Simple Tricks and Nonsense

Some of you may have noticed something missing from your lives the last couple of days... namely this entire blog! Sorry about that; we've been having some server issues here at Simple Tricks and Nonsense. If it's any consolation to those loyal readers who had to sweat and shudder their way through those uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms, I couldn't even get into the back-end functions myself. It was as if this place never existed... [Imagine, if you will, the sound of a cold, mournful wind blowing across a vast plain that is alien in its desolation and very, very creepy.]

However, my ever-vigilant webmaster Jack informs me the problem ought to be fixed now and regular bloviation may continue.

Posted by at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A couple days ago, I got an email from someone called Amy at something called Blogged.com, informing me that "[her] editors recently reviewed [my] blog and have given it an 8.1 score out of (10) in the Entertainment category of Blogged.com." Suspicious, cynical man that I am, I naturally assumed that the message was some variety of spam or maybe even a highly targeted phishing scheme. However, the fact that everything in the message was spelled correctly gave me the sense that it might be for real, so I thought I'd do a little googling when I had a free moment and try to determine what this Blogged.com thing was all about. It turns out that it is indeed a legit operation. This site describes it as "an online directory for all the blogs in the world. ...a catalog that offers information on the entire blog and its overall content." Which is actually a pretty cool idea, if rather ambitious (all the blogs in the world? How many do you suppose that is? Would it really be possible to catalog them all?).

I must admit, I'm flattered that my humble little scribblings here (a) attracted the notice of this sort of organization, and (b) that I scored quite highly in the eyes of those mysterious editors, whoever they may be. It's a nice pat on the head to have some maybe-professional say my stuff is "great." However, I'm not sure what to think of Simple Tricks being pigeonholed as an "entertainment blog." I know I write a lot about movies and TV, but I think of this place as my personal blog, not an entertainment blog in the sense of something like, say, ScreenRant or even Jaime Weinman's Something Old, Nothing New. My purpose here is to write about whatever happens to be on my mind... which I suppose the evidence would show tends to be movies and television. I don't know... maybe it's just the idea of being so easily categorized that rubs me the wrong way, or perhaps it's the notion that I might be somewhat single-minded (and hence, potentially, kinda boring). Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Posted by at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hey, folks, just a little housekeeping note here: I've noticed that lately the bloody spambots seem to be drawn to several specific older entries, so I've decided to close comments on these garbage-magnets in the hopes of saving myself a little aggravation. Fortunately, they're all older entries that I doubt anyone is going to want to comment on at this point, but I thought I'd put up an official warning anyhow, because you never can tell what people are going to run across in their surfing. If for some reason you do want to remark on one of the closed entries, just send me an email and we'll work something out...

Posted by at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, kids, if you've been hanging around the blog today, you may have noticed some weird stuff happening format-wise, culminating in this new three-column arrangement. I've been wanting to try a three-column format for some time now; basically, I haven't liked the aesthetics of all that sidebar information stacked up in a single place, and I also suspect a lot of people never scroll down and thus miss out on stuff. (Perhaps I underestimate people's willingness to scroll, or overestimate the significance of my sidebar crap, or both. Still.)

Anyway, a little bit of tinkering from me and a big assist from Jack resulted in what you now see here. It's not perfect -- I'd prefer not to have all that white space below the sidebars, and there may be some problems for people using smaller displays (but isn't pretty much everybody on at least 1024x768 monitors these days?) -- but I'm going to give it a go for awhile, especially since Jack has advised me that switching back isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Let me know what you think of the new look, especially if you're experiencing any big problems. I've tested it on both Firefox and Explorer, so browser choice, at least, shouldn't be an issue...

Posted by at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Chris Roberson clued me into the Blog Readability Test, which has determined the following:

So, this means either my writing is so clean and to the point that even an adolescent can follow along... or my writing is adolescent. Hmm... not sure I really want to know the answer to the implied question here...

Posted by at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting... just out of curiosity, I ran Simple Tricks through that blog rating thingie again. I'm a PG now. Apparently using the word "whore" bumps you up a notch on the offense-o-meter:

Posted by at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, I decided to participate in the latest meme thing that's sweeping the InterWebs, and I got back this rather surprising result:

A G rating? That's the kiss of death at the box office! I was hoping for at least a PG. Geez, it's not like Simple Tricks and Nonsense is the Pete's Dragon of the blogosphere... or is it? I'm so ashamed...

Posted by at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just trying out a new toy, a way to embed photos in my entries without the tedium of saving a copy from the source to my desktop and re-uploading it to my blog server, and without breaking InterWeb etiquette by "hotlinking" to other people's bandwidth. Details here, if you're interested in techy stuff.

Some of you may be asking, "why an old photo of Al Gore holding a brick-sized mobile telephone?" Well, why not? I remember when brick-phones were quite the novelty, and it amuses me to see how far we've come in such a relatively short time...

Posted by at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hm... according to this, Simple Tricks and Nonsense is ranked 2,393,955 out of however many sites there are out there in the vast, vast InterWeb. Not too bad, I suppose. Hey, I beat Greenberg, so that's something. (Just kidding, Brian...)

I'm thinking I may have to get a commemorative t-shirt to mark this occasion. How geeky would that be?

Posted by at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

From the Department of Stuff I Mentioned Months Ago and Then Forgot to Follow Through On (DSIMMATFFTO), may I now present my new and improved photo gallery? It's got a whole new interface (which I find much more aesthetically pleasing than the old one) and I've even reorganized and added some new sub-albums, so if you've ever been curious about what I or my world looks like, go have a look. The link over there in the sidebar has been updated, too...

Posted by at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, all the cool kids are doing it:

Create your own visitor map!

Theoretically, every visitor to my humble little blog from this point forward will be represented by a red diamond on that map, showing where he or she is located...

Posted by at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

You may have already noticed that I've added a new feature to Simple Tricks and Nonsense. If not, take a look at the sidebar there on the right. You'll need to scroll down a ways to see it, past the Quick Links module; it's a "widget" that shows which DVDs The Girlfriend and I currently have on loan from Netflix. (We share the account, so the titles you see appearing there at any given time may reflect my tastes, her tastes, or our tastes. Try to guess which is which; it's the fun new party game that's sweeping the nation!) Kind of fun. Naturally, the three inaugural titles are a bit, well, uninspiring, but they can't all be Wild Strawberries, can they?

I'm looking into a similar widget that will show off random titles from my LibraryThing catalog, and I'm also planning to prune down the Quick Links so you don't have to scroll so far to see the widgets. Eventually, I'd like to change Simple Tricks to a three-column format and divide all the stuff that's currently in the sidebar between two columns, but I haven't had the time (and, to be honest, I haven't yet figured out how) to do that.

In the meantime, enjoy my latest exercise in exhibitionism. Hey, I may not get around to writing reviews anymore, but at least you won't have to wait a whole year to find out how I'm killing my free time!

[UPDATE: As promised, I've cleaned house on the Quick Links. I removed a bunch of blogs and journals that I read via Bloglines, as well as some sites that don't update very often or that have outlived their usefulness. I don't know if anyone other than me ever uses those links, but if I've taken away something you valued, just let me know and I'll put it back.]

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the bright light of morning, my previous entry on Aaron Spelling doesn't look like one of my better pieces, does it? I have to admit, I was forcing it. The ending especially... as if I could really sit through an episode of T.J. Hooker, even just to ogle one of my youthful lust objects. Right. No, the truth is that, while I've watched plenty of Spelling-produced shows over the years and felt like the man's death warranted some comment, I honestly don't have any deep fondness for any of his work. To extend that cheeseburger metaphor just a bit more, Spelling's shows are more like the McDonald's end of the cheeseburger spectrum than the huge, juicy, home-made, Jimmy Buffett "Cheeseburger in Paradise" end. They fill the hole when you're hungry, but when you really think about it, they don't even taste all that good. They were just there. Shows like Charlie's Angels and 90210 were just there, a familiar and inescapable part of the pop-cultural landscape, enjoyed but not treasured. Televisual Big Macs.

Moving on to other subjects that I actually know how to discuss, I just want to point out that I've added a couple of new links over there in the sidebar, both related to that LibraryThing Web site I told you about a couple days ago. Under "Obligatory Narcissism," you'll find a link that'll take you my personal catalog -- currently consisting of 102 entries with God-only-knows-how-many to go -- while the LibraryThing link under "Miscellaneous Coolness" will take you to the site's home page so you can set up your own account. If anyone reading this does set up an account and wants to share it here, just let me know and I'll post the link.

And finally, I noted a few days back that my photo gallery was going to be wonky for a little while in the wake of the server change. If anyone cares, here's what's happening: an upgraded version of the gallery software has been installed, which created a whole new directory in which to store my pictures. In other words, I've currently got two galleries, the old and the new. I've ported over all the stuff from the old gallery and am currently making sure everything ended up in the right folder, that all the captions and descriptions are there, that sort of thing. Also, as long as I'm puttering around, I've been uploading several all-new albums, which takes forever over my crappy dial-up connection. Long story short: I should have the new gallery up and running in a few more days. In the meantime, if you have a hankerin' to see what yours truly looks like, I believe the link over there in the sidebar will still take you to the old gallery.

Back later...

Posted by at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My three loyal readers (and you know who you are) may have noticed that Simple Tricks went unexpectedly missing yesterday. That's because my friend and webmaster Jack was switching the site over to a new server from the broken-down old ENIAC we've been using. He assures me the new hardware will be faster and more efficient on the back-end; I don't know if you folks out there in InternetLand will notice any difference, but you may see some improvements in load-up times or something.

So far, it appears that the transfer of the blog has been carried off without a hitch. Everything that was here before is here now. I think. If anyone notices any problems I haven't seen, please let me know. The photo gallery, on the other hand, is going to be in flux for a couple of days while Jack upgrades the gallery software and I perform some housekeeping I've been meaning to do for a while. I'll let you all know when that's back, too...

Posted by at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Why, yes, I have blogged quite a bit today, thank you for noticing. Work was a little slow and I kept finding more interesting things to think about. It's been kind of fun, actually; I imagine my day has been similar to what the pro bloggers experience. But the Day of the Blog is winding down now, and I'm tired. Time for bed.

I'd like to leave you with one final note before I call it a night, though. FYI, I have added some more sub-categories to help you find entries on specific topics. Under Film Studies, you can now go directly to all my movie reviews, my various Star Wars-related ramblings, and my tributes to those in the film industry who've passed on, if you're into any of those things. I've also created an "In Memoriam" sub-category under The Glass Teat heading, which comprises my entries on television (the name comes from a Harlan Ellison book I've got kicking around the Bennion Archives somewhere), but I haven't populated that one yet, so don't expect to see anything there for a day or two. Oh, and I've also added an "Egregious Corporate-speak" sub-cat, just as I've been threatening to do. I don't know if you folks in InternetLand really find the entries about proofreading all that amusing, but it amuses me to catalog the linguistic wreckage I come across during my day job. It lets me vent about them, anyhow.

I'm planning to add a number of other sub-cats, too, including one on all the memes and Internet quizzes I enjoy doing, and maybe one to collect my references to Star Trek. If you have any suggestions for additional ones you'd find useful, just leave them in comments below.

And now, to bed. Good night, all...

Posted by at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know if anybody pays any attention to those category links over in the sidebar, but lately I've been wondering about their usefulness, or lack thereof. In particular, I'm thinking that a couple of the categories -- "General Ramblings" and "Esoterica" -- have degenerated into catch-alls that cover way too much ground to really provide much of a service to anyone, including myself. So, in order to give these things a little more functionality for anyone who may actually use them (not to mention improving my own sense of organization), I've decided to experiment with creating some sub-categories. The first of these, "Final Frontier," is now live and ready for your perusal. It encompasses, as you may surmise from the name, all my entries relating to space flight or space exploration (as it turns out, that's about half of the content that I'd previously filed under "Esoterica"). I've gone back and re-categorized everything that fits under this new heading, so you should be able to quickly scan my ramblings on what goes on "out there," if that's a subject that interests you. I have a couple of other sub-categories in mind as well, and I'll be adding them as I find the time and inspiration.

As always when I make a site change, let me know in the comments below if you have any strong feelings one way or the other. Also, any suggestions for sub-categories (or top-level categories, for that matter) are welcome.

Posted by at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest blogging innovation seems to be embeddable video players, like the one you see below. (Evanier, in particular, has become very fond of this new gimmick in the last couple weeks.) I wouldn't want to miss out on a happening new Internet trend, so I thought I'd give the technology a try and share with you all this vintage music video that a friend sent to me this morning. The clip is more effective if you've got sound, but even if you don't, just sit back and bask in the surreal (and curiously sexy in a dopey kind of way) imagery. I especially like the scrawny little guy in the zebra-skin collar who is stirring his big, bubbling cauldron of luscious girl-singer stew. Freud would've loved that sequence...

Let me know how this player thingie works for you all and if you'd like to see more of this sort of thing here at Simple Tricks.

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

We've reached a milestone here at Simple Tricks and Nonsense. As you may have surmised from the title above, this is my 500th blog entry. Not too shabby considering that when my buddy Jack presented me with a website for a Christmas gift, my initial reaction was something to the effect of, "Cool! What the hell am I going to do with it?"

Continue reading "The Big Five-Oh-Oh" »

Posted by at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I just happened to drift past the ol' blog here and I couldn't help but notice that the turkey photo looks much better against this new background than it did last year against the old dark version of Simple Tricks. All that 70s-style brown and gold seems really warm and inviting now, whereas I remember it being kind of sickly last year. Hmmmm... maybe there's something to this whole change thing after all.

Posted by at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, kids, here's the scoop: since the upgrade to Movable Type 3.2 about twelve days ago, I've had very little spam activity, and the small amount of crap that did come in was handled quite efficiently by MT's filtering protocol, which means I haven't given the matter a lot of thought. This morning, however, the filter let me down, and I got hit with some 50 junk comments in a little under an hour. Rather than let it stack up and become totally unwieldy, I shut down the comments feature while I did some research on what I can do to stop this nuisance once and for all.

As I mentioned a while back, the most secure option would require anyone who comments here to register with an authentication service called TypeKey. This is a third-party organization with which you create an identity and prove yourself to be a human being (easier than you might think for us genuine humans, but bloody difficult for software masquerading as a person), and then you can use this identity to log in to blogs and other Websites that require this form of authentication.

TypeKey authentication would give me lots of control over what happens around here, but I fear it might also discourage some people from commenting, and I don't want to do that. I know some of my readers aren't especially tech-savvy or involved in the online world, and I can see how it could be off-putting to be forced into signing up for something that might have limited usefulness for you. My concern is that, if this is the only TypeKey-restricted blog you visit, you might choose to simply stop commenting here rather than register. Or you might stop visiting altogether. So before I do anything drastic, I'm going to ask anyone who regularly comments here -- and even anyone who may be lurking out there but thinks they might commment someday -- to give me some feedback now. What do you think about this TypeKey idea? Would it be a pain or make you uncomfortable to have to register for this service? Leave your thoughts below, please.

In the meantime, I've cranked up the sensitivity of the Movable Type spam filter and set the system to hold all comments for moderation before they publish. Maybe this will turn out to be enough anti-spam protection and I won't have to go to the TypeKey option, but I'd still like to know what y'all think...

Posted by at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

FYI, I've come under a major spam attack today, so I've shut down the comments feature until I have a chance to deal with things...

Posted by at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the things I'm liking about the new edition of Movable Type is a little plug-in tool called StyleCatcher, which enables you to quickly swap out pre-existing stylesheets with the touch of a button instead of all the tedious cutting-and-pasting of code that used to be required. Basically, it makes it super-easy to play with the look of the ol' blog, so it selecting a style feels like less of a major commitment.

This particular style is called "Powell Street." I find this one pretty pleasing, except for the khaki-colored sidebar. I'm not sure about that. Anyone out there have any thoughts? Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, expressions of disgust, or whatever seems appropriate...

Posted by at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A few days ago, when I wrote about that pirate attack on a cruise ship, I pooh-poohed the idea that the liner had used a futuristic weapon to drive off the bad guys. At the time I wrote my blog entry, I'd seen only one mention of this weapon among several news articles and, because of the early lack of coverage on this aspect of the story, I felt justified in my skepticism. You have to admit, it does sound pretty far-fetched; even the name used to describe it in that one article, "sonic blaster," sounds like something out of the old Buck Rogers TV series. And even though blogs like Boing Boing and DefenseTech have documented the development of such weapons over the last couple of years, I guess I remained unconvinced because I was seeing it on the Internet instead of a more traditional news source, like Time magazine or something.

It turns out that such weapons apparently do exist and were used in that incident with the pirates, as a reader named Eric was all too eager to inform me. My exchange with him got pretty snippy, and it's just as well that it was among the comments that did not survive the server upgrade. However, our argument has left me thinking about my responsibilities as a blogger, and what my readers -- whether I know you personally or not -- need to understand about what I'm writing in this space.

I am not a journalist. I don't even play one on TV. I'm just a guy who has a small-time online presence and who chooses to share the things that catch my fancy. I do this for my own amusement and that of my friends and whatever strangers may enjoy my particular way of assembling words. I have neither the time nor the obligation to check every fact or chase down links within links. This means that Simple Tricks and Nonsense is best described as an opinion column -- it's what I think, nothing more, nothing less. I'm not trying to excuse my failure to determine the true facts in the pirate story; I am telling you that you shouldn't necesarily expect the facts to be correct in everything I write here. I try to get it right, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just skim-read the articles I link to, and I miss vital details. And sometimes I just plain screw up. It happens.

If you catch me on something, feel free to let me know I'm incorrect. But be polite about it. And keep in mind what it is I'm doing here.

Posted by at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier today (today meaning Friday, November 11 -- I'm up way past my bedtime), Cranky Robert expressed a concern that the Simple Tricks photo gallery had vanished in the server upgrade. The gallery is actually still available at the same old URL, http://jasonbennion.com/photos/, or you can just click on this link, if you prefer to do things the modern, convenient way. Among the other changes going on around here, I am in the process of adding new pictures -- indeed, whole new albums -- to the gallery. I'll let you know when they're up and ready for the public.

I'll be back in the morning with more blatheration...

Posted by at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been exploring my new version of the blogging software this afternoon, specifically the functions related to comments and spam-filtering. I have many more options in this regard than I did before, including an authentication feature that would make my loyal readers prove that they were real human beings and not spam-dealing Cylons every time they tried to leave a comment. That seems a little draconian for my tastes, and frankly I'm not enough of a control freak to go for the "moderate comments" option that would require me to approve or disapprove every single comment before it gets published. (Some of you experienced that feature earlier today.) It's not that I get that many comments; I just find it more spontaneous and enjoyable to have the comments publish immediately, for everyone to see. I figure there's no reason to deprive my readers of comments they may find interesting just because I haven't seen them yet, and it's also easier for me to just look at the public site to see if anyone's been around, rather than logging into my author's interface and checking the list whenever I want to see if I've had visitors. So for now, I'm going to trust the spam filter to keep the junk out. If that doesn't work, I'll reconsider the authentication option. Just thought you might want to know...

Posted by at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, kids, you've probably noticed a few changes here at Simple Tricks and Nonsense. To explain, my Webmaster Jack has finally made good on that long-promised server upgrade, and this site is now living on a shiny new machine located on the 86th floor of a towering Manhattan skyscraper, surrounded by the very latest products of modern "super-science" and dedicated to the fight against evil in all its worldly forms...

Okay, so I'm embellishing a bit, but the site actually has been transferred to a new physical home, which should make things a bit more efficient on the back end. I don't know if there will be a noticeable differences for my three loyal readers, either good or bad; if you have any problems, please leave a comment in this post or shoot me an e-mail at jason @ jasonbennion.com (remember to remove the spaces before and after the "@" symbol).

As for the change in the blog's color scheme and layout, that's because Jack also updated the Movable Type software that enables you fine folks to read all my blather, and it turns out that the new version doesn't support my old stylesheet. I'm still trying to decide what to do about that; this new look is kind of nice, but I've always thought the old one provided a nice signature effect for the site. (I've seen very few other blogs that used my old color scheme, whereas this lighter, brighter one seems to be pretty common.) You'll also notice that the customary list of links is missing. It should be back before too long in a new and improved form, as well as a couple of other ideas I've got brewing.

On the positive side, the new version of MT is supposed to be much better at handling comment spam, so we'll have fewer embarassing incidents involving "male enhancement" products. And you can now search through past entries according to category, a luxury we didn't have before. Guess I need to be more careful about how I file things from now on.

One final note: comments made in the last few days did not survive the transfer to the new server, so if you're wondering what happened to your little piece of intellectual property, rest assured that I did not delete anybody's thoughts on purpose. Just one of those things, and I apologize.

More a little later.

Posted by at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Regular visitors to this site -- all three of you -- may have noticed that the frequency of my postings has become erratic of late, and that the posts themselves are shorter and, well, lamer than they used to be. I feel like I owe you guys an explanation for what's going on.

Continue reading "A Word of Explanation" »

Posted by at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Well, we're back on the air. As some of you may have noticed, Simple Tricks and Nonsense disappeared for a good part of yesterday. I've no idea what happened -- my best guess is that either my Webmaster Jack was handling some sort of crisis, or the Ugnaughts went on strike again. Treacherous little fiends...

Anyway, as far as I can tell, everything's functioning normally again. I'll be back later with a couple of entries, real-world job permitting...

Posted by at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've finally made good on my threat to reorganize this site's photo gallery. If you go over there now, you'll find that I have folded everything into three basic groupings: Random Snapshots, Travels, and Diversions. The "Random Snapshots" album remains unchanged since the last time you may have looked at it; it's your basic grab-bag of personal subjects that most of you probably won't care about, i.e., miscellaneous photos of myself, my girl, friends, etc. "Travels" is self-explanatory. And the "Diversions" album is where you'll find photos of things I'd like to share, but which don't quite fit into the other two categories, things like my warbird flight experience or some of the weird stuff I've been involved in or which interests me. For example, I plan to put up a sub-album showing you how my father and I once transformed a twenty-foot-long classic automobile into a rolling replica of the RMS Titanic, complete with the movie characters Jack and Rose on the "bow." If that makes no sense to you, be patient; you will understand at some point in the (hopefully) near future...

In the meantime, check out the latest addition to the gallery, a selection of shots taken yesterday as Anne and I toured the B-17 Fuddy Duddy with her parents. (In my earlier posts, I was under the impression that the plane coming to Ogden this past weekend was the Aluminum Overcast, but I found out yesterday that the Overcast was damaged in a bad landing a year ago and is currently undergoing a complete overhaul and restoration. The Fuddy is owned by the same organization, the Experimental Aircraft Association, and has been filling the other plane's tour obligations.)

The Fuddy Duddy is a beautiful example of this model -- it includes most of the vintage equipment that a B-17 would've carried back in the day, including one of the legendary Norden bomb sights and a stack of radio equipment the size of your average filing cabinet. I also liked the Fuddy's color scheme, which consists largely of the plane's own aluminum skin, unpainted and polished to a shiny finish. (The nose-art was disappointingly tame, however.) This plane is fitted out a bit differently than the Nine o' Nine, the last B-17 I toured, so it's easier for tourists to negotiate a walk-through, and I would imagine that it's also fairly comfortable for those who choose to take a flight: unlike the B-24 I flew on, this B-17 actually has jumpseats for passengers to sit in during take-offs and landings. (I had to sit on the floor when I flew on the Dragon...)

Incidentally, touring that particular aircraft on Father's Day had a special significance for Anne's dad, whose own father built B-17s for Boeing during the war. I can only guess what he must've been feeling as he imagined his late father's hands working the metal, installing avionics, or pounding in rivets. (Unfortunately, no one in the family is quite sure of what Anne's grandpa actually did on the Boeing line, aside from "building B-17s.")

Posted by at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For all you folks who may be into that InterWeb voyeurism thing, I've uploaded a new album to my photo gallery. It's a collection of shots I took two years ago when the Collings Foundation "Wings of Freedom" tour stopped off in Utah for a weekend. As you may have gathered from my warbird-themed entry earlier this week, the Wings of Freedom tour consists of two World War II-vintage bomber aircraft, a B-17 and the only airworthy B-24 left in existence, which travel around the country giving people the rare opportunity to see them up close and in the air.

Even more exciting than seeing them, however, is the chance to actually ride in one of them. My dad and I took that chance, and even though the initial price tag seemed ridiculous in return for a mere twenty minutes of airtime, we've never regretted spending a dime of it. For the record, we chose to fly on the B-24, reasoning that if it's the only one left, we may never get another chance with this particular model.

Feeling the vibration of the plane's engines in your belly, shouting to make yourself heard over their roar, smelling the exhaust and the hot oil and the sun-baked aluminum fuselage... there's no other word for it except "thrilling." It's the closest thing to time-travel you're ever likely to experience. If you have any interest in history, any desire to know, at least in some small way, what the grandfathers of Generation X went through some sixty years ago, you really must try and catch one of these flights. Some day I intend to write a detailed blog entry about the experience, but for now take my word for it and check out the photos.

A quick technical note: I haven't linked directly to the new album because I plan to reorganize the gallery's directory structure in the next little while (as well as add lots more pictures!), and I didn't want to leave dead links all over the place. So, for now, just hop over to the gallery and open the new album manually. It's the first one at the top of the page.

In addition, for anyone who may be interested, I've posted a recent picture of my girlfriend Anne and myself in the Random Shots album.

Enjoy!

Posted by at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My friend and Webmaster Jack informed me tonight that he plans to migrate Simple Tricks to a new server sometime this week, so if you try to access the site in the next few days and can't find it, that's why. Rest assured that you won't be deprived of my sparkling prose for long...

Posted by at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So are we all sick of talking about Star Wars yet? I'm not, myself -- I have a whole list of possible SW-themed entries that I wanted to write before Opening Day and didn't get around to -- but I can see how the topic may be getting a little old for my three loyal readers. Therefore I'm going to move on to other subjects, for your sakes. Because that's the kind of guy I am. I care. Well, and also because I worry that I'm driving everyone away with my monomaniacal fanboyism.

Anyhow, I'm going to let Star Wars rest for a bit (although I may still work up some of those ideas I mentioned and post them from time to time). I'll be back later today with my first post-Sith, non-Star Warsy entry. Also, I'm thinking about making a few changes to the site. Nothing major, just a couple of things to freshen the place up, so be watching for those in the next few days/weeks. I may even add some items to my long-neglected photo gallery...

Posted by at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It just hit me: today is the first anniversary of my initial foray into online writing. Hard to believe so much time has passed so quickly, and even harder to believe that I was initially worried about finding enough subject matter to make this blog worth the effort. If anything, I have far more things that I want to write about than time to write, but I suppose that's a standard complaint from writers and people who just plain talk too much, like me.

In case you're the sort who's interested in statistics, I've made 179 posts in the last twelve months -- 180 counting this one -- and have received 408 comments, including my own replies to other people's remarks and discounting spam comments. I wish I had some way of determining the total word count of all that blather, but, unfortunately, the Movable Type software doesn't track that statistic. (I suppose I could copy and paste it all into MS Word, which is capable of counting words, but that seems like more effort than it's probably worth...)

Simple Tricks and Nonsense hasn't exactly gone the way I imagined it would -- I've done far more linking to other material and far fewer Top Ten lists than I originally planned on -- but it's been fun for me, and hopefully for everyone who's been reading. I joke about having only three loyal readers, but I know that I actually have a few more than that, and I thank each and every one of you for your interest in my egocentric ramblings.

One final observation: I never did get around to writing that entry about my all-time favorite movies. Maybe sometime this year...

Posted by at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I've been fighting a low-grade bush war against comment spam for months and I'm finally at the end of my rope. (If you don't know, comment spam is basically the same thing as email spam, except it infests the comment threads on innocent blogs such as Simple Tricks and Nonsense.) At first it was just a trickle of Cialis ads, between one and three a day. Annoying, but nothing that couldn't be cleaned up easily. Lately, however, I've been besieged by gambling-related spam, and this stuff is much more aggressive that any I've seen before. Last night, I spent an hour deleting a single day's worth of comments left by "online poker," "clay poker chips," "monogrammed poker chips," and, the worst, most prolific offender of them all, "texas holdem." Enough already!

I briefly considered disabling ALL commenting on this site in order to stop these bastards, but I believe the nuclear option is always your last option, and besides, one of the biggest pleasures I get from running this blog is the feedback from my three loyal readers. So, here's the compromise deal I came up with:

I've already closed the comment threads on those entries that seem to be "attractive nuisances." (Oddly enough, the filthy little Cylons that generate these foul deposits seem drawn to any entry that mentions Abu Ghraib or Spider-Man. I'd like to know what twisted machine logic equates those two subjects with poker.) Also, since the spam seems to appear mostly with older entries, I further intend to close the comments on all the entries from last year when I get the time to do it. And finally, in the future, I plan to close all open comment threads at the end of each month, so don't delay in leaving your thoughts while the entries are fresh.

I hate to do this because people do occasionally remark on older entries, but like I said, I just don't have the time or patience to keep playing this game. It's ridiculous that I have to look for ways not to play it; one of these days, I'm going to do an entry on how unchecked marketing is draining the vitality from our culture. In the meantime, I'm hoping my plan will curb a lot of the spam activity. If you have a thought you'd like to express on an entry that's already been closed, please feel free to email me.

Posted by at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Due to some back-end fun with the server, which no doubt required my buddy Jack to do much skulking about in darkened hallways after normal working hours, my last two entries didn't immediately appear when they were saved to the site. This is a good thing for you, my three loyal readers, because now you've got lots of reading matter to distract you from your jobs on a fine Friday morning. Have fun, and I'll hopefully be back a little later with a few thoughts on the first Kerry-Bush debate...

Posted by at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I noticed this morning that one of the photos in the previous entry was really tiny. I've fixed the problem, so you can now tell what you're looking at...

Posted by at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I noticed this afternoon that several people have left comments over the last couple of days. Nothing too odd about that, except that I didn't receive the usual e-mail notification that there are new comments. In other words, Simple Tricks is not telling me when I've had visitors, and I don't know why. I'm looking for the cause of the problem. In the meantime, don't get your feelings hurt if you leave a comment that I don't promptly acknowledge...

Posted by at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a quick note to let everyone know I've added a new album to my long-neglected photo gallery. This one contains pictures from a trip I took to Germany last fall. I've actually been working on this album for quite a while, scanning and adding photos a few at a time, so some of you may have already seen some of these shots. Even so, the album is finally in its finished form with captions and descriptions, so I invite everyone to go check it out.

Posted by at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Due to my relatively clumsy HTML coding skills and inattention to fine details, the previous entry went public with a couple of errors, one of which no doubt left my readers wondering just what the hell photographs of the CBS Studios lot had to do with drunken friends. I've tracked down the bug and restored the missing block of text, which desribes about a fun little game my friend Cheno told me about. If you are so inclined, go back and skim the entry for the link.

Also, as long as I was in a tinkering mood anyway, I've added a long overdue copyright notice and my e-mail address to the site. I have a couple of other things I'd like to do as well, but I'm not sure if this is the day to do them...

Posted by at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read the title of this post in the appropriate Monty Python-esque voice, then behold this news: Simple Tricks and Nonsense has just endured its first legitimate spamming incident. For some reason, my review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind attracted the attention of a penis-enlarging snake-oil salesman. Interesting...

The offending comments (which consisted of a dozen or so links to various unsavory websites) were easily deleted, but I really hope this doesn't become a common occurence.

Posted by at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my personal corner of the World Wide Web! There isn't much to my little fiefdom at the moment, only this blog and a photo gallery which can be found here. (FYI, there is a permanent link to the photos at the bottom of this page, as well as links to some other sites that I frequent.) In the future, I hope to add many more photos, my resume', and some samples of my writing work. For now, however, the emphasis will be on the blog.

So, you may be asking, what is this blog going to be about? Well, my plans for this space are still a little vague, but generally speaking, Simple Tricks is going to be an extension of my off-line journal.

Continue reading "Going Public" »

Posted by at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)