Tuesday, December 28, 2004

The Mystery is almost history

The Mystery is almost history: It's been a crazy month at work: three shows in rehearsal, one on stage and a major event just around the corner make Brad something something. But it's been even crazier than a typical December, thanks to the marvelously madcap production of Rupert Holmes' The Mystery of Edwin Drood we've had on stage.

It's such a fantastic company and a real romp of a script and score! And there are only four performances remaining in the run so if you've heard about it and put off going, your chances are slipping away. After this week, the Mystery is history.

Break Bread With Brad Chicago

It's been a while since I did a formally informal Chicago-area get-together, which is odd considering how often I'm in the city. Anyway, my first trip of 2005 is coming up and I'm tentatively planning a casual cocktail gathering at a favored gay watering hole, followed by a diner dinner on Friday, January 14. Drop me a note if you'd like an invite when it comes together.

Movable Type 3.14

Movin' on up(grade): At long last—and way past my bedtime—I've finally gotten around to upgrading Movable Type to the latest version, forked over my license fee, and set my mind on cleaning things up a bit 'round these parts. Yes, I'm aware that the archive directory is FUBAR and over a year out of date. I'm also acutely aware that the Daily Brad has been anything but, and that my site design is mired in the late 20th century. And then there's that whole, you know, regularly updating the site at all, which has been a bit of a problem since almost the beginning of this year.

That'll be changing soon, I hope. All of it.

Meanwhile, MT 3.14 is a spiffy piece of software and well worth the investment. I'm looking forward to fiddling with all the fancy new geegaws it has to offer.

Telecharge vs. Safari

It Sucks to Be Telecharge: I'm not a big fan of any of the major online ticket brokers, but among them, Telecharge used to be my favorite, certainly head and shoulders about the mess that is Ticketmaster. So imagine my surprise and disgust a few weeks ago when I tried to log on and make a purchase, only to be greeted by this message:



Oh? Since when? I've used Safari to browse and buy with Telecharge dozens of times and never encountered a problem but suddenly...why, it's as if they don't want my money anymore. Further frustrating is the fact that, if you visit their site and see that message, that's all you see. No phone number or e-mail address to solicit help. No link to download one of their recommended browsers. Nada.

Now like a good Internet citizen, I have Firefox installed on all my machines and Telecharge seems to play nicely with that. But that's beside the point. My preferred and default browser is Safari, and I don't take kindly to swapping horses in mid-ticket purchase just to accommodate a company that can't code for a standards-compliant, perfectly fine web client used by millions.

In looking over the Telecharge site, I can't see anything that (to my eye) prevents Safari from working with their pages. I've dashed off an e-mail (once I found the appropriate address using Firefox) to them asking what's up. Who knows when (or if) I'll get a response, or when they'll wise up and stop locking out a good chunk of Mac users.

By the way, Ticketmaster—to give the devil its due—works just fine with Safari. That's about the only good thing I can say for them.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas, Friends

Merry Christmas, Friends: The last few weeks have been hectic and harried; we'll save the story of why for another time. Suffice to say that the unexpected addition of stress to the regular hustle of the holidays has been enough to wear me out (although not wear me down) more than usual.

Still, I didn't want the day to go by without a special greeting for friends far and near who've spent at least part of the past year reading over my shoulder here in Ye Olde BradLands so, with the assistance of InstaSong, I put together a little holiday ditty as my way of saying thanks for stopping by. Download and enjoy:

A BradLands Christmas Greeting [MP3, 5.9M]

There'll be at least one more update hereabouts before the New Year, so stay tuned. In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe and stay just as you are, because that's how I've come to know and love you.

Merry Christmas!