I have been a licensed user of Ecto weblogging software since 31 March 2006.1

I’m posting this entry because the developer of Ecto, Adriaan Tijsseling, has chosen to censor me on his developer’s blog.2

If after posting a blog entry (with or without Ecto) you edit the code for a blog entry in a text editor, say BBEdit, and then load that entry into Ecto, Ecto wipes out all advanced tagging, including but not limited to CSS tags, XML markup, and HTML styling. Ecto will not notify you that it has made these changes. So if, for example, you use Ecto to do a minor edit of a blog entry, all of your specialized markup will silently but surely disappear. You did have backup copy of all that markup, right?3

Mr. Tijsseling has chosen to censor me on his blog where such information would be very helpful to both advanced and intermediate users, so I will speak out and warn users here.

Posted by mistersquid at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Whenever Carrie’s (Caron Rouzie’s) smile started beaming my way, I’d start feeling nervous, worried that in the sure-to-follow conversation I would react in ways outside my awareness. It doesn’t really matter now, I guess, since my anxieties never met their confirmation. From what her family, her husband, and her friends said, I think Carrie had been gentle with me.

Stephen was struck that one of his last acts was to carry the package from the car to the house. Carrie the package was the nickname her grandfather gave her. Forty-six years later, Stephen would remember that nickname after being asked to carry the package containing the remains of Carrie the package. With Carrie, the grandfather had said, you were getting a complete package.

Unfamiliarity means these words are easier to find than the words for the ones who are closer: Dean, Dylan, Houston, my father.

Once she said, “I’m not as stupid as you look.” I’m guessing that the person might have deserved it. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t worried that person could have been me. I’m lucky she could be gentle.

Val waited patiently as I said my goodbyes. I hadn’t expected it to happen, but as I told Catherine, it’s as if suddenly there’s this house in front of you. You don’t have to do anything. It’s just there, waiting for you to come inside.

In one picture, Carrie is wearing a dark red sun dress printed with what looks like white flowers. She’s leaning forward, hands on her knees and her back to the camera. She’s smiling over her left shoulder, beautiful beyond words. She liked drawing cartoons.

It’s not something you think. It’s just there, and you’re never ever expecting it.

Posted by mistersquid at 9:51 PM | Permalink

Blabbermouth computer!

Posted by mistersquid at 12:29 AM | Permalink

For nearly the entire two and an half weeks I’ve been back in Athens, I’ve had hardly a moment to gather my thoughts. I apologize for the terse placeholder posts of the last few weeks and, now, for the journaly mood of this entry. I have nothing else right now.

This morning somewhere near one-thirty am, I finished a draft of “Prototype for a Black Cyborg Subject.” It’s fifteen pages longer than it should be. I don’t know what to do about my “voice,” my prolixity. It seems that outside of my journal and my blog entries, I only know how to write book chapters. I am slowly losing my mind.

Oh, and that brings me to my serious peeve of 2007. My east-side next-door neighbors have gone away for the winter. Bless their octogenarian hearts, but they’ve installed a motion-sensing floodlight on a shed in their backyard and the father-loving thing is on for most of the night, triggered (I’m imagining) by innumerable and nearly invisible animals, branches, and disembodied bad vibes. This is a serious problem because daylight wakes me and the floodlight bathes the corner of my house where my bedroom is located. I’ve found myself uncharitably wishing someone would break into their house, get hold of their ladder, a screwdriver, uninstall the floodlight, and make off with it.

I’m also finding myself challenged to withhold moral judgement. I don’t normally have much of an opinion about the intensity and magnitude of the self-deception people I know perpetrate on themselves. I do observe that self-deception (often a psychological mechanism that enables one to deceive others with clear conscience) may have negative consequences often not worth the arrangements protected by the self- and other-deception in question, but I don’t usually have opinions about the bare fact of such dishonesty.

Except, I’m furious for having to suffer as a result of the decisions, behaviors, and self-deception of others, especially when those decisions, behaviors, and deceptions have nothing to do with me. Yes, tag this paragraph “self-pity” because that’s what I’m giving myself. Even so, I think you should know anyone can see through you as through a window. Seriously. (And, yes, I’m talking to you.)

To the rest of you, I wasn’t expecting that. I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish and so naive.

Posted by mistersquid at 10:38 PM | Permalink

“It’s a very exciting time.”

Posted by mistersquid at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

“I haven't been up to anything today. I can't be bothered with anything recently. Nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven't gotten anything done recently, but oh well. Not much noteworthy going on worth mentioning.”1

Posted by mistersquid at 8:55 PM | Permalink

Dean, I miss you.

Posted by mistersquid at 11:25 PM | Permalink

Domain names are tricky. You sign up for one, thinking it’s a pretty cool name. Then, after a year or three, you’re like “What the jackson was I thinking when I registered blurfle.org?” Anyhow, I’ve decided that desiringmachine.net isn’t so hip, notwithstanding it’s Deleuzean origins.

I’ve changed baby’s primary name server to snowbase.net and have moved desiringmachine’s neglected blog to desiringmachine.snowbase.net.

At some point in the near future, I may relinquish control over the desiringmachine.net domain. If I host your website or provide you with email, you’ll need to update your server information, especially the authoritative DNS servers for those domains of yours which I host.

The image below is a link to a short video explaining how to update Godaddy’s DNS servers, or you can download the video directly (7.4 MB, QuickTime required).1

As you were.

Posted by mistersquid at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)