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Anyone out there using wordpress for a blog? (Yeah, I know, there's something odd about asking this on LJ where most people probably *only* use LJ, but it doesn't hurt to ask.)
I'd like to do a makeover for kitchenchick.com. Because beauty is more than skin deep, as I consider a makeover of physical appearance I think it's also worth considering a makeover of the blog engine. That is, should I stay on typepad or make the jump to wordpress? Wordpress supporters are pretty fanatic about typepad sucking and wordpress rocking. I get where they are coming from. It's a lot like Mac users, and I'm a Mac user. :-)
Unfortunately, most of the articles I can find that compare wordpress to typepad are at least 6 months old if not years old. Interesting reading, but not current enough for me to be comfortable making a decision just yet.
Basically, there are two versions of wordpress: the hosted wordpress.com, which doesn't have as many features but is being developed rapidly, and the self-hosted original wordpress. I gather it can take some work to get that set up, but once set up it does beautifully. (And wordpress seems to have nicer templates and looks these days than typepad.) But I'm not a programmer or even an sys admin (anymore), I know minimal html and no css, I have little interest in devoting time to learning css. Thus I would need to get help setting up wordpress. And then there's migrating all my old content over. Ugh.
Fortunately, I found someone who will (for a reasonable price) migrate a typepad blog to wordpress. Since typepad apparently goes out of its way to make it hard to migrate away from their platform, I think paying someone else who has figured out how to do this is a great thing. So that's one barriar removed.
Which brings me to the question: should I migrate.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Author Jim Hines is running a caption contest featuring a photo of him and John Scalzi. A while ago he solicited captions for the photo, and I submitted one. I watched a lot of Super Friends cartoons as a kid, so the first thing I thought of when I saw the photo was the Wonder Twins so I submitted, "Wonder twin powers activate! Form of a science fiction author! Form of a fantasy author!"
There were dozens of entries, and I wasn't sure how my parody retro caption would fare.
Well, my caption made it into the contest! Woo hoo! So go vote!
Of course, I prefer you give my caption a bump (currently in 2nd place), but really, to be fair, vote for the one you like best.
Click through to see the photo and vote: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/442101.html
Bribe time: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lintra, if I win, F gets the book.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
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As if it's not bad enough that to leave the car engine running while filling up with gas, this yahoo also left the car unattended (while filling up with gas) to go shop in the convenience store. Arrrrgggh!
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
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Thursday, January 15th, 2009
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A black and silver necklace was left at our house during our holiday party. If you can describe it in more detail, then it must be yours.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
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Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
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For the last two years, the rabbits (or deer?) have eaten my grape hyacinths. This displeased me greatly as I do so love those little purple flowers. Darn rabbits nearly killed my fire bushes one winter. I have developed such a dislike of rabbits that when I *tried* to read Watership Down, I was sympathizing with the exterminators. I think I'm the only person who doesn't like that novel.
Today I noticed that my grape hyacinths were finally poking up through the creeping thyme. I doused them in anti-deer, anti-rabbit spray.
Take that, rabbits!
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Comments: Read 16 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, October 28th, 2007
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Thursday, October 25th, 2007
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When I was in college I thought "Economics" was the academic side of the business of moving money around the world. I couldn't imagine anything more boring. And, frankly, my grad school econ classes (which I had to take) didn't really go beyond that. My Micro Econ class was a disaster for several reasons beyond the class material, which I only remember as dull. My Macro class was sort of interesting, but it didn't rock my world.
These days people like Steven Levitt (Freakanomics — if you haven't read it, do so) have made Economics interesting, even sexy. And definitely relevant to how we live.
But, you ask, "What does this have to do with mosquitos?"
Read this nifty article to find out.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/the-economics-of-mosquitoes/
Want more like that? His blog is syndicated on LJ: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/freakonomics/profile
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
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I'm writing my last paper for this class. (Thank god!) I'll have one presentation to do, but it will be based on one of papers.
I am writing about Dorothy Simpson Krause, who does really really cool mixed media prints. She prints her images on glass, lead, wrinkled copper, plexiglas, tile, linens, etc.
( images behind the cut )
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Saturday, September 15th, 2007
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...followed by 80s degrees forecasted for next week. How unfair!
So with that frost warning in mind, I pulled up the basil and harvested the leaves and pulled up two of my three lemon grass plants. (I'm betting that the other will actually survive the frost.) I'll bring in the potted basil and rosemary tonight and put them back out tomorrow. The basil leaves have been plucked and are in the freezer (I'll use it in Thai curries over the winter.), and I now have a pile of lemon grass stalks sitting on my kitchen counter plus several stalks with root bits still attached sitting in water. I've over-wintered lemon grass this way two years running.
I made lemon grass ice cream recently. It reminded me suspiciously of blue moon ice cream. I think I'm on to something here, but I must buy some blue moon from Kilwin's and do a side-by-side taste test. Last year I looked up sources for blue moon flavoring**, which of course will be some artificial chemical concoction, but if I can simulate that indefinable citrus flavor of blue moon with lemon grass... Mmmm! That'd be a win on both the natural flavoring and cost front!
** blue moon is a Midwest regional flavor, and people within the Midwest can't agree on what the true blue moon flavor is. I stand by Kilwin's version, which has a faint citrus edge to the flavor. Other people say blue moon tastes like almonds or licorice!
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
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Monday, September 10th, 2007
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Street lights shining in through a colored glass window and grill.
This small window was set high in the stairwell that we used to get to our room.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, September 9th, 2007
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Saturday, September 8th, 2007
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No, not in Morocco. At the Saline Fair. More Morocco coming soon.
I talked my way into the fair. Since I live practically on top of the fair and have to deal with the noise and traffic, seems only just (I can't say "fair" without groaning) that I get a free pass. The carnival part was actually rather dull, but the barns were filled with animals and garden vegetables and corn and sheared wool. I looked at the rather wilted vegetable displays. (They've been sitting around for a while.) I didn't realize that one could enter a contest for "best in show" parsley category. I passed the vegetables and headed for the smellier and more interesting parts of the show featuring cows, llamas, sheep (sheared), horses, pigs, fowl of various kinds, rabbits...
There are some mighty funny-looking chickens out there in the world. And there are some chickens with major attitude. The two don't seem to go together. That is, the funny looking chickens didn't seem to pack as much attitude as the stereotypical fryer.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, September 7th, 2007
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Thursday, September 6th, 2007
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Our (highly unofficial) medina guide pointed into a narrow alley-stairwell and we looked up to this door. I have no idea where this goes. Into someone's home, perhaps.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
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In Fes young chicks are dyed bright colors and sold as toys to groups of boys who play with them in the streets. So adorable, yet it broke my heart, too, to see them used this way.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
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We saw so much cool architecture in Fes. Arches, ornate Islamic engraving, tile work...
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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