happy new year!
12.31.2003
My blog is being held hostage. Well, not really. But I haven't been able to get through to Blogger today, so I'm having to post manually, so to speak.
Anyway, a friend of mine who's in Sydney, Australia just sent me some photos of New Year's celebrations down there, and they were too good to not share. (Thanks, Efrat. Smashing photos.)
I'm so jealous.
Oh yeah, follow this link: 
and maybe you (and I) can win some free stuff.
the two-column layout background problem
12.29.2003
Coming back from a fun fest of family and food, at which I once again confirmed that most of my cousins are skinnier and more stylish than I (but I'm OK with that, really), I would really like to come up with a good fix for the column background problem on this blog. What background problem, you ask? “It looks fine to me,” is what you should be saying if you're viewing this page in IE6/Win, IE5+/Mac, Safari, or any of the Mozilla browsers. Well, it does, but that's because the main content column is longer than the sidebar. On my contact confirmation page, the content column was shorter than the sidebar and the cream-colored background only extended down as far as the content, leaving a sizable gold gap above the green border. Like so:
CSS Creator uses a kind of hackish way to get around this problem: giving an outer div a side border the size and color of one of the columns, then shifting the column over on top of the border using negative margins. (See the CSS Creator example.) Call me picky, but I'm not really satisfied with this solution. What if I want to use background images on my columns? In fact, I am using a background image to create the shadow effect that you see. The CSS Creator solution does not solve my problem.
It occurs to me that since my layout is of fixed width, I could use a background image on my “wrapper” div (the one with the green border around it). I'll probably do that for now. I was thinking about making this a liquid layout, just to try it out, but I suppose that will have to be put on hold for now.
having a age-appropriate party
12.23.2003
Usually the term “age-appropriate” is used when talking about children, but it occurred to me that “age-appropriateness” is of concern for all ages. Someone I know of the 50-ish persuasion decided to plan a bit of a gag for a party wherein he and some pals also of the 50s age range would dress up like the Village People and dance to “YMCA”. Now, that's a pretty good gag for a group of guys who are ordinarily fairly reserved, and I imagined that there would be much laughing in the audience and much fun had by all.
At the party it was decided to do the dance rather late in the evening, perhaps in the belief that it would go over better once people had some drinks under their belts. Unfortunately, they put off the dance so late that most of the older people had already gone home, and the majority of their audience was made up of friends of the children of the host and hostess — in the 18-24 age range. The dance didn't go over quite as expected, which I think is really a shame. If you go to the trouble of putting together a Village People costume and getting out to strut your stuff in front of a bunch of people, I think you deserve some whoops and cheering from the audience.
So, the moral of this story is: when planning your party, make sure you consider age.
for the ears
12.22.2003
Friends and relations, lend me your ears... No, wait, you can take them back, because you're going to need them to listen to Emma's Mini on Magnatune. If you haven't heard of Magnatune, let me briefly explain that it's an innovative take on Internet music. One in which you, as a listener and buyer, feel neither guilty nor cheated. They explain it all much better than I can, so go check it out.
truth in advertising
12.20.2003
The promise on this packaging highly influenced my purchase decision.
thank you, Mr. Scorsese
12.19.2003
I am in debt to Martin Scorsese and his fellow directors for the film series The Blues that aired on PBS in October. I'd always liked the blues before, but didn't have much familiarity with it, being more into jazz and bluegrass. But now I've been made acquainted with Son House, Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, and the brilliant Corey Harris. So thank you, Scorsese et al. You have made my life richer. Television should always be so good.
Want to listen to the blues? MusicMatch Jukebox has a free blues channel. Or check out Corey Harris, Blind Willie Johnson, Son House, and others in the iTunes Music Store.
why "koko… doko?"
12.18.2003
For some years I've wanted to own a business that would put me in contact with people enjoying themselves: a coffeehouse, or bed and breakfast, or ice cream parlor. Then I got really into cooking for awhile and I thought it would be great to own a little café where I could serve all of my favorite foods: chicken enchiladas, salmon pizza, saifun with dried shrimp. I wanted to call it “koko… doko?”. “Koko wa doko desu ka?” is Japanese for “What is this place?” or “Where am I?”, which might be something you might say when you're confronted with foods from a number of different cultures. Well, I may never open the restaurant, but I can use the name here, since “where am I?” and its related questions, “What am I doing?”, “Where am I going?”, and “Why am I here?” will probably figure greatly in this site.
