Paul's Website

The Naughty, The Nice, The Forgotten?

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:49:59 -0400

The aftermath of an unassuming Secret Santa name drawing this weekend left a rural Cape Breton family in disarray. While the tradition of a Secret Santa gift exchange has always stirred mystery and excitement in the hearts of many families there is one family in Cape Breton this year that won’t have the same yuletide cheer. One simple change to the annual tradition of a children only Secret Santa gift swap meant to include more of the family has left what has been described as a third of the family with a very sour taste in their mouths. A move to include “couples” in the Secret Santa this year seems to have more politics behind it than anything else. A number of newlywed couples have been scandalously omitted. “So this is what it feels like to be the middle child” was the reaction of Missy Brinson, formerly a MacInnis and confessed Christmas lover, when she heard the news. Another twist in this ever deepening rift in the family revolves around those in the family that aren’t married but also aren’t “children” anymore. Too old to run and play in the snow yet too young to sit with the “couples” table at Christmas dinner. These supposedly “loved” members of the family have yet another disappointment waiting for them this holiday season. We can exclusively reveal that Missy Brinson, the only scorned family member that would agree to be named, has officially filed a protest with the Family Christmas Tradition Committee of Nova Scotia seeking to revoke the validity of the Secret Santa name drawing performed just this past weekend. Her complaint only received reactions of “Yeuss Yeuss” and “Oooooaahhh” from anonymous family members. It will be a rocky few days ahead but hopefully this family can resolve this issue internally before the Family Christmas Tradition Committee of Nova Scotia has to step in.

Playoff Pool Time Again

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:13:27 -0400

It's that time of the year again! I have started up my usual NHL Playoff Pool. You can check out the picks and standings here. Good luck to everyone that entered.

Wedding Website up and Running

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:14:53 -0400

Missy and I have finally written all of the initial content for our wedding website. You can check it out at http://www.missyandpaulswedding.com. I'm sure the wedding website will get much more frequent updates that my personal website in the near future so check there often for all wedding related matters.

Google Apps on my Domain

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:37:53 -0400

The other day I finally got fed up with the crappy Spam filtering on my website's email. Instead of learn how to better improve my Spam rules I decided to jump on the shoulder's of giants and setup Google Apps for your Domain on my website. It was a pretty easy setup and after all the DNS changes went through I now have Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs all setup. Am I going to need my own Calendar and Docs services? Probably not. I love me some Gmail though and I haven't seen a piece of Spam since. I love it. Go Google Apps for my Domain!

Digg This!

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:12:44 -0400

I have decided to join the Web 2.0 revolution and integrate the infamous Digg It button on my blog. Did I do this because I think what I say here is so very ground breaking that the whole world needs to know about it? Of course not. I have just seen the button on every other blog in the world and I'm not cool enough to be different. Maybe it'll actually be some motivation for me to write about something meaningful instead of just website updates. Who knows.

Comment Away

Tue, 29 May 2007 21:36:40 -0400

I finally got my butt in gear and got the comment feature working on here. In order to fight the stupid comment spammers I have my blog setup to require users to authenticate with a 3rd party before you can post a comment. I'm using the default suggestion TypeKey for the authentication service cause it's the default, I'm lazy and I'm sure it works fine. I know having to create an account just to leave a commet might be annoying for some is not most of you but it's log in to leave a comment or no comments at all. This is much easier than we weeding through and deleting endless spam comments, trust me.

My New Toy

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:33:08 -0400

I finally got an external hard drive so I can backup the stuff on my computer. I have a ton of stuff that I would be screwed if I ever lost (e.g. pictures, old school work, programs I've written, documents, music, etc...). I have been looking at a Western Digital My Book Premium at Costco for weeks now but Monday when I was there it had dropped in price so I finally got it. I got the 500GB drive for $200.00. It was a great deal seeing the drive is big enough for me to use as a backup drive and extra storage. It aslo came with all the software I need to do automatic backups and of course restores which is a nice bonus. The drive works and looks great. Now my next purchase is going to be a USB 2.0 PCI card for my computer cause the transfers are a little slow. It never ends.

NHL Playoff Pool

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:44:52 -0400

I setup a hockey playoff pool the other week when the playoffs started. If anyone is looking for the link it's here.

Back At It Again

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:49:33 -0400

So it turns out that I couldn't stay away afterall. After I posted the previous entry I decided that my website looked crappy now and needed a little look and feel update. After surfing around and looking for ideas I ended up on the Movable Type website and saw that they had released a ton of versions since I last checked it out with a bunch of features. Most exciting of which were features to fight off comment spammers, possibly the most annoying people on the internet. I downloaded it right away and got to it. After of course backing up everything at least twice because I don't trust any installation of any kind I started the upgrade process. It was super easy and the new version works great so kudos to the Movable Type guys. I love the new features and admin interface and I'm going to enable comments on here as soon as I get that feature setup properly, take that spamming bitches. The other neat thing was the ability to style my website at the click of a button. Very cool and very easy to use feature. Hence what I thought was going to be a couple nights of annoying HTML and CSS work was instead 1 hour of installation and a couple button clicks. It's just that easy. What all this means is that I'm back in the world of blogging. Will it stick this time? Probably not. Will I give it up again? Probably. But for now I'm a blogging machine.

Go Mitch Go

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:01:58 -0400

This came across my email this morning and it's too good not to share with the world. Atta boy Mitch!

Blizzard Again

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:36:55 -0400

It looks nasty outside right now, just plain old nasty. Halifax is getting hit with it's 3rd blizzard in a little over a week. It's a good thing it's Sunday and all I was planning to do today anyways was lounging on my couch and watching football. It's all about Championship Sunday! GO STEELERS!

Back to Hali

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 19:48:25 -0400

I'm back in Hali after a great Christmas vacation. I loved being home for a solid 2 weeks. It was really relaxing. I got back in the city on New Year's Day so I even had a couple of days to do some shopping and chill before I had to go back to work today. As for my post-Christmas shopping I picked up a new set of ball hockey goalie pads, a new goalie stick, a copy of the extended edition of the Return of the King DVD and Metal Gear Solid 3. I can't wait to try out my new pads tomorrow at hockey. It's been a few weeks since we played ball hockey so the day after tomorrow will probably be a little painful but it's all good! I haven't had a chance to get into Metal Gear Solid 3 yet but from what I have played it looks like a wicked game! I can't wait to get into it. I won't however be playing Metal Gear tonight though cause tonight it's World Junior Hockey baby!! Canada is playing Russia for the gold medal. How good is this going to be! GO CANADA!!!

Spammers Suck

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:19:03 -0400

Ok. So the spammers are really getting annoying. I pretty much have to check my blog about once every couple of days to clean out my comments. I get everything from online poker sites to getting cheap drugs. It's just silly now. On a related note, I really don't know if I'm fully happy with MT-Blacklist. I've been using it to filter my comments but I'm not sure if it's really that good. I mean, once you actually identify a URL or something in a comment that flags it as spam and add that to the MT-Blacklist database it works fine. My only issue is you still have to come back and add new things to the database of filtered items. I wish there was something more auto-magical, kinda like the way email spam filters work. Any suggestions? L8r.

Lots O New Stuff

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:37:28 -0400

I am making this entry from home. Home home that is. That's right, I'm back in Newfoundland for the holidays already. I managed to get a couple of weeks off work so I'm here enjoying it. I'm not due back in Halifax until the 1st of the new year. Ah vacation :) In other good news I got my new glasses! Boy are they ever different then my old ones. The huge different in size and style is adding a ton to my adjustment time. I did have my old glasses for around 8 years so I guess a long adjustment period is to be expected. I do however love my new glasses. They are awesome! Thats about it for now. Back to chillaxin' on the Rock for me. L8r.

New Glasses

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 21:00:25 -0400

I've finally got around to getting some new eyeglasses for myself. I've had my current pair for a very long time now. The good news is that my eyes haven't changed that much. The better news is that I'm getting a new set of frames. If all goes well they should be in on Thursday. I can't wait!