JBot Mania

Before there was JBot Mania, before there were blogs, there was Miss Jennifer providing me with, and instigating, a wealth of potent quotables. Today is no different.

JBot: I have an outlook reminder that tells me to water my plant here. With each hit of the “Snooze” button, I watch it whither.

Miss Jennifer: Ha! You should make a photo diary of it

JBot: “Day 7: Plant has finally given up. This was the last straw. The last click of the button.”

Miss Jennifer: hahahahahha! yes!

JBot: I should add a “bush cam” to my blog

Miss Jennifer: I expect a blog entry :-)

Miss Jennifer: You should just have something called the bush cam, regardless

JBot: I know….

JBot: It’ll just be a black square

JBot: “As you can see, it’s still pretty dark in here”

Miss Jennifer: hahahha! Amazing :-)

JBot: The narrator would either be a man whispering or a loud echo

JBot: Maybe something like The Crocodile Hunter

JBot: (may he rest in peace)

The other day, Sora compiled a swank CD for his little man. Intended to be one of those CDs that grows with you, speaking the same words differently as the years go by, he added a track from The Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed”.

“Let It Bleed” has always had a special place in my heart, not just for the music, but for the way I came to own it. My favorite song has always been, and most likely will always be, “Monkey Man”.

I’m just a monkey man, I’m glad you are a monkey woman too.

I’ll say right now that I am ashamed as to WHY I began my quest to find “Monkey Man” in the first place. It involved Johnny Depp and it began with a not-so-pivotal episode of “21 Jump Street”. The episode was, of course, about a magnet high school that was FILLED with drugs and artsy drug dealers. There were shots of kids playing basketball and missing the hoop. Obviously because they were high. In a fit of musical genius, the song they chose to get at the heart of this gut wrenching story was “Monkey Man”.

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey ; All my friends are junkies

Unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea what the name of the song was, just that it was The Stones and that I loved it. The internets were in their infancy and I had no hope of looking up anything, much less lyrics.

At this very same time, my parents were separated and I visited my father on a somewhat irregular basis. One of things that we would do was go to the mall. It was a place to walk around, a place that I could buy things. It was the definition of a win-win. I used this time to scour the music store (Do they even exist anymore?) but to no avail. I couldn’t find “that song about monkeys’.

I’d say a year or two later, it was my birthday. It happens at least once a year… for me, that is. I had asked everyone for CDs off of some probably complex, color coded list. We were celebrating at my brother’s apartment when my dad handed me a gift wrapped item, clearly a CD. He said to me, “Sometimes you get the CDs you want, and sometimes you get the CDs you need. This is a CD you need.” I unwrapped it to find my very own copy of “Let It Bleed”.

The first time I popped the CD into my CD player (do THOSE exist anymore?) I listened all the way through until I got to THE song… “Monkey Man”. Kismet I tell you. I was thrilled. Over and over I played the CD, so happy that I had found my monkey song. Nowadays I don’t play it as often, but when I do, I still get the chill of the first time. I try not to play it too often for fear that that feeling will wear out.

Sora later decided to take the song from “Let It Bleed” off of the CD he made, especially when I started quoting a few lyrics from the song he chose (not “Monkey Man”). I’m glad, though, that he reminded me of how much I love the album. Maybe in a few years when his little man is a little older, he’ll give him the whole thing instead.

Well, I finally did it. I began writing a post that became SO LONG that I thought, “Hmmm… I wish I could split this up.” Turns out, WordPress has been capable of handling this from nearly, if not entirely, the beginning. The visual editor doesn’t make it as easy to implement as other features, like splitting up a post with “Read more”, but if you’re at all savy, you can get paginated in just a few minutes.

First, we need to whip out one of WordPress’ old QuickTags. It no longer seems to be shown in the visual or code editor. It was called “Page”. To insert is manually, use

<!--next page-->

Put this throughout your post (in the “code”, non-visual editor) where you’d like to split it into a new “page”.

Your template might not have been built to handle this feature, though, so if you’re using anything other than the standard Kubrick template, you’ll want to check around in your “Single Post” template page. To edit this, go to Presentation > Theme Editor and along the side, you should see a file nicknamed “Single Post”. Select this file to open it in the editor and start looking near the line of code

<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?>

What you should see, right after this line, or in this general vicinity, is

<?php wp_link_pages('before=<p><b>Pages</b> &after=</p>&next_or_number= number&pagelink=%'); ?>

or something similar. The call to wp_link_pages() is the important part to find.

If your template does not have this line of code, just add it

<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?> <?php wp_link_pages('before=<p><b>Pages</b> &after=</p>&next_or_number= number&pagelink=%'); ?>

You should then see something similar to “Pages 1 2 3″ at the end of your first post section or “page”.

Pretty swank.

is going on? Well, I’m trying out a new plugin and widget called Now Reading. From Roblog (or a blog named that anyway), Now Reading is a great little tool so far. Even for a non-reader like me, I look learned. From their web site, here is a description:

Now Reading is an expansive WordPress plugin which allows you to maintain a virtual library of books. Display which you’ve read, which you’re currently reading, and which you plan to read; add metadata to describe them; write reviews detailing what you thought of them. Now Reading fetches its data from any Amazon domain, so all you need is an ISBN or book title and you’re good to go.

Available for use with widgets or through good old-fashioned template manipulation, this plugin allows you to let the world know what you’re up to, book-wise that is. Another glimpse in this world of digital glimpses (i.e. Flickr slideshows, del.icio.us links, etc. etc.) For me, I give a somewhat false impression that I read often, but maybe I’ll be motivated by having the same book up for months on end. This one now (”How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler) is a bit of a toughy. You really need to digest each sentence carefully. But it’s entirely worth it.

What does this have to do with the change to look of my site? Well, using a widget-enabled theme is just a whole lot easier with this particular plug-in, and my last one was not so friendly, both for displaying this widget and for manipulating in general. So here it is. Just about as simple but with a touch of heft (No, not the hefty lefty kind of heft) to make me look like I’m actually saying something. I like that. Makes my life easier.

So enjoy the new design and the glimpse into my bookshelf. GASP! You sneak!