Lonely Lion

Victim of Time was plugged in the Chicago Sun Times this morning, in an article about the final Black Out.

I just flipped the switch on a project that I’ve been working on with the former publishers of Horizontal Action. Pat Mullin and I built the site using Django, over the past few weeks.

The site is called Victim of Time. It’s part webzine, part comprehensive database of small show venues in the US. (Be forwarned, there’s some naked people on the front page currently. Not for the timid.)

I’ll talk more about the tech side at some point in the future…but for now…I’m really happy to work on a site that has a strong potential to be pretty influential in its market, and fun to work on.

As a brief tech aside, Django was dreamy to work with. I love the magic-removal. I think VoT is probably the only Django powered site to feature a penis on the front page…so that’s +1 for Django…right?

Sheesh.

I logged in this morning to write up the ChiPy meeting from last night. It turns out this blog has been totally f’ed for who knows how long.

Typo broke, on account of a recent upgrade on Dreamhost. What a pain. I’m no longer in the mood to write up last nights meeting. I’ll get around to it.

I really need to roll my own blog system. I’m tired of dealing with the various ridiculousnesses of blog software. I don’t even need categories. I just want to type things occasionally. That’s it. Bah.

Django is a rock band now

It’s one of the 5 laws of “being as cool as a rock band”, rule number 3: “has a myspace page.”

Good work Djangonauts, way to differentiate yourself from the marketplace!

Look…I’m nearly 30. I just figured out Myspace a few weeks ago. I kept hearing that Chicago improvisers were getting up on it, but I didn’t listen.

Now I have 35 friends. R. Kelly is my friend! Why can’t I be friends with Python, Ruby, Perl, RoR, Djngo? (I shortened it by dropping an a…that’s what you do when you’re on Myspace. I’m also putting the word “Django web framework” in here so that Adrian will read this and heed my call)

This is a wake up call for the greater Computer community to get off your asses and start Myspace accounts for your various projects! I want to be their friend!

In the meantime, please become my Myspace friend by visting my new home.

(Guess who contributed a song to my profile? R. Kelly! Can you believe it? We are BfF’s!)

The announcement.

I’ve been working with the magic-removal branch for about a week or so now on the trains, putting together a site for some friends. I’m really up on Django right now, the removal of the magic (though poorly named) was a huge leap forward in my comfort level with the framework. Really fantastic work Django-nauts. Congratulations!

I have an intern position open in my group. The position is for a full time Ruby / Python developer. You won’t be doing busy work, this is a good position with a fair amount of responsibility. Our goal is to build tools that cut funding to Spyware vendors. The product you’ll be working on is written in Python with a Ruby on Rails reporting interface. The project is largely conceptual currently, so you’ll have a lot of input in the overall design and execution.

You need to be a student to apply. For more information, write me at chris.mcavoy@gmail.com. The position is in the Loop. Most importantly though, you’ll be working for me. I’m awesome.

Guido announced it on his blog.

I’m pretty excited about this as an addition, it’s a big step in the direction of “embracing that little bit about Python having a gajillion web frameworks as a plus, rather than a minus.” I like that attitude, wsgi is the awesome duct tape of Python’s web framework schizophrenia.