One of the ways of killing boredom would probably be to immerse yourself in learning new things, or improving your knowledge in what you already know. And that’s what I actually did over the past few weeks, when I felt I had too much time on my hand.

I looked into the plugin code and compared it with the code of the default options. From there, I found the new classes and id’s of the elements in the page and used them in the plugins that I currently use. The only difficulty I had when I updated my plugins, at least those that were no longer being updated by their respective plugin authors, was rummaging through all those lines of code and looking for the actual code for the displayed elements. It wasn’t really that hard if I opted to use the Find feature of the editor I used, but I also wanted to know how the code was written. This is, IMHO, the best way to self-study programming. I only updated how the plugin displays its options and nothing more. A good thing about WordPress is that when you screwed up the code, WordPress will deactivate it automatically, so it was perfectly safe to play with the code.

There was this plugin that I tweaked according to my requirements. This plugin is the Related Entries plugin by Alexander Malov, Mike Lu, and Jon Bourne. I don’t think I improved the plugin. I just changed it to suit my taste. This made me realize that I’m still living in the past since the reason I tweaked this plugin is because I missed the format of the related posts displayed by Ultimate Tag Warrior. I looked at the code, added an option for a separator, and changed the code to display the separator if the related entries were displayed inline and not as a list. Those interested in this plugin can visit this page or download it directly from here.

There were also a number of WordPress plugin updates recently released by plugin authors and I immediately updated all of my plugins that were affected. However, one of the plugin updates caused my site to load slower. A lot slower. Thru the process of elimination, I found out that the update to Lightbox 2 was causing this slow-down in loading my site. I then decided to deactivate the plugin and those that were dependent on it and noticed and increase in performance of my site’s loading time. I guess it wasn’t just me that was having this issue since there were a couple more updates released by the plugin author. Some people most likely contacted the author and asked for another update to improve loading times. The latest version of Lightbox 2, version 2.6.6 clearly resolved this problem as I have clocked my site’s loading time and noticed that it was faster than when the plugin was deactivated. Kudos to Mr. Rupert Morris for the prompt action regarding this matter. Now, I don’t have to deactivate the plugin. The latest update, version 2.7, sent me back to the dialup age as my site’s loading time was once again affected by the recent changes. I had no choice but to deactivate the said plugin. I don’t know if it is because of my connection or the plugin. What I know is, my site is happier with the plugin deactivated. No choice but to wait for the next update.

Another way of killing boredom, and I believe the most entertaining way, is to go to a theater and watch a movie. Last year was the year of the DVD, in which I, together with my wife, watched a slew of DVDs in the comfort of our home. We watched a number of movies that we weren’t able to catch in the cinema that probably made us more comfortable watching movies at home than with other, sometimes loud and obnoxious, people. This May of 2008, however, we were not really making sure to go to a cinema and watch a movie’s first screening on its opening day. It just happened that we had time to do so, and so we made the effort. Iron Man, Speed Racer, and Indiana Jones and The Kindom of the Crystal Skull were the movies that we saw as early as we can. Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay and What Happens in Vegas were showing a week or so already when we saw those films. All the films we saw can not be compared to each other since the genre and target audience of those films varied but they all killed boredom, and entertained us in doing so.

Probably the most enriching way to kill boredom is to pick up a book, sit back, and escape. And yes, this involves you going offline for hours on end. I think I hear net junkies shiver. This would also be a great alternative in case Twitter is down and you don’t have anything to do.

Bored? There really is no excuse. Not anymore.

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12 signs that the recession has hit the Internet is one of the best geek humor I’ve read so far.

I’ve written something that may be self-incriminating, and I’m so confused if I should post it. It’s not career-threatening, but it may be too personal, if there’s such a thing as too personal in the blogosphere. Before writing the piece, I felt very sad. Not sad in the sense of me being depressed because my life is shitty, but sad because the people around me seem to be losing the point of growing up.

Should grown-ups be more considerate? Should they be more understanding? Should they take less guilt-trips and not take anyone with them? Should they be more patient? Shoud they have more wisdom?

Anyone who answers negatively to the questions above should be shot if they are older than 21. A bonk in the head would suffice for those below 21. 21 is not really the age that people become mature. Of course it differs with everyone. However, I believe this is the ideal age that people start thinking what the future holds, if there ever is a future for them.

Anyway, these are just thoughts, ruminations, if you please, about the current situation within my personal space. I would ask Benj to help me pray to any deity to grant wisdom to all the peope if he only believed in (a) God. I would ask Tina to help me pray to her God, but I don’t believe in her God anymore. Well, not as much, anyway. What I wrote is, therefore, not published, and will never be, as far as I’m concerned.

So after writing SOME of my thoughts and justifications of what should be and what is, I feel better. Not much, but it’s a start. Tangent a necessity at this point, I then pose this question to all: Where is the Zen?

The Department of Homeland Security’s fucked up Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) proves the US isn’t all for democracy and human rights. Fucked up power trippers.

I’ve been talking about OpenID, and hoping that it catches on so that everyone can use just one login credential to all the sites that are OpenID-enabled. It may or may not affect the user-experience. I guess it depends on how efficient servers communicate with each other. Kyle Neath points out 5 reasons why he would not be implementing OpenID. From what I’ve read, I think he simply disagrees with sites requiring an OpenID, not the ones that are OpenID-enabled. Having OpenID as another option to authenticate yourself is good, but using OpenID ONLY to authenticate yourself is not good. And he raises valid points.

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A few weeks ago, I posted a puzzle that had about more than 10,000 views spread in a few days. This made me realize how much people like solving puzzles. A puzzle, however trivial, is still a problem that needs solving. A thought occurred to me: can I relate my observation – people solving problems – with the current environmental situation our planet is facing?

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Here are some screencaps I managed to grab from the trailer recently released for the latest upcoming installment of the Batman franchise: The Dark Knight.

Nothing comical about this comic book adaptation. Thanks to Ade for the link.