seek

not

the

past

A variable content blog! Reload for a different message...

...and if I left out the preluding explanation and the *Reload* button, how confusing might this be?

But my point is not deception, but seemless variability. Using this technique would allow a "random" post to present itself to readers. Let's say I have four poems of equivalent merit that I want to put out. Instead of posting them all in the same post incoherently juxtaposed or posting them in consecutive posts where the "earlier" ones will get pushed down and tend to be ignored, I allow them all to serve themselves up on reload. This technique, I think, might prove useful if a blogger is going to take a break for a while but wants to provide his/her readership with the ability to return upon consecutive days to possibly get a flavor of something "new".

Note: the code for this "chameleon blog" is found in the post below.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Here's the code for the random "place-filler" blog up above.

(note: this code is proclaimed to work on IE4+ and Netscape6+ browsers; yet seanmeister maintains that it deosn't work under his implementation of Mozilla/Netscape)

If you want to experiment with this, you'll need to cut and paste the code below into a posting window while (very important!) having the "Edit HTML" box checked.  Likewise, if you want to edit the code later, you'll have to have the same box checked.

Some considerations:

1) //Specify IFRAME display attributes

These are all customizable attributes.  A width of about 650 spans the typical xanga page (if that's what you desire, but less is ok) and the height doesn't need to be too large if you set scrolling equal to "yes".

2) //Specify random URLs to display inside iframe

You'll need to change these to match the source of your own content.  Although there are seven slots here (0 through 6), you can have as few (delete from higher number backwards)  or as many random slots as you want.  If you add more, they must number uniquely upwards (i.e., 7, 8,...etc.)

Note also that the URL's could all be the same except for one or two.  In such an instance, you'd be changing the "weighting" and enhancing the probability of a "heavier weighted" URL (more occurences) displaying more often than a "lighter weighted" URL (e.g., one occurence only).

The "random URL's" that I've included are referencing separate html pages that I posted on a non-xanga site.  I created the same background on these pages as on my xanga site so that they would "blend in".  And the reason for posting them off of xanga is this: on xanga, even from separate blogs, as a post they would include all the cluttering "header" space and information up top first.  By creating a simple html page off-xanga , just the relevant content can be included.

<SCRIPT language=JavaScript1.2><br /> //Random iframe content- © Dynamic Drive (www.dynamicdrive.com)<br /> //For full source code, and Terms Of use, visit http://dynamicdrive.com<br /> //This credit MUST stay intact for use<br /> var ie=document.all&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera")==-1<br /> var dom=document.getElementById&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera")==-1<br /> //Specify IFRAME display attributes<br /> var iframeprops='width=550 height=50 marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"'<br /> //Specify random URLs to display inside iframe<br /> var randomcontent=new Array()<br /> randomcontent[0]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/lovesme.html"<br /> randomcontent[1]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/lovesmenot.html"<br /> randomcontent[2]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/needher.html"<br /> randomcontent[3]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/needsme.html"<br /> randomcontent[4]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/notneedme.html"<br /> randomcontent[5]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/loveher.html"<br /> randomcontent[6]="http://www.foradora.com/xanga/ambiguity/wanthernow.html"<br /> //No need to edit after here<br /> if (ie||dom)<br /> document.write('<iframe id="dynstuff" src="" '+iframeprops+'></iframe>')<br /> function random_iframe(){<br /> if (ie||dom){<br /> var iframeobj=document.getElementById? document.getElementById("dynstuff") : document.all.dynstuff<br /> iframeobj.src=randomcontent[Math.floor(Math.random()*randomcontent.length)]<br /> }<br /> }<br /> window.onload=random_iframe<br /> </SCRIPT></p> <p>

Finally, make sure that the quotes ("   ") around the URLs are intact before submitting.  When you paste new URLs into the script, they seem, at first, to disappear with the URL's presentation as an underscored hyperlink.

Finally, finally: Only one of these types of posts can appear at "a time", that is, on the front page "current 5" posts of your blog.  Trying to include more than one breaks the second effort.  But you can either wait until the first one passes onto the "next 5" posts (off the main page of your blog) or simply push the old one "off" with intermediary filler posts between. (I made my post of yesterday that used this very same script "private" to avoid this limitation to the above post for my readers.)

Now, below, if you care to make use of it (it's not essential--any reload will work), is the "Reload" button from the blog above. I used a sleight of hand in having it "reload" to the comment page. Moreover, I had it "reload" the comment page that is accessed by the link of "Comment box not working? Click here." since this script has a tendency to break the default comment capability.

<P><A href="http://www.xanga.com/item.asp?user=notforprophet&tab=weblogs&uid=3971421&e=1" target=_self><IMG src="http://i.xanga.com/notforprophet/reload.gif" width=48 border="0" alt="Reload"></A></P><br />

Important considerations:

1) You can leave the reload.gif reference to my picture files as it is--I've no problem with that. 2) But you must change the A href= " " to reference your specific post--not mine (as displayed here).

To do this, after your post has posted,

a) go to the comment page and re-access it by clicking on the "Comment box not working? Click here."

b) copy the URL for this and include it in the A href=" " section of the code above.

c) edit your post with the "Edit HTML" button checked and include the "Reload" button code where appropriate.

This will permit your reader to both reload new random content while accessing the "simplified" comment page thus avoiding the possible need for your reader to re-initialize a "broken" comment box induced by the script.

Have you seen the TV commercial where the guy is surfing the 'net and the voice comes on and says, "You've reached the end of the internet You've seen everything there is to see. Go back. Go back...NOW." ?  Sometimes you have to feel that way about blogging, too: “You’ve already blogged your stinking guts out. STOP…there’s nothing left to say.” 

Or rather, there may still be things left to say, but they’ve become trivial compared to all in life there is yet to do.  Like a variation of the Heisenberg Indeterminacy principle, perhaps we can’t devoutly and inviolately blog and live life in all matters otherwise to the fullest  simultaneously?

Think of it as eating food and breathing air: both necessary , both hopefully enjoyable, yet it’s most difficult to inhale while the gulp is going down.   Time away from blogging can be like letting some gulps go down.  It’s natural: don’t fight the occasional urge to let life’s rich adventures feed you with non-blogging experiences.

Blog alert: the information contained in this post clearly preempts by critical priority that of the last.

If you ever need to catch a kangaroo (and, sooner or later, who doesn't?), chase it down a tortuously narrow dead-end alleyway.  Why?   Because kangaroos can't walk backwards.

All Americans must collectively breathe a sigh of relief that the threat of continuous, lambasting, mortal domestic terror since 9-11 hasn’t substantiated itself.  For nearly a year, besides a few limited “biological terror” concerns, our infrastructure, and more importantly, our very lives have not been successfully assailed.  This respite is, of course, no assurance at all against future assaults.  But still we mustn’t discount our pacific blessings, whether achieved by our own vigilance or terror’s inabilities, in this matter either.

Yet there seems to be a niche of “terror-journalism” that, due to this domestic abeyance, is in danger of withering through the loss of this dynamic.  You see, terrorists themselves can be patient if necessary and stealthily stretch a jihad, like a Crusade, or like an encapsulated virus undergoing a transitional crypto-senescence, across decades…or even longer.  Yet today’s journalists covering and even now specializing in “terror”  must constantly provide a feed of vociferous fuel to the journalistic fire of topical “terror” in order to keep the storyline “hot”.  Like a steel plant with an investment need to retain ever-incandescent cauldrons, corporate journalism today fears “going cold” on a topic, even during a genuine hiatus of “pertinent” developments,  because it dreads losing its visibility, its “glow”, and watching its journalistic investments become a sunk cost.  A steel plant knows that it is financially much, much less expensive to keep the forges “hot’, even during long work stoppages, than to re-fire from cold turkey anew.   So, too, will journalists continue to stoke the “terror notion” even if they have to resort to straining the imagination ad absurdum by stretching journalistic jargon: 

The acoustic terrorism fostered by boom cars runs counter to the desire of most Americans for peace and quiet. The Census Bureau notes that noise is Americans' No. 1 complaint about their neighborhoods. Noise levels have risen sixfold in major U.S. cities in the past 15 years, and automobiles are the largest source of noise. Peace-loving citizens need to reclaim the streets. Some have already begun: In Chicago, boom cars that can be heard from 75 feet are subject to seizure and their owners may be fined $615. Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh also are cracking down on boom cars. In Papillion, Neb., owners of car stereos that can be heard from 50 feet away can earn themselves three months in jail.

—Ted Reuter, "Today's boom cars are nothing if not acoustic terrorism," Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2002

Our homeland security is violated every time a "boom car" goes by with 150-plus decibels of audio onslaught. You know what that means? Some of our kids are terrorists. Has your peace ever been invaded by a boom car? Of course it has, unless you live in a gated fort. These car stereos can shake your windows, rattle your furniture and roll you out of a deep sleep. Heard for more than a mile, these systems are made to annoy, not to be listened to.

Manufacturers advertise these systems as destructive devices - for instance, Sony's slogan for its Xplod speakers is "disturb the peace." Prestige Stereo boasts that its four-channel, 120-watt amp will "put the over-40 set into cardiac arrest."

These systems disturb the peace and ought not to be allowed in Martin County. They injure the users by inducing chronic fatigue syndrome, and detract other drivers.

Acoustic terrorism merely is a symbol of hypermasculinity and displays sexist behavior with desire for domination. Get smart, lawmakers, give us peace; ban anything over 80 decibels like many cities.

—David Opasik, "Boom-car 'terrorists' disturb our local peace," The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News, May 13, 2002

So we now that we have evolved into outbreaks of  acoustic terrorism, surely soon, shall we not, begin to hear also of  eruptions of “artistic terrorism” , “culinary terrorism”, “fashion terrorism”, “linguistic terrorism”, “meteorological terrorism”,  and more?  But will they ever examine the concept of “journalistic terrorism”, the premise of which is unrelenting momentum in propagating terror-based stories?    Of course not!    But let us remain wary.   For if the idiom of terrorism is contorted too vastly, the core commodity of true bestial inhumanity might become cloaked amongst the dribble of t -words.  Like the boy who cried “wolf” too often, “Terror!” becomes less appropriately terrifying the more cavalierly it is pimped.

I found a nice free applet called Glass2K for Windows 2000/XP that can make any desktop window transparent (10%-90% or opaque) and keep it an always "on-top" pop-up, too.   This is proving useful for keeping my daughter-sized chat window always "on-top" for viewability's sake while yet be able to simultaneously blog "underneath".

In fact, I just keep the chat window at 10% transparent and on-top until someone comes on to chat, then make it always on-top but opaque (non-transparent) in a quarter of the screen.  Thusly, I can pretty much visit blogs, comment, and chat on the *side* simultaneously.  It works for me!

I refuse to use an umbrella (Spanish, paraguas--"for rain" vs. parasol--"for sun") when it rains.  It makes me feel claustrophobic and tends to create a hindrance to clear visibility.  Moreover, although it deflects the rain, it seems to make the defensive bearer more vulnerable to other dangers such as lightning strikes, bumping into people and things, and displaying a larger profile as a potential target.  Yep, I'm always mindful of my *target profile*.  Guess that's why I like to stay alert in public, move inpulsively, and traverse the cityscape like it's an obstacle course.  The *target profile* thing is probably why the military uses ponchos instead of umbrellas, along with the fact that an umbrella preoccupies a hand.  Can you picture a combat unit engaged in battle in the trenches all displaying umbrellas (even if they were camouflage)?!

So what's the implication of my headstrong disdain of umbrellas?  When it rains, and I have to be out in it, I get wet.  This morning, on the walk from the parking lot to work (about a quarter mile), I got a real good drenching beneath an effusively amorphous cloudburst .  Even the underwear went unspared.  But, hey, when I used to live in the jungle (Panama, late mid-80s), I'd get just as soaked every day by noon from my own sweat.  So what's the difference, I ask?  Today, I just made-believed I was skinny-dipping in clothes--mwuahaha--it was fun.  And now I'm soaked! (brrr...freezing in this office air conditioning)...

an ominous black and flashing storm
assaults the downtown noonday blocks
torrentially turtling all traffic in intersections
and punctuating violent, anomalous pause
in the usual sidewalk
babble of bodies.
only a few impulsive umbrellad bravadoes now
willing to suffer
the victimizing wet.
otherwise
people impatiently waiting
their sanctuaries in angry fret.
here, beneath a department store canopy,
a woman curses the weatherman.
there, stranded in a phone booth,
a man stamps puppet feet.
all along the avenues
hoots and howls of abject damnation
for nature and its tempers.
i, an omniscient observer, think now
of ancient fish fluent in the depths of abyssal seas,
while below in sewers
rats drown in the abundant drink.

 Under Construction

I ran outside last night which serves for me to meet not only a need for exercise in maintaining fitness, but also to provide me with bloggable inspirations.  You see, ever since I was in the military, running has played out as a highly cogitative enterprise within the energy of which ideas are formulated and notions synergized.  So quite often, after running, I'll jot down notes of my energy-driven inspirations and then later expand them as a blog.  Today, however, I'll just give you a *peek* of the "under-construction" notes without any further explanation.  If you care, look in a day or two for me to develop these ideas into something more comprehensible...

Nitrocellulose and terrorist preparations—a psychic connection?

# of people killed in WTC as a sufficient sample of humanity to physically resemble any of us—is there a greater overall empathy from a probability of statistical resemblance?

# of West Nile virus cases factoring up (by the asymptomatic and unreported factors) to what % --- how many of the community without symptoms/reports?

Audio "stream" continuations as much more packet critical than video ones or "stream of consciousness"?

Would making death "illegal" have any practical implications?

So there you have a staccato snapshot of my state of mind as I'm running circles around your neighborhood.

In other xanga news...

* It looks like john and xanga have indefinitely postponed going "Lucky Charms" (see last post and john's announcement).  It's good to know that our feedback is valued in such matters.

* BlogChat continues to be a popular gathering spot.  And the number of essential hosts (well, at least one is always essential) is now at 13: Aviendahla, azure_mariposa, forsberg21, liquid, memory, namaste, onefishtwofish,RabidSquirrel, sada, seanmeister, Stultiloquent, Texie, and myself.  Basically, the hosts can open and, by being the last host leaving, close the chat. You can, however, have the green "chat open" indicator somewhere on your blog without the need to be a host.  Thereby, you and your readers can instantly know when the chat is available.  Below is the code, for anyone interested.  It seems to work most anywhere you want to place it:

Xanga<br /> <A<br /> href="http://www.blogchat.com/blogchat/chatentry.php?blogchatId=notforprophet"<br /> onclick="window.open<br /> ('http://www.blogchat.com/blogchat/chatentry.php?blogchatId=notforprophet','','height=200,width=450,toolbar=no,location=no,resizable=yes');<br /> return false;"><br /> <img<br /> src="http://www.blogchat.com/blogchat/masterstatus.php?blogchatId=notforprophet"<br /> alt="you can chat with me if i'm online" style="border: 0px;" /> BlogChat<br /> </a></p> <p><DIV class=small align=center><IMG height=10 src="http://www.blogchat.com/blogchat/images/green.gif" width=10>=<FONT size=1>Online</FONT> <IMG height=10 src="http://www.blogchat.com/blogchat/images/red.gif" width=10>=<FONT size=1>Offline </FONT></DIV>

Xanga is proposing a graphical representation of one's subscribers to be included mainly after one's comments on other's blogs.  They have nicknamed these "Lucky Charms" but what I gather they are trying to do is portray by the proxy of "# of subscribers" some extent of "Community Involvement".

Personally, I have about 10 reasons pro and 10 reasons con on this innovation--all effectively cancelling each other out.  But I highly encourage any of you feeling strongly pro or con to go over to john's blog here and make your voice heard.

What I'm modestly proposing here, however, should xanga go ahead with this innovation, is an aesthetic modification.  Below, you'll first observe xanga's current proposal.  Thereafter, I have provided my design modifications.

 

	Classic	Premium
5-24 subscribers
25-49 subscribers
50-149 subscribers
150-499 subscribers
500+ subscribers
Top 25 sites

	Classic	Premium
5-24 subscribers
25-49 subscribers
50-149 subscribers
150-499 subscribers
500+ subscribers
Top 25 sites

Here were my design guidelines:

1) Liven-up Classic a bit by introducing b/w gradients matching the colors of Premium. 

2) Stress continuity and progression in community building by an incremental "filling-out" of the xanga logo rather than suggesting firmer status divisions with solid colors.

3) Distinguish the "top 25" more subtlely and without requiring a dramatic loss/change of colors should someone someday slip out of the "top 25".

So what do you think? 

I’m not one who deals with personal bodily impairment or suffering with much stoic dignity.  By that, I’m not implying that I’m a loud complainer or boisterous oucher.  By no means at all.  On the contrary, most peeps would never know when I’m really hurting because a most profound silence hovers about me.  No, I do not suffer suffering silently.  I do not suffer suffering.  I try to embrace it silently as an assassin would his mark with a garrote in a crowded, noisy movie theatre: stealthily, masterfully, and deadlier-than-thou.  I strive to counterpart the mentality of a raccoon that would intrepidly chew its own paw off to free itself from a trap.  Ah…suffering, impairment, and mortal inflictions—are these all not traipsings of a trickstering trap? Rip, if you can, what afflicts you out of the body vital.  Damn.  I say enjoin the battle and to the destructive element… 

…hold on.  Who am I fooling?  When it hurts, it hurts.   And healing can take many paths, but often starts with a lament.  I mean, I awoke with a "crick" or spasm in my left shoulder blade today.  Now the chances of getting a free massage for it are not good, but much less if I just smile all day and merely broadcast about that “it would pleasure me greatly to have my back rubbed.”    Why?  Because the back-rubbers who are disposed to help out the stricken like me will probably be too busy today rubbing the backs of those genuinely reporting such an ouch as an ouch.  So it’s okay to say “ouch” if it’s real and you’re not just knee-jerking for pity but authentically seeking healing comfort and human touch. That’s the way, in this age of largely pre-psychic humanity, ouches get rubbed.  And it’s always discretionally wiser to address the ouch, if possible, amidst a support ring of back-rubbers rather than rabidly seizing a microphone in an airport terminal and screaming it out like a banshee.  (And with blogging in particular, it seems to me, we sometimes forget that the blog can broadcast quite indiscretionally.)   So I think it comes down, sooner or later for all of us, to learn to admit to “ouch” (better expressed unto those with the compassion to listen, but in most cases, better expressed in some manner than never expressed at all) …or to otherwise closely study an entrapped raccoon so as to master the possibilities of the technique of silent self-gnawing supercession.

It seems that the BlogChat (see *diamond* access icon and legend above) is proving itself useful not only for social and entertainment purposes, but for matters of information sharing and problem-solving also. 

Last night, Captivated came on the chat and asked me to look at a .zip link of hers that was not allowing access for downloads from her site.  After toying a bit, I determined that her external site provider was preventing the direct download, so I gave her a workaround.

And earlier yesterday, john (xanga ceo-type) showed up on the chat (his second time there, though this time I wasn't hosting, namaste was) and actually blogged here about what he shared with those in the chatroom.  He even hinted that "Maybe we'll schedule a regular blogchat or something, so people can ask questions about xanga."  Cool.

With regards to making the BlogChat more ubiquitously available throughout xanga, I'd like to share the hosting privileges out with a few more trustable bloggers (so far: namaste, seanmeister, and myself).  The three conditions I'd like all hosts to adhere to are: 1) don't spoof each others identities (don't pretend to be another host), 2) don't pass along the hosting privilege without informing me (I'd like to keep track of who the hosts are), and 3) don't leave the chat "open" (e.g., on all night) without active moderation.  The last point, I believe, is important so that when people see the green *diamond* indicating that chat is open, and they go there, there is actually someone to chat with.  If this chat were to become furiously popular, then leaving the chatroom always open would make sense.  But until/unless that moment arrives, my feeling is that nothing's worse than to be led by high expectations into a chatroom and find everything vacuously dead.

So if you're interested, let me know.

Finally, I'd personally like to give a big thanks to seanmeister for helping me clean up my "frankensteinian" search engine proliferation.  Although the xanga search has been restored, in the interim, I found a free third-party search engine (Atomz) that could provide me with incredibly detailed search results. However, for my purposes, I created five separate searches--and had a simple search box for each one on the sidebar as well as five advanced searches at the bottom of the page.  Just a little bit cluttered, no?  Well, seanmeister sent me the code to consolidate them into a dropdown menu system--and that's now implemented.  Thank you, Dr. Seankenstein!

Well, I gave them all their best shot.  But, damn it, as I visit the cemetery this afternoon (my you-had-your-chance-and-now-its-mine sanctuary), it is confirmed: I am still above ground.  Strange, courageous, and bold.   So really, I’m sorry buds, but it’s no more Mr. Niceguy.  I intend to stay above the ground for a good long while now.  Drinking, stomping, pissing, writing, musing, and imagining great romance.  You all had the chance to put me down.  I was susceptible, pliable, and directably weak.  How laughable.  Says the poet: “Wipe your hands across your face and laugh.”   I prefer to swipe my hand and hoot.  Dang me.  You all should have took a rope and hanged me.  But now I’ve cut down the highest tree.  Yep, it was a dope tree and was that motherfucker high.  Cutting the dope, in fact, took all damn afternoon. 

*sets laptop down and enjoys a beer while sweepingly taking in the panorama*

What is the dusk, I ask you, what is the dusk?

*as an itsy-bitsy cemetery spider creeps in and out amongst the keys on my keyboard.  damn, I shouldn’t have set the laptop in the grass while I was drinking that beer*

dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn
I wonder why I’m thusly drawn.
crisply carved the steeled stone
signifying latent bone.
wedding of the earth and dearth
grief for all, for all it’s worth.
gather now the mourning few
weeping tears as clear as dew.
while I lounge and drink my beer
knowing life can hold no fear
of something so immutable:
fate’s simply not disputable.

Ok, this spider has taken up residence in my laptop keyboard.  What do you feed spiders?  Do I need to go out and maim ants and drop them between the keys for the spider to eat?  Spider food.  I need spider food.  Give me spider food!

Oh, I just caught myself whistling a tune that sounds a couple of hundred years old.  Now, I’m rarely good at impromptu composing, and this tune was highly polished.  So I guess someone here in the cemetery about still wants to jangle to the music.  Taint nothing as innocently sweet as being a happy medium for a celebrating soul.  Rollover Beethoven!  And blog Tchaikovsky the news!

*Testing, testing*  *one, two, three* 

You do hear my live audio feed, don't you?

No???  Well, that's because I didn't want to push it upon you without your complicity.  Hence, the audio applet I've set up is at the bottom of this page.   Check it out, and if I'm not blabbering and all you hear is the radio, then I've probably stepped away for a while...What do the Aussies call those *step-aways*?  Oh, yeah...walkabouts

And, sorry to the two of you who left props and comments on my earlier "audio blog" today.  I had to delete that one because when I placed the audio javascript applet in it (instead of the *website stats* section where it now resides), it was corrupting my browser, the blog, and God knows what else.  Yes, I quite possibly saved Xanga by deleting it!  mwuahahaha

Just some performance notes: The audio stream works best with high-speed DSL or Cable connections, but I've tested it with dialup and a 56K modem and got it to work ok by first stopping my *damncam* (webcam) stream (by right clicking on the pic and choosing *stop*) and then starting the audio.  If performance issues still exist, you can try downgrading the audio quality (thereby *lightening* the stream) by replacing the word *high* in the applet with *low*.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

I’m concerned about how we’re going to respond to that killer asteroid heading towards Earth.  You know, the one “out there” that nobody’s spotted yet, yet is nonetheless soaring majestically towards us through the silent darkness of space.  I know what you’re thinking: Let’s just blast it out of orbit with nukes!  Wrong!  What if you nuke the thing and it doesn’t disintegrate?  Then you’ll have a radioactive killer asteroid about to impact.  Or even if you bombard the giga-asteroid with a nuke arsenal, what happens if you only manage to break it up into 6 or 8 mega-asteroids now all still heading for Earth and all thoroughly nuclearatized ??!!  Why don’t we just nudge the Earth out of the collision course instead?  Let the damn killer asteroid go about its deadly business as a near flyby because we have changed our trajectory?!  OK!  Let’s practice: everyone on  the left side of the Earth, PUSH!  Everyone on the right side, PULL!

Hey, speaking about saving the Earth, superhero dreams do come true: Scientists have just created  a living, breathing  Mighty Mouse!    Well, I don’t know if he’s mightier, but he sure twitches slower!  As to questions of whether he can fly, I believe you’ll have to adjust his cape properly, grip like a football, and toss for the end zone.

And here’s the solution to the West Nile mosquito threat: induce sufficient regional volcanic activity to emit a layer of carbon dioxide gas spreading outwards about a quarter inch high.  Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and sinks towards the ground.  Mosquitoes use the carbon dioxide trail from oxygen-breathing organisms to track them down, sensing carbon dioxide sliding along the ground and following it back to the emitting source.  Well, if an array of mini-me volcanoes could be induced to spew out a trace layer of carbon dioxide, the mosquitoes would end up biting molten magma instead!  But not too much carbon dioxide: it’s known that some volcanoes  (e.g., Mt Vesuvius) have suffocated people with a layer of carbon dioxide above their heads!  Here’s a tip: if you’re ever suffocating in the vicinity of an active volcano, get above the suffocating gas by getting to high ground or climbing a tree—but don't run up the slope of the volcano!

Is it the World According to Garp ?  Or the World According to Darpp?  Apparently, there’s a positive-feedback mechanism in the brain that turns any caffeine imbibed into a jittery fling.   In fact, it’s speculated that Darpp may be a common denominator for all psychostimulant effects (amphetamines, cocaine, etc.)  Another way to look at this is that whenever you drink coffee, you’re just playing with yourself.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

I was broadcasting streaming voice audio on my blog this morning.  Did anybody hear?  I didn’t think so!  Damn, if I had something to say, I might persist in such a delivery.  But a person can only say “test, test” and “can you hear me?” so often before the boos mercifully drown out such an involute obsession with cyber-techniques.

There they were assembled before me: a collection of smiling sexy nekkid women yearning to seduce moi.  All fine until the clock struck the hour and they all marched off, still nekkid, waving goodbye because their “work shift” was over.  LOL  What kind of whacky dream was that last night?!

There are two paths to the resolution of desire: surfeit indulgence and stark denial.  Lately, except for weird dreams, "hot sexy" has become "lustrous beauty".  Wonder which way I'm heading?

We're fighting a war against terrorism, right?  And the Air Force is about to attack mosquitoes bearing the West Nile virus, no? Therefore, mosquitoes must be __________ .

Conquer yourself and you've defeated the likes of 1,000 of your worst enemies encounterable on the battlefield.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Last night, I committed myself to remaining a perfect physical recluse by staying in the house.  With a little bit of head congestion and only three xangans stopping by to chat on my xanga blogchat,  I ended up with unprofound time on my hands.  So being a bit silly, I pushed out the post on the “crazytext” below,  a light-content post that I felt might be of amusing interest to everyone.  But then I got to thinking: Being a GOOD xanganthropologist might require more than just aloof observation.  So I decided, what the hell, I’d slip into the xangan Azn newbie pool and, through the construction of a “parallelism” , make some comparisons.

So what I did was post my “crazytext” post to another old spoof blog, mix, and “prop”. Well, actually, I went eProps literally since that is the other blog.

So here are some assorted observations of what I found:

While the “crazytext” post here seemed relatively visitorless ( 7 comments-thnx!), eProps was hot with 45 comments.  So eProps was much more “happening” on a Saturday night.

With some of the xangabies (aka “xanga newbies”, “xanga babies”), returning eProps and comments is an important courtesy.  We tend to call this: good manners (“please and thank you”).

Almost half of the sites had “broken” comment boxes due to reckless implementation of javascripting.  Hence, it took the “extra” work-around step just to leave a comment.  Yet it largely appears that most visitors just accept the inconvenience and leave their comments anyway.

Some of the xangabies treasure Premium so much (but, for whatever reason, are unable/unwilling to buy it) that they’ll abandon an old successful blog to establish a new one and get the free trial Premium again.

Some of the blogs encountered had truly profound feelings expressed: if I would have stolen the content, sharpened them up wordage-wise somewhat, and re-presented them here, you might think I was the reincarnation of Jean-Paul Sartre or Ezra Pound.

There’s not such thing as a “bad” or “unworthy” blog no matter how tortured it is, if it’s sincere and non-malicious: it’s all growth in process as a moment of unforced sharing.

I encountered no blogs complaining of blog-harassment and saw no signs of harassment.   Though it might yet exist amongst the xangabies, is it possible that the “harassment concern” (which john -- xanga ceo-type -- seems constantly consumed with) is more of a non-Azn thing?  And if so, why the distinction?

Propping repetitively got rid of my head congestion but strained my forearm

In any case, I feel that I established some goodwill amongst the Azn xangabie crowd. And if there ever arises a need or a desire for me to try to get a message out to all of Xanga undivided, I’m here blogging as usual, but talking as eProps to those who are dealing most avidly in that currency exchange.

Cheri_Herald first pointed out the transL8it lingo generator at http://www.transl8it.com.  O what a godsend that proved in narrowing the xangarelic/Azn literary gap !  But here's something to augment even that output more brilliantly: a crazytext maker at http://www.draac.com/crazytext.html !!

Cheri_Herald 1st pointed out d transL8it lingo generator @ http://www.transl8it.com.  O wot a godsend dat proved n narrowing d xangarelic/Azn literary gap !  bt hEr's somTIN 2 augment even dat output mo brilliantly: a crazytext maker @ http://www.draac.com/crazytext.html !!

Some reflections on quotes from Herman Hesse:

Those whose chief concern is thought can go far in it, but they mistake water for the dry land and one day will drown in it.

Hrm…replace *thought* with *blogging* and what have you got?

I don’t know anything about ghosts, I live in my dreams.  Other people likewise live in dreams, but not in their own; that’s the difference.

Hey, you, get out of my dream!

The world outside lunatic asylums is no less weird than the world inside.

You know, taken as a whole, this weblog community is a lunatic asylum.  Now the only issue that remains is determining who are the inmates and who are the caretakers.

Woo hooo—Browse3D  just issued an updated version 1.5 of their 3-walled browser that gets better with:

• Right, left and sticky wall Web pages are active and can be navigated and scrolled when zoomed
• Copy and paste now work via the Ctrl C and Ctrl V keys on all three walls (Right, Left and Sticky walls only when pages are zoomed and active)
• Navigation features are available on zoomed Right, Left and Sticky wall pages via the right mouse click menu

Here's a pic of the browsable right wall (can have up to 24 windows):

And here's my review of the product as first released.

 John (xanga ceo-type) was soliciting suggestions the other day for features that we might like to see here. Only about 15 readers responded (are all the rest of us content?)?  I suggested the two following items with the idea of making the community seem  “more alive” in near-time:

And to give a sense of *intensity*, is there anyway to display a portal statistic that shows how many bloggers are logged in simultaneously?  Or how many have posted in the past hour?
  
Or how about some indicator on each blog, the option (premium?) of which we would have to display or not, that would let someone visiting know that we are "currently logged in and actively/interactively checking comments".  That way, the suggestion of indicated "nearness" could invite/promote using comments as near-online dialogues (much the way celeste and agrochick78 once so amusingly did).  If a reader knows that you're "actively/interactively online and checking", they may stick around or return shortly to look for a response!

Okay...onward: if I don't chat tonight with that thingamachattie (sorry, Texie, I'm stealing your word!) up there, I'm probably drunk.  If I do chat tonight, I'm certainly drunk.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Could the West Nile virus be a bioterror attack?

There is some evidence, not yet conclusive, but some evidence that it might be so.

This article suggests a possible Saddam / Iraqi connection.

And this article weaves a more conspiratorial Iraqi / Cuba connection.

I’m not one to buy into conspiracy theories easily—and never into unsubstantiated ones.  Yet prior to the 911 attacks, any “informed” speculation about the impending use of commercial aircraft to attack US buildings would have likely qualified as a “conspiracy theory”.  Hence, especially in these terror-awakened times, we should not dismiss the possibility of a conspiratorial explanation prima facie .

Yet, if the Bush administration really now wants to attack Iraq, you would think that floating the “West Nile virus-Iraqi connection” would be a forefront administration media strategy.  But that appears not to be the case.  So might it be that there really isn’t a more than mere speculative connection there and the administration doesn’t want to risk embarrassment through association with such speculation?  Or could it be that the administration is retaining actual knowledge and evidence of such as a trump card to be played just prior to the implementation of an impending attack upon Iraq?

Also, contrary to Jimmy Carter’s "findings" when he recently visited Cuba and declared it  “bioterror-free”, the Bush administration maintains that it has evidence of Castro continuing to use its laboratory facilities to construct bio/chemical weapons.  So the Castro / Cuba implication, too, is not, on the surface, outrightly absurd, at least from an official perspective.

But do you want to know what I think?  I think that one of our very own is behind this.  Anyone been keeping tabs on TheCrimsonNinja lately?  Well, what he wrote back here sounds sinisterly prophetic and provocative!

Can we overplay the threat that mosquitoes pose to us?  According to some medical estimates, mosquitoes have been responsible for the deaths of more than half of all humanity historically and currently more than 10,000 children, by malaria alone, daily.

So regardless of whether mosquitoes are being actively assisted by human agents, there's no doubt that they have had and continue to try to dial our number.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

It was a crazy summer for the kids.  They had the madness.  They had the craze.  And they had the acumen to master the technology.  But, most importantly, they had the time.  The sweet, blessed, precious leisure time to pursue their craze, their mayhem ad absurdum.  Like never before and, perhaps, until next summer, never again will they overwhelm as profusely and as profoundly as they managed en masse to do so this summer…for it was

The Summer Of Their eProp Content

I might be wrong, but according to my preciz Aynsteinian calculations, the madcap epropz (aka, epilllz, etc.) antics of the Azn Crew, et. al. have reached their peak with the summer heat. And soon, with the imminent start of school, they will relent once again and assume a lesser adjunct social status in line with a back-to-school regimen.  In other words, I expect the number of eProps collectively generated by the Azn Crew to be generally inversely proportional to time spent at school activities (attendance, extracurriculars, homework).

Here are my propalogical computations:

Let’s say “Izababeangelz” is currently rocking the Featured Content top-rank status with 120 eProps a day, on the average.  Upon going back to school, I project these factors to impact her expected draw:

1.5 times (more) eProps as “new” classmates are recruited into Xanga
.5 times (less) eProps as the time opportunities to be online are constrained by school activities
.8 times (less) eProps as in-school contact serves to furnish the personal updates that were more remotely furnished by Xanga during the summer recess
.9 times (less) eProps as the enthusiasm for blogging diminishes with a downsizing of their average daily eProp catch.

Hence, the 120 summer eProps will undergo a reduction of  (120 * 1.5) * .5 * .8 * .9 = 65, or high-middling placement, but not typically dominant on the Featured Content list.

Conversely, the XangaTrads, XangaRelics, XangaWhores, et. al.,  all tend to collectively increase their activity when school resumes as vacations get exhausted and their kids returning to school afford them more daytime leisure for personal activities such as blogging, farting, and eating ice cream.  I estimate these factors thusly:

1.2 (more) eProps resulting from a “back-from-vacation” presence
1.2 (more) eProps resulting from a “daytime’s freer” recovery

Hence, if the average draw of a fairly top-drawing Xangarelic in the summer was 60, then we might expect an increase of: 60 * 1.2 * 1.2 = 86!

So the Content-strangling summer eProp fun of the Azn Crew is about to suffer a seasonal setback.  Unless, of course, future recruitments are excessively large ( a 2-3x or larger factor) or playing hookie to blog (i.e., calling off of school “bloggy”) becomes the latest fad or the schools cave in and start teaching Blogging 101 with a two-period blogging lab.

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Now that was exciting!  Just around 1 P.M. today, I brought BlogChat, a group chat, to Xanga and was almost immediately greeted by Last_Enigma.  Isn't it a sign of the end of the world when the "Last shall be first" ??  Anyway, shortly thereafter, it grew more convivial with the arrival of LAWoman, Texie, and Buzz.  Thanks to all of them, I chatted right through my lunch hour and grew leaner though no meaner.

The Blogchat applet, represented and activated by a clickable green or red diamond above, is a beta chat-service for blogs with its homebase at www.blogchat.com.  The simple, indicative color coding is the key:

 = offline      = online

So you'll only find the host available when the diamond is green .

Here's how the developer describes this service:

A BlogChat is a browser-based chat window that you can attach to your weblog or site. When you are online your visitors can engage in a text discussion with you in real time. The chat can be a popup window or you can embed it right in the page. All you have to do is put some links on your page, we provide the service.

I think I'll be back online later tonight, roundabout 9 or 10 EST.  I might even have more surprises then.  Or perhaps just a mystical moment like one-hand-clapping to share?!

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

The Vatican has just excommunicated seven women who claim to be priests and refuse to repent, saying Monday that the group had "wounded" the Roman Catholic Church.

Excommunicate.  That means they "go to hell".

And what has "the Vatican" done about all the pervert male pedophile priests that have repeatedly raped and sexually molested trusting children?

Nothing.

They "go to another parish".

1st child (observing some stupidity on the part of 2nd child): "It takes a dope to kill a pope!"
2nd child (typical response): "Shut up!"
But as a child, my invented riposte: "But it takes a real dope to kill two popes!"

What does it take to do three ?

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

I'm trying to expand the functionality of this blog with little or no overhead expense to Xanga.  My Atomz Search (see blogs below or search modules at side and bottom of this page) is one such foray.  It provides rich search results, as Google would, from a non-Xanga server.

Below is my next foray: Providing a mechanism for non-Xangans to leave comments and even a vast array of smilies ( -though you have to type the code).

This third-party free comment applet is provided by *enetation* (as in eNet-ation, a play on the word "annotation").  Here's how the service describes itself:

Full template support...
Forum code (such as smiles and url conversion)...
Comments can open in a popup window, or open in the same window...
Users can edit and delete posts...
Ban users by IP address...
Fully customizable comments link (e.g. Comments[0], or '3 comments', etc.). ...
Code generator for Blogger , Big Blog Tool , Diary-X , Radio UserLand Scribble...
Remembers the name, e-mail, and homepage used by your visitors, so that they don't have to type it in each time...
Login via your own comments box...
Supported by UK Hosting company so no downtime or bandwidth shutdowns...
Allowing signups when others do not or limit them...
Based on fast PHP and mySQL coding (no slow cgi here!)...
Friendly development team dedicated to helping you set your blog up..
Login via your own comments box using login: as username...

So far, so good?  While there is a standard automated javascript implementation that doesn't work with Xanga, there is also a fallback to a manually-numbered html-script implementation that does!

My only concern, so far, is the performance/speed of comment submission/return.  Still, even if it isn't as fast as the native Xangan engine, it will provide a slightly more patient non-Xangan the opportunity to submit a comment to my posts.  And it will, though this is daring, even allow you, my fellow xangaroos, to submit fairly anonymous comments-ha!

Update: Actually, it occurs to me that this could be used most propitiously by somebody who wants to elicit comments, but no eProps.  In that case, you could "email it" from Xanga but leave this comment applet available.  Also, on the rare occasion that Xanga has allowed browsing but denied commenting due to database lockups, this would remain a viable alternative for two-way exchanges.

So without further ado, if I stick with this, all my posts henceforth shall end with:

Not a member of Xanga? Leave comments here.

Since Xanga's search is chronically and possibly irremediably broken, I'm testing a full-text search engine that's free as long as the site is under 500 indexed pages: Atomz.com search engine

It seems to work very well so far (see below), though I seem to have duplicate entries for some things and may need to tweak some filters to clean things up.

However, I have more than 500 pages.  And since I don't intend to dish out bucks for this, I'll probably need to triage the earlier months.  ...Or what, and this just occured to me , I can to do is design two search calendars: "2002" and "2001 and earlier".  Since each will encompass less than 500 pages, they'll still be free.

...Okay: Ive designed a set of two. For some reason (that I'll investigate later), the "2002" search overlaps back into "2001" a bit.  But better an overlap than an omission!

I was just wondering (call it *a hunch*) : What if there is a real but as of yet historically unwitnessed geological phenomenon that could be called a "world shake" ?  Not just a typical earthquake the energy of which difuses outward from an ephemeral epicenter towards less affected regions, but a core-sponsored global burp that resonates in harmonically-resounding, reinforcing earth-cleansing waves?!

Has anyone lately checked to see if the core is set on "simmer" instead of "boil" ?

How apropos is it that Roy Ratliff, the bastard who kidnapped and raped two California teenage girls and was himself shot dead by sheriff deputies just minutes before he probably intended to kill the girls, had his hellbent mania blown by an "animal control officer" who spotted the animal's stolen vehicle and tipped off the three helicopters that established a positive aerial sighting and guided the deputies on the ground in the rescue mission??!!

This, perhaps, will be one crime which the copycatters will mull upon to the point of inaction.

Last night on Larry King Live , Kern County Sheriff Carl Sparks quite alarmingly observed that "There's something going on in this country right now, and we got to be on top of it...It's something that's keying these guys, you know, that have the tendency to do this type of thing. And all this publicity must be keying something in them. Oh, the media's got to report it. The media's got to report it. I'm not against the media at all. They've got a job to do. But there's something keying these guys to do this kind of stuff."

So what is this "something" ??  If the "publicity" is complicit in such criminal motivation, shouldn't we send a message to the media to "Yes, cover the news.  But don't create a formulaic *genre* that frantically seeks out additional instances of similar stories to fuel the public into a morbid fascination frenzy."

It seems that after youngster Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped (murdered? raped?), a spate of "young-girls-kidnapped" became the preferred genre of the news-generated nation's morbidity moment.  Granted, kidnappers/rapists will always be kidnappers/rapists and will eventually rape regardless.  But the new media in, first, creating this as a premium news niche, and then, with aging news, spawning a vacuum for the nation's morbidity moment, may, indeed, be partially inducing "I wanna be someone, too"-type copycatters who otherwise might remain latent.  If so, this is a truly disturbing instantiation of the law of supply and demand.

Furthermore, in attempting to meet an awakened "demand", it is possible that elements of the news media become "too creative".  Indeed, it turned out that after the 911 tragedy, some of the "Arab celebrations" depicted were actually staged by free-lance elements of the media offering monetary inducements to some poor Arabs in the Middle East to "act"!  Why?  Because they knew that they could "sell" their footage.  To whom?  To the mainstream media to fulfill our "need of the moment" to witness Arabs hating "us".

What might be done to curb the media's desire to sequentially string out a "story genre" into seeking and, possibly, partially inducing one similar episode (e.g., these kidnappings, school shootings, office rampages, racial crimes, etc.) after another to create and fulfill our morbidity moments? 

I agree with Sheriff Carl Sparks that "Oh, the media's got to report it. The media's got to report it. I'm not against the media at all. They've got a job to do."  But damn it, they should do their job and let it go.  There's no need keeping the lawnmower running in full view on the front lawn 24x7 waiting for the grass that was just cut to regrow.  That only invites weirdos to come along in the middle of the night and dump sodded clumps of elephant grass on the lawn to see if it gets cut.

So how about some sort of mild monetary disincentive to cover copycat crimes that stipulates that all media profits (or perhaps, just an estimated fixed sum) from the sales and coverage of "sequentially-chained or similar chronologically episodic stories" (for instance, two such prominent "headline" stories in immediate time-sequence), reverts as charity to a fund for the victims and/or their survivors?  The media could still cover them as a "public service".  But they wouldn't in so doing be fueling themselves to prolong a media-continued profit/success frenzy.  Or would this just induce the media to become more creative in seeking ever novel  headline-gripping bizareness?

Dear President Bush,

In a comment to my last blog, Cheri_Herald implied that you would almost certainly not receive this blog update since the FBI would likely intervene and bug my blog.  I really find that rather difficult to believe since I was just last night sitting on the street outside the new FBI district office, drinking beer, staring up at the sky and, apparently, no one considered that offensive or a threat to perimeter security since I was allowed to party on undisturbed.  So if I am so hospitably received within the sensitive shadow zone of a critical government institution, and proved myself worthy by just benignly partying-on while watching the spectacle of a sky simultaneously resplendent with an orange orb sailing toward sunset, an internally-illuminated Sanyo blimp. two commercial jet aircraft, possibly one higher altitude military aircraft, a rescue helicopter, a lower altitude prop plane, a fleet of lake gulls, a dragonfly, and so many satellites and orbiting asteroids even as such unseen, surely the Federal Bungle of Information has granted me some sort of honorary nihil obstat and imprimatur and thus am I looking forward to introducing you into this wonderful world of blogging.

For all my other subscribers:

It really was a fantastic sky scene: so replete with such a variety of concurrent flying entities.  As I watched the airborne scenario, I realized that I really need now to refocus a bit more upon those things that stream and lead us seemingly above and beyond the mundane.  As a child, I was notorious in almost all family photo opportunities for being snapped staring at the sky.  Even unto this day, my sister will kiddingly ask “what the heck were you looking at?”   I can’t help it: I’m a sky-watcher, a star-gazer, a sentient seer awaiting sightings of the saucers.  Again. 

So once more, I’ve regained a sense of my childhood wonderment.  And I am floating, dreaming dreams.

*looks up*