THE AIRPLANE RIDE
A stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane.
When the stranger turned to her and said, “Let’s talk. I’ve heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.” The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, “What would you like to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know”, said the stranger. “How about nuclear power?”
“OK”. She said. “That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?” The stranger thinks about it and says, “Hmmm, I have no idea.”
To which the little girl replies, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don’t know shit?”
Switch over to MT4
I think I’ve managed to work out all the DB induced problems I was having, so after running the last few betas and RC versions without any problems on the test blog, I decided to switch my production blog over to MT4. The upgrade went off without a hitch and the templates rebuilt without any error messages. So far so good. I don’t expect any more breakage, and the known issues list has gotten pretty short now.
Haven’t made any changes to the templates yet, so the blog will look the same for now. Template work begins next. There are a lot of new MT tags that I’m interested in putting to work.
Everything should be functioning normally, but you discover anything broken, let me know.
Update: Excuse the breakage. I’m running into a few things with RC3 that I didn’t encounter with the test version.
- Error accessing the archive templates:
Can't call method "archive_label" on unblessed reference at lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 5692.Fixed after cleaning out the plugins directory, something I forgot to do earlier. - Individual entry archives are broken:
Smarty error: [in mt:355 line 170]: syntax error: unrecognized tag 'mttinyturing' (Smarty_Compiler.class.php, line 580)Fixed after removing the MTTinyTuring tag from the template. Hopefully a new MT4 version of the plugin comes out soon. - Category archive dropdown list is gone from the sidebar
- Category archives are busted. The pages appear, but they’re either empty or there’s only one entry that shows. I bet it’s plugin related (catx.pl).
Puppy ouchies
It appears that at some point yesterday while running around, Simba managed to lose a sizable chunk of paw skin/padding on both his front paws. Not sure how he managed it, but he’s definitely not into walking much at the moment. It’s not bleeding but I know it probably doesn’t feel that great for him. I’ll have to make an appointment with the vet and get it checked out.
Review: Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales
Got my copy of B5 – The Lost Tales earlier this week and finally got around to watching it yesterday. I’m not entirely sure how much I like it yet. I’ll have to watch it one or two more times I think. At 72 minutes long, it’s a little bit shorter than two regular episodes and is split up into two sub-plots. It’s not entirely what I was expecting, but thinking back to what I initially heard about what Lost Tales as supposed to be, it fits pretty well.
If I recall correctly from the initial news of the Lost Tales project, it was supposed to be a series of character focused short stories. As such, I think it does a good job of further developing and refining the traits of the two main characters that make an appearance: Lochley and Sheridan. People expecting something resembling a full on B5 movie are likely to be disappointed. I liked the two stories that were told, and the endings definitely fit the characters involved. In fact, I thought the Sheridan story was predictable and had a reasonably good idea what his solution was going to be about halfway in.
The effects are pretty much all CGI with very few actual sets based on what I’ve seen in the special features on the DVD. The title ‘The Lost Tales’ gives the impression that there will be more than just the two stories, but I think the original intent was that if this one was successful, other DVDs would likely follow. It would be interesting to see the concept applied to other characters.
Lots of the usual extra stuff on the DVD (interviews, behind the scenes stuff), including a couple of nice tributes to Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar) and Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin), both of whom are ‘out exploring beyond the rim’.
4.5 stars out of 5 for the CGI and FX.
Overall, I think I’d give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
Whoa factor
Considering I was just in Minneapolis last week for the AAPM meeting, news of the bridge collapse has a certain ‘whoa’ and ‘holy crap’ factor to it (although I’m sure not nearly as much as for those living there). I didn’t have to cross over the bridge that collapsed, but it wasn’t too far from where I was staying and where the meeting was.
My thoughts go out to all of those affected.