The list of months in the right-hand sidebar on my index page there was starting to get a bit long, and I noticed that Jamas and Paul had neat little collapsible lists on their blogs, so I decided to have a go at doing the same thing in Movable Type. It was easier than I expected, because I was able to adapt the javascript I use on the NZDWFC forums page which does something extremely similar.
The first step was to add the year headers using a slightly modified version of the ArchiveDateHeader plugin, the second was to add in the javascript (which consists of some initial javascript to show and hide the appropriate parts of the list, plus a function which is executed if you click on a plus or minus). The part which took the longest was tweaking the stylesheet to make it look goodnon-crap. :)
Revelation of the Daleks is one of five Doctor Who never published as a novelisation by Target, but which were done as fan novelisations by the NZDWFC. Now, joining Shada and the Pirate Planet, Revelation of the Daleks is available on the NZDWFC site as an eBook here. This should hopefully satisfy some of the many people who've been emailing to ask if the rest of the novelisations were going to be made available online. :)
Next up, TSV 46!
Incidentally, though my internet connection has been behaving itself for a while now, about a week ago it all turned to custard again, and my "always on" broadband has been dropping the connection every ten minutes. This makes for a choppy online experience. Xtra, you still suck.
Aaaaaand I see someone's set up an Xtra Sucks website. They should probably take this as a sign they're doing something wrong.
Heh, one of the many spammers I've reported on dropped by and left a comment. Unfortunately he did it from a blacklisted IP address, so it ended up in the spam bin. Basically it was:
:) Hello from scrimak
You can read more about him on Spamhuntress' Scrim page.
I haven't actually had much spam recently, due to the fact that most of the spam scripts are still hitting abates.tetrap.com and ignoring the redirect*, and also because of some decoy comment forms I have on my pages. So far I've had a grand total of one spam even reach SpamLookup.
* Speaking of which, how do I tell aggregators like Google Feedfetcher and Tailrank to stop hitting the old URL? Apparently a permanent redirect status is not enough.
This is a minor release to fix some problems a couple of people were having with the previous version. It seems that MT sometimes reports the main blog URL as having a filename on the end and sometimes it doesn't, so I'm using relative links instead now. Also I discovered that the plugin settings were available at both the system level and the blog level (PA was only using the blog level setting), so now it uses both.
Also I made a spiffy icon, which appears in the right-hand column on the main page here, but I don't know how to add it to the plugin itself. Eh.
There's a reported problem with it working with the MTEntriesWith SubCategories tag (According to the MT changelog this tag is depreciated in favour of using the include_subcategories on MTEntries) which I haven't had time to look into yet.
Edit: Despite me updating the plugin entry in the Six Apart plugin directory, the PA page there still says it's on v1.2. And it's still listed as "Paged Categories" on the Archiving categories page. Slack!
In the search for an energy drink which doesn't taste like Red Bull, I raided the local New World, and found this New Zealand made drink which, as the label says, tastes very strongly of apple and is also very green in colour. It doesn't actually contain apples of course, though there are other exotic ingrediants like green tea leaf extract, Zhi-Shi (bitter orange) extract, and grapefruit extract. It's worth noting that the best before date on the bottom of this can is dated two weeks ago, so, er, this might not be at its best.
Also the can states that it contains "252mL" (Red Bull should ask them how they squeezed the extra 2mL in) and is distributed on Tahiti.
Right is a screen grab from the latest Amazon UK email to land in my inbox, suggesting I check out some of the "'70s & '80s classics" they have on offer. They, for some reason, have chosen to illustrate this with an image of BAYWATCH. Leaving aside the description here of Baywatch as "classic", Baywatch started in 1989 and ran eleven seasons, thus primarily making it a '90s series.
Can't they see how wrong this is?! Why couldn't they have picked something more representative of the '70s or '80s?
Although, I suppose, featuring as it does The Hoff, perhaps they think it deserves honorary '80s status. :P
Speaking of, when the heck are they going to release Automan on DVD?
Out of interest, I slapped Google Adsense on here a month or so ago, to see what would happen. It didn't make enough money to counteract the deep, deep shame I felt in having adverts on my weblog, so now they're gone again.
I suspect the problem was twofold: 1) the contextual adverts weren't relevant enough, and 2) users tend to ignore most adverts these days anyway. Oh well. :)
TSV 45 went up on the web site today. There's only one feature article this time - Kate Orman's piece on writing Set Piece - and many of the other pieces now online are reviews. Primarily reviews of the six stories in the Key to Time season (which is now out on DVD in the US but not anywhere else in the world, strangely).
There is also Sums over Histories, a comic strip with the fourth Doctor, Romana and K9, which has some spot-on characterisation. I had some problems working out how to include the double-page spread in a form which was legible, and settled for putting it in a scrolling box, and also allowing the user to click on the graphic to open it separately for easier scrolling. Hopefully this doesn't make it too difficult to read. :)
There's also some coolcartoons and lots and lots of Key to Time related artwork (which will come in handy when I start adding artwork and blurbs to the story index nodes.
I didn't have any items in this issue (in 1995 I was working my first year at Pocket Solutions, so that may be why I wasn't submitting more material) but go read it anyway. :)
There's a community on LiveJournal for everything, including one for Doctor Who companion Perpugilliam Brown. The Peri community is blessed with a talented artist named Paul Mudie, who recently posted this picture: Peri, dressed as a dominatrix
I probably don't need to mention that's not safe for work. Oh boy.
He also has a deviantART gallery containing some other quite spectacular artwork.
I don't usually embed videos, but this one is officially the most awesome thing I've seen today:
Alanis Morissette covering the Black-Eyed Peas hit 'My Humps'. Simultaneously brilliant and insane! (Thanks to AgentCompassion for pointing out that).
I'm trying to decide if that video is weirder than Keith Richards confessing that he snorted his dad's ashes with some cocaine. That's really great, Keith. (and thanks to Meg for pointing out that one!)
On the weekend, I went to see Ghost Rider, the latest conversion of a Marvel comics hero to the big screen. I'm not really familiar with the comic version, so I don't know how comic-accurate the movie version was, but it was a pretty good film.
Itchy, burning scalp? Your head might be on fire.
Johnny Blaze is a young stunt rider who's father has just been diagnosed with cancer. Enter Mephistopheles, who offers the fellow a deal - his father's health in return for Johnny's soul. Johnny signs the contract, the devil erases dad's cancer and tells Johnny not to make any long-term plans.
Fast foward twenty years or so, and son of Satan is roaming Earth looking for a lost contract which will bestow him with many souls. The Devil is not happy at this and wants the contract for himself, so he activates Johnny as the Ghost Rider in order to fight Satan Jr and his elemental-based henchmen.
![[cover]](/g/revelation.jpg)
![[Piranha]](/g/piranha.jpg)
In the search for an energy drink which doesn't taste like Red Bull, I raided the local New World, and found this New Zealand made drink which, as the label says, tastes very strongly of apple and is also very green in colour. It doesn't actually contain apples of course, though there are other exotic ingrediants like green tea leaf extract, Zhi-Shi (bitter orange) extract, and grapefruit extract. It's worth noting that the best before date on the bottom of this can is dated two weeks ago, so, er, this might not be at its best.
Right is a screen grab from the latest Amazon UK email to land in my inbox, suggesting I check out some of the "'70s & '80s classics" they have on offer. They, for some reason, have chosen to illustrate this with an image of 
![[Ghost Rider image]](/g/ghostrider.jpg)