You’ve probably noticed that I’ve quit posting my photos and favorites from Flickr (quick, think of an f-word…) to the front page. It just started to seem like filler, and I am very anti-that, being someone who reads or at least skims something like 150 newsfeeds daily. The links, however, still get posted, as I always thought that sort of content should live in the main column anyway.

But pushing my photos back to the sidebar does present me with a quandary, though, in that I really enjoyed showing off my Flickr favorites in that way. I’ve always taken a wee bit of pride in my curatorial capacity over that collection of photos, and I have a love for each and every one of them. So, I now offer an Atom feed for those who really want to have their feedreaders spammed with my favorite photos. Everybody’s happy!

For those of you keeping track at home, I now have feeds for entries, comments, links, photos, and favorites, as well as for every single post on the weblog (right now: 1,042). So that works out to about, say, a billion feeds out there in the world, some in multiple formats, as a result of my daily activities.

So much for being against filler.

Daily Links

• Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006!: This is the coolest shit ever. I am not kidding. Go watch the video. Now.
  » cool games humor oldschool pixelicious video
• The Nintendo Revolution has a new name: Are all of the marketing people taking the decade off or something? I really thought this was a joke for a moment, it’s just that awful.
  » funny games

That code from bitprophet that makes tab key presses work in textareas was tempting me, so I made it into a wordpress plugin. Download it, or or see here for more info about how to install and activate a plugin in wordpress (this is sounding familiar…). The plugin adds bitprophet’s javascript code to the post editing page as well as the template/plugin editor.

Hello, world! I wanted a tag cloud (because, like mullets, they are just so damn sexy), and I also wanted to play around with writing a plugin, so I made it so. Download the plugin itself, or see here for more info about how to install and activate a plugin in wordpress. To use the plugin, simply put <?php echo category_cloud(); ?> wherever you want the cloud to appear. Here’s an example of its output:

aprilfools bloglines charlotte code dailyfluff del.icio.us design fame firefox flickr goog greasemonkey hacks links php projects sql travel typography voxgoogli wanking webdev widgets wordpress write. yahoo

As I’ve mentioned before, gradual changes are the way I do design. That said, though, I think I’ve come to a resting point in what I’ve been calling rhyleyDotOrgWp 0.1†, and it occurs to me I haven’t yet mentioned the header that I’m so very proud of. In the unlikely event that you’re actually visiting this page with your browser, look above for some great typography. The main title font is called Lido STF, and the subheading is in Gentium. The former is freeware, and Gentium is open source — which, by the by, is a fascinating trend I’d like to see continue.

† Yeah, I suck at the art of naming things. I suppose it’s a good thing that’s a dead art form.

Daily Links

• Javascript: How to properly handle tab key presses within a textarea: Someone convert this into a wordpress plugin, please.
  » holygrails javascript via:mathowie web webdev

Recently Consumed

• Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
  Wow. I came in on ‘Me Talk Pretty One Day’, so I have previously been exposed only to a more refined version of his trademark mixture, that of loopy hilarity and anger so old it’s become a treasured heirloom. Here, that mix is still slightly unfused, somehow making it that much purer, and making me more uncomfortable than I have ever been about how much I identify with the author. It speaks more of me than the book that I didn’t love it, but I didn’t, and the best I can think to say is that he has become a better writer with each collection
  

Daily Links

• Google Calendar is more or less perfect.: Among the ‘less’ is the inability to create events that recur (for instance) on the 2nd Tues of the 11th month, & the inability to set recurrence from ‘quick add’. “Birthday 8/17 annually” surely can’t be that much harder to parse than “birthday 17 aug”.
  » goog services tools
• Flickr: Photos tagged with hdr: Attention, Flickr community at large: the HDR shit is old. Quit it. That is all.
  » flickr memes tiresome

So I met David Sedaris last Tuesday. He likes to converse with his fans when signing autographs, coming up with a personal inscription off the cuff. I know this because the husband’s store was sponsoring the show, and I had been helping corral the roughly 2,000 attendees all evening before gleefully flinging off my volunteer cap and taking my place near the front of the autograph line. Retail hath its privileges. This was how I came to be standing across a table from one of my favorite authors, also probably the most famous person I’ll ever meet, an actual expat, and a former New Yorker — about the closest you can get in Charleston, SC to a member of the non-existent gay mafia. And he had not a clue, at first blush, that I was not a heterosexual. I have no idea how I feel about that, but it does make for a story.

The teenysomething who immediately preceded me had been subjected to the “so what do you do” question, evidently his question of the night. She stated that she was still in college, but she had been so inspired by Mr Sedaris’ work that she planned to be a writer. He stated that she was a pretty girl, writing was a really shitty way to make a living, and that she just might be better off becoming a prostitute or something. Her reaction betrayed perhaps a little less familiarity with his writing, and his humor, than she had implied. As she skulked off, I immediately imposed myself, grinning, in front of the author as he was still gazing crossly at her retreating back. He turned to me, conversationally, and said “What? She is quite attractive. I think she’d make a fine prostitute. You’d have sex with her, right?” And I did not know what to say. I think I managed a “pardon?” Gamely, he continued “That girl, she’s pretty enough to be a hooker, right?”

I have no memory whatsoever of the rest of the encounter. The ‘pusher’, the woman from Dan’s store whose job it was that evening to move the books along and ensure that the post-it with my name on it was properly oriented, filled me in later. Apparently, I then raised my right hand at about chest height, palm out, fingers splayed, and waved it about a bit. “Hello. Gaaaay.” This makes sense to me, in that I did roughly the same thing when my mom asked me shortly after I turned 18 if registering for selective service made me the slightest bit anxious. Mom and I shared a hearty laugh that afternoon, also marking the first time since I had come out at 14 that the subject of my queerness had come up between us without becoming a Conversation. Anyway, somehow I managed to make it through, despite the blackout of both all higher language functions and memory, without leaving too much of an impression on the distinguished author. It seemed to me, later in the evening, that in this case it might be a good thing to not be very memorable. Thus, the inscription:

Daily Links

• The Devil’s Dictionary X: Updating the satirical classic for our oh-so-ripe age. (via Greg Knauss who is guesting for Kottke but who really, really needs to have his own blog again)
  » cool humor satire

My Flickr Photos

Recently Consumed

• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
  This collection is not my favorite of his, nor is it my second favorite, nor my third or fourth, but it’s still a pretty decent book. His stories have always put me in mind of a childhood spent hinding from yourself and great potential wasted. So, basically, I have his complete works and will continue to buy anything he puts out. I’m going to try to get him to autograph all of them when I see him on the 11th af April. Glee!
  
• Midnighters #3: Blue Noon (Midnighters)
  Not the best of the series, this one feels a bit like an afterhought. The characters and the surreal world they live in are the primary reason to read these books, but in this final one, there doesn’t seem a lot left for them to do.
  

• Three complete changes of clothes; including socks, 1 each of boxers, briefs, and boxer briefs.
• Decongestants, antihistamines, ibuprofen (I am allergic to hotel rooms, as to most things), vitamins, hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste.
• iPod, magazine (latest final issue of Cargo, R.I.P.), book (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim), phone, phone charger, camera.

All this fits into one bookbag. I was made to be a world traveler, people, the world just doesn’t know it yet. Also, I’m going to be enjoying the hospitality of Charlotte, N.C. for the next couple of days, so don’t expect any Internet Jackass Day antics from me. Well, maybe a little, but that’s it. I’ll leave you to ponder on the supreme irony that the hotel I’m staying in has WiFi, but I don’t have a laptop.

My Favorites

Edit: Yes, this was a joke. Ponies, rainbows, sunsets, babies, and kittens? It’s a Flickr thing. I only regret that I couldn’t find a photo of a pony in a bathtub.