Miklb's Mindless Ramblings

As much as I love food, and cooking, and know that real restaurants are out there with caring owners and concerned staff, the combination of my hard-headedness and bad luck, I’ve not worked in one in a long time. I loathe working in a restaurant right now, and pray for the day that I discover that I really can make a living working with the web, or some other career opens up, but until then, I’m in it.
And with that off my chest, I really had a bad night, and was looking forward to getting home, and watching my favorite hockey team take on their in-state rival. (yeah, another sports post, go figure). So I settle in on the couch with some munchies and fire up the DVR, and no sooner than the game starts, it was over. And it was downhill from there. So thanks Lightning for reminding me that I might not have been the only one who had a bad day, and that you’ve got to put it behind you, learn what you can from your mistakes, and accept the fact that somedays, it’s just not your day. Here’s to a better tomorrow, and a run for the Cup.

I haven’t blogged about it before, but I’m a huge sports fan, baseball, football, and hockey, in no particular order, just depends on the season. I’m quite the homer, and have been a life long Buccaneers fan, as well as followed the Devil Rays since day one. It took a few years of the Lightning being in town, but I proudly say I was at their first playoff game in St. Petersburg, so I’ve been a fan for long enough not to be called a band wagon fan. I follow the sports in general as well, and since first going on line, have participated in one form or another of fantasy sports. For me, its a way of keeping up with the rest of the league, and gives you some one to root for when watching games other than the home team.
So, that said, I’m looking for other bloggers to play in a free online fantasy league via cbs.sportsline. It’s only for bragging rights, but can be a fun way to get to know others online, as well as add another online distraction. I’m only doing one league, so if this one doesn’t pan out, I’ll jump into something else, but I’m hopping to find at least 9 others to participate. I’m planning on doing a straight rotisserie league, meaning you draft a hitter for each position, several outfielders ,and a pitching staff. Then based on their stats in each category, they are ranked 1-x x being the number of players. So if you have a guy leading the league in HR, he’ll have the most points. Likewise with pitchers and KO, ERA, Saves, wins, WHIP (walks+hits per inning pitched, you want a low number here, same with ERA). So leave a comment and the link to your blog along with the required email in the comments and I’ll send a link, league name and password. Basically the first 11 bloggers to comment and register are in, draft will be live, but if you can’t make it, you can rank your players and you’ll auto draft. Not as fun, but I’ve seen people win leagues with a computer drafted team. I’ll decide on draft time when I find out where on the planet all the players are, and try and find a common time to do it. Like I said, nothing but bragging rights, and I’ll probably knock out a button for the winner to flaunt their baseball superiority.

This started out as a simple comment on Rachel’s design blog, but started getting wordy, so I converted it to a post w/trackback. (Which may be a thought for a future post, what is too long of a comment?)
The part I found myself relating to was the design of Squible, and user experience, which I found myself having recently gone through.
I had gotten busy, neglected my blogging, and when I got back into the swing of things,felt a new look was in order. Not having that much time, I opted for Squible. A good friend who also blogs noted that he “just couldn’t get his head around that format”. I fought changing things back for some time, but that comment hung around in the back of my head. I kept thinking that this guy is a “web guy, a designer. If he can’t get around it, what about the other 150+ a day that stumble upon place.” So when I changed hosts, and upgraded, I tried Squible for all of about 20 minutes, and then cobbled together a more traditional blog design.
Not that as a fledgling, wanna-be designer I don’t want to push my envelope, but I have to come back to the user experience. Much as my cooking evolved from wanting to be “everychef”, that is, I wanted to be Charlie Trotter, Jean Louis Paladin, Alan Susser, and Jean Georges Vongrichten on every plate. Little by little, I learned that my guests weren’t looking for me to defy gravity and mix flavors that might not otherwise be mixed, simply for the sake of “pushing the envelope”. It took me a long time to understand that my guests wanted a good meal. Sure, an unexpected flavor that contrasts but doesn’t detract, or a creative yet accessible presentation is fine, but make it edible. But I digress.
I still want to push envelopes, and broaden horizons, and all those clichés, but first and formost, I want the ramblings, and info to be accessible, and to flow in some manner that people will “get”.

Washington Post Can someone tell me why the Chief of Staff was “so preoccupied with national security issues”? They make it sound like he was personally out hunting Bin Laden himself. Maybe he was, and he and Cheney took shooting lessons together, as neither hit their intended target. I have a feeling nothing will ever come of any of this, and that the Republicans are going to successfully sweep ALL of this under the rug, until , oh 10 years from now, when someone’s broke and needs a tell all book.

“>Palm Beach Post (second story)

So when I first read about this, I thought it was much ado about nothing, a simple oversight by a transplant who registered to vote without a permanent address, blah blah, benefit of the doubt.
Now the truth comes out that she was simply a lazy bitch who didn’t feel she needed to follow the rules. Which is how the story originally broke. All she had to do was fill out the change of address form, and be done with it, but no, the woman who recently used the term “raghead” in reference to Arabs in a post 9.11 world, walked out of the voting precint she should have voted in, and drove to the one she originally registered in and voted. Which, is clearly defined in FL law, as a 3rd degree felony. What I would give to see her charged.