I installed a new WordPress theme yesterday, and so far I’m pretty happy with it—it’s a 3-column layout, so there’s more room to stuff various crap in the sidebar without shoving it all down to the bottom of the page. For those of you who use the widgets, there they are on the right (theoretically, anyway, I haven’t tested this on more than two computers); for those who claim the widgets make your eyes hurt, JONNIKER, you can just ignore that side of the page. Unless they give your browser fits, in which case 1) I’m really sorry, and 2) tough titties, because I don’t know how to fix that.

I also don’t know how to fix the one really big problem I have with this otherwise great theme, which is that the middle content column is too narrow for my photos, which are typically 500 pixels wide (the ones in this post are smaller). I figured I could just change that left column to be a bit more narrow, and make the middle column bigger, but when it comes to tinkering with the mysterious language that lives in those WordPress theme files, I’m sort of a mouthbreathing rhesus monkey, jabbing my clumsy banana-coated fingers at various keys, hooting angrily, and eventually throwing feces at the screen. I’ve already broken this site seven ways to Sunday trying to adjust those columns, and I think it’s time to admit I’m too damn stupid to do it. If any of you know your way around a pile of CSS, I could REALLY use your help. Shoot me an email and I’ll show you the stylesheet that’s been consuming me all weekend. Then you can point out the super-easy, even-a-shit-flinging-monkey-could-figure-this-out fix, and I’ll create a little shrine in your honor and worship your effigy every single night for a year. Unless that would be weird.

[Update: this has now been fixed, I think, by my GENIUS friend Jon.]

In non-website news, Riley sort of picked out a Halloween costume yesterday. Well, we were in the costume aisle at Fred Meyers and he was yelling “TOO FREAKY! TOO FREAKY!” about the giant inflatable pumpkin with an inflatable ghost slowly popping in and out of the top in what was, I have to agree, a completely freaky (and slightly dirty) manner, and when I found the one remaining costume in a size 2T and held it up for him, he replied with “NO PUMPKIN MOMMY. BYE BYE PUMPKIN!” so while I guess you can’t say he picked it out, he didn’t technically object to it either.

Anyway, it turns out the costume is supposed to be a mummy outfit, and it is formed of the cheapest, nastiest, most synthetic/flammable substance on earth—like nylon, except even more plastic-y somehow. It’s paper-thin and comes with various dangling strips that I guess are supposed to be loosened mummy wrappings, and the whole thing fastens with weak velcro pads which rip open at the slightest movement. The arms are weirdly short while the legs are miles too long, and there’s a silly head covering with a pair of glowering mummy eyes painted on the front.

It’s a piece of crap, but my boy had a ball wearing it yesterday, running around the (new!) living room and yelling “RAWR!” in his best mummy voice. I guess we’ll give it a spin on Wednesday, staying well away from open flames, gusts of wind, and children sporting home-sewed outfits made from organic sustainably-harvested alpaca.

mummy2small_07.jpg

mummy_small07.jpg

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Deanna
Deanna
16 years ago

He’s a cute mummy!!! Love that the legs are rolled up. :) I posted this on Sundry Buzz, but have to say again, LOVE the Pumpkin-Chocolate Muffins!!!

Liz
Liz
16 years ago

I like this theme! Very nice.

Lilia LOVES the giant inflatable pumpkin at QFC. She says “Where’d it go?” (“Way go?”) and “There it is!” (“Day diz!”)

Riley is an adorable little cursed corpse.

Marie Green
16 years ago

Cool new look! And the costume is cute- with your love (? hate?) of zombies, this is perfect!

Andrea
16 years ago

I love the new layout, very pleasing on the eyes.

Riley makes a very cute mummy and I am guessing you won’t run into 1,000 other two year old mummies on Halloween. Unlike ourselves who went for the Old Navy monkey costume and have now seen at least 270 other of the same monkey and it isn’t even Halloween yet. But really, how many of those kids will “oo oo, ee ee aaa aaa” and dance for you?

Philos
16 years ago

The new theme is cool and looks good. Hopefully someone will straighten out the column width problem for you.

Leslie
Leslie
16 years ago

My right column remained sadly empty except for a line at the verrrry bottom taunting “My other blogs.” The widgets only loaded when I went to Comments.

I’m not complaining, being of the feces-throwing monkey ilk myself. I just wanted you to know for when you got the email from the CSS genius.

Mel
Mel
16 years ago

I love the new lay[out, too. It’s easy to browse trough the links and, especially, the coments section, with my screen reading program. I’m glad the mummy is so wrapped up in delight for your son.

Sarah
16 years ago

Your child is darling, as always. :) I’ve asked Jon to lend the necessary CSS help. He should respond when Princess awakens from his nap.

p.s. What happened to mini-Hef??

She Likes Purple
16 years ago

I like the new site! Geez, I have to do something about mine.

wilddreemer
16 years ago

love the costume sooo cute. love the new theme too. i would love three columns but blogger is a whore and doesn’t offer that

Trena
16 years ago

If Jon can’t look at it for you, I’d be happy to take a gander for you. It’s usually a pretty easy tweak.

jonniker
16 years ago

HAAAAAAAA. I think I’ll find a way to pick up the pieces. You did send Josh my way, after all.

And ho ho HO! I like the new theme! I dropped by earlier and thought I’d mistyped the URL and moved on, but lo! I was wrong. It looks great, and yeah, the photo issue comes up on my site, too, but I am essentially but a mere rhesus monkey embryo, which is why I pay people to do such things. And by “people” I mean my husband, who usually requests his payment in the sexual favor department.

Eric's Mommy
Eric's Mommy
16 years ago

Hey, love the new site. It will take a little getting used to but it looks really good! I also like how your comments come up in yellow.

Riley’s mummy costume is cute, Eric saw the picture and said, “What a cute little boy” he approves of the costume too.

warcrygirl
16 years ago

HAHAHA!!! I love it. At least you didn’t wrap him head to toe in paper towels like that one mother at the Halloween party did. He kid was too afraid to move for fear of ruining his costume. After 10 minutes of watching the other kids play he said “fuck it!” and tore it off. And yeah, I was digging on the Mini-Hef.

Jennifer
Jennifer
16 years ago

Hey, looky there at the new living room. Is that new furniture?

Fantastic costume! More loose tape would be even better, can you bring along a roll of TP on Wednesday to tuck in stray pieces here and there as he loses the ones he’s got now? He definitely has the “mummy stance” down — zombie-like arms stretched out front.

He looks like a well-hung mummy what with that diaper in his pants.

jen
jen
16 years ago

omfg. i love this costume!!

new page looks hot. im so happy the widgets are still in place. ;p

Josh
16 years ago

I’m constantly amazed at the attention to detail your readers apply to your photos. Specifically all the decoration crap. Not that your decorations or your house is crap. It looks great. I just never notice any of it. I look at a picture and see a kid dressed up like a mummy. Your other readers are all like “Dang Sundry, nice new couch I haven’t seen that before. And I love the socks! JB’s watch is sweet, where’d you get it? I think my brother has that same carpet in his den. Your throw pillows remind me of some rediculously obscure background crap in a photo you posted twelve years ago. Was JB sitting directly on that hanger or what?” Maybe I’m the weird one, who knows. (no actually I’m definately the weird one)

Riley looks awesome. Mummies are the shit. Hefner can suck a chode compared to mummies. I’m not really getting why they would print eyes over top of the face hole, but other than that it looks mad scary. (In a “woodland creature leading it’s young offspring down to a babbling brook next to a rainbow” sort of way)

Side note: Yay! The blogroll is back up. You are supreme overlord of all thing internet. We bow before you hip informed opinions of what we should read.

Jennifer
Jennifer
16 years ago

Josh — some of us are detail freaks. It’s a genetic thing. I have been labeled “a promiscuous noticer” many times. But you know, it was not until you said something that I noticed the hanger.

Jon
Jon
16 years ago

Potential CSS fix sentYAYYYYY! :)

Leslie
Leslie
16 years ago

I was using Internet Explorer 7.0. I checked with Firefox, and the widgets popped right up. At the top, too, which is nice: In its former life, your blog/my laptop was shoving them to the very bottom of the page.

Kate
16 years ago

Heh, that reminds me of that old SNL skit with Jane Curtain where Dan Aykroyd was pitching “Invisible Pedestrian” and “Johnny Human Torch” Halloween costumes.

stormy
stormy
16 years ago

LOVE the couch, where’s it from?

Kristie
16 years ago

Cutest mummy I’ve seen in a long time!

claire
16 years ago

Riley as a mummy is ADORABLE. Adorable.

stephanie brown
16 years ago

haha i noticed the new couches as well. been readin’ ya for 4 years and counting so it’s hard not to feel like one of those distant relatives that you hate picking up the phone to call because no one actually wants to go through the “hey, how ya been” hour long conversation…so instead you add eachother on myspace because you still do care enough to stand on the sidelines and see what’s happenin’. yup that’s me! lol :)

stephanie brown
16 years ago

did you see how long my sentence was? sorry bout that, haha

Average Jane
16 years ago

Aww, he looks cute. And I notice that your husband and I have a Threadless shirt in common. I should wear all of my monster-themed t-shirts this week in lieu of a costume…

Swistle
16 years ago

Aw, he looks like a darling little hardwood floor!

Kaire
16 years ago

You know, put the smoking jacket on him and he could still be Hef … Hef is that old isn’t he?

Leslie
Leslie
16 years ago

This morning, widgets are present and accounted for. Woot!

Teralyne
16 years ago

I like the new look and I loved the pumpkin chocolate muffins to pieces. I made a doble batch I had a bunch of peeps wanting to taste em. These things got rave reviews all around thank you.

The boy is cute as a mummy too.

superblondgirl
16 years ago

Cute!! Maybe you could throw on some organic alpaca socks to appease the hippie mamas.
I heart 3-column themes – I’ve got one, too, and it is so much better for all the 8000 linky-things that otherwise get lost in the shuffle.

Christina
16 years ago

I love the new layout and also how the comments show your comments back in yellow – too cool! As Matthew would say “ohhh FANCY”!!

Oh, I love that costume !!! I totally know the fabric/Velcro/flame inducing fabric that you speak of. I was THAT close to buying a Bob the Builder costume for Matthew like this but my husband objected to it. He was all WTF $20 bucks for that??? Cheap MF!! SO we went with the $20 Bob the builder belt & construction hat (that would only fit Bob’s round ass head), a checkered shirt, jeans and brown shoes. Whateva… I will SOOOOO never be that mom who would hand stitch a flipping outfit. Buy or make it easy (like the Bob outfit!)… that’s my motto!

Levitz… holy shit forgot about that store! We need a new couch or some combination of something to sit on in the basement but we also took Matthew furniture shopping and well the memory will likely scar me for life!

Becky
Becky
16 years ago

I love the costume…
I love the new site…
I love the couch and rug….

Jennifer
Jennifer
16 years ago

sweet jesus. i am writing you from the beyond as the cute has killed me. what a cute costume! i love the rolled-up mummy legs!

Brooke
16 years ago

Awesome mummy costume [makes notes for next year’s costume for a 6 month old]

Your widgets have always worked on my machine, and I drive the latest Mac OS/Safari versions.

I love the list of other blogs. I have bookmarked the ones I read, but it’s easier to click on them from your page. I also use the widgets to get to your other blogs.

Bunny
16 years ago

I guess it’s a little late now, but he could totally pull of being a zombie.

The Other Jen
16 years ago

New site layout is radical to the max. Ditto on the costume.

Carly
Carly
16 years ago

Love the three columns! You cited the exact same reason I have them: more room to stuff stuff.

Riley is adoracute, of course. Now teach him how to scale walls a la The Mummy…

Banana
16 years ago

I like the new layout a lot! Veedy Nice.

Also, cutest mummy pic! With his arms out like that?!?! So cute.

telegirl
telegirl
16 years ago

OMG, I hand-stitched a Charlie Brown shirt for my little one last night. But rest assured, if it goes anything beyond hand-stitching a zig-zag, I’m out. It’s just too complicated for me.

By the way, I like the new format, but the widgets are waaaaaaay down here on the right for me. IE6 SP2.

lil foots mommy
16 years ago

Awwww…he’s adorable!!!

toddler halloween costumes

What a great costume idea.. I love it!

AlanAlen
15 years ago

Thanks for the post. Poznovatelno.