…wherein commander other rambles for a bit about the new version of Wordpress, blogging in general, and other stuff that have made an impression on him recently.

For those of you who don’t know, commander other is a professional photographer with a peculiar bent in that he doesn’t feel that a “professional” needs to cram his photographs down the gaping maw of the world’s presumed interest. I serve my clients, I have fun with it, and they’re mostly happy with me, except when I take on more work than I can actually swallow effectively. But, unbeknownst to many of my bloggy friends, commander other is also a bit of a quality assurance geek. Long, long ago, I moved up from a systems configurator position and took over a quality management position for a small value-added reseller of Dell Computers in Albuquerque, NM and within the space of six months managed to walk them through ISO-9001 certification without any credentials or direct quality management experience. Prior to that, I had been beta-testing for a couple of software companies, and over the years since then, have been an active beta and alpha-tester, sometimes paid, even, for about three dozen companies ranging from the gaming industry to business software. I recently stepped back into quality management for a company that makes software that serves the health care industry, so I now spend most of my waking hours (and many of my sleeping hours) hunting bugs and coordinating communications between our client and our development on production issues. After fifteen years working for myself as a photographer, this has been a very interesting trip back into the corporate world, and nearly-ironically, I’m loving it.

All that to say, I’m very handing at pointing out problems with things. Hence my (not so much recently) bent for photographic snarkery: the age-old “What’s wrong with this picture”, with a subjective twist. Coincidental to our recent move and taking on the new job, Wordpress has released a new version (2.5) and a new update to that version (2.5.1) in which some of the most heinous downgrades to Usability issues were undertaken in the name of progress. I won’t bore you by rehashing old tirades and conversations on that issue; they’re all google-able and Wordpress-searchable. However, as our fabulous designer and I were also updating my websites, I learned a few things about plugins that may or may not interest my fellow self-hosted Wordpress users.

1. Whether you have upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 or 2.5.1 or not, the first thing you need to do is remove your Wordpress Stats plugin. Yes, remove it. Get rid of it. Then, go make yourself a FREE account with Google and sign up for Google Analytics. It’s free, it’s efficient, and it doesn’t have any appreciable impact on your page-load like Wordpress Stats does. Yes, that’s right. If you noticed that the otherwhirled has magically started loading pages a little faster recently, it’s not because I haven’t been posting so much, it’s because I removed Wordpress Stats and a few other plugins. Not only does Google Analytics give you more information, but you can also look at it just as topologically as Wordpress Stats does (if you don’t care about the details), and even topologically, it’s still a more accurate report.
2. Here’s another plugin you don’t really need: Ultimate Tagwarrior and it’s later, more refined pseudo incarnation of Simple Tags. They’re good, really they are. They’re helpful, even. If you need to make site-wide changes to your tags. Once you’ve made those changes (if you needed to), at the very least, disable them. Having either of these running as an active plugin behind your site also increases the slowness, and 2.5/2.5.1 does actually have a fairly efficient tagging system now. Use that instead. If you need to convert tags, reattribute tags to posts or something like that, active the plugin, do it, then turn it off. While I am greatly appreciative to the Simple Tags developers, my sites are all faster for not running them all the time.
3. On that general subject, go look at your plugins and see what’s sitting there uselessly, hardly ever touched and contributing nothing to each page-load until you do “touch” it. If it ain’t doing anything on a per-page-load basis, deactivate it.
4. You don’t need a plugin to manage your robots.txt, so if you’re using something like KBRobots.txt plugin, deactivate it after you make your changes. All that one does is provide an editing window for your KBRobots.txt file anyway. A smart blogger like you knows how to use a text editor and an FTP program, right? Drop that one.
5. You don’t really need a “Maintenance Mode” plugin, either. I hope, though, if you use one, you have it deactivated when you’re not making changes to your blog template or structure.
6. I don’t think that non-tech bloggers really need other little gimmick plugins like the Wordpress Admin Bar (which I admit is handy, but there’s this weird thing called browser bookmarks that work just as well), or the Wordpress Dashboard Editor, because (again), if you setup your important admin pages in your bookmarks, what do you even need to stop by the dashboard for? Wordpress will tell you if it needs updating, and the developer blogs that get gratuitously shoved into the dashboard by default are generally pretty boring to read, like this post is.

So there you have it. Nifty tips from the jerk-wad, Wordpress-loving blogger with not enough time on his hands. I had to write this hugely detailed summary status last night, though, so the writing bug was in me. Which reminds me I need to come up with something for the next Carnival of Liberals. I’m tired of missing those.

gah. okay, if you weren’t aware, this is why i haven’t been posting much. and to update that, we close on thursday morning, but it’ll still be a while before we’re effectively done moving in. having to manage the move pretty much on the weekends only has not been fun.

but my lack of posting here is beginning to get me dropped from blogrolls, which, while not entirely unexpected, is a huge bummer. so, here i am, trying to get something up on this blog, because goodness knows i haven’t had time to get anything else up recently. yes, that was innuendo. i’m becoming bitter because i haven’t been able to post much in so long. bah, humbug.

and i might point out that my supposedly new fellow-blogger here hasn’t been helping. conversely, it’s not like i’ve been able to get out and read much, either, so i guess it’s fair.

conveniently, it’s past time for another unconscious muttering.

1. Thug :: Republican Candidate, Neo-Conservative Ministers, and the sound you get when you drop a heavy dictionary onto a water bed.
2. Slurp :: The sound John McCain makes when he’s kneeling in front of George Bush.
3. Alley :: A place where politicians often make agreements with lobbyists and other politicians, typically dark. This is also the place where normal people get mugged, raped, and murdered. Coincidence?
4. Sweater vest :: {shudder}
5. Targeted :: A Hollywood pre-nup.
6. Snazzy :: It’s kind of like “jazzy”, but with a bit more snap.
7. Oy! :: Vey!
8. Jury duty :: A place from which to watch the continuing debacle that our Justice System is becoming, or a place through which to renew ones faith in the same. It really depends upon your particular experiences; I’ve just happened to have one of each.
9. Low fat :: A vertically-challenged, horizontally-endowed person.
10. Responsibility :: The thing that when acknowledged supposedly makes one an adult, however much one attempts to avoid it.

…wherein Commander Other provides a brief collection of Praise-the-Lord-and-Pass-the-Cheetos^® Holy Articles of Faith found in various Grab Bags of Holy Orange Stains and Belches, made all the more briefer because he really does need to earn his paycheck.

If you were not aware, Jesus Cheesus™ is a spiritual mystery-being who can be found at various times of the year and in various parts of the globe, blessing random bits of His Chosen Cheesy Snack Food with His Holy Cheesy Presence by virtue of his willful incarnation (a Personal Sacrifice!) of particular cheesy snacks shaped in His Cheesy Image. Commander Other is not aware of having personally met or consumed any particular incarnation of Jesus Cheesus™ in the past or in the present, but would be happy to digest a Jesus Cheesus™ or two to test the theory that digestion is actually the express intent of Jesus Cheesus’ random appearances to the Cheesetarded Who Refuse to Eat Him. Were these Cheesetards understanding of Jesus Cheesus’ Cheesetastic Desires, they would consume Him readily and fill themselves with the Holy Presence of His Snacktasticness.

Naturally, this brings about a few questions regarding the prospect of Eternal Cheesy Salvation and the consumption of the Snacktastic Goodness of Jesus Cheesus™ in general:

1. Would the likes of Commander Other be forever saved from Eternal Unhealthy Snack-Food Damnation by the ingestion of a random incarnation of Jesus Cheesus™?
2. Would a non-believer like Commander Other still be afforded an Eternity of Non-Stop Snackery Goodness by virtue of the act of Jesus Cheesus™ consumption?
3. Do those who have unknowingly consumed an incarnation of Jesus Cheesus™ automatically have a place reserved in Heaven, complete with orange-stained robes, or do they have to recognize and intentionally consume Jesus Cheesus™ in order to avail themselves of His Personal Grab-Bag of Orange Finger-Lickin’ Goodness?

Sadly, these questions remain unanswered. I hereby challenge all readers to attempt to find their own Jesus Cheesus™, consume Him, and report back on your findings.

Item #1 one of today’s Holy Snack-Tasty Enthrallment comes from Ms. Dorothy Dursley of Rio Rancho, NM, who claims that after discovering her own personal icon of Cheesy Crucifixion, she will never eat another Cheeto^® ever. Personally, Commander Other assumes the name is fictitious. Could “Dorothy Dursley” be the the sister of Harry Potter’s oppressive, overweight uncle? I suppose it’s possible, but that would also mean she might have read the magically tainted, evil publications of that non-God-fearing author, J.K. Rowling. I do not know if “Dorothy Dursley” auctioned off her Holy Yum-Yum of Cheesy Salvation, but I find myself sorely tempted to fly out to New Mexico and offer her a year’s supply of Cheetos^® just for the expression on her face.

This questionably-holy-looking Cheeto^® on the left was apparently nearly eaten by Houston pastor Steve Cragg, who then dubbed this Holy Monument of Cheesy Self-Indulgence “Cheesus”, obviously in a craven attempt to violate Commander Other’s express copyright on the phrase “Jesus Cheesus™”, established at least one month later. Pastor Cragg’s Immortal Icon of Cheesery appears to be kneeling in prayer, just as Jesus did at the Mount of Olives, where it is reported that He actually said, “Father, please let this Grab-Bag pass from Me.” Like “Dorothy Dursley”, Pastor Cragg has restrained himself from masticating the Body of Jesus Cheesus™ in Holy Cheesy Communion, and thus will not be included in the Eternal Snack-Pack Incentives that are prophesied to come after Cheesageddon.

Sadly, these appear to be the only two incarnations of Jesus Cheesus™ currently available on Teh Innernuts, at least as dictated by the time available to me and the fact that the network geeks at my new employer have finally gotten around to fixing the access problem that has kept me from doing my job all morning. I should also point out that Commander Other was deeply saddened to find an Ebay auction of a supposedly-entirely-different incarnation of Jesus Cheesus™ that had been removed.

Dear Ebay,

Commander Other
(The Official Holy Cheesetastic Blogger of the otherwhirled )

I would like to point out that it is improper to refer to other Cheesy Jesuses, made from other cheesy products such as Velveeta^®, grilled cheese shandwiches, and sculptured cheese, as Jeesus Cheesus™ or even the abbreviated Cheesus. Lest you forget the Holy Power of Fatty Snackery.

~~~
now, I thought long and hard about this, but ultimately decided that since Cheetos^® are purchasable, and since often these little trifles of cheese-powdered spirituality are auctioned online to the highest bidder most gullible nimrod, then Jeesus Cheesus products do indeed fall under the dubious category we all know and love as:

JESUS CRAP™, fun-filled Judeo-christian E-commerce Systems Under Scrutiny for the Collective Retardation of All People, by commander other.

(in participation thereof)

today, i opted for one-word or short phrase responses. some innuendo is intended, while other innuendo is undoubtedly imagined.

1. Questioning :: Authority
2. Immunity :: Diplomatic
3. Online dating :: Screen Ilk
4. Calcium :: Deposits
5. Dressing :: Blue Cheese
6. Bucket :: Bail
7. Stain :: Clinton Politics
8. Advanced :: Decay
9. Dramatic :: Interpolation
10. Self-medication :: First Lady

I have had but one respondent to my last bout of Otherwhirledly Pandering for blogging assistance. Not that only one is a bad thing (and it’s decidedly not, considering who the one is), but yes, I was hoping for more. We can’t let Jonestown have the corner on group-driven acerbity, after all. But, as usual, I digress. It’s a gift.

Anywho, I’d like to give a big, Otherwhirledly welcome to FranIAm, who despite her religious proclivities has volunteered to guest-blog here in the otherwhirled from time to time. FranIAm is in that extremely finite category of Believers whom I respect and admire, and I am confident that her contributions here will contribute to our collective enlightenment. You should already have her blog blogrolled, linked, massaged, and otherwise fondled in your RSS feeds.

Please be sure to say “hello” in a friendly, receptive way on her first post, which we have not coordinated amongst ourselves yet (largely because there’s no need to, because she’s got “the keys” and is welcome to post whenever she wants to).

Thanks for joining me over here on the otherwhirled, FranIAm! I’m looking forward to your input here, and to eventually pronouncing your last name!

In semi-related news, I have not been posting much, because I have recently taken a full-time job as the Quality Manager for a new up-and-coming software company. Naturally, the job, and a big product release, coincided with our recent move. In fact, we’re not really done moving yet. I still have a bunch of stuff to clean out of my former office space in the old house, and some other random items will probably require another 2-3 mini-van (shut up, i nurse the shit out of the gas mileage) loads and yet another weekend of fun-filled cleaning.

And while it was nice to see that Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein (one of my original guest-bloggers here whose fame has limited his time/desire to post randomly over here) reached his first blogiversary, I would like to point out the veritable tact, aplomb, and outright distraction with which I ignored the otherwhirled’s own first blogiversary back on April 4. So, let’s consider FranIAm’s participation here a blogiversary present to ourselves, and I’ll continue to be torn between voting for Dr. Monkey or Dr. Zaius for president.

Peace.

“Looks like the pope is competing with the Jesus Crap™. Although, since the ‘artist’ did such a good job with the dark shadows around the pope’s eyes, this shit isn’t going to attract too many people seriously into the kitsch.”

photo credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty

“…a former Nazi pope who who can hardly speak English.”

photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP