Monthly Archive: July 2008

Beating the table into submission

I was working on an HTML issue earlier today. One of our pages had a table with set column widths. Some of the cells contained other another table in order to align some information. That all seemed simple enough, however, when a bug was reported to us where Internet Explorer was sort of doing some strange things with those nested tables.

For example, I’d set a columb to be 200 pixels wide and the table within to be 196 pixels wide. The inside table was the right width, but the column stretched out to 240 pixels or so. As a result, the layout became messed up. I tried all of the usual suspects in terms of solving this sort of thing: margin, padding, setting column widths, etc etc. None of them really solved the issue in IE. After two hours of fiddling around, I was pissed off. I mean, I was telling the column to be a certain width: why the hell wouldn’t IE behave?

Well, after all that I figured I’d give W3Schools a look. Seriously, all web devs need to have that site bookmarked. It’s a handy reference, for sure. On the CSS 2.0 reference page, under Tables, I spotted the table-layout property. I thought I’d give it a go. In the opening table tag, I set the style: “table-layout:fixed“. Well what do you know? The table columns behaved and were exactly as wide as I wanted them. Whoo! I’d beaten that freakin’ table into submission!

Well, all right. Even after all this time I’m still learning new things to add to be bag of tricks. That kind of makes me happy.

More fun with pronoun switching

On the way home from my run, I started singing along to the various songs that popped up on my iPod. In doing so I’m able to pick out which songs I could possibly rock out on when I’m at a karaoke place with my friends.

Oh hell yeah, you better be on top of that kind of thing, you know?

At one point, If Tha Mood by Esthero came on, and I paused to think about the lyrics. They’re already pretty raunchy in the first place–I always knew that. However, it wasn’t until I switched pronouns around that I realized just how much more raunchy it becomes if it’s a guy singing it.

For example:

[He] won’t fuck you like I do
and yeah you know that it’s true
’cause I have what [he] hasn’t got
and I remembered all your spots so…

[He] won’t fuck you like I did
[He's] not into that wild shit and
I have what [he] hasn’t got…

The whole song becomes like a penis-measuring contest. It makes me laugh.

Man…too much idle time.

A meditation on construction season

Ooh, I know it’s unfortunate that there’s construction up ahead closing the road to one lane. No really, I know, everyone just wants to get home.

Sure! It’s OK. Please move up ahead of me. I’m going to let you in just because I’m in that sort of mood.

All right. I know y’all wanna get home too. Getting out of this lane, racing ahead in the lane that’s cut off and attempting to merge back is sure going to get you home faster. Those few seconds could mean the difference between a slice of steaming meatloaf versus a merely warm slice!

Oh, OK. Go on ahead and enter my lane. Heck, you’ve already kind of inserted yourself ahead and cut me off just inches from my bumper. You might as well complete the job.

I know you’re all very thankful to have saved a few seconds. It shows! In my good mood, I feel I should return such politeness. It is only proper then that declare to each and every one of you:

YOU’RE WELCOME, BITCHES.

Various running pains

Everywhere I walked today I was kind of ambling around in a bit of pain. The soles of my feet felt like they were completely pummelled. As of late my feet have been extraordinarily comfortable, so the onslaught of compounded discomfort during the run was kind of a shock for me. It’s only when pain like this attacks quite suddenly that I suspect the my shoes are starting to give me some issues.

My shoes are about 3.5 months old, so I’m not ready to declare them kaput just yet. Though I have to consider that with my current track record with footwear they do seem to be nearing the end of their lifespan. So many people quote different things in terms of the life span of a good running shoe. I’ve heard people give ratings of 500K on some shoes. That’s all well and good for some people but I’m just not the average runner. I land really heavy on my feet so my shoes certainly take a beating. My first pair of shoes lasted about 4 months before collapsing on me. Back then, my weekly mileage was lower and I was heavier. Now, I’m lighter but my mileage has gone up. I dunno, man. I have a short run tomorrow, and if I’m still uncomfortable I’ll know that the shoes are to blame.

Ooh, yesterday I also tried out a new sleeveless top that I picked up from SportChek. Yeah, I finally got off my ass and found a few that worked. I wore a black Nike one with white lines/panels on Sunday. I was surprised–I have to say I didn’t look bad at all in it. Sleeveless really does make a difference–no kidding. I didn’t really pay attention to any strong breezes in the past, but yesterday I took notice. Not everything about the shirt was great though. It was my first time out with it on, and really I should have tried it first with a shorter run. At about the 8K mark I started noticing that my nipples were getting sore. At the end of 13K they were just raw. I had to pull my shirt out in front of me every now and then just for some relief. I wouldn’t blame the shirt itself entirely. It’s just that the heat was causing me to sweat a lot and the salt was just making the shirt mildly abrasive. It’s not all that noticeable but over time it just compounds. Luckily I didn’t reach the point where I was actually bleeding, but it was still unpleasant. So yeah, once again I need to remember to get some Body Glide. Raw nipples makes for an unhappy experience.

So yeah, my feet are bruised and my nipples are sore. You know what, though? I’m still enjoying this whole running thing. I will keep going, and I will meet my goal.

Feasting on strawberries

Last Thursday, on my way home from work I was passing by one of the many fruit vendors in Chinatown. I usually go right by but I stopped in my tracks when I saw a crazy deal: 3 pints of strawberries for $2. Wow. That was insane. So, I went in and got a whole load of strawberries.

That’s all well and good, but then I was stuck wondering what the hell I was going to do with so much fruit. I don’t think there was any way we’d be able to go through that many strawberries without getting absolutely sick of ‘em, and really that’s something I’d rather avoid.

That night, I thought long and hard about ways to use strawberries. The old handy recipe for lemon squares came to mind and I figured that I could easily sub in strawberries for lemons. I mean, they’ve got this tart quality that would lend itself well. I took a pint and blended it down with half a cup of water, some sugar and a bit of lemon juice. I strained the seeds out and was left with a nice puree. So, where the recipe called for lemon juice, I swapped it for the puree. I added a little bit more flour to the mix and another egg, if only because there was a heck of a lot of puree.

The result? Ehh…I wasn’t impressed. I had way too much liquid in the topping. It resulted in an overly moist top part. The bottom crust layer was perfect though. I considered it a failure, but my family still liked it. My mom gave a piece or two to her coworkers and they were apparently raving about it. I’m not sure if they were just being nice about it, but hey, I’ll take praise where I can get it.

This morning, I was still wondering what to do about the other two pints. I went to the Food TV Canada site and pulled up recipes for strawberries. I pulled up a recipe for strawberry shortcake by Anna Olson. Her stuff is awesome. I’ve done a couple of her recipes before in the past and they’ve always turned out really great. If I’m flipping channels and I come across an episode of Sugar, I’d probably stop and pay attention.

Anyway, here’s a pic of the end result.

Isn’t that awesome? I just had a slice and it’s really good.

So that leaves me with one pint left to use up before the berries go bad. Any suggestions?

A 20SB banner

The peeps over at 20SB are having a banner contest of sorts. They’re looking for a new graphic to place on top of their site and they’ve asked the members to come up with something. Sounded like a good way to waste a bit of time, so I gave it a shot and came up with this:

I mean, in my head I had this graffiti/pop art feel that I wanted to put in the pic. I think the spray paint/stencil effect is pretty nifty. To be frank, I had no idea that I was capable of creating that effect until this morning.

Though…

Now that I see it up close…

*grumble*

*SIGH*

(The more I look at it, the more I’m not happy with it. Boo!)

Random thoughts on the commute

  • I know that brown liquid splat on the subway platform; it was there yesterday when I was heading home. The stairway also still smells like urine just like yesterday morning. Was the cleanup crew not scheduled to clean this station last night?
  • There is a random guy chanting in a foreign language on the train. People are changing seats to get away from him. Though, it’s nothing that an iPod can’t drown out.
  • An old Chinese guy was busy pointing and chatting with himself on the streetcar. He was pretty damn loud. The girl next to me got up out of her seat and offered it to him. The Dundas St. stop could not come soon enough.

410 scramble

I woke up this morning in a puzzled state. I had a weird dream that was set in a restaurant. I must have been on a friendly outing. Accompanying me was a woman that was a little shorter than me. She was wearing a blue and grey striped shirt with a white hoodie. Her auburn hair was back in a ponytail. In the restaurant, we were at a counter with a glass partition. The counter was sort of in the middle of the place. It had a white table cloth with different foods all laid out nicely on display. On the other side was a server in chef garb. I’d say she was in her late 20′s. Her brown hair was pulled back. Her face looked a little severe like she wasn’t ready to take any grief from anyone. She was in charge of serving food to whoever was there.

Both me and my friend were peering through the glass looking at various cheesecakes and pies. She was the first to ask about the food. She asked a question about one of the red cheesecake options: she asked if it was really sweet. The chef took a knife, got some of the red glaze and spread it on a round foil cake base. She presented it to my friend, how took her left index finger and scooped up a big glob of the glaze. She tasted it and commented that it was much too sweet. She asked about the strawberry cheesecake and once again the chef happily got some red glaze, spread it on the foil base and presented it to her. Once again, she scooped it up and stuck her finger in her mouth. She looked quite pleased with herself and let out a long “mmmmmm…” She exclaimed “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” I was just there watching all of this being completely amused by the spectacle. She ordered a slice of that strawberry cheesecake.

It came to my turn. I looked at some other options through the glass and somehow settled on a soup. It was full of mussels and had a creamy orange texture. It smelled like a spicy Thai soup. I ordered a bowl of it, at which point my friend scrunched up her face and sounded disapproval. I asked her what was wrong and she just commented, “Mussels are hairy. Blech!” I agreed, but figured that the soup would be good. The chef didn’t seem quite so amused to serve the soup. I looked over to the cheesecakes and asked for a slice of blueberry cheesecake. The chef suddenly got pissed at me. “Cheesecake??? After mussels???” I think I struck a raw nerve. She continued on a rant: “The head chef will be sitting nearby. I will not have you embarrass me!” I was just confused. I mean, I saw nothing wrong with having the two. I just shrugged and asked her, “What do you recommend then? I’ll just take whatever you suggest.” I thought that was a good idea because obviously she felt she knew better. She said “With mussels? The 410 (four-ten) scramble”. First thought that popped into my head: “Brampton?” Anyway, she pulled out this dark burgundy dish with a mess of different chunks of gelatin in it. The colours were dark purple, light green, and some shades of red. The colours themselves reminded me of different types of grapes. It did not look appetizing at all, but I just went with it.

As we went to our table, I was trying to figure out why the chef would be so embarrassed for me. As it turns out she was actually going to sit with us at our table. My friend and the chef were still disapproving of what I ordered. They both decided to go to the washroom together to “discuss.” As I waited there, I looked around at other tables trying to figure out who the head chef was. Over to the side I saw an old balding white guy sipping an espresso. I didn’t know if it was him, but I just decided that he was the likely candidate.

Aaaand, that’s when I woke up. What’s with all of the disapproval? Why was this one food based? How did Brampton creep in there? So many questions!

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