Sunday, July 19, 2009

"A" Is For Avocado, "B" Is For BFF, "C" Is For Cellphone, And "F" Is For Effing Favicon And "DE" Bane Of My Existence Lately


Sigh. You all deserve so very much better, but I'm mired in Malaise and stuck for a post. If you let me knock out some of the Mind Mould, I promise that I'll deliver up better very soon. If not, then skip over to V's place where there is doubtless something far more cerebral and wonderful and come back later.

Having a...well...let's just say more sedentary summer has made me OCD, I think. I get a little Project Worm in my head and I work it and work it and work it until it makes me insane. Case In Point: this goddam favicon bullshit. I currently have eleventy bits of code in my template that are supposed to put a little martini in the address bar rather than that hideous orange "B" emblem when you bring up the dept. But none of them works. I have read eleventy billion websites, all trumpeting that they are The One with the Easy Foolproof Way. Then I find techy websites that tell me that Internet Explorer 7 (aka "The Great Satan") has a glitch that effs around with favicons and that I have to include a workaround. Yet...there are tons of favicons on tons of sites that I, who employ IE7, see just fine. I have tried Everything. Nothing works. I keep saying, "That's it. Forget it. Just walk away from the keyboard and delete all the sites you have added to your favorites that discuss it. STOP TORTURING YOURSELF OVER SOMETHING SO MEANINGLESS." But I keep screwing around with it. Why? I wish someone would just whisk into my life, do it easily, and put me out of my misery. Failing that, just shoot me.

Last week, the Sunday adverts started already with their Back to S-word sales. ALREADY! Now, it's not that I'm having such a wonderful summer. But it's still summer. It's bad enough that our school is starting back two weeks earlier than every other school in the district due to construction scheduling. Why rub it in, Target and Walgreens and, well...you all know who you are!

Right now, I am wearing fleece pants and my Wigwam socks. The calendar says summer but the weather says, "Screw you, Nance. Your nose is still as cold as a big old Labrador's." These cool nights and days are not so good for my tomatoes, either. As in, what tomatoes?

Another summer obsession--besides endlessly and fruitlessly tweaking my blogs--making and eating guacamole. Why was I never informed of the existence of this wonderful food during my earlier years? The only "avocado" I was aware of was the hideous shade of green during the 1970s that my mother, a fan of the Early American decor craze, insisted upon using to a fault in our living room. My only bitch about avocados (besides their cost) is that they zip through the perfect ripeness stage far too quickly. The Window Of Opportunity with avocados is painfully brief. Please refrain from telling me the caloric damage I am incurring with guacamole. My butt already did.

Rick renewed our cellphone plan which upgraded our phones. This caused me a considerable amount of stress. As you may recall, I am not a fan of cellphones, even my own, and rarely use it. I therefore had a difficult time realizing when it was my own that was ringing. To simplify my life, I set my ringtone to a Christmas carol (Joy to the World) year-round. Upsettingly, my new cellphone does not come with this ringtone, and no one has been able to find a way to install it. One ameliorating factor: Sam was able to put a picture of a cute bunny as the background on this new phone. But I doubt if I will ever know it when it rings. Perhaps it already has.

If you called me and I did not pick up, I'm sorry. I'm not sure I even know how to get your message on this phone, either. Please just email me. Believe me, it's much easier. And you'd be my New Best Friend Forever if you could get my favicon to work, too.

Thanks!

14 comments:

  1. Your little favicon shows up for me on mozilla firefox.

    I'm so annoyed by the back to school stuff already! Now granted, I don't actually start school until Sept 21, but I still feel like summer is sneaking away!

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  2. I see your favicon! I like it! Let's not think about going back to school just yet, okay? My kids have had a lazy summer this year and I'm just now relaxing and not feeling like a total loser parent because they've not been overscheduled and into everything. Not ready to think about school.

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  3. Anonymous2:06 AM

    I agree completely about the back to school ads. Two weeks before school begins is quite soon enough, thank you very much.

    Where do you live??? I'm so jealous of your weather! It was 114 degrees in Phoenix today - literally hell on earth.

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  4. I can see your favicon in I.E. on my husband's computer (he has Windows Vista) but not on mine (I still have XP on my old laptop). That said, it only shows up in the URL line at the top, but not on the little blogger band across the top of the page, which I presume you are referring to.

    Here are a couple of links that might give you a useful hint, assuming you have not tried what they are talking about:

    BLOGGERBUSTER FAVICON GENERATOR:
    http://tinyurl.com/5agphu
    (I think it can change a .jpg to .ico format, which is supposed to be the ideal one for favicons)

    FORUM DISCUSSION OF FAVICONS ON BLOGSPOT: http://tinyurl.com/lf2sym

    Regarding replacing the blogger favicon in the strip that runs across the top of the page: apparently it can be tricky because blogspot does not want you to do that, heh, heh.

    Here's a little bit of text I found interesting as well:
    "In Internet Explorer, a favicon will not display until you have bookmarked the page in your Favorites. You may also need to close the browser and re-open it before the favicon begins to show. In all other browsers (eg: Firefox, Opera), the favicon should display immedietly.

    You've probably heard it all and tried it all. *sigh*

    The word verification right now is a real word, and, I am NOT kidding, it is STINK!!!

    Good luck, dear.

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  5. Ortizzle--You know I love you. But you ARE NOT HELPING. I have read everything. Including that snippet you provided. I have been to every site. DO NOT FEED MY ADDICTION. LOL. note: the first site was down; the second one had no discussion at all--it was someone's homepage. i have the favicon generated and everything. i even have it saved in several formats. i just cannot get it to display in ie7.

    anonymous in phoenix--(but it's a DRY HEAT!) i live in northeast ohio. someday, i want to retire to where it is warm and dry. a typical summer here in NEO is 85 and humid as hell. i need the heat, but the humidity is a negative.

    RD--You must be using a different browser if you see my favicon. Thanks for letting me know. And you are not a Loser Parent. You are a Wonderful Parent for letting your kids HAVE a summer and not falling into the trap of GIVING them one. good for you! and thanks for hanging out at the dept. and dropping a comment.

    jenomena--oh, there you are! i thought you had taken a blog vacation. (which is fine; we all have to do it at some point.) glad to know my self-study of html and xtml and whatever-tml has somewhat paid off. hey, do i still have your email? hit me up with it (see sidebar if you've lost mine) to remind me; i have something to send you.

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  6. I also see your little martini, right up by the URL. Maybe you don't see it because you've been drinking too many yourself? ;) Sorry, couldn't resist.

    Avocados are all fat, but it's the GOOD fat, so enjoy. Remember to buy the black looking ones, not the green looking ones, because the black ones ROCK. They're Haas or something like that. If the short shelf life of Avos is getting you down, look in the section of your grocery store where they sell fancy fresh pasta and so on. Sometimes they have pre-made guac in a little box that's pretty decent, and freezes well. Trader Joes has them, too, I think, though I don't know if you have Trader Joes. My mom always said you don't want your avocado hard enough to stone a martyr, nor squishy either. Just so it resists a bit when you squeeze it, and it should last you several days. You can put them in the fridge, too. Shhh. That's a trade secret.

    It's been over 100 here for the last week, and I've been comforting myself by saying, "at least the tomatoes love it..."

    I'm no help with the phone. I have the same problem, in that everyone else in the house knows it's ringing long before I figure it out.

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  7. I see the new favicon in both the Firefox browser and the IE7 browser from two different machines in my office, so perhaps jellyjules is right about too much martini intake (if such a thing is even possible) on your part.

    Went to Office Depot last week and already saw the back-to-school sales signs up. Ick.

    Avocados = ambrosia. According to one of my students, when you cut the avocado in half, all the calories spill out, so your butt is lying to you.

    My cell phone issue was not the phone itself, but the clip-on case. Finally got it situated--what a pain in the ass.

    Hot weather. Hate it. I can now hear my brain frying. Again, ick.

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  8. Funny--My martini consumption is way down, i am sorry to report. And the clip-on case for cellphones? I am all over that angst, let me tell you. There is no answer for Those Of Us Who Detest All Things Phone.

    J.@jj--I finally figured out HOW to buy the avos. And you're right about the variety. Those are the best. Saw some HUMONGOUS smooth-skinned ones at the store yesterday but shied away from them. As an Avocado Neophyte, I know I'm not ready.

    **UPDATE**GOT THAT FAVICON TO WORK! NOW MAYBE I'LL WORK ON LEARNING TO USE MY PHONE...**

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  9. 2 things: Guacamole is the nectar of the gods; my ringtone is Cyndy Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Happy Rest of Summer!

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  10. Melissa B.--Have you ever added sour cream to guac? I have and it's lovely!

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  11. Wow, I didn't even know what a favicon was until I read this post. Now I know I will never, ever have one.

    I have been on an avocado bender now for weeks. I don't even make proper guacomole; I just mash the avocado and add sea salt and a bit of garlic powder. [BTW, I used that semicolon just for you.]

    A medium avocado has roughly 250 calories. Fewer calories than a burger, a sandwich, a bagel or most salads. I feel No Guilt whatsoever about eating an avocado a day for lunch. Add an ounce of tortilla chips and you're at a very respectable 500 calories.

    Not that I'm counting. It's just that I refuse to blame my ever-increasing girth on the lovely avocados. (Must be the York peppermint patties. Damn them to hell!)

    Ironically, I discovered avocados while living in Belgium when a friend from California smuggled some homegrown ones through Customs. Before that, I'd never eaten them or guacomole. It was love at first bite.

    The Back-to-School sales. Let me tell you, my daughter has been hounding me since July 1 to buy her supplies. I caved in 10 days ago just to get some relief. If she wasn't Miss Perfect, I would have made her wait longer.

    And thank you for the vote of confidence. Unlike RD, I've been busy hauling my kids on outdoor adventures and taking them to camps and hosting their friends. I've been spending much less time online and much more time in the car and at the grocery store, so didn't even see your kind words until today.

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  12. V-grrrl--Actually, you do have a favicon; it's a little cube. I have no idea what it is beyond that. I assumed you had picked it out for your site since you have your own domain.

    Re: peppermint patties. have you ever tried freezing them? wonderful.

    I have been making more trips to the grocery store than i want to in order to take advantage of sales and to avoid buying items on a whim. how i detest it. my dream is to have someone else do oit for me, but you know he/she would never do it right.

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  13. I have a darling tiny martini in the address line -- I use Mozilla.
    I know what you mean about obsessive tweaking, really.
    Have I said lately that I love your stuff?

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  14. Mary G--You know, I found a wonderful obscure site that had a ridiculously simple line of code AND a simple site for creating and hosting the favicon image. In a matter of less than an hour, I had favicons up and done for all three of my blogs. Thank heaven it's OVER.

    And thank you for saying that. I can never hear it too often. Well, maybe so, but thank you!

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