I'm reading...

I thought I'd second a recommendation from Ben Poole for the Myron Bolitar thrillers by Harlan Coben. The first one was published here in the States about a decade ago, but I had never heard of them until recently. I usually don't enjoy thrillers all that much because I can usually figure out the ending about halfway through. I can honestly say that I haven't gotten any of these figured out before the end. I've come close, but Coben always throws in one last twist that I can never see coming.

Myron is a fantastic lead - his sense of humor reminds me very much of Bill Murray.

I started in the middle of the series, and the books can be read as standalones, but I'm now going back and reading them in order:

Deal Breaker
Drop Shot
Fade Away
Back Spin
One False Move
The Final Detail
Darkest Fear

(I've only gotten as far as Fade Away, so no spoilers!)

Home sick today

...with my annual bout of bronchitis. No brilliant flashes with codeine-enhanced cough syrup swirling through my bloodstream and a 65 lb. dog sleeping on my stomach.

Music from your graduation year

Time for a trip down memory lane... a longer trip for some of us! I'm continuing the trail started by Libby and Rich (from whom I stole the formatting for my new blockquote element.)

The instructions are: Go to musicoutfitters.com, and do a search on the most popular 100 songs from the year you graduated high school. (You can do this by searching on the year you graduated). Bold the ones you actually like. (Understand that the word "like" in this case means, at the very least, "wouldn't immediately change the radio station from.") Pick a favorite. Underline that favorite. And Strikethru the ones you loathe. Italicize the ones you consider to be guilty pleasures.

The unstyled ones I'm either indifferent to, don't remember, or have never actually heard to begin with.

So, for your reminiscing pleasure(?), here are the top 100 of 1990:

1. Hold On, Wilson Phillips
2. It Must Have Been Love, Roxette
3. Nothing Compares 2 U,Sinead O'Connor
4. Poison, Bell Biv Devoe
5. Vogue, Madonna
6. Vision Of Love, Mariah Carey
7. Another Day In Paradise, Phil Collins
8. Hold On, En Vogue
9. Cradle Of Love, Billy Idol
10. Blaze Of Glory, Jon Bon Jovi
11. Do Me!, Bell Biv Devoe
12. How Am I Supposed To Live Without You, Michael Bolton
13. Pump Up The Jam, Technotronic
14. Opposites Attract, Paula Abdul
15. Escapade, Janet Jackson
16. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You, Heart
17. Close To You, Maxi Priest
18. Black Velvet, Alannah Myles
19. Release Me, Wilson Phillips
20. Don't Know Much, Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville
21. All Around The World, Lisa Stansfield
22. l Wanna Be Rich, Calloway
23. I Remember You, Skid Row
24. Rub You The Right Way, Johnny Gill
25. She Ain't Worth It, Glenn Medeiros Featuring Bobby Brown
26. If Wishes Came True, Sweet Sensation
27. The Power, Snap
28. (Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection, Nelson
29. Love Will Lead You Back, Taylor Dayne
30. Don't Wanna Fall In Love, Jane Child
31. Two To Make It Right, Seduction
32. Sending All My Love, Linear
33. Unskinny Bop, Poison
34. Step By Step, New Kids On The Block
35. Dangerous, Roxette
36. We Didn't Start The Fire, Billy Joel
37. I Don't Have The Heart, James Ingram
38. Downtown Train, Rod Stewart
39. Rhythm Nation, Janet Jackson
40. I'll Be Your Everything, Tommy Page
41. Roam, B-52's
42. Everything, Jody Watley
43. Back To Life, Soul II Soul
44. Here and Now, Luther Vandross
45. Alright, Janet Jackson
46. Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice
47. Blame It On The Rain, Milli Vanilli
48. Have You Seen Her, M.C. Hammer
49. With Every Beat Of My Heart, Taylor Dayne
50. Come Back To Me, Janet Jackson
51. No More Lies, Michel'le
52. Praying For Time, George Michael
53. How Can We Be Lovers, Michael Bolton
54. Do You Remember, Phil Collins
55. Ready Or Not, After 7
56. U Can't Touch This, M.C. Hammer
57. I Wish It Would Rain Down, Phil Collins
58. Just Between You and Me, Lou Gramm
59. Something Happened On The Way To Heaven, Phil Collins
60. Black Cat, Janet Jackson
61. Can't Stop, After 7
62. Janie's Got A Gun, Aerosmith
63. The Humpty Dance, Digital Underground
64. I'll Be Your Shelter, Taylor Dayne
65. Free Fallin', Tom Petty
66. Giving You The Benefit, Pebbles
67. Enjoy The Silence, Depeche Mode
68. Love Song, Tesla
69. Price Of Love, Bad English
70. Girls Nite Out, Tyler Collins
71. King Of Wishful Thinking, Go West
72. What Kind Of Man Would I Be?, Chicago
73. Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over), Technotroic
74. Here We Are, Gloria Estefan
75. Epic, Faith No More
76. Love Takes Time, Mariah Carey
77. Just Like Jesse James, Cher
78. Love Shack, B-52's
79. All Or Nothing, Milli Vanilli
80. Romeo, Dino
81. Everybody Everybody, Black Box
82. I Go To Extremes, Billy Joel
83. Whip Appeal, Babyface
84. Oh Girl, Paul Young
85. C'mon and Get My Love, D-Mob With Cathy Dennis
86. (It's Just) The Way That You Love Me, Paula Abdul
87. We Can't Go Wrong, Cover Girls
88. When I'm Back On My Feet Again, Michael Bolton
89. Make You Sweat, Keith Sweat
90. This One's For The Children, New Kids On The Block
91. What It Takes, Aerosmith
92. Forever, Kiss
93. Jerk Out, Time
94. Just A Friend, Biz Markie
95. Whole Wide World, A'me Lorain
96. Without You, Motley Crue
97. Swing The Mood, Jive Bunny and The Mastermixers
98. Thieves In The Temple, Prince
99. Mentirosa, Mellow Man Ace
100. Tic-Tac-Toe, Kyper

I apologize...

for turning on the text verification thingie when posting comments. I started getting spam comments.

Hopefully the two of you who read this will not be too put off by it.

SetAnyDate

I love it when I find out about a previously-unknown function... a great many have come to my attention courtesy of Stan. Just found another one, that happens to be very timely (no pun intended.) This is something I can use right now to fix a problem I've been having with training registration databases that generate calendar entries.

SetAnyDate


Does anyone out there have a favorite function, property, etc. that isn't well-known but is extremely useful in certain situations?

Updated template

When I first set up this blog, I decided to just use one of Blogger's ready-to-use templates. I wasn't sure how much time I was going to put into it, so I didn't want to spend a ton of time creating my own template. Besides, I like pretty things but don't have a designer's eye.

I've known that I wanted to edit it into a three-column layout for a while, but never got around to it. So I sat down last night, determined to make the change. How long could it take, right? It's not like HTML's real programming. Famous last words...

It's been at least 5 years since I've done any serious web development outside of Domino. The CSS revolution has passed me by - I'm strictly a tables girl. Well, the author of this template didn't believe in tables. I know the basics of CSS; styling paragraphs and other text elements is no big deal. But absolute positioning, layers, and z-indexes are way over my head.

It took 6 hours. Yikes. Time to get a book and try to catch up, if only to say that I can.

Need to get back into this

I went on vacation for two weeks with no internet connection, and haven't been able to get back into this since I've been back. But now that Stan knows I'm here I have to get my butt in gear and start posting again.

Just not right now.