Yet More Tweaks

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A few more tweaks and oddments:

  • Re-worded the post metadata.
  • Added Technorati tags to the metadata.
  • Added pseudo-hidden ‘admin only’ links to all posts, comments, and TrackBack pings, allowing for single-click jumps to the edit screen for each item.
  • Used SimpleComments to combine comments and TrackBack pings into a single chronological list.
  • Added small icons (yanked right from the MT interface, actually) to comment and TrackBack listings to more easily visually identify which is which.
  • Added a :hover effect border to comment and TrackBack listings.
  • Comments I leave will display with a colored background to easily distinguish them from visitors’ comments.
  • Lots of templates updated so that all a links have an associated title attribute.

And…that’s all I’m remembering right now.

…has a posse

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I saw this sticker slapped on the side of a lamppost last night and it made me laugh:

Seattle Monorail Has A Posse

This one’s the product of 2045 Seattle, a pro-monorail campaign.

There’s more and more posses out there these days. Andre the Giant had the first, Charles Darwin has one, Darth Vader, even Tony Danza…and I know there’s more.

But there was only one problem. I didn’t have a posse.

So I had to take care of that.

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LiveJournal/OpenID Authenticated Commenting

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So much for declaring a “no more tweaks” point. I just can’t resist the urge to fiddle around…

Thanks to Mark Paschal‘s OpenId Comments plugin (announced and described here, current release here), visitors can now authenticate themselves when leaving comments using a LiveJournal or OpenID account in addition to TypeKey authentication (or no authentication at all).

I’ve also increased the width of the comment entry field, as it was a bit cramped (thanks to mom for prompting me on this, as it was bugging me too).

Leave a comment, play around, and let me know if anything seems goofy!

(Update: Some goofiness exists. Generic, TypeKey, and LiveJournal options are working fine, OpenID comments are coming through as ‘anonymous’ even though the commenting UI reports that they’re successfully signed in. Something to fiddle with….)

Transitioned

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There are a few benefits to being unemployed for a little bit. One of those is having more available hours in the day to spend tinkering around with some of my neverending PROJECTs.

I’ve just (mostly) finished converting all of my pages over to the new template styles provided by Movable Type 3.2. There’s a few tweaks that I didn’t bring over (multiple stylesheets, the live comment preview, gravatar support, and incorporating TrackBack pings and comments into a single list), and I’m still running over in my head which, if any, will be re-incorporated down the line.

For now, though, I’m declaring things done. Feel free to poke around, and as always, suggestions are always appreciated.

Here’s a brief overview of the changes I’ve made to MT’s default templates…

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Pussy Power!

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Today’s news of the weird: Inventor fuels car with dead cats.

A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel — dead cats.

Christian Koch, 55, from the eastern county of Saxony, told Bild newspaper that his organic diesel fuel — a homemade blend of garbage, run-over cats and other ingredients — is a proven alternative to normal consumer diesel.

Koch said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-liter (11 gallon) tank.

Never fear, though…it turns out that while the biodiesel fuel Koch is working on is real, the “dead cats” angle was nothing more than the overactive imagination of a Bild newspaper reporter.

A German inventor said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats.

“I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish,” Koch told Reuters.

“It’s an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it’s complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I’ve never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in.”

Bild on Tuesday wrote a headline: “German inventor can turn cats into fuel — for a tank he needs 20 pussies.” The paper on Wednesday followed up with a story entitled: “Can you really make fuel out of cats?”

A spokesman for Bild told Reuters the story was meant to show that cat remains could “in theory” be used to make fuel with Koch’s patented method.

The author of the story said Koch had never told him directly that he had used dead cats as the story implied.

Sounds like Bild employs one reporter who’d make a better fit at the Weekly World News….

iTunes “Liontamer” by Faithless from the album Outrospective (2001, 5:48).

Goodbye FedEx Kinko’s

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Some people may have noticed that there was a lot more information here not too long ago.

I’m having second thoughts about publishing what just happened publicly, though.

Suffice to say:

  1. I didn’t get fired — I quit.
  2. This is a good thing (for me).

Friends and family are welcome to the details. I just don’t want an urge to air my dirty laundry to potentially damage any future job prospects.

You’ve gotta be kidding me

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So…when did CNN start hiring The Onion‘s writers?

Bush Takes Responsibility

Oh, wait. They’re serious?

Amazing.

At least he’s actually acting like a President for once. Pity that it took this long, this big of a catastrophe, this many dead people, and I’d bet that it’s motivated more by his tanking approval rate than any real sense of responsibility…but at least it’s something.

iTunes “Nothing Really Matters (Kruder and Dorfmeister)” by Madonna from the album Nothing Really Matters (1999, 11:10).

In Transition

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Along with upgrading the backend of the site to Movable Type 3.2, which I did last week sometime, I’ve decided to upgrade my templates to the new MT3.2 styles. As I’ve had a fair number of customizations that I’ve been using, though, it’s taking a bit of time to incorporate them into the default templates provided by Six Apart.

Expect some oddities for a few days as I get things tweaked and configured. Once I’ve got everything working with a basic startpoint, then I’ll see about customizing the style to something a little more “me”.

For now, though…things might be a bit odd. Bear with me, hopefully this won’t last too long.