Just finished reading “Before Night Falls” by Reinaldo Arenas, I felt compelled to read the book after seeing the movie of the same title. It’s the memoirs/autobiography of the Cuban author and poet Reinaldo Arenas. I thought the story was an excellent reading of what life was like during and after the rise to power of Fidel Castro (not that I have any idea about what it’s like). It’s especially clear how much of a threat artists and homosexuals are to any dictatorship, this will never cease to amaze me. While I would consider the book explicit both in it’s description of events and sexual encounters I never felt that it was written with the intent of getting a rise out of readers. It reads much more like the telling of one’s life without the self-censorship so many people are born into.

I dropped my Sony Ericson phone today for a new Blackberry Pearl 8100.  What a hot piece of hardware.  While some reviews describe it as a phone for the girls, I think any geek would be stupid not to snatch one of these up.  I’m not willing to carry around with me a giant blackberry or treo phone, it’s just too inconvenient.  But the pearl is the best of both worlds.  I’m able to dial-up on Caltrain with my MacBook and I can get email/IM/Text/web while I’m out and about away from my laptop.  Everyone I’ve shown it to so far has gone goo goo over it once it’s in their hand.  Hot Hot Hot…. now if I could only get it to work with iSync.

Review:
http://crunchgear.com/2006/09/18/blackberry-pearl-8100-hands-on-2/

How to dial-up with your Pearl on the Mac:
http://www.fibble.org/archives/000508.html

While in the midst of writing my own GDB scripts to anylize PHP core files, I was informed through a response to the xdebug mailing list that these functions already exist in the php-src/.gdbinit file. How clever! Some useful functions are:

(gdb) zbacktrace
[0xfff40040] arsort() mail.php:287

[0xfff40040] send_message() lib.php:18

[0xfff40040] post_reply() lib.php:312

[0xfff40040] ??? index.php:15

(gdb) printzv return_value
[0xdd474c90] (refcount=1) NULL

Some other usefull commands…

dump_bt — Dumps the current execution stack
print_const_table — User-defined
print_ft — Dumps a function table (HashTable)
print_ht — Dumps elements of HashTable made of zval
print_inh — User-defined
print_pi — User-defined
printzn — Print type and content of znode
printzops — Dump operands of the current opline
printzv — Prints content of zval
zbacktrace — Prints backtrace
zmemcheck — Show status of a memory block

More information on GDB command files here

“I did not know then where that river was headed, where that frenzied race would end, but something was calling me to go with it, saying that I too had to throw myself into those raging waters and lose myself, that only in that torrent, always on the move, would I find some peace. but I did not dare jump, I was always a coward. I would go as far as the riverbank, where the currents where roaring my name; another step, and the whirling waters would swallow me. ” - Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls

“No comment”, just putting it here for posterity

New trailers for short bus are available. I can’t wait until it comes out!

“a film about love and sex that doesn’t censor itself in any way… of course this trailer is censored…”

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Movie Homepage

It’s interesting to read about another’s perspectives of Facebook. Especially considering the context of the time I currently find myself in. The author, Karel, was my first phone interview at facebook somewhere between 11pm and 1am I believe. He sent my questions over AIM and asked me to send back SQL queries to solve the proposed problems. I really enjoyed it, although I’m not sure my boyfriend trying to get some sleep was a big fan. I’ll definitely want to keep my eye on Karel for any future projects he has in mind. You can read more about his book here.

I feel like I’m missing something, like it passed me by and I only saw a glimpse of it.

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish’d, from the pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
Clear to me now standards not yet publish’d, clear to me that my soul,
That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk’d to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash’d, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,)

– Walt Whitman

My friend was kind enough to bring me the latest fad in energy drinks. Go Girl! no really… it’s called “Go Girl”.

This specially formulated drink is both refreshing and functional. It is a low calorie energy boost with essential vitamins, magnesium and taurine wihch benefit the body, mind and soul. Also includes SUPER CITRIMIAX a natural appetite supressant. No Sugar No Guilt!

Get your fix and loose wait? The boys are going to love it!

Ordered a new toy, and I can’t wait till it gets here. (only a few more days)…
[swf]http://www.youtube.com/v/cJwxbTKwONc,425,350,0,0[/swf]

The group running this show seems pretty good so far. Their ordering process was really great, and I think I got an email everytime somebody handled the shipment. Now I just need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with it. The add-on for an optical rotary encoder sounds like a fun first project… http://wiki.monome.org/view/40hOpticalEncoderTutorial