csammisrun

A computer is a box where decisions are made.

Phillippe, age 5

One of the computer decisions I make on a frequent basis is to get up and walk away from it, locking the workstation as I go. Sadly, Pidgin, the IM client I use at work, remains blissfully ignorant of my choice. Other IM clients automatically set the account status to “Away” when the workstation is locked, but Pidgin does no such thing…until now.

I’ve created a Pidgin plugin called Lock ‘n’ Roll that will set any active accounts to Away (with a user-defined message if applicable) when the workstation locks, and back to Available when it is unlocked. If an account has an existing away message set, Lock ‘n’ Roll leaves it alone. This is my first shot at Pidgin development so be sure to report any errors to so that I can fix them and make everyone’s life a little happier.

Download locknroll-1.0.zip, source and binary included. To install, copy “locknroll.dll” to the Pidgin plugins directory. To activate it, restart Pidgin and go to the Tools menu, select Plugins, and tick the checkbox next to “Lock ‘n’ Roll”

Haha, misleading post title!

2009 is proving to be a great year for organization, and Courtney’s at the forefront of this trend. Her car’s trunk has been getting on her nerves for some time now. Its collection of jumper cables, dog blankets, empty shoe boxes, and god-knows-what-else has been rattling around in her mind as much as it has been in the trunk. But no more, thanks to one (extremely cold) Sunday’s worth of work.

The trunk of Courtney’s Accord, Stanley.

The plan was to create a shelving unit in the trunk. A trip to Home Depot netted some fine shelving racks which we cut up with a saber saw and positioned with zip ties.

The rack was designed to hold one largish under-bed box, and a smaller box for smaller things. A piece of PVC cut to size, drilled, and zip-tied on prevents the smaller box from slipping.

The most difficult part of assembly was creating pillars that would attach to the car’s frame and allow the frame to hang down about a foot. No zip-ties here: small bungee cords were looped through the pillars to hold them to the shelf, which were then hooked to the frame…

…which took forever and involved a lot of very cold hands and awkward angles, but it worked! We eventually replaced the bungee cords on the back with (you guessed it) zip ties. After three times losing the very taut cord down in the PVC and having to re-run it, zip ties looked reeeeally good.

Hooray for organization!

There are more photos on the Flickr set “Junk In The Trunk”. This project had way too many fun names

“Christopher” means bearing Christ, which until I read that page always made me think of a cross. It seems that I was thinking too literally. Always with the thinking too literally!

It’s not quite 2009 yet but I’ve got some ideas for resolutions. I do this to myself every single year, and I rarely ever follow through completely, but this year may be different. 2008 was a pretty great year for doing stuff, and inertia is a thing or so I’m told.

• Move out of my apartment and get some place with a garage.
• Cook a meal at home at least once a weekend.
• Get a decent couch and perhaps a matching loveseat.
• Lose 30 pounds (okay).
• Continue the trend of doing DIY projects.

Just to update my previous post, the new topoff is done and operating nicely. All the pictures are up on the project page.

There’s a new section of my site that’s dedicated to documenting the various projects that I undertake. I’ve just finished a new automatic topoff for my home fishtank, and there are numerous photos on its project page.

November has just flown by without a whole lot of crazy stuff going on. You all know how it is: DST changes and hours become other hours, three entire Thursdays go by until Thanksgiving, then before you know it December.

My job continues to be great. When I started here I asked if I could have a fishtank, and the answer was “well how big of a tank?” then “sure.” Earlier this month I up and put a 2.5 gallon tank (designed by Courtney, more on that later) on my desk, and in that tank I put a betta. Between the tank and my vine, I’ve got a nice zen thing going on.

The tank on my desk. Not pictured: any work whatsoever.

The betta, whose name is Pixel because he’s red-green-blue.

My home-animals are also good. I don’t have any recent pictures of my saltwater fishtank, though I did take a couple of the cats in their new beds. They got beds because they’re now banished from sleeping in my bed due to them being hairy and shedding like crazy, which means I have to shut them out of my bedroom at night. I didn’t want them to be uncomfortable

Gromit

Shaun

Also, I made some Christmas earlier this week. My large fake tree from last year ended up looking odd and being a general pain in the ass, so I got a small fake tree instead.

Aww, Gromit wants to be Christmas!

I was having some serious problems getting a non-fuzzy picture of the tree.

Or non-speckled.

I’ve been idly reading forums geared towards automotive enthusiasts who own Mazdas. It seems that a semi-popular thing to do with Mazda3s is to re-badge them as a Mazda Axela. I’m not that big of a fanboy, but Courtney had an interesting proposition: why not re-badge it as a 323?

I looked on eBay, but no one was selling extra badges from the Mazda3 and the Mazda2 (I wanted to make the fonts look decent). All seemed lost, until Courtney noticed the car’s side panels: a shiny “2.3″ badge on each side. Well dang, between the immediate availability of numbers and the fact that yesterday peaked around 75 degrees, how could I not?

It’s been three months since I bought my new car; I’m honestly surprised I haven’t done something like this already

Fishing line behind the badge cut through the adhesive holding it on in relatively short order.

The car was sitting in the sun, so the adhesive was already soft. Hot water, soap, and my thumb cleaned the residue right off.

Both 2.3 badges and the 3 badge from the back are off. Also featured, the lovely gouge some asshat left in my bumper a couple months ago.

The 2.3 badges got de-gooped, sawed apart, sanded down, and reset on 3M indoor/outdoor mounting tape. I think this is pretty much exactly what Mazda used in the first place.

Laying out how the re-purposed badges will look.

Hooray, a Mazda3…wait

Victory!

It’s so beautiful!

A wash and a wax later, and everything looks spectacular. Thanks to Courtney for the great photos, and the idea, and locating the 2.3 badges, and cleaning off the badges, and making handy loops of fishing line for cutting them off in the first place…we went through a lot of fishing line.

Yesterday Courtney and I went and voted for the 2008 general election. How is that possible? Did we travel forward in time??? No, we just used the magic of advance voting, which started in Johnson County on the 21st. Perhaps you are reading this on your computer machine now, sighing in envy and wishing that you too can go vote early to avoid what will probably be ridiculous lines on November 4th. Perhaps you can!

DuPage County, IL, advance voting started for you people two weeks ago but ends on the 30th! There are locations open this Saturday for people who might be registered in DuPage but not living there and maybe going back on some weekends.

Grundy County, IL has also got until the 30th to advance vote in the county courthouse in Morris.

Story County, IA, you’ve got one shot left if you don’t want to truck over to Nevada – get your ass to HyVee this Saturday!

Jackson County, MO, you’re plumb out of luck. No advance voting for you. Certain companies that work people ridiculously hard are, however, legally obligated to let you go vote – don’t let The Man keep you down.

I was looking up tour dates for Kamelot – a power metal band from Florida – and what a shock, their current tour doesn’t stop anywhere near Kansas City. Not even St. Louis. As near as I can figure the closest they get is Mokena, IL. It’s a southwest suburb of Chicago. This is not a town I’ve heard of before today, even having lived in the Chicago suburbs for eighteen years. I’m guessing that they’re playing there because of the Tinley Park amphitheater.

This keeps happening with metal bands, for reasons that I’m not completely clear on. I’d blame a perceived lack of listenership, but Gigantour ’06 went to Oklahoma City of all places. Come on guys, Kansas City has some places where a band can do a thing like play a song

Eight years ago John McCain was a pretty decent politician guy. I wouldn’t have voted for him (I didn’t vote in the 2000 primaries anyway, being 17 at the time) but he had a relatively sane head on his shoulders – he certainly wasn’t a democrat, but he was moderate. Chronicled here are a series of interviews Sen. McCain did on the Daily Show that showcase an eight year long buy-in into the sort of right-wing nuts that ridiculed him in his 2000 run at the GOP primaries.

• July 26, 2001: McCain has the NRA pissed at him for being involved in a bill to require background checks at gun shows. A decent sense of humor all around. “Maverick” was not a word that makes me grit my teeth.
• March 19, 2002: Gunning for campaign finance reform, seems very comfortable with himself, again with the sense of humor.
• May 10, 2004: McCain talks about his direct questioning of Rumsfeld about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He was one of the first Republicans to ask directly about the level of awareness that the Bush administration had on the subject.
• November 8, 2005: Talking about a war bill provision that McCain introduced to outlaw (for reals this time) physical torture of enemy combatants.
• April 4, 2006: Here’s where things start to get a bit upsetting for the man. He’s starting to pander to the far right base by paling around with Jerry Falwell – and he admits that he’s doing it.
• April 24, 2007 (part two): Looking very prickly and uncomfortable. McCain’s presidential campaign is going now and he’s talking about deadlines as “surrender” in Iraq, IED jokes, the whole deal. Sounds a lot like the terrorist fear-mongering we’ve been hearing nonstop out of the McCain/Palin campaign recently.

Also it’s pretty weird to look back four years and hear “Mission Accomplished lol” when that joke was only a year old :/

Thanks to Davish Krail on Something Awful for suggesting the method of this highly informal study.