Silflay Hraka

Annoying the Girlfriend, Part the First, an Outgrowth of Annoying the Wife, Chapter One, or, as I like to call it: The 12 dollar REVERSIBLE belt

See, women are hard to please that way. My girlfriend would have been utterly surprised and completely beside herself with joy had I purchased an $80 dollar belt that says “Trafalgar” on it for myself. (You got screwed, BTW).

Evidently, I am a lot more like my father than my elder sibling. I have this one belt. I realized that it was my only belt, never really seeing the point in having more than one belt. Sure, some people like to have a black belt to wear with any outfit that requires black shoes, and a brown belt to wear with any outfit requiring brown shoes. I, in keeping with my notions about having only one belt, never really saw the need to have more than one color of shoe. All my shoes are brown, and therefore, any outfit that I might own goes perfectly well with brown shoes. And all this assumes that I have what one might refer to as an “outfit”. I have blue jeans. Lots of blue jeans.

And then there’s the camp that likes to have ONE belt to keep their pants up and ONE belt to keep the crappy, broken-down, Samsonite suitcase shut. But that’s another story.

So, I have this one belt. It’s brown. Being much more like my male parental unit than said sibling, I also believe in keeping my one belt until it fails utterly. It is old and worn and creased, and the several layers of the belt are separating. It’s seen better days. It isn’t the kind of belt you might wear with ANYTHING that one might refer to as an “outfit”. It’s fine to wear with blue jeans, but not with outfits.

Now, I had this friend who was getting married, as friends are wont to do. Marriages usually require weddings and weddings usually require outfits and outfits require belts and the one belt that I had in my possession was not quite suitable for outfits, as we’ve already discussed. I was in a fair quandry. I was put in the hard position of having to purchase a second belt. Being much like my father, but not entirely unlike my brother, the Earl of Julian, I went to Target. Target being, of course, the Walmart for those with aspirations to a seat in the House of Lords. I don’t know exactly what Kmart is. Maybe that’s the Walmart for people with no aspirations what-so-ever.

Back to our story. I’m in Target to buy a belt. There are black belts and there are brown belts. To my surprise, there were also belts of many other hues and shades. And then I saw it. THE belt. I imagine I felt much like Percival felt when he finally won the Holy Grail. IT was bathed in a holy glory of light. Choirs of Angels sang in praise. It was black. It was brown. It was reversible. And it was only $12.00 dollars. It was perfect in every way.

Needless to say, my girlfriend breaks into fits of derisive laughter whenever I wear it. I don’t wear it anymore. Maybe I’ll wear it again when next I have occasion to wear an outfit. Maybe I’ll go to Julian’s and buy a belt with a little tag that says “Trafalgar“. Maybe next time I’ll go to Walmart.

Of course, all of this begs the question as to WHY exactly do father’s belts break? Sure they are cheap Walmart belts, but I’d bet good money that they would last a good deal longer than they do if Dad bought belts that fit him in the first place. You see, father doesn’t buy NEW belts when one has grown too large for his diminishing girth, he simply creates NEW holes in the old belt by employing the family icepick as a leather punch tool, allowing him to draw the belt ever tighter, but wreaking havoc on the cheap Walmart leather.

Yesterday, my parents flew up to Boston to visit my middle brother and his family. As I am a dutiful son, I let them spend the night before they flew out with us, saving them an hour’s drive to the airport, as well as the week-long parking fee. The next morning Dad comes down and announces that we have a problem. His cheap-ass Wal-Mart belt has broken, and he wants to know if we have any rope to hold his pants up with. Rope. The man is a Methodist minister, has attended three colleges, and taught for at least two more, and he’s turning into Eustace. We’re living in Dogpatch, and we’re not even Yokums, we’re Scraggs.

Dad had hip surgery last March, and all the shuffling around before and after has carved a goodly chunk out of what once “came out of the night, more belly than man.” His wardrobe appears to consist entirely of oversize clown clothes. He’s pulling his pants up more often than a monsignor at altar boy camp. This is the second cheap-ass Walmart belt that has broken on him in the last three months, so he thinks perhaps he shan’t buy one there again.

I gave him mine under the mistaken impression that I have other belts. This is a patently false notion, as they have been either mislaid in the move to the new house, or left under the pillow by the wife for the leather fairy. Since I can’t be a proper geek without a belt for my pager, cell phone and other assorted Bat-tools, it now becomes imperative that I have a new one. My problem is this. Most people have an inner child. I have an inner drunken british aristocrat. His noblesse oblige means I buy the drinks, that I overtip, prefer that the house be full of preferably drunken guests, and that given the choice between patronizing Julians or the Gap, choose Julian’s without a second thought. I mean, it’s owned by Alexander Julian’s dad, for god’s sake. Most of the time he’s the only person in there. Well, maybe not his dad. There’s a guy in there who looks like a dad, and that’s enough for me. Anyway, it feels like Saville Row inside.

It’s a very nice belt. It’s got a little tag that says “Trafalgar“, which clinched the deal as far as the peer inside was concerned. It was brown, fit me, and was located in under two minutes, which is pretty much all I ever ask for out of a shopping experience. The idea of price never even entered my head, which is why 90% of the clothes I wear are presented to me, rather than chosen by me. Didn’t even bat an eye when I saw the credit card slip, just signed that sucker and put my new belt on. And, as an added bonus, the receipt for my new belt is presented to me in a lovely purpley-pink envelope with “Julians” printed on it in Theodoric, the classiest of the fonts.

None of which really impressed the wife, except for the reciept envelope. I tried explaining that I had actually saved us money, on the theory that $80 belts last at least twice as long as $40 belts, but she was having none of it.

Which is bad, cause Alex’s dad showed me some really nice suits.

I’ve decided to start my own beauty pageant. It’s going to be a beauty pageant for real women. Rather than the swimsuit competition, you’ll have the “what do they look like first thing in the morning” competition. The winner will be the one that doesn’t look like they’ve been out binge drinking several nights in a row, and whose leg hair doesn’t leave angry red scars on your skin if they brush against you casually during the night. On second thought, maybe we’ll keep the swimsuit competition. Maybe a lingerie competition? And for the talent competition? Dare I even suggest? If you’re a man, you should know what the required talent should be.

Cooking.

What? What did you think I meant?

By the way, did you catch a glimpse of Miss Egypt? Can you believe that the Muslim world has beauties like her? And they want to cover her in a burkha? You’ve got to be kidding me.

So, who was your favorite Miss Universe contestant, and don’t tell me you didn’t watch, because I know you did.

I have arrived. The Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs article is hysterical, and probably right in line. The problem being that I don’t think that Osama bin Laden is out to start an all out war with the West. I think he’s out to ruin our economy, and I think he stands a far better chance of keeping us in recession and knocking down the GDP than he does in winning any kind of shooting war. Of course, if he begins to truly threaten the economy of the West, WE’LL probably start the all-out war with those terrorist freaks, thus bringing about the scenario outlined in the article.

I think there might be toxic mold in my apartment. What do I do?

Osama Bin Laden – Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
Link via Instapundit

I don’t know if anyone remembers, but the day after the towers went down, there were explosions in Kabul. The first thing I thought was “Good. We should be bombing the Taliban just on general principles.” Forget about bombing countries into the stone age. If you bomb a country long enough, you bomb them into democracy.

mmmmmmmm…Turkey.

I’ve been looking for ways to add functionality to the blog, specifically comments and tip jars, both of which represent the triumph of hope over experience. Investigating them feels like constructive work, though I suspect that it bears the same relationship to actual content that dry humping does to the position of the wife of indra. Still, since my latest tasks don’t really have the edge-of-your seat suspense that UNIX text manipulation does, it’s better than nothing.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Man creates computer chips which can hold a googaplex of information, they put men on the moon, match DNA to solve mysteries, and can make a sport like SOCCER popular, yet we continue to live in the past. While moving quickly into the new millennium we remain in the past whereas men?s fashion is concerned. At the rare times when I am forced to wear a sport coat I am amazed at our lack of progress. Why must buttons still be attached to my sleeves? I realize at one point the buttons actually worked, and am aware of their functionality, but those days are past. I am neither a band director, nor a sea captain, two occupations obviously in need of buttons on sleeves. They serve no purpose for the modern man but to get caught on tablecloths, or to hurt me as I rest my arm on the table, making an indention in my wrist so that I can see the hideous emblem in my skin. I suggest we start a movement, a revolution within the male fashion world. We will mobilize thousands, marching toward the future as we take to the streets screaming in unison, ?We aren?t gluttons, remove our buttons!!?

No, it isn?t Shakespeare, but it is a foundation from which other revolutions may emerge. I was taught to believe in something and fight for those beliefs?????.this is a start???..a very small start. Join me in this crusade. Remove your buttons from your sports coats and throw them defiantly into the streets?????.or just wear t-shirts, whatever dude.

They do that because it is their lot in life. You may as well ask Andrew Sullivan why he pisses people off.

:1,$s/^.*MP3 // and :1,$s/ .*:… /-/ are what is known as regular expressions. Put simply, they are patterns. Put simply, the sentence before this one is a lie. They contain regular expressions, but they also contain other stuff. I can get away with this because all the real technical people read Camworld, and only come round here at two-thirty in the morning, after all the bars close, looking to get laid. And no, they don’t respect me in the morning. Hell, they don’t respect me at two-thirty.

When I took this line;

AFROM~19 MP3 4,975,989 08-23-01 11:07p AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3,

and got this line;

4,975,989-AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3,

it was because I specified a pattern that first matched AFROM~19 MP3, and then matched 08-23-01 11:07p. Once they got matched, the rest of the command deleted them. I could have just typed “AFROM~19 MP3″ but that would have only worked once. The pattern has to be loose enough to find something on every line in the document, but tight enough so that it’s not deleting the information I want to keep. With your kind permission, I’ll parse the first one.

: actually isn’t part of the “reg ep”, as they call it in the biz….. Well, I think they do. I do, certainly, and the fact that long-haired Star Trek freaks in need of a bath look at me funny when I do doesn’t mean a THING! I CAN BE GEEK CHIC TOO! I KNOW WHAT 42 MEANS, I CAN QUOTE MONTY BLOODY PYTHON, I ….

Ahem. : is actually a command in Unix’s vi editor that allows you to issue commands against all or part of he document you are working on. And it’s pronounced “vee-aye”, not “six”, as I know, to my great and enduring sorrow. Typing : allows me to proceed with the rest of the command.

1,$ – says that I am going to be searching through the entire document, from the first character (1), to the last ($). Not actually part of the regular expression.

s – substitute. It says to replace the first thing in the pattern with the second thing. Also not actually part of the regular expression.

^.*MP3 – the first thing in the pattern. The / in front of it essentially says “here begins the first thing”. The / after it says “Here endeth the first thing. Right after me begins the second thing”. The pattern it is searching for says “Match anything that is found at the beginning of a line (^), is followed by one or more characters(.*) and ends in MP3 (MP3) followed by a space ( )”. Actually the regular expression.

/ – the second thing. Well, there is no thing there. The / means “Here endeth the second thing. Since there is nothing there, I’ve essentially deleted whatever fits the pattern. Again, not actually part of the regular expression.

You may ask, why isn’t there just a delete command? There is. I didn’t learn it until after i had fallen into the “replace with nothing” habit, so I hardly ever use it.

:1,$s/ .*:… /-/ is more of the same, other than the pattern it is looking for . It parses as “Match anything that is one or more characters(.*), followed by colon(:) followed by exactly three characters and a space (… ), and repace all that with dash (-).

Phear my L33t skillz.

Well, massaging data, really. I’d rather just skip the massage and go directly to getting my data drunk, but that’s no way to form a lasting relationship. If you recall, I claimed at the end of the last post that my data looked a lot like this;

THEWIG~1 MP3 1,867,904 04-06-02 12:10p The Wiggles – Teddy Bear Hug.mp3
THEWIG~2 MP3 1,966,080 04-06-02 4:42p The Wiggles – The Monkey Dance.mp3
THEWIG~3 MP3 1,370,112 04-06-02 1:24p The Wiggles – Rock A Bye Bear.mp3
THEWIG~5 MP3 2,327,220 04-06-02 5:14p The Wiggles – Uncle Noah’s ark.mp3

It’s a damned lie. That data is neat, clean and ready to commit. It exists, mind you, but it’s embedded in much nastier data, stuff that looks so;

AFROM~19 MP3 4,975,989 08-23-01 11:07p AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3
ALIENA~1 MP3 8,372,224 09-01-01 8:58a Alien Ant Farm – Smooth criminal.mp3
IRISHR~1 MP3 3,406,064 09-05-01 9:33p Irish Rovers – Finnegans Wake.mp3
SKANDA~8 MP3 5,148,967 04-03-00 12:07a Skandalous All-Stars – Radio Free Europe.mp3
JOESTR~1 MP3 4,270,834 09-06-01 10:01p Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Sandpaper Blues.mp3
DUBLIN~2 MP3 4,082,695 09-05-01 9:38p Dubliners & Pogues – Whiskey In The Jar.mp3
AFRIKA~6 MP3 6,153,323 03-30-00 4:17p Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force – Planet Rock.mp3

Before, everything was lined up neatly, ready for slotting into Access. Now it almost lines up, but i’m not playing horseshoes or hand-grenades. Close isn’t good enough. Access will allow you to import data from a text file two different ways. You either specify the data in the file is of a fixed width or that it is delimited in some manner. Delimited means that some character, say Buddy Ebsen, pops up in between every piece of important data in a record. Each of these pieces is called a field. If the Afroman song above was delimited by Buddy Ebsen, it’d look like this;

AFROM~19 MP3Buddy Ebsen4,975,989Buddy Ebsen08-23-01 11:07pBuddy EbsenAfroManBuddy EbsenBecause I Got High.mp3

I’d be happy with the size of the file, 975,989, the name of the artist, Afroman, and the song, Because I Got High.mp3. Since Buddy isn’t here to assist me, I’ve got to figure out someway to put a delimiter into each of the 4000+ lines of this file. Let’s examine Afroman more closely;

AFROM~19 MP3 4,975,989 08-23-01 11:07p AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3

My life is a little easier because I don’t want all the fields. I need to make the line above look like this;

4,975,989-AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3

Once it does, the dash is the delimiter, and I am re-goldenized

Once again, doing it by hand is not an elegant solution, so that’s out. I do know of a way to do this, I think. And, just like yesterday, it can’t be done in windows. Or, if it can be done in Windows, I don’t know how to do it. And i’ve tried, believe me.

The first thing I do it is connect to one of the UNIX servers at work. UNIX can do anything. Once I’m there I cut and paste all 4000 or so records into a an open file. I used UNIX’s vi editor to create the file and I’ll use some of the functionality it has to start replacing data en masse. If you’d like a small taste of what vi is like, create a file in Notepad without ever using the mouse to do anything. This includes opening and closing Notepad. However, I can replace a lot of stuff with just a few keystrokes. These, in fact;

:1,$s/^.*MP3 // and :1,$s/ .*:… /-/ give me this

4,975,989-AfroMan – Because I Got High.mp3

Woo-hoo!

Tomorrow, why they do that.