Under function outputHtmlAds(), I changed the following line of code from:
echo "\n<ul>\n";</ul>

to:
echo "\n<ul class=\"tla_sponsor_link\">\n";</ul>

Also under function returnPostAd($postId), I changed:
return "\n\n<em>".$prefixes[$prefixIndex].":</em> $ad->before_text <a href=\"$ad->url\">$ad->text</a> $ad->after_text";

to:
return "\n\n<div class=\"tla_sponsor_link\"><em>".$prefixes[$prefixIndex].":</em> $ad->before_text <a href=\"$ad->url\">$ad->text</a> $ad->after_text</div>";

Side note: TLA, you guys should change the Our Blog to be called something else as the link doesn’t actually take users to your blog.

¹ I don’t make enough from these ads to get rich mind you. Just enough to cover the costs of running CoffeeBear.net and maybe a cup of good coffee from my local coffee shop.

Text-Link-Ads Updated © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

For a long time I have resisted placing any form of advertising on this site. I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of it and I wanted to keep CoffeeBear.net “pure”. However I realize now that is something of a very silly notion and decided to give Text Link Ads a chance to make this site pay for itself.

Does this mean I’ve sold out? Well I am trying to make a small amount of money from this site now; however CoffeeBear.net will not become some advert laden monstrosity with hundreds of annoying, flashing banners. Just two little links in the sidebar. So you’re free to think what you like, but I’m not thinking this counts as selling out.

¹ Readers of my RSS feed will also eventually be seeing some text link ads as well. How long it takes depends on how quickly Text Link Ads sells the advert slots.
² All links to Text Link Ads in this post are in fact affiliate links and if you use them to go to their site to sign up, then I am supposed to get 25 smackeroos. :)

Adverts by Text Link Ads © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

You scored as River Tam. The Fugitive. You are clever and dangerous, which is a nasty combination. The fact you are crazy too just adds to your charm. They did bad things to you, but you know their secrets. They will regret how they made you. River Tam 75% Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne 69% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 63% Simon Tam 63% The Operative 63% Capt. Mal Reynolds 56% Inara Serra 56% Kaylee Frye 56% Jayne Cobb 44% Shepherd Derrial Book 38%

Which Serenity character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You Should Learn Swedish

Fantastisk! You’re laid back about learning a language — and about life in general. Peaceful, beautiful Sweden is ideal for you… And you won’t even have to speak perfect Swedish to get around!

Quiz Time © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

The idea is to examine, in glorious detail, the Depths of Suckitude of the music that was popular when you got out of High School. Philosophy being, I suppose, that the music that was popular during the time you made that high school-to-college transition is the music that shaped your Sonic Consciousness.

Whatever.

Anyway, here’s what you do. You go to the Music Outfitters website and type your high school graduation year into the search tool. Select the “list of the 100 most popular songs” and you will get the Raw Material for the next step in the process, which is to look through the list and decide which songs you hated, which ones you liked, and which one was your favorite.

Post the list on your Online Journal, striking through the songs you hated (or still hate) and boldfacing the ones you liked (or still like). Bold and underline your favorite song. No opinion? Leave it as-is.

Depths of Suckitude for 1994
1. The Sign, Ace Of Base
2. I Swear, All-4-One
3. I’ll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
4. The Power Of Love, Celine Dion
5. Hero, Mariah Carey
6. Stay (I Missed You), Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories
7. Breathe Again, Toni Braxton
8. All For Love, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting
9. All That She Wants, Ace Of Base
10. Don’t Turn Around, Ace Of Base
11. Bump N’ Grind, R. Kelly
12. Again, Janet Jackson
13. I’ll Remember, Madonna
14. Whatta Man, Salt-N-Pepa
15. Wild Night, John Mellencamp and Me’shell Ndegeocello
16. Without You / Never Forget You, Mariah Carey
17. You Mean The World To Me, Toni Braxton
18. Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Elton John
19. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Prince Symbol
20. Fantastic Voyage, Coolio
21. Baby I Love Your Way, Big Mountain
22. Regulate, Warren G and Nate Dogg
23. If You Go, Jon Secada
24. Back and Forth, Aaliyah
25. Now And Forever, Richard Marx
26. When Can I See You, Babyface
27. Please Forgive Me, Bryan Adams
28. So Much In Love, All-4-One
29. Shoop, Salt-N-Pepa
30. Any Time, Any Place / And On And On, Janet Jackson
31. Shine, Collective Soul
32. Said I Loved You…But I Lied, Michael Bolton
33. Return To Innocence, Enigma
34. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
35. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, Crash Test Dummies
36. Can We Talk, Tevin Campbell
37. Funkdafied, Da Brat
38. I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That), Meat Loaf
39. Gangsta Lean, Drs
40. Because The Night, 10,000 Maniacs
41. Cantaloop, US3
42. Whoomp! (There It Is), Tag Team
43. Come To My Window, Melissa Etheridge
44. Stroke You Up, Changing Faces
45. I’m Ready, Tevin Campbell
46. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
47. Anytime You Need A Friend, Mariah Carey
48. Because Of Love, Janet Jackson
49. Linger, Cranberries
50. Loser, Beck
51. Found Out About You, Gin Blossoms
52. Gin And Juice, Snoop Doggy Dogg
53. Never Lie, Immature
54. Streets Of Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen
55. Getto Jam, Domino
56. Endless Love, Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey
57. I Miss You w/ Aaron Hall
58, Understanding, Xscape
59. This D.J., Warren G
60. Cry For You, Jodeci
61. Keep Ya Head Up, 2Pac
62. Who Am I (What’s My Name?), Snoop Doggy Dogg
63. Another Night, Real McCoy
64. Your Body’s Callin’, R. Kelly
65. Tootsee Roll, 69 Boyz
66. I Can See Clearly Now, Jimmy Cliff
67. Never Keeping Secrets, Babyface
68. Crazy, Aerosmith
69. Just Kickin’ It, Xscape
70. At Your Best (You Are Love), Aaliyah
71. Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through, Meat Loaf
72 Amazing, Aerosmith
73. Always, Erasure
74. Groove Thang, Zhane
75. Dreams, Gabrielle
76. Mr. Vain, Culture Beat
77. Mary Jane’s Last Dance, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
78. Anything, SWV
79. Beautiful In My Eyes, Joshua Kadison
80. Stay, Eternal
81. Flava In Ya Ear, Craig Mack
82. U.N.I.T.Y., Queen Latifah
83. Prayer For The Dying, Seal
84. Secret, Madonna
85. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
86. Everyday, Phil Collins
87. Don’t Take The Girl, Tim McGraw
88. Got Me Waiting, Heavy D and The Boyz
89. December 1963 (Oh, What A Night), Four Seasons
90. Indian Outlaw, Tim McGraw
91. Always, Bon Jovi
92. I’m The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
93. Back In The Day, Ahmad
94. Love Sneakin’ Up On You, Bonnie Raitt
95. I’ll Take You There, General Public
96. Always In My Heart, Tevin Campbell
97. What Is Love, Haddaway
98. And Our Feelings, Babyface
99. Bop Gun (One Nation), Ice Cube
100. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy

Kudos to Kris for the meme. Also, if you’re like me and most of these songs don’t look at all familiar to you; the iTunes Music Store is your friend.

Depths of Suckitude © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Initially, it acted as though I was attaching a new iPod, but then it was able to see all my playlists and other songs on it. As an added bonus, iTunes also automatically forwarded me to page where I could download a free music sampler. Most likely, you too can get the album by going to: iTunes New Music Sampler (Atlantic/Lava Edition)

More iPod/iTunes Fun © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

On Fritz¹, I’ve used APT to load all sorts of extra/newer programs and am running KDE 3.3.1. It’s pretty and comes with lots of eye candy. Alphonse² isn’t as beefy as Fritz is; so I figured something with a tad less eye-candy would be easier on its aging CPU. I decided I’d still run SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro but would use GNOME. SuSE 9.0 doesn’t integrate their tools into GNOME as well as they do into KDE but after I got APT up and running on it, that wasn’t much of a problem anymore. After that it was simply a matter of updating everything on the system and then setting up the Apache/MySQL/PHP correctly. Unfortunately, I’d screwed that up when initially installing Linux on the box and had to remove all of Apache & reinstall it to correct the problem. RPM made it fairly simple but I’m not convinced that I’ve completely fixed the problem. *shrug* It does seem to be working fine for what I want though, which is a portal webserver with Bluefish & GiMP installed so I can do web design while away from my home PC. Being able to do that will allow me to work on redesigns for CB.net and projects for some of my friends when I get stuck going out to my company’s home office for meetings and what not.

And you know what, I feeling pretty darn proud of myself & my shiny, new OS on Alphonse. That feeling lasted for all of about half a day when I saw people at work who’d bought new laptops on Black Friday. *sigh* Gadget envy³ is an evil thing.

Oh yeah, the observant ones amoung my 3 readers will notice that there are a couple of posts entered by Ariesna. That’s my fiance and she’ll be posting the occassional recipie on the site. As far as I know, she’ll only post recipies that we’ve already tried out but you’ll have to read those entries to know for sure.

¹ Fritz is the name of my home-built desktop PC. Why are you looking at me like that? What do you mean normal people don’t name their computers?
² That would be my laptop naturally. Named after the younger Elric brother in Full Metal Alchemist but it’s also a tribute to Patlabor. :)
³ AWelkin: Envy was my top sin when taking that 7 deadly sins quiz from your journal. Gee, can’t say I didn’t see that one coming.

Bah © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I got to the office and after an extra strong cup of coffee¹; I started hitting the program hard-core. I setup a spreadsheet to list off all the possible things I wanted to look at while testing this particular part of the program and went to town getting it setup. It was slower progress in the morning and I was still fairly out of it when my phone rang. No, no, no. You don’t understand. MY PHONE RANG!

The vast majority of my time at work; my phone goes unused. If my phone does ring 90–95% of the time; I know who’s calling and why. For my phone to ring unexpectedly is truely a rare and notable event. Being more than just a bit spacey, it takes me a moment to react and grab the phone. When I answer it; I get an even bigger surprise. The receptionist upstairs tells me that there’s an A.K.² on the phone for me. A.K. is a friend of mine from back when I worked in the produce/juice bar section of the local grocery store. He’s way smarter than I am and had gotten married/moved to Portland several years ago. I’d only heard from him once since he moved and that was him sending out a note that he & his wife had just had their baby girl.

So to have our receptionist telling me that A.K.‘s on the phone wanting to speak to me completely blew away what was left of my spacey brain. The receptionist repeated his name and I took the call. Apparently, AK was in town to see his folks, do an interview for a freelance writing gig and show off his baby girl, A. He didn’t have any plans for lunch and was wondering if I was free. Originally, I’d planned to take a short lunch and cut out of the office early but this was an opporunity not to be missed. I took him up on the offer and we agreed to meet at Applebee’s.³ I got there a bit before he did and was waiting around. I have to say that I was a bit surprised that he recognized me so easily, as I don’t think I had my beard when he last saw me.⁴

The waitress got us to a table and brought out a high chair for little A. She was the cutest little thing. Bright blue eyes and just a few wisps of reddish-blond hair. A.K. said she was just about 10 months now and then we proceded to get caught up on life, the universe and everything that we’d missed while he’d been off on the west coast. I also learned that he’d moved back to the Midwest; so I’m thinking we’re going to have to arrange some sort of get together.

A. was a delightful child to have at the table; heck, even the older couple sitting at the table next to us said so as we were leaving, mentioning that she was so quiet that they hadn’t even realized she was there. She was also very curious about everything around her, though she kept dropping her toys on the floor and at some point managed to take her shoes off. *shrug* Go figure. Fatherhood seems to agree pretty well with A.K. and apparently, he’s also now doing some part-time teaching at a community college near his place.⁵ Sadly though, I had to head back to work and he went back to… to… whatever he was doing before lunch.

At work I got distracted for bit answering some questions and was away from my desk; when amazingly enough, my phone rang again! I wasn’t sitting at my desk and totally missed the ringing. The only reason I know it happened was that my voicemail light was blinking at me. I picked up the phone, dialed into voicemail and heard one of my managers ask me to call her or my other manager back. First thought, *GLUP*! Second thought, what have I done (or not done) that’s gotten me into trouble. So I try Manager #1’s office first and she picks up the phone on speakerphone. Not only is she in there, but Manager #2 is and the Vice-Preisdent of Support⁶! Manager #1 was quick to reassure me that the VP’s presense was entirely accidental and had nothing to do with me. Then they told me that they’re going to pull me off the project I’d been assigned to starting next week. BOOYAH! I never particularly like working on that project because it was so far removed from anything I’d worked on in 3–4 years that I always was feeling lost. On top of that, the procedures were different from any other testing project I’d been on. Next week, I’ll go back to working on stuff that’s more directly related to my specialities and hopefully won’t feel like such a useless fifth wheel.

The rest of the day kind of flew by for me and after work was over; I hoped in the car and sped home. Only to find that Ariesna wasn’t there and a note was on the answering machine. She’d gotten delayed at school and asked me to call her. I did and found out that she was only just then leaving school. I think I was a tad short with her (sorry hon!) but then I was pretty exhausted and had been hoping I wouldn’t be driving that night. Alas, such was not to be and I got back in the car; fought through traffic, dodging around idjits that didn’t have enough sense to accelerate to interstate speeds on the on-ramp and rushed to CR. I got to the theater and found Ariesna had beaten me there. AWelkin and Bryon were also already there, and we all headed over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.⁷ It was good, but I headed up switching my dinner with Ariesna; as the salad she ordered comes with an ingredient on it that she’s allergic too. Then we headed back to the theater to see
The Incredibiles!

As we were walking over, Bryon mentioned that there was supposed to be a new Pixar short film included with the Incredibles and he made some comment about how we’d never see the English version of that short film as we had at the Ghibli Museum in Japan. I mention this now to poke just a little bit of fun at Bryon because once they movie started; we found that the “new, short film” wasn’t so new to those of us who’d gone on that Japan trip. *grin* For the record, the jokes were easier to follow in the English version but it was also funny when the only work in the short that I knew was jackolope.

Once that was over with, the main event started and I have to say that the movie had be from moment 1. The style of the animation, the voice-acting, the music. the script were all just amazing! The major characters were all wonderful but it was some of the side characters that really made the movie. Ariesna & AWelkin both liked Edna ‘E’ Mode but for me it was the guards on the villian’s island. They were perfect representations of Faceless Minions. :)

Of course, then there were things in the movie that poked fun at the superhero genre that just cracked me up (e.g. monologing). HAHAHAHAHA!!!! :D

I give the movie a perfect score of 5/5 stars and highly recommend that everybody see it!

¹ Ok, let’s be honest. I didn’t get much of anything done until after an extra strong cup of coffee and hitting up some news sites that morning.
² I might have mentioned this before, but I don’t generally post people’s real names on this blog unless they’ve said it’s okay to do so. Hence, A.K. has a real name but all you’re getting here is his initials.
³ And no, we weren’t going there for the lizard salad. If you don’t understand this footnote; leave a comment saying so and I’ll reply with an explanation.
⁴ On the other hand, I was the only person waiting there and I stand 6’5″; so maybe it’s not all that surprising.
⁵ I should have told him that if he needs to come back to our area that I know people in our community college’s English department; who might be able to help him out. *grin*
⁶ Last I knew, my department technically falls within that VP’s jurisdiction.
⁷ Food is good. Service is better (helps that many of the workers know AWelkin & Bryon). Free peanuts is fun but the play country music 90% of the time. *ugh*

Yesterday © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

While I was waiting in line there, an old/odd friend of ours was there as well. Elf was farther up in line than I and was trying to be friendly, but I’m not at my best during the morning particularly not during the morning before I’ve gotten some caffeine in my blood. So, I apologize Elf; I wasn’t trying to be rude/mean, I just don’t do mornings. Finally it was my turn and I got my package mailed off¹. The post office was kind of nice because my favorite worker waited on me. He’s an older guy who’s always nice and has a smile for everyone. Plus, he seems to take some real pride in his work and his appearance; as I’ve never seen him show up looking sloppy (like most of his co-workers do).

Anyway after leaving the post office, we went over to the Terrapin and had some breakfast (muffin & Redwood espresso for her, croissant & Grand Canyon for me). While we were sitting their enjoying our coffee; we saw Robert (one of the brothers who owns/runs the place) and said hello. He mentioned that the 2 of us sitting their eating our breakfast were looking happier than happy. Having that sort of breakfast there does make me happy because the place is so warm & inviting and the coffee is just fantastic! Robert than took off to talk to pretty much everybody else in the shop (something he always does) and we went back to just enjoying our coffee. While we were sitting there; I saw somebody who looked like a former employee of my company. The main reason I somewhat remembered him was he started maybe a year after I had and then quit after a couple of months because the company wouldn’t give him a leave of absense, when an opportunity came up for him to go to Scotland for something like a month. When he left; he gave him his Minister of Silly Walks poster which I still have hanging up next to my cubical. We chatted with him for a while and he’s certainly had an interesting time since leaving the company. Besides Scotland, he’s been over to Mongolia and is working/living mostly in Korea now teaching English. After a nice chat, we finished our breakfast and headed out.

Just as I was starting to back the car out of the parking spot, Robert came running out waving at us to stop. I did, Ariesna rolled down her window and Robert asked if we might have a torq screwdriver. He was trying to repair one of his espresso machines and needed one to get it open. He didn’t have one, but thought we might (probably because he knows I work on computers). I told him I’d check and let him know. He offered a free coffee in exchange; Ariesna tried to say that wouldn’t be necessary, but I cut her off and told him it was a deal. :) Hey, what can I say? I love their coffee!

We went home and checked our tools, but we didn’t have any; so I called over at my Mom’s house and asked if I could go through Dad’s old tools. She let me and we found a set of hex keys and a couple of torq screwdrivers. I took the lot with me in my toolbox because I didn’t know what size Robert would need. When I got back to the Terrapin; Robert was outside chatting with his mom and a lady who turns out to be a neighbor of my Mom.

Saturday was definitely showing me what a small world we live in and that Terrapin is apparently the central nexus of it.

I sat down with them to let Robert do through what I had. He selected one of the torq screwdrivers and then asked what kind of coffee I wanted. My mind froze up a bit as I’d already had my regular and I couldn’t recall what all else they had that I’d like to try. Robert suggested their DaVinci which is 2 shots of espresso, steamed milk, white chocolate syrup, vanilla syrup (not sure about this ingredient, have to go back and double check) and real caramel melted at the bottom of the glass. He got up to go get it for me; I started to follow but he said I should just stay there and relax since I was already doing him a favor.

Actually, what I was thinking is that I’d head with him to see the broken espresso machine and watch him work on it while sipping my coffee. Instead, I got to spend some time chatting with his mom & the lady is my Mom’s neighbor. Robert disappeared for a while after bringing my coffee (which although very sugarly was delicious). When he came back, I asked if the tool worked for him. He looked somewhat stunned for a moment and said that he hadn’t tried it yet; he’d stopped to talk to somebody and… Then Mom’s neighbor chimed in that he didn’t have to say anything more than he stopped to talk; as we all know him well enough to understand that means he got distracted. I left the Terrapin shortly after that, leaving the one screwdriver with Robert and taking the rest back to Mom.

I helped Mom with her computer for a while and then we looked over her plants for a bit. I took a few pictures² of her flowers which were looking wonderful and all fresh & clean since it had been raining all day (a light sprinkle, misty sort of rain).

I didn’t stay very long, as it was getting to be afternoon and we had plans to meet up with some friends at Aizuchi & Komainu’s house to make characters for next RPG we’re gonna play. So I headed home, woke Ariesna up and we headed over to A&K’s place. There was lots & lots of talking about what different people would be playing and suggestions were shouted back & forth across the room constantly. It looks like L (who’s just joining our group on this game) will be interesting to have around but I wonder if she’s been working in audiology too long and thinks the rest of the world is hard of hearing, because she was rather loud. Ah well, no need to worry about such things as she’s fun to have around (same L from Davenport and our guide to the tea shop, as mentioned previously).

As we finished up planning our characters and setting a date for the next session (which oddly enough will be before the Japan trip) “Unknown Bob” showed up (he’s really a friend of A&K). This event was followed by more & louder talking. During which L snuck off to get herself some carryout Chinese food. After a while, some of the rest of us headed over to the mall’s food court and got some dinner. AWelkin, Ariesna & myself got food from Mondo’s Bread Garden. Mine was a Chicken BLT sandwich on some funky bread and was very tasty. Ariesna & I also got some tortellini salad which wasn’t bad but not something I’ll be ordering again.

After we finished eating, we headed back to A&K’s to watch a movie that “Unknown Bob” made as an adapation of Dorothy Parker’s “The Game”. It was kind of fun, though A’s sound system was having problems with the audio at the begining. Oh and the actress who played Thelma made her seem capable of great & most vicious evil deeds. I had a good time watching it and then there was more conversation about what really happens in the story; but since it was a short, nobody knows for sure and you’re left to guess. We had to leave not to long after that as we were somewhat tired and needed to do some grocery shopping for the 4th (gotta have some watermellon with your fireworks).

After getting the watermellon from the store; I sat down to update my blog here and dink around the computer for a bit when something occured to me. See, back when we went up to Davenport; at the end of the night, L gave me a bottle of Scotch that we won at the Robert Burns supper put on by H.A.G.G.I.S. She doesn’t drink Scotch, but I do and when she gave that to us; we promised her a bottle of honey mead in return as that is something she’ll drink. Also, a while back Ariesna & I were enjoying an afternoon over in downtown Iowa City and stopped in “Dirty Jon’s” where we picked up a bottle of honey mead for L. So while I was sitting her last night, I suddenly remmbered that we had this for her and didn’t give it to her. So I quickly called over to A&K’s to see if L was still there; she was. So I hurried over with the bottle, intending to leave immediately but L decided to open it and offered to share. I’d never had honey mead before and decided to stick around to try a bit. It was good stuff but much stronger than I had imagined it would be. *whew* Still, it’s definately something that I’d be willing to drink again. Anyway, I got to hurry back (the family’s already started in on the brats without me).

¹ There’s a rant behind that package which I’ll go into another time.
² Yes, the photos were taken with my digital camera. However, I’m not posting them yet as I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do that with WP.

Saturday © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.