Escaped Thoughts

I'm firmly resolved to use categories more widely now, but I have an important issue giving me pause: Should I load my old posts into categories retroactively, thus breaking links (primarily this would be Google, since I'm not cool enough yet for actual people to link to me), or should I leave them where they are, and make a mess of the miscellaneous top-level category? Beloved readers, I turn to you for advice.

Category: Geek

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Ok, as the badges on the right suggest, I'm something of a standards nut. I like web standards, and I generally take pride in coding to them.

However, the standards sometimes frustrate me to no end. You would think that something as simple as a reverse-order list would be relatively straightforward. And in older HTML, it more or less is; you simply use the value attribute to override the numbering. However, that attribute is deprecated in XHTML, so I went hunting for an alternative using CSS, and found: nothing. Ok, not nothing, but only a CSS3 method that's widely unsupported. Yippee.

That left me with three options for my last post:

1. Give up the reverse-ordered list—not really an option
2. Not actually use a list, but instead make the numbers part of the content and carefully align everything by hand—not only a pain, but also ugly from a semantic standpoint since being a reverse-order list is structural, not just presentational (not that value overrides are exactly structural, but it's a start)
3. Use value anyway, and throw validation out the window—not my first choice from a moral standpoint
4. Use value anyway, and convert my whole weblog to Transitional so that I can technically get away with doing so—this option irks me, because in every other respect I strive constantly to conform to the Strict standard, and throwing that all away for one measly post seems overly harsh

I went with option 3. That's right, I've thrown validation to the wind, and am now living a lie by continuing to display the badge. If the W3C wants better, they should have given us a new standard that was complete before taking away functionality we had in the old standard (and this is hardly the first time they have done so). I blame society for my faults.

Thank you for bearing with this brief interruption. Now back to your regularly scheduled, valid XHTML 1.1 weblog.

Category: Geek

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The top ten signs that you are ready to move across the country:

10. You've actually thrown away all that stuff that seemed like such a good idea to keep at the time.
9. You have given away several important pieces of furniture.
8. You can't see what furniture you have left because of all the boxes.
7. Your freezer isn't filled to capacity anymore.
6. You get a letter informing you that your rent would be going down next year (thanks to Murphy's second, lesser-known law: "Many things that can go right also will, but also at the worst possible time").
5. You have recently had lunch or dinner with just about everyone you know in the area.
4. You (or your spouse—thanks hon!) have talked to so many utilities and miscellaneous offices that you could write a detailed treatise on the current themes and trends in muzak.
3. Your task-list at work is actually getting shorter.
2. You spend hours making a detailed scale drawing of your new apartment, along with scale construction-paper furniture, so you can start arranging things.

And the number one sign you are ready to move:

1. You live in Cleveland.

Thank you, I'll be here all week—or at least until Thursday.

Seriously though, as much as I like to rag on Cleveland, there's plenty here that I'll miss (most of it in Cleveland Heights, but that's quibbling). But miss it though I will, I am definitely ready to leave. A new life awaits, so living out the last few days of this one seems empty and futile in many ways.

Category: Life

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