ThinkingSkull.com

I don’t often send packages unless it’s around Christmas time or I’m returning a item I’ve ordered online. The video contest I recently entered required me to send in a DVD copy, so I found an old padded mailer, tapped over the old info, readdressed it, and off to the post office I went.

I get to the clerk, hand her the already-addressed and sealed envelope, and tell her I need postage for it. She points to a screen with five options on it, priced from 75 cents all the way up to $16 bucks, and asks me to choose. I chose the 75 cents, to which she says, “This isn’t a letter, it’s a padded envelope.”

Okay, so I pick the next one up, for $1. “You didn’t put it in a first-class mailer,” she smiles.

I say, “I just want the cheapest one that I can send this with.”

Again with the smile. “I’m a salesperson, sir. You have to choose. I’ll recommend the 16-dollar one, if you ask me.”

“Then why can’t I see just the options that apply to what I’m mailing?”

“We encourage you to do your own research of our products, sir,” was the stupid response I got. Fine. My “research” then consisted of me reading off every option from cheapest to costliest until she at last accepted it, much to the frustration of the person in line behind me. And she just kept on smiling.

I equate this to basically the same frustration of putting money into a soda machine and pushing buttons only to find out that the machine is empty and the little “choose again” lights are on the fritz. I have no idea what options apply to what I’m sending… that’s why I brought it in to the post office to begin with. I didn’t need a moonlighting school teacher; I was looking for a knowledgeable postal worker.

I think I liked the post office better when the workers were disgruntled and carried firearms.

Sure, there were only six entires, but now “The Public” (that’s you) get to vote on your favorite video to be selected for showing at the Jacksonville Film Festival.

Now is the part where I beg; I made the “Jacksonville.com: NOT Scary” entry. Vote for me right here!!!

So there was a local contest with the 2008 Jacksonville Film Festival for entries to make a 30-second ad. Heck, there were only a couple up there, so with 12 hours left before the deadline, The Reaper and I put a story and shot list together, took 2 hours to engineer the graphics, 90 minutes to shoot, and 2 hours in editing to upload it with 15 minutes to spare. Hey, it may not win the contest, but to go from concept to finish in under 12 hours is a feat I wasn’t sure I could pull of with any real (or reel?) quality.

The video is on Jacksonville.com, and mine is called “Jacksonville.com: NOT Scary.” With any luck, they’ll show it all over the festival. And yes, The Reaper is officially now a commercial whore. Enjoy!

Saw this on Boortz.com as pointed out by a friend, a view of the American election as reported in Dutch newspaper.

‘We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.
On one side, you have a lawyer who is married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a lawyer.
On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a blonde with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.
Is there a contest here?’

Breathing slowly, breathing slowly. Okay, better.

I noticed a traffic spike, which means unusually high server traffic coming into my movie site. Low and behold when I traced the source back to origin, SciFi.com has not only positively reviewed MovieCrypt, they’ve hailed it as their “Site of the Week!” Here’s what they said (before they change their minds):

April 23, 2008
Movie Crypt
By A.M. Dellamonica

For those viewers who shun horror movies, with their focus on death, scares and the darkest aspects of human nature, it may come as a surprise to hear that this genre is often one of the best sources going for pure—even zany—fun. Horror fans take unabashed delight in their gore and mayhem, whether it’s served up in stylish, funny-on-purpose zombie comedies like Fido and Shaun of the Dead or in grimmer pictures like Hannibal, whose campy moments are the funnier for being unintentional.

The sense of glee, of laughing in the face of death, is a big part of what makes horror fan sites so appealing, and Movie Crypt is no exception to that rule. With reviews, DVD contests, countdowns to anticipated flicks and a listing of trailers for both big-budget releases and independent films (be sure to check out the official preview for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead!), this site offers comprehensive coverage of stylish suspense films and cheesy slasher flicks alike.

Movie Crypt’s resident Grim Reaper is an active web host, publishing the occasional rant—on the “green” makeover of the new The Day the Earth Stood Still script, for example, and the casting of Orlando Bloom as the title character in The Prince of Persia—as well as participating in friendly debates with site visitors, on topics like the probable quality of the new Indiana Jones movie. Upbeat, articulate and with attitude to spare, he disinters the forgotten and overlooked gems of the horror cinema, helping fans find movies that are now—or may someday be—true classics.

Can I meet Kara Thrace now?

As I came to realize, I wasn’t doing anything wrong in my evil attempt to bend Blogger to my sinister will and become a puppet-like mouthpiece for my movie website. Turns out their system was having an issue, not what I was doing. See? This why sometimes it’s a good thing to quit and walk away because it may not even be your fault!

As I’ve had to consolidate all my instant message programs (using http://meebo.com) to communicate online with everyone I’d like to connect with, it has come to my attention that an equal number of bloggers refuse to acknowledge any posts outside their own network. It’s called an RSS reader, people!

No matter. As I attempted to divine a solution as clever as Meebo for my multi-blog problem (because EVERY network wants your blog on their network to mine for data), how to allow posts from one to update to all the others every time I get the whim to post?

As it turns out, nearly every blog also wants you to be able to post from anywhere, including email. And since I prefer to use WordPress, it occurred to me that someone else may have thought, “If I could just email my updates to every other blogging system out there, no one would be left out.” Good news, folks… if this test works, the problem’s solved.

I keep tweaking that new header image up there, so it’s not your imagination. And I’ve finally got more than a few buddies using Twitter now, so I’ve integrated a new toy in the sidebar to watchdog all the Twitters I’m following (and on Facebook, too). Any other suggestions out there?

I seriously have no intent to start a public photo album of images showing myself, but there are a few of you out there that, for whatever voyeuristic reasons you have, must put a face to the text. Well, there ya go, something integrated into a little image I’ve been working on just for the heck of it. There’s a better one someplace on the site, but you’ll have to find it if you really have nothing better to do.

Yes, I put my movie site’s banner up there, but it’s REALLY cool! Besides, it directs traffic where I want it to go… where I get paid. Enjoy!

I was going to start this post by saying, “It sucks to be a single American man in today’s day and age if you have any hope or desire to create a family.” It dawned on me only after I wrote it that I was wrong; I should be asking this question instead: “What do women expect from men?”

Here’s where I’m coming from. Expectations in any relationship used to be clearly defined and advertised, even handed down from parent to child. Nowadays, anyone can be anything they want, and as soon as one partner wants something else, there’s no dedication to a commitment to hold them back from it; someone wins, someone loses, and periodically kids and debts are in the middle. What used to be the lament of “nice guys” everywhere has now grown to an outcry from almost all men. It’s no longer a question of being a protector, a lover, a provider, or a partner; even those few of men who can manage all of the above can’t seem to hold a relationship together… in the traditional sense.

Maybe that’s where “The American Dream” disappeared to (if it ever really existed at all). Husband, wife, kids, car, house, happiness, retirement… crap. It was expected and government sponsored. But consider the two-income household to meet debts, creating the career woman who doesn’t need a man (again, in the traditional sense). If a woman projects that she “has it all” and needs nothing from a man (which, to be fair, is kind of what men have held over women for a while), what can he do to entice her to stay?

How about this question: “Are meaningful relationships even relevant anymore?” Meet, reproduce, make alimony and child support payments. Is that all there is now? Does anyone even want a family anymore? After all, there will always been men pursuing women no matter how much men are pushed away or must endure for the little companionship they seek, right?

Maybe the need to be needed by someone is something men need to get over, that the “save the damsel” mentality that has kept the human race going for thousands of years is finally spent and antiquated. Perhaps there are signs now that men are giving up trying for that brass ring, soul mate, or “the one.” Or, perhaps, it’s time for a role reversal, where men stop trying for a while and wait to be pursued. There’s always been a few “good ones” that the ladies refer to wanting, but what if men collectively just detached themselves from the whole pursuit and just took care of their own needs, period? And if that’s already happening, what might happen next?

I found the following ad on a popular website, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the tip of a whole new iceberg. Without identifying the product being advertised directly, here’s the pitch itself. Has it really come to this?

“You’re About To Learn Secrets That Most Women Will Never Know About Meeting And Keeping Great Men…” Inside you’ll learn…

• What goes on inside a man’s mind… and how attraction works for him.
• How to “cheat-proof” your relationship… and why he might be tempted.
• The ten fatal mistakes to avoid that most women make with men.
• What to do if your man has a “wandering eye”.
• The differences in how men and women think about dating… and why most men want to keep you from being successful.
• The seven secrets to communicating with a man that will create lasting love and affection.
• The truth about men who aren’t “emotionally available”… how to know if you’ve got one and what to do if you’re dating one.
• The five things women do that annoy men and kill intimacy.
• The inside tips married women know about the tell-tale signs of a great guy.

You’ve come a long way, bro.

April 15th, 2008, Uncle Sam’s April Fool’s Day, and it was BELOW 40 degrees this morning in Jacksonville, Florida. Has anyone seen our “global warming” sitting around anyplace?

At the breakup of my previous relationship, we amicably divided the assets and responsibilities. Two of those “responsibilities” were our “kids,” of which we had a rabbit and a cat. The cat always took to me better and the rabbit to her (although neither critter was ever especially fond of being held or cuddled).

We referred to our bunny as “Rupert” (last name “Giles” for those paying attention) and rescued him just before Easter weekend four or five years ago. As such, we referred to him as our Easter bunny. The term “rescue” rather then adoption refers to someone else discarding a difficult pet, often because the owner doesn’t know how to treat a bunny properly (see Rabbit.org for more enlightenment on that subject). We were under the impression that such critters properly taken care of could live to eight or nine years.

Sadly, on last Good Friday, Rupert passed away during the night. Interestingly, children celebrating the commercialized and ritualized Pagan portions of the following Sunday holiday were not disappointed that morning, which is creepy when you read way too much into it. Rest peacefully now, Rupert, and we’ll remember you every Easter along with that other guy who’s death was moved for religious purposes to Good Friday.

But please take this free piece of advice: rabbits are not merely reptile food, and for those daring to take them on as pets, please understand that they require attention and play like any cat or dog, not stuck in a painful cage like a Guinea pig or hamster. Giving them to preschoolers on Easter is not only cruel to the children but cruel to the rabbit, too. Again, see Rabbit.org and learn all about the secrets of the House Rabbits Society.

Clearly, my cat, Cinders, has been up to her evil ways again. In fact, I cannot say for sure who took this picture or even how they got in to take it… seriously, this was sent TO me. In any case, I am sure she had something to do with it (and yes, her spelling is atrocious).

Just uploaded WordPress 2.5 to my personal site, and I must say I like it. It doesn’t take long messing around with it to figure out the new logic in making it work for you. Yes, there are a few good suggestion already and I haven’t played with the new widget thingie yet, but I can tell you something I hate: the new funky “fresh” color scheme for the admin CSS layout. Worse yet, the “classic” version still really isn’t.

I went to WordPress.org and tried to find anything relevant under “admin color scheme” and found nothing significant. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough or whatever, but I decided instead to scratch the itch I’ve been having to go streaking through the new code.

It took only a peek at the source code on the “your profile” admin page to find what I was looking for: the names of the two admin CSS layouts. The folder for the CSS is easy enough to find in the WP-Admin area, and there I backed up the colors-fresh.css file. Using a couple of screen shots, I copied the color codes I wanted to replace, substituted red, black, and shades of grey for all the evil teals and blues, and uploaded. Poof! Nice new admin “fresh” layout.

It shouldn’t be too much work to create a plugin to substitute this new CSS file into the system for those who are plugin-creation savvy, which isn’t me because I haven’t taken the time yet to figure all that out. But if you want the CSS to upload yourself or make a nice plugin with, here ya go to right-click and save: colors-fresh.css.

There. Now I can officially say I’ve contributed.

According to naked.dustindiaz.com, April 9th, 2008 has been designated “CSS Naked Day.” For those of you who aren’t web acronym savvy, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet, all the bits and pieces of code that make a website look pretty and properly laid out rather than presenting plain white page with black text and blue underlined links. The idea is that by rendering sites voluntarily without any CSS, the generic and possibly inoperable sites will help promote Web Standards, the rules that Microsoft ignores with every new version of Internet Explorer so webmasters can’t make their website look the same on every browser.

Two words: screw that.

I’m what you might refer to as a “tweaker.” I love learning a new CSS tweak or website trick to make my sites do something or provide functionality beyond the ordinary. If I see something I’d like to make better if I can, I do. New color, new font, new placement, new image, whatever. So why is the promotion of Web Standards rendering hundreds of websites virtually unusable and completely dull? Worse yet, the only people who will actually understand it are the same folks actually participating.

For everyone else out there still inexplicably reading this as if i were coming to a point, here’s your payoff at last:

1. It’s like celebrating airline travel by hitchhiking.
2. It’s like celebrating mobile phones by screaming at one another.
3. It’s like celebrating toilet training by pissing yourself.

Enough with the fake Internet holidays, okay?

I know plenty of people who remember that today is April Fool’s Day, but in my house growing up, today was treated like a national holiday. Part of that was in no small part due to being my older little sister’s birthday. So, Happy Birthday, Sis, and for everybody else, good luck… we’re all counting on you.