Creations

An odd image popped into my head when commuting this morning.

You see, in her speech last night, Governor Palin seemed to take great pride in one particular example of her thrift-minded reforms while Governor – putting the State of Alaska’s private jet up for sale on eBay.

So, I can’t help but wonder if the following auction listing might be in our future:

I’m surfacing briefly.  It’s been busy at work and at home, so my attention has been focused on things offline for the past several days.

My wife and I did, however, catch some of the recent political ad fuss.  I probably wouldn’t have mentioned McCain’s “celebrity” ad, which compares Obama-hype to the circus surrounding Britney and Paris, here if it weren’t for Paris Hilton’s rebuttal ad.

Even though both my wife and eye roll our eyes (or worse) whenever Paris Hilton is mentioned…we  both agree that her rebuttal was excellent.  We got to talking about both ads, and our thoughts turned towards a flawed premise in McCain’s original ad.

My wife described a suitable response to address that flaw…and I have attempted to depict that response, YouTube-style:

Yes, I still suck at video.  I’ve learned that converting PowerPoint to YouTube is much tougher than it ought to be…and that PowerPoint is probably not the right tool to create a video in in the first place.  But for something thrown together quickly….it’ll do.

I have a weird sense of humor.

In response to a discussion on misc.transport.road, in which the pros and cons of reinstituting a national speed limit in the name of conservation and stopping global warming are being debated, my silly idea for a new (and presumably ignored) national speed limit has been stuck in my head.

Thus, some artwork is required to get it out:

I know, the alignment and sizing of the text isn’t SHS-spec….but I have too many other things to do this evening to spend arguing with Photoshop. 

One of my usual Sunday evening chores is to map out what I want to get done this week for work.  Looking at my calendar and task list, I’m left with one rather overpowering thought:

In honor of this week’s news:

Created in response to a coworkers’ b-tchfest over lunch:

One nice thing about taking a long vacation is that after spending a few days doing simple rest & relaxation, you have a nice opportunity to get some non-pressing things knocked off the to-do list.

For example, back when I most recently re-themed this site, I intended to share the Wordpress theme files, in case anyone else was interested… but I never got around to cleaning up and packaging the files.

Well, I now have the opportunity to do so. I’ve made the theme files available for download.

A few comments:

• It works in Wordpress 2.2, is free, and should be unencumbered by my adsense code. (At least I think I got it all out of there.)
   
• Standard installation rules apply: unpack the archive under /wp-content/themes, and customize to your heart’s content.
   
• The theme is widget-friendly. You can find a few custom widgets I created for the theme in functions.php.
   
• The default search box (in searchform.php) assumes Google sitesearch and needs to be customized for your site. You may wish to substitute in searchform.php.original if you prefer.
   
• For adsense ads, I use the Adsense Manager plugin. One of my widgets assumes that it’s installed.
   
• For the “related posts” widget, I assume that the Related Posts plugin has been installed.
   
• I run Gallery2 and make use of the WPG2 and WPG2 Random Image plugins. Within Gallery2, I use the wpg2connections_G2 theme (no URL handy, but should be findable via google), and I’ve provided appropriate wpg2header and wpg2footer files.
   
• Emergy-C is a color scheme publicized by Mark Ontkush as being both reasonably aesthetically attractive and being more energy-efficient than the dark-text on light-background coloration used on many websites when displayed on CRT screens.
   
• Standard disclaimers apply. I did strip out some code unique to this site, and I’m not currently able to test the results (having done this work in the middle of the Atlantic), but it should be operational. Nonetheless, use at your own risk, etc., etc.

Written at 730am, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 25°18.19′N, 71°39.32′ W

With our cabin on the starboard side of Crown Princess, we’re treated to sunrises on our balcony during the trip back to Brooklyn:

Written 8pm, Sunday, 2 September on Crown Princess at 19° 2.04′ N, 66° 2.88′ W

Written 8pm, Sunday, 2 September on Crown Princess at 19° 2.04′ N, 66° 2.88′ W