I wanted to preserve my glorious winning streak with a graphic:

Fantastic.

Hey there. If you tried to visit yesterday, you probably got a database error. I still haven't figured out what is up with that. I think what was going on is that the database server was being moved, but it seems to be back now and the site still wasn't working. It's up now, mind you -- because you are reading it now -- but that is because I created a new database and uploaded the old content to it using my most recent backup (which, to the best of my knowledge, contains all of my recent posts, though a few comments may be missing). I e-mailed my host admin about the problem and was hoping to wait for a response, but my site not loading really, really bothered me so I had to try this. Hopefully they'll at least let me know what was wrong with the other server.

You'll also note (or not, since the change shouldn't really be noticeable on your end) that I upgraded to WordPress 2.1 shortly before the unexplained period of downtime. I don't think that has anything to do with the problem -- the site was working fine before I went to sleep late Saturday morning, the Scary-Crayon blog doesn't seem to be experiencing any analogous difficulties, and it's clear to me that they did something to the database server because earlier it was registering as having 0 MB in it despite clearly containing data -- but I suppose it's possible that the new WordPress install is somehow corrupting the database. Time will tell on that front, but in the meantime I'll be backing up my content much more frequently than normal (which admittedly wasn't all that frequent; maybe once every couple of months or so).

Also -- and again it's possible that it's something that got changed in WP, but I'm largely convinced that it's related to a server change because it began inexplicably on January 24 (before I upgraded WP on the 27th) -- I am no longer receiving notification when users post comments. I checked the mail logs and found this error: smtp server didn't accept RCPT To: command, replied "550 mail from 74.208.16.2 rejected: administrative prohibition". I'm not entirely sure what that means (aside from the obvious) or if I can do anything about it to fix the problem, but I'm doing some research and have posted on the WP support forums to see if I can't get around the difficulty. Natch, any info you have will be greatly appreciated.

Here's hoping Wesoteric doesn't die on us again! 😐

Becky is right -- if those DVDs mentioned here had been $4, I probably wouldn't have put them back. (They were actually only $6 -- maybe even $5 -- but oh what a difference a dollar makes!) $4 price tags were enough to get me to pick up Election, Pump Up the Volume, and The Island of Dr. Moreau at Best Buy last week, and I've never even heard of the second and have heard horrible things about the latter. But I like Christian Slater and Moreau is one of those movies that I knew would sooner or later come into my possession simply in virtue of the subject matter, so I figured I wasn't likely to find a better price. Besides, even if it's terrible, the presence of Ron Perlman, Marlon Brando, and Fairuza Balk make it worth a viewing in my book. And Election is just hilarious.

So the other weekend we found this while cleaning the basement. It doesn't work anymore -- it was apparently a promo thing given to my dad by some drug company many years ago -- and there doesn't appear to be any way of replacing the batteries, so it would otherwise have been thrown away... but I have other uses for it. Any guesses as to what I could use it to represent? Read on for a hint... (more...)

Okay, so I don't post Scary-Crayon updates here as much as I did before the creation of the SC blog (I figure that interested parties will subscribe to the RSS feed or something), but I definitely recommend checking out the latest article. Well, I don't recommend doing so the way I'd recommend that you brush and floss regularly and not drink nail polish, but... yeah. This one's arguably got more in common with a Wesoteric entry than a standard SC article, as it focuses less on the specific subjects than my thoughts on the selections and reasons for picking them, so insofar as you find my observations and comments and stuff to be remotely interesting you should enjoy it. And then, when you finish reading that, you can also have a look at Molly's and Greg's lists! I like team-up type articles. 🙂

Some other neat stuff came out of the article, too: Molly and I were able to solve a mystery involving disappearing images and missing html code (apparently McAfee was the culprit), and fooling with programs with Greg has resulted in me developing a newfound appreciation of and respect for WinSCP. The piece also gave me a chance to practice some fun new image editing techniques! I'm particularly pleased with the Dalek spread.

And speaking of Daleks, Greg pointed out this picture from the archives, which I took at Shore Leave 26 in 2004. I took it because the Avengers figures made me think of Mickey Glitter, but look what else is in the picture! A DALEK! Actually, there are apparently several boxes of Daleks framing the Avengers. Greg rightly notes that if this were to happen today, I probably wouldn't even notice the Avengers figures as I grabbed at the boxes while spasming uncontrollably and shrieking, "EXTERMINATE!!!!" I wish I had a TARDIS so that I could travel back in time to that day!

All for now, then. Ja! 🙂

I was at Best Buy today with two DVDs in hand, and then I looked down at them and said, "You know what? I totally don't need these." And then I put them back on the shelf and walked out empty-handed. AMAZING.

In other news, they now sell 5' ethernet cables and several different types of USB cable (including one that would fit my digital camera!) at the dollar store. This is good! One can never have too many cables.