I looked at some cars today. I even drove two. My dad came with me and I expected him to be the voice of reason to stop me from being stupid and getting something extravagant with leather seats and a fancy stereo when I probably won't be driving it more than once or twice a week. So much for that theory. When it came down to a choice between a respectable cheap car and a really nice car for substantially more, he voted for the nice ride. Geoff would have told me I was an idiot. He got his car ages ago, paid next to nothing for it, has never had any maintenance, and doesn't even bother to lock the doors most of the time. There's something to be said for that kind of freedom.

So I have this car on hold until Monday so I can think about it and maybe get some money together. It has everything. It's very comfortable. I like it. But it's the biggest purchase I've ever made. I can't just buy the first car I like. Argh.

More material largely for my own reference.

To turn on Apache on Mac OS X, enable "Personal Web Sharing" in the "Sharing" group of the System Preferences. The configuration is in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf as expected. DocumentRoot is set to /Library/WebServer/Documents and UserDir is set to ~/Sites (I guess ~/public_html is too obscure...).

Use sudo to edit system files from the Terminal. Stop and start Personal Web Sharing each time you make a change.

To enable PHP, follow the instructions in AppleCare Document 106485. The AddType lines weren't there when I looked, but just add them around the SSI stuff or whatever.

Looks like Apple decided to put per-user directory configuration in /etc/httpd/users which confused me at first when I was trying to enable CGI for my directory (just add "ExecCGI" to your Options line).

Best of all, it's Apache. It works how it's supposed to. It's not some god-awful IIS or other obscure web server.

Geoff just sent me his pictures from the Ultimate Sports Weekend. My favourite is from the bar where we ate dinner berfore hitting James Bond.

We couldn't decide what to order, but then someone noticed they had about 12 different kinds of wings. Solution? 10 of each. Then our main courses, naturally.

Another week, another enjoyable weekend in Calgary. Craig really outdid himself with some great ice times at some really choice curling and hockey venues. The "Ultimate Winter Sports Weekend" was a huge success. I managed to throw a few decent rocks, but I didn't have any hockey equipment other than a surprisingly well-fitting pair of skates I got back in high school. I bought a few things and borrowed the rest to play part of the last game. I can skate pretty well, but I'm not very good at hockey. Craig and Scott said it was because the stick I borrowed was too short for me. Thanks guys.

On Sunday, we continued the tradition of punishing ourselves with the trip home. It always goes a little something like this.
[10am]
Shubh: So, what time are we heading back to Edmonton?
Bob: We need to leave by 5.
[4pm ... after a solid day of general jackassery]
Geoff: We should go out for dinner and drinks before you guys leave.
Us: Yeah, good idea.
[7pm]
Tim: We should go see that new James Bond movie. It will take us that long to sober up enough to drive home anyway. We'll get home late, but we can take turns driving.
Geoff: Yes, Tim. Good thinking.
Bob: Well, ok. But we leave right after the movie.
[10pm]
Craig: You guys shouldn't drive home after drinking that much during the movie. You should stay at my place tonight and leave really early in the morning. You'll be fine.
Tim, Shubh: Yeah, that makes sense.
Bob: I hate you all so much.
[etc.]

But this time, we actually did leave at 5:30am and made it back in time to get to work reasonably close to "on time".

I noticed recently that a lot of my stories start with "so we had quite a bit to drink..." and I've decided to cut off my alcohol intake for a month just to make sure I still can. You heard it here, folks: no more drinks for me until Christmas day.

Oh, and I've been playing around with MRTG on okcomputer. Suggestions for more graphables are welcome.

I just woke up to the sounds of the tiling people coming in to fix my shower. Hooray.

I'm not a picky eater by any means, but there are some foods that I've really tried to enjoy without any success. The most notable example is yoghurt. It's healthy and available in many snackable incarnations and it was always readily available at home or in residence. I still can't stand it. Yes, even the fruity ones. Yes, even the vanilla ones. Despite repeated attempts, I don't like the smell, I don't like the texture, and I sure don't like the taste.

Soy "milk" was another sticking point. My sister's a vegan, so there's often a container of the wretched stuff in the fridge when I visit. Plus, and I usually don't admit this, milk is a little phlegmy sometimes. Last weekend, I grudgingly agreed to try some chocolate So Good, largely just so that I could say it's gross with some authority, and it's actually pretty good. My mom inflicted a lot of carob-related trauma on me as a young child, so I'm always skeptical of these imitation foods. If some health food hippy ever tells you that carob chip cookies are just as good as chocolate chip cookies, run away. Trust me, they're awful. But this choco-soy stuff is surprisingly similar to the real thing (i.e. chocolate cow milk) and it's a lot lighter.

People tell me that soy beverages (I refuse to call it soy milk because soy isn't a mammal and plain soy beverage doesn't taste like milk anyway) are healthy, so I'm sure this stuff is nourishing me with all kinds of placebo goodness.

Don't forget to stand outside in the cold for the Leonid meteor shower tonight. If you're in Edmonton, the optimal viewing time appears to be between 3 and 4 am.

I'm disappointed that Apple's Switch ads page no longer links to my favourite ad. Luckily, the page itself is still there. Also, the Will Ferrell switch ad (alternative version here) should really be on TV.

I bought some clothes last night with my sister. I have a policy of never doing any serious clothes shopping without bringing a girl for advice. It's not a sexist policy; I just don't know any guys who like shopping for clothes. Except maybe for Warren, but that was a special case. I even looked at shoes - an extremely rare event. Of the four styles that interested me, not one was available in my size. This is part of the reason that I generally don't enjoy shopping for clothes.

Next weekend is the ultimate sports weekend, consisting of hockey and curling, in Calgary. It could work out nicely, because the building manager said they're going to redo the whole tiling job in my shower next Friday to fix the cracks and I don't want to use Bob's shower while I'm waiting for them to finish. Of course, I've heard a couple of "they're coming to fix it in a few days" stories already, so I'm not entirely convinced that anything's going to happen. I've decided to not pay any more rent until it's fixed. I'm not sure if that's allowed, but what the hell.

Last weekend saw my triumphant (or even triumphat, as I mistyped) return to the land of Vancouver. Thanks to everyone for an excellent time.

Some highlights:
Friday night: arrived late, went to Lucy Mae Brown for swanky drinks
Saturday: fudge at Granville Island, made a roast in the old Quad of Fun cooking tradition
Sunday: Virgin, sushi, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Monday: wake up call from the jackasses back home who decided we should go to LA in February, swimming with the seals at Wreck Beach

There was also a liberal amount of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

I picked up the Tegan and Sara album at Virgin and have been enjoying it for most of today. Too bad I missed them in Edmonton last week.

For my own reference, and in case anyone else wants to know how to extract MAC information from a Cisco switch via SNMP, the string is 17.4.3.1.2 as documented somewhere on the Cisco site. It would be obvious from an snmpwalk, but they output in decimal instead of hex.

There was something else I was going to write down so that I stop forgetting it, but I can't remember what it was.

Best weekend in a long time. I can't compete with Mike's tales of Friday night, but I'll say it was spectacular.

Gong Show dressed up as Duff Man for the party on Saturday. Then he made the subs when we went to Mr. Sub. What a guy.