Just playing around with the WP media upload function. I've never had a problem uploading images via FTP and writing the image code myself (and admittedly I don't like how WP writes it, so I've been editing the automatically generated code to my liking anyway), but the automatic generation of the smaller images is pretty helpful!

Anyway, the new Transformers Generations Cybertronian Soundwave (which takes after the character's appearance in the Transformers: War for Cybertron video game) is definitely replacing the Titanium Soundwave as the default G1/Classics representation of the character in my collection. Fun figure, and he's fairly fanmode friendly to boot! Soundwave normally turns into an armored Cybertronian car of sorts, but the above is my attempt to turn him into an alien boombox in functional reference to his original representation as a cassette deck. 🙂

So it's been bugging me for a while that I've been placing all of my entries in the "Blog" category. I can't remember why I started doing this, but I've justified it by reasoning that they're all technically blog entries. However, a category that contains every post isn't really useful (at least for my purposes here; I'm pretty sure there's a good reason I use a blanket category for stuff on Scary-Crayon), so I've decided to remove the general category and place all otherwise uncategorized posts in a new category titled "Miscellany." This might mean that some direct links to posts no longer work, though I've tried to minimize the fallout by retaining the blog-archives permalink structure. If you notice anything else wonky that requires my attention, though, please let me know!

Oh, and this marks the first entry of a category that I've been considering starting for ages: "Technical Stuff." All coding- and design-related content will appear here. 🙂

Since I've decided to attempt a test run of Lightbox 2 on Scary-Crayon -- and since I spent quite a bit of time yesterday fooling with it to tweak its appearance to my liking! -- I've decided I might as well use it here too. (Seriously, you have no idea how frustrated and obsessive I get when things are off center by even a few pixels! I'm still not quite sure what the hell the problem was, though my cheap and brilliant fix seemed to work.) Eventually I'll get around to making unique prev/next buttons for Wesoteric and SC (which I may end up reusing to add prev/next links to the layout of each post!), but I'm in no incredible hurry. 🙂

I've even added a plugin that makes the thing work retroactively, so you can enjoy the sellout javascript gimmickery on posts as old as... I guess not too old, actually. Apparently I haven't been linking to larger images of stuff for very long! Ah well. 😐

...that the search was broken? Not that you were supposed to notice, mind you -- I just found out myself when I went to search for an old post and couldn't find it because it wasn't among the first five posts and the handy page navigation thing wasn't there!

Turns out that when I updated the corresponding plugin in January I forgot that I made the structural organization of Scary-Crayon and Wesoteric different, so there's a subtle difference in the code for each plugin that causes the SC version to fail under certain circumstances on Wesoteric (and vice versa). But now that problem has been fixed (I think/hope so, anyway!), so feel free to search to your heart's content. 🙂

This post was almost accompanied by a photo of the recently trimmed Bacardi, but he just ran away when I went to get the camera! Some other time, then... but so as not to deprive you of cuteness, here's an old linked page that I came across while searching for that post. I do love the blue. 😉

I'd been using the WP-PageNavi 2.10 plugin on Scary-Crayon to display the number of pages and links to a set number of them instead of just the previous/next links. Now I am using it here as well! (Still need to update the blurb at the bottom of the sidebar to reflect that info, but yes.) It didn't originally do what I wanted it to do, so I had to do a bit of hacking to get it to suit my needs... hence my calling this version WP-PageNavi 2.10w. See, the "w" is for Wes. Anyway, apparently Wesoteric behaves slightly differently than Scary-Crayon (possibly a function of some of the other plugins I'm using over there), so I had to do some additional tweaks to get the plugin working over here. It also means that you may encounter some SQL errors -- please let me know if you do so I can try to fix the code accordingly. Thanks!

This is also my first trial of a plugin called Hide or Cut Post Text, which apparently works like the LJ-cut feature. Whee.

I did my taxes today. It didn't take very long -- two hours tops -- but it was still rather painful. Being anally raped by the IRS is not fun. 🙁

I shall now proceed to list some of the swag I picked up during my most recent NYC trip!

DVDs acquired:

1. The Poet
2. Demi-Haunted
3. Expect a Miracle
4. Hong Kong Spice Gals
5. The Cat
6. Here Comes A Vampire
7. City of SARS
8. The Imp

Of the films listed above, The Cat is the only one with which I am remotely familiar, as I saw most of it (I missed maybe the first fifteen minutes or so) at an anime convention a few years back. I'd heard of City of SARS... and that's about it. Only The Poet, The Cat, and The Imp (hey, I notice a pattern here) even had plot synopses in English on the backs of their DVD box covers, so I was mostly shooting in the dark here. But at 4 for $10, I had to make sure I got a decent amount to tide me over. Hopefully they won't be utterly abysmal.

Music CDs acquired:

1. Seventy-One the Beautiful by Hadley
2. East Side Drive by The Heartdrops
3. Social Misfits by The Fades

Never heard of any of these groups, but hey, the CDs were 99 cents apiece at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square! Judging from the condition of the packaging, inserts, and the discs themselves, they appear to be new, too. The Heartdrops CD kinda sucks (every track sounds almost exactly the same, bleh), but I definitely look forward to giving the others some more thorough listening time.

I also picked up some free mp3 CDs and a DVD at Pho Tu Do that I thought contained songs from a local group, but they instead contain lectures or speeches (or something) in a language that I totally do not understand. Oh well!

Toys acquired:

1. TMNT: Karai action figure
2. Street Fighter II/Darkstalkers MiniMates: Morrigan, Demitri, Evil Ryu, and Akuma
3. Kamen Rider Ohja chess piece figurine

Funny that I'd go all the way to NYC to return with a Karai figure that one can ostensibly get anywhere, but I'd literally been looking all over for this figure and had only come across it twice -- and both of those figures had exceedingly poor paint jobs, so I left them there. They had a bunch of Karai at the Toys "R" Us in Times Square, though, so I decided to go ahead and get one there. That is also where I picked up the MiniMates figures. I already have a couple of these (M.Bison and Chun-Li; you might have seen them on the new Scary-Crayon content pages) and they're kinda neat. Actually, in addition to the figs mentioned in the parenthetical, I had already picked up a Morrigan and Demitri two-pack as well, but seeing as how I paid $2.50 and hadn't opened it and that these figures were $3.99 and had two additional ones that I don't have, I figured I'd get the new pack and leave the other one unopened. So unless I end up accidentally breaking the ones I got in NYC, I'll probably end up giving the ones I already have away, either as inclusions in a gift package or as a prize in an upcoming SC contest. We will see.

In addition to the DVDs, CDs, and toys, I also ended up with a H.P. Lovecraft anthology from Dave (pretty interesting stuff so far; once I finish the first story I am determined to draw a picture of one of these Great Race creatures) and a smushed penny from the Central Park Zoo. (On that note, here is a link to Molly's Alligator Juice article entitled The Joy of the Smushed Penny Machine.)

That is all for now, then. Ja ne, minna-san!