The Lost Realm

We live in very interesting times in a very unusual world. Not only are people committing novel crimes using technology that most of us don't even have access to yet, but they're making their mark on history at the same time. From a complete nobody to filling several pages of search results (all containing lovely descriptions of exactly what porn movie he was watching at the time) within a day or two.

The combination of the weird world we live in, the media's insatiable desire to report it, and the collection and indexing of all this information on the Internet could very well affect you the next time you do something silly. I'd suggest watching your step, lest your future employer, friend, or romantic partner type your name into a search box.

I managed to get a parking ticket today. Despite there being four of us (and Romilly), we still managed to miss the sign indicating that the particular spot we had chosen to leave our car was paid parking. I'd be annoyed, but it seems that everyone gets parking tickets these days, even dead cows.

This week, Lucky the fish died. Many of you might wonder why the death of a small feeder feed is worthy of a little space on the Internet. I'd like to remind those people that the Internet is full of really, really stupid stuff. Lucky also wasn't your typical fish.

Lucky has lived in our little fish tank for well over four years. He outlived the other nine feeder fish who entered the tank with him. They were all consumed by Bert and Ernie, the axolotls, within two days. A week later, this one fish was still there; it was at this point we gave him the name Lucky. Growing attached to a feeder fish seemed rather silly, given that he was destined to be gobbed up, but we named him nonetheless. He lived in the tank, dodging Bert and Ernie for months, and eventually outlived both of them.

He lived on his own for a while, and then was joined by two pearl scale goldfish. He liked the fact that they didn't once try to eat him. He seemed to enjoy that he outlived them too.

He lived alone for another while, and then was joined by a horde of others. He was interested in the blackmoores, as was Genghis the cat. He also liked the two new pearlscales: Wilbur and Whisky-Lemonade-Sunshine (named by Debs). He really liked the chinese algae eaters, Hoover and Vax. Vax, in particular, was his best friend. It was like the old cartoons with the big bulldog and the annoying, yappy little terrier. Lucky would spend hours circling Vax, while Vax angrily defended his little territory.

The blackmoores died without even being named, and Vax eventually beat Hoover and both pearlscales to death. Vax was a lot more like the bulldog than we imagined. Lucky continued to hang around him, avoiding similar punishment. Soon enough, Vax died, most likely because there was no longer anyone to beat up.

Lucky continued on alone again. The tank was gifted with a number of algae-eatinig snails. Many of these too, died along the way. With the hundred of tiny snails, it is difficult to count them.

And so it came to this week, during the heat and humidity, that Lucky finally gave up his little frantic swimming. I buried him outside under some flowers, and smiled; he managed to survive those intended to eat him, survive those intended to be his companions, and live out a long life, all without once being eaten.

It's the joke everyone makes (apparently including Johnny Cash himself), but you'd have to be stupid to try to use Ring of Fire in an ad for haemorrhoid-relief products.

The real world gets more and more like The Onion every day.

Sick of Mozilla's browser changing names? Try Firesomething. I'd like to see it change the User Agent string too, just to make my server logs more interesting to look through.

I wonder what the world would be like if all of our applications chose their names randomly each morning? Strangely, I don't think it would make much difference for a large number of users, who don't seem to understand what their software is called in the first place.

To continue today's cryptic theme, this post was started using one of BLAT's new features.

After many hours of wondering exactly what I was thinking when I wrote much of BLAT's code, this site's engine has gained several new features. None of which you can actually see without logging in. Which you can't do.

While this might sound like the most pointless use of time ever (remember: I am on holiday), it isn't. I'm going to remaining frustratingly cryptic about it all for now, but you should see some interesting things here soon (none of which will have anything to do with whale blubber, I assure you).

In related news, I have discovered that the best way to feel cooler on a hot and humid day is to sit in the very hottest room in the house, next to a toasty computer for a few hours. Sit there, without eating of drinking and type and swear until you're sitting in a puddle of your own sweat (vinyl chairs are not a good idea, people). When one eventually returns to the other rooms of the house, it's quite refreshing.