Can You Hear Me Now?

A quick thought for those of you watching “24” this season: Wouldn’t you think that after all the bad things that have happened with people infiltrating CTU Headquarters that they could mix in some kind of cell-phone jamming/listening device?  Just wondering.

Better Late Than Never

I just posted a few of my pics - with “few” being the operative word here - from Jeff & Shandra’s wedding in October. 

the blizzog reviews… ESPN College Game Day - B-Ball Edition

This marks the second week of ESPN’s “College Game Day“ treatment for men’s basketball.  For those that don’t know, they send their college basketball crew to a basketball arena for the day just like they do during football season.  A few random thoughts on this one….

• I like what they are trying to do, but it’s just not the same thing.  From an excitement perspecitve, there’s a huge difference between seeing the football College Game Day crew outside Carter-Finley where there are 500+ students behind them with illegible and mis-spelled signage as opposed to today’s telecast, for instance, which seemed to take place in the hallway outside of the janitor’s office at Allen Fieldhouse.  It’s somewhat anticlimatic.  I get what you are trying to do, I just don’t like how you’re going about it.  If you really want to make this fresh like the football side of things, host the show outside of the arena.  Sure, it will be cold, but you’ll also have the benefit of a lot more fans behind the set.  Try it.  I bet you’ll like it.
• Jesus I can’t stand Doug Gottlieb.  The network has made the unfortunate decision to make him the color guy on their in-studio crew for these Game Day Saturday thingers.  I’m not sure what it is about him, but every time I see him on the screen I want to punch him in the mouth.
• Despite his Dookness, I really like Jay Bilas’ college b-ball analysis.  He is ESPN’s best baskeball analsyst since David Aldridge.  (Excuse me while I pour a little out for D-Al, who is no longer with the network.)  I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or not, but in addition to taking ESPN’s “best basketball analyst“ spot from the departed Alrdridge, he’s also taken the network’s “Most Likely To Be a Cyborg“ trophy as well.  Go figure.

Anyway, ESPN, the long and short of it is this:  Stay outside.  Less Gottlieb.  More Bilas. 

You’re welcome.

Their 15 Seconds Are Up

I really need to implement some kind of category system here at the blizzog.  A blog by a guy from the Midwest who lives in the South and writes software for a living but can actually have a conversation with a real live person about old-school hip-hop, politics, cheezy reality TV, marketing, or fine art really needs to have some way for its poor readers to separate the stuff they want from the stuff they don’t.  Okay, I made that part up about ‘fine art.’  I know nothing about it, but I thought it made me sounds classy. ;)  I’m thinking about tacking on a del.icio.us-like tag system to the blizzog to help sort all of this out.  Maybe this weekend.

I mention that first part about categories and stuff because this post is technology-related.  Those of you not in the biz will have zero idea what I’m talking about, so feel free to move along.  Sorry.  I should have something non-geeky for you here shortly.

Anyway, I have been an avid reader of 15Seconds.com since my days as a baby-fresh ASP developer.  Back in the day I could count on them for really kewl and insightful articles on how to do all kinds of neat stuff with ASP.  However, in the past few years I’ve noticed that their content has started to slide.  It’s really only every now and then that I find something on there that is really useful to me.

Yesterday they hit an all-time low for me with an article, dated January 27, 2005 titled “Moving a Database from SQL Server 7.0 to SQL Server 2000” Uh, WTF?  First of all, this is supposed to be a site about developing ASP or ASP.NET.  While I realize that there are a lot of people who use SQL Server for their development: a.) there are a lot of people who don’t, and b.) those who do are most likely using SQL 2k anyway.  This was a really helpful article……6 years ago!  How lame.

If there are any sharks reading this right now, you need to duck so that 15Seconds.com doesn’t smack you in the forhead as it jumps over you.  You’re welcome.

It’s J-A-M-I-E, Dammit

I hate it when people spell my name wrong.  I get that I have a girl name and that there are lots of different ways to spell it; but if you’ve seen my name in print, then you have no excuse for spelling it wrong.

I’ve just been put on a new project where I’m contracting, and one of the sponsors sent out a meeting request to myself and others who should attend one of our initial meetings.  This person picked my name from a list on our Exchange server that has my name spelled correctly - J-A-M-I-E - yet chose to refer to me as “Jaimie” in the text of the meeting inviatation.  What’s up with that?  You’ve seen my name spelled correctly both on the Exchange server and in messages that I’ve sent to you.  Why must you continue to spell my name however you think it needs to be spelled instead of how I prefer it to be spelled?

Right or wrong, I immediately make judgements of people based upon whether they can spell my name right or not.  If you spell my name wrong after seeing it in print - be it on the Exchange Server, a business card, whatever - you have identified yourself to me as a person who does not pay attention to details.  Details are important to me, and if you display a lack of regard for them, I can tell that we are not going to get off on the right foot.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go register JaimieGaines.com, JaimeGaines.com, JimmyGaines.com, and JamiGaines.com so that my detail-ignoring colleagues can experience the wonder of the blizzog.

A Few More Tweaks

I made a few more tweaks to the skin tonight that I think have helped the readability.  I ditched the Georgia font because I didn’t like the way it was rendering.  I think this new sans-serif font is more in keeping with my NewCastle theme anyway.  I also re-styled the comments area to make it a bit more readable.

I’m not sure if the Flickr feed and Bloglines blogroll will be staying or not.  The delay - especially from Bloglines - seems to slow down the page rendering.  I may have to come up with an alternative solution.

Oh well, I’d still appreciate some feedback.  Even if you hate it, let me know.  You’re not going to hurt my feelings.  AG hates it, for the record.  I believe she called it “juvenile”, which I think about covers it.

UPDATE: I’ve ditched the “More” link for now because my code to truncate the Post text still isn’t working right.  It’s screwing up the HTML on the rest of the page after some posts, so it’s gone for now.  I know that some of you like it but I don’t know that I’m a fan.  Maybe this will help me remember to keep my posts short.

Hittin’ New Skins

Welcome to the new blizzog “NewCastle“ skin!  I needed to make some changes to help fight off the spammers, so I spruced the joint up while I was at it.  Props to JT.net for the NewCastle idea.  I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.  Here are the kewl new features…

• Improved Readability - I got a lot of feedback that the Grand Theft Blizzog skin was hard to read. So I’ve widened up the content area, bumped up the font size, and tried to use some colors that are a bit easier on the eyes.
• Flickr Feed - I’ve signed up for a Pro Account with Flickr, which rawks, btw.  I’ve inserted a little snippet that will generate 5 images at random from my photostream.  Werd.
• Bloglines-powered Blogroll - Bloglines is my favorite new RSS aggregator and I’m using it to feed my Blogroll.  Now you can see the sites that I read on a regular basis.
• More cowbell - I’m also providing RSS feeds - those orange XML thingers on the left - to my Flickr feed and my del.icio.us links.  Eventually I’d like to better integrate my del.icio.us links into their own page, but the feed will do for now.
• Anti-spam measures - I’ve also implemented a Turin Test on the comment form to hopefully help cut down the mountain of comment spam I’ve been getting lately.  I downloaded this control from someone else and I’m not 100% happy with it.  If you don’t enter the code in correctly your entire post gets erased and you have to start all over again.  I didn’t get source with this control so I can’t fix it write now.  I’m going to either write my own or find a better one ASAP.  In the meantime, be extra careful when putting in your comments.

That’s all I can think of for now.  Let me know how you like the changes.

Old School Screen Captures

Alt + Print Screen, eat your heart out.  [finger point after the alley-oop: Seth Godin]

sNOw Day

I don’t care how old you are; it’s still disappointing to go to bed psyching yourself up for a snow day, only to have Mother Nature punch you in the jimmy when you peek out the window the next morning. 

Stupid weather.

Infinite Hasselhoff

“Prepare to Lose Your Mind” NSFG.  (not safe for Germans)