Blackmoor Vituperative

We just got back from seeing Hedwig And The Angry Inch live at the Scopes Little Theater, which is actually hidden away on the second underground level of the Chrysler Hall parking garage. It was a great show, and I highly recommend it. If you haven’t seen the original movie, of course, you should see that, as well.

One of my recent projects will be using JavaScript, DOM, XMLHttpRequest, and a few other techniques in order to provide close-to-real-time feedback to the user. While doing some research on the subject, I ran across a re-reaction to the negative reaction that some folks have had to the name by which this technique has recently come to be known: “Ajax“.

On the one hand, I can certainly sympathize with people who are vexed by the creation of a new buzzword to describe something that has been known by other names for years (“carjacking”, for example, has always irked me, and “splatbook” still causes me to twitch involuntarily every time I hear the word). On the other hand, I had never bothered working with XMLHttpRequest in my projects, mainly because I didn’t know much about it and didn’t realize how nifty it was. It was only when someone at work mentioned using “Ajax” for a project that I started to look into it. So, was a new term needed? No. But has the creation of a new term aided awareness and proliferation of the technique? In my experience, it has, and I can’t argue with that.

In a bold, visionary move, the Texas state House approved a bill last week to restrict “overtly sexually suggestive” cheerleaders performances. Now, I happen to think sexually suggestive little girls are weird and creepy. They started making me uncomfortable around the time I realized that I have unfinished gaming projects older than some of these pert youngsters. But is this really the best use of the Texas government’s time?

This has been a pretty good weekend. Susan and I spent Friday night at the Chesapeake Central Library for the Fantasmo Cult Explosion. The movies were Blackula and Count Yorga, Vampire. Apparently the port of Los Angeles is a main entrance point for vampires coming to the USA. That red pickup truck must be pretty busy.

The movies were fun, but on top of that I had the unexpected pleasure of running into Carter Perry and Craig T. Adams, two of the marvelously talented people behind the Dr. Madblood show. I hope I didn’t stammer too much. I am a huge fan. Sadly, I won’t be able to make the next Madblood movie at the Naro this Friday at 23:00. I have previous plans.

Saturday we celebrated Susan’s birthday at a restaurant called Amalfi’s. The food was great, the ambiance was terrific, but it was weirdly empty for a Saturday night. It must be so hard to run a profitable restaurant.

Today, of course, was Mother’s Day. Standard routine: lunch with every relative within driving distance. Despite how that sounds, I had a really good time. Uno’s is one of my two favorite pizza places (the other is Orapax).

The blog had gone to a dark, unwholesome place, and it was making me sad, so I’ve rewound back to where it was still fun.