UMPITYGRUMPITY.COM!

YES.  I had to finally bite the bullet and get some of this done.  I decided to hunt around for some nice WordPress blog themes and WOW - …this one knocked my socks off….check out www.technochristian.com.  The others I found are okay, but nothing like that one.  I might have to do a bit of customizing and making my own version of that so that my other sites will feel the same but look different.

I know I was complaining about how WordPress used more for the themes than just css.  I still think that it would have advantages if it were just customized with css, but on the other hand, …certain feature you might want might not be able to be removed or added that way…although the idea would be that your html and php would be able to handle all of that and then it is simply styled differently through css.  I know css can accomplish more than what wordpress has employed it for, so why not?

Lets all jump on the CSS bandwagon and make stuff look and work really great without scripting.  Then use the scripting for what its meant to be used for…not presentation (although there’s always a certain amount that scripting is good for), but for interaction and functionality.

Make a blog for it…build your own site.  Use a portal…just do it on myspace.  Hey Google has a new free web site service..
Ughhhh…so many options for a web site. If you’re savvy at building a site, but don’t have time to build one because you’re building other sites or whatever, what do you do???  You don’t want your site to look blah.  You don’t want your site to be unoriginal.  You don’t want your site to be the regular old boring no-content-whatsoever dark abandoned hole on the cyber highway.  What to do?

I have tried almost all of those options.  I’m currently using WordPress blog to maintain this site.  I find it useful for some things, but busy and complicated in other areas.  What I mean is …if it were just as simple as having a post management area and the main site area, then that’d be awesome.  Instead there are a bazillion areas that you can delve into for extreme complexity and cusomization.  I know my areas I go to, but it would be better if it were simpler.  I suppose I could dive into the code and eliminate that stuff, but then I’d be taking time to do something to my site that I can really just live with.  I like WordPress for the most part.  The parts that I appreciate are done well.  I like to be able to make a quick post and it looks really nice when it shows up on my home page.  How do I ever make it look like I want though?  I not only have to get into the CSS, but also the php files and everything so that it will not show things stupidly if I modify a particular css part.  WordPress should take a cue from CSSZenGarden.   I would love it if they would do just that.  Then you have only CSS and images to deal with.

On the other hand, building a whole completely unique site from scratch gives you a lot of advantages.  The down side to that is actually having to come up with how everything works and taking the time to build it all.  As for the advantages, ..you know where to go to make a change, you can add whatever you want to it, you can make things function an entirely new way if you want…have your own databases and applications and forms for those databases.

I personally need to work on a few different sites.  I have my own personal music site for my own composed music under the name of Sixty-Six (along with Shane McCauley as a member of the group).  Then I have TechnoChristian.com which really ought to just be a blog for now.  In fact I think I’m going to just make those two sites blogs right now and take care of that.  Once that’s done then I can think about customizing them by building special web sites from the ground up.

How about that…talked myself into it.  Actually I was already convinced,…I just needed some motivation to get started on it.  And after that I probably will read more of my CSS book so I can adequately understand my options for building a web site at cramertech.com.  Actually, …no that can wait.  I think I should probably stick to a real basic but clean and interesting looking design and go from there.  Maybe I’ll start on that site…or perhaps do a few php tutorials…or both.  Golly see how I can be so undecisive?  I will choose, and it’ll be all gooooooood.

Okay, I think its time I give out my pro gamer tips.  I wouldn’t say LEET gamer tips because I’m not that great at games..just pretty good IMHO.

First of all there are three rules that every gamer ought to abide by and know when playing any first person shooter style game:

1. Never TK (Talk-Kill: thats when you kill somebody when you can tell they’re chatting.)
2. Try not to KS (Kill-Steal: thats when you finish off somebody else’s hard earned kill.)
3. Never BS (Bull-S!!t: thats when you just sit and say stupid crap to be noticed-i.e. spamming.)

When you play online games you can go with the flow and talk just like any other dork, or you can set a mature example and try and show some respect and not say dumb words like “p3nis, vag1na, f#ck” etc.  These are obscene screen wasters that don’t prove anything about you except that you have nothing good to say or that you couldn’t even if you wanted to.  Show some respect - somebody’s 4 year old might be playing even though it may be a mature game thats rated 17+.  For real, you know its true.

Speaking of younger folks playing mature games, I was buying Counter-Strike (the first one) at Walmart a while back and had a 16 year old with me.  I was buying the game for myself and yet they told me that he needed to show id of being at least 18 or older in order for me to buy the game for ME.  That was pretty retarded and I called them on it.  They don’t need to be putting their nose into my business like that.  They did that when I was buying two copies of DOOM (1, and 2) as well.

So on your road to gamer enlightenment you may discover the following about mousing…or maybe not.

1. The more sensitive you set your mouse in-game, the more choppy it becomes and seems to jump around more and more.
2. Using Mouse-Acceleration can be useful sometimes.
3. Using Mouse-Smoothing can also be useful sometimes.
4. Best bet: Set the sensitivity as low as you can while still being able to maintain an easy aim.  Try setting it just slightly lower than you would like, and then adjust the Acceleration to somewhere around half and the smoothing to around half (if you have that option available).  Then adjust those in small steps to achieve the perfect mouse setting for yourself.
5. The more you play with your mouse settings the more you’ll learn about how they help and worsen your gaming experience.  I spent about 2 hours adjusting my mouse last night and I finally discovered what those settings all do.  I’m still half-way stupid about those little settings like Acceleration and Smoothing…oh well.

These are some simple and basic tips for you gamers, but I find that these are valuable even to the veteran if you don’t have all of them down.  I may post some more at some point.

Have fun and keep on rockin’.