Saturday, December 27, 2003

New Design

WestportNow.com got a facelift. We rebuilt the site to transform it from a Blogger content management system to a Movable Type site. Miggs Burroughs created a new masthead for the site, and we built and designed the rest of it. WestportNow.com is an online newspaper by Gordon Joseloff.

This launch is the first phase, but hopefully the most challenging phase since there were a lot of wrinkles and bugs to be worked out--and still worked out--since we did not want to lose all of the stories posted on the Blogger platform. It always amazes me how many things can go wrong in changing platforms. In this case, there was a maddening bug that caused the browser to crash intermittantly (naturally) when clicking on the "home" link. Turned out it was a bit of javascript found only on the home page that needed to be flavored for xhtml. Now that's done, it appears to be working wonderfully. We still have a few things left on our phase one to-do list, and then we start on phase two, which is making it more robust and expanding the number of sections. It's been extremely interesting so far, despite the maddening aspects.
posted by lee on 12/27/03 at 04:38 PM
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Wednesday, December 31, 2003

the evil eye, the bowling ball, and the great big spider

Eowyn.jpgWe celebrated the end, at long last, of 2003 by finally going to see LOTR: Return of the King. And I gotta say this--it was great. My favorite character was Eowyn, a warrior woman who actually does something besides look all wistful and pretty (like Liv Tyler's elf). She should've gotten the guy--doesn't seem fair somehow that she didn't. (I don't remember if I had an issue with this when I read the book as it's been so long since I read it, I don't even know if she was actually featured this prominently. Like, it was thirty years ago that I read it, jeez.)

There were some things that didn't quite work, like Orlando Bloom's acrobatics on that elephant thing. And I grew deadly tired of Elijah's (Frodo's) tortured expression. I think his earnest big blue bug eyes will give me nightmares. But I liked just about everything else except the length of time it took to complete things like saving what's-his-name from being burned by his daddy, and the fight with that spider (that really gave me the creeps, especially since I was bitten by a spider a couple of weeks ago, which hurt like hell), and the ending, which lasted, oh, about 45 minutes.

The Orcs and the other creatures in the bad army were extremely interesting. But the beginning of this movie (ROTK, I mean) was pretty confusing--I didn't know what the hell was going on, or where they were or what. A year is too long for me to remember the last scene of a movie (the second one, I mean, whatever that one was called)--I needed a review (though I suspect Stanley did not). I guess I should take more gingko.

The costumes were stunning. Of course, I am partial to Celtic imagery and symbols, so I really liked the clothing and banners. But I especially like the helmets of the good guys. And the swords were very pretty.

I wonder if anyone else thought there were some subplots that could've been dispensed with. I mean, the whole Steward of Gondor thing and the above-mentioned roasting of Son #2. Didn't add anything and it sure didn't explain anything. Or if it did, I missed it. And why did Liv Tyler have to prod Agent Smith into giving Viggio that elf sword, anyway? Would he have let them all perish? And what became of Eowyn? Did she settle for the mad steward's son instead of Viggio? And why did the orb thing have to look like a bowling ball--that kinda wrecked that whole thing for me. I expected to see three holes in it as it rolled across the floor.

It was worth the time to see this movie (nearly 3.5 hours!) And since we saw it at a matine, it worked out to be about less than $2.00 per hour each to be hugely entertained. I'm just very glad I stopped drinking coffee early enough for it not to have been a problem that it was sooo looong. So, before you go, be warned: review at least the ending of Part II so you know what the hell is going on at the beginning, and don't drink anything that will make you need to pee because there really is no good time to take a break.
posted by lee on 12/31/03 at 06:38 PM
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