Month: September 2005

Gravatar Failure

Tried this evening to get the gravatars back. It worked fine in MT, but I couldn’t get the WordPress plugin to work right for me. I tried several different parameters for the plugin, but it wouldn’t work consistently, so I pulled it from the comments area.

They have this rating system so that some people can use more provocative images if they want and bloggers can choose not to show them. First I left any rating out of the plugin and it would show one person’s image but not another’s. So I cut and pasted the example into my template with it’s “R” parameter and the gravatars shown would change. Then I plugged in “X” and different ones would show. Keep in mind that everyone of the gravatars used by my comment posters are innocuous at best. Making matters worse was when I tried jockeying the size while keeping the rating the same, different ones would show than with just the rating. One combination caused no gravatars to show. At one point I would get a brief wink of the image before the square would turn black…

Sorry commenters, but you will just have to live with seeing your name there.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 305

0 for 2

Well, so far this I am 0 for 2 in watching the TV shows I want to watch. First, I missed Sunday’s “West Wing” premiere and last night I missed the “Best of the Beatles” on PBS.

I read the article in the paper a week ago about the show that said it was going to be on 9/28 at 10:00 PM. I made a mental note to watch it. Some one at work who knew I was a Beatles fan handed me a copy of the article in case I missed it. Knowing PBS can be wonky with their scheduling and that I have access on cable to both the SC and GA channels I went to the PBS website to check the times and dates they were going to show the program. Both confirmed the paper’s 10:00PM start on the 28th. As an extra precaution against losing this info out of my sieve-like brain I subscribed to their handy email reminder thing.

Sure enough when I got home from work yesterday there was my reminder email. At about 10 minutes ’til ten I shut off the FRS radio broadcast (mercifully I might add, as they were losing 7 – 2 to the Blue Jays) and made my way into the living room. Flipped over to the clearer of the two PBS channels and waited. They were running a thing about Pop Music as it related to the protest movement and it was fairly entertaining. At 10 o’clock I waited for it to end, but it didn’t. Huh? Checked the other station and they were both in lock step showing the same show. I watched for about 15 minutes thinking maybe they were running late or something, but the protest music kept right on coming.

Plodded back to the PC and checked the PBS website and lo and behold the Beatles show ran from 8 to 9:00PM. Shit! Opened the reminder email back up and it said the show started at 8. I guess I should have read it more carefully…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 305

Flat Hat

You’ll notice below that the top went up and then down today even though it didn’t rain nor did I wash the car.

Because I’m ever the southern gentleman, I always remove my hat when dining. Last night when we went out to eat at Outback instead of taking my very rare Red Sox World Champions ball cap inside and chancing losing it, I tossed it back in the car. Because it looked like it might rain while we were inside the restaurant, I put the convertible top up. The hat landed on the parcel shelf behind the seats. When we finished eating, the sky was clear enough so that we could drop the top for the trip home.

Tonight when I had to run out to drop of some dry cleaning, I went to grab my hat, it wasn’t there. Then I remembered. Before I backed out of the garage, I removed the boot and raised the top, so I could now remove my nicely pressed flat hat. Top went back down, boot went back on and with a quick bend of the brim, stuck the hat on my head and drove on my errand. Good thing that it was an unstructured cap…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 305

Up in Sin Jahn’s

A Scotsman, an Englishman and a Newfoundlander were sitting in a bar in Toronto. The view was fantastic, the beer excellent, and the food exceptional.

“As good as this is,” said the Scotsman, “I still prefer the pubs back home. In Glasgow, there’s a wee place called McTavish’s. The landlord goes out of his way for the locals. When you buy four drinks, he will buy the fifth drink for you.”

“Well, Angus,” said the Englishman, “At my local in London, the Red Lion, the barman will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two.”

“Ahhh, dat’s nothin’,” said the Newfie. “Back home in Sin Jahn’s there’s the Codfish Bar. The moment you set foot in the place, they’ll buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks you like, actually. Then, when you’ve had enough drinks, they’ll take you upstairs and see dat you get laid, all on the house!”

The Englishman and Scotsman immediately shout down the Newfie’s claims, but he swears every word is true. “Well,” said the Englishman, still suspicious. “Did this actually happen to you?”

“Not me meself, personally, no,” admitted the Newf. “But it did happen to me sister quite a few times.”

The Good News is the Ice Cream’s Free…

…the bad news is we sing off key!

For my birthday we went to Outback for dinner tonight. Like good people we split an order of babyback ribs and just ordered a second salad instead of ordering two entr?es. Like bad people we ordered coconut shrimp for an appetizer. To make up for that transgression we declined desert. But we got on anyway. On the way in Donna whispered to the hostess that it was my birthday, so a cadre of wait staff came over and serenaded me and handed me a ice cream sundae (with two spoons.) Donna knows that I hate this kind of thing, but I forgive her, at least she didn’t get them to decorate the conference room with black streamers and balloons at work and get the whole front office to give me those horrible over-the-hill gag gifts that take up a section of Spenser Gift stores…

All I want for a present is an FRS victory in tonight’s game against Toronto. They won this afternoon’s make-up for last night’s rain out already, keeping them tied with the Damn Yankees. These two rivals are locked in a tie for first place with seven games to go in the season. This weekend they play three games head to head that will more than likely decide who is going to the playoffs. Doesn’t get any better than this…

As you can see by the bottom of this page I managed to do a little importing, all the previous Mr. Fletcher’s Ride photos are now a part of the new blog. Even with the heroic measures taken, I overran my bandwidth limit and when I got home this afternoon, the web site was locked. I emailed the web host and he promptly upped my limit, so I’m back online. Hopefully next month I will get no where near my alloted 10Gig.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 303

The Sky Is Falling!

For the first time in almost a month* I had to put the top up in anger. We actually had rain this afternoon. Light rain for about a couple of hours, but it started just about quitting time, so I had to pull the boot and drive around like a regular car for a while.

* I’m not counting the Gap weekend because we normally put the top up for overnight hotel stays…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 300

Ooops

Ignore my last post. West Wing was on tonight at 8:00PM. When I finally got myself comfortable on the couch and surfed my way to NBC the show was just going off.

This sucks on so many levels. One, 8:00PM is too early to wrap up the day. Two, I missed the season premiere. Three, now I don’t feel like watching the show at all any more. Four, how could I have missed the start time?