Tags: music | review

One of the many perks of my job is that we can listen to music whilst we work. A perk I believe a lot of jobs offer, but a perk none the less. So, anyway, I recently sucked down Tom Waits' entire discography and decided it would be epic to listen through it all chronologically while cranking out code. Trust me, it was good times. This was of particular interest to me because I certainly had not yet heard all of his catalogue and further, my fandom of Waits came about via mp3 downloads and not even album torrents. I'd, for the most part, not taken in his music via album. So, to take a walk through his catalogue in chronological order by album was an excellent opportunity, for sure.

So, how the fuck did it go, amirite?

Well, by far my favourite three albums were, in order:

1. Mule Variations (1999)

2. Blood Money (2002)

3. Alice (1992) (album released 2002)

Which seems to suggest an affinity for a certain era of Waits' career, not something I assumed was the case.

From there the list would continue as something like...

4. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006) - though this doesn't all together count, since it's mostly a compilation

5. Bone Machine (1992)

6. Rain Dogs (1985)

7. Frank's Wild Years (1987)

8. The Black Rider (1993)

9. Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)

10. Heartattack and Vine (1980)

11. Blue Valentine (1978)

12. Small Change (1976)

13. Closing Time (1973)

14. Real Gone (2004)

15. Swordfishtrombones (1983)

16. The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)

17. Foreign Affairs (1977)

18. Night on Earth (1992)

19. One from the Heart (1982)

So there you have it. I'm sure that list will undulate as time goes, as these things wont to do. But that's my ordering today. Maybe my next blog entry won't be a list! (yeah right)

Tags: blog | joomla | meta

You can finally feed your Google Reader and other such applications by clicking the RSS link on the left. woo!

I've also managed to get my 'who' page running as an article in Joomla (wasn't hard, once I started to figure the system out!). So the only thing left is to figure out how to render my left menu properly instead of hard-coded in my template.

Tags: blog | joomla | meta

*tap tap* this thing still on? Excellent!

Well, Blogger decided in all its wisdom that us proud and few FTP Users were a worthless bunch of losers not worth supporting. Whatev, guys!

So I set about finding a replacement that I could run right on my host, since I like to have some control over things. I knew I probably didn't want a straight blogging engine, because I eventually want to add on my own shit to this silly little Internet haven.

So, I did some reading and asked around. The first rec I got was for Drupal. Drupal seemed neat enough, but I got frustrated trying to turn it into a blog and moved on. In this case, as it turns out, the second time was the charm, as I tried out Joomla, next, and was fairly pleased with how easily it became a blog and provided reasonable usability for doing what I wanted to be able to do. Right now, this blog is humming along on Joomla, and is no longer having anything to do with those filthly bastards at Blogger. :-)

I was able to mostly get the Joomla version of my blog looking like the old version, but it's not quite identical. That's no big deal. Each post looks a little different. Tags are at the top (I'm betting over time I might learn how to change them to bottom where I prefer them) and there are three nifty icons on each post for printing/pdfing/emailing the post. Frankly, that's pretty wicked, imo. There are some other tiny cosmetic differences, too.

What did I use? Well, I'm running standard Joomla 1.5.15. I added the jComments plug-in, for a commenting system. And I added the jTags plug-in for tagging. I think I added some extended search page, too, but I can't remember what it was. Not that interesting, anyway.

I then screwed around with getting my custom template going. I've cheated, a little. I've hard-coded my menus instead of styling the Joomla generated menu. I'll make it a to-do to go to the auto-gen'd menu, since I think that's the truer way to go and is likely to be flexible at some point in the future. I also stayed with a hard-coded who page, which I also hope to figure out how to stlye a generated who page later on.

I do have to figure out how to link to RSS feeds for Joomla, as I know at least one person reads my blog via Google reader. I'm sure it's easy, just need to look it up.

With this task handled I have a couple of blogging projects  I intend on getting started. A previously mentioned movie project, and another one that I have to think about before I post anything about. The edge of your seat, you're on it, I'm sure.

Tags: 2009 | 2010 | movies | music | new year | Toronto

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
Visited Toronto (and the moved there). Went to a comic convention (Fan EXPO). Saw Leonard fucking Nemoy speak! Saw Bruce fucking Campbell speak! Went to a major league baseball game. Went to the CN Tower! Tons of little Toronto, things, really. Went to the ROM to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance.

2. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

3. What places did you visit?
We 'visited' PEI, since we don't live there anymore. We visited Toronto before we moved here. Visited Niagara Falls for the first time.

4. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A monthly budget that balances.

5. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 27th (hilariously I had originally written the 28th (because my computer is British and starts the week on Monday) so, yeah this date is etched right into my memory!): movers show up a day early and start loading the truck while we finish packing the kitchen. Leave Halifax at 10pm to start the drive to Toronto.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Made it through the year in one piece.

7. What was your biggest failure?
Mishandling of stress.

8. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Got sick a couple of times, but nothing remarkable.

9. What was the best thing you bought?
Super Mario Bros Wii? Firefly/Serenity on DVD? Nothing important, clearly.

10. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Kelly's, Petrie's (little guy got very affectionate late in the year), Sivvy's.

11. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Mostly my own.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Moving to Toronto and all related expenses.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Super Mario Bros Wii.

14. What songs will always remind you of 2009?
The best thing I can come up with is the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack, which is a lame answer.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier, believe it or not
b) thinner or fatter? I'm lighter, but not thinner
c) richer or poorer? Vastly poorer, and that's saying something

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Relaxing, hobby software development, reading, playing video games (those are pretty much all under the heading of relaxing, of course)

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Stressing, watching TV

18. What was your favourite TV program?
Arrested Development, Buffy (though it was partially in 2008), and Angel.

19. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Well that's kinda negative, isn't it?

20.What was the best book you read?
Love is a Mix Tape (I think I read that in 2009). Watchmen.

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Started listening to a surprising amount of Death From Above on my walkman and holy crap fell in love.

22. What did you want and get?
A fresh start.

23. What did you want and not get?
A job that paid enough to balance our budget.

24. What was your favourite film of this year?
Hrm... I wish I could remember the list (thankfully writing it down in 2010!). I know there are a few that we watched and we thought afterward "that was really good!" but I can't remember what the hell they were. Let me trudge through the Wikipedia entry...

An Education was pretty good.
Kelly and I really, really loved the new Star Trek movie which neither of us expected.
The Hangover was unexpectedly hysterical.
Away We Go was fantastic.

There is probably at least one movie not released in 2009 that we saw for the first time and liked, but the above is a decent list.

25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
With apologies to Kelly, who I know did nice things, I can't really remember. I believe there was good food and movies.

26.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Larges sums of money.

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Getting better.

28. What kept you sane?
Kelly. Joss Whedon. The cats. How interesting Toronto has turned out to be.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I had Nathan Fillion here, then realized he's more of an early 2010 answer.

30. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Toronto Garbage Strike.

31. Who did you miss?
I missed my family a bit on Christmas Day, but other than that I'm a cold bastard that doesn't miss people much.

32. Who was the best new person you met?
Made fast friends with a co-worker which has been a life saver at new job.

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009?
I'm capable of a lot more than I realize (which is to say, I think I'm capable of very little) so I should probably chill the fuck out.

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"If I Had $1000000
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner"