Blog – Page 2 – End of Silence

Spamorama

Jun 072007

I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been getting hammered with comment spam, which seems really odd since this blog has essentially become a mirror of my delicious links with a few legitimate posts thrown in for good measure.

I’ve got a few posts that I’ve been meaning to complete for several weeks, but for now I’ll pass on from Kristy that Sonic is having free root beer floats from 8pm-midnight tonight to promote their later hours. Mmmmm…root beer. Anybody know if they use real root beer or that caffeine-laced stuff like Barq’s?

Blogger / Bloglines RSS Problem

Blog, Geek No Responses »

Feb 062007

Maybe Google’s Blogger shouldn’t have come out of beta just yet…

I’ve noticed over the last week or so that some of the Blogger-hosted blogs that I subscribe to via Bloglines have disappeared. I did a test post over on my Blogger account that I never use. Chris also mentioned something about this today.

Blogger’s been encouraging people to switch over and use their Google accounts as a login and switch to the new and improved Blogger. That’s all well and good, but it seems that something’s not quite right with the RSS feeds.

First off, it sucks that RSS feeds can’t be automatically redirected. I’m pretty sure that there are ways to do this, but Blogger doesn’t seem too worried about helping with it.

Up until recently, I’ve subscribed to the RSS feeds of Blogger-hosted blogs at http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?bsuser=blogname. In fact, Bloglines even gives you a shortcut in their add subscription interface under the Communities section that allows you just to enter the Blogger username of the blog and they do the rest. The problem is that this shortcut still points to the old feeds. The new format seems to be http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default. Hitting that URL directly returns the RSS XML. If you try to subscribe to that URL in Bloglines, it lets you add the subscription, but you don’t get any new updates. Adding the new RSS URLs in Google Reader works just fine, not surprising, since Google obviously owns the reader and they own Blogger.

I sent an e-mail to Bloglines asking about the problem. I’m not sure that there’s anything to be done from Blogger’s end, but we’ll see. I’ll update if I hear something. I can’t be the only one having this problem.

If they don’t get it fixed soon, it could shove me into Google Reader’s waiting arms. I tried them a few months ago and decided to stay with Bloglines. It might be time for another look. Coincidentally,Â Lifehacker has an article touting Google Reader today.
[tags]blogger, bloglines, rss, feeds, googlereader, google[/tags]

5th Blogaversary – a little late

Blog, Family No Responses »

Jan 312007

The 20th of this month was my 5 year blogaversary. The first post was January 20th 2002. I’m on my third hosting provider and my second blogging platform since that time. I’m still at the same company and the nearly three-year-old who was driving me insane at that time will be 8 tomorrow.

Long Overdue

Blog No Responses »

Nov 242006

After nearly a year on WordPress, I finally moved all of the photo albums that had been in Gallery to Flickr. I also corrected all of the internal links that were based on my old content management system. Of course, this won’t fix all of the external links that have also been bad for the past year. I did some work on a redirect that’ll translate the old URLs, but it’s probably too late for that to do any good, not sure if I’ll finish it.

Brain Droppings

Blog, Entertainment No Responses »

Aug 082006

Somebody must think my blog is a depressing read because I’m getting completely hammered with spam for an antidepressant that rhymes with “smell boot trim” over the past 24 hours. I’m not the only one having this problem as David Sifry’s latest State of the Blogosphere says that 70% of the pings that Technorati receives are from known spam sources.

Janet Jackson is still hawt. I had a bit of thing for her on Good Times and Different Strokes. I think my infatuation reached it’s peak around the time “Anytime, Anyplace” was released. I was living in NYC at the time.

Speaking of NYC, JMG posted about rents there today. I had a one room apartment in the East Village for $800/month and it was a dump. I imagine it’s probably doubled by now.

The Internets are full of tributes to Love frontman Arthur Lee who died last week. Where the hell have I been? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of this band and neither had The Wife. We consider ourselves fairly saavy. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Bastards.

New Rescue Me tonight. Season three is drawing to a close and the show still doesn’t disappoint. The opening sequence last week was awesome. Fire plus apartment marijuana growing operation equals stoned firefighters and ensuing hilarity. I’m sure that must’ve actually happened at some point although the smell should’ve been enough of a clue to don the respirators.

I watched Zathura on Sunday night with the kids. There’s lots to recommend it. I’d kill to have the house in the film. The set design is excellent. Several funny lines from both kids. I had a hard time separating Dax from his Punk’d persona and I’m inclined to like almost anything Tim Robbins does. I liked it better than Jumani, the other Chris Van Allsburg book I’ve seen adapted to film. I never saw Polar Express. Plus, Peter Billingsley, aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story was a co-producer on the film. How could you not like that? And as a completely random aside to see if Scott H. is reading this, any idea why Peter Billingsley got a “thanks” credit on Mysterious Skin?

P.S. This is a personal best for most IMDB links in a single post.

[tags]mysteriousskin, peterbillingsley, zathura, rescueme, love, arthurlee, janetjackson, spam, davidsifry, nyc, realestate, joemygod[/tags]

All Talk

Blog, Family 2 Responses »

Jul 132006

Letting del.icio.us autopost my links for the day has turned this into a bookmark blog. It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d actually post something here once in a while. I’ve been channelling most of my blogging energy over at the Austin Metblog. I resurrected the sidebars that show what I’m currently reading, listening to, watching. I’m using the AMM plug-in for that. It’s pretty sweet. I never did port over the comments from the old blog. I may get around to that this weekend. There are at least three or four other projects that I’ve started, but never finished.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my new obsession, Rescue Me. I think I blew it off originally because I thought it was going to focus too much on 9/11. I probably also dismissed it because Denis Leary has had so many failed TV shows. I’ve always found his stand-up a mediocre substitute for Bill Hicks. However, the show is amazing. It’s funny. It doesn’t pull any punches. All of the characters are flawed, but you are drawn in by them. The second season finale is what grabbed me and then the new season has kept me. I picked up the first two seasons on DVD a couple of weeks ago from Target. They were a steal at $19.99.

Home life has been filled mostly with finishing the bathroom remodel that began at the end of March. Now that it’s actually finished, I intend to get a little before-after action going on Flickr. Look for that this weekend. We watched a lot of World Cup last month and mourned the Mavs loss in the NBA finals to the Heat.

My in-laws bought a house two blocks away and are in the process of remodeling that. It appears they’ll move here in September or October if nothing changes. The Boy has various summer camps this month.

[tags]rescueme, metblog, austin, family, amm[/tags]

Picture of the week

Blog, Family, Geek 2 Responses »

Feb 252006

For those friends and family that made it through the site move, I’m obviously behind in moving everything. I’m moving the “Picture of the Week” for the kids to Flickr. I’ll have a Flickr set for each kid. You’ll have to be a Flickr member and I’ll have to mark you as friend or family in order for you to see the set. The Boy’s is there now and I’ll have La’s up by Monday. It appears that the comments didn’t make it through the move either and I’ll have to do a custom import for those. I also still need to see if I can get a Rewrite Rule working so that the old posts in phpNuke will go to the new location in WordPress. Yeah.

Getting There

Blog 2 Responses »

Jan 262006

I managed to get all of the old posts loaded last night and the Paul Tatara Movie Review Database (TM) is back as well. I’ll move on to the comments in the next day or so. I also need to see if I can get a rewrite rule working so that you can still reach the posts via their old URLs.

I will survive

Blog No Responses »

Jan 252006

Gloria Gaynor would be proud. I’m in the process of making a break with my old hosting company and hoping that the new one treats me a little better. I’m taking the opportunity to scrap the old website as well, so things are going to be a little screwed up for the next several days. I’ve got to figure out how to import all of my old posts into this new format and it’ll take some time to move over some of the other stuff. I haven’t settled on a theme yet, so feel free to suggest your favorites if you’re a WordPress user.

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