Duke Street Alley

I have a feeling that this is in fact impossible, but here goes.

If I have two divs - columns, in effect - sitting side by side within a containing div, is there any way to get an element within the div-with-shorter-content to float to the bottom? The left-hand div is a reliable amount of content; the right could be shorter or longer than it. Each one contains, among other things, a button that has to drop to the bottom of the containing div.

Dammit, it's even hard to explain.

While, by and large, I am not given to giving any credence to astrology, I have to observe that when stressed, I take enormous comfort from making lists of stuff done and stuff to do. Typical Virgo.

Job always struck me as a very Zen kinda guy. And I'm trying hard to maintain that meditative, patient, if-it-be-your-will attitude. However, Job never had to deal with the utter gods-be-damned mess that is cross-browser issues in CSS.

After two days off sick at the end of last week, and a very good weekend, the inertia is incredible. I've no problem with work, but it's eight miles and an hour away, and hauling myself out of this chair and heading that way seems incredibly difficult. Still, barbecue this weekend. The sooner I get the week started, the sooner that gets here.

(But I'm still sitting here...)

We're getting in a new affiliate system thing, and even after I reluctantly said that the ASP one would probably work better with our current stuff, it looks like we're getting the PHP one. I've never gotten to use PHP in work before, so this is going to be fun. And perhaps my boss will buy me new books.

So yeah, overtime last night, in at the office, slogging away at the code until after 22:00. I don't recall seeing that number on an office computer in, oh, four years or so, not since I pulled all-nighters in IONA in Stephen's Green, more to use the web from a comfortable chair than by necessity of work. But I got a good lot done before I hit for home, and ate a passable pizza to keep me going.

Unfortunately, Dublin's delightful transport system was less cooperative, and while the DART was happy and good and arrived within minutes of my being in the station, the bus took 45 minutes to arrive - this is a situation where I have a choice of three different routes, mind - and there were no taxis in sight. And the wind was punishingly cold, and strong enough to stretch my coat, which is heavy heavy leather and down to my ankles, out horizontally behind me.

But on grounds of being in work late, I stayed in bed late, which is always good, and the Book Clubbooks we had ordered before Christmas have finally arrived. One of those is a massive reference atlas, which I'm going to spend days reading while I consider making something similar in intent, though of necessity smaller, for Davon. Another is (one of?) Jamie Olivers cookbook(s), and they threw in a book on scriptwriting by JMS for free. They threw in a crappy looking novel with a lurid pink cover for free too, but we're ignoring that.

Cold Fusion seems to be a very good product - it's easy to learn, and it Does Good Stuff. I'm building a shopping cart from it at the minute, never used the stuff before, and it's not proving too hard.

And then there's dinner tonight, with Nina, in the Cedar Tree restaurant, which is a wonderful small Lebanese restaurant in Andrew's Street. I'm very much looking forward to that, it's been ages since we were out to dinner properly.

Again, it's been a while. I got married one week and one day ago, which makes me happy.

As far as we're concerned, that wasn't the wedding, the wedding is in August. But it was A wedding, it's legally binding, it's good for tax purposes, and so on. And I'm happy.

Work is going well, although busy. We acquired another company last week, and there's plenty of chasing around happening for that. And trying to knock the intranet into shape, and being confounded in that by not having all the access I need...

Nina proposed today that a bunch of us take off somewhere - cottage or self-catering apartment or something - for midsummer, so that we can combine some lazing around with gaming, probably something from Davon's history, and do our own midusmmer stuff for good measure. This idea is filling my head right now.

Work again, and again bored. There seems to be very little to do right now. The stock price is way up, which makes me happy, becuase if it stays there, I'll be rich on leaving. So I'm spodding, and reading House of Leaves on iuniverse.com, which is excellent, and poking around other stuff curiously.

I want to learn more PHP, but I'm not in the mood.

I went through my campaign notebooks last night, and out of curiousity, tried to figure out how long it would take me to wrap up the campaign NOW, without any other material. 27 sessions, I discovered. At an average four sessions a month, that's more than six months. That's into September.

I'm going to have to start other campaigns in the meantime - Faction War, when I get hold of it, and possibly the Middle Kingdoms game, just to get SOME of this stuff out of my head. And then there's Other Dublinto write more of... and all of the now two Sanctuary lists to read a backlog from. And it's a huge backlog.

So much to do, so little of it essential, so much of it essential.

I'm amazed, sometimes, by the amount of stuff I can hold in my head. Writing up Innard's Wardlast night, the spell description went on for two foolscap pages. My hand was cramping, and the pen ran out of ink. And before I started, I thought a paragraph or two would cover it.

Speaking of cramps, I woke up last night with a bastardof a cramp in my left calf. Could barely walk this morning. Add that to a coughing fit, and the overall effect was not pleasant. I do wish I could shake this cold once and for all. Maybe sleeping in over the weekend will deal with it.

Lunchtime, eh? Cheese sandwiches. For some reason, cheese tastes really really good these days. Nothing fancy. Red Cheddar. Not even very red. Almost as good as buttered eggs, and the pancakes from last night. And tea and coffee. Simple tastes. Right now, I would killfor a bowl of stew and some brown bread. I'd maim for soup. And I'm sure there's soup in the canteen, but I'm too lazy and too broke to investigate. Yes, I'll maim for it, but only if I don't have to move.

Hair. Bastard stuff. My hair is curly - tangly might be a better word it, and just beyond shoulder length when wet. When I haven't combed/conditioned it for a bit, it forms a dense, impenetrable mass. I spent half an hour last night hacking through the worst tangles with a hairbrush, and trying not to scream as my scalp went at leaving with the tangles. Ugh. And already, I can feel another knot developing back there, and that's after I brushed it this morning.

Anyway. Still out. Coughing, just, and still unwell feeling. Should be good to go back tomorrow, for what it's worth. Have played more Civ. Not sure why I bother - it's evident that I'm going to be crushed, bug fashion, in the late game, but I'm taking a vindictive pleasure in stomping on the Chinese.

Speaking of Chinese, I've been reading, in off moments, a Chinese cookery book. I like cookery books, although they make me want to have a real kitchen. I'm not quite sure what a real kitchen is, although it may involved the twin miracles of having every possible foostuff within arm's reach and never having to wash up. However, with some judicious shopping, the kitchen here can be made semi-real. It's a pity I can never quite harness these urges properly.

Not just one, but two copies of Dragonhave arrived, and I fully intend to sit down and read them cover to cover. I spent a lot of yesterday evening, while Nina translated Latin, in reading stuff on rpg.net. There's good, discursive stuff there.

I'm approaching a zen state of contentment at the minute. I have no money, but I have money coming in soon, and this means we won't starve. I spent a while starving in college, and have no intention of repeating the experience. So for the minute I can do nothing, but am content to just be.

I'm also planning stuff for Other Dublin. I plan to have it much less intensive, and much less work needed than on Angwels. The main channel of output will be the mailing list rather than the website, I think, the website serving more as a nice interface to an archive than anything else. This cuts down on the need to put everything in HTML - all I need to do is look down through incoming stories, and forward them to the list. This is good. If I get really lazy and really clever, I might even hook up a mail-to-web program that will take in a story by mail, and store it on the website. That'd be nice.

I'm eating instant Pasta Napolitana from a black bowl. It looks good. It tastes pretty good, too. The smell reminds me exactly, though, of the smell of oxtail soup from National School. My school had a kettle, which would be ritually boiled every day at lunchtime from October through March, and tea or instant soup or Bovril made. Nobody drank coffee back then. I usually had chicken or vegetable soup, usually, to go with the egg sandwiches that I ate every school day for eight years. I still like egg sandwiches, although I've gone off oxtail soup.

We really need some more non-stick pans. The saucepans we have are stainless steel, and while they're good, stuff does stick to them. I'd prefer good old cast-iron pots from a cooking point of view, but they're bastardsto clean, even if they're enamelled.

And we do need a new frying pan. That one is falling apart now. There's an old cast iron one at homehome, which gets sandblasted or something every few months, and has lasted for centuries, it seems. Certainly, the same pan - different handle - is the one my mother taight me to fry eggs in. Eggs in enough grease that you could flip it up onto the topside, so the yolk became this pink blister. I must look up her recipe for fish pie, too.

After I finish eating, I'm going to make myself some coffee - unusual enough at home, cos it requires more thinking than tea - and read those magazines. Comfort. Good.