Life Is A Game For Grown-Ups. It's A Game You Play For Keeps.

So says a bizarre online quiz on MSN. I can't really comment -- what the fuck does "Play For Keeps" even mean? Does it mean you die if you lose? I mean, you die if you win, too. Everything is so stupid.

Fuck Thanksgiving and fuck you, too.

I got a margin of work done on OpenRPG this weekend. The common library now lets you generate a "message" object in XML. Now I have to finish the code that lets you validate a received message and parse it into a hash. The wheels of creation are not being lubricated by libxml2, which has, in my opinion, a real spaghetti API. I shudder to think what the GNOME source tree looks like if that's what their whole base system is built around. Still, it's the only show in town, I think, if you want to do XML in C. I find that I spend most of my time on this project just thinking about how it should work and then writing code very carefully. I'm hoping I'll hit a watershed at some point when all of the dependent functions have been set up, but it may be slow going forever.

Yo, guy: When were you at an MIT CS ball? And how do NFAs help you do anything with natural language? I mean, you know me, I don't really know anything about anything, but if your language is powered by any kind of finite automaton, you probably don't have anything terribly interesting to say. (Though you may be prone to vicious epsilon-driven mood swings.)

I just got a flu shot. The RN who gave it to me said that giving flu shots is pretty much a freelance thing for her. She said, "Most of my regular patients can't say anything to me." Then she said, "Most of my regular patients can't say anything to me because they have their hearts open in front of me." That must be embarrassing, to have your heart open. And you can't even zip it up surreptitiously.

For Christmas I have to go visit my grandmother and Mer's grandparents. I don't mind telling you that I absolutely fucking hate old people. Go read a book, old people. Stop begging to see me!

Peep this. Quote:

"You know China is not friends with us," Skelton said, speculating about the explanation for what she fears is a subliminal message hidden in the toy. "They're trying to get back at us. What's the best way? Teach kids when they're young to hate. It's scary."

That is scary. Also scary? This little piece of prophecy, scooped from the pages of Cigar Aficionado by the good people at IndyMedia.