I’m enjoying great 3G speeds and a Lone Star at Birds on Lamar. Any minute now my hair will be restored to its usual spiky goodness. I’ll toss up some pics when I get back home.
Update: Amy took some lovely photos of me. Here’s one to check out:
So another year is upon us. Amy and I spent NYE at home, watched the Boston Legal finale and got incredibly drunk. The wine glasses my mother sent for Christmas hold over half a bottle of wine each, so the Stump Jump went quickly, followed by some boxed red wine and a bottle of Asti. We were drunker than Dean Martin.
I’d like to wish a happy new year to everyone who reads my blog. I thank you for checking it out. I know it’s not the best, but that’s something I plan to work on this year. Well, this and getting my yoga done.
Wil Wheaton did a neat year in review post, looking back at everything he’d blogged. I think I’m going to try that tomorrow, after trying to figure out Objective-C delegates again.
We also get a new bed tomorrow. More fodder for this thing.
Enjoy 2009 everyone. I’ll try to make it more enjoyable.
For all the other security nuts out there, I’ve updated my public key. This time I’ve included the actual useful key. If you’ve met me in person and you feel you trust me, please sign my key and return it. Include your key as well. I’ll sign yours and send it back.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll try to find a good page on GPG and email privacy to link to later.
The key has it’s own page, which you can always reach from the upper right.
This theme strikes me. Thoughts?
Update: Think I’ll stick with this new one for now. Might have to mess with the colors and try to add my old banner back in, but this seems workable.
So things look a little different around here. I’ve added a Photo page, which pulls from my Facebook. If you want my Flickr photos, there’s a link on the right. My last three Tweets show up over there as well.
I’ve also dropped the site to a very simple template for the time being. It’s all a matter of finding the right one. I want to go back to three columns, but this should keep things simple and readable for now.
If only Helvetica was licensed for the web . . .
Over at Livejournal, I’ve found that dropping my account to Basic level removes the big stinking ad from the top. Looks a lot nicer now, and I didn’t lose any functionality I had previously. Thanks for the tip Amy!
I want to figure out if I can completely abandon categories for tags. I’m surprised that WordPress hasn’t moved that way yet. They work in a similar fashion, except you can’t render a page of exploded posts from a tag link. Maybe someday.
I also need to figure out what I want to do with the main page. That’s where I’d just link to crap. I do most of that on Facebook now, so the main site has become rather useless. I’m quite open to suggetions, and our host supports all the latest tech, including Rails.
Work is over in 15 minutes. Then the weekend begins. We’ll be doing some shopping tomorrow. Hooray 
Those of you who are seeing this at tomtostanoski.com and don’t go to LiveJournal can ignore this post, unless you’d like to be consumed with vitriol.
Now, admittedly, I haven’t done much to care for the LiveJournal page I set up. I mostly did it to give Amy easier access to my blog and to expand my audience of bored humans. I left it on some ugly theme that I chose ages ago and only checked it occasionally to verify that the crossposting plugin is still working.
So I trotted over there today to ensure that it worked correctly with WordPress 2.7. It does. I figured I’d stick around and pick a more aesthetically pleasing theme. I did.
Then I noticed it. A big honking banner ad for credit cards above my post. This is so wrong on so many levels.
I get that LiveJournal doesn’t cost me anything. I get that a handful of Russian coders are punching up the nasty perl that makes LJ work. I get that they have to monetize the free accounts somehow.
But did it really need to be a huge graphical banner right above my most recent post? Couldn’t it be a skyscraper along the sides (which are currently blank). I look like a frigging phishing site. Thank you LiveJournal, for knowing nothing about page design. You can kiss the fattest part of my ass if you think I’m buying a paid account to get rid of it.
Those of you who want to continue to view my stuff on LiveJournal should get an ad blocking program for your browser. I don’t think a spam company should be profiting by obscuring my writing without my consent. If anyone knows how I demand they move it to a less obstructive location, please let me know.
The best course of action is to just read this over at http://tomtostanoski.com/blog. I’m currently looking for a better WordPress theme and I should have my blogroll and links cleaned up sooner than later. I’ll also be adding my Tweets to the sidebar as soon as I can find a good widget for it. Best part: no ads, and I will never try to sell you anything.
Sorry for the rant. It bugs me to no end that they put their ugly Citibank ad THERE!
So my birthday was Monday. I just turned twenty eight. And I guess I’m okay with that.
In recent years, getting older really got me down. Roll in the proximity of December 15 to the winter holidays and the severe lack of sunlight and things got worse. I once walked away from a cake and candles at my mother’s house.
Two years ago I escaped to Walt Disney World for my birthday week. Figured I’d never been sad in Disney World, save for the time my sister Laura vomited in the lobby of the Kodak theater at the Journey into Imagination pavilion. I’d waited months, saw every preview, knew everything about 3D technology and was ready to see Captain E-O. And she just yakked all over the lobby, when we would have been in the next show group.
I digress. I got to see the flick a few days later, and really enjoyed it. So always happy in Disney World. And as I spent my birthday at the now defunct Explorers Club watching some amazing shows (holiday themed, as Christmas was so close) sipping Bacardi and Diet Coke, I was quite happy.
Of course, this set me up for disappointment. I can’t afford to fly to Florida and live in a theme park for a week every December.
Last year, Amy and I spent our first December together. Her birthday falls three days prior to mine. We skipped down to a nearly deserted South Padre Island for a few days away. It was pretty good.
We had to split the day before my birthday though. I’d won tickets to see the Toadies, and we had to get back to Austin. The Toadies were great, but the venue and the rest of the crowd were horrible.
Already a bumpy start.
Later, we went to Dave and Busters for lunch and gorged on sushi for dinner. Turned out to be an okay night, but the birthday doldrums had already kicked in.
This year, things felt quite a bit better. We didn’t go away, we went for sushi and shopping on her birthday, and out for cooked seafood on mine. We kept it simple as she was still in exams and I’m hoarding paid time off for when we can go away.
Amy noticed that I wasn’t feeling as down. And I realized that I was feeling better about this time of year because I have someone to share it with, something I failed to realize last year. That’s a tough feeling to beat.
The week has trudged on, with work being as annoying as usual. I’ve put in for a promotion to technical lead. We’ll see how that goes as well.
That’s the one thing about having another birthday that bugs me. Four years on after leaving school, I’m still answering phones for a living. I still wait for people to reboot. I still answer stupid questions, both from client and coworkers. At 28, I no longer want this.
I’ll keep everyone posted on the new job if it comes to be.
Look for me to post again as the holidays wear on. I’m liking the new WordPress interface, which is good, as MarsEdit doesn’t appear to have tagging support for WordPress, unless I’m just not finding it. I’ll check again later.
See you all real soon.
A little holiday humor that started out as a legititmate venture and devolved into my insane ranting. You’ll need Adobe Reader, or a Mac or pretty much anything than can open a PDF succesfully (Sue me, I’m lazy).
I’ve been cleaning my life out for a while now. I’m getting married. I use an online To-do service. I funnel everything through my Mac and iPhone.
I turn 28 in just over a week. I tend to get depressed when this time rolls around. Couple getting older with holiday stress and a lack of light, you start to see where I’m coming from.
The goal right now is to keep up with my yoga and weight loss and not let another birthday get the better of me. I plan to achieve this goal.
I’ve also decided to put in for a different job at work. I don’t intend to do phone support for the rest of my life. My manager and my primary account’s Service Delivery Manager both don’t want this for me, but they don’t intend to stop me from trying. I’ll keep everyone posted.
It is nearly three AM now. Amy is snoring next to me. I have too many iPhone apps installed. I need to work on that tomorrow.
Just another part of the enema I’m giving my life. More later
Upping this lovely photo of Amy as as test and because my Fiance is rather sexy.
