Ree’s musings

I think I've found a cure, or at least a salve, for my burgeoning dissatisfaction.

It's simple. I'm a sort of creative person, but sometimes the creative part of me gets a little burnt out. Trying to force it only makes me miserable. What I need—what I've lacked for too long—is a project where ideas and cooperation take a back seat to getting shit done.

Another aspect of my frustration has to do with roleplay by forum post. Every site has a different CMS. The main site where I play will be moving to a different CMS, but right now we don't even know which CMS that will be. It's all up in the air and making me crazy. Until that gets settled, my own little modded forum will be on hiatus, because I don't want to divide anyone's attention (especially mine) between the sites and CMSes.

But my grumpy mood finally came to a head.

Screw it, I thought. I'm working on my site anyway. I won't try to get any members there until everything else evens out a little, but I need something to do. There is a specific feature lacking from every forum and CMS I try (excepting a phpBB mod that is highly insecure, so DO NOT WANT). I don't want to open my site without that in place and it's the perfect little project.

I estimate there are four main aspects of adding my desired feature. There must be a way to add my special data to the site, to edit it, to delete it, and to use it on forum posts. There are many other niceties that could be added, but these are required before the feature is ready for use.

Today I've been snowed in. I built a control panel for this data. By noon I was able to add rows. By five P.M. I was able to delete data. Editing will probably take as long as those two combined, since I must both access data from the database and write it back, instead of just one or the other. As for using it in posts, I don't know. It might be straightforward to do or it might be unremitting hell.

But I had four goalposts on the project, and I've already met two. I'm a lot more content now than I've been in a long time. In fact, after I get the Christmas tree done, I think I'll have enough pent-up creativity to work on a story post I owe.

I love this.

Tried to troubleshoot a DNS problem for someone else. Best I can figure, I can't fix and neither can they. The dev with the power to fix it knows about the problem. Knew five days ago. Still nothing. Not even "I'm still working on it." And the support docs on the subject are outdated enough to be perfectly useless.

Got bored. Went outside. Played mobile phone Tetris. Tried to update my blog (thereby updating my domain homepage, which updates whenever my blog RSS feed does). Blog updated, domain didn't. Blog updated but blog RSS feed did not. Tried editing entry and resaving. But the future RSS feed refused to change.

Got tetchy.

Think I'm all done internet today.

What's the deal, Tabulas? I know that some things don't crosspost to LJ, but what on Earth was in my last entry that borked the crosspost? I don't remember typing any multibyte characters.

Blargh. I'm genuinely glad Tabulas tells me that the crosspost failed. I'd rather know than think it went when it didn't. But in the last few months, LJ has choked on about half my crossposts. It's getting old. I don't have a clear enough idea of the problem to bring it up in LJ support. I don't think LJ gives a damn anyway, but if I knew the problem, I could at least bring it up at Dreamwidth. Probably they either have already fixed it or are interested in knowing the exact problem, to help them get it fixed. LJ, well, LJ just likes money.

I don't think the problem is on Tabulas' end, but I don't know where to ask for information about that, either. The forums are down (or at least not at the old URL), the wiki was never for one-to-one communication in the first place, Roy's not the owner anymore, I don't know who the new owner is or if they care....

Bah. Copy, open LJ tab, paste, post, find less vexing thing to do. Done.

Ah, it's this little guy: ♥ I forgot it was in there. I'd written the last paragraph first and then went back to build up to my point. That means the problem was a multibyte character, just as before, and I have an addiction to the stupid things. At least it's not some new problem.

Oh hey, I still have an online journal! Who'd've known, right?

I haven't had much to report. Sun goes up, sun goes down. Same as ever.

There are little things. My little strawberry patch had only tiny little red nubbins last year; this year, I clawed up trenches in it to aerate the soil and dislodge dead plants. It paid off. Yesterday's production filled two margarine tubs, and this morning's, another one.

Finished modding my SNES Game Genie. Now I can play Japanese (SFC) games on my US console—no costly adapter required! I love good 16-bit graphics, and Romancing SaGa 3 delivers in spades. Also, I opened up an electronic device and did not break it. Go me!

My boyfriend took me to a carnival, where he won me a plushy and a sword. The plushy is a little green ball, because he remembered my favorite color. D'aww. The sword blade lights up in four colors at once, like a disco lightsabre, because we are great big geeks and that is awesome. It (brightly) lights my way to the kitchen when I wake up in the middle of the night, craving a snack. Of strawberries. OM NOM NOM

Upshot: My life is so freaking good. It's not perfect—what is?—but it's good and I am treasuring that. ♥