Colour it beautiful

Your Blogger blog, that is.

Duh, I hear you say. That's what templates are for!

Well, yes... but haven't you noticed how modest Blogger's choice of colour combinations is, at least for some of its features?

The blog description subtitle (in another blog), for example, was very frustrating to me for a while, because I wanted it to be a different colour from those offered by its standard scheme for the layout I was editing. (In other words, the combination for my chosen layout didn't have the colour I was looking for.)

No problem, I thought: I'll find the HEX code of the colour I had in mind elsewhere (there are lots of places where you can find those codes; here's a chart I found useful) and then simply copy and paste it in the box next to the colour (on the layout "fonts and colours" editing page, of course), thus replacing the existing HEX code.

And so I did.
Copy and paste it, that is.
I did NOT replace the existing colour because my little manoeuvre, for some reason, simply didn't work. After I had entered the desired HEX code and pressed SAVE CHANGES (I bet you thought I had forgotten to "save", eh? ;-), there was a message confirming the change had been saved - only, it was nowhere to be seen. The colour of the blog description subtitle was exactly the same as before.

I repeated this process a few more times, cursing Firefox and/or Blogger all the way, all to no avail.

Then, instead of clicking on the "Fonts and colours" tab, as usually (after all, it makes sense, right?), I clicked on the "edit template HTML" tab.

Then, in the maze of HTML tags, I simply looked for the term "blog description".
I found it soon enough: it is the sixth row under the heading VARIABLE NAME.

Just as an illustration, it looks like this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Variable name="descriptioncolor" description="Blog Description Color"
type="color" default="#999" value="#E41B17"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(The emphasis in red is mine, for the sake of clarity.
And the codes you see above are, obviously, the ones used in that particular blog.
The tags in your blog would contain the codes of the colours you used in your blog.)

Then, within the tag, I looked for "value" - you'll find it at the end of the tag (here highlighted in red) - and replaced the existing HEX code with the code of the colour I wanted.

This time, it worked like a charm.

I know: how could it not?
Well, experience has taught me that, within Blogger, logic doesn't always apply as flawlessly as one would expect...
Still, it worked.

I hope it works for you, too.

And remember: don't be intimidated by HTML.
(You'd be surprised to find out how many people are!)

An act of... what exactly WAS that, Kate?

But whatever it was, it was an act.
Even worse: a badly acted act.

I know: I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own four eyes (my un-tinted contacts, in case you're wondering)... Or should I say, heard it?

Kate Winslet - lately a surprisingly recurrent guest of this bloggy - won two Golden Globe awards the other night.

Impressive. And well deserved, no doubt.

Well, I certainly thought so... until I heard, and then saw, her by now infamous acceptance speech at the ceremony.

Not only was it not "off the cuff", as she purported it to be - it was the worst case of cringeworthy "ham", of shrill histrionics I've EVER seen, at least from such a prestigious performer.
(OK, maybe the second worst, closely following Laurence Olivier's hair-rising impersonation of Zeus with a bad headache during a famous WW II moral-boosting stage appearance. I'll post a link to a video of it, if I find one.)

I'll analyse it for you, frame by frame, expression by expression, tone by tone, if need be.
Gladly!

Just not today.
I have a really bad headache right now - and I am not even Zeus...

You - Reality = ?

This is one of the most important questions you'll ever be asked.

(Yes, it sounds pompous; it sounds worse than pompous, if you ask me. Who cares? It's still true.)

Go outside - not mandatory, but helpful - and take a walk.

Or, if you are well aware of, and connected to, the You who does the gathering, processing, interpreting of reality data, just stay wherever you are right now.

What is important is that the surroundings you're seeing or feeling are intimately familiar to you.

Now, just for the sake of the argument, imagine that all you're seeing really is like a painted veil of sorts, a flimsy curtain concealing a mighty stage (you've seen The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, right?); or an onion with many peels.

If that surface - what you're seeing around you, your Reality, all there is - were ripped apart, if it broke, if it melted away...

WHAT DO YOU SEE APPEAR?

This is not a philosophical (i.e. general) question.

It is a question addressed specifically to you; and only you - the deep-seed You - can answer it.

Carry it around with you for as long as you want or need.

More on this some other time.

Another reason for you to never ever leave your home again... Or live in it, for that matter

This just in:

"Doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to describe these chemicals in a new study that focused on the risks they pose to infants and children. The study was published in this month’s issue of the journal Pediatrics."

The New York Times, January 2, 2009


This obsession has finally collapsed into a state of insanity...
Hypocrisy is now officially a disease. (Probably caused by brain cell decay brought on by particles of fifth-foot smoke.)

Notice the key word: coined.
Because that's the point here. Anyone who knows anything at all about academic circles, especially about the medical profession, is aware of the "publish or perish" imperative and its consequences. (Or of its ultimate goal, for that matter. I'll let you guess what that is...)

But most people outside those circles know nothing of said imperative. (Heck, they probably even think pharmaceutical companies are looking after their - the people's - best interest!)

And so they do what the "surgeon general" (anyone met him yet?) says - or feel guilty if they don't.

They eventually end up submitting to guilt - and get sick.
Or they don't submit to guilt, but get sick anyway.
Or they submit to guilt and don't get sick.
Or they don't submit to guilt and don't get sick either.


And that's just it.
Sorry to burst your bubble - the sterilised and homogenised bubble that the white-clad overgrown nannies are trying to build around us, for us to live in (not for long, I imagine, considering the effects of such a sanitised environment on the immune system) - but you, I, they and all those precious children are exposed to all kinds of assorted "particles", both flying and crawling, all the time.
And if you think they couldn't possibly be more dangerous than the bete noire of the moment - tobacco - think again.

Take mold, for example: I challenge you to find a single person who has not found themselves in the presence of moldy food at some point in their home or outside (and, BTW, yes: that includes the post-prandial platter of cheese that charming elderly gentleman with the YSL Rive Gauche perfumed bimbo, three tables away from yours, was having during that fancy supper at La Tour d'Argent, all those years ago).
I have seen people simply cut the moldy parts, throw them away and proceed to eat it - or give it to their young ones.
And yet, mold has very dire adverse effects on the health; and it is almost indestructible. Those spores procreate like there's no tomorrow!

I am not saying that a room where there had been heavy smoking going on, is a particularly pleasant or salubrious place to be, and not just for children.

I just don't believe that the "particles" of sundry substances, from fuel exhausts (yes, including unleaded gasoline) to asbestos, to name just two, are so great either. And they are everywhere.

The fact is, very many substances around us, in general use, are proven beyond doubt to be lethal, even in apparently small amounts. Mold is just one.

Margarine is another one. A HUGE one.
(Dr. Andrew Weil once called it, with good reason, the single most damaging substance in general use - and that included smoking.)

And yet, you don't see anyone in the mainstream medical circles obsessing over them - certainly not like this.

Why is that?


“Your nose isn’t lying,” he (= Jonathan P. Winickoff - or should that be "Whiny Cough"...?) said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”


Yep, you got that right, my good doc: my thoughts, exactly! :)

Something stinks big time.




P.S. More on this some other time, so stay tuned! ;)

How long are YOU going to tolerate rudeness?

Michael Deacon is right.

Could we be a little more polite, please?

And so was I.

Bread and games - and he ***** your granddaughter, too!

I wish I weren't.

But when people actually equate basic good manners with fascism (see the comments below Deacon's original article) I'd say we're safely on the road to HELL.
The survival of the "thug-est".
A Darwinian inferno.

Still, there is something you can do. (There always is.)
Heed a wise man - who, admittedly, ended tragically (but his legacy hasn't) - and "you BE the change you want to see in the world".

Kill 'em by kindness.

Or, heck, just follow these simple rules, again courtesy of Deacon & Co. (= all who think like him):

The Politeness Manifesto

As a matter of fact, if you are shopping for a teenager whom you'd like to teach good manners (preferably without whips), you could do much worse than to buy the charming - and actually useful - book Do the Right Thing: A Teenager's Survival Guide for Tricky Situations. In what seems the ultimate irony (but is it, really?), it was written by Jane Goldman... who happens to be the wife of the offensive antihero of this post.


And finally, my heartfelt New Year wishes for all of you out there, in here, all around, nowhere, everywhere:

MAY EVERYTHING YOU WISH ON OTHERS
HAPPEN TO YOU

And I really, really mean it. :)