A while back after installing Jaguar I found that Manila Envelope no longer worked, or worked only intermittently. I upgraded to 10.2.1 last night, and I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but it worked again--for about two minutes. I posted two test posts successfully to the editing region, but now it's not working at all.

Did Apple break something in 10.2? I'd love to know. One possibility is the new Core Foundation web services framework, which has probably been shimmed under the existing AppleScript SOAP support introduced in 10.1 (at least, that’s how I'd do it). Another possibility is that something broke in the CFString search and replace functionality that I use to do fancy text processing. Debugging it is really really painful.

At least I have wireless. I had forgotten about my Wayport membership. My flight takes off in another hour or so, and I can't wait. It'll be the first time all week I've had any sleep.

In case I don't get a chance to update later: I'm off to join Lisa in Calais, Maine for Kelley's wedding. Have a good weekend.

Dave asks folks to try out a revised Radio aggregator that uses the guid attribute in RSS 2.0. Problem: After installing it, it actually re-lists every item in the person's RSS file each time you scan, regardless of if you've already seen and deleted the item or not.

Brent announces the release of NetNewsWire Lite v. 1.0. Congratulations on a great app, Brent. I'm weaning myself slowly from Radio's aggregator to NetNewsWire's. Can't wait for the Pro version.

There are a ton of people writing iCal scripts. The coolest so far is this announcement on Studio Log: Have Quicktime Player Read Your Schedule for Today. I can't look at the script on my work machine, but I would guess it grabs the text from iCal and runs it through text-to-speech and outputs it to Quicktime Player.

I almost forgot until I saw Anita's post about the festivities last night. As we introduced ourselves, we talked a bit about ego surfing (Anita is the third Anita, Brent the second or third hit, Jerry the #4). I mentioned that I would always be the second Jarrett, at least as long as NASCAR remained popular and kept Dale's site highly ranked.

At this the other lady at the table (a large table in the middle of the room with a few random onlookers still seated) stirred. Putting down her drink, she said, "I'm a big NASCAR fan. My number one is Mark Martin." I said, "That's great. I guess I have to root for Cousin Dale." She asked whether I meant "Junior"; I hastened to clarify "Dale Jarrett." At this she launched into a several minute discussion of how NASCAR wasn't just popular, it was "grown from hard work"; how Martin was deserving because he had a family and young children; how old she was and how long she had been watching NASCAR; and other details. All at a fairly slow pace, not slurred, but relentless. Being less bold than Coleridge's Wedding-Guest, I couldn't stop her with a "Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!" Eventually I figured out that nodding and smiling silently while maintaining eye contact was the best way to stop the conversation. She moved off and we got on with our meetup.

Am I a sadder and a wiser man? No, but I am still subtly troubled by the conversation. Was she desperately lonely? mentally ill? or just drunk?

Anita blogged my rambling rant about Mozart's Requiem. Her comments page has good feedback--particularly comment #3 which correctly calls me on my imprecise musical history. No one is really sure why Süssmayer or Mozart chose to end the final movement with the opening angry Requiem theme, and there is a lot of history between Mozart and Fauré. But at the end of the day, all we are left with is the final artifact. And I still argue that the outraged emotion of Mozart is a more adequate response to the World Trade Center attack than Fauré's peacefulness--at least from where we sit today, one year on.

Just got back from the Seattle blog meetup at the Sit 'n' Spin. Decent turnout--at the peak we had seven folks, six of whom blogged. Attendees besides me: Brent, Anita, Nat, Jerry, and C. (whose name I truncate not for privacy's sake, but because I never quite caught it across the table. Sigh. The hearing is the second thing to go, and I forget the first.) plus C.'s friend "Rusty" who was there for the poetry reading in the back room.

Interesting night. Fun discussion. After some initial effort, we kept from talking about the RSS wars, though it was hard--I don't think anyone had met a former Userland employee before. But poor C.--the rest of us spent most of the time talking about different weblog packages and programming languages. There is a difference between techbloggers and other bloggers, and I am starting to suspect that for me, at least, it's the same difference that got me beat up in elementary school. C. was the only one who had the presence of mind to write down everyone's URL; I'm sure that I've gotten at least one of the links above wrong.

Other note: I'm sure glad that Anita posted her picture on her blog; I don't know how we would have figured out how to find each other otherwise.