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Saturday, March 11, 2000 What is most notable about the Filled Pause Research Center is that they have.. uh, not updated their What's New page since October ah... 1998. My thanks to cocacoma for bringing this miscreant of web injustice to my attention.
Well I talked with my landlady and she said she'd be happy to keep an eye on Rennie for me and take care of him while I was away. So Rennie's no longer an excuse not to go to the SXSW. And my girlfriend has connections down in Austin. She said that according to her sources, there are still some spaces available at cheapo hotels. It would be a bit of a commute to the Convention Center, but at least I should be able to find a roof over my head at night with a shower and a bed. It won't be great but I wouldn't expect to be spending much time in the hotel room anyway. It would just be where I'd pass out for a couple hours when there was nothing going on. I tried the blog item edit tag. Just screwed me up. Not sure what I did wrong. Tried reporting it to the Pyra message board but I screwed that up too. Maybe I just should freakin' quit while I'm ahead. Anybody wanna dog? He's a cute dog. Potty trained. He smells. I never clip his nails. Other than that he's a sweet dog. Barks at mailmen... Infested with fleas... Oh! Derek is responsible for the new Blogger design! That must have been the top secret project he couldn't talk about to anyone. Well that's different! I LOVE the new look! *rolls eyes* NO REALLY! *gagging sounds in the background* It's GREAT! DEREK's A GOD! *sarcasm leaks out onto your keyboard like The Blob* I can NEVER get ENOUGH of this NEW LOOK! My PANTIES are WET with EXCITEMENT. I don't mind the new agreement change they made for Blogger. I have a link to their site on my weblog anyway. What bugs me is the new look. What was wrong with the old one? I kinda liked the old one. This new one is.. well... uhm... "bloggy." It's just very bloggy. Blocky? Maybe that's a better way to put it...?
Wow. LyndaCat emailed me kinda out of the blue. Haven't spoken with her in a long time. And it's brought back a few memories. Been quite a kick in the pants, I guess. That whole journaling experience that I tried to wash my hands of back last May but can't quite let go of, y'know it wasn't all bad. I met some wonderful people. Friday, March 10, 2000 Joined the webloggers webring @ jish.nu as you can tell since (at the moment) the html fragment is up top of the main page. Most people join webrings and then try to hide them. I figured I'd just put it right there IN YOUR FACE as it were. One of the reasons why webrings don't work is because everyone thinks if they bury the webring frag or put it on another page, people have to click around before they continue along the ring. This actually helps to make the webring dysfunctional. If you're not gonna give credence to a webring, you shouldn't join it. The success of any web project is a two way street. You be good to the webring, it'll be good to you. =P "In this industry, age doesn't matter. Results do." Great site. Educational from a down to Earth level and awe-inspiring. Melissa Sconyers should make "eTreps" twice her age quake in fear. Damn! I just realized! I can't just up and leave Sunday morning for SWSX and stay until Tuesday! Who's gonna take care of Rennie? My pet chihuahua? I can't just leave him here for three days unattended. Someone has to feed him and let him outside to poop. Dammit! If only I'd been paying attention. If I'd have known about this I coulda made plans... Oh well. It was a nice thought anyway. Woulda been neat to meet everyone. Have fun without me I guess... Should I go? SXSW looks like a chance of a lifetime.. or at least the chance of the better part of this year. I'm seriously considering it... but is it worth the money? I'll be shelling out at least a thousand dollars before the week is over, and I'll only be there three days. My days off just happen to fall right smack where the Interactive portion of the festival falls. I can't do the music or film portions. Just the interactive. Should I go? Give me a reason why I should or shouldn't go. This may be about as close as I'll ever get to some of these people but Texas is pretty damn big and a trip from Dallas to Austin isn't something I do very often. The last time I did anything close to that was last Halloween. Before that? ..dunno. This is tempting though. Probably too late just to drop by unannounced. Thursday, March 09, 2000 Damn. I wonder why This American Life hasn't done a piece about WebLogging yet? I'm sure it's on their list.
Just changed the names on the right, so I don't have to keep explainin' em. Found the RGB Color Charts. Doug moved. They're infinitely useful. Though I tend to use jpgs, I like sticking to the 256 color scheme popular when gifs were still big. It's limiting but that just makes web design more of a challenge. Something I learned during my days with Facing the Mask. It's best to keep things simple. The drawing of me up top was done by my friend Carey, who thinks I spend too much time on the computer. I took Matt Haughey's advice and added links to each separate entry. Figured that might make things easier farther down the line. Anything else? No. I might be done for the day. I bought zach.cx from Register.com last night and I may soon regret it. Stupid me. I didn't actually think to find out about where CX domains come from and I think I would have gotten a better deal had I gone direct with them. If you're looking for your name as a domain by the way, I think CX's will become popular cuz they're cheaper than com or net domains, and The Christmas Islands is just hoopy neato! The thing is, Register.com charges the same price for the domain registration as NIC.CX, but then they put your domain at a cheesy free page thingy that I can't get to look right no matter what I do cuz I can't git under the hood. I mean it's free right? What'd I expect? So I looked around their site for URL forwarding, and they'd be happy to pass my URL on to my homepage for only fifty dollars a year. I knew they'd figure a way to make money somehow. I'm trying to find a way out of it, but I think I'm just screwed. So BUYER BEWARE. If you want a CX domain I highly recommend it, but go direct to the Christmas Island people. Link is above. They don't seem to have any 'catches' at their website. It's also less than fifty bucks every two years to register a CX domain, so you save twenty bucks over the com and other domains. You also have a better chance of finding your actual name. Wednesday, March 08, 2000
Y'know, if Ana did these kinds of pictures more, I might actually sign up. Dunno why, but after looking at this, this and this, the comparatively more rare pictures like this suddenly look much more bold and sincere by comparison. Maybe it's just me. Just when you thought the Internet couldn't get any stranger, Furious George is a thrilling web-based adventure [yeah right] that spoofs the famous monkey from children's literature, turning him into a infamous deliquent fugitive running amok throughout the US. The gameplay is simplistic, but the ingenuity in the descriptions of crimes and transportations is a riot! Reading about the news and updates regarding changes made to the game is just as funny. A lot of people have helped "Whitey" make it cheat-proof by cheating and then telling him how they did it. Tuesday, March 07, 2000 Dave Winer is asking What does community mean? And EditThisPage.com, while perhaps not solely the answer, is I think pointing in the right direction. Sunday, March 05, 2000 The Headman's Wedding Page. This is a personal link. I don't wanna lose it. Aron Head is an old friend of mine from high school and college. He and I had a bit of a falling out over a decade ago. It was my fault. I mean I'm just a jerk who has a tendency of burning bridges. Ironically, we've started keeping touch again just recently in email. I was present as an usher at his first wedding. The fact I wasn't there this time is probably a good omen. It means this second marriage for him will most certainly work out. I'm not a good luck charm when it comes to marriages, as my exwife will attest. From the looks of the pictures at Aron's website though, looks like it was a beautiful ceremony. And I bet the reception rocked! Episcopalians really know how to party. I'm so damn good! I noticed the website was operating on Blogger time. I think they're in California cuz it was Pacific. I'm Central time. So I changed that and suddenly, all the entries that I thought I lost from last night were once again available at the Archives section of Blogger. So I think I saved them. Mighta lost one. "a small step for Zach. a giant leap for ZachKind. posted by Zach Garland 3/4/00 11:01:45 PM." There. That should cover all the bases. Yep. Just as I feared.. The first day of posts to this blog are gone. I did accidently kill them from the archive as I had feared. It just took awhile for Blogger to catch up. I saved a copy of the old file to my hard drive but have no way of linking them back into the system. Well I guess I won't make that mistake again. I could just post the sentiments again, but it was basically me testing in here. Just rambling test posts. Still it's a shame I accidently deleted them. This is still beta software, but the goof was largely mine. Just shoulda been more careful. We live and learn. I should probably head for bed soon. But then again I was supposed to get with the bass player for The Touch and he was gonna help me pick out a microphone for the Spoken Word stuff I do over at mp3c. Maybe I should give him a call? Sleep's overrated anyway. There's this guy at work who says he equates sleep with death, and sleeps as little as he can get away with. I can understand. Since I was a kid I've always felt like I was missing something. Damn bodies. We're overdue for an upgrade, God. We operate like electric cars without a gas hybrid engine. Run us for sixteen hours and we need a recharge. Or coffee. Sheesh. Okay think I figured it out. Sorta. Not sure if this is gonna work yet, but ZachsView is open for business. In the weeks to come I hope to channel and focus all my thoughts and opinions about the music available on the Internet here. For now, feel free to check out all the links I put there. A handful of the best artists I've heard so far. I can't push The Touch and Kickstand enough. They're two Texas bands that will knock your socks off! And there's infinitely more where that came from. If you don't have WinAmp yet you better get it. You'll need it. Okay how the hell does Cameron do all this? He can't be manually adding in his rants and essays sections. He must be using Blogger.. but then again it looks like he predates Blogger.com. Ugh. I hate bein' stoopid. I'd write him and ask him, but I'm a guy. We don't eat quiche and we don't like asking for directions. The world's round. I'll get there. Eventually I hope to expand this to include other subject matter and automate the updates cuz I'm obviously writing too much here on the front page. Maybe I'm supposed to make different Bloggers for each topic? Can I link them to each other? Break up my Blogs by subject matter and maybe manually link them to each other on the right there via the templates? Man that would be a bitch. Ugh. I'll figure it out. Okay. Recap on the right at the top of the page. ZachLog is where I plan to put the archives as the weeks go on. ZachWeb lists websites where I have left my webmutt mark (i.e. lifted my leg and spewed). NonZachs lists other Blogs by other WebLoggers who I either frequent or mean to frequent, and will also list lists of other lists of Bloggers. As if that's not absurd enough. ZachOut are websites you can go to get away from here. I may or may not have left my mark, but I frequent them and think they are particularly hoopy. They're just places I go to read what others are doing, or to learn from and stuff. ZachUdos may become a little Awards System. May not. Get it? Kudos from Zach? ZachUdos! Okay it's a suck idea. I'll probably remove that. Seems like overkill. This whole Blog thing is overkill, but it's fun! Oh, and you can ZachMail me if you wanna. Tell me that I'm blogging wrong. Uhm... you know you should be reading this backwards, right? Bottom to top? In the order I wrote it? Maybe not. Maybe I just need to start writing in such a way as to not refer to the past. Perhaps that's the point. Webloggers appear to be focusing mostly on other people's sites which of course IS still the point, but I'm just getting my feet wet. Okay. I'll go back to linking. Jargon Scout was mentioned at Pyra and appears to be an attempt at a Web-based dictionary based on web catchphrases and newly invented words to describe it all. So you and I can keep up with things. By the way I left my webmutt mark on Powacek's WebLog Opinion saying basically that this WebLogging is just a fancier way to say webmaster or guru or diarist or personal narrative artist or link wrangler or journaler.. I mean someone's been pinning down catchphrases for this for years. I give up. I'm a webmutt. Scratchin' and sniffin' and I'll go along with whatever's happening like a sick little puppy just so long as someone throws me a bone now and then. hrmm... it's still there. Now I'm really confused. I think I may have just goofed. Yesterday was the end of a week according to Blogger, and so I archived those entries. Like three of them. Then I hit the button to remove it from the index, thinking it would remove the entries from the index of this blogger, meaning this page. Unfortunately it removed it entirely from the archive index. I've saved the webserver copy of the archived page with those entries to my hard drive. I'm afraid the next time I 'post and publish' in here, that archive page will disappear. Not sure how to put it back in, seeing as how publishing updates the pages... Ugh maybe I should just go to sleep and screw with this tomorrow.
Or the mouse! Now my trackball has this thin gross film of Cafe Brazil jelly and Jergens hand lotion. GAAK! Anyone besides me ever tried to put jelly on flimsy toast while at the keyboard? I hate sticky fingers on the keys. Home finally. Made a quick detour to the Cafe Brazil in Deep Ellum for a takehome breakfast and some chocolate coffee (notetoself:ask Becky why Cafe Brazil ain't online). I'm now bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to take a crash course in what I used to do manually all the time anyway. If Blogger can speed up the process of making what is essentially an oldfashioned homepage, I'll be sold on it. Already I see a problem. I'm too longwinded. Less than twelve hours and I've filled this thing up, documenting my testing. I've had this problem before. Solutions? Switching to manual would put me back where I started. Too lazy and busy for that. Need to sleep eventually and I got Club Dada tonight! Guess who's playing! THE TOUCH! But this idea is novel and promising. I may have to research more about Pyra and figure out if it does for links what Blogger does for text. Sneaky of them. Get me addicted to Blogger and then charge for Pyra. [note added later: they DONT charge yet. It's still beta. How do people pay their bills? Does anyone make a living in this place? If you do, email me. Let me know how to do it cuz I'm tired of taking mainframe calls every night.] Hey TANSTAAFL! I know! We all gotta make a livin'. Could be worse. At least people have stopped trying to convince me to buy an imac. I just sent my blogger url to Bloat and I have no idea why. I was in Metababy earlier and for days off and on people have been cracking jokes about the movie Soylent Green. Particularly the phrase "Soylent Green is made of PEOPLE!" that Charlton Heston made so (in)famous. Well someone found an audio file on the 'Net and imbedded it in one of the pages at metababy. I viewed source and found where it came from. Turns out someone named Mark Sample wrote a very intense essay about the utopian and dystopian ideals brought into sharp relief in that film. Signs and Memory in Soylent Green is worth a read. Whether you love or loathe that film, it does shed a new light on it. {fray.org} storytelling in real life My first bookmark blog. Before you know it they'll have me right clicking. I'm such a sucker. [this was just a test by the way. Who doesn't already know about the Fray? Y'know what I just realized? And I think I'm the last one to realize this. I think a lot of people on the Web who know the name ZachsMind and kinda wince when they see it, I think they already know. I just figured it out. When I see all these links of places I've been on the Web and left my mark in one way or another... I ain't a web geek. I'm like a tomcat that hasn't been spayed. I'm just liftin' my leg on every corner of the Web and markin' my territory like a wild dog that ain't been potty trained. I ain't no webgeek. I'm a webmutt lookin' fer a home. ...heh. Okay I've been tinkering with a bunch of links. Trying to piece together what I'd like to have easy access to. Cuz let's be serious. At the moment I ain't makin' this page for youze guys cuz no one knows it's here. I'm makin' it for me. I'm sure there's supposed to be some other reason for getting into WebLoggin' but despite the fact I've tried everything from My Yahoo to My Netscape to My MP3 I have yet to find anything that can structure the 'Net the way I want it. And y'know what? I can't even do it myself, but that doesn't stop me from trying. So to the right there, for the moment, and I know it'll change a lot but at the moment, ZachWeb is all these links that take one to many other places I've been on the Web and left my mark. Not all of the places, but that's a good start. I've forgotten more URLs than I remember. NonZachs are WebLogs that have already caught my attention. Admittedly, who DOESN'T link to these guys? The links'll probably change now and then. Right now those three or so are there cuz I'm trying to learn from the masters (i.e., steal without remorse). ZachOut? Thought you'd never ask. That one's a list of places I frequent. Websites that I go back to now and again for whatever reason. I sometimes leave my mark in those places too but they're more transient and dynamic. Finally ZachUdos is a brainfart I just had. My own idea of Awards for good WebWork, only no stupid graphic linky thingies. Just from time to time if a link really blows me away, I'll put it there. Or maybe I won't. Like I said I'm sure I'll change all that in a day or two, and this "post" will be obsolete. Welcome to the Way of the Web. idrive sucks. I have this graphic thingy that I wanted at the top of this page. Where I am presently, moving it to my swbell is not feasible. Maybe later. But anyway I should be able to just link to it from idrive, right? Wrong. It worked for about an hour or two, but I guess the idrive people keep an eye on that or something. Sure you can use bookoo megabytes at their site, but only if you stay under their roof. Well I'd love to oblige them but they give no ftp information for idrive, so I'm stuck back at my swbell's meager three meg. Fortunately Blogger is mostly text. So I can experiment with it here and see if it's what I want to do with the rest of my life as a wannabe webgeek with delusions of grandeur. Anyway. What was I sayin'? Oh. Idrive sucks. I'd be willing to pay if they were more flexible and dependable. It's just as well. The graphic thingy's too big anyway. I'll have to come up with a whole layout design for this eventually... Yikes! ARGH! Stop it! I mean it! Cut it out! This is not funny! Dammit!! QUIT! NOW! Before I get violent! ..hrrm... This guy looks interesting. Is this what weblogs are supposed to look like? Cuz if so I'm way off already. He uses the word hella and I thought that was so last Tuesday. What does hella mean anyway..? Oh dear... Thought so! The Web is getting more and more creepy. Gotta question? Just ask! Or maybe if you can't word the question, just stare googly-eyed long enough it'll answer itself for you. Jesus! I need some coffee. You know. I really don't need to do this. I have a life. I have a girlfriend. Really. I get some all the time nowadays. I have a job.. at the moment. I really get out and do stuff regularly. And I'm really behind in a lot of online stuff that i should be doing. I have this interview with Zeeza that I should be editing. I have scores of emails from people wanting to be included in my station pages at mp3.com. There's bands who are asking me to go check'em out, both online and offline. I got people to see. Things to do. Places to build. Families to dysfunction. People to frag. Really. I don't need to get back into the webpage tinkering thing, man! |
ThisThing
home latest archives ZachsView ZachsTash ZachsQuotz Other ZachThingz h2g2 mp3c editthis swbell chronicle writefield the old journal the old club Blah blah blah.. Zach Garland is a 33 year old red blooded american male living in Dallas Texas USA who is terrible at describing himself (myself) so this time we'll just delete the old and replace with absolutely nothing whatsoever. You'll just have to guess what I am. Animal, vegetable or mineral? send ZachMail |
