May 09, 2006
My wife ordered the soundtrack to Hookwinked yesterday.
T-minus 36 hours to iPod portability. Schweet!
Ed. note: Don’t get it? Then you haven’t seen Hoodwinked. This movie is an example of what a good children’s movie should be. Cute, fuzzy animated animals and enjoyable characters bundled nicely with clever writing and original music the parents, or any adult, will enjoy. Oh, I should disclose that I recently joined both the Barnes and Noble and Amazon affiliate networks. Couldn't hurt to link from time to time to items one or the other offers, and make some coin at the same time.
March 24, 2008
For a while now I have struggled with the lack of a "25%/50%/25%" grid template in the YUI. It seems like such a natural template, one might say it is ubiquitous on the web.
Alas, the developers of the YUI have conspicuously left it off. There is a hack out there that provides the said 25/50/25 template, but nothing official. There is only silence in the last minor releases since I began wondering about the absence.
Recently it dawned on me why it is absent, in the context of a larger design decision built into the YUI Grids: the IAB factor.
You will find templates specific to all the IAB standard ad sizes. You will find grids and nested grids that are built to accommodate the IAB ad sizes. In fact, one might argue that the absence of the 25/50/25 grid is because, for Yahoo!, such a template does not make sense in the context of what the IAB, and so many web advertisers, define as standard.
This actually goes to another criticism, tangental to YUI Grids, said about YSlow: "Yahoo!'s problems are not your problems."
True enough.
Yet I would counter and say, why should you consider the need for 25/50/25, or Yahoo! consider, given Google Ads and other click revenue options likely to be employed on the most personal or the most commercial website you can fathom? You should be building your sites with the IAB in mind.
Maybe Yahoo! is quietly prodding you, and me. By design.
December 09, 2007
I am leaving shortly for WDW in Boston.
Three days of web development nerdery. I plan too to play with my Parallels Fedora 8 install and such. Maybe a pickup game of Warhammer FRP (maybe not, no bites on my earlier post; though I’m bringing my MAGE).
And a stop at the Blockbuster on my way to the airport to pick up The Messenger. Not for the history, or the story, but for the mood.
October 28, 2007
Frustrated with my homebrew’d v1.0 creative for ACD, I’m finally tackling v2.0 using the YUI.
v2.0 is 70% done and it “feels” much better, more cohesion in the design elements and colors. The ACD “espresso header” will at least remain, initially. I have some ideas for something more sinister—I am left handed after all—maybe something sinister, with dice, coffee, and code. Hmmmm…
October 24, 2007
Some thoughts of various loose ends flailing about me:
My skull mug shipped today. Doesn't look like I'll get it before next week.
WFRP session on the horizon, details to still being hashed out.
Looks like the “story bible” that is the Warhammer Universe only has the idea of the Grand Conclave held every five years, on no particular anniversary. Looks like I'm going to set my campaign in Sigmarzeit (Sigmartide) of 2523.
Working overtime to clean up a code clusterfuck by a contractor at work. Two new contractors starting this week and no time to integrate them.
That is all.
October 22, 2007
A very long time ago, a young man watched a TV movie, of questionable production and writing quality, that had a title something like Swords and (Sorcerers|Sorcery). I don't recall much of the story, but one scene is burned into my mind:
A hero (maybe the heroes) enter a tavern. Belly up to the bar and order a libation. It is delivered in mugs, made of skulls. Do I recall smoke cascading over the rim?
Fast forward to my years in college and an incident that still makes me sad, a little bit. My parent’s had given me a skull mug from The Pirates House restaurant in Savannah, GA. The mug, as I recall, was a gift, but not for any memory of a B-Made-for-Television movie. Gray, with a “bone” handle, the mug was evocative of pirate lure. I loved that mug. Then my roommate, rushing to get to class, knocked it to the floor. Destroyed.
I have seen many mugs like this very one on eBay, or at other stores. Most white, or ivory, but none gray like the souvenir from my parents, and never any like the prop from the movie.
Until today.
Completely by accident, as I wanted to find an image of a skull for a blog post about locating a mug as my mind’s envisioned and remembered it from my youth, I typed “skull” into Google, then selected “Images.” As Providence would have it, this gem appeared on the first page.
Damn! This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted a skull mug that would be reminiscent of the movie prop, something sans-jawbone, that rested on the brain pan and upper jaw. Something macabre. Something that would let me drink coffee from, well, a brain pan.
I don’t have to tell you how excited I am about this mug.
Order one yourself from Tiki Farm.
Bonus points for anyone that can tell me what the name of that B-Made-for-TV movie was... I completed college in ’91, 1988 was the year I entered that university. So this movie must have aired in the early 80s, say 1980–1984.
October 18, 2007
I think I was looking at the features for Leopard, Mac OS X (10.5) from Apple, and improved tethered camera support in Image Capture caught my eye. Improved? I thought. I didn’t know this was even possible.
My first introduction to digital cameras was an Olympus model on my PowerBook 5300c. It had client tool that allowed you to almost turn it into a webcam, but at the same time take photos when it was tethered by USB to the PowerBook.
I haven’t seen this functionality in a digital camera in almost 10 years, unless you purchased tools from the maker or some third party.
So seeing this feature in Image Capture indeed was to hark back to my first impression of how great digital photography could be. But I asked myself: would my D50 support it… only one way to find out…
No.
Wait. Yes, the camera out of the box is set to use USB as in mass storage mode. PTP is a user selection…Tada! Wonder of wonders, it works! No, was not a live view, but possibilities were opening up. With a tripod mounted camera, I could tether it to my Mac and take pictures if so desired. Bulb photography suddenly is possible without buying the thumb remote. Street photography at the café. I think I’m going to like this feature a lot.
October 13, 2007
I recently took a long overdue vacation to the mountains of North Georgia for some testosterone influenced fun: guns, beer, fishing, tents, campfires, beer, guns.
I returned 5 days later to stories of law enforcement vehicles (from two states), forensic vans, crying neighbors, and neighbors being handcuffed!
With the scant “evidence” available to my wife, I powered up Google with some key words. Bam. Eight hits eerily matched: our neighbor’s live in relative went home one Friday night. He mortally beat his mother in a robbery gone bad. The next evening, Saturday, he was arrested at our neighbor’s house after a thorough search (finding his mother’s wallet and some bloody clothing).
Wow. That’s crazy drama.
Moral: Google is awesome. I knew the story before the local rag reported it three days later. Everything else was just gossip in the neighborhood.
August 30, 2007
Today is pajama-day at work. Or, I work from home today.
The HD channel is showing Hogan’s Heroes and the opening credit theme took me back to my early days on the web. I hosted a website, sorta proto-blog. Different topics, but one section was dedicated to a wargame series that took the classic hex-and-counter game Advanced Squad Leader to 16bit color displays, Close Combat.
I liked this series because it managed the tedium of bookkeeping details like weather, supply lines, attack and defense mods, and even zone of control, all in simultaneous play without a lot of eye-candy. That aside, the HH theme was available as a midi, and oh yeah, it was the background sound (<bgsound… > ). Visitors could download save games and replay them. As I recall, there was one that I particularly pound of: I had set up two bazooka teams in the bocage at the southern edge of the map. The Axis, played by the AI, tried to outflank the Allies with 4 StuG IIIs. Shortly, all of the Sturmgeschütz were burning at the map edge and the bazooka teams were redeploying north.
Etcetera
Am I going to do a podcast? Yes. I have a first cut and will refine it today, given time.
And then there is the matter of my laptop, a very serviceable PowerBook G4. Ugh. Monday I noticed that my software builds taking a long time and a lot of swapping taking place. What gives friend?, I thought. It didn't take much to figure out... a ½ gig of RAM had disappeared! Well, long story short: last year I had the logic board replaced under an Apple recall due to a known problem with the lower RAM slot. I took it in for an inspection. The Genius worked his magic and the half gig returned, if only for two hours. Sadly, I think the logic board in the first repair was a refurb. but have no proof. And the original repair is well out of warranty and the recall is only good for two years from purchase date.
Today, a new MacBook Pro is being bought. More exciting to be sure by most measures.
August 24, 2007
Editor note: sting, not bite. I think that at first I thought “something was biting me,” it turned out “something was stinging me.”
Out doing the yard work this evening.
Felt a bite, looked down, saw a black mass on my short sock, and in a flurry of gloved hands, batted it away.
In the action of batting, it occurred to me that I should confirm exactly what was biting me. It was black... round... oh, shit. A spider?!
The mower coughed to a stop as I looked at the ground and saw the offender squirming, dying. “Bumble bee.”
I forgot how much they sting—hence the name I suppose; I don’t think I have been stung in 30 years—but calmed myself after verifying the genus, grabbing the handle of the mower, pulling the starter, to finish my chore.
Some swelling on the ankle as I type this.
Pretty sure I’m not allergic. Pretty sure. 
August 20, 2007
It has indeed been quiet at ACD. A neglected blog, as so many are; ACD was joining the ranks.
Unintentional to be sure. The many distractions can not be understated: child, wife, work, work, a little more of that to measure my patience for work. Gaming has been sacrificed without saying too much more than stating the obvious. My Evil Overloads Overlords the undesired victims of my career responsibilities.
And while work has been demanding I have found time for game prep: nurturing of ideas and the maturation of the same for sessions ahead. And some other less demanding gaming has emerged. I’ve hinted at my renewed interested in Panzer Leader, completing a DIY set from the Imaginative Strategist. It has provided some solo-gaming for my enjoyment as my far flung players made Warhammer gaming hard.
There was a time when I pursued study for the SCWCD as well. And it can be argued that certifications are busy work for one with solid experience, and yet to me it is more than a piece of paper but a structured way to look at old topics anew, finding the chewy centers of goodness in study; especially brain-friendly study. And so I do intend to take the study up as part of new 1, 3, and 5 year plan at work (and while the aforementioned distraction of work left piles of personal enjoyment in the ditches of its path, I laid a pretty solid foundation for advancement as well).
If you paid attention to some of the disjointed blogging to date, you might have noted that my Java geek fought suppression and new view frameworks to sow and root in my mind (see Got Stripes?). And topics like the YUI smolder and smoke at the hot edges of my mind’s fire, for ACD, for work, and for other ventures.
Busy to say the least; I promise a fresher mix of topics and adventures.
May 06, 2007
So me thinks there might be something to the Green Fairy.
A neighbor got me some absinthe some time ago. Not the good stuff (meaning absinthe having thujone, a banned substance in the US), but some knock off that is legal in the US—yeah, I’m dissing my neighbor a little; I think his green card status was something of a holdback to getting me the good stuff from a friend in France, so no blame, but still some dissing is due—and I will just report three things to the reader:
- Knock-offs taste like strong licorice, with an almost impossible to drink potency on the palate
- It indeed provokes the creative, but being a knock-off, I think it’s just the alcohol thinking for me
- Consume without the wife, or with the tacit approval of same
About no. 1: I really don’t know what the good stuff tastes like so I cannot speak to a knowledge founded in compares and contrasts. However, it is reported that Absinthe is expected to have an anise-like flavor.
All said, this glass of absinthe put me in a mood for blogging. Something a beer or a glass of wine will not do for me. This entire post is probably all a romantic fascination with absinthe, having no basis in empirical study.
April 26, 2007
Doing my part to broaden the sample.
Easy to take, and it made me like my job again.
March 16, 2007
I have a daughter in love with Barbies.
Barbie movies in particular, of which my wife and I have seen multiple times (of course). As an aside to this post is that in watching these movies, I have seen the evolution of the CGI: from basement-render-farm to near-Hollywood quality in the most recent, Magic of the Rainbow.
But I wanted to say, I took notice of some peculiar and mature features of the doll characters vs. movie characters of Fairytopia. In the movies, the slender, busty fairies wear one-piece tops, no exposed navel, longer skirts and modest makeup. Yet, the doll versions of said characters lack this modesty…exposed navel, very low mini-mini skirts, heavy makeup, and no, that’s right, no molded underwear.
Now, you're asking “Are you looking up the skirts of Barbie dolls you perv?” As any father of a Barbie-loving daughter will tell you, Barbie dolls are more often naked than clothed. It doesn’t take long before you begin to take note that most Barbie’s have molded underwear. And a departure from this is not a studied observation, just an observation.
So what is the mixed messaging here? Or is it just that movies still have folks reviewing content for age appropriateness more closely (even content that doesn’t go through the rating system) than the production and design of the action figures? Or, even still, is my idea of age appropriateness “old fashion,” and the hooker-esque look of dolls today are the new modesty? I hope not.
February 07, 2007
<rant>
Developers be damned, Ballmer.
When tools like Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar offer, for free, web development experiences that cannot be matched by any tool available for IE, then IE will continue to be slowly marginalized.
And that marginalization may happen suddenly. The tipping point is already in sight, frankly. And no amount of monkey dancing will help.
</rant>