apropos of anything

Dear spammers,

My post titled “Searching for the elusive cookie” is actually about the kind of cookies you eat, not the kind of cookies that Web browsers use to record personal information. If you’re trying to sneak a comment by me by making it look “legitimate”, perhaps for that post you should lead with something other than, “Thanks for writing about this. There’s a bunch of great tech info on the internet. You’ve got a lot of that info here on your site.”

Obviously you don’t read my site. It’s far more about the kind of cookies you eat than the kind of cookies you code.

Thanks for the laugh, though.

It didn’t take nearly so long as I thought it would… and at least the links are all fixed now. Still not sure what I think about the design, or where I’m going to go from here, but… fixed.

Hmm, so in a nutshell: I suck.

See the post below, about how I ignored my blog and didn’t do the suggested WordPress upgrade and contributed to a DOS attack on my hosting provider. The other part of this story, the part I just recognized, is that I got hacked. I haven’t checked to see how deep yet, but it’s pretty bad, I think. None of my links are working.

It’ll probably end up with me exporting my posts, wiping out my database, and starting all over with an import of the posts I want to keep. And since I don’t have time to do this now, or until December, I’m not sure what the state of blog will be in the meantime.

The main page works. Hope you weren’t looking for anything deeper, though (like advice on where to buy Nabisco Chocolate Wafers… don’t laugh, it’s quite a popular post).

This, I suppose, is what I get for going AWOL from my blog, for not paying attention to it, and for not updating WordPress when they asked me to: a DOS attack on my hosting provider courtesy of a security hole in WordPress, which led to my hosting provider chmod’ing out my main WordPress php file so that it didn’t work anymore, which led to Dan asking why my Web site was down, which led to me noticing the WordPress-related trending topic on Twitter, which led to me upgrading, or trying to, which led to me discovering I no longer knew my database password, which led to me creating a new database user, which led to me upgrading, finally, which led to here, where my old theme doesn’t work and I am late for prayer so I don’t have time to look up a new theme.

So, ugly but back.

For now.

Heather pulls into a gas station to restock on basic supplies (e.g. sugar and caffeine). Leta and I have been napping in the back seat, but she wakes up as the car stops moving and decides to join Heather and Jason on their run. I wake up to the slamming of the car door and hear them discussing whether it would be okay to leave me alone and asleep in the car, so I wave cheerily at them to convey that I was awake, yes, but I’d be staying in the car. They wave back, and Heather uses the remote control to lock the car.

A few minutes later, Leta meanders back outside. I hold up one of three chocolate bars that I’d fished out of a bag in the back seat and gesture emphatically to indicate that I’d be taking this one, please. She gestures back that I am not making any sense. I reach over and slowly unhook my seat belt, and then, equally slowly, unlock the door. Leta watches me dispassionately from the outside as though she’s curious what my next move will be. I open the car door.

The car alarm blares.

Leta doubles over with laughter. I am cracking up myself, and also trying to figure out how to turn the alarm off from inside the car (as obviously outside the car makes the car angry). It takes me only a few seconds to realize there is no way to do this without the keys.

Meanwhile, inside the convenience store, way in the back, Jason looks at Heather and asks, “Is that our car?” And because she is a wise, wise woman, she sighs, rolls her eyes, and says, “YES.”

… I am simultaneously terrified of the third thing and ready for it to arrive already because at least then I’d know.

What does it say about me that I am seriously contemplating mimicking Sarah Palin’s choice in footware?

The shoe Sarah Palin wore to the VP debate
(but I’m guessing hers was in black)

Not because she wore them, of course, but because they’re cute, but still….

(will likely be updated throughout the day, but to start….)

Where, exactly, does Joe Leiberman get off saying that eloquence is no substitute for experience when his own candidate’s VP choice doesn’t have enough experience to fit in a thimble?

Why is it that some people insist on believing the rules don’t apply to them? Say, perhaps, the giant sign in the front entrance of the shiny new mosque that says, “Please do not take food and drink into the prayer areas”? And what makes them think it’s okay to be mouthy when somebody asks them to be respectful of those rules?

Happy birthday, Aisha.

This ad cracks me up. The only thing I don’t understand is why I haven’t seen it on TV yet (but I suppose working my way through two seasons of Friday Night Lights has meant I have not been watching a lot of live TV lately except Jon Stewart and convention coverage, plus somebody somewhere commented that this ad may play better on the Internets than on television, and possibly that somebody is right):

Tonight I upgraded to Wordpress 2.6 beta, which decimated my existing database structure (at least so far as the categories are concerned). That’s why some of the posts are floating around without any particular association.

Tonight I also decided it would be nice to switch out my old pre-Web 2.0 layout to a bright shiny new one, but because the upgrade went… flawfully and because I got started late since I spent the earlier part of my evening addressing invitations for Aamir’s valima, we are still in progress. Significantly.

I’m hoping to get everything cleaned up by Monday. See you on the other side!