Apparently I Need To Tell More Stories

I recently stumbled upon Naomi and my old wedding blog. One of the post is as follows:

So, what started as a quest to type a new post here has turned into a two hour trackdown of a security compromise we had on our site.  Let me tell you, it's been fun.  It all started with me clicking our handy little "blog" link, which is where Naomi and I log in to post. 

Instead of being greeted with the regular login, I was immersed in a website offering me all kinds of ways to get in touch with attractive Russian singles.  I was caught a bit off guard.

So, I pulled out my webmaster samurai sword, and went to work.  First, I cut open my ethernet cable, then dove in, and swam the endless sea of data packets.  I found a few with our website name on them, and like a sneaky ninja, followed them to the server. 

I hopped out in the server room, and silently drew my sword.  I stalked around, until I saw a man with a bottle of Vodka and a cylindrical fur hat tapping away on a keyboard.  In the spirit of a true Samurai, I yelled an unintelligible Japanese syllable, and swung my sword.

The syllable didn't have the effect that was intended, which is to build my own strength and frighten the enemy, but this particularly alert Ruskie jumped out of the way and I neatly sliced the keyboard in half.  I ducked as the Vodka bottle whooshed past my head and crashed onto a server, dripping alcohol onto the electronics, which sparked and started a small fire.  We made eye contact, but only for a second.  He lunged.

I ducked out of the way, and took advantage of the now slippery vodka-spilt floor tile of the server room and glided neatly under his aerial ballet and took a swing from the back, however this move was anticipated and my sword met the fur hat mid-flight, and the Russian man caught the sword, twisted in a violent motion, and my implement of death flew across the room, neatly imbedding itself in an LCD monitor. This shorted out, and caused an electrical arc which blew the breaker, immersing the room only temporarily in complete darkness, save for the now-growing fire on the server rack.

It was at this point that the emergency red lights came on, and the fire alarm began to sound.  The sprinklers came on, and I found myself face to face with a large Bolshevik, brandishing calloused fists in an aggressive stance, smirking a bit under the bushy moustache.  We stared each other down, faces and hair wet from the water, fire flickering in the background, the smell of Vodka on the air, and the knowledge of what was to come.

I lunged at the desk, and the man dove to follow me, grabbing my slippery boot and biting.  I made a painful noise, but my adrenaline kicked in, and I forced my other boot into the man's face, and with a thud, he slid across the floor.  I grabbed a spindle of CDR's on the desk, and quickly broke two in half. 

The Russian, face bloodied, and now looking as though he were in a frenzy, began sprinting across the room towards me.  I flung a broken CD at him, then another, then another, each buried neatly into his chest.  His forward momentum and complete desire to end me fueled his undeterred sprint, and at the last second, I jumped into the air, doing a front flip.  He slid under me, unable to stop due to the inch of water forming on the server room floor, and smashed into a wall of servers, causing electricity to finally find a path to the floor, and electrocuting the Russian.

As the power died down, the man fell to the floor, and a flyer fell out of his jacket, floating near my feet.  Brides.ru and Dating.ru huh?  Commie.

I pulled the harddrive containing my website's data, stuffed it into my pocket, and took a moment to survey the destruction.  I disappeared like a Samurai does.  Noisily and leaving a great deal of destruction behind.

Anyway, the site is back up now, and working fine, and I took a few measures to make sure this doesn't happen again. 

Also, I have a couple choir concerts this week, if you're bored and want to kill some time.  

Man. So awesome.

The Plastic Pixel Dragon

Websites. I think I've hit a nice stride. What with the redesign of sethduncan.com, the work on airhouserecords.com and most recently the layout and setup of citylifechurch.org, I've grown quite comfortable in the manipulation and particulars of the WordPress software.

Building a website from scratch is sort of like trying to play "push the rock with a stick". There may be a few people who are truly good at it, and can do some amazing things, but most people look stupid doing it, lose the rock, and accidentally walk into a ravine. Building a website on WordPress is like playing with Legos. You can make some really cool things if you know what you're doing. You can still make terrible, useless crap, but that's just the nature of the thing.

This is a Lego Dragon in the NYC Lego Store

Joey and I had a multi-hour layout-fixing session last night, and the end result is not bad, all things considered. http://www.citylifechurch.org. Probably not surprisingly, it uses the same template as sethduncan.com, yet significantly more tweaked. The template is called Photoria, and it's been quite useful. Found it on Smashing Magazine.

My next hurdles for learning are higher-level CSS, SEO/Analytics particulars/tactics, and finding the proper scoops-to-water ratio for my French-pressed coffee. I would have added "practicing waking up earlier", but I tried that this morning and it just happened. So, that's a thing.

Charlie Creeps Me Out

This was the conversation that my cat apparently had with me last night.

Cat: Oh hey, Seth. Can I lay on your arm?
Seth: *asleep*
Cat: Cool. Thanks. *lays down*
Seth: *notices cat, returns to sleep*
Cat: Hey, I'm going to lick your face. *licks face*
Seth: *dreams about cat licking face*
Cat: *licks face*
Seth: *wakes up from dream. see cat staring at me. very confused about the line between dreams and reality*
Cat: *stares at seth for a second as he wakes up*
Seth: *stares at cat*
Cat: *licks face more*

At this point, I gently shoved Charlie off the side of the bed, then washed my face.

This week I finished off a project where I scored another short film for my friends out in LA. This one was an independent Twilight Zone episode. The music was fun, a little gimicky (it's Twilight Zone, come on...) and had a small infusion of my INSATIABLE URGE TO MAKE PRETTY CHORDS. I'm not sure if they're going to post the video anywhere, but if I can get a copy, I'll share it. I believe this is the third film I've done for them, and I have the DVDs to prove it.

Also got a new guitar. 1995 Fender Strat (mexican, which is satisfactory). It's attractive.

Left: the new one. Right: my favorite.

And, I'm finishing up a few web projects to prepare for my new job. I accepted a position at Greteman Group, start there next Monday. It's about time for me to bust out the books on SEO, among other things. Expect to hear much more technical banter and hilariously unrelated metaphors regarding internet things. I'm fully expecting to completely love working downtown, despite the 500% increase in drive-time to work. That's not fair, though. I work less than a mile from home at the moment.

Duncan Kong is in "song-writing" mode. Cassie and I have both started our own songs to contribute, and I'm hoping to get her to commit to more time spent in the studio so we can try to get an EP out by end-of-year. We'll see how that goes. Trying to get her to come over and record is marginally more difficult than trying to crucify fog.

And, LESSONS. I teach lessons. Beginner Piano and most levels of Guitar. Want to learn? Pay me money and too can be the next Yanni. Or Esteban. Or we can just hang out and play Kinect. Whatever you want to do, really. Hey, it's your money. Hurry, though, as my evenings are filling up, as I have literally ones of students who are clamoring for my time.