THOMnottom – Page 28 – Back and bloggier than ever

Do you know the way to… Santa Fe?

Alright, so those aren’t the lyrics, but that song is amazingly versatile.

The month of October certainly had its ups and downs. Yes, I went out to dinner for Mark’s birthday lo those many days ago and had some fun and barbeque. And, of course, we had a blast at Malina’s wedding the following night (congratulations again!). Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse the next day. That’s when a very important hard drive started making clicky-clicky noises.

I don’t really want to talk about it, as the extent of the losses (be they photographic or monetary) are still not known. I’ll give a full update about the situation when I can. In the meantime, with all of the stress of failing computer equipment, audits at work and baby-making… oh yeah, did I mention that? Anywho, with all of the stress these days we’ve decided to take a vacation. And by we, I mean The Woman told me we were going to take one.

So rather then leave you guys in the lurch even longer (I’m sure you’ve all been hitting refresh constantly waiting with baited breath for another post), here’s a little note before we head to the airport for sunny Santa Fe. Hopefully this will let me recharge and get my muse on…

Who’s got a secret?

Have I ever linked to PostSecret before? One of the best sites on Ye Olde Internets – people write their secrets on postcards and send them in anonymously. Each week a selection is posted that includes a cross-section with sad, happy, intriguing, troubling, beautiful and ultimately uplifting messages. Frank Warren, the creator, has even compiled them into three books with a fourth on the way.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because Frank will be giving a lecture at Ramapo College tomorrow night. I’ve been interested in attending one of these events, so this sounds like as good a time as any, even if it is at least 45 minutes away. So, anyone else out there interested in meeting up or even hitching a ride?

It’s hard out here for a… ninja?

What turn of events could lead a couple of world-class assassins to start hitting up gas stations?

With the collapse of the feudal system in Japan only 150 years ago, we can probably expect to see more roaming bands of ninjas committing petty theft and begging for food in exchange for sabotage of parking meters. God help us all when r?nin begin to follow the same path…

I would recommend that the police look for suspects in the nearest anime and comic shops. Oh, wait, the sheriff thinks they are female. Nevermind…

(thanks Buzz)

All your livejournals are belong… nevermind

Along with my limited online presence of late has come an almost indifference to posts by my friends on Livejournal. No, it’s not that I don’t care what you have to say or don’t care about you at all… wait… no, that’s definitely not it. It’s that the Livejournal friends page is absolutely horrendous. If a few people write a bunch of entries one day, I end wasting a bunch of time just trying to figure out where I last left off. And as time goes by, that gets worse and worse.

So my goal had been to read my friends’ Livejournals just like any other decent feed – via Google Reader. The problem is that Google Reader doesn’t support digest authentication, which means that I miss out on any protected posts. And for some people, that would mean pretty much all posts. But along comes Scatman Dan and his wonderful and imaginatively named LiveJournal For Google Reader (now with v1.3 flavoring). This magnificent tool translates the protected LJ feeds into some horribly complicated URL that totally fools Google into displaying all of your ~~personal secrets~~ protected entries. And now I know everything going on in your lives again. W00t indeed!

I even get to rename all of the feeds with your real names so I don’t mix people up – very confusing for some of you married couples! It’s so refreshing to see everything like my other feeds – now if you people would just start writing more. Not that I can complain…

Beta Beta Beta

So in the past month I’ve upgraded WordPress three times thanks to the 2.3 betas – and yet I’ve only updated the website… what… once? Strike that, I’ve now updated it for a fourth time before I could even get out of this first paragraph. I’m beginning to believe that my writing career may never take off and I should get a real job…

Anywho, THOMnottom.com is now rocking the first release candidate of the next version of WordPress. Of course my main reason for deciding to take the plunge forward is the new built-in tag support. And, of course, my current theme does not show tags by default and I’ve yet to add tags to any posts. Then again, considering this is only my second post with that possibility (well, I had a bunch tagged before thanks to a plugin, but I wiped them all out), that’s not a big deal.

There have been a few other changes of late and I just thought I’d point them out. I now have a real Archives page once again. And much better than ever before, thanks to Justin Blanton’s Smart Archives for WordPress. Now you can easily scroll through the previous 850 posts I’ve written over the past 4+ years. Wait, 850?!?! I’m not sure if that’s totally awesome or totally lame, but that’s a big freakin’ number. I sure hope there’s something worthwhile in those archives.

I also started to close comments on older posts again. Akismet has crushed most of my spam problems (just check out the counter on the main page currently at over 25,000 blocked), but a few continued to slip by. While this didn’t bother me that much, an e-mail from my sister Kathleen made me realize that anyone subscribed to the comments on older posts would end up getting spammed through my site. That’s a big no-no. Thankfully I found James McKay’s Comment Timeout. Not only does it let you decide how long to wait until comments are turned off (currently set at 90 days), but it also lets you hold off on popular posts. So if I ever have 12 people comment on a single post, that one will stay open for an additional 90 days. That’s totally rad.

Hmm… I had a few other things. There’s a link back to my host Site5.com in case anyone is looking for a good deal (and excellent service). I decided to ditch the blinking one in favor of a more subdued look – because I’m clearly a subdued guy. Oh, and I started to write something lame for my About page. I really need to be inspired, because right now it sucks.

So, yeah, that was a lot of boring site stuff, but I needed to get it all out there before I could get back to writing about my boring life. Uh, welcome back to me…

That’s all folks!

Yes, yesterday was the big day. No, I can’t tell you anything. Alright, I can tell you guys some things. Like the fact that actually sitting in the “hit seat” is unlike an experience I’ve ever had or, most likely, will ever have. I can also tell you that the whole thing felt so fast in the end considering how long the anticipation dragged on. I can definitely tell you that Meredith Vieira is awesome – she is incredibly sweet and comforting when you really need it. And I” admit that having complete strangers with no stake in your performance cheer for you is damn cool.

As much as my stomach has been absolutely abysmal for the last month thanks to stress and I’ve been looking forward to getting back to my real life, I am a little sad that it’s over. You really build some camaraderie with the other contestants and the crew members. I’m kicking myself for not exchanging e-mails with anyone. Hey Dave, Julia, Megan, John and everybody else, if you somehow stumble upon this entry, feel free to drop me a line!

Anywho, I’m cutting this short before I accidentally reveal something I shouldn’t. All of that will come in due time (well, more like the middle of January). I’m actually even disabling comments on this entry so as not to tempt any of you. It’s time to return to normalcy…

The story so far…

Hey, remember that game show I tried out for? You know, the one that accepted me into their contestant pool and then never called for a year? Well, they called. They called at the beginning of July, in fact. I was too nervous to tell anyone because I didn’t want to jinx myself. Lame? Of course. But you guys aren’t the ones who have to worry about jinxes!

So I’m not going to apologize for going AWOL from posting the last week and a half (as that would be even more lame), but I am offering this up for people who didn’t know as an explanation of why I haven’t exactly been myself lately. The impending ~~doom~~ ~~humiliation~~ great opportunity has preoccupied my mind for almost two months now. It’s amazing that I can even tie my shoes let alone operate heavy machinery…

Last week was the worst, as Thursday was to be my taping. I managed not to throw up in ABC’s studios, but I also managed not to get on TV… yet. I was one of the last contestants called down at the end of the day – which was right before they went on a 2 week break. So now I have a small reprieve to study more, and then I’ll get my chance to blow a question like “What planet do we live on?” or “What’s your middle name?” in front of a national audience. W00T!

If you hadn’t already heard this news, don’t feel bad. Aside from my family and a few potential phone-a-friend candidates, very few people knew. And since the episode probably won’t air until January, I won’t be giving you any updates on what actually happened until then. But when it does air, there shall be a celebration never before seen at our household. One involving an assortment of soda and/or pie. You sure don’t want to miss that…

Sunday Photo – Happy Face

Welcome to a new feature of THOMnottom.com – The Sunday Photo. Considering the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years, I have not posted nearly enough – and you’ve all let me know that. So, as I work on full galleries to put up, I’m going to start posting at least one photo a week – starting with a little experimentation from tonight:

I’ve wanted to start playing around with long exposure times, and this was a simple and fun experiment to try. The Woman and I took several shots, but this last one was the coolest. Now I just have to come up with better inspiration than smiley faces…

Eater of Babies

So, you know that caption at the top? You mean you’ve never bothered to look? I’m so disappointed in you. Then again, it sucks. “Back in black… and white”? What the hell does that mean? I started using it way back when I disappeared for most of a month and somehow never came up with something better. But now I’m really sick of it, and the occasional improvement to this site is made (What? You haven’t noticed anything? Check out my cool archives page. Pretty bitchin’, eh?), the really lame remnants of such carefree days need to go.

So, any ideas? So far the only one I can come up with is inspired by this fantastic photo The Woman took of me – apparently in mid-snack:

What do you think? THOMnottom.com: Eater of Babies. Or maybe THOMnottom.com: Read my blog or I’ll eat this baby…