Bill Bumgarner

Recently, I have been using ReStructuredText to write a series of documents for various purposes. It helps that I have a nice Cocoa based editor implemented in Python to which I can easily add features to support my needs.

Unfortunately, the CSS included with DocUtils does not produce documents that look like a decently formatted document.

In searching the web, I could not find anything resembling a set of CSS that would provide the basis for formatting whitepaper, reference or technical document style documents. I'm sure that if I looked closely enough at various random published papers, I could find some interesting CSS, but I really don't want to just go and rip off someone else's hard work.

Anyone know of a decent resource for CSS templates aimed at document formatting/publishing? Something other than the myriad of weblog templates? I don't mind tweaking the various class declarations to fit the ReST structure, I just don't want to start from scratch.

Speaking of hard work and weblog templates...

The current visual design of this weblog sucks. It is the generic default and it has zero character. I don't like it, but I know that fixing it will suck many hours of my life away.

Why?

Because I know that CSS is amazingly powerful, but I don't know how to harness that power without spending hours in a stupid text editor tweaking this, changing that, previewing the page, etc...

The various CSS editors I have tried don't really seem to do WYSIWYG style editing. Then again, I haven't tried any of the professional packages that claim to solve this problem.

CSS Zen Garden has a bunch of neat potential layouts. I might grab one, at some point. Yeah... right.

The Meyer's lemon in the yard is still producing lemons and if even one of the six lemons spread throughout the yard produce half as many lemons as any one tree has set buds, I'll be up to my ears in lemons throughout the rest of the year. That is the kind of problem I like to have.

I haven't been quite as proactive about weeding as I probably should be. End result; I have tons of volunteer Mint growing all over the place. Well, anyplace that the Pot Marigold (pictured) isn't growing as a volunteer.

Of course, Mint is an invasive weed that will happily choke out everything else. It must be removed!

Hmmm...

Mint. Lemons.

Crush the mint into a glass, squeeze in about a quarter / half a lemon (to taste), add a shot or two of white Rum, a couple of ice cubes, fill the rest of the way with Club Soda.

A Mojito, but without the sugar. The lemons are really quite sweet, so no sugar needed. That I don't like terribly sweet things certainly contributes.

There is some random band called Darkness that has apparently taken England by storm and is now raging through the US. The claim is that they are "the new Queen" or "the modern Led Zepplin". Just heard an interview on KFOG: apparently, people either love 'em or hate 'em and if they hate 'em, it is because they saw the video and can't stand the image. That was the claim of the lead singer and KFOG seems to have bought into it completely.

Uh, no.

I don't watch videos. From listening to a couple of songs, Darkness does completely suck. Crap production of crap musicians fronted by painful vocals that, all together, make me want to drive rusty stakes into my ears so as to never be subject to such audible torture again.

This reminds me of that band that did Glass Tiger sometime in the mid-80s or so. Hyped all to hell. Turned out that they were a "one hit wonder" and that one hit was only the result of the awesome power of marketing.

If it follows prior over marketing band patterns, it won't be safe to turn on the radio for at least 6 months...

Thank goodness for the music store.

Update: Yup. I screwed up the name. Fixed. And, yes, I understand sarcasm, I just live in a market that doesn't and, as a result, I'll have to listen to this shite band ad-nauseum until the next fad hits the market. That irritates me.