A Christmas note from Beth:

This is what happens when turkey-coma sets in. Even though spencer looks
like he's dead, I assure you he is as happy as high school wes with a bucket
of ice cream, thanks to many generous suckers with scraps at the table last
night. God bless.

Merry Christmas, and may you too have a triptophantastic holiday

Beth

Fooey. Now I have to modify the program I've been writing because I want to add a new feature. I was probably 95% of the way done when I realized...

Well, hello. I see you sitting next to me on the plane. Why are you reading what I'm typing? Is there a particular reason you're getting off on this? I mean, what the fuck do you think you're doing?

Here, let me type very, very slowly. F-U-C-K-O-F-F.

There, nice, you looked away.

Okay, so, there are two ways I can go with this program. I can continue to keep everything separate from the Drupal system, or actually integrate it into the system, reaping the benefits of all of the framework that already exists.

I was even planning on doing so eventually, but not quite yet. I guess it's all part of the learning process: figure out how much information should be interegrated, how tightly, and when to do so. This is the learning process for the Flickr API, which is my next complete project. Gah, I've been working on that one for for how long now? Over two years now (time to finish that one already).

Ah, down time. Flying cross country. It's a great time to get stuff done.

This morning, Kris was in the kitchen talking to his mother, when he noticed a movie sitting on the counter. "Is this a new movie?" he asked, looking at the back cover for a release date.

His mom answered, "Yes, it's a recent movie. It's a good movie, about a rich guy who learns a lot of lessons."

I had wandered into the kitchen around then, and asked, "What type of lessons?" That's me, asking leading questions to keep the conversation going.

"You know, important ones, about love. And friendship. Suffering."

"Why is suffering a good lesson to learn?"

I don't know why I asked this. Just after the last word left my mouth, I realized the error of my question. I had managed to spend six days with Kris' family without insulting anyone. I managed to repair one relationship, and wasn't interested in damaging any other relationships. Yet, there was my question, hanging out there.

Kris stiffened.

Kris' mom inhaled sharply. She continued cutting the leftovers she was working on, saying nothing.

After a bit, her words came out slowly. "Suffering..." she started, "it's a good lesson..."

Kris looked at me, imploring me to shut. up. right. now.

So, I did. Normally, I would press on. I would want to know why the lesson of suffering is a good lesson to learn. Sure, one can learn a lot about what's important in life through suffering. Maybe breakthroughs in personal development happen with suffering. But to suffer for the sake of suffering seems both unnecessary and, well, somewhat retarded if there's no end or goal to the suffering.

We left the question unanswered, the topic unexplored. Someday, maybe, we'll have the relationship where I can press on these questions, ask why and expect a thoughtful answer instead of repeated platitudes or Bible quotes.

Today was not that day.

All of what, two weeks after I started my quest to become the #1 Kitt on Google (oh, did I forget to mention that part?), I have not only shot up to the front page on such esoteric topics as waiter walks, dyson air blade phx (#1 baby!), and what do you do when you can't go outside (duh! read my blog!), but I've also managed to become the target of a whole bunch of blog spammers.

Whoo! What fun!

Now, I'm 100% sure I haven't managed to block all sources of spam into the site and out of the site, but I've been plugging when they happen. Thankfully, a craptastically large number of people have addressed the issue of blog spam. They've developed a few tricks that make blog spam considerably less of an issue.

So, if you're asked to freshen your arithmetic skills when you try to comment next, embrace the moment. I mean, really, how often do you have to add in your head these days?

Why the hell did I upgrade to Firefox 2 again? Have I ever called Firefox a PoS? I certainly didn't mean it then like I do now. Good lord is this thing a dog. Why does it take more than 10 seconds for a new tab to open when I have only one other tab open? Dog of a program. Sheesh.