anyway, i guess since filing a support ticket during the middle of the holidays was a bad idea, i’ll just continue on here. there’s a lot of crap to do today, but i’ll try to get some good snarkery up later tonight. it would certainly be good stress-relief.

be careful out there, ‘mong the English (i don’t know why i just thought of that line from ‘The Witness’. i suppose i should actually take offense at it since i’m Scotts-Irish).

if the feedburner feeds do not automatically revive themselves after i get the theme and plugins uploaded (i will also double-check it through feedburner), then if the few of you who subscribe to the feeds will let me know, i’d appreciate it. that seems to be all done correctly now, though.

i forgot that WordPress’s export/import process wouldn’t retain images. i’ll try to get the images back in. sadly, i didn’t do a very diligent job of ensuring that i kept images i uploaded to here all in one concise place. they’re probably not that big of a deal, but i’ll get that fixed a) if you ask to see one specifically, or b) if not having it up here just really bugs me.

i have to re-upload the one gallery i had up here and configure the gallery plugin. that can probably wait a bit, since you family members, according to my previous statistics, had pretty much looked at them all.

i’ve got to reconstitute my blogroll and tweak the sidebar as well, so for those of you who were on it, i apologize for the sudden lack of linkage. i’ll get that fixed next, while i’m batching out some client photos.

if you’re wondering, i changed hosting to bluehost.com, one of the most reputable national hosting systems available. i found very few negative reviews, and their price is literally a fraction of what i’m being charged from my local host. i do think i should make it clear, however (and not just because they might be reading this), that i greatly appreciate my local provider (see the footer of the otherwhirled for details). i have learned a lot from them and have appreciated the efforts of especially one individual there (Isaac). the bottom line here is, frankly money. money, and the fact that support, while effective, is often rather slow. bluehost’s system is so comprehensive that in many ways the need for active, personal support is moot. i was able to get dawnne.com transferred and running, setup with email, ftp, and statistics, over here without talking to anyone. and the few questions i had before signing up were answered within 30 minutes in person, via telephone, in response to questions from a guy who pretended like he couldn’t read a website, no less. very impressive.

enough about that. moving on….

well, i’ve got to do some work for a bit.

i don’t know what i was thinking. wait, yes i do. i was thinking that keeping the money in our community was a better thing. and it typically is. and i am a big proponent of keeping the money in the local community. so doing this bugs me on several levels. however, when it comes down to the fact that for the hosting of six domains, i am being charged $150/month, when i could just be paying $6.95/month (for better service, greater configurability, and higher bandwidth, no less)…well, it’s time to move.

so, that’s what’s going to happen. i have already semi-successfully moved dawnne.com. i say “semi-successfully” only because i have to re-upload a couple of galleries and a few images (stuff that didn’t make it via the WordPress export/import utility), and because someone in the WordPress development group thinks we like to have to hand-enter our blogrolls if we ever pick up and move. that aside, moving over to BlueHost was not only a complete no-brainer in financial terms, but was also done in less than 12 hours, although DNS propagation outside North America may take longer. and goodness knows i have a bazillion readers from overseas on my personal blog. har-de-har-har.

did i mention it was BlueHost? it’s BlueHost. shameless plug from a woefully shameless man.

so, like, over the next few days, i will be moving everything. the hardest part of this is going to be moving the blogroll. because i like to serve the click-through method (the supposed reason why blogrolls exist), i will have to add some of the more recent additions into my google reader so i can do the export thingy from that to the wordpress blogroll. i’m going to take my time on that, however, as i am more focused on getting some client stuff done before Christmas. just be advised, you’ll see temporary burps not only in the website, but in the feeds, and when the website comes back up, it won’t be perfect from the get-go.

i just said “get-go”. yes, i was raised in Texas. carry on.

i do want to say that i deeply appreciate the services of my local provider (see the current footer). this is primarily a money issue. sure, as with any other small-business host, service sometimes isn’t what i would ideally want it to be. but i have learned quite a bit from them, just as i have hopefully helped them learn about WordPress hosting as well. they are good people, and i do somewhat regret bailing on them. but, like i said, at $6.95 a month, i can simply choose not to eat out ONCE each month and i draw even, or better. pfft. what was i thinking….

ironically, this comes immediately after making the comments plugin gravatar-compliant. if you haven’t setup a gravatar on your email address, why not? well, the reason why commander[dot]other[at]otherwhirled[dot]com doesn’t have one is because apparently they can’t handle email addy’s with [dots]. that aside, it’s a fine way to make your comments across your favorite blogs—all of whom should be supporting the gravatar project—more consistent, so peeps can recognize you and see how cool you are.

if you look at the footers here, here and here, you can probably guess what i’m installing, but also to give them credit where credit is due, and probably because i’ll screw up and forget to put them in the footer of this blog….

1. Alex Rabe’s Next Gen Gallery ~ i have some plans for the otherwhirled that may include a gallery format on certain photos, especially as we near the next major elections and there will be plenty of photos of Republican candidates ducking past the White House, etc. and gallery-izing my LOLcons and otherwhirled originals (whenever i put more than two up, lol) is just an option i’d like to have.
2. Andrew Ozz’s Shutter Reloaded ~ i use this on my other blogs to preview images. the code is phenomenally clean and it works much faster than Thickbox or Lightbox (the two more popular versions of this type of thing). but if good photoshoppers such as Tengrain are going to post here occasionally, i want to give them the opportunity of providing higher-resolution versions of their talents, and Shutter Reloaded is a grand way of doing it.
3. Oliver Seidel’s ContactForms II ~ used on my other blogs to replace the wordpress comment mechanism, and i simply would like to have it here for consistency’s sake. to implement this one, i have to edit core wordpress files, hence my reasoning for this post as warning that things might go “boom”. i haven’t screwed up implementing it yet, but there’s always a first time. after it’s installed, commentators will have the option to contribute their comments as an email to the author instead of a regular comment, and will have to prove their humanity. sorry about the latter requirement, but in the past week, i have seen the spam beginning to shift off the original otherwhirled over to here. neat-o!

as a reminder, i still would like others involved here in the otherwhirled. if you’d like another place to share your insight, witticism, and/or anything else talk to me at commander[dot]other[at]otherwhirled[dot]com.

1. WordPress statistics is very generalistic. they depend entirely upon whether or not the proper tag {wp_footer()} is contained somewhere within your main index page and any other pages that might serve content (author templates, archive templates, category templates, tag templates, single post templates, and wordpress ‘page’ templates). if your theme has all those separate templates, but lacks the proper code, those templates won’t trigger information into your stats. and if you’re on the hosted wordpress.com, you can’t edit the themes. see why i left? well, that was reason # 57, i think.
2. When blogs that link to you directly, as in through a particular post, update their content and that post scrolls to the next page, that link will disappear from your wordpress dashboard. i just saw that happen with links from Jess and Tengrain. so basically, you can ignore that kind of shit too in your dashboard. Also, if someone simply hasn’t clicked a link to you, say in someone’s blogroll, for a while, wordpress drops reporting it as well. this is one of the reasons why i try to take time out every week to click through people’s blogrolls.

in short, the wordpress stats and dashboard information never come close to matching the real stats i get from my server software itself. so, at the risk of pimping something my wife may or may not be working for in the near future, i humbly suggest google analytics. it’s free, for one thing, the stats are far more verbose, and they match succinctly with the actual statistics i get from my server software. it does a lot of other useful things as well.

i also have a sitemeter thingy running from my sidebar. it’s not very verbose, either, for what it’s worth. at least not the free one. my stats from feedburner are absolute crap (they report less than 30% of the hits my server stats say touch my feed. kinda sad, that, and i’m glad i don’t pay for it).

okay, that was your handy tip for the day from Commander Other. carry on!

except client work, of course. durn clients never go away. maybe smack the kids around a bit and yell at ‘em for bein’ mine.

okay, okay, put up the damn christmas tree. lowercase ‘c’, because “he” was just a propaganda tool, mind you.

so, i added some new additions to the blogroll over there on the right, because i was tired of following links from other people’s blogs to theirs. i’ve been reading/watching/listening to these folks for a while, and i like ‘em. you should, too. hell, most of you probably already do, but according to google analytics, SOME of you are ‘new’ visitors each day, so what the hell… ~

in “inspirations”, with all that implies:
• Dashiell
• Pharyngula
• Ribbed for Your Pleasure

in “provocateurs”, because they is:
• Comrade Kevin
• Freida Bee
• I Am Trex
• I, Splotchy
• Phydeaux and Phriends
• Politits
• The Needs of the Few

in “snarkatorium”, because they do:
• Pygalgia
• The Self Help Center

click, read, peruse, and blogroll ‘em yerseffs!

at any rate, here i sit with a virus at my fingertips, courtesy of Jess Wundrun, who got it in turn from Enriched Geranium who contracted it from Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein (no doubt during one of his $1,000-per-plate campaign dinners), who got it from FranIAm, who apparently picked it up from Splotchy during that all-night binge-fest with the “foreign exchange” students, if you know what i mean, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

seriously, i have no idea where all that just came from. my doctor would probably say that i drink too much caffeine, though. last time he told me that, i jumped up and beat him with his stethoscope.

but i digress….(told you so!)

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

“That’s strange,” I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen. I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. “What the…” again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room.(FranIam)

She flicked the lid with her massive big toe. “So, I guess I’ll be having another Camel for breakfast and you’ll be having a breakfast date with the Electrolux.” She lit her Camel cigarette as she turned to open the closet door where we kept the vacuum. “In case you’re wondering how the applesauce got frozen, I seem to recall you insisting that I stick it in the freezer before we went to bed last night.” She pushed the Electrolux at me and it squooshed through the rapidly unfreezing applesauce and the glass shards. “This kind of crap happens all the time when we go drinking with the Brazilians.” (Dr. Monkey)

Suddenly, the front door erupted in an explosion of wood splinters. “Jesus in a bucket! They’ve found me!” I thought as I dove out the kitchen window. My experiments with frozen applesauce, Camel cigarettes and Electrolux vacuum cleaners were supposed to be a secret, but, apparently, they weren’t as secret as I had thought. What would happen if the formula fell into the wrong hands? All my work, for naught! Who had leaked the information? Was it her? Or possibly one of the Brazilians? “Now the damned Department of Homeland Security will ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve!” was the last thing that went through my mind before I was surrounded. (Enriched Geranium)

Totally surrounded, I might add, by secret service agents. A childish gray-haired man stepped between them. He walked as if he were hiding an eight ball in his trousers. Stepping nearer I saw an actual eight ball, (pool table, not drugs) fall out his pant leg. Bruised, a little bloody and a lot confused, I still thought “some guys just can’t deal with their shortcomings”.

“Where’s Pickles?” short and arrogant demanded of me.

“Pickles?” First Brazilians, now pickles, Camel cigarettes and an electrolux? Sweet jesus on a popsicle stick help me make sense of this.

“I know yer shaggin’ Laura. She said you’re into the brazillians . I’d have ta be preznit for another eight years before I had brazillians and brazillians of dollars”. He looked sad. “I bet she tried her erotic applesauce trick on you.” Eeugh. She did try the erotic applesauce trick on me. But I didn’t know I was whispering sweet nothings into the ear of the First Lady. In the snowdrift outside the kitchen window he saw the Camel butts. “Camels! Ha! I knew she switched from Pall Malls for a reason. It’s you. Buddy, I have half a mind to punish you in ways you will never forget. (Jess Wundrun)

“Buddy, you have half a mind,” I responded dead-pan, surreptitiously checking my back pocket for my trusty old .45. It was still there. Warm, silent and deadly. Oh yeah, and unloaded. It’s rather dangerous to sleep with a loaded .45 in your back pocket, after all.

“Don’t even think about it,” one of the short guy’s henchmen barked. And I do mean, literally, “barked”. One of those kind of henchmen. “Toss it over here, you commie scum.”

I tossed at his feet, then did my best drop-and-roll, coming up with the short guy’s eight ball in my right hand. Pausing for a quick calculation of vastly improbable trajectories and velocities, I hurled the ball as hard as I could towards the edge of the countertop, from where it rebounded directly off barking-boy’s forehead and made a quick tour of the other agents, knocking them all out cold before coming to a rest at my feet. I stooped to retrieve it, then held it out to the short guy. “I believe this is yours, little man,” I said coolly.

“Whut? Naw, that ain’t mine. Why on earth would Ah put an eight ball in mah shorts?” He was obviously dazed—perhaps even bespelled—by my magical display of ball-tossing. What a poor, simple-minded little man. Completely helpless without his strings being pulled. Sighing, I made a decision. Perhaps it was being in the presence of the supposed Decider himself. Who knows. Anyway, I did it, and the doing of it was something that promised to change both our lives. “Well, let’s get going, sir. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Whut? It’s only 9:00! Ah don’t get mah spankin’ from Condee until elebbin!”

“No, not her. Someone else. Someone you don’t realize has secretly had a crush on you for years.”(Commander Other)

Tagging: NotSoccer Mom, Sorghum Crow, Hysterical Raisins, and Fairlane.

The rules:

1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT (this is in capital letters, so it is very serious).

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY: “No Self Control”, Peter Gabriel (untitled album, 1980)

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY: “World Full of Nothing”, Depeche Mode (Black Celebration, 1986)

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL: “I Feel You (Helmet at the Helm Mix)”, Depeche Mode (I Feel You, Maxi Single, 1993)

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY: “Cold Alien”, Planet Bliss (via mp3.com circa 2003)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE: “One Tree Hill”, U2 (Joshua Tree, 1987)

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO: “Moon In Ice”, Yello (One Second, 1987)

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU: “Poison in the Well”, 10,000 Maniacs (Blind Man’s Zoo, 1989)

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS: “End of the Line…” designerthumbs (via mp3.com circa 2004)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN: “A Matter of Conscience”, The Sun and the Moon (The Sun and the Moon, 1988)

10. WHAT IS 2+2: “The Song of the Sybil”, Dead Can Dance (A Passage In Time, 1991)

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND: “Six Different Ways”, The Cure (The Head on the Door, 1985)

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE: “Superunknown”, Soundgarden (Superunknown, 1994)

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY: “i remember everything”, Sub City (via mp3.com circa 2002)

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: “Craving”, Xymox (Twist of Shadows, 1989)

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE: “Into the Fourth Dimension”, The Orb (The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, disc 2, 1991)

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU: “Help Me Lift You Up”, This Mortal Coil (Blood, 1991)

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING: “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”, The Smiths (The World Won’t Listen, 1986) (okay, i’ll admit it: i rigged this one answer, because we DID dance to this at our wedding!)

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL: “The Colour Hurts”, Curve (Pubic Fruit, 1991)

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST: “Suboceana”, Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom, 1989)

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET: “To Wish Impossible Things”, The Cure (Wish, 1992)

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS: “Solar Choir”, The Creatures (Boomerang, 1989)

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS: “Life’s What You Make It”, Talk Talk (The Colour of Spring, 1986)

It entirely figures that with over 30 years of music to pick from and the entire library active, the “next” button on my keyboard nearly-consistently brought up music from the mid-to-late 1980′s and early 1990′s. Bah!

Tag, You’re It! Tramplingrose, Tim and Todd

aw, hell. since i took so damn long, why not show ‘em all again?

• Life & Times of NotSoccer mom. yes, even though i’m a soccer dad.
• Say What?! signs of the times. funny stuff. i have things from here in Sioux Falls i should obviously be submitting.
• Little Bang Theory. just because you should. good writing and good content.
• The Great Endarkenment. frequently channels our inner sixth grade fuck.
• The Future Was Yesterday. oh, yes it was. weren’t you paying attention?
• Namaste. the tagline is over my head, but the content is superb!

oh, and also this individual, whom some of you might know from this place.