(I figure two journal entries within 24 hours of each other should make up
for the general silence of the list, even if both of them are particularly
geeky.)

Every birthday I like to do something a little illegal. Nothing too nasty,
like gang rape or homicide. Just enough to keep me young.

This actually started several years ago when I mentioned to a friend that
I couldn't legally acquire a set of lock picks. (It's true...possession of
lock picks without a good reason is a felony.) Sure enough, April 22nd
rolled around, and he came up to me and said, "I didn't get you anything
for your birthday."

Then he pushed a set of picks into my hands and concluded, "so get
something for yourself."

The rest is history.

My years of petty thievery may be over, but I'm still in the game, so to
speak. Yes, shoplifters may come and go, but software pirates are forever.
This year, to celebrate my youth, I figured I'd contribute some code to
the LIVID project, who are, against the boundaries of the law, working on
software that plays (and, if used correctly, pirates) DVD movies.

The moral of the story, however, is not to write software when tired. I
didn't manage to get to sleep last night, and must stay up tonight to be
ready to order some Phish tickets when they go on sale at 7a.m. PST.

When you aren't really paying attention, and you're tired enough that
everything is funny (free raisins), you'll review your code later and find
stuff like this:

    surface = SDL_SetVideoMode(desiredWidth, desiredHeight,
                               vidInfo->vfmt->BitsPerPixel, sdlflags);

    if (surface == NULL)
    {
        printf("After spending all day slaving over a hot stove to find the
"
               " best possible surface, SDL still beat us down like an
"
               " abusive husband. SDL_SetVideoMode() returned NULL, and
"
               " then made us to get it another beer from the 'fridge while
"
               " it continued to watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
");
        return(0);
    } // if

    SDL_WM_SetCaption("Bitch betta have my money.", NULL);

--ryan.