Monthly Archives: May 2006

The Devil Wears Chocolate Chips

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While we were waiting to watch X-Men III this last weekend (Pordcast forthcoming) we saw a trailer for “The Devil Wears Prada” [I don't care if that is spelled wrong].  Except that the sound wasn’t working.  So we made up our own dialog and said it loudly.  I’m sure other patrons were slightly less impressed, but I wasn’t about to just let this Mystery Science Theater 3000 opportunity pass me by.

Chocorate Chip Cookies

Then, when we got home from the movie chocolate chip cookies had been baked.  Doh!  Now I must sacrifice my own body weight and eat them so that Jessica can maintain her diet!  Yummy.

Today is Twice as Scary as it Could Be

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Today is Friday the 26th, which is like Friday the 13th x 2.  So instead of being scared and supersticious, I challenge you to go out and walk under ladders, meddle with black cats and break several mirrors.  Since today is the 26th and you are feeling adventurous, go ahead and drive 2 x the speed limit.  If the police catch you, tell them its Friday the 26th and that things are twice as safe as they would normally be on Friday the 13th.

Other things you might want to try on this day of guaranteed safety:

  1. Run with scissors
  2. Use that canned food that has high signs of botulism
  3. Get Botox, maybe your face will look younger and still move.
  4. Go to Trinidad, CO and play a game of ‘guess their original gender’ with a megaphone*

Or, you could just go about your life in a normal fashion.  But I don’t know much about fashion.

* Trinidad is the sex change capital of the world.  But if you play this game get someone else to video record it, because that would be hilarious!

On the Extensibility of WordPress

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Using plugins with WordPress is easy. Writing other applications and giving them a ‘voice’ in WordPress is also easy. Using the RunPHP plugin I can include a page from my other application in WordPress. It appears as a part of my site, and I didn’t have to write any special post conversion tool. The biggest problem at present is integrating my content into the RSS feed [I've used a URL redirect to get my application's feed to replace WordPress' default feed]. In the case of my church’s web site I have written a message administration interface that includes file uploads and the ability to track series, teachers and lessons. Getting that information into WordPress was a quick snap due to the ability of WordPress to handle the RunPHP plugin.

You can’t beat the efficiency of writing a small interface for your data and plugging it into WordPress. Here are some screen shots of the ‘MaMA’ interface [Message and Media Administration] and then what the presentation looks like in WordPress

The 'home' view

The Series View

The HHBC site page
To note, there are things that we’re still working on to add greater functionality. but it is quite awesome to have this tool at our disposal! Thanks Matt and Team!

7 Months

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Evie is 7 months old today. She’s gotten much larger, obviously, but she’s also started developing a personality. That’s weird for parents. Not in a bad way, but in a way that says, “Hey! I’m not just a needy little baby girl, I’m a baby girl.” I can’t get enough of her smiles :) I’ll try to post some pictures soon.

Barry Bonds Did NOT Tie Babe Ruth

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To my knowledge the famed baseball player Babe Ruth (after which the candy bar was named, and also after which my daughter Abby’s middle name was not derived) still holds the record for most home runs hit without steroid usage.  I could be all wrong.  Maybe the Babe secretly injected himself with hormones, steroids or twinkies.  Barry Bonds was a promising athlete, but as soon as he started enhancing his performance with testicle shrinking performance enhancing drugs, he lost the race.  Guiness Book of Whirled Records should totally reject his new record, or at least put a good disclaimer in there.

Customer Service Terms Lead to Turn-Offs

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On the phone with a human being in India recently he related that he ‘owned’ my problem.  It was his problem to resolve and he would do it.  The problem, of course is that if he didn’t fix the problem then claiming that he owned the problem would just drive me to loathing hearing someone tell me that they were going to fix my problem by owning it.  One of the problems with script based help systems, just like a touch-tone system, is that the language becomes boring, it become irritating to customers, and it can cause the customer to perceive a poor support experience.  That is why live human being with a direction, but not a script, will be more useful.  That of course is problematic because that requires training to actually know the product.  It also requires people with personality and character.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourselves, but I’m writing it here just in case some CEO/Exec type person stumbles across it and decides he’s going to do something about it :)