From time to time, I like to let my mind wander. Today, I began thinking about my Grandpa Nick. He and my grandma split up in 1996, then he died of a heart attack in 1999. I haven’t seen him in nearly 7 years, and I realized today that I miss him. What if I could have gone back in time to 1995 and warned him about what was going to happen to him. I could warn him that in 1996 his wife would get into the New Age Movement, begin feeling “negative energies”, and leave her husband of 20-someodd years.

I got turned down for CalGrant this year. For those not familiar, CalGrant is the California State College Grant System. CalGrant has three flavors: A, B, and C. Apparently, my Tech School Bachelor program doesn’t qualify for C; My wife and I make too much money for B (the cap is $30k per year); and I don’t have enough “need” to qualify for CalGrant A. Anyways, I’m sitting here filling out a scholarship application through my school. After I got past questions like “Full Name”, “SSN”, and “Is a third party contributing to your education?

I came across the Linkin Park website tonight, and stumbled across some audio tracks from their new album, “Meteora”. My favorites (that I’ve heard anyways) are “Faint”, “Somewhere I Belong”, and “Don’t Stay”. I think that those tracks stand out to me for personal reasons. Namely, one particular ex-girlfriend, whose thought makes me want to unleash an adrenaline-fueled fury of primal rage. Anyways, here are sections of lyrics of some of the songs that stand out to me: DON’T STAY

I’ve made a simple little 88x31 sized banner for Skyzyx.com. If you think this site is interesting, or just want to promote a fledgling web standards and JavaScript website, feel free to link to me.

After two days of using the Fase4 RDF Parser, I decided to move to the Magpie RSS Parser. This one is much easier to use and implement, and it handles both the simpler RSS 0.9x/2.0 (Really Simple Syndication) format, as well as the RDF-based RSS 1.0 (RDF Site Summary) format. I also messed around with Onyx RSS, ProjectNeo™, and the Aggreg8 parsers. Magpie RSS Parser is just plain better. I’ve also added an RSS/RDF Feed section, so that you can checkout/get other feeds from other sites.

Although there is a bit of personal dreck on this site, I’ve done away with the “Dreck Selector”. All personal comments are still marked « Personal », but there is no longer a way to turn it off. Also, I’ve gotten a hold of a PHP script that parses RSS 0.9x/2.0 feeds. Currently, you can view news from Zeldman.com and C|Net’s News.com right here at Skyzyx.com. We also now have our own RSS feed, in case you’re interested. Interestingly enough, removing the “Dreck Selector” fixed the bug I came across in Opera 7.

I just downloaded Opera 7.11 today. I’ve been doing my web testing with Opera 6.05 and 7.03. Everything looks great in those Opera versions, but Opera 7.11 goofs on my <td align="top"> tag for the right-side menubar. I hope they fix it in Opera 7.12 or Opera 7.2 (whichever comes next). “What? I thought this site was standards-compliant!” It is. I have what is called a “hybrid” site… kind of. A hybrid site is one that is in transition of making the move to CSS-only layouts.

I was just checking out Yahoo! Asia: Phillipines Edition (don’t ask me why), and I came across a poll that asks the following question: Q. Is it possible to make peace with the MILF? Yes, everyone wants peace and is working toward it. No, the MILF’s demands can never be met. Not sure. Could somebody enlighten me? I’m familiar with the American form of “MILF”, but if “the MILFs demands can never be met”, I’m just wondering what’s going on here…

I just received my copy of “Designing with Web Standards” today from Amazon.com. I started reading about an hour ago, and I’m on page 45, the beginning of chapter 2. So far, the book is fantastic! Zeldman’s work helped open my eyes to web standards nearly a year ago, and I can’t wait to get through his new book. I hope this isn’t a violation of any copyright laws or anything, but here’s the blurb from the back cover: You code.

An article at C|Net’s News.com reported that America Online and Microsoft have made peace with each other… for now. Here’s a snippet of the article: Key elements of the pact and its ramifications include AOL receiving a long-term, nonexclusive license to use Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 software and a seven-year, royalty-free license to continue using Internet Explorer on its flagship online service. No wonder AOL-Time Warner is floundering… they’re retarded! AOL 7.0 for Mac OS X uses Gecko. So does the Netscape Browser, and CompuServe 7.