jmoiron.net

It would appear that submission is working, although in a non-final rudimentary form. Still, something had to be done, and even more will soon have to be done because the main page and other pages work off of different databases entirely. Unfortunately, there are no plans to get any of the functionality in the comments or rant section ported to the new system within the next 5 days; but I don't think that will kill anybody.

The insatiable urge to code and get stuff done is surpassed only by the insatiable urge to not do shit. Unfortunately these urges compete against one another with quite the fervor, and I don't want the one that's in the lead to win. That having been said, I haven't been able to accomplish anything recently; and I'm not exactly sure why. I just kinda sit around, knowing what has to be done, but never doing it. I think I need to write things down again; unfortunately, I wrote things down during my most productive times here, so I guess that doesn't work.

I have found the first 'features' of python that rub me the wrong way. First, regular expressions. In order to use one, you must create a 're' object with the expression in question, then you have to run some member function of the expression on whatever other ojbect (usually a string) you want to use it with. It seems clunky and I can see where it could cause people to trip over the syntax.

The other grip I have is, surprise, with regular expressions. Regular expressions and string objects have their own set of escape characters. Suppose you want a regular expression to find "p>". Well, a regular expression has as a special character, so you need to escape it... with a. Ok, so your regular expression needs to be "p>". Unfortunately for you, you're probably going to build it with a string; and in a string, is a special character, so you need to escape it... with another. The string to build your regular expression end sup being "\p>". If you want to dodge that game you can use python raw strings, like this: r"p>". Of course, god only knows what's going on at that point.

Everything else so far has been beautiful. The code running this website is more elagant and probably runs faster than any previous rendition.

In other news, there was some heat rising from ye olde bug trail earlier this week; much entertainment was to be had, and indeed, much entertainment was had. The chickens are a bit restless it seems. Its all well and good for me, at least, since I can kinda sit back and watch it happen from where I'm sitting.

So tomorow is my cousin's wedding. Unfortunately for me, this means that the constant barrage of "When are you going to get married?" now falls upon me, the oldest single man of the family. This question is no laughing matter; any family event, including tomorows, will see yours truly have to field this question in an uncomfortable, sometimes defensive, sometimes offensive way. Every event. Big fat Greek wedding style. Thank's a lot, Nel.

However, in the pinnacle of good fortune, I have a few things protecting me from an otherwise lifetime (lifetime, assuming what they say is true, that life ends after marriage) of danno-style questioning. The first, is that Nelson is childless. This means that he doesn't have any kids, for the uninitiated or english-ly challenged. It also means that for a year or so he will protect me from the brutal barage by shouldering the "When are you going to have kids?" question in place of my marital status update. The second, is that compared to other members of the family, I'm quite unapproachable. I think I tend to make other people more uncomfortable than they think they make me; a notion many family members of mine seem to have, but few realize is false. The third, is that my family insists on doubting my Portuguese skills. Its not enough for them that I listen intently (and understand) all conversations at the dinner table, or that I only make vocabulary based inquiries on rather difficult or region specific words, or that I often correct my father's portuguese. And thankfully, this means I can usually dodge most of their questioning. For instance:

Relative 1: When are you going to get married.
Relative 2: He doesn't speak portuguese.
Relative 1: Oh.
Me: Hmm.

I think you all can see how this can work to my advantage. Finally, I have a brother who's around more. Familiarity goes a long way when asking prying personal questions, and so does being comfortable and not intimidated. Its impossible to not be comfortable, equally as impossible to be intimidated, around my little brother. And he doesn't know portuguese, which for him seems to be an invitation to more questioning rather than an end to a conversation.

So, in my mind, weddings usually suck. Of course, I've never been to a wedding that I didn't like, so I don't know in what way they suck. Looking back on any appearance I've made at a wedding (that I actually remember), I can't think of one that I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Maybe its the fact that I hate wearing a suit. Or maybe its the fact that I detest the large waste of time it is to go through the inevitable 2 day preperation for some large scale family event. In many ways, the cousin who is getting married shares my opinion on many of these issues, so it will be interesting to see how shit goes down.