Brought to you by our (local!) friends at ILoveBacon.com, check out this sign from Central Colorado:

I can imagine the owner of that store having at least one conversation a day that goes something like this:

Customer: Are you the owner?
Owner: Yes, I am.
Customer: Do you realize what your sign says?
Owner: Yes, I do.
Customer: And…?
Owner: And what, sir? Is there something you’d like to buy?
Customer: Well..no..it’s just that your sign..it says..you know..
Owner: Yes, it says this is a Bait & Tackle shop. Are you going to buy something?
Customer: No…I’ll just…go…go home and cry now.
Owner: Have a nice day.

Man…now that is great marketing. Sure, maybe people don’t go in that store for fishing supplies, but I’d bet they make a fortune in t-shirt sales!

Gas prices are seriously bothering me. I pay, on average, about $1.88 a gallon (well..9/10′s a gallon, according to the pumps…) for my gas. Since I have to drive from the middle of Frederick, MD to the Shady Grove Metro station in Gaithersburg, MD every weekday to get to work, I need gas a lot. Like, four times a week now. And since I’ve got a 13 gallon tank, and I tend to drive until I’ve got a little less than a quarter of a tank left, I end up paying around $73.00 a week for gas. That’s a ripoff if you ask me.

I realize that Virginia is looking into whether big gas companies are engaged in price gouging but really, can’t they just do something now to help ease the pain? I can’t even begin to think of what they could do, as I’m no expert on petroleum and other such things, but there’s got to be some kind of relief here. Add the price I pay in gas per month plus the price I pay to Metro to and from work back to my car, and it comes out to be a lot of money. More than $500.00 a month. Whew!

How’s gas prices in your area? Leave me a comment and let me know.

To anyone in the web dev community who has been around for more than a few years and knows their stuff, this is going to be old hat to you. However, I’m putting this up for the benefit of those who are relatively new to the game, and aren’t completely clear on one of the more annoying differences between XHTML-1.0-Transitional and XHTML-1.0-Strict.

My site was made using XHTML, XML, ASP, and JavaScript. The Document Type Definition (DTD) of all pages on this site are XHTML-1.0-Transitional, as opposed to XHTML-1.0-Strict or XHTML-1.0-Frameset. I chose to use XHMTL-1.0-Transitional because it gives me greater flexibility with the overall design and arrangement of content on the site. It also allows some attributes I find to be helpful in designing a personal site, such as the ability to easily open pages in new windows.

Typically, this is done by adding the attribute target, and setting its value to something like “_blank”. This is great. It’s easy. Just place it in all of your anchor tags, and voila! All of your links open up in new windows.

Unfortunately, in the Strict DTD, the attribute target has been taken out and trashed. So, this causes a dilemma; what should you do if you need to open pages in new windows?

When I found this out, I asked myself, “Why in the world was target cut out of the strict DTD?” The answer isn’t exactly very clear. Some say it’s because target should only be used for linking between frames. Others say it’s an accessibility issue; that linking into new windows makes things difficult for people using text-readers and programs like JAWS. I can see how the latter would be true, since I contract for a government agency which by law must have all web properties easily usable and accessible for people with disabilities (see Section508.gov for more info) and have to deal with issues like that on a daily basis. However, it doesn’t really make sense for the former.

My quick and dirty solution for this problem is using the ignored but not forgotten method of opening a new browser window using the JavaScript window.open function. It’s extremely basic, but I’ve noticed that people only use that function when they want to open a window in specific sizes and with specific properties. Truth of the matter is, you just don’t have to use it for that. And if you want to use an XHTML-1.0-Strict DTD, then you really should. Here’s the code:

<a href=”http://www.w3c.org” onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘windowname’); return false;”>Clicky!</a>

That’s it – quick and dirty. Just replace “www.w3c.org” with the url you want to send your users to, such as http://www.mexijew.com , and change “windowname” to whatever you want to label the new window (just remember not to use the same name twice on the same page, otherwise it won’t work.), and you’re done.

Alternatively, there’s a great article at SitePoint about using a more advanced JavaScript along with the attribute rel. I personally think that their script is better, in that it allows you to create multiple links that open in new windows by simply adding the rel attribute instead of dropping in the code that I laid out above. But, like I said, my solution is quick and dirty.

I’m pretty proud of the fact that I almost never have insomnia. Most of the time, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I have some form of Narcolepsy, seeing as how I can typically falls asleep in under 2 minutes just about anywhere – standing, sitting, laying down, driving, eating, etc. So, when the occasional case of insomnia strikes, I feel so debilitated.

So, I had insomnia last night. Not quite sure why. Maybe it was the Chinese food I had before bed. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t force myself to turn off the TV until Undergrads was over. Maybe the ghost of Christmas future was trying to tell me something. No…can’t be that last one…Jew’s don’t believe in Christmas…

Another thing that bothers me about these rare episodes of insomnia is that when I finally do start to fall asleep, it’s within 30 minutes of the alarm going off. It’s like my brain decides, “Hey…let’s really screw with him…it’s 4:30am, and he’s gotta get up in 30 minutes…Alright! EVERYONE GET TIRED NOW!”

Insomnia stinks. I’d rather go back to being Narcoleptic. At least I’m consistent when I’m that way.

As you have no doubt heard by now, Fred Rogers, known to all as “Mister Rogers” from his 32-year-long show on PBS, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, passed away early Thursday morning. He died in his home from a battle with stomach cancer.

What you may not know is that I had an opportunity to meet him two years ago, in March 2001, when I went to Florida to visit Amanda for the first time. It was an unexpected pleasure on the trip to meet him. He was speaking at the church at Amanda’s school, Rollins, where Fred Rogers graduated in 1951. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and delivered the sermon on March 25, 2001 at Rollin’s Knowles Memorial Chapel.

Let me say that it was a hard thing for me to attend a church service. I’m not a big fan of religious experiences, Jewish or not. For me to go to Synagogue is one thing, but for me to go to a church, that’s a completely foreign idea to me.

So, Amanda convinced me to go. It was an opportunity to see, in real life, a man who shaped my life, and so many others, at such a vital time in my development into a thinking, caring adult. I think we’ve all reflected back at least once on what we learned from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

It was the first time I’d ever been in a church and heard a sermon. Let me tell you, I was actually moved by it. The only other time I can honestly say I was moved just by someone speaking was September, 2001, when President Bush delivered an address from the US Capitol about the 9/11 attacks, and recognized the people who died. Those were poignant moments.

After the sermon was over, and the service ended, Fred Rogers went outside of the church, and people were thanking him and shaking his hand. I built up all my courage, and approached him. I shook his hand, and told him about how that was my first time attending a church service and hearing a sermon (being a Jew and all…), and how it was truly a moving experience. He was appreciative, and thanked me for coming, and asked me if I remembered watching him as a child. I told him did, and that occasionally I’ll flip onto PBS at home, and watch the show again. He seemed quite pleased, and after exchanging another pleasant word or two with him, we parted ways, and I tried to find Amanda, whom I’d lost track of after the service.

Fred Rogers was a great man, who made his life’s work something that benefited millions of people around the world. He taught us humility, love, and respect for others. Heaven’s got another angel up there, now.

After months of procrastination, personal problems, and a tight schedule, the new MexiJew.com version 2.0 has been completed. It took a lot of work, and along with the design changes, there’s going to be a change in the content you’ll find here. Here’s an outline of the changes.

First, and most easy to recognize, this site has a new design. My idea for this design was to have a more mainstream “blog” design, but adhere to XHTML and CSS standards. What that means in laymen’s terms is that this site is optimized to be viewable on any web browser. All pages on the site will validate as having valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and valid CSS (To check if this page is valid, click on the “Valid XHTML” and “Valid CSS” icons at the bottom of this page.). Browsers that aren’t “standards compliant” will see a dull, flat, and flavorless version, missing the layout and text style, and with a message informing them that they need to download a standards compliant browser, such as Mozilla, or IE 6.0.

No more will you have to squint to see the text of my rants on that blue background. The font is bigger, and easier to ready. The colors of the overall design are easier on the eyes, and are now easier to read for people who are colorblind (see Section 508 guidelines for more information on website designing for accessibility).

Next, the rants are going to be different. I’m going to attempt to clean up my colorful use of vulgarities, and tone down my opinions on things that people who’ve visited this blog off and on have major complaints about. Valid complaints, that is. I’m not going to just change my opinions, mind you. However, if you contact me with a valid complaint, I’ll give consideration to adjusting my viewpoint.

The rants may also be more technical in nature. I’m planning on writing a few articles about designing websites using web standards, such as CSS, XHTML, and XML.

The menu, located to the right of this text, has a neat little feature on it. If you click the title of the menu (“Here you are”, “There you go”, et al…), the menu will minimize. Click the title again, and voila! Maximized! Cool, huh? Just a little DHTML trick I learned a while ago.

Something you can’t see is the new user tracking system I have setup on the site. I am now recording and logging every possible piece of information about every single person that comes to this site. While you may be alarmed and pissed about this, let me tell you that if you go to Google.com, Amazon.com, Wired.com, WashingtonPost.com, and 99% of all the other major websites, you are already having this information watched, traced, recorded, and used to track demographics and setup spam specifically meant for you. MexiJew.com will never use your information to spam you, or popup ads on your screen. I am only logging this information for the purpose of catching potential problems before they become real problems.

So, that’s it. Go. Explore. Enjoy. Let me know what you think of the new site by clicking on the “Contact Me” link to the right, in the “Here you are” menu.