Template Madness

OK apparently the new look for 2008 has provoked mixed reactions. Scarlet claims it is not blue. Well I say something is wrong with Scarlet's monitor - or my monitor. Because it looks blue to me. It looks as blue as the blue label on a bottle of Chimay, as you can see for yourself by the photo to your left. Also the web page I stole the background from had it listed under "blue" backgrounds. I did not exactly "steal" it, I found it on one of those "free web page background" sites. It is not possible to steal something that is free.

I got another comment from Cheesemeister about the new background screwing with your eyes because of the pattern. It is too linear.

So....I picked out seven backgrounds. And you get to vote! Yes, vote. Backgrounds 1 - 6 are in the photo below, voting for 7 keeps the current background.

Click the image to see them all on a plain white background, and slightly larger. I may have to overrule 6 if it wins, or change the colors of the text. I have gone with a dark background / light text color theme. If I switch to a light color background, I need darker contrasting text. Six is kind of cool - but then again it could be "too busy" for a proper background. Who knows.

And in other news, I need some TEMPLATE MASTER input here. See what I want to do is create a new blog layout optimized for mobile devices. Namely my phone. Yes I can view my blog as it is now, but I have to resize the page to 75% and it scrolls slow. It is a cell phone after all, not a full blown computer. So I found a plain one column template with a plain white background. PERFECT! But what I need to do now is have the posts I put here show up there. How the heck would one accomplish this? How could I have the same posts show up on two blogs? Oh yea, I also want the comments to show up on both blogs. So if someone leaves a comment here I can look at it from the other blog. And if I leave a comment on the other blog (from the phone) it shows up here. Or hell, if someone wants to just read the posts here without all the pictures and Bush countdown and other highly un-American propaganda I have here that can just go to the plain blog.

Anyhow you get the idea. I tried but could not get anything to work. I figure there has to be a way, but I can not figure it out. Maybe you can think up something I overlooked or just did not even think about.

In other new phone news, I figured out how to screw ATT out of $10 a month charge! Bastards wanted to charge me - CHARGE ME - $10 a month to "enable the GPS function of my phone". Uhhhhhh....NO! I have three GPS units now. The oldest is my hand held Garmin E-Trex Legend. It has street level maps for most of Florida from Orlando to the Keys. That is all the map data I can fit into the thing with its 8 megs internal memory. GPS 2 is for the boat - it is an ass kicking full color GPS Chart Plotter. Since that thing got installed I have not run aground on any shallow areas. GPS 3 is a device made for the car. It has a touch screen and voice prompts telling me when to turn and shit. Really cool. I set it up for "US English" for input and "UK English" for the voice prompts. It is like having my own British chick butler in the vehicle, telling me when to turn, what road I will be on, and what direction I am going. I tried Japanese but I could not understand it. I do not trust electronic devices speaking to me in languages I do not understand. They could be plotting my untimely demise for all I know. Or they could be getting ready to make me drive through an area of town that not even the police drive through unless they have to.

So I declined the GPS for the phone, using the logic that three GPS units were enough for one person. Well later on I thought "fuck that". What the hell? I might as well take the ATT phone back for an I-Phone with the superior Safari web browser if I am not going to use the GPS! But then I did some looking. And you know what I found out?

ATT sucks. They lied to me. They said I HAD TO pay the $10 a month for the GPS to work. BZZZZZZZZ! WRONG!!!! The shitty software that came with the phone needs a $10 per month subscription to work. But GOOGLE MAPS IS FREE! Thats right, GOOGLE MAPS IS FREE! All hail the totally free Google Maps application that works on smart phones and Pocket PCs and also accepts GPS data! So I downloaded Google Maps and installed it on the phone. Then I started the application, and told Google Maps to use GPS data. And just like that - I was in. Google street level maps AND satellite view works on my phone with the GPS. ASS KICKING! So now I have 4 GPS units. Now if I get lost it is just because I am a dumb ass. There can be no other reason.

Adventure In The ATT Wireless Store

Cause I do.

The day after Christmas was somewhat eventful here. As usual, I started the day off by sleeping in late. From there it only got better.

I took my Best Buy gift card I won in a contest to Best Buy. The laptop CD drive is dead, so I needed an external drive. I picked out the LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter. I had my eye on this before Christmas, but it was on sale today. It reads CDs and DVDs (of course) and it will write to any CD media (R and RW) as well as any DVD media (single and dual layer R and RW). Pretty sweet. I also picked up 20 blank DVDs that support LightScribe.

Oh yea, the drive supports LightScribe. So after I burn a CD/DVD I can flip it over and burn a label. This is really cool, but there is one drawback. The blank DVD has to support LightScribe.

I also got something for the boat! I have a satellite radio receiver for the truck, and another one that is for use outside the truck. It works fine, but there is one drawback. The FM transmitter in the receiver is weak, and there are no real open frequencies here. Too many shitty low power pirate stations, with a few higher power pirates mixed in for good measure. To compound issues even more, the boat GPS also causes interference. So I got this thing that will send a FM signal directly to the boat stereo using a hard wired connection. This should take care of the interference.

This took care of the gift card.

Next stop was the AT&T wireless store. I wanted another bluetooth phone. I walked in and signed up on the waiting form. Then I went next door to the wine store to get a drink. Having to deal with the ATT store drives me to drink. The wine store had.....CHIMAY BLUE LABEL in 11.5 ounce bottles!! Not this Chimay Blue Label is not messing around, it is 9%. So drinking one is like drinking two effect wise. JUST WHAT I NEEDED!

Inside the place I scoped out the ATT Tilt and the Apple Iphone. Some JACKASS was playing with the demo phone for a long time, watching some bullshit on You Tube. So I had to wait...and wait...but I got to mess with the demo.

Now the Iphone is pretty cool. I like the Safari web browser. But I went with the ATT Tilt because it uses the 3G data network. The problem is it runs Windows Mobile. I already put the Opera mobile browser on it, which instantly makes it better. Internet Explorer mobile version totally sucks.

I went with the Tilt over the Iphone because the Iphone has only internal memory, the Tilt uses mini SD and internal memory. Also I can change out the battery on the Tilt, the Iphone has no way to get to the battery.

I may still return the Tilt and pick up the Iphone - because even with Opera the web browser is not as nice as the Iphone. My page will not load properly. Oh well. But the Tilt has a keyboard that does not involve the touch screen. So I do not know yet.

SKIPPER goes in today for nut removal. The big snip. No food or water for him till after the snip.