So I’m over at Mark Cuban’s blog - HEY! I’m not name-dropping! I like his writing style and he does have a lot of thought-provoking posts. Plus he writes about ANYTHING. Anyway… I’m over at Mark Cuban’s blog reading about stuff and come across this post. I look around at some of those in my company and wonder just why they believe wearing a suit, or even wearing business casual, is so important. I mean REALLY! Do I work smarter or harder when I put on khakis and a button-down shirt than I do when I wear my Eckos and a t-shirt? I don’t think there’s any difference in the quality of my work at either time. But apparently someone does! Think about your place of business. Do people work better during the week or do they do better on “Casual Friday” or is there really no difference in the quality of work they do? The standard blue-collar joke is that the white-collar management-types are stupid because the tie they wear chokes off circulation to their brains. While this is funny and all (I used to be one of those who wore a tie) I tend to believe that I don’t work harder/smarter/better when I wear a tie or even nice clothes. I’ve done my best theme designs and PHP plugin programming while wearing my flannel Boxer-Boxers and a long-sleeved t-shirt and fuzzy warm socks. I’ve also done my best scripting at work wearing khakis and an oxford button-down-collar.

I guess what I’m doing is challenging the adage “Clothes make the man” (or woman - don’t want to be sexist here!) What’s your take on it?

So I’ve had people using my WordPress plugins. Yeah, that’s right; I can do some useful things besides take out the garbage every Wednesday evening! Anyway, I received an email this week from someone who uses my Content Show/Hide plugin and they had asked if it could be modified so as not to show the “more” tag in a feed. Since it’s been so long since I’ve looked at that plugin that I told the user it was a function of WP and you’d probably have to hack the core files to fix it. Well, chalk another one up for “Oops, I goofed!”. Enter CaveMonkey50’s plugin Full Text Feed. It strips the “more” tags from feed content. Hurray!! So my next step is to take CaveMonkey50’s plugin and incorporate it into my Content Show/Hide plugin to make it more of a “one stop shop” so to speak. I know what I’ll be doing tonight!

The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the president. In essence 2/3s of the citizenry just ain’t happy and want a change.

So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, “What we are so unhappy about?”

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don’t have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn’t take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it……are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the “Media” told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn’t have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a “general” discharge, an “other than honorable” discharge or, worst case scenario, a “dishonorable” discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by “justifying” them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn’t kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way…… Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad. WE ARE THE MOST BLESSED PEOPLE ON EARTH, WE SHOULD THANK GOD SEVERAL TIMES PER DAY….. (Thanks, Bob)

Happy Birthday, Katelyn!

During one of her daily classes a teacher trying to teach good manners, asked her students the following question:

“Michael, if you were on a date having dinner with a nice young lady, how would you tell her that you have to go to the bathroom?”

Michael said, “Just a minute I have to go pee.”

The teacher responded by saying, “That would be rude and impolite. What about you Peter, how would you say it?”

Peter said, “I am sorry, but I really need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“That’s better, but it’s still not very nice to say the word bathroom at the dinner table. And you, little Johnny, can you use your brain for once and show us your good manners?”

Little Johnny replies, “I would say: ”

The new version of WordPress is here! The new version of WordPress is here! It’s version 2.1 and it’s really cool! Can you tell that I’ve updated? I hope not. It’s all back-end stuff and I had worked hard on my themes and plugins so that they’d work with the new version (well, at least the alpha and beta versions). If you have a WordPress blog, update your software now as it has hundreds of optimizations, bug fixes and improvements.

Yesterday ended our quest for a new car for Breezomatic. As I said earlier in "Car Shopping", she was in a single car accident and totaled her car. So I went on a mission to find an inexpensive, reliable car for her. I spent most of my time looking at Cars.com and AutoTrader.com; however, I did go through our local weekly shopper mailing and a couple of newspapers. We decided to go to Cedar Rapids; they had the most variety of the models I had put for search criteria.

After looking at three places, we were not completely dissatisfied, but we weren’t exactly happy either. It finally came down to a 1998 Mazda Protege with 88,000 miles on it and a 2001 Kia Optima with 167,000 miles on it. KC was in favor of the Protege, and I was too after learning that the dealer who had the Optima didn’t do any inspections or anything on the cars they sold while the Protege had gone through a 35-point inspection. We went back to the dealer with the Protege and began talking money; the Protege was about $500-$600 more than we wanted to spend. The dealer couldn’t or wouldn’t come down; said there was another interested buyer. To effectively buy a car, you simply HAVE to be able to walk away from a deal that isn’t exactly what you want. So… we went to a place that I didn’t find on the internet searches but seemed to have some good deals. Lo and behold, we found a better deal on a better car!

Breezomatic is now the proud “owner” of a 1999 Mazda 626 with 129,000 miles on it. It’s really a nice car and the original price was good, but we actually talked them down a few hundred dollars from the already low price. The dealer actually replaced the pads and rotors, so the front brakes are new; and the tires look to have less than 1000 miles on them. The interior is clean and the engine runs quiet and the ride is smooth. We simply couldn’t have asked for a better deal. Here’s hoping she takes excellent care of the car and it lasts her three to five years.

Lately on the Encore multiplex, one of the movies making a semi-regular appearance has been Summer Lovers. This movie stars Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah and Valerie Quennessen and was released in 1982. It’s a fluff movie, lots of skin, lots of cool scenery (filmed on a small Greek island) and pretty much no plot line except for newlyweds accepting another woman to make a menage a trois. Yeah, I’ve watched it a couple of times (but only for the articles — REALLY!!). The strange thing about this movie is one line by Daryl Hannah. She says she has dreamed of being a mermaid. And then two years later… she plays a mermaid in Splash! Of course, in Splash she shows a LOT less skin and a lot more fin! And her role as Madison in Splash is considered her breakout role. Who would have guessed that the script writer for “Summer Lovers” was so prophetic?

Yeah, KC and I are car shopping again. Not for ourselves, mind you, but for Breezomatic. You see, she totaled her car last week when she hit some loose gravel on the road and skidded into the ditch. She was on her way to her place after work. Her car (a 1999 Hyundai Accent) ended up on its roof; yup, that’s right - completely upside down. She escaped with only a bruised knee, a bruised shoulder and a new-found respect for driving on country roads. We do consider ourselves blessed that she did not have more severe injuries, but now we have to deal with the PITA of finding a used car within our price range that is still not a bucket of bolts waiting to fall apart. The real kicker in this is that December was the final payment we had on her Accent, and that we had just replaced the transmission in November. Yeah, we just dropped about a thousand bucks on a car that was totaled less than 45 days later. We have joked in the past about getting new tires for a vehicle and then trading it off, but this is a bit more than four new tires.

So now it’s off to AutoTrader.com and Cars.com and other such web sites so we can try to find a different car for her. We have to get it for her as she does not have a credit rating to get one herself. What I’d really like to get for her is a Honda Civic of the mid-90’s era; very dependable and great gas mileage, plus that year/make/model is within our self-imposed price range. Not sure what we’ll end up getting her, though.

You’re probably a liberal if:

• You think sexual harassment is rampant, date rape pervasive, and domestic violence common.
• You hate Hillary/Nancy jokes.
• You pale at the execution of child killers, but defend the killing of unborn children as an expression of choice.
• You think trees have feelings, animals can conceptualize and the fetus is a blob of protoplasm.
• You are convinced that Frank Capra films and Norman Rockwell paintings are lies and distortions but “Platoon,” “Dances with Wolves” and “Thelma and Louise” are realistic.
• You thought Walt Disney was saccharine sweet and terminally cutesy-pie - until it made “Pocahontas”.
• You think a moment of silent prayer at the beginning of the school day constitutes government indoctrination and an intrusion on parental authority, while sex education, condom distribution and multiculturalism are values-neutral.
• You agonize over threats to the natural environment (acid rain, toxic waste) but are oblivious to threats to the social environment (pornography, promiscuity, and family dissolution).
• You want to legalize cocaine and outlaw handguns. You think cops are pigs and criminals are products of their environment.
• You believe the National Rifle Association helps criminals while the American Civil Liberties Union protects the innocent.
• Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton make sense to you. Barbra Streisand makes even more sense.
• You think Herblock cartoons are funny and Cindy Sheehan is totally hot.
• You believe corporate profits are obscene but government spending is too low and the American people are undertaxed.
• You think deficits are caused by tax loopholes.
• You think marriage is obsolete - except for homosexuals.
• You believe homosexuality is genetically determined, but fascism and spouse abuse aren’t.
• You think AIDS is spread by insufficient funding.
• You consider the Catholic bishops noble and idealistic when they oppose capital punishment and welfare cuts but dangerous fanatics trying to legislate their theology when they defend the right to life.
• You are convinced that proponents of welfare reform hate the poor and opponents of affirmative action hate minorities, but AIDS activists who bash the Pope and People for the American Way types who go psycho over Protestant “fundamentalists” are guardians of democracy.
• You attribute every minority problem to entrenched, institutional racism and the legacies of slavery and segregation.
• You think the black middle class is a myth created by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
• You view race riots as justifiable expressions of rage over injustice and fail to see the similarities between a black mob burning a Korean store and a white mob in the Jim Crow era lynching a black man.
• You don’t understand all of the whining about affirmative action and are more than willing to sacrifice someone else’s employment or education opportunity to assuage your guilt.
• You see no correlation between welfare and the rise of illegitimacy, judicial leniency and surging crime rates, or addiction and an entertainment industry that glorifies drug abuse. But you believe Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are responsible for everything horrible that’s happened in the past quarter-century.
• Lastly, you’re a liberal if - you don’t get the point of this post.

Well, are you?

So I’m watching the BCS Championship game last night between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Florida Gators (and not really liking the outcome of the game, either!) and I really started listening to the announcers. Then I got to thinking about college athletics in general and specifically college football, and came to the following conclusions. Before you get all up in arms about my conclusions, I’m making an assumption that these young men are there to get a college education; after all they are all on football SCHOLARSHIPS, right?

• No games before Labor Day. Most colleges and universities aren’t in their fall semester (or trimester or whatever they are using for a schedule) until after then anyway.
• ALL first games are played on the first Saturday after Labor Day. That would make the latest possible opening day September 12.
• Limit the regular season to 11 games. That would make the latest possible game on November 21. The only reason the season stretches out is so schools can receive the TV money.
• No off weeks during the regular season. Again, the ONLY reason these off weeks are here is for the TV money.
• Get rid of the BCS and the entire bowl system we have in place now. Do you realize that every college sport EXCEPT Division I-A football has a playoff? Yes, Division I-AA, Division II, and Division III as well as NAIA Division I and NAIA Division II all have football playoffs. Why not Division I-A? (Please don’t say it’s because of the money. There’s this little event in Division I college basketball called March Madness that brings in a dollar or two.)
• Speaking of the football playoffs, do what other Divisions do. Start the week after the season ends (much like Division I basketball), have a selection and get the top 32 teams into a playoff. This would take 5 weeks. Last night, the announcers were saying that Ohio State had 51 days between their last game and their BCS game; 5 weeks is less time.
• Schedule it so the championship game is on New Year’s Day. That would give a short delay (two weeks tops) before the playoffs started. (And Thanksgiving will probably fall in that two week layoff.) Division III played an eleven game season and had a 32 team playoff. They started after Labor Day weekend and were done by December 16 this season.
• Don’t determine the championship site before the teams are decided. It is a definite advantage for USC to play in the Rose Bowl, for Florida to play in the Orange Bowl, etc. Make it a neutral site, remote to both schools.

So let’s fix the college football BCS clusterf&*k and make it like all the other college sports.

I just got back from the restroom and while listening, it occurred to me: the 1.6 gallon flush just doesn’t work. Why do I say this? Because almost every time you flush one of those, you have to flush twice. I mean, REALLY! You sit down and drop off some friends at the pool and then finish your business and flush….. then you see it all didn’t go down so you flush again! So now you’ve defeated the purpose of the water saving flush. Who decided 1.6 gallons? Why did they decide on 1.6 gallons? Maybe “they” need to look at a 2 gallon flush. That should take care of all the floaters and still conserve water.