May 24, 2003
Where's the Lighthouse?
Spent a pleasant evening crawling around on the floor playing with my nephew Lionel. It's amazing how quickly kids grow up. I can remember not so very long ago he couldn't track you with his eyes when you moved.
Now, it's book at bedtime. Lionel pulled out his favourite, a sort of picture-dictionary. Open it to Toys. Where's the teddy bear, Lionel? No, those are building blocks. Where's the teddy bear? Good boy! Oh, next page? Okay. Fruit and Vegetables, Lionel. Where are the strawberries? Good boy! What's next? The Seaside. Where's the lighthouse? Good boy!
Admittedly, he has actually seen a lighthouse, which probably helped.
May 23, 2003
Out of Chocolate Error
I'm too tired to blog. I'm almost too tired to type. Blah. And I ran out of chocolate. Sucks to be me.
On the other hand... Uh, no, can't think of anything. Shoo! Go read Dave Barry or something. A book. Read a book. Dave also writes books. Good books. Funny books. But between him and Carl Hiaasen, I'm not likely to visit Florida until after it's been submerged beneath the rising waters of the ocean for a good long while. A coupla thousand years oughta do the trick.
May 22, 2003
Wee Book of the Day
Book of the Day is The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. It appears to be another Discworld-for-kids book, like The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (which was excellent). If you've read any of Pratchett's other children's books, you'll know that they're also great for grownups.
I can't review it yet, because I haven't, um, actually read it. I only bought it today, and I'm still reading Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet which I bought yesterday. (I hope the current run of reprints covers the complete series, because I haven't read most of the later ones.)
Web Site of the Day, then, is lspace.org, which is the centre for information about Pratchett's writings, particularly the Discworld books.
May 21, 2003
You Gave Your Cat A What?
Web site of the Day is catenema.com. If you've previously read the original story, it's time for another visit, as the author has more stories to tell.
Shop Until You Bop
Working at work today. Uh, that is, I went in to the office, after several days of working from home. Natually, I took the opportunity to do a little shopping at lunchtime. Two new D&D manuals (Fiend Folio and Races of Faerun), a new Rabbi Small book (well, new to the current reprint, anyway), the Sims Superstar expansion pack (which makes how many now? Six?), and the latest shipment from my Anime pusher, including new volumes of Fancy Lala, Inu-Yasha and Noir, and the first volumes of Please Teacher (Onegai Teacher) and .hack//sign.
I'll be writing more about anime now that I have my new Movable Type (yay!) blog with categories and stuff. Watch for it!
May 20, 2003
Internet Explorer Blues
OK, the site now looks fine in Mozilla and Opera. It also looks fine in Internet Explorer. Exactly how I wanted it. As long as your font size is set to "medium". Mozilla and Opera have no problems with changing the font size; Opera has a nifty trick of scaling everything and works no matter what; Mozilla works perfectly at three sizes and reasonably well until you start getting into the absurdly large; Explorer - resize and bleah. Well, I'll probably do a "plain jane" stylesheet for people with odd browsers, or those who need font sizes cranked up real large. Hmm hmm hmm. I could make things scale a little better if I made the sidebars wider. Hmm hmm.
I'm Not A Web Designer...
But I do play one in real life.
While my database is rebuilding I thought I'd try out a Javascript-based trick for browser-selective stylesheets. Works. Ha ha! Of course, I still can't get IE to display things properly, but at least now I can decide exactly how I want it to be broken.
Mojira!
Mozilla users can preview the new Ambient Irony here. IE users can wail and gnash their teeth. If you don't have any teeth, they will be provided.
(If you're reading this then you've obviously made it to the right place. Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.)
Grr! Grr, I Say!
Oh, that's charming. Blogger ate my rant. Grrr!
And Moveable Type, while stable and elegant, is as slow as a wet week. Grrr! Grrr!!
Random Acts Of Browser Suckage
There's no question any more: Mozilla is by far a better browser than Internet Explorer. Just two features are enough to blow IE out of the water: popup blocking - I never see a popup - and tabbed browsing. I often have a dozen tabs open. One window, twelve web pages. No clutter, fast, simple. Right-click a link and it opens in another tab while you keep reading the page you're on.
But there's a third and even bigger reason: IE's CSS (cascading stylesheet) support sucks. That's the mildest word I can think of to describe it. What can you say for a browser that implements the right-hand margin backwards, so that your page is guaranteed to extend beyond the width of your window? Or how about a browser that, when you overlay one section of the page on another, makes all your images disappear?
I have a beautiful layout for my new Moveable Type blog, simple and elegant, and IE fucks it up beyond redemption. I could mess around and generate alternate stylesheets for Mozilla/Opera vs. IE, but the whole goddamn point of stylesheets is that you're not supposed to have to do that.
May 19, 2003
AutoDave!
For more Dave Barryesque goodness than you could poke a reasonably large stick at, why not visit AutoDave!, the automated Dave Barry column generator. Looks like they've done a bit of work on it since I last visited.
Pertinacious
Word of the Day is pertinacious. (Which probably means it will end up being the word of the week. — Ed)
Sweet Rabbit Pie
Dave Barry (who I really should add to my blogroll seeing how often I link to him) has an
UPDATE ON THE ONGOING EFFORT TO USE TRAPS TO CATCH AND REMOVE THE RABBITS FROM MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND DRUG-SMUGGLING FACILITY BECAUSE THE RABBITS DIE AND ATTRACT VULTURES, WHICH GET CAUGHT IN JET ENGINES, WHICH CAUSES PLANES TO CRASHhere (it's Blogger, so the permalinks are broken just like mine) pointing to an article which can be found here. Speaking of which, rabbit would be the perfect new flavour for Pie in a Jar and "Pie in a Jar" would be a great name for a rock band.
(via Dave Barry)
Suburban Blight
Blog of the Day is Suburban Blight:
And the Winner Is...Kelley gains points for quality anti-idiotarian rants, but loses points for having a blog that looks so much better than mine. But I've got Moveable Type working now, so in a few shortYes, it's time once again for the Unmitigated Twat of the Week Award! This week, we're departing slightly from tradition; this week, there was a tie for first place. All of these ladies' twattiness is equally unmitigated. So, without further ado, I give you The Unmitigated Twats of the Week, the High School Hazers!
Mom, if you're reading, cover your ears. Or, umm, eyes. Now.
May 18, 2003
Fiddling With Topicons
Installed the Topicon plugin. Looks like it will work well once I've got some nice icons done. I'll need to fiddle with the size and spacing a bit, though.
Well, That's Different
Having re-re-installed Moveable Type, I realise that something was seriously screwed up at first and style sheets weren't working at all. No wonder it looked like crap.
Fun With Referrers
To all the people looking to download Poodle Hat, I'd just like to point out that (a) it's not even out yet and (b) maybe when it is out, you could, like, you know, buy it.
On the other hand, if you're looking for Azumanga Daioh, it's on Kazaa.
Interesting thing, Sitemeter.
When I Held Your Brain In My Arms
Song of the Day is When I Held Your Brain In My Arms from MST3K (the Terror from the Year 5000 episode):
There was a time, so bright and gay,Ahh. They don't write them like that anymore. (They never did. — Ed.)
It seems like only yesterday,
When I held your brain in my arms.
Your adrenaline was like wine,
Sweet perfume was your endocrine,
When I held your brain in my arms.
Quotidian
Word of the Day is quotidian. (Well, of course the word of the day is quotidian. If it wasn't quotidian, it wouldn't be the word of the day. — Ed)
Whip That Llama
I forgot to install one little thing after rebuilding my poor PC. This has now been remedied:
Thanks for using Winamp. You are installation number 273,375,923.Uhhh... That's rather a lot, isn't it?
Mind you, it really does whip the llama's ass.
Practical Penumbra
Blog of the Day is Practical Penumbra:
Many people have asked me why I called my blog "Practical Penumbra." (Actually, that's a blatant lie; no one has asked. But I'm sure a lot of people are wondering........ok, maybe not a lot. But I digress......).While I still think that Ambient Irony has a better sound to it, she's right about that alliteration. (It took me four tries to type that damn word correctly, by the way.) Maybe I should try a bit of that... Invidious Irony? Ambient Ambiguity? Hmm...
I have always enjoyed saying the word "penumbra". It is, however, a difficult word to slip into daily conversation. I have therefore always wanted to name something "Penumbra" for that very reason, but having no offspring (unless Frank decides to take me up on my offer to bear his children), and an adopted kitty who came with his own perfectly good name already, I have never had the opportunity to name anything "Penumbra". But just "Penumbra" seemed a little lacking, so, having long been a great fan of alliteration, "Practical" sounded like an excellent adjective.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!