Book of the Day is The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. It appears to be another Discworld-for-kids book, like The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (which was excellent). If you've read any of Pratchett's other children's books, you'll know that they're also great for grownups.

I can't review it yet, because I haven't, um, actually read it. I only bought it today, and I'm still reading Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet which I bought yesterday. (I hope the current run of reprints covers the complete series, because I haven't read most of the later ones.)

Web Site of the Day, then, is lspace.org, which is the centre for information about Pratchett's writings, particularly the Discworld books.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:52 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Web site of the Day is catenema.com. If you've previously read the original story, it's time for another visit, as the author has more stories to tell.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Working at work today. Uh, that is, I went in to the office, after several days of working from home. Natually, I took the opportunity to do a little shopping at lunchtime. Two new D&D manuals (Fiend Folio and Races of Faerun), a new Rabbi Small book (well, new to the current reprint, anyway), the Sims Superstar expansion pack (which makes how many now? Six?), and the latest shipment from my Anime pusher, including new volumes of Fancy Lala, Inu-Yasha and Noir, and the first volumes of Please Teacher (Onegai Teacher) and .hack//sign.

I'll be writing more about anime now that I have my new Movable Type (yay!) blog with categories and stuff. Watch for it!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

OK, the site now looks fine in Mozilla and Opera. It also looks fine in Internet Explorer. Exactly how I wanted it. As long as your font size is set to "medium". Mozilla and Opera have no problems with changing the font size; Opera has a nifty trick of scaling everything and works no matter what; Mozilla works perfectly at three sizes and reasonably well until you start getting into the absurdly large; Explorer - resize and bleah. Well, I'll probably do a "plain jane" stylesheet for people with odd browsers, or those who need font sizes cranked up real large. Hmm hmm hmm. I could make things scale a little better if I made the sidebars wider. Hmm hmm.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

But I do play one in real life.

While my database is rebuilding I thought I'd try out a Javascript-based trick for browser-selective stylesheets. Works. Ha ha! Of course, I still can't get IE to display things properly, but at least now I can decide exactly how I want it to be broken.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mozilla users can preview the new Ambient Irony here. IE users can wail and gnash their teeth. If you don't have any teeth, they will be provided.

(If you're reading this then you've obviously made it to the right place. Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Oh, that's charming. Blogger ate my rant. Grrr!

And Moveable Type, while stable and elegant, is as slow as a wet week. Grrr! Grrr!!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

There's no question any more: Mozilla is by far a better browser than Internet Explorer. Just two features are enough to blow IE out of the water: popup blocking - I never see a popup - and tabbed browsing. I often have a dozen tabs open. One window, twelve web pages. No clutter, fast, simple. Right-click a link and it opens in another tab while you keep reading the page you're on.

But there's a third and even bigger reason: IE's CSS (cascading stylesheet) support sucks. That's the mildest word I can think of to describe it. What can you say for a browser that implements the right-hand margin backwards, so that your page is guaranteed to extend beyond the width of your window? Or how about a browser that, when you overlay one section of the page on another, makes all your images disappear?

I have a beautiful layout for my new Moveable Type blog, simple and elegant, and IE fucks it up beyond redemption. I could mess around and generate alternate stylesheets for Mozilla/Opera vs. IE, but the whole goddamn point of stylesheets is that you're not supposed to have to do that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:31 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

For more Dave Barryesque goodness than you could poke a reasonably large stick at, why not visit AutoDave!, the automated Dave Barry column generator. Looks like they've done a bit of work on it since I last visited.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Word of the Day is pertinacious. (Which probably means it will end up being the word of the week. — Ed)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Dave Barry (who I really should add to my blogroll seeing how often I link to him) has an

UPDATE ON THE ONGOING EFFORT TO USE TRAPS TO CATCH AND REMOVE THE RABBITS FROM MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND DRUG-SMUGGLING FACILITY BECAUSE THE RABBITS DIE AND ATTRACT VULTURES, WHICH GET CAUGHT IN JET ENGINES, WHICH CAUSES PLANES TO CRASH

(via Dave Barry)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

We got archives!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Blog of the Day is Suburban Blight:

And the Winner Is...

Yes, it's time once again for the Unmitigated Twat of the Week Award! This week, we're departing slightly from tradition; this week, there was a tie for first place. All of these ladies' twattiness is equally unmitigated. So, without further ado, I give you The Unmitigated Twats of the Week, the High School Hazers!

Mom, if you're reading, cover your ears. Or, umm, eyes. Now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Installed the Topicon plugin. Looks like it will work well once I've got some nice icons done. I'll need to fiddle with the size and spacing a bit, though.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Having re-re-installed Moveable Type, I realise that something was seriously screwed up at first and style sheets weren't working at all. No wonder it looked like crap.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Yet again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

To all the people looking to download Poodle Hat, I'd just like to point out that (a) it's not even out yet and (b) maybe when it is out, you could, like, you know, buy it.

On the other hand, if you're looking for Azumanga Daioh, it's on Kazaa.

Interesting thing, Sitemeter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:52 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Song of the Day is When I Held Your Brain In My Arms from MST3K (the Terror from the Year 5000 episode):

There was a time, so bright and gay,
It seems like only yesterday,
When I held your brain in my arms.
Your adrenaline was like wine,
Sweet perfume was your endocrine,
When I held your brain in my arms.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Word of the Day is quotidian. (Well, of course the word of the day is quotidian. If it wasn't quotidian, it wouldn't be the word of the day. — Ed)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I forgot to install one little thing after rebuilding my poor PC. This has now been remedied:

Thanks for using Winamp. You are installation number 273,375,923.

Mind you, it really does whip the llama's ass.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Blog of the Day is Practical Penumbra:

Many people have asked me why I called my blog "Practical Penumbra." (Actually, that's a blatant lie; no one has asked. But I'm sure a lot of people are wondering........ok, maybe not a lot. But I digress......).
I have always enjoyed saying the word "penumbra". It is, however, a difficult word to slip into daily conversation. I have therefore always wanted to name something "Penumbra" for that very reason, but having no offspring (unless Frank decides to take me up on my offer to bear his children), and an adopted kitty who came with his own perfectly good name already, I have never had the opportunity to name anything "Penumbra". But just "Penumbra" seemed a little lacking, so, having long been a great fan of alliteration, "Practical" sounded like an excellent adjective.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Song of the Day is First and Second Law off the At the Drop of Another Hat album by Flanders and Swann:

The First law of Thermodynamics:
Heat is work and work is heat
Very Good.
The Second law of Thermodynamics:
Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
You can try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

And if anyone out there knows the origin of the expression "Oo-glay? Eh-mipto!", please contact me. Click where it says "Tell me", on the left. No, your left.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

public static void main,
public static void main,
public static void main,
and typo was his name-o!

I hate Java. It was completely obvious that Java was a huge pile of dog poo the moment they showed the Java version of "Hello, world!":

class HelloWorld 
    public static void main (String args[]) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    
}

print "Hello, World!"

If you need to interface with Java stuff, you need to take a look at Jython. It's Python, with all the requisite Python goodness, but it is written in, runs on, works with, and compiles to Java. And like all the good things in life that don't cost anything, it's free!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:18 PM | Comments (52) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Useful Web Thingy of the Day is Sitemeter. It tracks how many people are visiting your site and where they came from. And it's free. Scroll allll the way down to the bottom to see. I put it on the left originally, under the Blogger icon, but it's too big and screwed up my formatting. No matter, it works fine wherever it is.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)