Month: September 2003

I’m Learning to Count

I didn’t have much to do at work today because one of my projects is on hold for right now. I was able to work on some web design for this site, but I didn’t quite finish. That would explain why the site looked terrible for much of the afternoon. I’m sure that upset the thousands of people that frequent my website. I’m working on a way to show how many comments have been made for each entry which is not as easy as it sounds. I had tried using:

SELECT COUNT (*) WHERE comment_id = blog_id

but that didn’t work. Today I found out that the command:

mysql_num_rows($QueryResult)

should do what I need it to do. I just need to work out some of the thorny issues that have resulted from my piecemeal blogging system. Now that I understand how to generate the results I need, I should go back and tidy up some of the code. Hopefully, I will be able to make the Scranton Student code very pretty-like with my new numbering friend.

Does It Have to Be Today?

There is nothing that I like more than waking up at 8:00 AM. Well, nothing except waking up at 8:00 AM and going to a nine o’clock class. Well, nothing more than waking up at 8:00 AM for a nine o’clock class that I didn’t have because the professor cancelled today’s class last week. And I forgot. Did I mention that I’m nauseous this morning? Actually, it feels more like someone wearing heavy boots kicked me in the stomach last night. That really enhances my enthusiasm. Annie’s back is killing her today but she couldn’t miss class so she’s not enjoying her Monday either. Can we fast-forward to Tuesday? What the hell, do I hear Friday, anyone? I know I wouldn’t mind a week away from class. Blah. And again, blah.

Fake Democratic Ads

There was an amusing clip on Letterman tonight that was supposed to be a fake Democratic ad campaign that attacks Bush. It was a collection of his worst moments that included one or two of his monkey-faces, tripping over nothing, spitting on the White House lawn, and dropping his dog. It ended with a voice-over of “Vote Democrat in 2004.”

I watched a rerun of The Daily Show with John Stewart earlier in the week and Al Franken described a possible ad campaign for John Kerry that he envisioned. It would begin with a clip of Bush landing on the aircraft carrier and posing in a flight suit as he did in May 2003. Then a voice-over narration by Kerry would say, “Playing dress-up and make-believe can be fun, but when George W. Bush had a chance to fly in Vietnam, he avoided it by using his daddy’s influence.” The fake ad would then cut to a picture of Kerry in his service uniform with Kerry describing how video cameras couldn’t go where he wore his uniform. Hopefully, the tide continues to shift against Bush and his group of warmongers with the mainstream media.

BlogShares and Toasters

I didn’t have much work to do over the weekend besides some web design so I finally signed up for BlogShares. For those of you not familiar with BlogShares, it is a fantasy stocks website that enables each member to buy and sell stocks in various weblogs. I wanted to include this blog in their list of stocks, but unfortunately their code only works with XML and SOAP formats, whereas my blog is MySQL. I’ve only been trading for less than twelve hours, but I’ve already nearly doubled my net worth! I only wish my portfolio was real.

I also found an amusing photo from IBM;s Archives on Jase Wells‘ blog which I’ve been reading for some time now. I didn’t realize that toasters were a component for personal computing in the 1980s.

TV Today

I watched George W. Bush make a statement today about the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He mentioned that he would need $87 billion to help in the rebuilding of Iraq and called for members of the international community to help the US in Iraq despite the fact that the US was adamant about bombing Iraq with or without international support. He also discussed reasons for invading Iraq including their disobedience of UN resolutions, the violent Saddam dictatorship, and Saddam’s weapons of mass disappearance. That’s funny: the only reason I remember for invading was the imminent threat of chemical or biological attacks. Also it seemed rather hypocritical to disobey the UN—which was opposed to the war—in order to attack a country because they were disobeying the United Nations. Hmmm.

On a lighter note, I was flipping through the channels and noticed Sammy Hagar on the Food Network. Yes, the Sammy Hagar from Van Halen. It didn’t make any sense until I remembered that Hagar has started his own label for tequila and other liquors. Sure, other celebrities have their own food product lines such as Paul Newman’s salad dressing. And he’s a specialist how? The transition from alcoholic rock musician to alcohol producer is much more logical. Finally, a food product endorsement that makes sense.

Two Weeks into a New Semester

The past two weeks have been really reassuring for me. I was a little nervous coming back to school after nine months, but I’ve been able to jump back into the swing of things without too much trouble. I was also a bit nervous about moving into a house with seven guys I didn’t know; living with a group of jerks wouldn’t make my transition back to school any easier. However, the guys in my house turned out to be a good group of people. I didn’t realize it when I was moving in, but I already knew Dan from our Mario Cart parties with Dennis last year. I also found out that I’m working with Frank at the CTLE, so that makes two people I know who happen to be living across the hall.

Meanwhile, my classes and work are looking much more promising than last year. Stage Combat, my E-Commerce class, and Swing, Latin, and Ballroom Dancing are probably going to be interesting and hopefully quite manageable. Introduction to Consumer Technology might be a little bit drier than I expected but not too bad. Theatre History is shaping up to be a little tougher than I expected, but I should be able to handle it without too much difficulty.

Annie and I are also back to our long-distance relationship status which is not cool. However, we’ve made it 3.25 years—as of tomorrow—so I think we can hang on a few more semesters without losing our minds. It tends to cause some stress when our only communication is on the phone or email, but it really eases tensions that we get to spend every other weekend together. In fact, last weekend we were home and went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It was undeniably a popcorn movie, but it was a fine flick nonetheless. I guess that’s just the way the semester will go: two weeks at a time.