PolarLava::Blog

I've finally managed to get this blog page XHTML compliant!  After much trial and tribulation, I've managed to track down all of the issues and get it to validate properly.  That said, it may fail the validation on various pages because some of the older entries may not be 100% compliant.  It's unlikely that I'm going to go back and track down all of the errors as they aren't critical, but then again being as anal as I am, I just might!  In the process of working on the XHTML compliance, I was able to implement one of the changes I had been wanting to do.  That being, the updated display look so entries now standoff in a sort of "box in a box" fashion.  I believe it gives it a cleaner look and differentiates each entries.  You might not see it that way, but then again it isn't your blog, now is it?  ;)  And now it's time to move to the next level.  …more

I found this project nearly a year ago, but for some reason it never made its way into the WTMT! collection until now.  Now I've been known to more than happily quaff a beer or two on occasion, but this is just silly.  For starters, if you need this thing, you need to either (a) not drink, or (b) drink faster.  Besides, in the picture's it's a Guinness.  Generally, I find with a quality dark beer like this it's usually too cold and I need to warm it in my hands to get it to a suitable drinking temperature.  But if you're one of those knuckleheads who's still drinking cheap american swill, then by all means start building!  The colder you can get that shit, the less of it's nearly tasteless, horid flavor you will be exposed too!  And for future reference kids, "Quality over quantity".

I've added a new Stock Quotes section to the site that is powered by a modified version of PHP-Quote.  This PHP class had the basic guts in it to retrieve quotes from Yahoo! Finance, but had some funtionality and display issues with it from my perspective.  These issues were resolved by writing a new get_single_table() function to replace the print_single_table() function.  This new function returns the HTML code instead of printing it and also is XHTML compliant.  I also expanded the table to include the date as well as the time.  Additional, I created CSS classes in my site CSS instead of using the Insert_Style_Sheet() function in this class.  Again, I don't like direct printing from functions and it really wouldn't work within my site's framework.  Seems to work for me and hope it does for you also!

I was absolutely shocked to hear the news reports [1][2]that "Il Pirata", The Pirate died this past weekend at only 34 years of age.  Marco had been dealing with a lot personal issues in the past couple of years and unfortunately, never got a chance for true redemption in the professional cycling world.  A lot of charges had been leveled against him, many which he was cleared of after a long battle.  Was he completely innocent?  We may never know, although my personal believe was that unfortunately he likely was not.  But prior to his troubles, Marco was clearly the most amazing climber I had ever seen.  At his peak, this man could go up mountains fasters than anyone in the sport.  His life and career were far too short.  Rest in peace Il Pirata.

[Updated: 07:41am EST, 22 Mar 2004]
And the sad news continues as it has now been confirmed by the inquest that Marco's death was caused by an "acute cocaine intoxication".

I can't help but be disturbed by the television commercial I saw this morning by a local attorney.  It's not the first time I've seen it and surely it won't be the last.  But the basic premise of this commercial is to compel people who are in debt to declare bankruptcy.  Why?  Well, Congress is working to change the law to make it more difficult for you to declare bankrupcty.  Gasp!  So if you've been fiscally irresponsible you might want to act fast before you can be held accountable for your actions.  Or in more real world terms... If you've been stupid enough to dig a big hole using credit cards to live beyond your means, then you should be able to walk away from it and leave someone else (i.e. me and other responsible people) holding the bag.  This is just brilliant!  Welcome to America, where no one is responsible for their own actions.  I will agree, as pointed out in that last link, that the banks also shoulder a certain amount of responsibility.  Why are they giving credit to people who don't have the ability to pay their bills?  I think the answer is self evident...they don't want you to be able to pay for it.  Credit card debt is like crack in the banking industry.  Those high interest rates and low payoff rates guarantee them a steady flow of profits.  Just imagine what would happen to them if even 50% of those with outstanding balances paid them off.  The last thing they want is for you to be debt free.  But the bottomline is still the fact that if you used the credit, you're responsible for its repayment.  The government making it more difficult to declare bankruptcy isn't a disservice to those who have been irresponsible.  Quite the opposite.  It's an effort to save those of us who ARE responsible millions of dollars.  Because everytime someone declares bankruptcy, the banks don't just eat it as a loss, they simply pass it on in  the form of additional charges for the rest of us.  The only bankruptcy I see here, is the moral bankruptcy of those who are encouraging others that they don't have to be responsible for their actions.