Tag Archives: bfdotcom

Don’t adjust your screens

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…and no, this isn’t Naked Day.

I removed the graphics from this page because I was sick of looking at them after a year and a half. It was looking stale and amateurish as well.

I’ve played with some different designs over the past couple of months but haven’t gotten anywhere solid yet. I’ve got some big changes coming up in the next couple of weeks (in real life) so I’m not sure if I’ll have time to make things look better here during then or not. We’ll see.

In the meantime, you get white! (and a hideous logo. Wow that sucks.)

Moving

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I’m moving. I am getting a new apartment across town in about a week. I’ve never had my own place before so it should be different and hopefully exciting. I’ll be able to put things where I want, arrange things how I want, and pick up stuff when I want. Which could all be a dangerous thing. I’m going to have to get better at policing myself about stuff like picking up things, putting things away, and cleaning up stuff. I think I can do it.

Another thing this will be is expensive. I’m taking on about $120 more in rent each month, plus I’m paying all of the bills, where I split them with Shannon before. So that part will be interesting as well. I’ll be adjusting some of my spending habits in a serious way. I’ve already found a cheaper internet plan, and I cut back cable to just the basic, basic channel lineup. I might even drop that since most of those channels are home shopping and Jesus TV anyways.

Because of the increase in expenses and no increase in income, Breathingfire.com will be moving as well. The site is moving to a new server that is much cheaper for me. I’ve already moved my other websites over there with moderate success. I’m hoping that by this time Monday (at least) you won’t even know there was a change. There’s just a lot of stuff to move so things might be down for a little bit, but hopefully not long. Update: Should be good now.

When I get the new place I might post some pics. I got a new Flickr account too, and I’ll try to work that into this site as soon as I can.

NBA Playoffs bracket updates

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With the NBA Playoffs winding down (I only say it that way because the Pistons aren’t in The Finals,) updates have been few and far between on my NBA Playoffs bracket. But that doesn’t mean I’m ignoring my little baby.

As the LA Lakers and the (ugh) Boston Celtics battle it out to see who will defend their title against the new and improved Detroit Pistons next year, I’ve added nice little Larry O’Brien trophy indicators to show who wins what games — with handy-dandy ABC logos that tell when the next game is, and where.

Watch for LA’s to fill up fast :)

Get Your Gravatar Now

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If you’ve commented here on breathingfire.com (or on other WordPress websites) you may have noticed that your comment includes a little image next to it. This is courtesy of the WordPress-affiliated website Gravatar.

Gravatar allows you to sign up and upload an image that will be used on any Gravatar-enabled website. I believe it is linked to your email address. If you don’t have one, on mine and many other websites you will be represented by some sort of mathematical design, or just a mystery man image.

Sign up to get yours today!

The NEW Breathingfire.com

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It’s been a long, loooong time in coming, but I think I’m finally ready to unveil the new look of Breathingfire.com. I started this particular design (one of many I’ve started but never finished,) in February for what was going to be the new look of my personal website. After switching things over to here, and getting a nice break from school, I was finally able to finish it up.

I’d like to stress that this is an entirely original design, all coded in CSS and XHTML 1.0 Strict by hand from the ground up. I only say that because I’ve been using someone else’s template for my blog for maybe 2 years now, and I’m quite proud to be back in the game. Some straggling items may cause some invalidations, but I’m trying to fix them all. Also, if you happen to run into anything weird looking, please let me know.

I’d like to take a second to praise the WordPress team for their fine product. I’m using WordPress 2.5.1, and it’s magnificent. It makes running a blog and a website so much easier than it could be. It’s written entirely in PHP, so templates are easily laced with the proper functions and conditional statements. Extra functionality is made easier (and more securely, by not having to touch the main WordPress code) by plugins. Right now I’m running 12 plugins to manage things from comment spam to movie reviews to emails and more. It’s really a thing of beauty. And finally, the support community at the WordPress forums are invaluable. They’ve gotten me out of quite a few jams.

As you can see, this design pays particular attention to my interests, represented by all the junk at the top. While it’s just 1 or 2 images making up the collage now, maybe someday I’ll get around to making it interchangeable.

The Most Popular Posts list bases popularity on things like the number of views, comments and ping backs a post gets. Right now, my NBA Playoffs bracket is going gangbusters and is getting lots of comments so it’s number 1.

My del.icio.us links are scattered throughout the main posting column, and I’ll be adding to that whenever I come across something interesting. You can spot these by the white, blue, black and grey de.licio.us logo next to the post.

My latest movie review is shown on the side, with a link to the rest of the reviews. On other pages than the home page, you will see links to posts similar to the one you’re on.

I’m trying to find a way to list songs from my Mac itunes playlist, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far. That might get replaced. Also, I’m looking into doing a podcast of some sorts. More on that later.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by to take a look. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. I appreciate it! And make sure to stop on by frequently or add my RSS feed to your reader of choice (I prefer Netvibes, myself.)