No ordinary Friday; I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like

Nevermind. The cat is observing matters from the kitchen, we are waiting for the weekend to start. Crushingly ordinary.

On the plus side I accomplished some useful PHP coding after 2 AM, which as usual is the most insightful time for these sorts of things. Right now I am trying to get a news aggregator type program put together, which will take posts from other blogs & news sources, and recombine them in order by date, so I can put together specialized subject news pages. It seems to work so far: http://wp.hongpong.com/agg-test.php.

I succeeded in importing all the stories from this HongPong site into the new one, but there are still some anomalies to be worked out (and I want to get rid of another 50% of the comment spam), so it's not quite ready yet.

I am trying to determine the best way to organize the new operation, and I have settled on making a few top-level categories, while stuffing the usual things - Iraq, Israel-Palestine, War on Terror - into subcategories, so that these posts don't wash out everything on the front page. Here is the topic layout so far:

Topics

• Uncategorized (36)
• geo (3)

• Iraq (168)
• Israel-Palestine (93)
• Afghanistan (20)
• Iran (1)
• War on Terror (114)

• politics (1)

• Military-Industrial Complex (57)
• Minnesota (37)
• Tracking Election Irregularities (21)
• Campaign 2004 (66)
• News (62)

• tech (3)

• hongpong-meta (1)
• Open Source (9)

• words (1)

• Books (6)
• Quotes (13)
• Mac Weekly (16)
• Usual Nonsense (29)
• tidbits (1)

• kulturny (1)

• Music (14)
• Macalester College (31)
• Movies (11)
• Media (44)

• photo (2)
• humor (22)

Another CIA guy, Pat Lang, started a blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, and he even put up some novel he wrote. Good for him.

Disturbing stuff about that "Over There" series on FX. Ok that's all for now. It's a really nice day, I want to go ride my bike. Syd Barrett knew it well. (Album: Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1967):

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings
And things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I've got a cloak it's a bit of a joke.
There's a tear up the front. It's red and black.
I've had it for months.
If you think it could look good, then I guess it should.
...
I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house.
I don't know why I call him Gerald.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
...
I've got a clan of gingerbread men.
Here a man, there a man, lots of gingerbread men.
Take a couple if you wish. They're on the dish.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I know a room full of musical tunes.
Some rhyme, some ching, most of them are clockwork.
Let's go into the other room and make them work.