Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Bob takes a break

Short Version:
OK, so it’s not like I’m unaware of the fact that I don’t have much of an audience. I don’t feel bad about it. I mean, it’s a big bad internet out there, and I offer no porn, no news headlines, no life-altering insight… I offer slightly amusing stories that are probably less amusing if you don’t know me.

And maintaining my site/blog takes time. Time that I could be doing something else with. So I’m thinking, why not do something else with it? And so I think I will try that for a while.

It’s been real, it’s been fun, right? Eh.



Long Version:
Not long ago, I was perusing some Mac-specific sites when I read about a program by the name of Sandvox being updated to version 1.5.2. This intrigued me. As of today’s date, and for the past year & a half, I have maintained my website using a program called RapidWeaver, currently at verison 4.2. I moved to it because iWeb was limiting, and at the time I made the move it was between RW and Sandvox for my money. I gave the nod to RW obviously.

But I like to know what’s out there. Anyway, I downloaded the latest version of it, to try it out. And I got to tell you, I liked a lot of the things I saw. It seemed like it was more my style than RW. RW is powerful, but it’s also code-heavy. You don’t need to be a wizard to put together something, but it’s not as layout-friendly as Sandvox or iWeb, and honestly while I know some code, I use it mostly to parse certain things and pull them out (like files that the website doesn’t default to letting you have it). One of the things that intrigued me most was its handling of sidebar elements.

They’ve been a pain in my arse in RW since forever. Basically, you have two default options: you can either do each page’s sidebar individually, or you can select a page’s sidebar and then copy it to the rest of the entire site. Well anything in between is sort of an impossibility, you see. And the way this site is laid out, I have the blog and its child pages, the photo galleries under ‘photos,’ and everyone’s bios under “bios.” And to me, it made sense to want to keep the sidebars relatively stable within these groupings, but not
bewteen them. I mean, I want my bios sidebars to be the same as all the other bios pages, but I want the photo pages to be similar only to the other photos pages. In RW, there’s no easy way to pull this off currently.

Let me make this clear: you can come close in RW, but it requires purchasing other plugins, either using the
@stash plugin, or teaming up the Blocks pages plugin with pluskit, which is a bit more of a pain but also a little more capable in some circumstances. This all I found out when I went to RW’s forums to throw in a feature request for something similar to Sandvoxes handling of it. How does Sandvox do it?

They have what they call “pagelets,” which are basically just little widgets. You can add them to the sidebar of the main site template, and they will sync across all pages of the site (unless you ask a page to NOT inherit them). Also, you can specify on any parent page to have sidebar elements (widgets) you add to them be automatically inherited by all the children pages. This – to me – is an optimal arrangement. If I want the whole site’s pages to be identical, I can still do that by specifying widgets from the master template. If I want them on a per-page basis, I add them as such. If I want them across a subset of hierarchical pages – which I do – then I specify the widget as being a part of the parent page; all the children pages automatically get these elements on them, and updates to the widget span all pages that include it.
Brilliant!

So anyway, I got to thinking about what I wanted to do. I was contemplating buying Sandvox at about $80, and porting my site to it, essentially. But some of the things I like about RW would be harder to duplicate in Sandvox. They could be done, but it would be labor-intensive, and part of the proposed move to was to get away from this
labor-intensivity. But it would be more a one-time affair than a site-management way of life, so I was still considering it.

But then I got to thinking: why do all this labor anyway? What’s it for? I mean, what would I get out of it? I don’t have an audience; no one would be there to notice. I would spend $80 and many,
many hours of labor transporting over my blog history, so that only I would notice. And all these cool sidebar things I was going to add, who would get anything out of them? That’s right, me, me & me alone. And suddenly, the monetary & time investment didn’t seem worth it. But what’s more, blogging in general didn’t seem worth it.

I don’t do this for money (at this point); you’ll notice no ads on my site as of yet. And if there were, I’d be getting nothing for them as no one stops by to click on them anyway. So far, I’ve done this for myself. I like to write and to tell stories from my own perspective. This has sort of been my journal, you know? But it’s been a pain-n-the-ass journal, what with formatting, linking, publishing & republishing, et cetera. Hell if I wanted to journal I could do it on my own computer for much less frustration.



Anyway
Anyway. So there you have it. I think I’m going to go silent for a while. I just don’t feel like I really have anything worth sharing that anyone really wants shared in the first place. I’m thinking there is an ever-so-tiny chance that this is a permanent thing, but I’ve been wrong before and I’d probably be wrong now too, so I’m not nailing the coffin shut exactly. But I am saying that the ‘bob will now be taking a hiatus. And if I DO come back, there’s also a chance it will be under the Sandvox Banner. I think. If I were. But probably not.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The new pups are filling out nicely

So, yeah. I found out I lost a substantial amount of weight recently, but the overall goal was not to find out my weight, but to weigh the new puppies. I had tried this before, if you recall, and came away with what I thought their weights were. This was awhile ago though, and we wanted more up-to-date information.

So I reluctantly put myself on the scale, while
The Girl tried to cover my eyes. This did not work obviously, but it did give me good insight into how much they actually weigh.

They each outweigh Miles now. Miles weighs in @ around 68-70lbs, and the lighter of the two –
Hunter – weighs 71lbs. Chase is closer to 73lbs. So hey, I guess I should finally break down and give them each their own page then, huh? Weird. I guess the x-factor for getting your own webpage here is weight. Who would have thunk, right? Certainly not me. And hell, with my incredible shrinking abilities, maybe I won’t have a page, soon.

Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Incredible Shrinkng 'Bob

That is me, apparently. Weighed myself a few days ago, for the first time since moving here a year and a half ago. I knew I had lost some weight, but I was shocked to see where I was. I’m hesitant to share, actually.

155 pounds.

Yikes. I mean, that’s 25lbs in that year that I’ve lost. I knew I had lost some unneccesary weight. Hell, I moved up here with a svelte 32-33” wiastline. I own a couple pairs of 31’s I would squeeze into on occasion. Now, the 31’s need a belt lest they become ankle warmers. So, I went from – let’s average – a 32.5” waistline, to a <31” waistline. It gets muddy here, though. See, My waist has shrunk, but my weight lifting has held pretty steady, ,and actually seen some gains in some departments. I’ve had some injuries over the last year that have kept me out of the gym (garage) for maybe 3-4 months of good workout time too, but overall, I still fill out my shirts about the same save for the waistline.

I’m not sure where all this weight was to begin with, I guess I’m saying. But now that I know I have some room, I’m going to hit the weights a little bit harder, and really push to get some of that weight back. Just the good weight, though. I figure, maybe I can make it up to 175lbs of meat. Whadya think?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Related News Articles

“Obama Win Triggers Run on Guns”
From Yahoo News.

So, wait: are people really
that scared that a run of black gangs are coming to their houses? You know, I think maybe those people took all those emails a little too seriously, perhaps. I know they keep framing it as “right to bear arms,” but something tells me it’s more than that. After all, what do you think you’ll need an M-16 (AR-15) rifle for, exactly?

You want a
good reason to stockpile weapons? I’ll give one to you. How about the economic crisis that has been triggered by the Bush Economic Policies, which were basically like Robin Hood, only in reverse, sort of a “Steal the money from the poor to give to the rich.” Yeah. All these newly out of work people are going to be kinda pissed (see below).



“Democratic Leaders Seek Aid for Failing Automakers”
From the NY Times.

So let me get this straight: They f*cked up and now we have to pay them money so they stay afloat? What the hell? What’s really awful about this is that the companies are still going to dump workers to “stay afloat,” which basically means “we aren’t good at our jobs, so, uh, sorry, you lose yours.” Which is totally backwards, isn’t it?

I know that if the companies fail, they’ll
all be out of work, but I still almost think we should let them. I don’t think these failed executives deserve another try. Let someone else come in and swoop up their capital in the liquidation sale and try their own hand at it. They’ll probably need some workers that know how to run the equipment, so jobs might not be lost for long.

See, this is the problem with letting businesses become so big & monolithic in nature; we should never even question letting a bad business model fail. If it sucked, it should just die off. But here we are, weighing the options; ‘Is it better to give rich, greedy bastard executives more money now that they f*cked up?’

Boy would I like to say no on that one.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Pumpkins for Obama

Look! Even pumpkins are smart enough to vote the right way. He just showed up on our doorstep in November 4th, and gave a spiel about why we (and other humans as well as pumpkins) should vote for Obama this fine day. Laid it all out on the table, explained the tax systems and everything.

OK I lied.

The
other day when The Girl got home she actually took the time to read my blog. This happens maybe once a week, and usually I get scorned for it. It’s OK, don’t feel bad – I’m used to it.

But she saw the bare pumpkin pic, and decided to take action. So in celebration of America
not being completely retarded, We now have (and put out on our porch! Talk about fair-weather friends, eh?) a “Pumkin for Obama.”

This does not mean, however, that he can come here and take it. It’s ours.

So, yeah. We’re not into
Halloween much, but apparently, politics gets us all into the mood to carve up a pumpkin. Man; we are weird...

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I’m a little late telling you about this, but we did watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall some weeks ago (October 15th!). The movie follows our protagonist, “Fat Dude.” Now, a word of warning: if you watch this movie, beware that the “Unrated” version has Fat Dude showing off his dick. A LOT. Like, if you thought that maybe you’d get to see Sarah Marshall’s goods (Kristen Bell, who IS hot), you’re almost out of luck. You get to see some side-boob at one part, but you’ll have to be inundated with lots of Fat Dude dick in order to get there.

The movie is
alright. It’s not superb, it’s not overly funny. It’s not even really worth rushing out right now to go and rent. It’s not even really much of an all-out comedy. But it’s not bad. There’s things I liked about it, actually, mostly the sort-of surprise revelation that the protagonist is far from innocent. I don’t want to give it away, but he’s not a bad guy, it’s just that his relationship fell apart not solely because Sarah Marshall was a Bitch, but rather it was a combination of things, some of which were Fat Dude’s fault directly. After all, a relationship is two-people big (or more…), and both sides have to be involved and sacrifice & share & take responsibility, right?

Right. Most romantic comedies though, forgo this simple truth, and go for the easy-out, “the protagonist is all-good and the antagonist is all-bad” definition of relationship breakups. So I really respected that
Sarah Marshall took a detour from that.

Still pretty dumb overall, though. I mean, they go out of their way to show that he’s not perfect in the scheme of things, but they fail to show him doing much to break out of his mold. And his life’s work? Well I’ll prepare you: it’s dumb. It’s corny. You’ll not even be able to laugh at it. Nor with it. It’s just dumb, and you wonder,
why?

Maybe it’s the guys who wrote this trash; sort of their way at laughing at you for
actually watching it.

Discovery Atlas: Need Help with that Pillow?

I’ve discovered what it is, I think. Each episode comes with a sedative. We watched the one on Italy last night, and I fell asleep. Again.

I thought that it was a fluke when I fell asleep during the the
Brazil episode. I don’t really care much about Brazil (though I do understand all the girls have nice asses and go to nude beaches, if the internet serves me right). I figured that maybe it was the lack of caring, and surely other episodes in the series – ones on places I cared more about, perhaps – would be engaging.

Guess not. Sh!t, I’m Italian. And I fell asleep.

These
Discovery Atlas episodes… they suck. Don’t bother. Stick with Planet Earth or something. Don’t waste your time.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

We're DEFINITELY Halloweeners around here...

What you see to your right is not a stand-in for the family pumpkin. It is not a representation of our Halloween Pumpkin. It is the actual Halloween pumpkin that The Girl purchased about 5 days before said event. This picture was taken shortly before I am now typing this. It is now – as I type this – November 4th, the day that all the halfway intelligent people hoped that all the red states saw the error of their ways over the last 8 years as they headed to the polling booth to vote for Obama. It is 5 days passed Halloween. What you see to your right is not the back of the pumpkin. That is the front.

We’re
very into Halloween, as you can tell. Glad we spent the money!

Is it too late to carve it up and stick a candle in it? Sh!t. What about a refund? Can we get one of those?

Get out the Vote!

You know what today is, right?

Today is the day we all VOTE!

If, uh, you haven’t already done so, like I have.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??!?! Go Vote!

And dammit, do it the correct way: We need Change, we need someone who will give tax breaks to the people who need it most, not the rich people; we need the Democrats in 2008. What do ya say, huh?

Monday, November 3, 2008

What I'm currently All Excited About

Yes that’s right, a trash can. This is a sure sign of being either old, or boring, or both. I’m not sure exactly where I fall on this line of definition, but I know I’m on it.

We just got this trash can. Well I call it a trash can, but they actually term it a “
Rectangular Recycler,” because inside is two different cans – one for trash, one for recyclables. I wanted a new trash can to replace our old one, because it was a) a cylinder, and b) it would hit against the wall whenever you opened the lid due to the way it was designed, which leaves a black mark on the wall (the hinge backing is black).

Another issue for us recently has been our recyclables situation. Our cans were right outside the back door, but you still had to go outside to put stuff in them, and then to top that off, if we left the house –what with our
new puppies – we would have to move them into the garage so that they weren’t a mess when we got home.

So. Anyway, the idea is that now the large can inside the new “recycler” will be our trash can, and the small one will be our “plastics/metal” bin and sit closest to the kitchen center, and the old one will be the paper bin that will sit to the side of the refrigerator, out of the way. We like to have easy access to the trash, and since we have mostly plastic/metal recyclables, all the most-used bins will be easiest to reach. Since the paper one gets used only
sometimes, it’ll be more out of the way; but still easy enough to get to.

You don’t want to know how much we spent to make all this possible. Hell, I don’t want to know but I’ll tell you anyway. It is regularly $180, but we happened to have a 20% coupon from Bed Bath & Beyond. Crazy, huh? I know I know, I’m a freakin’ nut; who the hell spends $140 on a
trash can, right? But it’s stainless steel, the lid closes into the unit so that it sits right against the wall without bumping, is soft to activate with the foot pedal, and when you release the lid closes softly as well. And you know what? It will be worth it just to be able to not have to go outside every time we have a recyclable to go out, or leave home and don’t have to shuffle containers around to keep dogs out.

You may think we’re crazy, but dammit I’m trashy in
style, yo.