Blue Man Group + 33 days until I’m 21.

Feeling breezy? ‘Cuz I sure am. April 5th is CSS Naked Day which promotes web standards. “Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words. It’s time to show off your < body >.

Next week Mark and I are going up to Madison, WI to see Blue Man Group. He’s seen them a couple of times, but I’ve yet to ever see them live before, so I’m excited to go. Though I can’t say I’m looking forward to a three hour drive to/fro with Mark (aah, shh I kid, I kid!) I believe we’ll be up there on the 10th and the 11th. So please, try not to plan any nuclear attacks while I’m up there, I would like to leave with all my limbs attached.

Other than that I haven’t been up to much lately. Actually, now that I look at it, I haven’t really posted much about my personal life all that much. I suppose it’s because I’ve been trying to be a bit more private and I wasn’t sure if people actually enjoyed reading on about my personal doings. I sort of kept it on livejournal instead of here. But things have been pretty good; I had my final interview (as well as background check and drug test) for a major retailer last week so I should be hearing back from them to finish the process tomorrow sometime (though I plan on calling them.)

I registered for a summer course at JJC which starts May 14th. Classes are Mondays and Wednesdays from 5-9:55pm at their main campus. Fun stuff! Not only that but in 33 days I will finally turn 21. Yes, I am excited. I will finally be able to go out with my boyfriend and friends when they go out to bars. I can finally drink away my life without having to depend on someone else to buy the stuff for me. Though I can’t say I was a big drinker prior. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for my birthday but I know Amy plans on getting me absolutely ripped.

So long as it’s not Bourban Street I’m all good. I’m just excited because when you’re 21, you’ve kind of hit that bracket where you don’t feel young, but you don’t feel old yet. When you turn 18, it usually signified that you were out of high school, able to buy cigarettes, and purchase porn and lotto. When you turn 19, there’s nothing special. When you turn 20, you’re no longer a teenager but you’re stuck in age purgatory. But now.. 21… Yeah, it’s a nice age. Too bad I’m not turning 25, unlike some stinker I know (56 more days until you’re officially an old fart!)

Use music.com to promote your music.

We all know that for the past year (or more) Myspace has been the main source for bands promoting their music and obtaining fans. But personally I’ve grown weary of having to deal with Myspace for the soul fact that I detest having to deal with the ridiculous load times, poor coding (especially when the band “customizes” their profile), ridiculous spam comments, and just myspace in general.

Even though I realize that nowadays people don’t want to pay for a domain name, and hosting so their next best option is looking for someone else to provide them services for free. Musicians Wanted at Music.com – Get Discovered: offers artists to have blogs, an artist profile, band member profiles, photos, an event calendar as well a other features. I think the biggest feature they have is that you’re able to upload your music, and sell it through the site.

I haven’t looked at it in detail, but apparently you cannot listen (or stream) to the music you might find on their site. Their FAQ stats that Music.com is just a hub for searching out music information, rating it, reviewing it, and connecting with other users. They do mention that they do plan on integrating the ability to listen to your favorite music online, so if you’re looking for a means of streaming music you might want to look elsewhere.

But for a band this might be something to look into considering it can’t help to expand your listener base by joining a website geared towards providing such. Hell, you might even be able to sell some tracks and whatnot through their site. I tried to look up more information in regards to that, but I wasn’t able to find anything. Either way, I sifted through some of the pages and the site seems to be pretty nice. I can’t say I’ll refer to it in the future, but that’s because I am ridiculously picky with the music I listen to and why I only listen to bands I’ve been listening to for ages!


The best April Fool’s: the ThinkGeek Wiihelm

The Nintendo Wii has surely revolutionized gaming as we know it. Rabid fanboys everywhere are now flailing their arms in delight as they wield the Wiimote as a tennis racket, baseball bat or sword. Problem is the average gaming geek is just not up to the strenuous task of vigorous arm movement for longer than 10 minutes. This makes those extended play sessions a thing of the past… and who wants to beef up at the gym just to play video games on your couch? We sure don’t.

Fortunately for cream puffs everywhere the WiiHelm is now available at ThinkGeek. Simply lock your existing Wiimote into the stylish white helmet and free your hands for relaxation…

Visit thinkgeek.com to read more about the product, or you can watch the following video:
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WordPress Plugins and Virb

For the past couple of days I’ve been going through atourworst.org cleaning up the MySQL database, trying to update some of my WordPress plugins and tidying things up. I’m not entirely done but during the process of going through plugins I realized that I have way too many, some of them I don’t even use.

But there are a decent amount of plugins that I do require and absolutely love, like:

I have a good amount of other plugins that are active and working but the ones I listed I feel are a crucial part and should be used actively on a website. Some of them definitely help out when it comes to optimizing your site for SEO purposes, as well as giving visitors a reason to visit your site and participate (eg: Top Commentators, DoFollow, Subscribe to Comments.) I’ve noticed a significant increase in loyal visitors, and I really do appreciate and look forward to comments they leave me. Especially Miss Melissa who has been my new favorite person on the internet!

But even though I have a vast amount of plugins, I feel like starting anew with some of them, so I’ve been writing up a list of the ones I plan on getting rid of, or replacing.. But sometimes I just don’t feel like looking on my own. So I ask you guys, what plugins do you currently use at your website whether it’s for SEO, content, or backend performance. Feel free to link them in comments, and link as many as you want.

Some plugins I use are outdated, and might have newer replacements so this might help to to replace some of them and even find some new ones. So, list ’em up! Your comments will be moderated if they exceed 2 links, so when I see them, I’ll approve them!

In other news, I’m currently working on Stylevirb which is a new project geared towards providing users with advanced stylesheets and html layouts to use for their Virb profiles (Virb.com/Riane–that’s an example of what’s capable to being done, and that’s just something basic I put together.) I currently have some fantastic individuals helping me out like Matt Johnson, Blake Farcannell, Bob Roman, Karl Brightman, Filthy Fragger, Brett Terpstra, Kristin Pishdadi, and Melissa (I swear I’ll get you that e-mail soon!)

However most of them will be contributing some articles (tutorials, how-to) and a few stylesheets/html layouts. But I’m still looking for more people that would be willing to donate some of their time to creating some new profile designs for public use. They don’t have to be amazing, but they should differ from the default layout. I’m looking for just about anything in regards to style, design, and concept because I would like a vast amount of choices for people to go through. If you’re interested, feel free to either leave a comment here saying so, or you can fill out my contact form and I’ll get back to you as fast as I can.

Virb Inc.: Looking for a JR/SR Linux Administrator

Earlier today I got a message from Nate on Virb asking if I was interested in a job opening they had, and even though I love Virb with all my heart, I am just not as experienced as they require and even though I love moving around, I don’t think I could handle relocating to Massachusetts.

Anyway, he gave me permission to go ahead and let qualified people know about this opportunity, so I figured I’d post it up here since I know a few people stalk my comments I love it other tech-savvy sites.

Virb Inc is a growing Boston based company that owns/runs and maintains several high-traffic internet properties. We are in search of a full-time linux system administrator.

Continue reading “Virb Inc.: Looking for a JR/SR Linux Administrator”