Ok, this is pretty much it. There are still some unpleasant chores to do, but pretty much everything’s done. I’ve checked it in Mozilla, Safari and IE for OS X, and as soon as I get back to the office, I’ll check it in IE for Windows. If you notice anything crazy, please post a comment. What do you think?
Author: Kevin Lawver
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Gloogler
Everyone has an opinion on what Google’s acquisition of Blogger means. I’ve read a lot of them. So far, there have been some interesting theories about what Google wants out of Blogger. Wired’s theory of the links is a good one, but why would Google buy Blogger when it already does links? Its whole search algorithm is based on links and volume. Having direct access to the posts would make indexing a little faster, but it means they’ll have to build something brand new to interface with Blogger’s backend, or migrate Blogger’s backend to a new system.
I think everyone’s missing the point. Google already has access to all the links it will ever need. It indexes millions of pages a day and does a pretty good job of it. Adding slightly faster indexing of a couple hundred thousand blogs won’t make them any money (to recoup whatever they paid Evan). So, what do I think they’re going to do? How does Google make money now? They sell services. I think the bulk of their cash comes from selling their search services to companies like AOL (and others). They then give AOL (and others) money to display their sponsored links on their search products, which people pay Google for. They’re in the service business now. What does that mean for Blogger? It means Google probably already has a good idea for how to package Blogger’s product up into XML feeds and XML-RPC calls to sell to other companies. Of course, this is just a theory – I swear. If I actually had any insider knowledge about Google’s plans, I wouldn’t be sharing them here.
Good theory, no?
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Redesign Imminent
Ultranormal is coming!! I started on this today while waiting around for stuff to do (shhh, don’t tell), and am unbelievably happy with it. It still needs some work, and then I need to templify it, but overall, I really like it. I especially like the javascript includes to get the posts from Geekout and Photos on the page. Look ma, no server side scripting! It’s a simple Movable Type template to create the script and then one line to put it on the page. Sweet, huh?
There are a couple problem spots. I don’t like the font color on the menu headings. It looks disabled. I just can’t decide what color to replace it with. Also, the missing borders on the left side of the menu and photos list will go away once this is live – my posts are almost always long enough to cover up the menu, and the menu will have more links in it when it’s done.
Oh, and the font I used for the logo is called AIFragment (because I forgot which one I used halfway through it and had to frantically go back and hunt it down). And, I don’t know what it is about me and orange, but I like it.
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Chicken Noises
Ok, I just called a friend a chicken over IM. I was trying to type out chicken noises. It occurred to me, how do you type out sarcastic chicken sounds? Here are the possibilities I came up with:
- Braaaack braaaak (ok, John came up with that one)
- Bu-GAWK
- Squaaaaaaaaaaaack
- Bok Bok BO-GAWK!
- Coodle-a-doodle-damn-doo!
See, it’s hard…
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The Geekery – Reborn As GEEKOUT!
I loved the old Geekery. It was butt ugly. Last night and (just a little) today, I put the done-enough-to-show-it touches on the new place for my wild Geek Ramblings: Geekout!
Let me know what you think. I’m gonna try to find the tutorial and tip things I posted here and copy them over. It’s all Movable Type-errific, so it should be much easier to update (ok, it means I’ll probably update it – static HTML is pretty easy too).
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Another Google Oddity
Ok, why am I the number one and two result for TylenolPM? I don’t take it very often, really. I swear!!
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Trepidation Man
I really don’t want to drive home tonight. The driving morons will be out driving like the roads a normal. They’ll honk their horns as a mating call to the other jackasses on the road and only serve to raise my already too high blood pressure. This would have been the perfect week to take a vacation to a small island in the Caribbean where they provide you with hammocks, fruity drinks with little umbrellas and complimentary flip flops. Alas, I’m here, in the snow, dreading the thought of packing up and getting in my car.
And how was your day?
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A Great Pos::sssssshhhhh::
I’m a ball of pain today. My left shoulder and lower back are screaming at me above the soothing tones of Ibuprofen. Stupid snow. Our street hasn’t been plowed since Sunday afternoon. This morning, it was an ice-covered deathtrap riddled with five-foot tall mounds of snow and cars parked in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic in both directions, causing backing up into empty spots, spinning tires and much sailor-swearing. I made it into work, but the main roads aren’t much better. While the road surface is clear, VDOT decided to plow only 1.5 lanes instead of both. The road randomly narrows to one lane. Turn lanes are dimples. Combine the two, and you have a thirty minute sit-n-spin to go a mile and a half. I understand clearing snow is a pain, but come on!! VDOT’s turned the roads in the area into a rollerball arena.
In other news, I couldn’t get to sleep last night, so I watched this documentary I TiVo’ed called The Truth About Gay Animals. I can’t find it on Trio’s schedule, so you may be out of luck if you want to see it. It was an interesting and funny search by comedian Scott Capurro for naturally occuring homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Now, it wasn’t exhaustive, but he did talk to a scientist doing a study on sheep that was compelling. If you have the chance to catch it, check it out. It’s entertaining even if it’s not totally enlightening.
I’m trying to get back into the swing of working at work. There’s no TV to distract and entertain me (did you know Sci-Fi’s playing Battlestar Gallactica from 11am-4pm every weekday?!), just work. I’ve already done a bunch, but can feel myself running out of steam… just like this post.
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Molto Kevino
I am a cooking machine. Thanks to Molto Mario, I’ve been experimenting the past couple nights with new and crazy non-recipe based dishes. For example, last night I made pounded chicken breasts rolled with fresh mozarella and fresh basil in a diced tomato sauce over vermicelli. Man, was it good. I flattened the chicken breasts by repeatedly walloping them with a rolling pin. Then, I put a fresh mozzarella ball, ripped in half, and one basil leaf on each breast, and then rolled them up. I fastened the end down with two toothpicks. I then heated up a quarter cup of olive oil (whatever covers the bottom of the pan) under meadium-high heat. Once the oil was hot (it dimples a little on the surface when it’s ready). I used tongs to drop the chicken rolls in. I browned them on all sides, then turned the heat down to medium to simmer the rolls for another fifteen minutes. After I thought they were almost done, I took them out of the pan and set them aside. I then threw in one diced onion (it was small, you might want to use half of a large one), and two sliced garlic cloves. Once the onions were brown at the edges and translucent, I poured in a can of diced tomatoes. I let that cook down for a little while, then put the chicken rolls back in. I let this melange simmer for ten minutes until the pasta was done. I again removed the rolls from the sauce, drained the pasta and then threw the pasta into the pan with the sauce and tossed it with a couple ripped up fresh basil leaves. Voila, yummy yummy.
Tonight, I wasn’t in the mood for reheated chicken stew, so I grabbed some boneless pork chops from the freezer, defrosted and then (again) pounded the hell out of of them with the rolling pin. I think they were still slightly frozen, so they didn’t get as flat as I wanted, but hey, that’s OK. I then cracked two eggs into a bowl, whipped them up and set them aside. I then poured half a cup of flour into another bowl and mixed in the following: bunches of cayenne pepper, green chili powder (you could substitute curry and cumin), black pepper and some salt.
I dragged the pork chops through the eggs and then through the flour – both sides – lightly covering it. Then, I dropped them into the same amount of heated olive oil I used on the chicken. I let it sit on one side for about ten minutes to get it nice and brown, then flipped them and let them sit for ten minutes on the raw side. I flipped it again, letting it sit on each side for seven more minutes. The chops were just perfect. They were crunchy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside and yum-tastic.
This Saturday, they’re having a chili cook-off at church. I’m planning on making sirloin chili. I can’t wait to get started. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Demi-Success
Thanks to the UPS guy who couldn’t get around me and my burly next door neighbor, my truck is back in its spot. Ahead of me is a bunch of shovelling, back pain and swearing. I mean lots and lots of swearing. Sailor-scale swearing. Stubbed your little toe on the dresser swearing. Yeah, that much. I mean, I’m from Tucson, Arizona. We don’t get two feet of snow. Stupid snow.