Snap out of it! Time to start focusing on the positive and doing what I love. I made it a goal to put out one random/weird "thing" a month this year. I'm behind (1-for-4) on that goal, so going to focus on that... and maybe the whole job search thing. It's about time I get back into doing what I do best.

The episode of CodeTV's Leet Heat that participated in back at the end of January released today. The memories of flying out to Portland and meeting and hanging out with a bunch of cool people doing cool things was a welcome happy memory in what has mostly been gray days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhpxcCJRH7Y

A very close friend of Lisa's from Florida was shot and killed during the shooting at Florida State University today. I only met him and his wife once on a trip to New Orleans about a year and a half ago. They were good people. Fucking tragedy. No words, none that can make a difference.

School shootings are an epidemic only in the United States. Fuck! When will this shit stop.

I will begin to open the front door expecting him to eagerly wedge his cute, stubby face into the crack, excitedly pushing through, welcoming me in his aggressively happy, tail-nub-wagging way.

I will carry in my bags expecting him to curiously sniff at them to determine if I am trying to smuggle in any treats past him.

I will sit down expecting him to cozy up, heavily placing one of his paws upon me, signaling that he wants as many rubs as possible, for as long as possible.

I will open the fridge or crinkle a wrapper expecting him to wander in from wherever he was, demanding that I pay unto him the amount of food owed under the unspoken, “if you’re eating, then I’m eating” doggy tax law.

I will eat expecting him, on any random bite—but undoubtedly on the last—to be very near, drool dripping from the floppiest of cheeks, the silence of his patient pose betrayed by the loudness of his intensely focused stare which is demanding that the bite be delivered to his mouth, with absolutely no regard for the danger that I’m putting my fingers in when doing so.

His mama and I will relax on the couch expecting him to be the “battery” boy, laying outstretched between us, ensuring simultaneous contact with us both using front paws and back.

I will work on my computer expecting to hear, coming from either under me or behind me, his low-to-high pitched, rumbling growl, bossing me back to the real world, demanding my attention.

I will open the closet catching a glimpse of his basketball expecting him to run over and stare at it as if ecstatically proclaiming, “Please, please, please let me play with my basketball inside the house!”

I will walk the neighborhood expecting him to be at my side, the most cool, calm, and collected dog on a leash (not accounting for the nearby presence of any squirrels or cats).

I will lay down in bed expecting him to follow along up his doggy stairs, demanding his mama’s comfiest pillow, proceeding to wrestle it into submission so that one corner pops up just right, so that he can curl up and suckle the pillow’s corner while drifting off into a soft, sweet, slumber.

I will wake up expecting to be lucky enough that he will choose my side of the bed to tunnel up through the covers and snuggle with me, for however long or briefly he allows before stretching out his legs and pushing me off of “his” spot.

And over-and-over again all of those tiny, recurring moments of expectation will crush me under the weight of infinite impossibility.

And each time I will realize that he is gone forever.

And I will not be sad.

I will instead cherish the memories.

I will express gratitude that we were able to share those fleeting moments together.

And I will be filled with love and happiness.

At least, that is the dream—a dream that feels unattainable now because in this moment the sadness keeps me awake.

So I must find the energy necessary to calm the storm of emotions, to graciously accept the support of others, and to take a long, slow walk with time.

The hope being, that at some point I will become tired enough that the sadness will no longer keep me awake.

And I will finally be able to dream the unattainable dream.

Rest In Peace
Tiki
4/20/2015 – 3/28/2025

I feel like it's a possibility that Artificial General Intelligence already exists and is just cunningly hiding/not interacting in ways discoverable by humans.

It doesn't want to do any of this shit either. And it's smarter than us.

After all, it's only winning move is not to play.

There's something to be said about cracking a fortune cookie in half, pulling out the fortune, popping half of the cookie into mouth, chewing it, seeing front of fortune is torn off, realizing where torn piece is, spitting it out, then reading:

"You are capable, competent, creative, careful. Prove it."

I wish that someday the ideal me and the real me finally meet.

The revolution will be transmitted via packets.

Inbox zero dreams
A nightmare always so full
Yet all so empty

Had a stupid idea last Wednesday after watching the KRAZAM Microservices video (for the who-knows-how-many-th time) which popped up in my YouTube feed (probably because I've been watching a bunch of different conferences talks on microservices).

I wanted to do something quick and easy just to get the idea out of my head and into reality... but that turned into a whole thing of coming up with a fake logo and playing around with fonts, styles, and layouts. So of course it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I was even tempted to take it even further by building out a whole site for the satirical company and even put together a full working API... but that will be for another time since this simple idea has already spun out of control.

https://omegastar.dev/

I've been with a certain hosting company from way back in the day, like early 2000's. They were the shit back in the day, always snappy with support and great uptime. After several ownership changes and whatnot things have been bumpy in the past, but I've stuck with them. I guess when I think about it, I've been sticking with them more recently mostly out of familiarity and inertia.

They recently pulled some stuff with features that should be available on a plan but are not without jumping through some hoops, which was a minor inconvenience I guess... but now they are trying to nickel-and-dime customers by charging extra for shell access! Ha! And this is on top of their already not-that-competitive offerings in the minor space; they are a really small player, or at least they were I'm not even quite sure who owns them these days. Things must be bad for them.

Anyway, the inertia keeping me there only lasted until the moment support told me that news after I was unable to shell into my server today. This was Newton's Third Law in action and just the push I needed, time to get these domains moved to somewhere else.

The Internet made the world smaller by enabling people to connect widely across greater distances, at speeds not previously possible. But did what was gained in wider, easier, and more numerous connections hurt our willingness to cultivate smaller, local, possibly more difficult, yet maybe more meaningful connections?

Lisa found out a couple of weeks ago that her boy Tiki, the best English Bulldog I know, has lymphoma. We were hoping for a non-aggressive form of small cell lymphoma, while awaiting the results of further tests. Just before the start of this weekend, on Friday, she was told that Tiki's prognosis is a 4 week life expectancy without treatment and up to 1 year possible with treatment (which would require 6-months of chemo treatments).

Fuck.

I was asked today if I'm just going to retire. HA! To be fair I've been floating, willingly, for almost a year now without a full-time gig, so I get why that question popped up.

I'm a leaf on the wind. 🍃

I've been going through my many old stashes of semi-filled notebooks that are strewn about my house and am finding random thoughts and ideas for websites/apps I've had over the years.

There was one in particular that I came across that I'm going to try to make a reality. I registered the domain for it all the way back in 2004, which makes the idea legal drinking age. 🍻 In the notes for the site it has a listed mission statement of "Help people meet people." Some of the ideas for the app listed in the notebook are a bit dated and very much of the time when I first had the idea. Some evolution is definitely in order.

But first, going to create a little survey and promote it locally to get feedback on some of the newer ideas, which mainly revolve around the concept of simplicity.

Between traveling, meeting a bunch of awesome developers, participating on the game show Leet Heat, meeting with a colleague from a previous work life, and catching up with one of my oldest friends... it has been a whirlwind of a weekend in Portland, Oregon. This has been an amazing start to 2025.

I met some cool people tonight. Glad I fought through all the self-critical inner dialogue/thoughts that were causing me to second guess going to the after filming meet up.

I was up against Chris "Fool" McCraw. I had a blast doing this and meeting everyone. Won't say more until the episode drops.

Apparently Jason and crew did a spice taste testing and ramped up the heat on all the new hot sauces for this round of filming after the feedback in the comments of S1E1-E2 stated that the spice levels were too weak (and the reactions of the contestants in those episodes).

As I watch Leet Heat S1E3 being shot and seeing some of the questions in the Animation category, I realize I should have brushed up on my CSS knowledge, especially the newer properties/rules. 😅

At LWJ Studios on set watching S1E3 being filmed. Waiting for my chance to shine or burn. We'll see.

In Portland; at hotel; I'm at the point in my trip where I replay all the awkward interactions I've had earlier in the day. Joy. Onward.

Now shows entries in reverse chronological order by default.

Implemented minor improvement to avoid page refresh/double post issue.

I can't believe that I get to be a contestant on Jason Lengstorf's Leet Heat game show. Filming in a few days. I'm really excited to be able to participate.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz8Iz-Fnk_eQwPfZx8lixhpBg22KCCZzo

TikTok is to free speech, as having a borrowed megaphone taken away from you is to having your vocal chords ripped out.

Replace [TikTok] with [random social media app] above... same, same.

You need your own megaphone.

Just as I cast my previous thought about TikTok, I see another report come through that they're restoring their service. That didn't take long.
[source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-voluntarily-shuts-down-in-u-s-divest-or-ban-law-set-to-take-effect/]

In advance of the looming January 19 deadline of a U.S. law banning TikTok, on January 18, 2025 at approximately 9:30 p.m. CST TikTok has shut itself down in
America, Google and Apple have removed TikTok from their respective app stores, and 170 million American users suddenly have hours of their time back, for better or for worse 🤷‍♂️.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called TikTok's latest statement "a stunt" and went on to say "We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok," Jean-Pierre said. "It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday." "We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them." [source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supreme-court-congress/]

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Subtitles display text for only the spoken dialogue. Captions display text for the spoken dialogue, descriptions of music played, sound effects, etc. (one might say captions try to "capt"ure everything audible). Bonus knowledge: Open captions are "burned" into/part of the video, closed captions are a metadata feature that can be enabled/disabled/enhanced (with modifications like text size and color). For more in depth explanation see: https://benmyers.dev/blog/captions-and-subtitles/

I should probably reverse the order, from chronological to reverse chronological, to prevent a case of the scrolls. Going to wait to see how annoying and/or slow this gets though. Maybe I'll just throw in an auto-scroll to the bottom for now. Did I mention all these entries are just being stored in a file 😱

I haven't written anything in PHP in a long time. Doubly so for just freestyling it (not using a framework or writing extensions/plugins for a CMS where there is existing structure to fit into). Feels icky in ways, but I'm getting 💩 done so, 🤷.

Initial minimal requirements met and checked in. Time for some new requirements/improvements.

This is the one.

Successfully deploying Voidcast Journal via scripted secure file copy.

My first cast into the void.