i <3 *nix

When you are programming on OS X, especially when working from the command line, enviroment variables are crucially important. One of these variables is the PATH which tells your machine which directories are subject to search. Just needed to mention this because for the longest time I had no idea why some binaries were not working. I found this page particularly helpful.

A pussy is good sometimes

I have never been a macho thugish dude. Even when I feel threatened physically, I usually think about the situation and plan rather than swinging punches. Maybe I have too much to lose now (as opposed to when I was in the 4th grade).

Tonight at Puffy's Tavern while having a drink with my friend Margarette, a man stopped at the window and started starting at M. When I turned around to look at what she was looking at, he began staring at me. Later she told me that he had put his cigarette out on the window (whoa!).

My rule with dogs is usually not to challenge even when challenged, and they usually back down (im noticing a trend here). Unfortunately, the human psyche is far more complex, especially when it is broken. Having moved around to the front of the pub, psycho in the trench and hat was sitting out front staring me throught the plate glass - a bit of door obsuring the bottom half of his face and this hat blocking out the top, leaving only his eyes staring right at me... I shit you negative. Its fucking 25 outside and he is just sitting there staring.

Its at this point that I let the bartender know that this whole thing aint cool. This fella is way outside freaksville on the road to homicidal maniac as far as im concerned. At the bar, I admitted that I realized my statement would instantly label me a pussy, but that I was not comfortable with the situation and could really use some advice in the present situation. Fortunatley this fantastic guy named Andre and his friend John said they would escort me and M out.

I cannot remember the last time i really lost my nerve, but this definitely resets that clock. I M buggin. It is very hard for me to take a situation lightly where a creep is staring at me and my friend through the window for more than an hour in the butt fucking freezing cold. This is beyond, "Leave me alone, or imma kick ur ass" bravado, this is more like, "if he has a knife I can run to a cab... I sure hope he is not going to shoot us". It also didnt help much that after pacing a bit, John says to me "That dood is nuts, I can see it in his eyes".

Andre and John escorted us out the door and immediately hailed a taxi for us (thank you fellas). Glancing back at the man, he had already begun to slink down the street, like he knew his prey was long past gone. If he was trying to scare me, it worked. Congrats, you cockgobbler. I feel a tad sorry for his insane ass, and thankful that the night ended without incident (well except for the hipster slipping on the ice outside the Lorimer stop - he fucking ate asphalt).

These are exactly the moments that I need the NYPD for protection, but there was not a single cop to be seen (I suppose Tribeca is too "safe"). Perhaps they are just very busy patroling peoples bags in the subways. Its fucking insane that I have to protect myself against freekshow crazies in Tribeca AND protect myself againt listless blockhead transit cops who want to rummage through my stuff.

Fuck "CPR", the NYPD needs to get a fucking clue

My rule for the longest time regarding the New York City Police Department has been not to engage. But sometimes I am engaged unwillingly, like 6 months ago when a Transit cop accused me of jumping the turnstile, and then upon checking my card (which proved I had swiped it and not skipped the fare), told me: "dont do it again". Policing is obviously not biomolecular research, nor does it tend to attract such intelligence, but even so, the tired slogan of "Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect" should not be that difficult a mantra to maintain. Perhaps that campaign is over now that terrorists are the new threat, not "broken windows".

I just wanted to share with you a quick story about the NYPD, whom I am forced to support with my tax dollars (but that is as far as my support goes). By now it is clear that the "random" bag searches in the NYC subway is not going anywhere. I myself had my first unfortunate run in with our boys in blue this afternoon while attempting to catch the L train from Bedford to Lorimer because I am lazy and my bag was heavy. After swiping my metrocard (not unlimited, mind you) I hear over my shoulder, "hey handsome", "hey", "hey you", "come over here". Glancing in the direction of the taunts I see four police officers and a long plastic table. By the way they were all staring at me, I know they certainly did not want me to come over and chat about my good looks. After declining their offer to rifle through my belongings, I asked for my fare back. I suppose that I should not be surprised that they said "There is nothing I can do about that". Apparently there was nothing that the station attendant could do about it either. Apparently noone will take responsibilty for being a fucking asshole. Ill tell you fellas, while "random" searching may be part of your job, disrespect and theivery is not. I fucking hate the fact that when the police are involved in anything in this city, they are above the law. Hey tough guys, this is not the way to stop terrorism.

If someone were smart they would set up a site where citizens could post the locations of the search stations as a service so that those of us in the public that object to being treated like this by our "protectors" can just avoid the hassle altogether. It would be even better if one could anonymously post via txt message.

Aligning DIVs with CSS: get your nest on

I still hate CSS. For me, its like 1998 all over again. While managing my hate I would like to share some pointers about how to do some common things in CSS with DIVs that you already know how to do with TABLES. But fuck TABLES, right.

Vertical alignments

So I have a div with some content that I need aligned within another block of space. After fiddling with the thing forever I finally found the technique... nest an absolute positioned DIV inside a relative positioned DIV and boom, the DIV can be placed anywhere you want inside the parent DIV (the relative one).

div#outerdiv
 {
 position:relative;
 padding:0;
 margin: 0;
 height:47px;
 }

div#innerdiv
 {
 margin: 0px 0 0 0;
 position:absolute;
 bottom:0px;
 right:0;
 height:22px;
 }

<div class="outerdiv">
    <div class="innerdiv">
    </div>
</div>