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On this date in 1999, celsius1414.com came into being.

Thanks to Wikipedia, here’s some other notable things that happened on 1999/10/08:

• New Coligny Calendar, NCC, the beginning of a new era of the Coligny calendar, the oldest material Celtic calendar.
• John McLendon, American basketball coach b. 1915, passed away.

Okay, admittedly not the most auspicious day in history. However, a number of interesting folks were born on October 8th, such as:

• 1920 - Frank Herbert, author (d. 1986)
• 1941 - Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist
• 1943 - Chevy Chase, comedian and actor
• 1943 - R. L. Stine, author
• 1948 - Johnny Ramone of The Ramones (d. 2004)
• 1949 - Sigourney Weaver, actress
• 1950 - Robert Kool Bell of Kool & the Gang
• 1959 - Mike Morgan, pitcher, including for the Dodgers 1989-1991
• 1965 - C-Jay Ramone of The Ramones
• 1970 - Matt Damon, actor

As you might or mightn’t know, Project Gutenberg etexts are all issued a distinct number, counting up from their very first, etext #1, the US Declaration of Independence.

Just for the fun of it, I looked up what etext #1414 is: Somebody’s Luggage by Charles Dickens, from 1862. Here’s the first paragraph of Chapter I: “His Leaving It Till Called For” —

The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto Joseph, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London, E.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist.

Any story with the “Slamjam Coffee-house, London” in it must be worth a read. :)

Less than four hours here till the dawning of the new year. On this date in 2006, I was reflecting on the challenges of the previous couple of years and hoping for better:

Not too long now, it’ll be 2007. And not a moment too soon. ;)

Last year on this date, I was looking back on a difficult 2005…

Instead of the Litany of Bad Things, I will just say that despite the bad stuff, some good stuff also happened. More than anything, seeds have been planted that might just make 2006 a good one.

Suffice to say that unfortunately, 2006 was even more trying, by a long shot. But I can also say that a lot of good happened this year as well. I can even mean it wholeheartedly when I say that 2007 holds a lot of promise. With some dedication and good fortune, it could be the best year ever.

Well, it wasn’t the best ever, containing as it did its own set of challenging events, but it was better by far than the previous couple. Sort of a transition/recovery year.

No matter what, I’m looking forward to 2008, and the hopes of continuing improvement.

Happy New Year, y’all!

I’ve updated the site to the newest version of Drupal, and (after some tweaking) most things seem to be working. I’m leaving it with the default theme for now until I decide what look I want to go for.

Let me know if you run into any issues.

By the way, thanks to this Lullabot video for a step-by-step process that makes things relatively painless.

If you encounter a

Call to undefined function module_exist() ...

error, check out this drupal.org article.

UPDATE the old bookmarks are broken at the moment — I’ll have to fix ‘em another time.

UPDATE #2 bookmarks are fixed.

A selection of posts from my other websites during the previous week (or fortnight ;).

Trolley Dodger

• “Loons to Host 2008 MWL All-Star Game”
  Yesterday, the Great Lakes Loons website had the curious notice that there would be an important announcement during the second inning of today’s game.
• “Cardone’s Italian”
  Matthew over at Metsblog has a post up today, “Note: If You’re an LA Mets Fan, Read This”, which apparently spills the beans (or the pasta) about where Mets fan congregate in Los Angeles: Cardone’s Italian, which is on W. Sunset.
• “How’s your summer goin’?”
  While not strictly Dodger-related, I had to share this movie of Matt Damon (born and bred Red Sox fan) giving David Letterman (huge Yankees fan) grief for the disparity in their teams’ performances this year.
• “斎藤 隆”
  I don’t know what was worse: seeing Takashi Saito limping off the field in the 9th inning of today’s game, or listening to the SportsCenter crew butcher his name over and over.
• “Vote for Russell!”
  Vote Early! Vote Often! Vote Russell!
• “Jason Schmidt a class act”
  Jason Schmidt’s start today at Inland Empire went quite well, as mentioned in various stories around the web.
• “Goodbye Again, Dear Bums”
  Thanks to an email contact for forwarding me this article in Parade Magazine, “Goodbye Again, Dear Bums”, by Alfred F. Kelly, Sr. in which the author shares memories of the Brooklyn Dodger era.
• “The Trolley Dodger Top 9 Reasons Why You Should Remember To Breathe”
  I know better than to wade through hysterical posters on Dodger discussion forums and blog comment sections, but I always wind up doing it and feeling something akin to heartburn afterwards, especially when the posters want to blow up the team after a week of bad games.
• “6-4-2 with the 4-1-1”
  Rob over at 6-4-2 was good enough to link to the reasons to breathe post and takes some offense to at least the first 5 items.

End Pavement

• “Hulda Crooks, April 1st”
  From the first hike after the accident, in our oft-hiked Hulda Crooks Park.
• “Drag hunting not a drag”
  I happened to catch an episode of “Dogs with Jobs” on the National Geographic Channel that was covering bloodhounds in England engaged in a traditional fox hunt — minus the fox and plus one human.

Mac DevCenter

• “NetNewsWire and MarsEdit updated”
  Two of what might be termed “venerable” (in computer years) Mac OS X applications have been updated today…