October Horror Movies

My roommates and I have decided to try to watch a horror/thriller every night of October. Unfortunately, the Red Sox and a few other distractions have prevented watching one every night, but here’s what we’ve got so far:

• Nightwatch – Not a fan of this movie. I thought that the scary parts were kinda cheap, and that the plot of the movie was gross (really gross) for the sake of being gross. That gets under my skin faster than just about anything. Plus, what’s the point of a movie where the number of possible suspects is 2? As Rick points out, one of the biggest hit/miss parts of Scream was that there were 15 possible suspects. That’s much more interesting. This was Alissa’s pick.
• Sisters – A psychological horror movie about two Siamese twins that were separated after a number of years and the emotional result of that operation. Very spooky, in a thought-required way. This movie was my pick.
• Dressed to Kill – Continuing on the Brian De Palma theme… I’m a sucker for Michael Caine. So I really enjoyed his performance. The rest of the movie had a really constant quality to it that wasn’t quite eerie, but was close. Unfortunately, I fell asleep during part of the film (not long…) but I liked it anyway. This was Rick’s choice.

And upon consultation with them (I had to ask just to be certain) that was it. They watched Cape Fear without me (I’ve seen it before), but even still… 4 movies in 16 days isn’t good enough.

Other movies that I remember are on our combined list:

• Alien
• The Shining
• Feast*
• Carrie*
• Hellraiser I & II
• Repulsion* (one of the scariest I’ve ever seen, and one of my favs)

* I’ve seen (and loved)

Snapshot of right now

Oct. 8, 2009 – 12:32am

Right now I’m…

Sitting on my bed reading the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (my favorite) on how to bake a 9.25lb ham. Page 201. Remembering how I tell everyone they can’t take it into the kitchen, because I don’t want it getting dirty.

Thinking about how I need a roasting pan, which I should have grabbed when I was in Laurel, picking up my new camera lens from UPS. Thinking about how I waited 45 minutes for it, when I probably should have had it re-delivered. Also thinking that the roasting pan may be too large for my oven here.

Listening to George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children. Wishing it drowned out more of “The Shield,” the program my roommates are watching/listening to. Thinking how much I like Ancient Voices of Children, despite how weird some of the sounds are.

Finished taking a few play photos with the new lens. Posted them to flickr. Wondering if every good lens makes it this easy, which should I purchase next? Thinking I made a good choice to start.

Wondering if I will have any clean sock pairs left for me to wear to work tomorrow.

Resisting falling asleep, so I can formally get ready for sleep instead.

Funny thing about bugs…

They just keep popping up.

I just scrolled down my own blog, and saw a post titled “Down to three bugs.” Funny enough, three months later, we’re still trying to push the website out. (Wow, those were some really big bugs!!! Haha, jk…) In fact, I’ve been pressing for the last 2 days, trying to expedite a few last-minute bugs so that QA testing could begin (for about the 18th time, now in snapshot 21). Kinda odd, when QA finds bugs in round 20 that they didn’t find in round 10… despite no code changes in the meantime…

But I’m not going to complain. Programming is still a lot of fun when you’re actually doing it. It ends up being almost therapeutic when you’ve got other stuff going on that you’re trying to ignore. Not only that, but there’s always room to improve. A co-worker came to my desk yesterday and schooled me on how to write code. When you’re young, you’re stupid. He had lots of experience, and was… well, right… most of the time. I was boxed into a corner at some points, but also made a few bad decisions. The good thing is that I always learn from my mistakes, and next time will be much better.

I remember writing 3.5 websites before I really got common code working the way I wanted. It was similar to the way I learned how to write CSS. Excerpting common code so that I would only edit once, vs. editing 6 files just to make one update. It was easy when I was using CSS, SSI’s, or PHP includes to simply import exactly what I needed, but I find it is far more difficult when using XSLT’s. Why? Because in XSLT you need to know not only the structure, but the context. That’s what makes it difficult… writing context dependent generic code is difficult.

[Of course, dirty secret (I know you’re skimming at this point, not really reading) is that I’m almost on only my 2 year anniversary (Sept. 20) of doing programming/development work. So my progress is still quite good.]

Alright, I admit that this post was far more stream-of-conciousness than actual post, but it was good for me. It wasn’t intended to be a “I haven’t written in a month, here’s what I’ve been doing” post, but more a “I’m busy, I’ll be back soon, but I don’t know when” type post. So on that note…

Django 1.0

Sweet, Django 1.0 has been released.

Review of "Web Form Design, Filling in the Blanks"

“Forms suck. If you don’t believe me, try to find people who like filling them in.”;

Are you kidding, I paid for a book that begins like that? My first reaction was that I could have written that! Well I didn’t write it, and I also feel that I got my money’s worth out of Web Form Design, Filling in the Blanks, by Luke Wroblewski.

Forms are hard. I don’t think I need to mention how hard they can be for users… nor do I need to mention what’s at stake if a user finds your form too difficult. Every web developer who doesn’t have his/her head in the clouds should know that. Forms, however, are also very difficult to create… correctly! A well designed form requires a lot of careful, detailed thought. You have so much to consider… usability issues, accessibility issues, and you usually don’t have anything to go on except for your personal experience. This book will help you methodically approach form design, and give you the experience of an expert to guide your decisions.

Web Form Design is useful, because Mr. Wroblewski takes a very detailed approach to each aspect of form design. Within each chapter, he thoroughly analyzes the major elements to consider when designing a form. For example, the chapter on “Actions”; is devoted to action items such as submit and cancel buttons. One of the sub-sections discusses where to place these items on the page. The author first presents the reader with the following image demonstrating all of the reasonable placements for the submit and cancel actions.

Using eye-tracking and usability data, he then discusses the pros and cons of each arrangement, without ever deciding one is better then all others. This is key because it lets the reader, knowledge in hand, decide his/her own course of action.

The book is especially valuable because of the user data, eye-tracking data, and case studies presented within. Mr. Wroblewski’s backs his reasoning with either a summary of these tests or with an example culled from his experiences. He reinforces his points with a number of demonstration images, all available from the book’s flickr page. Then he includes a short “best practices”; section to close each chapter, outlining what was discussed. These can be used almost as checklists. Interspersed in the text are sidebars which present real-life examples and perspectives from numerous field authorities.