Last night I noticed that the PixelPipe service now supports posts to Xanga. This means the Xanga API is out and about, which is great because I want to make a dedicated Xanga application for Android-based phones. And by Xanga API I mean beyond the meta api. If you're incredibly geeky and want to try your hand at their API hit up http://api.xanga.com.

This is basically a way of saying:
If you see weird things on this page (not funny weird, but "what the hell happened to this post" weird), then rest assured it is just me goofing around with the API.

Thanks,
-Pope

update:
- Documentation for the API is odd
- They switch arguments a few times, when I think consistency would have been better

Daren is a friend from OSU, and he happens to live near and work in San Francisco. He is an copy editor (I believe that is correct) for a company that deals with all things great and tech. So during the day we pass a lot of links and what I think are humorous conversations back and forth.

He is a long time fan and promoter of my blog, and I promised him a few weeks ago that I'd post some quotes from my favorite chat moments with him. Here they are, in no particular order, except my favorite is the first conversation.

Me: I'm going to find Norah Jones and make her have my babies.

Daren: lol

Me: I think it sounds more legal when I say it that way.

Daren: I think the "make her" part is iffy though. Might want to work on it. Perhaps an elaborate plan to woo her?"

Me: I'm going to find Norah Jones, hold her down, and woo her.

Daren: I enjoy the show Chuck a lot. It's fun watch. I had a dream I was Chuck last night. It was fun.

Me: I had a dream last night and I woke up from the dream when Reese fell off his unicycle after someone hit the Mini Cooper I was driving that Reese was unicycling on.

Me: I've been waiting for the last hour for us to have cake in the conference room for a birthday. Turns out we're doing that on Monday, which is dumb because I wanted cake today.

Daren: lol. I think I just snorted

Daren: Reason #34234 I'm gay "Allowing Which Steel Magnolias Character Are You access will let it pull your profile information, photos, our friends' info, and other content that it requires to work."

Me: We went to Lowes on Saturday, and I had to explain to Laura what self-tapping screws are. They had a huge sign labeled "Self-drilling screws." I had to explain they used the wrong word.

Daren: Self drilling? lol. that'd be an awesome invention.

Me: Don't drop that on your foot.

Me: I found a word where the synonyms in backwards order are: dashing, daring, courageous. And if it had caring at the end, then it would be the Gummy Bears Theme song.

Me: I love this birds name.

Daren: I am a Kookaburra, who the hell are you?

Me: Wolffolins.com seems to close to "Wolf Loins" for my comfort.

Daren: I had the same problem

Daren: Ooh, out of context log that will haunt you.

• Daren: 9:41am: "Is she cute?"
• Me: 9:44 "Sure, but not my type."
• Daren: "Male?"
• Me: "Female."

Daren: Filing that away for some time in the future

Daren: Just printed all my travel papers for going to Oklahoma. I feel like I should get some shots and pull out my passport to go.

Me: Did you pack your hillybilly teeth?

Daren: No, I'll have to buy a new pair in the airport when I land, and a mullet hairpiece. They still sell it next to the chewing tobacco?

Me: Yea, right next to the Bigot Cowboy Hats.

Daren: Trying to fiklkl out a trubklwe ticklwet for klweyboard is inwerwesting. I thikl WEklmwer Fudd is in my computwer.

Note: That is not Daren typing in a silly fashion. His keyboard had a melt down while he was using it. He had to get a new one.

Daren: Is it wrong that I look at the Iranian photos and think that should have been us in 2000?

Me: Nope.

Daren: He never seems to want to do anything that involves bars, which is odd since I met him in one.

Me: He is probably afraid that he'll meet your future self, who has come back to warn your present self about an even in the future, and he won't know who to pick between: Future Daren or Present Daren. And you can't blame him because future Daren is probably cool and IPv6 compatible.

Daren: I keep starting to get up from my desk thinking "Oh, I'll go get a soda." Then I realize I have no quarters. Sad. The addiction is strong.

Me: Don't give in. You can do this. My new job is to support you in your anti-cola campaign. I'll be the Harriet Tubman to your slavery.

Daren: I had to look up how to spell vagina

Me: My flight is out at 4:40pm. I'm going to leave at noon to get some food, returned a DVD, grab my toothbrush, and head to the airport. Microsoft just bought my a muffin.

Daren: Okay. Any Java to go with it?

Me: Nope, I hate coffee.

Daren: Fine, kill the joke. I don't care.

Daren: Have you noticed a shift in the type of e-mails you've been getting lately? My inbox is nothing but campaigns and unions urging me to vote. The only other e-mail I get is from airlines offering me sales on European flights. I guess the lesson is vote and have a backup plan to leave the country.

Daren: The person who just posted on your wall is such a newb. She bought an Apple product during MacWorld. You always wait until the keynote is over.

Daren: I'm officially gayer. I'm antiquing online.

Me: Here is a funny story. Laura was working on a naming project that involved abbreviations. She made a list, and I looked it over and noticed "SPIC" was on it. I started laughing thinking it was a joke. Bless her heart, she didn't know it was a derogatory term."

Daren: lol. Literally, I LOLed. People are now looking at me.

Me: Today I created (from scratch) a custom LDAP authentication library for some internal webpages.

Daren: You've been too productive today. I ate a bagel from H&H in New York. You've shamed me.

Daren: I want it to snow in SF sometime. I want to head to Nob hill with a tobogga. And also I'd go down Lombard.

Me: You're like to die in SF is what you're saying?

Daren: It would be a fun way to go. Plus my certificate could say "Death by Toboggan".

Me: I'm docking you 2 geek points for not putting that sentence in to proper Yoda format (RFC-1968)

Daren: That is a P2P encryption protocol. I'm bummed there's not a yoda RFC. I love "Big Bang Theory"

The following is an actual e-mail I sent to CitiApartments, the company I rent my  apartment through. To give you a background: Citi is, for all practical purposes, bankrupt and a bank has foreclosed on all of their properties. Maintenance is Citi's responsbility, but they don't care since the bank has stepped in. And the bank of course doesn't care, because it is Citi's responsbility.

A few minor things needed to be fixed when I moved in to the apartment. For instance, the light switch in the bedroom. Someone did come and fix that. Although he did install the light switch upside down, I don't really care - it works now.

The big issue is that I only have one set of working keys, because everyone involved at Citi is a douche bag.

Here is my e-mail - and I'm 100% serious about it.

"Rick,

I truly did appreciate you sending someone to fix the
lights in the apartment. However, no one has ever addressed my door
and key problem. And to top off that situation, I've discovered that my keys also don't work on my backdoor. After well over 30 days of
being patient, I'd like to remind you that this is the third time by
e-mail, not counting 2 times by phone, that I've tried to get someone
to address this issue.

You've proven yourself and CitiApartments incompetent and useless
in this situation. People warned us about signing anything that had to
do with CitiApartments. Now I understand why CitiApartments is in the
financial condition it is, and why it receives the worst customer
satisfaction by apartment renters in this city. Good riddance to Citi's
rubbish. The amount of effort spent on not doing anything so that Citi
can maintain such a horrendous record is impressive. Even the sheer act
of actually fixing something would start to improve your service
record. Why strive for more when incompetence is, apparently, a
wonderful bliss?

If this isn't taken care of by 6pm - not even one minute later - on
Wednesday July 22nd, I will be installing my own locks on the front and
back door. I charge for parts, labor, renting a car to get to what I
deem an acceptable hardware store, mileage (to and from - counting
returning the car). This will all be deducted from rent. The only
person I will be making copies of the keys for are the actual
deed-holding owners of the building. I will not distribute keys unless
the person carries an actual xeroxed copy of the deed and legal
identification. They can receive copies of the key in person between
9:01pm and 9:06pm on the first prime numbered day after a quarter moon
following a full moon phase. I am 100% serious.

August 13th and September 13th are the next two days that meet
these conditions. After that, you can use your own calendar of the lunar phases to determine the next valid day to pickup keys. You
should have plenty of time to study it, seeing as you obviously don't
do anything productive with your day, let alone solve problems you get
paid to solve. I'm just trying to make it as easy as CitiApartments
has.

As a recap: By Wednesday I need FULL sets of keys that work on our
front door, our backdoor, the wash room, and storage space. If you give me the
keys and I find that even 1 key does not work in its appropriate door,
I will consider the matter unresolved.

Enjoy your day of not doing anything at all.

Thanks,
Seth"

This is a post dedicated to a random assortment of things I'd have missed if it hadn't been for my blog. I never regret the time I have spent and do spend blogging, because it has brought me a great deal in odd opportunities, very weird
experience, and a handful of other things...

Relationships

• 1 Profession of Love from a young woman in Iowa whom I've never met. It was a nice surprise to receive, and I still have it.
• 2 Girlfriends (at different times) - Jamie and Gwynndallynn, both wonderful young women.
• 2 Missed Opportunities:
  • One lived in a timezone too opposite of mine, and the distance seemed a problem for penniless college students.
  • The other I ruined in an incident of e-mail. Without going in to the full story, the main gist is that I used the wrong name in an
    e-mail to her. She was hurt or furious or both. I stepped away without every confessing to her that I honestly hadn't recognized
    the type of attention she was sending me. I thought of her as out of my league. I wish I had noticed. (Do not mistake that wish
    as an evaluation of my current relationship. I am beyond happy where I am now.)
• 1 Piece of Hate E-Mail around May 14th 2004. Not a normal relationship, but I didn't know how to categorize this. She wasn't even bright, and I'd
  hoped to have found my arch-nemesis.

Friends

These are people I wouldn't know any other way. Most of them I've met face-to-face, except for 3. I know them from
letters, phone calls, and realms outside of instant messaging and commenting on each other's posts.

• The Ones I Know Best: Devin, Derrol., Kyle, LeAnn, Jennifer, Joy, Julie, Rej, Matt, Daniel, Solberg
• A Few of the Others: Josh, Jillian, Marty, Emily, Stephanie, Kari, Dover, JR, Diane, Lindsay, Bork, Bili

Gifts, Art, and Finds

• 2 paintings though I did pay for both
  • A painting by Jennifer, though I confess I had my hopes set on the stars on the yellow background. I still have images
    of the original sketches
  • A painting by Rej, a self-portrait of a type
• 1 Cartoon My own personal Sheep Tails cartoon. I was sad the day it was posted for consumption by the public.
• 1 Mix-CD from the Mix Tape Master, who made all of the playlists for the cafe on the edge of the ice skating rink
  at the Rockefeller Plaza on
• 1 Invitation to a wedding in Wichita, KS, because they liked my blog so much. My plans to go fell through.
• 1 Goat Skull from ThetaGirl in February of 2004 (I looked it up). She picked it up on a farm. I'm not sure why she picked it up or why I wanted it.

Misc Experiences

• A wonderful date as Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn for a party themed "In a Picture"
• The first time I ever chatted with Devin (Audrey Hepburn), I was in Florence, Italy. Later, back at campus we used to stay up all night (each in our own dorm room - we were never like that) and chat while watching cartoons on Cartoon Network. A few times we made it to the 5:30am showing of Captain Planet.
• A day hanging out in Israel with JSolber and his family
• Several evenings of great meals with Josh and his brother,  Brian. Brian is the only person I know who has watched a real monkey fashion show / photoshoot.
• One suit for my sock monkey
• Lots of bars in SF with Daniel
• The first and last time I ever ate chalk
• Yes, I actually ate real chalk, because I thought Jamie had sent me candy. I blame Autumn. It made the fact that I
  described the "candy" as "The worst candy ever. I think this is what real chalk
  probably tastes like" even funnier.
• Enough edgy quotes to ever keep me from being elected to a public office. One stands out more than the rest...
  • "In third world countries if you called AIDS “Won’t Let You Into America” Disease then people would be more likely to wear condoms."

Evidence Exhibit A:

Matt (gtVegita)

Diane (Sorry, Diane - I forgot your blog name) and Lindsay

The Goat Skull on a Gap Bag - not a social statement

The house Solberg built from the ground up. One of the most beautiful homes I've ever been in.

There are some odd things in the back of Solberg's yard

Gwynndallynn - the girl with the world's longest spelling of that name

Art by Rejcel

Marty, the almighty of Taco Mayo back in the days of OSU. Such glamour shots never graced his blog.

Perhaps the worst group photo ever: Me, Stephanie, ?, Emily, ?, Marty, ?

Too bad there aren't more Sheep Tails to date

Kyle (I forget your blog name)

Yea, this painting, Jennifer!

One suit, one sock monkey.

The painting I have - and do like very much - in its early stages

Audrey Hepburn for a night. If there isn't a young woman to stand beside me in a dress, that suit makes me look like a Southern Baptist preacher.

On a side note, the Xanga spellchecker is horrific. Among many other words, the following, were not in its dictionary: e-mail, arch nemesis, messaging.

When I was 4, my grandfather Victor (my mom's day) moved from LA to live with us in Oklahoma. He had been a professor at UCLA, and when he moved he brought his enormous collection of books. The result is that we have a 2 story garage, and the 2nd floor is dedicated to books and music. It is our own private library. He loved to read, watch movies, and listen to music. He never stopped. I can remember coming home at 3am some nights, and he'd still be up reading in his arm chair or in the living room finishing a movie.

He subscribed to numerous magazines - anything filled with knowledge:. Science, Science News, Harper's, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Wired, National Geographic, Aramco World, US News & World Report, etc. One evening we determined he received 47 subscriptions.

Needless to say, I grew up reading a large number of magazines, and I definitely read more books than I do now. But I've started reading more. Here is my current reading...

Currently Reading

• Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (1/2 through)
• The 7 Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, just started)
• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore (graphic novel, re-reading it ~40 pages left)
• Watchmen by Alan Moore (graphic novel, re-reading it, ~40 pages left)
• The Best American Travel Writing 2000 edited by Bill Bryson (1/2 through)
• Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson (20 pages left)
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1/2 through)

Recently Finished

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
  It is incredible what your brain is capable of, and what can happen to you when your brain suffers damage
• Israel Customs and Ettiquette
  A nice concise description of Israel and its history
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
  How we make quick decisions, and how to get better at it
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle
  One phrase: "Invest in Indexes"
• The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba (graphic novel)
  Good, but the story isn't as developed as it should be. Lots of potential, it won tons of awards, but I found it lacking in story development (there is none).
• The 300 by Frank Miller (graphic novel)
  Fantastic, and visually perhaps his best work.
• Sin City, volume 1 by Frank Miller (graphic novel)
  Awesome style, great story.
• War Lord of iO and Other Stories by Jame Turner (comic)
  Reminds me of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Too many pointless footnotes, but the comic is wonderful.
• Mouse Guard, Winter:1152 by David Petersen (comic)
  Mice on adventure! I am not a mouse, I am a gentleman!
• 100 Bullets, issue 97 (comic)
  I don't care for this series or its art work
• The Winter Men by B. Lewis and J.P. Leon (comic)
  Much better than 100 Bullets.
• Powers, issue #1 by Oeming and Bendis (comic)
  Interesting, very few words in this issue. I like the art.

If you're interested in doing something innovate with your Xanga archives on a WordPress account, then head over to my tech blog (RobotFloss.com) and read my post  on how to import your Xanga to WordPress. Basically, the plugin to import Xanga to WordPress is an out-dated and buggy piece of code. I've taken the time to address a few bugs and have posted the code for download.

Xanga is a great place, and I always appreciate what the team members are up to. And I'd blog more often, but a lot of the tools that I want have never been implemented. Since the Team seems to be content on not updating services and slowly erroding in to the past, here is my wish list...

1. I know Asia is your primary market at this point, especially Hong Kong. But quit ignoring everyone state side.
2. An app for phones. You gave Hong Kong users mobile Xanga access, but you don't support XMLRCP or an open API. Every other major blog service has this ability. Do you enjoy being second rate? By mobile, I can update about 20 other blogging services, but not Xanga. God forbid you make it easy for people to use your service.
3. The ability to save drafts. If I'm working on future posts, I have to do it in a text editor, G-mail, etc... This is unnecessary. To keep overhead down, give drafts a 30 day lifespan that is renewed upon modification.
4. The ability to flag posts for future publication. I have tons of posts written up, and it would be lovely to have an automated way to publish them and the photos that go along with them.
5. Either let Pulse pull in Twitter or let it push to Twitter. We want integration, not segregation.
6. The ability to have my own domain
7. With #6, make it flexible like WordPress, or just give up now
8. More supported HTML and Javascript code - I want my profile picture and header to change, but I can't connect that to code. Provide code, allow code, or just ban it all together. But don't do it hemipygus.
9. With #8, some of us would like to use Google Analytics. Do you not trust Google? You have heard of Google, right?

This post has something for everyone.

Swine Flu. I've been waiting for this moment (queue Phil Collins music) - something is finally more news worthy than Twitter! And if things go right for the flu and wrong for us, it might be more popular than Twitter. I prefer the days when Mexico provided cheap labor, lessons in crossing rivers, tequila, and coyote-related story plots for the 4th season of Weeds. Oh when will season 5 be upon us?

I think it is interesting how companies and venture capitalists fail to distinguish the difference between a community and a business model. Twitter is a great community, but it is about as good a business model as hemorrhagic fevers, laser engraved hot dogs, or the Brady Bunch. Brady Brunch - did they ever market morning snacks?

I'm not sure why the Brady Bunch made it in to that last sentence, but it did, and now we all have to deal with it. Oh, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. I'm glad that is as far as my Brady Bunch references go, because I never liked the show. They could have had the "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha Morning After Pill". Be sure to take it with food or a Brady Brunch.

After the flu dissipates we can rebuild society according to the Georgia Stones. In the post-swine flu world, my new name is Usul.

My grandfather Victor remembered the influenza pandemic of 1918. He was 9 when it struck. He once told me about how he took food to the homes of sick people. He also used to bootleg tequila from Mexico in to the United States. He'd load it in to the car, cover the stash with pillows and blankets, and then he'd have my mother and her sister pretend to be asleep on top of the blankets. No border patrol guard had the nerve to disturb two innocent sleeping Caucasian girls.

Once in Mexico my grandmother hit and killed a cow. They didn't report the accident though, because it would have counted at as a criminal offense not a civil offense (unlike car wrecks in America). So they slipped money under the cow and left.

After that incident, every year on the exact day of the fatality (I tried to make a cow pun there, but cow-tality didn't seem to hold up well) my grandfather would mail my grandmother a card that just said "Mooooooo" inside. They called it Cow Day.

Speaking of cards, in Wal-greens I found this card and purchased it for myself. Aside from the cards I make, this is the best card ever. I've never made a better investment in my life.

With this card no day or moment is ever less than exciting. Feeling down? Open the card! Feeling upset? Open the card! Want to feel even more awesome? Open the card again!

I think the movie "Fast and Furious" should have been called "More Fast, More Furiouser". That title matches the command I imagine Vin Diesel has over the English language. At least Vin Diesel had the good fortune to be in Pitch Dark. Too bad all of his other movies have sucked. It is like being born as a Spartan child and then pushed off a cliff, except Vin didn't get pushed - he voluntarily jumped.

Today I realized that the standard password I use is 17 characters long. If my password were a hot girl, she'd almost be of age. If you think that is strange, then think about how strange it was when I managed to slide that in to conversation with Laura.

Sometimes she* looks at me strangely when I talk. (* = Laura, not the password girl)