WordPress.com: I think we need to break up

Hmmm….  I love the WordPress.org download but my set-up here on WordPress.com just isn’t working out for me.  And no, I’m not leaving you for Movable Type: after just a couple of days with it, I dragged that puppy to my recycling bin.  MT was such a bitch to deal with, but I can see why people would still use it – it’s definitely elegant and sophisticated, but I think it was just out of my league. 

I wanted something with both looks and substance, and the more I deal with WordPress.com, the more I find out how shallow it is, my use of the word ’shallow’ referring to its limited functions, not an overabundance of vanity.  I think my biggest beef is the ‘no flash video embedding’ rule: I saw a rad interview on the Colbert Report the other night and I was reminded again of how I can’t embed the video.  I think I knew then that this wasn’t going to have to end.

My choices at this point are just falling back on the WordPress.org download or going back to Typepad.  I had another blog a couple of years ago on Typepad but cancelled it when I had to move and needed to get some of my shit in order.  But since then, I’ve seen what other people have done with Typepad without the headaches you’d encounter when using MT; hey, if it’s good enough for Martha Stewart, it’s definitely good enough for me. 

For now, I want the whole content management thing to go pretty easily for me, without having to sacrifice quality or aesthetics, so I think I’m going to save tackling MT for a later date when I’ve learned a little bit more (I guess it’s sort of a credit to Six Apart for creating such highly individual, distinguishable software – they feel so different from one another).  So for the two weeks that I’m allowed a free trial of Typepad’s services, I’ll be crashing there.  For anyone interested, my address is http://jsmn.typepad.com (I tried reserving www.jsmn.com but that’s already been taken).

Love is all around

Happy Quirkyalone Day!

Despite having a huge cold, today was still ok, with me taking it easy (I promised myself I wouldn’t grapple with the annoying CSS code I’m currently working on, or the PDF conversions I still need to do).

My funny valentine(s), Snickie, left, and Lambchop, right, hanging out, as usual, on my bed…

And just because it is also Valentine’s Day…

You can write up a recent break-up at Relationship Obituaries (www.relationshipobit.com), either to commemorate a once-vital relationship, or to excoriate the death of something that was should have died long ago… I actually wrote to the webmaster asking if they’ve got a form for people who just want to write up their quest to have any romantic relationships anymore – I genuinely don’t see couple-dom in my future, immediate- or distant-. I don’t want to cry about it, I just want to give it a proper burial. Ahh, such is the life of a modern woman…

…But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate love, in whatever form…

Bono of U2 was among the many people who celebrated the life of Tom Lantos today. His tribute is an acapella version of All You Need is Love.

Nerd gripes

PSD to PDF: Not as easy as it sounds

You’d think since Photoshop and Acrobat are both Adobe software that it would be stupid-easy to go from one to the other but not in the case of converting a PSD document into a PDF.  I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to capture the high quality I see on Photoshop to translate into PDF – among other things, Acrobat flattens the image quality of PSD files.  And it’s not as straightforward to prevent this especially as Adobe didn’t seem to anticipate that users would want to convert from one file to another…

…And then there’s all of the WordPress themes that don’t seem to totally work…

Yes, the themes I downloaded from the internet were free but that shouldn’t mean that significant parts of the CSS code should be missing or break at the slightest effort at customization…  Arrgghh!

quirkyalone

I caught an episode of a local tech show yesterday afternoon and was lucky enough to watch an interview with Sasha Cagen of quirkyalone fame.  I’ve had her book of the same topic on my Amazon wishlist for some time, but seeing her explain it in depth really got me going.  What a relief it is to know that there are people out there who don’t ‘couple’ just to avoid being alone, or just so they can split the cost of rent.  And it’s even better to know that there’s someone out there to advocate for that kind of independent, strong-willed thinking.

Send someone a QA Day card…

I checked out the website for QA (www.quirkyalone.net) discovered a whole network of like-minded people.  I registered for the boards and was super-pleased to find out that in place of Valentine’s Day, QA is going to celebrate International quirkyalone Day.  Wow!  I am genuinely psyched! 

On a slightly related but ironic note, the common abbreviation of quirkyalone, ‘QA,’ was my last title at my last job (for ‘quality assurance,’ but often shortened by my co-workers and I to ‘QA’)… I laugh and wince just a little when I refer to myself or others as ‘QAs:’ for me, it’s now taken on a completely different feel.

…and coolness prevails

Blech, I’m kind of feeling off because of this whole Facebook thing but just looking around reminds me that things overall are doing OK….

AK Kitty

I finally got around to changing my phone’s wallpaper (I have one of those PC-phones). It’s been on my ‘To-Do’ list on my phone for like 6 months so I just went looking on Google and found a rad, Hello Kitty wallpaper. Kind of reminds me of a sticker I once got in the mail from Chainsaw Kittens… I didn’t think it warranted me taking a picture of it (I stuck it to my guitar) as it’s basically Hello Kitty holding a chainsaw.

Ain’t she cute???

Die Electric, courtesy of Dwell magazine

I’m not totally sure if some of this is safe but it’s certainly cool-looking. That might explain why I like the hook-switch the best

Least likely to start a fire…

I know the cord is cut but still…

There’s more at www.dieelectric.org. Cool stuff.

Another thanks to the writers at Dwell…

And here I thought Bose was the only option for an iPod-docked, audio thingy….

Thinking, just thinking…

• I’m such a dufus – Moodget does not work on WordPress.com blogs. Hey, I never said I was an expert in this kind of thing! The sad thing is I sent an email to Labpixies about it and they never responded – I ended up having to just search the terms “Moodget” and “WordPress.com” on Google for possible a mention. Strangely enough, I found it on some Christian blog site (I won’t name it here because I’m not into religious stuff).
• I’m torn between the WordPress.org and Movable Type downloads, this because I’m starting to grow out of WordPress.com and their often incompatible and inflexible themes (see Moodget gripe above). I know templates in general are not conducive to originality or customization but I was being lazy, damned it.
• Finally reserved www.jasmineso.com. I mean, who would take it? But then again, www.jso.com was apparently taken (not by anyone in particular but surprising nonetheless).
• I don’t know about you but for me, time spent on Facebook is a high-tech exercise in sadomasochism…. I think I need to break up with Facebook, though I’m fairly confident it’s already broken up with me.

Just super

Ahead of Super Tuesday, I mailed out my absent voter ballot today. I’m not registered for any specific, political party, but I thought I’d save the paper and ink and just go ahead and ask for a partisan ballot since I already know who I’m voting for.

In reality, there are only 2 real candidates now….

I also put in my vote supporting community college education as I’m a product of a CC…

Where was this when it was still $26 a unit???

But I made a little mistake when filling out another portion of the ballot (I blurred it because I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t read up on it before filling it out!). I’m pretty sure the county clerk’s office will just consider it as no vote at all:

Oops…

And by the way: WTF, Tom Brady??? Fine, you’re strictly into supermodels – superficial and snobby, but whatever. Fine, you’re someone’s baby-daddy – nothing wrong with kids. But getting sacked and fumbled repeatedly at the Super Bowl??? That’s like what you do - if it weren’t for football, you wouldn’t have been able to date so many models. So what’s up, dude? I think most women know that realistically, you would never descend from your Mount Olympus and date one of us mere mortals, but damn, I don’t think we ever imagined that you would actually suck at the one thing that got you up there in the first place, and no less, at the Super Bowl!!! Disappointing.

Heart

I totally forgot it was National Wear Red Day yesterday when I grabbed the first, clean t-shirt I saw in my closet:

Above: ‘Bleeding Heart‘ by Craig Brickles, from Threadless

…I think it was just a stroke of luck that I just happened to chose the ‘Bleeding Heart’ shirt I got from Threadless last year. It wasn’t until I reached the supermarket did I realize it, when people started staring at the spot on my shirt where the bleeding heart is.

Speaking of hearts, I wish this was available for purchase online already (laziness, the price of gas, and my general irritation for driving keeps me from going up to North Oakland and just buying it already):

Above: ‘Hella’ love from Oakland.

And since this month is Valentine’s Day, customized M&Ms or a giant Hershey’s Kiss sounds good right about now.

Above: Are there censors over at the M&M’s site…?

Above: …Because over at Hershey’s, my first choice of ‘Me so horny’ got rejected…
This hollowed out, giant kiss (7 oz. of regular-sized kisses is included inside) is 2 pounds and costs $35!

Moodget: You’re putting me in a bad mood!

Arrgh.  I can’t get the Moodget to work on WordPress for some reason, but I’m afraid to ask anyone at WordPress as it’s probably some minor, coding thing I overlooked (I always do that).

Above: Screen cap of how my Moodget would look, if the damned thing worked…!

  

This is the code generated when I clicked ‘Your own website’:

<iframe allowTransparency=”true” align=”middle” scrolling=”no” width=”195″ height=”125″ frameborder=”0″ src=”http://www.labpixies.com/moodget/gadget/moodget.html?mid=32142&uid=32151″ mce_src=”http://www.labpixies.com/moodget/gadget/moodget.html?mid=32142&uid=32151″></iframe>

Grrr. I just know the problem isn’t the code – it’s something super simple, almost stupid, that I’m overlooking or just not thinking about; most likely, it’s the fact that I’m a relative newbie when it comes to code….

 

National Wear Red Day

I’m rarely involved in such things but I thought this was such an easy thing to do especially since being diagnosed and treated for high blood pressure at my age…  Today is National Wear Red Day, a yearly event sponsored by the American Heart Association to raise awareness about heart disease in women.

Both my grandmothers suffered a stroke, one of them actually dying as a result, so it’s no wonder I developed high blood pressure; I just thought something like this would happen when I got older, not right now.  So, today, I’ll be wearing red, and remembering to keep my heart strong not just for me but my grandmothers.  Too bad I don’t actually own any red clothing anymore as I realized red is a tricky color to wear, but I’ll swipe on red lipstick just the same.