Some of our more observant visitors may have noticed that there was no update yesterday. That's because I was working entirely too hard on writing a chatroom for gremlin.net all day. Then I got a headache and gave up.
It's a longish story.
Back in 1997, I had a chatroom at gremlin.net. Back then, we were on a Unix server, which was fine with me: I can write for Unix. Then the owner of the Unix server--also the owner of PlanetInternet and the owner--at the time--of plinet.com--apparently embezzled everything the company had and returned to the middle east, possibly to plot out the attack on the World Trade Centre.
This idiot tried pretty hard to embezzle gremlin.net along with everything else. Obviously, that didn't work.
Anyway: that left gremlin.net a little homeless for a few days until I got to a new server.
The new server was WindozeNT, which isn't quite as stable, and which didn't allow the chatroom to work at all. Because the chatroom was written for Unix.
Moreover, the sysop of the server was an idiot. Because he was running NT [which had a lot to do with him not understanding Unix], everything had to be done in a certain way, because NT servers 'can't be made secure'. He said. That's why, to this day, the interactive stuff is all in the cgi-bin and cgi-data folders.
I got away from the NT server [idis.com] about a year ago. Largely because--apparently in an effort to make the server more secure--the sysop stopped letting people FTP updates to their sites. There was never a TelNet option, since TelNet couldn't be made secure, either.
These days, of course, we're on a secure server again. It's in WindozeNT though. So the chatroom I haven't worried too much about getting to work since 1998 still doesn't do much.
The reason I'm suddenly so interested in getting the chatroom to work is that yahoo.com suck.
The yahoos have a chatserver at chat.yahoo.com. It's not real stable, of course, which allows it to fit right in with yahoo.com; look at their current stock prices for more on their instability. But, while chat.yahoo.com pretty well sucks, various third parties have made attempts to fix the problem.
CheetaChat is about the best of them. That what I usually use to get into the chatrooms.
The problem is that yahoo.com seem to think that third-party bugfixes are a bad idea. So they keep altering all the backend shit on their servers to disallow things like CheetaChat from working at all.
No one I've ever encountered in the chatroom can stand chat.yahoo.com. Well, except for the theists; but that doesn't count for much. The people who are worth talking to at all [the ones who don't hit me with such erudite philosophies as 'your 2 dumb 2 find JESUS'] all use CheetaChat, or Yahelite, or whatever other unofficial chat modules exist out there. None of which, again, is currently working, since yahoo.com have changed a few invisible things to keep them from connecting to the chatserver at all.
So there's a certain demand to have the chatroom here up and running again.
We've got one mostly working. It's actually done in C++, and not in Perl. The problem with that one is that it only works in Exploder at the moment. Netscape are pretty well over, but Opera is getting bigger; and Opera is having problems with the interface. So it's not quite ready yet.
That leaves a Perl-based chatroom, which is what I'm used to [I've never written anything in C++ personally; I have no real idea how it works]. The problem is that every Perl-based chatroom on the 'net is written for Unix. So, short of writing a Unix chatroom in Perl, I have the option of downloading one which still doesn't work.
I could probably just change the coding in a Unix chatroom to work on NT, except I'm not real clear on NT, either. That's something I should really learn sometime.
Welcome to gremlin.net--where the webmaster knows dick about C++ and NT servers....
Then there's Ondo--the sysop running the server here. He's the one writing the C++ chatroom. He knows C++ and NT; he doesn't really know Perl. So: Gremlin ne NT and Ondo != Perl, so gremlin.net =/= chatroom.
We'll get it figured out someday....

This is good news. The pseudoyuppie larvae next door are driving golfballs into the front yard at two hundred miles per hour now. This is what I get for living in the damned suburbs: a bunch of morons who make forty grand a year and consider themselves rich, whose parenting skills are the only evidence I've ever seen of the need for parents' groups. If these plebeians were anything but homosapiens, they'd have been eaten by their own kind by now.
These are the same imbeciles who keep calling the cops to whimper about my car. They really want it to be abandoned. To the extent that they keep sabotaging it to make it look abandoned. One of them dismantled the exhaust system; another let the air out of the tyres. At this point, if they report my car abounded again, the cops are going to arrest them for misinforming an officer. We're all getting very tired of them.

Speaking of parents' groups and the twits who keep them alive: Greenback got Photoshop installed on his computer again. He's working on the sort of advert campaign which no one he's trying to help wants to see.
The current plan is to get a few of these things made up, and then...do something with them, I guess. I'm not really clear on the purpose yet. If anyone has any ideas for a purpose, let us know about them.
Nevermind: apparently this stuff is going into THE LAB at EvilCoffeeChick.com. THE LAB is a very strange place on the 'net. Or, it will be, once it's linked from anywhere....

That, of course, could be a while. It might not be, but history warns us that nothing ever actually gets done around here. No one really knows why that is, except that, every time I announce that we're about to do something, everyone else involved in whatever we're about to do suddenly forgets to be involved at all. Either I have to go back to doing everything in the Grempire myself, or surround myself with a bunch of other people who have nothing at all better to do.
Not that it would help much. I've done that before. The problem with using people who have nothing better to do is that the only reason they have noting better to do is that they avoid having things to do at all. Once they discover that doing the things I propose equate to having something to do, they all bug out and go back to playing Team Dumbass Challenge all day. So that doesn't help us much....

On which note: the current rumour is that Charon--formerly of Radio Free Grempire, very much hates me now. I haven't managed to determine why he would hate me, but, rumour has it that he won't even hit gremlin.net, or any of the other sites on the server. I'm not sure how much sense that makes, since that would include AngelComp.com--a website I own which I've set up to advertise the business he'd run if he ever stopped playing TeamDumbass all day--but, according to the rumour, he avoids everything at this IP and sends in spies every once in a while to see whether I'm talking about him. So, by talking about him, I might be able to conclude whether these rumours are true.
Another part of the rumour involves some band or other. Apparently, the idea is to get the band together well enough to get it signed by Corey's label, Maggot Records. How that's supposed to happen is beyond me, since A) Corey doesn't like Charon and tends to complain at me when Charon tags along to see him when he's in town, and B) Maggot Records are apparently no more--it didn't work out with the investors, or something. There's Brian's PostHuman Records to consider, or even Jack Osbourne's forthcoming label; but those are even further removed than Corey is.
It's not really my problem, in any case.
I'll probably find out what's going on the next time everyone forgets to hate me long enough to seek me out for a favour. When I know, you'll know.

I guess that's it for now. More later....
--Gremlin

Forgot to add tags for this stupid entry.