More updates.

It looks like the labels are not quite as stable as I would like, so for the time being don't trust them.

Update

All but one post from 2005 is back up, and I have at least one post up in each month of 2006. The missing one from 2005 is the one that I used to keep track of all the Comic Strip Presents episodes. In Blogger Beta all of the individual posts have different URLs, so all of the links have to be recoded. Because we now have labels anyway, I'm in no hurry to get that one up and running.

I'm also noodling around with the formatting - One of the things that I hated about this template was that boldface didn't show up very well. I think I've taken care of that.

I've put up a link to the homepage because the new drop menus have made the "current posts" button disappear.

I think I have the labels sorted - expect a few more later.

Amazon has been bitching at me because all of my links are gone. That will be fixed soon. Go here and get them off my back. (UK visitors can go here)

I have no idea why my profile says that I live in Afghanistan. I don't live in Afghanistan. But I'll leave it that way for a while because it amuses me.

meanwhile:

I am still in the job that I am getting laid off from. I am interviewing elsewhere, have some good leads, and expect to have some news in the next few weeks.

The room in my attic is almost completely empty and will soon be worked on. Then comes the unpacking and general woo-ha.

Keep an eye out. I've got some plans -- cool things will be happening here. But first there's a lot of clean up left to do.

What I learned this weekend

The thing I knew about celluloid film:

When 50 year old celluloid film stock begins to deteriorate, it gives off a peculiar odor.

The thing that I did not know about celluloid film:

Something about the peculiar odor given off when 50 year old celluloid film stock begins to deteriorate makes my cat want to piss on it.

The thing I can now conclude about celluloid film:

When you reach the point where you have to wipe cat piss off of your deteriorating film stock, your best course of action is to just give up and throw it all out.

One down already

It turns out that backdating posts is just delicate - There used to be a pulldown, and now you get to type the date and time in manually. Misformat just a little and it reverts to current time.

I'll bet he brought some liquids with him

Peter Sellers for TWA. Keep an eye out for Teri Garr as well.

Upgrade city.

There are two problems with the new beta that are throwing wrenches at me.

1. I'm having difficulty backdating posts. This is a probably a temporary glitch, because there is a field that you can use to enter postdates. ("Classic" Blogger defaulted to a time stamp of the moment that you hit the "create" button to open a new post. Now it re-writes the datestamp as the moment you hit the "Publish" button.) The change makes sense, but it means that I have to pay attention to the order that I actually publish posts in if I want them to appear in a certain order. I also can't do the "fake realtime" (as with my vacation from last year) or put up a post dated a few days in the future so that it always stays on top. Of course for all I know, there's a place deep in the bowels of the settings that can change this.
   
2. To take advantage of the new functionality (Like the labels and the pulldowns and so forth) I can't get into the html to tinker with the coding. Blogger help says that this is a temporary situation, but after all the joy I've been having to get this far, I'll probably hold off tinkering for a while. Not too much of an issue, as the templates are more malleable in the new environment anyway.
   

On the plus side, the new system is a lot faster and (frequently needlessly) slicker. The new features are helpful (even the ones that I won't use) and the upgraded spellchecker is a hoot.

We are Beta!

Try number five was a success. Now comes the clean up. Things are going to look sort of odd for a while.