I’d be hard pressed to come up with a list of complaints about the awesome WordPress software that powers this blog. It is outstanding in every way and I recommend it to everyone. That said, I do have one complaint that has been silently brewing in me for some time.

I cannot stand it how often the built-in editor constantly screws up my paragraphs when I actually edit the text in a post. When I am typing and delete using my Delete key at the end of a sentence to remove extra text, my paragraph break is then missing in the saved version of the post. Likewise for editing the text of an existing post when I add or remove text at the end of a paragraph. Everything looks okay in my editing window, but after a save, my paragraph breaks are turned into line breaks. I can’t tell for sure, but some of this pay be due to the way I like to use the [Delete] key over the [Backspace] a lot of the time.

This may not affect everyone, but the issue drives me nuts. I just scrolled through some old posts and found two instances of this that I didn’t realize were there. I fixed them. Apparently, the automatic HTML coding in the program’s editor window needs some tweaking. Of course, I could in theory use my email program to post through an email account (which I do not do), or type my post in another program (like Word or Notepad) and cut/paste it into the blog. I have tried second method and the result isn’t always good. Besides, I’d still need to use the built-in WP editor to edit the posts that are already published.

The good news is that WordPress just released version 2.1 the other day. It boasts a new and improved text editor, so I have read. I have not tried this to see if my problem is resolved. For the moment, I’m going to stick with version 2.07 because I know as soon as I go through the hassle of upgrading, they’ll suddenly release 2.11 the next day. I’ll wait for that. I am not complaining in any way about the regular updates and releases they have for WordPress. This is a great thing. The best keeps getting better.

I just started watching the TV show The Office. I’m talking about the American version. I’d seen it in passing while flipping channels, but had never really watched it before now. Over a month ago, I had added the DVD of the first season to my Netflix rental list, and it showed up the other day without me realizing it was coming. So I played it and thought I’d try out one episode.

Well, I ended up watching all six shows on the DVD in one sitting! I absolutely love it. The entire cast is perfect and I love the way it is shot. The play between Jim and Pam is terrific. I so wish they’d get together! I rushed the disc for season 2 to the house and I just watched the first episode. New shows air on NBC again starting February 1st. Airing now is season 3. I have barely started the second season. I guess I have some catching up to do. I will enjoy it.

I have posted about There.com twice before, but I am back to post another one since I have learned a lot of tricks in the past month. Most importantly, make sure you run the There Tweaker that is included with the program. You’ll find that under START/PROGRAMS/THERE in the start menu. With this utility, you can set your screen resolution for the game, as well as the graphics engine. The default is 800×600. I have been using this game (I call it a game) for a while now and never knew it. I bumped it up to 1024×768, which is so much better, especially for the browser windows that come up in the program. I also tried changing my graphics engine to DirectX instead of OpenGL, but I soon changed it back. My computer is slow and OpenGL runs smoother on my machine. I don’t know if this is true for everyone. I don’t know if one graphics option is better than another. It’s too bad that the program can’t take advantage of DirectX 9, but I guess doing so would alienate people out with older graphics cards.

To enhance There, pay a visit to the Thumdar website. On this site, you can download add-ons and make use of scripts to alter the There environment. So far, I have only tried the sound replacements, but the amount of stuff to tinker with is intriguing. Also on their site, they have a complete list of all the emotes that can be used in There. Not all of them work for me, leading me to believe that I need to use a Thumdar add-on to enable the entire list. I don’t yet know how easy it is to uninstall these add-ons.

If you want to ratchet up your skill levels, search the Groups for “Whippaa’s Hillside Mansion.” Once you are invited in, it keeps your avatar from going to an away status when you are not using the computer. While in the mansion, jump on your board, backpack, or bike and walk away from the computer. When you come back later, the game will have raised your skill rating on that particular item, thinking you were really using it the whole time. As you raise your skill rating, you are awarded more freebies, and ultimately increase your There FunPass. The other day I earned a silver FunPass! For more for tips and tricks, visit Therefan.com.

I use Firefox as my one and only web browser. I only resort to Internet Explorer if I have to use a service which uses an ActiveX plugin, which is extremely rare. I have decided to post a list of the Firefox extensions that I personally find the most useful. Thanks to Firefox’s popularity, there is a now very wide variety to choose from. I haven’t experimented with all that many, to be honest. That said, the whole reason I love the browser is that it is slim and lean. I find that the more extensions you pile on, the slower it loads up. So I try to install only the necessities.

1. Adblock Plus - Blocks ads
2. Del.icio.us - Integrates Delicious bookmarks
3. Videodownloader - Save YouTube and other videos locally
4. Bookmark Duplicate Detector - Prevents duplicate bookmark entries
5. IE View Lite - Right-click menu has option to view current page in IE
6. Image Zoom - Optional zooming of images (least used)

I wrote this letter today to the editor of my local newspaper:

I am most distraught by an article on the front page of the N&O today. A state agency is considering allowing bow hunting in the city limits to thin the deer population? Only in backwards North Carolina would something like this actually come to pass. This is an asinine idea. I do not want anyone in my city limits, or especially my neighborhood hunting with a bow and arrow, or any other weapon for that matter. Have people lost their minds? The deer population isn’t too high…the human population is too high! These deer live in the woods which we cut down for more strip malls and townhouses. Anyone who takes pleasure in hunting and killing an innocent animal is seriously lacking morality.

I was a bit curious about how Snakes on a Plane was going to play out, so I rented it. I watched the DVD last night by myself. Laura was smart enough to not even bother. As you can imagine, this movie is absolutely terrible. It has the most cheesy story you can dream up, coupled with some of the worst acting I have seen in years. Samuel Jackson was the only person in this film who knew how to act, but why he agreed to be in it is beyond me. Every actor in the movie played the most stereotypical characters that you have seen in bad movies time and time again. Completely predictable and completely useless. Not to mention the comedians who had parts in the movie, yet weren’t even trying to be funny.

The plot was absolutely ridiculous. You could predict every scene in the movie before it happened. We were shown why the snakes were planted on the plane, but as to how they got on past security, the movie offered no explanation. It was all so bad that a child could have written this movie, word for terrible word. All of the snake scenes were obviously computer generated. The snakes didn’t merely strike the passengers, they did over-the-top kills, such as ramming their bodies into the eye sockets of their victims. Each snake seemed to have its own smart, evil personality, much like the shark in Jaws or Deep Blue Sea. The background commotion on the plane that played out behind the lead actors did not seem believable when you stopped and focused on it.

The bloody, sweaty, torn clothes of the passengers seemed awfully clean and neat when the plane finally landed at the end and everyone was saved. Oh, did I mention that the plane was landed by a guy who had only a fleeting knowledge of flying through video games? A Playstation game, at that. It must have been one realistic game since he somehow knew where all of the controls were for every conceivable scenario. Not to mention that to get rid of the snakes, they shot out the windows in the plane, eventually leaving a large, gaping hole in the side of the 747. Yet considering all that and more, the doofus passenger flying the plane seemed to have no trouble at all, cracking cheesy one-liners the whole time. It didn’t help that this guy is a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Don’t get me wrong, he is a funny guy, but his presence made the whole movie feel like an actual SNL skit. That’s too bad because if it were a SNL skit, we’d be laughing with the movie instead of at it.

I have been very hard on this movie. Part of the reason that I have nothing nice to say is that the movie got some unexpected good reviews from average viewers. In fact, on Netflix, users rated it an average of 4 out of 5 stars, with the rating on IMDB coming in at 7 of 10. I do not know how any of this is possible, unless the target audience for this movie is as dumb as the movie itself. The examples I have cited in this review are only a small few of the countless bad scenes in this excuse for a movie. However, the ending did leave you with one positive feeling…a sigh of relief that this monstrosity was finally over.

I was intrigued by the previews for My Super Ex-Girlfriend and finally rented it through Netflix when it was released on DVD. Me and Laura watched it the other night. It was pretty good. I am not a big Uma Thurman fan, but I found the casting to be great. I really enjoyed the cast and how they made the movie fun to watch. Luke Wilson, the lead guy, is just great in this movie.

The story is enjoyable, and I found the special effects to be quite extraordinary. This is especially true in the shark scene of the movie, which I thought looked very realistic, especially for a comedy film. I have to say strongly that I was very discouraged at how outlandish the plot became toward the end. It got very ridiculous after a while, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. That said, if you are looking for a fun time, go ahead and watch this one. I can’t say I’d suggest paying for a rental, but if you have HBO or something, you might enjoy this one.

Me and Laura used to watch Real Time With Bill Maher when we had HBO. I used to love the “New Rules” segment in the show. I rented the New Rules DVD from Netflix and just watched it. It is a collection of all them. I love his opinions, his rants, and his delivery. This was well worth watching for me, especially considering the existence of my own hate list. The material may soon feel dated, since it is largely based on current events from 2003-2005. Regardless, this DVD is hilarious. I felt like applauding the whole time.

A few months ago, my brother Chris suggested that I watch the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth. I finally sat down to watch it the other night. After about 15 minutes into the movie, I had already made up my mind that it was fantastic. I wasn’t sure how the movie would be presented, but I was soon drawn in. My jaw dropped at a many of the statistics I learned. I didn’t doubt global warming to begin with, but this movie will leave anyone without a shadow of a doubt. There is simply no denying it. This film proves that fact using an engaging presentation. As the film states, this is not a political issue, but a moral issue.

This isn’t a popcorn and snacks kind of movie, nor is it something to turn on when you just want to have a good time. As the title suggests, it is not a convenient truth. But its message cannot be denied. My bottom line: I think that every person on Earth needs to watch this movie.

I tend to shy away from installing too many programs, especially utilities, on my computer. I find that all of it eventually clogs up the works. But, if you think you don’t need an advanced text editor like EditPad, you are wrong. The Windows Notepad hasn’t changed since the early days of Windows. It gets the job done, but you don’t know what you’re missing.

Editpad Lite is the free version of Editpad and it is wonderful. The main reason that I downloaded this a year ago is that it can find and replace text across multiple files. This is extremely handy. I used it to work on the files for this blog, actually. For example: I can download all of the PHP files from my online Wordpress folder and open them all at once in Editpad. Files load in convenient tabs, such as they do in Firefox. Simply pull up the search feature (CTRL-F) and find/replace any text you wish. in the current tab, or across all the open files. The Windows Notepad can’t do this, or even have more than one file open at a time. Even more, Editpad conveniently colors HTML code, has a slew of options and features, and so much more. I don’t use the majority of its features. The example above is reason enough for me. I recommend it for everyone. It is far and away better than the basic notepad you are probably using now.

Note: I changed the preferences on my Editpad to disable the tray icon. This keeps it from running in the background. Also, I like to check the option to keep the registry clean and store user settings in an .ini file.