Hey, Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today! — Well so much for the lyrics of THAT song! But I did go up to Chicago to watch a Cubs game yesterday. We met at Corey’s place at 7:30am and all piled in to his Honda Pilot (well, it’s really Andrea’s Pilot!) and took off for Chicago.
Hopped on to the CTA Blue Line, transferred to the CTA Red Line and then got off at Wrigleyville. I had to get 2 hats; one for me to wear right away and one to take home to Breezomatic. A quick stop to get the hats and we then went into Wrigley Field.
Got three pictures here. One of the field to show where we were sitting, one to show the final score on the scoreboard and one of the guys I work with (my brother Al went with us and took this photo):
After the game, we hopped off the CTA Red Line at Grand Station and went to Rock Bottom for dinner. Then got on the CTA Blue Line and headed back to where we parked. More than once we noted how slow the “rush hour” traffic was moving while we were speeding along on the Blue Line. Once we got to the parking lot, we piled back into the Pilot and headed back home.
All in all a VERY enjoyable day with a great group of guys.
Some of you may not have heard of PJ O’Rourke. He’s a noteworthy American satirist. Kind of a present-day Mark Twain. Here’s a few of his “quotable quotes”. I think you’ll like him as much as I do!
A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.
After all, what is your host’s purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
America wasn’t founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.
Earnestness is stupidity sent to college.
Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.
If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.
If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you’ve read his autobiography.
In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
Never fight an inanimate object.
Never wear anything that panics the cat.
Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God’s infinite mercy, a last resort.
Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.
The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.
The weirder you’re going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.
There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
There is one thing women can never take away from men. We die sooner.
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
There’s something about Marxism that brings out warts; the only kind of growth this economic system encourages.
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.
You may be surprised to discover you’re rich, especially if you’re broke.
No, I’m not talking about the tent where Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John McIntyre and Frank Burns lived while stationed at M*A*S*H 4077. I’m talking about my back yard – it’s a freakin’ swamp! Don’t believe me? Check out the photos:
We haven’t had enough time without rain here for me to mow the bottom of our hill in our back yard. You can see in one picture where I’ve pushed the mower across the “mud stream” to get to the little bit of hill that we own on the other side of the “mud stream” – it’s to the left of the stump left by the willow tree that fell down.
In our local paper, the Muscatine Journal, there’s a section on the Opinion page called “Parting Shots” (thus the title of this entry). Here’s one Parting Shot that caught they eye of KC:
Neil Armstrong is hailed today on the anniversary of the moon landing. He’s from Ohio, just like the first man to orbit, John Glenn, and the first man to fly, Orville Wright, were from Ohio. It shows that no challenge is too great when a man is trying to get out of Ohio.
I use Akismet to keep spam off my blog here. It’s very effective. As you can see on the sidebar, it’s blocked more than 230,000 since I installed it. The problem I have is with the formatting of Akismet. It left-justifies a graphic on the sidebar and also it defines the graphical background (the blue box you see) as 120 pixels wide and 40 pixels tall. Here’s the two things:
I want the box to be centered. When there’s a sidebar involved the way I’ve got most of my theme’s sidebars set up, left-justifying a graphic just plain looks bad. The graphic is even on the left side with my sidebar background. It just looks out of place.
Even though the graphic is defined as 120 pixels wide and 40 pixels tall, the actual graphic is 120 pixels wide and 50 pixels tall. It never looks right on the roll-over. The lower corners are always “squared off”.
So rather than being a complainer and doing nothing but whining about the way it looks, I fixed it. For those of you interested in the fix, here it is. Note that the line numbers given are for Akismet version 2.2.6, the most current version at this time.
The changes need to be made in the CSS included in Akismet. The way Akismet is set up, you can use is as a plugin (for the newer versions of WordPress) or you can add it in to your sidebar manually (for the older versions of WordPress). Either way you will need to edit only two lines and they are identical. Lines 1053 and 1095 both originally read:
Change both lines to read like this (changes in bold italics):
#akismetwrap #akismetstats{background:url(< ?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.gif) no-repeat top left;border:none;color:#fff;font:11px 'Trebuchet MS','Myriad Pro',sans-serif;height:50px;line-height:100%;overflow:hidden;margin: 0px auto 0px auto;padding:8px 0 0;text-align:center;width:120px}
And voilá! Now the Akismet graphic is re-assigned it’s original height and is centered on your sidebar! Technically speaking, this will work for any version of Akismet but the line numbers listed here are probably wrong for other versions.
I’ve done some work on my Recipes page on my wiki. A little bit of organization and adding a few favorite recipes. For those of you who like to bake/cook, or for those of you who are like me and like to EAT… check out the new Recipes page by clicking here.
Ed McMahon died last week. Prior to his stage accomplishments he was a distinguished Marine Corps fighter pilot in WWII earning six Air Medals and attaining the rank of Colonel. He was discharged in 1946 and was later promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the CA Air National Guard.
Farrah Fawcett died last week. After she was diagnosed with cancer, she became an activist for cancer treatment and devoted her last remaining years encouraging people to seek treatment. She documented her plight on film and used it to encourage others to stay positive and upbeat despite their diagnosis and suffering.
Michael Jackson died last week. He was perhaps one of the greatest singers of modern time. He will also be remembered for his eccentric lifestyle that included sleeping with a chimpanzee, living in a carnival-like atmosphere at Neverland, his fascination with Peter Pan, and his numerous masks and costumes. He also admitted to finding pleasure sleeping with young boys, paying out millions of dollars in settlements to the families of these boys despite being acquitted by a court on one allegation of sexual molestation.
QUESTION – Which of the above did the House of Representatives declare a moment of silence for? (Hint – It wasn’t the first two.)
QUESTION – Which of the above’s family received a personal note of condolence from President Obama? (Hint – It wasn’t the first two.)
Yes, that’s right. I’ve completed the Baseball 1 Theme. Here is a rundown of the changes I can remember :
Support for threaded comments. This was introduced with WordPress 2.7; we’re now up to 2.8.1 and I’m just getting it done. (Yes, I would be the President of the Procrastinator’s Club but I didn’t get around to filing in time.)
Changed the background of the sidebar from a seafoam green to a PNG of grass. Looks much more “baseball-like”.
Changed the “between-dates” divider from a pair of eyes on a line to a baseball bat. Again, much more “baseball-like”.
Added the “between-entries-on-the-same-day” divider of a row of baseballs.
Moved the Get Firefox Affiliate blurb to the sidebar. If you use Internet Explorer, you will see a message urging you to Get Firefox! I got feedback that many who used my themes didn’t like the placement of the blurb over the content.
Changed the background of the menu bar below the banner photo from a grass green color to a grass background, matching the sidebar.
Changed the background of the footer from blue to a grass background matching the sidebar.
Made the hover list item brighter so there is more contrast when hovering over items in a list. (Sorry, Internet Explorer users – IE does not support that!)
Using CSS, added a shadow to the entry titles. (Sorry, Internet Explorer users – IE doesn’t support that either.)
Changed some of the basic colors on the sidebar – the darker background needed the text and link colors to be lighter.
Added a browser check. In earlier versions of my themes I developed them in Firefox. Then I checked them in Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer. They always worked fine in Safari and Opera, but always required “tweaking” the CSS file for IE. With the browser check, I can put specific items for each browser in its own file and have a main CSS file.
There you have it. I still have to edit the text in the wiki for this theme to show these changes, but the screen shot and the zip file for download are in place. Enjoy!
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