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Archives from 2002-2006

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.

October 26, 2007

Show of hands, how many of you find those widget boxes in the righthand sidebar to be useful? If you don’t read those other blogs, I promise my feelings won’t be hurt, I’m just trying to figure out if they’re handy for the folks who are interested in seeing when I’ve updated—or if, as I’m starting to suspect, they’re just cluttering up the page and also triggering random crashes in some Mac browsers.

Speaking of other blogs, I posted the pumpkin-chocolate muffin recipe over here. Warning: your eyes may become stuck at the top of your skull in orgasmic delight as a result of eating those things. Also, I take no responsibility for what might happen to your ass (I’m pretty sure mine has grown three times in size, just like the Grinch’s heart).

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