Blog: Ramblings and Rants

It’s raining quite a bit here in sunny (cough) Portland, Oregon. The wetlands behind my house are more than a foot above normal water level. The arboreal raccoons should be fine in their perches, but I hope the nutria and other subterranean dwellers have winter cottages on higher ground.

I drove into work today and all but floated my Mustang through the parking lot. Fortunately we have a sloped parking lot, and I was able to find a spot on the incline. Still, to get into the building, I had to swim across the deluged tarmac.

I wonder if Bob’s Boats & Kayaaks delivers?

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

“Honk If You Love Color Management”

Someone at work just sent this to me via chat. Thought I’d share.

At Last, by Etta James

My love has come along

My lonely days are over

And life is like a song

Oh yeah yeah

This is funny!

How To Launch a PWC

On my way to bed I flicked on Trading Spaces. Frank, the affable artsy-craftsy designer, is cutting from plywood a two-and-a-half foot long silhouette of a pig.

I’ve got to find out what he’s going to do with it!

Just a rambling quickie to share how I spent my saturday.

First, I spent Saturday afternoon watch Cerrissa play in her first ever chess tournament. She won two of six matches, and took that the defeat pretty hard. The whole family turned out for it: Her mom, her father, her step-father, me (the psuedo-ex-stepfather), her brothers, a couple friends.

Apollo! Ra! Kephir! Surya! Aralion! Aten! Foiros! Helios! Where are you?

I am not an Oregon native. I’ve been here, in fact, less than two years. I enjoy so much about Oregon and the Portland area in general—how friendly and open are the people, the gorgeous views, the delisciously clean air and pure water—but there are a few things I don’t enjoy. The perpetually grey winter sky is one of them.

Wahoo! Greymatter was coughing on my archives, resulting in not a damned thing appearing on the archive master index or individual month pages. That irritated me. Coincidentally, it starting coughing the night someone told me she had used GreyMatter until it died, taking all her posts with it to the netherworld.

I fixed it, though. All fixed. All better. Pariah does the Happy Snoopy Dance now.

After I wrote the BlogRoll Multi-Browser SideBar Script to put your Blogrolling.com BlogRoll into the sidebar of IE, Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera, and to create popups for all other JavaScript-enabled browsers, Jane (Tangled Up In Blue…) pointed out that the BlogRoll that appears is the standard blue on white BlogRoll, without much room for customization (unlike the BlogRoll you include in a static page).

Which Blog Roll would you prefer: The default (left), or a style that matches your site (right)?

Here’s how to turn your entire BlogRoll sidebar or popup, into an extension of your site… With your site’s style, colors, background image, formatting, everything!

New Scientist Magazine:

New Scientist

New! The Epson BrainStylus!

New! The HP All-In-One-OrganJet, prints heart, lung, and spleen! Recommended by John Wayne Bobbit!

Also available: HP 2500 Oversized OrganJet, for printing large jobs like intestines!

I’ve been doing the online dating thing lately. [shrug] I’m single. I’m eligible. For the right woman, I’m a helluva catch. This is me if you’re curious.

I’ve had a few dates. So far, nothing spectacular; a lot of fun, but no real sparks. A goth chick who thought I was the coolest thing since vegetable-based black hair dye. A dominatrix who…

From the Weekly World News [so you know it’s true!]

BOCA RATON — Many top scientists believe that aliens live secretly among us. The sneaky intergalactic travelers often pose as our friends, neighbors and co-workers while they learn the ways of Earth. But how can you tell invading aliens from real humans?

My apartment complex is doing chimney cleanings this week. The notice said the 20th through the 24th. The notice also stated that the apartments doors would likely be left open while the chimneysweeps trekked in and out, so those with pets should take care and lock up their pets. I appreciate that they were considerate enough to write that.

My appreciation doesn’t extend, however, to the fact that they can’t give any closer timetable as to when they will do my building. Locking my cat in my bedroom for 10 hours a day for 4 days is not an acceptable solution. She’s accustomed to having the run of the house, and won’t understand why I locked her up while I was gone.

I live outside Portland, Oregon. Tomorrow we are expecting a 10,000+-person anti-war protest rally in Pioneer Courthouse Square. My friend Bea tells me she intends to participate in a similar march in Montreal. Protests and marches against U.S. military action against Iraq are planned for virtually all major cities in America… And many in other countries.

Despite the tens of thousands of people opposed to a U.S. v. Iraq action, polls state that the pro-action sentiment is the large majority in the U.S.

How do I feel…?

I recently joined Blogrolling.com. I think it’s an excellent idea. One of the really cool things I liked about it was the ability to put the Blogroll in IE’s or Netscape’s sidebar, though the implementation isn’t the most efficient or space-conscious.

The existing code is cool, but cumbersome, especially if you wish to put the links in a fairly small space—as I do in my 180-pixel-wide left-most column.

Wouldn’t a better implementation be a single button that automatically works with whatever browser your visitor is using?

Shouldn’t it also include the other major browser, Opera, and the non-JavaScript-enabled browser users out there?

I made a script that does.

BlogRolling Multi-Browser Script

robgalbraith.com: In pro digital photography, megahertz matters:

If RAW photo and Photoshop batch processing are important in your workflow, then speed is what you need… The fastest dual processor Mac has been soundly thumped by one of the fastest single processor PCs.

Not long ago I wrote a message expressing that I’m nice and fair to Technical Support personnel, even if I find they are incorrect. Blind Energy, Bea, and Michelle contributed their agreement that Tech Support people should be treated fairly. Here’s a funny letter that poses a different view.

Class gains a state waiver for Santa’s reindeer:

To [6-year-old] Leanne, the consequences were frighteningly clear. No deer meant no reindeer. No reindeer meant no Santa. No Santa meant no Christmas.

I just had a short conversation with myself.

Me: Myself, where can we go to check out some fresh content on a variety of topics?

I: Yahoo? Google? Newsgroups? I hear alt.sex.midgets is the place to hang out—

Me: Freak.

Myself: Rings.

I: I’m just sayin’ I heard somewh—

Me: Freak. Rings? Like boxing rings? Circus rings? Skating rings?