Crazy Fingers

A geeky housekeeping note: I just upgraded Crazy Fingers to WordPress 2.0. It was painless.

As a reader of this blog, you won’t notice any changes, at least until I change the theme again.

There were a lot of changes under the hood, and the new administration dashboard is pretty cool, including a WYSIWYG post editor, like Blogger has, and a preview panel which uses your actual theme (before, the preview panel for posts was theme-unaware). There are probably a lot of other things I will geek out about, but I haven’t discovered them yet.
If you’re curious, check out this summary of changes in WordPress 2.0.

I’m even more wary about using third-party themes than I was with WordPress 1.5. (Recall, I was disappointed about cross-browser compatibility with some of the themes I tried and liked. They all seemed to work on Firefox, but results varied on other browsers.)

Although some things may not work in WordPress 2.0, but Owen asserts themes will be ok — if it worked in 1.5, it’ll work in 2.0. Plugins may be a different story, he speculates. (I haven’t used plugins at all, so this doesn’t scare me.)

I’ll be watching the results of this WordPress 2.0 Theme Design Competition closely.

Are you going to upgrade?

Brian’s friend Nikki has been in town for about a week now, visiting her family. She lives in Los Angeles where she has a fabulous career in show biz.

Her girlfriend Molly arrived yesterday. They spent last night with Nikki’s family. Today they went to Park Slope. Brian and I are going out with Nikki and Molly tonight.

We saw Nikki, and a bunch of other people, on Christmas Eve. We went to a bar that had a great jukebox. I played a lot of Dylan. Nikki had a lot to say about how much she loves Dylan (600 of his songs on her iPod) and that she regretted not being more into the Grateful Dead.

She opened Pandora’s box. I can’t resist evangelizing sharing this music. If she wants, of course, I could give her my mp3s of all 6 of the sets Dylan played with the Dead as his backup band in 1987, or the rehearsals for those shows. Instead, I’m giving her 2 CDs tonight. Dylan and the Dead (selected songs from the 6 shows in the summer of 1987) and Postcards of the Hanging - Grateful Dead Perform the Songs of Bob Dylan.

I’m dying for Brian to get a taste of what I know about the magic of a Dead show. If “The Dead” tour this summer, I really want him to come to a show with me. Today, on an Arc Trainer, listening to 12/28/84, I noticed myself fantasizing about being at an outdoor show, in the sunshine, with him. Maybe if Nikki gets it, she’ll be able to give him context about it all.

It makes me cry that he will never be with me standing in front of Jerry playing live, at least not on this plane.

(The Allman Brothers come close, and I’m hoping Brian will come to at least one of the shows at the Beacon on March.)

… We’d make wrinkles, advertise them as creases (from Picasso Moon)

My suspicions were correct! The fuckers who fired me so they can replace me with cheaper resources in Australia, they don’t want me in the office anymore. I tried to log in to the VPN today to check my work email, and I found my account disabled.

I’m really on vacation until January 10!

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. These people owe me 30% of my 2004 bonus, which they withheld to encourage retention. I earned that money in 2004, when I was one of the top performers in the company, and they did retain my services. Right up until they told me they’re eliminating my job and replacing me with cheaper resources in Australia. I mean, really. What’s the point of withholding it now? Retention isn’t an option. I would have stayed forever, doing interesting work with people I respect, but they made that impossible.

They also owe me most of my severance, according to my attorney’s interpretation of the language of the severance agreement, which I did not sign. Their interpretation is that I have to stay until 2/28 to see any of it. If you want a clue about why I’m so pissed off, there’s part of it.

Andy writes in an email:

I never made the Blog about my 911 call <sigh> What’s a girl to do?

It’s odd that Andy refers to the incident as “my 911 call.” I thought the salient part of the story was that Andy was accosted and assaulted by a group of young men in Bedford-Stuyvesant one night recently, on the way to a holiday party, and that he fought his way out of the situation shaken up, but not badly injured. Yeah, there was something about a call to 911 and the cute cops that responded, but that seems sort of anticlimactic.

Notice that I’m using a new theme. This is one that came out of the box with the WordPress distribution. It’s called “Word Press Classic.”

This is the only theme I found that is reliably cross-browser compatible. The following themes all had some trouble on one platform or another. I realized there was a problem when my friend Kevin called and asked what happend to the link to Oliver’s blog. At the time, I was using Nikynik Red, and my blogroll was at the bottom of the page (not side by side) on Internet Explorer on Windows. All of the themes seem to work reliably on Firefox, but that’s about the only point of consistency. I want my readers to see all of my blog. I don’t have time to spend tweaking themes. I was so excited about the themes, too. This is a big disappointment.

Here are the themes that had problems on one browser or another:

• Cherry Berry FW 1.0
• LetterHead 1.0
• Nikynik Red 1.5
• Quentin 0.9
• Redbar 0.2
• Steam 1.5
• White as Milk 1.0
• WordPress Default 1.5

We went to Brian’s mom’s for the first night of Chanukkah, then dropped Brian’s brother off at his apartment. On the way back to Brian’s, I had a craving for a Starbucks Egg Nog Latte. We drove by several closed Starbucks stores going down Broadway from the mid 50s, then down 7th, then back up 8th, past the Starbucks stores at 16th Street, 19th Street, and 23rd Street. All closed. We went back to 7th to Sheridan Square, which was also closed, up 6th, past the Starbucks at West 4th, still all closed. The store on 14th, east of 6th, was closed, as was the one on Union Square East. We finally found an open Starbucks on Union Square West at 17th Street.

What’s open in New York on Christmas Night? The Jewish tradition in New York on Christmas night is Chinese food and a movie. While we were driving around, we noticed everything was closed except Korean markets, Chinese restaurants, movie theaters, and the porn stores on 8th Avenue (The Blue Store and Rainbow Station) and The Unicorn on 22nd Street. (It doesn’t surprise me that the porn stores were open. The guys need to jack off in the booths, Christmas notwithstanding.) And, of course, the Starbucks on 17th Street.

Who’s in Starbucks on Christmas night? Asians. A lot of people who don’t want their picture taken, including one who followed me out of the store and took my license plate number (he was doing puzzles of some sort at his table). And the kids in the picture, a couple of Chassidic Jews who were walking around with Menorahs asking “are you Jewish?” They want to support their fellow Jews in keeping the mitzvah of lighting the Menorah to commemorate the miracle of Chanukkah. Chanukkah is the type of holiday where a Jew can leave his house and carry stuff, so it’s a perfect time for the Chassidim to go out trying to bring us back into the fold (on the Sabbath, and most of the other holidays, observant Jews cannot light fires or carry stuff or touch money or drive).

The kids were probably part of a Mitzvah Tank, like this one and this one. (History of the Mitzvah Tanks from the Chabad website.) (Here’s a blog entry about a Mitzvah Tank parade, through Chelsea, no less. Another picture of the Mitzvah Tank parade and a link to a press release about it. And a first-hand account from someone who participated in the Mitzvah Tank Parade!)

During Chanukkah, the Mitzvah tanks drive around the city, obnoxiously blaring poorly recorded and very shrill Chanukkah music. At other times of the year, they park in busy parts of the city and they try to get Jewish men to pray with them. The Mitzvah Tanks are a venture of the Chabad cult sect of Chassidic Judaisim. The former (and now dead) leader of the Lubavitchers may or may not be the Messiah (although if he were the Messiah, I’m not sure why I still go to work every day).

I guess these kids figured “who else would be in Starbucks on Christmas night but a Jew?”

When I first encountered them, they were trying to have a conversation with a deranged person, one of the ones who didn’t want his picture taken.

My interaction with them was limited. I took their picture. They asked if I’m Jewish. I told them I already lit the candles, and went on my way. Brian was curious about where their parents were and why their out soliciting alone among the lunatics in Starbucks on Christmas night.

As promised, here’s a picture of our new building in Chelsea. Brian and I are still psyched about moving in. It’ll be nice to have real space and a real kitchen again.

Brian still has trepidation about this whole thing. He thinks it’ll be ok (I’m sure it will be great) but he’s never done anything like this before. His mom can’t believe we signed a two-year lease.

We walked by and met one of the building staff, who was outside washing his car. We’re still planning to go back on Monday to meet the super, Miguel, to give him his Christmas bribe gift.

We did a lot of running around today.

• Last minute gifts (in fact, all the gifts we are both giving are all last minute, except for a trinket Brian got for his brother two weekends ago). We got my parents 2 picture frames, which they seemed to like, and we paid for dinner. We’re going in on all of that with my brother and sister-in-law. We got his mother a digital camera, which we’re going in on with his brother. I went to Best Buy to pick it up this morning (we ordered it online last night); that was not such a good experience.
• Starbucks and the dry cleaner.
• Showed my apartment to a potential sublettor.
• Went to the gym. New York Sports Club closed at 3, so we called Kevin (who’s in Massachusetts visiting his family) and grovelled and he let us work out at David Barton today and tomorrow. Brian and I met at David Barton, but we don’t go there anymore. In exchange for working out there today and tomorrow, I’m not allowed to refer to New York Sports Club as a real gym, or mention that they have VersaClimbers, which David Barton doesn’t. One day I will have a picture of Kevin.
• Drove to New Jersey and had dinner with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and one of their daughters. We have an adorable picture of Brian and I with my brother’s baby daughter, but we’ve been asked not to share it here.
• Came back to Brian’s, where we’re waiting to go out with his friend Nikki, her friend Frieda, and her brother Adam.

Tomorrow we’re going to his mother’s to celebrate Chanukkah.

I got WordPress to accept posts via email!

This involved a one-time setup:

1. Set up an email account with a difficult name (random numbers and letters).
2. Change the email posting settings in the dashboard.
3. Make a few tweaks in wp-mail.php, which handles posting by email, since the off-the-shelf version of that file was buggy in the way it handles single quotes.
• The first tweak:

         //add this line
         add_filter('phone_content', 'addslashes');
  
         //before this line:
         $post_content = apply_filters('phone_content', $content);

• The second tweak:

         // delete this line
         if (!preg_match('#=?(.+)?Q?(.+)?=#i', $subject)) {
  
              // keep this line
              $subject = wp_iso_descrambler($subject);
  
              // add this line
              $subject = addslashes($subject);
  
         // delete this line
         }
  

4. Set up ‘curl http://www.larryperson.com/blog/wp-mail.php’ as a cron job. wp-mail.php causes WordPress to go check for email sent to that special account.

After you do the one-time setup, if you send mail to the special account you set up in step 1, the mail will appear as a post (with the headers stripped off) in your blog the next time the cron job runs. The subject of the mail becomes the title of the post.

So far:

• Woke up.
• Went to the bank to get certified checks.
• Went and signed the lease! We’ll get the keys on January 9th, and I’ll move in that day before I start my new job on the 10th.
• Went to the doctor about my cough. He gave me an Advair inhaler.
• Went and took pictures of our new building, which I will post later tonight.
• Came into the office. Tilak Lal called me earlier to see if I was coming in at all, because something wasn’t working at a client site. It turns out, when I got here, they couldn’t replicate the problem, so I couldn’t work on it.
• Integrated my Bloglines blogroll with the WordPress blog.
• Played with WordPress themes some more.
• Wrote this post.

How I’m going to spend the rest of the day (in no particular order):

• Get my keys back from Brian’s employee. I am currently locked out of my own apartment.
• Attempt to do some Chanukkah shopping. Brian and I are going to my parents’ house tomorrow to celebrate Chanukkah, as well as my parents’ anniversary, which is also tomorrow. I have no idea what to get anybody.
• Work out with Brian.
• Post pictures of the our new building.
• Have dinner.
• Pick up my laundry and change my linens, since the current linens have been shared by a straight man and a lesbian.
• Get money from the ATM, and get a couple of Christmas cards, so I can …
• Give Chico (my current super) and Miguel (the super in the new building) their bribes Christmas gifts. I want to be on Chico’s good side so I can sublet my old apartment with no trouble, and Brian and I want to be on Miguel’s good side so the apartment is ready on time, so the move is smooth, and so that he’ll help us do the things we want to do with it.

The strike is over, I hear.

I left Brian’s this morning to go to the listing broker for our apartment to give him cash for the credit check and some additional information. Unfortunately, my rear bicycle tire was flat. I walked the bike over to Metro Bicycles to get the tire fixed, which took about a half hour. There were a lot of frustrated people in that store.

I rode down to my office to make an appearance and print out paystubs for the apartment application, and spent a few hours here being bitter.

Now I’m heading back up to Chelsea to make another set of keys for Brian’s employee John, who’s staying in my house tonight rather than attempt to make his way to upper Manhattan.

Nikki is going to hold on to the set of keys she has, so she can use the apartment while she’s in town. Her girlfriend Molly is joining her next week; I’m excited about meeting Molly.