Feb 26

New Look for the Journey Inside My Mind Blog

Howdy. Last night I upgraded the Journey Inside My Mind Blog layout to better make use of the good stuff from the latest version of Blogger. I’m not finished, as I need to get my Twitter stuff on here, and I want to present the labels in a cloud, instead of the alphabetical list you see now.

Update: I have implemented label clouds on all my upgraded blogs; namely

Look for more warm, juicy goodness in the near future.

Feb 24

JIMM 81 – Comedy/Music II

Play

Summary

Great mix of comedy and music with a very important announcement at the end

Listening Options

Music from the Podsafe Music Network (PMN) and other places.

Title (with link to iTunes, if available)Artist (with link to the artists’ website, if available)Album (with link to CDBaby.com, if available)
FakeoutDerek K. Millervia website
Dream OnCarrie PettitDream On (Amazon)
The Miranda LullabyePaul & StormOpening Band (Amazon)
PassengersRuby JamesSweet As Sin
Randy Newman’s “Theme from ‘Seabiscuit’”Paul and StormOpening Bandbuy the Opening Band CD (Amazon)
Merrigan’s ReelJim FidlerMidnight Rover
I Am the Oneglorydiveglorydive
Jerome’s NotesCayenne Chris ConroyTeknikal Diffikulties (comedy sketch podcast)
StreetlightSundial Projectvia PMN
You’ve Got ToThe Young Punxvia PMN
Moses & MortyGeorge HrabMinutiae

Related tags: jimm journeyinsidemymind journey+inside+my+mind daniel+johnson+jr
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Feb 22

The Envelope – JOKE ALERT!

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see the bed nicely made up and everything neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, “Dad”. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and Mom.

I’ve been finding real passion with Joan and she is so nice. I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, her tight motorcycle clothes and because she is so much older than I am but it’s not only the passion, Dad, she’s pregnant.

Joan says that we are going to be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood, enough for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Joan has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Joan can get better; she sure deserves it!

Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your son, Chad

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that’s in my desk drawer.

got this via email from Jeff

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 18

JIMM 80 – Valentine’s Day 1993

Play

Summary

Cincinnati has become Crystal City, thanks to some freezing rain and snow. Custom, updated, iTunes-ready RSS feed (No need to change your subscription, thanks to the FeedBurner folks.). Also, the story of a special Valentine’s Day 1993. And some music, of course.

Listening Options

Music from the Podsafe Music Network (PMN) and other places.


Title (with link to iTunes, if available)Artist (with link to the artists’ website, if available)Album (with link to CDBaby.com, if available)
Winter in OhioJustin Gordonvia PMN
Love Is On Your SideLazoBrown Bag Lunch (Amazon)
A Girlfriend SongThe Yellowvia PMN
First Date (excerpt)Danko JonesSleep Is the Enemy (Amazon)
Ain’t No SecretBilly JonesTha’ Bluez (Amazon)

Related tags: jimm journeyinsidemymind journey+inside+my+mind daniel+johnson+jr Other Link-Love

Related tags: jimm journeyinsidemymind journey+inside+my+mind daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 16

One Big JIMM Podcast Feed

This is either going to work smoothly or really get messed up. I have created a master feed of all the Journey Inside My Mind Podcast episodes and have just redirected the FeedBurner URL to pull from that feed. No need to update your subscriptions, but you may find a bunch of new episodes in your podcatching software. I hope not, though.

I described the rationale behind this in the earlier article, “Working on new, custom RSS feed for JIMM Podcast“. One big reason is so that the show can get listed in the various popular podcast directories, including the iTunes Music Store. I guess I thought that it would automatically get discovered by iTunes, but I’ve now learned that wasn’t the case. I have since submitted the feed to be listed, and I’m looking forward to being able to share the news that the show is listed in that directory.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 15

Blog Makeovers, cont’d

I’ve just updated the layout for QuotesBlog. It had been almost an entire year since the site had been updated, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine page. Below is the recent layout:

QuotesBlog from March 2006

Incidentally, here’s what it looked like in one of its earliest forms, way back in November 2002:

QuotesBlog from November 2002

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 14

Second Winter Storm Hits Cincinnati Hard

We’re in the middle of a second winter storm. I thought the Groundhog didn’t see his shadow, and that meant we’re supposed to have an early spring… Anyhow. Cincinnati has seen a lot of freezing rain in the past 24 hours, with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark (32 degrees F, 0 degrees C). Dangerous conditions to be sure, not only from the ice on the roadways, but also ice on tree limbs and power lines. It’s actually a bit creepy, hearing the heavy tree limbs brushing against the roof of our apartment building.
Courtyard Trees During Winter Storm, No. 3
As I sit here looking out the window, I see trees encased in ice. In the courtyard behind us sit several large branches that have fallen to the ground, not able to hold the weight of the ice. Power had been flickering on and off throughout the day yesterday and actually went out around 7 PM last night, right after I’d just returned from the store. It was out for several hours and finally came back on in the middle of the night.
Icicles on the Apartment Building
I worked from home yesterday, and it looks like I’ll be working from home again today. I know that many of my coworkers are not as fortunate, so my heart goes out to them.
Icing on the Car, No. 1
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Feb 11

Working on new, custom RSS feed for JIMM Podcast

I could seriously go back to bed right now. I got pleasantly distracted yesterday with the idea of creating my own RSS feed for the Journey Inside My Mind Podcast.

Right now, FeedBurner is creating the feed from whatever Blogger puts on the front page. I had initially set up the blog to show 999 posts per page, so that everything would be on the front page and therefore also in the feed. After about 50 episodes or so, it was taking too long for the page to load, so I opted to limit the number to the last 50 episodes per page.

I recently was reminded that Rob at podcast411 has a tutorial on how to create an RSS feed by hand. That got me thinking that I could have, at a minimum, feeds with 50 episodes in them at a time. That way, new listeners could subscribe to it and then easily be able to pick up some of the older episodes, some of which are my personal favorites.

I think I will opt instead to use this feed for everything. It is a small task to maintain this with every episode that gets released, and it will always redirect subscribers back to the main page.

So I spent over 6 hours yesterday getting the first 55 episodes into the new feed. I’m currently up to 79 episodes, so it’s just a bit more work to get them into the master feed.

Then I get to work with the FeedBurner folks to redirect the podcast feed from the original Atom feed on the blog to this new feed. I’ve heard about it done from other podcasters, and it appears to be seamless.

I may opt to record the episode for this coming week today or continue assembling the rest of the episodes into the new RSS feed.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 10

Blog Makeovers

You may or may not have noticed some changes recently to this blogs and others I produce since I migrated them over to the new Blogger; namely that posts have categories/labels associated with them, so that you can see what else I’ve posted in the related categories.

Well, I up and redid the way Get That Job! looks. I completely redid the template and layout, and I must say, the change looks better. I hope to freshen up the look of all my blogs in the near future.

I recently found out that the Internet Archive has a Wayback Machine, where you can see how websites have changed over time. For example, you can see various incarnations of journeyinsidemymind.com since September 2002. Check it out.

September 2002 version of the Journey Inside My Mind Blog

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