For the past two years, my job has had me intimately involved with things that start with http://. In this capacity, I have seen some pretty striking things done in ways that I could never have imagined would seem appropriate to anyone. So I’m starting to collect commandments. I found a couplelinks on the subject, but they are about design and navigation and I don’t know nuthin’ about those angles. All I know about is the gear needed to make it go.
Today I was asked to take down a sub-site (ie, directory off the document root) and before just typing sudo rm -fr I thought I’d take a peek. Well, in place of every image on the page was … an error message from phpThumb() complaining that the source image was missing.
Well shoot! Re-scaling your images for every page view is a little … inefficient! Hence the ninth commandment:
We’ve had a couple big snowfalls in a row in these parts, with no sign of melting in the near future. So much so, that a couple days ago our dear Mayor decided we ought to actually remove some of the snow, as opposed to waiting for it to melt. I got very excited, because one of my favourite things when I was, say, 7, was to watch the snow removal crews come by our house in Montreal.
I even looked up the snow removal plans on our municipal info site, and neither our street or the cross street were listed in the plans, which criss-crossed our neighbourhood. So I was particularly thrilled when I head the machinery approaching yesterday. Jacquie even filmed it for me! I sped it up a bit because I understand that not everyone is as, er, excited as I about this turn of events.
Sadly, once done it did not compare to the recollections of my youth. So I did a little searching on YouTube, and found this fine example, clearly edited together and including key elements missing in every other example:
the pre-plowing of the sidewalk (with special sidewalk plows!)
the towing (ask a nearby Montrealer about the towing. Not too nearby, though)
plowing again from each side to make sure the largest amount of snow is in a neat row
the truck is a for-reals 18-wheeler, even on narrow Montreal streets
the plywood mounted on the far side of the truck to catch stray snow from the blower
semi-surreal German (!?) titles
Kudos to our neighbours to the east-north-east, who have this snow removal thing figured out. And yes, it is snowing again …
I’m on the subway, I’ve just parted ways with a co-worker. I’m asking myself, should I stop and get some beer, or just go home and tend to my few chores? Something about thinking about chores triggers a faint recollection: tomorrow you have an appointment with the Tax Guy, at 8:45 a.m. The Tax Guy is at York Mills and Leslie.
I’ve also been thinking about a project at work, and there this, you know, really important meeting tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. Work is at Front & John, about a 20 km drive or about 1:15 on the TTC. That’s when I realize that I have a conflict, or at least I think I have one.
The immediate response is that my skin temperature and heart rate skyrocket. I’ve fucked up, it won’t be apparent to anyone but me until tomorrow, and yet there is still nothing I can do about it. All I can picture is two ships on a collision course, neither able to see the other or able to hear my warnings. There is no way to avoid disappointing either my wife or my co-workers.
I elect to stop for beer.
Once home, I search for mail from my dear sweet wife detailing the time/location of the tax appointment. Maybe it was this morning? I listen to all the (saved) messages on our voice mail, nothing. No iCal invitation … aargh.
Finally I leave her a message at her hotel in Connecticut, where she is away on business. She calls back an hour later; the appointment is not until March 13.
In my continuing tour of the Lagers of Southern Ontario, I’ve just purchased some Cameron’s Lager. It comes, oddly, in a 9-pack, which I’m sure The Beer Store loves. Anyway, I crack open the first bottle and it’s skunked. Not just a little off, but is cloudy and has a quarter inch of sediment at the bottom.
The date on the box looks OK, but they, like many breweries “encrypt” the date. It’s either a best-before or a born-on, one never knows. And they all have silly encryption methods, like they ROT-13 the 3-letter month (seriously!). And then they add the year and day at the front and back. For example, January 30 (30JAN08 between friends) becomes 38WNA00. Or I could be making it up; I’ve only got one box to go on.
Anyway I don’t know if that is the way is is supposed to look, so I taste it. It tastes like feet. It is painful for me to pour out beer (I’ve brewed my share of bad beer) but I did it and cracked open a second bottle, which was crystal clear like it was out of a commercial. Guess what? It also tastes like feet.
So I’m recalling a night out after work at a pub on Queen West, the name escapes me but it was so hip that the chairs were not all the same. I had a Cameron’s Lager there too, I think, and Jacquie had a taste and she said it tasted like feet.
Meanwhile it is thunder-snowing out there, and our friends at The Weather Network have a forecast page that says to expect 1-3 cm of snow, and on that same page a link to a weather warning that reads:
A MAJOR WINTER STORM PRODUCING VERY HEAVY SNOW WITH LINGERING FREEZING RAIN AND ICE PELLETS IS NOW POUNDING SOUTHERN ONTARIO AS ADVERTISED.
Uh, OK. That and my window tell me I do not want to go out to The Beer Store to replace the beer that I do not want.