To get a bit more PHP practice, I changed the help around so that it uses PHP to pull together the various bits rather than being a bunch of static pages. Advantages here include that it’s a lot faster to add new pages and to change the overall layout, usual dynamic stuff. It also orders the menu by which page has been most recently modified which could be handy.

Only I’m a bit confused by some of the rendering on Safari. Most of it is laid out with pretty rigid absolute positioning within a fixed-width, centred wrapper div, there’s not much to argue with there… except that some of the pages seem to have different widths in practice. Take a look at the xml page. Then take a look at the find page. The whole thing moves a bit to the left, doesn’t it? Well, it does for me. It’s probably something quite simple.

If anyone’s interested to know what I ate this evening, you can see terrible phonecam pictures on my Flickr page.

• A bottle of Sapporo
• A pre-starter involving cold noodles in some sort of vinegary sauce
• An a la carte sushi menu
• Other diners in the restaurant
• Shrimp dumplings
• A roll with king crab in it, and two pieces of uni sushi. I couldn’t remember what uni was like or if I’d even had it before; it’s not all that nice really, a large splat of sea urchin on the top of rice with a taste that had an edge of being not quite right. That along with the texture would make it a good thing to serve somebody squeamish who you wanted to put off sushi. Still, perhaps it’s an acquired thing. I ate both pieces anyway.

They were playing a loop of anonymous koto music that was rather soothing. While not taking bad pictures I continued to read John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar, which, like a lot of SF of that period (1969) seems oddly concentrated on race to me, but is a fantastic book, with a character who seems like an original prototype for Spider Jerusalem if you then add a big chunk of gonzo. (Not Gonzo.) This is probably well known to comic geeks but I am not one, I just like to read them, amongst lots of other things.

Still a few hours left of the evening though.

N.B. The restaurant is called Hikaru. It doesn’t get too full, the staff are excellent and the food has always been good whenever I’ve been there, though I almost always just have a starter and a roll. Teppanyaki downstairs, sushi bar upstairs with a view over the canal.

Whatever it is, “sitting in front of the computer, clicking Refresh and drinking beer” shouldn’t be it. That’s getting old.

Problem: all local establishments get immensely full on Friday nights round here, and, in any case, none of them are very entertaining for someone on their own who’s not on the pull. I do not have cable and cannot rent any DVDs.

I think I may go out to get something to eat just now, given that I don’t actually have anything except a pack of noodles and two eggs here, but that’s not all that entertaining.

Hmm.

Today was mostly spent looking at things that I might consider doing but aren’t urgent and thinking “no, that’s bullshit, I’m not doing that. So is that. No way. And that… that’s really bullshit.” Despite this reminder of why I don’t like being here I am getting increasingly worried by the prospect of quitting and moving in a couple of months, though, which I don’t think is a bizarre reaction. Do you up and move countries and lives without a moment’s thought? Yes? You’re weird then. Still, regardless of whether it’s understandable or normal, the tension’s still there.

Do I need one of these?

My Palm, you see, is still not wified and it clearly should be. And there are no nice little Palm-compatible wifi cards, oh no, that would be too easy. And my current case is falling apart a bit – even if this one does look a little bulky.

No, I probably won’t to be honest. I just can’t build up any enthusiasm for anything today. Oh well.

As an aside, it says, twice:

Instant wireless access to e-mail, Internet, or current network information all while roaming in your campus

Students are too bloody rich these days. In my day you were considered a posh Southern twat if you owned a mobile phone, and indeed people did used to hang around outside one particular cafe – can’t remember the name now, I think it was to the north of the Potterrow near the McEwan Hall – and pose with them. That sounds positively antediluvian now, doesn’t it? God I feel old.

Ah, I’m going to leave that gun/dildo thing I think, partly because all the good jokes to do with firearms and phalluses have already been done, and partly because sitting here at work photoshopping dildoes probably isn’t a great way to look productive.

I’m not feeling that inspired in any case.

As BoingBoing points out, Alabama’s bizarre laws banning sex toys have been declared perfectly okay, leaving it legal to sell a gun but not a dildo.

Well, there’s an obvious solution to that – since the state and federal government have both declared which phallic symbols they approve of, what you want is a dildo that’s actually a gun. Perfectly fine to sell it then.

I feel a page coming on. Nobody steal my idea or I’ll shoot you in an uncomfortable place. Hmm… calling it a “love gun” is probably too obvious.

Exclusive shock photos! John Edwards steals Janeane Garofolo’s lemur!

Look at them all trying to distract attention away from the man’s blatant lemur-thievery, while he holds it by the tail. I tell you, he’s not getting my vote.

Well, nothing terribly exciting happened today, unfortunately. Most of the time I was hitting other bloggers with sticks so that they wouldn’t swamp my wifi connection while trying to download porn. You know what these people are like. Security had to eject a couple.

This morning I spent nearly an hour telling Bill Clinton how he could make some of his Livejournal entries friends-only. For a smart guy it took him long enough to grasp the basic concept. Then I had some guy – can’t remember his name, sounded like Osama – telling me how his inbox was always full of viruses and camgirls. I was on my fourth or fifth Bloody Mary by then, it was 11am, and I think I just told him to fuck off and buy a Mac. I don’t think he was anyone important.

After that I went back to the hotel for a doze, and only really emerged this evening to go to a few parties, which were just the usual – holding back ###’s hair and so on (my Internet Lawyers advised me to redact that particular name). Apart from Matt Drudge trying to put ice cubes down a waitress’ pants, nothing eventful occurred. I think he may get bitter about being slapped for that.

Incidentally, Janeane Garofolo has a lemur that she carries on her shoulder to social events, but it’s quite a small one and well-behaved.

I suppose it’s not much of a surprise that, given that bloggers are being granted press passes for the major American comintern events these days, I managed to get one. It was a long process involving identity theft but you don’t really want to know right now.

You lot thought I was maundering in Philadelphia, didn’t you? Well, no, I’m in Boston right now covering the convention, along with other famous and worthwhile bloggers like Atrios and Tom Tomorrow and all those wankers. And I’ve got more than enough gossip to keep you all spangled for days.

• Howard Dean gives rousing speech involving three marmots and a pumped fist. Go Howie!

• Amusing exchange between media wits Bill O’Reilly and Michael Moore…

  Bill: “You fat fuck.”
  Mike: “Bite my Cannes-winning ass.”
  Bill: “SHUT UP!”

  Oh, those boys!

• Ann Coulter expelled from Boston for excessive and blatant cocaine consumption – even Tucker Carlson heard to observe “Ann needs to cut back and stop trying to chop lines on the back of traffic cops”.
• Ralph Nader reported shot trying to infiltrate through south-west borders. Given supernatural recuperative powers and lack of verified decapitation, may return in future.
• Al Franken is actually Jimmy Carter. More on this later.
• Teresa Heinz-Kerry is accused of attacking media with a machete but later turns out to have sort of glanced in their direction with a bit of a frown on. Major story news at eleven!

Don’t forget – you can find all the latest uncensored news from the meeting of the anti-Kremlin right here! And possibly better tomorrow.

Graffiti at Conshocken station (not really a station as such, more a bus shelter next to a bridge, but hey).