Deep Within The Mines Of New Zealand

For three months, I’ve avoided looking too closely at the guts of the enormous WordPress engine that drives our site. Things like that are sometimes better off untouched and unquestioned…I don’t know how it turns my words into posts, I just know it does. My own technical understanding of the WordPress site architecture is that it largely resembles some huge subterranean cave powered by a massive magic crystal (I imagine the Worldstone Chamber from Diablo 2) with like a giant network cable leading out of it that connects to my computer, up above. And so all the bits and bytes I send to it are magically transmuted into these conveniently packaged single posts you see before you here.

(Yes, I am professionally employed to work with computers, why do you ask? Some say “application developer”…I say “software alchemist.”)

So for three months, I have feared of digging too greedily and too deep…of waking the darkness of Khazad-dûm. But fear will not rule us. It cannot. If there is ever any hope of moving beyond the standard, default WordPress page template, then it must be done. I will not be the slave to some other douche’s ready-made template. This is no ordinary blog, and it will wear no ordinary template.

And so I dig.

The problem is also that I’m way too lazy to properly setup a real test environment on my local computer, so when I want to mess around with layouts, I’m really limited to only playing with the real, live version of the site. It’s a lot more automated with a lot more frills and such than our old Blogger site, and with that comes a lot more stuff to sort through. So occasionally, moving forward, I will be putting up a bogus front page to hide my infernal machinations.

Although chances are that you probably won’t even notice, because (a) no one actually ever visits this site, so there will be nobody to notice anything, and (b) I don’t think I’ve ever done any work on this website at a time earlier (later?) than 2:00 AM. The past couple changes have been all-nighter efforts, abortions of web and graphic design animated into undeath from a mix of equal parts insomnia and boredom. This next one will likely follow the same formula as well.

Maybe I will change the colours.

– The following are quick news articles that can only be unique to Smalltown, Ontario…Man sends proposal postcard to wrong address (WHY IS THIS NEWS), Bear has jar on head, can’t eat or drink (that is just plain funny), and Man jailed for assaulting ex with poutine (should be assault with a deadly weapon because it’s so dangerously delicious).

EDIT: BREAKING NEWS, IN A FOLLOW-UP TO OUR BEAR STORY…Bear may have broken free of jar. From our very own Toronto Star, no less. What the fuck, people!?!

– Brostitutes is one of those ideas, that when you hear about it, you’re surprised that it hasn’t already been done. Tim Roth as the he-bitch-man-slapper, goddammit, it works so well. This was essentially my life through most of university…except I did it for free back then. How else do you think I started watching UFC and can name more than five NFL teams?

– They’re calling this a genetic miracle, but when two black people give birth to a white baby, I’m thinking that Occam’s razor has to at least be in the conversation. I don’t know if that’s just my own horrible cynical nature speaking, but I mean…come on, something’s wacky going on. This story on the other hand…this one just creeps me out. How!?! Can you imagine the prospect of having a twin sibling of another race? The social dynamics of that family…two girls, two boys…half black, half white…I can’t even begin to speculate.

Follow-up thought: If it turned out I had killed my white twin brother in the womb, like in some sort of John Constantine/Charles Xavier thing that permanently screwed with my destiny…I don’t think that would surprise me at all. Maybe this world’s Choking Yak was destined to be white, maybe that’s why the world is so fucking crazy the way it is today.

– Whoo, check these neato Mass Effect DC Direct figures from Comic-Con. At first I was surprised that they didn’t have a toy for Commander Shepard…until I realized that I just didn’t recognize him because I play a customized female Commander Shepard. Wacky dacky! It’s weird though, how come we just started at Mass Effect 2? I want some Ashley Williams or Wrex figures. (Kaidan can go suck a dick though, I left him to die every single time.) And these Mass Effect 2 figures are neat, but no Miranda Lawson!?! Maybe they want her to headline the next wave. Let’s hope that has a Samara/Morinth figure too. Have I already revealed myself as too hardcore of a Mass Effect fan? Hmm, yes, maybe. So should I probably not continue to gush about yet another Mass Effect DLC in which you get to team up again with Liara T’Soni, my lesbian alien lover. God, the Shadow Broker…I’ve wanted a shot at that dude for years, this is glorious. …oops, too late, I’ve gushed.

– What, apparently fake dating site profiles are illegal now? NO! Fortunately though…only in Australia. But who wants to live in such a backwards country anyway? Now instead of hooking up with fake people online, Australians will be forced to hook up in more conventional, traditional ways…like with real sheep, in barns.

“I’m a person. Bret’s a person. You’re a person. That person over there is a person. And each person deserves to be treated like a person.”
“That’s a great speech. Too bad New Zealanders are a bunch of cocky a-holes descended from criminals and retarded monkeys.”
“No you’re thinking of Australians.”

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