D A L I F . C O M - Blogging

Even shorter break

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:12:54 +0200

Got this bad boy running for about 30 minutes, managed to make a new entry, and change one thing in the admin section before the database decided it had just about had enough. It cut me off, and closed down dalif.com effectively. Again, I contacted my old sysadmin, and once again we were able to restore the page to it's full glory.

So back in black. Or orange as it were. Made a few changes to the page, as you probably won't notice. The footer (bottom part of the page) was updated with the Terms of Service. I also removed the syndication sidebar plugin and put an RSS link in the bottom line. Removed a few other plugins too, and, the largest change, finally I fixed it so only one entry will be displayed on the frontpage. Admittingly, I'm not a big fan of this, but I've been annoyed for quite some time with the way the sidebar was a lot shorter than the entries section. Granted, it is like that with most pages. But I just like it neat and clean looking. So for now, I'll have a minimum of sidebar plugins, and just one entry on the front page. It removes the pesky scrollbar in the side of the browser window too, which I enjoy immensely. Can't stand that bastard.

Ok. I think that's it for now. I'll try and do more work in the skin itself. I like the layout of this, but I'm not too happy about the colors. So I'll be customizing it. Since I'm only semi-adequate when it comes to css and php stuff, I can't guarantee anything. But at least the system is up to date, and looking somewhat swell atm, so with that as my basecamp, I'll work my way up. Oh, and also, I'll try to add entries once in a while. Mostly, I suspect, rants about the hotel life. But hey... can't get enough of those, now can we?

After a short break...

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:25:13 +0200

Yeah, I dunno what the hell. I wanted to update serendipity because I got some trouble in the admin section. Of course it interspersed with the usual mixup between me and the guy in charge. And later on, I had some problems with the permissions. You know, the usual stuff. But we got it sorted in the end, and now I can proceed to type out all the stuff I've been saving up over the past 4 days. So... first tho, I'll eat some lasagna and drink a coke. Then perhaps I'll have time to write you a note or two.

Off on hols

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:56:00 +0100

Hello kiddies...

I know I'm off on holidays, but I just wanted to post this to you people. I found it pretty awesome.. well most of it anyway. Wouldn't mind having a few of those on my walls, to be perfectly honest.

Anyway, back to enjoying life with booze and two wooden planks on my feet.

Dalif.com nearly suffers premature death

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:01:18 +0100

Ye, I suddenly realized I had been given a 2 weeks notice for renewing this domain. And that was like.. 9 days ago. My Visa card has been inactive for some time, and I wasn't able to renew it myself, since only a credit card could do it. Had put it off long enough, and it soon became apparent to me, that had I not in fact renewed it before Tuesday, I might very well lose it. And that wasn't a comforting thought, seing as I've had it since 2001.

I spoke to Rancor, and he agreed to renew it for me. But for some reason, the renewing process also required access to webbanking. Right, we tried from his box, but a technical error made it impossible to write the login information in the designated areas on the webbanking page. The textboxes were outside the pop up windows frame, and with no scrollbars, getting them in focus proved impossible.

I was getting somewhat desperate by this time. Then my brother, who happened to be visiting, offered to provide the service required. He had a different bank, one where the webbanking wasn't tied to one computer, and where the coding was sufficient enough to allow him to actually follow the payment through. I opted for a 5 year deal, for the lowly sum of USD 60, meaning this fucker won't expire til 15-01-2013. That's right, baby. 2k13. Howzabout that? Spiffing indeed.

So, now I'm off to do the final corrections on the webpage I just finished up, effectively allowing me to buy a new laptop. I'll be back with you guys in the not too distant future. Be good!

Dunno

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:04:19 +0100

I just can't seem to get my act together these days. Everything is hazy and bland. There's no red thread for me to follow, and I feel lost and bewildered. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, that sometimes shines ever so bright, hasn't shown it's ugly mug the past.. I dunno how long.

Perhaps it's time for professional help.

How the hell does he do it?

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:20:15 +0100

Several people over the course of this blog's existence, have come to me with the same question. Now, I might be wrong, but I'm guessing the whole world has coordinated a question posing schedule, in which all 6 billion humans will eventually ask me this very question. Because I'm such a bad sport, I've decided to foil their evil and callous plan before it goes totally out of control, but simply answering it here, once and for all;

The question is: How do you write the entries for dalif.com... How is it done? What goes on behind the hard candyshell exterior of this magnificient blog?

Well, my dearest of readers. It basically breaks down like this. This system allows me to alter the post date of entries both before and after they are posted. So that means, I can write stuff, and have it automatically post itself at a given time. In effect, this means I can write 10 entries and then have them posted on a schedule. And that is exactly what I do. Perhaps not 10 entries... But I normally write 4-5 at a time, and have them post over the course of usually double the days. Sometimes I want stuff to come out related to another post, and I have them posted right after one another.

Of course, sometimes there are singular posts among them, but generally, I do this multiposting. That means I can write like a madman for a while, then relax and think up new stuff in the meantime. Yes, sometimes I have dry spells, but still... I'm always cooking something up.

Anyway, I hope that answered your question, planet earth! Don't need to worry yourselves anymore. Mkay?

Gathering the loose ends

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:13:00 +0100

Finishing off a 4 day posting streak, I decided to toss in quite a few little stories in this one. Because none of them warranted a full post by their onsies. Starting out, I'm getting these small stories from a little note I'm getting used to carry around with me all the time. That and a pen. I'm tired of having a gazillion sweet and cool ideas for stuff when I'm out and about, but as soon as I sit my ass down in front of the computer, my mind draws the proverbial blank... and nothing comes of it. However, the thing is, with little notes you leave for yourself, that when you read them days or weeks later, you've no idea what the two-three words on the paper refer to. Thankfully, I remember like 75% of the stuff I've jotted down, so I think I'll make it through this post without anybody raising eyebrows.

First off, we had a guest named Barbosa the other day. Now for the non Piraty folk out there, hearing the name Barbosa will very likely not mean a great deal to you. But for the Sparrowian lovers among us, Barbosa will of course refer to Captain Jack's nemesis (or at least one of them) and later ally, in the PotC franchise. While this particular tidbit isn't HAHAHA OMG funny, it's still somewhat nifty in my not at all humble opinion. Sadly, the guest's first name wasn't Hector. Had it in fact been, I might've had to say "You're off the edge of the map now mate. Here be monsters!". This wasn't the case tho, so I left the guest alone. Turned out he was a regular guest, and would've very likely not appreciated the gesture. In my head, as with so so much other stuff, it was funny as hell.

Had another guest who noticed I was left handed, when I wrote the room number on the little key-wallet thingy. "1 in 10, is what I've heard, sir" was what I replied. He then told me, as guests tend to do when they think I'm interested (which, in this particular case I just so happened to be), a story about his childhood, seing as he was lefthanded as well. His dad used to hit his left hand, when he wrote with it, and he had to sit on it in school. A story I've been told before, by others. It's pretty interesting actually, how long being left handed has been associated with something bad. And of course, as with almost everything else bad, it is rooted in religion. Catholicism, I'd take it, figured that since only a few people were left handed, it must have something to do with our old friend, the devil. Yup, sweet Lucifer is always around, trying to get those pesky catholics. Fuckers. Anyway, they thought it so bad, apparently, that they adapted the latin word for left, Sinister, as a word for something really mean and calous. I ended the conversation with the guest by saying: "I'm glad I wasn't...". He interrupted me by saying "Catholic?" which I found pretty humorous. "No, I was gonna say I'm glad I wasn't born in the days where stuff like that happened. But sure.. catholic too". Why can't all guests be like that guy. He was fun.

Besides the little kinks I'm writing about here, I like the hotel a lot. As opposed to other hotels I've been in, this particular one actually does feel like, however cliché it sounds, a large closely related group and/or family. Everybody knows everybody. The GM is a good guy, who isn't too high and mighty to smile, shake hands and talk to new people he hasn't seen before, when he passes through. The managers seems like they are still part of the group, instead of being these distant weird people you only know by name. It combines high quality products and service, with fun and relaxed atmosphere. I'm very impressed. Besides my little goof up, of taking all these evening shifts, instead of doing the nightshifts I so enjoy, I'm happy I joined the staff. The benefits I guess, along with the salary and the sparetime will do me oh so well. I dunno what the future will bring in terms of using the last two years of experience and bills for something constructive. But despite my wanting to play down my skills, I did in fact learn a lot of stuff.. and with a bit of effort, I can develope it to a level where I might be able to make some money off of it, freelance. Got a few gigs already, that I could potentially get something from. It's an interesting thought, for sure... I'll persue it, when I'm confident with what I'm doing now.

Weird, isn't it.. I thought I had a lot more to say, but I can't make heads or tails in the last two-three items on my little note. So I'll just toss it, and remember: I'm working in a place where stuff happens all the time. Like the screaming lady who wanted to exchange currency the other day, and was hella pissed that we didn't have euros laying around willy nilly. She wanted to exchange a 50, get 20 of them in danish kroner, and the rest back in euro. I was like: This isn't a bank, lady. She started yelling about us being an international hotel blah blah. She didn't even live here, so I considered just telling her to fuck off. But again, she did have an amusing streak to her. I told her it might be an international chain of hotels, but this was still a Danish hotel located in Denmark. And as a rule, we just didn't have currency around. End of discussion. So she settled for exchanging her 50 note, and get it all in kroner. If she had just gone elsewhere, she'd have gotten a lot more, since our rates are insanely shit (hey, a man's gotta make money, yeah?). I don't get people like her. Making a fuss over something totally pointless. But who am I to judge. At least I've got another paragraph in this post :) Catch you bastardos on the flipside.

The quick and the witty

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 05:16:25 +0100

A brief heads up for you, the eagerly waiting reader/fanbase. I'm swamped with work atm.. and when I'm not swamped with work, I'm so beat from standing up for 8 hours, I just want to do nothing at all but talk to people (over the internet.. not in real life... God no) and have fun with a spot of gaming or whatever.

Anywho, being at work so much has an upside as well though, when it comes to this site and it's doings. And that upside is that I'm always carrying at least 3 pens and some paper around with me, meaning that I'll be able to jot down ideas when I get them.. Or rather, a few words describing a short idea for an entry or a rant, that I'd like to elaborate on. Believe it or not, I've got ideas to fill this page with 10 entries a day. But I'm just too lazy to write them down and then publish them. Hence, you've got the current update a week thing going on.

This all leads me to the introduction of, and the real purpose of today's post, the rant category. You'll see it eloquently put into good use at the bottom of this entry. It's a subcategory for Real Life, meaning you'll probably always see them paired. The Rants category will be applied to the entries that are too short to warrant anything cool by themselves, but still large enough for me to actually consider them worthy of publicising.

What will this mean to you, my dearest of readers? Effectively nothing what so ever. You might, if my optimism holds, be treated to more entries of a shorter and more concise nature. But then again, I'm notoriously known for not following through with my fun and innovative ideas. We all remember the Top 10 fiasco.. I get overly ambitious, and then I let myself down. Story of my life. But I've got a small piece of paper filled with interesting stories and tidbits from real life situations... most of them at the hotel, because basically hundreds of people go through there everyday, and we all know how weird people are. So, look out for the ranting. I've got a good feeling about this (Reverse Han Solology (if you get this ref, I'll admit I'm impressed.. I hardly get it myself). Don't play with fire, folks.. you heard that one at dalif.com first!

Rambling heads and the Irish

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:47:36 +0200

I recently stumbled upon a blog of what appears to be an Irish senior citizen. I say appears to be, because of course I accept anything posted in the interweb at face value, and I'm ready to believe anything posted on any page. Or perhaps I just don't care if this is some little girl posting as a senior citizen just for the attention. Whatever may be the case, I found the stumbled article pretty nifty (it was about surviving the fine art of ordering a pint (a pint being synonym to a pint of Guiness) in an Irish pub, without being made as a tourist). Granted, I don't like Guiness much, but I sure was tempted to go to Ireland again, and give Guiness the benefit of doubt.

Anywho, I just now realized Google also has a decent RSS Aggregator, meaning I can load all the rss feeds into that, and it'll keep track of my feeds and allow me to access them from anywhere in the world. Rss feeds are what pages on the web use to send out information and/or headers when a new item is posted. I'm sure there's a more technical explanation, and I'm also sure somebody reading this could go "Omfg l0ser, that is what you newbs use rss aggregators for.. back in 1985 they were so much used for blah blah whatever". If you're a person thinking something along the lines of that, I'd urge you to eat hormone neutralizing pills, seing as no kid should grow up with you as a parent. ANYWAY.. I'm straying from the point here. So Google has this here rss reader, which is nifty, and I loaded in the rss feed for Head Rambles (the page), and happened to read a few articles I hadn't seen before.

This, in turn, made me think about some experiences I had with Ireland. It's not relevant to the prior article. But as always, when I say I'll do something later on tonight, it usually gets pushed off for various reasons. Point is, when I was in Ireland, I never really felt as if I was made out as a tourist. I'm sure I was, but I never quite felt like anybody noticed or cared. Of course, I refrained from wearing touristy things, like green tshirts or scarfs or anything else people from Japan might find inconspicuous. And no, I didn't just stay in Dublin, where most people appear to be from across some sort of body of water. I was out in the country side (so green it was), talking to the locals.. or at least observing them. This leads me to another event that took place right here in the home town of yours truly. I was wearing an Irish National Rugby shirt, I had bought while in Dublin (or my mum got it for me.. technicalities, but it's nice to have the facts straight, isn't it?) to a local subcultured club I went to with my brother. It's green and, I'll admit in all modesty, looks stunning on my large frame. So I'm standing in the lobby type thing, just getting away from the heat of the dancefloor and to clear my eyes from the flashing lights. In stumbles what appears to be an Irishman.

*Freeze frame*
<Dalif has a flashback>
Dalif: For as long as I can remember, I've always attracted the attention of randoms on the street and/or in shops. I can't count the number of times I've been asked where the milk is located or if we have any more of those cushions that were on sale last week, when going to supermarkets... and I'm always the one the drunk guy speaks to, when given the choice between 3-5 people on the street. I dunno what it is about me that just commends the need to speak out. I've often wondered... (dramatic pause).. or have I?
<Flashback comes to a premature end>
*Motion recommences*

He enters the door, and spots me straight away. Moves towards me, with that oh so special "Hey, don't move, I want to say something extremely witty and important to you" look upon his scarred and drunkard face. I briefly, as I always do, flash a number of possible ways out of the situation through my quick-thinking mind. I draw a blank, and stays motionless. What he actually ended up saying, I cannot remember clearly. But it was something to the effect of "So how about those Irish Rugby players"... and then something about it being to to see another irishman around here. I inform him of the fact that I'm not Irish, nor do I watch rugby. I merely happened to like the shirt. He looks befuddled, as if I had just told him his wife and kids died in a horrible boating accident. I shrug... I mean, I'm not really sorry. It's just the way life is. I pat him on the shoulder, and send him on his way.

Now this leads me to the final point of this entry, which, I'll admit, was written mostly because I like to see myself write stuff. The point is, that had I worn that shirt in Ireland, the bloke would've thought I was a filthy tourist being a nuisance and a general annoyance. But if I wear it in any other country in the world, bar Equatorial Guinea perhaps, I'll be marked as an Irishman straight off the bat, and honored for flying the green colors. I find that, if not hugely amusing, then at least a little nifty. You gotta give me a little credit for making that cool and interesting observation. Conclusively, I'd urge you to give Head Rambles a go. Grandad is a fairly amusing fella. And I'm sure he'd have a few fun stories to tell down the pub (if you could sneak past his foreigner-filters).

The proverbial show must go on

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:03:00 +0200

Well it isn't all bad today. And I feel this whole situation shouldn't cast a dark and inpenetrable shadow over our respective lives. It's sad, but of course we must go on.

And it's in the spirit of that notion that I'll go ahead and wish our top international correspondant, Holden, the happiest of birthdays. He turns into a throbbing young man of an undisclosed age today, and for that, the entire staff here at dalif.com would like to extent a plethora of well wishes.

Happy birthday old chap. I hope your day will be one of enjoyment, and that you'll get some wicked presents :)