Surreal Dreams

SlidingDoors – A jQuery Plugin

Surreal — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:08:57 +0000

This weekend I got the idea to make a simple jQuery plugin of my own. (What is jQuery?) I’ve used a number of plugins with great success, and decided that the best way to learn more about jQuery and give something back to the community would be to develop a plugin of my own. So I sat down, worked out my goal plugin, coded and tested it. It’s not going to change the world overnight, but it might be useful to some folks who like interesting interactions. I’ll try it out here, too, and see if it’s got any real promise.

I call it Sliding Doors – it takes an ordinary image on a web page and adds some interaction. When your mouse moves over the image, it slides open like the doors on a supermarket to reveal the “alt” text, which describes the image in the code of the page. You can see a demo and download the plugin here on the slidingDoors Plugin page.

Spam I Am

Surreal — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:04:23 +0000

I’m not going to complain about spam – it’s pretty much a dead horse I don’t plan to beat. What I want to complain about is a certain webmail services inability to filter out some really obvious spam – some that might have a subject like @*’;. shiz! .;’*@ – or something like that. I mean, honestly – I get many, many identical messages like these that could be filtered by the subject line alone. And then I get a few in Chinese, Russian and most notably Farsi – I wish that I could set my language or charset in my settings so it would be obvious to the email server that I don’t speak Mandarin so that is probably spam. And by probably I mean DEFINITELY. And if it’s not – I still can’t read it – so I wouldn’t miss it.

So please – can you guys filter the obvious stuff? Maybe somebody over at Y! get on that.

The Meeting of the Bad Movie Club was a Bomb, and We Loved It.

Surreal — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:27:20 +0000

The first ever meeting of the Charlottesville B-Movie Appreciation Club was terrible. We plan to have another one soon, at least as bad.

This club consists of six intrepid movie-watchers subjected to two episodes of Mystery Science Theater, back to back. In the great tradition of the show, the first movie was selected for the viewers without their consent. (I gave them a break and let them pick the second one, which they regretted.) I am now planning for future meetings with themes, such as Hercules night, werewolves on parade, ninja attack, incoherent Seventies, giant monster invasions, martial arts (minus the art), and, of course, Godzilla/Gamera value bundles. I’m planning to start a separate blog to discuss the movies watched and the viewer reactions, kind of like Dr. F would have wanted, except we have good snacks in our theater. Get ready, CBMAC members – prepare for Deep Hurting™.

We’ve secretly replaced Virginia with Michigan. Let’s see if anyone can tell the difference!

Surreal — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:10:07 +0000

It has snowed again here, not that you could tell – it’s just sitting on the remaining snow from the last two, maybe three snowstorms. We have a chance at more snow today, tomorrow, and three days next week. Five days out of the next ten. The local kids are going to be in school through mid August at this point. Last weekend out at stores was like the week before Christmas because everybody has been snowed in for so many weekends they haven’t gotten out to buy food. My previous post was composed, edited and posted while in one such retail line to buy $4.00 of paint and brushes.

Retail Roadblock

Surreal — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:21:19 +0000

Got to love standing in a long line, while one checker frantically searches for a replacement reciept tape and your wife contemplates ditching her stuff and leaving. Two stores to go.

The Delight of Always-On Internet

Surreal — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:42:40 +0000

I really enjoy my iPhone – it still feels like a new toy. But what I think I like the most is that it’s always online (assuming signal, of course). Movie questions answered (IMDB app), instant email access, weather from the Weather Channel (app), and of course, blogging. I’m on my PC right this second, but sometimes I do like to post a blog right on the spot.

But my favorite thing, especially in a car or while walking, is to stream music. Shoutcast, Pandora and lately last.fm (ooh, yes – that). Obviously, I could turn on the radio in the car, but my musical tastes veer pretty far off what we get on the airwaves around here. On the Internet, that problem does not apply. Feel like some electro-industrial? Just pick your station.

I don’t know why, but it just feels like the future.

The Frozen… South?

Surreal — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:05:13 +0000

The snowstorm that hit us late last year, the weekend before Christmas, is still lingering. We still have huge piles of snow in the streets, which sucks for parking. We also have a bit of it laying around in other places.

It’s at that dirty, dingy phase that makes it all ugly and extra unpleasant, and as you can see, it won’t melt. These photos are from three full weeks after the storm. Melt, damn it!

My Kind of Resort

Surreal — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:15:18 +0000

We got a package of Christmas presents today, and one I was able to try out was Wii Sports Resort. It’s very impressive overall, with some pretty convincing frisbee golf and intense fencing, but the skydiving… it’s just pure fun. I’m the goofy looking Mii in the middle who’s being. Dreams is the gal to my left in the first photo. Seriously fun.

Everyone Enjoys Wii Fit

Surreal — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:31:52 +0000

Seriously, even my cat.

Perhaps it helps her stay 5 lbs.

Happy New Year!

Surreal — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:07:31 +0000

I got inspired. It’s a new year and a new site. I’ll likely restore some, if not all, of my old posts here. In case you’re interested in such things. I’ll be posting more as I am now “mobile.” I want to take this opportunity right now to thank the good people who develop WordPress and keep it free. It’s rocking software and I have been enjoying working with it for the last year on other projects (read: paying the bills).

I also want to bid a fond farewell to PostNuke (now Zikula) – they kept me bloggin’ hard for the last seven years. That’s an eternity in internet time.

Let the new year begin!