October 2003 Archives

Over at Hyatt's Safari site, he has links to portions of a cross-blog conversation about XUL, XAML, and GUI markup languages in general. Check it out if those things are up your alley.

I find the topic of browser driven applications interesting. The ability to build an interface that is lightweight, easily customizable, and made up of such easily understood building blocks is very empowering. I've always enjoyed web-development because of the quickness with which one can build something and deploy it. Although more powerful (and probably because of this) languages like C++ are much more difficult to use and take much longer to create a working GUI based app. The ability to use free tools like text editors and my browser to deploy an internet aware and distributed application is great in my opinion.

Scribe, a Firebird extension, allows you to save entries from a form to a file and to load files into a form. For those of using form based CMS systems for our blogs, like MovableType, it's an interesting tool. I've yet to try it, but you might want to.

So yeah, I've managed to break my individual archive template. I don't have time to figure out how. Please be patient over what will probably be the next few days as I figure it out and get it back up and working. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I loved it.

Over at Aces Full of Links, James had a little discussion going about the Red Sox loss in Game seven last Thursday. On a side note, he also has a new layout going on. Take a look.

James has said many of the things I was feeling. For more Red Sox nation feelings, you can see Ed Cossett's piece, The Boston Dirt Dogs, Cry for Help, motor skills, or Sox Nation. They all have interesting things to say.

With only a few days gone by, I still find it hard to talk about. Although we had a good season, sorry, excellent season, it still feels like a letdown. I think the biggest reason is because we were right there. We almost had it. The team was good enough, the guys wanted it, and one poor decision seems to have thrown it away. Man does it hurt.

I want to rationalize, to say the core group of guys will be back next year with improvements, that this was the first step on the road to Theo's dynasty, to say that one poor decision doesn't wipe away a season full of accomplishments, but it still feels like an amazing loss.

I'm looking forward to next season. As a fan of the way the Red Sox play the game, and not really the game itself, I can't bring myself to watch the World Series. That leaves me with football to occupy my time now.

I'd be glad to talk about the season, highs and lows with people. Maybe if we talk through it, it won't hurt so bad...

I'm glad other people are getting into it, but I don't know how much more I can take.

I'm ready. I'm not ready. I want to watch, but through the slites in my fingers as they cover my eyes. It all comes down to this, Game Seven, win or go home. After an entire season of watching the Sox, the first complete season of baseball I've followed, I can't image more baseball being played without them being on the field. They have to win, they just have to.

The Yankees are 5-6 in Game Sevens.
According to the second Back to the Future movie, the Sox will win the World Series this year.
The Red Sox are 3-0 against Clemens this year in New York.

The Yankees haven't won anything this century.

Let's go Sox!

(this is) Sour Bob

I faithfully kept Bob's link in my bookmarks, checking it frequently for updates. Sure enough, he'll be writing again. I'm pretty excited. If you've never read his stuff before, you should check him out. Give his archives a shot too. His writing is excellent, well worth your time.

So it occured to me today, after a weekend of comment spam and referrals from the MovableType donors list that maybe the donors list is being used as the stepping off point for the bot that's been nailing everyone from Asa to me to many of the people interested in Jay Allen's comment spam protection. The question is: what can you do about it?

And yes, I know that Asa's blog is not listed on the donors page, however I'm sure that there are more pages than mine that link to him either in their link lists or in their posts on a regular basis. Although links make it easier for us toshare information, things like weblogs.com are basically self-published mass mailing lists for us to be terrorized.

"I've been playing Final Fanatasy Advance Tactics on the Subway and while watching football games. The game is great, and I agree with Gabe's comments regarding the ability to pause and end quickly while being able to jump right into the action when you pick it up again. They make for an excellently portable adventure. One thing that bothers me is the fact that the skill tree is not laid out; you have to figure it out yourself. This makes it tough to advance characters, especially when finding a battle somtimes requires a good deal of milling around the world. Over all though, the game is a lot of fun. It eats up time quickly though: I've already logged almost 30 hours. Sheesh.

The Red Sox playoff ride has been a wild one, taking me on a rollercoaster with late night 12th inning losses, Game five amazing strikeouts, and fourth inning beatings of 72 year old men. I got to attend the game last Saturday where the Sox series with the A's turned around on a Trot Nixon two run homer to win it in the eleventh. Such an amazing game, and an amazing night filled with high-fiving strangers, discussing the nuances of base running with other fans, and watching great baseball with my family. Ah, October memories.

This weekend was a little traumatic, with the antics on Saturday putting a damper on the Red Sox achievments to this point. With the Hudson drama during the last series, and the Zim drama this time round, you'd think baseball was trying to be more like hockey. Sheesh.

I hope the Sox calm down and get back to the business of playing ball. It's bad enough to lose a series, but even worse when in doing it you makeyourselves look like a bunch of spoiled brats looking for a fight. A few classy and skillful wins may go part way towards repairing the teams image as well as helping to get the fans back into it. Go Sox.

I have to apologize for the lack of posts lately. Between spending my nights watching playoff baseball and feeling slightly under the weather (enough to make me visit the doctor, something I never do) my time has been spent elsewhere. Enough with the excuses, though. Back to the content.

It's hard to keep the defeatist in me from waving the white flag. If there was a worse way to lose a tied game in the twelfth besides a bunt by a slow catcher (besides losing said game in the 17th or 18th the same way) I'd like to see it. Maybe it would make me feel a little bit better.

The flip side? If you think there's a team in the playoffs that has a better chance to come back from such a discouraging loss, I'd say you're full of it.

Early this morning, we lost one behind our champ. Yesterday on WEEI, someone said that losing Game 1 would be a huge blow to the team, effectively saying "Even your number one starter, your team champion can't get it done. Bring on Wakefield, Lowe, and Burkett."

I can't contest that losing a Petey started game hurts, that it's practically unimaginable to a dyed and true member of the Nation, but over the last few years we've learned something about him: he may be great, but he's not invincible. Secondly, this team has proven all year long that it's not one guy who wins or loses games, and it's not one guy who plays each one alone. Last night's loss was due to many things, but it was a team effort. And with a team effort tonight, the results may (and I think will) be different. It could very well be that Pedro's sacrifice last night, putting all he had on the line and then losing, could be the spark these guys need to destroy Oakland in the next three straight.

I'm sure there are some fans who threw in the towel last night. "That's enough for me," they said, "Damn curse is going to get us. The guys just don't have the stamina for the stretch run." It's ok. I'll keep a seat saved for them on the bandwagon. For now though, Ed has the right idea: glad to get this one out of the way. Now on to game two.