sullust.org

After messing with some more color scheme options, this question at hand seems to be how much am I willing to rip off Penny Arcade

So a small bit of news from the world of Justin.

It looks as though I'll be headed off to Montreal over Thanksgiving break with Shota to enjoy the lovely and temperate weather that is Canada in late November. This whole "Thanksgiving Trip" has become a semi tradition for me with the last five years being Washington DC, Washington DC, stayed home, China, Montreal. I'll also have a brief stay over in DC until Shota can leave. A good time shall be had by all.

I was really hoping to be able to pay for the whole thing (at least my half) myself and with plan A (driving from DC to Montreal) that was possible. Unfortunately the reliability of Shota's car is a question mark so we're flying. As much as I'd like to cover that myself too, you try flying to DC then Canada and getting a nice hotel for a week on a student worker's paycheck. Just isn't going to happen. I'm still covering 3/4 of it (basically the cost of the ticket from DC to Montreal is being paid for by my Dad) so I don't feel too bad. I'll of course be taking a digi cam and would really like to get my grubby mits on a camcorder too. We've got a couple of funny ideas for things involving the great sites of Montreal, a scarf, and a turkey made of tofu.

Anyway, I just found out I'm not going to be able to do the paper I was intending to do tonight so I had a few free minutes to blather aimlessly on my blog, so that's what I did.

Well... this might just be workable. Based heavily off the original layout I've fiddled with the CSS (a bit of a chore for the novice I have to admit) and this is what we're looking at. Mostly it's a color change with some box resizing and borders and what not, but I like it pretty well. I'm glad to have some menus over on the right there. I'll probably have a little hassle if I want to add pages off from just the index, but that will likely be some time in the future.

Of course it goes without saying that I'm not fully happy with it, and I never will be. I'm not sure I'm digging all that orange hanging out on the right. Anyway, I like the pallet, it's the distribution that bothers me a bit.

Mostly though, I really needed to do some computery stuff that wasn't school or work related. Fiddling with the website does serve as a relaxation for me, and even fiddling with the server (as much as I cuss while I do it) is also a bit of relaxation. So if you're out there and you've got a server that needs an admin let me know :D I can set up Apache with all the fixins faster than you can say "Wow that was really fast!" I've certainly had enough practice at it...

I'm starting to get sick of this. Either I completely lack the ability to flush out a good idea, or I lack the ability to have good ideas. My lead in's suck and my closings suck. It's a pity is what it is. So I'll jump to the middle instead.

Hitler, ravaging fuckwit that he was, had a joint passion for both genocide and scattolagraphic pleasures. Leading to such memorable sayings as "Man, I've got gas like Hitler" or "Jesus, I was Hitler's girlfriend at work today."

There, that's about it. You try to build a funny post long enough to surround some pictures with that as your starting point. ::sigh::

This is an old post from a previous iteration of this site, but what the hell...

I'm digging around through the Artchive looking for paintings I can put on my walls (at the behest of Shota). You can buy posters of some of the art on the site (of which there is a great deal) which helps to support them. It seems like a pretty good idea to me. Anyway, I'm digging around and I've discovered that:

1. I have weird taste
2. That weird taste makes it somewhat difficult to find posters of what I like

Exhibit A: Of all his great works, this is not one of Leonardo's greatest. However I am the most drawn to it over all his others. I don't usually care for portraits (of which he did many) which biases me against allot of Leonardo's works. For whatever reason, I would love to have this on my wall. Sadly there is no poster of it available.

However some of the stuff I've found I really liked. I was taking the sites favorites tour and was mostly uninspired by what I saw. Sure there was some great stuff there, but I've never understood the fascination with "Whistler's Mother". Then, waiting for me at the very end, as if merely seeing if I had the patience to get to it was this which, for reasons I don't understand just yet, is fantastic. Shota said something while he was visiting about poetry (or any literature for that matter) that merely tries to tell a story without making a big deal about the language used. For those pieces, the story is what is truly important. When I write, I tend to write the same way. Having a story in mind, a goal of the message I want to deliver, and then finding the most expedient way through the language to deliver that story. To me this painting does something very similar. The skill with which it was painted is certainly great, but there's no mystery to it. There's no technique that couldn't be mastered by most any reasonably accomplished art student. This is not a revolution in art like cubism or impressionism. Those were whole new ways to depict a scene. In a sense the style (or to reference back, the language) had superseded the subject in importance. This work on the other hand is all about the story. The style has quality, but has few frills. What that story is (beyond the obvious theme of isolation) eludes me, but I like it a great deal. You can buy a poster of this one, and I thoroughly intend to.

Exhibit B: Calvary. I harbor neither affection nor dislike for paintings depicting the crucifixion. Mostly they tend to either look the same, or go too far into the fantastic (see: Dali); and that is understandable. There are really only so many ways to depict a guy on a cross. However, this one I really like. There are a number of reasons, for starters the style is neat, but it's more the content. I always get annoyed (no good reason why I just do) when a depiction of the crucifixion doesn't have the other two guys Jesus was crucified with somewhere near by. I'm not saying they have to be as prominently displayed as they are here, but it's nice to have them. In this case they are quite prominently displayed, but their suffering isn't put on an equal field with Jesus'. Not that their limbs are merely tied to the cross while Jesus has been nailed. Then of course we have the various people bemoaning poor Jesus' fate, but we also have some rather disinterested roman soldiers playing what appears to be a game and chatting amongst themselves. Hell, the guy sitting atop the rather diminutive horse and some dude behind the cross are the only two soldiers looking at Jesus. In truth, there are only three people total looking at him. I like that for some reason. But can I buy a poster of it? Of course not. Then again that might be a blessing, I'm not sure that's something I'd want to look at in my living room every day.

Exhibit C: Van Gogh's "Lane with Poplar Trees". A Van Gogh piece I've never even seen before. Amazing. I mean, as a super angsty teenager, one is required to know Van Gogh intimately. One would think this piece would be high on the list, and perhaps it is, I may have just missed it. Still, it follows with our theme of isolation with "Christina's World which is nice. I think I like "Christina's World" better, but I wouldn't mind having this one on my wall either. Except I can't. No poster.

Bach was a genius, but I hate Baroque art. I just thought I'd point that out.

Well, I was hoping to find some other good stuff, but I've really gotten tired of looking at modern art that seems as if it were drawn by a toddler, and if I never see another Madonna with Child for the rest of my days, I shan't miss them.

some, however, are a donut.

"Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone"
-Dan Brown Angels & Demons

I've heard this sentiment expressed a few times; that despite a plethora of ways to communicate with anyone from anywhere, we manage to feel as lonely, if not more so, than we ever have before. It of course makes perfect sense. By having devices which make it a trivial matter to contact me, and by having all of those devices silent; I am given final and incontrovertible proof that in the end, no one wants to talk to me.

I just read a great computer science article that would likely bore most of you to tears. It is masterfully written and I feel raises many points readily applicable to more than just programming languages, but software development in general.

I'll write some more about it when I've gotten some sleep, I write this mostly as a reminder to myself.

I also want to write about freenet, but again, I'll wait until I've slept.

Sonic Wire Sculptor

This thing is so cool it hurts.

Of course if I stick with blogger you know what that means don't you? I'll have to actually design a site! NOOOOO!

I mean, how much geek streed cred can I possibly have when my site is one of 6 possible templates on a very popular blogging site?

Thank GOD!

At some point a few days ago blogger started failing to upload properly. It looks like it was a problem on their end, not mine. That's a comfort. In the interval though I learned there was a security update for geeklog, and in the time I spent trying to upgrade it I learned to HATE geeklog. So screw it into the bloody bowels of hell I tells ya!