Bells & Whistles
Posted on February 26, 2006
Well, if you have been around the site awhile, you may have noticed a change or two lately. I finally decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.0, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it. WP has matured a lot over the years, and my guess is it’s at least equal to, and possibly superior to MovableType or other blogging software, IMHO.
Anyway, the new version has lots of bells and whistles for me to try out and tinker with. Some of them were available on the old 1.2 version I was using, but most of them have come into being since WP 1.5. Version 1.5 added loads of new functionality and became the default version used by most plugin and theme developers. I spent most of today adding plugins, many of which you will never see because they deal with admin stuff. Others are thing you will see, but they are more subtle. The site now has nested comments, where you can reply to someone else’s comments. Not really a problem on a low traffic site like this, but it may come in handy in the future. At the very least, it will allow me to reply to comments more directly.
Bathroom books
Posted on February 26, 2006
It may seem like a weird thing to write about, but usually when I am heading towards the bathroom, I take along a book. In our world of new media, I suppose it is only a matter of time before TV’s, computers, phones, and whatnot become prevalent in the most private of rooms, but for now books will suffice. I know I’m not the only person to read while sitting on the porcelain throne. Over time I’ve found some books are better for this than others. The best ones, IMHO, are the ones with stories or articles just long enough to keep me entertained while going through the motions (sorry, had to do it).
I know there are some books out there specifically for this purpose, such as The Great American Bathroom Book, but I don’t have a copy of this (or any of the other volumes). Instead, I tend to rely on The Straight Dope Series of books. They are informative and humorous, and a worthwhile addition to any personal library. Of course, as nice as those books are, sometimes I want something a little more topical. In those instances, I tend to turn to The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson (My current reading material) or The Literary Life and Other Curiosities by Robert Hendrickson. Both books more or less restrict themselves to their designated topics, but they are full of interesting facts and humorous anecdotes that make for an entertaining read.
One of these day, the time may come when my bathroom is wired with a computer or some sort of device connected to the net, where I will be able to watch short films, or read blog posts or discussion forums. However, until that day comes, I anticipate reading a few more books.
Filed Under Miscellaneous | 1 Comment
Browser rants
Posted on February 25, 2006
Hmmm. Something strange has been going on with my web browsing lately. Sometimes the browser will quit for no apparent reason. The most troubling part is when I try to login to my own website, it quits. As it goes with a lot of Linux distros, I have more than one browser on my computer and most of them are based on Gecko/Mozilla. I double checked my site with each browser and it kills all of them except Konqueror, which isn’t based on Gecko. Not that Konqueror is all that great. It renders my login and admin screen very strangely. I don’t know what to do about other websites killing the browsers, but for my own site, I look at it as a sign I should upgrade. The site currently uses WordPress 1.2 and the most recent version is 2.1.
Anyway, the site will be down for awhile this weekend so I can do the upgrade. Getting the blog set up again should be no problem, although it will take awhile to get everything else looking spiffy.
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Breaking the habit…again
Posted on February 1, 2006
A couple of years ago, I quit smoking with the help of Wellbutrin/Zyban and it kind of worked, although I picked up the habit again after about six months (by taking breaks during Japanese class).
Recently, I’ve been given two good reasons to quit, other than the usual “It’s bad for you” stuff. 1) I am about to be involved in a double-blind healthy subjects study for an eyedrop. I can earn $600 in 10 days for taking an eyedrop twice a day, but there are some rules: can’t smoke, no cold medicine, 12.5 mg of caffeine daily (approx 4 cups), and no alcohol being the big ones. The eyedrops can make people drowsy, so they don’t want people taking stimulants or depressants since they might affect this side effect. If people will react to the medicine, they want to see real reactions, not ones that are dulled or enhanced. Anyway, I keep reminding myself about the $600 in 10 days, which brings me to…
My latest adventure in dental care was a fairly short visit. The dental student checked over everything and did three separate pain tests (my tooth is becoming necrotic, so there was little pain) and we talked about the various treatment options. One option was to extract the tooth, then get fitted for a bridge. The problem is the teeth on either side of the bad tooth are healthy, and they would have to be “prepared”, which is something they are reluctant to do to healthy teeth. Another option was to do a crown lengthening and put a crown of some sort on the tooth. This is what the dental student was leaning towrds, although there were some concerns about whether there was enough of the actual tooth left to make this a viable option. In other words, we might have tried it and had it fail. The last option, which is the current plan, is for a dental implant. It’s not cheap, but it seems like the best option. The tooth gets pulled and replaced with a bone graft, which takes six months to heal. After that, the dentist goes in and places a prosthetic tooth into the jaw by screwing it into the bone graft. Anyway, this seems to be the best option, but it also has a higher failure rate with smokers, so it was strongly suggested that I quit smoking.
I think part of the problem with smoking is physical addiction and part of it is habitual. I seem to be doing okay with keeping the physical part under control, aside from episodes of pacing and fits of energy – last night I started rearranging my apartment. The habit part is harder. I used to make a trek several times a week to the convenience store to buy cigarettes. I had to stop that habit. At home, I usually surfed on the web, often with a cigarette in my hand. That had to stop. Smoking is something I did when I was online, when I read books, and when I watched movies, which are the three main things I would do when I was at home. Part of breaking the habit, I think, will also consist of breaking those other habits. I still love movies, books and the net, but until I can get the smoking habit under control, I’m trying to stay away from those as much as possible.
What I am thinking of doing is picking up sewing again. It’s one of the reasons I was rearranging my apartment. Since I have the degree in Apparel Design, I might as well try to get some use out of it. At the very least it should make an interesting hobby, and it should help me to quit smoking. It’s kind of hard to hold a lit cigarette while trying to neatly feed fabric into a sewing machine.
Filed Under Journal, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment
