Bangkok! Wow! I’ve been here for 6 days now and I’m just starting to get into the groove of things. Arrived on Tuesday and made my way down to my Mom’s hotel. It was great to see her and catch up (and steal some of her travel gear!), even if it was only for a few hours. The next few days I met up with Nick and Dan and did some of the touristy things… visiting temples, drinking, and seeing the darker parts of Bangkok. It was good to catch up with those two but I wasn’t fully into the party scene here. Partially because of jet lag and partially because I’ve been itching to get out on my bike.
Nick and Dan took off to some island and I spent the last couple of days trying to get my bike ready. To be honest, I’ve been a little apprehensive about actually taking off. It’s kinda like cliff jumping when you’re trying to psych yourself up and jump, but at the last second you chicken out. I don’t know… all these things run through my mind. “Where direction should I bike?”, “How bad is the traffic out of the city?”, “How many spare tubes should I bring”, “I swear there is a rattling in my rear derailleur… probably should stay another day and fix it”, “Ooo front panniers, do I need them?”. All these things kept swirling in my head and I felt a bit paralyzed! So much for the brave, “Whatever, I’ll just figure it out when I get there” attitude I had when I left.
Anyway I decided to confront this fear by hoping on my bike and heading right into the chaos of Bangkok traffic. I’d talked to a couple of cyclists who said not to worry about the traffic here, and that drivers always gave you lots of space… I was still dubious. Riding in taxis and tuk-tuks made it seem miraculous that I hadn’t witnessed and accidents on the road. So I inched my bike out of the tourist area and WHOOSH, I was swallowed into the stream of cars, scooters and motorbikes. Everyone was right - Bangkok is a joy to bike through! The cars are used to all the bikes and always shoulder check. The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the scooters that weave between parked cars.
Tomorrow I’m heading towards Pattaya and the south-eastern coast of Thailand and then heading into Cambodia. Good beaches, nice roads, and courteous drivers. I’m hoping to be back in Bangkok in two weeks so I can check out the full-moon party at the end of the month.
Just noticed my wordpress was hacked recently. Mcafee shows it as a JS/Wonka trojan. The problem is outlined here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/possible-hijacked-pages
Basically there is this js function called INCLUDE_DATA that loads some malicious script. Haven’t figured out how it was done, however I noticed some crazy looking javascript in my theme’s header.php. Logging in to my box, I noticed that the files were world writable( whoops!). As a fix I went into “wp-content/themes/<theme_name>” and cleaned up header.php. Then I ran “chmod a-wx *.php” as a defensive measure. This means my theme is no longer editable through the wordpress UI, but that’s alright.
Still not sure how it got hacked. Anyone know how I can trace that info down? In the mean time I’ll be upgrading wordpress and cleaning up wordpress users.
I meant to post this during the summer, but I was too busy… enjoying the summer. I went to What The Heck Fest in Anacortes, Washington this year and they gave out the best designed info book. The picture says it all - a tiny little booklet that easily fits into any pocket. Because what’s the point of a booklet when it’s too big to bring along wherever you go? Small print, but all the information to know which bands are playing when, where.
It’s the year 2010. I’m sitting in the airport (a hub where flying machines come and go) eating a to-go meal of food that came from god-knows where. I peruse the various news feeds on my iPhone (a communication device hooked up to a vast network of other computational devices), checking what friends have been up to, anticipating what the weather will be like in Seattle, etc, etc… I notice Sean has just recently posted to his blog and he mentions that he’s sitting in the Calgary airport too, waiting for his flight to depart. I send him a message and also call him (both via said iPhone), but to no avail - it looks like he’s already gone. A few minutes later I get a call, “Hey Kenshi it’s Sean, my flight is about to leave…. What gate are you at? … Okay let’s meet quickly”. Seconds later we are shaking hands and walking towards his gate. “What have you been up to? How’s the job? How was the wedding?”. We exchange stories and discuss future plans. We arrive at the gate and I bid him farewell. He’s now somewhere in the sky, and in a few hours he will be in San Francisco.
Dear future Kenshi: Don’t forget how remarkable this is.
Onwards!
Exciting news: Reverie Sound Revue will be releasing a new album in June!! It’s too bad that they aren’t planning on playing shows together anymore..
- No Kids - Come into My House
So I’ve made my foray into the world of Mac and bought myself a sexy aluminum Macbook. A couple of first impressions and comments:
- The first thing I did was install Fink (so I can install unix packages)
- Got emacs up and running.
- Meta keys are all messed up, argh!
- I can globally change my meta key through Mac OS, but that is awkward for the rest of OSX
- Any ideas on how to change the meta key ONLY in emacs - I want it to be the command key.
Yes, I’m in Seattle! 3+ months in and I’m finally starting to feel settled.
The site got neglected, yes… but hopefully I can revive it into something better. Keep your digital ears to the ground.
I was driving home from running errands listening to CJSW, the college radio station here in Calgary, and on comes this tune. It starts off instrumental and builds slowly, guitars and piano getting louder and receding, back and forth. A few minutes in and I’m completely engulfed. I stop in a parking lot and just sit there listening for almost the full 9 minutes and 16 seconds.
After some research I find out the band is a local one from Calgary called The Neighbourhood Council, none of the members being over the age of 20. I searched at three different record stores before finally snatching the second last copy at Melodya Records. Well worth the five dollar investment… wow! Anyway I could yammer on but how about I just go post the song eh?
The Neighbourhood Council - Liver and Tan [alternate location]