Got an IM last night from a friend letting me know that my twitter account was suspended and my website had a malware warning again.

Dammit dammit dammit

I cleaned the obfuscated code, sent a message to my server host that they need to find and close the gorram hole and then cleaned out a bunch of unused databases and files that were on the server. Hopefully that’ll fix it. I have to wait to hear back from the server before I can get google to deflag me (though I am not actually getting the warning, myself). Also sent a message to twitter telling them just to delete the link to my website in my profile and unsuspend me.

Fuck this is annoying.

a couple of guys i know are in the midst of drawing for 24 hours. check it out live here. they are basically filling one canvas an hour, and started at 9am eastern. check out the previous canvases at superartfight.com

a guy on craigslist was advertising 250 vinyl records for $50. I got 'em for $40.

it's mostly old r&b, soul and disco but there were some real gems in the bunch:

the rolling stones - hot rocks 1964-1971
the steve miller band - fly like an eagle
herb alpert's tijuana brass - whipped cream & other delights
chubby checker - your twist party
diana ross - greatest hits
ll cool j - radio
janet jackson - dream street
frank sinatra - singing sesion
frank sinatra - come fly with me
simon & garfunkle - bookends
madonna - self titled
madonna - like a virgin
michael jackson - thriller
prince - 1999
george michael - i want your sex
george michael - faith
herbie hancock - magic windows
miles davis - round about midnight
the four tops - live
the coasters - greatest hits
louis armstrong - hello dolly0

soundtracks:
my fair lady
rudolph the red-nosed reindeer with burl ives
saturday night fever
joseph & the technicolor dreamcoat
dr dolittle
beverly hills cop
miami vice
carousel
porgy & bess
selections from gilbert & sullivan

others of note, but i'm not a super huge fan of

ray parker jr - ghostbusters
lionel richie = dancing on the ceiling
the jackson 5
parliament
earth, wind & fire
aretha franklin
stevie wonder
marvin gaye
curtis mayfield
salt n pepa
whitney houston
patti labelle
con funk shun
new edition
c'est chic
the commodores
tina turner
al green

coming up on the 3 month mark of living and working up here in dc. summary of my life here:

I work M-F 730am-430pm managing a website, designing a new one, helping with various computer related things
I go swing dancing twice a week, one night of which includes lindy hop lessons
I play ultimate frisbee on the national mall most saturday afternoons
I started taking krav maga lessons (2-3 times a week) last week and am really enjoying it so far
I go see a movie or two every other weekend
I'm reading a ridiculous amount (everything after march) because of the commute time on the metro and bus/shuttle and in down time between work and other activities
I've also been to quite a number of concerts - Squirrel Nut Zippers, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Iron Maiden, Dropkick Murpheys and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Friday I'll be going to see the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. I might go see Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, and more this sunday. jethro tull & the young dubliner's in two weeks, and judas priest, testament & motorhead the next night. and I just heard that the who will be playing in DC on november 3rd. *splooge* favorite band ever! must. go. see.

i try to get out and wander the city occasionally. jon and british came up this past weekend and we and jon's sister went to a dc united game. it was only worth watching for about the last 20 minutes. dc united just didn't look like they were trying. and watching american soccer bores me, it's so stagnant compared to european and latin american soccer. after that we went and wandered georgetown and hit up a few bars. we had quite a fun time, though jon's sister lost a lot of her drink in the cab home. silly girl. i went and saw dark knight on sunday. great movie. ledger's joker was absolutely phenomenal.

in case you hadn't noticed, i'm linking to my other blog. if you want to make things simple so you don't have to check there for updates, you can add the livejournal stream i created

i just took a krav maga class

it was awesome and i can't wait for wednesday's class

also, ouch

yesterday after work I went to a boardgames meetup for a few hours. it was fun, but when i was walking back to the metro, I crossed the Washington Mall. right smack dab in the middle was a crowd of people, fancy lighting, and camera equipment. I go closer and saw that it was the cast and crew of Night at the Museum II, and Ben Stiller and his co-star were filming a part of a scene where they are hurrying across the Mall when someone yells at Stiller's character and they duck behind a tourist information sign (fake). In the span of the 30-45 minutes I was watching they did that same scene 6 or 7 times. Nothing spectacular happened, but it was interesting none-the-less. Also, Ben Stiller is short. And his co-star is hot.

comcast finally got out and got the internet hooked up in my apartment. so here is the move update.

for most of last week, I spent the days packing up my apartment, a little bit at a time. But everything except my computer was packed up by thursday evening. Friday morning my dad and brother drove over to Raleigh and we went and got a box truck from Penske. We loaded up everything in my apartment except my computer and a sleeping bag, then drove it back to durham to load up my bookshelves, stereo, boxes and other stuff at my parents house. Then I went back to Raleigh and cleaned a bit before showering and going to my farewell party. I stopped at starbucks on the way to mojoes to say bye to the folks who were working there, then headed over to mojoes to meet folks for dinner. Had a good time at dinner, with about 12-15 people showing up. Headed over to my apartment around 930ish and a night of super smash brothers and alcohol and general funness was had by all. Thanks to all you folks who were able to make it out. Pictures are here.

Saturday morning my parents swung by at 9, and we hit the road. We got to the apartment complex around 3, I got checked in and got the key and we started to move stuff in. Comcast was scheduled to come out between 3 and 6. After two calls, the guy finally got here at 8. Cable got set up, but he was unable to set up the internet. I had to reschedule it on Sunday for early this morning. Late Saturday, it started to rain. It was only fitting, and I'd predicted it a week earlier. When I'd come up for the job interview in late March, it was a gray and drizzly day. When my dad and I came up last Sunday/Monday to look at apartments, we drove up to the area in torrential rain and it rained pretty steadily until we were back in North Carolina. I was saying then that it would probably be raining when I moved in. It did spritz on us while carrying stuff from the vehicles, but nothing that got us wet. But it basically rained for the next two days, just to taunt me. It should be really nice on Thursday, when I start the job. Anyway, here are pictures of the apartment. As you can see, I'm still in the middle of unpacking.

Oh, and speaking of starting the new job on Thursday, my first fortune cookie up here read, "You have an important new business development shaping up." That is one hell of a coincidence.

About 6 hours ago I signed for an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. I'll be moving in on Saturday the 26th.

Time to pack.

job interview in dc - thursday
if job in dc falls through, find another job by the end of may (end of current lease)
get a trim - wednesday
taxes - by april 15th
full frame documentary film festival - april 3-6
lindy lessons - every wednesday at 830 until the end of may (sucks if i get job in dc and it starts before then...)
complete the work i'm doing for duke before i leave the area
clean my apartment
sell the random crap i have - desk, curtains, computer stuff, stereo, etc
clean my room at home and repopulate stuff (books) i'm not taking with me when i leave (for now. i promise i'll take all my books and shelves sometime, mom&dad)
shakori hills - april 17-20
spamalot - april 18
fall asleep...frikkin insomnia because of all the stuff i'm thinking about
go to the sabro show - april 1
cut back on WoW - just 10 man nights and my off-night Gruul runs
van halen - may 5
avenue q - may 6-11
go camping for a week when the weather is nice - maybe april 24-29
redesign togroklife.com
finish designing scifilia.com
begin populating the scifilia database

/sigh

If you didn't already know, I only use this journal infrequently. Most of the stuff I write about, I post on Grok Life. But to make things easier for you, you can just add the syndicated feed to your livejournal friends list to see what I'm writing about.

So, I have a new job to complement my job at Starbucks.

Starting in January, I'll be working on developing a Java application for interfacing Augmentative and Alternative Communications (AAC) devices with Blackberry devices. An AAC device is essentially the talking computer that people like Stephen Hawking uses.

I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous about this. I haven't done any Java programming since I was an undergrad, 2 years ago. And it is way beyond anything I've ever done before, programming-wise. But it is a very worthwhile program, and I know that if I am able to help in anyway with the project, that it will be something that I can be proud of having done.

play world of warcraft

Watch these videos, if you have a soul.

boris was amazing

my ears are still a little raw.

driving in the pouring rain at night on the highway sucks. but it keeps you from falling asleep at the wheel.

i just got my homework done. time for bed.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today, 30 September 2007). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
*Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel
*1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
*Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
*The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
*Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Speaking of LibraryThing, if you have an account, add me as a friend. If you want to see most of my reading list it is located here.

Someone posted a comment in George RR Martin's LJ that Robert Jordan has died, and Wikipedia also shows his date of death as being today. The Wheel of Time website is being very slow, but there is a post dated today at 430ish eastern, that I'm loading. And it's true. He died at 2:45 pm today.

What is sickening is that around that time today, I was talking with some friends about his sickness and that it was likely that he wouldn't finish the book before he died. It just makes me a little queasy to think that coincidences like that happen. But of course, there is no way I could have known he was laying on his deathbed at that very moment. Bizarre.

Here's to hoping that the final book is somehow completed. But most importantly, my condolences and best wishes go out to his wife Harriet and the rest of his family.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.

Robert Jordan gave birth to a legend, and in doing so, became one.