Well, I have just finished a very frustrating 3 afternoon slog, doing battle with an IIS 6.0 server running Helicon ISAPI_Rewrite version 2. I am happy to report that I got it working fantastically. Here is the result of my labours:

# These rewrite rules took 3 afternoons to write!
#Please do not edit them without saving them first.

# uploaded files
RewriteCond Host: (?:www\.)?example\.com
RewriteRule »
^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+)/files/(.+) /wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2
RewriteRule ^/files/(.+) /wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$1 [L]

# Redirect wp-admin to ensure it has a trailing slash
RewriteCond Host: (?:www\.)?themegacentre\.com
RewriteRule  ^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ /$1wp-admin/ [I,RP,L]

# Rewrite admin areas etc to the right files
RewriteCond Host: (?:www\.)?themegacentre\.com
RewriteRule »
^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-admin|wp-content|wp-includes|wp-login\.php)(.*) »
/$2/$3 [I,L]

# Rewrite all other requests to the wordpress index.php files
RewriteCond Host: (?:www\.)?themegacentre\.com
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} »
!(wp-admin|wp-includes|wp-content|wp-login\.php|/files/)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php [I,L]

# Linebreaks which are not supposed to be
# there are marked »
# please remove them if you've just copied and pasted!

It is beautiful. It is ingenious. It is untested with uploaded files, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Please note that these files were not placed in a .htaccess file, but in the httpd.ini which is located in C:\Program Files\Helicon\ISAPI_Rewrite on that particular server.

I hope it helps someone out there who is currently pulling out their hair in terrible frustration!

Any questions or comments, please let me know. If you find a bug, or make an improvement, or find a feature that these rewrites don’t support — please tell me!

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Hey, if you’re into tea, have a little wander over to teapigs and browse their range. They’re a relatively new company that do a really nice selection. At the café I used to work at we served a selection of their teas, and it’s a great range. My favourite is probably chai tea (which means “tea tea” in Indian, it’s called masala chai over there, which means spiced tea). Chai tea is regular tea with warm spices like cinnamon, and it’s really nice! Drink it with warm milk for something delicious!

teapigs is exactly the kind of company I love — they’re personal and positive and about more than just profits, just like innocent smoothies, graze, Google, and about a billion other companies that I can’t think of right now.

Anyway, hop on over to teapigs.co.uk and buy yourself something nice :)

“An oxymoron is a phrase that’s having a civil war.”

That was the tweet that came to me moments ago. But I didn’t tweet it because it suddenly started to take on epic proportions in my head, and as we are all aware, you can’t be epic in 140 characters.

(Well, actually, you can, it’s just I wanted to be waffly with this idea, and you can’t be waffly in 140 characters.)

(Dammit, well, yes you can probably be waffly in 140 characters. I guess “rambly” would be a better word, perhaps. Here’s my final statement on the matter: it’s hard, but not impossible — though certainly not half as much fun — to be rambly in 140 characters.)

Anyway, I suddenly began to feel really sorry for my sentences. It’s an awful thing to have a civil war, and I immediately wanted to bring resolution. But you can’t with an oxymoron! There is no resolution, because a sentence, once said, written, expressed — is immutable.

It made me want to start a kind of UN Peacekeeping Operation for words.

“O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!”

PS I just discovered this sentence on a letter I received this morning: “Please see the below details;”.

I suppose there are worse fates for words than the oxymoron.

A few days ago I cleaned the door on my washing machine. I honestly think that this is the best thing I have ever done. Every time I go past it, it catches my eye and it’s as though the washing machine pays me a compliment. “Well done,” it says. If it could, it would tip its hat or nod. Actually, here’s a good question, if your washing machine was a person would it be male or female? I know people usually ask this kind of thing about their cars, but hey.

I am ever astounded at where I find satisfaction. I always thought it would be in a really great job, something where I was saving the world on a regular basis, but apparently, no. You can find meaning in the nice, clean glass of your washing machine door. There it is folks. Who would have thought it.

The washing machine in question is currently doing a load. It’s on its last rinse cycle, and I’m enjoying the sound it’s making. I just walked past it and glanced in. You know, just to check on how things were doing. It reminded me of how as a kid I used to be mesmerised by our washing machine. It totally fascinated me. There’s something about spinning that I literally cannot take my eyes off. I think it’s because it’s continually moving but going nowhere.

You know, if ever I were to take up meditation, I would without a doubt use a washing machine as an aid. It totally absorbs my attention. In fact, just now I happened to look in, and found myself saying, “Wow, this is better than TV.” A bunch of clothes in a metal drum, soaked in soapy water — better than TV. What does that say about me? I think probably that I occupy some position on the autistic spectrum. Well, I am very proud to occupy whatever position I may occupy.

(By the way, isn’t it rotten that we label this on the same scale as a disorder? It totally stinks. By rights, “male” is a position on the autistic spectrum. So is “genius”. Can’t wait for society to wake up and let people be who they are without trying to cut them down or make everyone the same.)

All this has made me think about being a child, and about the bits of me that I have very stubbornly never allowed to grow up. For example, I still really like using an umbrella. I have defended this excitement, viciously and heroically, from all attempts at maturity. Why would anyone want to lose that? It makes rain fun!

So here is my musing: small pleasures have a surprisingly big impact on your happiness.

Graze is a new company that sends selection boxes of fresh fruit, dried fruit, mixed nuts and seeds, crackers, Japanese snacks like wasabi peas and crackers, honey roast cashew nuts (oh my goodness) and TONS of stuff like that.

I just got my first box. It had olives, fresh pineapple slices, raisins and dried banana slices.

You can choose from their wide range what kind of things you like, and they store your choices, and send you selections based on that. You can get them every day, every week, or every fortnight. Or twice a week. Or three times. Or whatever.

Seriously, their selections are amazing. There’s honey roast cashews, salsa tossed almonds, chocolate coated pumpkin seeds, puffed rice crackers, white chocolate coated blueberries, dark chocolate coated cocoa beans … it’s just stunning. And healthy!

Check them out at graze.com. If you use my code (JZZTQMD), you get the first one free, then the second half price! Normally they’re £2.99 You also get a code that you can give to people, and when they sign up, you get £1 off! (I’ve already gotten £2, thanks people!!)

Anyway. It’s worth signing up, even if it’s just for the free one — and you can cancel whenever you like. Visit http://www.graze.com/p/JZZTQMD (discount code is prefilled for you).

It is my ambition, as a writer, to use the semi-colon perfectly. Perfectly, not merely “correctly” as in, ticks all the boxes, follows all the rules, well-done-good-and-average-servant.

It’s relatively easy to use it correctly. The rules are fairly simple, once you understand them. But to use it perfectly gives a sentence wings. It’s quite possibly the only thing you can add to a piece of bloated prose to make it lighter. When it’s used perfectly, the semi-colon is like a letterless super-word. It’s like an invisible hand that lifts your sentence into ethereal realms.

The corollary, of course, is that there is nothing more offensive in the English language (other than the word naivety — which, unhappily, is a word without an efficient synonym, otherwise I would never use it at all) than a misused semi-colon. Nothing sticks out more glaringly. When it’s used properly, it’s like a tiny, hair-thin component in some well-oiled machine. But when it’s used in the wrong place it sticks out like pube in a restaurant napkin — that you only discover after it’s too late, after it’s already started making its way across your palate to the back of your mouth.

The better something is, the more foully and more completely can it be corrupted. A frog, for example, can’t really be good or bad. Nor can a cow, in any meaningful sense, be thought of as wicked. You can have a bad dog, of course, and a reprehensible man, but it takes an evil genius to really wreak havoc.

Likewise, you can scatter your text with superfluous apostrophes, and you merely look like a jabbering, toothless, cross-eyed idiot who smells of cow manure. You can slash all of your sentences into pieces with dashes until nobody knows where they are any more, or overuse an ellipsis to give the impression that you struggle to draw breath — or worse, write them with too many or too few dots, as if hoping to alter the volume of your dramatic pause. You can even leave your sentences strewn with commas that are like spent underwear on a bedroom floor, tripping your readers up and disgusting them with your slovenly habits at the same time.

All these errors are ridiculous but, let’s be generous, forgiveable (at a stretch at least). It’s only with a semi-colon that you can truly pervert perfectly good orthography into something heinous, something that stings the eyes in the same way as cigarette smoke. Nothing kills copy quicker than a semi-colon dropped haphazardly into a sentence. Bam. Suddenly it ceases to be meaningful communication, and collapses immediately into a collection of strange curved lines that once had something to do with the alphabet.

Be warned, then, aspiring writers: the semi-colon is not to be trifled with. Use it with too much caution. Use it as a surgeon uses his scalpel (having undertaken meticulous study and training). If you get it right, you will delight your readers. Get it wrong and, well, thanks for coming.

Comparison is something we all do to one degree or another. It’s generally a harmful activity: we are naturally self-critical. When someone says something negative about you, it’s hurtful, but when you say something negative about yourself, it’s much worse. It stops you moving forwards, it closes down opportunities and it causes you to do the opposite of growth.

Comparison happens because we are all different. It will probably always happen. But how you handle comparison is what can make it a good experience or a bad one.

Comparison can be a really destructive force. It can wreck your confidence, ruin your self-image, cause you to try to be something you’re not. It can poison friendships with jealousy. It can cause you to give up on something you enjoy doing, or that you’re good at. It can discourage you from reaching a goal. It can make you devalue your existing achievements.

This is bad comparison. There’s also good comparison. Good comparison is what happens when we meet an inspiring person. There’s a sense of admiration and also the feeling that you could do what they have done, or if not that, then something similar. Good comparison can cause you to move towards better things. It builds confidence. It makes you feel good about your future. It turns intimidation into inspiration.

It’s a bad one if it causes damage to your confidence, or if it causes you to give up. It’s a good one if you learn from it and grow from it.

Turning bad comparison into good comparison is simple, but takes a bit of effort. The basic rule is the same one that underlies good mental and emotional health. Apply positivity to negativity. Stick with that, for long enough, and you will see vast improvements over time.

There are two things that I do when I feel intimidated by someone else, and they both begin with A. Accept and Appreciate.

Accept

Acceptance is telling yourself the truth about a situation. It means you stop lying to yourself, and you’re honest with where you’re at. Here’s a truth that’s painful to accept at first: there will always be people better than you at any given task. Once we accept that and make peace with it, we will be a lot happier and a lot more productive. You’ll begin to realise that you’re valuable because you’re you, not because of what you’re good at.

Acceptance also means you accept yourself just as you are. We place all kinds of standards and requirements on ourselves that we have to meet before we’ll consider ourselves OK. This is a difficult barrier to overcome, but with persistence you can bring it down.

Sometimes just saying, “I like myself” can take the pressure off. Say this before you meet your goals. Say this even if you don’t have any goals. Having a kind and gentle attitude towards yourself is actually really important. It’s worth investing into, and it’s not a selfish thing to do.

Appreciate

Comparison very easily turns into jealousy. Jealousy happens when we’re done damaging our own self-image, so we move onto other people! When we’re jealous of someone, we start looking for ways to bring them down. We look for failings, character flaws, mistakes — anything that makes them look worse so we can feel better. It’s a really ugly attitude, and it doesn’t do anyone any good.

Jealousy is worse than a waste of time. It’s a harmful use of your time and energy. It damages you. Instead of allowing jealousy into your soul, find a way to appreciate that person and the talent that they have. Admire it like you’d admire a good painting, or a piece of music. Analyse how they do it to see if you can learn from them. If you know them well enough, ask them a few questions.

If it’s not possible to learn from them, just be happy for them. Do everything you can to apply positivity to negativity. If jealousy is a struggle for you, remember to treat yourself with patience and kindness while you’re learning to get it under control. Jealousy already beats you up on the inside — there’s no point beating yourself up any more!

I hope this helps. Comparison is something that can really do a lot of damage to people, I really hope that these ideas have inspired you!