Daily Archives: October 16, 2011

The World’s Most Boring Blog

Posted on by
2

Yes! It’s right here! I have had nothing interesting to say for weeks or months on end!

Meanwhile, congratulations to Annie Mole for keeping her Going Underground London Tube Blog fresh and interesting for almost nine years.

We’ve been back from our most recent vacation (to Colorado again) for a couple of weeks, yet today is the first time I’ve been able to tear myself away from playing Bejeweled Blitz and the TV long enough to upload some of the pictures… which may or may not get uploaded to Flickr.

I’ve got some photos from the recent “Pet Blessing” at St Nick’s that need to be uploaded too. And a meeting today with some other folks on the “outreach” team. I’m feeling very, very creatively blocked at the moment, so maybe I need the kick in the butt. Meantime, the St Nicholas page on Facebook continues to chug along….

The news lately: I’m pretty sad about Steve Jobs’ passing, even though I’m not the stereotypical “Mac freak” like, ahem, a couple of my friends (one of whom used to attend MacWorld every year). And I’m looking forward to getting a new iPhone 4S once we find a local store that has them in stock (no, I can’t be arsed to sit in line or wait for orders to be fulfilled from the web).

I’m pretty heartened by all the Occupy (insert placename here) stuff, and hope that it continues to be creative, funny, and decidedly leaderless. It’s the populist uprising the Tea Party’s corporate sponsors WISH they had, because the demographics are much younger, hipper, and better educated.

I will be voting for Obama, as disappointed by his lack of progress (heh) on progressive issues as I am. Why? Because I refuse to vote for crazy people who’ve done nothing but block Obama on everything.

And nobody does crazy like the Christianist Corporatist Ultra-Conservative Right Wing of the Republican Party. I can’t believe that a former pizza chain owner who’s never been elected to anything is at the top of the list of Republican candidates, nor can I believe that Mitt Romney is likely to be the nominee after all the pixie dust settles just because he’s the “most normal.” What??? Yes, he’s the most normal out of this field of nutjobs.

And as a kid who grew up non-Mormon in Utah, being bullied and told I would go to hell as a child of 8, I am struggling to overcome my instinctive dislike and distrust of the faith, especially when politics and “the charch” are linked. Although I respect Harry Reid, who is a Mormon convert with principles, I really don’t like Mitt Romney, who has the political instincts of a windsock. Romney reminds me of the two-faced kids who used to “be nice” to me when no one else was around, but would help bullies gang up on me when groupthink demanded that the different one be singled out for punishment.

I’ve been reading, reading, reading stuff in the news, and getting mostly rather depressed about politics in this country. Do the crazy people on the right really, REALLY believe what they’re saying? If so, they’re not just crazy, they’re batshit insane.

Fixed my “Press This Reloaded” Plugin Myself, Thank You

Posted on by
Reply

For some time now, I’ve been unable to blog easily from my iPhone because the “Press This” plug in stopped working well – I suspected it was because of all the extra crap Google Reader adds with the “$UTM” tracking codes to the URL. I’d also noticed that the “Press This Reloaded” plugin worked okay, except that the link it added was only “complete” (including the title of the page linked, the a href HTML tags) if I happened to select some text to quote.

It turns out that’s the way Scribu, the plugin developer wrote it. He was assuming everyone would let WordPress add the HTML automatically if the URL was on a line of its own, but only reluctantly added the “via (HTML tag link)” code that the original Press This added when people requested it at his support site.

Well, I went in and looked at the actual plugin, and realized that all I needed to do was tweak it so that even if there was no selected text to be quoted, I could have it add a “Link:” preface and the nicely formatted link and page title. It’s under the self::$content section; I just copied the line that adds the link with a “via ” preface and added it to the “else” statement. Decided to change the preface to “Link: ” because a link with no text selection or explanation made more sense than one prefaced by “Via .”

I’ll have to update this on my other blogs, eventually, and on the iPhone and iPad. But it’s working for me and that’s all I ask.

Love the “press this reloaded” plugin, it’s beautiful and was a long time needed! I’ve noticed though that the “via” link is missing from the bottom of the reposted materials. Having to put that in manually is icky.

via WordPress › Support » [Plugin: Press This Reloaded] Press this reloaded no “via” link.

Air India Unaware of the Concept of “Chartering A Bus”

Posted on by
Reply

I just don’t understand why Air India didn’t just charter a bus for these people – their flight into London Heathrow was diverted to Gatwick, a little over an hour away. There are regular express buses (called coaches in the UK) between the two airports and there’s even regular scheduled bus services that are really cheap (the fare is about 25GBP).

Instead, they were forced to sit on the plane for up to 9 hours while Air India waited for a rested crew to show up to fly the plane from Gatwick to Heathrow. If they’d been put on a bus, they’d have been at Heathrow about 7 hours earlier, including customs.

Police were called to keep calm among passengers on a plane at Gatwick, who were kept on board for an entire day after their plane was diverted from Heathrow airport because of fog.

The Air India flight from Mumbai was originally due to land at Heathrow at 7.30am, but was diverted to Gatwick because of dense early morning fog.

The passengers were then forced to sit on the plane on the Gatwick runway for nine hours – just an hour’s drive by coach from Heathrow – watching brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies out the windows.

A BBC World Service reporter on board, Rahul Joglekar, said the mood became heated as the crew failed to keep the passengers, who included small children and a heavily pregnant woman, informed about what was happening, and when if ever they would set foot on English soil. “We continue to be stranded here without any information from the crew,” he told the BBC .

via Police called to calm diverted passengers stranded on plane | World news | The Guardian.

Weekly Tweets 2011-10-16

Posted on by
Reply
  • Terra Nova tonight was predictable; show needs Mr Sulu running around with a sword and less pesky dinosaurs. 😉 @GeorgeTakei #
  • In the coming weeks I predict the Terra Novans discover a "lost" tribe of humans descended from a penal colony, led by Crazy Math Boy. #
  • Also in coming weeks, the little girl makes friends with a cute little dinosaur whose venom is the key to medical miracles. #
  • Meanwhile, how long do the Terra Novans have until that asteroid strike? How does the rebooted human race survive global extinction? #
  • Also in coming weeks, they meet some biped saurians who… Dun dun dun! Wear clothes when the humans aren't around! #
  • Also, one dinosaur keeps showing up at the gate in curlers and a housedress trying to borrow a cup of sorghum. #recycledplots #TerraNova #
  • And isn't it Terra Antiqua? #
  • Oh, wait, they also have to find a mysterious transmitter. #recycledplots #TerraNova #Lost #Earth2 #
  • Checking in on my desktop to see what's happening at Boston #OWS #BostonGA as it won't run on iPad… http://t.co/4PeACYw5 #
  • Oh, shit, look at all the emergency vehicles at #BostonGA #ows now #
  • Show of strength… stand fast. #OWS #BostonGA #
  • Okay, camera position has settled now. Police lines forming, moving in? Keeps moving around.#BostonGA #OWS #
  • Uh, oh, stream went down. Probably needs more batteries. #OWS #BostonGA #
  • Most likely, guy ran out of batteries, or the power was cut. If the latter, shame on you, #BPD #BostonGA #OWS #
  • And we're LIVE again! YAY!!!! #
  • Lot of movement, looks like bedding or banners being hauled to the curb? #BostonGA #OWS #
  • Think those big trucks might be for garbage hauling, not people arresting…. #
  • Park at second camp looks mostly cleared, big crowd of people in the upper left #OWS #BostonGA #
  • Hey, Boston Police! No pizza for you! #BostonGA #OWS #
  • Some of my UK based corporate road warriors would get all stabby for this "office chair" http://t.co/6dyznyZr http://t.co/r9d1CxqR #
  • Back to MyPad, because the official Facebook app for iPad doesn't have a "post" button when I try to comment. #
  • Watching Mythbusters. We have a long tradition in the family of wearing chicken buckets on our heads so this ep made me HAPPEH. #fb #
  • A History of Conservative Panic: Crooks And Liars needs to be shouted on every corner. H/t @Proudlib http://t.co/rfpuhxCS #
  • At the vet for @MrRileycat_Esq 's blood test. It's a twice-weekly thing but he's doing pretty well. #fb #
  • Home again. @MrRileycat_Esq will eventually deign to cuddle up but is too busy staring accusingly. #fb #

Powered by Twitter Tools