Radiant Rachel Reflecting on Ruby, Rails, Righteous Rants and Random Rubbish
Archive for August 14, 2009
Making the Blogenning Easier (Maybe?)
August 14, 2009
in Ruby & Rails, Tech
I’ve been promising this for a while but with regular life and headaches taking over my free time… I have been less than productive. But fear not! I DO have an update. I think I basically have the first version of the “Blogenning” software I’ve been talking so much about right now.
For the time being it will be hosted at http://blogenning.rachelober.com/. Not to be self-serving, but it is easiest for me to update it. I spoke with Brandon and we both thought that if it worked well enough we could each chip in a buck and buy ourselves a proper domain to house the insanity.
Features:
- User login and administration
- Add “rounds”, “entries” for rounds, and “users” for entries
- Main page lists the rounds starting from most recent to oldest entries
On the to do list:
- Registering and password retrieval
- “Special” statuses for “trend setters” and “bastards” (these are inside-jokes for people NOT in the Blogenning)
- API stuff so that a plugin for WordPress and Drupal can add rounds and entries
- User account stuff so you guys can change your password
Also, if you know ruby on rails or want to get in on designing the beast (I refuse to do any complicated CSS for this at this point *looks at Jaco and hopes his artistic sense may help with this one*)… you can join our GitHub site and ask to be put on the development team so you can have some input. Yay!
For the time being only my entries are entered into the database so you’re going to have to add your own damn entries because I’m much too lazy to do everyone’s. 
Once I get password retrieval working on the site, I have all of your user accounts made, so then you can just do a password retrieval and your password will be emailed to you.
The Story of Izzie and Minty
August 14, 2009
in Pets
A baby Izzie and Minty
When Isabella was a baby and i first brought her home, her breeder sent her off with a small mint-colored stuffed squeaky bear. We named him “Minty.” He immediately became Izzie’s favorite toy.
Before Isabella started to fill into her adult body, her baby bark was very shrill and could be heard through the whole house. My dad was the most irritated of all and would bark back at Izzie and tell her to stop.
Shamed, but not to be outdone, Izzie would grab Minty in her mouth and instead of barking, would squeeze Minty repeatedly from under the kitchen table. While we ate dinner all we heard was… “squeak squeak squeak squeak… squeak squeak!”
Unamused, but defeated, my father decided this irritation was better than broken ear drums.
The friendship lasted for months until Izzie had figured out how to rip the innards from Minty’s bowels and was sad to realize that he no longer squeaked. Being the good mommy I am, I went a-searching on the intar-webs and found a store online that sold these silly squeaker toys for under a dollar each. Not only that, but for each one you bought you got one for free.
Suffice it to say, I now have a large collection of “Mintys” for Izzie to play with.
Every few months she’ll get bored with just squeaking the damn thing and decides it’s time to play doctor. She’ll rip him apart and pull all the stuffing out and rip each stitch out like a trained professional.
Izzie and What's Left of Minty
Eventually, for the safety of her stomach (and my carpets) I’ll take his corpse and dispose of him in the nearest trash receptacle. I’ll wait a week or so later again, and then I am the hero once more when I “resurrect” Minty, all well and unscathed, for Izzie to squeak once more.
She runs down the hallway squeaking and giddy, gets to the bedroom and throws Minty into the air and catches him only to quickly tear into him and rip his poor little ear off. And the cycle continues…
Some of my favorite sites
August 14, 2009
in Reviews
To get ideas for what I want to do with The Land of Rhul, I’ve been playing with other people’s online games and forums. Some sites I play for a few months, get tired of it, and lose interest and only come back on to make sure that my “pets” keep living and I don’t go bankrupt in case I do get the time/energy/interest to go back again. Some have kept my interest for way longer because they always bring something new to the table.
My goals for TLoR is to have a game where there are many different “levels” for people to play. I want a beginner, intermediate, and advanced player goals. But also, I want the casual player to be able to come on maybe once or twice a week to play and still have fun with it and not get bored or feel like they will never “win” at the game. However, I also want to entertain more active players with things that happen by hour and keep them coming back day after day.
