Saturday, May 02, 2009

Notepad Chaos Template

Last year I created a template set for Movable Type based on the Notepad Chaos template from Smashing Magazine. Now there's a Notepad Chaos Blogger Template and I keep getting comments on my site asking how to fix problems with it. I refer them to wherever they downloaded it, but after checking one of the comments I discovered a really beautiful site.

Mercedes Sosa uses the Blogger version of Notepad Chaos and the site looks excellent. But it's the music. It's in Spanish or something, I can't understand it, but I've already listened to 3 of the songs and it's beautiful. After looking on Wikipedia I discovered Mercedes is a very popular Argentine singer. I understand why. If you have a minute, you can hear her music on her site.

Monday, March 02, 2009

Dealing with Grief, Happy Birthday Graham

It's my brother's birthday today, and he would have been 41. Sadly, 3 years ago, Graham took his own life.

Just now on the TV I was watching Oprah, and people were talking about grieving, and giving yourself the time to do it properly, and that words like closure were not good words. Closure forms a scar over the grief that can turn into bitterness or anger, and it was those words that got me thinking about how I dealt with Graham's death.

Strange that it happened to be his birthday too. Normally I would be at work, and wouldn't watch Oprah during the day. I have a week off work and tomorrow I'm taking my daughter to Melbourne. We have tickets for Coldplay. Graham was a keen music fan and loved to attend live concerts, and was forever popping off to watch something.

I miss him very much, and I hope I don't have any scars and that I've dealt with his death properly. What that is I'm not sure because I do remember feeling very angry, especially with him. These days I know he made a choice and that it was his choice and I should respect that. It doesn't quite sit right but I can live with that.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Addicted to Facebook

To the exclusion of all else, I find myself logging in to Facebook morning and night. Every day I have more and more requests to add applications that I now have to block, it's getting beyond a joke. Yet there's some that I love and hey! I'm helping to save the rainforests, or the oceans, or something.

One application in particular that got me hooked was Hatchlings. You look in people's baskets for eggs and add them to your collection. It's got to be the most addictive of all games, and a challenge to find all the eggs. You can gift the eggs you already have to people who don't have them, hatch the eggs and then feed the hatchlings. It's all pretty stupid, but still I'm doing it every day.

My one big gripe is all the eggs I've gifted and people don't claim them. They asked to be my friend to join the hunt though they're not interested in adding the eggs I give them. Why bother in the first place then? I don't know why I even care.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentines Day

To all the romantics around the world, happy Valentines day. My daughter's friend had a bunch of flowers delivered to her today with a note from an admirer that told her she was very special. I heard the squeals coming from Carly's room and wondered what all the fuss was about. Sweet 16 and a secret admirer: how romantic.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Watch Out For Bees Along the River

We went swimming at the Wiradjuri Reserve on the Murrumbidgee River, and instead of the usual biting cold the water was actually quite warm. Lauren and Daniel came with us with Zeke and Riley and we had a great time. What a pleasure it was to feel cold, after 40 degree Celsius temperatures all week. Zeke loved the water, he's a real little fish, and cried when he was taken out.

Much to my annoyance, I trod on a bee just as I was stepping into the water. They love to hover along the edge of the river, and what a shock it was when that sting came. I knew straight away what happened, and thought I got the stinger out. Tuesday my foot was so itchy and red that I went along to the chemist for some anti-histamines that knocked me out for a few hours. I couldn't go to work, but by the next day the foot was fine and the pills had done their job.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Twitter Blog: The Night Before Twitmas

Twitter Blog: The Night Before Twitmas

A funny and clever poem from the folks at Twitter.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Do You Use Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), in real time. That means that if I add a tweet, it shows up wherever my Twitter updates are located. That might be on my Twitter site, my action stream blog, or here on the sidebar where I've added a widget to get my latest tweets.

Twitter is not just about what I'm doing at the moment, like "Feeling thirsty, need a drink!". It can be an important tool for getting help from the Twitter community, say for html or css code that has you stuck, or perhaps to find a lost child, which happened not too long ago. The link to a photo was posted and before long the child was located. Never underestimate the power of the web, in whatever form.

There's a great Twitter Tools Collection that will have you up and tweeting in not time. There's Window's clients that you can use from your desktop, Mac clients, tools for mobile tweeting, Firefox addons (TwitterFox is the one that I use),  WordPress plugins, Web services and tutorials and development tools.

Another great resourse is Mashable's Twitter Toolbox: a list of 60 Twitter tools with a short description for each one.

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