So as I've mentioned previously, I've been trying to teach myself style sheets. I'm still having trouble, but it's beginning to take shape in my head.

If you know me, perhaps you've seen my hidden (ha ha) blog: ill o' dreams : a catalog of dreams; from fatigue, fever or other maladies. If you have, check it again and tell me what you think of the new stylesheet.

It's not perfect, but I like it lots better than the default MT template I was using before.

I've been using Squared 5's MPEG Streamclip for Mac OS X for a while now, and it truly rocks. It has allowed me to do all kinds of things for Temple Faculty that were heretofore a real pain in the ass, mostly capturing clips from DVDs.

I'm not sure if it works with store-bought DVDs (like movies) because we've only used it for ripping DVDs people have made with iMovie/iDVD or similar products.

Here's the description:

MPEG Streamclip is an application that converts MPEG files (including transport streams) into muxed, demuxed, QuickTime or DV files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro and Toast 6. The most important conversions require the Apple MPEG-2 Playback Component (you can buy it online from Apple, but you already have it if you use either Final Cut Pro 4/HD or DVD Studio Pro); this component is used for high-quality decoding of MPEG-2 video. MPEG Streamclip also includes a player to set In and Out points, cut unwanted parts and perform a partial conversion.

They say "We're Not Sorry"

But who the fuck are they? Mostly, people who don't sign their names, but smugly hold signs that look eerily similar to those carried by homeless apocalyptic doomcriers.

UPDATE: "They" seem to have run out of bandwidth, or something. The webpage now lists itself as for sale. I guess there's no profit in not being sorry.

...just to get up that hill. Holy CSS Zeldman! is a collection of links about-you guessed it-CSS, which although I understand a lot better, I still can't use the damn thing for page layout.

James Wolcott has penned a right modest rebuttal to the notion that Democrats are going to have to become more like Republicans if they're ever going to win the White House again.

It won't be enough for a candidate to execute a retarded black man in the future to prove his or her bona fides. It would smack of unoriginality. One must make bolder gestures, draft a broader, more inclusive message. To appeal to the reddest of the Red States and thrill Bob Novak in his old age, Democrats could campaign to rescind the Martin Luther King holiday, but I fear this would backfire, since everyone likes an excuse to take a day off from work and would resent having to drag themselves that particularly Monday.

No, something ballsier is needed for a turnaround in perception. A taboo or two needs to be smashed.

Therefore I am proposing that the official Democratic slogan for 2008 be "Shoot a Fag for Jesus."

It's a simple, catchy slogan that will look good on a bumperstickers, yet carry a multilateral strike: pro-guns, anti-gay, and unashamedly Christian.

Since abortion is so problematic for Democrats, "Shoot a Babykiller for Jesus" might do the trick in some of the battleground states as a supplemental bumpersticker.

So. I'm standing around this morning, waiting for my tea at Ritchie's, and we're talking about these two stories:

Specter: His abortion remark puts panel leadership at risk

and

Bush to 'spend political capital'

The people made it clear what they wanted," Bush said. "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it."

and I was laughing about it saying that 51% of the popular vote doesn't really give you a mandate for anything, especially when 48% of the country hates your guts.

This wildcat in a hardhat comes up behind me and says:

"Obviously the people want him as President and not Kerry"

And I said "my point isn't who won the election, but that 51% of the vote is only a little more than half the people, which means that he doesn't have some great mandate where everybody wants him to do what ever he wants" (or something like that)

Ready for it?

Through clenched teeth and squinty eyes he says to me "There's always Canada, buddy."

Conversation was over there, by the way. He turned his back to me after that.

I can't wait for the next four years.

It's days like this, when I'm filled with multiple anxieties (the next four years, the party, the aper, the work, the things I need to do, the people I need to do things for) that I find my self doing it.

I'm drawn to the computer, over and over again. I go to it, confident and sit down. I open a web browser.

This is the first pause.

I shake it off, and begin to load a sequence of tabs. One folder of bookmarks is technology news. I might linger over tab one, but then I shoot through them all and close the window.

I open a new window and go to the next set of tabs. News and blogs. Mostly just to look at Boing Boing. But maybe warren has something new to say, or perhaps Tom Tomorrow has been freshly outraged by something via Daily Kos.

But let's get real. Even Boing Boing only updates 10 to 20 times a day.

I'm checking more frequently than that.

It's hard to describe the desperate quality this begins to take on. Suddenly I switch back into old modes, magic. Random phrases, serendipity. I trade information science for throwing bones via Google.

What I've begun to realize is I'm looking for a web page that isn't there. It never was, that I know of. It can't have ever been there.

It's the web page that somehow contains the information that makes everything all right.

Today, it would probably be a headline: OOPS! Biggest vote count error in history discovered with the subtitle Kerry actually wins Ohio, Florida and the Presidency. There would probably also be a small sidebar about how either the party is going to be fun for everybody. Or the paper will be well received. You get the idea, I think. This is the web page that has all the information that makes everything all right, somehow.

What's funny is that there is a corner of my mind, mostly unconscious, that I think truly believes this website exists somewhere. I don't know what to make of it, not that I've realized what the tic is.

Is it the part of my mind that would look for god or salvation? Is it a side effect of being too enmeshed in the grid? Is it a symptom of the oversaturation of the digital in my life?

What's weird is when I let my mind wander, I can almost see this page. I mean, I see the edge of it. It's like being able to see the stream that borders Avalon-over-the-Hill, but only out of the corner of your eye.

So maybe I am seeing this in religious terms. An impulse to visit candymountain.com. The last bookmark in any browser's list with blissful reading satisfaction promised to all who find the page.

Ok, now I'm rambling.

Kat (to an insipid melody): Cock. Suck-er shut-up. De de de de de de de de de. Cock. Suck-er shut-up. De de de de de de de de de.

Me: Nice.

Kat: That's my new song.

Me: Mmm.

Kat: Guess what it's called.

Me: Um.

Me (brief pause): Critique of everyday life?

Kat: No.

Kat: It's called Cocksucker shut up.

Kat: I could have called it De de de de de de de de de but that didn't seem as catchy.

So in Trinidad last weekend, a calf was born with 7 legs.

Here's the part that got my interest:

Rattandai Singh... described the birth of the seven leg calf as a miracle.

"We are living in the dark age which is called (Kalyug), and during this time miracles would happen all over the world, so no one should be surprised," she said

It's interesting to me that someone could look at the birth of an organism so mutated that it will be unable to walk, and probably would not survive a month in nature.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the original scoop.