• I refer you to my referrers

    Via J : Da Blog I found a nifty little toy that provides a real-time listing of referrer information about visitors to this journal. (I will probably expand this feature to the rest of the site… eventually.)

    And no, before you ask, I don’t have too much time on my hands.

  • I’m kidding. I’d never vote for Bush.

    Thank you, Doyce, for adding some needed joyful satire to my otherwise-drab day.

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    I’ll take either one of these, though the “Evildoer” is probably more appropriate…

  • Please Drive Carefully… Dammit.

    The rainy season has arrived, better late than never. And so one of Portland’s annual traditions is revived. No, I’m not talking about the Xmas light show at PIR. I’m talking about thousands of drivers remembering how to get around on wet pavement.

    Case in point: Schmuck in a white Ford Taurus wagon decides at the very last instant that the exit they’re passing is the one they absolutely must take, and so they swerve in front of a Volvo sedan. The sedan’s driver honks and hits the brakes all at once. The Taurus’ driver is in the midst of correcting from the swerve, panicks at the sound of the horn and overcorrects. Tires squeal as the wagon does a sliding 180 down forty feet of offramp and ends up facing the wrong way partway up the embankment.

    Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and traffic resumed its regular 9am pace within a couple of minutes. All of this took place along that stretch of I-5 northbound that crosses under the Ross Island bridge just as I was about to hike down to Moody on my way to work.

    C’mon, folks. This happens every year. Cutting people off because you’re missing your exit is one thing, but when it’s raining you simply must be more careful. Try keeping the phrase “screaming death at sixty miles per hour” firmly in your mind as you make your way around the city. Thank you.

  • Laid out all pretty-like.

    This website has always “kind of” worked for small displays, but not really. Upon firing up one of the Compaq WinXP machines and browsing to greyduck.net, I was appalled at the overlapping text and general cruddiness. Time to take action, it was.

    An hour, several false starts and some Googling later, we now have a fully functional new layout engine. What’s that? You say it looks almost exactly the same? Good. That means you don’t notice anything broken, and that’s the best news I could get.

    The bulk of what works about the new stylesheet rig comes from saila.com’s CSS Layouts page. If you dabble in CSS at all, I recommend taking a peek.

    Oh, and hey:


    Valid CSS!

    CSS Layouts – saila.com

  • Picture this. Picture that. Picture the other thing.

    It’s three, three, three galleries in one! Take a look at The Working Life, a collection of images from around Entercom Portland.

  • How the not-very-mighty have fallen.

    It never ceases to amaze me that I can be so often amazed at what I see on the television when I go into the lunch room. Last time it was that steaming pile of excrement known as “Passions.” Today… something almost scarier.

    The pitch must have gone something like this: “I have a great idea! Let’s take a semi-famous prop-comic from the 80’s and build a really crappy spot around his most famous bit of schtick! It can’t fail!”

    So here’s Gallagher, yes that Gallagher, the center of a television commercial for Northwest Title Loans. He smashes words with his sledgehammer! How droll. Oh, but wait, he’s also digitally composited into a watermelon-shaped cartoon car!

    Okay, so I’m not in sales, marketing or programming. Even I know that this is a hideous assault on all that is decent and holy. More to the point, I can’t see it working to create a positive impression of the business in question in the minds of the viewers.

    Oh, crap. I’ve been in radio too long. I’m starting to think like them. Heaven help me.