The Couch Potato

So I’ve installed Drupal, Joomla and a couple other open-source CMS/frameworks on poffdaddy.com. Not sure if they’re needed, but it’s always fun playing with new geek toys.

Joomla is my fav so far. It seems pretty easy to handle. Drupal feels a lot more robust, and a lot less user friendly. But I’m picking up on it as I go, so maybe it gets easier. Xoops and Zikula have yet to really make an impression.

And all four are waaaaay behind Word Press as far as I’m concerned. So don’t worry about seeing Poffdaddy on any new platform soon.

Tags: wordpress

Using the WordPress 2.0 iPhone app to post this entry. Can’t go on much longer since typing on my phone is a bit of a hassle.

Tags: wordpress

I’m writing this post using the illustrious Mars Edit software. We’re testing it out at work as we prepare to implement a blogging API to our content management system. That way folks could use their favorite blog editor (such as this one) to post articles, rather than a somewhat clunky home-grown CMS.

Stay tuned and we’ll see what happens.

Just returned from Washington DC, where I attended the annual Online News Association conference. It’s a three-day gig packed with sessions on best practices, hands-on learning, and so forth. This year was just as good as last year’s conference – which was held in Toronto.

One of the highlights for me personally was after day two. There was an official reception and cocktail hour hosted by the Washington Post. Had a couple beers with folks I’d met during the day, then decided around 8 p.m. that I needed to get a bite to eat and hit the sack. During my dinner in the hotel lounge, I check my iPhone and noticed there was a Tweet-up about to happen.

For those of you on the square end, Twitter is a wildly popular instant-message/status updater. The ONA crew had been tweeting quite a bit, so I thought they’d be a lively bunch to meet in person.

So at the designated hour I strolled out into the hotel lobby to find about ten folks – mostly a young crowd – trying to decide where to go. I joined them and convinced them to try a place right around the corner called the Post Pub. I’d been there once already and knew it was a low-key, somewhat divey place for a beer. Plus, they have Yuengling on tap. My kinda place.

So the group headed out trading introductions and business cards along the way. You’ll all be surprised to know I wasn’t the oldest one there. We got to the pub and got a big booth in the back of the house. I’m pretty sure everyone had a great time. I managed to get about half a dozen Twitter followers out of the whole deal, and four or five that I’m now following. Plus, I traded a few e-mails today with some folks from that group inviting them to keep in touch.

See? Geeks aren’t always reclusive losers.

Tags: ONA, twitter

Watching the end of the Washington v. Oregon game on Fox Sports Bay Area. Late in the fourth quarter the play-by-play fella (Barry Tompkins) and the dunce color commentator (Petros Papadakis) were talking about a big Oregon quarterback who hails from the state of Georgia.

Tompkins: He said before he came to to play in Eugene, the only thing he knew about Oregon was that it was on top of California.
Papadakis: Yeah, <chuckle> he’s a real geologist.

And yes, I hit rewind on the TiVo to verify he actually said that.

Tags: football, TV

You may/may not have noticed that things look a little different. I recently switched web hosts, abandoning Yahoo after numerous years in favor of a (much) cheaper alternative.

As a result, I had to basically restart my blog. All my posts made the move just fine, but all the little template tweaks did not. Probably just as well, as I’d spent way too many hours jiggering links in the sidebar. WordPress is pretty easy to adjust., but my code was probably a little less than clean.

Anyway, I’m sticking with the GG Bridge-themed skin for now. I kinda like the look and it’s just downright familiar. Don’t be surprised if you see other changes going on in the near future. I’m a professional tinker-er, so it’s just a matter of time.

Tags: blog, wordpress

Cyrus, Becky and I went down to the Mission district after work today to attend a book release party for our esteemed colleague. Mat Honan just published a rather comical book based on an equally comical website. Political comedy, in case you’re too lazy to click.

Mat’s one of those people we all wish we could be: smart, funny, capable of being self-supportive professionally while working on an entirely freelance basis. Gawd, I wish that were me.

Anyway, we headed down to the Dovre Club to buy a copy of the fine book and consume the two free drinks that came along with it. And free sushi to boot. What’s not to love?

Tags: becky, cyrus, obama

And I forgot to mention that we’re very sad – yet delighted – that our very good friends Cyrus and Becky will be leaving us soon. Becky just wrapped up her college stint and they’re off to France to teach English. The program they’re entering is through the French gov’t, so it’s legit. They’ll get paid enough to afford rent and food, plus they can go on strike whenever they damn well please.
Cyrus worked for a bit at Macworld, so we’re old colleagues. We’ve become pretty darn good friends since that time. And they just live a few blocks away from us in Rockridge, so we wind up seeing a lot of each other. They’re a great couple and it kinda makes us sad to know they’re leaving the country for a year or so. At least we know we’ll be invited to their wedding next spring/summer up in lovely Tilden Park.

They’re a great couple and we’re just happy they have such a great opportunity.

Tags: becky, cyrus, france

Yeah, work’s been keeping me busy lately (just like everyone else). The new job is pretty hectic due to the fact that everyone in the company wants my help on their project. Everyone. I’m not kidding. So I just listen to what they have to say, and in the end I just help wherever I can.

It’s made a little more hectic recently by Kayan Wong’s departure. She’s the project manager for the development and design teams, and today was her last at the company. On to bigger and better things. No sooner had she cleared out her desk than folks start requesting meetings with me to see how I can help them. Sorry gang, I’ve got a full plate already. You’ll just have to replace her.

Enough about work.

Ann’s been pretty excited because she has her big BlogHer convention going on this weekend. It’s a casual blogger gathering with female bloggers from all corners of the web. I teased her quite a bit, saying it would wind up resembling a reclusive cat woman jailbreak. But it sounds like it’s a much more diverse crowd than I anticipated. She’s enjoying herself and still has a couple days to go.

And in other news … if you’ve read Ann’s blog you know that her father and his wife recently moved to San Francisco. They’re officially up here full-time now, with an apartment over in the Fillmore district. It’s kinda weird given they haven’t lived in the same town together since Ann was 12 or so. But we get along great with both Mike and Hilda. No worries.

Now I have a lazy weekend planned, and I’ll pretty much be flying solo as Ann is off at her blogger shindig. July and August will probably be pretty low-key. Once September arrives, so will the busy social calendar.

We had a splendid weekend. Numerous social events and gorgeous weather made it one to remember.

It started on Saturday afternoon when we hit Miss Monica Tirado’s backyard BBQ. Delicious burgers, cold beer, and the usual cast of characters. Then the wife and I went home to get cleaned up before heading over to the city for dinner with Mike and Hilda. They were in town over the weekend and treated us to a lovely dining experience at Roy’s, which is an Asian fusion/Hawaiian restaurant. We ate like pigs and came home happy.

Then Sunday we drove down to Alameda for Phil and Lisa’s BBQ challenge—with a little soccer thrown in for good measure. Phil picked up ribs, brisket and sides from two competing BBQ joints (Everett & Jones and Great American BBQ), then it was up to the diners to deem one the winner. But really, the freeloaders were the winners, because it was all good. My fav was the GA brisket. Just right.

Jason and Lauren Snell also joined the fun with their two young’uns, Jamie and Julian. Yes, those kids are a couple darlings. Phil had the biggest game yet from the Euro 2008 tournament on his DVR: Germany v. Poland. We watched as the Germans rode roughshod over their poor, economically challenged neighbors to the east. In a hard bit of irony, it was one of Germany’s two Polish-born strikers who scored both goals.

But the most entertaining moment of the afternoon came from Julian Snell. He and Jamie had been cavorting pretty well, keeping themselves occupied and climbing around on the adults every once in a while. Then Julian goes over to the couch where Ann is sitting next to his mother. He tells Ann to ‘watch this’ and proceeds to drop the F-bomb.

WTF in extended form.

So, a somewhat-embarrassed and clearly upset Lauren proceeds to haul her little boy off to the bedroom for a little time in the penalty box. I think she dished out a little discipline on the way. After it was all over we had a good laugh. But when it happened, we were all a little too shocked to know exactly how we should react.

The Snells handled it well. But really, what can you do?

Tags: bbq, euro 2008, soccer