Monthly Archives: June 2002

just like old times

Last night, I went with Ricky and Tammy to the Birmingham Steeldogs game. It was a good enough game, and it actually went into overtime. We lost, but oh well. At least the overtime period somewhat subsidized the $3.25 20-ounce Diet Coke I bought at the game.

Afterward, we all went over to Ricky’s parents’ house, where I got to see Dave and Cammie Eanes, Ricky’s brother and sister-in-law, for the first time since Ricky and Tammy’s wedding. I got to see Jacob again (he’s over a year old now), and their chocolate Lab, Mocha (I’m so jealous; that’s exactly the type of dog that I want one day). We all talked a lot, and played a little impromptu Smush. Good times.

Today, my grandparents returned from a two-week trip west with a couple of friends of theirs. They put about 6500 miles on their friends’ car, going all the way out to California, up the coast to Washington, and then back east again. Once again, something that I want to do one day.

let the countdown begin

One month until the big move!

favorite villain?

Here’s a question for you all…what’s your favorite villain character from any medium (movie, TV show, even cartoon if you’d like), and why?

There are some relatively obvious choices here, but I’ll go with one that’s just a little unconventional: Warden Norton from The Shawshank Redemption. There’s just something completely sinister about the way he looks at Andy after Andy’s been in “the hole” for a month, and gets that “I hold your life in my hands, and you know it” look in his eyes. “Am I making myself clear? Or am I being obtuse?” Just another reason it’s my favorite movie.

Although I’m really tempted to choose (if only for the name) “The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight” from The Tick.

images and colophon update

I’ve finished changing all of the GIF files over to PNGs on all of the pages. I’ve also updated the colophon with some additional information about design decisions (such as GIF-to-PNG) and some future goals of the site.

thoughts move, and image switching

The old thoughts section is being mothballed. I’ve moved most of the old thoughts into the archives section of the blog itself (you’ll find all of the former sections in the category listing of the archives). A couple of thoughts haven’t been moved over yet, because they encompassed multiple pages when originally written, and that’s the way I liked their layout. So I haven’t figured out exactly what to do with them yet. For now, they stay where they are.

Another change that no one should really notice is that for the most part, I’ve switched all of the GIFs on the site to PNG files. I could go into a bunch of rhetoric about how GIFs are copyrighted and so on, but I’ll save you all that. Let’s just put it this way…their file sizes are smaller. Smaller file size = quicker download time. And bandwidth saving for us, although that’s not really a big deal. We’ll never come close to our bandwidth limit. 🙂

national pride

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Well, by now if you care (or even if you just frequent ESPN’s website), you know by now. I watched it, as I’ve done all the games for us this time around. I have to say, I’m really proud of this team.

<Soapbox>
A lot of people don’t care a lick about soccer. And I can understand that. After all, it’s never been very popular here; we’ve got other major sports to fill all the days in the calendar year, all much more popular than soccer. A lot of people think it’s a boring game (and I’ll admit, I was in this camp for a long time before I saw a few games) because there isn’t a lot of scoring.

That being said, this is the most important sports event in the world. It blows the Super Bowl out of the water. Don’t believe me? Find out just how many people will watch it worldwide. Don’t be surprised if the total’s close to two billion – roughly one-third of the world’s population.

If you just can’t see yourself getting into soccer full-time, that’s okay. Treat it like the Olympics. After all, how often do we watch track and field or gymnastics (Alabama and Georgia college fans notwithstanding) other than every four years? But we’ll cheer the U.S. and its players on like we were foremost experts in whatever the event happens to be.

This team outplayed the three-time champions of the game for most of the game. Even someone like me, who doesn’t understand many of the nuances of the game could see that. We like the underdog here, even if we don’t get a chance to be it very often as far as sporting events are concerned. After all, this country was founded by some of the biggest underdogs.

My point is, when the tournament comes around again in 2006 (and in a little bit better of a timeslot for us, considering it’ll be in Germany this time instead of Asia), at least tune it in for a little while. I bet you’ll find yourself cheering the team on. And who knows? You may actually get to like the game.
</Soapbox>

now that’s good eatin’

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Tonight, Ricky, Tammy and I went to Johnny Ray’s. I hadn’t had barbecue for a few weeks, so I was in a BBQ mood. It was as good as I’d hoped. Johnny Ray’s has just about the best onion rings in the world, I’d have to say.

Now, I’m hoping that I can fall asleep quickly enough to let me get a decent amount of sleep before the soccer game at 6 tomorrow morning.

movable type-powered at last!

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It took the better part of a night and quite a few mistakes along the way to get there, but I think that I’ve got Movable Type working pretty well now.

You might notice that there are a couple of new features on the site with this content management system. The first is the addition of topics to the entries. At the end of every entry, you’ll see the category I chose to put that particular entry into. Clicking that link will take you to all the entries I’ve ever done that fit in that topic. (Needless to say, it wasn’t very much fun going through all the old entries and classifying them, but we care about our readers here at pressing on. 🙂 ) I still haven’t gotten them all exactly where I want them, because I haven’t made all the categories that I think I need. But the ones that I have now will work well enough for the time being. Eventually, I’ll put the category list on the front page for all to use, but I’m just too tired right now. If you’d like to see the ones that I’ve got right now, head over to the archives; a listing is located there.

Another feature is the pop-up window that you’ll get if you click on the comments link for each entry. This is just a quicker way to see the comments of an entry if you’ve already read the entry itself. You can also leave comments that way.

So everyone enjoy…

the great server switch of 2002

Yep, it’s 4:20

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What on earth am I doing up at this time of day? Scoring one for foolish optimism. We’re in the final eight in the World Cup now…does that officially make us a soccer nation?

I saw Scott and Kelley Shirley yesterday at church, and went over to their house for lunch. Kudos to Scott on his great grilled chicken.

Work on my “masterpiece” (snicker) continues; I’m in the midst of chapter eight right now. Most of my work has been spent fleshing out characters and locations. I’ve gotten the feeling that this is going to take a little longer to complete than I thought it would. Writing is not easy. I know that I’ll go back through this first draft, once I eventually get it down, and tear it apart. But it’s fun, a way to pass time, and it’s a new experience. I haven’t really attempted a story of this length before.