01.02.06

news and notes

Posted in life, beer, fun at 1:25 pm by Brandon

Okay, if you’ve been checking this new place out and liking it, well, then good.  I’m glad you have.  I’m still rooting through the code and making a few functionality changes, but I’m sort of liking this new theme I downloaded from the wordpress collective.  I thought ’twas snazzy, so I’ve been working on making it mine own.

If you’re curious I’m using these plugins:

1. Akismet by Matt Mullenweg- Which came with the newest version of wordpress and it handles spam (so far, it does so quite nicely).
2. Bunny’s Technorati Tags by Stephanie Booth - This one allows me to simply plug my tags in on the bottom of my post writing screen instead of futzing with the HTML like I used to have to do.
3. Gravatar by Tom Werner - If you noticed Allison’s comment, there’s an avatar of her daughter Maya (sp?).  This is done by a plugin called gravatar.  If you’d like to have your own little avatar, go over to Gravatar and upload a picture you’d like to represent yourself.  It’s a bit cheesy, but hey, I’m a sucker for new technology that provides little to no functionality, is a waste of bandwith (even if it is someone else’s bandwith), but is freakin’ cool.
4. Recent Comments by Nick Momrick - As you notice, there’s a link to recent comments (as there has been) on the right.  I had to change the ORDER BY portion of the SQL statement in the plugin to order by comment_date rather than by comment_id because when I made the switch from B2evolution, my comment id’s got royally screwed up…probably beyond all reconciliation; however, the comment_date fix seemed to help.
5. Stattraq and StatCounter - I’m using both.  This is area I’m least impressed with WordPress thus far.  I can’t find a good stat program to save my life.  B2evolution had a nice package included in its backoffice.  If you know of a good plugin that would simplify my stat tracking and be comprable in quality to what I had with b2evo, I’m all ears.
6. WP Comment Quick Tags by Thomas Montague - This was inspired by Zalm’s blog.  I just think it’s nice and handy for commenters to be able to click tags rather than having to screw with the html tags on their own.  I hope you agree.

In other, more exciting, news: I drank my first litre of Chimay Grande Reserve on Christmas Eve this year!!!  It was as good as I had dreamed.  I was even allowed to do my own pouring–which, if you’re not really into bottle conditioned Belgian ales, is pretty important–so no nasty yeast gulps at the end.  I honestly couldn’t taste any off flavours.  ‘Twas everything I’d hoped.  I’m afraid, though, that I’m hooked.

I had another beer too, a Belgian.  But, damn if it wasn’t right before the Chimay and my memory as to what that beer was was simply washed away by the scent of Chimay in the warm Florida evening.  When I come across it’s name, I’ll give some notes on it.

I know that some time ago I set out to become the Sufjan Stevens of beer.  As with many of the little side projects and hobbies (aside from blogging) that I like to take on, this one slipped to the wayside.  Well, friends, I’d like to pick up where I left off here writing more about beer in 2006.  We’ll call it a New Year’s Resolution.  And, while we’re on the topic of New Year’s Resolutions, I’m thinking its time for my annual pseudo-diet.

Some of you may think it odd for me to talk about beer drinking and then announce my intentions of dieting.  A fair feeling, I suppose.  I have no intention of drinking any less beer as a part of my diet, I’ll tell you that up front.  However, I’m going to have to cut a few classic singles (*cough* or doubles *cough*) with cheese out of my diet, and I’ll probably have to drop down to one chipotle grilled stuffed steak burrito per sitting, too.  I’ll keep y’all posted, as my weight-loss escapades can be entertaining…to other people.

Anyway, like I said, I’m going on a pseudo-diet.  I call it this because if I don’t I’ll feel like I’m on a diet.  This could induce a panic attack that only a three pack of double cheeseburgers w/ no pickles could cure.  I’m trying to stay away from such ’self-medication’ if you know what I mean.  I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be able to cut out of my diet, but I think I’ll probably start with fast food.  (My palms are already getting sweaty just thinking about the “saturated-fat-withdrawal”.) I’ll probably also try to cut back on cream in the ole’ coffee.  Like I said, I’ll keep you posted.  The goal is to drop around 40 pounds.

…

Okay, are you through laughing yet?

…

How about now?  Good.  I know 40 is a lot of pounds, but let’s be honest for a 6 foot 4 inch behemoth such as myself, it should be roughly attainable.  In reality it’s only a tad over a half a pound per inch.  And, yes, it’ll be tough, but if I can lay off the cheeseburgers and learn to get by on a strict diet of rabbit food like carrots and lettuce and perhaps cucumbers I should be able to make some headway.  Hell, and if the past is any indication, lettuce should really do the trick (even if it’s not the kind of trick I want it to do).

Tags: Blogging, Gravatar, Chimay Grande Reserve, Plugins, New Years Resolutions, Diet

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news and notes

Posted in life, beer, fun at 1:25 pm by Brandon

Okay, if you’ve been checking this new place out and liking it, well, then good.  I’m glad you have.  I’m still rooting through the code and making a few functionality changes, but I’m sort of liking this new theme I downloaded from the wordpress collective.  I thought ’twas snazzy, so I’ve been working on making it mine own.

If you’re curious I’m using these plugins:

1. Akismet by Matt Mullenweg- Which came with the newest version of wordpress and it handles spam (so far, it does so quite nicely).
2. Bunny’s Technorati Tags by Stephanie Booth - This one allows me to simply plug my tags in on the bottom of my post writing screen instead of futzing with the HTML like I used to have to do.
3. Gravatar by Tom Werner - If you noticed Allison’s comment, there’s an avatar of her daughter Maya (sp?).  This is done by a plugin called gravatar.  If you’d like to have your own little avatar, go over to Gravatar and upload a picture you’d like to represent yourself.  It’s a bit cheesy, but hey, I’m a sucker for new technology that provides little to no functionality, is a waste of bandwith (even if it is someone else’s bandwith), but is freakin’ cool.
4. Recent Comments by Nick Momrick - As you notice, there’s a link to recent comments (as there has been) on the right.  I had to change the ORDER BY portion of the SQL statement in the plugin to order by comment_date rather than by comment_id because when I made the switch from B2evolution, my comment id’s got royally screwed up…probably beyond all reconciliation; however, the comment_date fix seemed to help.
5. Stattraq and StatCounter - I’m using both.  This is area I’m least impressed with WordPress thus far.  I can’t find a good stat program to save my life.  B2evolution had a nice package included in its backoffice.  If you know of a good plugin that would simplify my stat tracking and be comprable in quality to what I had with b2evo, I’m all ears.
6. WP Comment Quick Tags by Thomas Montague - This was inspired by Zalm’s blog.  I just think it’s nice and handy for commenters to be able to click tags rather than having to screw with the html tags on their own.  I hope you agree.

In other, more exciting, news: I drank my first litre of Chimay Grande Reserve on Christmas Eve this year!!!  It was as good as I had dreamed.  I was even allowed to do my own pouring–which, if you’re not really into bottle conditioned Belgian ales, is pretty important–so no nasty yeast gulps at the end.  I honestly couldn’t taste any off flavours.  ‘Twas everything I’d hoped.  I’m afraid, though, that I’m hooked.

I had another beer too, a Belgian.  But, damn if it wasn’t right before the Chimay and my memory as to what that beer was was simply washed away by the scent of Chimay in the warm Florida evening.  When I come across it’s name, I’ll give some notes on it.

I know that some time ago I set out to become the Sufjan Stevens of beer.  As with many of the little side projects and hobbies (aside from blogging) that I like to take on, this one slipped to the wayside.  Well, friends, I’d like to pick up where I left off here writing more about beer in 2006.  We’ll call it a New Year’s Resolution.  And, while we’re on the topic of New Year’s Resolutions, I’m thinking its time for my annual pseudo-diet.

Some of you may think it odd for me to talk about beer drinking and then announce my intentions of dieting.  A fair feeling, I suppose.  I have no intention of drinking any less beer as a part of my diet, I’ll tell you that up front.  However, I’m going to have to cut a few classic singles (*cough* or doubles *cough*) with cheese out of my diet, and I’ll probably have to drop down to one chipotle grilled stuffed steak burrito per sitting, too.  I’ll keep y’all posted, as my weight-loss escapades can be entertaining…to other people.

Anyway, like I said, I’m going on a pseudo-diet.  I call it this because if I don’t I’ll feel like I’m on a diet.  This could induce a panic attack that only a three pack of double cheeseburgers w/ no pickles could cure.  I’m trying to stay away from such ’self-medication’ if you know what I mean.  I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be able to cut out of my diet, but I think I’ll probably start with fast food.  (My palms are already getting sweaty just thinking about the “saturated-fat-withdrawal”.) I’ll probably also try to cut back on cream in the ole’ coffee.  Like I said, I’ll keep you posted.  The goal is to drop around 40 pounds.

…

Okay, are you through laughing yet?

…

How about now?  Good.  I know 40 is a lot of pounds, but let’s be honest for a 6 foot 4 inch behemoth such as myself, it should be roughly attainable.  In reality it’s only a tad over a half a pound per inch.  And, yes, it’ll be tough, but if I can lay off the cheeseburgers and learn to get by on a strict diet of rabbit food like carrots and lettuce and perhaps cucumbers I should be able to make some headway.  Hell, and if the past is any indication, lettuce should really do the trick (even if it’s not the kind of trick I want it to do).

Tags: Blogging, Gravatar, Chimay Grande Reserve, Plugins, New Years Resolutions, Diet

Permalink

Trackback URL »

http://www.badchristian.com/2006/01/02/news-and-notes/trackback/