the pod bay door

.: My regular Sunday morning activities include dim sum followed by coffee in the Little Italy section of Edmonton. For the past few months, my friend T and I have been frequenting a very imaginative and original flower and gift shop called Zocalo, also home to a friendly coffee bar. While there today, I took a few digital photos of some of the colourful displays. The web site offers the following description:

Zocalo is a courtyard oasis, a visual feast of leisure and garden-related ideas that invite you to enjoy special items, a coffee and the lush green of it all. At Zocalo you’ll find a blend of the down-to-earth practical with the luxurious decadent, always with an artistic flare.

Literally, a “zócalo” is a public square. In Mexico these squares are central to the city’s social life. Lined with trees and park benches, these public courtyards are buzzing with activity and life. So, too, is Canada’s first Zocalo, tucked away in the Italian district of Edmonton, Alberta.

Zocalo offers aesthetically and functionally superior gardening related products at competitive prices. The store features a genuine coffee bar, funky fresh-cut flowers, select indoor plants, quality tools, and simple, eclectic décor items. Here you’ll find an array of local, national and international surprises that touch on simple courtyard, garden and entertaining pleasures.

“Oasis” is a very accurate description of Zocalo. The store is filled with many unique and colourful flowers, ceramics, pottery, vases, seasonal plants, and as it says, “electic décor items.” Recently I’ve been buying one or two flowers each week for my home. I was pleasantly surprised to discover two birds of paradise flowers in the store, and I bought them both, along with a larger vase to hold them.

.: I’ve spent upwards of 6 hours today trying to understand why the RSS feeds for PBD and STLQ seem to have imploded. The “old” PBD, until a few hours ago, was running on a Movable Type blog. The “new” PBD is running on a WordPress blog. STLQ remains on an MT blog.

STLQ’s feeds were pointing back to PBD. PBD’s feeds were pointing to God knows where. So what have I done to try to fix this, given that I am php- and xml-challenged? I transferred the old PBD posts to the WordPress PBD. I deleted the old PBD site from its Movable Type platform, deleted and then reinstalled (after much weeping and gnashing of teeth) the stlq.info domain to my server space, and redirected that URI to podbaydoor.com/engine, to where it was pointing in the first place. (Don’t ask, please…)

In my MT settings, where STLQ lives, I changed the URI from stlq.info/ to podbaydoor.com/engine/. When I checked the RSS feeds for STLQ in Bloglines, they “seemed” to be working again. However, closer inspection confirmed that only the atom feed is working properly: https://podbaydoor.com/engine/atom.xml, and the index.xml feed, while pointing to STLQ, doesn’t produce any feeds.

Plug www.podbaydoor.com into Bloglines, and it responds with four feeds that don’t work. Plug podbaydoor.com into Bloglines, and you get seven feeds, three of which point to STLQ feeds (which I thought no longer existed, as they would now be podbaydoor.com/engine feeds), and two of which don’t seem to work at all.

It’s not supposed to be this way. I have over 220 subscribers to PBD, and who knows how many on STLQ, now that the feeds have turned to shyte. I am so fed up with this nonsense, and my MT 3.2 installation has been sluggish since the upgrade.

The laughter you hear is coming from the first, fourth and fifth floors of Cameron Library…

.: LOS ANGELES—The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that it will be taking legal action against anyone discovered telling friends, acquaintances, or associates about new songs, artists, or albums. “We are merely exercising our right to defend our intellectual properties from unauthorized peer-to-peer notification of the existence of copyrighted material,” a press release signed by RIAA anti-piracy director Brad Buckles read. “We will aggressively prosecute those individuals who attempt to pirate our property by generating ‘buzz’ about any proprietary music, movies, or software, or enjoy same in the company of anyone other than themselves.” RIAA attorneys said they were also looking into the legality of word-of-mouth “favorites-sharing” sites, such as coffee shops, universities, and living rooms.

God Bless The Onion.

.: I don’t know what to make of this, but I smiled while I watched it. Turn up the sound and enjoy. Too bad the screen isn’t bigger. If this really is someone’s house somewhere in BC, it must drive the neighbours nuts, but what creativity! Does anyone know what the name of the music playing with the lights? I thought I heard a bit of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen in the mix.

.: Despite that the occasional issue arrives in my mailbox up to ten weeks late, Time Out New York continues to feed my NYC appetite. A recent welcome addition to the magazine’s “Out There” section is a cartoon called Talking Points, by Bob Eckstein.

In Issue 518, he offered the following hilarious and brilliant observation:

Intelligent Design’s been in the news lately, offered up as an alternative theory of evolution. But is it just conservatives getting creative with creationism? Follow the flowchart to illumination

.: The problem with my RSS feed, which I thought was solved, continues. The link in the right side column is correct, and works fine. But when you try to subscribe with the main URI, it points to PBD 2.0. I’m trying to solve it. If anyone has an idea, let me know. Thanks.

.: Update at 1500 hrs: I believe the feed is working. I used “301 redirect“, and when I tested https://podbaydoor.com on Bloglines, it returns only feeds to the new site. Please let me know if it works for you. Thanks.

.: I never thought I’d admit something like this, but I’ve been listening to a copy of A Bigger Bang, the new Rolling Stones album, and … I like it. It’s quite good. Can’t believe I’m admitting this publicly. The album rocks out rather nicely, especially for a bunch of sixty-somethings at the wheel. It’s hard not like lyrics like these, from Sweet Neo Con:

You call yourself a Christian
I think that you’re a hypocrite
You say you are a patriot
I think that you’re a crock of shit

And listen now, the gasoline
I drink it every day
But it’s getting very pricey
And who is going to pay

How come you’re so wrong
My sweet neo con…. Yeah

Hmm, who might Jagger be referencing there? I have owned one Rolling Stones album in my life, and despite having liked much of their music, was never a big fan. (Favorite songs include Sympathy for the Devil and Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.) I borrowed this album from the library, after reading a number of favourable reviews. The verdict: it’s good, very listenable, great production, a wide variety of song styles, and great melodies all around.

Next up: the new McCartney, also receiving favourable reviews, and then the new Neil Young.

.: One month until Christmas…