October 31st, 2002
It's been how long since I updated this thing? What kind of Internet user am I, anyway? Am I not obsessed? Am I not required by some sick perverse need to both touch other people through an aloof and sort of anonymous format that only the Internet and this random I-hope-someone-will-pay-attention-to-me format can give, do I not need to update every single day? Every single day?

Maybe not. But then again maybe I'll start today. On All Hallows Eve. Scared yet?

I've spent a lot of the last couple of weeks doing three things: hacking, travelling and driving.

On the hacking front, I've been working on various gtk2-mozilla issues. I'm using a local gtk2 mozilla build as dogfood and except for this one crazy focus problem it's pretty damn usable. I need to get the embedding code done as well. The Xft stuff is also coming together. I've got a patch that actually sets the correct default font and DPI for gtk1.2 and gtk2 with Xft. I have to say that a Mozilla build with gtk2 and Xft and the proper fonts looks great when integrated with the desktop as a whole. All we have to do is get the native rendering code ported over to gtk2 and we will be gold. Fucking gold, I tell you.

A couple of weeks ago I went and took a Motorcycle Safety Foundation class on riding motorcycles. Now, keep in mind that I got my motorcycle license when I was 16 and had it before I had a license to drive a car. However, it's been a few years since I did any riding and I was feeling pretty rusty. I thought a refresher would help me out a lot. It turns out that picking up the riding again wasn't the largest benefit of the class for me. I picked up on the riding immediately (I guess it's just like riding, well, a bike.) I have quite a few bad habits that are well ingrained into my riding. The instructors were quick to point them out and tried to drill into me what I needed to fix. All in all, I'm pretty happy that I went. I'm going to buy a bike next year.

I worry about my friend Jonathan.

October 12th, 2002
Great speech from Rep. Pete Stark about the Presidential Department of Pre-Crime.
October 10th, 2002
Just like 1995

I'm switching DSL providers right now and I've been using dialup for the last couple of weeks. Due to my lack of bandwith, I'm reminded of how much I hate CVS every time I have to update my tree. Speaking of which...

cvs server: warning: cannot write to history file /cvsroot/CVSROOT/history: Permission denied

Happy Hacking continues in the the xft bug. I think I have a patch that makes people happy. Finally. We'll see, though.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Zach is getting married this weekend, and all of his friends have been specifically barred from attending. Such a shame because we could have added such an ambiance, a specific character to the event, that we would have further imbued the event on the memory of those attending an already glorious event. Ahh, well. Their loss, I guess.

It's actually rather convenient that I didn't have to go out to the west coast since my cousin is getting married this weekend. I'm going to go down there and rent the largest car I can, wear my suit and generally try to have as much fun with the family as possible.

Reading Material

I've been slowly trying to work my way through The Federalist Papers. It's tough reading, to say the least. I've read about 35 of the essays so far and I have to admit, I'm impressed. They did a great job in selling the importance of the Federal Government over a much less powerful and less centralized confederacy. And it turns out that the Fed has lived up to most of what the original framers intended. At the same time, however, some of the bad things that the the Anti-Federalists predicted had predicted have come true as well. But as with most things, it's not as good as the Federalists had promised and not as bad as the Anti-Federalists had warned us against. I think that as a whole, it's worked pretty well.

October 3rd, 2002
We can not claim for ourselves what we deny to others.

Bill Clinton continues to make sense in a world of confusion.

In Other News

Lots and lots of hacking going on in the xft bug. I've got a patch in there that I'm trying to get into the tree. I'm using a patched version of the browser and it's not giving me much trouble at all. We'll see how it goes.