Code Red

Last night I foolishly installed XCode, Apple’s development software, to get access to AppleScript Studio. This was foolish because I have some desire to automate the production of my blog—and I have absolutely no frickin’ idea how to code in AppleScript.

I just spent several hours of my life getting my program to take the text out of a few fields and throw them into a blank text document. The sad thing is that this is actually further than I’ve ever gotten trying to program my own Mac application; I tried learning C way back in the day, and eventually got good enough to create a program (complete with window and menubar!) that acted like a good Macintosh application. That is to say that the window could be dragged around and closed, and the application would quit when either the quit menu item was selected or the user typed command-Q. So the fact that AppleScript Studio automatically took care of all basic window and menu junk—and even made some functional text fields (complete with automatic spell-check!) whose text I could extract—made this program light-years ahead of my last programming attempt.

I’ve never understood AppleScript, though. The way I imagine code in my head is wholly inconsistent with the way that AppleScript likes its code. This results in me frequently being stymied by my computer (for message-board junkies, imagine my computer repeatedly telling me no yuo!), which elicits an inordinate amount of cussing from me.

Work today was fun. Some coworkers decided to hold a pow-wow in my usual cubby, which resulted in about a half-hour of serious work and two and a half hours of chit-chat. I wish I got paid for that kind of performance.

Work was also interesting because I had far too much Mountain Dew for my own good. I have a bad, bad habit of drinking a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew while getting through my work day (boring, repetitive work implies the need for artificial stimulants, you see), and today was no exception to that pattern. What did differ was Marin’s choice of soft drink: she decided that she’d be the one to try out Code Red (“Mountain Dew with a rush of cherry flavor!!!!” or somesuch). She decided to try a Big Gulp of Code Red.

After one sip, she decided that she didn’t like it at all. And, presto, I had twice my normal Mountain Dew intake. I now have a remaining uptime that is best measured in days. (My apologies for furthering the annoying trend of adopting computer lingo into real life situations; I’m at a loss for a more apt way to describe how buzzed I am.)

What’s worse is that I didn’t even win one song from the iTunes Music Store today—despite the inordinate amount of Pepsi-product I consumed. How am I ever going to be able to get Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back?

Word on the street is that Nate (an old roommate of Andy, from BITD) is moving back down to Corvallis this weekend. This should provide Eric and me an excellent opportunity to practice our straw bossing skills.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

powered by wordpress