Moving On...

This is now a defunct blogging test. I'm moving on to greener pastures... Wordpress and a "real" blog name.

Stylehack.com

And of course I'm too lazy to convert any of these entries, so this will be a monument to silliness that we can all refer back to in our golden years. tee hee.

Tho you never know with me. I could be back. "-)

What is it with Politicians & Poor Public Speaking Skills?

This morning the city of Weehawken, NJ held a reenactment of the duel between Hamilton and Burr on July 11th, 1804. Typical of events of this nature, every politician with an excuse crawled out of their holes to add their comments... turning an interesting historical reenactment into an overly long drone. Oops, I'm digressing again. :-)

Everytime I watch or listen to programs with politicians at the microphone, I am struck by the almost universal utter lack of public speaking skills. What is it with these people? We hear references to the great oratorical skills of men whose names have rung down through the ages. That sure isn't something that has held true of their successors thru the years.

I was trying to come up with an excuse for the men I heard speaking today... is it because they have been trained as lawyers (as are most policitians)? Not necessarily; strong oratory skills are an important tool of an attorney, at least one who expects to appear in court at some point in his/her career and hopes to have any chance of winning. Is it a gender-based problem? Again, no. I've heard women in political positions speak just as woodenly. [Hilary Clinton springs immediately to mind, along with Elizabeth Dole.]

I've come to the conclusion that it is a) a lack of education, and b) disregard and/or lack of respect for the listener.

It's darn near impossible to concentrate on the words being spoken and the message contained therein when the speaker uses a monotone and pauses every 4 or 5 words, whether appropriate or not. Not to mention the lack of eye contact with the audience.

The worst speakers are reading their material. It's so obvious that they didn't write it -- they aren't even remotely familiar with it. I'm not against having speech writers, but for crying out loud can't you at least read the material thru until you are familiar with it? Maybe a better expenditure of public funds would be to hire someone to help these politicians do a better job of the presentation.

Here's my critique of the speakers at this event:

Mayor Richard Turner, Weehawken NJ

Didn't read have notes, so obviously wrote his own material and was familiar with the contents. Good cadence and tone; good body language, obviously comfortable.

Governor McGreevey, NJ

Someone help this man. I couldn't even begin to tell you what he said. It was so disrupting to watch him look up and down, every 4 or 5 words, with the accompanying pause while he read the next 4 or 5 words. So apparent that there was no reading for comprehension. How in the hell did he get elected? Oh... I get it. Politicians with poor public speaking abilities get elected because no one is actually listening to them or their message.

Congressman Menendez

Somewhat better; he had no notes. So at least he memorized the material written for him. Still needs work on his breathing and pitch.

Patrick Boll (Narrator)

Unknown what his connection to this event was; nothing was mentioned. Obviously nervous. Never looked up, stumbled regularly over words. Poor breathing in the begining, tho he relaxed as the event progressed. Poor pitch and cadence, poor emphasis on words and little variation in pitch. Ended every sentence on a lower note, obviously poor breath control.

Nancy Giles (Narrator)

Again, nothing was said about her role in this event other than being a narrator. This woman has had training in public speaking. While she was also reading her material, the cadence and pitch of her performance changed with the material and as appropriate. It was a pleasure to listen to her.

Overall Score: Mayor Turner and Nancy Giles were obviously the better speakers; Patrick Boll was too nervous and probably should have bowed out to someone with more experience. Menendez at least was less stilted than McGreevey. McGreevey should have claimed he had laryngitis and bowed out.

Bet you never thought you'd read a rant on this topic here, did you? I've had 8+ years of formal training in oratory & public speaking and 20 yrs of practice. If I displayed the lack of skills I see in politicians I'd have a hard time promoting my business -- public speaking is an important tool for a consultant.

Star Trek Apartment

Ok, this is just too *something* to not add here so I remember it. STNG Apartment @ Webshots This is definitely worth digging around in to see the before and after pictures. Some people. wink wink nudge nudge.

Romper Room: A Slice of American Childhood in the 60s

There is nothing I love more than reliving my childhood! Miss Betty never saw me thru her magic mirror. That explains why I turned out the way I did. grin.

Romper Room

Watching Mars in August 2003

Because I never watch the news or read the newspaper, I don't know if this has been in either. Apparently from now thru the end of the month we will be able to see Mars get closer and brighter each night. It should be interesting and supposedly has not happened before in recorded history (one alternate timeline I read quoted 5000 yrs). Anyway, it's something to watch for.

From what I have read, using a regular 75x agnification (like binoculars) will make Mars as large as a full moon to the naked eye. Some of you already know how much I love these "once in a lifetime" Life List-type events. "-)

In addition to the info below, the Mars Watch page at http://www.space.com has excellent info on how to locate Mars in the sky and calculate the best time to see it in your area.

Here is info from the Nasa website:

[Quoted from the above link]

Mars is approaching Earth in what will soon be the closest the planets have been in 73,000 years -- a confluence set officially for 5:46 AM, Wednesday, August 27, 2003. That night, the Red Planet will be the brightest object in the sky as it reaches its closest Earth encounter, or opposition, at 34,646,418 miles.

Mars Opposition, Summer 2003. While Mars and Earth will be closest at the end of August, the complex orbital paths required to land on the Red Planet make early summer launches optimal. Credit: NASA

At opposition Mars will be as close as it has been since September 12, 57,537 B.C. or one-third closer than the average opposition. The next approach this close is August 28, 2287 A.D at 34,620,000 miles.

The planet's bright magnitude should begin August 20 and continue through September 2 but fades rapidly thereafter as Earth pulls ahead of it and the Moon begins to grow full.

Credit Nasa for the above text and picture.

Category Archives & Email this Entry added!

Today was a big day! Britta challenged us to add Category Archives to our main index pages, which in and of itself was simple... but I messed up a div tag so my box was shrinking with each viewing! sigh.

Then I got a wild hair and decided to add the "Email this entry" function to my posts. Oh boy.

The "Mail This Entry" that MT has in their documentation was poorly explained everywhere I looked. In other words, they tell you only how to use it one way... so explanation of what is going on so you can customize it. And since I'm not 100% familiar with their scripts and setup, I was lost.

So I used a similar function found here: Works in Progress - How to Create a Pop-Up eMail This Entry Window in MovableType (David Gagne). It includes its own CGI script and is very well explained by the author.

Even tho the tutorial says it was tried on an older version (and apparently the tutorial has never been updated), it worked fine on Version 2.64!

Here's the difference between the 2:

MT -- Sends text and/or HTML formatted copy of posting in the email; you can add youself as a blind copy if you like; provides a comment box for the sender to add his/her own text.

Gagne -- Sends a link only, with preformatted subject and text. A separate copy is sent to you (if you remove the # in the script for the relevant section of code) and the recipient's address is noted at the bottom. This script also generates a "Success" screen so the sender knows the process completed.

I don't know as much about the MT one as I said, because I didn't bother to set it up at all.

Some things I need to consider adding/modifying: None of the fields are required in this script, so a blank email can be sent; should I let them add their own note or not?

Anyway, if you set up this script yourself be advised that you need to make some basic changes to it (well documented on the link above) and if you have done extensive customizing of your site layout you may also have to make other changes to the script... particularly in the section where the actual email is written.

The format you see on this site is NOT the same as in the script at the link above. I made changes to that script to suit my purpose.

Then the email links themselves go on the Index page template and the Individual Archives template.

Anyway, another learning experience!

Opera Bookmarklets

I'm finally being forced to consider my options for the future, now that Netscape is officially on the shelf. Big sigh.

Fortunately, Opera has come a long way in the last few years. I love the browser, and their email is almost there... not quite.

However, I do use Opera more than any other browser. [At least I'll still feel the daily frustration of going to a web site that won't load in anything except messIE.] And recently I stumbled onto their Bookmarklets.

These are neat little bits of JS code that you can drop onto your Hotlist and they "do" things for you. I dutifully set up the bookmarkets that validate the page you are visiting at the W3C and other odd things like that. Yesterday I found a much better bookmarklet: the one that lets you Make an entry to your MT blog right from your Hotlist or from your toolbar!

Yep, tonight I just got a wild hair and slapped one onto the tool bar. Imagine my surprise when it worked! And then to discover that I, the USER, can actually set up the toolbar any way I want! I am in heaven. grin.

I really like Opera... it is the fastest browser I use. And the keystroke shortcuts are so darn convenient... I find myself hitting Z or X in all the other (for backward and forward) and then wondering why nothing happens. Those keys even work from the first page of a site you are visiting if the site uses Referrers. Super way to slide through without having to fiddle with a mouse.

Anyway, just something silly to post here for the heck of it.

Give it Your Best Shot!

Well, after 2 long days of fighting and screaming and dreaming about this stupid layout, I've finally figured out what things are supposed to be doing. I supposed you want to know, eh?

Well too bad, I don't have it written up yet. But I do know every place in the Plain Jane css style from MT that doesn't work and what to do to fix it. Also the errors in the various HTML templates that make it non-NN 4x compatible.

Yeah, yeah... I'll write them up as soon as I do my Freehand homework. sigh.

I added a "subscribe" type feature so that if I do a big "overhaul" or post a really snazzy entry I could send a notice to interested parties. Sadly for some of you, you'll get a "notice" whether you want one or not. evil grin.

Hey? Who's that woman on the main page? Not me, I promise you that. snicker. But I do look that color sometimes, usually when viewing what others have done, and I actually did roll my hair once. I think.

Alright, have at it. YES... I know that there is some minor tweaking needed here and there for fonts and inheritance. Gimme a break! Or I won't share the results of my tests... including how to change the Search Results template. glare!

I need a tag line thingy! "-)

Oh goody, my first RANT!

No offense, MT, but whoever taught you how to use CSS positioning and HTML forms needs a quick lesson in cross-browser compatibility. At this point the CSS for this site (aka 'Clean') as it impacts the Comments forms is half baked, with a horrible hack sitting in place to force the issue in NN 4x.

I guess there's nothing for it but to call in the big guns. Yoohoo, Farronnnnnn... where are you? Fix this for me, would you? "-)

The issue left to solve relates to how NN 4.x treats the Textarea element. It's not allowing for the # of rows before it slaps in the input buttons. I "fixed" the style issue (inline style) on the Div controlling the Visitor input by removing the bit that was causing the problem, and fixed the run-over text by adding a break. So it's either remove the float totally or create my own form (that works) and replace this one totally.

Whaddya think?

Yikes! It worked!

Well how 'bout that! Aced it on the first try. "-)

It's a tough life being a slacker, but I do my modest best. [humble look]

Becky