into whatever’s the new toy, and see what happens…

The result occasionally goes a little something like this:

Okay, not really.

Well, last night, I tried that with WordPress 2.0 (the software that displays my blog on my home site)

So let’s just itemize what I did to myself, shall we?:

• Ignored the stuff where they tell you to completely back up your database (let me get to that in a minute).
• Ignored the bit about disabling all plugins
• Ignored the stuff where they tell you to remove all files
• and just clobbered my old install with the 2.0 install

and then ran the upgrade.
Hilarity ensued, let me ensure you.
Including, but not limited to, a 30-minute ABSPATH hunt (the location of the web site in general, meaning once the upgrade was completed, there was now way for the blog to find it’s own files).

…and I totally did it to myself.

Got it all back in this morning (thank goodness for ChefBoyArdee PHPMyAdmin)
I managed to backup my (very sadly broken) database, and then copy/paste the parts I needed (liked the settings, options, POSTS! and comments). The really scary thing was that any large paste (of maybe 15 posts at a time) would cause a connection reset in PhpMyAdmin (at least, under Firefox browser).

One thing that was sorta scary (and I should keep in mind if I’m stupid brave enough to try that at any point in the future):
I’ve got two plugins installed: WP-StatTraq (for statistics and inbounding linking information) and WPHashCash (for anti-comment-spam, so please comment on this at my Home Blog and see if everything’s still working).
I *think* the combination of these two plugins, and their nature of storing data into the database (which means every visit I get to the site gets an entry into the database, and every comment attempt also goes in, I think), lead to a much larger database file (once exported) than I would normally have had. Subsequently, when I tried to import the exported file back into the DB, it choked at the 5minute mark (300second timeout during a single request).

But usually, I’m really lucky and happy with WordPress (and again, it was not WP’s fault, it’s totally MINE).

So yeah. I’m going to get the new server going, first and foremost, and quit goofing around with the blog for a bit. I’ll still post (I hope) during January, but this whole migration from Server 2000 to Server 2003 (and Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003) has been kicking my butt for months now…

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone. I’ll do a proper “State of the Union” type post in the next few days.

As if the whales last year weren’t bad enough… GUH…

See also: CheeseFairy’s funnier and longer post about these retarded things.

So… I work with the guy who made the orignal outfit that inspired this: http://www.leiasmetalbikini.com/

I sent him the link and the following thread ensued

From: Rodis, Nilo
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 9:00 AM
To: Burton, John
Subject: RE: Now look what you started… :)
Hahahahahahahahha. This is really funny. I should have saved one of those bikinis after the shoot….
When the first bikini model was finished, I needed a model to wear it for me to see how it fit before fitting it to Carrie. One of the girls at work was approximately the size and agreed to put it on. Problem is, she was only approximate. She tried as hard as she could but she couldnt pour her boobs inside the bra. Most awkward and embarrassing moment for her and i.

From: Burton, John
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 6:25 PM
To: Rodis, Nilo
Subject: RE: Now look what you started… :)
“…one of the girls at work…”
How does that conversation go, exactly?
NR: “So… we built this uh… bra… and we sorta… uhm….”
CW: “There’s no way I’m putting that on.”
NR: “Yeah, but we need to see if you’re uh…”
CW “Give me that thing.”
{wrestling, grunting}
CW: “THERE! Happy?”
NR: “The kids are gonna LOVE this…”
CW: “But it doesn’t fit!”NR: “Exactly…”
J

From: Rodis, Nilo
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 10:32 AM
To: Burton, John
Subject: RE: Now look what you started… :)
The bottom went in without trouble, but he cup size was much bigger than Carrie. She tried forcing it in with her hands but it kept popping out. She was turning red. I was dayglow red. She was still wrestling with it when I called it off.
Carrie put it on in front of me. Naked. Penny Marshall was in the room laughing her head off watching me turn every color.
Costuming was a lot of fun….

CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME

Via Saint Aardvark the Carpeted

{While listening to Kate Bush’s new album}
{You think I’m kidding}

Go to KarlaBabble to see her take on voice jail systems, and then go to Paul English’s to see the list.

Quick version: Go check out Pandora for cool self-selected streaming audio based on your tastes.

Long Version:

When I was a kid, living in deepest darkest Chilliwack, I used to mourn the loss of any sort of current or edgy music. Now, don’t get me wrong,
I don’t for a moment think I ever actually *thought* the word “Edgy” when I was thinking about music, but I sure knew I wasn’t getting what I wanted to hear on CHWK 1270 AM…

Thank God (Who Is Lord Over Chilliwack, I was told many times per block) for my Uncle Bill.

Bill was a sometimes-DJ who was in his 20s as I was just getting into my teens, and every year at XMas, I’d get a mixed tape or two. Full-on “High-Fidelity” philosophy MIX TAPES.

Those gorgeous Maxell 90Minute CrO2s would arrive (sometimes just one, but later on, usually two) with both sides CRAMMED with music I’d never heard, and probably never would have, in some cases. I went through those tapes like new they were encyclopedias at a monestery and played most of ’em until they broke. They were my soundtrack of the world outside small-town Chilliwack. The music that was decidedly NOT being listened to by the bullys and preppies. Music they’d just never understand – were incapable of appreciating – that didn’t exist in Chilliwack’s 1950s mentality.

The only problem with those tapes is that they didn’t have artists, just titles.

I learned years later how hip I actually was, musically speaking. I could’ve gone toe-to-toe with the kids with the crazy hair and long black trenchcoats if I’d just realized that the backpatches they were wearing were the same bands I’d scrawled lyrics of across my bedroom walls.
In short: I knew my shit, without knowing it at all:

• I was listening to U2 from their first album – didn’t know it until Joshua Tree came out and I asked a friend “Is there another band this singer was in, like, six or seven years ago?”
• Sinead O’Connor starting her duet with The Edge, before she was bald.
• The Cure before Standing on the Beach.
• Elvis’ old stuff before it was cool to remix it, or make fun of him for being fat. The B-sides only, of course.
• Psychedelic Furs before Valley Girl.
• Simple Minds before Breakfast Club.
• Chaka Khan before anyone knew who the hell Whitney Housten is/was/would-be.
• Coldcut’s Beats and Pieces from “What’s That Noise?” LONG before anybody’d heard the “Seven Minutes of Madness” remix of Paid in Full on the Colors soundtrack. When I stumbled across Coldcut again, it was years later, when they showed up on the Journey By DJ series, and they blew my mind all over again. I don’t think I’ve musically been the same since.
• Was Not Was – Papa Was a Rolling Stone and I Feel Better Than James Brown
• James Brown – The Payback, and Papa Don’t Take No Mess (thus explaining why I was so into Prince later)
• Joy Division
• Depeche Mode (again, from the word go).
• INXS (heard Johnson’s Airplane from The Swing in a hip clothing store on Robson, so that doesn’t count).
• Parliament Funkadelic – after our generation was introduced to them as “Those guys in the outfits at Woodstock” but BEFORE Digital Underground started talking about them.

And that’s without actually having a tape in front of me. One of these days I’ll transfer them all to MP3 in their original order. Why? Because I can’t buy those tapes like that anywhere. When will the RIAA figure this out?

Okay, so here’s the thing:

www.pandora.com is my Uncle Bill times about a billion, and crammed into a streaming audio website.

You tell it an artist or a song you like, and it starts spitting out music you might also like, as in streaming it at you. You can vote that you like it, or hate it, and it’ll adjust what else gets played based on those selections.

there’s more stuff, but Dead Like Me’s on now…

Claire says:
all hail the Great Burton! Remember-er of cool trivia and neato stuff!
This humble forgetter has a question for thy mighty brain!
JBurton @ EAX says:
Type mortal, that you may be enlightened.
Claire says:
hee hee.
what the hell was the name of that weird little CD-rom/game thing that Peter Gabriel was involved in?
JBurton @ EAX says:
EVE.
Claire says:
bah! you’re so smart
Claire says:
I knew you’d know that
JBurton @ EAX says:
Nah, just have a section in my brain for that stuff.
Claire says:
that must be a really cool bit of brain…
JBurton @ EAX says:
Where most people have the lyrics to horrible 70s and early 80s songs? I’ve got software…
Claire says:
har!
JBurton @ EAX says:
Makes Karaoke a little tricky…
Claire says:
speaking of MirrorMask – if you guys haven’t seen it yet – I recommend it. The last show was last night unfortunately, but it should hit DVD pretty quick.
JBurton @ EAX says:
Wooooaaaah… We’re halfway there….
WaaaaaOOH… living on an opensource cyberlife strand bearing cycle…