Mortality Blog

So I’m busy again, deadlines are looming, livelines are potentiating, and I feel like I’m percolating - like maybe something is bubbling up. Of course, I feel that way off and on a lot, so it’s not really anything particularly noteworthy.

On the other hand, I’m trying to take a different tack on this current round of work. In the past, I think I’ve been sort of taking some things for granted, and not being up front about the way I prefer to work - not out of any sort of delibrate dishonesty, of course, more because I’m willing to let a lot slide, and I (possibly unfairly) assume that everyone else too. I realize that I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy a comparatively stress-free life of responsibility only to myself - “someday you’ll have a wife and family,” I am consoled, “and you’ll understand,” but those people don’t know me very well. I’m not sure whether I’m really the marrying type.

But I’m not that lucky. I do wish that I could deal with problems the same way a cat does - by staring them down until you decide whether they’re scary enough to run away from or tame enough to ignore. Maybe that’d be too unstable of a life, though, because I really would have to run - away from a messed up relationship, away from an angry client, away from impatient debt collectors. I’m a little to sedentary for that, I suspect. Instead, I’m more of a fight-or-ignore person, although I’m not sure if ignoring a problem counts as fight or flight - can you run from your problems by pretending that they don’t exist? Can you fight your problems by refusing to acknowledge them, denying them direct influence over your life? Is it a question of semantics?

Conjecture aside, I think things are going well - I’m making such a conscious effort to be organized, possibly to an unnecessary extent, to make up for the fact that it doesn’t come naturally to me, and I’m beginning to suspect that this lack of aptitude is slowly screwing me over. Is it possible to be completely self-assured but still lack an advanced degree of self-motivation or self-control? I feel like I’m writing Carey’s one-liners for Sex and the City. “My night at Brooklyn’s hot new club left me sleepless and wondering: are we really what we eat? Or what we don’t eat, as the case may be?”

My point, dude, is that I feel like things are going well. I’ve been procrastinating, but I’ve been doing it on much more reasonable terms, and I think I’ve been doing a better job of procrastinating productivly. Anky is helping, though I have a feel StarCraft2 won’t. Oh well. All work and no play.

I’ll be interested to see how my sleep schedule looks when I get back from the coast on Monday - will I flip back over to waking up before noon? Will I sleep even later? turn in next time!

I just looked back through some previous entries, and realized yes, when I finish reading a really good story, perhaps a bildungsroman in particular (holy crap good word! also, spelled exactly how it sounds!) I have this urge to write up a cathartic journal entry. So there’s that mystery solved. Now, consider whether I should endeavor to read one every month, in order to facilitate this sort of activity.

This is an attempt to generate every possible combination of markup for style testing purposes. Here we go!

Unordered List

First, let’s start off with a list of good numbers:

• 1
• 2
• 4
• 6
• 8
• 12
• 15
• 16
• 24
• 32
• 36
• 42

Ordered List

Now, let’s do a numbered list, but this time, list…random filenames!

1. OP_250.png
2. poolparty_gmsfxFel.jpg
3. PP_442.png
4. S000094.png
5. zaush_x_bluebane.jpg
6. reindeer_ddpv_s.png
7. m_1177448823881_35f9660086e5703f35d60c4773465407.jpg
8. mousemarket.jpg
9. kogesoma.jpg
10. ba_beatinside.jpg

Block Quote

Next up we’ll quote someone:

On a related note, consider this Latin proverb - abusus non tollit usum, or “abuse is not an argument against use.” What do you think?

edit: on a related note: legal status of Salvia in Oregon [wikipedia]
‘nother edit: “firearms to fireworks” is a pretty good phrase, if I do say so myself. Gotta love those alliterations.

- matt lohkamp’s myspace blog [blog.myspace.com/mattlohkamp]

Images

So far, so good. Now it’s time for some pictures. First we’ll feature some from the web (from ffffound.com):

Uploaded Images

These ones I’ll upload:

♣ More Formatting Stuff ♣

… huh, so the auto image placing stuff is a little inconsistent, since you can’t really effectively ‘scale‘ the image according to the correct aspect ratio (I appreciate them keeping the underline tag out of reach of toddlers.). Also, selecting ‘middle‘ alignment when you’re adding pictures from the web isn’t reflected in the WYSIWYG view, while the same option for uploaded content displays correctly. Good to know.

So now there’s more buttons, under ‘kitchen sink’ - that sounds like fun. Ah, formatting options. Being able to resize the little window here is a nice touch. I’m thinking that I shouldn’t use anything above an h3 for post markup - h1 and h2 should be reserved for the blog shell.

Code Formatting

I imagine I’ll occasionally post markup, styles, or scripting here, so let’s see what that’ll look like (ouch, pre formatting is hard to break out of, and it has an annoying habit of kicking me back to the top of the page…):

    <div id=“menu-legal”>
    <ul class=“submenu”>
    <li><a href=“/legal#privacy_policy”>Privacy Policy</a></li>
    <li><a href=“/legal#term_of_use”>Terms of Service</a></li>
    <li><a href=“/legal#contact”>Contact</a></li>

    </ul>
    </div>

I guess as long as I leave myself room afterwards, I can exit the pre format without much trouble.

<script src=“http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=“text/javascript”></script>

<script type=“text/javascript”>

if (g_ga_enabled) {

    _uacct = 'UA-1911451-1';

    _udn = 'none';

    __utmSetVar('Not Logged In');

    urchinTracker();

}

</script>

Huh, pre-formatting definitly is buggy. I wonder how easily I could add a ‘code’ text block type to that dropdown menu?

.asset .title{white-space:normal;}
#paging-prev{margin-right:40px;}
#paging-prev, #paging-next{font-size:40px;}

And who could forget AS3? (I certainly couldn’t)

package mlohkamp.physics    {

    import flash.display.MovieClip;

    public class Gravity    {

        public var gravity:Number;

        public var restitution:Number;

        public var friction:Number;

        public var velocity:Number;

        public function Gravity(newGrav:Number, newRest:Number, newFric:Number, newVel:Number){

            gravity = newGrav;

            restitution = newRest;

            friction = newFric;

            velocity = newVel;

        }

        public function gravityWorks(target:MovieClip):Number{

            var newY:Number = target.y;

            velocity += gravity;

            newY += velocity;

            return newY;

        }

    }

}

Hmmm. Well, maybe there’s a WP plugin lying around for code highlighting - I mean, if nothing else, there’s a js function someone’s written, I’m sure. Okay, let’s see what’s next on our list.

External Video

First we’ll try a .swf

1201663459cerberus_what_is_love

… hmmm, that looks like it’s just a link. How about some straight up embed shit?

… how’s that look? Hmm, hopefully i don’t have to copy and paste code each time. Maybe .swfs count as a ‘video’ as far as WP is concerned? Let’s investigate.

sc_thecontest

… hmmm, lame, that’s just a link too. Okay, let’s try some other formats, like .flv… ouch! apparently ‘flv’ doesn’t fit WP’s ’security policy’! Wow, that sucks. Maybe I’ll have to code my own .flv player or something. How about .wmv?

bush-stutter

Cooool, word press, that’s another link. Well, this isn’t particularly impressive, but I guess I can deal with it. Let’s move on.

External Audio

caviar-tangerine-speedo

Well, fuck. That’s a link too. So I’m going to need a flash .flv and .mp3 player. Fine and dandy… I’ve already got a ‘lite’ .flv player class built in AS3, it can’t be too tough to do the same for an .mp3…

The End

Well, I guess this is kind of the end of our little experiment. WP is not as powerful as I would like… but seeing how I’m not entirely unskilled in this realm, shoring up those weaknesses shouldn’t be too much trouble. Okay - time to play with posting settings!

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