July 2005 Archives

Ever since I got rid of the feature to let anyone quickly comment on my entries, which I did because I was getting thousands of spam comments, no one has posted in my comments section. I had changed it so that you had to sign up with TypeKey, which isn't too hard.

But apparently no one felt like doing that, so I have received no comments. But thanks to this new beta version of Movable Type 3.2, there might be a compromise. This beta has a junk sorter function, which, if set to the right level, might work pretty good. I've set it to a medium level, so I'll have to see how good it works.

Go ahead and test the comments feature, and leave a comment. If it doesn't show up, you've probably been classified as "junk," sorry. But that just means you're put into a waiting list and I'll eventually approve your message.

Update: This test failed. I even eventually set the junk sorter to its highest level, but it failed to even sort out one spam comment. Thus I'll have to go back to TypeKey-only commenting. I'll keep looking for any possible solutions in the future.

I had just abut finished cleaning last night, when I noticed that a new beta version of MovableType is now available. I decided I would upgrade to it in a little while, until I saw that one of the "32 Favorite Features in Movable Type 3.2" is "Easiest Upgrade Ever." There's even a short flash clip that brags about this.

Please have a look! It'll only take a few seconds...

MT 3.2 Beta Upgrade

See!? Nearly anyone could do this!

Since it apparently would only take a few seconds to upgrade, I decided to take care of it before going to bed. I downloaded the files, uploaded them, and surely enough, an upgrade screen came up when I went to my Movable Type log in screen. Upon allowing the script to proceed, it ran a couple operations and then informed me that it was done.

I tried to log in, but my username/password didn't work. I had experienced the same thing when switching hosts last winter, which is a great part of the reason a lot of my entries are still missing. I proceeded to use the default login that comes with the installation instructions, and this worked.

But... All my entries were gone! I did have a backup, but this was the same one that I had used in my host move, and this not only didn't contain my entries from the last several months, but also failed to import a good deal of entries that were actually stored in it. Additionally, I had already manually re-entered a bunch of entries from the early days of my weblog, which also weren't in this backup. Also, all my templates and settings were wiped out.

I was horribly angry. My entries were all in my archives folder of my weblog, but there's apparently no way to import these back into the Movable Type database. A couple of hours ago, I accepted my fate, and wanted to begin manually re-entering all my entries. But, as I had been messing around with files before, Movable Type wasn't working right.

So I decided to delete all Movable Type files, except for the archives folder, and reinstall the beta. I did this, and again got the "easy upgrade" screen, which again ran a bunch of processes.

But... I was able to log in with my old username/password, and... All my entries (pre-upgrade) were there!. So Movable Type must now be able to pull entries out of the archives folder after all!? Anyway, this made my night, as it saved me days, if not weeks, of work.

I still have a good amount of entries to re-enter from my old Xanga weblog, and the ones that didn't transfer last winter. But these are of less importance to me. I'll slowly get to them eventually, spending a couple minutes a day to re-enter a couple.

I learned a couple of good lessons though...

1. It's always important to backup your data.
2. Don't make random decisions to upgrade important stuff at 1 a.m.
3. Nothing is as easy as it looks.

I've been cleaning all day. Well, that's an overstatement... You know me! But I've done quite a bit today, including washing and then hanging up a bunch of curtains, cleaning two windows, mopping about every floor surface in the apartment, taking out a lot of trash and cans, and cleaning the toilet.

I still have to do the dishes, clean up a bunch of junk lying around, and vacuum two carpets (and another tiny one).

My dad arrives at 12:35 tomorrow afternoon, so I'll have to see how I'll get it done and still get some sleep.

I've reached the last week of my stay in Vienna this summer. I'm really looking forward to get back to the States and, after another four weeks of waiting, starting up in Syracuse again.

These past few days have been pretty good. Kerstin's back in Vienna, and her presence improves Vienna ten-fold. I went to Merry Monk with her Sunday night, and hung around at her house last night. This weekend should be really good as well.

I've been putting off cleaning my apartment the past few days. My dad's coming back Thursday afternoon, so I have to get it done.

I also found out that Ardi's still going to be in Syracuse one more day after I arrive, so that should be a good night back in the States.

It's going to get horribly hot the next few days. On Friday the high has been estimated to be 37°C (98.6°F). At least it's good for swimming.

Yes, apparently bar raids due exist in Austria. But, as could be expected, they're a little more relaxed. In fact, no one even seemed to care. The cops checked a few people's IDs, but I don't even think they told anyone to leave, and everyone continued to drink and order throughout. Quite different from the "Operation Prevent" raids in Syracuse!

Apparently not much is going on tonight, as I'm staying home. Tomorrow night is already pretty much set, so it should be good.

It looks like I'm actually going to eat a real breakfast tomorrow! I'm usually too lazy to prepare something, so I just skip over it and wait for... Well... Dinner. Today I went to my local Magnet Supermarket and bought some "Real American Toast," some eggs, and some bacon. Finding proper bacon in Vienna is about as hard as finding a selfless girl in Syracuse! I went to the counter and saw some "breakfast bacon," and got some of that. But it's freshly cut and smells horribly strong. My entire refrigerator now reeks of bacon.

In other news, the apartment complex's washing machine is broken. I'm the only user, so I actually have to call the landlord up on Monday to have it fixed. I almost panicked yesterday when I went to retrieve my laundry but the machine hadn't drained the water and the door wouldn't open. Nearly all my essential laundry was in there, so I would have been really screwed. By moving the dial in tiny increments I was able to get it into the unlabeled "open door" position, so that I was able to open the door, which caused a massive waterfall, as it's a front-loading machine.

The next problem was my laundry was soaked. Fortunately, for some strange reason, there's an Austrian-built spinning machine in the laundry room. No dryer, just a machine that spins laundry at 1400 rpm, even faster than the washing machine. This machine vibrates all over the place though, so I basically had to hold it down the entire five minutes or so I let it run.

Yep, that's how I do laundry here.

Yesterday, I spent the day in Budapest. It was quite a fun change of atmosphere from sitting around in my apartment all day. It takes a little under three hours to drive there. I hadn't been there since 1994, and it has changed a lot. If you ignore the difference in language, Budapest isn't all that different from Vienna anymore. It has really modernized.

Driving there went pretty well. I found out I had to buy a €7 vignette for four days, which is the shortest one, to use the highways. In total I exchanged €23, which I easily used up, especially since my appetite is back stronger than ever. I first stopped at a Subway, and ate a 12-inch sub meal. Then I found my way to the "Citadel" hill, where I had also been with my parents eleven years ago. They tried to extort an entrance fee for the actual structure, which I didn't want to go into anyway. I ended up taking a lower path around this area, and found my way to the scenic view point without paying. After this I bought some stuff at a supermarket, and then walked along the Danube for a bit and then found the main shopping street. I then ate at Burger King (I'm horrible), after which I tried driving home. I took a wrong turn, which led me across a bridge that I should have crossed the opposite direction, because it would have led me home. I noticed this and tried to find some way to turn around, but, like Vienna, this is pretty hard, because the main entrance/exit roads don't allow any turns.

So I ended up wasting another 45 minutes or so getting lost in communist-built ghettos. I then eventually got on a semi-highway, which eventually led me to the right highway a couple of miles outside the city. I got home around nine.

The photos can be found here.

The past few days have been uneventful. Last night I went to Merry Monk for a few drinks. This past day I had the smashed mirror on my car fixed. I got to drive into the city, through thick traffic, without the help of a left mirror. I had taped it back on, but because of the bending caused by the cracks the view was all distorted, and thus useless.

The VW place downtown only took five minutes to replace the mirror, and only charged a little over €13.

This upcoming day I'm going to drive out to Budapest, where I haven't been in ten or eleven years. I need to get out of Vienna for a bit.

I actually got my appetite back this evening. Too bad I lost it shortly after. I found a frozen brick of beef gulasch and heated it up. Unfortunately noticed shortly after the first few bites that there was a piece with a capillary sticking out of it. Thus my appetite disappeared again.

My mood is on an upswing though. I talked to my grandfather today, and he convinced me to enjoy my youth. Then Kerstin promised me that Vienna would return to its full glory again when she returns next week.

Maybe there is hope for the rest of the summer!

I wish the damn summer would end already. I've been experiencing summer for something like nine weeks now.

The past week was great, a story best told by the 84 photos taken during it. Friday night ended on a confusing/depressing note for me though, and I ended up pondering about my life until around five in the morning at Merry Monk. I then went home and proceeded to sleep until 5 p.m., with several interruptions. I then didn't leave my apartment for around 33 hours.

Yep, you guessed it, the same issue that comes up every year around this time in this weblog. My being stuck in the past and the regrets I have. The whole situation probably wouldn't be so bad if my days weren't so blank. I have absolutely nothing to do. Things I could do, like go swimming or put some more work into my website, I don't feel like doing.

The only thing I've been doing is putting together a DVD with photos from last week. Of course, this isn't exactly intelligent, because I keep having to stare at photos from last week, which was great. The whole encoding process takes ages, and isn't working right now for some reason. After hours of encoding and keeping my laptop heated up to a scorching 146°F (63°C), the program crashes. I'm now giving it a shot with out transitions (fading) between the photos, hoping that will knock out a great deal of complexity.

My body's still in bad shape as well. My lack of appetite the past few days has caused me to lose 11 lbs. (5 kg). I can't even take my frustration out by running to Mauer, as my legs don't work well right now, probably from the amount I walked the past few nights. Additionally I've had this pressure feeling on my chest since Saturday morning. I'm probably going to have a heart attack from all this damn freezer pizza I've been eating, coupled with emotional stress.

Tomorrow morning I get to make myself useful by ordering a new side mirror for my car here. Some bastard(s) kicked it in and partially shattered it Thursday night.

Once I get back to the States on August 2, my life probably won't be much better for a couple weeks. I'll spend sometime furnishing my Syracuse apartment, but will probably get sick of that soon as well. I'd like to start working at Target again as soon as possible, because it makes me feel useful and fills up most of my week. My parents probably want me to spend some time in Vestal with them first though.

I just can't wait for the last week of August, when school starts up again, I'll have friends around, and the parties will be great every night. That ought to get my mind off things. Until then though, it's going to be a rough six weeks.

Congratulations New York State, you screwed up again! Can anything ever come to fruition in New York State? Hardly. Even in New York City, which gets somewhere around 99 percent of our tax money, nothing actually happens. The Freedom Tower hasn't even been started yet!

A little quote from Wikipedia:

New York's legislature is notoriously dysfunctional. The Assembly has long been controlled by the Democrats, the Senate has long been controlled by the Republicans, and there is little change in membership election to election. From 1984 until 2005, no budget was passed on time, and for many years the legislature was unable to pass legislation for which there was supposed to be a consensus, such as reforming the so-called Rockefeller drug laws. In 2002, 16,892 bills were introduced in the New York legislature, more than twice as many as in the Illinois General Assembly, whose members are the second most prolific. Of those bills, only 4 percent, 693, actually became law, the lowest passing percentage in the country. In 2004 over 17,000 bills were introduced. New York's legislature also has more paid staff, 3,428 than any other legislature in the nation. Pennsylvania, whose staff is the second largest, only had 2,947, and California only 2,359. New York's legislature also has more committees than any other legislature in the nation.

Until last year, state senators and congressmen weren't even required to be present in Albany to vote!

Meanwhile in Upstate New York, in my wonderful City of Syracuse, a.k.a "Neverland" nothing is progressing at all. Here's a little sample:

DestiNY USA: This meanwhile 20-billion-dollar (no typo) project was first announced on April 30, 2000. To sum it up, nothing has happened. While I am one of the biggest supporters of the project, unfortunately the city, county, and state can't agree on anything. Supposedly steel has now been ordered to start building the first expansion to the Carousel Center.

In 2004 DestiNY also announced a research and development project. Unfortunately this is stalling on a weekly basis because a couple businesses don't want to move. These businesses include a truck stop and the only company in the United States that produces those feet-measuring devices you see at shoe stores.

The project also includes a monorail and, will basically turn Syracuse into a huge tourist destination. Unfortunately the New York State Government keeps postponing finance-supporting hearings on DestiNY because, well its members rather go swimming.

OnTrack Extension: This has been planned since many years. OnTrack is Syracuse's commuter rail line. It has been around since 1994, and it is has been planned since its conception to extend the line across a road and connect it to the regional transportation center, which is served by Amtrak, Greyhound, and Trailways. This one is a no-brainer in a city such a city where most people still use cars. Hmmm... When do people not have cars... When they're using long-distance transportation. Maybe then somebody would actually ride OnTrack. Financing was supposedly approved in 2004 to start building this tiny bridge over Park Street bridge, but I haven't seen or heard anything since. The bridge was actually started back around 1998, but the freight company now known as CSX complained that its bridge's supports were being weakened.

New Convention Center Hotel / Hotel Syracuse:: Cities governments and their county’Äôs government often do not get along. As a result, a complete waste of resources occurs, as each has a presence of pride that it will not give up. For example, the city of Syracuse announced in December 2004 that a bank had paid off the debt of the recently bankrupt and closed Hotel Syracuse, the largest and oldest hotel in the city. It will now be sold to a developer and renovated for millions of dollars.

The government of Onondaga County, in which Syracuse lies, had announced about a month after the Hotel Syracuse’Äôs closing that it would build its own hotel near the Hotel Syracuse, a decision which kept this hotel closed. As a result, city and county are working on their own, separate plans, with virtually no cooperation. The two projects seem to cannibalize each other, as it seems both the city renovating the old hotel and the county building a new hotel, will lead to a superfluous number of rooms within one city block of each other. No progress has been made on either project.

New Building Downtown: In August 2003, the following story appeared in the Syracuse Post-Standard:

"The biggest construction project in downtown Syracuse in more than a decade will kick off next year and, by the time it is completed 18 months later, it will have transformed the core of the city's center, Mayor Matt Driscoll said.

A preliminary drawing released by the city shows a seven-story building containing 40 apartments, 20 condominiums, 40,000 square feet of retail space and a 950- to 1,000-car parking garage to be built on the east side of the 300 block of South Salina Street.

The $30 million structure will replace a hodgepodge of six buildings of varying heights that have retail space on their first floors but are mostly vacant on their upper levels."

Nothing was heard about this project until late 2004, when this project was put "on hold." In 2005 it was announced that the project would be scaled back, but still built. We'll have to wait and see if this happens.

S.C.A.T. I seriously hope the name will be changed, as it means feces in slang! Anyway, I wrote about it in Is Syracuse Neverland? Part II It's too early to really criticize this gondola transportation network yet, as it was only been envisioned a couple months ago, but I have my doubts, based on the above history.

Syracuse-Toronto 'SkyDream' Gondola The Syracuse platforms are nearly complete, but those damn Canadians are behind again! See the full story here.

Update: In true Syracuse-fashion, there is another update! After I wrote this entry, I was looking for images. I coincidentally stumbled across an article from today that headlines the News 10 Now website. It's called "Another plan for Hotel Syracuse".

"'The renovation of the tower building and 191 hotel rooms. Renovation of the first two floors of the historic building. The retail and the lobby area,' Economic Development Director David Michel is t "An Israeli based holding company is finalizing a deal with the Chicago Bank that now owns the hotel property to launch a $19 million project. alking about converting the Addis Building into housing. And then, the last item is the renovation of the hotel parking garage.

They're still finalizing their plans for the rest of the historic building, but they envision perhaps a few more boutique style hotel rooms and residential condominium units."

That's Syracuse for you.

I finally made an appointment to get a haircut today. It's at 4 p.m. tomorrow, and I can wait. For the first time in my life, my hair is so long that I can see it out of the "back corner of my eye," on the side of my head. I'll have to see what happens tomorrow. I love how hairstylists are always so careful to cut people's hair just right. I personally don't care. I always tell them "as long as there's something left, it's fine." Tomorrow I'm going to tell my hairstylist to cut off a "significant amount." We'll see how much that is. I can't wait to have easy-to-manage hair again.

Wow, last night really sucked. I thought I had a ten-page fourteen-source essay due today, so I worked through the entire night. My essay ended up being horrible, probably the worst I wrote all year. I had a red bull and about four cups of coffee last night. Before going to class at eleven today, I bought three red bull imitations for around ’Ǩ2. As I was drinking two outside the classroom before class, I was informed that the essay due date had been postponed to next Thursday. Guess I "didn't get the memo," but I wasn't the only one.

I drank another energy drink during the break of the class, and had an expresso downtown with Phil from my class. Nevertheless, I was still falling asleep on the public ride home. I was in a good mood when I got home, and sat in front of the computer for over an hour. I then realized that if I wanted to go out, I better get some sleep, as I hadn't slept in over thirty hours. I fell asleep on the easy chair and slept for over an hour. When I woke up I found out that no one was out again tonight, so I decided to go to bed. This didn't work, and that's why I'm sitting here typing right now.

Well, I got up nice and early today to go to the Austrian National Library. Finding the right entrance at the Hofburg was a chore, but I finally figured out the main one is right under the famous terrace where Hitler annexed Austria in 1938.

I paid ’Ǩ1.50 to enter, and headed to the OPAC computers. That's where the trouble began. I couldn't find anything useful. I'd put in keywords such as "Austria" and "Industry" and get no results. I gave up on the computers and decided to walk around a bit and take a look at the three books I found on the computers from which I could perhaps at least get a quote out of.

I then realized all the signs just showed "reading lounges" but no directions to certain call numbers. There was also a desk called "book hand out," which leads me to believe that you have tell them what books you want and then they go and get them. I went back to the OPAC computers and checked if I could find any kind of instructions on using the library, but all I found was a link to a listing of classes on using the library. I gave up.

Another day has passed, and, besides a record five weblog entries, I haven't achieved much. I have a ten-page, fourteen-source essay due Tuesday at 11:15, and, as usual, I'm leaving most of the work for the last day. Tomorrow I'm getting up at nine or so so I can go to the Austrian National Library to get some book sources so that not all my sources are from full-text journal entries via the Syracuse University Library website. I also have to buy paper and a new black ink cartridge.

I have definitely learned a valuable lesson this summer: Never take a summer class... EVER! I'm taking one class here at Webster University Vienna, and even that seems like to much work. I just want to do nothing... Absolutely nothing... Sort of like I'm doing right now... But I hate the guilty feeling I get that I'm doing nothing when I have an essay due in 35 hours.

In other news, nightlife is still crap. I often reminisce about the better days in Vienna (See Vienna Trip I and Vienna Trip II).

In terms of my body, I am an old man. Granted, I can still run to the neighboring Mauer neighborhood in ten minutes, but otherwise everything is busted. My reoccurring ribcage problem, which has existed for over two years, has been horrible this week. I'm popping Target-brand Aleve tablets and rubbing on Wal-Mart-brand BENGAY all day.

I think I'm going blind. My left eyesight has receded and I can officially say Focus Daily Contact Lenses are horrible. They stick to my eyes like glue. While taking one out last night I accidentally plucked the entire eye ball. Yum.

My right eyelid is still all messed up. To counter this problem I widen my eyes like crazy in photos.

I haven't played soccer in years, but I'm pretty sure if I did my left leg would strike, as I basically permanently messed it up ten years ago.

My pinky fingers are still deformed from playing football with the "big boys" many years ago.

Luckily a dentist here told me my teeth are actually doing pretty good. My last physical last August found everything important, like my blood, all right too.

Throughout past few weeks my dad's apartment has been continually entered by wasps. At first I thought it was just because the windows were open. But over the past fews it has been pretty cool outside, and I haven't opened the windows at all. Yesterday afternoon it became apparent to me that wasps were somehow getting into my apartment using other entryways. The peculiar thing was that besides the kitchen, which has a window, wasps were appearing in the bathroom and the toilet room, which have no windows. At one point yesterday night, it was dead quiet for an hour while I was sitting near the kitchen at the computer, when suddenly there was humming in the kitchen.

The first couple times I was pretty humane, using a glass and a piece of cardboard to remove them alive, but once I was getting four a day I whipped out the disinfectant spray, as I don't have any insect-killing spray.

My initial fear was that perhaps there was a nest behind the microwave, but then I realized what was going on... There are two air vents in the kitchen, and one each in the bathroom and the toilet room. The one in the bathroom had a cord to close it, but the other ones are permanently open. I closed the bathroom one, and then began covering the others. In the kitchen I used thick envelops, and in the toilet room I used a paper towel, figuring this solution would let air in, but no wasps.

None of the covers are really that great because they're not very tight. Nevertheless, no wasp has entered since, and it has been about eighteen hours.

If you'd like some advice on how to get rid of wasps that are already inside, check out this procedural guide I stumbled upon today: Kill Wasp, Vol. 1 Hah, I just realized that both I and that person made references to movies in our titles.

There has never been a significant problem in the past, so I think one of screens on the roof covering the air ducts must have torn.

Newkai.com was used more this past month than any other month this year. In fact, there were 145,730 page
views, significantly more than the first five months combined! In terms of bandwidth, more was used last month than the first three months of this year combined.

These great results are mostly due to the success of the "1000-Image Summer" project, which now has over 700 photos.

I was pulled over last night for the first time ever, here in Vienna, or anywhere else. It was right by the Volksgarten, where there's a 30 km/h (19 mph) speed limit, and it was a cop with a "lightsaber," standing on the street. He just checked my papers, and the whole thing took less than a minute. I was surprised he didn't have me take a breathalyzer test, but I guess after years of pulling people over, they're pretty good at telling who has drank anything or not. And no, he didn't have one of those high-power flashlights cops in the States have to detect vapors. I'm just always glad that I don't drink anything when I drive, because then I don't have anything to worry about.

If your mass is less than or equal to 60 kg (132 lbs), this can get you to or above the 0.5‰ (0.05%) limit that's in place throughout much of Europe. Granted, I'm about 90 kg (198 lbs), so it would be a little more.

Yes, there's some resemblance...

War of the Worlds is a horrible movie. Oh wait, I guess I have to write "WARNING: Spoiler Below!!!" or something like that before I proceed. Then again, you might as well spoil the movie for yourself, because it's not worth your time.

Complaint #1: Sim City: The "tripods" reminded me of the monster in Sim City 2000. Granted, the later didn't have feet, but it zapped things and set them on fire. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to me that their zaps dissolved people but set things on fire. And why would they zap people if they really needed them to survive?

Complaint #2: Minute-long goof: Almost all movies have little mistakes in them, like a set guy in the corner of a frame, actors wearing different clothing from one shot to the next, or things that don't make sense as part of the plot. To me, these aren't big deals. But how can a guy using a digital camcorder in the foreground for an entire minute, while all electronics have been fried, be overlooked!?

Complaint #3: Dakota Fanning: Such an annoying young actress. Or at least she gets put into roles where she's annoying. She always plays this "little adult" role where she's as smart or (as in this movie) smarter than the adults around her. Well... Until the attacks begin, then she becomes a little kid again, which also doesn't make sense.

Complaint #4: The Son Survives: The son in the movie hates his dad and/or is a marine-wannabe. Every time the military passes him, he wants to jump aboard. Eventually he does, and when the dad can't convince him to stay, he crawls along with the armed forces. As soon as the dad and the daughter are a safe distance away, there's a huge explosion, during which the entire hill lights up on fire. The dad and the daughter are even scoped out in a basement, yet the son survives explosions and being in a middle of a field. He also beats the dad and the daughter to Boston, where the movie ends.

Complaint #5: Sparing of Boston: Well, a lot of Boston looks like Cologne or Dresden after World War II, but the neighborhood where the ex-wife's parents live is perfectly intact. The mother, her new husband, her parents, and the son, come out of the house "as if they were just finished having tea" (Forums on IMDB). Spielberg must love Boston.

I guess I should have read some of those bad reviews that were already on the internet the night before.