{"id":1845,"date":"2008-04-09T08:39:52","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T14:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2008-04-09T08:39:52","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T14:39:52","slug":"tuesday-recap-bum-patrol-garfield-minus-garfield-bad-beer-wordpress-25-kind-of-sucks-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/09\/tuesday-recap-bum-patrol-garfield-minus-garfield-bad-beer-wordpress-25-kind-of-sucks-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday recap: Bum patrol, Garfield minus Garfield, bad beer, WordPress 2.5 kind of sucks, and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a poster for the Africa Center Stage performance happening at 11:45 on the Civic Center Plaza (unless it’s still raining):<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

As I was walking to the Saucer last night, I decided to make a loop around Beale and see if there were any bums running parking scams.\u00a0 Sure enough, there was one standing by a meter across from the Orpheum.\u00a0 Metered parking is free after 6, but as a couple pulled in, he told them, “This here lot charges $10 to park (gesturing to the lot on the other side of the sidewalk).\u00a0 Can I have $10?”<\/p>\n

I told the couple not to pay him, then said to him, “You’re about to make some new friends,” then called the Downtown security patrol number.\u00a0 2 minutes later they arrived on bike and chased him off.\u00a0 The new security patrol is great.\u00a0 “Call us a lot,” they told me.\u00a0 I have a feeling that will happen.<\/p>\n

The Rapscallions took second at trivia, bringing our gift certificate total to $375.\u00a0 While there, Otto<\/a> told me about a funny website called Garfield Minus Garfield<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s the original Garfield comic strips with Garfield removed – really, with everything removed but Jon.\u00a0 So it’s basically Jon talking to himself, which makes him look like a complete nut case.\u00a0 Whoever came up with this idea has a twisted sense of humor.\u00a0 I like it.<\/p>\n

Next up was a visit to Calhoun’s, to see Best Pool Partner Ever Lauren.\u00a0 Max the owner brought me behind the bar to show me the Bad Beer Cabinet:<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

That’s a keg of PBR, random cans of Old Style, and a case of Busch Light.\u00a0 Ah, memories of college.<\/p>\n

Calhoun’s ended up closing down early so Max could do beer research.\u00a0 I rode with Lauren and Itta Bena bartender Sam to McGuinness, where Max met up with us and I helped him research Woodchuck Cider.\u00a0 Then I decided it was time to get some sleep.\u00a0 So I started the walk up Second toward home, but I encountered EP’s chef Michael Patrick leaving Big Foot with take-out food.\u00a0 We talked about bums for a few minutes, then he told me, “Your BFF is in there at the bar.”\u00a0 Oh, REALLY?\u00a0 I decided I had time for one more beer.<\/p>\n

So I went in, and sure enough, she was at the bar drinking with her roommate.\u00a0 You know, I’ll say this, my BFF may be an industrial-grade pain in the ass, but she does have cute roommates.\u00a0 We hurled our usual insults at each other, and I decided to give her an opportunity.\u00a0 I handed her a piece of paper.\u00a0 “Write whatever you want,” I told her, “and I’ll take a photo of it and blog it.”\u00a0 So she took out a pen.\u00a0 This is what she came up with:<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

I know the pic is a little fuzzy… the camera has trouble with document mode in dim light.\u00a0 In case you can’t read it, it says, “PAUL = (equals) DOUCHE BAG.”\u00a0 It’s nice that she put “equals” in parentheses for those of us who never made it past first-grade math and don’t know what “=” means.\u00a0 And seriously, I gave her open season on me and that’s the best she can do?\u00a0 What a loser.<\/p>\n

Beer report:<\/p>\n

Previous total:\u00a0 $1,123.25<\/p>\n

Beers 188, 189, and 190 by my count (181, 182, and 183 by the Saucer’s count):
\nCarlsberg $4.75
\nHeineken $4.50
\nAvery Ellie’s Brown Ale $4.50
\nTip:\u00a0 $13.75 x ~30% = $4.00
\nTotal:\u00a0 $17.75<\/p>\n

Grand total:\u00a0 $1,141.00<\/p>\n

I’m not totally happy with WordPress 2.5.\u00a0 It lets me do bulk uploading of images, which would’ve been really nice for this post, since there were 3 images… except it sits there and says “crunching” for 10 minutes.\u00a0 It thinks it’s doing me a favor by compressing the images, I guess.\u00a0 Really, I have close to unlimited server space and don’t care if the images are compressed or not… on the other hand, I do care about them hitting the server and getting onto my blog in a timely fashion.\u00a0 Worse,\u00a0once the images were uploaded to the media gallery, I couldn’t pull them onto my post because I got a Javascript\u00a0error.\u00a0 I had to go in and figure out the URLs to the images and manually link\u00a0to them.\u00a0 That’s really annoying to have to do that.\u00a0 Also, I couldn’t center-align two of the images in the editor and had to edit the HTML to get it done.\u00a0 That’s not a problem for me, but what about the thousands of WordPress users who don’t know HTML?\u00a0 This thing should’ve stayed in beta testing a while longer.\u00a0 Perhaps I’ll be able to mess with the settings and improve its performance.\u00a0 If things don’t get better, though, I may downgrade to 2.3.3 until they test 2.5 a little better.<\/p>\n

All right, time to go earn some money.\u00a0 Plans for this evening:\u00a0 Downtown Night at Itta Bena around 5:30, followed by a move to the Saucer to do my plate beers 7:30-8ish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"