Busy, busy, busy....

As usual, I have been up to my neck in stuff to do, some of which is great blog fodder (food talk, art talk, fishing talk, etc.). I cooked for a dinner party last night, and took some pictures (although not on my camera, so I must wait to get the pictures, and I will post them when I do) to go along with recipes (that is always fun). I have been doing more research on Diebenkorn (the mark of a dork - he who unwinds by sitting down late at night with a pile of art books and follows the development of one artist's use of a particular division of space - NERD! NERD! NERD!), and so on.

However, I have a big art project for the church, and it must be done immediately, because it should be in place by Holy Week, which starts, uh, tomorrow! Yippeee! If you smell paint around here, you will know why. So, see you Sunday night, as I will not be at the computer much today or tonight.

No Friday Afternoon Sermon

I was going to revive the Ancient Lenten Tradition (tm) of Friday Afternoon Sermons (which, for long time readers, are sure to bring mixed feelings of dread and gleeful anticipation. For my newer readers - these were the seeds of the whole blog. They started as a Lenten substitute for Friday Afternoon Martinis, and are appropriately grouchy).

However, I have to make vegetarian soup. At least I have come up with something that actually has me looking forward to eating.

But I have to sacrifice the Friday Afternoon Sermon.

Ach!

I just realized that I have not been selecting categories for posts since I updated Movable Type. Egads. I really hoped to do more fun stuff than that this weekend.

Hah hah hah!

I just hit a button that deleted all comments that had been identified as spam. I scanned a couple of hundred of them, and, yep, all spam. So, there is a chance that I deleted some earnest, long-worked-on, thoughtful comment, and I certainly had no intention of doing that. If you posted something and it got eaten, I am sorry. I will probably not do it again.

But then again, if I go away for awhile and come back and find a thousand posts in the spam file, I will probably just nuke 'em. It is so easy. So painless. So fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

Now I have to figure out some of the tagging of comments, in terms of categories and the such. I might have a few of these silly test posts out there before the night is through.

Upgrade Time!

Erik's Rants and Recipes is going to go lacking in new entries until it is updated to the new Movable Type. I am not sure when it is going to be finished, but rest assured that the brightest minds of the empire are working on it. Even as we sleep.

Stay tuned for the new and improved Erik's Rants and Recipes!

Crazy!

So I accept comments from anyone and everyone and the spam slows to a trickle (only about sixty spam comments so far today)! I don't get it.

Anyway, thanks to all who helped me try to figure out the problem. I am still baffled. Thanks to Julie who suggests Wordpress, but I would not want to pester my web designer to make yet another change (Blogger to MT to Wordpress).

Speaking of my web designer, I have mentioned that she is very good, no? She is also reasonably priced and easy to work with. Find her at Pink Mochi. Now, where have you heard that name before? Easy to remember.

And, finally, remember:

1. Dawn Eden. Tonight. UC Berkeley.
2. Me. Tomorrow Night. French Symbolists. St. Margaret Mary's Oakland.
3. The system coming in tonight might effectively end the tomato season. Getcher last BLT, just in case. And plan on picking a lot for putting up. You might not have another chance until July.

Allright...try this

I don't get it. Setting the thing to not accepting any comments seems to have done precisely nothing.

So it is back. If you tried to comment before this morning and your comment is not in the post below, please let me know here. Thanks.

It is time for the Keilholtz Academy to start up. Posts of more substance later (yeah, right! Is there ever a post of substance here? They might take away my license).

Two quick things, though:

1. Dawn Eden will be speaking at UC Berkeley tomorrow night, co-hosted by the St. Anthony of Padua Institute and the UC Berkeley Lepanto League.

2. Your humble blog host will be speaking on the night after about French Symbolism and nineteenth century neo-Byzantine trends at St. Margaret Mary's in Oakland.

Eden's talk will be at 7pm. Mine will be at 7 or 7:30. I will have to check to make sure that I am there on time.

Oh yeah, did I mention that we got a gecko?

Watching it eat is beautiful.

I know, I know...

I owe you a real post. Not just one of these frequent "I am busy with moving" sort of excuses.

A recipe? An art rant? Photos?

Yes. Yes. Yes. But bear with me. I am still busy with settling in. The studio is going to take significant effort, and when it is done there will be a celebration, both online and in person. Meanwhile...the lame excuses continue.

Oh Yeah...

I forgot to mention that, for the first time ever, I am blogging in my PJ's. Since our apartment is basically a basement, I think I have moved into a certain demographic.

Am I supposed to start ranting about the Clintons now?

Speaking of Raising my Writing Fees

Due to the increased cost of gas, I am going to have to raise the fees for my blog by 18% effective July 1. I am sorry to do this to you, as you have been wonderful readers, but rising costs have forced my hand.

So, fees have gone from $0.00 to $0.00, a net increase of $0.00. I hope that this will not be too much of a hardship, but with mailing costs, fuel costs, and so forth, I really have no choice.

We thank you for reading Erik's Rants and Recipes.